CHAPTER XVII.
The different places of residence which belonged to the Duchess—Holywell-house, Wimbledon, Blenheim—Account of the old mansion of Woodstock—Its projected destruction—Efforts of Sir John Vanburgh to save it—Attack upon the Duchess, relative to Blenheim, in the Examiner.
Having given a short sketch of those associates in whose conversation the Duchess delighted, or on whose aid, public or private, she depended, it remains now to describe those stately abodes where she lived in sober grandeur, but the splendour of which could not procure her peace of mind, nor ensure her even the attentions due to her rank and years.
The earliest, and perhaps the favourite residence of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, was Holywell, the spot where she first saw the light, and the scene with which her youthful associations were connected. The site of the house in which Richard Jennings of Holywell, as he is designated,resided, when his daughter Sarah was born, has already been described. The dwelling was, in modern days, inhabited by Dr. Predy, rector of St. Alban’s Abbey, but now, like some other traces of its celebrated inmate, it is levelled to the ground.[360]
Near the tenement, comparatively humble, in which the Duchess was born, the Duke of Marlborough built a mansion of many rooms, and of handsome external appearance. Its extensive gardens, laid out in the old-fashioned style, are well remembered by the inhabitants of St. Albans; and Holywell was endeared to them, not only by revered associations with the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, but by more recent recollections connected with a respected descendant by marriage of the Spencer family, who long dwelt at Holywell. Travellers who passed near the pile which John Duke of Marlborough erected, regarded that early abode with interest. Of infinitely less elegance than Wimbledon is reputed to have been, of far less splendour than Blenheim, it presented the true features of a respectable and substantial English mansion; it bore the aspect of comfort; it appearedlike an emblem of the Duke’s early prosperity—a sort of stepping-stone to Wimbledon and Blenheim. Perhaps, had he rested there, his lot in life might have been more peaceful, though less distinguished.[361]
At all events, Holywell was a spot replete with interest, and the boast of St. Albans, for there the Duke of Marlborough lived as a private gentleman; sufficiently near to the town for its inhabitants to claim his grace as a neighbour, yet distant enough for dignity, and, if desirable, even for seclusion.
That the Duke and Duchess felt no small pride and pleasure in St. Albans is evident; and probably at one period of their lives, the height of their ambition, as far as residence was concerned, was to build a house at the place where their humble fortunes could be progressivelytraced. A spacious and costly pew in the Abbey, adorned with beautiful carving, still attracts admiration on entering that venerable edifice.
These remarks might induce the traveller through St. Albans to search with some interest for Holywell-house. Unfortunately it exists no longer. Several years ago it passed from the Spencer family into other hands; and although the house was not in a dilapidated state, and appeared to be a fitting residence for a gentleman of a good establishment; although even higher considerations might have had some weight with the parties concerned; who must, one would suppose, have deeply regretted the expediency of destroying the old place; yet itwasdestroyed. The work of devastation terminated with a sale; and the materials were disposed of by auction.[362]
The House at Wimbledon, in which the Duchess lived, has also perished, though from a different cause. The manor of Wimbledon is ofconsiderable celebrity. Sir Thomas Cecil purchased it from Sir Christopher Hatton, whilst he was in possession under the grant from Queen Elizabeth, and in 1588 rebuilt it in a most magnificent manner.
In 1599, Queen Elizabeth is said to have visited the Lord Burghley here, and to have staid three days; after which she proceeded to Nonsuch.[363]
In 1628, the house received considerable damage by the blowing up of some gunpowder. It was afterwards repaired and beautified. The outside was painted in fresco by Francis Cleyne. Fuller calls Wimbledon-house “a daring structure,” and says that by some it has been thought to equal Nonsuch, if not to exceed that far famed royal residence.[364]
The estate was afterwards purchased for Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles the First, and here the King and she sometimes resided. “The mansion at Wimbledon,” says Mr. Lysons, in his work on the Environs of London, “is mentioned among the houses as belonging to thecrown, in the inventory of the jewels and pictures of King Charles the First. It is remarkable that that monarch was so little aware of the fate preparing for him by his enemies, that, a few days before he was brought to trial, he ordered the seeds of some melons to be planted in his garden at Wimbledon. It was afterwards sold to Baynes, and by him probably to Lambert, the parliament’s general. When he had been discarded by Cromwell, he retired to this house, and turned florist, having the finest tulips and gillyflowers that could be got for love or money. He also excelled in painting flowers, some specimens of which remained for many years at this house.”
