Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800 9780228014973

Table of contents :
Cover
Politics and the English Country House,1688–1800
Title
Copyright
Contents
Table and Figures
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
PART ONE: POLITICAL POSITIONING AFTER THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION
2 Introduction
3 For Politics, Progresses, or Posterity? Some Alternative Reasons for Building State Apartments
4 Holding Court at Marlborough House: The London Residence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough
PART TWO: THE QUESTION OF STYLE
5 Introduction
6 Gothic Architecture and the Liberty Trope
7 ‘Whig Gothic’: An Antidote to Houghton Hall
8 The House with Two Faces: From Baroque to Palladian at Wentworth Woodhouse
PART THREE: THE SOCIAL POLITICS OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE
9 Introduction
10 Burke’s Exemplum: The ‘Natural Family Mansion’ and Wentworth Woodhouse
11 House Painting: Place and Position in Estate Portraiture circa 1770
12 The House and Estate of a Rich West Indian: Two Slaveholders in Eighteenth-Century East Anglia
PART FOUR: HOUSES AND HOMES
13 Introduction
14 The Clives at Home: Self-Fashioning, Collecting, and British India
15 William Pitt the Younger, 1759–1806: Reshaping the Political Home
Afterword: Whose Country House?
Bibliography
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800

Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800

ed i t ed b y jo an cou t u , j o n s t o b a rt , an d p e t e r n . l in d fie l d

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023 isbn 978-0-2280-1402-7 (cloth) isbn 978-0-2280-1497-3 (epdf) Legal deposit first quarter 2023 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the University of Waterloo and financial support awarded by the trustees of the Marc Fitch Fund.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Politics and the English country house, 1688-1800 / edited by Joan Coutu, Jon Stobart, and Peter N. Lindfield. Names: Coutu, Joan Michèle, 1964- editor. | Stobart, Jon, 1966- editor. | Lindfield, Peter, editor. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220411816 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220411867 | isbn 9780228014027 (cloth) | isbn 9780228014973 (epdf) Subjects: lcsh: Country homes—Political aspects—England—History—18th century. | lcsh: Architecture, Domestic—England—History—18th century. | lcsh: Aristocracy (Social class)—Homes and haunts—England—History— 18th century. | lcsh: England—Social life and customs—18th century. Classification: lcc na7620 .p65 2023 | ddc 728.8094209/033—dc23

2 Contents

Table and Figures / vii Acknowledgements / xv 1 Introduction / 3 Joan Coutu, Jon Stobart, and Oliver Cox

part one: political positioning after the glorious revolution 2 Introduction / 23 Oliver Cox 3 For Politics, Progresses, or Posterity? Some Alternative Reasons for Building State Apartments / 28 Amy Lim 4 Holding Court at Marlborough House: The London Residence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough / 47 Juliet Learmouth

part two: the question of style 5 Introduction / 73 Anne Bordeleau 6 Gothic Architecture and the Liberty Trope / 79 Matthew M. Reeve

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7 ‘Whig Gothic’: An Antidote to Houghton Hall / 101 Peter N. Lindfield 8 The House with Two Faces: From Baroque to Palladian at Wentworth Woodhouse / 123 Dylan Wayne Spivey

part three: the social politics of the country house 9 Introduction / 147 Jon Stobart 10 Burke’s Exemplum: The ‘Natural Family Mansion’ and Wentworth Woodhouse / 151 Joan Coutu 11 House Painting: Place and Position in Estate Portraiture circa 1770 / 170 John Bonehill 12 The House and Estate of a Rich West Indian: Two Slaveholders in Eighteenth-Century East Anglia / 197 Elisabeth Grass

part four: houses and homes 13 Introduction / 219 Kate Retford 14 The Clives at Home: Self-Fashioning, Collecting, and British India / 223 Kieran Hazzard 15 William Pitt the Younger, 1759–1806: Reshaping the Political Home / 248 Rowena Willard-Wright Afterword: Whose Country House? / 275 Dana Arnold Bibliography / 283 Contributors / 313 Index / 317

2 Table and Figures

Table 15.1 Lists of William Pitt the Younger’s Christmas boxes for Holwood and Downing Street, 1797–98. / 263

Figures 2.1 Sebastiano Ricci, The Baptism of Christ, c. 1713–14. 1981.186, Purchase, Rogers and Gwynne Andrews Funds, and Gift of Jane L. Melville, by exchange, 1981. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. / 22 2.2 Thomas Willson, The South Prospect of Bullstrod (Bulstrode Park, Buckinghamshire), c. 1715–20. 07/4402. Royal Academy of Arts, London, cc by-nc-nd 3.0. / 25 3.1 Colen Campbell, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, seat of the Duke of Marlborough: plan of the principal floor, from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 56. / 31 3.2 Route of William III’s progress, October–November 1695. Map adapted by Amy Lim. / 33 3.3 Plan of Castle House, Marlborough, c. 1684–1706. © Peter N. Lindfield. Key: A: Queen’s Dressing Room; B: Queen’s Bedchamber; C: Queen’s Closestool Room; D: Drawing Room; E: Dining Room; F: Room next the Dining Room; G: Gilt Leather Room; H: Backstairs; I: Great Staircase. / 39 4.1 Johannes Kip, View and Perspective of London, Westminster and St James’s Park (taken from the roof of Buckingham House), c. 1727, detail showing the

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position of Marlborough House in relation to St James’s Palace. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021. / 49 4.2 Charles Grignion after Samuel Wale, View of Marlborough House fronting St James’s Park, 1761. © The Trustees of the British Museum. / 49 4.3 After R. Inglish, John Sturt (etcher), The Royal Palace of St James’s, c. 1714. Etching and engraving on paper. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021. / 55 4.4 Colen Campbell, The Elevation of Marlborough House to St James’s Park, Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 40. / 56 4.5 Author’s suggested layout of reception rooms at Marlborough House, based on inventory of 1740 and ground plan in Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 39. / 58 4.6 Ceiling of Entrance Hall of Marlborough House with paintings by Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, An Allegory of Peace and the Arts, c. 1635–38. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021. / 59 4.7 Louis Laguerre, The Battle of Malplaquet, 11 September 1709: Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736) leading troops on the French redoubts c. 1713–14, Marlborough House. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021. / 62 4.8 Louis Laguerre, The Battle of Blenheim, 13 August 1704: The Surrender of Marshall Tallard, c. 1713. Entrance Hall of Marlborough House. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021. / 63 4.9 William Kent and Michael Rysbrack, Monument of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1733, Blenheim Palace Chapel, Oxfordshire (detail showing relief on podium). Photo: Juliet Learmouth. / 63 4.10 Abraham Allard, The Arrival of George I at St James’s Palace in 1714. © The Trustees of the British Museum. / 65 5.1 Joseph Michael Gandy, Perspectives of eight designs for churches, with plan, 1824: variations for Holy Trinity, Marylebone; an Ionic design for St Peter, Walworth & the 1800 design for the Sepulchral Chapel for Tyringham. By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum. / 74 5.2 C.R. Cockerell, The Professor’s Dream (prepared with G.E. Goodchild, 1848). © Royal Academy of Arts, London. / 75 5.3 Detail of July Column from C.R. Cockerell, The Professor’s Dream (prepared with G.E. Goodchild, 1848). © Royal Academy of Arts, London. / 76 6.1 Wenceslas Hollar, frontispiece to Sir William Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, 1655. Photo: Matthew M. Reeve. / 81 6.2 James Gibbs, Temple of Liberty at Stowe. Photo: Matthew M. Reeve. / 84

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6.3 Horace Walpole’s copy of Benjamin Seeley, Stowe: A Description, 1768, 30. lwl 49 2387.4. Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. / 85 6.4 John Donowell, Façade to the ‘Hell-Fire Caves’, West Wycombe. Photo: Matthew M. Reeve. / 91 6.5 Thomas Penrose, ‘Armour as it was placed on the staircase at the Grove and the “Gilded Casque” – as in Revd. Penrose’s Poem of “The Helmets”,’ showing the original display of arms on the upper stair landing at Donnington Grove, Berks. Collection Heribert Tenshert, Switzerland, ms ‘Dessins Grotesques’, 3 vols., unpaginated. Photo: Antiquariat Bibermühle. / 93 6.6 Benjamin Brecknell Turner, ‘North Side of Quadrangle, Arundel Castle’. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. / 95 6.7 Joseph Backler, King John Signing Magna Carta. / 96 6.8 James Sherwood Westmacott, Statue of Saher de Quincy, House of Lords, Westminster. / 97 7.1 Colen Campbell, First Design of the West Front of Wanstead House from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715). Folio A 2016 54. Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art. / 103 7.2 Leonard Knyff and Johannes Kip, Esher estate in Britannia Illustrata (1724). / 107 7.3 William Kent, Initial Design for Esher Place, c. 1730. E.360-1986. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. / 108 7.4 The Gothic Folly at Shotover, Oxfordshire (architect unknown). Photo: Peter N. Lindfield. / 108 7.5 William Kent, The Grand Triumphal Arch in Aston Field at Rousham, Oxfordshire. Jon S. (cc by-sa 2.0). / 109 7.6 William Kent, Design for the Entrance Porch of Esher Place, Surrey, c. 1730. / 115 7.7 William Kent, Gothic Design for Esher Place, c. 1730. E.361-1986. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. / 115 7.8 William Kent, Chimneypiece at Esher Place, from John Vardy, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. Wm. Kent (London, 1744), pl. 36, Folio A N 63, Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art. / 117 7.9 William Kent, Design for an Octagonal Room at Esher Place, c. 1730. E.368-1986. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. / 118 7.10 John Carter, The Holbein Chamber, c. 1790. In Folio 33 30 Copy 11. Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. / 119

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8.1 Colen Campbell, The Elevation of Stainborough, from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 93/94. / 126 8.2 Thomas Badeslade and John Rocque, Stainborough and Wentworth Castle, from Thomas Badeslade and John Rocque, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1739), vol. 4, pl. 55/56. Photo: The Royal Academy of Arts, cc by-nc-nd 3.0. / 126 8.3 Johann van Bodt, Elevation de la façade du Batiment neuf (design for the East Wing of Wentworth Castle [Stainborough]), 1709. Museum No. D.212-1890. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. / 127 8.4 William Thornton (?), previously attributed to James Gibbs, Design for Remodelling Wentworth Woodhouse, plan of the ground floor, c. 1711. Royal Institute of British Architects Collections: sd 12/11. Photo: riba. / 128 8.5 John Setterington and Paul Fourdrinier, engraver, The Garden Front of Wentworth House, from Thomas Badeslade and John Rocque, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1739), vol. 4, pl. 79–81. Photo: The Royal Academy of Arts, cc by-nc-nd 3.0. / 129 8.6 Henry Flitcroft, Wentworth Woodhouse, design for the East Front, 1740. British Library, King Topographical Collection: K.Top.45.30.b. / 130 8.7 John Vanbrugh, The North Front of Grimsthorp (Grimsthorpe), from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1725), vol. 3, pl. 12. / 133 8.8 John Vanbrugh, The Garden Front of Grimsthorp (Grimsthorpe), from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1725), vol. 3, pl. 13. / 133 8.9 Colen Campbell, The West Front of Wansted (Wanstead), from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 24/25. / 136 8.10 Perspective View of Wentworth-House in Yorkshire; the Seat of the Marquiss of Rockingham, from Nathaniel Spencer, The Complete English Traveller, 1771. London, British Library. / 139 10.1 1st and 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, and Henry Flitcroft, Wentworth Woodhouse, the east front, from 1734. Courtesy Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. Photo: Joan Coutu. / 152 10.2 1st and 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, and Henry Flitcroft, Marble Saloon, Wentworth Woodhouse, from 1734. Photo: Courtesy Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. / 156 10.3 George Stubbs, Whistlejacket, oil on canvas, 1762, 292 x 246.7 cm., as displayed in the ‘Whistlejacket Room’ in Wentworth Woodhouse. Photo: 1903 guidebook for Wentworth Woodhouse, owned by Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. / 162

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10.4 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, Needle’s Eye. Wentworth Woodhouse, constructed 1770s. Photo: Ozankk, cc by-sa 3.0. / 162 11.1 George Barret, A View of the great tree in Welbeck Park [View of the Seven Sisters in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire], exhibited Society of Artists 1766(?). The Portland Collection, Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire/Bridgeman. / 174 11.2 George Barret, ‘Memorandum, of Pictures, painted for his Grace the Duke of Portland’, endorsed 16 July 1767. Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham, Pw F 263. / 177 11.3 John Chapman, Nottinghamshire, Survey’d in 1774, published by J. Chapman, 1 May 1776. © The British Library Board, London, Maps K.Top.3 3.29.2 tab. / 178 11.4 John Chapman, Nottinghamshire, Survey’d in 1774 (detail), published by J. Chapman, 1 May 1776. © The British Library Board, London, Maps K.Top.33.29.2 tab. / 179 11.5 George Barret, View of the Greendale Oak in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire, c. 1766–70. The Portland Collection, Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire/Bridgeman. / 180 11.6 George Barret, A View in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire, c. 1766–70. The Portland Collection, Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire/ Bridgeman. / 182 11.7 George Barret, A View in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire, c. 1766–70. The Portland Collection, Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire/ Bridgeman. / 183 11.8 Charles Steuart, View from Lowther-Hall, Perieth and Perieth Bacon, the Seat of Sir James Lowther, exhibited Society of Artists 1775. Lonsdale Settled Estates Collection. / 187 11.9 Charles Steuart, A View in Luton Park, the seat of the Earl of Bute, exhibited Society of Artists 1775. The Bute Collection at Mount Stuart. / 187 11.10 Charles Steuart, Part of Whitehaven Harbour, St. Bee’s Head, the isle of Man, from the tobacco pipes, Westmorland, exhibited Society of Artists 1774. Lonsdale Settled Estates Collection. / 189 11.11 George Barret, View in the Vale of Lorton, Cumberland, circa 1773. The Portland Collection, Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire. / 191 12.1 Exterior view of Garboldisham Hall, Norfolk, 1926. Historic England. aa50/05137. / 199 12.2 Joshua Reynolds, Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces, 1762. 1922.4468. Mr and Mrs W.W. Kimball Collection, Chicago Art Institute. cc0 Public Domain Designation. / 209

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12.3 John Nixon after Joshua Reynolds, Annabella, Lady Blake, as Juno, Receiving the Cestus from Venus, 1771. B1977.14.9799. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. / 210 12.4 Joshua Reynolds, Sir Patrick Blake, 1763–64. ef:42:06. usc Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Elizabeth Holmes Fisher Collection. / 212 14.1 Jade wine flask and stopper. Gold and silver lining and inlay, set with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, 1605–27. Museum of Islamic Art, Doha. © Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport. / 225 14.2 Hookah. Silver, partly gilt, enamelled and set with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, c. 1750–70. Private collection. © National Trust / Kate Lynch. / 230 14.3 ‘The India Directors in the Suds’, Town and Country Magazine, 4:39, supplement to the Year 1772 (1773), 705. 1855,0609.1929, British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum. / 233 14.4 Benjamin West, Shah Alam Conveying the Grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive, Aug. 1765. Oil on canvas, 1818. F29, British Library. © British Library Board / Bridgeman Images. / 235 14.5 Tiger’s head finial. Gold on a wooden core, engraved and set with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, 1787–93. nt1180713, National Trust, Powis Castle. © National Trust / Kate Lynch. / 237 14.6 Henri Merke, A View of the Government House and Council Chamber, Madras. Hand-coloured aquatint and etching, 1807. Maps K.Top.115.79.b, British Library. © British Library. / 239 14.7 Sword of Tipu Sultan. Blued steel hilt with tiger-head langets inlaid with gold calligraphy, 1782–99. nt1180590, National Trust, Powis Castle. © National Trust / Paul Highnam. / 243 15.1 William Kent, North West corner Room, No. 10 Downing Street, c. 1732. © Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. / 251 15.2 Cabinet Room, Downing Street, photograph from 1922. / 252 15.3 Sir Robert Taylor, Ground floor of No. 10 Downing Street (alterations in pale grey), 1781–82. © Sir John Soane Museum, London. / 253 15.4 The Ground Floor of Downing Street, with rooms allocated, as per the 1806 inventory. Drawing by Rowena Willard-Wright. / 255 15.5 William Kent, Middle Room, first Floor, Downing Street, c. 1732. © Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. / 256 15.6 After Sir John Soane, Survey drawing of part of first floor and water closet, 10 Downing Street, June 1825. sm (4) 50/4/11 (5) 50/4/10. Sir John Soane Museum. / 256

table and figures 15.7 Sir John Soane, The plan of the ground floor, Holwood, with a rough exterior elevation of the house, 5 September 1797, sm 2/9/12. © Sir John Soane Museum, London. / 260 15.8 Sir John Soane, Design for the Alterations and Additions at Hollwood, 9 August 1799, 2/9/19. © Sir John Soane Museum, London. / 261 15.9 Sir John Soane, Design for the Alterations and Additions to Hollwood, July 1799, 2/9/27. © Sir John Soane Museum, London. / 261 15.10 Walmer Castle, Board of Ordnance Plan, 1741. / 264 15.11 Plan of the first floor of Walmer Castle, annotated as per the 1806 inventory. Drawing by Rowena Willard-Wright. / 265 15.12 William Pitt the Younger’s chaise-longue, Walmer Castle. Photo: Rowena Willard-Wright. / 267

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2 Acknowledgements

This volume is an outcome of a workshop-style symposium, ‘Politicians and Country Houses, 1688–1800’, coordinated by Joan Coutu, Jon Stobart, and Peter Lindfield and held at Manchester Metropolitan University in late 2019. Established and emerging scholars working in universities and the professional heritage sector in England, Scotland, the United States, and Canada came together for presentations, roundtables, and informal discussion – the last such opportunity for many of us before covid-19. The symposium also included an in-depth tour of Wentworth Woodhouse in West Yorkshire, one of the great political houses of the eighteenth century. Participants came from a range of disciplines and expertise – history, art history, architecture, English, heritage planning, heritage, and museum studies – to consider the relationship and interplay of politics and the country house, and that interdisciplinarity ripples through the following essays. Special thanks go to Kate Retford (professor, Birkbeck College) for suggesting the Manchester Country House Network as host for the symposium. The symposium was the third in a series, the first two having focused on comfort and representations/readings of the country house. We wish to thank many individuals and organizations for their assistance both for the symposium and for bringing this volume to fruition, especially in these unusual times. The symposium was generously funded by an International Research Partnership Grant from the Office of Research at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and Manchester Metropolitan University. Additional funding for some participants came from the University of Glasgow, torch (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities), the University of Virginia, and a Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant from the University of

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Waterloo. Oliver Cox (of torch) was also instrumental in suggesting participants and in bridging the university and professional heritage sectors. The symposium participants included the contributors to this volume as well as Fiona Candlin (Birkbeck College); Dale Townshend (Manchester Metropolitan University); Jocelyn Anderson (Art Canada Institute); Lucy Bailey (postgraduate student, University of Glasgow); and Sagar Babbar, Moira Scully, and Lee Barich (graduate students at the University of Waterloo). Sagar Babbar, Moira Scully, and Lee Barich did double-duty, assisting with the recording of the symposium as well as participating in discussions and the roundtables. Helen Brown (postgraduate student, Manchester Metropolitan University) was particularly helpful with the logistical set up for the symposium. At Wentworth Woodhouse, we are indebted to Sarah MacLeod (ceo of Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust) and the wwpt guides and team for our extraordinary visit, which included a wander on the scaffolding above the roof of the centre block of the house. The contributors to the volume would also like to thank: Derek Adlam (Welbeck Abbey); David Allott (Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust); the staff at the British Library; the Center for Palladian Studies in America; Abigail Collins (English Heritage); Sharon Dahmer (University of Waterloo); Dr Andrew Fairweather-Tall (head of research support, University of Oxford); Douglas Fordham (professor, University of Virginia); Liz Green (senior national curator, National Trust Wales) and the National Trust team at Powis Castle; Charles Hind (chief curator, H.J. Heinz Curator of Drawings, Royal Institute of British Architects); the staff of the Lewis Walpole Library (Yale University); Sophie Littlewood (Welbeck Abbey); Alice Martin (formerly Mount Stuart now head of Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth); Lynsey Nairn (Mount Stuart), the staff of the National Library of Wales; Joanne Potter (Lonsdale Estates); the staff of the Office of Research at the University of Waterloo; Alice Purkiss (National Trust Partnership Lead, University of Oxford); Kate Retford (professor, Birkbeck College); Angela Roorda (University of Waterloo); Charlotte Rostek (University of Glasgow, School of Culture and Creative Arts Research Committee); Jean Stevenson (University of Waterloo); the staff at Sheffield City Archives; Dale Townshend (professor, Manchester Metropolitan University); John Turner (Lonsdale Estates); and the staff at the many archival and image collections who have been so helpful in sourcing and providing images for the volume. Amy Lim would like to acknowledge that the research on which her essay is based was carried out as part of a collaborative doctoral partnership funded by the uk Arts and Humanities Research Council. Kieran Hazzard’s essay was the

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result of a 2019–20 project funded by the National Trust for which Elisabeth Grass, Catherine Phipps, and Martin Moran were research assistants. Rowena Willard-Wright would like to thank English Heritage for the Walmer Castle research project, especially the work of Abigail Coppins. Finally, much gratitude is extended to McGill-Queen’s University Press, especially Jonathan Crago, Kathleen Fraser, Elli Stylianou, Filomena Falocco, and the production and copyediting teams. Ultimately, the symposium and this volume of essays were a team effort that has, we hope, furthered our understanding of the country house as both a tangible structure and an idea, both in the eighteenth century and into our own time.

Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800

1 Introduction Joan Coutu, Jon Stobart, and Oliver Cox

Throughout the century between the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the emergence of Britain as an imperial power, the nature and practice of politics – what we might now call the governance of the country – changed fundamentally. Initially, politics was the purview of age-old landed aristocrats who defined themselves as either Whig or Tory. The monarch, meanwhile, aligned with one group or the other. The actual practice of politics, characterized as a civic moral duty, was abstracted within an overall demeanour of sophisticated gentlemanly disinterest. By the third quarter of the eighteenth century, the political landscape had become significantly more fractious: the young George III exercised his prerogative more emphatically than had his forebears; the Tories were re-emerging after having been ostracized alongside the Jacobites; and the Whigs had splintered into multiple antagonistic factions. The players had also changed. Owning property continued to determine who might engage in politics, but the seismic shift to a trade and colonial economy meant that spectacularly wealthy men of ‘new’ money who had purchased often vast estates were eligible not only to vote but also to hold office. Consequently, bankers, merchants, sugar planters, ‘nabobs’, and military and naval officers joined the ancient aristocracy and monarchy in what had become a dynamic arena in which the various constituents engaged in feigned disinterest, machination, gaming, and shrewd design.1 Throughout this rending socio-political expansion, the country house continued to be a tangible manifestation of the owners’ social standing and, in many cases, their political aspirations. Yet the country house as a political space – as a venue for day-to-day political correspondence and conversation or as an architectural and artistic embodiment of distinct political cultures and ideals – has received little attention. This is somewhat ironic given the house’s originary

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joan coutu, jon stobart, and oliver cox

lineage. Situated at the heart of the great feudal demesne, the medieval manor house was a quasi-public space where the financial and social matters of the estate were transacted and courtly diplomacy occurred; the house had a deeply rooted lordly presence and functioned as an anchor within its immediate sphere and county. Such local significance would continue into the Early Modern era and as the modern polity took shape. Thus in the eighteenth century the country house oscillated from being the country seat – or ‘big house’ – in a localized, relatively narrow, vertical hierarchy to being a node within a broader horizontal national web that stretched across the country and to other parts of the world. The greater importance of London as the site of Parliament further set up a pendulating relationship between town and country, along the arc of which was situated the occasional suburban villa, in between houses such as Chiswick House or Strawberry Hill that were also vibrant philosophical and active political spaces. The essays in this volume focus on the country house within this mutable local, national, and imperial terrain, and as sites of abstract, actuating, and active politics. We employ a case study approach in order to foreground the greater social range of house owners and also to highlight the various genres of the country house in the eighteenth century. These include large baronial piles such as Burghley and Wentworth Woodhouse, representative bulwarks of high-level aristocratic families who owned multiple enormous estates throughout the United Kingdom, as well as houses purchased or built by sugar planters whose primary landholdings and source of new wealth were concentrated in geographically distant colonies. Meanwhile, new and aspiring members of the minor aristocracy and gentry – the lower orders of the patriciate – acquired estates and houses as a deliberate means to carve a space for themselves and secure a toehold within the social hierarchy. Some, such as Robert Clive, had made their fortunes in military and naval endeavours and exploitation while others, such as Henry Pelham or William Pitt the Younger, constituted the relatively new genus of the career politician: men of usually more modest means but who also recognized the importance and socio-political traction of owning a country house. As politics evolved in lockstep with the emerging empire, the focus of this volume is very much on houses located in England, sitting as they did at the socially and politically vital centre of the empire and underpinned, in many cases, by economic and social tentacles that reached into Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Atlantic colonies, and India. Much recent scholarship has pushed the consideration of the country house beyond the mid- to late twentieth-century perception of it as national treasure

Introduction

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to explore the house within such themes as domesticity, consumption, and imperialism through often interdisciplinary lenses that include architecture, collecting, display, economics, domestic service, aesthetics, and the country house as idea. Primary sources for these investigations range from the vast array of material objects associated with the house – including both bricks and mortar, objets d’art, and utilitarian utensils, and the extensive inventories, receipts, correspondence, and other documents that make up individual house archives – to philosophical treatises, contemporary literature, and the phenomenological experience of being in the houses themselves. The results have reinvigorated our understanding of the house as an active, and interactive, space. However, the study of the correlation of politics and the country house has lagged behind. This may be a factor of the elusive, evanescent nature of gentlemanly politics – as well as perhaps a certain unwillingness to see politics as anything else. Yet, arguably, such a focus may not have been feasible without these other similarly porous and imbricated modes of inquiry – in which politics is often embedded – that have disrupted the perception of the country house as a relatively intransigent monolith. In this light and as a prelude to the case studies that follow, the remainder of this introduction takes stock of these historiographic currents before circling back to politics and the themes and structure of this volume.

Country Houses as Treasure Houses Despite Mark Girouard’s now commonplace designation of the country house as power house – the vehicle and symbol of social, economic, and political standing, and an index of the individual’s ambition in these three related spheres – politics have played a surprisingly small part in the burgeoning academic and popular interest in British country houses over the last two or three decades.2 Given huge impetus by the landmark Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition Destruction of the Country House (1974), the key focus of attention into the 1980s was on their status as an irreplaceable part of national heritage. Here the interests of academics, heritage organizations, and the public were broadly aligned. These disappearing mansions were treasure houses: filled with art, furniture, and decorative work of the highest order that needed to be celebrated and studied for their own sake. Houses were promoted as visitor attractions on the basis of these treasures, and exhibitions brought together the best pieces for public display.3 This had two important consequences: first, it focused attention on the great houses and palaces of the wealthiest aristocracy who were able to

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patronize the best architects, artists, and craftsmen; second – and quite understandably – art historical perspectives drove much of the literature, which focused on patrons, artists, craftsmen, and stylistic developments. ‘Collections’ still form a major theme in country house studies.4 The underpinning motivation of landowners in building their houses and accruing collections has largely been viewed in terms of connoisseurship, aesthetics, taste, and display, although other drivers have more recently been explored, including romanticism, orientalism, and comfort.5 Girouard’s early attempt to animate the country house by foregrounding the relationship between use and form was ground-breaking, but it only began to have a real impact in the late 1980s and 1990s as the concerns of art history were increasingly married with those of social history. Of these, Dana Arnold’s edited volumes of essays on the Georgian country house were something of a waymarker, as were studies aimed at a more general readership. As detailed below, these viewed the country house as a lived and living space – one with which people could relate.6 This animation was, significantly, paralleled by an expansion in period dramas filmed in country house locations and a dramatic increase in membership of heritage organizations.7

Material Culture and Consumption in the Country House Historians have become increasingly interested in material culture in recent decades, a trend closely linked with the emergence of consumption as the defining metanarrative as we transitioned into a postindustrial and postmodern society, and the country house became a mass-market consumer product in itself.8 This growing interest comprises both the analysis of what people owned and how they used things in their daily lives, and a more focused concern with the materiality of objects themselves and how they can be ‘read’ to provide insights into the lives of their past owners.9 Linking the material to the cultural is sometimes an empirical exercise – counting objects to identify key turning points in domestic arrangements, for example – but it can also mean drawing on cultural theory to understand better how material things shape people’s lifeworlds. Studies of the country house have generally shied away from the latter, but Jon Stobart and Mark Rothery have drawn on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus to explore the development of a specific country house/aristocratic milieu of objects, norms, and values.10 This refocusing onto material culture and consumption has had four broad impacts on the historiography.

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First, it has fed into the trend noted earlier of conceiving the country house as a lived space. This has involved a return to some of Girouard’s concerns with the ways in which different parts of the country house were used for different purposes, and how rooms and spaces were moulded around these activities. We see this in studies of individuals at home, epitomized in the work of Amanda Vickery.11 Some of the old binaries of public and private, and rooms of state and family rooms, have been challenged, not least because such distinctions are increasingly recognized as contingent and unstable. Dressing rooms and cabinets were private spaces, but accessible to particular friends, while many libraries changed over time to become rooms for entertaining rather than places of learning and study.12 These contingencies have themselves informed a growing awareness of the ways in which space and social practice are mutually constructed. Humphrey Repton’s famous pairing of the ‘circle’ in the old cedar parlour with the ‘modern’ living room shows how changed social activities had an impact upon the organization of the room, but it also demonstrates how the spatial arrangement of furniture was fundamental in shaping the nature of social interactions. Although the country house has rarely been touched by analyses informed by theorizations of the production and reproduction of space, the focus on everyday life seen in recent years has often been framed by an awareness of the spatial setting of the daily routines of family and household.13 Importantly in this respect, definitions of household have been expanded to encompass growing interest in servants. This has involved studies that focus on the spaces and practices of work within the country house, including Pamela Sambrook’s examination of kitchens and service areas; alongside this, early work by Merlin Waterson on the daily lives of servants at Erddig in North Wales has been expanded in recent years by a series of collaborative projects between the University of Sheffield and Chatsworth House.14 Second, a focus on the quotidian and mundane is also apparent in studies of the spending patterns of the elite, in which the long-established interest in collections and taste has been supplemented with a concern for the practicalities of building and running a country house. The former is best seen in the work of Richard Wilson and Alan Mackley, which carefully reconstructs the costs and processes of house-building and links the economics of income to those of spending, and Roderick Floud, who provides a granular account of the financing of the English landscape garden.15 The latter is apparent in a growing awareness of the role played by new technologies in transforming the country house as a place to live. Marylin Palmer has pioneered and co-ordinated research on lighting, heating systems, the supply and use of water, and so on.16 The insights

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provided again reveal the country house as a complex mix of the mundane and the magnificent; of large-scale investment, for example, in gas supply or, later, in generating electricity, and everyday purchases of candles or coal. This focus on the importance of everyday as well as on conspicuous consumption has served to bring the country house more into the mainstream of consumption, a move that has been taken further through studies by Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths, Stobart and Rothery, Hannah Chavasse, and others. Drawing on sources such as account books, receipted bills, and correspondence, these historians have highlighted the ways in which country houses were supplied on a day-to-day basis, how this reflected particular household management practices, and how it linked to a range of motivations, including thrift and a desire for material comfort.17 Such analysis has brought a fuller appreciation of the complexity of systems of supply – bursting the myth of the self-sufficient estate – and of decision making, which is revealed as often decentred and contingent: wives and servants played a key role in everyday consumption and what might be called the politics of domestic life in the country house.18 Third, there has been a switch from a Marxian to a more Weberian definition of class: one based on lifestyle and consumption rather than on income and relation to the means of production (in this case, land). By defining elites in terms of how they spent their money, it not only recognizes the increasing porosity of the aristocracy during the eighteenth century but also places emphasis on the ways in which consumption choices marked the status of the individual. As contemporaries were all too aware, status was a matter of taste as much as wealth – it reflected discernment and discretion rather than indulgence. Such characteristics were conceived as an innate gentlemanly virtue; but historians have increasingly drawn on the writings of Bourdieu to explore the ways in which they were learned and nurtured through formal training (e.g., in the classics) and careful socialization: at university and on the Grand Tour, and in visiting the houses of other people of taste.19 These processes have been increasingly discussed in the language of cultural capital: personal and material trappings that could be traded for economic and social status – or, as we shall see throughout this volume – to gain or defend political power. Fourth, and most recently in terms of historiographical developments, the country house is increasingly being set within a broader global context. The traditional view of the country house set within an estate that was its economic and social milieu has long since become untenable in the face of national and international systems of supply. To these have been added a heightened interest in the source of wealth that underpinned the country house. Landed incomes

Introduction

9

were frequently supplemented with money from public office, trade, practice in law, or military pensions. Contemporaries were well aware of the ‘threat’ posed by new money, especially in the hands of nabobs returning from service with the East India Company or of those who owned lucrative plantations in the Caribbean. In the last ten years or so, historians have sought to understand more fully the extent to which money from empire, in all its manifestations, became an integral part of the finances of many country houses. They have also highlighted the impact of imperial and global connections on the material culture of the British country house. Stephanie Barczewski’s ground-breaking analysis of country house ownership by men with imperial connections has been extended by Margot Finn and Kate Smith’s study of the East India Company at home, and by the availability of data on the compensation payments made following the abolition of slavery in 1833.20 These studies, together with attempts by heritage organizations such as English Heritage and the National Trust to gain a fuller picture of the colonial links of properties in their care, have made the country house intensely political – as is apparent from the media backlash following the publication of the National Trust’s interim report in September 2020.21

Identities: Status, Gender, and the Country House The emphasis on consumption and lifestyle, and particularly the rapid emergence of a group of nouveaux riches linked to the expanding empire, has prompted historians of the country house to revisit and reassess ideas of social and cultural identity. Traditional approaches tended to centre on questions of how to define and delimit the aristocracy as a distinct social and economic group. Measures that had long been deployed by contemporaries, such as title or the right to bear arms, were coming under increasing strain from the pressures of politeness, with its emphasis on genteel inclusiveness and judgments based on appearance and manners, both of which could be acquired. The presence of fabulously rich nabobs was the most obvious threat to this, but there was a much longer tradition of merchants and professionals rising into the ranks of the aristocracy through their ability to inject cash into titled but relatively impoverished families. That they could thus gain political as well as social advancement made such moves all the more important – a point in Lawrence and Jeanne Stone’s analysis of the openness of the English elite.22 Other historians have focused on the mechanisms by which titled and landed families

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sought to protect their position, most notably through the legal mechanisms deployed to ensure continuity of the estate, including strict settlement and entailment. Within these studies, the estate as a productive unit and the source of elite wealth and power is a central concern; John Habbakuk, F.M.L. Thompson, John Beckett, and many others have focused on how lineage and especially income defined and delimited the social elite.23 As noted above, a refocus onto lifestyle as a determinant of class has undermined some of these certainties, but historians have continued to emphasize the importance of lineage, family, and patina in defining and cementing status, pointing out that returning nabobs often sought out the traditional trappings of status.24 At the same time, analyses of elite identities have been nuanced by a growing interest in gender. The role of women in making and running the country house, and in their experience of daily life therein, has been increasingly emphasized, not least by Amanda Vickery who identifies a distinct role for the wives of country-house owners – one in which they were responsible for dayto-day spending rather than dynastic purchases.25 Others confirm this division of responsibility but place wives at the centre of the analysis in a way that rescues them from the obscurity within which they have too often resided, probing the implications for propertied women’s engagement in a range of spheres typically gendered male – from estate management and improvement to electoral politics.26 Going further, others again highlight how some women had an important part in shaping decisions on architecture and gardens, the acquisition of furniture and fittings, and assembling important collections.27 Beyond the world of consumption, women are routinely seen as the vital glue that held together families and wider kinship networks, not least through their letterwriting, and they were more occasionally revealed as central to the politicking that went on in the country house.28 That said, there has been more emphasis on women than on femininity as a constructed or performed identity within the social elite. In contrast, masculinity has received considerable interest – part of a general trend in the broader historiography of gender.29 French and Rothery lead the way, exploring how masculinity was constructed through key life events and family relationships, and how reality matched up to the normative standards of advice manuals and the rhetoric of parents and tutors.30 Their conclusion, that men could choose a variety of masculine identities, often changing these over their lifecourse, nuances our view of elite men as landowners, connoisseurs, gentlemen, and politicians.

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Politics and the Country House While cultural historians have been more attracted to the various potential meanings of country houses and their wider landscapes, as articulated above, political historians, by contrast, have been reticent to tie the business of politics to specific spaces.31 Partly this is due, since the eighteenth century, to the increasing centralization of the business of politics in London, whereas the more peripatetic courts and government structures of the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period encouraged country house historians of those eras to more closely combine architecture and politics. Maurice Howard, for example, used the country houses built by new and established courtiers in Tudor England to understand the ‘workings of the power structure of this time’.32 For the eighteenth century and later, much remains to be done to understand the precise ways in which the business of politics could be advanced, or delayed, through the strategic use of country houses as spaces and places for politicking. Part of the challenge lies in the nature of these interactions as conversations in state rooms, closets, and landscapes that have, with rare exceptions, gone unrecorded. But with a political system that thrived and survived through these types of personal interactions, such proximity mattered. For example, R.W. Hoyle’s recent analysis of Gisburn and the Lister family, raised to the peerage when Thomas Lister (1752–1826) was made Baron Ribblesdale in 1797, is instructive in the range of sources required to reconstruct both political opinions and political actions, alongside the embodied politics that characterized gentry and aristocratic self-fashioning. Hoyle deploys personal reflections by Lister men on their political creed, an architectural analysis of their new house and creation of a parkland landscape, and a detailed analysis of their commissioning of artists, including Peter Tillemans and Arthur Devis.33 Other recent studies, in particular James Legard’s work on the building of Blenheim Palace, seek to reconnect the practice of politics with the country house.34 Meanwhile, the significant interplay between town houses, country houses, and the political press has been recently underscored by Ben Gilding and Richard Connors in their analysis of a 1778 rumour that the earls of Bute and Chatham were plotting a return to office. They not only remind us of the extent to which ‘the rise, fall and reformulations of ministries were common currency in eighteenth-century political rhetoric’ but also point to the enduring architectural language of politics from ‘backstairs intrigue’ to discussions ‘behind the curtain’.35 This is a trend that has continued right through into twentieth-century politics as Lawrence

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Black, for example, has recently drawn attention to the ongoing significance of the country house as venues for political education: Ashridge in Hertfordshire and Swinton in North Yorkshire were country estates used by the Conservative Party between the 1920s and late 1970s; Stanford Hall housed the Co-operative Union College from 1945 to 2001; and several trades unions acquired country house headquarters in the 1970s.36 In this vein, the entwined histories of Chequers and the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement remain to be written.

Country House Archives: Access and Approaches The treasures found in country houses comprised not only artwork, furniture, and the like but also the immense archives built up over generations. These archives, in many cases, were the tools through which political ideas and ideals were transmitted from one generation to the next, creating a dynastic consciousness that profoundly influenced political choices. Collections of political papers and correspondence were subject to a dynamic process of curation and interpretation, monumentalizing the documentary records of recent ancestors.37 Beyond the actual houses, the ability of historians to analyse the country house deeply often depends on the vagaries of archival survival. The existence of, and access to, house archives has been key in driving studies such as those noted above, as is apparent from the Paul Mellon Centre’s recent five-year project (2016–20) on collection and display in the British country house.38 Insight into the role played by country house archives in enabling the development of historical research – and the development of history as both an academic discipline and a profession in the nineteenth century with a focus primarily on political action – is provided by the foundation and subsequent development of the Historical Manuscripts Commission.39 The early reports were full of breathless and exciting historical discoveries. In 1871, for example, one large chest and three smaller boxes of papers, belonging to the Earl of Shaftesbury at Wimpole St Giles, were examined, the Commission noting that ‘the correspondence relating to the third Earl, the celebrated author of “Characteristics”, and the letters to and by John Locke, and papers by him, will be found particularly valuable’.40 The editors of the Commission’s Third Report celebrated ‘the ready and liberal manner with which the noblemen, gentlemen, and various public authorities’ provided access to their collection of manuscripts.41 This shift in attitude came at a time when the economic difficulties caused by the agricultural depression of the 1870s encouraged the owners of country

Introduction

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houses to look again at their inherited documents and reconsider their value. Having one’s manuscripts calendared and organized by a body with royal authority was a good way of enhancing the potential sale value, and a number of famous collections were sold, including the Stowe Papers, now in the Henry E. Huntington Library in California.42 The economic equation that sustained country houses came under increasing strain through the first half of the twentieth century, and a government committee was created shortly after the end of the Second World War to explore what role the state should play in Britain’s country house heritage. The subsequent ‘Gowers Report’ noted: ‘Many owners are ignorant of [archives’] importance and allow them to be destroyed or dispersed. This is not unnatural: archives are often indecipherable except by the expert; they take up room and, to be properly cared for, need skilled treatment not easy to arrange.’43 The report pragmatically argued that much was to be gained through supporting the deposit of archival collections into local record offices or university archives. This suggestion was further enabled by the extension to archives of the scheme for the acceptance of works of art in lieu of tax and, in the 1970s, their conditional exemption from capital taxation in return for a limited degree of public access. This brought the archival treasures of the country house more effectively into the public domain by placing them in local record offices, university special collections, the National Archives, or, more occasionally, in repositories elsewhere in the world. This happened precisely at a time when the use to which they were being put started to undergo significant change, reflecting broader changes within country house studies, noted above: that is, a growing interest in social and spatial alongside cultural concerns. This expanding research was based on analysis of bills, accounts, inventories, plans, daybooks, and copious correspondence – read for what they tell us about consumption and possessions, identities and social networks, tastes, and motivations. In terms of politics, surprisingly few scholars have sought to foreground the significance of these collections in providing the raw materials for the writing of political history and to root the practice of politics within its architectural setting. One of the pioneers of the country house archive trawl was Sir Lewis Namier. As his biographer observes, ‘it was the depth and apparently inexhaustible variety of his archival research that distinguished Namier’s work’ and it ‘was not a matter of snapping up unconsidered trifles but of hauling in material by the sackfull’.44 Namier himself proclaimed in a 1925 essay that, ‘though English history in the eighteenth century is well known in its superficial outlines … masses of unused or even unknown correspondence rest (or rot) in country houses’.45

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Namier’s working methods are instructive, and it is possible to reconstruct them through a series of letters in the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart. At a time when most archives remained in possession of the family, personal connections were key to gaining access to them. Namier relied on one of his former undergraduate tutors at Oxford, Francis F. Urquhart, who wrote on Namier’s behalf to the fourth son of the 3rd Marquis of Bute, informing him that the ‘learned’ Namier ‘is at work on the Parliamentary system in the latter part of the Eighteenth Century. I think it will be an important contribution to English history … All this work is largely based on the study of family papers and Namier has been allowed to see a large number of them. He is naturally very anxious to see those of George III’s Lord Bute.’ Having seen the papers, Namier ‘expressed himself as more than pleased’ and was able to fill up a ‘large number of hiati in his work’, which informed both The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III and England in the Age of the American Revolution.46 This kind of trawling approach to country house archives to write larger political or social histories based on the ‘great men’ of history has been gradually superseded by studies with a sharper focus on particular aspects of the landowning classes (e.g., their openness, marriage patterns, or gender identity) or that centre on particular families and houses as case studies exploring broader issues. It remains the case, however, that much of the published primary epistolary source material (e.g., Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford [3 vols., 1842–46], Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham and His Contemporaries [1852]) was originally compiled and edited by nineteenth-century descendants of the men they concern. In either case, the depth of empirical study that country house archives prompt helps to counter and complicate the idea of the country house merely as treasure while also infusing nuance into Girouard’s truism of country house as power house.

Structure and Themes The essays that follow contribute to the growing conversation about the corollary of politics and the country house. The authors range from emerging to established scholars: historians, art historians, architectural historians, curators, and an architect; they work in university academe and in the professional heritage and museum sectors. Writing across traditional disciplinary boundaries, they draw upon house archives, the house itself and its other contents, contemporary literature and the press, the writing of political history, and the

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now much more varied scholarly considerations of the country house. While the emphasis is on the country seat, the town house and suburban villa also figure in the conversation in order to underscore how these spaces worked together both as physical entities and as spaces within the imagination to position and delineate the owner. Furthermore, the concentration on case studies provides ‘snapshots’ of the depth and intimacy of the owner’s involvement and embeddedness within the house. The overall volume thus proceeds not from a defined set of theoretical paradigms but from thinking of the country house as a heuristic in which politics, economics, society, aesthetics, and material culture are imbricated. The volume is divided into four parts that concentrate on various ‘presences’ of the country house. Each part begins with a short elucidatory introduction written by relevant established scholars: Oliver Cox, Anne Bordeleau, Jon Stobart, and Kate Retford. Part 1 focuses on the political positioning of great houses in the years after the Glorious Revolution, as members of the landed aristocracy articulated their status and authority. Specifically, the royal itinerary is reconsidered by Amy Lim, who offers insight into the often knotty relationship between familial dynasties – namely, the Dukes of Montagu, Devonshire, and Somerset – and the monarchy. Juliet Learmouth then discusses Sarah Churchill’s Marlborough House in London, a focus that serves to emphasize the dynamic and reciprocating three-way dialogue between the country house (Blenheim), the town house, and, in the case of Churchill, the royal palace. Likewise, the focus on the town house reinforces the concept of the country house as idea, a presence that extends well beyond its bricks-and-mortar tangibility to hover evanescently within the London milieu. Part 2 addresses architectural style, the leitmotif of foundational country house studies. Matthew Reeve examines the relationship between the Gothic style and liberty, exploring its medieval antecedents, especially as picked up by Horace Walpole and his circle. Meanwhile, in his study of Henry Pelham’s Gothic Esher Place in Surrey, Peter Lindfield challenges earlier scholarship that sought too firmly to correlate political identity with style – namely, Whig and Palladian classicism. Dylan Spivey then focuses on architectural style as commodification, in line with the socio-political aspirations of members of the patriciate. His test-case is Wentworth Woodhouse, the famous ‘house of two faces’ (Baroque and Palladian) in West Yorkshire, built in the 1720s and 1730s by the acutely status-conscious 1st Marquis of Rockingham. Notably, the three houses at the centre of each of these essays also constitute a triad of country house types: Strawberry Hill as a suburban villa; Wentworth Woodhouse as the

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lynchpin of Rockingham’s immense estates and consequent expression of his ‘landedness’; and Esher Place, which had deep Tudor roots but was a new purchase for the politically aspirational Pelham. Part 3 builds on Spivey’s essay with its thematic concentration on ‘distinction’ – in the manner of Pierre Bourdieu – of the landowning elite and the old from the new.47 The first essay, by Joan Coutu, also looks at Wentworth Woodhouse, but a generation later, when the 2nd Marquis of Rockingham sought to retain the landed aristocracy’s primary claim on leadership in the far more crowded political arena of the 1760s and 1770s. Although Wentworth Woodhouse may seem unduly overrepresented as the focus of two essays, the emphasis is not unwarranted as the house was built across two generations that also corresponded with the fundamental shift in the practice of politics.48 The second essay is John Bonehill’s study of estate portraiture as authentication of the owners’ political legitimacy, specifically looking at portraits owned by the Rockinghamites and the circle around the 3rd Earl of Bute, two groups of landed aristocrats who bumped up against each other in the fractious political world of the 1760s. In contrast, the last essay in this section, by Elisabeth Grass, concentrates on two West Indian absentee planters from St Kitt’s – Crisp Molineux and Patrick Blake – who sought to find their place within regional Norfolk society as well as a social hierarchy that was at once resistant to change yet swelling with new social and wealth strata. Part 4 takes us to the lived experience of the house. Kieran Hazzard scrutinizes objects acquired by Robert and Margaret and then Edward and Henrietta Clive: through purchase, ‘gifts’, and stealing. He demonstrates how such things – in the full sense of Martin Heidegger’s ‘things’49 – are part of the complicated scaffolding of social ambition, which enmeshed husbands and wives and shifting ideas of imperialism across two generations. Rowena Willard-Wright then focuses on William Pitt the Younger, the quintessential embodiment of the career politician, and further reinforces the dynamic relationship between town and country house in her study of 10 Downing Street as an active political house and of Holwood and Walmer Castle, both in nearby Kent, as venues for more gentlemanly machinations and genuine retreat. As a bachelor prime minister, Pitt’s male secretary, sister, or niece stood in place of a wife in any or all of these spaces, as sociability demanded. Finally, the volume ends with an afterword by Dana Arnold that is not meant to conclude so much as to point forward to consider the country house through yet more frameworks and lenses. This volume does not claim, or aspire, to be the definitive text on politics and the country house; rather, it is intended to be a contribution to the constantly

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enriching pluralistic conversations about the country house. Specifically in terms of politics in the eighteenth century, the essays in this volume draw out the nuanced complexities of what constituted politics in a culture and society that was engaged and immersed in unprecedented and rapid colonialization, globalization, nationalism, and, ultimately, imperialism. In our own time, a consideration of the country house within this dynamic polity rightly unsettles and complicates the country house as both actual building and idea within that imperial legacy.

notes 1 For politics as ‘shrewd design,’ see Cowper, Task, 98; for politics as a form of game, see Edmund Burke’s commentary to his son on Irish resistance in 1792: Edmund Burke to Richard Burke, 2 November 1792, in Burke, Correspondence, 4:27. Both are quoted in the definition of ‘politics’ in the Oxford English Dictionary. Burke was especially attuned to the many meanings of politics in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 2 Girouard, Life in the English Country House. 3 Foss, Country House Treasures; Jackson-Stops, Treasure Houses of Britain; Littlejohn, Fate of the English Country House; Mandler, Fall and Rise of the Stately Home; Cannadine, ‘British Country House Revisited’. 4 Thornton, Authentic Interior; Saumarez-Smith, Eighteenth-Century Decoration; Cornforth, Early Georgian Interiors. 5 For example, Sloboda, Chinoiserie; Crowley, Invention of Comfort; Stobart, Comfort in the Eighteenth-Century Country House. 6 Arnold, Georgian Country House; and Arnold, Georgian Villa; Tinniswood, History of Country House Visiting; Paston-Williams, Art of Dining. 7 Cox, ‘Downton Boom’. 8 See Brewer and Porter, Consumption and the World of Goods; Trentmann, Empire of Things. 9 Examples of the former include Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour; and, in a country house context, Stobart and Hann, Country House. The latter is exemplified by Richardson, Hamling, and Gaimster, Handbook of Material Culture. 10 Stobart and Rothery, Consumption and the Country House. See also Bourdieu, Distinction. 11 Vickery, Behind Closed Doors. 12 Purcell, Country House Library.

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13 Hardyment, Home Comforts; Vickery, Behind Closed Doors; Stobart, Comfort in the Eighteenth-Century Country House. 14 Sambrook and Brears, Country House Kitchen; Merlin Waterson, The Servants’ Hall; Wallace, ‘Servants and the Country Estate’; Butler, ‘Power at the Power House’; Clapperton, ‘From Servants to Staff ’. 15 Wilson and Mackley, Creating Paradise; Floud, Economic History of the English Garden. 16 Barnwell and Palmer, Country House Technology; Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House. 17 Whittle and Griffiths, Consumption and Gender; Stobart and Rothery, Consumption and the Country House; Chavasse, ‘Material Culture and the Country House’. 18 Whittle and Griffiths, Consumption and Gender; Stobart and Rothery, Consumption and the Country House. 19 Bourdieu, Distinction; French and Rothery, Man’s Estate; Greig, Beau Monde. 20 Barczewski, Country Houses and the British Empire; Finn and Smith, East India Company at Home. 21 Huxtable et al., Interim Report. For reactions, see Mitchell, ‘National Trust Is under Attack’, Guardian; Hope, ‘National Trust Could Face Inquiry’, Telegraph; Allen, ‘National Trust Includes Former Homes of Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling’, Daily Mail. 22 Stone and Stone, Open Elite. 23 Habakkuk, ‘Marriage Settlements in the Eighteenth Century’; Thompson, English Landed Society; Beckett, Aristocracy in England. 24 Barczewski, Country Houses and the British Empire; Finn and Smith, East India Company at Home. 25 Vickery, Behind Closed Doors. 26 McDonagh, Elite Women. 27 Whittle and Griffiths, Consumption and Gender; Boyington, ‘Architectural Endeavours of the Widowed Jemima Yorke’, in Dooley, O’Riordan, and Ridgway, Women and the Country House, 15–32; Greig, Beau Monde; Baird, Mistress of the House, 65–82. 28 Baird, Mistress of the House, 100–17; Ruth Larson, ‘Sisterly Guidance: Elite Women, Sorority and the Life Cycle, 1770–1860’, in Dooley, O’Riordan, and Ridgway, Women and the Country House, 157–69; Chalus, Elite Women in English Provincial Life. 29 For a good summary, see Harvey and Shepard, ‘What Have Historians Done’. 30 French and Rothery, Man’s Estate. See also Stobart and Rothery, Consumption and the Country House, chap. 4. 31 A notable exception is the extensive historiography exploring the spatial aspects of extra-parliamentary political activity. See, most recently, Eagles, ‘Got Together in a Riotous and Tumultuous Manner’.

Introduction 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

19

Howard, Early Tudor Country House, 8. Hoyle, ‘Listers of Gisburn’. Legard, ‘Queen Anne’. Guilding and Connors, ‘Chatham’s Ghost’, 175. Black, ‘Tories and Hunters’. Porter, ‘Affective Culture’. Paul Mellon Centre, Collection and Display. Quoted in American Literary Gazette and Publishers’ Circular, 50. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Third Report, xi. Ibid., xxvii. Beckett, ‘Stowe Papers’. Gowers, Report of the Committee, 40. Hayton, Conservative Revolutionary, 157. Ibid. W.J. Stanley to Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart, 24 May 1927, Acquisitions from Highcliffe/3rd Earl’s Papers etc., 1928–1940, 4th Marquess of Bute Papers, Mount Stuart Archives, Isle of Bute. 47 Bourdieu, Distinction. 48 The two essays on Wentworth Woodhouse also enrich the relatively sparse scholarship on the house in comparison to that on other big houses. 49 Heidegger, ‘Thing’.

PA R T O N E

Political Positioning after the Glorious Revolution

Figure 2.1 Sebastiano Ricci, The Baptism of Christ, c. 1713–14.

2 Introduction Oliver Cox

Returning to London from a visit to Oxford in March 1733, the antiquary, engraver, and pioneer art historian George Vertue paused ‘at the Duke of Portlands Gerrards Cross [Bulstrode House]’, where he explored a chapel recently painted by the Venetian émigré artist Sebastiano Ricci and ‘2 other rooms painted formerly whilst this house was in the posses of Lord Jeffreys.’1 While the preparatory oil sketch for the Baptism of Christ, shown in figure 2.1, gives a sense of the chapel’s decoration, the four continents ceiling painted for Lord Jeffreys has long since vanished. Returning to Bulstrode in October 1737 after a tour of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire that included Compton Verney, Kenilworth Castle, Blenheim Palace, and an opportunity to examine Inigo Jones’s annotated copy of Palladio’s Quattro Libri at Worcester College, Oxford, Vertue repeated his observations on the chapel and ceiling paintings before noting additional works, including ‘first Earl of Portland – (Benting) at len by Sr. G. Kneller – a double half lenght [sic]. Thomas Earl of Southampton Ld Treasurer. and his Lady. P. Lely. P’.2 On 6 August 1748, another visitor to Bulstrode recorded her impressions. Lady Sophia Newdigate of Arbury Hall, Warwickshire, related how the house was built by the Lord Chancellor Jeffreys there are some good rooms in it ye Hall is large hung with pictures by Snider at ye upper end stands a Table of a kind of Grecian marble 16 foot long & 4 foot over, in ye middle near a foot thick, ye Chappel is a well proportioned room, lin’d wth cedar ye Ceiling & sides are painted in Fresco by Sebastian Rizzi, one Side is ye last supper ye other ye Baptism of St. John, ye ceiling ye ascension, the apartments in general are too high well furnishd & particularly wth

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oliver cox good pictures of several of ye most eminent Masters, this house stands in a large well wooded Park wch seems to want water the gardens are 70 acres laid out by ye Earl of Portland Grandfather to ye present Duke who came over with King William & brought ye dutch taste along with him in which they still continue.3

Newdigate concluded her diary entry by observing the orange trees standing sentinel in front of the ‘whole length of ye house wch is sixteen windows’ before relaying how ‘Ye Duke is going to make great Alterations in the Gardens which are at a great expense kept in a form now quite out of Taste’.4 This was a point made in less flattering terms by Horace Walpole to George Montagu in October 1763, noting: ‘[I have] been often at Bulstrode from Chaffont, but I don’t like it. It is Dutch and trist’.5 Bulstrode scarcely features in histories of the late seventeenth and early to mid-eighteenth centuries,6 but, as the accounts of these three visitors show, the long echo of the Glorious Revolution could still be heard in (then) rural Buckinghamshire. Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, purchased Bulstrode in 1706 from the family of James II’s Lord Chancellor, George Jeffreys. In 1688, as Bentinck was overseeing the construction of twenty-one warships, planning the provisioning and clothing of an invasion force of sixteen thousand men and four thousand horses, Jeffreys was not only present at the birth of the Prince of Wales but also hosted the king twice at Bulstrode, having previously hosted Charles II in 1678.7 Jeffreys remained loyal to James II throughout the autumn of 1688, and, after the king threw the Great Seal into the Thames in the early hours of 11 December, he attempted to escape too. While James II made it out, Jeffreys was caught, imprisoned, and died in the Tower of London. Bentinck and his cavalry regiment were, by 18 December, stationed in Richmond and Wimbledon. Bentinck’s purchase of Bulstrode in 1706, therefore, seems a clear confirmation of the Williamite victory, a victory easily visible to Newdigate and Walpole through Bentinck’s rather unsubtle inclusion of a row of orange trees across the south front of the house. Bulstrode’s architecture and decorative schemes hint at some of the more vexing questions surrounding political affiliations and decorative choices. As Tabitha Barber has cautioned, trying to align political ideology with aesthetic style can be a dangerous game, and Bulstrode highlights some of these pitfalls,8 especially when the time taken to complete building works or decorative schemes was in stark contrast to the rapidly changing political context. Most significantly, Bulstrode was not treated as a blank slate by Bentinck and his descendants, even

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Figure 2.2 Thomas Willson, The South Prospect of Bullstrod (Bulstrode Park, Buckinghamshire), c. 1715–20.

with such close historical associations with the fallen Stuart monarchy. Adaptation, rather than demolition, was their preferred approach. Thomas Willson’s engraving of Bulstrode from the fourth edition of Vitruvius Britannicus in 1739 shows how the core structure remained surprisingly unchanged (see figure 2.2). The red brick fifteen-bay south front, constructed for Jeffreys from 1676 onwards, includes all the hallmarks of Restoration-style architecture, creating a quadrangle around the hall of the earlier manor house.9 The interiors, as related by Vertue, maintained the four continents decorative scheme created by Nicholas Heude for Jeffreys – an early expression of the centrality of country house owners to global networks of trade, exploitation, military, and scientific interactions – with Sebastiano Ricci’s work in the chapel an addendum to the core of the house.10 Bulstrode, therefore, was not necessarily a country house setting for Williamite iconoclasm. Part of this restraint might be due to the heavy losses suffered from the South Sea Bubble by Bentinck’s son, Henry, 1st Duke of Portland, and his subsequent attempts to rehabilitate the family fortunes by taking up the post of the Governor of Jamaica in 1722.11 Portland’s direct involvement in governing a slave society, and investing in the financial products that supported it, also underscores the importance of placing country houses within their local and imperial networks.

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The two essays in this section explore the art and architecture commissioned by some of the leading protagonists in this half-century of change, expanding some of the issues raised by this brief analysis of Bulstrode Park. Amy Lim tackles one of the most enduring truisms of country house studies – the idea that country house owners built and furnished lavish suites of state apartments in the hope or expectation of receiving a visit from the monarch – suggesting that not only were the number of completed schemes relatively small, but even where state apartments had been completed their owners were often rather ambivalent about hosting the monarch. George Jeffreys hosted three royal visits without a formal suite of state apartments at Bulstrode. Using the royal progress made by William III in 1695, Lim demonstrates how aristocratic families balanced the potential for advancement with the likely financial outlay required to host the monarch. In the case of William Cavendish, 4th Earl (later 1st Duke) of Devonshire, and John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter, who sought no further influence, preferment, or elevation, it made more sense to absent themselves from their creations at Chatsworth and Burghley. In so doing, Lim critically evaluates the assertions of earlier architectural historians, including James Lees-Milne and Mark Girouard, suggesting both the dangers of reading forward an early modern conception of royal progresses onto the late seventeenth century, and the challenges of using a few great houses as determinants for how the functioning of the larger mass of politicians’ houses evolved. Rather, Lim suggests that where state apartments were constructed, the primary purpose was not to accommodate the hoped-for visiting monarch but, rather, to affirm and validate the owner’s social and political position both in the present and for posterity. While the country house embodied the ancestry and lineage that constituted an individual’s political inheritance, the London townhouse and court lodgings were the more frequent backdrops to business, social, and political interactions. This is an idea developed further by Juliet Learmouth in her analysis of the construction of Marlborough House on Pall Mall by Sarah Churchill, 1st Duchess of Marlborough. Learmouth reappraises the inherited interpretation that the house was conceived in opposition to the grandeur and extravagance of Blenheim Palace, stressing that the building’s style and appearance needs to be interpreted in the context of the Duchess of Marlborough’s position at Court between the summer of 1708 and the completion of Louis Laguerre’s mural cycle in 1713–14, by which time she was living in exile on the continent. Learmouth documents how the duchess sought to use architecture to consolidate her position as the tides of Court, and public favour, turned against her.

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Running across both essays is a shared concern with the varieties of spaces and places where politics could be conducted. Both Lim and Learmouth stress the importance of proximity to power. Marlborough House was right next door to St James’s Palace, and those country houses that received royal visits were most likely enroute to the monarch’s chosen destination: Petworth to Portsmouth, and Castle House in Marlborough on the London to Bath and Bristol road. The essays also share a commitment to placing country houses within a network of families’ and individuals’ other properties, stressing the importance of court lodgings for the business of politics. The Duchess of Marlborough enjoyed the use of lodgings in both St James’s Palace and Kensington Palace in the early years of Queen Anne’s reign, while the Duke of Devonshire kept his Philip II of Spain, thought to be by Titian, in his Whitehall lodgings. These essays also share a commitment to exploring and unpacking the range of different temporalities at play in houses of politicians. In some cases, such as Laguerre’s mural cycle at Marlborough House, decorative decisions could be a response to immediate political prompts, while, as Amy Lim demonstrates, the decision to design, build, and furnish state apartments aimed to secure reputations for posterity.

notes 1 Vertue, Vertue Note-books, 4:47–8. 2 Ibid., 139. 3 ‘Lady Newdigate’s tour in the South of England’, cr1841/7: 13, Newdegate of Arbury, Warwickshire County Record Office, Warwick (wcro). 4 ‘Lady Newdigate’s tour in the South of England’, cr1841/7: 13-14, Newdegate of Arbury, wcro. 5 Horace Walpole to George Montagu, 3 October 1763, in Walpole, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with George Montagu, 10:104. 6 Bulstrode in the mid- to late eighteenth century has attracted considerable scholarly attention due to the constellation of intellectuals and botanists that gathered around the Dowager Duchess of Portland. See, for example, Pelling, ‘Collecting the World’; Laird and Weisberg-Roberts, Mrs Delany and Her Circle, passim. 7 Halliday, ‘Jeffreys, George’. 8 Tabitha Barber, ‘Introduction’, in Barber, British Baroque, 13. 9 Harris, ‘Bulstrode’, 319–20. 10 As Stephanie Barczewski notes, four continents imagery was of particular significant for the Whig elite. See Barczewski, ‘Elite Imperial Vision’. 11 Haggerty and Seymour, ‘Imperial Careering’, 642.

