Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present Part 21

THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE.

The most memorable sitting in Parliament, in the fourth year of King Charles the First, was that of the House of Commons, on March 2d, 1629, which was p.r.o.nounced by Sir Simonds D'Ewes as "_the most gloomy, sad, and dismal day for England that had happened for five hundred years_."

The incidents of this day will be recollected by every one. Sir John Eliot is said, according to all accounts, to have made an indignant attack upon Lord Weston, the new Treasurer, and to have concluded by moving the adoption of a Remonstrance. The Speaker, Sir John Finch, declined to put the Remonstrance to the vote, and announced that he had received the King's command to adjourn the House until the 10th of March. The House paid little attention to the royal message, contending, first, that it was not the office of the Speaker to deliver any such command; and, secondly, that the power of adjournment belonged to the House, and not to the Crown. Regardless of these arguments, the Speaker prepared to obey the royal mandate. He rose and quitted the chair, when two members, Denzil Holles, son of the Earl of Clare, on the one side, and Benjamin Valentine, on the other side, stepped forward, and forced him back into his official seat. He appealed to the House with abundance of tears. Selden argued and remonstrated with him. Sir Peter Hayman disavowed him, we are told, "as a kinsman," and denounced him as a disgrace to a n.o.ble family. Again he endeavoured to quit the chair. Sir Thomas Edmondes, who was old enough to have been amba.s.sador from Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV. of France--a man of small stature, but of great courage--with other privy councillors, pressed forward to the Speaker's help; but Holles violently held him in his chair, and swore, by what is termed Queen Elizabeth's oath, "G.o.d's wounds!" that he should sit still until it should please the House to rise.

In the midst of this uproar, Coriton and Winterton, two of the members, are said to have fallen to blows, numbers of the more timid fled out of the House, and the King, hearing of the tumult, sent to Edward Grimstone, the Serjeant-at-Arms, who was then within the House in attendance upon the Speaker, to bring away the mace, without which it was supposed that no legal meeting could be held. To defeat this object, the key of the door was taken from the Serjeant-at-Arms, and delivered to Sir Miles Hobart. Sir Miles stopped the egress of the Serjeant-at-Arms, and having taken from him the mace, quietly put him out of the House and locked the door. The mace was then replaced upon the table, and Holles, standing by the side of the Speaker, put to the House three resolutions, which were deemed to be voted by acclamation.

The King is said to have sent, in the meantime, Mr. Maxwell, the Usher of the Black Rod, to summon the House to attend in the House of Lords, but Maxwell could gain neither hearing nor admission. Grown now, as is stated in Lord Verulam's ma.n.u.script, "into much rage and pa.s.sion," the King sent for "the Captain of the Pensioners and Guard to force the door." Ere this officer could muster his stately band, the House had done its work. The resolutions had been pa.s.sed, the Speaker had been released from the strong grasp of Denzil Holles, Sir Miles Hobart had unlocked the door, the excited members had been set free; and, _for a period of eleven years, parliamentary discussion in England had come to an end_.

Such is the narrative which was read by Mr. Bruce to the Society of Antiquaries, in 1859, upon his reading also a "True Relation" of the scene, in the handwriting of Lord Verulam, now in the ma.n.u.script collection at Gorhambury. Other MSS. of the proceedings of this Session are not uncommon, and many variations occur. Mr. Bruce has, in his paper, printed that portion of Lord Verulam's MS. which relates to the sitting of the 2d of March. Mr. Bruce, who has narrated the leading points according to Lord Verulam's MS., instead of Hayman's word, "kinsman," gives these words: "he was sorry he was a Kentish man, and that he was a disgrace to his country, and a blot to a n.o.ble family."