A fate seems to hang over certain estates and houses. The Restoration gave back Wimbledon to Queen Henrietta, who sold the house to Lord Bristol, and he to the Marquis of Carmarthen, whose trustees sold it to Sir Theodore Janseen. Sir Theodore, for what reason does not appear, pulled down the magnificent house in which Charles and his Queen had resided, and began to build a new one, probably on a smaller scale than the old building. The South Sea business involving Sir Theodore in the general ruin, the estate was purchased by the Duchess of Marlborough. She, in her turn, destroyed what Sir Theodore had built, and erected a new house onthe north side of the knoll on which the present house stands, after a design of the Earl of Burlington.[365]
This fabric was not doomed long to stand, for the Duchess, not approving of the situation, desired his lordship to give her a design for a house on the south side; and having obtained a plan, she pulled down her partly-erected house, and constructed another. But this mansion was destined to destruction also; it was bequeathed by her to John Spencer, Esq., from whom it came to his son, Earl Spencer, in whose time, and on Easter Monday, 1785, it was almost entirely burnt down by accident. The ruins were cleared away, and the grounds levelled and turfed, so that scarcely a trace even of the foundation was left. Such was the fate of this abode of the Duchess, which, in her later days, she preferred to all others. The present house was built in 1798. It stands in a park seven miles in compass, containing about twelve hundred acres, (laid out by Browne,) which affords a beautiful home prospect, with a fine piece of water towards the north, and an extensive view over Surrey and Kent to the south.
The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, couldthey have foreseen these occurrences, might have been excused if superstitious fears had assailed them, when on the eve of devoting a portion of their wealth to some new structure. The desire of Marlborough, so feelingly expressed, that he might live at Blenheim in peace, was not to be gratified. The progress of that structure was attended by difficulties and vexations truly inimical to quiet; and various accounts have been given of the cause and details of those wearying disputes and disappointments which embittered Marlborough’s associations with Blenheim. Upon the proposal of Queen Anne, and the vote of Parliament, it had been determined, in 1704, that the British nation should build the Duke of Marlborough a structure suitable to the residence of their great and wealthy general, and emblematic of national gratitude and of royal munificence. Half a million was voted for the building, and on the eighteenth of June, 1705, the first stone of the Castle, as it was called, was laid.[366]
Notwithstanding the vote of parliament, the Duke of Marlborough, considering, as he well might, the uncertainty of public favour, and the slender nature of that cobweb entitled public honour, deemed it prudent never to issue any orders for the building except through the Treasury.[367]There is a manuscript letter of his extant, which expressly enforces this caution. The architect selected for the great work was Sir John Vanburgh, probably appointed from interest, when we reflect that Sir Christopher Wren was in all his strength and fame, and actually made a plan of one side of the building, of which Lord Godolphin approved much morehighly than of anything that was subsequently done by Vanburgh; adding to his commendations, that he was sure nothing that was designed by Vanburgh or Hawkesmoor would please him so well. Wren was afterwards employed in the construction of Marlborough-house.
No sooner was the work commenced, than we find, by the manuscript letters, that the Duchess took a considerable share in the management of the works, combating stoutly against the extravagances and impositions of Sir John Vanburgh in detail, though she was wholly unable to check the gross amount of his charges.
On a contract for lime to build Blenheim, made, in 1705, between the Duke and Vanburgh, the Duchess wrote these characteristic words: “Is not that, sevenpence-halfpenny per bushel, a very high price, when they had the advantage of making it in the park? besides, in many things of that nature, false measure had been proved.”[368]It is no wonder that Sir John Vanburgh, very soon afterwards, began to call the Duchess very “stupid and troublesome,” and ended by venting upon her grace the coarsest terms of abuse that anger, unmitigated by good breeding, could devise.
In 1709, the works at Blenheim had progressedso far as to enable Vanburgh to flatter the Duke with a hope that the house would be ready for his grace’s reception soon after his return from the continent, where Marlborough then was. In the same letter in which this intimation was given, a minute detail of all the offices was also set forth; so that notwithstanding the difficulty of procuring stone, of which Vanburgh complained, and other hindrances, there seemed to be every prospect of a favourable termination to the long-deferred hopes of the noble owners of Blenheim.[369]
And now a question arose, in which, without any partiality to Sir John Vanburgh’s conduct, we must acknowledge that his taste and judgment were conspicuously displayed, and that to him we owe an effort (fruitless, unfortunately,) to preserve and restore one of those remains, truly of English character, which are so fondly prized by all British hearts.
