Devonshire House

“ Every particular is absolutely true, excepting the names that are fictitious.
"On the 1st August, 1904, we heard that we had succeeded by the death of an aunt of my husband to a considerable property in South Devon, and as bad luck would have it, the mansion on the estate had been let just two months before on a short lease. It was our duty to make Devonshire our home at once and for the future, and the wearying undertaking was before us of looking out for a suitable house. ”

“ It was a cheerful change to find a castle without a scar or a crumbling stone and all the modern improvements at Riding House, the Irish estate of the late Earl of Devonshire. He was one of the wealthiest, the ablest, and the most influential of the British nobility, and a conservative leader in the House of Lords, and died, universally lamented, a year or so ago. ”

“ From a very early period has Bishopsgate Street and Ward been a centre of Nonconformity. [110] Maitland, writing 1725-36, refers to three Presbyterian, two Independents, and one Quaker's meeting houses in the parishes of St. Botolph and St. Helen. The Devonshire Square Baptist church was, excepting one in Kent, the oldest in England, and in its early years suffered much from persecution. It migrated hither from Wapping in 1638, and occupied a part of Devonshire House, or, as it was popularly called, Fisher's Folly. ”

“ In architecture of the class above the cottage again, of the farm and manor house type, that is to say, the county is comparatively sterile, as every archæologist knows. As a matter of fact, a majority of Devonshire villages do not nestle by the river bank in a sunny combe embowered in orchards as depicted by the writers of stories and essays in London, but are much more often perched, together with their fine churches, on the bare summit of extremely steep and windy hill-tops, and have the appearance of being contrived with a view mainly of defying the driving moisture. ”

“ The Revolution again brought him into prominence. He was one of the seven who signed the original paper inviting the prince of Orange from Holland, and was the first nobleman who appeared in arms to receive him at his landing. He received the order of the Garter on the occasion of the coronation, and was made lord high steward of the new court. In 1690 he accompanied King William on his visit to Holland. He was created marquis of Hartington and duke of Devonshire in 1694 by William and Mary, on the same day on which the head of the house of Russell was created duke of Bedford. ”

“ At the entrance to the gardens, shortly after passing through the lodge, is the house formerly inhabited by the late Sir Joseph Paxton, M.P., [386] who was head gardener to the late Duke of Devonshire. This house, originally a fit dwelling-place for the head gardener of such a grand establishment as Chatsworth, but which had “grown with the greatness” of Sir Joseph until it became in itself an elegant mansion, is now very properly altered and divided into two residences. ”

“ But the point to be mentioned is that our delightfully remote cottage belonged to a gentleman through whom—although we never met or knew each other—I came to realise my dream of some day seeing Devonshire. I often wish I had known him; for by all accounts he was a rare and original person.
In the oldest of our old times, the pre-gold times, when these lands were being "taken up" by a gallant set of young men, cadets of what we call "good" British families, he had been a pioneer squatter. ”

“ A very large number of old mansions, belonging to the squirearchy of Elizabethan days, remain. The Devonshire gentry were very numerous, and not extraordinarily wealthy. They built with cob, and with oak windows, or else in stone with granite mullions, but neither material allowed of great splendour. ”

“ In the Civil War between Charles I and the Parliament, few counties saw more fighting than Devonshire. The fighting consisted, however, not of pitched battles, but of sieges and attacks on fortified positions; which, indeed, was characteristic of the whole war, in whatever part of the country it was waged. Every Devonshire town of importance, a great number of villages, many castles, manor-houses, and even churches played a part in the struggle. ”

“ Nor should the fine old almshouses of Tiverton and Exeter be forgotten.
Devonshire possesses a great variety of building stone; and the materials employed have naturally varied, as a rule, according to the geological formation of the district. Some of the best houses are of Beer stone. Some, as has been shown, are of flint. Brick, which when of good colour and quality is an excellent material, has been largely employed. Many cottages, and even whole villages, such as Otterton and East Budleigh, are built of "cobb," which is a mixture of clay and straw. ”

