Thomas Somerset

“ Thomas of Bayeux, Remigius of Fecamp, and Osmund of Seez established chapters after the Norman model at York, Lincoln, and Salisbury. These were bodies of secular canons, consisting of four principal 'persons' or 'dignities'—dean, precentor, chancellor, and treasurer; next to whom ranked the three or more archdeacons, then the subdean and succentor, and after these the ordinary canons. At Lincoln and Salisbury the change coincided with the removal of the see and the building of a new church in the grand style. In Somerset there was indeed a removal of the see from Wells to Bath ”

“ But the mind of man cannot always be forced to take up subjects by the pressure of their material presence, and Somerset’s thoughts were often, to his great loss, apt to be even more than common truants from the tones and images that met his outer senses on walks and rides. He would sometimes go quietly through the queerest, gayest, most extraordinary town in Europe, and let it alone, provided it did not meddle with him by its beggars, beauties, innkeepers, police, coachmen, mongrels, bad smells, and such like obstructions. ”

“ Somerset soon found that whatever turn the conversation took, Sir William invariably reverted to this topic of frugality. When luncheon was over he asked his visitor to walk with him into the garden, and no sooner were they alone than he continued: ‘Well, Mr. Somerset, you are down here sketching architecture for professional purposes. Nothing can be better: you are a young man, and your art is one in which there are innumerable chances.’
‘I had begun to think they were rather few,’ said Somerset. ”

“ Somerset went to a nook of the building that he had often intended to visit. It was called the Stancy aisle; and in it stood the tombs of that family. Somerset examined them: they were unusually rich and numerous, beginning with cross-legged knights in hauberks of chain-mail, their ladies beside them in wimple and cover-chief, all more or less coated with the green mould and dirt of ages: and continuing with others of later date, in fine alabaster, gilded and coloured, some of them wearing round their necks the Yorkist collar of suns and roses, the livery of Edward the Fourth. ”

“ It was afternoon. Somerset walked from the castle in the direction of the wood to reach Markton by a detour. He had not proceeded far when there approached his path a man riding a bay horse with a square-cut tail. The equestrian wore a grizzled beard, and looked at Somerset with a piercing eye as he noiselessly ambled nearer over the soft sod of the park. He proved to be Mr. Cunningham Haze, chief constable of the district, who had become slightly known to Somerset during his sojourn here. ”

“ Robert however is frequently styled archdeacon of Wells, and Thomas occurs by himself as archdeacon of Bath in 1165.
We have reached the period in which the king makes promising young men archdeacons in consideration of services rendered or to be rendered in the administration of royal affairs. Somerset will be found to provide conspicuous instances of this practice in the years which follow. Some of the archdeacons will be absentees, who are hardly ever in their archdeaconries and must have done their work by deputy. ”

“ To De Stancy there appeared nothing so very extraordinary in Somerset’s apparent fiasco, except in so far as that he should have applied to Paula for relief from his distresses instead of elsewhere. It was a self-humiliation which a lover would have avoided at all costs, he thought. Yet after a momentary reflection on his theory of Somerset’s character, it seemed sufficiently natural that he should lean persistently on Paula, if only with a view of keeping himself linked to her memory, without thinking too profoundly of his own dignity. ”

“ Somerset. But you need not fear for my ability to do your work. I am a young man wasted, and am thought of slight account: it is the true men who get snubbed, while traitors are allowed to thrive!’
‘Hang sentiment, Dare, and off with you!’ A little ruffled, Somerset had turned his back upon the interesting speaker, so that he did not observe the sly twist Dare threw into his right eye as he spoke. The latter went off in one direction and Somerset in the other, pursuing his pensive way towards Markton with thoughts not difficult to divine. ”