Lord Verulam, too, gives Mr. Stroud's speech, not in other MSS.: he "tould the Speaker that he was the instrument to cutt off the libertie of the subject by the roote, and that if he would not be perswaded to put the same to question, they must all retorne as scattered sheepe, and a scorne put upon them as it was last session." This is important, since it explains more precisely than had hitherto been known, why he (Stroud) was prosecuted for his share in that day's transactions. On the other hand, Lord Verulam's MS. does not mention the Resolutions that were put to the House by Holles standing by the Speaker's chair. The concurrent testimony of a variety of authorities, however, forbids us to doubt that those Resolutions were really pa.s.sed in the way described, and that in this respect Lord Verulam's MS. is defective.

CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS.

The word _Cavalier_ was not at first necessarily a term of reproach.

Shakspeare does not so employ it when he speaks of the gay and gallant English eager for French invasion--

"For who is he ... that will not follow These cull'd and choice-drawn Cavaliers to France?"

But it was most unquestionably used in a reproachful sense on the occasion of the tumult in the reign of Charles I., probably to connect its French origin with the un-English character of the defenders of the Queen and her French papist adherents, to whom it was chiefly applied; it was likewise bandied about in declarations alternately issued on the eve of the war by the Parliament and the King, the latter speaking of it more than once as a word much in disfavour. Charles, when the battle of Edgehill had been fought, elaborately accuses his antagonists--"pretenders to peace and charity"--of a hateful attempt "to render all persons of honour, courage, and reputation, odious to the common people under the style of _Cavaliers_, insomuch as the highways and villages have not been safe for gentlemen to pa.s.s through without violence or affront." Even in the very earliest popular songs on the King's side, the word has not the place it afterwards a.s.sumed, and one meets with Royalist poets of a comparatively sober vein,--

"Who neither love for fas.h.i.+on nor for fear, As far from Roundhead as from Cavalier."

D'Ewes's earliest uses of the word, in his MS. journal, occur under 10th January, and March 4th, 1641-2, and 3d June, 1642. In the first he is speaking of parties who had been suspiciously entering the Tower; in the second, of the Cavaliers at Whitehall who wounded the citizens; and in the last of the King's party in Yorks.h.i.+re.

Of the word _Roundhead_, on the other hand, and the mixed fear and hatred it represented and provoked, decidedly the most characteristic example is furnished by the ever quaint and entertaining Bishop Hacket, who tells a story of a certain worthy and honest Vicar of Hamps.h.i.+re who always (in such a manner as to evade the notice of one section of his hearers while he secretly pleased the other) changed one verse in the last verse of the Te Deum--"O Lord, in thee have I trusted, _let me never be a Roundhead_!" William Lilly, however (_Monarchy or no Monarchy in England_, edit. 1651), referring to tumults of which he was an eye-witness, describes Puritans to have received the nickname as follows: "In the general, they were very honest men and well-meaning: some particular fools, or others, perhaps, now and then got in amongst them, greatly to the disadvantage of the more sober. They were modest in their apparel, but not in their language; they had the hair of their heads very few of them longer than their ears; whereupon, it came to pa.s.s that those who usually with their cries attended at Westminster (Whitehall), were by a nickname called _Roundheads_. The Courtiers again, having long hair and locks, and always swordes, at last were called by these men _Cavaliers_: and so, so few of the vulgar knowing the sense of the word Cavalier."--Notes to Forster's _Arrest of the Five Members_.

Swift, regarding Cavalier in the reproachful sense, says: "Each party grows proud of that appellation which their adversaries at first intended as a reproach: of this sort were the Guelfs, and Ghibelines, Huguenots, and Cavaliers."

Nevertheless, Cavalier was formerly an ordinary English term for a horse-soldier. Kersey gives it as "a Sword-gentleman, a brave Warrior."

Nares gives it: "Cavalero, or Cavalier. Literally a Knight; but, as the persons of chief fas.h.i.+on and gaiety were knights, any gallant was so distinguished. Hence it became a term for the officers of the Court party, in Charles I.'s wars, the gaiety of whose appearance was strikingly opposed to the austerity and sourness of the opposite order."