The manor-house, or ancient palace of Woodstock, was, in 1709, before the ravages of improvement, and the chimeras of the landscape gardener, attacked and laid it low, still standing in tolerable repair. It appears, from an old print,[370]to have been a picturesque building, witha quadrangular court, and towers at each corner. It occupied a slightly elevated spot near the river Glyme, then a narrow stream, at a short distance from the grand bridge now thrown across the lake. The situation was extremely beautiful, for art had not then lowered the rugged hill, of which Vanburgh in his letters complains. Rich coverlets of wood concealed the old house, whilst in front flowed the gentle stream on whose banks Chaucer wandered. The manor was not only distinguished as the scene of several parliaments which were held there, but had still more romantic claims to respect and preservation. It was within its precincts that a bower, or retired dwelling, was erected by Henry the Second for his Rosamond, in whose gentle name, seclusion, and misfortunes, we are apt to forget her error, and the cause of her fate. The fabled labyrinth is said to have derived its origin from being confounded with the structure of the palace gardens, which were formed of the Topiary work—twisted alleys resembling a maze. A gate-house in front of the palace gave dignity to the whole tenement, and enclosed at one time Elizabeth of England, the captive inmate of the manor, from a window of which she is said to have viewed with envy a milkmaid, and to have written on a shutter, with some charcoal, those beautiful lines expressiveof her wishful desire for freedom, which are extant.
These legends are familiar to us all; yet it is impossible, in describing the fate and fall of the manor, to revert to them without regret. Such associations, combined with the recollection of Chaucer, who resided in an old house at Woodstock, and who, in his “Dream,” has described the Bower, must be called up with pleasurable though melancholy sensations. In later days, the manor formed an abiding place for those daring Roundheads, whose concealments, and the stratagems of which they made use to maintain their privacy, have been woven into a tale of such powerful interest, that it requires few other arguments to enhance regret for the old manor, than that it has been a subject for the pen of Walter Scott.
In 1709, the manor became the subject of correspondence between the Duchess of Marlborough and Vanburgh. The Duchess had, it seems, repeatedly visited Blenheim in company with Lord Godolphin, who represents her as “extremely prying,” and not only detecting many errors in that part of the building of the Castle which was finished in 1706, but as well mending such as could be rectified without waiting for the Duke’s opinion. “I am apt to think,” adds the LordTreasurer, “that she has made Mr. Vanburgh a little +,[371]but you will find both pleasure and comfort from it.”[372]
It is worthy of remark, however, that the friendly Lord Treasurer dwells much upon the forward state of the garden and the grounds, but passes no opinion upon the building.
When the subject of taking down or leaving the old manor came to be debated, Sir John Vanburgh temperately, and to his credit, explained his reasons for wishing to retain so beautiful an object within view of Blenheim. The arguments which he advanced were excellent and such as would readily present themselves to any intelligent mind. But he addressed himself to one who had far more pleasure in adding up a sum of compound addition in her own curious, but infallible way, than in gazing upon any beautiful ruins. To her the recollection of fair Rosamond was a vain fancy; the notion of Sir John’s keeping the old manor in preservation, a whim; and besides, there was a yet more cogent reason for sacrificing, than for preserving the ruins. Already had an attempt made by Vanburgh, to convert the manor into an habitation, caused an expenditure, according to the Duchess, of three thousandpounds; from the acknowledgment of Vanburgh, eleven hundred pounds; and the shrewd Sarah began to suspect, when the architect became anxious upon the subject, that he designed the manor as an habitation for himself, and had some sinister motive for the perseverance which he showed on the subject. After many discussions, in the course of which Godolphin, on being applied to for his opinion, said “that he might as well hesitate about removing a wen from his face, as delay taking down so unsightly an object from the brow of the hill,” the old manor was demolished; and the work of devastation was finished with the chapel, which Vanburgh made one final struggle to save, but which was condemned.[373]Several curious relics were found when the ground was levelled, for the hill behind it was of a rugged, intractable shape, as Vanburgh described it. Amongst other things, a ring, with the words inscribed on it, “Remember the Covenant,” was given by the masons to Lady Diana Spencer.