3 For Politics, Progresses, or Posterity? Some Alternative Reasons for Building State Apartments Amy Lim The diarist Abraham de la Pryme, though a clergyman, was not above the titillations of gossip, especially when it related to royalty. In his entry for 21 November 1695, he recounted information ‘from very good hands’ concerning William III’s recent progress around England. At Belton House near Grantham, Lincolnshire, the seat of Sir John Brownlow, ‘the king was mightly [sic] nobly entertained … exceeding merry there, and drunk very freely’, resulting in a hangover of such proportions ‘that when he came to Lincoln he could eat nothing but a mess of milk’.1 But Pryme’s interest in the entertainment was more than mere prurience. He noted the contrast between Brownlow’s generous hospitality (twelve fat oxen and sixty sheep slaughtered), the even greater munificence of Evelyn Pierrepont, 5th Earl of Kingston upon Hull, at Thoresby, Nottinghamshire (‘near twenty oxen kill’d, besides great numbers of sheeps … all sorts of wines that can be imagined’), and the relative parsimony of John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne, who ‘tho’ he went to meet his Majesty at Dunham ferry, and tho’ he carryed him home to his house [Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire], yet he behaved himself the sneakinglyest to him that can be imagined for a man of his quality and figure’.2 Nor were these disparities unnoticed by the king, who ‘is sayd to have sayd that Brownley entertained him like a prince, Kingstone like an emperor, and Newcastle like a clown’.3 Nowhere does Pryme mention the architectural surroundings in which the king was received. Whether or not he could be lodged in state apartments appeared to have little or no bearing on where he chose to stay, and honour was measured by hospitality rather than opulence. It is an often-repeated truism that country house owners built and furnished lavish suites of state apartments in the hope or expectation of receiving a visit from the monarch, with a view

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to furthering their political career or social status.4 This essay considers the ways in which state apartments were (and were not) used by royal visitors to country houses in late Stuart England in order to examine that assumption and finds that it does not always stand up to scrutiny. It was certainly the case that country houses played an essential part in the self-fashioning of landed families, many of whom held important posts at Court and in government. As the most prestigious rooms within a country house, state apartments were deeply implicated in the relationship between power and display.5 Politics, however, was only one factor among many in determining why state apartments were built. The expression of magnificence and the desire to create a personal and dynastic legacy were just as important in motivating these grand statements of architecture and interiors as were the more immediate concerns of politics.

The Baroque Country House The most important feature of a country house built in the so-called ‘Baroque’ style was the enfilade of state apartments. It was the focus of the architectural plan and contained the most sumptuous interiors and furnishings. The enfilade followed the European courtly model introduced to England after 1660 by the newly restored Charles II, who had seen such arrangements during his exile in France, Germany, and the Netherlands between 1651 and 1660.6 It comprised a linear progression of rooms culminating in a state bedchamber, where the monarch would receive visitors, transact business, and in the Court of Louis XIV (and sometimes Charles II) conduct the formal ceremonies of lever and coucher. These chambres de parade were intended primarily for display and ceremony, while the monarch usually slept in a second, more informal bedchamber. Although the exact arrangement and use of these rooms varied from Court to Court, the principle remained the same, with access to each room in the unfolding sequence becoming progressively more restricted, while the décor and furnishings within became correspondingly more lavish. The magnificent state bed symbolized the monarch’s person and was the climax of the furnishing scheme, justifying the expenditure of hundreds of pounds on costly materials.7 State apartments were therefore the pinnacle of display and a showcase of the patron’s wealth, taste, and magnificence. Our understanding of the purpose and function of state apartments is underpinned by the ceremonial use of these spaces in royal palaces. These principles have also been applied to country

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houses, most notably by Mark Girouard, whose ekphrasis of the so-called ‘axis of honour’ lies at the heart of his analysis of the ‘formal house’.8 Yet the very different owners and functions of country houses have rarely been considered in studies of Baroque state apartments. The earliest examples of Baroque enfilades in England were adaptations of existing structures. Charles II began to make changes at Whitehall Palace, London, from the 1660s, but it was his major renovation of Windsor Castle, Berkshire, in the 1670s that set the architectural and decorative standards that other houses would follow, and in that same decade enfilades were created within existing country seats at Ham House, Surrey; Warwick Castle, Warwickshire; and Nottingham Castle, Nottinghamshire.9 From the 1680s, the new architectural fashion fully took hold, and wealthy landowners across England began to build or rebuild their country seats according to new continental principles. In place of the rectangular double-pile structures that had dominated country house building since the Restoration, plans became more linear, with mirrored pairs of apartments radiating from a central saloon (see figure 3.1). Although the ground plan and elevation were not necessarily tied, exteriors were usually also redefined in the Baroque idiom, characterized by palatial scale, giant classical orders, balustrades, and carved ornament.10 Such designs copied elements of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s designs for the Louvre, and the everprogressing works at Versailles.11 Mirrored pairs of apartments were the ideal arrangement, but patrons, architects, and master masons were often forced to make compromises. At Chatsworth in Derbyshire, rebuilt in phases by William Cavendish, 4th Earl (later 1st Duke) of Devonshire, there was only space for a single suite of state apartments within the footprint of the Elizabethan house, so architect William Talman created the effect of mirrored suites by placing an actual mirror at the end of the enfilade. It was only in those houses built entirely from scratch, such as Castle Howard, Yorkshire, and Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, both designed by John Vanbrugh in the early 1700s, that the plan could be executed in its purest form. In practice, very few country houses followed the Baroque model in its entirety, and even including those that were adapted from existing structures, the total remained small.12 Nevertheless, the disproportionate impact of totemic houses such as Chatsworth and Blenheim on country house studies has led to the foregrounding of the state apartment in architectural and art historical studies and guidebooks alike.13 While state apartments in royal palaces would be regularly used by the monarch, those in country houses lay empty and unused. Elizabeth I’s Court

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Figure 3.1 Colen Campbell, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, seat of the Duke of Marlborough: plan of the principal floor, from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 56.

had been notably peripatetic: she regularly descended on her courtiers’ houses, and her Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, hosted her at Theobalds, Hertfordshire, eight times.14 Such visits justified heavy expenditure on building and decorating to accommodate the needs of the Court. But although royal progresses continued under the Stuarts, they declined in frequency, and those royal journeys that were made have been examined almost exclusively from the monarch’s perspective.15 This essay reverses that viewpoint, considering instead that of the hosts. It has hitherto been assumed that subjects awaited a potential royal visit with unqualified enthusiasm, building and lavishly furnishing state apartments in their country houses in the hope and expectation of a royal visit. James Lees-Milne was in no doubt that this was the case. Introducing English Country Houses: Baroque, 1685–1715, he writes: ‘In country houses of our period much attention was paid by owners to the apartments of state. They were intended and usually reserved for display. In his daydreams the great Whig lord looked forward to the occasion when he might receive his sovereign in a fashion that would bring him credit.’16 This view has

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invariably been repeated in country house guidebooks, whose contents often reflect the scholarship of the previous generation.17 Other scholars have highlighted the metaphorical function of state apartments, with Sebastian Edwards arguing that they were ‘a potent symbol of royal power’ and a demonstration of loyalty to the Crown that continued after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89.18 John Summerson saw state apartments as the physical manifestation of the growing confidence of the Whig oligarchy who dominated government offices and controlled both Houses of Parliament in the decade after the Revolution. None exemplified this more than Chatsworth, described as ‘an artistic revolution which is the counterpart of the political revolution in which the Earl [4th Earl of Devonshire] was so prominent a leader’.19 Recent scholarship has highlighted the centrality of the Glorious Revolution to the allegorical mural paintings at Chatsworth.20 Some state apartments were indeed built in the hope of hosting the monarch: Lees-Milne cites correspondence from William Blathwayt that makes explicit his hopes of encouraging Queen Anne to visit Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire, on her way to or from Bath.21 However, the contradictory behaviour in the autumn of 1695 of some of England’s leading politicians and country house owners points to a more complicated relationship between architecture and politics.

The Royal Progress of 1695 The royal progress made by William III in 1695 was the first and only such dedicated journey made by a Stuart monarch after the Revolution.22 Its timing was expedient. The king’s legitimacy was still challenged in some quarters at home and abroad. He was not personally popular, even among those who supported him politically; his Dutch nationality and reserved nature both presented barriers. Mary II, whose character and lineage had done much to win acceptance for the new regime, had died the previous December. The progress was an opportunity to capitalize on his major victory at Namur in the Low Countries the previous month. William hoped to secure support for continued funding of a war that was essential to securing Europe-wide recognition of his claim to the English and Scottish thrones. With a general election looming, it was also an opportunity for William to demonstrate his support for the Whig candidates. He used the three-week progress in October and November 1695 to meet and greet his subjects around the country, garnering support and goodwill from the nobility, universities, and the church.

Figure 3.2 Route of William III’s progress, October–November 1695.

There was also a personal element to the progress. The king hoped ‘to divert myself somewhat and to see some of the country, since I have not been there yet’.23 Besides enjoying some horseracing and rural sports, he planned to visit several country houses. William took a close interest in gardens, interiors, and furnishings, and the three-week progress was an opportunity to see the finest and latest fashions and gather ideas for his own palaces. On his tour he visited ten country houses, staying a week with Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, at Althorp, Northamptonshire, and four nights with the 1st Duke of Newcastle at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, as well as single nights and short daytime visits to other houses (see figure 3.2).24 Unlike his predecessor James II, who had favoured urban stopovers when travelling, William’s itinerary concentrated on country houses.25 According to official reports in the London Gazette and the subsequently published Royal Progress, Or, a Diary of the King’s Journey (1695), the tour was an unqualified success, the king ‘receiv’d everywhere … with hearty English Demonstrations of Respect, Zeal, Affection and Fidelity’.26 Many of the nobility and gentry did offer the king a warm welcome and take the opportunity to show off their country seats. Ralph Montagu, 1st Earl (later 1st Duke) of Montagu,

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was delighted to receive him at his magnificent house at Boughton, Northamptonshire, newly renovated into a French-style palace complete with state enfilade. The king did not stay overnight but dined with Montagu who gave him a tour, pointing out the carving and Louis Chéron’s painted ceilings. The interiors and furnishings at Boughton were among the most fashionable and sophisticated in England, and the king, who shared Montagu’s francophile tastes, was no doubt a highly informed and appreciative audience. In philosophical mood, William observed ruefully to Montagu: ‘’Twas not good for One to set One’s Heart on any of Them, for neither He nor his Lordship should be there Forty Years hence to see them.’27 It was perhaps the recent death of Queen Mary, who had been the driving force behind the new building at Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, that caused this rare moment of reflection in a culture that generally embraced self-aggrandizement with enthusiasm. Sir John Brownlow, whose generous hospitality I describe above, did not possess a suite of state apartments at his relatively modest seat, Belton House; however, his inability to lodge the king in state was in no way detrimental to his fortune. Pryme recounts: ‘The king because that he had the first good entertainment that he mett with in the country at Sr. Jo Brownley’s, he has sent up for him to London, to honour him the more, and to requite him for his kindness.’28 As John Adamson has observed, magnificence was expressed even more through hospitality and ephemeral events than material culture, and it is noteworthy that, during William’s progress, both the king and chroniclers such as Pryme were as impressed by the quality of the food and drink on offer as by the lavish surroundings.29 Twelve slaughtered oxen counted for as much as a crimson damask bed. Montagu and Brownlow were both men with much to gain from royal favour, which may explain the enthusiastic welcome they gave the king. In 1689, William had raised Montagu to an earldom and restored his Court office of Master of the Great Wardrobe, but he sought even greater honour. In May 1694 he had written to the king requesting a dukedom, citing his support for the king, only to be refused.30 Brownlow, a wealthy baronet, was standing as a parliamentary candidate for the Borough of Grantham the very day after the king’s visit. Brownlow was a Tory, so the king’s visit was not so much a political as a social endorsement, evidently no less valuable since he was duly elected.31 Similarly, the unscrupulous and manipulative Earl of Sunderland had an explicitly political agenda when he hosted the king at his country seat, Althorp, for the first week of the progress. Sunderland too hoped that by showing off his favoured position with the king he could influence the forthcoming general election to

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his advantage.32 In this instance, the country house was being used for a very specific political purpose. Not everyone was falling over themselves to host the king, however, and others who had less to gain were correspondingly less welcoming. The Duke of Newcastle had already been created a duke and made Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire in 1694, and had been promised a place in the Order of the Garter as soon as one was available. Entertaining the king ‘like a clown’ for four days at Welbeck still cost Newcastle £5,642 (a year’s income for a less wealthy nobleman), of which the single largest item was £450 on ‘Wine of all sorts’.33 Since Pryme considered Newcastle’s hospitality to be insulting, it must have been manifest in his demeanour towards the king rather than in the more tangible aspects of hospitality. Newcastle had been given very little notice of the king’s visit, and the tone of his reply to Lord Sunderland’s letter, in which he asked for further details, was distinctly tetchy.34 Rather than enthusiastically welcoming the royal visit, Newcastle saw it as an inconvenient and expensive imposition. This cost/benefit analysis may have been the underlying reason the owners of two of the most magnificent Baroque country houses, John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter, and the Duke of Devonshire, turned down altogether the opportunity to host the king. Lord Exeter, a renowned connoisseur who had filled Burghley House, Lincolnshire, with the fruits of several continental journeys, showed no desire for either political or Court office. Although he remained involved in local politics, he had effectively taken the decision to withdraw from national politics in 1671 when he had petitioned for a licence to redevelop his London house into commercial and residential property.35 Although the country estate was the engine-house of power and politics – the principal source of wealth, military force, and parliamentary seats – a base in the capital was a necessity for those who desired to maintain a regular presence at Court or in Parliament. Furthermore, although neither a Catholic nor a Jacobite (as has been speculated by historians), the earl refused to swear the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in 1689, thus disqualifying himself from public office.36 Despite this, he rebuilt and furnished his seat at Burghley House (constructed 1555–87) in similar style to his more politically engaged contemporaries, employing the same architects, artists, and craftsmen to complete the interiors.37 As the essays in part 2 of this volume make clear, style could carry varied meanings and was not necessarily aligned with political affiliation. Although he made only a few minor alterations to the exterior of Burghley House, Lord Exeter reconfigured the interior to create twin suites of apartments for himself and his countess, with a further enfilade of state apartments. Only two of the state rooms – the dressing room and

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closet – were complete by October 1695, but Exeter could easily have lodged the king in the ‘Best Bedd chamber’ or in his own apartments.38 Not only did they contain the requisite arrangement of withdrawing room, bedchamber, and closet, but their furnishings were of princely quality.39 The Exeters cannot have built the state apartments at Burghley House with the hope of hosting the king since, when he did come to visit, they virtually turned him away from their doorstep. On 28 October, William arrived in Stamford on the edge of the Burghley estate only to find the Exeters away from home. The disjoint between the king’s eagerness to see Burghley and the Exeters’ deliberate absence is startling. William lodged instead with the recently defeated parliamentary candidate Sir Pury Cust (a haven of Whiggism in staunchly Tory Stamford) and, although it was already evening, went (tho’ out of his way) to see Burghly [sic] House, the seat and constant Residence of the Earl of Exeter, who was come away to London, which His Majesty being inform’d of, was pleas’d to ask, if he had carried his House with him? answer was made no; Then, says the King, I’ll go and see it, which his Majesty did twice, that night and the next morning, being extreamly satisfied with it.40 It is inconceivable that the Exeters did not know of the king’s intended visit. The route via Stamford had even been planned ‘for the conveniency of seeing my Lord Exeter’s house’; the king’s itinerary was published in the Gazette a few days in advance; and, Henry Lowman, who was the steward to the Duke of Devonshire, organized the progress and the duke was the Countess of Exeter’s brother.41 The decision to ‘come away to London’ can only have been deliberate. Exeter was no friend of William III, and in 1698 ‘my Lord Exeter’s character in relation to His Majesty’s Government’ was still sufficiently doubtful to prevent his son being formally presented at the Court of Versailles.42 Besides political disaffection, another likely reason for his absence is that of expense. By the autumn of 1695, the enormous costs of rebuilding and furnishing Burghley were catching up with him and there was a backlog of unpaid tradesmen’s bills. Cashflow had reached such crisis levels that Exeter was forced to pawn his silver plate to the baker as surety against payment.43 Ironically, he had expended his fortune on creating and furnishing state apartments suitable to receive a monarch, only to be unable to afford the visit when the opportunity arose. No one doubted the loyalty of the Duke of Devonshire. He had been one of the seven signatories of the letter inviting William of Orange to intervene in

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English affairs in 1688, triggering the Glorious Revolution. He supported William with militia troops and parliamentary votes, and was rewarded with the Garter, the leading Court office of Lord Steward, and in May 1694 was elevated to the dukedom. As a moderate Whig, he served as a Privy councillor, Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, and twice sat on the regency council that advised Queen Mary during William’s absences overseas. Yet, notwithstanding these loyal credentials, like his brother-in-law Exeter, he turned down the opportunity to host the king during his 1695 progress. This was despite the fact that between 1686 and 1692 he had rebuilt the south and east fronts of his family seat at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, into one of the most magnificent Baroque houses of the age.44 On the second floor of the south front was a suite of state apartments furnished with murals, woodcarving, tapestries, inlaid floors, and a great state bed. It has often been said that the state apartments at Chatsworth were built in anticipation of, or readiness for, a royal visit, but when presented with this possibility Devonshire was remarkably indifferent to the prospect.45 Devonshire’s own servant, Henry Lowman, who was based in his Whitehall lodgings, had been put in charge of organizing the progress. The duke had secured his servant a position in the royal household as 3rd Clerk of the Kitchen, but Lowman did not rely on Devonshire’s patronage alone.46 By January 1695 he was ‘a great favourite at Court’ and in October 1695 was given the task of arranging the king’s journey.47 The route was not fixed, and Devonshire was well positioned to influence the itinerary in favour of a visit to Chatsworth (or his other Derbyshire seat at Hardwick Hall), which indeed is what some of his own servants expected.48 Instead, Devonshire accompanied the king only as far as Newmarket, Suffolk, from where he chose to ‘goe noe further with the King,’ returning to London having ‘lost a deale of money’ on the horse races.49 If the raison d’être of the state apartments at Chatsworth was to receive the monarch, surely Devonshire would at least have attempted to secure a royal visit, but he did no such thing. Money, once again, may have been the overriding consideration. By 1695 Devonshire’s creditors were clamouring for payment with desperate tradesmen threatening to sue, and the escalating currency crisis was also causing difficulties in obtaining cash.50 Extraordinary outgoings in 1694–95 had included fees of £1,200 for his elevation to the dukedom, £600 of damage caused by a fire at Arlington House (his temporary London home), and £1,500 blown on the horses on a single trip to Newmarket.51 In the face of his cashflow crisis, Devonshire kept an iron grip on the purse strings (apart from his persistent gambling habit),

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and it may simply have been too expensive to invite William to Chatsworth. A royal visit typically cost thousands of pounds, with little to be gained: Devonshire was already a knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, a duke, one of the four principal Court officers, and had as much political power as he wanted.52 Unlike Sunderland, Montagu, and Brownlow, neither Devonshire nor Exeter sought further influence, preferment, or elevation, and so they chose not to squander their scarce resources.

Royal Visitors Geography was more important than architecture in determining whether a country house received a royal visit, be it as part of a royal progress or during a journey to a specific destination. A country house located on a major road was much more likely to receive a royal visitor, regardless of the accommodation provided. It was the proximity of Petworth, Sussex, to the London to Portsmouth road that accounted for all three of its royal visits in the years following the Revolution.53 Charles and Elizabeth Seymour, 6th Duke and Duchess of Somerset, had invested the Duchess’s immense inheritance in rebuilding Petworth into a French-inspired palace with private and state apartments, as well as a further enfilade intended only to display the best of the tapestries, carvings, and paintings.54 In February 1693 and May 1700, William III stayed on his way to and from Portsmouth, an important port on the south coast; and in December 1703, Petworth hosted the meeting between newly arrived Archduke Charles, Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne, and Queen Anne’s consort, Prince George of Denmark, who had been dispatched to greet him. The archduke had just landed at Portsmouth and the prince, accompanied by the Duke of Somerset and John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, had been ordered by the queen to meet him on her behalf. On arrival, each of the principal members of the party paid a series of ceremonial visits to the other’s apartments, enacting status and honour spatially through the precise locations in which they greeted and sat with one another. It is the best-documented (and possibly the only) example of the ceremonial use of Baroque state apartments in a British country house, used by Mark Girouard to illustrate the mechanics of the ‘formal house’.55 Although the visit of the Archduke Charles and Prince George to Petworth was an important ceremonial occasion, the Somersets in fact received more royal visits at their other properties, despite the fact that they did not offer the

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Figure 3.3 Plan of Castle House, Marlborough, c. 1684–1706. Key: A: Queen’s Dressing Room; B: Queen’s Bedchamber; C: Queen’s Closestool Room; D: Drawing Room; E: Dining Room; F: Room next the Dining Room; G: Gilt Leather Room; H: Backstairs; I: Great Staircase.

‘correct’ accommodation. The duke’s ancestral home of Castle House in Marlborough, Wiltshire, was a convenient stopping place on the London to Bath and Bristol road, which accounted for its regular royal guests. James II stayed during his west country progress in August 1686, Queen Mary of Modena on her way to Bath for fertility treatment in 1687, and William III on his return from Ireland in September 1690, after landing at Bristol.56 Castle House, an unpretentious property built in the 1610s, was not particularly well equipped for these visits, containing nothing more ceremonious than ordinary bedchambers. Although the duke rebuilt Castle House in the 1690s, it was to a relatively modest design. A compact suite of state apartments comprising drawing room, bedchamber, dressing, and close-stool rooms was incorporated into the east wing. Queen Anne stayed on her way to and from Bath in October 1702 and August 1703, but they offered nothing like the grandeur of Petworth (see figure 3.3). Similarly, the Somersets’ property at Syon House, Middlesex, where Anne (then princess) and her husband Prince George spent two months in 1692 after her ejection from Court, had not been modernized for several decades. Convenience played a bigger part in attracting royal visitors than architecture. Given that royal visits to country houses were infrequent, unpredictable, and contingent upon location, most royal and political entertaining took place in London town houses. The demolition of the vast majority of aristocratic town

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houses and the dispersal of their contents (often to country houses) has led to an artificial emphasis on the country house in modern scholarship. Although nearly all country house owners still derived their fortunes from land, most spent the greater part of the year in London, where Court, Parliament, and the machinery of government all operated.57 Susannah Avery-Quash and Kate Retford have recently sought to redress this imbalance for the Georgian period, and although further research is needed on town houses of the preceding decades, they appear to follow a similar pattern.58 Inventories and visitor descriptions consistently show that the most prestigious paintings and furnishings were kept in London, underlining the importance of the town house as a site of display.59 Magnificent surroundings fulfilled a semiotic purpose, validating their owners’ actual or hoped-for social and political position. With most business and social interactions taking place in the capital, clients, associates, and occasional royalty would be far more likely to see and be impressed by displays of material culture in London. The Dukes of Montagu, Devonshire, and Somerset all entertained important visitors regularly at their London residences and, consequently, displayed most of their best artworks and furnishings in the capital. Montagu House in Bloomsbury was renowned for its murals and fine French furnishings, and Lord Montagu hosted a regular salon of leading French emigrés.60 The Duke of Devonshire entertained William III at Devonshire House in March 1697, and in June 1698 and January 1700 he threw splendid dinners there for the French ambassador.61 While his country houses of Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, were principally hung with historical family portraits and decorative overdoor paintings, Devonshire’s Old Masters were displayed in London, at Devonshire House and in his Whitehall lodgings. It was at Whitehall that he kept his Phillip II of Spain, thought to be by Titian, and, on the night of the great Whitehall fire of January 1698, Devonshire’s servants saved ‘my lord’s best pictures’ from the flames, along with his strong box, china, and other ‘Choise things’.62 Court lodgings have been overlooked even more than town houses, but this suggests that we should reconsider their importance as a site not only of politics but also of display. Similarly, the Duke and Duchess of Somerset used their London town house and Court lodgings as sites of business, and the duke’s Old Masters were split between London and Petworth. Although his prized Claude Lorrain was at the latter, his most renowned painting, The Cornari Family by Titian (now known as The Vendramin Family), hung at Northumberland House in London, the Somerset property that received the highest number of visitors.63

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Purpose and Posterity The relationship between state apartments, royal visits, and political or social preferment was therefore tenuous. It was a major undertaking to build a suite of state apartments in a country house since such apartments occupied the prime site within the ground plan and cost thousands of pounds to fit out. They may possibly, but would probably never, receive a visit from the monarch, who in any case was more impressed by generous hospitality than material surroundings. And with most country houses situated far from London or major routes, the capital was much more important as a site of entertainment and display. As an investment, Baroque state apartments were high risk, with an extremely poor rate of return. Why then build them at all? One possible answer is that state apartments were designed to impress and exert influence over local, rather than national, politics. Almost all owners of large country seats were active in county politics. Most peers, including all those discussed above, began their political careers in the House of Commons before taking their seats in the Lords and, after inheriting their titles, continued to be actively involved in local elections on behalf of their sons. State apartments might be used, as James Lees-Milne suggests, to receive ‘neighbours, tenants and petitioners’ in the manner of ‘a petty prince’.64 But, as Dana Arnold argues, the country house also served a metaphorical function, acting as ‘a symbol of the power and wealth of the landowner and more broadly the social, cultural, and political hegemony of the ruling classes’.65 A magnificent country house could impress the local electorate (a select group of property holders) of the rightfulness of the owner to occupy or influence seats in Parliament. The reach of a suite of state apartments could also be extended through printed or verbal visitor accounts. The interiors of Burghley and Petworth were both lauded in print following the royal visits of 1695 and 1703, respectively, praising the ‘great variety of Pictures, and fine Painting and Carving … the best in England’ and ‘exceeding rich Furniture, fine Pictures, Carving &c’.66 Such printed accounts were rare, however, and contained little more information than generalized plaudits. Some visitor accounts may have circulated in manuscript form, but many of the best-known accounts of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, such as those of Celia Fiennes and Daniel Defoe, were not published until several years, or even centuries, later.67 Furthermore, none of these audiences could fully appreciate the subtle gradations of taste and exclusivity on display in the most elite interiors. They could not recognize the quality and prestige of Gobelins tapestries, Italian paintings, or Flemish

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marquetry. Defoe’s descriptions are thick with hyperbole but thin on specifics, and, while Fiennes often provided admirable detail, her appraising eye was attuned to the cost of materials rather than artistic merit or fashion.68 Aristocrats like Montagu, Devonshire, Somerset, and Exeter expended far more money and effort on furnishing state apartments than could be justified by local or casual visitors. These objects could only be read by a small circle of cognoscenti who possessed the material literacy to appreciate what they were seeing. Country house owners did pay visits to each other’s seat, albeit primarily within regional networks. This intra-elite display was certainly an important audience but could not fully justify the effort and expense of building and furnishing state apartments. There was another, unseen, audience for this architectural splendour, in the form of posterity. In The Fabrication of Louis XIV, Peter Burke identifies three audiences for the Sun King’s program of magnificence: foreign dignitaries and princes, the French nobility, and, above all, posterity.69 While the English nobility’s circle of influence was somewhat narrower, they too had a strong eye to the future. The ultimate goal was to pass on one’s estate, preferably in an enhanced condition, to future (male) generations, thus perpetuating and aggrandizing the family’s name and honour, which were more important than short-term political power.70 This was demonstrated by the Duke of Somerset in October 1715 when he heard of the arrest of his son-in-law Sir William Wyndham on suspicion of Jacobite plotting. Somerset had been reappointed by George I to his former Court position of Master of the Horse, but on hearing that the king had ordered Wyndham’s arrest, despite the duke’s offering surety, he became so ‘very much enraged at such unexpected Treatment to a Person of his Rank and Station’ that he not only resigned his offices but also physically threw his regalia into the palace courtyard.71 This act of hubris marked the end of his political career. While this so-called ‘Proud Duke’ was an extreme case, honour and lineage remained important and motivating concepts for the haute nobility. The country house was the symbolic home of the dynasty. Political, social, and commercial life may have been concentrated in the capital, but land was the source of wealth for most late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century country house owners. The country estate was where generations of the family had lived, built, planted, dispensed patronage, raised militia, and made the final journey home for burial in the parish church. Those already in the highest echelons of society built not for instrumental purposes but to commemorate their own greatness. The country house served as a counterpart to the funerary monument – a memorial in brick or freestone rather than alabaster. Heraldry was

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carved into overmantels and achievements proclaimed through mural paintings. A Baroque makeover with an enfilade of state apartments was a demonstration that the owner was abreast of the latest European fashions. If they could be of instrumental use in the present this was a bonus, but they were principally designed to cast glory onto future generations or reflect glory back onto the builder from the distance of posterity. These different functions of town and country houses were reflected in the buildings of John and Sarah Churchill, 1st Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. As newcomers to the nobility, they were founding, rather than continuing, a dynasty, but they demonstrated the same division of purpose between town and country as their longer established peers. In the following essay, Juliet Learmouth demonstrates how the duchess used the architecture and interiors of Marlborough House in London to communicate specific political messages to a contemporary audience. Meanwhile, at Blenheim, James Legard shows how the duke built a palace that was symbolic of his status as a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, ‘a marker of dynastic identity [and] a monument that propagated a mythic account of Marlborough’s place in British and European history’.72 Blenheim was planned on the ideal Baroque model with mirrored suites of state apartments, while Marlborough House was comparatively modest and functional. As Kate Retford argues, the London townhouse was tied to the life of the individual, while country houses embodied ancestry and lineage.73 It was in their London houses where politicians primarily strove for and exercised power, while their country houses memorialized those achievements. As a political tool, state apartments were a high-risk, low-return investment. They were unlikely to be used by a reigning monarch or other member of the royal family; after the Restoration, royal progresses were infrequent and visits were contingent on proximity to a major route. Even then, traditional hospitality in the form of generous food and drink was as important, if not more so, than impressive material surroundings. Yet the country house owners discussed in this essay were prepared to expend vast sums of money on building and furnishing state apartments, even at the cost of being able to host the monarch when the opportunity did arise. They were not, therefore, primarily built for the instrumental purpose of winning favour or shoring-up power but, rather, to memorialize their creators. Baroque state apartments were the pinnacle of fashion in a Europe that was still led by courtly culture, pre-eminently that of the Court of Versailles. They raised the country house to the level of a palace and reflected their owner’s magnificence, shining his glory onto his descendants for generations to come.

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notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Jackson, Diary of Abraham de la Pryme, 73. Ibid. Ibid. For example, Lees-Milne, English Country Houses, 24. For a historiographical summary, see Cox, ‘From Power to Enslavement’. Edwards, ‘Fashioning and Furnishing for Performance: The Rise and Fall of the State Bedchamber in the English Royal Palace’, in Hallett, Llewellyn, and Myrone, Court, Country, City, 107. For example, in 1682 Charles II spent £476 on fabric and £585 on trimmings for a crimson velvet bed and ensuite chairs for his new lodgings in Whitehall Palace. See Great Wardrobe Bills, 1679–83, Lord Chamberlain, pro/lc9/276 ff. 117 and 146, National Archives, London. Girouard, Life in the English Country House, 144–7. Thurley, Hampton Court, 153. Anthony Geraghty, ‘Wren and the English Baroque’, in Barber, British Baroque, 84–5. Hirst, ‘Influence of the French Court’. Most are included in Lees-Milne, English Country Houses. For example, Girouard, Life in the English Country House; Obee, ‘Golden Age Returns’; Blenheim Palace. MacCaffrey, ‘Cecil, William’. For example, Keenan, Progresses; Raaij and Spies, Royal Progress; Farguson, ‘Art, Ceremony’. Lees-Milne, English Country Houses, 24. For example, Your Guide to Chatsworth, 40. Edwards, ‘Fashioning and Furnishing’, in Hallett, Llewellyn, and Myrone, Court, Country, City, 119. Summerson, ‘Classical Country House’, 542. Johns, ‘James Thornhill’, 116–52; Peterson, ‘New Golden Age’. Lees-Milne, English Country Houses, 24. Farguson, ‘Art, Ceremony’, 89–93, 129–39. Letter from William III to State Pensionary Heinsius, 15 October 1695, cited in Raaij and Spies, Royal Progress, 133. London Gazette, issues 3123–30 (14 October–11 November 1695). Farguson, ‘Art, Ceremony’, 130. Royal Progress, or, a Diary of the King’s Journey, 16. Ibid., 5–6. Jackson, Diary of Abraham de la Pryme, 73.

Alternative Reasons for Building State Apartments 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51

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Adamson, Princely Courts, 100. Metzger, ‘Montagu, Ralph’. ‘Brownlow, Sir John’. Speck, ‘Spencer, Robert’. Raaij and Spies, Royal Progress, 140. Ibid., 138. ‘Southampton Street’, 223. The earl’s non-juror status and his collection of Italian religious art has led to widespread supposition that he was a crypto-Catholic. For example, Chaney, Evolution of English Collecting, 69. However, correspondence from the earl’s and countess’s travels shows that they stayed with Huguenot families in France and that their interest in Catholic art and ceremony was aesthetic and touristic. See Correspondence of Culpepper Tanner, ex 51/8, Burghley Archives, Lincolnshire (Burghley). Beard, Craftsmen and Interior Decoration, 115–65. Burghley House 1688 inventory, ex 51/18, Burghley. For details of the interiors at Burghley, see Impey, Four Centuries; and Lim, ‘Art and Aristocracy’. Royal Progress, or, a Diary of the King’s Journey, 6–7. Raaij and Spies, Royal Progress, 137; London Gazette, issue 3126 (24–28 October 1695). Historical Manuscript Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath preserved at Longleat, Wiltshire, vol. 3, The Prior Papers, 252. A note of plate in the baker’s custody, 24th Nov 95, ex 51/16/4, Burghley. Thompson, History of Chatsworth, 38–59. In 1695 Devonshire had not yet decided to rebuild the west and north fronts. For example, Obee, ‘Golden Age Returns’, 62. Bucholz, ‘Database of Court Officers’. John Whildon to James Whildon, 31 January 1695, w/b/5/5; Aaron Kinton to James Whildon, 30 October 1695, w/c/83, Whildon Series, Devonshire Collections Chatsworth, Devonshire (dcc). Ibid. Kinton to James Whildon, 17 October 1695, dcc w/c/79; Kinton to James Whildon, 22 October 1695, dcc w/c/81. Kinton to James Whildon, 12 January 1695, dcc w/c/41; Kinton to James Whildon, 25 June 1695, dcc w/c/52. Kinton to James Whildon, 5 May 1694, dcc w/c/4; William Poole to James Whildon, 6 October 1694, dcc w/e/110/18; Kinton to James Whildon 1 [November] 1694, dcc w/c/31. See the cost of the king’s visit to Welbeck Abbey cited above.

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53 Proximity was relative: in January 1703 the roads were so bad that it took Prince George six hours to travel the last nine miles (14.5 kilometres) to Petworth. See Boyer, History, appendix 3, 12. 54 Rowell, Petworth. 55 Boyer, History, appendix 3, 11–15; Girouard, Life in the English Country House, 146–7. 56 Report of the Marlborough College Society, 3–8. 57 See Greig, Beau Monde, for the relationship between the political and social calendars; and Warren, ‘English Landed Elite’, for the role of London in the cultural life of the landed elite. 58 Avery-Quash and Retford, Georgian London Town House. 59 For example, see inventories of Ralph Montagu’s London and country houses in Murdoch, Noble Households, 14–61. 60 Boucher and Murdoch, ‘Montagu House’, 60. 61 Historical Manuscript Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath preserved at Longleat, Wiltshire, vol. 3, The Prior Papers, 227; Kinton to James Whildon, 4 January 1700, dcc w/c/312. 62 Henry Lowman to James Whildon, 4 August 1694, dcc w/e/94/4; Kinton to James Whildon, 6 January 1698, dcc w/c/178. 63 Vertue, Vertue Note-books, 4: 149–52. 64 Lees-Milne, English Country Houses, 24. 65 Arnold, Georgian Country House, 16. 66 Royal Progress, or, a Diary of the King’s Journey, 7; Boyer, History, appendix 3, 12. 67 Fiennes, Journeys of Celia Fiennes, first published in 1888 as Through England on a Side Saddle; Defoe, A Tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain. 68 Fiennes described Exeter’s leading collection of Italian paintings only as ‘very fine paint in pictures’. Fiennes, Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 69. 69 Burke, Fabrication of Louis XIV, 153. 70 Stone and Stone, Open Elite, 46–7. 71 Memoirs of the life, family, and character of Charles Seymour, 61–2. 72 Legard, ‘Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace’, 239. 73 Avery-Quash and Retford, Georgian London Town House, 5.

4 Holding Court at Marlborough House: The London Residence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough Juliet Learmouth After the Queen had given me the ground to build the house where I now am [Marlborough House], the Duke of Marlborough was so good as to give me leave to make this house precisely as I liked to have it and to employ who I pleased, upon which I sent for Sr C[hristopher] Wren and told him I hoped it would bee no great trouble to him to look after the building I was going to begin1 As this extract from one of her personal accounts indicates, Sarah Churchill, the politically motivated 1st Duchess of Marlborough, presented a formidable figure as an architectural patron. Marlborough House, London, the building to which she refers, was a stately red-brick mansion located next door to the royal palace in St James’s Park that was built for Sarah between 1709 and 1711 according to Wren’s design. Her account makes it clear that she acted as the building’s patron in her own right, with the blessing (but without the intervention) of her husband, John Churchill, 1st of Duke of Marlborough. This was unusual since married women rarely commissioned building projects independently.2 However, Sarah was fortunate in having her own private income as a courtier and in having a husband relatively compliant to her schemes.3 Her condescending attitude towards the illustrious Wren is striking: not only does she refer to him as if he were a servant to be summoned at her will, but she also seems eager to play down his creative contribution. He is merely asked to ‘look after’ the building she is about to begin, suggesting that she intends to play the leading role in its design and construction. Given the status of Marlborough House as a town house rather than a country house, it is worth clarifying why the present study is of value to the overall

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theme of this volume. The relationship between town and country houses in this period tended to be both reciprocal and complementary.4 As argued by Rachel Stewart, author of The Town House in Georgian London (2009), the study of the town house is ‘as critical to a full understanding of the country house as it is to the town house itself, and certainly critical to understanding the lives and values of the people who lived in both’.5 This is made apparent by Amy Lim in the previous essay when she notes that the nobility relied on their country estates for income, while their London houses served as sites for display, often containing some of the most prized artworks in a family’s collection. She also draws attention to the town house’s role in promoting the political career of its owner by providing an ideal setting for strategic entertaining.6 The political relevance of a property in London was further underscored by its proximity to the royal court at St James’s Palace and to the seat of government at Westminster, and also by its high visibility in the capital. Lying immediately to the east of St James’s Palace between Pall Mall and St James’s Park, Marlborough House certainly occupied an exceptionally prominent position. It is a rare example of a surviving eighteenth-century London town house, despite having undergone significant alterations in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the addition of two upper storeys.7 During the duchess’s lifetime (as now), one gained access to the house from Pall Mall to the north, but its forecourt was screened from the street by a row of terraced houses (see figure 4.1). Consequently, the south-facing façade of the house, overlooking St James’s Park, constituted the most visible front of the building. It is this aspect that is represented in Charles Grignion’s print of 1761 after a painting by Samuel Wale. It shows a substantial, two-storey building extending across thirteen bays, its brick façade articulated by channelled quoins of masonry (see figure 4.2). To date, the generally accepted interpretation of the building holds that it was conceived as an antidote to the conspicuous extravagance of Blenheim Palace, the Marlboroughs’ vast country estate in Oxfordshire, begun in 1705 to the designs of Sir John Vanbrugh.8 Sarah herself certainly propagated this view since she later claimed to have instructed Wren to make the house ‘plain, simple and convenient’ without ‘the least resemblance of any thing in that called Blenheim which [she] had never liked’.9 However, such a claim should be treated with considerable caution since it tells us primarily how Sarah wished the house to be received and understood; the reality was more complex. Indeed, a direct comparison between a town house and such a vast country estate is surely implausible. While Vanbrugh designed Blenheim Palace to be seen from

Figure 4.1 Johannes Kip, View and Perspective of London, Westminster and St James’s Park (taken from the roof of Buckingham House), c. 1727, detail showing the position of Marlborough House in relation to St James’s Palace.

Figure 4.2 Charles Grignion after Samuel Wale, View of Marlborough House fronting St James’s Park, 1761.

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a great distance as part of a landscape, Marlborough House occupied a restricted site alongside St James’s Palace. Moreover, rather than commenting on its plainness or simplicity, contemporary visitors to the house remarked on its magnificence. For example, writing in 1722, the author and spy John Macky referred to the house as ‘the Palace of the Duke of Marlborough, in every way answerable to the Grandeur of its Great Master’, while, in 1746, the travel writer Samuel Simpson described it as ‘more like a palace than St James’s’.10 I therefore re-examine the various factors affecting the house’s design and appearance, arguing that it was primarily conceived with a view to advancing the duchess’s grandiose political ambitions. In this regard, its relationship to Blenheim Palace can be considered as complementary rather than contradictory. I begin by contextualizing the construction of Marlborough House in the personal history of the duchess, considering her motivation and ambition, at the age of forty-nine, in building a London mansion next door to the royal palace. I then assess the building’s appearance and decoration in relation to Sarah’s changing political position between the summer of 1708, when she was first granted a lease on a plot of ground next to the palace, and the months following her dismissal from Court in January 1711. Finally, I turn to the interior decoration of Marlborough House. This too needs to be interpreted in light of Sarah’s changing circumstances. While the furnishing of the principal reception rooms was essentially completed by the end of 1711, the mural cycle by Louis Laguerre adorning the entrance hall and adjoining staircases was carried out between 1713 and 1714. During this period, the duke and duchess were living in exile on the continent, anticipating the queen’s death and the subsequent accession of the new Hanoverian monarch.

Why Build Marlborough House? When Queen Anne acceded to the throne in 1702, Sarah had quickly become the most powerful and highly paid woman at Court. Her roles as Mistress of the Robes, Groom of the Stool, Keeper of the Privy Purse, and Ranger of Windsor Park had brought her a combined income of £6,000 per annum.11 Meanwhile, her husband had been appointed Supreme Commander of the British and Dutch forces in the War of the Spanish Succession. When he was raised to the dukedom in December 1702, the queen awarded the couple a pension of £5,000 per annum for Sarah’s lifetime, thereby furnishing the new duke and duchess with the means to maintain a lifestyle in accordance with their new

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rank. During the early years of Anne’s reign, the Marlboroughs owned two substantial properties: Windsor Lodge, which had been granted to the duchess in her capacity as Ranger of Windsor Park, and Sarah’s family home, Holywell House, a large Tudor mansion near St Albans in Hertfordshire. Adding to this, in 1705, in recognition of the duke’s great victory over the forces of Louis XIV at the Battle of Blenheim (1704), the queen granted him the royal manor of Woodstock by an act of Parliament and promised that the Treasury would fund the construction of a grand new house there.12 Such rapid accumulation of wealth inevitably led to resentment and public censorship, many considering that the Marlboroughs were motivated by greed and self-aggrandizement.13 It seems that Sarah was particularly concerned to counter such charges. As suggested by Marcia Pointon, one way in which she did this was by fashioning an image of noble simplicity in her own dress.14 For example, the diarist John Evelyn drew attention to her appearance at the Blenheim victory celebrations in 1704 when she sat in the royal coach, dressed in ‘a very plain garment’ alongside the richly bejewelled queen.15 The duke, however, appears to have made no such attempt to deflect charges of venality. In engaging Vanbrugh to design and build Blenheim Palace in 1705, he embarked on one of the most costly and extravagant building projects of the eighteenth century.16 Although the Blenheim project was funded by regular grants from the Royal Treasury, this arrangement placed Sarah personally under pressure since the continued flow of these funds was partly dependent on her good relationship with the queen. Indeed, expenditure on Blenheim Palace reached a record level at the time the Marlborough House project was being conceived.17 It is therefore hardly surprising that Sarah wished to distance herself from Vanbrugh’s theatrical excesses, not least by employing a different architect when she came to build her own town house. During the early years of Anne’s reign, Sarah had had no need of her own private residence in the capital since she had been granted an extensive set of lodgings in the southeastern corner of St James’s Palace as well as enjoying the use of apartments at Kensington Palace.18 However, from around 1707, her relationship with Queen Anne began to disintegrate. This was caused in part by Sarah’s relentless and unwelcome attempts to impose her political views on the queen. While Queen Anne disliked party politics, Sarah was committed to the cause of the Whigs. Having risked her life and fortune supporting the Glorious Revolution of 1688, she was convinced that Whig government was the only way of protecting the country from the threat of a Jacobite restoration.19 Moreover, the queen was becoming increasingly attached to Abigail Masham, an ardent

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supporter of the Tories, much influenced by her cousin Robert Harley, then secretary of state. Abigail therefore posed a major threat to Sarah’s political ambitions, prompting the latter to behave in a jealous and vindictive manner.20 The popularity of the duke was also on the wane at this time. From around 1708, damaging rumours had begun to circulate, fuelled by the Tories, that he was deliberately prolonging the war against Louis XIV to aggrandize and enrich both himself and his family.21 While the Whigs strongly supported the war, the queen and the Tories were eager to put an end to the relentless succession of bloody battles. Given the excessive expenditure already associated with Blenheim, it is perhaps surprising that the duchess chose this period to take on yet another costly building project. However, as Abigail’s influence over the queen intensified, Sarah found her co-residence with the pair at St James’s Palace increasingly untenable. In one of her accounts describing her loss of royal favour, Sarah complained that Abigail’s apartments were ‘just by [her] bed’s head’ while the lodgings below hers were occupied by Abigail’s associates: ‘opening but their door they just stand under one’s windows and hear every word that is spoke without care, and sometimes make such a noise and smoke and stink in the lodgings that tis impossible to stay in them’.22 Sarah therefore found herself, quite literally, in need of alternative accommodation.

The Granting of the Lease Even though Sarah’s relationship with Anne was already showing signs of strain by the summer of 1708, the queen felt obliged to honour a long-standing promise to grant her a lease on a plot of land adjoining the royal palace of St James’s.23 Consequently, on 31 August of that year, she awarded Sarah a fiftyyear Crown lease on an area known as the Friary. This had formerly belonged to Catherine of Braganza, the widow of Charles II, but had reverted to the Crown following the queen dowager’s death in 1705.24 The site therefore had associations with queenly status and influence. In planning to build a new house quite literally next door to the palace, it seems likely that Sarah anticipated her own return to a position of political influence over the queen. Any optimism she may have felt about regaining her power was greatly encouraged by her close ally and self-styled ‘secretary’, Arthur Maynwaring, a prominent member of the Junto, the most uncompromising wing of the Whig party.25 From 1708 until his death in November 1712, Maynwaring maintained a prolific

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correspondence with Sarah, offering her advice couched in elaborate flattery. He went to considerable lengths to persuade Sarah to maintain her position at Court, believing that she had a crucial role to perform as the ‘visible guardian of Whig interests’ there.26 His letters therefore shed a revealing light on Sarah’s motivation for building Marlborough House, a project in which he, personally, took a great interest. When the lease was first granted in 1708, Sarah held certain reservations about both the restricted size of the plot and its lack of a proper entrance from Pall Mall. However, Maynwaring attempted to reassure her by commenting: ‘if the house be set in an equal line with St James’s (which I believe will be best in many respects) you will have about fifty yards for your out courts’.27 Two days later, he wrote again, this time extolling the exceptional beauty of the house’s proposed location: this is really a most delightfull place when one looks into it & if the House be set in an equal line with her Majesties Palace, it will have a view down the Middle Walk of her Garden, which will be better than that of the green one, & being remov’d from all manner of dust, & from the smoke of the houses in the Pell-Mell, you will live & sleep as it were in the middle of that great Garden.28 It is particularly interesting to note Maynwaring’s repeated use of the phrase ‘in an equal line’ when referring to Marlborough House’s position in relation to the palace. This seems to suggest that it was conceived with a view to synchronizing with the palace, indicating that its mistress was aligned with royal power. Maynwaring claimed that by living as the queen’s neighbour, Sarah would be able to maintain her position at Court, not as a favourite ‘but as one more capable of business than any Man, supported by Friends & a strong party in the right interest’.29 Seen from this perspective, it appears that the construction of the house was a crucial part of the strategy to secure Sarah’s return to a position of political influence over Queen Anne. The duke, however, advised Sarah differently. On 1 July 1708, he wrote to his wife: ‘It is not a proper place for a great house, and I am sure when you have built a little one you will not like it, so that if you have not set your heart upon it, I should advise you would think well upon it, for it is certainly more advisable to buy a house than to build one’.30 Although Sarah ignored her husband’s advice about purchasing an existing house, she did eventually succeed in securing a larger plot for her building project. In May 1709, the queen granted her a new

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lease in exchange for the first, which included two more acres of ground, formerly ‘in the custody of Henry Boyle’, bringing the overall plot size to approximately 4.2 acres (1.7 hectares).31

Designing Marlborough House Various factors are likely to have influenced Sarah in choosing Sir Christopher Wren as the architect of her new town house. Most obviously, he was the foremost architect of the age, having served as surveyor-general of the royal works for forty years. Moreover, he had a strong association with the site of St James’s Palace, having designed and built a new wing to the complex for Queen Anne in 1703. This three-storey brick building of eleven bays was located on the southwest corner of the palace site. In describing this structure recently, Wolf Burchard has drawn attention to Wren’s ‘cautious treatment of the façade’ and its lack of ornamentation.32 It thus seems likely that the south front of Marlborough House was intended to blend appropriately with this earlier structure. A print based on an original design by Robert Inglish shows the relationship between these two red-brick buildings when viewed from the park (see figure 4.3); both formed strong rectangular blocks, pierced by tall windows. Located between these buildings are the older palace buildings, their asymmetrical arrangement indicating the long and complex history of the royal site. At the same time, the style of Marlborough House was differentiated from the palace by its channelled blocks of masonry and its balustraded roofline, contrasting with the crenelations crowning the palace buildings. It is worth noting that Wren’s original design for the south-facing elevation of Marlborough House, reproduced in Vitruvius Britannicus, differed from the actual building in terms of its ornamentation (see figure 4.2 and figure 4.4).33 The sculptures in each of the four niches, the elaborate sculptural centrepiece, and the urns punctuating the roofline were not realized. A possible explanation for this is that Sarah chose to make the house more restrained after the building work had commenced. If this was indeed the case, she may have been responding to the intensification of public criticism directed towards both her and the duke as public opinion turned against the prolongation of the war that was supported by the Marlboroughs. Many of these attacks were aimed directly at Sarah. For example, on 23 November 1710, Jonathan Swift published an article in the Examiner in which he compared Sarah to a lady’s maid who had appropriated large sums of her mistress’s money.34 That Sarah took this negative publicity

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Figure 4.3 After R. Inglish, John Sturt (etcher), The Royal Palace of St James’s, c. 1714.

very much to heart is evident from a letter she wrote to David Hamilton, the queen’s physician, on 28 November in which she described the insinuation as ‘too much for human nature to bear’.35 However, as noted by Edward Gregg, there appears to have been some truth in the allegation. Sarah did initially borrow the money to secure the lease for Marlborough House from the queen’s funds, without first gaining permission, showing the extent to which she had come to rely on her privileged position in the royal household.36 Another feature of the park side elevation that merits attention is the height of the windows, especially those on the ground floor, which extend almost from floor to ceiling like the central doorway. Sarah is known to have had a strong preference for light-filled rooms, not to mention the fact that these windows evidently offered exceptionally fine views across the park.37 However, the profusion of large windows could also be related to Sarah’s ideas about transparency and public virtue, especially since these windows overlooked the public promenade on the Mall. Maynwaring encouraged such an interpretation in one of his letters to Sarah, in which he recounted the example of Drusus, a Roman

Figure 4.4 Colen Campbell, The Elevation of Marlborough House to St James’s Park, from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 40.

general, who had ‘a House which his neighbours could look into’. When his workman had offered to remedy this ‘inconvenience’, Drusus responded: ‘thanks to the good Gods, I have no need of that, but if you can contrive it so that all the Town may look into every Room I have & see what I am doing, I will give thee as much more for that’.38 The fact that this letter was written while Marlborough House was under construction suggests that Maynwaring meant to flatter Sarah by comparing her to the virtuous Roman general. Like Drusus, Sarah could open herself up to public scrutiny since she had nothing to hide. It seems that Maynwaring was therefore trying to reassure Sarah and flatter her ego at a time of much negative publicity.

The Interior Any hopes Sarah may have maintained about acting as the guardian of Whig interests at Court finally came to an end in January 1711 when the queen forced her to resign from all her offices. Sarah was obliged to move out of her lodgings in St James’s Palace with immediate effect and take up temporary residence in a suite of apartments at Montagu House, the London residence of her youngest daughter, in Bloomsbury.39 However, over the next few months, she devoted

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her attention to furnishing and decorating the interiors of Marlborough House. As she wrote to her friend, Lady Cowper, in June 1711: ‘I have so much to do in order to have a dwelling in the winter and there is scarce a day that I do not pass six Hours in measuring pictures to see what place they will fit, & what must be bespoke in order to finish this House.’40 It seems that Sarah spared little expense on this project, despite those protestations of frugality. The costly furniture was singled out by various contemporary commentators who visited the property during the 1720s. The German writer Baron de Pollnitz described the house as ‘very richly furnished and adorned with admirable paintings’, while the Guide to London (1726) noted that the interior was ‘magnificently furnish’d’.41 Moreover, a surviving inventory from 1740 reveals that the interiors were elaborately decorated with vast mirrors, various master paintings by, among others, Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as silver chandeliers and rich tapestries.42 The first space encountered by the visitor on entering the building was the Great Hall, which rose the full height of the house (see figure 4.5). In April 1711, its ceiling was decorated with a cycle of nine paintings by Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi taken from the double-height, cube-shaped salon of the Queen’s House in Greenwich, built by Inigo Jones between 1616 and 1638.43 Commissioned by Charles I’s consort, Henrietta Maria, these works took as their subject the allegory of peace reigning over the arts (see figure 4.6). Their inclusion here would have inevitably invited a comparison with Jones’s celebrated interior.44 It is not clear how the paintings came into Sarah’s possession, but it seems likely that she had acquired them before her dismissal in January 1711, probably with the queen’s permission. Marlborough House’s association with the Queen’s House, Greenwich, was further strengthened by the full-length portrait of Queen Anne of Denmark, the eponymous patroness of the royal residence, which Sarah displayed in the hallway. Described in the 1740 inventory as Queen Ann of Denmark with dogs in a hunting dress, this was almost certainly a copy of Paul van Somer’s portrait entitled Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) and a Groom, painted in 1617, now displayed at Hampton Court Palace in London.45 This work also alluded to Anne of Denmark’s love of building through the inclusion of a classical gateway before the Tudor palace of Oatlands, Surrey, in the background. The prominence of this royal portrait in the duchess’s residence was surely intended to indicate a link between the duchess and James I’s queen, both renowned for patronizing architecture.46 After the hallway, perhaps the most impressive space in the new house was the ‘Great Room’, the large rectangular chamber located on the west side of the plan. It appears that this space was chosen to display some of the finest works

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Figure 4.5 Author’s suggested layout of reception rooms at Marlborough House, based on inventory of 1740 and ground plan in Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 39.

in the duke’s and duchess’s valuable art collection, including a portrait of the duke’s most famous enemy, ‘Lewis the fourteenth’, over the chimneypiece, ‘King Charles by Vandyke’, and ‘Lot and his Daughters by Rubens’.47 When listing the contents for this room, Sarah also drew attention to ‘an Extream large Glass much bigger than the Ordinary Size and Two lesser’.48 Her evident pride in the main mirror’s exceptional dimensions further underscores her conflicted attitude towards conspicuous display. Far from projecting frugality, looking glasses were an ostentatious sign of wealth in this period, often being more costly than master paintings.49 With its five large windows, together with the mirrors, this room would have benefited from abundant natural light during the day. At night, it was illuminated by ‘Two Silverd Sconces that is Chandeleirs’ that would have created a glittering effect when reflected in the mirrors. It is perhaps significant that this, the largest state room, overlooked the neighbouring palace of St James’s, its splendour placing it on a par with the royal residence. It was, however, hidden from the more public view into the house from the Mall.

Figure 4.6 Ceiling of Entrance Hall of Marlborough House with paintings by Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, An Allegory of Peace and the Arts, c. 1635–38.

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The duchess moved into Marlborough House on 23 October 1711, three weeks before her husband returned from his campaigns on the continent. According to Anne, Countess of Strafford, Sarah planned to hold several assemblies for her Whig guests throughout the winter and to ‘live after a most magnificent manner at her new house’.50 However, on 27 November 1711, the Marlboroughs suffered a further setback when Jonathan Swift published his latest and most damaging attack yet on the duke, The Conduct of the Allies, a polemical text representing the entire war as ‘a gigantic conspiracy between Marlborough and the Allies to secure profits for themselves at England’s expense’.51 Under ever-increasing pressure from the Tory ministers, the queen finally dismissed the duke from his offices on 31 December. Not surprisingly, this led to even greater friction between the queen and the Marlboroughs, but it does not appear to have deterred the defiant duchess from pressing ahead with her plans for entertaining at Marlborough House. In January 1712, Prince Eugene of Savoy came to London as the Holy Roman Emperor’s envoy, intent on persuading the government to reconsider its proposed peace terms with the French.52 Eugene had been the Duke of Marlborough’s fellow military leader during the campaigns against Louis XIV and his greatest ally, through which they had formed a close personal friendship. However, when the Marlboroughs planned to give a ball in Prince Eugene’s honour at Marlborough House, they faced accusations from the queen’s ministers of ‘vying with the court’, obliging them to cancel the event.53 Sarah’s own account of this episode suggests that the accusations against her and the duke were more serious, some claiming that they were plotting to cause harm to the queen. In a letter venting her fury to Lady Cowper, she wrote: ‘The Prince dines here to day & plays in the Evening but our dancing is put off, upon the most foolish as well as the most wicked invention that our Ministers have yet been guilty of that it was a Plot cover’d with the name of a Ball & that the Queen was not safe at St James’s’.54 As indicated by this incident, the queen’s hostility to the Marlboroughs meant that they no longer held the political leverage they had previously enjoyed, and their position in London society appears to have become increasingly untenable.

The Mural Cycle by Louis Laguerre By February 1713, the Marlboroughs had both left England and gone into a kind of self-imposed exile in the German principalities, remaining there until August 1714. However, in the months prior to her departure, Sarah commissioned the

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French artist Louis Laguerre to execute a cycle of murals in Marlborough House depicting some of the duke’s great battles. Sarah’s decision to glorify her husband’s military heroism in the décor of her town house shows her awareness that her own reputation was now entirely reliant on that of her husband. As argued convincingly by Lydia Hamlett, there can be little doubt that the murals were planned and conceived by Sarah as a challenge to the recent onslaught of hostile literature, especially Swift’s Conduct of the Allies, referred to above.55 Sarah was therefore eager ‘to keep her husband’s sacrifices at the forefront of the minds both of those in power and a wider public’ and to persuade the spectator of the Crown’s debt to the valiant duke.56 While the murals adorning the upper section of the hallway showed scenes from the Battle of Blenheim (1704), the two adjoining staircase compartments represented the Battle of Ramillies (1706) and the Battle of Malplaquet (1709), respectively. Although unable to oversee the project in person, Sarah’s correspondence with her lawyer and relative, Robert Jennens, proves that she was actively involved in managing the execution of these murals. In one such letter, she wrote: ‘my bargain with Mr La Guere was to give him five hundred pounds for the Hall as I bespoke it down 2 the pannells & the two staircases’.57 This indicates that Sarah had given Laguerre precise instructions about the arrangement and, most likely, also the content of the paintings. On another occasion she expressed her concern about the visibility of the murals, having just received a report from a visitor to the house (‘a person very knowing’) who had described Laguerre’s figures in the hall as ‘well of the kind’ but had thought the battle scenes ‘not strong enough painted to bee well seen’. Consequently, Sarah wrote to Jennens: ‘if this bee rightly judged, as I fear it is, I am sure you will doe what you can 2 have it mended in what is done, as far as it can bee & prevent the same fault upon the stair cases, but they will bee seen much nearer than the Hall’.58 As indicated by Sarah’s instructions, the positioning of the murals in the two top-lit staircases flanking the hallway brought the visitor into close contact with the chaos of the battlefield.59 For example, the three murals on the east staircase represent an episode from the Battle of Malplaquet. In one of these murals, the duke’s ally, Prince Eugene, is shown in the middle ground, while the foreground is dominated by the disturbing sight of two women stripping the clothes from a group of lifeless bodies (see figure 4.7). Meanwhile, the opposite wall shows a figure on horseback shooting a tangle of naked prisoners. The duke himself is represented in the mural connecting these two scenes, his image thus surrounded by the carnage of the battlefield. Not only was this type of iconography highly unusual in the context of the London mansion, but it was also unprecedented in Laguerre’s work.60 The

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Figure 4.7 Louis Laguerre, The Battle of Malplaquet, 11 September 1709: Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736) leading troops on the French redoubts c. 1713–14, Marlborough House.

artist had painted the staircase at the nearby Buckingham House, but the scenes there recounted the story of Dido and Aeneas, a classical subject far removed from contemporary reality. In contrast, the gruesome, topical scenes of the Marlborough House murals forced the spectator to acknowledge the horrors of military conflict and, consequently, the personal danger endured by the duke on behalf of his country.61 Another scene that merits particular attention is that painted on the north wall of the hallway: the surrender of Marshal Tallard at the end of the Battle of Blenheim. This episode from the battle is also depicted in the famous Victories tapestries commissioned by the duke for Blenheim Palace, but here, the composition works quite differently. Unlike the tapestry, where the duke is the focal figure, Laguerre accords the surrendering Marshal Tallard the same prominence as his victor. The dignified confrontation of the two mounted military leaders was designed to emphasize the duke’s clemency towards his enemy and his

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Figure 4.8 Louis Laguerre, The Battle of Blenheim, 13 August 1704: The Surrender of Marshall Tallard, c. 1713. Entrance Hall of Marlborough House.

