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 OF THE 
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 Of ILLINOIS
 
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 PENSHIIRST\ 
 
 " Penshttest lias always been a place of so much importance, and has been so 
 frequently connected with the Crown, that its history is part of the history of 
 England, and it affords an excellent illustration of the close connection between 
 history and architecture, the study of which never ought to be separated, for the 
 one is continually throwing light upon the other. 
 
 " There was a house of importance here in the time of William the Conqueror, 
 occupied by a family named after the place, Pen-chester, that is, ' the castle on the 
 hill,' which shews that the house was fortified at that time — doubtless, according to 
 the fashion of that age, with deep trenches and mounds, and wooden palisades, as 
 represented in the Bayeux Tapestry ; and the house within the fortifications must 
 have been a timber house only, for if a Norman keep had been built of stone, there 
 would certainly be some remains of it. This family continued to inhabit the place 
 for about two centuries after the Norman Conquest, and the head of the family in 
 the time of Henry III. and Edward I., Sir Stephen de Penchester, v\as constable 
 of Dover Castle, and Wardtn of the Cinque Ports, and lies buried in the church 
 here which he had built. These offices were afterwards frequently held by the 
 lord of Penshurst. 
 
 " Sir Stephen de Penchester left no son, but two daughters, and co-heiresses ; 
 one of whom, Alice de Penchester, married John de Columbus, who possessed the 
 property in the right of his wife, and with the consent of other members of the 
 family, sold it to Sir John de Pulteney. The chapel was conveyed to Sir John by 
 John de Columbus in the 9th Edw. Ill,, and the manor in the 10th by Thomas, 
 son of Sir John de Columbus, Knt., of the county of Somerset; and in the 12th 
 by Stephen de Columbus, clerk, brother of Sir Philip de Columbus, Knt. 
 
 " Sir John de Pulteney was the son of Adam de Pulteney, of Misterton in 
 Leicestershire, and was afterwards four times Lord Mayor of London, namely, 
 in 1330, 1331, 1333, and 1336. He was celebrated for 'his piety, his wisdom, his 
 large possessions, his public charities, his magnificent hospitality, and his munifi- 
 cence in building.' The church of St. Laurence Poulteney, in Laurence Poulteney- 
 lane, London, is said to have been founded by him. As soon as he became possessed 
 of the property of Penshurst, in the 12th Edw, III., he obtained from the 
 Crown a grant of free warren for his manor, and in the 15th year he had a licence 
 to crenellate his mansions at Penshurst and at Chieveley, as well as his house 
 in London. 
 
 " To crenellate is a technical name for to fortify, or embattle; crenelles are the 
 openings between the solid merlins of a battlement. The state of the times 
 
 » A paper by J. H. Parker, Esq., F.S.A., read by him at the Sixth Annual 
 Meeting of the Kent Archaeological Society, July 16, 1863.
 
 2 Pfusliiirst. 
 
 rendered it necessary for every nobleman's or gentleman's house to be fortified, and 
 this was not allowed to be done without a licence from the Crown, A record of 
 these licences is preserved in the Great Roll of the Pipe, the chronicle or public 
 record of all transactions and all licences granted by the Crown, which, therefore, 
 affords most invaluable materials for the history of the country. Hasted, and other 
 historians following him, have mistaken the date of this licence, and assigned it to 
 Edward II. instead of Edward III., but my authority is the Roll itself, which was 
 carefully examined for me some years since under the direction of Mr. Duffus 
 Hardy, now the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, when I was preparing my 
 general history of the Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages in England. 
 A licence to crenellate was always obtained either just after or just before the 
 building of a new house, and this enables us to fix the date of the original part of 
 this house with certainty. 
 