“ I am in haste to begin, and wish you not to neglect me.’
‘I have no other building to think of,’ said Somerset, rising and placing a chair for her. ‘I had not begun practice, as you may know. I have nothing else in hand but your castle.’
‘I suppose I ought not to say I am glad of it; but it is an advantage to have an architect all to one’s self. The architect whom I at first thought of told me before I knew you that if I placed the castle in his hands he would undertake no other commission till its completion.’
‘I agree to the same,’ said Somerset. ”

“ After a few superficial words had been spoken Somerset said, ‘You have succeeded me.’
‘I have,’ said Havill; ‘but little to my advantage. I have just heard that my commission is to extend no further than roofing in the wing that you began, and had I known that before, I would have seen the castle fall flat as Jericho before I would have accepted the superintendence. But I know who I have to thank for that—De Stancy.’
Somerset still looked towards the distant battlements. On the scaffolding, among the white-jacketed workmen, he could discern one figure in a dark suit. ”

“ Somerset was immediately struck by his own lack of social dexterity. Why did he act so readily on the whimsical suggestion of another person, and follow the minister, when he might have said that he would call on Mr. Woodwell to-morrow, and, making himself known to Miss Power as the visiting architect of whom she had heard from Miss De Stancy, have had the pleasure of attending her to the castle? ‘That’s what any other man would have had wit enough to do!’ he said. ”

“ In the interim of waiting for a reply he was one day walking to Markton, when, passing Myrtle Villa, he saw Sir William De Stancy ambling about his garden-path and examining the crocuses that palisaded its edge. Sir William saw him and asked him to come in. Somerset was in the mood for any diversion from his own affairs, and they seated themselves by the drawing-room fire. ”

“ A little lawn spread its green surface in front, divided from the road by iron railings, the low line of shrubs immediately within them being coated with pallid dust from the highway. On the neat piers of the neat entrance gate were chiselled the words ‘Myrtle Villa.’ Genuine roadside respectability sat smiling on every brick of the eligible dwelling.
Perhaps that which impressed Somerset more than the mushroom modernism of Sir William De Stancy’s house was the air of healthful cheerfulness which pervaded it. ”

“ SOMERSET or SOMERSETH, JOHN (d. 1455?) , physician to Henry VI, appears to have been connected with the Beaufort family. He was sophister first at Oxford, but afterwards graduated at Cambridge. He was made fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, between 1406 and 1428, and was twice proctor. He studied medicine in London and Paris, and was a doctor of medicine, possibly also of civil law (Aungier, Hist. of Syon Monastery, p. 215) . In 1426 his name appears as witness to the will of Thomas, duke of Exeter. In 1428 he was physician to the king, and entries of payments to him appear till 1432 ”

“ The suggestive charm which the centuries-old impersonality Gaming, rather than games and gamesters, had for Somerset, led him to loiter on even when his hope of meeting any of the Power and De Stancy party had vanished. As a non-participant in its profits and losses, fevers and frenzies, it had that stage effect upon his imagination which is usually exercised over those who behold Chance presented to them with spectacular piquancy without advancing far enough in its acquaintance to suffer from its ghastly reprisals and impish tricks. ”

“ Goodman, who is the only one at home, sees the light, she will only think it is Somerset still at work.’
Dare uncovered the drawings, and young Somerset’s brain-work for the last six weeks lay under their eyes. To Dare, who was too cursory to trouble himself by entering into such details, it had very little meaning; but the design shone into Havill’s head like a light into a dark place. It was original; and it was fascinating. Its originality lay partly in the circumstance that Somerset had not attempted to adapt an old building to the wants of the new civilization. ”

“ Somerset was arrested, and disorder rose so high that all parties united to put it down. On 3 Dec. Henry was paraded through London with his lords, all in full armour. During the recess Somerset was made captain of Calais. Early in 1451 Henry refused the commons' request to remove him from court. The dissolution of parliament in the early summer left him as strong as ever. Henry laboured hard, as the Paston correspondence shows, to keep up his kinsman's local influence. ‘All is nought, or will be nought,’ wrote a contemporary. ”