Figure 4.9 William Kent and Michael Rysbrack, Monument of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1733, Blenheim Palace Chapel, Oxfordshire (detail showing relief on podium).

openness to peace, its message further reinforced by the allegory of peace on the ceiling above (see figure 4.8).62 Moreover, there is an interesting link between Laguerre’s depiction of Marshal Tallard’s surrender in Marlborough House and the tomb monument that Sarah commissioned from William Kent and Michael Rysbrack for the chapel at Blenheim Palace in 1732.63 The stone relief on the podium of the monument shows this same scene, its composition copied almost

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exactly from Laguerre’s painting in Marlborough House (see figure 4.9). Given that Sarah was closely involved in overseeing the design of the Blenheim memorial, this indicates that she was particularly satisfied with Laguerre’s representation of the scene and, presumably, asked Kent to copy its composition when designing the frieze. The Marlboroughs returned to England on 1 August 1714, only one day before the death of Queen Anne. While Sarah claimed that their return was motivated by family concerns, she had clearly been informed of the queen’s rapidly declining health during the preceding months. It thus seems likely that the Marlboroughs wished to reassert their position and influence as powerful members of the aristocracy ahead of the arrival in London of the new king, George I. On entering the capital on 4 August, the duke and duchess were accompanied by an impressive entourage of ‘two hundred Gentleman and others on horseback’ and by their ‘noble Relations and others of the Nobility and Gentry in their coaches’.64 Marlborough House was thus the point of destination for the Marlboroughs’ triumphant return. Having been greeted by the ‘loud and joyful acclamations’ of the people lining the streets, the duke and duchess entered their London home where they would have set eyes on Laguerre’s completed murals for the first time.65 The following morning, the house provided the stage for various visits from foreign ministers and ‘great numbers of the nobility, gentry and officers of the army’, who came to pay their respects to the duke. George I arrived in England on 18 September 1714 and headed straight for the capital. In Abraham Allard’s print, showing the king’s procession towards St James’s Palace, Marlborough House is clearly visible in the top right-hand corner, a reminder of the house’s proximity to the royal palace and thus the indelible association between the Marlboroughs and the monarchy (see figure 4.10).

Conclusion A reading of Marlborough House as plain and frugal in contrast to the excesses of Blenheim Palace is too simplistic since it fails to take into account the house’s location, its sumptuous interiors, or its role within the duchess’s political ambitions. As suggested here, the design of the house responded to the aesthetic of the palace, especially Wren’s extension for Queen Anne constructed in 1703, thereby linking its owner with royal status. Such links were further reinforced in aspects of the interior, most notably the double height entrance hall adorned

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Figure 4.10 Abraham Allard, The Arrival of George I at St James’s Palace in 1714.

with the Gentileschi ceiling paintings from the Queen’s House in Greenwich. However, the design and decoration of Marlborough House also need to be understood in light of Sarah’s changing personal and political circumstances between 1708, when the house was first conceived, and 1713–14, when she was living in exile abroad. Although the house was initially planned with a view to Sarah’s regaining influence over the queen, these ambitions never came to fruition. Following her own dismissal from Court in January 1711, and the duke’s dismissal from his offices in December of that year, Sarah found herself irrevocably estranged from her royal mistress. It was at this point that she turned her attention to the mural cycle decorating three of the most prominent interior spaces, their unflinching realism providing a visual protest against the apparent ingratitude shown by the queen and her Tory advisers towards the Duke of Marlborough.

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notes 1 Narrative of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, written from Marlborough House in 1721. Quoted in Green, Blenheim Palace, 106. 2 On marriage a woman became a femme couverte, thus relinquishing her rights over property to her husband. See Erickson, Women and Property, 24. Under normal circumstances, married women had to wait until the death of their husbands before taking ownership of architectural projects. For example, Henrietta Louis Fermor, Countess of Pomfret, built 18 Arlington Street (1757–61) after becoming a widow in 1753. See Lindfield, Georgian Gothic, 78–80. 3 Harris, Passion, 6. 4 For a comprehensive discussion of the relationship between town and country houses, see Michael Port, ‘Town House and Country House: Their Interaction’, in Arnold, Georgian Country House, 117–38. 5 Stewart, Town House in Georgian London, 17. 6 See Avery-Quash and Retford, Georgian London Town House, 5. 7 The house remained in the Marlborough family until 1817 when it returned to the Crown. Since 1959 it has provided the home to the Commonwealth Secretariat. 8 See, for example, Field, Favourite, 216. 9 Quoted in Green, Blenheim Palace, 106. 10 Macky, Journey Through England, 127. It is interesting to note that Macky refers to the house as belonging to the duke, without mentioning the duchess. This most likely reflects the convention of the time whereby the male head of the household was identified as the property owner. See Simpson, Agreeable Historian, 592. 11 Sarah’s income from these offices was paid into a goldsmith’s account in her own name and held quite independently of her husband. See Harris, Passion, 87. 12 The Battle of Blenheim was a decisive battle in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14) between the allied troops, led by Marlborough, and the forces of Louis XIV. It took place on 13 August 1704 on the north bank of the Danube near the small village of Blindheim (Blenheim). 13 In his diary entry dated December 1702, John Evelyn comments: ‘After the excess of honour conferred by the Queen on the Earl of Marlborough … that he should desire £5000 a year to be settled on him by Parliament out of the Post Office was thought a bold and unadvised request’. See Evelyn, Diary of John Evelyn, 2:360. See also Weil, Political Passions, 196. 14 Pointon, ‘Material Manoeuvres’, 490–1. 15 Evelyn, Diary of John Evelyn, 2:364. 16 James Legard convincingly argues that the duke ‘actively pursued’ rather than ‘passively received’ the royal gift of the Woodstock estate. See Legard, ‘Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace’, 71.

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17 Costs had risen from £30,000 per annum in 1706 and 1707 to £36,600 in 1708 and to the vast sum of £42,000 in 1709. See Legard, ‘Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace’, 77. 18 The lodgings in St James’s Palace had been granted to Sarah in 1695 by William III. 19 Harris, Passion, 2; Weil, Political Passions, 191. 20 For a full discussion on the breakdown in Sarah and Anne’s relationship, see Harris, Passion, 141–78. 21 See Weil, Political Passions, 198. The charge was first made in 1708 in a pamphlet entitled Plain English and attributed to Robert Harley. 22 Quoted in Harris, General in Winter, 237. 23 Sarah proclaimed that she would not have ‘condescended’ to ask for it, but ‘it was promised her long before the quarrel with Mrs Masham’. See E. Lewis to Robert, 22 October 1708, Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, 4:509. 24 Calendar of Treasury Books, 22 (31 August 1708); Catherine had left England in April 1692. She died in Portugal in 1705. 25 Sarah jokingly dubbed Maynwaring her ‘secretary’, a title he happily adopted. See Harris, Passion for Government, 142. Because Maynwaring’s status among the Whigs relied on his close friendship with Sarah, ‘he had a particularly strong stake in maintaining the Whigs’ belief in her influence on the queen’. See Weil, Political Passions, 191–3. 26 See Harris, Passion for Government, 142; Maynwaring was largely successful in persuading Sarah to retain her position at Court in 1708–09. See Peter Wentworth to Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, 30 January 1710, in Cartwright, Wentworth Papers, 105–6: ‘the town says it has been some time that the Dutchess has called her gold key [the symbol of office] Mr Mannerring key for tis by his perswation she has kept it so long’. 27 Maynwaring to Sarah Churchill, 1st Duchess of Marlborough, [7 September 1708], Add ms 61459, f. 90, British Library (bl), London. 28 Maynwaring to Sarah Churchill, [9 September 1708], bl Add ms 61459, f. 93. 29 Maynwaring to Sarah Churchill, n.d., bl Add ms 61461, f. 30. 30 Duke of Marlborough to Sarah Churchill, 1 July 1708, quoted in Bolton and Hendry, Wren Society 7:226. 31 Calendar of Treasury Books, 23 (30 May 1709); London, bl Additional Charters 76137: A Ground plot of Marlborough House and Garden near St James’s Park, 1744. 32 Burchard notes that the ‘sobriety’ of Wren’s design for St James’s strongly differed from the new range he had designed for William III at Hampton Court. See Burchard, ‘St James’s Palace’, 179–80. 33 In Vitruvius Britannicus the design is actually attributed to Christopher Wren Jr. However, as suggested by Searle, this is likely to have been an attempt by Sir

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35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51

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Christopher Wren to promote the career of his son thereby crediting him with a prestigious commission. See Searle, ‘Pleasing Example’, 7. Swift, Volume V of the Author’s Works, 96. The Examiner was a newspaper edited by Jonathan Swift between 2 November 1710 and 1714 that promoted a Tory perspective on politics. Quoted in Harris, ‘Accounts of the Conduct’, 13. Gregg, Queen Anne, 278–9. In September 1708, Sarah began ‘to make heavy financial inroads on the privy purse, presumably to help finance Marlborough House’. Sarah Churchill to Diana Russell, 21 July 1732, in Scott, Letters to a Grandmother, 54. Maynwaring to Sarah Churchill, n.d., bl Add ms 61461, f. 61. Sarah’s youngest daughter was Mary, Duchess of Montagu. See Harris, Passion for Government, 184. Sarah Churchill to Lady Cowper, 23 June 1711, Panshanger ms, d/e f228, 84, Hertfordshire Record Office, Hertford (hro). De Pollnitz, Memoirs of Baron de Pollnitz, 437; New Guide to London, 7. Add ms 61473, f. 11, bl. Chettle, ‘Appendix 2’. Christopher Wren (junior) to Sarah Churchill, 23 April 1711, bl Add ms 61357, f. 55: ‘tho the room is a first room, it will be a very good one’. bl Add ms 61473, f. 11. Bold, Greenwich, 45. bl Add ms 61473, f. 11. The artist of the portrait of Louis XIV is not specified. Ibid. Jeremy Howard, ‘“You Never Saw Such a Scene of Magnificence and Taste”: Norfolk House after Its Grand Reopening in 1756’, in Avery-Quash and Retford, Georgian London Town House, 59. Anne, Countess of Strafford, to Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, 23 November 1711, in Cartwright, Wentworth Papers, 210. Swift’s The Conduct of the Allies was published on 27 November 1711. By the end of January 1712, it had sold over eleven thousand copies. See Swift, Volume V of the Author’s Works; Harris, Passion for Government, 187. Evening Post, 5–8 January 1712. Peter Wentworth to Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, 12 January 1712, in Cartwright, Wentworth Papers, 248. Sarah Churchill to Lady Cowper, n.d. [January 1712], Panshanger ms d/e f228, 78–9, hro. Hamlett, ‘Rupture through Realism: Sarah Churchill and Louis Laguerre’s

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Murals at Marlborough House’, in Hallett, Llewellyn, and Myrone, Court, Country, City, 211. Ibid. Sarah Churchill to Robert Jennens, 16 May [1714], bl Add ms 62569, f. 119. Sarah Churchill to Robert Jennens, 7 May [1714], bl Add ms 62569, f. 120. Hamlett, ‘Rupture through Realism’, in Hallett, Llewellyn, and Myrone, Court, Country, City, 197–9. Hamlett, Mural Painting in Britain, 106–36. For a full discussion of the iconography of these murals, see Hamlett, ‘Rupture through Realism’, in Hallett, Llewellyn, and Myrone, Court, Country, City, 203–4; Hamlett, Mural Painting in Britain, 115–22. Hamlett, ‘Rupture through Realism’, in Hallett, Llewellyn, and Myrone, Court, Country, City, 205. The memorial was designed by William Kent but executed by John Michael Rysbrack. Lediard, Life of John, Duke of Marlborough, 453. Ibid.

PA R T T W O

The Question of Style

5 Introduction Anne Bordeleau

Though architectural historians seek to offer bearings and draw demarcations in the repository of past architecture, we are time and again faced with the messiness of history, and this is particularly true when we peek into the realm of domestic architecture, even if that home might be the somewhat more ‘public’ house of a politician. The essays in this section challenge those assumptions born of a desire to have a rather ordered history that can neatly follow stylistic lines and political allegiances. Style remains, but as a preconception that each author deconstructs to use not as a fixed frame but as a window into much richer and complex stories. The French art historian Henri Focillon refers to the formal elements of styles as their ‘repertory’, ‘vocabulary’, or ‘instruments’.1 Each term alludes to slightly different relations to time, pointing to the complex temporalities of styles as belonging to the past, enacted in the present, and projected into the future. What is more, the three qualifiers and their multiple temporal connotations are equally relevant whether we consider style as the historian’s lens or the architect’s language, though, of course, the former is typically identified a posteriori and assumes style to be intrinsic to a creation in its particular time and context, while the latter can be thought of as an external cloak, and even as an available change of clothing.2 If the eighteenth century was still somewhat uncluttered by the obsession with history as a human production, the resurgence of the classical first brought by architects such as Inigo Jones and later Christopher Wren opened up a door into the relativity of history and the resulting availability of stylistic dresses that architecture could adopt. Later, architects would fully assume this potential interchangeability of styles, a paradigmatic image of this being J.M. Gandy’s

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Figure 5.1 Joseph Michael Gandy, Perspectives of eight designs for churches, with plan, 1824: variations for Holy Trinity, Marylebone; an Ionic design for St Peter, Walworth & the 1800 design for the Sepulchral Chapel for Tyringham.

rendering of John Soane’s Design for Marylebone Church, which places four stylistic outfits, ranging from the Gothic to the neo-Italianate, on a single plan (see figure 5.1). It is clear that, already in the eighteenth century, ties between a style and its morality, politics, or locality had been unmoored. What is perhaps less clear is the range of biases that end up affecting an architect’s or patron’s decision to build in one style or another. Some make it a matter of principles – architectural or political – others nonchalantly embrace a polyglot approach, moving freely between styles in a single building or across different architectural projects.3 Given the ‘battles of the styles’ that the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster prompted after the 1834 fire, it is hard to dissociate styles from politics, particularly when looking at the house of politicians. But until then, eclecticism dominated the British context. Only by the Great Exhibition of 1851 – and stimulated by German theorists such as Heinrich Hübsch4 and Gottfried Semper who were looking for an architectural expression truly reflective of new materials and modes of construction – did discussions of style circle back to its role as an expression of its times.5 Perhaps one of the most well-known repre-

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Figure 5.2 C.R. Cockerell, The Professor’s Dream (prepared with G.E. Goodchild, 1848).

sentations of architectural history still today, Charles Robert Cockerell’s The Professor’s Dream – drawn with the help of his faithful assistant John E. Goodchild – represents an attempt to unify the architectural productions of all times around a principle that Horace Walpole also upheld: liberty (see figure 5.2). In a drawing that works with stylistic periods as a geologist might with the stratum of the earth, the architect dreams of a stable principle that gathers the whole and seals the composition with the Column of July, signifying liberty, directly in its centre (see figure 5.3). Symbol of its time, the placement of the column – carrier of style if ever there was one – might also point to the potential emancipation from historical styles. As a monument to the July Revolution, the column might stand for those principles that Cockerell constantly returned to: judgment, taste, freedom. For Cockerell, the ‘origins of architecture’ were ‘an essential part of the natural history of man’, and he considered the column to be one of those ‘first elements of architecture’.6 Literally in the centre, iconically as an element of architecture, symbolically as this monument to freedom – the column might simply remind us of the constant search for a fixed centre in constantly changing times.

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Figure 5.3 Detail of July Column from C.R. Cockerell, The Professor’s Dream (prepared with G.E. Goodchild, 1848).

Yet this is but one more theory around the origins and expressive contents of style and ornaments, and perhaps a farfetched one at that! What can be certain, though, is that while architects and theorists such as Charles Robert Cockerell, A.W.N. Pugin, Owen Jones, or John Ruskin offered diverging theories on the origins and meanings of styles, they tended to agree on one point: architectural style constituted the main vehicle for architectural expression.7 The veiled art of architecture could only be communicated to society at large through its ornamentation, the voices and gestures of the building enacting itself. Focillon alludes to this indexical quality of style,8 and tracking what these indices point to is the task to which the following essays attend. The contributions by Reeve, Lindfield, and Spivey all make clear that political allegiance is only one of the many narratives with which style might be associated, delving with other forces at play that are non-negligeable. These forces, like Focillon’s qualifiers, point to a range of temporal and geographical referents not only for the work under study but also for us as historians. Reeve’s contextualization of what he refers to as ‘Walpole’s construction of Gothic liberty’ (90) takes us through the larger reference of history, carrying with it the tensions between stable (and true) principles and fleeting (and impure) ideas – whether those be architectural or political. As Reeve’s essay shows, the discourse on the purity of the Gothic aligns here with the British Whigs as upholders of the true principle of liberty, wherein purity and truth transcend centuries and territories.

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A second set of forces comprises those that point not solely to a form of pure idea but acknowledge a flowing history, and in Lindfield’s essay the ability to integrate a vocabulary of material spolia and to reference national material culture start to nuance strict alignments between politics, architecture, and style. With Spivey’s text, we move one step closer, to the local but also to the experiential, closing in on genealogy rather than history, at a time when – as Spivey argues – both politics and styles are commodified, and, inevitably, relativized. Here, style is the sword between heirs and the shield that neighbours might encounter – instruments, as Focillon would say. If anyone wonders how two consecutive essays in a collection can include a reference to a ‘Whig taste as a classical one’ (101) but then also note that ‘the rise of the Whig party … allowed for the revival of Gothic architecture’ (88) it is because style is less a tag and more of an index to a great set of shifting temporal imbrications, a concept defined and redefined through relations; it sets itself in opposition to, in continuity with, as an evolution from, or as an offshoot of. We hold onto style because it points to interrelated and co-existing referents that inform how meaning may be inferred across sometimes contradictory lines, such as the fact that Lindfield and Spivey stand on opposite sides on the question of whether Palladianism was or was not the dominant ‘Whig’ style. Through the three texts in this section, the question of style, as it is practised or interpreted, moves from strict formal categorization as Gothic, Palladian, or classical, and Whig or Tory, to become a rich index, which, when critically questioned, can reveal relations that can be at once historical, generational, political, personal, and even phenomenological.

notes 1 Focillon, Vie des formes, 12: ‘Qu’est-ce donc qui constitue un style? Les éléments formels, qui ont une valeur d’indice, qui en sont le répertoire, le vocabulaire, et parfois, le puissant instrument’. 2 The notion of ‘style’ emerged as architects and historians looked back to categorize building methods, aspirations, and the formal characteristics they might produce (ornament, organization, structure, etc.) at a specific place and moment in time (Roman, Romanesque, French Gothic, etc.). Eventually, this historical awareness also influenced architectural production. No longer designated a formal expression of the zeitgeist embodied in architecture and conditioned by predominantly external circumstances (situation, climate, belief, available labour, and tools), style further designated a repository of formal expressions selected through personal choice –

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taste, disposition, political allegiance – and following circumstantial considerations that include fashion and social expectations in addition to external forces. Still, the association of the English Gothic with morality and liberty continues to linger in our minds as historians. This was the case, for example, with architects submitting competition entries with interchangeable stylistic options, such as Rickman and Hutchison for the Cambridge University Library competition in 1819. See Hübsch, In What Style Should We Build?. The ‘Battle of the styles’ in England, and the series of publications prompted in Germany by Heinrich Hübsch’s In What Style Should We Build?, were manifestations of the crisis nineteenth-century architects faced when conceiving their work within an unfolding history. See Hübsch, In What Style Should We Build?. Cockerell box 1, coc 1/9 (i), riba Archives, London. Cockerell still referred to the ‘origins of architecture’ but as imbricated in a larger process of history, that is, as ‘an essential part of the natural history of man’. Basing his views on what was seen as the largely debased ethics of English industrialization, A.W.N. Pugin claimed that a return to the principles of a Perpendicular style would positively affect the moral health of the English people. John Ruskin also praised the Gothic style, mourning the medieval architecture practices that effectively reflected the soul and everyday life of the craftsmen who carved its surfaces. Theories on ornaments variously shifted between conventionalized or naturalized concepts grounded in symbolic or scientific considerations. Sometimes this went further – quoting Durandus’s treatises on the Gothic to contrast a language only available to those who could read it to the mathematical and universal language of the classical that did not require this prior, obscure knowledge. This is already what Alexander Gerard alludes to in his 1759 treatise on taste. Focillon, Vie des formes, 12.

6 Gothic Architecture and the Liberty Trope Matthew M. Reeve

The concept of ‘liberty’ runs deeply through the historiography of Gothic art and architecture from the Early Modern period onward, and it would feature in one way or another in the ornamentation, design, and reception of its grandest productions in the movement now labelled ‘the Gothic Revival’. That said, what might liberty – the condition of living within a social structure without being confined or oppressed by authority – have to do with the Middle Ages or an appraisal of the Middle Ages in subsequent art and art writing? To answer this question provisionally and to introduce my theme generally, I begin with a key production in the Gothic’s historiography: Wenceslas Hollar’s 1655 frontispiece to Sir William Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum (see figure 6.1).1 Set within a grand Baroque arch, Hollar’s image – like Dugdale’s text itself – offers a sweeping vision of history that substantially promotes the medieval and, specifically, the Gothic past while vilifying those who, by contemporary logic, brought it to a close with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, notably Henry VIII. In the arched pediment at the top, Henry III re-endorses the fundamental text of English liberty, Magna Carta of 1215 (Henry agreed to uphold Magna Carta at the Eastertide Parliament at Westminster in 1253). To either side of this central scene are two images beneath the volutes: on the viewer’s left, the female personification Pietas holds a cross and gazes at the majesty of a great Gothic church (the inscription reads Prisca Fides [the faith of early times]); while on the viewer’s right, the mournful figure of Antiquitas appears aside a ruined church, the result of the Dissolution, and reads an ancient medieval book that sheds light (lumen) on the scene. In the plinth imagery below, the scene on the left shows a king kneeling at a lavish late medieval altar (a good king) while on the right Henry VIII (a bad king) arrogantly points his sword

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towards a ruined Gothic monastery. Pivoting upon the first clause of Magna Carta: ‘We have granted to God … that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired’, Hollar’s engraving shows the significance of liberty as an ideal of English national and religious life (as defined by Magna Carta), the virtuous kings who upheld it, and the villainous ones who did not. Located within a central text of medievalist scholarship, which itself attempted to recapture centuries of learning on the English medieval monastery, Hollar’s engraving also anticipates the poetics of medievalist endeavour that would follow in England. This is defined by the rupture in national, political, and religious history caused by the Dissolution and the yearning for a lost past of political, social, aesthetic, and even artisanal freedom before circa 1540. Hollar’s image positions viewers in the present, and it is through the frame of a contemporary Baroque arch that they gaze upon the lost medieval past. The antiquaries of the seventeenth century, some of whom were writing in the settling ashes of the Dissolution, provided a vital ethical and aesthetic agenda for the study and replication of the medieval past that would be influential for centuries and would inspire some of its greatest thinkers and patrons, from Horace Walpole to A.W.N. Pugin, John Ruskin, and beyond. Many of these figures, in their architectural design and patronage, their art writing, and occasionally in their poetry, adopted, referenced, and reframed the liberty trope of the Gothic, thus ensuring its longevity into the present. Remarkably enough, while the political contexts of various aspects of the Gothic Revival in the visual arts and its historiographical dimensions have been commented on, Chris Brooks does not err in suggesting that ‘Architectural historians of the Gothic Revival have consistently underestimated, or sometimes ignored the profound political significances that accrued to the notion of gothic during the seventeenth century and beyond’.2 Brooks is surely right about this, and I might add that some commentators have been guilty of tethering their readings of Gothic liberty too closely to the built environment or of taking the concept of Gothic liberty too literally. Gothic liberty was a trope of British modernity in its many manifestations – of which architecture was but one – and as such it was readily rethought and revised to various aesthetic and political ends from Dugdale onward. In what follows I sketch out only the contours of a history of the liberty trope in English medievalist art, architecture, and art writing with a particular focus on the years circa 1750 and 1850. In doing so I should stress two points. First, while appearing in a volume dedicated to politicians’ houses, my query will take

Figure 6.1 Wenceslas Hollar, frontispiece to Sir William Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, 1655.

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both ‘politician’ and ‘house’ somewhat liberally (as my subject in fact demands). As I have already intimated, liberty was defined not just in the strict constitutional sense of adhering to Magna Carta, or the Ancient Gothic Constitution, and so forth: it was frequently imbricated with a range of meanings, from political and economic freedom to social and even sexual liberty. The influential construction of the Gothic offered by Horace Walpole and his contemporaries in the middle of the eighteenth century – in which liberty featured centrally – was imagined contemporaneously with the originary text of the history of art, Joachim Winckelmann’s History of Ancient Art.3 While focusing on antiquity rather than the Middle Ages, Winckelmann’s text nonetheless shares much terrain with Walpole’s historiography. Charting the vicissitudes of style in ancient art, Winckelmann famously considered conducive climate and political liberty to be two drivers in the creation of the appropriate environment in which to achieve the ideal in ancient sculpture: put differently, it was because of these factors that the Greek mind could reproduce the human form in a state of absolute ideality from about Pericles to Alexander. I make this point not to suggest that Winckelmann influenced Walpole but, rather, to indicate that liberty was a broader Enlightenment idea that inflected the very origins of art history in England and abroad. The idea that the Gothic period or style signified a form of liberty was established in political writings in which the myth of the Gothic constitution, a variously Saxon or British constitution, stood at the centre of British politics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Samuel Kliger, R.J. Smith, Fiona Price, and others have shown.4 When Jonathan Swift wrote in 1719 that ‘parliaments are a peculiarly Gothic institution implanted in England by the Saxon princes who first introduced them into this island from the same source shared with the other Gothic parts of government in Europe’, he was voicing a truism well known in the previous century.5 It would punctuate the English Civil War (1642–51) and help to send Charles I to the scaffold (his death warrant would be a feature of Gothic historiography and Gothic Revival interiors) and the Restoration (1660). It would inform significant works such as James Thomson’s 1735–36 poem Liberty, which considers the Northern Goths to have been the original democrats of the world: Rome once had liberty but lost it due to spiritual decay, and it was the Saxons who brought liberty to England where it would thrive in its fullest political, ethical, and spiritual sense.6 The myth explored by Thomson would be fodder for much aesthetic, political, and historical writing over the eighteenth century, including James Beattie’s assertion: ‘Another thing

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remarkable in the Gothick nations, was an invincible spirit of liberty … to them there is reason to believe that we are indebted for those two great establishments, which form the basis of British freedom.’7 Moving forward in time, the events of the seventeenth century – the most important being the Glorious Revolution (1688), which was considered to define the struggle for liberty and halt the ‘progression from a free to a slavish constitution of government’ – were other touchstones for discourses of Gothic liberty. Often implicated within or imbricated upon these debates was Magna Carta, a document articulating the political freedom of Britons that actually hailed from what we now understand as the Gothic period. Signed by King John at Runnymede in 1215, Magna Carta placed the king and his successors under a degree of legal restraint, thus ensuring the liberty of Britons within a system of limited monarchical control. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, Magna Carta ‘had become little more than a heroic symbol of English liberty, forming the basis of an unwritten and reputedly ancient constitution. Citations tended to be crude and anachronistic … and the advocates of Magna Carta seem to have been less concerned with its specific clauses than with its iconic significance.’8 For the seventeenth-century antiquary John Seldon, for example, Magna Carta was effectively a restoration of liberties that had been enjoyed in Saxon times but that had lessened under the Normans after 1066.9 The nexus of political liberty and Gothic architecture was well established in the early eighteenth century, and it is rightly understood as a key influence on the revival of the style as a whole. It would be explored in a handful of key building projects, including William Kent’s Merlin’s Cave at Richmond (1736) and James Gibbs’s Gothic Temple of Liberty at Stowe (1741) (see figure 6.2), which bore the inscription ‘Je rends grace aux Dieux de nester pas Romain’ (I thank the Gods I am not a Roman). As is well known, the Temple of Liberty was one part of a designed landscape that also included other buildings with a manifestly political bent, including the Temple of Modern Virtue (also 1741), which was a ruined, asymmetrical building that had a decapitated statue of Sir Robert Walpole, the first prime minister (1721–42). This was a foil to the adjacent Temple of Ancient Virtue, a neo-classical temple, the juxtaposition of which was ‘designed to let us see the ruinous state of modern virtue’.10 Horace Walpole was well apprised of the political significance of these structures and penned a perceptive account of them as a satire (of sorts) in a letter to John Chute of 4 August 1753. He exclaimed: ‘The Grecian Temple is glorious: this I openly worship: [but] in the heretical corner of my heart I adore the Gothic building’.11 In

Figure 6.2 James Gibbs, Temple of Liberty at Stowe.

Walpole’s own copy of Benjamin Seeley’s Stowe: A Description (1768), he draws attention to Stowe’s famous Gothic temple and includes a hitherto overlooked account of its imagery, with its political thrust (see figure 6.3): ‘This was originally closed up on one side with paintings, in which was Fame drawing a veil over the reign of George 2nd, but this was taken away on Lord Temple’s coming into place’.12 Walpole’s reference is to Richard Grenville Temple, who served in government during the Seven Years War and was dismissed by George II in 1757, a good enough reason it seems to remove such a laudatory statement of the king’s rule. After 1700 the Gothic style and the legal construction of liberty in a constitutional sense likewise punctuated architectural description, whether

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Figure 6.3 Horace Walpole’s copy of Benjamin Seeley, Stowe: A Description, 1768, p. 30.

it was encountered in the sphere of political writing or in architectural criticism. An often-cited letter in the pages of the Gentleman’s Magazine gives an established image: Methinks there was something respectable in those old hospitable Gothick Halls, hung round with Helmets, Breast-plates and Swords of our Ancestors; I entered them with a constitutional sort of reverence, and look’d upon those Arms with Gratitude; and the Terror of Former Ministers, and the Check of Kings. Nay, I even Imagin’d that I saw some of those good Swords, that had procured the conformation of the Magna Charta, and humbled Spencers and Gavestons. And when I see these thrown by, to make Way for some tawdry Guilding and Carving, I can’t help considering such an Alteration as ominous, even to our Constitution. Our old Gothick Constitution had a noble strength and simplicity in it, which was well enough represented by the bold arches and the solid pillars of the Edifices of those Days.13

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But such seemingly positive associations between liberty and Gothic architecture were tempered by either more ambivalent or altogether negative interpretations. For example, in the writings of George, Lord Lyttelton, Letters From a Persian in England, to his Friend at Isphafan (1735), Lyttelton compares the ancient Saxon constitution to architecture: I have heard, said I, that the Laws of England are wisely framed and impartially administered. The old Gothick Pile we are now in, replied my Friend, will give you a just Idea of their Structure: The Foundations of it are deep and very lasting; it has stood many Ages, and with good Repairs may stand many more; but the Architecture is loaded with a Multiplicity of idle and useless parts; when you examine it critically, many Faults and Imperfections will appear; yet upon the whole it has a mighty awful Air, and strickes [sic] you with Reverence and Respect.14 Lyttelton’s staging of a defence of the Gothic in this fictive letter is somewhat tepid as he was known to have sided principally with the moderns rather than the Goths (as in the work he did at his seat Hagley Hall in Worcestershire). Elsewhere, Lyttelton would denigrate the Gothic constitution and promote instead the current system of a government working in concert with a stable monarchy: In no one of the many Gothic constitutions established in Europe did ever the people attain to any considerable share either of wealth, or power, or freedom, till they were emancipated from such jurisdictions, and till all the powers of great feudal lords, those of petty tyrants, too potent for subjects, too weak for sovereigns who were strong enough to oppress, but not strong enough to protect, till all their powers were more entirely absorbed in the beneficial and salutary power of the crown.15 This is useful in the present context to show the other side of the coin: liberty, for Lyttelton and some of his contemporaries, resulted from the destruction and dissolution of medieval forms of government (and their architectural signifiers) and the creation of new modes of being. Such commentaries have been usefully read in the context of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 in which Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, was defeated by George II. The defeat of the Catholic, Jacobite, feudal system, and all vestiges of the medieval past, was to bring liberty to England and Scotland alike. As David Stewart has argued, the range of Gothic ruin follies created in the

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grounds of political estates at Radway Grange at Edgehill by Sanderson Miller and at Hagley Hall (also by Miller) responded, in part at least, to this crisis.16 The completion of the folly at Radway Grange followed a 3 September 1750 party at the folly, which was not only timed to coincide with the anniversary of the death of Oliver Cromwell but also to commemorate two military victories against the Stuart king Charles I. The possibility that such ruins signified a critique of the past rather than a celebration of it and posited a temporal and ethical distance from the Middle Ages and the present offers a further layer of signification for Gothic forms at mid-century. Such works were a performance of a particular political position: creating new monuments in a decisively outmoded style that was deliberately rusticated to look as though they had been battered by war, time, and political liberty itself, is reminiscent of the creation and destruction of effigies of political figures – damnatio memoriae – (the pope, Guy Fawkes, etc.) in British culture. In Richard Jago’s Edge-hill (1767) inspired by the ruins, he considered their meaning to be ‘Distrust, Barbarity, and Gothic rule’. Horace Walpole, meanwhile, could astutely comment upon the realism of the decayed folly at Hagley that ‘it had the true rust of the Barons’ wars’.17 Walpole was, to be sure, the loudest proponent of the Gothic style in the middle and later years of the eighteenth century, and we might pause here to consider his own understanding of it. Walpole’s own theory of the Gothic was, at its core, a political one: he was not only the (possibly illegitimate) son to Sir Robert Walpole, but he also held political office. Yet it was not exclusively political in the constitutional sense. Central to Walpole’s construction of the Gothic was the fantasy that it was a style of aesthetic liberty and creative freedom, and that its revival was made possible by what he calls the new ‘liberty of taste’ in the Georgian present.18 Walpole’s chapter, ‘The State of Architecture in England up to the Reign of Henry VIII’, in his Anecdotes on Painting provides an outline of this theory, much of which is qualified and expanded in his letters, poetry, and art patronage. As I suggest elsewhere, it offers the first integrated political-aesthetic history of the Gothic in English. In writing it, he understood a chronological system in which ‘Saxon’ (i.e., Anglo-Saxon through Romanesque) architecture, based upon the architecture of Roman antiquity, was a clumsy and inelegant prequel to the Gothic, its forms and ornamentation ‘all evidences of barbarous and ignorant times’. For Walpole, the Gothic properly began in the reign of Henry III, due both to Henry’s establishment of a royal centre at Westminster and the prior signing of Magna Carta. For that reason, the buildings we now consider to originate the Gothic style in England – such as the choir of Canterbury Cathedral or

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Wells Cathedral (both begun in the 1170s) – do not feature in his account. The Gothic reached its ‘perfection’ from the reign of Henry IV through to the tomb of Archbishop Warham at Canterbury of 1507 (what Walpole called ‘the last example of unbastardised Gothic’). Its perfection was achieved by the creation of ‘singular’ essays in aesthetic freedom; King’s College Chapel, Cambridge (1446–1515), in particular was praised as ‘A bird of paradise’ that was ‘above all rules’ and a ‘bold and unique essay that resembles nothing else’. The Gothic declines towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII due to the importation of Italian artists into England and their importation of ‘Grecian’ or antiquederived forms in architecture. Thereafter, the two architectural systems became corrupted and produced a ‘mongrel species’ of architecture, a biological metaphor articulating the blending of antique and Gothic forms. Typical of the political contours of Walpole’s historiography, artistic style is a reflection of the political character of its period, leading to an integrated, moral reading of the history of art. Walpole broadly understood the Glorious Revolution and the rise of the Whig party to signal a return to political and artistic freedom that allowed for the revival of Gothic architecture and other arts, such as landscape gardening. Art followed politics: for Walpole, creative freedom was possible only when ‘a good government … indulges its subjects in the exercise of their own thoughts … refinements follow and much pleasure and satisfaction will be produced’. Walpole’s understanding of Gothic freedom or ‘liberty’ was rooted ultimately in the constitutional tradition, noting particularly the significance of Magna Carta. Walpole was to emphasize this association through the display of a (now lost) copy of Magna Carta and the death warrant of Charles I (1649) on either side of his bed in his bedchamber at Strawberry Hill.19 Son of the Whig prime minister, Walpole considered the current Whig administration (of which he was a peripheral member) to be the inheritors and champions of a medieval tradition of ‘Gothic liberty’, and he famously called himself the ‘only unadulterated Whig left in England’. Horace Walpole would be followed by others in his circle, including Dicky Bateman, son of the Lord Mayor, who had painted a remarkable series of the shields of the signatories of Magna Carta, King John, and the mayor of London in his villa at Old Windsor on the stair leading from the ground floor to the first floor.20 This is now sadly lost (or at least concealed beneath modern decoration), but it is known from a contemporary description. Although Bateman was a member of Walpole’s circle, we do not know whether the imagery was principally motivated by the patron’s political motivations or his historical ones since

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Magna Carta was signed close by and it was believed that the house was built upon the foundations of a previous medieval building.21 In his history Walpole would thus locate the libertarian Gothic between two periods of repressive, ascetic classicism: the ‘Saxon’ or Romanesque, and the ‘Grecian’ or neo-classical. This is emphasized in his famous comparison between ‘the rational beauties of regular architecture [i.e. classicism], and the unrestrained licentiousness’ of the Gothic. The advent of classicism in sixteenthcentury English architecture is figured as a ‘reform’ of Gothic, which is elided with broader social ‘reforms’, notably the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the resulting destruction of much of England’s Gothic art. ‘Reform’ in Walpole’s Anecdotes is an oppressive force of traditional morality, which he compares to the physical frigidity of Siberia and the political tyranny of Nero. Notably, Walpole would use the same idea when he compared his father’s Palladian estate at Houghton Hall to the frigidity of Siberia. Signalling the end of ‘true Gothic’, these reforms gave way to the mongrel Gothic, which continued until the final death of the style with the Puritan revolution or English Civil War of the seventeenth century. These replaced an Arbiter elegantiarum with a Censor morum. Walpole’s reference here is significant. His ‘arbiter elegantiarum’ is a wellknown Latinism from Tacitus’s Annals (XVI. 18), in which the author describes the fashionable life of Petronius at the court of Nero, who ‘was looked upon as an absolute authority on questions of taste (elegantiae arbiter) in connection with the science of luxurious living’. Walpole thus sees the Gothic period as one of social and artistic freedom with imbrications of meaning that extend to morals, manners, and sexuality. Elsewhere I show that Walpole’s circle promoted the Gothic as a vehicle to explore the new homoerotic subjectivities of the period. His preference for the ‘unreformed’ Gothic is manifest in the style of his house and in its notation: his motto was painted on the library ceiling of Strawberry Hill, and it featured in his graphic works: Fari quae sentiat (Say what one feels). Writing with comic effect and not, perhaps, without double entendre, Walpole writes to Henry Seymour Conway (his cousin with whom he had a romantic connection) in 1755 of his ‘Gothic spirit’, describing ‘Strawberry Castle, where you know how I love to enjoy my liberty. I give myself the airs, in my nutshell, on an old baron’.22 He transforms his Gothic mansion at Strawberry Hill into a nutshell and his own liberty into something that is not purely or even principally political in nature. That ‘liberty’ was rife for comic reinterpretation in Walpole’s milieu is also suggested in a letter to him from his friend George Montagu: ‘I might pick up a hat of liberty on the shore, or a

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scrap of Magna Carta, Cromwell’s codpiece, or the cravat of old glorious, venerable relics that I place on my altar and save from the flames’.23 Here, within the correspondence of male friends with common predilections, a range of antiquarian objects moves from objects with established connections to liberty to phallic jokes, thus establishing something of the fluidity of the liberty trope at mid-century. Walpole’s construction of Gothic liberty can be usefully compared with that employed by the libertine politician Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer, in his patronage at Medmenham Abbey and West Wycombe, not far up the Thames from Strawberry Hill. Officially an independent, Dashwood was, like his father, nevertheless a central figure in Whig and Tory politics (he adopted the family motto Pro Magna Charta). In an infamous episode in eighteenthcentury architecture, Dashwood gothicized the former Cistercian monastery at Medmenham and created the nearby ‘Hellfire caves’, which were in fact excavated from a chalk hill and fronted with a Gothic church façade constructed in flint stone (see figure 6.4). The Gothic façade was one component of a larger campaign of garden design that was principally classical in orientation.24 The liberty promoted by Dashwood and many of his circle (including John Wilkes) – many of whom were also members of the Society of the Dilettanti – was clearly of a broader political and libidinal nature.25 The orgiastic exploits of Dashwood and his Hell-Fire Club meetings are well known and require little reiteration here: meeting under the guise (literally) of the Medmenham Monks, Dashwood and his circle exploited a rich range of tropes of Catholic monasticism as a code for erotic brotherhood. It was in this series of caves where it is believed that the Medmenham monks indulged in their affairs with ‘nuns’, seemingly prostitutes from London, in small cells leading off the main domical hall. As in his portrait by William Hogarth in which Sir Francis appears as St Francis who gazes between the open legs of a statue of Venus (rather than the crucifix, as we would expect of St Francis), Dashwood’s construction of sexual liberty was couched in a hardly subtle inversion of contemporary social-sexual mores. Dashwood’s buildings bore his moniker (borrowed from Rabelais): Fay ce que vouldras (Do what you will), an echo of Walpole’s own Fari Quae Sentiat. In his Journals of Visits to Country Seats, Walpole himself describes a genealogy of the kings of England at West Wycombe in which the image of Henry VIII was covered up ‘as a mark of dislike to him for destroying monasteries’, thus suggesting the continuation of a sexual tradition of monastic life (or liberty) from the Middle Ages onward.26 The two men thus shared a common construction of the Gothic as

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Figure 6.4 John Donowell, Façade to the ‘Hell-Fire Caves’. West Wycombe.

a period and as an architectural style of political and sexual freedom, a suitable architecture for ‘brother monks’. Politics of a different sort was manifest at Donnington Grove built by Walpole’s close friend John Chute for the author, historian, and antiquary James Pettit Andrews (see figure 6.5).27 Recently rediscovered drawings now in a private collection illustrate the lost display of armour and paintings on the staircase landing that was clearly based upon Strawberry Hill. Just as Walpole mythologized his own home as the setting for his Gothic story, The Castle of Otranto

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(1764), so Andrews used Donnington as the setting for literary fantasy based on Walpole’s influential model. Thomas Penrose wrote the poem ‘The Helmets, a Fragment’ for Andrews and published it in 1775. The narrative was based within Donnington, as its preface states: The Scene of the following Event is laid in the Neighborhood of Donington [sic] Castle, in a House built after the Gothic Taste, upon a Spot famous for a bloody Encounter between the Armies of Charles I and the Parliament [i.e., the Battle of Newbury, 1644]. The Prognostication alludes to Civil Dissention, which some have foretold would arise in England, in Consequence of the Disputes with America.28 The poem begins within Donnington at Midnight as two helmets are suddenly struck by lightning and brought to life. In Penrose’s words, ‘The Spirits, wandering round this gothic pile / All join their yell – the song is War and Death – / There will be work anon [!]’. Penrose locates the animation of armour within a specific political context and goes further to knit together two phases of political unrest: the 1640s and the present time of 1775. Penrose here refers to the colonial revolt in the United States that erupted into the American Revolutionary War in that year and the fear that this war would inspire unrest in England. It could not have been more current. Seemingly martialled by a protectionist supernatural force, it is the armour that is animated to protect England from this potential fallout. With derring do, one helmet states ‘Call armourers, Ho!’, while the other, which did not prevent the death of its former occupant, lazily waxes instead on his inability to engage in battle and, ultimately, on his transformation from an object of the medieval past into an object of antiquarian curiosity in the present: Pensile I’m fixed – yet too your gaudy pride Has nought to boast, – the fashion of the fight Has thrown your gilt, and shady plumes aside For modern foppery.29 In other words, the helmets prefer not to fight but to remain in an antiquarian collection where some antiquary will endow them with a dubious provenance from Cressy or Agincourt! This rich sense of play in the construction of liberty in Walpole’s mid- to latecentury milieu would change significantly in the late years of the eighteenth

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Figure 6.5 Thomas Penrose, ‘Armour as it was placed on the staircase at the Grove and the “Gilded Casque” – as in Revd. Penrose’s Poem of “The Helmets”,’ showing the original display of arms on the upper stair landing at Donnington Grove, Berks.

and nineteenth centuries when its range of social and sexual meanings contracted to become overtly constitutional. Arguably based upon the examples from Walpole’s circle, William Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey would bear a grand display of all the barons who signed Magna Carta, and a statue of his father holding a scroll of Magna Carta in his left hand, much like the mid-century example of John Wilkes, was to be displayed in a position of honour.30 However, the most significant statement of Gothic liberty in the built environment around 1800 was surely the rebuilding of Arundel Castle by Charles Howard, the 11th Duke of Norfolk, between 1791 and 1809. Unlike his immediate familial predecessors, Howard selected Arundel as the principal family residence and spent a quarter century rebuilding it and its grounds. The duke consulted a series of authorities, including Horace Walpole (who would recommend James Wyatt – his favoured architect in the 1780s–90s);31 the president of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Richard Gough; and the architect Francis Hiorne; but the designs appear to have been the duke’s own. Arundel would be one of

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a list of elite aristocratic rebuildings that followed in the wake of George III’s rebuilding of Windsor Castle.32 Inheriting a long tradition in Gothic architecture in England, Arundel would be the most literal and overt statement of Gothic architecture as a signifier of political liberty. Unlike many houses that preceded it, in which emblems of Magna Carta were displayed unobtrusively in parts of a great or lesser home, at Arundel these emblems were large-scale installations that were positioned in the most prominent spaces of the castle. Two monumental statues by the London sculptor Eleanor Coade – of Hospitality and Liberty, respectively – stood twelve feet high in niches on the main gate greeting the visitor.33 The east wing was dominated by a stone relief by J.C.F. Rossi representing King Alfred Instituting Trial by Jury on Salisbury Plain set above a triple arch gate (see figure 6.6).34 Grander still was the dedication of the Great Hall – the central place for display and communal celebration – to the baronial signatories of Magna Carta (i.e., ‘The Baron’s Hall’). Its cornerstone bore the following inscription: Charles Howard, Duke of Norfolk Earl of Arundel, In the Year of Christ, 1806 In the 60th year of his age, Dedicated this stone To Liberty, asserted by the Barons, In the reign of John.35 This hall would hold a centenary celebration of the signing of Magna Carta complete with medieval armour on display on 15 June 1815. The stained glass in the window was designed to enhance the space’s central theme: Joseph Backler painted the immense end window with King John signing Magna Carta from an original picture by James Lonsdale (see figure 6.7). In order to emphasize Howard’s role as a typological successor to the baronial signatories of Magna Carta, the characters in stained glass were based on modern figures, including Howard himself and his circle. The stained glass windows on the long lateral walls of the hall likewise included typological portraits (painted by Francis Eginton of Birmingham): the Earl of Surrey, son of the Duke of Norfolk, was dressed as Robert Bigod [sic]; Lord Henry Molineaux Howard – the duke’s brother – appeared in the guise of Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and so forth.36 Although politics were surely central to these monuments at Arundel,

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Figure 6.6 Benjamin Brecknell Turner, ‘North Side of Quadrangle, Arundel Castle’.

it is significant that the members of the Arundel family were Catholic. As Catholics, this overt revival also signalled a return to an ancient ‘Gothic’ form of spirituality and strengthened their hereditary claim for formally tracing back their hereditary lineage. Here too, the ‘catholicness’ of the Gothic is earnest rather than subversive, and, as such, it had moved far from the ‘camp’ appraisal of Catholicism and the Catholic rite of Walpole and his circle.37 Arundel Castle appears to have stabilised and even embodied a tradition of Gothic politics in English medievalist architecture. In this, it must surely have informed the display of Magna Carta imagery in the greatest of British politicians’ houses: the House of Lords at Westminster. The House of Lords program was of course part of the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster by Charles Barry and A.W.N. Pugin after the fire of 1834. Eighteen life-sized statues were created to fill the niches directly above the wainscoting that wraps around the room.38 The commissions followed from the public competition conceived by the Fine Arts Commissioners to find sculptors to adorn the new Parliament. The scheme appears to have followed that of Prince Albert, who proposed ‘to

Figure 6.7 Joseph Backler, King John Signing Magna Carta.

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Figure 6.8 James Sherwood Westmacott, Statue of Saher de Quincy, House of Lords, Westminster.

fill the niches with the effigies of the principal barons who signed Magna Charta’.39 Among the applicants was James Sherwood Westmacott, who submitted two subjects – King Richard I and King Alfred – and from which he was given the commission to create two statues for the House of Lords. Westmacott’s figure of Saher de Quincy is among the most memorable, and it came to public attention again recently in the Sculpture Victorious exhibition of 2014 (see figure 6.8). With its insouciant, hip-shot pose, the statue reflects a restrained elegance, and the attention to historical detail in the armour indicates a careful study of medieval effigies, such as those at nearby Temple Church. The signatories were one component of an installation environment within the House of Lords, including the frescoes by Charles West Cope of English medieval political history and a surplus of Gothic carved ornament. But with

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these, and certainly with the mid-nineteenth-century cycle of Magna Carta signatories in the Lord’s Chamber, Westminster surely signified the codification of these ideas as hegemonic concepts of politics, history, and nationhood largely free of the taint of libertinism. In this, the liberty trope parallels the contemporary transformation of the Gothic style itself, which changes from a style for elite secular homes that expressed a range of associations that could be variously social and sexual to the style of religious and political hegemony in Victorian Britain.40 It is significant to note that the liberty trope would continue to shift and adapt to later concerns of patrons and authors, being reimagined in a range of texts on Gothic architecture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A.W.N. Pugin’s satirical Contrasts explicitly compares what he understood as the religious and sensory liberty of the medieval past with the oppression of the modern, industrial present.41 But it was probably John Ruskin who was principally responsible for advancing the myth that the Gothic artist was a free artisan living in liberal culture that enabled his own individual flights of artistic fancy in England. In the context of his remarkable ‘The Nature of Gothic’ essay in the Stones of Venice, he would suggest that artisanal freedom in the Gothic period (a fantasy, but a telling one) was the driving force behind what he sensed as the variety of Gothic ornaments, each the production of an artist’s individual will. Ruskin’s sentiments would be echoed in a long list of texts extolling the freedom of the Gothic artist in the later nineteenth century, including William Morris, Walter Crane, and others (Morris notably produced an edition of the essay) in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Liberty would also form a cornerstone of the Gothic as a colonial import to North America in the work of early Gothic Revivalists in both Canada and the United States: the art critic James Jackson Jarves could grandly claim that the Gothic cathedral was ‘a miniature commonwealth’ that embodied the ‘fundamental ideas of natural and spiritual freedom which are born of Christianity’, while the artist and architectural historian Charles Herbert Moore (1840–1930) appraised the Gothic as ‘a substantial expression of the growing freedom from feudal oppression’.42 The trope of liberty was thus a vital one in the historiography of the Gothic, and its very morphology, sketched out here, illustrates its enduring utility as a central mythology of English culture.

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notes 1 This image has been carefully studied. See Corbett, ‘Title-Page and Illustrations’. 2 Brooks, Gothic Revival, 46. 3 For Walpole’s construction of the Gothic, see Reeve, Gothic Architecture. For Winckelmann, see Potts, Flesh and the Ideal; and Davis, ‘Winckelmann Divided’. 4 Kliger, Goths (1952); Smith, Gothic Bequest; Scott, Reinventing Liberty. 5 Kliger, Goths (1952), 7–8. 6 Ibid., 32. 7 Beattie, ‘On fable and romance’, 2:261–2. 8 Lock and Champion, ‘Radicalism and Reform’, 161. 9 Parry, Trophies of Time, 112. 10 Stewart, ‘Political Ruins’, 400. 11 Walpole to John Chute, 4 August 1753, in Walpole, Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence 35:76–7. 12 Horace Walpole’s copy of Benjamin Seeley, Stowe: A Description, Lewis Walpole Library, 49 2387.4: 30, Yale University, Farmington, ct. 13 ‘Common Sense’, Gentleman’s Magazine 9 (1739): 641. 14 McKinney, ‘History and Revivalism’, 39. 15 Lyttelton, Works of George Lyttelton, 2:564. 16 Stewart, ‘Political Ruins’, 400–11. 17 Ibid., 403. 18 I expand on these issues in greater depth in Reeve, Gothic Architecture, esp. 29–34. 19 ‘on either side of my bed I have hung the Magna Charta and the Warrant for King Charles’ execution, on which I have written Major Charta, as I believe without the latter the former by this time would be of little importance’. See Horace Walpole to George Montagu, 7 October 1756, in Walpole, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with George Montagu, 9:197–8. See also Lake, ‘Bloody Records’. 20 Windsor and Its Environs, 79–80. 21 For a discussion of Bateman’s Old Windsor, see Reeve, Gothic Architecture, 119–44. 22 Horace Walpole to Henry Conway, 23 September 1755, in Walpole, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with Henry Seymour Conway, 37:406. 23 George Montagu to Horace Walpole, 13 June 1765, in Walpole, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with George Montagu, 10:158. 24 Symes, ‘Flintwork, Freedom and Fantasy’; Frith, ‘Sexuality and Politics’. 25 For representations of Wilkes referring to Magna Carta, see West, ‘Wilkes’s Squint’, 69, 73–4. 26 In Toynbee, ‘Horace Walpole’s Journal of Visits to Country Seats’, 50. 27 For Donnington, see Reeve, Gothic Architecture, 149–56.

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Penrose, Flights of Fancy, 5–9. Ibid. Frost, ‘Beckford Era’, 71, 88–90. Horace Walpole to Mary Berry, 16 August 1796, in Walpole, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with Mary and Anne and Mary Berry, 12:205. Watkin, ‘George III’. Wright, History and Antiquities, 42. Robinson, ‘Magna Carta’. Wright, History and Antiquities, 47–8. Ibid., 52. Reeve, Gothic Architecture, 34–43. Read, ‘Sculpture and the New Palaces of Westminster’. Droth, Edwards, and Hatt, Sculpture Victorious, 153. Reeve, Gothic Architecture, 179–89. Hill, ‘From Reformation to Millennium’. Clark, American Discovery of Tradition, 136.

7 ‘Whig Gothic’: An Antidote to Houghton Hall Peter N. Lindfield

The standard narrative of eighteenth-century British architecture identifies Whig taste as a classical one – in particular, what is known as the English Palladian style. The construction of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for Sir Robert Walpole from 1722 defined the representation of political power and established beyond any doubt the relevance of the classical country house to Whig politicians.1 During the eighteenth century, Gothic and classical architecture – and design in general – were considered diametric opposites: any definition of Whig architectural taste as classical does not accommodate one of William Kent’s most interesting country houses that is in the Gothic mode, namely, Esher Place in Surrey. The house was designed and built in the early 1730s for Henry Pelham, a leading pro-Walpole Whig politician and a future British prime minster. Pelham followed Sir Robert Walpole (in office 1721–42) and Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington (in office 1742–43), to become the third prime minster between 1743 and 1753. This essay explores the creation of Esher, the aesthetic decisions made in its design and evolution from initial to executed proposals, and the relevance of spolia from medieval architecture to its eventual structure. Ultimately, it considers Esher as a Gothic equivalent to Walpole’s Houghton Hall as a manifestation of status. The most detailed published explorations of Esher, John Harris’s 1989 essay ‘William Kent and Esher Place’, as well as my accounts of the building, have failed to address the political significance of Pelham’s Surrey pile.2 The argument presented here complicates and nuances the all too easily repeated claim that Whig architecture is Palladian. As Esher demonstrates, leading Whig politicians’ houses did not need to be Palladian, or even classical for that matter.

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Whiggism and the Classical Style: Traditional Assumptions Andrea Palladio’s sixteenth-century villas in the Veneto, Italy, came to have an influence upon British country house architecture via the seventeenth-century work of Inigo Jones, and the style was further cultivated and promoted in the early eighteenth century by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, who was externally a Whig but apparently held hidden Jacobite sympathies.3 Jones’s interest in Palladio and his architecture can be seen in a personal, annotated copy of Palladio’s treatise, Quattro libri dell’architettura (Four Books of Architecture, first published in 1550),4 and Palladio’s influence upon Jones is also demonstrated by two London buildings: the Queen’s House in Greenwich (built from 1616) and the Banqueting House in Whitehall (built from 1619).5 The Whig adoption of Palladianism came a century later. John Summerson succinctly writes that the ‘Palladian movement … was essentially Whig’.6 More recently, Dan Cruickshank also observes that Wanstead House, built for Sir Richard Child, 1st Earl Tylney, who was a Tory until he turned Whig in 1715 in line with the Whig ascendancy, ‘was one of the earliest and greatest expressions of the Whig Association with Palladian design’.7 A further indication of the Whig party’s adoption of the Palladian style can be seen in the introduction and the dedication of designs in the first volume of Vitruvius Britannicus (from 1715), a pioneering architectural pattern-book by the Scottish architect Colen Campbell that depicts extant historic buildings and designs for new structures. The first design by Campbell in the 1715 volume is for John Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll, a prominent Whig, and three progressively revised designs for Wanstead House are also included in volumes 1 and 3.8 Described as a ‘princely mansion’, Campbell emphasized the originality of Wanstead’s design (see figure 7.1): ‘The second [plate] is the Front, adorned with a just Hexastyle, the first yet practised in this manner in the Kingdom: The Order is Corinthian, and the Diameter 3 Foot, with its proper Entablature and Balustrade, adorned with Figures, and a Cupola’.9 Much like Wanstead, the country houses of many other Whigs were built in the Palladian style. For example, Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire (discussed in the next essay in this volume), originally a Jacobean house, was rebuilt in the Palladian fashion by the prominent Whig Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquis of Rockingham, from 1725. Sir Robert Walpole’s seat, Houghton Hall in Norfolk, was similarly constructed as a type of Palladian-styled palace from 1722. As Patrizia Granziera argues in her 2004 essay, the Venetian architecture

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Figure 7.1 Colen Campbell, First Design of the West Front of Wanstead House from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715).

of Palladio appealed especially to the Whig Opposition party, with countless other Palladian country houses built, including Stowe in Buckinghamshire for Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham. In particular, Whigs found that Venice represented ancient political virtue in the modern world; Palladio’s buildings embodied this, and they also demonstrated a sensitive placement within the landscape that equally appealed in England.10 It thus appears to be a given that Palladian country house architecture matched the political ideals of the Whigs, whether Walpolian Court Whigs or the Whig Opposition, but this situation is far from straightforward.11 As Granziera points out, the difference between the two-party political system (Whigs and Tories) is not quite what we can assume it to be. William Talbot, 2nd Baron, later 1st Earl Talbot, records in a letter how: I wish the nominal distinction of Whig and Tory was abolished, as the words only, not the sense remain; A Ministerial Whig and a State Tory, when in power, are so exactly alike in their conduct, that my discernment is not sufficient to distinguish one from the other. The principles of a real

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Whig, in my sense of the term, are these, that the Government is an original compact between the governors and the governed, instituted for the good of the whole community; that in a limited monarchy, or more properly regal Commonwealth, the majesty is in the people, and tho’ the person on the throne is superior to any individual, he is the servant of the nation; that the only title to the crown is the election of the people; that the laws are equally obligatory to the Prince and people; that as the constitution of England is formed of three legislative branches, the balance between each must be preserved, to prevent the destruction of the whole; that elections ought to be free, the elected independent; – that a Parliamentary influence by places and pensions is inconsistent with the interest of the public; and that a Minister who endeavours to govern by corruption is guilty of the vilest attempt to subvert the Constitution; – that a standing mercenary army, in time of peace is contrary to the laws, dangerous to the liberties, and oppressive to the subjects of Great-Britain.12 Sir Roger Newdigate, 5th Baronet, who was the Tory mp for the University of Oxford between 1751 and 1780, similarly questioned the divisions between the Whig and Tory parties as implied by the distinct labels. In the opening lines to a manuscript entitled ‘Essay on Party’ from circa 1760,13 Newdigate writes: It is the peculiar happiness of these our days that the distinctions of Whig and Tory are either so little known or so totally confounded by their practices of both the parties that it is no easy task to define either, but, as it has been the wicked policy of some who wish to disturb the public peace to endeavour to revive those odious and obsolete distinctions, a short history of both may be useful by way of antidote and to show how little they have to do with the contests for power in these our days.14 Thus, the sharp distinctions that we make between Whig and Tory politicians from eighteenth-century Britain is far from clear cut. What can be said, however, is that Palladian architecture was favoured by a number of Whig politicians – both by those within the Walpolean faction and by those in opposition to Walpole. While this is certainly a trend, there are nevertheless notable exceptions: political affiliation did not guarantee the style in which a politician’s house was designed and constructed.

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Whig’s Gothic Opposition to Palladianism There are a lot of gaps when we come to explore Esher Place – the country seat that Henry Pelham had made for himself in the early 1730s. We know, however, that he purchased Esher in 1729 – an estate only a short distance from Claremont that belonged to his elder brother Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne (3rd creation) and 1st Duke of Newcastle under Lyme. Pelham- Holles, a notable Whig politician, served as Sir Robert Walpole’s foreign minister (1730–39) and then defence minister (1739–48), again as foreign minister (1748–54) for his younger brother’s government, and then as prime minster (1754–56). Pelham-Holles acquired significant fortune and landed estates through two inheritances in the early 1710s: in July 1711 his maternal uncle, John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne (2nd creation), died, leaving Thomas vast estates; and in February 1712 Thomas’s father died, leaving him not only a title, Baron Pelham of Laughton, but also the Pelham estates in Sussex. By 1712 he had inherited land in eleven counties across Britain and enjoyed an annual income of around £32,000. Pelham-Holles received further favour when, in late 1714, George I appointed him lord lieutenant of both Middlesex and Nottinghamshire, and he was also raised in the peerage as Viscount Houghton and Earl of Clare. The following year, to reward supporting the Whigs in the general election, George I elevated him yet further to become the Marquis of Clare and Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne. With these favours and advancements, PelhamHolles purchased land in Sussex upon which to erect a country seat, and Claremont House became his favourite country residence. Pelham-Holles’s younger brother, Henry Pelham, struck out even further from what we consider to be ‘typical’ Whig country house architecture. The foundation for what can be deemed his aesthetic deviance is the remains of a Tudor palace that once stood on the land Pelham purchased in 1729. Although far from the earliest structure on the Esher estate – the first manor house was built in 1331 – William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester (1447–86) and Lord Chancellor of England (1456–60), constructed a palace at Esher in the 1460s or 1470s, and certainly before 1484.15 A map by Ralph Treswell the Elder from 1606 depicting Esher and Walton-on-Thames shows Waynflete’s palace, which had passed by this time both into and out of the possession of Cardinal Wolsey who used it as a base while building the nearby Hampton Court Palace from 1515.16 The map also shows a gatehouse, called the ‘Wayneflete tower’, set within an embattled curtain wall and neighboured by a large keep and great hall across

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a substantial court. Its state was recorded by John Aubrey, the well-regarded and prolific antiquary, in 1673. His drawing of the site and description of the complex, published in The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey (1719), shows that little of Waynflete’s palace had changed in the intervening years. The entry on Esher Place from The Natural History … of Surrey states: At the Foot of a steep Hill, Northward, upon the Brink of the River Mole, is a stately, strong built House of Brick, of the Gothick Architecture, erected by the famous William Wainflet [sic], Bishop of Winchester, and Founder of St. Mary Magdalen College, and the Hall adjoining, in Oxford, whose Arms are carv’d in Stone over the Gate-House, impal’d with those of the See of Winchester, and in several other Places; and also in the Key-stone of the Vault. On the Timber-Work in the Hall, not unlike that in Westminster-Hall, are several Angels, carv’d in Wood, sustaining Escocheons [sic]; on two of which are Scrowls [sic], bearing this Inscription; Tibi Christe In the Windows frequently occur: Sit Deo Gracia Here the noble spirited Wolsey is said to have liv’d, during the building of Hampton-Court. This Estate and Manour [sic] came to the Crown, perhaps seiz’d by that avaricious Prince, King Henry VIII. After he had destroy’d the Cardinal, and was afterwards in the Possession of Mr. Rich. Drake,. Kinsman to Sir Francis Drake, Kt. who liv’d here.17 Esher, consequently, was an important Tudor palace only a short distance from another even more splendid essay in Tudor architecture: Hampton Court Palace, fashioned along the lines of a regularized Renaissance complex. And, like Hampton Court, Esher’s history and pedigree are also linked with Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII. Although Esher survived remarkably intact into the later seventeenth century, by the time it was recorded by Leonard Knyff and engraved by Johannes Kip for inclusion in Britannia Illustrata (first published 1707–09), little of the palace remained.18 Of the Tudor complex, the only remaining part in the eighteenth century – as, indeed, today – is Waynflete’s gatehouse that had, notably, undergone significant and numerous refurbishments and re-presentations. Kip’s engraving indicates that the gatehouse had been extended laterally to make a slightly larger, more substantial house five bays wide, with the even numbered

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Figure 7.2 Leonard Knyff and Johannes Kip, Esher estate in Britannia Illustrata (1724).

bays appearing like towers projecting in advance of and higher than the rest of the building (see figure 7.2). While the gatehouse’s historic battlemented roofline was retained, the windows were of a square-headed form. Later, an initial design by William Kent for Esher Place shows the Waynflete gatehouse stripped of its modest lateral winged extensions to become, once again, a three-bay Gothic gatehouse (see figure 7.3). As a way of marking the original site of Waynflete’s palace, Kent’s design reveals that this historic structure was to become a garden folly. It fits squarely within the bourgeoning trend of augmenting country house landscapes with eyecatchers and follies. Gothic follies were a prominent part of this tradition, with an early example being that in Shotover Park, Oxfordshire, erected at the end of the garden’s canal circa 1720 (see figure 7.4). In his remodelling of Rousham in Oxfordshire circa 1737, Kent also gothicized Cuttle Mill, otherwise known as the Temple of the Mill, with one façade featuring an inset quatrefoil, flying buttresses, and an ogee window. He also added, in the distant landscape, the so-called Grand Triumphal Arch in Aston Field. This arch, while not classical, is, instead, quasi-Gothic, being

Figure 7.3 William Kent, Initial Design for Esher Place, c. 1730.