 " We have here, then, a nearly perfect example of the house of a wealthy gentle- 
 man of the time of Edward III., in the year of our Lord 1341, and it is most 
 valuable to us for illustrating the manners and customs of that period. The house 
 is nearly perfect as originally built, with the exception of the kitchen, which was 
 usually a distinct building connected with the house by a covered passage only ; 
 and, perhaps, of two of the towers. There is only one of the towers in the wall of 
 enceinte now remaining, and this has been so much altered in the Elizabethan 
 period that it is not easily recognised. The other towers are all gone, and only 
 a fragment of the wall remains. Large additions have been made to this original 
 house, but it is not difficult to separate tliese and shew wheie the various additions 
 were made. 
 
 " We will first examine and describe the original house. The most important 
 feature is, of course, the great Hall where we are now assembled, which remains 
 to us almost unaltered, with its very fine open timber roof, the mouldings of which 
 are very good Decorated work, agreeing perfectly with the time of Edward III. 
 Such a timber roof and such mouldings are not to be found anywhere out of England. 
 These are two points on which we may safely defy all competition. Fine open 
 timber roofs are almost unknown in France, and the French mouldings at all 
 periods ai-e meagre in the extreme when compared with the English mouldings of 
 the same period. I cannot understand why it is always considered necessary to send 
 young English architects abroad to study architecture, while they are suffered to 
 remain in profound ignorance of the grand buildings of their own country, which 
 are in many respects finer thin anything they can see abroad. The fine windows 
 of this hall, with their very remarkable Decorated tracery, are again peculiarly 
 English. The endless variety of window tracery, which we find in English buildings 
 of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is not found in any other country at the 
 same period. French tracery presents us only with a monotonous succession of the 
 same forms, the trefoil and the quatrefoil over and over again, till one is tired of 
 the sight of them ; whereas in England at the same period scarcely any two buildings 
 have tracery of exactly the same forms ; often every window in the same building 
 is different : the power of invention, the imagination, and the manual skill of our 
 mediseval workmen were really wonderful. Our best modern architects fail in their 
 attempts to invent new forms of tracery. The peculiar variety which this hall pre- 
 
 , UfUC " 
 
 i-
 
 Penshnrst. 3 
 
 sents to our notice is called Kentish tracery, being peculiar to that county, con- 
 sisting of a square opening in the head with foliation ; the windows are also crossed 
 by transom bars, which are embattled — another English peculiarity unknown in 
 foreign countries, but one which cannot be very warmly commended. It is singular 
 that in England alone the battlement should have been commonly used as an orna- 
 ment in all sorts of situations. Almost all the English churches of the tifteenth 
 century have battlemented p irapets, and the battlement is used also on the sills 
 and on the transoms of windows merely us an ornament. It originated, no doubt, 
 in the battlements of a castle for actual defence ; but it is singular, as I have said, 
 that England should be the only country in which this was :idopted as an ornament. 
 
 " In the centre of this hall there is the original hearth or reredos, one of the 
 very few that we have now remaining, though Westminster scholars maj' re- 
 member that there was one in Westminster College Hall, until it was removed by 
 Dean Bucklaud a few years s nee; and there are still some I believe in the halls of 
 Colleges at Cambridge. By the side of this hearth are the andirons, or fire-dogs, 
 for arranging logs of wood upon the hearth, and over it was an opening in the roof, 
 with a small ornamented turret to cover it, called a smoke louvre. This has un- 
 fortunately been removed, after ha\'ing been previously Italianised and spoiled ; but 
 several of these smoke louvres still rem;iin in other places. The custom of havii.g 
 a large fire of logs of wood in the middle of the hall continued long after fireplacts 
 and chimneys were used in the other chambers. It is quite a mistake to suppo^e 
 that these were unknown in this country until the fifteenth century ; we have many 
 fireplaces and chimneys of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries iu the ch;imbers, 
 but it was not customary to use them in the hall before the fifteenth. In spite of 
 all the modern contrivances for warming rooms, it may be doubted whether for 
 warming a large and lofty hall it is possible to obtain more heat from the sao^e 
 quantity of fuel than was obtained from the open tire ; and, where the space was 
 80 large and the roof so high, no practical inconvenience could be felt from the 
 smoke, which would naturally ascend and escape from the smoke louvre. On each 
 side of the Hall we have tables and benches, which, if not actually contemporaneous 
 with it, are certaiulj- among the earliest j'iecrs of furniture that we have remaining 
 in England. The tressels, or legs, have every appearance of being originally of 
 the time of Edward III., having Decorated mouldings; the wooden slab, which 
 was proptrly the table (tabula), quite independently of its supports, has probably 
 been renewed more than once, and the two slabs on at present are ot quite 
 different dates. One has some very curious figures on it of fish, and a musket- 
 stand and a pistol, and the bear and ragged staff, one of the badges of the Sidney 
 family. These are incised in faint lines on the surface, and prove this slab to be 
 as old as the Elizabethan period. The other is more modc-rn; but the tressels or 
 legs are all ancient, and the forms by the siiie of the tables are also ancient. 
 