“ The loss of Guienne was a final blow to the influence of Somerset. The birth of an heir cut off York's prospects of a peaceful succession to the throne, and occasioned all sorts of slanders against the queen. Henry's illness involved a regency, and Margaret and York were rivals for the position. For a time the council went on as in the days of the minority, governing, or trying to govern, in Henry's name. But even the existing parliament, which reassembled at Westminster in February 1454, was now friendly to York, who, as king's lieutenant, opened the session. ”

“ He might, indeed, turn out to be one of the singular exceptions which are said to prove rules; but when fortune means to men most good, observes the bard, she looks upon them with a threatening eye. Somerset would even have been content that a little disapproval of his course should have occurred in some quarter, so as to make his wooing more like ordinary life. But Paula was not clearly won, and that was drawback sufficient. In these pleasing agonies and painful delights he passed the journey to Markton. ”

“ Why Dare, or any other person, should have set himself to advance her brother’s cause by such unscrupulous blackening of Somerset’s character was more than her sagacity could fathom. Her brother was, as far as she could see, the only man who could directly profit by the machination, and was therefore the natural one to suspect of having set it going. ”

“ Somerset to design us the costumes, and he has now sent me the sketches. It is quite a secret at present, but we are going to play Shakespeare’s romantic drama, ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost,’ and we hope to get Miss Power to take the leading part. You see, being such a handsome girl, and so wealthy, and rather an undiscovered novelty in the county as yet, she would draw a crowded room, and greatly benefit the funds.’
‘Miss Power going to play herself?—I am rather surprised,’ said Somerset. ‘Whose idea is all this?’
‘O, Captain De Stancy’s—he’s the originator entirely. ”

“ Power, nodding to Paula’s architect. ‘Yet not I, but accident and a sluggish temperament. There are times, Mr Somerset, when the human creature feels no interest in his kind, and assumes that his kind feels no interest in him. The feeling is not active enough to make him fly from their presence; but sufficient to keep him silent if he happens to be away. ”

“ Northern eyes are not prepared on a sudden for the impact of such images of warmth and colour as meet them southward, or for the vigorous light that falls from the sky of this favoured shore. In any other circumstances the transparency and serenity of the air, the perfume of the sea, the radiant houses, the palms and flowers, would have acted upon Somerset as an enchantment, and wrapped him in a reverie ”

“ Somerset was tempted to ask a servant for permission to open it, till he heard that the inner room was temporarily used for plate, the key being kept by Miss De Stancy, at which he said no more. But afterwards the active housemaid redescended the stone steps; she entered the crypt with a bunch of keys in one hand, and in the other a candle, followed by the young lady whom Somerset had seen on the terrace.
‘I shall be very glad to unlock anything you may want to see. So few people take any real interest in what is here that we do not leave it open.’
Somerset expressed his thanks. ”

“ The idea of a competition between Somerset and Havill had been highly approved by Paula’s solicitor, but she would not assent to it as yet, seeming quite vexed that Somerset should not have taken the good the gods provided without questioning her justice to Havill. The room she had offered him was prepared as a studio. Drawing-boards and Whatman’s paper were sent for, and in a few days Somerset began serious labour. ”

“ Power had no sort of legal control over Paula, or direction in her estates; but Somerset could not doubt that a near and only blood relation, even had he possessed but half the static force of character that made itself apparent in Mr. Power, might exercise considerable moral influence over the girl if he chose. And in view of Mr. Power’s marked preference for De Stancy, Somerset had many misgivings as to its operating in a direction favourable to himself. ”

“ To return for a while to George Somerset. The sun of his later existence having vanished from that young man’s horizon, he confined himself closely to the studio, superintending the exertions of his draughtsmen Bowles, Knowles, and Cockton, who were now in the full swing of working out Somerset’s creations from the sketches he had previously prepared.
He had so far got the start of Havill in the competition that, by the help of these three gentlemen, his design was soon finished. ”