Figure 7.4 The Gothic Folly at Shotover, Oxfordshire (architect unknown).

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what appears to be a curious mixture of Romanesque arches and Gothic pinnacles (see figure 7.5).19 Likewise, a very similar archway was established out of the remains of the medieval church at Shobdon in Herefordshire. While the identity of the architect responsible for designing and undertaking the changes in the 1750s is unknown, we can say for certain that Shobdon was made in direct imitation of William Kent’s style of Gothic.20 The Shobdon arches, much like that at Rousham, acted as an eye catcher, but this Herefordshire example also includes some of the most important Romanesque sculpture from the medieval Herefordshire School.21 Kent’s retention of the Waynflete tower within the grounds of Esher is a strident example of early historical preservation. Perhaps not a conscious act to preserve historic structures, it instead probably offered a cheaper alternative to demolishing the tower or erecting something else within the grounds to serve as an eye-catcher. Gothic follies within country house landscapes may well have served functions other than the aesthetic and the practical (such as banqueting

Figure 7.5 William Kent, The Grand Triumphal Arch in Aston Field at Rousham, Oxfordshire.

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houses). Michael McCarthy, remarking of the Gothic folly at Shotover Park in Oxfordshire, writes: There can be little doubt that the choice of the gothic style was dictated by the political ideology of its owner, James Tyrrell, and this marks it as a new phenomenon in garden architecture, a building which declares its owner’s political allegiance by its emphatic separateness from surrounding buildings. No such purpose had been intended or served by gothic buildings in earlier centuries.22 McCarthy’s statement is a little confounded by the fact that we do not know exactly when the Gothic folly was erected. McCarthy suggests a date of 1717, and Historic England’s listings for the building suggests both circa 1720 and circa 1740.23 James Tyrrell, the author, Whig political philosopher, and historian, may have commissioned the folly or his only son, General James Tyrrell, a Whig politician, may have been responsible for its construction. Whoever built it, it is the terminus point to the house’s central axis and is thought to be a political symbol; thus, the Shotover folly reveals that Whig architecture could be Gothic, but there is a significant difference between erecting a Gothic garden folly and building an entire house in the style. Further complicating this aesthetic multiplicity, Gothic and classical architecture were considered polar opposites in the Georgian period, with classical architecture being respectable, largely because of its underlying mathematical principles, and Gothic being thought to be a debased style because of what was considered to be its ‘wild licentiousness’. The following comparison between the two styles made by Alexander Gerard in his 1759 treatise, An Essay on Taste, is exemplary of the commonly held opinion at the time: The Gothic architecture appears extremely rich in point of variety, but it’s [sic] ornaments fatigue the eye by their confusion and minuteness. Hence we cannot easily distinguish one from the other, nor fix our attention upon any one object, on account of the multitude that rush at once upon the sight; and thus it happens that this kind of architecture displeases in the very circumstances that were designed to render it agreeable. A Gothic structure is to the eye what a riddle is to the understanding; in the contemplation of it’s [sic] various parts and ornaments the mind perceives the same perplexity and confusion in it’s [sic] ideas, that arise from reading an obscure poem.

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The Grecian architecture, on the contrary, appears uniform; but as the nature, and the number also of it’s [sic] divisions are precisely such as occupy the mind without fatiguing it, it has consequently that degree of variety that is pleasing and delightful … The Grecian architecture whose divisions are few, but grand and noble, seems formed after the model of the great and the sublime. The mind perceives a certain majesty which reigns through all it’s [sic] productions.24 Gerard’s interpretation of the styles is consistent with most eighteenth-century thought that theorized classical and Gothic modes as opposites. Given this paradigm of aesthetic stylistic opposition, it seems improbable that Gothic could be used to represent Whiggish ideas and identity. Indeed, it has been argued that the erection of ruined Gothic follies in Georgian Britain symbolized the defeat of Jacobitism.25 However, despite these circumstances, Gothic was actually accepted within the context of Whig aesthetics. The most obvious and well explained example is the Gothic Temple or Temple of Liberty at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, one of the last additions to Lord Cobham’s politicized landscape garden and built by the architect James Gibbs from 1741 (see figure 6.2). It demonstrates the connection between Gothic architecture and a national heritage of liberty that resonated particularly within Whig oppositional politics in this period. Although the temple appears to have no overt connection with liberty, except for its name, or, indeed, with Whiggism, the entry in George Bickham’s guidebook to the gardens, The Beauties of Stow (1750), records that: we come to a Gothic building, call’d The temple of liberty. Libertati Majorum. To the Liberty of our Ancestors. It is an Imitation of a large antique Building … It is impossible to make a better Imitation of the antient Taste of Architecture. This is a Kind of Castle, several stories high, which commands the whole Garden.26 This temple, as articulated by its style of architecture, referred to the liberty of Georgians’ medieval ancestors. The link between Gothic architecture and the Goths who sacked Rome was a central plank of opposition to the style in eighteenth-century Britain; the Goths were also held up as a people who possessed freedom from an over-powerful monarch, which the Whig party in the eighteenth century wished to emulate.27 The Whigs, however, were not an official

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party; rather, they were made up from alliances, with the notable division being between those who supported Sir Robert Walpole and those who opposed him. In particular, Lord Cobham was at the centre of the opposition to Walpole, starting in 1733. His classical house and its gardens, featuring a large number of Palladian-style follies, indicate a continued interest in applying classical principles to their architecture, but, as demonstrated here, not all were classical. In a compelling manner, Pocock suggests, albeit without providing evidence, that ‘the historical outlook which rose in each nation [at this time] was in part the product of its law, and therefore, in turn, of its history’.28 Indeed, the Gothic constitution was treated with great interest at this time in Britain. The signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, a document designed to restrict the reach and powers of the monarch and simultaneously reassert the rights of barons, was the touchstone of medieval freedom for the elite and was incorporated into Whig polity.29 Walter Harris makes this connection clear in 1749: ‘the Gothick Constitution once prevailed over all the Countries of Europe; and was introduced by those Northern Swarms, who, with a wonderful rapidity, over-ran France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, &c, and settled such a Government of Liberty, wherever they exerted their conquests’.30 This Gothic constitution, reinvigorated by the Whigs in eighteenth-century Britain, was clearly thought to have survived: ‘we in Great-Britain have still happily preserved this noble and ancient Gothic Constitution, which all our Neighbours once enjoy’d, as well as we, who are the Wonder and Glory of all the Kingdoms round about us’.31 It was a critical idea in the Whig political system – one that attempted to reduce the power of the monarch in favour of representation through the Parliament. The Temple of Liberty at Stowe is a physical manifestation and explanation of Gothic architecture’s connection with the idea of Whig liberty. At Esher, by retaining the Waynflete tower – perhaps as a memory of medieval liberty, if not history and antiquity in general – Kent’s proposal is not as antithetical to what we consider to be Whig taste as we might imagine. The remainder of the details presented in Kent’s first proposal for Esher – particularly the house – are consistent with what we think of as Whig architecture: Palladianism. The country house is remarkably similar to the external appearance, albeit on a smaller scale, of the almost contemporary project for Thomas Coke, later 1st Earl of Leicester, in Norfolk: Holkham Hall. A long-time supporter of Sir Robert Walpole’s government, Coke craved recognition of, and payment for, his loyalty beyond elevation to the minor peerage in May 1728 when he became Baron Lovel of Minster Lovel. Holkham expressed his status, and its styling as a grand Palladian pile modelled roughly upon the appearance

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of Palladio’s unbuilt Villa Mocenigo certainly did this. Although begun in 1734, work on the house’s design began beforehand, and it was the product of combined effort between Kent, Matthew Brettingham the Elder, and Lovel himself. Like Holkham and, indeed, Lord Burlington’s Chiswick Villa in London, Kent’s proposal for Esher Place is a relatively straightforward square-plan Palladian pile. Situated on an eminence overlooking the Waynflete tower and the River Mole, the central block is of a standard five-bay construction with a fourcolumn loggia on the piano nobile supported above a rusticated entrance of three round-headed archways. In concept, this matches Inigo Jones’s 1616 design for the northern or southern façade of the Queen’s House in Greenwich as well as being a potential model for Jones’s building: the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano by Giuliano da Sangallo.32 A further notable feature of this design for Pelham’s Esher Place is the Venetian window set within a relieving arch on the side façade of the central block. Although Palladio used this form as the entrance door to the Villa Pojana (circa 1560), it had little effect upon Italian architecture; instead, its main influence was upon English eighteenth-century architecture. Lord Burlington had a number of Palladio’s unpublished designs featuring Venetian windows under relieving arches, and he copied them;33 this form was incorporated into his Chiswick Villa as well as William Kent’s Horse Guards building in London and, as seen here, Kent’s proposal for Esher. Esher is consequently indebted not only to the Queen’s House by Jones but also to Lord Burlington’s architectural works. Further cementing the connection of Pelham’s proposed country pile with architecture emerging from the Burlington/Kent circle is the application of obelisks on the flanking pavilions of Esher: these match those found on Burlington’s Chiswick Villa. What Kent’s drawing demonstrates is that he proposed Esher to be an exemplar of fashionable Palladian architecture set within a historicizing landscape garden featuring a late-medieval gatehouse-turned folly. This was precisely what other Whigs had commissioned and would commission from Kent and other architects in the first half of the eighteenth century, Stowe being the primary example featuring both, before Cobham went into opposition. For some unknown reason – we lack written evidence currently to substantiate the reasons for this – Kent’s proposal for a fashionable Palladian house was revisited and revised. If Pelham rejected this initial design, he dismissed a country house proposal that was tremendously fashionable and current within Whig circles. But it is not the only time that one of Kent’s classical proposals was replaced by something Gothic. Horace Walpole (1717–1797), in his Anecdotes of Painting (1765), records that Sir Christopher Wren’s

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want of taste in that ancient [Gothic] style is the best excuse for another fault, the union of Grecian and Gothic. The Ionic Colonade [sic] that crosses the inner quadrangle of Hampton court is a glaring blemish by it’s [sic] want of harmony with the rest of Wolsey’s fabric. Kent was on the point of repeating this incongruity in the same place in the late reign, but was over-ruled by my father.34 Here there is an important distinction between modern, fashionable, and politically active classical architecture and the desire to preserve the aesthetic integrity of older, Gothic buildings. Not only does Walpole oppose such mixtures but he also records how his father intervened to prevent it. At Esher, Kent clearly made a connection with Hampton Court Palace: both are Tudor brick-made structures, and their relationship is underlined by his pen-and-ink capriccio sketch of Michael Drayton’s ‘Poly-Oblion’, now in the British Museum, London, where there is a clear similarity in the gate houses’ domed towers.35 Moreover, Kent’s proposal for the eastern porch entrance to Esher includes a representation of Cardinal Wolsey in the right niche, further underlining Esher’s relationship to Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor (see figure 7.6).36 In short, there are clear links here between material culture, antiquarian scholarship, and preservation. Instead of using Waynflete’s gatehouse as a garden folly, Kent incorporated it into the central core of the new house, from which he extended wings either side to widen it dramatically and make it suitable as a country residence. The Gothic version of the house Kent designed for Pelham embraced the decorative forms of medieval architecture, including pointed-arch windows, quatrefoils punctuating the medieval gatehouse’s structure, crenelations, onion-domed turrets, niches, and clustered columns (see figure 7.7). Of note are the windows that combine bar tracery lancets beneath plate tracery punctuated by a quatrefoil within the head of each window. These two types of tracery were quite separate in medieval architecture – bar tracery being an advancement upon plate tracery, with the latter often replaced by the more modern Gothic fashions.

Figure 7.6 Opposite top William Kent, Design for the Entrance Porch of Esher Place, Surrey, c. 1730. Figure 7.7 Opposite bottom William Kent, Gothic Design for Esher Place, c. 1730.

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Kent’s combination of these two types of tracery was a personal innovation of his, and he applied a revision of this glazing unit to the pulpit at York Minster, the gatehouse to the Clock Court at Hampton Court Palace, and it was also used in the design of Shobdon Church in Herefordshire.37 A noticeable feature of Kent’s Gothic proposal for Esher is the alternation of flat recessed walls and projections on the façade. These projections include trapezoid-plan bays (each crested by a pediment) and octagonal-plan towers imitating those medieval ones refurbished by Kent and ‘Gothed-up’ by the addition of onion domes, Gothic windows, quatrefoil windows, niches, and an engrailed string course. John Harris suggests that this last feature is taken from Palladio’s screen walls added to San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, which Kent included in his The Designs of Inigo Jones: Consisting of Plans and Elevations for Publick and Private Buildings (1727).38 The profile Kent uses on his design for Esher was not depicted on the plates in Designs of Inigo Jones, and the pattern far more closely follows the engrailed pattern found on a ducal coronet with the strawberry-leaf finials replaced by balls. Such patterns can also be found widely in English medieval choir-stall design: Kent’s imitation of an Italian example for this detail is far from certain, particularly as the stylization of such engrailed patterns can also be found across the remainder of the entrance porch’s Gothic elements, including the cresting to the niche canopies where the crockets are rendered almost like a Vitruvian wave moulding. Based upon the symmetry and regularity of classical country house architecture, the realized building is effectively a classical country house covered with suitable Gothic ornament. The mixture of these opposing architectural traditions can be seen on Kent’s executed design for Esher’s eastern porch: the Gothic clustered column capitals are finished with a Greek key fret. Records of the house’s interior also indicate that it was designed in the Gothic mode. The chimneypiece depicted on plate 36 of John Vardy’s Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. Wm. Kent (1744) (see figure 7.8) is from Esher, and it demonstrates a curious, coherent mixture of classical and Gothic design that was so typical of Kent – for example, his illustration for Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (Book I, Verse XV, ‘The Archangel Gabriel appearing to Goffredo’), where classical and Gothic buildings are ranged cheek-by-jowl,39 and his illustration of ‘The Redcross Knight Introduced by Duessa to the House of Pride’ for Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, where classical forms underpin the Gothic decoration.40 One of Kent’s designs for the interior of an octagonal room at Esher (see figure 7.9) reveals the use of classical pediments to enrich the Gothic

Figure 7.8 William Kent, Chimneypiece at Esher Place, from John Vardy, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. Wm. Kent (London, 1744), pl. 36.

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Figure 7.9 William Kent, Design for an Octagonal Room at Esher Place, c. 1730.

doorway and the chimneypiece – perhaps this chimneypiece could well be that illustrated in Vardy’s Some Designs, and the ceiling’s Gothic cusped decoration is similarly filled with classical ornament. Esher’s interior, according to Horace Walpole, also contained turned ebony furniture. In a letter to Thomas Gray from August 1752, Walpole wrote: ‘as I remember, there were certain low chairs, that looked like ebony, at Esher, and were old and pretty’.41 Walpole acquired such furniture that he believed to be ancient but, in reality, came from the Coromandel coast no earlier than the

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Figure 7.10 John Carter, The Holbein Chamber, c. 1790.

seventeenth century. He displayed such furniture in Strawberry Hill’s Holbein Chamber (see figure 7.10), among other rooms, and such pieces of turned ebony furniture, what Walpole referred to as ‘the true black blood’ in light of the ebony’s black appearance of extreme age, became an essential component of eighteenth-century Gothic, antiquarian, and Romantic interiors.42 Reflecting upon Pelham’s house in 1748, Walpole writes: ‘Esher [Place] I have seen again twice … and I prefer it to all villas, even Southcote’s; Kent is Kentissime there.’43 He later revised his opinion of Esher, writing: ‘Kent’s genius was

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not universal, he has succeeded as ill in Gothic. The King’s-bench at Westminster, and Mr. Pelham’s house at Esher, are proofs how little he conceived wither the principles or graces of that architecture.’44 Walpole acknowledges how Kent’s understanding of medieval architecture and his application of Gothic forms to modern constructions were poor from a strictly ‘archaeological’, mimetic perspective. Nor did he equate Esher with his father’s classical pile, Houghton Hall, although both served as the country house of a prime minster. Both were statements about Whig politicians, yet they cannot be further separated in terms of appearance. While John Summerson and Dan Cruickshank have articulated the enduring idea that Palladian country house architecture represented Whig aesthetics, this essay demonstrates that the case is not as clear cut as we might assume. Indeed, one Tory mp mentioned earlier, Sir Roger Newdigate, not only refurbished the Hall of University College, Oxford, in the Gothic taste in the mid-eighteenth century but also undertook significant restoration, extension, and refurbishment of his ancestral country pile, Arbury Hall, Warwickshire, in the Gothic mode.45 It is therefore impossible to ascribe architectural styles in complete terms to specific political parties: Georgian aestheticians were keen to present Gothic and classical architecture as diametric opposites, but as Houghton Hall, Arbury Hall, and Esher Place demonstrate, architectural style did not have one fixed meaning – each could appeal to different political interests. What emerges, however, is a clear picture of Kent creating a Gothic pile that, upon Pelham’s accession to the office of prime minister, became an alternative to Houghton.

notes 1 However, the existence of English Palladianism has been questioned. See Hewlings, ‘Does “Palladian” Architecture Exist?’, 1–5. 2 See Harris, ‘William Kent and Esher Place’, 13–26; and Lindfield, ‘Serious Gothic’, 147–9. See also Harris, ‘William Kent Discovery’, 1076–8; and Roger White, ‘William Kent and the Gothic Revival’, in Weber, William Kent, 253–7. 3 Barnard and Clark, Lord Burlington, 212–15. 4 This is now in the collection of Worcester College, Oxford. 5 Hart, Inigo Jones; and Summerson, Inigo Jones. 6 Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 210. 7 Cruickshank, Country House Revealed. 8 Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. 1, 21 (plan) and 22 (elevation) of Wanstead I;

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17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

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23 (plan), 24 and 25 (elevation), and 26 (cross section) of Wanstead II. See also Campbell, Third Volume of Vitruvius Britannicus, 39–40 (elevation) for Wanstead III. Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus, 1:4. Granziera, ‘Neo-Palladian Architecture’, 147–63, esp. 156–63. Ibid., 155. Rundle, Letters of the Late Thomas Rundle, 2:241–2. Newdigate ms B2539/1-3, Warwickshire County Record Office, Warwick. Quoted in Peter, ‘Sir Roger Newdigate’s Essays’, 395–6. Wessex Archaeology, Wayneflete Tower, 6.3.9–10; and Goodall, English Castle, 389–92. Ralph Treswell the elder, Surrey: Esher and Walton-on-Thames. Map showing field names, proprietors, roads, bridges, copyhold lands, Esher Place and grounds; Esher church and other buildings drawn in rough perspective, mpee 1/213, the National Archives of the uk. Aubrey, Natural History, 3:120–1. Britannia Illustrata, 72. See Weber, William Kent, 258–60. See Lindfield, Georgian Gothic, 71–8; see also Colvin, ‘Henry Flitcroft’, 1–8; and Lane, ‘Shobdon Church’, 23–7. Baxter, ‘Whose Heritage?’, 154–76. McCarthy, Origins, 27. Historic England, ‘Gothic Temple’. Gerard, Essay on Taste, 275–6. See, for example, Lindfield, Georgian Gothic, 11–19. Stewart, ‘Political Ruins’, 400–11. Bickham, Beauties of Stow, 46. Smith, Gothic Bequest, 2; and Kliger, Goths (1972), 33. Pocock, Ancient Constitution, vii–viii. Mitchell, Whig World, 135–9. Harris, History, i. Gonson, Third Charge, 14. Harris, Palladian Revival, 94. Note that the loggia does not project as the portico, which is found on the entrance façade of Lord Burlington’s Chiswick Villa in London. See Wittkower, ‘Pseudo-Palladian Elements’, 158; and a drawing by Andrea Palladio in the Burlington circle demonstrating that this architectural feature is ‘Design for the Basilica, Vicenza: project for the elevation of the logge’, sd174/pall/XVII/22, riba125657, Royal Institute of British Architects, London. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 3:98. For Kent’s work on Hampton Court Palace, see Allan, ‘New Light’, 50–8.

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35 William Kent, Illustration to Michael Drayton’s ‘Poly Oblion’, 1927,0721.5, British Museum, London (bm). 36 Harris, ‘William Kent Discovery’, 1077. 37 See Friedman, ‘Transformation’; and Roger White, ‘William Kent and the Gothic Revival’, in Weber, William Kent, 264. 38 Kent, Designs of Inigo Jones, 57–9. 39 Kent and Jones, Some Designs, 36; and William Kent, Illustration to Tasso’s ‘Gerusalemme Liberata’, Book VII, Verses VI & VII, ‘Erminia and the shepherd with his sons’, 1927,0721.6, bm. 40 William Kent, ‘The Red Cross Knight and Duessa retire under two Enchanted Trees’, E.876-1928, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 41 Gray, Correspondence, 1:364. 42 See Wainwright, Romantic Interior; and Wainwright, ‘Only the True Black Blood’, 250–7. 43 Horace Walpole to George Montagu, 11 August 1748, in Walpole, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with George Montagu, 9:71. 44 Walpole, Works of Horatio Walpole, 3:490. 45 See Cox, ‘Oxford College’, 117–36; and Lindfield, Georgian Gothic, 161–7.

8 The House with Two Faces: From Baroque to Palladian at Wentworth Woodhouse Dylan Wayne Spivey

Wentworth Woodhouse is one of the grandest and most intriguing country houses in England.1 It is also, in the words of Terry Friedman, one of the ‘major unresolved problems of Georgian domestic architecture’.2 Located close to Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Wentworth Woodhouse’s Palladian east façade is the longest front in England, stretching over six hundred feet (183 metres). Hidden behind this staggering Palladian front, however, is an earlier, Baroque house, begun in 1724. Writing ten years later, in 1734, Sir Thomas Robinson, 1st Baronet, a gentleman architect and follower of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, observed that the west front of Wentworth Woodhouse was ‘entirely finished, being partly patchwork of the old house … little can be said in its praise’. Yet, in the same letter, he enthused about the progress simultaneously being made on the house’s east front, whose ‘upright will be in the same style as Lord Tilney’s [Wanstead]’, arguably the most fashionable house of the day, and the ‘whole finishing will be entirely submitted to Lord Burlington’.3 Although Wentworth Woodhouse was built in a single (albeit lengthy) campaign for Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquis of Rockingham, and continued, as Joan Coutu argues elsewhere in this volume, seamlessly by his son, the 2nd marquis, it remains a house of two faces. More accurately, and certainly far more perplexing, Wentworth Woodhouse is almost two separate houses placed backto-back. The Janus-faced Wentworth Woodhouse has frequently been explained as a reflection of the rapid change in architectural fashions that took place in the early decades of the eighteenth century, and its dual frontages have been understood as containing separate private and public spheres.4 However, such

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fashionable and functional interpretations do not satisfactorily explain the evolution of Wentworth Woodhouse. Instead, the abrupt stylistic change between the construction of the house’s east and west fronts was the result of the shifting motivations and aspirations of its patron. While the choice to adopt Palladianism as the language for Wentworth Woodhouse’s grand new façade was a political one, and one obviously concerned with size, I argue it also reflects the commodification of both the country house and of architectural style itself. On 16 October 1695, William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford and 1st Baron Raby, died. Although his life had been unremarkable, his death was another matter entirely.5 He had married well, first to Henrietta Maria Stanley, daughter of the beheaded Earl of Derby, and then to Henriette de la Rochefoucauld, daughter of the French Count de Roye. Yet he died without issue, taking the earldom to his grave. The Barony of Raby, however, passed to Thomas Wentworth (1672–1739), the grandson of William’s uncle. But, under the terms of William’s will, that is all he got. For reasons that remain known only to the deceased, William chose to leave everything else to the third son of his sister Anne, Thomas Watson, who thus inherited Wentworth’s vast estates in England and Ireland as well as the additional surname Wentworth. The disinherited Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby, remained bitter throughout his life. In the summer of 1708, although he already owned the family land at Wakefield, Raby abandoned his service as ambassador in Berlin to return to England to oversee personally the negotiations for the purchase of Stainborough Hall, located less than ten miles (sixteen kilometres) from Wentworth Woodhouse.6 Almost immediately, Raby began optimistically referring to the new house as Strafford Hall.7 Indeed, in a letter to William Cadogan dated 16 February 1709, Raby revealed there were two things he most desired: the first was to be made a Privy councillor, which he felt was a right of his office as ambassador, and the second was his birthright. As he wrote: of being made Earl of Strafford, is what a word’s speaking may get done for me now, and with being the head of the Wentworth family, who has so much deserved the keeping of that title in it, I have a very good pretension to ask it; since the Duke’s only objection formerly was that I had not estate eno’ to support it, and that I have now 4,000l. a year of my own, I think this is no more an objection. Nay, I have bought a pretty estate very nigh him who the late Lord Strafford made his heir, which with what I had before in that country, I have almost as much land in Yorkshire as he has, and am sure I have a much better interest in that country; nor can I think

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the consideration of him can be any bar to me, since he can have no pretensions like mine, and is one that has been and ever will be against the court and the ministry, let them do what they can for him.8 At Stainborough, certainly very nigh Wentworth Woodhouse, Raby initiated a series of architectural and landscape improvements worthy of his ambitions and intended to rival the neighbouring Wentworth Woodhouse. Raby’s rebuilding campaign included an exuberant new Baroque wing (see figure 8.1), the plans and elevation of which were included in the first volume of Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus in 1715, as well as new gardens and terracing (see figure 8.2), which appeared later in the fourth volume of Vitruvius Britannicus by Thomas Badeslade and John Rocque and was published in 1739.9 As Nikolaus Pevsner observes, the new façade of Stainborough displays a ‘Palatial splendour, uncommon in England’, whose composition and details refer to Continental, specifically French, Baroque models.10 Designed by the Prussian court architects Johann van Bodt and Johann Friedrich Eosander, both of whom Raby had met in Berlin while serving as the ambassador to Prussia, Stainborough’s new range was appended to the east end of the existing manor house and was comprised of fifteen bays with a central block and paired terminating bays projecting forward and further articulated by pilasters. The design survives in a drawing (see figure 8.3) and was built, with minor revisions to the windows and terminating pavilions, possibly by Thomas Archer.11 Ultimately, Thomas Wentworth rechristened Stainborough Wentworth Castle, both to assert his lineage and to obscure the building’s provenance with an evocation of ancient family roots. With the estate to match his ambitions, the staunch Tory Raby’s aspirations were realized when, in 1711, he was created Earl of Strafford, 2nd creation, by Queen Anne. As such, Raby both secured what he thought rightfully his while also outdoing his distant cousin’s outmoded seventeenth-century house at Wentworth Woodhouse. As his brother Peter wrote in 1709, in spite of the great expense of the rebuilding, the new front would ‘make his Great Honour [Thomas Watson-Wentworth] burst with envy and his Little Honour [also Thomas Watson-Wentworth] pine and die’.12 While the elder Watson-Wentworth seemed unmoved by Strafford’s aggrandizing, the younger was not. In 1716, the son was given Wentworth Woodhouse by his father, and it is around this date that planning for the remodelling of the house seems to have begun. Although Watson-Wentworth officially inherited the property upon his father’s death in 1723, an early plan for the project, possibly made by the Yorkshire builder William Thornton, dates from as early

Figure 8.1 Colen Campbell, The Elevation of Stainborough, from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 93/94.

Figure 8.2 Thomas Badeslade and John Rocque, Stainborough and Wentworth Castle, from Thomas Badeslade and John Rocque, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1739), vol. 4, pl. 55/56.

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Figure 8.3 Johann van Bodt, Elevation de la façade du Batiment neuf (Design for the East Wing of Wentworth Castle [Stainborough]), 1709.

as 1716 (see figure 8.4).13 This plan encloses parts of the original building, shown in yellow wash, within a palatial building compositionally reminiscent of Sir John Vanbrugh’s and Nicholas Hawksmoor’s design for Castle Howard, also in Yorkshire. Wings with bowed windows project from a nine-bay central block on the west front, incorporating parts of the early H-plan house, and a large central courtyard and transverse corridors connect the entrance front on the west to the suite of rooms on the east, where an enfilade of principal apartments spills back from either side of a square central hall, articulated externally by an engaged hexastyle portico with paired end columns. The plan created a logically circulating ground floor, unified by bilateral corridors and enfilades organized around the central courtyard. The compositional unity achieved in the preliminary plan is an elegant, efficient, and largely symmetrical solution to the problem of incorporating portions of the earlier building into a much larger design. Both within and without, Wentworth Woodhouse was conceived on a magnificent scale, and the exterior treatment of the house answered the splendours of Stainborough Hall with an equally exuberant,

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Figure 8.4 William Thornton (?), previously attributed to James Gibbs, Design for Remodelling Wentworth Woodhouse, plan of the ground floor, c. 1711.

Baroque west façade faced in brick and stone and accented with elaborate carvings and heavy window surrounds, as shown in a circa 1728 engraving by Paul Fourdrinier (see figure 8.5). Facing, and perhaps even confronting, nearby Stainborough, the new west front of Wentworth Woodhouse answers the splendour of its Wentworth neighbour and rival with an equally exuberant, continental Baroque façade and palatial plan. After less than a decade, and before construction of the west front was fully completed, the plan for Wentworth Woodhouse seems to have abruptly – and inexplicably – changed. Between 1728 and 1734 an engraving of the new east front of Wentworth Woodhouse was published, signed ‘R. Tunnicliff, Architectus’. The Yorkshire architect Ralph Tunnicliffe died in 1736, and, by 1740, a slightly perspectival view of the same front, with minor variations, most notably in the towers, was published by Henry Flitcroft (see figure 8.6). As a protégé of Lord Burlington, Flitcroft was often known as ‘Burlington Harry’.14 Watson-

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Figure 8.5 John Setterington and Paul Fourdrinier, engraver, The Garden Front of Wentworth House, from Thomas Badeslade and John Rocque, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1739), vol. 4, pl. 79–81.

Wentworth had turned to Burlington in 1733 for political guidance after Sir George Savil, 7th Baronet of Thornhill, announced his decision not to stand again for the county of Yorkshire, writing to the earl that ‘whosoever is thought upon to succeed Sr. Geo. can have little hopes of success without your Lordship’s Countenance’.15 As Watson-Wentworth flatters, the endorsement of Lord Burlington was crucial for political success in the county, and he evidently reinforced it by seeking guidance for his house as well. In addition to engaging Burlington Harry to oversee the works at Wentworth Woodhouse, the new designs for the house’s west front would be submitted to Burlington, as Thomas Robinson’s 1734 letter had promised. Furthermore, Flitcroft was also at work

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Figure 8.6 Henry Flitcroft, Wentworth Woodhouse, design for the East Front, 1740.

in London, overseeing Watson-Wentworth’s Grosvenor Square house; he reported in a letter from 1743 that, in addition to sending ‘two Carvers, who will be at Wentworth House … to proceed with the Cornice and Window Dresses of the Front north of the portico’, the ‘Works at your House in Grosvenor Square go on very well, and as fast as the nature of them permit’.16 Flitcroft was a metropolitan professional, employed in both the country and the city, working in the fashionable Palladian style endorsed by Lord Burlington. At Wentworth Woodhouse, Flitcroft completed the central block and revised the wings of the east front, and he was responsible for the sumptuous interiors, for which he employed the best craftsmen.17 Though somewhat similar in composition to the east front of the earlier plan, it was not simply a revision or extension. The massive new range, given as 606 feet (183 metres) in the engravings, followed the idea of a central hall with flanking apartments and wings connected by corridors.18 Yet, based as it was on Colen Campbell’s designs for Sir Richard Child, 1st Earl of Tylney’s Wanstead House in Essex, it was an essentially separate Palladian house, complete with a series of magnificent rooms and state apartments set back-to-back with the Baroque west range. Although it was not uncommon for country houses to have wings added or to be remodelled in the most current architectural fashions – even Stainborough would receive a new Palladian wing several decades later – such alterations were typically the interventions of a new generation. What makes Wentworth Woodhouse especially distinctive is that the two parts of the house were built by the same patron.

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Richard Hewlings suggests that ‘the change in style simply reflects the stages by which the building was completed’.19 However, a more self-conscious politically motivated agenda seems to have been at play. Just as Hewlings acknowledges that the size of Wentworth Woodhouse was necessary for such a political powerbase in the largest county in England, so the decision to cleave the building into two discrete houses with decidedly different styles suggests that the overall house was to be appropriately palatial for Watson-Wentworth’s own political, decidedly Whig, aspirations.20 As M.J. Charlesworth argues, it was in the 1730s, when construction of the east front was under way, that the Whigs, under the leadership and example of Prime Minister Robert Walpole at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, were solidifying a system of political dominance based on the ownership of productive and influential estates. In this system, the country house became especially important as the centre not only of a productive estate but also of the abstract social and political ideas associated with both the country house and its owner.21 While the political role of architecture, and indeed of the country house, was not a new development, its centrality to Whig politics, both as a base of political activity and as a symbol of a patriotic local investment and improvement, made the political powerhouse an essential component of aristocratic ambition. Although in the preceding essay Peter Lindfield reveals the limitations of the prevailing association between Whiggism and the classical, specifically Palladian, taste, Walpole’s seat at Houghton, begun in 1722, essentially set the standard for the Whig powerhouse. There Walpole brought together the most fashionable architects of the time, including Campbell, and assembled a collection of art and furnishings meant to legitimize his social and political pretensions.22 Houghton was not only one of the most important houses of the early eighteenth century, it was also, at its completion, ‘the most conspicuous if not the most lavish country house in England’.23 Around the same time, Watson-Wentworth was gaining political traction and receiving a number of political appointments, including securing the Barony of Malton in 1728, being made lord lieutenant of the Yorkshire West Riding in 1733, Earl of Malton in 1734, and, ultimately, 1st Marquis of Rockingham in 1746. Building was evidently an essential component of his political agenda, and his massive new house testifies to the extent of his political ambitions, which, ultimately, were aimed at a ducal coronet. The sudden shift in architectural style also suggests that style could function as a commodity to satisfy such ambitions. Though Wentworth Woodhouse’s stylistic disjuncture may seem strangely incongruous to our eyes, evinced by Pevsner’s assertion that ‘the contrasting

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architectural character of its two fronts’ is ‘as remarkable as its size and grandeur’, eighteenth-century visitors seemed less bothered.24 While commentators like Robinson frequently revealed their opinions on the merits (or lack of them) of each façade, they were not startled by the simultaneity of Baroque and Palladian fronts on the same building. This easy acceptance is suggestive of the emerging commodification of the country house and of architectural style, which would continue throughout the eighteenth century, exemplified by such houses as Nathaniel Curzon’s Kedleston Hall in nearby Derbyshire, begun in 1759. Yet, as early as the first decades of the eighteenth century, Baroque and Palladian were styles that could be chosen by patrons and that could exist comfortably side by side. Even Sir John Vanbrugh, who John Summerson unequivocally insists ‘had nothing to do’ with Palladianism, displayed a remarkable ability not only to work in the Palladian style but also to treat Baroque and Palladianism as styles that could happily coexist.25 For example, although only one façade was realized, Vanbrugh’s plans for the remodelling at Grimsthorpe in Lincolnshire, as published in 1725 in the third volume of Vitruvius Britannicus, show that he proposed a dual-fronted house.26 The Baroque north front ultimately constructed (see figure 8.7) would have been answered on the south by an unexpectedly Palladian façade, complete with portico and end towers (see figure 8.8). Building in two styles allowed patrons to have the best of both worlds, particularly in a moment when stylistic debates were becoming invigorated for the first time, and architects and their clients could perhaps even use the contrasting styles to suggest the dynastic longevity that the country house often represented. Although writing several decades later, in the 1760s, amidst his praise of the work being done at Wentworth Woodhouse by Watson-Wentworth’s son, Charles, the 2nd marquis, Arthur Young quipped: ‘The money of one man may perhaps purchase the taste of another.’27 As Patrick Eyres argues, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the country house and the landscape in which it was situated – and, through them, the ancestral heritage each represented – had become commodities that could be purchased from professional architects and landscape gardeners, whose claims to professionalism increasingly rested on first-hand study and demonstrations of their resulting taste in the pages of architectural publications.28 A product of such professionalizing endeavours, as Wentworth Woodhouse and Grimsthorpe reveal, architectural style and the country house were commodified even in the first decades of the eighteenth century, via the print, which allowed them to be widely consumed.

Figure 8.7 John Vanbrugh, The North Front of Grimsthorp (Grimsthorpe), from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1725), vol. 3, pl. 12.

Figure 8.8 John Vanbrugh, The Garden Front of Grimsthorp (Grimsthorpe), from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1725), vol. 3, pl. 13.

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Like architectural style, politics also became commodified as, amidst the radical politics of the eighteenth century, shrewd entrepreneurs and professionals began to recognize the commercial potential of politics itself. Writing of the 1760s, John Brewer observes that ‘politics, especially radical politics, was open to commercial development and exploitation. If the Wilkites used the techniques and methods of organisation derived from the world of business, so the tradesman and entrepreneur treated politics as a commodity whose purchase could bring them profit.’29 Eager producers capitalized on politicized goods ranging from ceramics to books, prints, and pamphlets. Both engravings of popular political figures and the satirical cartoons that lambasted them circulated in this growing consumer market. Several decades earlier, architectural prints and books helped to inaugurate such a ‘commodification of culture’ for an admittedly smaller ‘public’, but nonetheless a small but growing political class. In much the same way that print culture rendered politics itself consumable, the architectural print or book made the political powerhouse equally knowable and consumable. Albeit intended for a far more elite audience, architects such as Colen Campbell and James Gibbs leveraged the architectural print and publication in order to gain professional traction and to capitalize on the stakes of ongoing stylistic debates, just as the fashion plate in the later eighteenth century would feed the appetite for the most up-to-date information and simultaneously stimulate increased consumer demand.30 Shrewdly combining the most current architectural discourse with unabashed self-promotion, Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus presented Palladian classicism as the height of architectural achievement and Campbell as its chief practitioner. Through a form of elite consumerism easily masked as taste and erudition, architectural publications such as Campbell’s rendered style as a series of pictorial façades to be selected and superimposed by their elite patrons. Vitruvius Britannicus was an expensive book to produce, and the subscriber list reflects its elite audience.31 The corrective architectural taste Campbell proposed was necessarily aimed at those who could afford such a lavish publication and who, by extension, could also afford to commission a building from an architect. However, the potential rewards for publication were great. In addition to being a commercial success for Campbell and a vehicle for his own promotion, inclusion in Vitruvius Britannicus offered architects and patrons alike a professional means of publication and distribution that an individually commissioned set of prints could not.32 Moreover, as Tim Clayton demonstrates, architectural prints and books operated on many levels. In addition to sets of views prepared as decorative objects that might be sold as souvenirs or to invite

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admiration, the specialized form of elevations and plans could serve as documentary evidence of design developments in local and international circles of architects and connoisseurs as well as provide patterns that could be copied by other builders.33 As Campbell’s title implies, such collections of prints and architectural books were often nationalistic statements of achievement, responding especially to seventeenth-century French architectural compendia, and, indeed, the title page of Vitruvius Britannicus was given in both English and French. As such, books like Vitruvius Britannicus were also examples of the affluence and taste of their owners and served as large-scale advertisements for architects and as assertions of aristocratic investment.34 As the self-appointed spokesman for Palladianism, Campbell used his speculative designs in Vitruvius Britannicus to position himself as the architect able to transform the theory of Palladianism into practice. The architectural book and print, though consumable goods in their own right, also shaped the market for architecture itself. Architectural style was becoming a high-end consumer good, merging fine line engravings with elite taste and knowledge of style. Just as the country house could be consumed through engraving, so such representations were also stand-ins for the product itself. Wanstead provides an ideal example. The 1st Earl of Tylney to whom Robinson’s letter refers had completed the house in 1722. As built, Wanstead followed the second scheme published in the first volume of Vitruvius Britannicus in 1715 (see figure 8.9). Notably, the design for the east front of Wentworth Woodhouse is an almost direct copy of Campbell’s elevation for Wanstead, with the scale exaggerated through the insertion of low, pedimented, and hip-roofed wings and end towers and the omission of the cupola. Thus, the new east front of Wentworth Woodhouse is also not only Palladian, it is also a house from a book. Although Thomas Watson-Wentworth was not among the subscriber lists for any volume of Campbell’s publication, a catalogue of the library at Wentworth Woodhouse made in 1748 records that he owned all three, along with numerous other architectural books.35 Furthermore, Henry Flitcroft was a subscriber to volume 3. Although it is impossible to claim with any certainty that Wentworth Woodhouse was selected as if from a catalogue, either by architect or patron, from Vitruvius Britannicus, in the decades following its construction and publication, Wanstead became a highly influential design adopted as the model for a number of country houses.36 What is clear is that in the middle of construction Watson-Wentworth engaged new architects and craftsmen working in the most fashionable Palladian language, and the much-admired Wanstead was replicated as the central block of a massive new house. This decision

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Figure 8.9 Colen Campbell, The West Front of Wansted (Wanstead), from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715), vol. 1, pl. 24/25.

not only changed the stylistic language of Wentworth Woodhouse, it also totally reoriented the building. Where originally the projecting arms of the west front created an entrance court, emphasized by the processional drive indicated in the early plan, the massive Palladian façade became the principal front, turning the house to face the vast parklands that awaited Watson-Wentworth’s further Whiggish investment and improvement. Such a change in emphasis raises important phenomenological questions about how guests would have seen the house and precisely what they might have encountered, especially in regard to Watson-Wentworth’s political and aristocratic ambitions. Unfortunately, the devastating effects of open-seam coal mining, which at one point expanded precariously close to the house itself, have largely erased the eighteenth-century landscape immediately surrounding the house. However, period views and contemporary visitor accounts acknowledge its reorientation. Of the east front, Daniel Defoe observes in A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, published in three volumes between 1724 and 1727, that Wentworth Woodhouse ‘has a most noble and extensive Front, with an handsome Portico and Pediment, and would have made a grand Appearance if situated, as it might have been, on a proper eminence’.37 Similarly, in his account of his travels through England in 1750 and 1751, Dr Richard Pococke, who

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was invited to stay for three days at Wentworth Woodhouse, observes that ‘a gallery and a library make part of the side building, which look backward into the garden’ while ‘to the back of the house [the east front] is a lawn with four obelisks in it, a visto beyond them, and on each side high hedges, a wood, and wilderness’.38 The Baroque façade of Wentworth Woodhouse thus now faced the intimate garden while the Palladian portico marked the primary, more public, front. A decade and a half later, Arthur Young wrote extensively of Wentworth Woodhouse in his Six Months’ Tour (1768), devoting all of the first volume’s Letter V to the estate and the improvement works of Thomas’s son, the 2nd marquis, as Joan Coutu explores elsewhere in this volume. Describing the house, Young writes: It consists of an irregular quadrangle, enclosing three courts, with two grand fronts: the principal one to the park extends in a line upwards of 600 feet, forming a center and two wings. Nothing in architecture can be finer than this center, which extends 19 windows. In the middle, a noble portico projects 20 feet, and is 60 long in the area; fixt magnificent Corinthian pillars support it in front, and one at each end: This portico is lightness itself; the projection is bold, and when viewed obliquely from one side, admits the light through the pillars at the ends, which has a most happy effect, and adds greatly to the lightness of the edifice.39 Young not only asserts that the Palladian façade is indeed the house’s front; he also begins his description of the interior from the Pillar’d Hall on the ground, or, in Young’s words, ‘rustic’ floor. Young praises the grouping of ‘fine’ statuary by Vincenzo Foggini in the Pillar’d Hall and notes the supping room, drawing room, anteroom, and dining room to the left of the Pillar’d Hall, along with ‘many admirable good apartments’.40 On the piano nobile, Young notes that the first room encountered is ‘the grand hall, which is, beyond all comparison, the finest room in England; the justness of the proportion is such, as must strike every eye with the most agreeable surprise on entering it’.41 Continuing with the suites of apartments on either side of the Marble Saloon, Young then describes the rooms of the Baroque front ‘at the other end of the house’ and notes that Lord and Lady Rockingham’s apartments are in the attic storey.42 In addition to devoting as much of his description of the house to the spaces of the Baroque range, Young also praises the layout and organization of the house’s rooms and apartments. He writes:

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In respect of convenience, the connection of the apartments through the house is excellently contrived: For the grand suite of rooms on the left of the hall has a roomy passage behind it, which communicates with the offices by backstairs, and with the library and apartments adjoining, by passages. To the right of the hall the same convenience is found, for one of its doors opens into the great staircase, landing-place and passage … so that there is a double way through all this suite ... The passage beforementioned, or rather vestible [sic], which connects the hall and the apartments to the right of it, likewise opens into the gallery, which as a rendezvous room is excellently situated … so that on every side there is a communication between all the apartments, and yet without making one passage-room to another; which is excellently contrived.43 Young’s description of the house not only contradicts interpretations of the Baroque and Palladian fronts as distinctly private and public spheres, but it also suggests that the logic of apartments, corridors, stairs, and passages created interior spaces easily navigable and comprehendible by eighteenth-century visitors. Nevertheless, while Young’s account complicates interpretations of Wentworth Woodhouse’s dual frontages as separate domestic spheres, the function of the Palladian range was overtly political. The resulting tension between the two parts remains illuminating, with the newly fashionable Palladian language of the east range being more than merely a veneer. The alteration in plan also represents the new expectations and uses of the country house. The abrupt transition (or perhaps lack of one, as Young suggests) between the two faces of Wentworth Woodhouse is a result of the commodification of the country house, with the new, Wanstead-derived front simply selected as the representative example of the grand country house. Coming at a time when the Palladian style was made fashionable by important Whigs such as Lord Burlington and containing the grand suite of state apartments necessary to match WatsonWentworth’s own Whiggishness and equal desire for a ducal coronet, the new range was appended to the construction already under way. The new Palladian front was intended, and very purposefully so, to be the public façade of the house, to be seen and entered first by both invited guests and curious travellers alike. Pococke describes the ‘ascent to the grand portico, which is two pillars in depth, and leads to a saloon sixty feet square and fortyfive feet high’.44 Likewise, Nathaniel Spencer (pen name for Robert Sanders), writing just a few years after Young, in 1771, also recounted entering the house:

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[The house] has two fronts, the principal of which fronts the park, having a center, and two wings that extend in length above six hundred feet. The portico in the middle is supported by Corinthian columns, and over it is a range of nineteen windows, with a fine balustrade running from one extremity of the roof to the other. All the other parts of the building are executed in the same elegant taste, and … Entering at the great door under the portico we came to the hall, one of the finest rooms in England, and executed with so much art, that every thing in a manner presents itself at first sight.45 In addition to a textual account, Spencer also included a perspectival view of the house in his Complete English Traveller (see figure 8.10), reinforcing the east range as the principal front as Tunnicliffe’s engraving had done in 1734. To midcentury tourists, readers of these accounts, and to those who had seen the house through print, the Palladian front not only overshadowed but also, frequently, completely obscured the earlier building, and the terminology used for labelling engravings and in visitor descriptions asserts the new Palladian façade as Wentworth Woodhouse’s principal front. Just as the print enabled the commodification of architectural style and of the country house, it also allowed the country

Figure 8.10 Perspective View of Wentworth-House in Yorkshire; the Seat of the Marquiss of Rockingham, from Nathaniel Spencer, The Complete English Traveller, 1771.

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house to be consumed by a broader public in the form of engravings and through travel guides and local histories. The selection of Wanstead as the model for Watson-Wentworth’s new façade might also suggest more regional political motivations. The early plan for Wentworth Woodhouse recalls that of Castle Howard, owned by Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, of Yorkshire’s venerable Whig family, and the Palladian east range at Wentworth Woodhouse is, in effect, a stylistic corrective aimed at Thomas Watson-Wentworth’s rival for the leadership of the Yorkshire Whigs. This is implied by Campbell’s schemes for Wanstead, especially the domed second proposal that has been understood to be a Palladian correction to Vanbrugh’s domed Castle Howard.46 Wanstead is thus Campbell’s refinement of the early eighteenth-century palatial country house in the stylistic language of the Palladian villa. In addition to being an influential and wellknown house and published in Vitruvius Britannicus, Wanstead was also a popular destination on tourist itineraries and accounts. The use of Wanstead as a model for Wentworth Woodhouse was therefore clear to visitors and commentators. As the early nineteenth-century writer W.C. Oulton unambiguously remarked, Wentworth Woodhouse was ‘built in imitation of Wanstead House, in Essex’.47 By adapting the well-known Wanstead for Wentworth Woodhouse, Thomas Watson-Wentworth’s new political seat responded not only to the demands of changing market fashions and a politically motivated building program, it also marked a shift in his priorities from confronting family animus to vying for political and architectural power in Yorkshire. The contrasting styles of Wentworth Woodhouse reflect not only the rising tide of Palladianism in England but also echo the shifting motivations of its construction, from the personal to the political. While the new east front of Wentworth Woodhouse creates a dialogue of stylistic correction and revision with the Baroque house it abuts, it might simply have been made out of political expediency, as an attempt architecturally to acquire the symbolic status of political power. The staggering new Palladian front was selected and adapted from a Palladian catalogue, albeit given significant enlargements so as to match the scope of Watson-Wentworth’s political ambitions. In this way, the stylistic change – and the resulting Janus-faced form – of Wentworth Woodhouse was a product of motivations that shifted from personal one-upmanship to the assertion of dynastic and political power. As a 1906 Country Life article begins, ‘it is but the modesty of the English tongue which keeps such a house as Wentworth Woodhouse from styling itself

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a palace’.48 However, by sheer magnitude alone, it is nothing short of palatial. From the beginning, Wentworth Woodhouse was conceived on such a scale, but its new and assertive Palladianism was more than simply a shift in taste. Rather, it marked Thomas Watson-Wentworth’s new understanding of the political power of architecture. Architecture and the landed estate had long been a manifestation of power, and Thomas Watson-Wentworth had the money to buy it from the pages of a Palladian book and through the services of Palladian architects. Thomas Watson-Wentworth was elevated to 1st Marquis of Rockingham in 1746, and, although he did not attain the dukedom as he had hoped – he died prematurely a few years later in 1750 – his plan paid off. And the result was a house with two faces.

notes 1 2 3 4 5

6 7

8 9 10 11

This essay is excerpted from my PhD dissertation, Spivey, ‘Contested Classicism’. Terry Friedman, in Lever, Catalogue of the Drawings of the Royal Institute, 23. Quoted in Hussey, English Country Houses, 147. See, for example, Charlesworth, ‘Wentworths’, 126–7. For more on the ‘unremarkable’ life of Thomas Wentworth, see Wedgwood, Thomas Wentworth, 395. For more about the history of the Wentworth family broadly, see O.B., ‘Country Homes’, 450–62. Charlesworth, ‘Wentworths’, 122. For example, proposing her travel plans in a letter to his mother, Lady Wentworth, dated May 1709, Thomas Wentworth writes: ‘If you have a mind to see Wakefield you may go from Strafford in the morning and come back the same night. It is not ten miles distance or else you may go there of a Saturday and lie there, and so go to church at Wakefield the Sunday, or either lie there the Sunday night or return to Strafford.’ See Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby, to Isabella, Lady Wentworth, May 1709, in Cartwright, Wentworth Papers, 2. Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby and 1st Earl of Strafford (2nd creation), to William Cadogan, 16 February 1709, in Cartwright, Wentworth Papers, 22. For more about the landscape of Stainborough, see Charlesworth, ‘Imaginative Dimension’, 626–47. Harmon and Pevsner, Yorkshire West Riding, 740. Pevsner notes that Archer ‘has been credited with these changes but, although he offered advice, there is no firm evidence for his greater involvement’. See Harmon and Pevsner, Yorkshire West Riding, 740. Additionally, John Harris suggests that Raby first

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16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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hired William Talman for the remodelling at Stainborough but found the architect too difficult to work with and replaced him with Bodt. See Harris, ‘Bodt and Stainborough’, 34–5. See also Lees-Milne, English County Houses, 236–42. Peter Wentworth to Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby, 15 March 1709, in Cartwright, Wentworth Papers, 79. The unsigned plan was once attributed to James Gibbs. See Friedman in Lever, Catalogue, 23–4; and Ison, ‘Plan for Wentworth Woodhouse’, 106–9. However, based on several features typical of Yorkshire architects and the use of architectural details taken from Domenico de Rossi’s Studi di Architetture Civile, Richard Hewlings suggests as the author of this plan the Yorkshire architect William Thornton, whose death in 1721 would explain his replacement on the project. See Hewlings, ‘Classical Leviathan’, 52. Through the influence of the Earl of Burlington, Flitcroft was named Clerk of the Works at Whitehall, Westminster, and St James’s in 1726. See ‘Tunnicliffe, Ralph’ and ‘Flitcroft, Henry’ in Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects. Thomas Watson-Wentworth, Baron of Malton, to Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, 14 October 1733, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments (wwm) M1 11, Sheffield City Archives (sca). Henry Flitcroft to Thomas Watson-Wentworth, Earl of Malton, 2 June 1743, wwm/M2 128, sca. Harman and Pevsner, Yorkshire West Riding, 728. Hewlings, ‘Classical Leviathan’, 50. Ibid. Ibid., 46. Charlesworth, ‘Wentworths’, 124–5. Jenkins, ‘Power Play’, 80. For a more fulsome account of Walpole’s collecting and patronage, see Dukelskaya and Moore, Capital Collection. Mahaffey, Timon’s Villa’, 196. Harman and Pevsner, Yorkshire West Riding, 727–8. Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 295. For more about Vanbrugh’s unexpectedly Palladian façade proposed for Grimsthorpe, see Mortensen, Palladian Design, 72. Young, Six Months’ Tour, 1:270. Eyres, ‘Commercial Profit and Cultural Display’, 208. For more about early architectural professionalization, especially in North America, and its relationship to architectural books, see Upton, ‘Before 1860’. Brewer, ‘Commercialization and Politics’, 238.

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30 For more about the commercialization of fashion and the role of the fashion plate in eighteenth-century England, see McKendrick, ‘Commercialization of Fashion’, 34–99. A more recent analysis of print culture, fashion, and historicism is offered by Campbell, Historical Style. 31 Connor, ‘Making of “Vitruvius Britannicus”,’ 16–17. See also Appendix (p. 26), where Connor provides an extensive breakdown of the estimated costs for the publication of each volume of Vitruvius Britannicus, including estimations about the profitability of each of these volumes. As Connor notes, the lists of subscribers expanded with each volume, as, subsequently, did the profitability of Vitruvius Britannicus as a publishing endeavour. For more on the history and development of Vitruvius Britannicus, see Harris, ‘Vitruvius Britannicus’. 32 Connor, ‘Making of “Vitruvius Britannicus”,’ 16–17. 33 Tim Clayton, ‘Publishing Houses: Prints of Country Seats’, in Arnold, Georgian Country House, 44. 34 Ibid. 35 ‘Catalogue of Books in the Wentworth Library’, 1748, wwm/a 1203, sca. 36 Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 302. 37 Defoe, A Tour Through, 3:114–15. 38 Cartwright, Travels, 66. 39 Young, Six Months’ Tour, 245. 40 Ibid., 1:246–7. 41 Ibid., 1:247. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., 1:257–9. 44 Cartwright, Travels, 66. 45 Sanders, Complete English Traveller, 506. 46 See Worsley, Classical Architecture in Britain, 98; Li, Power and Virtue, 183–5; and Summerson, Architecture, 298–301. 47 Oulton, Traveller’s Guide, 806. 48 O.B., ‘Wentworth Woodhouse’, 450.

PA R T T H R E E

The Social Politics of the Country House

9 Introduction Jon Stobart

Among its many other functions, the English country house carried important political and social messages about its owner. In some instances, these messages were explicit and personal: at Stowe, for example, the oppositional politics of Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, were written into the naming and form of a series of garden structures built in the 1730s and 1740s, from the Temple of British Worthies to the Path of Liberty. In a very different context, the source of the Cockerells’ wealth and their administrative and commercial links with the East India Company were embodied at Sezincote House, completed in 1805 in a highly distinctive Indian style. Similarly, the Clives amassed a huge collection of Indian artefacts that recorded and celebrated their role in building empire, as Hazzard details in his essay in this volume.1 More often, however, the relationship between party politics and architecture was complex and overwritten with other considerations, not least the personal preference of the owner. Yet the country house remained intensely political, symbolizing – through scale, style and layout, décor, artwork, and even garden planting – the power and influence of the owner at the local if not the national level. Equally, many returning nabobs and planters were keen to obscure rather than to celebrate the source of their wealth, or to integrate the spoils and symbols of empire into a broader country house aesthetic. At Shugborough, for example, the Chinese pavilion, pagoda, and porcelain that were associated with George Anson’s naval exploits in the 1740s were set alongside the large collection of classical sculpture and casts collected by Thomas, his dilettante brother. Around a similar time, Thomas, 2nd Baron Onslow, marked the source of his wealth in Jamaican sugar plantations by setting two busts of African slaves over the doorways of the hall at his new Palladian mansion at Clandon; but the overarching theme was classical, with a stuccowork medallion of Hercules taking centre stage.2

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Politics and empire suffused and were subsumed within the broader aesthetics and functions of the country house in ways that make it difficult to tease out motivation from a tangled web of intention, behaviour, and material culture. The building activities of men like Onslow are often seen in terms of imitation and emulation; they sought entry to the aristocracy through architecture, elevating their status through bricks and mortar, but also stuccowork, furniture, paintings, books, gardens, and parks. Similar motivations might be inferred from the practices of Crisp Molineux and especially Patrick Blake – absentee planters from St Kitts who established themselves in Norfolk country houses in the second half of the eighteenth century – and Sir James Lowther, enormously wealthy through plantations in the Caribbean and coal in Cumberland. However, as Colin Campbell argues, imitation is not the same as emulation: to copy the behaviour, clothing, or houses of others does not necessarily reflect a desire to be taken as their equal.3 The actions of men like Molineux and Onslow might be better understood in terms of an aspiration to group membership: to be part of a broad elite that was inherently marked by clear internal hierarchies rather than to be seen as the equal of their titled neighbours, who often acted as political patrons. Membership of the landowning elite was characterized by a shared culture that distinguished them from other social groups, including an increasingly confident middling sort. This is what Pierre Bourdieu terms ‘habitus’: an amalgam of norms, behaviours, attitudes, and materiality.4 For landowners, this was embodied by the country house, which expressed social and political status, lifestyle, lineage, and, most fundamentally, land ownership – the ultimate underpinning of power and influence. Owning a country house marked the arrival of men, like Molineux and Lowther, with financial wherewithal. That this was a contested process is apparent from the response of the established aristocracy. Competing financially could be a ruinous undertaking, as William CavendishBentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, eventually found to his cost. The defences most commonly deployed therefore called on the notion of taste, which nabobs in particular were seen as lacking; an emphasis on lineage of family or title; and self-portrayal as guardians and improvers of the nation. Taking these in turn, taste lies at the heart of Bourdieu’s notion of distinction; in the eighteenth century, it played out in the apparently inherent discernment and aesthetic judgment of the gentleman – in reality a product of tutoring in the classics, university, and the Grand Tour.5 Taste was apparent in an appreciation of classical allusions in architecture, painting, and garden features; in recognizing the

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perfection of the exact cube of Wentworth Woodhouse’s great hall; and in understanding the quality and faultlessness of a complete collection. Lineage could be expressed through armorial devices, galleries of paintings, especially when arranged in a ‘pictorial family tree’ as created by Henrietta Cavendish at Welbeck Abbey, or in the continuity of occupancy or building style, the latter seen at Wentworth Woodhouse. Credentials as guardians of the nation were in one sense axiomatic with land ownership, but they were underscored by a dual emphasis on striving for improvement, both aesthetically and productively – well-managed tree plantations, such as those of the Duke of Portland, achieved both goals. The country house was central to all these claims, symbolizing membership in the landed aristocracy (broadly defined), but also taste and discernment, lineage, and guardianship. As an investment in cultural capital, it needed to be displayed to the world, or at least to those sections of the world that mattered. Fellow landowners and especially political allies could be invited as guests to experience first-hand their host’s taste, wealth, and character, as Rockingham did at Wentworth Woodhouse. A wider audience, though, could only be reached through deploying a range of media that would represent the house, grounds, and owner in a favourable light. Here, the published tours of Arthur Young and others were important panegyrics, as were the engravings of houses and landscape improvements that appeared in published volumes from Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannica onwards. Equally significant were the paintings of George Barret, Charles Steuart, and others exhibited by the Society of Artists and later the Royal Academy of Arts, and seen by a discerning London audience who judged the property as well as the painting. These ideas are explored in this section through three case studies: Joan Coutu focuses on the work undertaken by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, at Wentworth Woodhouse and its use as an oppositional power base; John Bonehill explores the portrayal of the estates of the 3rd Duke of Portland and John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, as part of their owner’s wider political ambitions; and Elisabeth Grass discusses the practices of Molineux and Blake as they sought entry into Norfolk landed society and, particularly, the role of the country house in this process.