“ For within its whole wide bounds there is scarcely a gentleman’s residence but the indispensable vicarage, and even scattered cottages are rare, there being few labourers. The entire country, in fact, hereabouts is occupied by yeomen farmers, many of whom{200} have lately bought their farms, and who mostly do their own work. It is the most sequestered and unknown part of habitable Devonshire. ”

“ Her’s was a change of conditions that, perhaps, never fell to any one woman before or since: to be four times a creditable and happy wife, and to rise by every husband to greater wealth and higher honours; and, after all, to live seventeen years a widow in absolute power and plenty. She built three of the most elegant seats that were ever raised by one person in the same county—Chatsworth, Hardwick, and Oldcoates; all transmitted entire to the first Duke of Devonshire. The Countess died in 1607, aged 87. She bequeathed all her estates to her son William, Earl of Devonshire ”

“ Above all things, its position has made Devonshire a native land of heroes. Very few other counties have produced so many men of mark, so many men of enterprise [8] and daring. Certainly no other has played a greater part in the expansion of England. From Devonshire came not only some of the most distinguished seamen of the Golden Age of Elizabeth, some of the most skilful and daring of her naval captains, but some of the earliest and most famous of our explorers ”

“ A charming village is Dean Prior, as indeed are all the villages on the outskirts of Dartmoor. No wonder that essayists on, and editors of, Herrick have traced his freshness and quaintness to the simplicity of a West Country parish, and that the perfume of flowers which pervades his pages almost ad nauseam seems to his readers to be inspired by the soft and luxurious air of Devonshire. In a word, Herrick’s Hesperides has seemed to be the work of a Devonshire man drawing his inspiration from Devonshire, as Barnes from Dorset or Burns from Ayrshire. ”

“ Devonshire, whence he came, has preserved more of the old features of English country life than the central and northern parts of England, where manufactures and the growth of population have swept away the venerable remains of feudalism. In Devonshire the old families are still deeply respected by the people. ”

“ Devonshire, which occupies rather more than one-twenty-second of the whole area of England and Wales, is one of the largest counties in the British Islands, being exceeded in size only by Yorkshire and Lincoln in England, by Inverness and Argyll in Scotland, and by Cork in Ireland. Its extreme length from east to west, measured along a horizontal line drawn through the middle of the county, starting at the Dorsetshire border half-way between Lyme Cobb and the Seven Rocks Point, passing close to the city of Exeter, and reaching to the point where the river Ottery enters the county, is 67 miles ”

“ Devonshire is, in truth, a county of extraordinary contrasts. Large portions of it are extremely beautiful. Almost as large regions again are as devoid of every essential of the picturesque in a general survey as any English landscape could possibly be; mile upon mile of bare humpy hill-top, ruthlessly shorn of every stick of timber and laid out in small{164} and largely arable fields with painful chess-board regularity. ”

“ The patterns were imitated from Italian cut-work and reticella, with some marked peculiarities of workmanship and detail, such as the introduction of stars, wheels, and triangles, which are only found on English laces. The sculptor of Lady Pole's monument in Colyton Church (1623) , evidently copied the bone-lace on her cape from a specimen of Devonshire make, and equally characteristic of the ancient patterns of the county is the probably plaited lace on a tucker and cuffs that adorn the effigy of Lady Doddridge in Exeter Cathedral (1614) . ”

“ It is, indeed, not often that a day in Devon is entirely hopeless, for132 clouds disperse frequently as quickly as they come. It is to this moist climate that softly beautiful Devonshire owes its fair name. ”

“ William Lilly, the astrologer, refers to him when he says: “Have we another Red Fox like Sir R. G. acting his close devotions to do our Army mischief? Let’s be wary!”
Sir Richard being now in high favour with the King made petition to be given his wife’s estates in Devonshire, on the ground that her continued residence in [Pg 204] London made her a rebel. The King, with monstrous injustice, granted what was asked, and at once—a fortnight after his having marched out of London—he arrived in Tavistock, with powers from the King to take possession of all his wife’s estates. ”