_Glossary_, New Edit. 1859.

In the Roundhead accounts of the period are details of the contests and a.s.saults that were continually made between the years 1648 and 1658 upon the Roundheads _abroad_, for _at home_ the Cavaliers were too weak to indulge frequently in such manifestations of party feelings.

THE EVELYNS AT WOTTON.

It has been well observed of the Evelyn family, that "rarely do we read of people who so admirably combined a love of rural life with literature." Studious retirement, not isolation, was what John Evelyn sought; and nowhere did he so delightfully enjoy his tastes as at Wotton House or Place in Surrey. This "great Virtuoso," as Aubrey called him, has left us the following account of his family, and of their first settlement at Wotton:--"We have not been at Wotton (purchased of one Owen, a great rich man) above 160 years. My great grandfather came from Long Ditton (the seat now of Sir Edward Eveylin), where we had been long before; and to Long Ditton from Harrow-on-the-Hill; and many years before that, from Evelyn, near Tower Castle, Shrops.h.i.+re. There are of our name in France and Italy, written _Ivelyn_, _Avelin_: and in old deeds I find _Avelyn_, alias _Evelyn_. One of our name was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt. When the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans came to Dover to see the King [Charles II.], one of our name (whose family derives itself from Lusignan, king of Cyprus) claimed relation to us. We have in our family a tradition of a great sum of money, that had been given for the ransom of a French lord, with which a great estate was purchased; but these things are all mystical."

Wotton House, placed in a valley south-west of Dorking, though really upon a part of Leith Hill, was first erected in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Here, on October 31, 1620, was born John Evelyn, "_Sylva_ Evelyn," as he was called from the t.i.tle of his valuable work on Forest-trees. When four years old, he was taught at the porch of Wotton Church. He then learnt Latin in a school at Lewes; whence his father proposed to send him to Eton, but he was terrified at the reported severity of the discipline there, and he was again sent to Lewes, which he "afterwards a thousand times deplored." In 1636 he was admitted to the Middle Temple; whence he removed to Balliol College, Oxford. He returned to London in 1640; but on the death of his father he relinquished all thoughts of legal practice.

Mr. Evelyn, thus become his own master, purposed a life of studious seclusion, and actually commenced making a kind of hermitage at Wotton, at that period the seat of his eldest brother. The park is watered by a winding stream, and is backed by a magnificent range of beech-woods: the goodly oaks were cut down by John Evelyn's grandfather, and birch has taken the place of beech in many cases; but we trace to this day Evelyn's hollies, "a _viretum_ all the year round;" and the n.o.ble planting of the author of _Sylva_, who describes the house as "large and ancient, suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed with delicious streams and venerable woods. It has rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water in abundance.... I should speak much of the gardens, fountains, and groves that adorne it, were they not generally known to be amongst the most natural (until this later and universal luxury of the whole nation, since abounding in such expenses), the most magnificent that England afforded, and which, indeed, gave one of the first examples of that elegancy since so much in vogue, and followed in the managing of their waters, and other ornaments of that nature."

Evelyn, by whom, in his brother's lifetime, the chief improvements in these grounds were directed, thus speaks of their origin in his _Diary_, under the date 1643, after the disastrous contest had commenced between the King and the Parliament:--"Resolving to possess myself in some quiet, if it might be, in a time of so great jealousy, I built, by my brother's permission, a _study_, made a _fish-pond_, and an _island_, and some other solitudes and retirements at Wotton; which gave the first occasion to those water-works and gardens which afterwards succeeded them."

Further alterations were made in 1652, and are thus described:--"I went with my brother Evelyn to Wotton to give him what directions I was able about his garden, which he was now desirous to put into some forme; but for which he was to remove a mountaine overgrowne with huge trees and thicket, with a moate within ten yards of the house. This my brother immediately attempted, and that without greate coste; for more than a hundred yards south, by digging down the mountaine, and flinging it into a rapid streame, it not only carried away the sand, &c., but filled up the moate, and levelled that n.o.ble area, where now the garden and fountaine is."