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notes 1 Barczewski, Country Houses, 144–5. 2 See McDowall, ‘Imperial Plots?’; Coltman, ‘Thomas Anson’s Sculpture Collection’; Barczewski, Country Houses, 148–9. 3 Colin Campbell, ‘Understanding Traditional and Modern Patterns of Consumption in Eighteenth-Century England: A Character-Action Approach’, in Brewer and Porter, Consumption, 40–57. 4 Bourdieu, Distinction, 165–222. 5 Ibid., 3–90; French and Rothery, Man’s Estate.

10 Burke’s Exemplum: The ‘Natural Family Mansion’ and Wentworth Woodhouse Joan Coutu

This essay focuses on the concept of continuity in the 1760s, a time remarkable for political turmoil in Britain. Of the many who spent lavishly on a country house, Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, was among the most prominent. His father, the 1st marquis, was a loyal mid-century Court Whig and, as Dylan Spivey explores elsewhere in this volume, he built Wentworth Woodhouse in West Yorkshire according to fashion, first in the florid Baroque in the 1720s and almost immediately after in the more restrained, yet, in his case, overstated Palladian. Measuring over 600 feet (183 metres) wide (see figure 10.1, and for an eighteenth-century view, see figure 8.10), the Palladian structure was added to the back of the earlier house and became the new formal face of the house. After the 1st marquis died in 1750, his son continued to work on the Palladian front, deviating little from the original plans. He also took up the local and royal sinecures appropriate to the marquisate that his father had vigorously pursued: lord lieutenant of the West Riding and county of Yorkshire, custos rotulorum of the West and North ridings (1751), Lord of the Bedchamber to George II (also 1751), and, after the ascension of George III, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1760). However, this sense of the status quo would soon come to an end as Rockingham, along with some of his patriciate compatriots, began to see the young king’s manoeuvrings as a threat to the ongoing supremacy of the Whig aristocratic oligarchy. Their mounting opposition was especially strongly voiced after the king dismissed William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, and owner of nearby Chatsworth, as Lord Chamberlain in 1762. In protest Rockingham resigned as Lord of the Bedchamber, and, in retaliation, the king stripped him of his lord lieutenancies and position as custos rotulorum, which, as key delineators

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Figure 10.1 1st and 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, and Henry Flitcroft, Wentworth Woodhouse, the east front, from 1734.

of his ‘landedness’, symbolically challenged his claim to leadership. From that point on, Rockingham and his allies – collectively called the Rockingham Whigs – intensified their opposition and pursued what they deemed to be their natural right to lead the nation.1 What follows is a discussion of the idea of the country house within the character of Rockinghamite politics. The principal sources used are Rockingham’s own work at Wentworth Woodhouse and the speeches and writings of Edmund Burke, who served as Rockingham’s private secretary from 1765 to 1782. Burke came into Rockingham’s orbit when George III grudgingly asked the latter to form a ministry in 1765. The king abruptly dismissed the administration a year later, and for the next sixteen years the Rockingham Whigs, including Burke, sat in opposition. There, uninhibited by the exigencies of actually having to govern, they honed their position into something akin to a modern political platform, and Burke’s often long and meandering orations in the House of Commons and related publications constitute key texts in the development of their discourse.2 When Rockingham finally formed his second ministry in 1782

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(cut short by Rockingham’s death three months later), Burke was awarded for his loyalty by being named paymaster of the forces.3 According to Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, who defined Whiggism in opposition to Toryism at the time of the Whig ascendancy early in the eighteenth century, true aristocratic Whiggism was innate, a virtuous intellectual and psychological state of being that was more than simply calculated words and actions.4 The corresponding behaviour was characterized by a sophisticated sense of self-remove. In modern theoretical parlance, we might describe this as Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’: schemes of perception, thoughts, and actions ‘acquired’, as Bourdieu says, ‘through the lasting experience of a social position’; it encompasses the ‘sense of one’s place’ but also ‘a sense of the place of others’.5 In the eighteenth century this position, underpinned by close readings of ancient authors such as Cicero, Aristotle, and Plato, was bolstered by custom and tradition. For Burke, who would perpetuate and evolve Shaftesbury’s Whiggism, custom was derived from experience and practice, and was a corollary of what he called ‘second nature’, an innateness that aligned with the professed natural right of the Whig’s claim to leadership.6 Tradition was likewise another soft concept central to Burke’s thought, something unlike our modern rigid definition that was effected through exposure, repetition, and practice, and was disseminated through fluid channels such as oral knowledge, behaviour, and display.7 As with custom, tradition affirmed innateness. Together, they were fundamental to what Burke called ‘habitual native dignity’, which accorded with Shaftesbury’s Whiggism and is consistent with Bourdieu’s habitus.8 Such distinction would come to be instrumental in countering the relatively new phenomenon of the ‘parvenu’, people who acquired land and the accoutrements of aristocracy – even the titles – while also improving their behaviour in their rush to imitate their social betters. As with the aristocratic manner of politics, it was effective because it ran below the surface. Were it to bubble to the surface, it would shed its profundity and be no better than the character of the disingenuous weak-minded fop, often called a ‘macaroni’, a social type that plagued both the aristocracy and parvenu alike at mid-century, threatening – many people believed – to derail men from their civic and moral duty.9 The challenge for Rockingham and his compatriots, then, was to negotiate, whether consciously or not, this socio-political minefield, essentially deploying their social status while not undermining it by playing it egregiously. By drawing on the past, they legitimated their position in opposition to an other, whether that be the autocratic young king, career politicians such as William Pitt the Elder

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(created 1st Earl of Chatham by George III in 1766), or the parvenu. In active political terms this was evident in the Rockinghamites’ entanglement of their opposition to the king’s taxation of American colonists with the sacrosanct heritage of British liberty. This example also demonstrates that the Rockingham Whigs’ position was nimble, and nebulous, enough to embrace the trade and industry of the new economy – as long as everyone knew their place.10 Included in the overall Rockinghamite/Burkean discourse was the smoothing over of the factions that had rumbled through the Robinocracy and Pelhamite eras, and the mythologizing of this immediate past as halcyon days that offered great promise for the present and future if a comparable aristocratic ministry were in charge. Such mythologizing worked persuasively and was consistent with ‘exemplum’, a rhetorical device used in writing and oration since antiquity to elucidate upon concepts and ideas. As readership expanded beyond the aristocratic male elite at the middle of the eighteenth century – that is, beyond the men who had deep classical knowledge – there was a move away, as Mark Salber Phillips has shown, from exemplum by authors such as David Hume, who rejected its arcane intellectualism in favour of emotion and sensibility.11 However, consistent with the Rockinghamite focus on continuity and erudition, Burke maintained an emphasis on exemplum, yet updated it by infusing it with emotion in line with the broader turn towards sensibility. Burke’s use of the metaphor of the country house, which he linked to the abstract yet powerful concepts of tradition, virtue, and liberty, is an especially potent demonstration of exemplum. In 1754, while likening the trope of the landed aristocracy to the English oak, whose members are ‘the great Oaks that shade a Country and perpetuate your benefits from Generation to Generation’, he described their houses as ‘the public repositories and offices of Record for the constitution’.12 Such an image would continue to resonate through his political corpus to the point that he would equate the country house to the state, as ‘our natural family mansion’, that is, ‘the grand social principle that unites all men, in all descriptions, under the shadow of an equal and impartial justice’.13 The metaphor has a palpability that generates feelings associated with identity, belonging, protection, order, continuity, and patriotism. In the political arena, such persuasive rhetoric positioned the country house to represent the very core and stability of British society. Although Burke was writing about the idea of the country house, rather than an actual house, his use of the image parallels the way in which Wentworth Woodhouse functioned to articulate Rockingham’s landed aristocratic status.

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As such, Wentworth Woodhouse operated rhetorically, as exemplum, within the age-old practice of persuasion, as opposed to a forthright expression of modern political ideology. Yet, as we shall see, both were very much of the present and both were suffused with the contemporary phenomenological experience of sensibility. Arthur Young, the noted agriculturalist and travel writer, devoted an extraordinary seventy-one pages to Wentworth Woodhouse in his A Six Months’ Tour through the North of England, first published in 1770, with a revised second edition in 1771. In his essay in this volume, Dylan Spivey cites Young’s detailed description of the exterior of the house, many of its rooms, the park, and the garden buildings. At the end of that section, Young writes: Upon the whole, Wentworth is in every respect one of the finest places in the kingdom … The house is one of the grandest in England, and the largest I have ever seen; the park is as noble a range of natural and artificial beauty as is any where to beheld ... To this slight account, I cannot add but one remark, in praise of what I must be allowed to call true taste: Nature has certainly done much at Wentworth, but art has heightened, decorated, and improved all her touches; in such attempts, no slight genius is requisite: Valleys may be floated with water, hills crowned with woods, and temples appear in every scene; —— riches will do all these; the money of one man may purchase the taste of another: But all that Lord Rockingham has yet done at Wentworth, as well as the noble plans he has sketched, and begun to execute, are totally his own designs: An instance certainly of his taste, though not of his compliance with fashion.14 Such praise is remarkable, especially given that much of the Palladian east side of the house and the park were still under construction, as Young made clear: an intended attic storey, the exterior and primary interior staircases, the great Marble Saloon (see figure 10.2) at the centre of the house, and the new stables were all far from finished, and entire hills were being moved to create fields and vistas in the park.15 In fact, a feeling of the here-and-now ripples through Young’s description, infused with a strong sense of the 2nd marquis’s authorship; these are the marquis’s decisions, his collections, his building direction, and his husbandry. However, Young emphasizes that the present, and Rockingham’s presence, were neatly balanced by the evidence of the past. The fact

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Figure 10.2 1st and 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, and Henry Flitcroft, Marble Saloon, Wentworth Woodhouse, from 1734.

that the house and grounds had been in a state of building for some time demonstrates the ties between generations, father to son, Whig to Whig. That which the 2nd marquis did design, purchase, or otherwise add to the estate was, indeed, in the spirit of his father’s work thirty years before. However, while his father clearly built according to fashion – as Spivey cogently explores – the 2nd marquis seemed intent on working out of fashion. In terms of design, Rockingham operated in the manner of his father’s generation. By hiring John Carr of York and working closely with him on the design, as his father had done with Henry Flitcroft, he chose not to take up the modern trend of commissioning an architect or landscape designer such as Robert Adam, William Chambers, or Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, all of whom worked more autonomously. Similarly, while the marquis’s plans involved great swathes of land consistent with Brown’s signature approach, Rockingham maintained his father’s emphasis on strong vistas to distant garden features. As such, Wentworth Woodhouse alludes to older, and notably Whiggish, parks such as Castle Howard, Houghton Hall,

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and Holkham Hall. Furthermore, although the Gothic style was increasingly à la mode, Rockingham avoided such dalliance. All’antica classicism runs through the house interiors and is emphatic in the new stable blocks. Ultimately, the 2nd marquis maintained a seamless continuity; nothing seems out of place or out of time, and what might have been the fashion of the father slid smoothly, as Young (and Spivey) has pointed out, into the taste of the son. An exchange of letters between father and son about the merits of marble copies over plaster casts of antique statues, written while the younger Rockingham was on his Grand Tour, shows that the young man was honing his taste for the classical at an early age.16 His keen awareness of the erudite accoutrements of distinction is further demonstrated by his acquisitions and patronage as well as by his Grand Tour travel itinerary. In addition to touring the major sites in Italy and looking out for Tories and Jacobites, he zealously studied the Duke of Tuscany’s collection of antique medals with Antonio Cocchi, the Tuscan anglophile and keeper of the Uffizi, while beginning to amass a collection of his own.17 Soon after, while in Rome, he met James Caulfeild, Viscount (later Earl) Charlemont in the Irish peerage, who had just returned from his excursion to the Levant and who was at the centre of a group of young patricians that bubbled with a potent mix of classical sensibilities and youthful randiness.18 While this might have been when Rockingham contracted the gonorrhoea that would prevent him from producing an heir and affect his health for the rest of his life, he also displayed his predisposition for classical study by laying out considerable sums to finance James Stuart’s first publication, De Obelisco Caesari Augusti (1750), an intensive analysis of the obelisk that had recently been excavated in the Campus Martius in Rome, followed a year later with his sponsorship of James Stuart’s and Nicholas Revett’s expedition to Greece.19 Upon his return to England shortly before his father’s premature death in 1750, Rockingham quickly cultivated a persona of erudite philanthropic disinterestedness in line with other young men of his generation and standing. This meant joining clubs such as Whyte’s and the Jockey Club – he was also an avid horseman – and being elected to numerous societies, including the Royal Society (1751), the Society of Antiquaries of London (1752), the Society of Dilettanti (1755), and the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (1757). Of these, the last (colloquially known as the Society of Arts), recently established in 1754 and with membership that transcended class lines, was especially of its time for its patriotic intent to improve the nation through trade, industry, and the arts. As such, the society offered a reciprocating opportunity for members of the aristocracy: while they infused the society with much

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needed patronage and enhanced its legitimacy – Rockingham would describe it to Burke in 1769 as that ‘Virtuoso Tribe of Arts and Sciences’ – the society also provided an outlet for their display of aristocratic civic philanthropy.20 Meanwhile, the Society of Dilettanti, founded in 1734 by Sir Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer, and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, and other aristocrats to extend the erudite and erotic pleasures of their own Grand Tours after returning to England, was undergoing a transition that aligned more with the Society of Arts. By the time Rockingham joined, its libertine dimension, although arguably no less diminished, had been considerably suppressed in favour of a more sophisticated expression of aesthetic erudition.21 It also extended its membership beyond the aristocracy to include artists and scholars who had also been to Italy (including Stuart, Revett, Robert Wood, William Chambers, Joseph Wilton, and Joshua Reynolds) and advocated for the establishment of a royal academy, while financing the publication of Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities of Athens, which had come out of Rockingham’s earlier sponsored expedition.22 Such displays of earnestness and disinterestedness shifted the reputation of the new generation of British aristocracy away from the misanthropy of some of the preceding generation, particularly Dashwood and Sandwich, and distinguished it from the self-indulgent superficiality of the macaroni and the parvenu. In political terms, this was demonstrated in the early 1760s when Dashwood served as the chancellor of the exchequer and Sandwich as the first lord of the Admiralty in the ministry of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. As part of the assault on Bute’s ministry by John Wilkes after the king and Bute had charged him with seditious libel for his radical pronouncements in the North Briton, Wilkes exposed Dashwood’s and Sandwich’s ongoing ribald antics as Medmenham Friars, of which Wilkes himself had been a part.23 The two aristocrats retaliated with an equally sordid prosecution of Wilkes for obscene libel. The Rockingham Whigs, meanwhile, who although having already firmly staked their opposition to the king and Bute, stayed above the fray, remaining removed both from the Medmenham fiasco and any overt display of support for Wilkes.24 The episode is telling, both about the public face of the male aristocrat in the 1760s and the evolving political arena. The same behaviour that had been tolerated as youthful brio in the 1730s and 1740s was exposed by Wilkes in the 1760s as cringingly lewd, especially because it was conducted by the same men who were now twenty-five years older and held prominent political offices. The corresponding gritty political melée – in which the same senior peers machinated as scurrilously and as openly as Wilkes – shows how

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fraught politics had become. Yet it was within this atmosphere of disruption, instability, and seemingly uncontrolled passion that Rockingham and his allies cultivated a serene demeanour of self-remove that was reinforced by their intellectual and cultural endeavours. The same gravitas extends to Wentworth Woodhouse: in the continuity from one generation to the next; in the 2nd marquis’s architectural and landscape decisions; and in the collections he displayed within the house. Indeed, such continuity and lack of obvious disruptive intervention may be one reason Wentworth Woodhouse has received little study until recently since it seems, on the surface, to offer nothing new. Paradoxically, it is that continuity that distinguishes the house and effectively aligns it, however consciously or innately, with Rockingham’s political strategy. Considered within philosophical terms, such continuity also coalesces with the idea of wholeness, whether Plato’s materialimmaterial dualism or Aristotle’s distinct parts that simultaneously contribute to a whole, which, in turn, correlates to the articulation of the ‘complete’ aristocrat.25 Plato’s wholeness is expressed in Rockingham’s controlled outward demeanour and vibrant erudition and in the way in which, as we shall see, the tangibility of Wentworth Woodhouse – the bricks and mortar, the landscape, the decorative embellishments – play upon and uplift the mind. Meanwhile Aristotle’s wholeness – made more concrete in the architectural theory of Vitruvius, then Donato Bramante, Sebastiano Serlio, Andrea Palladio, and ultimately Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork – is evident at Wentworth Woodhouse in the purity of each architectural detail and its integral place within the expansive whole (see figure 10.1).26 Likewise, the many built and planned garden features – the triangular Hoober Stand, the Needle’s Eye (see figure 10.4), the Ionic temple, an octagon temple, and an obelisk – each has a similar purity of form, and, with the house and the park, they are the nodal centre of the larger nineteen thousand-acre (seventy-seven hundred-hectare) estate. The impact rings of visceral vastness. Likewise, the oscillation of parts and whole at Wentworth Woodhouse corresponds to some of the primary tenets in Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (published first in 1757 and followed by a second edition in 1759 that includes an introductory essay on taste). His investigation of the sublime is bolstered by consideration of the conceivable limits of perception, vastness, infinity, succession and uniformity, magnitude in building, and the relationship between proportion and beauty.27 As demonstrated above, these criteria also characterize Wentworth Woodhouse. Furthermore, the excoriation of ‘prettiness’ acts as a foil, intensifying the sense

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of magnificence. The Philosophical Enquiry and Burke’s later political writings, along with Wentworth Woodhouse, reverberate with stability, dignity, and a certain sensual intellectual masculinity that prompts astonishment and awe. In this way, they both contribute to codifying the aristocratic (Rockinghamite) elite, one that offered an ideal mien against the puerile licentiousness of men such as Dashwood and Sandwich, Wilkes’s brash strutting, or the overstated effeminacy of the macaroni. The effect is of proportion and balance, and any tinge of bombast or excess dissipates into an ‘essence’ – another concept that is central to Plato, Aristotle, and Burke – of magnificence and integrity. More things at Wentworth Woodhouse, many of which were acquired by Rockingham while he was on his Grand Tour, radiate a lithe classical ideal and balance that contribute to ‘making the man’. Fourteen plaster casts and copies of antique statuary – after the Antinous, the Callipygian Venus, Flora, Germanicus, the Apollino, the Dancing Faun, the Faun from the Prado, the Venus de’Medici, and the Dying Gladiator – are arrayed around the lower Pillar’d Hall and upper Marble Saloon at the middle of the Palladian block, which is the formal entrance to the house.28 Notably, all fourteen sculptures are graceful, elegant, and well-proportioned; there is, for example, no excessively proportioned Farnese Hercules. In the Pillar’d Hall, the casts were also complemented by Samson and the Philistines by Vincenzo Foggini, which is a contemporary conflation of similarly elegant Renaissance iconic works by Giambologna and Michelangelo.29 In the staterooms on the piano nobile, bronzes by Giambologna, Guercino’s serene yet emotive Hagar, Ishmael and the Angel, a comparable painting by Andrea del Sarto, and Donatello’s Chellini Madonna could be found among many other works and fine furniture. These, in turn, were complemented by the immense portrait of Rockingham’s horse, Whistlejacket, by George Stubbs that dominated and gave a name to one of the staterooms (see figure 10.3). While Rockingham’s excellent stud was a mark of his ‘landedness’, Whistlejacket is especially noteworthy within the context of the ideal since the horse was not the fastest in the marquis’s stable but was nonetheless prized as an ideal specimen for its exquisite proportions and musculature.30 Deeper in the house were the marquis’s extensive collections of telescopes and geological specimens, along with his large library that held, among other notable volumes, the highly prized Le Antichita di Ercolano esposte, which was the record of new finds at Pompeii and Herculaneum produced by Charles, King of Naples, and initially presented as a gift to select individuals.31 Finally, there was Rockingham’s medal, paste, and gem collection, housed in repurposed pietra dura Florentine cabinets. These further evoked his habitus and continuity, which rang with a certain Whiggish

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tenor; as Joseph Addison, the stalwart exponent of Shaftesburian Whiggery, wrote earlier in the century, the study of medals ‘recommends’ a man ‘to the world [as] a person of various reading and profound erudition’.32 Rockingham saw his collection as being on a par with or superior to those amassed by the 8th and 9th Earls of Pembroke (Thomas and Henry Herbert, respectively), by Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, earlier in the century, and by the 4th Duke of Devonshire, who was closer to his generation. Moments of wit, another mark of sophistication, also occasionally erupt at Wentworth Woodhouse. In the park, Rockingham built the Needle’s Eye, a forty-six-foot (fourteen-metre) pyramid cut through with a Gothic ogee arch. A folly in the truest sense of the word, it came about as a result of a wager in which Rockingham claimed he could drive a coach and horses through the eye of a needle (see figure 10.4). The mannered silliness of goring a pyramid, especially with an effeminate ogee arch – that happens also to be the only Gothic motif on the entire estate – pairs nicely with an elegant Ionic temple, which Young described as ‘dropt by the hand of Grace in the very spot where Taste herself would wish it to be seen’.33 The two, in turn, mitigate the comparatively unwieldy Hoober Stand, a triangular tower built by the 1st and 2nd marquises to commemorate the Whigs’ rout of the Jacobites in 1745. Wit carries through into the house as well, as the ponderous expansiveness of the Palladian front is immediately countered upon entering as guests find themselves in the dimly lit and low-ceilinged Pillar’d Hall filled with a forest of weighty columns, at the centre of which was Foggini’s over life-size Samson and the Philistines. The allusion to Samson destroying the temple self-deprecatingly mitigates Rockingham’s (and his father’s) pretensions to grandeur. Yet, by drawing attention to the grandeur, he also paradoxically enhances it. As the foregoing implies, the impact of habitus is dependent upon experience, something that is also central to Burke’s writing. Comparable to tradition, custom, dignity, and Burke’s trope of the country house, experience is about the impact of such abstract concepts of magnitude, proportion, and perception. At Wentworth Woodhouse, it is the sense of engagement with the many objects in the house and how it feels to move through the spaces of the house and the park. The Marble Saloon provides a potent case study (see figure 10.2). As the formal entrance to the house, it is an important space, as Pliny and Vitruvius emphasized, because it is the threshold between inside and outside where the owner greets his guests.34 Called by Young the ‘finest room in England’, the Marble Saloon is a perfect cube, measuring 60 by 60 by 60 feet (18.3 by 18.3 by 18.3 metres).35 Engaged Siena columns situated below Ionic

Figure 10.3 George Stubbs, Whistlejacket, oil on canvas, 1762, as displayed in the ‘Whistlejacket Room’ in Wentworth Woodhouse.

Figure 10.4 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, Needle’s Eye. Wentworth Woodhouse, constructed 1770s.

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pilasters line the walls, alternating with the eight marble copies of classical statues each set within a niche. Above the niches are all’antica bas reliefs by James Stuart, and the furnishing is completed by Italian marble tables also set against the walls along with two huge chimneypieces. An immense perfect circle within the square of the ceiling is mirrored in the tiling of the floor.36 The room is astonishing, especially after the visitor has ascended the internal staircase from the comparatively gloomy Pillar’d Hall below.37 Upon entering the Marble Saloon, the space is experienced as a sublime totality – or whole – that reverberates with a frisson of tension: guests want to scrutinize each statue, relief, table, or column, which requires them to turn their backs on the room, but this is hard to do because of the lure of the whole space. The fact that the statues are copies of instantly recognizable antiques, just as the Ionic and Corinthian orders are correctly deployed, adds to the tension as guests satisfyingly recognize what they know while the confidence generated by such familiarity also allows them to revel in the effect of the whole. Paradoxically, however, the palpable quality of the room diminishes when someone enters; with the furniture fixed along the perimeter, the room, in effect, recedes to offset whoever is in it. In terms of the marquis, such a phenomenological effect magnified his presence, attendant sophistication, and ownership as he greeted his guests. This is further underscored by the extensive views from the Marble Saloon, which throw the eye to the distant garden features, accentuating the vastness of the park and enormity of the estate, while also ricocheting back to fix the marquis at the heart of the estate. From the Marble Saloon, the marquis would then escort his guests into the staterooms and sequentially more intimate spaces, the access to which he controlled. Ultimately, this experience is about the self, another central tenet of Enlightenment – and Burkean – thought that gained currency at mid-century with the turn towards sensibility and the heightened awareness of oneself within the social hierarchy.38 Admittedly, this account of the effect of arriving at Wentworth Woodhouse and meeting the marquis wanders onto the slippery terrain of intentionality. But like habitus, intentionality may – it seems odd to say – operate subliminally, just below the surface. The very idea of effecting an impact is core to expressing social distinction. Burke understood this, in his emphatic use of exemplum. The actual country house is also demonstrative of this. Likewise, dissemination of information about the country house is comparably ambivalent. Estate owners generally disavowed any outright descriptions or commentaries of their country houses, as that would be beneath their social standing, but guidebooks or tour books written by acolytes and sometimes even paid for by country house

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owners are concrete evidence of owners’ desire to make an impression.39 Arthur Young’s account of Wentworth Woodhouse is one such example, although there is no evidence that Rockingham financed him. The timing of Young’s account is also politically significant since the two editions coincided with when Rockingham and his allies firmly established their voice in opposition. At seventyone pages, Young’s account is excessively long and effusively flattering. In its exhaustive descriptive detail, little is left to the imagination, yet paradoxically imagination was necessary to stimulate the implied experience of being there. Here again we find a parallel in Burke in his insistence that words, since they can only ever offer an imperfect idea (Burke’s emphasis), are far more effective than images in eliciting passion because they rely on imagination (also like my account of entering the house and meeting the marquis).40 In the case of Wentworth Woodhouse, imagination was further necessary to complete the whole since large portions of both the house and the park were unfinished into at least the 1780s and the house is located so very far from London. Yet the house and the park needed to exist as the tangible evidence of Rockingham’s ‘landedness’. Conversation during the London season and the growing industry of country house portraits, many of which could be seen at the annual London art exhibitions, were also important vehicles of dissemination.41 To return to continuity: Wentworth Woodhouse and everything it entails articulated the strength of the present by invoking tradition as well as the romanticized legacy of Rockingham’s father’s brand of aristocratic Whiggery. In drawing on the past, this was a form of Platonic and Aristotelian mimesis that is about perception of, and engagement with, greatness, which, in turn, generates inspiration and excites imagination. Within the arts, the widespread prevalence of such imitation in the eighteenth century has often gone unremarked because imitation is so associated with Johann Joachim Winckelmann and the Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in Malerei und Bildhauerkunst (1755), in which he exhorts men forward through the imitation of such ‘noble simplicity and calm grandeur’ in antique statuary. In Britain, however, such recourse to imitation was central to English Palladianism and the work of Robert Adam and William Chambers after mid-century; it can also be seen by the sheer preponderance of classical statues and paintings, whether acquisitions of actual antique or Renaissance works, copies, casts, or all’antica contemporary works. Foggini’s statue group in the Pillar’d Hall and Stuart’s Grecian bas reliefs in the Marble Saloon are examples of the latter, as are the classical landscapes by Richard Wilson that were so coveted by the mid-century Grand Tourists.42 Burke summed up the powerful impact of imitation and its

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correlation to imagination in his ‘Introduction on Taste’ in the second edition of his Philosophical Enquiry (1759): ‘The mind of man has naturally a far greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances than in searching for differences; because by making resemblances we produce new images, we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock’.43 In political terms, the Rockingham Whigs resorted to imitation, whether innately or not, to accentuate their integrity and legitimate their position in the present. Notably, as they came to ‘own’ the concept of the ancient natural landed aristocrat and leveraged it in their incipient political platform, many of their rivals likewise laid claim to it via imitation. The country house was central to these efforts. The young George III strove to outdo the aristocracy early in his reign by continuing to build at Kew, delighting in the ‘landedness’ of the moniker ‘Farmer George’ and amassing huge collections of paintings, sculpture, books, musical instruments, manuscripts, and all manner of scientific instruments. The 3rd Earl of Bute, the king’s favourite, whose substantial estates were in Scotland, further entrenched his status by acquiring and building a house, designed by Robert Adam, at Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire. The aging William Pitt the Elder, who had chosen not to join Rockingham and whom the king asked to form a government after dismissing Rockingham’s administration in 1766 (while also conferring on him the earldom of Chatham) had long known the persuasive power of building and landscaping, having been reared in both by Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, at Stowe. He would busy himself at Hayes and then at Burton Pynsent. And William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, long-time adherent of Pitt who then aligned with Rockingham and ultimately succeeded him as prime minister in 1782, expended much energy and many resources on his estate, Bowood, in Wiltshire.44 The effect resonated beyond the political leaders. The most relevant to Rockingham and Wentworth Woodhouse include Burke himself, who purchased Gregories in Buckinghamshire in 1768 (renaming it Butler’s Court); William Weddell, an acolyte of Rockingham, who extended Newby Hall and filled it with a vast array of antique sculpture; and Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale, a Tory with grand political ambitions, who built Kedleston Hall as something of a riposte to Wentworth Woodhouse. Within this new arena of highly contested politics, all of these men paradoxically sought to exude their habitus, a ‘habitual native dignity’ associated with ‘landedness’ and implied continuity. Grounded in the past and sensuously actuated in the present, Burke’s exemplum of the ‘natural family mansion’ – arguably most fulsomely embodied in Rockingham’s Wentworth Woodhouse – promised a sublime stable whole as a way to move forward into the future.

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notes 1 The key political history studies of the Rockingham Whigs are: Guttridge, Early Career; O’Gorman, Rise of Party; Langford, First Rockingham Administration; Brewer, Party Ideology. Stephen Michael Farrell has also provided a thorough overview in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (odnb). 2 See Brewer, Party Ideology, 77–95. The most relevant of Burke’s writings in this regard are Observations on a Late State of the Nation; Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents; and Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq; on American Taxation, April 19, 1774. 3 This ministry was cut short by Rockingham’s premature death. Burke would lose his post but he regained it a year later in the Fox-North coalition government (1783). 4 Shaftesbury’s classic text in this regard is Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711). See also Mitchell, Whig World. 5 Bourdieu, ‘Social Space’, 19. See also Bourdieu, Distinctions. 6 See, for example, his ‘Introduction on Taste’ in the 2nd edition of A Philosophical Enquiry, where Burke elucidates the relation between custom, second nature, and taste. 7 See Salber Phillips, Society and Sentiment, 220–58, and passim. 8 Burke, Reflections, 49. 9 The ‘macaronis’, who were referred to as suffering from the ‘English Malady’, were characterized as displaying an apathetic effeminacy. George Cheyne, who might today be called a wellness guru, coined the term in his guides to a healthy life. These ran into multiple editions. For the visual culture of the macaroni, see Myrone, Bodybuilding, 105–44. 10 The malleability of the Rockingham Whigs, which enabled them to embrace the new economy, is also core to Burke’s writings. See Furniss, Edmund Burke’s, 79–80; Sato, Edmund Burke, 17–18, 21–80. For Rockingham politics, see the sources in note 1, and for the aristocracy’s increased engagement in active politics generally, see Colley, Forging the Nation, passim. 11 See Salber Phillips, Historical Distance, 76; Salber Phillips, Society and Sentiment, passim. 12 Burke to the Duke of Richmond, in Copeland et al., Correspondence, 2:377; see also Burke to the Marquis of Rockingham, [24] November 1769 in Sato, Edmund Burke, 49. 13 Burke said this in the context of his condemnation of the expulsion of Irish Catholics from Spain’s seaports by the Spanish Court as retribution against Britain and, more broadly positioned, in his expiation of his anti-autocratic principles and Whiggish religious toleration as a response to the loss of his Bristol seat in the 1780 election. See Burke, Speech, 53 (1780). 14 Young, Six Months’ Tour, 1:269–71. 15 Ibid., 1:passim, 245–316.

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16 These concerned the statues for the Marble Saloon. The 1st Marquis of Rockingham to his son, then styled Lord Malton, 18 September 1749, M2 Correspondence Book 2, containing copies of the 1st Marquis of Rockingham’s general correspondence, 1734–1750, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, Sheffield City Archives. 17 See Hopper and references in Cocchi’s diary (the Effemeridi) and Rockingham’s personal papers in Coutu, Then and Now, 237n48 and 49. 18 For accounts of Charlemont’s journey and time in Italy, see O’Connor, Pleasing Hours, 3–172; and McCarthy, Lord Charlemont. For Rockingham’s friendship with Charlemont, which ensued until his death, see Jason Kelly, ‘“A Genuine” Whig and Patriot’, in McCarthy, Lord Charlemont, 7–38. 19 For more sources on Rockingham’s sponsorship of Stuart and Revett, see Coutu, Then and Now, 65 and 237n50. 20 For the quote, see Rockingham to Burke, 15 October 1769, in Sutherland, Correspondence, 2:94. On the Society’s purpose and position in British society, see Colley, Forging the Nation, 85–98. Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, who was, early on, part of Rockingham’s circle and patron of Burke, was a prominent early member. 21 This is clearly demonstrated in the difference between George Knapton’s portrait of Dashwood portrayed as St Francis of Wycombe (his estate of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire) lustily worshipping between the legs of the Venus de Medici and Sir Joshua Reynolds’s twin group portraits (1777) of Dilettanti engaged in supposedly erudite study. For the portrait of Dashwood and the early history of the Dilettanti, see Kelly, Society, 7–89 and Matthew Reeve (this volume). For a discussion of the in sotto libertinism of Reynolds’s paintings, see Coltman, Classical Sculpture, 175–6. 22 This laid the groundwork for the Dilettanti’s formal sponsorship of an expedition to Ionia by Richard Chandler, William Pars, and Revett in the 1760s that resulted in the publication of Ionian Antiquities in 1769. In this, the Dilettanti were somewhat transgressing into the territory of the Society of Antiquaries, which had been founded in 1707 to assert the validity of material remains such as coins, medals, and statuary as tools, comparable to philology, for the study of the ancient past. Subsequently, such serious ‘scientific’ antiquarian study came to be seen as the purview of professional scholars rather than the patriciate and was hobbled by the stereotype of bespectacled round-shouldered pedants obsessively preoccupied with, as Shaftesbury said, ‘rarity for rareness’ sake’ (quoted in Hanson, English Virtuoso, 6). By the 1750s, it was swinging back to something worthy of gentlemen and aristocrats. Rockingham, consistent with his interest in coins and medals, became a member in 1752. See Kelly, Society, 145–237. See also Myrone and Peltz, Producing; Hanson, English Virtuoso, 2–8. 23 Kelly chronicles the episode but does not emphasize the political ramifications. See Kelly, Society, 77–88 and 176. 24 On Rockingham’s socially distant friendship with Wilkes, see Sainsbury, John Wilkes,

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176–7, 181–3. Wilkes was not immune to the social distinction imparted by a country house, as his involvement with Dashwood and the Medmenham Friars suggests. Later he was also a frequent guest at Appuldurcombe House on the Isle of Wight, filled with antique sculpture collected by Sir Richard Worsley, whose career was also rocked by an adulterous lawsuit. See Guilding, Owning the Past, 208–20. Plato and Aristotle were central to the patriciate education. See Coltman’s study of the depth of the patriciate’s classical education in Fabricating the Antique. For Vitruvius, Bramante, and Serlio, see Onians, Bearers of Meaning, 33–40, 225–46, 263–309. Vastness (Part II, Section VII), infinity (Part II, Section VIII), succession and uniformity (Part II, Section IX), magnitude in building (Part II, Section X), and magnificence (Part II, Section XIII), proportion and beauty (Part III, Sections I–V). See Burke, Philosophical Enquiry (1759). The six plaster casts are in the Pillar’d Hall while the more polished marble copies are in the Marble Saloon. The casts and copies were made from other copies available in Rome and Florence. Foggini’s sculpture is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Egerton, George Stubbs, 168; Fordham, ‘George Stubbs’. Stubbs’s idiosyncratic portrayal – with no backdrop or setting for the rearing horse – is also remarkable in that the horse has a sharply delineated three-dimensional quality that emphasizes its proportions and muscles, which is, in turn, consistent with the classical statuary elsewhere in the house. Arthur Young was careful to list all of these, and he went into elaborate detail on the Le Antichita di Ercolano esposte in a footnote that consumed five half-pages. See Young, Six Months’ Tour, 254–8. For more on the telescopes and geological specimens, see Armytage, ‘Charles Watson Wentworth’. The latter might also be considered a literal allusion to Rockingham’s ‘landedness’ and perhaps his interest in the nascent industry of coal extraction, of which he was a reputed leader, and upon which the subsequent fortunes of the estate would depend. Quoted in Hopper, ‘The Second’. For more on Rockingham’s collections, see Hopper and Coutu, Then and Now, 73–5. Notably, when a certain coin or medal from a particular imperial reign could not be acquired, Rockingham commissioned high-quality casts. Thus, part and whole overrides the concern for authenticity as the whole is necessary to tell the narrative of ancient civilizations. James Byres was his agent for acquiring medals and casts; for the correspondence, see Hopper, ‘The Second’. Young, Six Months’ Tour, 263. On Vitruvius and the vestibule, see Onians, Bearers of Meaning, 37.

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35 Young, Six Months’ Tour, 247. 36 The floor was completed in the nineteenth century according to the 2nd marquis’s designs. 37 The exterior staircase was not finished until the 1780s but the grandeur of the interior staircase – with a statue of Ariadne midway up guiding visitors to the light above – indicates that the Pillar’d Hall was always meant to be a primary first point of entry. 38 On self, sublimity, and taste in Burke, see Blackwell, Sublimity of Taste. For a contrasting gaze within the country house, see Peter de Bolla’s analysis of Kedleston Hall. De Bolla, Education, 151–217. 39 An early example of this are the guidebooks written by Benjamin Seeley, a Buckingham printer, for Viscount Cobham’s gardens at Stowe. 40 Burke, Philosophical Enquiry (1759), 101–3. 41 The domestic tour of country houses did not begin in earnest until the 1780s. See Anderson, Touring. For the latter, see John Bonehill’s essay in this volume. 42 Kelly, ‘Rome and Its British and Irish Artists’. 43 Burke, Philosophical Enquiry (1759), 18–19. 44 Shelburne also filled his London house, later called Lansdowne House, with an extensive collection of original antique sculpture. See Coltman, Classical Sculpture, 58–9, 210–11.

11 House Painting: Place and Position in Estate Portraiture circa 1770 John Bonehill

Writing of the exhibition staged by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1775, the anonymous author of one rhyming review was especially struck by the rich diversity of landscape art on display. When perusing the walls, the exhibition goer would find patriotic views of the native countryside, scenes of craggy, sublime nature, or architectural ruins as well as contrasting ones of cultivated order and ‘graceful care’, of ‘The well-spread lawn – the mansion fair’: Shelter’d by woods – by streams supplied – The gardens rich in summer pride – Each, jointly striking on the sight, Shew the possessor can unite Taste with magnificence; nor love To torture Nature, but improve.1 Views of landed property featured prominently in London’s still novel public art exhibitions of the 1760s and 1770s. Such pictures displayed a painter’s patronage and skill as well as the owner’s taste and encouragement of the fine arts. Among the mix of now more or less familiar names at the upper end of what the Welsh painter Thomas Jones identified as the ‘Landscape business’ of the day were his master Richard Wilson as well as George Barret, William Marlow, John Inigo Richards, and Paul Sandby, all of whom were regular exhibitors of estate portraiture.2 Producing and exhibiting commissioned views of the estates of the nation’s gentry and nobility was not just an effective promotional strategy for artists. Their patrons – ‘the possessor’ of the poetic review cited

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above – were no less concerned to parade the improvement of their country seats on the walls of the London show rooms or in the print series surveying the nation’s localities that were to be marketed in ever greater numbers from the mid-1770s. Displays and publications of this kind helped coordinate Britain’s localities and regions in people’s minds as a complex but ordered and harmonious mosaic of landed power. Estate portraiture had emerged as a distinct and distinctly modern pictorial form in Britain in the wake of the Restoration and constitutional settlement of 1688. In this, the demand for such works was defined by and inextricably tied to the growing importance of land and its ownership to expressions of social status and political power. Part of the polite geographies of the time, also set out in maps, travel literature, and poetry, such pictures helped extol the virtues of personal property and private landownership as the foundation of modern society. Helping to codify the complex range of meanings landed property came to assume for their owners and polite society more widely, by the 1760s, estate portraiture had evolved into a multifaceted category of pictorial art of considerable reach and power. While an admittedly conservative, aesthetically muted form at times, the genre was occasionally also freighted with more elevated cultural ambition. Partly because it was so blatantly commercial in motivation, partly as the taking of a likeness was thought a merely mechanical act, a matter of copying not invention, it was a category of picture making frequently discounted by academic theorists or the more academically inclined practitioner; Thomas Gainsborough’s rebuff of overtures from Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, to paint on his newly acquired estates is an especially well-known instance of such prejudice, the artist declaring that, ‘with regard to real Views from Nature in this Country, he had never seen any Place that affords a Subject equal to the poorest imitations of Gaspar and Claude’.3 Yet, despite (or perhaps because of) the misgivings of some, the same aspirations to academic respectability that prompted remarks of this nature spurred others to raise their game, the emergence of an increasingly professionalized art establishment setting down the conditions for more elevated brands of estate portraiture to flourish. Works by the likes of Barret or Wilson that appeared at public exhibitions in these years demonstrate how leading practitioners advanced the genre, developing it into a form of landscape art that was both closely observed and highly imaginative, marrying detailed matters of fact with a broad range of biographical, historic, literary, or pictorial allusion that worked to amplify the meaning of the locality depicted, elaborating on its imaginative as well as

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economic and physical connections with places elsewhere. Estate portraits made potent visual statements about an owner’s ‘place and position’, geographically and socially, locally and nationally, evoking widening spheres of influence, larger settings, and meanings. Through a focus on a select group of pictures commissioned by leading political figures in years around 1770, this essay explores issues in the making and meaning of estate portraiture, situating it in both local and metropolitan contexts of imagery, display, and politics.4 With artists taking a high degree of care to reassure the viewer of the picture’s fidelity to the scene, whether through the accumulation of precise detail or its alignment with landmarks as seen from an identifiable vantage point, there can be a tendency to take works in the genre as read, at face value, as it were. Accordingly, it is a category of picture-making that has attracted the attentions of architectural and garden historians more than art historians.5 Yet this is arguably to overlook the considerable complexity, power, and scope of the genre. Such apparent artlessness was anything but artless. It was dependent on a familiarity with and ability to manipulate a wide range of pictorial conventions and adapt them to the demands of a particular commission. Artists made studied allusion to Old Master tradition, casting the estate in a venerable historic light. They animated the scene with an easy mix of Georgic and pastoral imagery, pointing up the bounty and good order of the landscape under their patron’s supervision. Estate portraits afforded a view of the landscape not so much as it was but as it ought to be. Good estate management, of the kind celebrated in these pictures, offered a metaphor for effective government. But the productivity and social harmony on display was still troubled at times, not least as the sites depicted were implicated in local or even national political debates, often tense ones, around land use and customary rights or perhaps parliamentary representation. Particularly revealing in this respect are the groups of estate views George Barret and his contemporary (the now lesser known) Charles Steuart essayed, respectively, for members of the opposing factions around perhaps the two most high-profile political personalities of the day – Charles WatsonWentworth, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, and the royal ‘favourite’ John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. With both artists being identified unusually closely with these respective factions, the comparison is telling about the risks as well as the rewards of furnishing the houses of politicians.

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George Barret and the Rockingham Circle In 1766, Barret exhibited two paintings at the Society of Artists set on Welbeck Abbey: the sprawling Nottinghamshire seat of William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (one probably being figure 11.1).6 With Barret’s patron then prominent in Rockingham’s ultimately short-lived ministry of the day, their display would seem to have been calculated to draw attention to the painter’s association with these powerful figures. The pictures shown were just part of an extensive series of scenes showcasing the duke’s regional ties and the improvement of his historic estate. Situating the mansion in spacious parkland, alternately framed by new plantations and monumental ancient trees, Barret pictured a landscape emblematic of the high-minded brand of Whig politics professed by the Rockingham circle, as they extolled a virtuous commitment to agriculture and planting, historic liberties, and respect for hierarchy. A familiar name, albeit little-studied, Barret was a major player in the ‘Landscape business’ of the day, attracting extensive, if not always favourable, critical comment with the exhibition of a series of dramatic oils, notable for their then novel focus on rugged, northern landscapes and the use of glaring but eyecatching colour combinations.7 Much to the envy of his competitors, he was able to command considerable fees, negotiating the extraordinary sum of £724 10s. for twelve pictures from the Portland commission alone.8 He owed this status to the patronage of Edmund Burke who effectively stage-managed the painter’s entrance on the London art scene in the mid-1760s. On arriving in the city from Dublin, where he had an already well-established practice, Barret took up residence in Orchard Street, just off the about-to-be-developed Portman Square. His new address was well chosen, not un-coincidently neighbouring another painter who enjoyed the patronage of the Rockingham circle and with whom he was soon to collaborate – George Stubbs.9 Situated only a few hundred yards from Burke’s lodgings on Queen Anne Street, the address also placed these artists in the orbit of the grand townhouses of nearby streets and squares occupied by his political associates. The tactic soon paid dividends, with Barret quickly selling major works to Rockingham for the decoration of his London townhouse.10 Painting for Portland, just as he joined Rockingham’s government of the mid-1760s, only enhanced Barret’s already enviable profile. Revealing of the kinds of close conferral of artist and patron that characterizes acts of portraiture is a ‘Memorandum, of Pictures’ drawn up in 1767, which sets out the extent of the Portland commission (see figure 11.2). Apart from a

Figure 11.1 George Barret, A View of the great tree in Welbeck Park [View of the Seven Sisters in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire], exhibited Society of Artists 1766(?). Oil on canvas.

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few small departures along the way, the pictures Barret eventually delivered correspond closely with the landmarks and vistas agreed in this itemized list. Taken together, they plot a path through the landscape and position the viewer before a set of changing sights and scenes. In this case, the views Portland ordered from Barret took in the vicinity of the mansion as well as features beyond the parkland pale, on the western borders of the Welbeck estate. Despite a tendency for scholars to think of estate portraiture largely in terms of views of the country house, artists tasked with the portrayal of landed property were far from solely focused on its architectural and landscaped core.11 Their gaze was just as likely to fall on other assets and signs of ownership, features of the working estate as well as antiquities and natural wonders of the kind featured in Barret’s Welbeck sequence. Scenes set on outlying areas in Barret’s scheme took in a now lost view of the spectacular limestone gorge of Creswell Crags, along with two pictures of the ruins of Roche Abbey, a site that lay across the county line in Yorkshire’s West Riding, on the Sandbeck estate of a fellow Rockinghamite Richard Lumley-Saunderson, 4th Earl of Scarborough. Their inclusion acknowledged a series of historic and ongoing connections between the site and Portland’s Welbeck, while also extending the duke’s imaginative rights to roam over his neighbour’s lands. In this extended suite, Barret attended as closely to the various economies of the estate as its scenic delights, to its complex and layered history, as well as recent and ongoing improvement. Estate portraiture was as much a way of telling as of seeing, a means of relating and situating stories of different kinds. Usually closely tied to some moment of transition or occasion, commemorating change on the ground, in the form of a grand architectural or landscaping scheme perhaps, they also charted lives, matters of connection and pedigree, land, and life. Their plot lines were then often strongly biographical, relating both individual and longer-running dynastic histories, in narratives not so much about the patron’s life and times as their ‘place and position’. To take a ‘likeness’ of a place or make a study of its ‘character’ meant also capturing something of its owner. Writing to his protégé Richard Bentley in the late summer of 1756, Horace Walpole had given an account of recent travels in the north, including observations on the ‘sights … thick sown in the counties of York and Nottingham’. If Yorkshire was for Walpole the ‘more historic’, a county where ‘the great lords live at a prouder distance,’ he declared Nottinghamshire ‘a very Heptarchy of little kingdoms elbowing one another’, its landowners forever plotting how to make ‘inroads into one another’s parks, murder deer, and massacre parkkeepers’.12 Neighboured by a series of other massive aristocratic estates, at

Figure 11.2 George Barret, ‘Memorandum, of Pictures, painted for his Grace the Duke of Portland’, endorsed 16 July 1767.

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Welbeck Portland would compete with the dukes of Kingston, Norfolk, and Newcastle to enclose the long-neglected remnants of the Crown lands of Sherwood Forest. Their respective parks, ‘the dukeries’ as Walpole dismissed them, of Clumber, Worksop, and Thoresby, had, like Welbeck, owed much of their development to an earlier monastic presence, but all had in more recent times been expanded by the enclosure and planting of lands formerly long subject to customary common rights and given over to breck agriculture.13 John Chapman’s 1776 map of Nottinghamshire projected an image of a county made ordered and refined by these great ducal estates and their improvement (see figure 11.3 and figure 11.4). Yet, while greatly admired by some, the style of farreaching improvement celebrated by Chapman’s survey did not find favour with all visitors to the region. When Walpole revisited in 1768, if anything the vying for resources he had first observed a little over a decade earlier had now laid utter waste to the area’s historic woodland, the inroads made by local lords on forest lands leaving it in a near irretrievably ruinous state. ‘[A] devastation’ was his verdict of Welbeck.14 He did not say as much, but the mismanagement of such a key material and symbolic resource, especially large-scale felling for the sake of paying off debt or easy profit, was beyond irresponsible.15 Much of Welbeck’s historic timber had been sold off in the early years of the eighteenth century to bankroll the extravagances of its then owner Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. On his death, however, his wife Henrietta had begun carefully ‘Repairing, Beautifying & Ornamenting the Ancient Seat of the Cavendishe Family’, returning the estate to the grandeur of the previous century, when it had been presided over by her father John Holles, 1st Duke of Nottingham.16 She remodelled the park as well as restoring the house, floating an expansive serpentine lake, and planting extensively. Still, by the 1760s, many of the estate’s older trees were in the critical state of ‘devastation’ Walpole noted, if their felling was to be recuperated as a patriotic act, providing the prized compass timber used in building the ‘wooden walls’ of the nation.17 Several portraits of historic trees featured in Barret’s Welbeck sequence, among them a painting of the remains of the great Greendale oak paired with a view of another of the estate’s arboreal curiosities named the Seven Sisters for its number of boughs or trunks (see figure 11.1 and figure 11.5). In the latter picture, Barret focuses on the extraordinary gnarled old tree, with its bark, foliage, and the outlines of its snaking stems all finely observed, setting it against a long view out over the grassy vistas of the parkland running down to the lake. By contrast, the companion scene is more confined, rustic rather than elegant, the Greendale oak encircled by densely planted trees and underwood.18 Both trees

Figure 11.3 John Chapman, Nottinghamshire, Survey’d in 1774, published by J. Chapman, 1 May 1776.

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Figure 11.4 John Chapman, Nottinghamshire, Survey’d in 1774 (detail), published by J. Chapman, 1 May 1776.

were landmark coordinates in the geography of the estate and the wider region, the Greendale appearing in the decorative cartouche framing Chapman’s county survey, for instance. There, making the familiar analogy between great trees and stately landed families, the ancient oak staked the shire out as a preeminently aristocratic domain. Barret’s sylvan scenes are no less informed by the rich associations of venerable woodland and new planting, with patrician pedigree and the power of property.

Figure 11.5 George Barret, View of the Greendale Oak in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire, c. 1766–70. Oil on canvas.

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Highly attentive to the characteristics of individual species, Barret’s tree portraits have an antiquarian-like aspect, recording fragile – and with the Greendale oak, already ruinous – ancient monuments before they decayed further and were grubbed out.19 Such studies are to be seen in the light of a broader project to conserve and celebrate Welbeck’s ancient woodland before the ‘devastation’ Walpole noted became irreversible. In 1767, this was to see Portland engage William Speechley, a gardener who was to come to national renown through publications on landscape design and woodland management.20 His brand of land management allied a distinctly painterly sensibility with a rational, profitminded approach. So, while pictorial principles were evident in his planting of discrete, irregular patches of secondary varieties (ash, beech, larch, and Spanish chestnut) alongside Welbeck’s oaks, more extensive, commercial foresting was to take place on the peripheries and surrounding sand lands. Besides their profitability, Speechley’s planting on these hillsides reinforced his employer’s claims on what were newly appropriated and much contested lands, making for a powerful visual statement of his ownership and long-term investment in their management. In a view of an area of the estate known as Hazel Gap, for instance, Barret juxtaposed examples of Welbeck’s historic trees and woodland with one of these newly established hillside stands, marking the extent as well as the unity of the estate (see figure 11.6). Indeed, Barret’s commission overlapped with and was presumably meant to commemorate a sustained campaign of improvements directed by the 3rd duke. A map of the lordship of Welbeck drawn up at the time by the local surveyor and land valuer George Ingman gave these designs graphic form.21 Just as much prospective as documentary, Ingman’s survey prepared the ground for potential new land purchases and made recommendations on the re-evaluation of tenancies as well as the remodelling of the park. Making sketching trips to Welbeck at the time of this enterprise, Barret’s extended survey afforded a pictorial complement to Ingman’s plans, a gloss of sorts on the improvements under way. Taken from rough pastureland at the southern edge of the estate, near a site known as Forge Dam, another of Barret’s Welbeck scenes addresses the renovation of the designed core of the estate (see figure 11.7). It situates the mansion and parkland in its wider setting, the view extending out as far as the ancient settlement of Darfoulds on the far hillside. A scenic contrast is drawn between the rugged ground of the waterside, adjacent to a forge and mill complex, and the historic mansion, recently adorned with new buildings by John Carr (effectively the house architect of the Rockingham circle at this time).22 A bridge

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Figure 11.6 George Barret, A View in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire, c. 1766–70. Oil on canvas.

crossing the lake in the middle ground records Portland’s other major architectural project of these years. Designed by Robert Mylne and constructed during the summer of 1765, the bridge was an ambitious undertaking involving significant earthworks and the removal of many oaks, with stone quarried and transported from Creswell Crags and outcrops near Roche Abbey. It was to be a focal point of the parkland and itself a viewing station, except that the landscape of Barret’s picture had passed even before the completion of the artist’s commission. In late 1767, Mylne’s bridge collapsed.23 Here and elsewhere, Barret took care to stock the landscape in ways that alluded to Welbeck’s economies as well as its long history as a sporting domain. Of beauty and use, parks were, of course, economic landscapes as well as leisured playgrounds, their animals, for all their apparent freedom, no less carefully managed than their trees. Groups of animals, including grazing cattle, deer, horses, and sheep, add contrasts of form and colour to Barret’s pictures, but they also acknowledge the sizeable investment Portland was making in breeding and holdings of livestock. Grazing animals were emblematic of a peculiarly aristocratic form of husbandry, a leisured, effortless, ‘natural’ form of production,

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Figure 11.7 George Barret, A View in Welbeck Park, Nottinghamshire, c. 1766–70. Oil on canvas.

redolent of pastoral ease not arable toil. Another aspect of aristocratic privilege, the deer that roam the parkland refer as much to venison’s importance as a gift of patronage as to the historic status of the estate. Meanwhile, in other scenes, groups of horses announce the duke’s commitment to equestrian sports – hunting and racing – and so the correlation between the pleasures of the turf and aristocratic political identity. In the words of one hostile satirist of the day, Rockingham’s cabinet was composed of nothing but ‘Persons called from the Stud to the State, and transformed miraculously out of Jockies into Ministers’.24 Such elements linked Barret’s commission with Stubbs’s work for the duke, which took in an equestrian portrait of his patron before the Welbeck riding school and a companion scene showing him and his younger brother, Edward, watching over the schooling of a bay cob at a leaping bar.25 Several motifs and narratives prominent in Stubbs’s paired scenes and their display of gentlemanly ideals of horsemanship connect with the imagery of his fellow artist’s views of the ducal landscape, as with the grouping of brood mares and foals sheltering under the great canopy of the Seven Sisters oak or as with Welbeck’s grand riding school and stable block, the setting for the duke’s equestrian portrait, as

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they also feature in Barret’s views of the mansion complex and its park setting. In 1767, Barret and Stubbs sent complementary Welbeck scenes to the exhibition of the Society of Artists that underlined these connections.26 Stubbs was to show his portrait of the 3rd duke, together with Two gentlemen going a shooting, with a view of Creswell crags, taken on the spot, the first in a series of four pictures, exhibited in successive years, relating a day’s leisured excursion, taking in a mill, farmhouse, and lakeside plantation on the Welbeck estate. Barret’s exhibits included A View in Creswell crags, Nottinghamshire, with a waterfall and A View of Roche Abbey, a pairing that invited reflection on the origins of architecture in naturally formed caverns or perhaps the passing of time, the sudden, violent destruction of the monastery, and the long-term erosions of the rock. Exhibition visitors were also encouraged to recall the views that Welbeck Barret had shown twelve months earlier as well as to make connections with Stubbs’s art. Taken together, Barret’s and Stubbs’s pictures projected an image of Portland’s proprietorship over a richly varied landscape, at once historic, wild, and lately improved, leisured, and working, all finely and harmoniously brought together. Where Barret’s and Stubbs’s pictures were meant to hang is unrecorded, but it is likely that they were destined for the reception rooms of their patron’s newly rented Piccadilly mansion, in a deliberate echo of a similar scheme for Rockingham’s townhouse.27 On taking up the rental of Burlington House, Portland had employed Carr to repair and update the decoration of its long-neglected social spaces. His designs included a chimney piece modelled on ‘that in the drawing room at Welbeck’, so recalling the ‘tapestry’ of imagery and ‘monumenting’ found at Welbeck.28 On finding themselves in the political wilderness in the latter 1760s, the pictures commissioned from Barret and Stubbs would have had pointed meaning for Portland and his guests as they adopted a stance of virtuous retreat from the fray, committed to cultivating their estates, the basis of their power, and augmenting their standing in their native counties. Indeed, as Joan Coutu establishes in her contribution to this volume, Rockingham and his circle were inclined to argue that the liberty and morality of English society were dependent upon the power of the great ancestral estate. Devoted to ‘wise and enlarged ideas of the publick good’, Burke declared them ‘unwilling to mix in schemes of administration, which have no bond of union, or principle of confidence’.29 Such qualities marked their distinction from the creatures of the ‘Cabal’ around the Earl of Bute (the ‘double Cabinet’ as he termed it).30 Later in life, recalling Rockingham’s administration of the mid-1760s and the long years of opposition that followed, Burke was to celebrate the principles of his ‘party’ as a model of political virtue, where the security afforded by ‘permanent

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long possessed property’ freed owners from ‘servile court compliances’ and guaranteed the survival of ‘the ancient tried usages of the Kingdom’.31 Their regional powerbases, as they were framed by Barret and as they took shape on the ground, were sites for the display of these values, demonstrating the investment these Whig grandees made in agriculture and planting, equestrianism and related field sports, culture, and taste. The extent of Portland’s commitment to these fields came at a cost for his life and career, however. Shortly after 1770 or thereabouts, Barret’s association with the Rockingham circle ended abruptly in a quarrel over outstanding payments. Being forced to file for bankruptcy in the middle of the dispute, the painter needed the money badly.32 Illness played its part, but Barret’s monetary problems resulted principally from his taste for the high life. While he had enjoyed ‘higher patronage, and more employment, than any landscape painter of his day’ (as one contemporary recalled), keeping up the appearances of success had led him to extravagance, keeping a carriage and taking ‘a little Country house’ according to Burke, out in the rural outskirts of London, at Westbourne Green.33 Unhappy with some of the more eccentric aspects of Barret’s picture-making, Portland withheld payment on some works and insisted on their being repainted. It brought painter and patron into conflict, with Barret keeping back pictures and Portland threatening to underpay.34 But Barret was probably unaware that he was not the only one petitioning the duke unsuccessfully for payment at the time. Such was the cost of a political life, Portland’s lavish expenditure on estate improvements as well as fulsome displays of patronage and largesse had left him with mounting debts and unpaid bills.35 Still more damaging to his finances was a protracted legal dispute with a political ally of Bute.

Charles Steuart and the Bute Circle Artists in the business of making estate portraiture would frequently work a series of neighbouring estates or that of a group of friends before moving on. More unusual was the painter like Charles Steuart, able to rely on a tightly knit, consistently loyal patronage network, who might call on him to paint their lands multiple times over many years.36 Though London-based, the Scottish-born Steuart was heavily dependent on local kinship-based patronage networks originating in and around his native Perthshire. Working for successive dukes of Atholl, Steuart also enjoyed favour with John Campbell, 3rd Earl of Breadalbane, as well as John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, and his son-in-law Sir James Lowther,

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created 1st Earl of Lonsdale in 1784. Together with his architect brother George, the artist appears to have seldom moved outside of the protection of this restricted but enormously powerful set, who owned estates south of the border as well as extensive lands in the north. Advertising these associations at exhibition, in 1775 Steuart submitted a pair of estate views to the Society of Artists listed in the catalogue as a View from Lowther-Hall, Perieth and Perieth Bacon, the Seat of Sir James Lowther and A View in Luton Park, the seat of the Earl of Bute (see figure 11.8 and figure 11.9).37 While publicizing the patronage of these high-profile figures, the pairing of these views also allowed the painter to draw a series of connections between the sites portrayed and the progress of their improvement. When brought together, the pictures assumed something of the character of ‘before-and-after’ scenes, as surveys of prospective change and plans realized. With Robert Adam and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown both associated closely with these schemes, the pictures displayed the conjunction of a range of interests. Not least, the View from Lowther-Hall staked out these figures’ attempts to give physical form to their patron’s political designs on the landscape portrayed. On reaching his majority in the mid-1750s, Lowther had assumed control of several fortunes: estates in Cumberland and Barbados that he had inherited from his father, along with the lands of the Lowthers of Whitehaven and the Westmorland properties of Henry Lowther, 3rd Viscount Lonsdale. Looking to consolidate his interests in the counties of the northwest, the ‘great prince of the coal pits’ (as Walpole memorably christened him) was to commission a long series of ultimately unrealized designs for a suitably grand powerbase in the region.38 Looking out across an expansive fell and valley landscape in historic Westmorland, the View from Lowther-Hall Steuart exhibited at the Society of Artists was firmly implicated in these plans. Lowther Hall had been destroyed by fire in the early eighteenth century and was still a ruin at the time of the painter’s commission. His expansive view out over the valley of the River Lowther is accordingly framed by signs of the picturesque decay of the site, at one side by the roofless shell of the hall and to the other by a modest office block shaded by a grove of trees. Despite a later reputation for displaying nothing but ‘a thorough contempt for modern refinements’, Lowther had laid a series of ambitious plans for the renovation of the site.39 Disappointed with initial proposals commissioned from Matthew Brettingham the Elder, in 1763 Lowther had turned to ‘Capability’ Brown to draw up plans for the house and landscape. Three years later, he ordered designs from Robert Adam for a new house at Whitehaven as well as a replacement mansion and a new estate village at

Figure 11.8 Charles Steuart, View from Lowther-Hall, Perieth and Perieth Bacon, the Seat of Sir James Lowther, exhibited Society of Artists 1775. Oil on canvas.

Figure 11.9 Charles Steuart, A View in Luton Park, the seat of the Earl of Bute, exhibited Society of Artists 1775. Oil on canvas.