 "There was no doubt a similar tablo, or perhaps rather a more ornamental one, 
 on the dais or raised platform at the upper end of the hall, where the Elizabethan 
 table now is, for the high table, where the lord and liis more honoured guests were 
 placed; the side tables iu the lower part of the hall being for the domestics and 
 retainers, and guests of that class. It will he obsrrved that this Elizabethan table 
 is very long and uarrow, accoidiug to the media;val custom ioi the high table to
 
 4 Penshiirst. 
 
 be occupied on one side only. No one sat with the back to the company, and that 
 side of the table was left open for the servants to have free access to it without 
 any fear of dropping grease on tlie costly dresses of the ladies, or the velvet coats 
 of the gentlemen. Dress was a far more costly article in those days than it is at 
 present. We are willing to run the chance of having beer, or wine, or grease, 
 spilt over our dresses, but our ancestors were not. One end of the dais has here 
 been altered, so that we cannot see the original arrangement ; but there would 
 necessarily be at that end the sideboard, or buffet, filled with plate, of far more 
 beautiful and artistic forms than any modern plate, arranged on shelves so as to be 
 well displayed, whilst it also formed a sort of cupboard with doors, which could 
 be closed and locked. This piece of furniture was usually placed in the recess 
 formed by a bay window, in halls of the fifteenth century, but it is doubtful 
 whether the bay window was in use so early as the fourteenth. At the opposite 
 end of the dais is the door to the staircase of the solar or upper chamber, used as 
 the withdrawing-room for the ladies after dinner; and by the side of this another 
 door leading to the cellar. This was originally the lower chamber under the solar, 
 but afterwards there was often a short passage to the cellar, which was sometimes 
 underground, and the original cellar or lower chamber became the parlour. 
 
 " But there were always two chambers, one over the other, behind the dais, the 
 two together often not reaching so high as the roof of the hall, as we have here 
 windows in the gables above the solar, as well as above the oflaces at the lower end. 
 The upper room was the lord's chamber, and from it there was usually a look-out 
 into the hall, as a check to the more riotous proceedings after the lord and his 
 family or his guests had retired, or for the lord to see that the guests were 
 assembled before descending with his family into the hall. We must remember 
 that in England in the middle ages, as in France at the present day, the distinction 
 "between bed-rooms and sitting-rooms was unknown ; the chamber was used for both 
 purposes; and this is the answer to the frequent enquiry where the bed-rooms were 
 in the mediaeval house. Any one who is acquainted with France at the present 
 day must know that it is even now still customary in many houses for the lady of 
 the house to receive her guests in her bed-chamber, and that the salle-a-manger 
 or hall, is only used for the principal meals, such as dinner, and the dejeuner a la 
 fourchette, or luncheon. The tea-party being an English fashion only recently 
 introduced into France, rather puzzles them ; but the tea is commonly served to 
 the family and visitors in the principal bed-chamber, and not in the salle-a-manger. 
 The higher classes and the iashionable world are gradually adopting the English 
 fashion in this respect, and separate sitting-rooms are being slowly introduced. 
 But I have frequently been received in the house of a wealthy merchant, a 
 member of the Chamber of Deputies, and ether persons above the ordinary 
 bourgeoisie, in the principal bed-room, and have returned to this chamber for tea 
 and cards after dinner. 
 