In 1641, Evelyn, tired of this seclusion, made a tour in France and the Netherlands, in which he appears to have gathered from observation such knowledge of Gardening as led him into its systematic study. He describes the Tuileries as rarely contrived for privacy, shade, or company; and he specially describes a labyrinth of cypress, with an artificial echo, "redoubling the words distinctly, and never without some fair nymph singing to it." "Standing at one of the focuses, which is under a tree, or little cabinet of hedges, the voice seems to descend from the clouds; at another, as if it was underground." He tells us, too, of the curious garden of the Archbishop of Paris, at St. Cloud, with a Mount Parna.s.sus, and a grotto, or "sh.e.l.l-house," on the top of the hill, the walls painted with the Muses, many statues placed about it, and within, "divers water-works, and contrivances to wet the spectators," reminding one of the famous copper-tube willow-tree at Chatsworth. Evelyn speaks of the Luxembourg Gardens as a paradise, where the Duke of Orleans kept tortoises in great numbers. The young traveller was charmed with the gardens of Italy; and at Padua he bought, for winter provision, three thousand weight of grapes, and pressed his own wine, which proved excellent.

Faithful to the Crown, Mr. Evelyn (who had become a volunteer in an English regiment serving in Flanders) joined the King's army at Brentford; but that he had not the temperament of a hero we may judge from the fact that, on the day before the battle of Edgehill was fought, after seeing Portsmouth delivered up to Sir William Waller, "he was able to make a careful archaeological survey of the city of Winchester, calmly noting its castle, church, school, and King Arthur's Round Table."

Knowing this characteristic trait, we are not surprised that he left his distracted country for the pleasures of foreign travel. On returning from Italy he visited Paris, and at the English Emba.s.sy met his future wife, the daughter of the Amba.s.sador, Sir Richard Browne. He married her when she was little more than fourteen, and some months afterwards left her, as he admits, "still very young," under the appropriate care of her mother, whilst he transacted business in England. The Prince de Conde besieged Paris, and a year and a half elapsed before Evelyn rejoined his wife.

Upon their return to England, they took up their abode at Sayes Court, the property of Sir Richard Browne, whose estate had been considerably curtailed during the Commonwealth. It was wholly unadorned. Here, from a field of one hundred acres in pasture, Evelyn formed a garden, which was an exemplar of his _Sylva_, with a hedge of holly, 400 feet long, 9 feet high, and 5 feet thick. He began immediately to set out an oval garden, which was "the beginning of all the succeeding gardens, walks, groves, enclosures, and plantations there;" and he planted an orchard, "new moon, wind west." Evelyn next planned a royal garden to comprehend "knots, trayle-work, parterres, compartments, borders, banks, and embossments, labyrinths, dedals, cabinets, cradles, close-walks, galleries, pavilions, porticoes, lanterns, and other relievos of topiary and hortular architecture; fountains, cascades, piscines, rocks, grotts, cryptae, mounts, precipices, and ventiducts; gazon-theatres, artificial echoes, automate and hydraulic music."

When Evelyn left Sayes to pa.s.s the remainder of his days at Wotton, he let the former estate, first to Admiral Benbow, and next to the Czar Peter, to be near the King's dockyard, (through the wall of which a doorway was broken), that he might learn s.h.i.+pbuilding, but the Czar and his retinue damaged the house and gardens to the extent of 150_l_. in three weeks. A portion of the Victualling-yard now occupies the place of Evelyn's shady walks and trim hedges; on the site of the manor-house stands the parish workhouse of Dieptford and Stroud; and an adjoining thoroughfare is named Evelyn-street.