The main work at Blenheim proceeded very slowly. In 1710, it was very abruptly, and as Vanburgh thought, very unceremoniously, stopped by the Duchess, who sent directions to the workmen that the orders of the architect were to be whollydisregarded. The Duchess’s disgrace at court had possibly, however, some share in this unexpected proceeding. During that year Vanburgh’s estimate of the expenses of the house was, that they would not exceed two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. In October, 1710, he had received two hundred thousand pounds from the Treasury. Letters between him and the Duchess, the one remonstrating, the other justifying the enormous sums which were laid out, are to be found in the Manuscript Correspondence. By a warrant from Godolphin, Sir John Vanburgh was authorised to make contracts, &c., and to lay them before the Lord Treasurer.[374]Every expectation might reasonably be formed, that the government would complete the building at its own cost. In October and November, 1710, it appears that Vanburgh received, in addition to the assistance of eight thousand pounds, the sum of one thousand pounds weekly to pay the workmen.[375]In 1712, the building expenses were put a stop to by the Queen, who alleged, among other reasons, the puerile excuse that the Duchess of Marlborough having taken away slabs and locks from her rooms at St. James’s, she would not build her a house. The fact was, the Queen, as well as the Duke’s enemies, were startled atthe immense sums which had been spent, without the interminable structure being nearly completed.
In 1714, a statement being sent in by Sir John Vanburgh, two hundred and twenty thousand pounds were found to have been received from the Treasury, and the debts due by the crown for the building amounted to sixty thousand pounds.[376]After this crisis in the affairs of Blenheim, the Duke of Marlborough took the completion of the work into his own hands, and desired that an estimate of the expense might be given by Vanburgh. At this time even the shell of the building could not, it was calculated, be completed without many thousand pounds more. It was also necessary to get an act of parliament passed, devolving the responsibility of the debts already incurred, on the crown; a measure which was, happily for the Duke and his heirs, carried in the first year of George the First. Affairs now seemed to be placed on a safe footing; but Blenheim was never, at that period, likely to be finished for Marlborough to inhabit. “Besides,” adds the Duchess, writing to her friend Mrs. Clayton, “all without doors, where there is nothing done, is a chaos that turns one’s brainsbut to think of it; and it will cost an immense sum to complete the causeway, and that ridiculous bridge in which I counted thirty-three rooms. Four houses are to be at each corner of the bridge; but that which makes it so much prettier than London Bridge is, that you may sit in six rooms, and look out at window into the high arch, while the coaches are driving over your head.”[377]
The Duchess, as it may be perceived by this satirical description, was not very well pleased with Vanburgh. In fact, upon a previous examination of the accounts, many charges grossly extravagant were detected; as well as abundant errors of design.
In the course of the fabrication of the palace, nervous fears seem to have assailed the Duke and Duchess, concerning the immense income requisite to maintain an establishment in such an overgrown palace. It is amusing to find Sir John Vanburgh thus consoling the Duchess by his parallel of Castle Howard, respecting the size of which the noble owners had had the same fears. After discussing some other matters, he writes, in 1713, thus:—[378]
“He (Lord Carlisle) likewise finds that all his rooms, with moderate fires, are ovens, andthat this great house does not require above one pound of wax and two of tallow candles a night to light it more than his house at London did; nor, in short, is he at any expense more whatsoever than he was in the remnant of an old house; but three housemaids and one man to keep the whole house and offices in perfect cleanliness, which is done to such a degree, that the kitchen, and all the offices and passages under the principal floor, are as dry as the drawing-room; and yet there is a great deal of company, and very good housekeeping. So that, upon the whole, (except the keeping of the new gardens,) the expense of living in this great fine house does not amount to above a hundred pounds a year more than was spent in the old one.
“If you think the knowledge of this may be of any satisfaction to my Lady Marlborough, pray tell her what you hear; and (if you think it proper) as from yourself, I could wish you to say what you know to be true, that whether I am quite convinced or not of my having been so much in the wrong in my behaviour to her as she is pleased to think me, yet, while she does think me so, I can’t but set the greatest value upon hergenerosity in urging my Lord Marlborough in my favour. I must own to you, at the same time, that her notion, that I had notdone what I did, but upon her declining at court, has been no small inducement to me to expose myself so frankly as I have done in my Lord Duke’s and her particular cause; for though I could have borne she should have thought me abrute, I could not endure she should think me arascal.”