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Lowther. Not uncoincidentally, these years saw both Adam and Brown also working on the renovation of Bute’s Bedfordshire estate, Luton Park (Luton Hoo). Showing a view of the property alongside his prospect out from the ruins of Lowther Hall, Steuart looked to capitalize on these well-publicized connections as much as on the relationship between Bute and Lowther. Under way since the mid-1760s, work on the house and landscape at Luton Park was well advanced by the time of Steuart’s picture. Purchased as a place of retreat within striking distance of London, Bute had acquired the estate in 1763 just as his controversial ministry came to its ignominious end.40 Spending freely and buying up large swathes of adjacent farmland and ancient woodland, he had Brown fashion a grand new park. Taken from the northeast, out over the mile-long lake Brown had formed by damming the River Lea, Steuart’s view of the estate was made with a keen sense of the theatricality of its designer’s place-making. His vantage was the spot where the dense woodland marking the northern entrance to the estate opened suddenly to reveal the first glimpse of Adam’s new mansion. The artist was no less attentive to the designer’s planting, the gently sloping lawns, falling to a sunken dell and the banks of the river, being dotted with a variety of finely individualized specimens, examples of lime, horse chestnut, oak, and beech, scattered conifers, and poplars. Emerging from the recently cut ride, the polite party in a rustic cart (who we might take to be members of the Bute household) encounter a sentimental family group, setting up a likely act of benevolence. Seen alongside Steuart’s view out from the ruins of Lowther Hall, the well-watered and well-wooded landscape makes for an affective contrast with the solemn grandeur of the Lake District scene. Built at the far, northern end of a limestone escarpment, Lowther Hall and its surrounding courts had occupied one of the few elevated situations in an otherwise low-lying valley landscape. Affording views of great variety, Adam admired its grandeur and striking conjunctions of ‘woods, waters, mountains, rocks, towns, churches, and castles’.41 From this platform, Steuart’s picture surveys an extensive natural amphitheatre, stretching out towards the Penrith Beacon five miles (eight kilometres) or so off. Beyond the woodland of the approach to the house is a landscape of agricultural land and moorland, dotted with tenant farmsteads and neighbouring halls. Outside the boundary wall of the estate itself, the strip of land lying between the Rivers Lowther and Leith is more clearly marshy and water-logged in places, with pools diverted by a series of banks, channels, and dykes. It is a landscape rich in natural resources awaiting improvement.

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In another of the narrative strands established by the display of Steuart’s pictures, the View from Lowther-Hall was likely meant to prompt memories of a companion piece the artist had exhibited at the Society twelve months previously. Titled with an exactness telling of the importance of the vantage-point to such works, placing the viewer precisely in the landscape, Part of Whitehaven Harbour, St. Bee’s Head, the Isle of Man, from the Tobacco Pipes, Westmorland was almost certainly made to mark another of Lowther’s improvement schemes (see figure 11.10). Now renamed Whitehaven Castle, Adam had enlarged and remodelled the urban seat of Lowther’s ancestors known as The Flatt. Quite consciously in the line of prospects of the town essayed for the Lowther family earlier in the century by Matthias Read, the dramatic coastal setting and smoking industry of Steuart’s Whitehaven view contrasts strikingly with the fell and valley landscape of the companion scene.42 Pictured here as contributing to a harmonious and prosperous image of the county, Lowther’s extensive programme of improvements was also expressive of the owner’s aggressive and highly divisive political ambitions in the shire and wider region. Much to the resentment of other local landowners, by the early 1760s Lowther had a stranglehold on political appointments in Cumberland and Westmorland. Before the end of the decade his dominance in these counties

Figure 11.10 Charles Steuart, Part of Whitehaven Harbour, St. Bee’s Head, the isle of Man, from the tobacco pipes, Westmorland, exhibited Society of Artists 1774. Oil on canvas.

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met organized resistance, however, being challenged in a series of bitterly fought elections and legal proceedings. In 1767, Lowther’s attempt to introduce a bill for enclosing the commons in Ravenstonedale, a manor and parish to the south of his main Westmorland seat, was blocked by local tenants and small freeholders.43 Their protests were an early display of the opposition that Lowther was to encounter in coming elections. Here, we might return briefly to Barret’s work for Portland, for his pictorial survey of his patron’s estates took in a major battleground in these clashes. Among the historic arboreal monuments that the painter captured in paint was a celebrated ancient yew in the Cumbrian Vale of Lorton, on land granted by the Crown to the duke’s grandfather ‘for his services … in securing our religion and liberties’ shortly after the Glorious Revolution (see figure 11.11).44 It is a riverside scene, showing the aged and massive tree flanked by the village buildings of High Lorton at one side and by an open, flourishing valley, overlooked by raw distant fells of Hopegill Head and Whitehead to the other. While this bucolic, sequestered scene celebrated his patron’s influence in the region, at the time it was commissioned Portland’s stake in this landscape was the subject of concerted challenge.45 In an extension of the opposition to the ‘Cabal’ at Court, the duke had served as an aristocratic figurehead for freeholders in Cumberland and Westmorland resentful of the local influence wielded by Bute’s son-in-law at the general election of 1768. His interference prompted Lowther to challenge the legality of the duke’s grants and privileges in the northwest. Both sides published highly detailed accounts of the legalities of the case in the press. Drawing on ‘ancient surveys and court rolls’, these notices brought the history and present-day circumstances of this local landscape to national prominence.46 A pamphlet putting Portland’s case railed against the arbitrary ambitions of the ‘hireling ministers’ around the monarch, with the duke portrayed as a staunch defender of Whig values, his resistance representative of ‘the defence of private property against oppression and the hand of power’.47 His cause was also taken up by the anonymous polemicist Junius, who saw Lowther’s attempts to ‘rob the Duke of Portland’ of his lands as a warning that ‘liberty and property’ were likely to become ‘precarious, unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to defend them’.48 But Portland’s stand came at considerable cost, the legal battle that followed greatly exacerbating the duke’s already perilous financial problems.49 Thanks to the extraordinary levels of income generated by his estates in the Caribbean and elsewhere, Lowther was better able to absorb the cost of these battles. Still, it took him several years to

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Figure 11.11 George Barret, View in the Vale of Lorton, Cumberland, circa 1773. Oil on canvas.

regain the upper hand politically in the region. The wrangles probably also accounted for the lack of progress on the new mansion and landscape at Lowther. Grandiose designs for parkland buildings were still being ordered from Adam into the 1780s, but Lowther ultimately abandoned the restoration of the estate, having lost interest, perhaps, once the challenge to his political authority in the county fell away after the mid-1770s. ‘Grass grew in the neglected approaches to his mansion’ reported Lowther’s critics, its abandoned and ruinous state making a fitting seat for the ‘Gloomy despot’.50 On display at the Society of Artists in 1775, Steuart’s paintings generated a series of overlapping narratives, the authors and at the same time characters of which included Adam and Brown as well as the artist and his patrons. Viewed together, his pictures for Bute and his son-in-law related stories of improvement, anticipated and realized, of its aesthetic and social values, and of the local investments of these national figures. They were no less expressive of their respective politics, of Lowther’s regional interest and Bute’s retirement. In the crowded, near overwhelming visual environment of the exhibition room of the

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period, audiences might trace plot lines, both consciously fashioned and unintended, set up by the interaction of pictures with the works surrounding them and by their readings in the print culture of the day, encountering stories of personalities and politics, artistic rivalry, and competition.51 Both Barret and Steuart produced pictures that promoted their respective patrons’ rival claims to uphold core British values through the cultivation of their estates. But though they dealt in a shared imagery of improvement, their treatment of it varied distinctly. Pictures such as Steuart’s Luton Park view were almost heritage-like, with the landscape finely delineated and notched out in bands, the surfaces dry and undemonstrative, in a way that recalled earlier models of prospect art. At a time of great contention and debate over the virtues of estate improvements, and the role of some of the authors and players involved in public life, his art framed up change in the landscape in reassuringly traditional terms. By contrast, Barret’s pictures were altogether more dramatic and individual, his handling broader and colour more expressive, though too garish and gaudy for some. Writing of the now lost view of Creswell Crags Barret sent to the Society of Artists in 1767, one critic dismissed the picture as ‘Nor this, nor that, but something both between’, a curious ‘mongrel’, ‘so unlike, and so like’. His art was ‘too expressive, all too bright’.52 It was not just critics who were troubled by these qualities. While attention grabbing (and so suited to exhibition), the high-key colour combinations that so unbalanced his pictures – such that they wavered uncertainly between scrupulous accuracy and something altogether unnatural – left Portland for one notably dissatisfied. The painter’s ambitions for his art were out of step perhaps with the patron’s demands and expectations.

The Estate and the Exhibition Studies of landscape art have often tended to discuss it largely through a rural lens, overlooking the urban and more specifically metropolitan contexts in which it was most often produced, displayed, and consumed. While based on sketches made on site, Barret’s and Steuart’s estate views were assembled in their London studios and shown in the capital’s exhibition rooms ahead of being delivered to their patrons. But, though mindful of these settings, this discussion has still been closely attentive to the topographical specificity of their pictures and to their local resonances as well. Indeed, these were clearly crucial to the

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artist’s and patron’s understanding of them. This account has thus looked to understand the estate portraiture of the period as the product of the interaction of apparently opposed worlds, both the highly publicized social spaces of modern urban life and the closed-off, ‘retired’ realm of the country estate. Pictures of regional properties celebratory of the virtues of retirement, local attachment, and rootedness projected the image of a rural standing that had prestige in metropolitan life. It ensured that local matters – that is, the very stuff of estate portraiture – had wider significance, the conduct of figures on the national stage on and about their country estates attracting the attention of the London press. Not surprisingly, given the relative lack of direct commentary on such pictures, it is difficult to judge the extent to which debates of this kind informed the reception of the likenesses of local landscapes exhibited by the likes of Barret or Steuart. Still, as we have seen, there were occasions when the timing of their exhibition was advantageous, when it was clearly useful to have the owner’s local investments displayed in their best light, in a way that would imply that painter and patron were at least alert to the possibility of such connections being made. Debates over the coincidence or otherwise of landed and public interests served to make the estate a key material and scenic landscape, not just for the country’s landowners but also for that broader, largely urban-centred constituency who – even though they might lack the resources to build such domains – claimed membership of polite society. They were stages for the performative aspects of a genteel lifestyle for landed and non-landed alike. When encountered in pictures shown at exhibition or else marketed as prints, the landed estate and its image were sites where the makeup of that society, its identity, and its exclusions, was in some senses imagined, articulated, and defined. With their own place in polite culture and society in mind, artists as well as a range of other craftsmen and middlemen had a vested interest in the business of framing up views of the country’s landed property. Like other such figures, who catered to a limited but rich and powerful group of patrons, painters of the estate landscape were ultimately dependent upon the networks of reciprocal obligation that buttressed the society of the period. Their living was implicated – at times directly, at others more allusively – with fiercely contested debates about the country’s landed estates, their management and status, ‘place and position’.

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notes 1 Exhibition of Painting, 11. 2 Oppé, ‘Memoirs of Thomas Jones’, 19–20. 3 Thomas Gainsborough to Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, c. May–June 1764, in Hayes, Letters of Thomas Gainsborough, 30. 4 Notable among the wealth of recent discussions of the capital’s late eighteenthcentury exhibition culture are Solkin, Painting for Money, 157–213, 247–76; Solkin, Art on the Line; and Hallett, ‘Reading the Walls’. 5 Significant in this respect is Harris’s Artist and the Country House. While by some way the fullest overview of the genre, as the author admits, the book was conceived more as ‘a quarry for historians of architecture and gardening’ (ix) than as a work of art-historical or wider cultural enquiry. 6 These were listed in the Society of Artists catalogue as A View of Welbeck Park, the seat of the Duke of Portland and A View of the great tree in Welbeck Park. See Society of Artists, Catalogue. 7 There is no modern study of the painter, the literature on Barret being mainly restricted to brief remarks in surveys of Irish art. See Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, Ireland’s Painters, 133–8; Bodkin, Four Irish Landscape Painters, 1–16. 8 Barret, ‘Memorandum, of Pictures, painted for his Grace the Duke of Portland’, endorsed 16 July 1767, Pw F 263, Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham (unmsc). 9 Egerton, George Stubbs, 184, 248. 10 The purchases are recorded in Account books and rentals, wwm/a/1203, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, Sheffield City Archives. 11 Harris, Artist and the Country House; Spivy et al., Country Houses in Great Britain. 12 Horace Walpole to Richard Bentley, August 1756, in Walpole, Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 35:266, 271–2. 13 Seymour, ‘Landed Estates’; Toynbee, ‘Walpole’s Journals of Visits to Country Seats’, 66. 14 Horace Walpole to Anne, Countess of Ossory, 24 August 1777, in Walpole, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with the Countess of Upper Ossory, 32:375. 15 Daniels, ‘Political Iconography’, 45–6. 16 ‘Books for Accounts for Repairing, Beautifying and Ornamenting the Ancient Seat of the Cavendish Family at Welbeck’, covering the years 1741 to 1753, dd. 4P and dd. 5P, Portland Papers, Nottinghamshire Archives, Nottingham. See Smith, ‘Lady Oxford’s Alterations at Welbeck Abbey’; Worsley, ‘Female Architectural Patronage’; and, on the grounds, Laird, Flowering of the Landscape Garden, 121–4, 151–4, 192–4. 17 Seymour, ‘Landed Estates’, 115–34.

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18 The view of the Greendale Oak retraces its lines from etchings made earlier in the century by George Vertue, whose prints record the hollowing out of the tree on Harley’s instruction so he might drive a carriage through it. See Watkins, ‘Solemn and Gloomy Umbrage’, 101–2. 19 For contemporary praise of Barret’s treatment of trees, see Pott, Essay on Landscape Painting, 70. 20 Seymour, ‘Landed Estates’, 119–23. 21 Ingman, ‘A Rough Plan of the Manor of Welbeck, in the County of Nottinghamshire’, 1766, private collection. See also Ingman to the 3rd Duke of Portland, 29 May 1766, Pw F 5739, unmsc. 22 On the Rockingham circle’s patronage of the architect and his political identification with the group, see Wragg, Life and Works of John Carr of York, 28–32, 39–48, passim. 23 Mylne’s consultation and supervision of work on the bridge can be traced through his diaries for the years 1765–67 (myfam\12A\2, Royal Institute of British Architects Library, London) and in correspondence with the 3rd duke and his agents (Pw F 7087–7106, unmsc). 24 Public Advertiser, 21 September 1765. 25 Egerton, George Stubbs, 246–9; Daniels, ‘Miniature Matlock’. 26 Daniels, ‘Miniature Matlock’, 82–4. On the display of estate views at this particular exhibition more generally, see Bonehill and Daniels, ‘Real Views from Nature’. 27 For a reconstruction of the Rockingham scheme, see Fordham, ‘George Stubbs’s “Zoon Politikon”’. On the complicated history of the duke’s occupancy of Burlington House, see Sheppard, Survey of London, 32:406. 28 For Carr’s work at Burlington House, see his letter to William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, 27 October 1771, Pw F 2539, unmsc. On the ‘monumenting’ of Welbeck’s interiors, see Horace Walpole to Richard Bentley, August 1756, in Walpole, Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 35:270. 29 Burke, Observations on a Late State of the Nation, 141. 30 Burke, Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents, 38. 31 Burke to William, 31 January 1792, in Copeland et al., Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 7:52–3. 32 Public Advertiser, 10 December 1770. 33 Angelo, Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, 1:229; Burke to James Barry, 24 August 1767, in Copeland et al., Correspondence of Edmund Burke 1:323. 34 See the artist’s correspondence with the duke in Pw F 268, unmsc. 35 Wilkinson, Duke of Portland, 22–5. 36 The literature on the artist is currently limited to the brief remarks in Irwin, ‘Charles

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Steuart’, 300–3. See also Bonehill, ‘Scotland’s Prospects’, 134–7. The painter’s architect brother George Steuart has begun to attract attention, however, most recently in Coltman’s Art and Identity in Scotland, 62–103. These alternate spellings for Penrith and Penrith Beacon were not uncommon. However, the catalogue did contain an error, placing this Lake District scene ‘in Northumberland’. Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 17 August 1761, in Walpole, Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 31:527; Colvin, Mordaunt Crook, and Friedman, Architectural Drawings from Lowther Castle. Thomas, Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, 2:70. Russell, John, 3rd Earl of Bute, 155. Nicolson and Burn, History and the Antiquities, 1:441. A third picture in Steuart’s Lowther series was still more clearly aligned with Read’s precedent, showing the ruins of Lowther Hall from a vantage-point his predecessor had adopted some half a century earlier. See Burkett and Sloss, Read’s Point of View; Bonehill, ‘View from Brackenthwaite’. Whyte, Transforming Fell and Valley, 37. Nicolson and Burn, History and the Antiquities, 2:399. The painting can be dated by a letter of 27 May 1773 from Barret to the 3rd duke, in which the painter explained that he had yet to deliver the picture because he was dissatisfied with it, though he was more likely withholding it as a bargaining chip in his attempts to secure payment (Pw F 269, unmsc). Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle 38 (July 1768): 306–8. Case of His Grace the Duke of Portland, 9. Junius, Stat nominis umbra, ii:256. Wilkinson, Duke of Portland, 22–5. Thomas, Memoirs, 2:71. Hallett, ‘Reading the Walls’, passim. Jones, Le Pour et Le Contre, 6, 7. While the tonalities of the works from the Welbeck commission illustrated here are relatively muted, even sombre, other pictures in the sequence demonstrate the artist’s use of the discordant lighting effects decried by this critic, whereby deep, translucent greens are juxtaposed with high-key yellows, or what his great rival Richard Wilson was to deride as Barret’s ‘eggs & Spinnage’. See Farington, Diary, VIII, 3056. A fuller discussion of these tendencies in the painter’s art will feature in my forthcoming study, The Face of the Country: Estate Portraiture in Britain, 1660–1832.

12 The House and Estate of a Rich West Indian: Two Slaveholders in EighteenthCentury East Anglia Elisabeth Grass Like East India Company officials or ‘nabobs’, Caribbean colonists, known as West Indians, were a conspicuous presence in eighteenth-century Britain. Remaining attached to ‘the motherland’, sometimes even after several generations’ tenure in the tropics, they routinely sent their children to be educated in England’s public schools, bought townhouses in London, and purchased landed estates throughout the British Isles.1 This was a contemporary commonplace; in a speech to Parliament in 1778, William Petty was relying on both hyperbole and familiarity when he said, ‘there is scarce a space of ten miles together, throughout this country, where the house and estate of a rich West Indian are not to be seen’.2 Physical absenteeism from the Caribbean often did not preclude continued involvement in Caribbean affairs: most found themselves navigating their entry into British landed society while remaining tied to plantation economies and coordinating complex transatlantic interests.3 These interests often had a political dimension and, although they were never a strictly coherent group, parliamentarians belonging to what was known as the ‘West India interest’ were seen as a powerful faction in Westminster. They lobbied for specific legislation, such as the Molasses Act of 1733, as well as for more general colonial interests, including the continuation of the transatlantic slave trade and of plantation slavery.4 Although at first their presence in Parliament largely escaped public scrutiny, West Indians’ visibility increased as the century wore on. This was due in part to the prominence of William ‘Alderman’ Beckford, Lord Mayor of London between 1762 and 1769, and one of the richest men in the world. Beckford became

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a totem for anti-West Indian sentiment and was accused, not without foundation, of political cronyism in favour of his fellow Jamaicans.5 More generally, the middle decades of the eighteenth century saw changing metropolitan attitudes towards individuals associated with empire, who were increasingly framed as degenerate and as dangerous to the British polity and its values.6 In 1761 Horace Walpole bemoaned the influx of ‘West Indians, conquerors, admirals, and nabobs’, an ‘execrable banditti’, which threatened to destroy the credibility of British politics.7 West Indians came under attack in the popular press and were the subject of satirical treatment in plays, broadsides, and novels.8 The most famous contemporary example was Richard Cumberland’s play The West Indian (1771), the opening night of which was picketed by a group of aggrieved colonists who ‘went down to the theatre in great strength, very naturally disposed to chastise the author for his malignity’.9 Considering these changing attitudes, against this backdrop of growing metropolitan hostility, this essay considers the strategies of two men born on the British Leeward Island of St Christopher (St Kitts), who bought country estates and pursued parliamentary careers in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Crisp Molineux bought Garboldisham Hall in Norfolk in 1754 and Patrick Blake purchased Langham Hall in neighbouring Suffolk in the mid1760s. They went on to represent parliamentary boroughs close to their estates: Crisp Molineux was mp for Castle Rising (1771–74) and King’s Lynn (1774–90), and Blake was mp for Sudbury (1768–84). Although it has long been established that West Indians ‘were not a homogenous body’, this essay stresses the multiplicity of their experience to provide a more granular understanding of how such men navigated their entry into British landowning and political society.10 It suggests that, rather than passive recipients of metropolitan influence who sought to occlude their Caribbean connections, they were agents of change in Britain in these decades and that they fashioned themselves as part of a transatlantic elite – landed gentlemen who were both British and West Indian. It shows that East Anglian society welcomed newcomers with imperial connections, indicating that national concerns and anxieties about empire could be moderated and superseded by local circumstances and specific provincial relationships. Blake and Molineux made claims to ownership of hundreds of enslaved people; the focus on these individuals is not intended to privilege these men’s experiences over those they subjugated but, rather, to understand to what extent rural Britain was an imperial space.

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Crisp Molineux of Garboldisham Crisp Molineux was twenty-four when he left his Caribbean plantations in the hands of an overseer and bought Garboldisham Hall in Norfolk (see figure 12.1). Its previous owners included the earls of Arundel, the Gawdy family, and the Bacon baronets of Redgrave. Edmund Bacon had been ‘the premier baronet of England’, and when Molineux bought the estate from Bacon’s daughter, he purchased a prestigious segment of rural Norfolk.11 Caribbean colonists often exhibited genealogical pretensions: they sought legitimation in the eyes of metropolitan society through assertions of family pedigree and connections to ancient English families and estates.12 Molineux had no prior connection to Garboldisham, but with its purchase he began a dynastic association that would last for nearly two hundred years, until its sale by his descendants in the 1930s (the house was subsequently destroyed by fire). Molineux had been educated in Britain, at Dr Newcombe’s Academy in Hackney and thereafter at Cambridge. The relative proximity of Garboldisham to his alma mater may have informed the choice of location, as perhaps did the long-established connections between East Anglia and St Kitts. The English

Figure 12.1 Exterior view of Garboldisham Hall, Norfolk, 1926.

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colony’s beloved foundation narrative held that it had been established in 1624 by Suffolk native Thomas Warner and a band of doughty East Anglian farmers.13 This kind of connective origin story informed the warp and weft of colonists’ identity, and foundation myths reinforced attachments to England, or, rather, to England as it had been in the seventeenth century. The house Molineux bought as a young arriviste belonged to this era. Garboldisham Hall was stylistically typical of Jacobean country houses, with an interior focused on a low-ceilinged central hall with fireplace, and original oak panelling throughout. By the 1750s and 1760s, houses of this type had long since fallen from fashion and were frequently renovated by owners who sought the natural light and sociable spaces inherent to modern classical designs.14 Molineux did not pursue this course of action. He made various changes to the house, which included expanded attics and the somewhat token addition of a small colonnaded portico, but much of the original form was retained, from the arrangement of the rooms to the panelling. A tentative reconstruction of Molineux’s inventory suggests that the house was furnished in a similarly traditional style; Garboldisham contained a large quantity of seventeenth-century furniture, including Jacobean oak chests, court cupboards, an armorial, a bible box, two Flemish cabinets, and a large ‘Cromwellian oak table’.15 Molineux had articles of plate with him in Norfolk that had belonged to his West Indian grandparents, and it is possible that he also shipped furniture and other household goods from St Kitts to furnish his English country house.16 This serves as a reminder that goods moved cyclically between colony and metropole and that those objects brought to Britain by arriviste West Indians had previous lives in plantation houses in the Caribbean, and perhaps in English country houses before that. Buildings and their contents shaped and reflected identity in the British Atlantic world, and Molineux’s choice spoke volumes: a storied mansion contemporaneous to the English colonization of St Kitts, in an area long associated with the island’s first colonists. The antiquity of the building and its contents formed a pastiche of generational accrual, which, respectively, belied and complemented Molineux’s arriviste status and Caribbean origins. When West Indians moved to Britain, they frequently transplanted unfree people from their plantations in the Caribbean to work as domestic servants. Richard C. Maguire has demonstrated that an unusually large number of people of African heritage appear in the parish registers for Garboldisham in the years following Molineux’s arrival, and he speculates convincingly that they were brought in bondage from St Kitts.17 They may represent only a small dias-

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pora in the context of transatlantic slavery, but these people’s presence in East Anglia carries echoes of the kidnap, enslavement, and larger forced movement of African people within the Atlantic world at this time. Molineux was an agent of this forced migration, and his activities as a slaveholder in the Caribbean made a lasting impact on the demographic of rural Norfolk. Maguire shows that Molineux was vociferously opposed to the baptism of enslaved people, asserting that the entries in the parish registers indicate that planters like Molineux modified their behaviour to integrate, and to accord, with English customs and norms.18 While doubtlessly true, the baptisms also indicate these people’s personal agency and resistance, echoing broader movements among the enslaved populous of the Caribbean to assert autonomy over their personal and spiritual lives. Molineux was no apologist for his background, and he had firm political ambitions. Writing to a fellow St Kitts planter in January 1769, he expressed his feelings ‘that the more West India Gentlemen of English property are in that house [Parliament] the better for the whole body’.19 In his one speech to Parliament, he took a predictably anti-abolitionist stance, but it is his route to securing parliamentary office that most clearly shows his imbrication of West Indian and British interests. It also shows that the location of his estate reflected upon and influenced his political and business interests: after buying a country house in Norfolk, his political activities remained largely centred on that county.20 Molineux made a politically savvy marriage. His purchase of an estate in the region doubtless established his eligible credentials, and within two years of buying Garboldisham, he married local heiress Catherine Montgomerie. We have no record of Catherine Molineux’s thoughts on her husband’s origin, but for Molineux the marriage was unquestionably an advantageous match. The planter elite has been characterized as a ‘cousinhood of interrelated families’ because many West Indians married within their ranks, but eschewing endogamy brought its own benefits, such as an entrée into established provincial society.21 In addition to a significant financial settlement, Molineux’s union with Catherine offered political connections on both sides of her family. Catherine’s paternal family were of Scottish descent. Her father George Montgomerie had made money in trade, owned two East Anglian estates, and was High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1757 before being elected to Parliament for Ipswich the following year. Molineux witnessed this political trajectory and a decade later he attempted to follow the same path as his father-in-law: he was High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1768 before standing, albeit

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unsuccessfully, at King’s Lynn in the general election of March 1768. This movement from the local to the national political stage was not uncommon, but Montgomerie offered a model to his West Indian son-in-law that showed the East Anglian gentry and its politics not as ‘a closed elite’ but as accessible to newcomers.22 Molineux and Montgomerie both sat for portraits by Thomas Gainsborough in the late 1750s, possibly on the occasion of Montgomerie’s election to Parliament for Ipswich.23 Gainsborough was a native of East Anglia and was working from a studio in Ipswich at this time. As the newly minted mp for the town wishing to act for its interests, Montgomerie’s patronage of Gainsborough was a canny move to support a local artist. For Molineux, the portrait confirmed his newly forged connection to the Montgomerie family as well as to the businessmen, merchants, and gentry of East Anglia who comprised Gainsborough’s clientele. For his own political identity Molineux appropriated a radical Wilkite persona. Radical politics proved popular with sectors of the Norfolk electorate, as did the enfant terrible of the eighteenth-century political establishment, John Wilkes.24 Wilkes also appealed to many West Indians, who were one of the single biggest contributing groups to Wilkes’s campaign funds in this period. They capitalized on the nebulous alignment of patriotism and freedom for which the slogan ‘Wilkes and Liberty’ had become a universal trope.25 Here again, marriage to Catherine proved a boon. Her maternal first cousins were the historian and intellectual Catharine Macaulay and radical politician John Sawbridge, who were part of a wider social circle that included John Wilkes himself. Their celebrity was real, as attested by collectible ceramic figurines of Wilkes and Macaulay that were produced by several porcelain manufacturers in this period.26 Molineux was not commemorated in this way, but proximity to these ‘champions of liberty’ enforced Molineux’s political credentials. Garboldisham Hall became a meeting place for the group. Wilkes’s daughter Polly was particularly close to Molineux’s children and their Macaulay cousins, and she spent long periods under the care of Catherine Molineux. A Christmas stay at Garboldisham was evidently a regular fixture. Wilkes expressed disappointment in 1788 when the party had to be cancelled because Molineux was suffering a particularly virulent attack of gout.27 Through marriage to Catherine, Molineux gained an intimate connection with a renowned political coterie, and Garboldisham was a space in which this familial and political sociability overlapped. Molineux’s political ambitions also took him beyond his country house into other extra-parliamentary arenas as he sought to curry favour with the regional

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electorate. He focused his efforts on King’s Lynn and joined the town’s Star Club, a Wilkite lodge that met at a tavern and whose members included enfranchised men of the town.28 Among this group of businessmen and landowners he found men already engaged in transatlantic business. East Anglia’s transatlantic connections have long been overlooked, but as recent work has shown, the port of King’s Lynn had experienced an ‘Atlantic pivot’ in the first decades of the eighteenth century.29 Molineux established an alliance with local merchants Samuel Browne and Edward Everard, who had been invested in slave trading from as early as 1738.30 Through the proposed scheme, Molineux would supply his Caribbean plantations with livestock and other goods direct from King’s Lynn, and, in the summer of 1768, Molineux began to solicit business from West Indians still in the Caribbean, requesting that they place orders with him for provisions.31 He wrote to one such in Antigua: ‘If you or your friends want oats, beans, peas, lime or brick you can have them at prime cost from [King’s] Lynn, which I will undertake for my friends shall be executed in the best and most reasonable manner, & as this plan can be mutually serviceable both to the [King’s] Lynn Merc[han]t and the Antigua planter, I flatter myself you will encourage a ship at least for one voyage on tryal’.32 As intermediary for the merchant house, Molineux proposed to bolster the economic prosperity of King’s Lynn and its surrounding areas by dispatching local produce to the Caribbean. In addition to the economic potential, he was explicit in his belief that this venture would improve his electoral hopes in King’s Lynn, proposing ‘to keep up that Interest which I’ve fortunately establish’d there … & which may be one of these days of no disservice to my ambition, by sending a ship to St Kitts and another to Antigua’.33 He hinged his local political hopes and his reputation on his ability to bring Caribbean trade to the region and to benefit fellow West Indian planters in turn. Molineux further expressed his ties to the Caribbean by his liberality with colonial goods: he lavished his friends and political supporters with distinctly tropical comestibles such as turtles and rum. Turtle feasts were cornerstones of political life in the Caribbean and colonial North America, and it appears that they were popular in East Anglia too: Molineux placed orders for turtles to be eaten at what he called ‘frolics’.34 Alcohol greased the wheels of politics, and Molineux was explicit about the importance of rum in a letter to his Caribbean overseer, writing: ‘I now have many friends to oblige & nothing goes further than a few bottles of old St Kitts’.35 These provisions serve as a reminder that commensality was a cornerstone of political life and that Caribbean goods were

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prized in this context. West Indians’ famed largesse may have been reframed as gluttony as the eighteenth century wore on, yet in the taverns of King’s Lynn, and doubtless in other urban centres too, a feast with a Caribbean flavour was a welcome addition to the town repast.36 It is possible here to see the gulf between supposed metropolitan anxieties and the reality of Molineux’s experience as an arriviste. He first ran for Parliament in the general election of 1768, a year in which West Indians suffered a sustained attack by the metropolitan press regarding their political ambitions.37 Yet, although the word ‘creole’ was thrown around by his opponents as a vague slur, Molineux proved a popular candidate.38 The electorate were far from squeamish either about his West Indian identity or by his association with transatlantic slavery. In addition to securing popularity with voters, Molineux worked to garner and preserve aristocratic support, which was necessary in all but a few electoral boroughs.39 Molineux courted George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford, whose uncle Horace had been so vociferously opposed to imperial figures in Parliament. Molineux’s success with one Walpole, where another was so vehemently opposed to imperial candidates, is a reminder that Britons’ views about empire were highly unstable and contested. It also suggests that supposed national anxieties did not necessarily translate to a loss of opportunities for imperial arrivistes. It is clear that securing aristocratic preferment was no easy task, however: in Molineux’s case it required active participation and a willingness to leave his own country house to follow in the wake of men who controlled access to government seats. George Walpole’s patronage was hard won and difficult to keep; he was fickle, he spurned Molineux in company, and his notorious obsession with country sports meant that he often failed to attend events.40 Molineux often found himself waiting for Walpole at coaching inns, attempting to catch him on the road as he travelled to his hunting lodge at Eriswell, where he stayed in preference to his family seat of Houghton Hall.41 The continued effort with Walpole promised two potential payoffs: (1) the support to stand in an Orford-controlled borough and (2) an arguably impressive aristocratic connection to Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton. Fitzroy held political audiences at his seat Euston Hall in Suffolk and, as prime minister, had the power to place candidates nationally. Through Walpole’s recommendation, Molineux gained access to one such gathering, reporting that Walpole sent him ‘word to meet him at Euston where he spoke much in my praise to the D[uke]. of Grafton and asked him to compliment me with a government seat, which he would return by putting in any friend of his Grace’s upon a vacancy

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in one of his own boroughs, I stayed all night at Euston after that’.42 Euston was fewer than nine miles (14.5 kilometres) from Molineux’s estate at Garboldisham but was not a space to which Molineux had ordinary social admittance. In the months that followed, Molineux sent obsequious letters to Fitzroy in which he attempted to emphasize his utility and largesse, boasting that ‘half a buck arrived at the Crown at Whitechapel, & another at the Noah’s Ark Shadwell’, and suggesting that the duke might find him a useful ally in the less salubrious parts of London.43 In Molineux’s correspondence, liminal spaces such as taverns and coaching inns are revealed as important sites of political access in which he was vetted as a potential candidate. Molineux continued to hope that services rendered to Grafton would translate into a parliamentary candidacy. In 1769 he believed that he had been selected by Fitzroy to stand at Dover, ‘in preference over Edward Holden Cruttenden, one of the East India directors’, but this proved to be false.44 This misunderstanding illuminates a competitive political landscape in which imperial arrivistes vied for favour and for the finite number of parliamentary seats. Molineux’s distant, formal, and ultimately unsuccessful relationship with the Duke of Grafton is particularly suggestive because they had been contemporaries at Dr Newcombe’s Academy and at Cambridge. The need for Walpole to intercede on Molineux’s behalf with someone who was an ‘old schoolfellow’ indicates that West Indians’ long-practised mode of educating their children in the motherland did not necessarily guarantee the highest political or social preferment. Efforts with the Duke of Grafton ultimately came to nothing, but Molineux’s persistence with Walpole paid off when the death of Jenison Shafto opened a vacancy at the Orford-controlled constituency of Castle Rising in 1771. Molineux’s promotion was cemented with an act of domestic sociability: Walpole invited him to Houghton Hall to ‘taste a buck’ and to celebrate his being granted the candidacy.45 Houghton may have been in decline under George Walpole’s erratic stewardship, but it still carried echoes of the so-called ‘Norfolk Congresses’, the immense political gatherings hosted by his father Sir Robert. Consecutive days of feasting, hunting, and drinking, these gatherings performed an important extra-parliamentary function; attendance confirmed membership or exclusion from Walpole’s ‘courtly whiggish’ circles.46 Contemporary commentators frequently drew comparisons between large-scale country house gatherings and Court, and such events were held throughout the country, wherever factions coalesced around members of the aristocracy and wherever political favours could be conferred.47

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Molineux’s progression, from haunting liminal spaces such as taverns to being granted audiences at the great aristocratic houses of the region, brings into focus the continued importance of country houses to regional politics in this era and the ‘continuities between public and private worlds’ that characterized political sociability in the eighteenth century.48 Shortly after the feast at Houghton, Molineux became mp for Castle Rising, completing the trajectory that he had begun in 1754 with the purchase of Garboldisham. The house sometimes slips from view in the record of Molineux’s attempt to secure parliamentary office; most of his political activities took place at taverns, coaching inns, wharves, custom houses, and, ultimately, in the houses of other men. Yet aspects of his political life played out at Garboldisham, as did broader identity formation in which he was an unapologetically active representative of colonial interests. Beyond the country house, his peripatetic career launched him into a variety of spaces in which he fashioned himself simultaneously as merchant, politician, gentleman, and West Indian.

Patrick Blake of Langham Patrick Blake and Crisp Molineux shared some striking proximities: they were born on the same tiny Caribbean island, and they bought country houses just eleven miles (17.7 kilometres) from one another in rural East Anglia. They were certainly acquainted, and as a local planter Blake evidently agreed to participate in Molineux’s merchant venture: on 12 September 1768 Molineux wrote to Blake to notify him that one of his victualing expeditions – on the fawningly named Duke of Grafton – had set sail loaded with grain.49 Yet Blake does not reappear in what survives of Molineux’s correspondence, and it seems that the men had little social contact. Indeed, although they shared certain markers of the arriviste experience, as will be argued, they diverged in taste, milieu, politics, and sociocultural activities. These differences add striking granularity to our understanding of the ‘planter class’ and its spheres of influence. Blake was the wealthier man. He held at least five estates in St Kitts, in contrast to Molineux’s two, and he also held plantations in Montserrat. In 1762 the sale of sugar and other tropical products from these estates produced a net income of £6,000 per annum, which was supplemented by an annual income of £400 from Langham.50 Blake’s significant wealth was reflected in his purchase of fashionable and high-status goods and objets d’art; he purchased a full Wedgwood dinner service with the Blake coat of arms, collected gemstone in-

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taglios, commissioned portraits by Joshua Reynolds, and bred racehorses.51 He had at least one carriage elaborately decorated with his initials, which was the kind of conspicuous consumption that became a hallmark of the West Indian stereotype. It is suggestive that, at his London residence, Blake was a neighbour of playwright Richard Cumberland at the time he was writing his satirical hit The West Indian.52 Unlike Molineux, who embraced the patina of age at Garboldisham Hall, Blake made significant alterations to Langham. He updated the Queen Anneera house in a modish style, which incorporated decorative flourishes such as fine Rococo and Chinoiserie plasterwork ceilings.53 Blake also developed the parkland, retaining the formal parterre garden that belonged to the previous era, but remade the grounds, as viewed from the house, as a ‘Capability’ Brownstyle naturalistic landscape.54 He commissioned a hermitage, that fashionable subgenre of the eighteenth-century ornamental garden folly.55 Blake’s aesthetic sensibility as it manifested at Langham was engaged with current fashions, in silent dialogue with the numerous other owners of country houses who were installing similar motifs at this time. With Blake’s amendments, Langham is best typified as a ‘small classical house’, the kind of which proliferated in the British Atlantic world in these decades.56 As Stephen Hague has shown, ‘filled with possessions and standing in cultivated landscapes, small classical houses provided a setting for transatlantic elite identity formation by reinforcing power, prestige, and a shared culture of entertaining’.57 Blake was evidently preoccupied with entertaining; he optimized Langham to receive large numbers of guests and went beyond the bounds of the hall itself to do so. Although the main house had just five bedrooms, the accommodation was supplemented by what was known as the ‘Gentlemen’s cottage’, which was ‘built for the express purpose of accommodating visitors to the hall’.58 In addition, Blake built an extraordinary and extensive entertainment complex that featured five coach houses, a fifty-foot (15.25-metre) ballroom, and a thirtythree-foot (ten-metre) gaming room as well as a separate ‘refreshment room’.59 All of this was atop his racing stud, which included stabling for forty horses and ten grooms’ bedrooms as well as the usual accoutrements such as a blacksmith’s shop and harness-house. In addition, he incorporated a laundry, a brew-house, and an engine-house, and topped the edifice with a ‘handsome dome clock house’.60 Hague notes that owners of small classical houses tended to be paranoid lest they ‘build too fine’.61 Blake seems to have had the best of both worlds; he retained a relatively modest house but expressed largesse through ostentatious outbuildings.

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Although architecturally unusual, Blake’s entertainment complex demonstrates the importance of equestrian interests to eighteenth-century gentlemanly sociability. Breeding racehorses was a notably expensive, socially oriented, and high-status pursuit, which afforded opportunities to develop relationships with members of the ruling elite.62 Blake bred horses sired by Lord Grosvenor’s famous Arabian, for example, and he ran at least six racehorses at nearby Newmarket between 1765 and 1769. Thanks to recent work, Newmarket is coming more clearly into focus as an extra-parliamentary space, and there was significant overlap between equestrian and political fraternities.63 To a social arriviste, the benefits of such access are obvious, and in the extended stable complex at Langham we can see shades of what was offered at Newmarket: gentlemen discussed politics and horses while they gambled and imbibed. At Langham, the ballroom and gaming tables were in full sight of Blake’s expensive stud farm, emphasizing his obvious commitment to urbane equestrian pursuits. Blake’s interest in horses strongly suggests the influence of his brother-inlaw, the well-known horse racing administrator and fanatic Thomas Charles Bunbury. Blake and Bunbury had been at Eton and Cambridge together, and in 1762 Blake wed Bunbury’s sister, the seventeen-year-old Annabella. It seems likely that the friendship predated, and possibly informed, Blake’s marriage to Annabella and that Bunbury may have had influence over Blake’s purchase of Langham since the Bunbury country seat was at nearby Great Barton. Bunbury was two years Blake’s senior and, in 1762, was himself newly married to Sarah Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond and a favourite of George III. In the 1760s the Blakes and Bunburys moved together in the genteel society of Bury St Edmunds, the county town which drew the East Anglian gentry for leisure pursuits such as assemblies and the famous annual fair.64 For Blake, as for Molineux, marriage into a local family provided multiple advantages, including a large financial settlement and an alliance with a respected gentry family with a centuries-old landowning pedigree. Like Molineux, he also gained a readymade social and political coterie. The influence of Bunbury’s social milieu looms large in Blake’s socio-cultural and political life in the 1760s and early 1770s. Bunbury was mp for Suffolk, representing the ‘Tory interest’ of the independent landed gentleman.65 Blake effectively purchased his seat at the venal borough of Sudbury in March 1768 and was never more than a desultory attendee at Westminster, but his handful of parliamentary actions echoed those of his brother-in-law and the gentry circles in which they moved.66 A counterpoint to Molineux’s radical Wilkite

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persona, Blake voted for Wilkes’s expulsion from Parliament in February 1769, conspicuously aligning himself with the local landowning interest. Blake and Bunbury cemented their newly forged familial connection by commissioning portraits from the same artist. Just as Molineux and his father-inlaw sat for Thomas Gainsborough, Bunbury and Blake were patrons of Joshua Reynolds. Blake sat for three portraits by Reynolds, at least one of which hung in Bunbury’s celebrated picture gallery at Barton.67 Bunbury and Blake sat for Reynolds when they ascended to the baronetage, and they also commissioned portraits of their wives that were in stylistic dialogue with one another. In 1762 Reynolds completed Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces (see figure 12.2), which saw the celebrated beauty in a classical pastiche, an increasingly

Figure 12.2 Joshua Reynolds, Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces, 1762.

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Figure 12.3 John Nixon after Joshua Reynolds, Annabella, Lady Blake, as Juno, Receiving the Cestus from Venus, 1771.

popular visual trope in his portrayal of aristocratic ladies. He later produced a full-length portrait of Annabella Blake in a similar mode (see figure 12.3). Its iconography associates her with the goddess Juno, and she receives the cestus, a girdle often associated with brides, from Venus, the goddess of love.68 Reynolds’s portrait of Sarah Bunbury is its thematic antecedent, and both portraits emphasize the sitters’ wifely charms. The painting of Annabella Blake proved a triumph for both artist and patron. It was one of the ‘academy quartet’ of paintings Reynolds exhibited to great acclaim at the inaugural Royal Academy exhibition in 1769. For Blake, who commissioned the portrait, his wife and his name became aligned with the other aristocratic ladies that Reynolds portrayed in this vein, particularly

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his celebrated sister-in-law. It was an artful piece of self-promotion; if Annabella is to be read as Juno, queen of the gods, the viewer is invited to draw an obvious conclusion about the identity of her husband. The image was widely circulated in print, which doubtless further established Blake’s name as a marker of artistic taste. While Bunbury clearly influenced Blake and provided a ready social milieu, less obvious but equally suggestive is Blake’s impact on Bunbury. In the same years that the couples socialized together in Bury St Edmunds, Barton, and Langham, Bunbury joined a syndicate investing in plantations in the newly ceded islands of Grenada and Dominica.69 Blake was not named in the syndicate, but his presence in Bunbury’s life doubtless normalized the Caribbean economy and the fortunes that could be made from it. West Indians’ often conspicuous wealth promoted Caribbean plantation business and transatlantic slavery as investment vehicles. Individuals like Blake and Molineux were not merely passive recipients of metropolitan influences but were also agents of change, who in various ways promoted the continuation of transatlantic slavery. Blake’s activities at Newmarket and among the Suffolk gentry suggest that he met little social resistance based on his origins; the naming of the ‘Gentlemen’s Cottage’ in the grounds at Langham is particularly suggestive. Just as Molineux built a political reputation that hinged upon Caribbean trade and its benefit to Norfolk, so Blake projected a hybrid Caribbean and British identity as landed gentleman. This is neatly demonstrated in Joshua Reynolds’s fulllength portrait of Blake, which has him standing in a park and hooding a falcon (see figure 12.4). The foreground is typically generic, but the backdrop features the unmistakably misty profile of Nevis Peak, as seen from St Kitts. It was around this time that the first civilian landscapes of the British West Indies appeared as prints, beginning to popularize Caribbean scenery; or, rather, popularized idealized Caribbean scenery as crafted through the lens of the Picturesque.70 Blake’s portrait belongs to the early stages of a visual tradition that portrayed the British West Indies as bountiful, exotic, and paradisiacal landscapes instead of aggressively farmed, militarized spaces of mass internment.71 Blake’s portrait is part of a landscape vision that Jeffrey Dillman argues places ‘a protective cover, a rhetorical bandage, over the unpleasant realities of Caribbean life’.72 Blake is dressed in a red coat with black neck stock, a white waistcoat, and breeches. Although civilian, his outfit has echoes of contemporary military styles, possibly intended to reflect on the importance of the militia to the

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Figure 12.4 Joshua Reynolds, Sir Patrick Blake, 1763–64.

Caribbean ruling class.73 By foregrounding Blake as a purposeful but urbane landowner enjoying country sports, the portrait promotes the Caribbean as a legitimate and polite British space, where a gentleman might engage in country pursuits, and elides its proto-industrial and militaristic reality. If eighteenthcentury portraiture ‘is and was to be understood as one of the ways in which social groups and individuals represent themselves to themselves’, Blake represented himself as a hybrid Caribbean and British landowner.74 The portrait suggests that the viewer should envision little or no tension within this hybridity. Blake transplanted a version of Caribbean domesticity to rural Suffolk by having a long-standing relationship with Peggy Shea, a woman of African heritage who lived with him at Langham. It was a sinister Caribbean commonplace that white slaveholders used sex to subjugate enslaved women and, in some

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cases, ‘held long-term, though by no means consensual, relationships with free and enslaved women of color’.75 Blake had three daughters with Peggy Shea and at least two more illegitimate children in St Kitts with a woman called Ritta. Blake’s will codifies racial distinctions about these women and serves as a reminder that Caribbean colonists were instrumental in the construction of race in the Atlantic world in this period.76 As Livesay shows, white colonists’ anxieties about the control of wealth coalesced around miscegenation, and they responded with codified racial distinctions that formed a barrier to the dispersal of family fortunes.77 Maguire suggests that the increased visibility of individuals associated with transatlantic slavery in eighteenth-century East Anglia contributed to the process by which these colonial constructions of race took hold in English culture.78 In this respect, Blake’s and Molineux’s influence extended far beyond their individual country houses, informing nascent perceptions about race that would harden into social inequality. Blake’s and Molineux’s activities demonstrate the diversity of Caribbean networks in eighteenth-century Britain. Where Molineux was prepared to go cap in hand to fellow planters, counted merchants among his closest acquaintances, and made deals in the bibulous environs of London and Norfolk taverns, Blake busied himself with racing and country sports. Despite their differences, political sociality looms large in the careers of both men, and their extensive connections recast East Anglia more firmly as a part of the British Atlantic world. From aristocratic houses to port towns, from taverns to racecourses, and within their own estates, men and women of the West Indian interest were visible figures, and they enmeshed their Caribbean and British interests as well as their identities. Blake and Molineux arrived in a moment when metropolitan opinion was supposedly turning against empire, against slaveholders, and particularly against imperial influence in Parliament, and yet they gained influence and did so by proclaiming in various ways their Caribbean heritage. These men and others like them were agents of change in provincial Britain; their heterogeneity allowed them to move in different spheres, demonstrating the need to disrupt the homogeneity of the so-called ‘planter class’ and unpick the various levels at which they operated. Their diverse networks and their impact in provincial Britain show the value in decentring London and the western port towns to uncover the extent of imperial influence in Britain in the eighteenth century, which often began with the acquisition of a country house.

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notes 1 O’Shaughnessy, Empire Divided, 3–33. For a conspectus of West Indians as landowners in Britain, see Barczewski, Country Houses, 69–89. 2 Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 19:1316. 3 Barczewski, Country Houses, 69–89. 4 Gauci, ‘Learning the Ropes of Sand’, 107–21; O’Shaugnessy, ‘Formation of a Commercial Lobby’, 71–95. 5 Gauci, ‘Attack of the Creolian Powers’, 206–7. 6 Pearsall, Atlantic Families, 50; Greene, Evaluating Empire, i–v. 7 Toynbee, Letters of Horace Walpole, 5:29; Gauci, ‘Attack of the Creolian Powers’, 201–22. 8 Sypher, ‘West-Indian as a “Character”,’ 503–20. 9 Cumberland, Memoirs, 218. 10 O’Shaugnessy, ‘Formation of a Commercial Lobby’, 74. 11 Hayton, ‘Sir Edmund Bacon’. 12 Yeh, ‘Colonial Identity’, 205–7. 13 Zacek, ‘Intimate Enemies’, 39–64. 14 Mackley and Wilson, Creating Paradise, 201. 15 Old Hall, Garboldisham, 8–11. 16 Crisp Molineux, will dated 16 October 1791, prob 11/1232/158, the National Archives of the uk, London (tna). 17 Maguire, Africans in East Anglia, 153–4. 18 Ibid., 166–7. 19 Crisp Molineux to George Irvine, 30 May 1769, Crisp Molineux Letterbook, bl/f/23: 896, Norfolk Record Office (nro). 20 Maguire, Africans in East Anglia, 167. 21 Burnard, ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’, 29. 22 Williamson, Ringwood, and Spooner, Lost Country Houses, 9. 23 Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough, 2:599–600, 607–8. 24 Wilson, Sense of the People, 380–410. 25 Brewer, ‘Commercialization and Politics’, 238–41; O’Gorman, Voters, 300–6. 26 Ferguson, Ceramics, 132. 27 Wilkes, John, Letters, 3:273. 28 Wilson, Sense of the People, 413. 29 Maguire, Africans in East Anglia, 135–6. 30 Ibid. 31 Crisp Molineux to Honest Elliott, 3 May 1765, bl/f/23: 863, nro. 32 Crisp Molineux to Gilbert Franklyn, 10 June 1768, bl/f/23: 871, nro.

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33 Crisp Molineux to William Woodley, 24 May 1768, bl/f/23: 868, nro. 34 Landon, ‘Turtle Feasts’, 256–8; Crisp Molineux to Mssrs Everard and Browne, 9 June 1768, bl/f/23: 870, nro. 35 Crisp Molineux to Honest Elliot, 12 September 1771, bl/f/23: 941, nro. 36 Petley, ‘Gluttony’, 92–8. 37 Gauci, ‘Attack of the Creolian Powers’, 218. 38 Hayes, ‘Crisp Molineux’. 39 O’Gorman, Voters, 11. 40 Crisp Molineux to George Irvine, 23 May 1768, bl/f/23: 864, nro. 41 Crisp Molineux to George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford, 5 May 1768, bl/f/23: 860, nro. 42 Crisp Molineux to George Irvine, 23 May 1768, bl/f/23: 864-66, nro. 43 Crisp Molineux to Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, 15 June 1768, bl/f/23: 873, nro. 44 Crisp Molineux to John Fahie, 15 June 1768, bl/f/23: 874, nro. 45 Crisp Molineux to George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford, 8 June 1771, bl/f/23: 936, nro. 46 Jones, ‘Houghton Hospitality’, 235–54. 47 Ibid., 238–42. 48 Ibid., 235. 49 Crisp Molineux to Patrick Blake, 12 September 1768, bl/f/23: 882, nro. 50 Act of Settlement, 3. 51 Burch, Catalogue, 21. 52 They were both residents of Queen Anne Street, a fashionable development north of Oxford Street. 53 Bettley and Pevsner, Suffolk, 350. 54 Langham Hall Bargain and Sale, ha530/2/6/1/2, Suffolk Record Office. 55 Bettley and Pevsner, Suffolk, 350; Campbell, Hermit in the Garden, 96–154. 56 Hague, Gentleman’s House, 9–25. 57 Ibid., 5. 58 Parish of Langham Particulars, [3]. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Hague, Gentleman’s House, 3. 62 Huggins, Horse Racing and British Society, 13–14. 63 Pick, Turf-Register, 2:130, 140, 150, 218, 231, 350. 64 Tillyard, Aristocrats, 123–7; Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 7. 65 Namier, ‘Thomas Charles Bunbury’. 66 Drummond, ‘Patrick Blake’. 67 Mannings, Joshua Reynolds, 1:92.

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68 Hallett, ‘Academy Quartet’, 32. 69 ‘Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury 6th Bart’, ucl Legacies of Slave Ownership Database, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146645259. 70 Crowley, Imperial Landscapes, 116. 71 Dillman, Colonizing Paradise, 137–73. 72 Ibid., 3. 73 With thanks to Dr Kieran Hazzard for direction on eighteenth-century military dress. 74 Pointon, Hanging the Head, 4. 75 Livesay, Children of Uncertain Fortune, 2. 76 Will of Sir Patrick Blake, dated 24 July 1784, prob 11/1119/394, tna. 77 Livesay, Children of Uncertain Fortune, 20–89. 78 Maguire, Africans in East Anglia, 131.

PA R T F O U R

Houses and Homes

13 Introduction Kate Retford

Houses, as Judith Lewis points out, are not always homes.1 The concept of ‘home’ is a slippery one, best engaged with through associations rather than strict definitions. Witold Rybczynski’s seminal book, Home: A Short History of an Idea (1986), is structured around such associative themes: intimacy and privacy; domesticity; commodity and delight; ease; comfort and well-being.2 However, as Lewis notes, it can be hard to connect the country house to such values – particularly the most palatial properties, such as Blenheim in Oxfordshire. In the early eighteenth century, Sarah Churchill, 1st Duchess of Marlborough, acerbically remarked that the design of the principal floor ‘made it quite impossible to live in the house, unless one were willing to live in the cellar and make money by showing the house to strangers’.3 A house such as Blenheim is too large and too impractical to offer much by way of ‘comfort and well-being’ and is, furthermore, largely dedicated to the display of power. One enters through the huge stone entrance hall dedicated to the military triumphs of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough: the ceiling painting by James Thornhill shows him presenting a plan of the Battle of Blenheim to Britannia; his bust over the door to the Saloon is inscribed with verses beginning: ‘Behold the man to distant nations known / Who shook the Gallic, fix’d the Austrian throne.’ So how do values such as those of domesticity and family, of warmth, comfort, and privacy, play out in the houses of politicians, specifically in the houses of those individuals featured in the following two essays: Robert Clive, who attained enormous wealth and power through various roles in the East India Company, and William Pitt the Younger, prime minister from 1783 until his death? The discussions of both Kieran Hazzard and Rowena Willard-Wright underscore Naomi Tadmor’s point that ‘family’ in this period meant many more

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things than what might be seen in an image of a nuclear group of parents and children gathered around a hearth.4 One of the concepts flagged by Tadmor is that of the ‘household family’, consisting of all those living under one roof and the authority of the male householder. In this context, she notes that, when a patriarch did not have a wife to act as his hostess and housekeeper, he would often bring in a female relative to take on those functions.5 For Pitt, that was first his sister, Harriot, and then his niece Lady Hester Stanhope. Tadmor also draws our attention to the significance of the ‘linear family’. Narratives of patrilineal descent in the country house frequently emphasize the ‘founding father’ figure: the individual who ‘made’ the family by first acquiring wealth, land, political or military fame, and/or a title. The emphasis on the 1st Duke of Marlborough in paintings, tapestries, sculpture, and monuments at Blenheim is an example par excellence. Robert Clive held this role for his descendants, but he was a much more problematic ‘founding father’. The position of the family was dependent on the wealth and position that he had acquired through his dealings in India, and Hazzard shows how his son, Edward, promoted a sense of legacy, not least in framing Seringapatam as ‘his’ Plassey. But Clive’s reputation was fraught, reaching a nadir on his death, and his legacy required negotiation by the family over subsequent decades. There is much in this section of this volume, too, concerning the extended family. Pitt’s (political) lineage not only extended back through his father and grandfather but also through his mother, who was sister to George Grenville and niece to Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham. Powis Castle in Wales, and its collections, is indelibly associated with the history of Robert Clive, but it also tells a story about his son, Edward, who followed his father, Robert, into the East India Company as Governor of Madras; his daughter-in-law, Henrietta, who joined her husband in both adding to the collections and helping to consolidate the family’s position in British India; Henrietta’s brother, from whom her son inherited the property in Wales where the nub of the Clive collection is housed today; and the endlessly spreading branches of the family, which meant that much of the collections went into different properties over the course of the nineteenth century (as well as out of the family through sales). Hazzard and Willard-Wright also have much to tell us about the complex relationship between values associated with domesticity and privacy, and the critical public functions of the country house. One of Lewis’s key arguments is that even the greatest house could also function as a site of ‘emotional and physical comfort, family intimacy, and personal attachment’.6 These were sites

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of display, of dynasty, of political heritage, advertising the family’s position in the nation’s history – but they were also places where people lived, shared relationships, and engaged in personal interests. The collections amassed by Henrietta Clive engaged with the sources of her husband’s wealth and power in India, but they were also clearly expressive of deeply held private passions. While the boundaries of public and private could be found at the thresholds between rooms in a house, individual spaces could also cross those boundaries according to the time of day and point of the year, as well as need and circumstance.7 These were undoubtedly properties – to borrow Willard-Wright’s phrase – of ‘composite functions’. For someone like Pitt, much depended on whether the political season was in full swing or not, indeed on whether he was in or out of office, because sociability sat at the interface of public and private for politicians. There are echoes in Willard-Wright’s analysis of the relationship between domestic and professional spaces at 10 Downing Street of Charlotte Newman and Matthew Jenkins’s work on 43 Parliament Street, the home of the mp John Calcraft. That too had to accommodate private and public functions, in that case separated between the two sides of the house. The rooms on the Canon Row side were plainer in decoration and geared towards business, housing Calcraft’s offices and around fourteen clerks. Those on the Parliament Street side were more richly ornamented and ostensibly private and domestic. Yet those latter rooms were also the site of social events hosted by Calcraft and his mistress, the actress Anne Bellamy, vital for his political work.8 Key political connections would be forged and maintained around the dinner table, crucial decisions and policies formed over the port bottle. Willard-Wright’s account of Pitt’s villa at Holwood neatly illustrates the interface. This was a site for dinner parties and private meetings, and so for political machinations.9 Yet it was also, importantly, a retreat from city life, on the classical model of virtuous rural retirement. Pitt’s chaises longues provide the most compelling insights into the values of which Rybczynski writes. We have Thomas Raikes’s vision of Pitt, returned to Holwood from London, alone, flicking through his copy of Virgil. And there is the evocative (if refashioned) chaise longue at Walmer Castle, fitted inside the library window, evoking private relaxation and contemplation through its comfortable design, and its relationship to both the book collection and the view. This is the vision of ‘home’ that most fully chimes with the values we associate with that idea today.

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notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9

Lewis, ‘When a House Is Not a Home’. Rybczynski, Home. Quoted in Harris, Passion for Government, 222. See especially Tadmor, Family and Friends. Tadmor, Family and Friends, 23. See also Tadmor, ‘Concept of the HouseholdFamily’, 119. Lewis, ‘When a House Is Not a Home’, 362. See, for example, Vickery, Behind Closed Doors, esp. chap. 1; Heller, ‘Leisure’. Matthew Jenkins and Charlotte Newman, ‘A House Divided: Building Biographies and the Town House in Georgian London’, in Avery-Quash and Retford, Georgian London Town House, 27–48. Such practice looks back to Robert Walpole and the ‘Norfolk Congresses’ at Houghton, and ahead to the political weekends hosted by Philip Sassoon at Trent Park in Hertfordshire. And, as Willard-Wright notes in this volume, there are overtones of Chequers, Buckinghamshire, the country residence of the prime minister since 1921.

14 The Clives at Home: Self-Fashioning, Collecting, and British India Kieran Hazzard

Two generations of the Clive family – Robert Clive, his wife Margaret, their son Edward, and his wife Henrietta – were responsible for building what was one of the largest collections in Europe of artefacts from South and East Asia. This collection’s history is inseparable from the founding of British rule in India. From its beginning, though, it was also part of the ongoing self-fashioning of the Clives as each member of the family acquired, used, and displayed Asian objects to present themselves as members of one of the great families of India and Britain. The history of this process reveals the changing status of the Clives and how they told a story about their dynasty and its role in building the British Empire. The still controversial figure of Robert Clive, made 1st Baron Clive of Plassey in the Irish peerage in 1762, was always central to the public image of the family. As this essay shows, through the display of the collection in the family’s homes, Robert sought to stake a claim as statesman and military hero. During his lifetime, Robert’s reputation in Britain was mixed, but it reached a nadir on his death, to which many recent assessments have returned, with William Dalrymple describing Clive as a ‘violent, utterly ruthless and intermittently mentally unstable corporate predator’.1 In contrast, Robert’s reputation had somewhat improved at the turn of the nineteenth century as the East India Company expanded, such that early historians began to recast him as an imperial pioneer. Thomas Macaulay famously declared that ‘our island, so fertile in heroes and statesmen, has scarcely ever produced a man more truly great’.2 Macaulay’s essay is a review of John Malcolm’s three-volume biography, which Malcolm had written with the encouragement of the Clive family. Despite stark political differences, the two authors’ rehabilitation of Robert Clive fulfilled the desire of

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the Clives and the Company to lionize the man they now wished to portray as the founder of British India. The family’s collection was simultaneously turned to similar aims as Edward and Henrietta attempted to solidify their claim to similar status through domestic display. What is now referred to as the Clive Collection has shrunk considerably since the nineteenth century and currently occupies a single room of Powis Castle in Powys, Wales. The full magnitude of the Indian and Asian objects amassed by the Clives has been obscured by their nineteenth-century distribution across various strands of the family and their properties, and by the gradual sale of some of the most valuable and beautiful objects from the twentieth century onwards.3 Recent commentary has tended to simplify the origins of the collection as, in Dalrymple’s words, ‘loot from India, room after room of imperial plunder’.4 The research for this essay came out of a collaboration with the National Trust, now custodian of Powis Castle, to establish a more definitive account of the collection’s origins and helped to inform its 2020 report on the links between empire and the country house.5 The findings here are the result of consulting over one thousand letters and around two hundred other manuscripts, including account books, diaries, inventories, and legal documents. Archival material used includes the Clive Papers, Robert Clive Papers, and Powis Castle Estate Records held at the National Library of Wales; grants of probate in the National Archives; and the Clive Collection, Wellesley Papers, East India Company Papers, and various manuscripts kept by the British Library. Between Robert’s arrival in India in 1744 and Margaret’s death in 1817, the Clives acquired just under five hundred objects, or sets of objects, from South and East Asia through their activities with the East India Company. The collection was varied, including arms and armour, furniture and textiles, jewellery, manuscripts, and paintings, as well as more mundane items, such as the ‘38 Implements for Masonery’ acquired by Edward in 1804.6 The origin, fate, and Edward’s motivation for acquiring these tools remain a mystery, while other items, some more obviously considered as treasures, can be traced with precision. A jade flask set with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, purchased by Robert for one thousand rupees through John Chamier, a Company merchant, was recorded in his account book as ‘an Agate Guglet set with precious stones got for me at Benares in June 1765’.7 This expense, corresponding to approximately £112 at the time, was more than the annual income of 94 percent of the British population, although still short of the £327 Robert paid for Nicolas Poussin’s The Finding of Moses in 1773.8 The flask (see figure 14.1) was a highlight of the

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Indian collection, and its opulence served as a marker of the skill, sophistication, and riches of the society that produced it and the family who owned it. This symbolic power remains, as the flask was sold for £2.9 million in 2004 to the Qatari royal family.9

Figure 14.1 Jade wine flask and stopper. Gold and silver lining and inlay, set with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, 1605–27.