Evelyn may have been misled in ornamental gardening by the taste of his age, but there was nothing to mislead him in that useful branch of the art which supplies the table with its luxuries, and which in his time received considerable improvement. Here we may mention that in 1664 Evelyn published the first Gardeners' Almanack, containing directions for the employment of each month. This was dedicated to Cowley, and drew from him, in acknowledgment, one of his best pieces, ent.i.tled _The Garden_; in the prefix to which he says:--"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them, and the study of nature."

In 1694, Mr. Evelyn went to Wotton, with his brother George. In 1696-7, he says:--"I am planting an evergreen grove here to an old house ready to drop." In the great storm of 1703, above 2,000 goodly oaks were blown down. The woods of Wotton have since suffered greatly from high winds, particularly in November 1837, when many hundred trees were laid low during a violent storm.

In his _Sylva_, Evelyn thus deplores the former devastation: "Methinks that I still hear, sure I am that I feel, the _dismal groans_ of our forests, when that late dreadful Hurricane, happening on the 26th of November, 1703, subverted as many thousands of goodly Oaks, prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen in battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crus.h.i.+ng all that grew beneath them. Myself had 2,000 blown down; several of which, torn up by their fall, raised mounds of earth, near 20 feet high, with great stones intangled among the roots and rubbish, and this almost within sight of my dwelling;--now no more Wotton [Wood-town], stripped and naked, and almost ashamed to own its name."

In the _Diary_, the same calamity is thus noticed: "The effects of the Hurricane and tempest of wind, rain, and lightning thro' all the nation, especially London, were very dismal. Many houses demolished, and people killed. As to my own losses, the submersion of woods and timber, both ornamental and valuable, through my whole estate, and about my house, the woods crowning the garden mount, and growing along the Park meadow, the damage to my own dwelling, farms, and outhouses, is almost tragical, not to be parallel'd with anything happening in our age. I am not able to describe it, but submit to the pleasure of Almighty G.o.d."

Notwithstanding these losses, Evelyn's brother would not depart from the oeconomy and hospitality of the old house, but, "_more veterum_, kept a Christmas in which they had not fewer than 300 b.u.mpkins every holiday."

We find recorded among the Curiosities of the place, an oaken plank "of prodigious amplitude," cut out of a tree which grew on this estate, and was felled by Evelyn's grandfather's orders. Its dimensions, when "made a pastry-board" at Wotton, were more than five feet in breadth, nine feet and a half in length, and six inches in thickness; and it had been "abated by one foot," to suit it to the size of the room wherein it was placed.

Upon the death of his brother, in 1699, without any surviving male issue, John Evelyn became possessor of the paternal estates. Wotton House, built of fine red brick, has been enlarged by various members of the Evelyn family. Hence the absence of uniformity in the plan of the house, and within our recollection it has parted with many of its olden features. The apartments are, however, convenient, and realize the comforts of an English gentleman's proper house and home. An etching by John Evelyn shows the mansion in 1653.

Through the valley at Wotton winds a rivulet which was formerly of much importance. Evelyn, in a letter to Aubrey, dated 8th of February, 1675, says that "on the stream near his house formerly stood many powder-mills, erected by his ancestors, who were the very first that brought that invention into England; before which we had all our powder from Flanders." He gives an account of one of these mills blowing up, which broke a beam, fifteen inches in diameter, at Wotton Place; and states that one standing lower down towards Sheire, on blowing up, "shot a piece of timber through a cottage, which took off a poor woman's head, as she was spinning." Besides these mills, were bra.s.s, fulling, and hammering mills.

The Evelyns possess much land in the adjoining parish of Abinger; and the seat of the Scarletts, Abinger Hall, gave the t.i.tle to Lord Chief Baron Scarlett. Originally, it was a small dwelling at the foot of the Downs, belonging to the Dibble family, of whom it was purchased in the reign of George II. by Catherine Forbes, Countess of Donegal, who was the daughter of Arthur, Earl of Granard, and had the honour of being complimented by Dean Swift, in the following lines:--

"Unerring Heaven, with bounteous hand, Has form'd a Model for your Land, Whom Love bestow'd, with every grace, The glory of the Granard race; Now destined by the powers Divine The blessing of another Line.