 " I am very far from meaning this as any reproach to our neighbours across the 
 Channel; it is merely a diffeience of custom. Jt is my good fortune, and a great 
 pleasure to me, to have many excellent and valued Iriends in both countries. 
 1 should be very sorry to depreciate either in the eyes of the other. I merely 
 point out that many mediaeval customs are continued in France which are not in
 
 Petishurst. 5 
 
 Englun'l. Both nations may learn much from each other by friendly intercourse 
 with mutual advantage. Mediaeval customs are retained to a still greater extent 
 in Italy and other foreign nations. Every Englishman travelling with a lady 
 must have observed that it is almost impossible to obtain a separate sitting-room 
 in any foreign hotel, unless the route is frequented by the English, and hotel 
 keepers follow the customs of their country. We must not, therefore, reproach 
 onr ancestors with barbarism because they knew of no distinction between the 
 bcd-chaniber and the sitting-room. The bed served for a couch or ottoman, to sit 
 upon during the day, and sleep upon at night. 
 
 "At Penshurst, unfortunately, one half of this great and fine cellar has been 
 turned into the servants' hall, the other half is divided by modern partitions into 
 two smaller cellars. But the Edwardian stone vault remains perfect throughout. 
 I say unfortunately, with reference to the proper understanding of the original 
 arrangements of the fourteenth century, because one leading principle of the ar- 
 rangement of all medieval housfs was, that the hall was the central part of the 
 house, and formed the separation between the servants' apartments and those of 
 the family J these consisted always of the two great chambers distinguished as the 
 celar and the solar, and commonly of several smaller chambers in the towers, 
 which were connected with these principal chambers at the angles. 
 
 "At the opposite or lower end of the hall was the music-gallery, which we have 
 here perfect, and a fine example of wooden panelling, though of later da^e than 
 the hall. Under this was the passage called the screens, separated from the hall 
 by a screen either of open-work with curtains, or solid with one or two doors; 
 in this instance it is solid, with two doors. In this passage, called the Screens, 
 was the lavatory, or place for washing the hands before dinner, which frequently 
 had a drain very much like the piscina in a church, where the priest poured 
 water over his hands and over the chalice. The mediaeval fashion of washing the 
 hamls was by pouring water over them from the ewer, not by dipping thein into 
 a basin as we now do. After dinner, rose-water was passed round and poured 
 over the hands. The ewer for holding rose-water, in the fourteenth century, was 
 of a form very different from a modern ewer — rather more like a modern soup 
 plate, or hot-water plate, with a small spout to pour out of. It was made of 
 copper or mixed metal, and often richly enamelled with coats of arms or other 
 ornamental devices. Such ewers may be frequently seen in archaeological museums. 
 There are examples, I think, in the British Museum and in the South Kensington 
 Museum. Some very fine ones were exhibited by the Society of Antiquaries at 
 Somerset House last year. The basin to accompany the ewer was of the same 
 form, and size, and material, the only diffi-rence being that there is no spout to it. 
 A few examples remain of the lavatories in halls, and occasionally in other cham- 
 bers; there is a fine one at Lincoln, of the fourteenth century. At Battle Hall, 
 in the parish of Leeds, Kent, is a fine cistern, also of the fourteenth century, to 
 supply a lavatory of this kind. 
 
 " At one end of the screens is the porch, or principal entrance to the hall ; over 
 this is a small chamber, the use of which is rather doubtful, or rather, perhnps, it 
 was applied to different uses according to circumstances, but one use was as a place 
 for the musicians to retire into for refreshment. This room has here been fitted up
 
 6 Penshnrst. 
 
 in the time of Elizabeth as a study for a stutlious young lady, and her book-shelves 
 and other furniture remain perfect. Unfortunately, this small chamber is not 
 at present accessible for w;mt of a floor in the guest-chamber, which has to be 
 passed in getting to it. Lord De L'Isle wishes lue to express his regret that the 
 unfinished state of the repairs no>v going on will not permit this part of the house 
 to be visited on the present occasion. 
 