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Statistical analysis of the sources relating to the collection reveals the family’s interests and priorities. Roughly a quarter of the Clives’ collection were objects that they considered decorative arts: bronze figures, enamelled implements, silver filigree bottles, ivory boxes, jade bowls, jewelled hookah pipes, and porcelain vases. The other significant categories were (in descending order of frequency): clothing, accessories, and textiles; arms and armour; natural specimens; and jewels and jewellery. As the patriarch with immense wealth, Robert was by far the most significant collector in the family: he acquired roughly three-quarters of the collection as it stood during their lifetimes. Though they all amassed a variety of articles, they also had individual preferences: Henrietta, for example, was primarily interested in natural history, Edward arms and armour, and Robert Mughal court objects. The whole family deliberately acquired items that had once belonged to important Indians. Among these were two Mughal emperors, Alamgir II and Shah Alam II, as well as several generations of the Nawabs (semi-autonomous rulers) of Arcot, Awadh, and Bengal, and the rulers of Mysore, Tanjore, and Vizianagram. As we shall see, the possession, use, and display of such objects allowed the Clives to present themselves among these dynasties as comparable Indian rulers. It is possible to detail the origins of 101 of these items – a little under a quarter of those for which we have records. Thirty were bought by one of the Clives, fifty-seven were given to them as gifts, and fourteen were acquired, directly or indirectly, as loot. Caution is needed in extrapolating these findings to the whole. For instance, the receipt of gifts is likely overrepresented due to the preservation of diplomatic correspondence. On the other hand, although the available records show few qualms about the means of acquisition, the Clives’ archive may well omit objects obtained by acts they saw as immoral. This may have become more significant as the collection became more important to the public presentation of the family.

Acquiring a Reputation The young Robert Clive had been a tearaway who failed to settle in several schools, and he established a form of protection racket in his local town of Market Drayton, Shropshire. Although this inclination towards violence and instability helped him achieve his later ambitions and place him at the centre of British expansion in India, it would also contribute to his public vilification. Robert first arrived in India in 1744, where he had found a post as a writer for the East India Company in Madras, following the path of many other delin-

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quent sons of the minor gentry.10 Once in India, though, he soon moved from commerce to the army. Like the Company’s other outposts in Bombay (Mumbai) and Calcutta (Kolkata), the settlement was run independently and participated in a constantly changing system of alliances. Robert’s success in war with the French over control of the state of Arcot saw him promoted rapidly. Having married Margaret Maskelyne, the daughter of a middle-ranking London family, Robert returned to England in 1753 with a substantial reputation and a sizable fortune, which he squandered promptly on a failed attempt to enter Parliament. Offered a governorship to return to India, Robert gladly accepted.11 Margaret came with him to Calcutta, where she built up a small menagerie, which was the start of an ever-increasing collection of animals, added to by all members of the family.12 From their earliest time in India, then, the Clives had sought to turn their wealth into political and cultural power and status. Margaret and Robert arrived shortly before the outbreak of another war, this time with the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula. The nawab’s forces captured Calcutta easily, but a successful campaign of reconquest and retribution, led by Robert, soon led the Company into supporting a conspiracy against Siraj by his own alienated nobles and merchants. The leading figure was initially Mir Jafar, a general in the nawab’s army, supported by Rai Durlabh, the Governor of Dhaka, and the Jagat Seths, Bengal’s greatest banking family. They approached the Company for military support, and Robert became involved relatively late, as the man most trusted to command the Company’s army for the campaign. His victory at Plassey (Palashi) against the much larger forces of Siraj was the result of luck and the treachery of Mir Jafar as much as military skill but nevertheless marked the start of the Company’s transformation into a major power broker and territorial ruler, with Robert at its forefront.13 Robert and Jafar met and marched on to the Bengali capital, Murshidabad. Robert reported to Calcutta: ‘I entered the City yesterday morning with a party of 200 Europeans and 300 Sepoys and took up my quarters at Moraud Baug near the Palace. In the afternoon I waited on Jaffeir Ally Cawn [Mir Jafar] being escorted to him by his son. As I found he declined taking his seat of the Mussnud [throne] I handed him to it and saluted him as Nabob’.14 Despite the treasury being found to be emptier than expected, Robert wanted to ensure that he and the Company received the huge bounty Mir Jafar had offered before the battle. Loans from the Jagat Seths covered this payment, as well as lavish presents to Robert and other senior British officers, leaving Bengal deeply indebted. In total, while around £3,000,000 was given to the Company, Robert personally received £234,000 and was later granted a jaghir (district revenue) worth an additional

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£27,000 per annum.15 The Company had not entered into the conspiracy with the intention of becoming masters of Bengal, but as events unfolded Robert had seized the chances offered. On the back of his victory Robert was made governor of the Presidency of Bengal, in which role he sought to drive out European competitors, strengthen the Company’s finances and authority, and browbeat its Indian allies and rivals into submission. Although the Company and Robert personally entered into the structures of Mughal power, receiving robes and titles from Mir Jafar, the balance of power soon shifted and the Company overwhelmed those who had brought it in as a collaborator. Robert’s diplomatic letters to Indians from this period show an extraordinary juxtaposition of affection to those in favour with violent threats to anyone who crossed him.16 In a letter to Nandakumar, the tax collector for Burdwan, later infamously hanged by the Company after he made allegations against Warren Hastings, Robert chastises him for being a month late in sending the revenue to Calcutta. He threatened: ‘[if] you do not send me a very large Sum I will send some Seapoys, who shall not suffer the Country to be at ease till I have received the Ballance that is due.’17 Though he exchanged diplomatic gifts with Indians regularly, this volatility may also have encouraged material attempts to placate him. Gifts received as part of Indian patterns of diplomacy and alliance could have different cross-cultural meanings for the giver and receiver, and were not necessarily exchanged between equals but, instead, reflected often rapidly changing power imbalances. In India as in Britain, gift-giving played an important role in dynastic and political relations and was central to the construction of empire. The Mughal polity was in part maintained by such exchanges, where a subordinate offered a valuable tribute in return for a khil’at (robes of honour) from the emperor, graded by number of pieces and whether it came direct from the imperial wardrobe.18 Robert received titles and a khil’at of six pieces, with two valuable turban jewels and an elephant, in 1759 from Alamgir II, symbolizing the receipt of the Company into the Mughal polity following Plassey. Mir Jafar wrote to convey their importance: By Juggatseat [Jagat Seth] you will Receive the Honors which are arrived for you from Court … He will inform you with the Customs of receiving & putting on the Glorious Keilauts which come from the enlightened Presence and I desire you will follow his instructions thereon, the Elephant shall be sent you after the Rains. God give you joy on the occasion.19

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How seriously Robert took this material inclusion in Mughal political structures is unclear. It was certainly useful symbolically in securing his and the Company’s new power, and, by wearing a khil’at, he was able to locate himself among the Indian elite. He now also began to acquire numerous paan sets, rosewater bottles, hookah pipes (e.g., see figure 14.2), and other objects of Mughal court life, from which emerges a picture of Robert Clive selectively indulging in the identity of a nawab or Mughal prince.20 While the appropriation of Mughal symbols and power structures by Robert and the Company may represent elements of colonial disruption and co-option, it was also part of a long tradition of hybridity and transculturation. Throughout the Company’s presence in India it had been at pains to integrate into Mughal ruling structures and deliberately engaged in courtly culture, including gift exchange.21 Robert’s partial adoption of a Mughal identity at this moment of triumph therefore represents the complex and enduring Asian frameworks of power out of which the British Empire in India grew.22 By the time Robert returned home again in 1760, the Company was the effective power in Bengal, and he was one of the richest men in Britain, with a fortune of £317,000, mainly remitted in the profitable and secretive form of diamonds and bills drawn on the Dutch East India Company.23 He turned this wealth into property and power. In Shropshire alone, he rented the grand Condover Hall, paid for the renovation of the family estate at Styche, and subsequently bought the Montford Estate as well as Walcot Hall and its associated lands. Robert also bought a modest estate near Limerick in Ireland and rented fashionable townhouses on the Circus in Bath and in Berkeley Square, London (which he later purchased). These estates boosted his electoral influence and enough remained from this huge outlay to secure election unopposed as mp for Shrewsbury in 1761 and to finance the election of friends and relations to build up a small parliamentary party in the Clive interest. Robert had previously worked hard to acquire political capital through the Clive kinship network and, thus augmented, this allowed him to thwart his rivals in the Company, protect his jaghir, and obtain a peerage.24 Despite misgivings in the Company and Parliament about Robert’s growing influence and the size and origin of his fortune, his receipt of poems and fan mail attests to his continuing reputation during this period as a national hero.25 In spite of his own extensive private trading and acceptance of lavish gifts, Robert was invited to return to India in 1764 to lead the Company’s reforms against just such corruption. Margaret, pregnant, remained in Britain to manage the family’s finances, acting, like many other

Figure 14.2 Hookah. Silver, partly gilt, enamelled and set with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, c. 1750–70.

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imperial wives with absent husbands, as part of a small committee granted power of attorney.26 She sustained Robert’s political ambitions by acting as family matriarch, attending Court, acting as a society hostess, and distributing patronage and gifts, using objects that Robert sent back from India.27 Robert arrived in Calcutta after the Company’s victory at Buxar had further reinforced its dominance in the region. The defeated Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, was left with only nominal authority and struck a deal with Robert conceding the Diwani of Bengal (the right to collect tax revenues) to the Company. This fiction, which allowed Shah Alam to save face, provided the legitimacy of Mughal sanction to Robert and the Company.28 With little interest in the welfare of the population, Robert pursued a policy of tax collection at all costs, which drained the reserves of local authorities and increasingly impoverished ordinary Indians. His successors maintained his priorities, compounding the disastrous effects of the failure of the Bengal rice crop in 1769–70. The exact loss of life remains contested, but between 1 and 4 million people died in the ensuing famine.29 Robert returned to Britain in 1767 before the effects of this could be felt and was initially greeted with enthusiasm. Aiming to expand his parliamentary influence, he continued to purchase houses and estates, including in Trellech and Usk in Monmouthshire, Okehampton in Devon, Oakly Park near Ludlow, Shropshire (bought from Henry Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, in the first formal association between the two families), and Claremont, Surrey. The house and gardens of the last were extensively remodelled by Henry Holland and ‘Capability’ Brown, which included space for an expanded Indian menagerie of a tiger, antelopes, deer, cows, goats, boar, and a large aviary, plus an African zebra.30 The full impact of the changes wrought by Robert’s actions in India took their time to become clear. In the early 1770s news of the Bengal famine reached London, and despite his promises of a large income for the Company, its finances worsened. As a result, Robert faced sustained attacks on his wealth and record as governor as well as charges of corruption. With other high-ranking Company employees, Robert was vilified as a ‘nabob’ in the British press (e.g., see figure 14.3) and theatres. Originally a corruption of ‘nawab’, the label rapidly took on the additional meaning of someone who came back from India with a vast fortune of dubious origin. Robert’s conspicuous consumption, property empire, and parliamentary faction were now seen as a corrupting influence. Growing demands for reform of the Company led to a parliamentary inquiry, whose chairman savaged Robert in the House of Commons.31 Through the manoeuvring of his party he managed to escape official censure with his personal

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fortune and the nation’s thanks for rendering ‘great and meritorious services to this country’.32 The year after, Robert had become severely ill and had taken to relieving his pain with alcohol and opium in increasing doses. One night at his house in Berkeley Square he retired in pain and took a large quantity of opium. He died as a result, probably from a seizure.33 Rumours of suicide instantly circulated, with Samuel Johnson famously concluding that he had ‘acquired his fortune by such crimes, that his consciousness of them impelled him to cut his own throat’.34 The continued assaults on his character, despite his vindication in Parliament, point to a discomfort with empire, which manifested as public vilification of the agents of empire while simultaneously welcoming their endeavours in expanding Britain’s global power.35 In this vein, the Regulating Act of 1773, which followed the inquiry, took the first steps towards government control of the Company, while also prohibiting private trading and the acceptance of gifts. The wrecking of his reputation represented the failure of Robert’s ongoing project of heroic publicity. In 1763 Robert’s friend Robert Orme had published the first volume of A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan, and a second volume followed in 1778. The history, prominently featuring Clive’s victories, was partially written at his request and with his assistance, though the two men would subsequently fall out due to Orme’s growing unease with the Company’s conquests.36 Clive had written to Orme after Plassey, determined to shape his reputation and legacy before reaching Britain: ‘I am possessed of Volumes of Materials for the continuance of your History, in which will appear fighting, tricks, chicanery, intrigues, politics and the Lord knows what … I have many Particulars to explain to you relating to this said History which must be published.’37 This pride in his imperial career was also highly visible in Robert’s homes, in an important departure from the tendency, outlined by Margot Finn and Kate Smith, of Company men trying to erase or obscure the origins of their Indian wealth.38 Maya Jasanoff argues that the shame of his reputation as a nabob led Robert to conceal the objects from his India career and, instead, cover himself in the trappings of a British aristocrat. She pictures the young Edward Clive’s wonder at receiving his father’s previously hidden chest of ‘Indian curiosities’ on Robert’s death.39 In 1774, though, these objects were already prominently displayed in Clive properties. Inventories of the various Clive houses in the 1770s suggest that, far from seeking to disguise the objects that recorded his exploits in India, Robert wanted visitors to his home to be impressed by his collection and what it said about their owner as a connoisseur, imperial statesman, and military victor. Guests admitted into

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Figure 14.3 ‘The India Directors in the Suds’, Town and Country Magazine 4: 39, supplement to the Year 1772 (1773), 705. A typical satire attacking Robert Clive. In the dialogue the Indian ghosts demand justice and call him the ‘destroyer of nabobs, princes, and traders’. The stunned Clive (front right) exclaims ‘truth and justice are too powerful for hypocrisy and guilt’.

Robert’s study in Berkeley Square were greeted with a ‘Shield over the Chimney, with bows, arrows, and darts, &c. 2 Sabres, and 6 long Pikes, A Coat of arms in a black, & Gold frame, 9 fine India Pictures, on glass and guilt frames’.40 A spray of Indian arms over the mantlepiece, combined with the new Clive coat of arms and a selection of Indian paintings, was not the decorative scheme of a man embarrassed by his actions in India. Claremont housed most of Robert’s Indian collection, and here and in Berkeley Square visitors would have encountered objects that recorded his life in India spread across each room: Indian furniture; a dagger with gold, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds set in a jade handle; a silver attar stand; onyx-handled fly whisks; ivory chess sets; areca-nut cutters; boxes inlaid with ivory; and a blue and red enamel hookah pipe set with diamonds and rubies. It is clear they were exhibited, as the finest objects were under glass domes, and set aside for the servants was ‘a piece of leather containing Utensils for cleaning the India things’.41 These objects, displayed alongside his growing collection of European art, functioned

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as markers of sophistication, but they also chronicled his imperial triumphs. Robert’s past was not hidden inside a chest in the attic. His career in India had not just made him wealthy, it also granted him political power and a place in British society. So despite public scorn, Robert defiantly put his Indian exploits on display. However, other aspects of Robert’s Indian life were increasingly kept private. He owned and wore several complete sets of Indian clothes, taking on a diplomatic journey in 1766 to Motijheel, near Dhaka, alongside two European suits, a jama (robe), pyjamas (trousers), sash, shawls, turban and jewels, shoes, and hookah pipes.42 Many of these items came to Britain, including several jamas, one of which was sadly cut up and turned into a dress and waistcoat in the late twentieth century.43 There were rare moments of licence, in which Robert could playfully return to Mughal costume: in 1768, for example, Robert and two other senior Company figures, Luke Scrafton and Henry Vansittart, attended a public masquerade at the Haymarket Opera House, all three in clothing they had acquired while in India. The event was reported in the press widely, with Robert described as opulently attired ‘in the dress of a Nabob, very richly ornamented with diamonds’.44 However, the caricatures and public attacks on Robert as a nabob that began appearing in the early 1770s likely meant that he could no longer afford to be caught posing in Indian clothing in Britain. More often, Robert’s clothing reflected and projected his changing identity as he moved between places and cultures, bound up with masculinity and empire. In Britain, different kinds of clothing granted him different kinds of status, and Robert carefully ensured that prominent portraits captured him in a military redcoat (e.g., see figure 14.4), business suit, or the robes of a knight of the Bath.45 While in India his private clothing had symbolized his position within the Mughal polity, the public image he promoted in Britain was that of a military conqueror, international merchant, or member of the British elite with global, cosmopolitan power.

Building a Dynasty Robert and Margaret’s eldest son Edward inherited the Clive wealth, influence, and estates, which enabled him to become mp for Ludlow, while his father’s connections similarly allowed him to secure the governorship of Madras (Chennai). Through his marriage to Henrietta Herbert, he also joined the aristocratic though financially struggling family of the Earl of Powis. Having already sold

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Figure 14.4 Benjamin West, Shah Alam Conveying the Grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive, Aug. 1765. Oil on canvas, 1818.

Oakly Park to the Clives, a marriage settlement uniting new money with a prestigious name was a welcome prospect for both families.46 Arriving in Madras with his family in March 1798, on the eve of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, Edward took on a presidency overshadowed by the powerful Sultanate of Mysore and its ruler Tipu Sultan, a formidable military leader, implacable enemy of the Company, and ally of Revolutionary France.47 Edward’s governorship would be dominated by war with Tipu, but at crucial stages he was often pushed into the background by Richard Wellesley, the expansionist governor general set on building an authoritarian empire.48 The nature of the Company’s bureaucracy had also changed rapidly since Robert’s death, with a clearer hierarchy, a greatly enlarged civil service, a stricter code of conduct, and much stronger British government oversight. Edward’s position was therefore much more circumscribed than that of his father. Added to this, Wellesley had the inexperienced Edward tutored in the preparations for war by senior army officers, including his younger brother, Arthur, the future 1st Duke of Wellington. Neither Wellesley thought Edward qualified to inherit Robert’s powerful position, regarding him

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as dedicated and sensible but too amiable and shy.49 Though Edward seems to have accepted his role, Henrietta regretted her husband’s power and prominence being undermined by the actions of Richard Wellesley, who she found ‘extremely pompous’ and ‘overbearing’.50 The climax of the war, in May 1799, saw the combined forces of the Company and the Nizam of Hyderabad besiege Tipu in his fortified island capital of Seringapatam (Srirangapatna), finally storming the walls and – in one of the most notorious moments in the colonization of India – killing, raping, and plundering the town. Tipu, who had led the defence, was found dead among piles of corpses, and Arthur Wellesley could only restore order the following day ‘by the greatest exertion, by hanging, flogging, &c. &c.’ of British and Company troops.51 It was customary for eighteenth-century British armies to allow the men to sack a captured city, as both an inducement to the extremely deadly task of storming a breach and a way of letting off steam following a tense siege.52 Nevertheless, the scale of violence and pillage at Seringapatam was extraordinary. One British officer wrote: The plunder of the town was individually very great to the soldiery who entered, both Europeans and natives, many privates are known to have found articles of the greatest value & quantities of gold coin – fortunes are supposed also to have been acquired by others of higher ranks by purchases – the houses of the chief Circar [minister/officer] people as well as those of the merchants, shroffs [bankers] &c. were most completely pillaged. The women in many instances bargaining for personal safety by producing the money and everything precious from concealed recesses. Fortunately for the army in general the palace was secured & its riches reserved for division as captured property – They have turned out to be immense beyond sanguine hope, in jewels, treasures, gold & silver plate.53 Even after this unofficial ransacking the official plunder was valued at over a million pounds and the division of the spoils throughout the army led to months of squabbling and legal claims.54 As Edward Clive had remained in Madras, he was not a direct beneficiary, but he sought out trophies from the loot that might allow him to claim the battle as his Plassey. That is to say, whereas many objects and trophies collected by Robert reflected his personal power over events, Edward’s collecting appears much more consciously designed to stake a claim in events from which he was physically and structurally removed. This is particularly true of the loot from Seringapatam, which he and Henrietta ac-

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tively sought out through European third parties who were much more closely involved with the siege. These objects included cannons, arms and armours, a pair of Tipu’s shoes, part of his Sèvres porcelain set, and, significantly, a golden jewel-encrusted tiger’s head finial (see figure 14.5), broken from Tipu’s throne and presented to Henrietta by Richard Wellesley. In Madras, Edward set about extensively remodelling the governor’s residence, reflecting the presidency’s enlarged power and the imperial ambition of

Figure 14.5 Tiger’s head finial. Gold on a wooden core, engraved and set with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, 1787–93.

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Richard Wellesley’s new regime. As governor general, Wellesley had also begun building a vast new Government House in Calcutta, modelled after Kedleston Hall. Wellesley’s project signalled the confidence and supremacy of the Company and was designed to impress all who saw it with the might and permanence of the empire.55 Similarly, Edward’s alterations to his family’s Triplicane Garden House, strategically sited next to the Nawab of Arcot’s Chepauk Palace, created the distinct appearance of a grand English country house with English-style parkland. His neighbouring Banqueting Hall (house and hall both shown in figure 14.6), the scene of official functions and entertainments, was a neoclassical temple to British military might and heroism, built on an unprecedented scale for Madras. Inside were hung portraits of military men, while the pediments and frieze contained images celebrating victory and the spoils of war; one pediment was inscribed ‘Seringapatam’ and the other ‘Plassey’.56 Edward Clive’s building was, therefore, a statement of his family’s responsibility for the creation of the British Raj as much as it celebrated the strength of the empire itself. Henrietta had made the then unusual decision to join her husband in Madras with their two young daughters. She was fascinated by natural history and part of a small but avid number of aristocratic women collectors.57 On a stopover at the Cape she had already started to collect plant specimens, with the help of William Roxburgh, superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden. In India Henrietta expanded her collections further, cultivating a network of European natural philosophers in South Asia, which included Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, Benjamin Heyne, and Johann Koenig, and adding dendrological, geological, and preserved zoological specimens.58 She and her daughters also built up a large menagerie of cows, deer, antelope, dogs, monkeys, a huge array of birds, a turtle, a mongoose, and an elephant calf. For a very short time they also kept a tiger. Henrietta’s daughter Charlotte recounted to her grandmother: ‘this morning Capt. Grant sent us a Tiger; that he said was very tame, and to prove it he tore Mamma’s Umbrella, which she held to him, in a great rage. Papa does not intend to keep him, and I think he is right’. 59 While the Banqueting Hall was Edward’s statement piece, the transformation of the gardens to house her botanical collections and the remodelling of a room to display her natural history collections were Henrietta’s mark on the seat of government.60 It may also have been an attempt to place the governor’s family at the centre of the burgeoning circles of imperial science in Madras. As the governor’s wife, Henrietta had a semi-political role and was at the centre of Madras society, building relations and exchanging visits between the

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Figure 14.6 Henri Merke, A View of the Government House and Council Chamber, Madras. Hand-coloured aquatint and etching, 1807.

principal British families and those of the Company’s Indian allies, such as the Nawab of Arcot.61 Operating through female and familial networks of sociability, Henrietta also aimed to promote her new family as major figures in British India. She had seen the impositions made by the governor general as stifling Edward’s authority and credit.62 However, writing to her brother about the celebrations for the fall of Seringapatam, she triumphed that Richard Wellesley had ‘said something to me that pleased me much. It was that it seemed impossible there should be a great victory in this Country without a Clive being concerned in it. It was very handsome.’63 Edward had worked diligently in a supporting role and she welcomed any sign, however trivial, of the recognition they both sought. Henrietta’s extraordinary eleven-hundred-mile (1,770-kilometre) tour of South India, accompanied by her daughters and their Florentine governess Anna Tonelli along with twenty elephants, a hundred bullocks, a seven-hundredperson entourage, and an escorting company of sepoys, was an opportunity to

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add to her natural history collections, study antiquities, and purchase textiles. Jasanoff describes this as a ‘tropical Grand Tour’, however, it was also an exercise in soft power diplomacy, visiting the courts of British allies not long after the defeat of Tipu Sultan.64 Henrietta sat in durbar with nobility, took part in the ritualized greetings, and, as an aristocratic woman, was granted access to womenonly spaces such as the zenana, where, despite the ostensible seclusion, powerful Indian women exercised their authority.65 With the British restoration of the Wadiyar dynasty only a year earlier, Henrietta’s party of senior military and Company figures was clearly understood as an embassy in Mysore (Mysuru). Purnaiah and Bachhe Rao, the Diwan and Naib Diwan of Mysore, joined her party on the road for long periods, and she was interviewed by the adroit regent, Maharani Lakshmi Ammani Devi.66 The Company’s understanding of these meetings as diplomatic is indicated by its regulation of the gifts that could be exchanged. Embarrassment was caused on several occasions when Henrietta had to refuse or return valuable gifts to avoid charges of corruption, such as a silver cup and pearls to a relative of the Raja of Pudukkottai.67 On her return to Madras, Henrietta brought with her a troop of animals, a much-enlarged collection of natural specimens, and some commodities purchased or received as gifts. She had also commissioned Tonelli, who was also a miniaturist and watercolourist, to produce paintings of their journey and portraits of the Company’s Indian allies, such as the Wadiyars. The European practice of portrait exchange had been gaining currency in Company diplomacy since the 1780s as a replacement for the practice of receiving khil’ats embraced by Robert. This change reflected the enhanced power of the Company in relation to Indian politics and culture as well as the borrowing of European norms by Indian elites.68 Henrietta’s requests for portraits was therefore part of these increasingly hybrid negotiated diplomatic rituals. Henrietta sought out souvenirs or trophies, particularly anything associated with Tipu, although her account in Seringapatam suggests that such items were not easily forthcoming after months of gleaning by the army: ‘I went to see the ancient palace ... The doors were once carved with ivory, very much worked. Those were all torn off by the soldiers ... I desired the Major to secure for you some elephants that are extremely well carved on each side of the door. I do not know their size but think they might do, as you said, for the steps of your new room … I cannot find anything else likely to suit you here.’69 The new room she mentioned was probably part of the alterations at the governor’s Garden House. There is currently no evidence of any carved elephants making their way to Britain.

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Henrietta and the girls left India two years before Edward and returned to Walcot Hall, where she renovated the gardens and green houses, and oversaw the construction of a hot house, to accommodate the plants she had brought back. She reported to Edward: ‘Yesterday I opened the seeds ... My stones from Dr. Heyne were not properly packed up and are all in confusion … All my shells are safe and all the other treasures, I am beginning to unpack … The tent, armour etc are all safe. Probert has had my apartments over the Den finished in my absence and I shall be very compleat and as great as any Eastern Princess in the midst of my treasures.’70 Henrietta’s first thought after visiting family was the housing of her new collections. Having spent years as a public figure in India, her underlining of ‘apartments’ conveys her excitement at having a private space in which she could sit among her natural collections. Henrietta’s metaphorical emulation of an ‘Eastern Princess’ also invokes the Mughal court life that she had witnessed and that Robert had embraced more literally. But, on her return, this brief joking reference to an agreeable fantasy zenana demonstrates how peripheral this was to her own sense of identity. The fleetingly mentioned armour and tent – presumably one reportedly belonging to Tipu, which is still in the collection – primarily represents the collecting interests of Edward. These were ultimately destined for Powis Castle, which had been inherited by Edward and Henrietta’s eldest son. The early 1800s offered a more hospitable environment for the Clives to present themselves in Britain as an imperial family. Though criticism of the Company and its actions in India remained, the abuse directed at Company employees had diminished as the perceived threat posed by the importation of despotism and corruption, alongside their collections, subsided.71 Following several reforms, colonialism in India was also viewed as less violent and oppressive than a generation earlier and was now seen as part of a patriotic enterprise.72 While Walcot was the Clives’ private home in England, Powis became their public residence in Wales. Here the family created a space in which family guests and middle-class tourists could be impressed with the Clive family’s role in the creation of empire. Objects in the collection were initially displayed throughout the Clive houses, as they had been exhibited by Robert, but gradually items began to be grouped, particularly the arms and armour. In 1808 one tourist guide described in the Powis ballroom-gallery ‘the portrait of the late lord Clive by [Nathaniel] Dance. In an adjoining closet is the model of an elephant, covered with a coat of mail, with two Indians upon its back, brought from India by the late lord Clive.’73 The life-size model, with its suit of elephant armour

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(now on display in the Royal Armouries, Leeds) was actually brought back by Henrietta.74 After her death in 1830 it seems the display at Powis was expanded to include her natural history collections as well as some antiquities. In 1846, tourists were told that: ‘At the end of the gallery there is another room, a sort of museum of curiosities brought from India by the great Lord Clive, consisting of birds, fossils &c., both rare and valuable: amongst the antiquities is a model of an elephant covered with a coat of mail, with two Indians on its back.’75 Although it was Edward and Henrietta, and their son, who had created the museum to help secure their legacy as part of a great Clive dynasty, the family’s conscious rehabilitation of Robert in the nineteenth century was so successful that it obscured the role of the second generation. Robert’s position as founder of the Clive dynasty and importance in the history of British India meant his posthumous reputation reflected on that of his family and their role in India. Edward and Henrietta therefore welcomed the news that their old friend and colleague, John Malcolm, intended to write a biography of Robert Clive. Malcolm, who was considered an authority on British India, and had been close to the Clives and Wellesleys during his career in the Company, was an ideal figure to rehabilitate the reputation of Robert Clive, and they eagerly lent him the family papers.76 Edward’s request for a copy from Benjamin West of his painting titled Shah Alam Conveying the Grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive (see figure 14.4) also aimed at securing the family legacy. Robert had commissioned the original, which had been removed from Claremont and hung in the ballroom in Powis.77 Edward wrote to Richard Wellesley, informing him that the copy ‘was intended to be a conspicuous ornament of the Palace of the GovernorGeneral’.78 In the end the copy did not travel to Calcutta but to East India House in London, where employees of the Company or visitors to its museum would face the Clive patriarch and founder of British India.79 Robert’s prominence relative to his son was inevitable: he had been the Company’s prime mover in India during his time, while his son was a subordinate in the shadow of Wellesley and under much stricter controls from London. Edward’s role in India was much more circumscribed than his father’s, and his own stake in the events of the time much smaller. On the other hand, Edward, unlike his father, did not need to assert his social status; what he was concerned to display were his credentials as an imperial hero and his role in the dynasty. Just as Robert had expressed his identity as a member of the British and Indian elite through his clothing, his heir sought to define himself with the items he wore. Having heard the Clives were actively seeking out weapons belonging to Tipu, one army captain at Seringapatam sent a sword to Edward: ‘I have alter’d

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the mounting of the Sword, as it would not have been possible for your Lordship to have worn it with the original Scabbard and I have preferr’d covering it with Green Velvet instead of Red to make it Correspond with the Facings worn by the Shropshire Militia in case your Lordship should at any time be disposed to bear it.’80 To wear with a scarlet uniform a looted sword (see figure 14.7) that had once belonged to Tipu Sultan was to brandish the weapon of a defeated foe, an ally of Napoleon – the threat that the militia had been raised to counter. Saluting the King’s Colours with the sword when on parade announced Britain’s global imperial power as well as Edward’s and the Clive family’s part in building that empire.81 Embodied here was what he and Henrietta had sought with the grand buildings in Madras or the creation of the museum in Powis – a physical statement about themselves, kinship, and empire.

Figure 14.7 Sword of Tipu Sultan. Blued steel hilt with tiger-head langets inlaid with gold calligraphy, 1782–99.

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notes 1 Dalrymple, Anarchy, xxv. 2 Macaulay, ‘Sir John Malcolm’s Life of Lord Clive’, 297. 3 A team of student interns traced over fifty items that left the Clive Collection for museums or in private sales between 1945 and 2018. 4 Dalrymple, Anarchy, xxiii. 5 Huxtable et al., Connections between Colonialism and Properties. 6 Sundry things Charged with duty belonging to the Right Hon’ble. Lord Clive off Castle Eden [1804], clive 2449, Clive Papers, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (nlw). 7 Journal of the Right Hon’ble. Lord Clive’s Concerns in Bengal. Commencing May the 1st Terminating December the 31st 1766, cf3/2, p. 4; Inventory of Indian Curiosities [1774], T7/5, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 8 One current rupee was worth two shillings and three pence in 1765. See Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, 223. For annual incomes, see Hume, ‘Value of Money in Eighteenth-Century England’, 375–7. For the cost of the Poussin, see Bence-Jones, ‘Nabob’s Choice of Art’, 1446. 9 Bailey, ‘Qatar Tries Again’. 10 See, for example, the case of the Munro family in Finn, ‘Anglo-Indian Lives’, esp. 55–7. 11 Bowen, ‘Clive, Robert’. 12 Grigson, Menagerie, 135–6. 13 Dalrymple, Anarchy, 118–29. Recent literature has stressed the incomplete and chaotic nature of the Company’s expansion. See, in particular, Wilson, India Conquered, 82–120. 14 Robert Clive to the Select Committee of Fort William, Murshidabad, 30 June 1757, cr1/6, p. 9, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 15 Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, 164–7; Bowen, ‘Clive, Robert’. 16 Transcripts of correspondence with Indian Rulers, cc2-3, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 17 Robert Clive to Nandakumar, Calcutta, 9 January 1759, cc2/5, No. 241, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 18 Eaton, ‘Between Mimesis and Alterity’, 816–19; Finn, ‘Colonial Gifts’, 205–7. 19 Mir Jafar to Robert Clive, 16 September 1759, cc3/2, No. 860, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 20 Journal of India accounts, 1757–1759, cf1/1-2; Inventory of Indian Curiosities [1774], T7/5, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 21 Chatterjee, ‘English East India Company and Cultural Cosmopolitanism’, 293–305.

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22 Veevers, Origins of the British Empire, esp. 271–3; Bayly, Indian Society; Ray, ‘Indian Society’. 23 Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, 235–6. 24 For Robert’s use of kinship networks, see Veevers, Early Modern Colonial State, 230–42. 25 Dirks, Scandal of Empire, 40–50. See collected fan mail within Mss. Eur. G37/46/1, Clive Collection, India Office Records, British Library (ior). 26 Attorneys’ Papers, 1764–1768, A1-3, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. For gendered roles played by wives as attorneys, see Damiano, ‘Agents at Home’, 808–35. 27 Veevers, Early Modern Colonial State in Asia, 252–63. 28 Wilson, India Conquered, 108–12. 29 Datta, Society, Economy, and the Market, 238–64; Wilson, India Conquered, 113–16. 30 Inventory of Stock at Claremont, 1774, T7/2, p. 15, Robert Clive Papers, nlw; A list of Things sent under the Care of Mr and Mrs Amyatt to the right hon’ble Lady Clive [1766], Mss. Eur. G37/18/8, f. 8; Edward Crisp to Robert Clive, 15 October 1769, G37/48/1, f. 110; House Keeping for the Month of Aug. 1765, G37/80/8, f. 14, Clive Collection, ior. 31 Nechtman, Nabobs, 79–87; Dirks, Scandal of Empire, 14–20, 48–60. 32 Lloyd’s Evening Post, 24 May 1773, 493. 33 Prior, ‘Career of Robert, First Baron Clive’, 345–7. 34 Boswell, Life of Johnson, 993. 35 Dirks, Scandal of Empire, 313–29. 36 Tammita-Delgoda, ‘Nabob, Historian and Orientalist’, 369–71. 37 Robert Clive to Robert Orme, Murshidabad, 1 August 1758, cr1/3, p. 91, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 38 Finn and Smith, East India Company at Home, 8. 39 Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, 41–3, 195–6. 40 Inventory of Household Goods, Furniture &c. belonging to the Right Honourable the Lord Clive at Berkeley Square [1770], H12/4; Furniture, China, Linen, &c. in Berkeley Square [1774], T7/6, p. 16, Robert Clive Papers, nlw. 41 An account of Goods &c. Packed up at Claremont the Property of the Rt. Hon’ble. Lord Clive [1774], Powis Castle Correspondence (uncatalogued), Clive Papers, nlw. I am particularly indebted to Martin Moran for the discovery of this inventory. 42 Mootejyl Trunk, April 1766, Mss. Eur. G37/73/10, f. 14, Clive Collection, ior. 43 Coat dress and sash/Waistcoat, c. 1750 altered 1952–1983, nt1180734-5, National Trust, Powis Castle. 44 Lloyd’s Evening Post, 12 October 1768, 357.

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45 Further examples include Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Robert Clive, 1st Lord Clive, oil on canvas, c. 1770, nt1180917, National Trust, Powis Castle; James Macardell, after Thomas Gainsborough, Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, Mezzotint, 1762–64, npg D33528, National Portrait Gallery; Charles Clive, Robert Clive, 1st Lord Clive, Oil on canvas, c. 1764. nt1181252, National Trust, Powis Castle. 46 Prior, ‘Clive, Edward’. 47 Rowell, ‘Clive of India and His Family’, 23–4. 48 Wilson, India Conquered, 161–4. 49 Roberts, India under Wellesley, 48–9. 50 Quoted in Shields, Birds of Passage, 75. 51 Arthur Wellesley to Richard Wellesley, Seringapatam, 8 May 1799, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches, 1:212. 52 Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, 172. 53 Copy of letter, dated 2 June 1799, from an unknown officer serving at the siege of Seringapatam, Mss. Eur. B276, ior. 54 For a good example and recent summary of the literature surrounding loot from Seringapatam, see Sarah Longair and Cam Sharp Jones, ‘Prize Possession: The “Silver Coffer” of Tipu Sultan and the Fraser Family’, in Finn and Smith, East India Company at Home, 25–38. 55 Chopra, ‘South and South East Asia’, 283–5. 56 Ibid., 285–7. 57 For an exploration of women’s role in botany, see Shteir, Cultivating Women. 58 clive 45, 466, 1018, 2158, Clive Papers, nlw. 59 Charlotte Clive to Margaret Clive, Madras, 22 February 1799, Powis Castle Correspondence (uncatalogued), Clive Papers, nlw. 60 Abstract of the Bills … for the Building at the Govt. House Madras [1803], clive 1007, Clive Papers, nlw. 61 ‘Journal of a voyage to the East Indies, and during a residence there, a tour through the Mysore and Tanjore countries’, 28 August – 29 September 1798, wd 4235, Charlotte Florentia Clive Papers, British Library. 62 Shields, Birds of Passage, 33. 63 Henrietta Clive to George Herbert, Madras, 11 July 1799, Powis Castle Correspondence (uncatalogued), Clive Papers, nlw. 64 Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, 186–90. 65 Lal, Domesticity and Power. 66 Journal of Henrietta Clive, 4–12 August 1800, vol. 2, Powis Castle Correspondence (uncatalogued), Clive Papers, nlw.

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67 Journal of Henrietta Clive, 15 September 1800, Trichinopoly, vol. 2, Powis Castle Correspondence (uncatalogued), Clive Papers, nlw. 68 Eaton, ‘Between Mimesis and Alterity’. 69 Henrietta Clive to Edward Clive, Seringapatam, 8 August 1800, quoted in Shields, Birds of Passage, 185. 70 Henrietta Clive to Edward Clive, Walcot Hall, 18 February 1802, clive 466, Clive Papers, nlw. 71 Nechtman, Nabobs. 72 Dirks, Scandal of Empire, 125. 73 Nicholson, Cambrian Traveller’s Guide, 631. 74 Elephant armour (bargustavan-i-pil), 1600–1800, XXVIA.102, Royal Armouries, Leeds. 75 Parry, Cambrian Mirror, 289. 76 Kaye, Correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, 2:146, 196; Harrington, Sir John Malcolm, 4–11, 161–85. 77 Benjamin West, Shah Alam Conveying the Grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive, August 1765, oil on canvas, 1774, private collection, Oakly Park, Ludlow. For an 1818 copy, which is on loan to Powis Castle from the British Library, see figure 14.4. 78 Edward Clive to Richard Wellesley, 20 August 1800, Add. ms 13628, f. 98, Letters from Lord Clive to Lord Wellesley, bl. 79 For the history of the Company’s India Museum, see MacGregor, Company Curiosities, 168–92. 80 Allan Grant to Edward Clive, Seringapatam, 30 November 1799, Mss. Eur. G37/70/3, f. 46, Clive Collection, ior. 81 Sword and scabbard of Tipu Sultan, 1782–1799, nt1180590, National Trust, Powis Castle.

15 William Pitt the Younger, 1759–1806: Reshaping the Political Home Rowena Willard-Wright

During English Heritage’s 2015 representation project for Walmer Castle, Kent, William Pitt the Younger’s inventories for the castle and his residence in Downing Street, London, were rediscovered by Abigail Coppins, who tracked them down to the papers of Pitt’s one-time private secretary and confidante, Sir George Pretyman Tomline.1 Coppins’s research not only reshaped the project, but Pitt, as a result, became a focus of the displays. It has also enabled me, in this essay, to compare all of Pitt’s surviving inventories to better understand how he lived.2 Pitt (1759–1806) was a consummate politician in that he never married and entered the House of Commons at the comparatively young age of twenty-one, attaining the position of prime minister by the time he was twenty-four. Although he is an outlier rather than a typical political figure of his day, his lifestyle represents a condensed version of the emerging career politician of the late eighteenth century: Pitt and others, such as his colleague George Canning, prioritized Parliament and their political careers over Court preferment and creating or supporting a familial country estate. Becoming prime minister in 1783, Pitt remained in office until 1801; he took the position again in 1804 until his death in 1806. For both periods in power, his primary residence was 10 Downing Street in London, a house rebuilt for the first prime minster, Sir Robert Walpole. In 1785 Pitt acquired Holwood House, near Bromley in Kent, which became his secondary residence and country villa until its sale in 1802.3 He had also been made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1792 by George III as a way of ensuring his favourite minister had the use of a maritime residence outside London – a move that was likely to have been as much about his health as about providing him with a home and an annual sinecure of £3,000.4 After Pitt briefly

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left office in 1801, Walmer became his main residence. Towards the end of his life, he leased Bowling Green House in Putney Heath, London, and it was here that he died in January 1806. This essay examines the alterations made by Pitt the Younger to his key residences, in particular their furnishing, in order to understand the nature of his political career – especially given the pressure of being a prime minister at war (the French revolutionary wars, 1791–1802, and the Napoleonic wars, 1803–15) – as expressed by the domestic and professional functions of his different homes. I concentrate on the properties he resided in most: Downing Street, where he lived for nearly twenty years; Holwood, which he lived in and transformed over sixteen years; and Walmer Castle, which he had for fourteen years and, like Holwood, transformed. Pitt had been chancellor of the exchequer in the Earl of Shelburne’s premiership (1782–83 during the final months of the American War of Independence). He was just twenty-three when he was given the opportunity to take up residence in 10 Downing Street, after Prime Minister Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, had departed. In a letter to his mother, Hester, Countess of Chatham, dated 16 July 1782, Pitt describes it as ‘the best summer townhouse in the world’. He was residing there by August 1782, but his stay was short-lived as he lost his position by March 1783.5 Use of 10 Downing Street was originally in the gift of the king; it had been given to Sir Robert Walpole in 1732 by George I, and then to various ministers, but not necessarily prime ministers as that role was yet not officially recognized.6 It was in his position as First Lord of the Treasury that Walpole was so honoured, with Walpole insisting that ownership did not fall to him but in perpetuity to the state and to those who would hold the office of First Lord of the Treasury. This was a clever move as the repairs and maintenance also remained with the state. The location of the property, in the centre of Whitehall, kept Walpole, George I’s most trusted adviser, close to his business. Originally a commercially built house for sale on the market, it was refurbished in 1732 by the architect William Kent specifically for Walpole, a year prior to Kent’s construction of the nearby Treasury building. As well as no. 10, the government also owned nos 11 and 12, which, over time, have been added to, and in some cases directly linked to, no. 10. Thus, although no. 10 appears to be an ordinary town house from Downing Street, it is attached to a rabbit warren of rooms within a much larger house, backing onto Horse Guards Parade and St James’s Park. The house’s lack of structural stability has plagued its residents since the mideighteenth century. On 12 August 1766, under the premiership of Pitt’s father,

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Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, Charles Townsend, the then chancellor of the exchequer, had both nos 10 and 11 surveyed. The report described both to be ‘much decayed’, to the extent that a simple repair was deemed insufficient. Instead, whole walls needed to be taken down.7 The repairs and improvements to no. 10 were started under Prime Minister Lord North. Even at the end of North’s term, the architect Sir Robert Taylor was drawing up new plans, circa 1780–82 (see figure 15.3). On 17 June 1783, Pitt spoke in the House of Commons decrying government spending and corruption under Lord North’s administration, pointing out that the repair of Downing Street had now cost upwards of £10,000.8 Pitt noted that the alterations consisted of a ‘new kitchen and offices, extremely convenient with several comfortable lodging rooms’.9 The kitchen in the basement was sizable and double height, breaking into the ground floor, along with the laundry, indicating that the domestic services were heavily used. Pitt returned as prime minster in December 1783. Then, in a treasury meeting that took place the following January, a report on the costs accrued in repairing Downing Street was presented by the then surveyor of ordnance, James Wyatt, in which he stated he was unable ‘to discover any one exceptional charge’.10 As a result, the balance of costs, which was £5,539, was approved to be paid, making a total of £11,078. Pitt’s inventory, created after his death in 1806, lists sixty-five rooms, including service functions, such as the shoe room and stables. Pitt described no. 10 to his mother as his ‘vast, awkward House’.11 As a building of composite functions, much had to be changed and rearranged over time, including what is now the most famous of its rooms, the Cabinet Room. The name ‘cabinet’ is believed to come from the seventeenth-century country house cabinet room where items precious to and collected by the owner were kept, displayed, and discussed on an intellectual level by close friends.12 In the context of politics, the term was originally an unflattering sobriquet for an inner circle of advisers associated with governments in Europe.13 In Britain, it then came to be applied to the foreign committee of the Privy Council because of the close relationship with the king. The Cabinet’s association with the prime minister’s role in creating government policy developed gradually during the eighteenth century as power moved from the monarch to the developing role of prime minister.14 Originally, the Cabinet Council met wherever and whenever the king required, but, after George I no longer attended, it met in Whitehall on Sundays, sometimes in the Cockpit buildings used by the Treasury and later the Foreign Office, and sometimes at Downing Street.15 At first, Pitt preferred a cabinet made up of a small group of ministers over a larger one; he found five to eight min-

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Figure 15.1 William Kent, North West corner Room, No. 10 Downing Street, c. 1732.

isters satisfactory. However, after 1791 and the crisis of war with France, ministers of state relating to war, including the commander-in-chief, the secretary at war, and master general of the ordnance, were added, creating a requirement for a larger permanent room in which to meet regularly.16 Kent’s surviving drawings of the interiors at no. 10 show that the fireplace, in what is now known as the Cabinet Room, is original (see figure 15.1, and it is visible to the right in figure 15.2). Taylor’s plan of the early 1780s (see figure 15.3) shows the room listed as ‘My Lord’s Study’, with later annotations on the plan describing it as the ‘Drawing Room’.17 Surviving plans of no. 10 give no clear timeline for this room’s change of use to the Cabinet Room; instead, it is Pitt’s inventory that shows that he expanded this room for the Cabinet Council. Taylor’s plans, showing the alterations of the 1780s, do not record any changes to the study, nor do they show the enlargement of the drawing room on the first floor. They are mentioned neither by Pitt nor by Wyatt in his examination of the works that had taken place under Taylor.18 However, the 1806 inventory for

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Figure 15.2 Cabinet Room, Downing Street, photograph from 1922.

the study shows that it contained a large library table, covered in green cloth, as well as nineteen chairs, indicating that it was acting primarily as a large meeting room and not just as a study.19 It also has five window blinds, confirming that the room had been enlarged from Taylor’s plan, which shows the room with only four windows (see figure 15.3). The inventory also lists two stoves (fireplaces) in the study, suggesting that Taylor’s former waiting room had lost its identity as a separate room, becoming the lobby to the Cabinet Room.20 In a similar fashion, the room listed on the ground floor as the ‘Dining Room’ in Taylor’s plan (see figure 15.3) is not included in the inventory; instead, the inventory lists a room called ‘the Secretaries Room’ with the same number of windows and stoves, from which we can deduce its name had changed (see figure 15.4). Meanwhile, the porter still retained the security function of controlling access to the entrance hall and smaller lobby before the visitor was allowed to venture down a long hall to the anteroom for the Cabinet Room. The ground floor no longer accommodated ‘My Lord’s Gentleman’ as described in Taylor’s plan, a role that, like the porter, was familiar in aristocratic homes as a close personal servant to the master. Instead, Pitt

Figure 15.3 Sir Robert Taylor, Ground floor of no. 10 Downing Street (alterations in pale grey), 1781–82.

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chose to have a ‘private secretary’, a position filled by a respected political adviser. Pitt’s first private secretary was George Pretyman Tomline, his former tutor at Pembroke College, Cambridge. George was known for his skill as a mathematician and understanding of politics, and, as a member of the clergy, he was also well read in theology and ethics.21 The private secretary at Downing Street had a much larger office in which to undertake his duties, one that oversaw, and controlled access to, the Cabinet Room where Pitt sat to work. This location also gave the secretary direct access to a set of private stairs to the treasury and the prime minister’s rooms above, as well as a suite of his own personal domestic rooms. Pitt’s inventory shows that the bookcases in the Cabinet Room had been specially fitted for hanging maps, with four sets of maps listed. These can still be seen in a photograph of 1922 (see figure 15.2), and their use continued during the Second World War until the bookcases were removed during the 1960s. Maps have always been an important tool of warfare, one that had been greatly improved after George III commissioned the first large-scale mapping of Britain in 1791. Their utility for Pitt was an understanding of the defences of Britain, especially as the threat of a French invasion drew to its peak in 1803. The first ordnance map surveyed was of the south coast of Britain, made under Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquis Cornwallis, as master general of the Board of Ordnance, a cabinet post created during the war with France.22 With the ground floor now taken up with offices associated with the role of prime minister, Pitt’s personal apartments moved to the first floor. By comparing Kent’s drawings with the rooms today, we can see that the small drawing room (see figure 15.5) has had its fireplace and over mantle altered, and what was originally a series of enfilade doors close by the window wall has been blocked up and replaced by pairs of central folding doors. In Pitt’s inventory, Kent’s small drawing room replaces the function of the lost dining room downstairs. Instead, he has two drawing rooms to the left and right. The way the official drawing room, on the right, is described in the inventory indicates that it had already been altered from Taylor’s plan and was configured as shown in the later 1825 survey by Sir John Soane (see figure 15.6), with columns and an anteroom, like the Cabinet Room below. The drawing room (no. 29 in figure 15.6) has listed in its inventory a black lacquered chair upholstered in leopard print, which was fashionable for a very short period in the 1790s. Pitt obviously purchased furnishings for his rooms in Downing Street following high fashion. Pitt’s bedroom is the only one listed with a dressing room (no. 33 in figure 15.6). The inventory follows the usual lay-

Figure 15.4 The Ground Floor of Downing Street, with rooms allocated as per the 1806 inventory.

out of an eighteenth-century aristocratic home, with a central saloon bookended by two withdrawing rooms, both of which lead onto two separate bedroom suites. Other areas of the inventory are less easily interpreted – for example, the attic story, usually assigned to servants, has a convoluted layout, making it hard to confirm the number of servants in residence, although there is clearly room for more of them here than at any of Pitt’s other homes. Given that, in the account books in the Chatham Papers, the wages for servants are

Figure 15.5 William Kent, Middle Room, first Floor, Downing Street, c. 1732.

Figure 15.6 After Sir John Soane, Survey drawing of part of first floor and water closet, 10 Downing Street, 1825.

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always less at Downing Street than Holwood or Walmer, this suggests that at least some of the servants at Downing Street were paid for by the state. Without a wife to act as hostess, Pitt enlisted his sister, Harriot Pitt, to take up this role. She was married in 1785 to Edward Eliot, an mp friend of her brother, after which they both lived at Downing Street until she died giving birth to her daughter, Harriet, on 25 September 1786.23 It was not until 1803 that Pitt was again accompanied by a female supporting family member at Downing Street, this time by his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope. Both Harriot and Hester would have had at least a bedroom and likely an adjoining dressing room on the first floor. It has so far proved difficult to identify these with any certainty, largely because the 1794 inventory assessed the furnishings belonging to Pitt; property belonging to the secretary and Lady Hester Stanhope are not listed.24 In general, though, companionship was important to Pitt, so company at his dinners (taken about four to five o’clock in the afternoon) was not unusual, typically with his old friends from Cambridge and Goostrees, his London club on Pall Mall.25 However, after dinner and a short period of rest, he usually went back to work on his papers.26 In November 1785 Pitt the Younger purchased Holwood House, Kent, and in January 1786 the neighbouring Downe Farm: both properties were close enough to London that messengers could easily ride into town.27 Holwood followed the classically based tenet of a villa, a house in an idyllic setting for learned pursuits and spiritual withdrawal from the public and the city. Neither a principal residence nor a country seat, the villa is halfway between a London home and the country house. As a result, it does not have the number and variety of rooms, especially in the service areas, such as a still room or a bakehouse, which you might expect of a country seat. This is because food and most supplies were delivered into, rather than made on, the estate. It is also surrounded by smaller and more private pleasure gardens, not picturesque parkland. Holwood did, however, have a model farm, although this was not intended to be a major source of income; instead, it was a leisure pursuit for the monied city gentleman. Pitt busied himself with building his model farm while away from Parliament, both here and later at Walmer. Pitt was particularly taken with altering the grounds of the villa, whose prospect was described by Thomas Wilson, a contemporary local bookseller and author, as ‘the chief beauty of the house; On the northwest the eye is presented with a Vista, through which is seen Bromley, Sydenham, Norwood, Dulwich, Peckham, and London, where Saint Paul’s majestically Rises, as if

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artificially erected, to terminate the view’.28 He commissioned the landscape architect Sir Humphry Repton between 1792 and 1793, but unfortunately the Red Book for Holwood no longer exists so we cannot speak in detail to the changes that were made. Repton’s memoirs describe staking out the entrance and drive to the house and advising on creating views.29 Although politics and architecture have a symbiotic relationship, as several essays in this volume show, Pitt appears to have had no interest in this; instead, his influences were familial and personal. This is exemplified by a conversation described in Repton’s memoirs as taking place at Holwood. Pitt and a group of friends were discussing the gardens of Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, in particular James Gibb’s Temple of Modern Friendship, which was dedicated to well-known figures of the Whig opposition:30 ‘someone said “the Temple of Modern Friendship” was a misnomer, since it contained no two heads of which the originals were sufficiently friendly to sit together in the same room; upon which Pitt remarked, “Very true, but these heads would stand by one another nevertheless on some occasions”’.31 This comment was meant to disparage the unity of the Whigs, but what the speaker obviously did not know was that it included Pitt’s own father, the Earl of Chatham. Also, his mother, Hester Grenville, was Viscount Cobham’s niece. Cobham had introduced her to Pitt’s father, as he was Chatham’s mentor as a Patriot Whig.32 Pitt the Younger was not a Whig but a new Tory.33 However, his close familial links with those involved in Stowe meant they were formative influences on his taste and later commissions. Pitt the Younger’s cousin, Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, who was a member of the Society of Dilettanti and a close friend of Horace Walpole and Sir John Soane, had also been employed on several occasions to design architectural eye-catchers at Stowe.34 Pitt went on to commission Soane from 1786 to 1799 to build two new extensions for his villa at Holwood.35 Soane was a particularly apt choice for he had closely studied ancient Roman villa architecture in Italy. In Lecture VII given to the Royal Academy of Arts, Soane noted: ‘The first point to be considered is the situation, arguing that a villa should not be placed too near a city, or populous town, so as to occasion those who occupy it to be eternally annoyed by troublesome visitors.’36 This was a point emphasized by Pitt’s sister Harriot who described Holwood favourably as ‘a small house which will not allow many visitors’.37 The inventory of 1794 shows a house of only twenty-seven rooms, including one bedroom for himself and five for guests. This allowed Pitt to hold intimate dinners and private meetings away from town.38 Whereas a country house might

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entertain large gatherings of supporters, a villa was intended for personal meetings. However, Pitt ultimately lacked the funds of Cobham, and he was unable to finance most of Soane’s plans. The original house at Holwood was laid out in an L-shape (see figure 15.7). Soane produced more than fifty drawings for Pitt and visited over fifteen times in the first year.39 Key to the design was removing the service wing section of the ‘L’, in order to recreate the compact cubic shape of Palladian villas, with one plan showing the addition of Soane’s signature apsidal façades (see figure 15.8).40 The drawing room was the principal room added, at around fifty by thirty feet (around fifteen by nine metres); this was placed behind a large bow window facing south (see figure 15.9).41 Pitt was also able to afford Soane’s design for a handsome library. Thomas Raikes, London socialite and diarist, described visiting Holwood’s dining room as a boy: The furniture was of the most simple description; I remember a chaise longue was drawn near the fireplace, on which he [Pitt] might be supposed to have thrown himself on his arrival from town when jaded by a long and stormy debate in the House; a few books lay on a hanging shelf within reach, amongst which I recollect a pocket Virgil, marked and dog-eared in every part of the Aeneid. It may be recollected that the quotations in his speeches were generally taken from that source.42 Pitt did not have the benefit of an aristocratic income (his was around £300 per year), and at Holwood a great amount was expended on food: one receipt lists the cost of desserts at £39 8s.43 In order to explain Pitt’s continuing domestic debt, many historians have suggested that his servants may have been taking advantage and buying more than he needed, but the cost of entertaining is likely to have required a good deal of expenditure. For example, the Cabinet dinner was as important as a Cabinet meeting. These happened on Wednesdays when Parliament was sitting, with discussions taking place after the evening meal at nine o’clock.44 They were hosted in turn by the ministers at their London houses and sometimes villas, and often consisted of extravagant meals promoting the host’s wealth and taste.45 Repton’s appointment at Holwood by Pitt may have been made via the political patronage of William Windham of Febrigg Hall, Norfolk, who was a neighbour of Repton in Norfolk and secretary of state for war under Pitt. After Pitt had employed Repton, he also met him informally at the home of his colleague and then prime minister Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth.46 It

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Figure 15.7 Sir John Soane, The plan of the ground floor, Holwood, with a rough exterior elevation of the house, 5 September 1797.

is very possible that these dinners and other such informal meetings with his ministers occasioned the expenditure at Holwood. Working life at Downing Street could be equally expensive, as the Christmas box lists for Holwood and Downing Street show (see table 15.1).47 Holwood’s list covers the providers of food and supplies for the house, while the list at Downing Street concentrates on those involved in the system of messengers used by politicians and the monarchy. At this time, there were no mechanical methods for copying minutes or messages: all documents were handwritten and sent from one minister to the next. As a result, Whitehall was over-burdened with staff, who, in the course of their duty, could expect to gather more than their salaries in gifts from politicians. Pitt’s bill of 1783, reforming the abuses of public office, stated that ‘the fees which were taken by the Clarks in office

Figure 15.8 Sir John Soane, Design for the Alterations and Additions at Hollwood, 9 August 1799.

Figure 15.9 Sir John Soane, Design for the Alterations and Additions to Hollwood, July 1799.