“ A special characteristic of Devonshire is its scenery, which is so striking that it is very generally considered the most beautiful county in England; while there are probably very many who regard its mild and genial, equable and health-giving climate as more noteworthy still. It is a remarkably hilly country, and it also possesses not only many rivers, but a great number of broad river estuaries. ”

“ Another characteristic of the people has always been their loyalty to their sovereign, to their county, and to each other. Devon is proverbial, like Cornwall and Yorkshire, for the clannishness of its inhabitants. It is a land, too, where superstition dies hard. Belief in pixies—fairies, as they are called elsewhere—in witches and witch-craft, in whisht-hounds and other weird and uncanny creatures, and in portents and omens, still lingers, especially on Dartmoor. ”

“ There is no very striking beauty of a large sort, but a great deal of the restful, wayside charm that makes Devonshire so comforting. There is no need to loiter on the road, for though it played its part in the Civil War—and indeed possibly on that account—there are few relics of its history to be seen. The bridge that crosses the sedges of the Avon at Aveton Giffard was once important enough to have a fort built on the hill for its defence; but none the less it was taken by the extremely irregular troops whose clubs and pickaxes and saws were wielded here for the Parliament. ”

“ In common with many other parts of England the small country parishes of Devonshire are much less populous than they were. In the last fifty years there has been a decline of 17,000 in the rural population.
Devonshire is a somewhat thinly-inhabited county. There are in it a little more than 2 1⁄2 acres to every man, woman, and child, or 254 persons to the square mile, compared with 558 to the square mile for the whole of England and Wales. Westmorland, the most sparsely-populated county, has only 82 people to the square mile, or eight acres to each inhabitant. ”

“ One of the most famous and at the same time one of the oldest of Devonshire castles, is that of Exeter, called Rougemont from the colour of the rock on which it stands, built in 1067 by William the Conqueror on the site of an earlier fortress constructed by Athelstan, destroyed by Sweyn, and restored by Cnut and Edward the Confessor. Its first Norman governor was Baldwin de Brioniis, the Conqueror's nephew by marriage. It, or the city round it, has sustained many sieges ”

“ On the third Day the Queen made a great Banquet for the King and those who had justed, and after the Banquet she gave the Chief Prize to the King, the second to the Earl of Essex, the third to the Earl of Devonshire, and the Fourth to the Marquess of Dorset. Then the Heralds cried aloud, My Lords, For your noble Feats in Arms, God send you the Love of the Ladies whom you most admire.'
The next year the Earl of Devonshire died, and was succeeded by his son, Henry, who for a time was high in the favour of his royal cousin. ”

“ This seeing, cries the king to his guards without delay,
Call Devonshire down! take the dead man away!
'No,' says brave Devonshire, 'I've fought him as a man;
Since he's dead, I will keep the trophies I have won.
For he fought me in your armour, while I fought him bare,
And the same you must win back, my liege, if ever you them wear.
'God bless the Church of England! may it prosper on each hand,
And also every poor man now starving in this land. ”

“ IN treating of Devonshire Characters, I have had to put aside the chief Worthies and those Devonians famous in history, as George Duke of Albemarle, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Coleridges, Sir Stafford Northcote, first Earl of Iddesleigh, and many another; and to content myself with those who lie on a lower plane. ”

“ A Devonshire village does not contrast favourably with those in Essex, Kent, Sussex, and other parts of England, where brick or timber and plaster are the materials used, and where the roofs are tiled. ”

“ Regarding herself as free, she had married the Duke of Kingston, who died and bequeathed his large fortune to her. At once those who had expected to obtain the inheritance began to stir, and had the unfortunate Duchess tried for bigamy. John Dunning was counsel against her. She belonged to an ancient Devonshire family, but that did not concern him; she was an unfortunate widow beset by foes—that mattered not to him, he attacked her in the grossest manner. ”