 "At the opposite end of the screens is another doorway with a porch of later 
 date ; this opened into the servants' court at the back of the hall. The exterior 
 of the hall and of the porches is as well wi rthy of attention as the interior, being 
 altogether a fine example of the architectuie of the time of Edward III. The 
 arclies over the windows, extending from buttress to buttress, are not a common 
 feature j they give great strength and stability to the whole structure, and the 
 feature has been adopted by Mr. Butterfield in Balliol College Cliapel, Oxford. 
 The mouldings of the arches of the doorways, and the wooden doors in the porch, 
 should also be noticed. 
 
 "Behind the screens at the servants' end of the hall are three doorways, accord- 
 ing to the general custom of the age : one to the buttery, or the place for giving 
 out the beer, or cider, or other drinks ; another to the pantry, a place for giving 
 out the bread and other dry stores, except the meat", which came direct from the 
 kitchen by a passage between the buttery and the pantry, which remains perfect. 
 The kitclien itself was usually a half-detached building, commonly octagonal, 
 with a lofty roof and smoke-louvre, and connected with the house by a sbort pas- 
 sage only, in continuation of that which passed between the buttery and pantry. 
 It was commonly of wood, and probably was so at Penshurst, and therefore has 
 been destroyed. The old views of the house shew a small kitchen-court at this 
 end of the hall, surrounded by buildings. 
 
 " At the two angles of the hall at this end also there were probably towers, one 
 of which remains. These were useful for defence, but they were alsa inhabited, 
 and were divided into several chamliers by floors, and in each chamber there was 
 a fireplace. These chambers were rather low, so that there were commonly three 
 or four in each tower. This gives us six or eight chiimbers at each end of the 
 hall, those at the upper end for the use of the family, and those at the lower end 
 for the servants. Whether we call them b d-chambers or not, our ancestors were' 
 not so badly accommodated as we imagine. The one tower which remains here 
 now contains a modern staircase, but has originally consisted of three chambers, 
 with a staircase at the back, marks of whicli remain in the wall. The pas^age 
 into the upper chamber is corbelled out across the angle in a very ingenious and 
 picturesque maimer. 
 
 "Theie was another large room at the servants' end of the hall, behind the 
 music-gallery and over the buttery ai,d pantry, with the passage between them. 
 This was the guest-chamber, or it may have been originally divided here into two 
 chambers by a partition, as at present. 
 
 " The chapel was usually near the dais and the lord's chamber, sometimes merely 
 parted off at one end of this, or in the upper part of a tower, with a staircase and 
 a short passage to it leading from the dais. At Penshurst this part of the house 
 has been so much altered in the Elizabethan and subsequent periods, that the
 
 PeiisJiiirst. 7 
 
 chapel cannot be traced, but the great width of the hall would allow sufficient 
 length for both the solar and the chapel at the end, where the drawing-room now 
 is, which has been fitted up afresh in the style of Queen Anne. But the chande- 
 liers are said to have been brought from Leicester House, in London, and used 
 when Queen Elizabeth visited there, and have always gone by the name of Queen 
 Elizabeth's chandeliers. They are probably the oldest chundeliers that we have 
 now remaining in England 6. This reminds me to mention a mediaeval custom 
 respecting furniture, which is not generally undex-stood, and which continued to 
 a considerable extent even so late as the time of Elizabeth. Every great family 
 had several manors and manor-houses, and as rent was paid chiefly in kind, and 
 there were no roads, and the only modes of conveyance were on pack-horses or in 
 heavy waggons, it was necessary for the family to move from time to time from 
 one manor to another ; such a removal was no light matter, for on such occasions 
 they carried a large part of their furniture with them, — all their beds and bedding, 
 carpets and curtains, and tapestry hangings, their plate, their crockery and glass, 
 and down to the time of Henry VIII. the glass casements for thtir windows 
 also, which were of painted glass, and valuable articles of furniture, their place 
 being sup[ilied by wooden shutters while the family were absent. In the reign 
 of Henry VIII. a law was passed making glass casements fixtures, and after that 
 time they were probably seldom removed from one house to another. 
 