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were so enormous as to exceed their salaries tenfold’. In the navy office, for example, where it was understood there were no fees taken as gifts whatsoever, he found, on inquiry, that in at least one case this happened: a clerk whose salary amounted to no more than £250 per annum received fees as gifts that raised his income to £2,500.48 The sort of costs expected to be covered by a prime minister were therefore considerable, and, indeed, anyone in political office, such as ministers, would have extra expenses caused by their role. Pitt was known to be both generous to his servants and honourable in his dealings in Parliament by not taking sinecures, bribes, and so on. The mixture of both was not a good one for him financially, as the office could not be fulfilled without great personal wealth or indeed bribes. George III gifted Pitt Walmer Castle in 1792, which usefully came with a sinecure of over £3,000. When he first took it, Walmer was not so much a country house as a small suite within the keep of a Tudor fort with very little by way of grounds (see figure 15.10). After resigning the premiership in 1801, Pitt lost the use of Downing Street. In 1802 he sold Holwood house to pay off debts, after which Walmer Castle was his main country residence. He continued to improve its interior, renting adjacent land in which to create a pleasure garden, and other properties, including a farm, to expand the accommodation. In the interiors he turned what had been a two-up, two-down clapboard lodging for gunners set into a bastion into an eight-room extension, which was linked via a bridge, on the first floor, to the central circular keep (see figure 15.11). This created a corridor running the length of the castle with private and reception rooms leading off. There were eight to ten bedrooms in the house, with a bathroom downstairs. This bath was described during the tenure (1829–52) of the Duke of Wellington as a sea water bath, highlighting Walmer’s use for the health benefits of the sea. This was clearly understood by Pitt and the other lord wardens, who annually chose to visit Walmer in late August through to October when the sea was at its warmest. Pitt created a single dining room from what were formerly two small rooms, and he inserted a bay for the sideboard to increase the amount of room available for his table, which is still in situ at Walmer. He also created a large drawing room opposite, both rooms having doors that open to almost the full width of the room, enabling each to be seen easily from the other, and used in an openplan manner. In the library, the largest room, it has been possible to locate most of the furniture described in the 1794 inventory in the current collection. Unlike at Holwood, Pitt did not have the luxury of being able to create a purpose-built library. However, he chose its location and furnishings carefully. The room has

Table 15.1 Lists of William Pitt the Younger’s Christmas boxes for Holwood and Downing Street, 1797–98 Christmas Boxes paid 1798 – Holwood

Christmas Boxes paid 1797–1798 – Downing Street

Chimney Sweeper

The King’s Footman

Thatcher

The Kings Watchman

Stationer

The King’s Ringers

Poulter

The Queens Footman

Cheese monger

The Head Porter of the Queen’s House The Under porter of ditto The Grooms of the Great Chamber at St James The Gentlemen Porter at ditto The Sergeant Porter at ditto The 2 Under Porters at ditto

Glazier Stone Chandler Oilman Carpenter Newton Grocer Greengrocer Butcher

Fishmonger Milk Brewer Total: 3 pounds 10 shillings and 6 pence

The Lower-Door Keeper of the House of Commons The Woman that brings the Minutes The Porter at the Foreign Office The Porter at the Home-Department The Padrolls The Beadles The Turnlocks The Waits

The General Postman The Watchman in Downing Street The Yeoman of the Guards The Scavengers The Marshal Men The Lamplighter The Park-Keepers The Man from the King’s Printer The Prince of Wales’s The Man that takes Footmen the Letters to the Post Office The Prince of Wales’s Head The man that brings the Porter letters in the morning The Messengers at the Council The Porters at the House Office of Commons The Messengers at the Post The Foreign Postman Office The Messengers at the House The Man that Pumps of Commons the water in the Treasury The Messengers at the Gazette Office

The Lamplighter (Parish)

The Bellman Total: 38 pounds and 11 shillings and 6 pence

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Figure 15.10 Walmer Castle, Board of Ordnance Plan, 1741.

one of the few windows that opens out onto the sea, with access to its own private balcony through a pair of French doors, hung across which were a pair of fine muslin curtains, allowing in light while protecting privacy within. The library was clearly Pitt’s study as well, as it has two large desks, one of which is a library desk, described in the inventory as: a Mahy Library table w.t drawrs on each Sides coverd w.t green cloath, with Circular drawers letterd a Mahy Oval’49 The desk is an example of ‘metamorphic’ furniture, which enjoyed popularity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, having its origins in military campaigns where pieces could easily be knocked down and transported in a baggage waggon.50 Such practicalities made the furniture complex to design, but it benefitted from concealed additional functions extending its usefulness beyond traditional furniture. In this case, the desk has a full-width ‘rise and fall’ desk slope, which can be used either standing or sitting, enabling the user to study large folios and drawings/engravings or maps and plans. The desk is designed to be placed in the centre of a room, with false drawers on one side. On

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Figure 15.11 Plan of the first floor of Walmer Castle, annotated as per the 1806 inventory.

the other (functional) side there is a fall-front drawer, with a slide-out desk, giving access to an interior fitted with alphabetically inlaid lidded compartments. It would have been the centrepiece of the library and a statement of modernity and industriousness. The furniture makers, Gillows of Lancaster and London, made several variations of this desk during the latter part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.51 Walmer’s inventory also lists a chaise longue in the library, a form of furniture mentioned in Raikes’s reminiscences of Holwood as a place where Pitt sat and read. The chaise longue at Walmer had been adapted by a local Victorian upholsterer and modernized with springs, stuffed with hay, and recovered in chintz, the skirt of which hid the delicate legs, which had been painted with an ochre ground and decorated with a green acanthus foliate pattern, typical of the late eighteenth century (see figure 15.12).52 It is also an unusual shape, with

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the head wider than the foot, so that it fits exactly into the wedge-shaped gun embrasure in the library, which had been made into a window.53 Most of the books listed in Pitt’s library at Walmer in 1806 were classical works from Roman and Greek antiquity, as would be expected by someone of his education. The inventory only gives a brief description, rarely mentioning the publisher, edition, or publication date.54 It has a much smaller section of English literature, such as Stockdale’s Shakespeare (John Stockdale was a publisher who primarily catered for the political classes in London). Many of the books are in Latin and French, with some in Italian. There are several atlases and political and historical books in both French and English, such as Camden’s (1695). Unsurprisingly, the political, financial, and legal section is one of the largest, with reference books such as Debates in Parliament (six volumes) and George Crawford’s Doctrine of Equivalents or An Explanation of the Nature, Value and Power of Money (1794). Pitt also owned a copy of White’s Compendium; White’s was a gentleman’s club in St James’s and, from 1783, was the unofficial headquarters of the Tory party. The second largest subject covered by the library relates to military training and tactics, which is unsurprising for a wartime prime minister. These were also useful to Pitt in his role as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Pitt’s installation in 1792 coincided with the start of the revolutionary wars in France. The Lord Warden was responsible for ensuring that the coast was defended, especially at Deal in Kent, now an important naval anchorage. The threat of invasion increased in 1803, after Britain declared war on France. Pitt threw himself into the command of the local volunteer corps, the Cinque Ports Fencibles, referred to by Pitt as ‘the advanced guard of the nation’. After his reappointment as prime minster in 1804, Pitt continued to use the castle as a convenient location to meet with military and political figures engaged in the execution of the war. Thus, there are over fifty books relating to the execution of military tactics and training, such as Manual for Volunteer Corps (undated) and [A Political and Military Rhapsody on the] Invasion and Defence of Britain and Ireland (by J. Drummond, 1790–95). Catalogued on the shelves and kept separately from the other maps was the recently produced Ordnance Survey Map of Kent (the first of the ordnance survey maps commissioned in 1790), which illustrates the fortifications and defences in detail, something that he no doubt would have perused with his military guests and annotated on his library desk. As well as a military function, like Holwood, Walmer took on the role of a villa – in this case a newly fashionable marine villa. As such, it provided oppor-

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Figure 15.12 William Pitt the Younger’s chaise longue, Walmer Castle.

tunities for Pitt to immerse himself in the bucolic life. He therefore had several treatises in English and French on farming, including the Farmer’s Magazine and one of Sir Humphry Repton’s books on landscape gardening (possibly Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening etc., 1794). This would have been useful to Pitt, as, unlike Holwood, where he could afford the services of Repton, the pleasure garden at Walmer had to be created by renting surrounding fields alongside the simple market garden (producing vegetables and fruit only) formerly used by the captain of the castle. Only one book is listed outside of the library and that is in the drawing room, described as a Virgilius Volume One. Perhaps this is the one that Thomas Raikes described in his diary as ‘Pitt’s favourite and dogeared Pocket Virgil’ at Holwood.55

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Conclusion At the start of this essay, I note that Pitt’s lifestyle was that of a newly emerging career politician whose ideal country retreat was no longer the statement of courtly and landowning power, as represented by the aristocrats’ country house. Instead, it was a villa within a day’s ride of London, in which he and his closest allies could meet in private, as represented by Holwood Place. Pitt owned Holwood in his own right, and it was there that he was able to explore most fully his own taste, but, as a younger son without a large inheritance, he relied on the prestige of his role as prime minster, and his patronage over architects within the Office of Works, to attract commissions. Soane certainly recognized Pitt’s ambitions at Holwood as an opportunity to exhibit his talents to a very influential client, and this proved advantageous as he was given his first public appointment as Clerk of Works at St James’s, Whitehall, and Westminster in October 1790, all of which perhaps made up for the £2,098 Pitt owed Soane on his resignation as prime minster in 1801.56 Furthermore, events like Cabinet dinners were opportunities for developing a circle of patronage that could be used by architects and landscape gardeners, as Repton had done with Pitt.57 Even at Walmer, Soane’s influence can be seen, specifically in the long hallway in the centre of the castle, which is divided by pairs of arched double doors, centred on a circular lantern, and, using this and concealed skylights, drawing the eye down the length of the hall. It is not known who undertook this work at Walmer: as with Pitt’s changes to Downing Street, neither invoices nor plans survive. As Lord Warden, Pitt had access to funds to improve fortifications and may even have used military engineers to design and carry out his changes to the castle. However, the Board of Ordnance usually recorded such works with plans. This, and the efficiency of creating a corridor to join disparate spaces, along with its style of execution, would imply that a civilian architect had been employed in informally advising Pitt. It is ironic that these costs cannot be discovered considering Pitt’s meticulous questioning of the expenditure of refurbishing Downing Street under his predecessors. The inventory for Walmer reveals how much of its furnishings still survive from Pitt’s time, likewise the physical alterations he made to the castle are mostly still retained. As an unwieldy Tudor fortification with a circular keep, forging a home here meant focusing on the essential functions rather than creating grand spaces. It became his main residence during his brief period out of office as prime minister, when he took his ‘duties’ as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports

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seriously, throwing himself into the defence of the coast, as can be seen in the collections. The largest room is the library, which is set up for wartime work, not only in its subject matter but also in its furnishing, with a large central desk for examining plans and maps. Even the entrance to the apartments housed ‘a Very large Telescope on a Mah.y Stand w.t Machinery &c’ by William Herschel, which Pitt commissioned for Walmer in September 1799 at a cost of one hundred guineas. This was intended to be used for examining the French coastline and intermediate sea and was paid for by the war ministry, confirming the castle’s use by a small secretariat involved in intelligence gathering.58 The shift during his premiership from day-to-day politicking to ruling a country at war may have prompted the changes to Downing Street. It is often the pressures of an emergency that conspire to break down old methods of working, creating more efficient procedures, as was the case in the First World War, when Prime Minster David Lloyd George and the first Cabinet secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey, created today’s Cabinet procedure, including regular minute taking.59 Likewise, Pitt, by making the whole of the ground floor of Downing Street the prime minister’s offices overseen by his private secretary, gave the prime minister immediate access to his administration. But the most important change of all was the creation of the Cabinet Room, representing physically the rule that the prime minister had over his majesty’s minsters and defining 10 Downing Street as the heart of government.

notes 1 Abigail Coppins was the researcher on the Waterloo 200 project and her detailed survey of the primary and secondary literature associated with Pitt the Younger and Hester Stanhope uncovered William Pitt the Younger’s inventories in the Suffolk Record Office (sro) in the Pretyman Tomline Papers: ‘Walmer Castle Inventory & Valuation for Lord Hawkesbury Esq., April 24th, 1806’ (sro ha 119/562/386), and ‘Inventory of items at Downing Street not sold to Lord Greville, March 3rd, 1806’ (sro ha 119-562-676). These inventories do not list his pictures or other collections of art. However, there is a separate inventory for Walmer Castle of his library: ‘Catalogue of the Library at Walmer Castle Late Belonging to the Right Honourable William Pitt, taken 12th February 1806’ (sro ha 119-562-612). Abigail Coppins also transcribed the inventories for English Heritage. The Suffolk archive contains a number of account books for Walmer Castle. Pitt was not interested in managing his domestic accounts, and on occasion his friends would help him with his debts, assessing his expenditure

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

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against his accounts; hence, their survival elsewhere. However, in this case, the collection appears to relate to the assessment of Pitt’s estate after his death in 1806. Erhman, Younger Pitt. Ibid., 1:582. Ibid., 2:189. Ibid., 1:84. Jones, No. 10 Downing Street, 43. Sir Robert Walpole latterly became known as the first prime minister not because he would have recognized that title at the time but because historians recognized his special importance to George I, a foreign and insecure king, as an adviser and manager of the party in power. Fuller and Cornes, No. 10 Downing Street, 145. Letter dated 15 January 1784: By desire of the Rt Honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have caused the House in Downing Street belonging to the Treasury to be surveyed, & find the Walls of the old part of the said House next the street to be much decayed, the Floors and Chimneys much sunk from the levell and no party Wall between the House adjoining on the West side. We are of Opinion that to repair the present Walls, Chimneys & Floors next the street will not be for His Majesty’s service: We have therefore made a plan and Estimate for taking down the front next the street and also the East Flank Wall of the Hall, to build a party Wall on the Westside to prevent the danger of Fire to repair the remaining part of the Old Building & to erect an additional Building adjoining thereto. All which Works besides employing such of the Old Materials that are sound & good will Amount to the sum of nine hundred and Fifty pounds. ‘Report on the House of Commons – Tuesday the 17th of June 1783 – The bill for reforming of abuses in certain offices,’ Newcastle Chronicle, 28 June 1783. Jones, No. 10 Downing Street, 72. Fuller and Cornes, No. 10 Downing Street, 169. Pitt to Hester, Countess of Chatham, 30 July 1782, in Jones, No. 10 Downing Street, 71. An example of a surviving cabinet room of the 1630s can be seen at Ham House in Richmond, London. Bacon, Essays or Counsels, 48. Turner, ‘Development of the Cabinet’, 751–68. Ibid., 174. Aspinall, Cabinet Council, 159. Sir Robert Taylor’s three plans of 10 Downing Street are from a collection kept by Sir John Soane while adapting Downing Street in 1825: sm 50/4/9, sm 50/4/8, sm 50/4/7, Sir John Soane Museum, London. In Sir Robert Taylor’s plans alterations are shown hatched in pink. These are to the kitchens and some of its offices, to the lodgings of My Lord’s Gentleman, the Porter’s

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hall, and the hall between the front and rear of the house. Then, on the first floor, the lodging rooms above the kitchens match Pitt’s description of the renovations. 19 N37 Study 5 Brown holland Spring Blinds 2 Mahy presses w.t cupboards under & folding Doors - - - - - - - 2 Mahy Oval Pembroke tables w.t drawrs 3 Square Do 19 Mahy Chairs covord w.t satin hair cloath & double Brass Naild 2 Elbow Do a Mahy folding 4 Leaf fire screen wt sliding panels & Brass corners 3 face pole Screens covord w.t green Silk a Do w.t print a turkey Sofa covord w.t green Leather & brass Naild w.t 3 Back cushions & squab 2-39In polished steel Stoves 2 Green painted wire fire Guards fenders wt brass tops 2 Setts of fire Irons a Set of Maps & 3 D.o fitted to ye Bookcases a Grecian Lamp mounted Moulu Brass chain a Hunters Chair Stuffd in Linnen w.t 3 Cushions & cotton covors lined 4 Japd card racks a Large Mahy Library table w.t a double sett of Drawrs & covord w.t green cloath a Do w.t tambour front w.t drawrs & a rising desk at top - - - - - - - - - - 8 Japd Vase lamps w.t Glass burners 3 Green tassels & lines for Bells a Mahy 2 flap table ‘Inventory of items at Downing Street not sold to Lord Greville, March 3rd, 1806’ (William Pitt the Younger’s Inventory), sro ha 119-562-676. 20 The Waiting Room, in Taylor’s 1780s plan, is annotated in another hand as ‘eating room P. distemper’ describing the paint scheme and moving the dining room’s function from the room to the left. My Lord’s Study is also annotated in a later hand as the ‘Drawing Room’, with the lobby and main staircase outside both identified as ‘P. oil’ in the same hand, again indicating a paint type. 21 George Pretyman Tomline was a deacon at St Paul’s, later elected as bishop of Lincoln

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25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

34 35

36 37 38 39 40

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and finally Winchester. Joseph Smith was private secretary to Pitt from 1787 to 1801, and William Dacres Adams, a clerk in the Secretary of State’s Office, was private secretary to Pitt during his last ministry from 1804 to 1806. Hewitt, Map of A Nation, 100–3, 149. Erhman, Younger Pitt, 3:47–9. At least two items currently in 10 Downing Street, which have anecdotally been associated with Pitt the Younger, a desk and the porter’s chair, are identifiable in Pitt’s 1806 inventory, shown in the Main Hall. Erhman, Younger Pitt, 1:582. Ibid., 578 Ibid., 591. Wilson, Accurate Description of Bromley, 70. Gore and Carter, Humphry Repton’s Memoirs, 56. Cobham’s Cubs, or the Cobhamites, included Richard Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, Thomas Grenville, George Grenville, and George Lyttelton, all nephews of Cobham; William Pitt the Elder, his future son-in-law; and Thomas Pitt. George Grenville and Pitt the Elder would go on to be prime ministers. Gore and Carter, Humphry Repton’s Memoirs, 58. Patriot Whigs described themselves in opposition to Robert Walpole in Parliament. William Pitt the Younger was leader of a new form of Tory party, which now broadly represented the interests of the monarch, the country gentry, the merchant classes, and official administerial groups. In opposition, a revived Whig party (formerly associated with aristocratic and colonial interests) led by Charles James Fox came to represent religious dissenters, industrialists, and others who sought electoral, parliamentary, and philanthropic reforms. Thomas Pitt met Sir John Soane during his Italian tour and was one of his early patrons. The Sir John Soane Museum holds a collection of fifty-three plans of Holwood House: sm 2/9/1-30, sm 10/2/23v, sm 14/1/1-5, sm 59/95a, 97, 97 a & b, sm 69/25a-29, 31 & 32, sm 77/1/48-50, sm 81/2/17. Arnold, Georgian Villa, 95. Erhman, Younger Pitt, 1:591n2. Arnold, Georgian Villa, 12–13. Helmer, Description and Interpretation, Collections Online inventory, 2011. The apsidal – or bombé façade – was one that Soane used frequently on villas for minor gentry in order to ‘increase the variety of the outline’. See Arnold, Georgian Villa, 100. Wilson, Accurate Description of Bromley, 70.

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42 Raikes, Portion of the Journal, 3:119-20. 43 Pitt the Younger’s bills and miscellaneous papers, pro 30/8 215, Chatham Papers, the National Archives of the uk (tna). 44 Aspinall, Cabinet Council, 181. 45 Ibid., 185. 46 Gore and Carter, Humphry Repton, 58. 47 Chatham Papers, pro 30/8 215, tna. 48 ‘Report on the House of Commons – Tuesday the 17th of June 1783 – The bill for reforming of abuses in certain offices’, Newcastle Chronicle, 28 June 1783. 49 Also known as an architect’s desk. 50 The earliest known campaign furniture designs appear in Roubo, L’Art du Menuisier Ebéniste, published 1769 to 1775. 51 Stuart, Gillows, 282, illustration of a similar desk, which Stuart identifies as similar in design to one that the author Sir Walter Scott purchased from Gillows for his Edinburgh house in 1810, which he moved to his library in Abbotsford in 1826. 52 It was these that first alerted me to the likely earlier origin of the couch. Use of coiled springs did not commence until at least the 1850s. 53 The springs were putting too much strain on the joints of the original carcase, which had become loose. Therefore, the springs and stuffing were replaced by a late eighteenth-century buttoned stuffover seat. The inventory describes it as a ‘Single headed Couch w.t Squab bolstor & cotton cover’, so, in addition, English Heritage had a bolster made. 54 ‘Catalogue of the Library at Walmer Castle Late Belonging to the Right Honourable William Pitt, taken 12th February 1806’ (sro ha 119-562-612). A division of the books in the library at Walmer Castle by subject matter: classics, 37%; military, 15%; politics, finance, and law, 13%; history, 9%; geography, 8%; literature, 6%; agriculture, 5%; science, 3%; society, 2%; religion, 1%; music and the arts, 1%. 55 Raikes, Portion of the Journal, 119–20. 56 Rose Papers, 2, Add mss 42773, f. 3, British Library. 57 It would be interesting to follow this lead further, identifying Cabinet dinners and where they took place and with whom, to see how influential they might have been with regard to taste within this circle. 58 Hoskin, Caroline Herschel’s Autobiographies, 101. 59 Hennessy, Cabinet, 16.

15 Afterword: Whose Country House? Dana Arnold

The long eighteenth century was a period of intense economic, social, and political change in Britain. The shift from a primarily agrarian to an imperial economy had an impact not only on the physical landscape but also on the nation’s demographics as the population moved variously between urban and rural environments. The new economic opportunities disrupted the upper end of the social order as wealth equated with power, no matter how recent its acquisition. This new, untitled, moneyed class enjoyed economic, social, and political clout. Consequently, politics, once the reserve of the landed elite, became a contested field of mutually exclusive interests rather than an unchallenged right to rule, as ownership of both land and property became an increasingly realizable aspiration for those with recently acquired wealth. Importantly, neither the newness of the occupant’s fortune nor the brevity of their family lineage detracted from the potency of the country house and its landed estate as a symbol of political power and patrician authority. How do we narrate or interrogate the country house as a phenomenon in this period? In common with all architecture, it is at once a lived and spatial experience, an aesthetic object, and an economic engine. The country house is, then, not just about the elite: it is about all of its users and consumers, and, importantly, it is about ourselves as both the authors and active recipients of its various narratives. The complexity of meaning and interpretation embedded in the country house should prompt us to move away from those rigid frameworks that establish structures within the social history of architecture as a way of explaining the built environment of the past. These epistemological systems, especially as applied to the country house in the long eighteenth century, relate

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strongly to the dominant social groups. Until recently, the tendency has been almost exclusively to view the country house as evidence of the white male hegemony rather than accepting this as the history of only one of the range of social groups who interacted in and with the built environment. We cannot ignore or erase this elite group from history; however, we can question and interrogate established hegemonies rather than accept them as the normative history. Indeed, we can, and in fact must, also seek out and tell other histories. This collection of essays repositions the country house within the specific context of British politics in the eighteenth century to assess the interaction between the built environment and economic, social, and political change. The starting point is the relationship between the country house and politics. This dynamic association reveals the nuanced nature of political life, and we see the ways in which the country house operated as the expression of the owners’ social standing. But instead of reinforcing the boundaries that have delineated approaches to architecture in this period, the essays combine to present a holistic view of the country house. Our vision of the country house is refracted through a complex interdisciplinary prism to give us new perspectives on themes including collecting, display, dissemination, aesthetics, gender, and the connection between the town and country house. As a consequence, this volume transcends the singular, disciplinary frameworks we might expect from the fields usually associated with the study of the country house – for example, history, art history, and literature. Moreover, the broad purview includes the discourses of heritage and interpretation that extend the protean meanings of the country house into the present day. The trans-disciplinary perspectives in this volume raise important methodological questions about how we can both construct and disassemble histories and understandings of the country house that move beyond established tropes of the biographical accounts of its occupant(s) and/or its architects, or the stylistic surveys that have dominated the narratives of architectural history. In this way, the country house is dismantled as an emblem of a singular set of social, economic, and political values, no matter how remote they may appear from the present day. Until recently these values have remained generally unquestioned and often venerated. Instead, in this volume our curiosity is aroused about how we might examine the alternative social rituals and cultural practices that also took place in, or were given spatial expression by, the country house. This volume addresses the concerns I articulate above. It expands the practice of constructing and narrating the social experience of the inhabitants of buildings by enlarging the picture and signalling ways of righting the imbalances of

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which social groups should be the focus of the historian’s attention. Nevertheless, the starting point remains the patrician values embedded in the country house as a phenomenon. The notion that country house architecture is the physical embodiment of governmental and social systems is substantiated by the important role they played in the architectural production of the period. The long eighteenth century is noted for these private mansions, including those in urban settings, rather than public buildings or even royal palaces. The country house and its estate have therefore been presented as an ordered physical structure that acts as a metonym for other inherited structures. These structures encompass the makeup of society as a whole, a code of morality, a body of manners, a system of language, and the way in which an individual relates to their social circumstances. There might, at first, appear to be little connection between the theatricality of the rituals of the ruling elite and their authority. But, once pre-eminence is established and the rules are set, there is little need to enforce them except to show they are there. In this way the theatrical elements of the display of power were important and the country house functioned as the locus for these. The formidable presence of the country house in the rural environment can then be seen both as a representation of the ruling class and the lynchpin of country life. As such, it functions to moderate, preserve, and represent the status quo. Consequently, the country house continues to be associated with grandeur, authority, and an unquestionable social order. Here, I would also conjecture that the metonymic vision of the country house is at least in part a product of the wish for the past to be a ‘nice’ place. An ordered tidy narrative of the past has had an enduring attraction, no matter how alien it is from our present-day environment and our social norms and expectations. This neat version of the past has given us little opportunity to confront the actuality of the social, economic, and political circumstances of the country house building boom for the broader population in the long eighteenth century. And this view of the past has spilled over into how we have interpreted heritage; for instance, the presentation of often fabricated ‘servants’ rooms’ in country house visitor circuits and guidebooks. But surely the country house was also a disruptive presence in the social, economic, and political landscape? In recent decades, the histories of specific social groups that operated in and around the building(s) have begun to extend the canonical approaches to the country house. But this pins down the function of a building to the notion of how it was used by a select number of individuals, mostly the male owner or the female members of his family for the range of social activities pertaining to them. Perhaps more important, the expanded social history of architecture has

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the tendency to stay within the traditional framework of the kinds of historical enquiries made into architecture from at least the sixteenth century right up to the end of our period. It remains within the epistemological frame of orthodox history while appearing to be more inclusive, especially of women, than previous narratives. The historical archive usually comprises diaries, letters, and household accounts, which inevitably privileges the literate classes and the property-owning elite. There is a risk that neither the kinds of social categorization these sorts of historical enquiries endorse nor the systems of repression, which are evident in the absence of certain voices from the (Foucauldian) archive, is interrogated. Our conceptual frame for architecture would remain undisturbed as we would not be asking why or how the methods of historical enquiry that perpetuate mechanisms of repression came into being. But if this area of study is taken less literally, the notion of the function of a country house can be discussed in both actual and metaphorical terms. These associative values are another part of the process of interpretation that gives the country house its diverse meanings. I would like now to focus on two specific examples that contrast with the canonical historical frameworks for interpreting the country house. We have already noted that the nouveau riche disrupted the category of the elite once they became estate owners. Their social mobility clearly disturbed the political status quo, and it affected the lower orders who were denied the feudalistic and paternalistic rights and privileges they had previously enjoyed. Although they are difficult to determine, patterns and practices of land ownership go some way towards illuminating this point.1 The monopoly of substantial land ownership remained with the few. In 1688, 15 to 20 percent of usable land was held by the great landowners – that is, those with an estate of more than ten thousand acres (four thousand hectares); by the end of the eighteenth century, the amount of land owned by this social group had increased slightly to between 20 and 25 percent.2 But it is the change in the social makeup of landowners and their gentry tenant farmers that is of significance here as it redefined the social meaning of the country house. Towards the end of our period, the advocate of radical social and political reform William Cobbett sums up this demographic shift and its effect on the general rural populations in his vivid eyewitness account: [It is only] the shallow fool, who cannot duly estimate the difference between a resident native gentry, attached to the soil, known to every farmer and labourer from their childhood, frequently mixing with them in those pursuits where all artificial distinctions are lost, practising hospitality

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without ceremony, from habit and not on calculation; and a gentry, only now-and-then residing at all, having no relish for country-delights, foreign in their manners, distant and haughty in their behaviour, looking to the soil only for its rents, viewing it as a mere object of speculation, unacquainted with its cultivators, despising them and their pursuits, and relying for influence, not upon the good will of the vicinage, but upon the dread of their power. The war and paper-system has brought in nabobs, negro-drivers, generals, admirals, governors, commissaries, contractors, pensioners, sinecurists, commissioners, loan-jobbers, lottery-dealers, bankers, stock-jobbers; not to mention the long and black list in gowns and three-tailed wigs. You can see but few good houses not in possession of one or the other of these.3 Cobbett identifies significant changes in the attitudes and responsibilities of these new country residents and what might be expected of them. This aspect of the importance of land ownership (and by inference the country house) and its impact on class-consciousness results in a repositioning of attitudes towards the land whereby we see that ‘limited and not always saleable rights in things were being replaced by virtually unlimited and saleable rights to things’.4 Indeed, this leads me to think about the growth of consumerism and conspicuous consumption as benchmarks of cultural values and symbols of modernity, and how these heralded social change. Here, the country house was a key player as the growth of a consumer society resulted in the ‘packaging’ and ‘selling … of the countryside as a privately owned but nonetheless publicly consumable product – the embodiment of a way of life one could buy into (on psychological and ideological levels) if not actually buy’.5 This is seen in the proliferation of collections fuelled partly by the wish to own objects relating to the culture of antiquity – or good copies of the same – inspired by the Grand Tour, and the growing passion for British manufactures. The value of the country house as a site of display and conspicuous consumption is also seen in new styles of architecture and the owner’s ability to outshine rival estates and project an appropriate symbol of status and socio-economic power. The house and its estate could be viewed from afar by the lower orders and farm workers or visited by tourists, usually middle class and lower gentry. The literature that supported the latter practice, for instance guidebooks, illustrated accounts, and panegyrics, proliferated towards the end of the period. And it is important to remember that the architectural style of these houses, whether inspired by the classical or medieval past, was considered modern. This extends the meaning of the house

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beyond a set of architectural forms or styles to a metaphor for the social interactions, upheavals, and disruptions it brought about. Here I would like to introduce another contemporary account of the intense social change in the long eighteenth century. Jane Austen’s observations on morals and manners are as powerful as Cobbett’s. Arguably, she is one of the most perceptive of social commentators in the late Georgian period. In Austen’s novels social interaction almost always takes place within a domestic architectural setting, ranging from grand country houses to more modest parsonages. But, despite the author’s meticulous eye for detail, we have very little idea about what the residences of her characters, who came from various social ranks, looked like either from the outside or within. The vocabulary used to describe the exteriors of these buildings comprises words like ‘modern’, ‘handsome’, and ‘large’. Mr Darcy’s Pemberley is ‘a large handsome building, standing well on rising ground’, and we have glimpses of the interior, including a dining room called ‘a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up’, and the other rooms ‘lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor’.6 Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s Rosings is ‘a handsome modern building, well situated on rising ground’.7 Mr Knightley’s estate is described as ‘English verdure, English culture, English comfort’, with ‘many comfortable and one or two handsome rooms’.8 Austen had only slightly more to say about older houses. We learn Northanger Abbey was built round a quadrangle, which had been the cloister, and one of the ranges had been demolished to make room for a multiplicity of convenient offices. Externally and internally the house was mostly modern in appearance.9 For Austen the important thing about these houses is not their aesthetic, it is that they were spaces for social interactions on a domestic level. Their primary function is to enable the practice of living, of inhabiting, and of acting out performances to underscore the status and rank of the occupants and visitors. How then does Austen’s indifference to the architectural aesthetic of the country house help us to rethink its history? It is not a question of describing these houses – with all the implied subjectivities, identifying their particular stylistic features, and explaining why they are comfortable. The combination of the primacy of the aesthetic in architectural design and our subsequent understanding of it subjugate the role of social space; instead, perhaps, we should seek to identify users and inhabitants of a building or, in Lefebvrian terms, the ‘subjects’ of space, in the manner seen in recent work by Stobart and others working outside the parameters of architectural history.10

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Perhaps most important, this book, through its structure, content, and evolution as a collaborative project, presents us with a genuinely trans-disciplinary dialogue, which does not privilege a particular knowledge system or set of cultural or intellectual values. The essays combine to present an interdisciplinary alternative to the established singular epistemologies of country house histories. As a consequence, this volume equips the reader with new methods and approaches to the expanding field of enquiry. The title of my afterword is ‘Whose Country House?’ Although I present this question as an afterword it could just as easily be a foreword to the next book on this subject. I further posit that one of the ways in which we might avoid culturally predetermined readings of the histories of architecture and so render them more inclusive is to think about the built environment as space rather than to focus on the architecture that surrounds it. The essays in this volume signal ways in which we might do this. In this way we can see that the users, producers, and interpreters of space all play equally important roles in the understanding of it. Space is encased by architecture, which as a result gives some kind of static, physical frame to the diverse social rituals and cultural practices performed in and around it by a range of publics. Inclusivity, despite the absence of the written record, is perhaps further enhanced if we think about the relationship between architecture and purpose. As Adorno observes, how can a certain purpose become space – through which forms, which materials? This line of enquiry will lead us to the country house but via a very different path.11

notes 1 Clemenson, English Country House and Landed Estate, esp. chap. 1. Clemenson discusses the problem of identifying different land-owning groups. See also Mingay, ‘Size of Farms’; and Thompson, ‘Social Distribution of Landed Property’. 2 See Mingay, ‘Size of Farms’. 3 ‘Burghclere, Wednesday, 21 Nov. 1821’, in Cobbett, Rural Rides, 38. 4 Macpherson, Property, 8, emphasis in original. 5 Fabricant, ‘Literature of Domestic Tourism’, 261, emphasis in original. 6 Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 43:245. I am using the standard editions of Austen’s work, Chapman’s The Novels of Jane Austen, but the chapter numbers in Roman numerals have been changed to Arabic. 7 Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 28:156. 8 Austen, Emma, 41:351; 42:358, 360.

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9 Austen, Northanger Abbey, 20:162; 23:183–4. 10 Lefebvre, Production of Space, esp. 322–36. Lefebvre concentrated on the idea of lived experience of architecture in terms of space and spatial practices. Although principally concerned with urban environments, Lefebvre’s methods of analysis can be used to equal effect when looking at other kinds of buildings – including the country house. See Stobart and Rothery, Consumption and the Country House, 63–72, 267–72. 11 Adorno, ‘Functionalism Today’.

2 Bibliography

Archival Collections See notes for full citations and specific collections. For archival collections for image reproductions, see list of figures. British Library, London (bl) Additional Manuscripts (Add ms) Additional Charters (Add Ch) India Office Records (ior) Burghley Archives, Lincolnshire (Burghley) Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, Devonshire (dcc) Hertfordshire Record Office, Hertford (hro) Lewis Walpole Library (Yale University), Farmington, ct (lwl) Mount Stuart Archives, Isle of Bute (msa) The National Archives of the uk, London (tna) National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (nlw) Norfolk Record Office, Norwich (nro) Nottinghamshire Archives, Nottingham (na) Royal Institute of British Architects, London (riba) Sheffield City Archives (sca) Sir John Soane Museum, London (sjsm) Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds (sro) University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, Nottingham (unmsc) Warwickshire County Record Office, Warwick (wcro)

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2 Contributors

dana arnold is professor of architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture. Her most recent book, Architecture and Ekphrasis: Space, Time and the Embodied Description of the Past, was published by Manchester University Press in 2020. She is currently working on a volume that explores the contribution of women to the study of architectural history. john bonehill lectures in the history of art at the University of Glasgow. He has published widely on various aspects of eighteenth-century British art and culture, most recently (with Anne Dulau and Nigel Leask) Old Ways New Roads: Travels in Scotland 1720–1832 (2021). anne bordeleau is a professor and O’Donovan Director at the School of Architecture of the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her publications include writings on the temporal and mnemonic dimensions of materials, drawings, maps, buildings, and architecture more generally. She is the author of Charles Robert Cockerell, Architect in Time: Reflections around Anachronistic Drawings; and co-author of the book and exhibition The Evidence Room, presented at the 15th Venice Biennale, Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto), and Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, dc). joan coutu is professor of art history and visual culture at the University of Waterloo. Her research concentrates on the built environment in eighteenth-century Britain and early twentieth-century Canada, focusing on space, power, and social differentiation. Her publications include Persuasion and Propaganda: Monuments and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire (2006) and Then and Now: Collecting and Classicism in Eighteenth-Century England (2015).

314

contributors

oliver cox is Heritage Engagement Fellow and co-lead of the Oxford University Heritage Network. His recent publications include contributions to At Home in the Eighteenth Century: Interrogating Domestic Space (2021) and the Paul Mellon Centre’s online publication Art and the Country House. elisabeth grass is a doctoral student in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford, working under a collaborative doctoral partnership funded by the uk Arts and Humanities Research Council. Through the prism of the country estate, her research focuses on the socio-cultural activities of West Indian slaveholders in Britain in the eighteenth century. kieran hazzard is Early Career Fellow at torch (the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities) and a historian of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain and India, specializing in British politics, the East India Company, and material culture. Since completing his PhD on nineteenth-century British Radicalism at King’s College London in 2018, his research projects have included Quill, a digital humanities project on the writing of the US Constitution at Pembroke College, Oxford. More recently, as Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the Ashmolean Museum, he worked with the National Trust to research the Clive Collection at Powis Castle. juliet learmouth recently completed her PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London, under the supervision of Professor Kate Retford. Her thesis examines the relationship between elite women and the London town house during the first half of the eighteenth century. In addition to exploring women’s roles in the design, construction, and decoration of their residences, it also evaluates the extent to which the town house facilitated their participation in social, familial, and cultural exchange in the capital. Juliet’s publications include ‘The London Town House of Lady Isabella Finch’ for the 2017 issue of the Georgian Group Journal and ‘Living amidst the Ruins: The Women of Whitehall’ in Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2021). amy lim is a historian, curator, and writer. In 2022, she completed her PhD, ‘Art and Aristocracy in Late Stuart England’, in a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the University of Oxford and Tate. Recent publications include ‘The Furniture Patronage of Elizabeth Seymour (née Percy), Duchess of Somerset, 1677–1722’, Furniture History 57 (2021): 1–24. peter n. lindfield, fsa, is a lecturer in history and the country house at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has published widely on the Gothic Revival,

contributors

315

heraldry, and the design of Georgian material culture, including Georgian Gothic: Medievalist Architecture, Furniture, and Interiors, 1730–1840. matthew m. reeve, fsa, is associate professor of art history and art conservation at Queen’s University. He is author of Gothic Architecture and Sexuality in the Circle of Horace Walpole (Penn State, 2020), which was the winner of the Historians of British Art Book Prize (2022). kate retford is professor of art history at Birkbeck, University of London. She has published widely on eighteenth-century British art, particularly on portraiture and the country house art collection. Her most recent book, The Conversation Piece: Making Modern Art in Eighteenth-century Britain, was published by Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in 2017, winning a Historians of British Art award. She is currently working on a new project about print rooms in eighteenth-century British and Irish country houses. dylan wayne spivey is a doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia specializing in the art and architecture of eighteenth-century Britain under the direction of Douglas Fordham. His dissertation, ‘Contested Classicism: The English Baroque, Palladianism, and the Commodification of Architectural Style, 1715–1754’, questions how architectural style was understood, articulated, and ultimately commodified in the first half of the eighteenth century. jon stobart is professor of social history at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has published widely on the English country house, especially in terms of supply and consumption, and has recently published his second book on the subject: Comfort in the Eighteenth-Century Country House (2021). He is currently working on a project about the homes and lifestyles of Anglican clergy in the long eighteenth century. rowena willard-wright, fsa, is cultural heritage curator for the National Trust. As well as researching the sites she is responsible for in the National Trust – Ightham Mote, Knole, and Sissinghurst – she is currently the curator for the Runnymede Explored Project, looking at the long history since the signing of the Magna Carta of the negotiated balance between the ruled and rulers in Britain and the British Empire. She is also undertaking research for her PhD (University of Essex), looking at British planning for preserving the machinery of government during a nuclear war in 1950s and 1960s Britain, including an examination of the built and material heritage of nuclear bunkers.

2 Index

Page numbers in italics indicate references to illustrations. Adam, Robert, 156, 164, 165, 186, 188, 189, 191 Addington, Henry (1st Viscount Sidmouth), 259 Addison, Joseph, 161 Adorno, Theodor, 281 Alamgir II, 226, 228 Althorp, 33, 34 Andrews, James Pettit, 91–2 Anne, Queen, 125 Anne of Denmark, Queen, 32, 39, 50–54, 57, 64 Anson, George, 147 Archer, Thomas, 125 archives, 12–14, 224, 226, 278 Arcot, Nawabs of, 226–7, 239 Argyll, 2nd Earl of. See Campbell, John Aristotle, 153, 160 Arundel Castle, 93–5, 95, 96 Ashley-Cooper, Anthony (3rd Earl of Shaftesbury), 153 Aston Field, 107, 109 Austen, Jane, 280 Backler, Joseph, 94, 96 Badeslade, Thomas, 125, 126, 127 Banqueting House, 102 Baroque, 15, 29–32, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 79–80, 123, 125, 128, 130, 132, 137–8, 140, 151 Barret, George, 170, 171, 172, 173–85, 176, 182–3, 190, 191–2; and Edmund Burke, 173, 185; A

View of the great tree in Welbeck Park [View of the Seven Sisters], 174, 177; View of the Greendale Oak, 177, 180; View in the Vale of Lorton, 191; views of Welbeck Abbey, 173–85 Barry, Charles, 95 Bateman, Dickie, and Old Windsor, 88 Beattie, James, 82–3 Beckford, William, and Fonthill Abbey, 93 Belton House, 28, 34 Bengal, 226–9, 231 Berkeley Square, Clive house in, 229, 232–3 Blake, Annabella, 208, 210 Blake, Patrick (1st Baronet), 198, 206–13 Blathwayt, William, 32 Blenheim Palace, 31, 43, 48–50, 51, 52, 62–5, 63 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 243 Boughton, 34 Bourdieu, Pierre, and habitus, 148, 153 Bowling Green House, 249 Boyle, Richard (3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork), 102, 113, 123, 159 Brettingham the Elder, Matthew, 113, 186 Brown, Lancelot ‘Capability’, 156, 186, 188, 191, 207, 231 Brownlow, Sir John, 28, 34, 38 Buckingham House, 49, 62 Bulstrode Park, 25 Bunbury, Sarah, 209, 210 Bunbury, Thomas Charles (6th Baronet), 208–9, 211 Burghley, 4, 26, 35–6, 41 Burghley, 1st Baron. See Cecil, William

318 Burke, Edmund, 152–4, 158, 159–61, 163–5, 173, 184; and George Barret, 173, 185; Gregories, 165; and Philosophical Enquiry,159–60, 165 Burlington, 3rd Earl of and 4th Earl of Cork. See Boyle, Richard Bury St Edmunds, 208, 211 Bute, 3rd Earl of. See Stuart, John Cadogan, William, 124 Calcutta (Kolkata), 227–8, 231, 238, 242 Camelford, 1st Baron. See Pitt, Thomas Campbell, Colen, 102, 103, 130, 131, 134–5, 140; and Vitruvius Britannicus, 125, 126, 133, 134–5, 136, 140 Campbell, John (2nd Earl of Argyll), 102 Carlisle, 3rd Earl of. See Howard, Charles Carr, John, 156, 181, 184 Castle House, Marlborough, 27, 39, 39 Castle Howard, 30, 127, 140, 156 Catherine of Braganza, Queen, 52 Catholicism, 90, 95 Caulfeild, James (Viscount, later 1st Earl, Charlemont), 157 Cavendish, William (4th Earl, later 1st Duke, of Devonshire), 15, 26–7, 30, 32, 36, 37–8, 40, 42, 151 Cavendish-Bentinck, William (3rd Duke of Portland), 173, 177, 181, 182, 184; artistic patronage, 173, 175, 184, 190; finances, 185; political battle with Sir James Lowther, 189–90 Cecil, John (5th Earl of Exeter), 26, 35 Cecil, William (1st Baron Burghley), 31, 36 Chambers, William, 156, 158, 164 Chapman, John, and Nottinghamshire, Survey’d in 1774, 178–9 Charlemont, Viscount. See Caulfeild, James Charles, Habsburg archduke, 38 Charles II, King, 24, 29–30, 52 Chatham, 1st Earl. See Pitt, William, the Elder Chatham, Countess of. See Pitt, Hester Chatsworth, 7, 26, 30, 32, 37–8, 40 Chennai. See Madras Child, Sir Richard (1st Earl Tylney), 102, 130, 135 Chiswick Villa, 4, 113 Churchill, John (1st Duke of Marlborough), 38, 43, 47, 63, 219 Churchill, Sarah (1st Duchess of Marlborough), 15, 26, 43, 47, 48–61, 63–5, 219

index Clive, Charlotte Florentia (Duchess of Northumberland), 238 Clive, Edward (2nd Baron Clive, 1st Earl of Powis, 3rd creation), 16, 220, 223, 224, 226, 232, 234–41, 242–3 Clive, Henrietta (Countess of Powis, née Herbert), 16, 220, 221, 223, 224, 226, 234, 236–7, 238–43 Clive, Margaret (Baroness Clive, née Maskelyne), 16, 223–4, 227, 229, 234, 242 Clive, Robert (1st Baron Clive), 16, 147, 219–20, 223–9, 233, 233, 235, 242 Coade, Eleanore, 94 Cobbett, William, 278–9, 280 Cobham, 1st Viscount. See Temple, Richard Cocchi, Antonio, 157 Cockerell, Charles Robert, 75, 76; and The Professor’s Dream, 75–6, 75, 76 Cockpit Buildings, 250 Coke, Thomas (1st Earl of Leicester), 112–13 Column of July, 75, 76; and liberty, 75 commensality, 203–4 Compton, Spencer (1st Earl of Wilmington), 101 consumption, 5, 6, 8–10, 13, 231, 279 continuity, 10, 149, 151, 154, 157, 159, 160, 164, 165 cultural capital, 8, 149 cultural practices, 276–7, 279 Curzon, Nathaniel (1st Baron Scarsdale): and Kedleston Hall, 132, 165 Dashwood, Sir Francis (11th Baron le Despencer), 90–1, 158, 160; and Medmenham Abbey, 90; and West Wycombe, 90–1, 91 Defoe, Daniel, and A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 136 de la Rochefoucauld, Henriette, 124 Denmark, Prince George of, 38 Devonshire, 4th Earl, later 1st Duke, of. See Cavendish, William Devonshire House, 40 Donnington Grove, 91–2, 93 Downing Street, 16, 221, 248–57, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 260, 262–3, 268–9 Drayton, Michael, 114 Dugdale, Sir William, and Monasticon Anglicanum (1655), 79, 80, 81 dynasty, 42–3, 221, 223, 234–43

index Dyrham Park, 32 East India Company, 9, 219, 220, 223, 224, 226, 229 Eliot, Edward, 257 Elizabeth I, Queen, 30–1 empire, 4, 9, 43, 147–8, 223, 224, 228, 229, 231–2, 234, 235, 238, 241, 243 enfilade, 29, 30, 34–5, 38, 43, 254 Eosander, Johann Friedrich, 125 epistemology, 275–6, 278, 281 Esher Place, 101, 105–9, 107, 108, 112–20, 115, 117, 118 estate portraiture, 170–96 Eugene of Savoy, Prince, 60, 62 Euston Hall, 204–5 Evelyn, John, 51 exemplum, 154–5, 163, 165 Exeter, 5th Earl of. See Cecil, John Fitzroy, Augustus (3rd Duke of Grafton), 204– 5 Flitcroft, Henry, 128–30, 130, 135, 152, 156 Focillon, Henri, 73, 76, 77 Foggini, Vincenzo, and Samson and the Philistines, 137, 160, 161, 164 follies, 107–14, 108, 109 Fonthill Abbey, 93 Foucault, Michel, 278 Fourth Anglo–Mysore War, 235 Gainsborough, Thomas, 171, 202, 209 Gandy, Joseph Michael, 73–4, 74 Garboldisham Hall, 199–202, 199, 205, 206 gender, 9–10, 14, 276 Gentileschi, Artemisia, 57, 59, 65 Gentileschi, Orazio, 57, 59, 65 George I, 42, 64–5, 249, 250 George III, 3, 14, 151, 152, 165, 248, 254, 262; and Kew, 165 Gerard, Alexander, 110–11 Gibbs, James, 84, 111, 128, 134, 258 Gillows of Lancaster and London (Gillow & Co.), 265 Girouard, Mark, 26, 30, 38 Glorious Revolution, 3, 15, 24, 32, 37, 51 Goodchild, John Eastly, 75, 76 Gothic, theory and historiography, 79–98 Grafton, 3rd Duke of. See Fitzroy, Augustus

319 Grand Tour, 8, 148, 157, 158, 160, 164, 240, 279; and Indian, 240 Gray, Thomas, 118 Grimsthorpe, 132, 133 Hagley Hall, 86–7 Hamilton, David, 55 Hampton Court Palace, 105, 106, 114, 116 Hardwick Hall, 37, 40 Harley, Edward (2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer), 177 Harley, Henrietta (Countess of Oxford and Countess Mortimer), 149, 177; and Welbeck Abbey, 149, 177 Hastings, Warren, 228 Hawksmoor, Nicholas, 127 Hellfire Caves, West Wycombe, 90, 91 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 57 Herbert, Henry (9th Earl of Pembroke), 161 Herbert, Henry Arthur (1st Earl of Powis, 2nd creation), 231 Herschel, Frederick William, 269 Historical Manuscripts Commission, 12 Holkham Hall 112, 113, 157 Holland, Henry, 231 Holles, John (1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne), 28, 33, 35, 105 Holwood House, 257–60, 260, 261, 262–3, 265, 266–8 horse racing, 33, 183, 207, 208, 213 hospitality, 28, 34–5, 41, 43, 278–9 Houghton Hall, 89, 101, 102, 120, 131, 156, 204, 205, 206 Howard, Charles (3rd Earl of Carlisle), 140, 161 Howard, Charles (11th Earl of Norfolk), 93–4 Hübsch, Heinrich, 74 Hume, David, 154 identity, 9, 10, 14, 15, 43, 229, 234, 241, 242, 252 Ingman, George (surveyor), 181 interdisciplinarity, 5, 276, 281 Jacobitism, 102, 111 Jafar, Mir, 227–8 Jago, Richard, and Edge-hill (1768), 87 James II, King, 33, 39, 24 Jarves, James Jackson, 98 Jennens, Robert, 61 Jones, Inigo, 57, 73, 113, 116, 117

320 Jones, Owen, 76 Jones, Thomas (painter), 170 Kedleston Hall, 238 Kent, William, 63, 63–4, 101, 107–9, 108, 109, 112–20, 115, 117, 118, 249, 251, 251, 256 King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, 88 King’s Lynn, 198, 202, 203–4 Kingston upon Hull, 5th Earl of. See Pierrepont, Evelyn kinship, 10, 229, 243 Kolkata. See Calcutta Laguerre, Louis, 50, 60–4, 62, 63 Langham Hall, 206–8, 211, 212 Lefebvre, Henri, 280 Leicester, 1st Earl of. See Coke, Thomas liberty, 15, 75, 76, 79–98, 111–12, 147, 154, 184, 190, 202 Lister, Thomas (Baron Ribblesdale), 11 London, 4, 11, 15, 23, 24, 26, 27 Lonsdale, Earl of. See Lowther, Sir James Louis XIV, King of France, 29, 42, 51, 52, 60 Lowman, Henry, 36, 37 Lowther, Sir James (Earl of Lonsdale), 185–91; political battle with the Duke of Portland, 189–90 Lowther Hall, Westmorland, 186, 187–8, 189; architectural designs for 186 Lumley-Saunderson, Richard (4th Earl of Scarborough), 175 Luton Park, Bedfordshire, 165, 186, 187–8 Lyttelton, Sir George, and Letters from a Persian in England, to his friend at Isphafan (1735), 86 macaroni, 153, 158, 160 Macaulay, Catharine, 202 Macaulay, Thomas Babbington (1st Baron Macaulay), 223 Macky, John, 50 Madras (Chennai), 234–41, 239, 243 Magna Carta (1215), 79–80, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88–9, 90, 93–7, 96 Malcolm, John, 223, 242 Marlborough, 1st Duke of. See Churchill, John Marlborough, Duchess of. See Churchill, Sarah Marlborough House, 43, 47–65, 49, 56, 58, 59, 62, 63

index Mary II, Queen, 32, 34, 37 Mary of Modena, Queen, 39 Masham, Abigail, 51–52 material culture, 6–9, 15, 34, 40, 225, 230, 237 Maynwaring, Arthur, 52–3, 55–6 Medmenham Abbey, 90; and Medmenham monks, 90, 158 Miller, Sanderson, and Hagley Hall and Radway Grange, 87 Molineux, Crisp, 198, 199–206, 211 Montagu, John (4th Earl of Sandwich), 158 Montagu, Ralph (1st Earl, later 1st Duke, of Montagu), 15, 33, 40, 42 Montagu House, 40, 56 Moore, Charles Herbert, 98 Mughal Empire, 226, 228–9, 231, 234, 241 Mylne, Robert, 182 Mysore (Mysuru), 226, 235, 240 nabobs, 3, 9–10, 227, 231, 232–4, 279 Namier, Sir Lewis, 13–14 Napoleon. See Bonaparte, Napoleon National Trust, 9, 224 Newcastle upon Tyne, 1st Duke of. See Holles, John Newcastle upon Tyne, 1st Duke of (3rd creation), and 1st Duke of Newcastle under Lyme. See Pelham-Holles, Thomas Newdigate, Sir Roger (5th Baronet), 104, 120 North, Frederick (2nd Earl of Guilford), 249–50 Northanger Abbey, 280 Northumberland House, 40 Oatlands Palace, 57 Orford, 1st Earl of. See Walpole, Robert Orford, 3rd Earl of. See Walpole, George Oxford, University College, 106, 120 Oxford, University of, 104, 106 Palace of Westminster, 74; and Gothic, 74; and House of Lords, 95, 97, 97–8 Palashi. See Plassey Palladian, 101–4, 105, 112–13, 119, 120, 151, 155, 160, 161, 164 Palladio, Andrea, 102–3, 113, 116, 159 Parliament, 32, 35, 40–1, 51, 221, 227, 229, 232, 248, 257, 259, 262, 266 parvenu, 153, 154, 158

index Pelham, Henry, 105, 113, 119–20. See also Esher Place Pelham-Holles, Thomas (1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne [3rd creation] and 1st Duke of Newcastle under Lyme), 105 Pemberley, 280 Pembroke, 9th Earl of. See Herbert, Henry Penrose, Thomas, and The Helmets, a Fragment, 92, 93 Petty, William (2nd Earl of Shelburne), 165, 197, 249; and Bowood, 165 Petworth, 27, 38–41 Pierrepont, Evelyn (5th Earl of Kingston upon Hull), 28 Pitt, Harriot, 220, 257–8 Pitt, Hester (née Grenville), 249, 258 Pitt, Thomas (1st Baron Camelford), 258 Pitt, William, the Elder (1st Earl Chatham), 153–4, 165, 250 Pitt, William, the Younger, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, 219, 248–69, 267 planting, 173, 177, 179, 181, 185, 188 Plassey (Palashi), 220, 227–8, 232, 236, 238 Plato, 153, 160 Pococke, Dr Richard, 136–7, 138 Portland, 3rd Duke of. See CavendishBentinck, William portraiture, 209–12 power house, 5, 8, 10, 11, 14, 29, 32, 35, 38, 41–3, 53, 219, 221, 227–8, 268, 275, 227, 279 Powis, 1st Earl of (2nd creation). See Herbert, Henry Arthur Powis, 1st Earl of (3rd creation). See Clive, Edward Powis, Countess of. See Clive, Henrietta Powis Castle, 220, 224, 231, 241–2, 243 preservationism, 109, 114 Pretyman Tomline, George, 248, 254 progress, royal, 26, 28, 32–7, 33, 38–9 Pryme, Abraham de la, 28, 34–5 Pugin, A.W.N., 76, 80, 95, 98 Queen’s House, 57, 65, 102, 113, 263 Raby, 2nd Baron and 1st Earl of Strafford, 2nd creation. See Wentworth, Thomas Radway Grange, 87 Raikes, Thomas the Younger, 259, 267 Repton, Humphrey, 7, 258–9, 267–8 Restoration, 25, 30, 43, 51, 240

321 Revett, Nicholas, 158 Reynolds, Joshua, 158, 207, 209–10, 209–10, 212 Richmond, and Merlin’s Cave, 83 Robinson, Thomas, 123, 129, 132, 135 Rockingham, 1st Marquis of. See WatsonWentworth, Thomas Rockingham, 2nd Marquis of. See WatsonWentworth, Charles Rocque, John, 125, 126, 127 Rosings, 280 Rossi, J.C.F., 94, 95 Rousham, 107, 109, 109 Royal Academy of Arts, London, 149, 170 Rubens, Peter Paul, 57, 58 Ruskin, John, 76, 80, 98; and Stones of Venice (1851), 98 Rysbrack, Michael, 63, 63 St Christopher (St Kitts), 198, 199–201, 203, 206, 211, 213 St James’s Palace, 27, 48, 49, 49–51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 64–5, 65, 263 San Giorgio Maggiore, 116 Sandbeck, Yorkshire, and Roche Abbey, 175 Sanders, Robert. See Spencer, Nathaniel Sandwich, 4th Earl of. See Montagu, John Sangallo, Giuliano da, 113 Savil, George (7th Baronet of Thornhill), 129 Scarsdale, 1st Baron. See Curzon, Nathaniel Seeley, Benjamin, and Stowe: A Description (1768), 84, 85 Semper, Gottfried, 74 Seringapatam (Srirangapatna), 236, 238–40, 242 servants, 7–8, 37, 40, 47, 233, 252, 255, 257, 259, 262, 277 Seymour, Charles (6th Duke of Somerset), 15, 38, 40, 42 Seymour, Elizabeth (Duchess of Somerset), 38 Shaftesbury, 3rd Earl of. See Ashley-Cooper, Anthony Shah Alam II, 226, 231, 235, 242 Shelburne, 2nd Earl of Lansdowne, 1st Marquess. See Petty, William Shobdon Church, 109, 116 Shotover Park, 107, 108, 110 Shugborough Hall, 147 Sidmouth, 1st Viscount. See Addington, Henry Siraj-ud-Daula, 227 slavery, 197, 201, 204, 211, 213

322 Soane, John Sir, 74, 254, 256, 258–61, 260, 261, 268 social experience, social rituals, 275, 276–81 Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, 157 Society of Artists, London, 149, 173, 184, 186, 191, 192 Society of Dilettanti, 90, 157–8, 258 Somerset, 6th Duke of. See Seymour, Charles Somerset, Duchess of. See Seymour, Elizabeth space, 280, 281 Speechley, William, 181 Spencer, Nathaniel, and Complete English Traveller, 138–9, 139 Spencer, Robert (2nd Earl of Sunderland), 33–4, 38 Spenser, Edmund, 116 Srirangapatna. See Seringapatam Stainborough, 124–5, 126, 127, 127–8, 130 Stanhope, Hester, 220, 257 Stanley, Henrietta Maria, 124 state apartments, 26–7, 28–43 status, 5, 8, 9–10, 15, 29, 38, 43, 47, 52, 64, 101, 112, 140, 148, 153, 154, 165, 171, 193, 200, 206, 208, 223–4, 227, 234, 242, 277, 278–80 Steuart, Charles, 185–92; View from LowtherHall, Perieth and Perieth Bacon, 186, 187; A View in Luton Park, 187, 188; Part of Whitehaven Harbour, 189 Stewart, David, 86–7 Stowe, 83–5, 103, 111–12, 113, 147, 165, 258; and Temple of Liberty, 83–5, 84, 85 Strafford, 2nd Earl of and 1st Baron Raby. See Wentworth, William Strawberry Hill, 119, 119 Stuart, James ‘Athenian’, 158, 163 Stuart, John (3rd Earl of Bute), 149, 158, 165, 172, 184, 185–6, 188, 191 Stubbs, George, 160, 173, 183–4; collaboration with George Barret, 184; paintings for the Duke of Portland, 184; Whistlejacket, 160, 162, 162 style, 73–8; and architectural expression, 74–7; and the battle of the styles, 74; and time, 73, 74, 76, 77 sugar planters, 3, 4, 147, 148, 167, 201, 203, 206, 213 Sunderland, 2nd Earl of. See Spencer, Robert Swift, Jonathan, 54, 60, 86

index Syon House, 39 Tacitus, and Annals, 89 Talbot, William (2nd Baron, later 1st Earl, Talbot), 103 Tallard, Marshal, 62–3 Talman, William, 30 taste, 6, 7, 8, 13, 24, 29, 34, 41, 75, 77, 87, 89, 92, 101, 110–14, 120, 131, 132, 134–5, 139, 141, 148–9, 155, 157, 159, 161, 165, 170, 185, 206, 211, 258, 259, 268 Taylor, Robert, 250–1, 253 Temple, Richard (1st Viscount Cobham), 103, 112, 113, 147, 165, 220, 258, 259 Theobalds, 31 Thomson, James, 82 Thornhill, 7th Baronet of. See Savil, George Thornton, William, 125, 128, 129 Tipu Sultan, Sultan of Mysore, 235–6, 240–3, 243 Tonelli, Anna, 239–40 Tories, 3, 34, 36, 52, 60, 65, 258, 266 transatlantic trade, 197, 203–4, 211, 213 trans-disciplinarity, 276, 281 treasure houses, 4, 5–6, 14 trees, 173, 177, 179, 181; as investment, 177, 182; as patrician symbol, 177, 179. See also planting Tunnicliffe, Ralph, 128, 139 Tylney, 1st Earl. See Child, Sir Richard Van Bodt, Johann, 125, 127 Van Dyck, Anthony, 57 Vanbrugh, Sir John, 30, 48–9, 51, 127, 132, 133, 140 Versailles, 30, 36, 43 Vickery, Amanda, 7, 10 Villa Medici, 113 Villa Pojana, 113 Virgil, 221, 259, 267 Vitruvius, 159, 161 Wadiyar Dynasty, 240 Walcot Hall, 229, 241 Walmer Castle, 16, 221, 248, 249, 257, 262, 264, 264–9, 265 Walpole, George (3rd Earl of Orford), 204–5 Walpole, Horace, 75, 76, 80, 82, 83–4, 85, 87–90, 91, 92–3, 95, 113–14, 118–19, 175; and Anecdotes

index on Painting, 87, 89; and The Castle of Otranto 1764, 91–2; and Journals of Visits to Country Seats, 90; and Strawberry Hill, 88, 89, 90, 91 Walpole, Robert (1st Earl of Orford), 83, 87, 101, 102, 104, 105, 112, 248–9, 258; and Houghton Hall, 89, 131 Wanstead House, 102–3, 103, 123, 130, 135, 136, 138, 140 Watson-Wentworth, Charles (2nd Marquis of Rockingham), 123, 132, 151, 152–3, 156–8, 161, 164–5, 172, 173, 184; clubs and societies; 157–8; collections, 160–1; Grand Tour, 157; London town house, 173; the Rockingham Whigs, 152, 154, 158, 165, 173, 181, 184, 185; sinecures, 151–2 Watson-Wentworth, Thomas (1st Marquis of Rockingham), 102, 123, 125, 128–32, 135–8, 140–1, 151, 161; and political appointments, 131, 138, 140 Waynflete, William, 105, 106; and Wayneflete’s tower, 105–9, 108, 112, 113, 114, 115 Weddell, William, and Newby Hall, 165 Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, 28, 33, 35, 149, 173–84; Creswell Crags, 174, 175; historic trees, 177–8, 180; parkland features, 174–5, 177–8, 181, 183 Wellesley, Arthur (1st Duke of Wellington), 235–6, 262 Wellesley, Richard (1st Marquess Wellesley), 235–6, 237, 238–9, 242 Wentworth, Peter, 125

323 Wentworth, Thomas (2nd Baron Raby and 1st Earl of Strafford, 2nd creation), 124–5 Wentworth, William (2nd Earl of Strafford and 1st Baron Raby), 124 Wentworth Castle. See Stainborough Wentworth Woodhouse, ii–iii, 4, 15, 16, 102, 123–43, 128, 129, 130, 139, 149, 151, 152; Marble Saloon, 137, 138, 155–6, 156, 160, 161, 163, 164; Hoober Stand, 159, 161; Needle’s Eye, 159, 161, 162, 162; Pillar’d Hall, 137, 160, 161, 163 Westmacott, James Sherwood, 97, 97 Whigs, 3, 15, 31, 32, 36, 37, 51–3, 56, 60, 258; the Rockingham Whigs (see Watson-Wentworth, Charles) Whitehall Palace, 30, 40, 250, 260, 268 Wilkes, John, 158, 202; and Medmenham Friars, 158; Wilkites, 134 William III, King, 26, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40 Wilmington, 1st Earl of. See Compton, Spencer Wilton, Joseph, 158 Winckelmann, Joachim, and History of Ancient Art (1764), 82, 164 Windham, William, 259 Windsor Castle, 94 Wolsey, Cardinal, 105, 106, 114 Wren, Christopher, 47–8, 54, 73, 113–14 Wyatt, James, 250–1 York Minster, 116 Young, Arthur, and A Six Months’ Tour, 132, 137–8, 149, 161, 164