At his decease, the Duke left, as has been stated, “ten thousand pounds a year” to the Duchess, according to Sir John Vanburgh, “to spoil Blenheim her own way; and twelve thousand pounds a year to keep herself clean and go to law.” Be that as it may, the Duchess had the credit and satisfaction of completing the palace, which was nothing like an habitation in Marlborough’s time, at the cost of half the sum which had been entrusted to her out of his estates for the purpose. The triumphal arch, and the column on which the statue of Marlborough stands, were erected at her own expense. The united sums paid by government, and by the Duke and his widow, are computed to amount to three hundred thousand pounds.[379]
Of the enjoyment of law, the Duchess had indeed abundant opportunities. In 1721, she and the Duke’s executors were sued by EdwardStrong, sen. and jun., for debts incurred on Blenheim, but were defended so successfully that they came off triumphant. It was on an occasion of this nature, either in this suit, or in the action brought against her by her grandson, that she sat in court during the trial, and was so much delighted with the address of Mr. Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, who was her counsel, that she presented him, immediately after the termination of the trial, with a fine sword, as a perpetual retainer in her favour.[380]
The feuds which had commenced between the Duchess and Vanburgh never subsided. Some years after all communication between them had ceased, it was the wish of the architect to visit Blenheim, which his patroness, Lady Carlisle, and some of her family, were desirous to inspect. Sir John stayed two nights at Blenheim, but there was an order issued to the servants, under the Duchess’s own hand, not to let him enter the castle, and lest that should not mortify him sufficiently, having heard that his wife was to be one of the party, she sent an express the night before they came to Woodstock, with orders that if Lady Vanburgh came to Blenheim, the servantsshould not suffer her to see the house and gardens. The enraged architect and his lady were therefore obliged to remain at the inn whilst the Castle Howard ladies viewed the building.[381]
Such petty revenge augured a miserable old age; but the Duchess gloried in the storm. With all her immense revenue, computed to be about forty thousand pounds a year, she continued to wrangle about the building debts of Blenheim, and obtained an injunction against Sir John Vanburgh in Chancery, on the score of a sum which she could much better afford to lose than the poor artificers, or even the architect, whom she refused to pay, alleging that they were employed by government, and not by the Duke of Marlborough. Upon this, Vanburgh produced Godolphin’s warrant, and for once his interests and those of the Duchess coincided. Long and curious details of this cause are to be found in the Coxe manuscripts; but, however agitating and anxious the subject may have been to the Duchess and to her enemy, the litigation to which they were obliged to have recourse has lost its interest in modern eyes.
There is, however, no doubt but that Vanburgh was justly accused by the Duchess of extravagance in many instances, and of exceeding his commission in others. She even taxed him with building one entire court at Blenheim without the Duke’s knowledge. She detected his bad taste and grasping spirit, and despised his mismanagement,—of which latter the best proof was, that when, upon the death of the Duke, the whole charge of the building fell into her hands, she completed it in the manner, and at the reduced expense, which has been described.
That “wicked woman of Marlborough,” as Sir John Vanburgh termed the Duchess, had perhaps no greater error in his eyes than the penetration with which she discovered his narrow pretensions, his inadequacy, and wanton waste, not to say peculation.
It may not be deemed impertinent to sum up the foregoing account of all the perplexities and errors which attended the building of Blenheim, by an extract from the Duchess’s opinions of the whole affair, written many years after the virulence of her animosity may be reasonably supposed to have ceased.
Regarding the attack upon herself in the Examiner, which gave an account of the sums whichhad been exhausted on Blenheim, the Duchess observes:
“Upon the subject of Blenheim, which every friend I have knows I was always against building at such expense, and as long as I meddled with it at all, I took as much pains to lessen the charge every way, as if it had been to be paid for out of the fortune that was to provide for my own children; for I always thought it too great a sum even for the Queen to pay, and nothing made it tolerably easy to me but my knowing that as she never did a generous thing of herself, if that expense had not been recommended by the parliament, and paid out of the civil list, she would have done nothing with the money that was better. But I never liked any building so much for the show and vanity of it, as for its usefulness and convenience, and therefore I was always against the whole design of it, as too big and unwieldy; whether I considered the pleasure of living in it, or the good of my family that were to enjoy it hereafter; besides that the greatness of the work made it longer in finishing, and consequently would hinder Lord Marlborough from enjoying it when it was reasonable to lose no time; and I made Mr. Vanburgh my enemy by the constant disputes I had with him to prevent his extravagance, which I did effectually in manyinstances, notwithstanding all the follies and waste which, in spite of all that could be said, he has certainly committed.”[382]