Then, would you paint a matchless Dame, Whom you'd consign to endless fame, Invoke not Cytherea's aid, Nor borrow from the Blue-eyed Maid, Nor need you on the Graces call; Take qualities from DONEGAL."

Abinger Church is of considerable antiquity, and has a higher site than any other church in the county: indeed, Aubrey conjectures the parish to be named from _Abin_, an eminence, or rising ground. The church was carefully restored in 1857. The west end is of the Norman period; the nave Early English; the altar has sedilia, and formerly had a piscina; and on the north side is a chancel belonging to the Wotton estate, and restored at the expense of Mr. Evelyn: here is a small organ. The altar-window of three lights has been filled with painted gla.s.s by O'Connor, a very meritorious work. In the churchyard in a vault are interred Lord Chief Baron Abinger, and his first wife: to the latter there is a marble monument on the inner wall of the chancel. His Lords.h.i.+p married secondly the widow of the Rev. Henry John Ridley, a descendant of Bishop Ridley, the Protestant martyr; and among the relics of that devout churchman which descended to Lady Abinger, was the chair in which the Bishop used to study.

On the east side of the churchyard is a small green, on which are stocks and a whipping-post; but these, to the honour of the parish, are believed never to have been used.

There was a Mill at Abinger at the time of the Domesday Survey; and it is not improbable that the present corn and flour mill, at a short distance from the road, may occupy the same site. To return to Wotton House.

The interior of the old place, with its oddly-planned rooms, its quaint carvings, its pictures, more especially the portraits of the Evelyn family, is a most enjoyable nook. The author of _Sylva_, by Kneller, will be recognised as the original of the engraved frontispiece to Evelyn's _Diary_, by economy of printing now become a household book.

Among the Wotton relics, of special historic interest, are the Prayer-book used by Charles I. on the scaffold; a pinch of the powder laid by Guido Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators to blow up the Parliament; a curious account, in John Evelyn's hand, of the mode in which the Chancellor Clarendon transacted business with his royal master; several letters of John Evelyn, and his account (recently found) of the expense of his building Milton House, which occupied four years: the house remains to this day. The library of printed books and pamphlets is curious and extensive. Evelyn was a most laborious annotator, never employing an amanuensis: among his MSS. is a Bible in three volumes, the margins filled with closely-written notes.

John Evelyn died at his house (called _the Head_) in Dover-street, Piccadilly, Feb. 27, 1705-6. His remains were interred in Wotton Church: his lady surviving him until 1708-9; when, dying, in her seventy-fourth year, she was buried near him in the chancel. It was Evelyn's wish to have been interred in the Laurel Grove, planted by him at Wotton: this wish was expressed in his Will: "otherwise," he says, "let my grave be in the Corner of the Dormitory of my Ancestors." This was done; and in digging the new Vault was found "an entire skeleton, of gigantick stature."

In all the characters of child, wife, mother, and mistress, Mrs. Evelyn, quiet and una.s.suming as she was, shone forth pre-eminently. Her trials were many and heavy; her heart was torn with the death of child after child, some in infancy, some in ripe age when they had grown to be the pride and stay of their parents. All died, one by one, out of that numerous progeny, till only a daughter, Mrs. Draper, was left, and the bereaved pair were alone in their old age in the wide old mansion at Wotton. Nothing can exceed the touching pathos of those few words in Mrs. Evelyn's will, where, after desiring that her coffin might be placed near to that of her dear husband, whose death preceded hers by three years, she adds:--"Whose love and friends.h.i.+p I was happy in, fifty-eight years nine months; but by G.o.d's providence left a desolate widow, the 27th day of February, 1705, in the seventy-first year of my age."