 " We can now, I Ijope, form a tolerable idea of the original house of Penshurst 
 in the time of Edward III., and must resume the thread of our history. The 
 great Sir John de Pulteney, the builder of this house, died possessed of it in 
 the 23rd year of Edward III., in the year 1350. He left a son, William, 
 then eight years of age, and a widow, Margaret, who married for her second 
 husband Sir Nicholas Loraine, and he, in right of his wife, became possessed 
 of a life-interest in the estate. Afterwards the fee was conveyed to him and 
 his wife by her son Sir William, who died, without issue, in the 40th Edward III., 
 at the age of five-and- twenty. Sir Nicholas Loraine was of a very good family, 
 descended from the Dukes of Lorraine. 
 
 " Sir Nicholas and Margaret left a son, another Sir Nicholas, who married 
 Margaret, eldest daughter of John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, widow of Henry, 
 Lord Beaumont, but died without issue, leaving his sister Margaret heiress of the 
 property after the death of his widow Margaret, who held it for her life; and she 
 married secondly Sir John Devereux, who held it in her right. Sir John was 
 of a good family, which came over originally from Evreux, in Normandy. He 
 was a soldier of repute, much employed by Edward III. and Richard II., and 
 he held the offices of Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the 
 Cinque Ports, and was also steward of the King's household and a baron of 
 
 B Mr. Robinson, of the South Kensington Museum, who was present, and who 
 is one of the highest living authorities on such a subject, pronounced these glass 
 chancieliers to be a century later than the date assigned to theui. He thouglit 
 ti)at some mistake had been made, confusing tlie history of these with some very 
 curious early lanterns for carrying at the end of poles, which hang up in the 
 passage, and which may be as early us the lime of Elizabeth.
 
 8 Penshurst. 
 
 Parliament from the 8th to the 16th of Richard II., and died in the 17th. 
 The year before his death, that is in the 16th of Richard II., a.d. 1393, 
 he also obtained a licence to crenellate his house at Penshurst, that is, to 
 enlarge it and increase the extent of the fortifications, for we have seen that 
 it was already built and fortified. This enlargement of the fortress was clearly 
 intended for military purposes only; it was made at a time when the countiy was 
 in a very disturbed state, and the people of Kent proba' ly more discontented even 
 than those in other parts, being only a few years after the Kentish riots headed 
 by Wat the Tiler, and when the dispute between the King and his Barons about 
 the council of regency and the royal favourites was hardly at an end. The King 
 had taken the reins of government into his own hands only a short time before, 
 and it was probably thought expedient for a faithful servant of the Crown like Sir 
 John Devereux to have a more powerful body of armed retainers under his orders. 
 Whatever the cause may^ have been, a large wing was added to the house at this 
 period, and still remains, having been very carefully and well restored within the 
 liist few years, much to the credit of all concerned. The end wall was in such 
 a bad state that it was obliged to be taken down and rebuilt, but every stone was 
 carefully marked, and replaced in its original situation, under the direction of 
 Lord De L'Isle himself, and his architect, Mr. Devey, to whom I am indebted for 
 much valuable assistance on the present occasion. As this wall is four feet six 
 incles thick, the rebuilding it with so much care was no slight operation, and due 
 credit should be given for the pains bestowed. This wing of the building had 
 been greatly injured by fire, and its original character had been entirely destroyed 
 previous to the late restoration. The word 'restoration' is odious to the ears 
 of archseologists, as it is so often synonymous with the entire destruction of all 
 historical interest ; but in the present instance the building has really been re- 
 stored to what it was originally. The architectural character of tliis wing agrees 
 perfectly with the usual style of buildings of the time of Richard II. It is a long 
 parallelogram of two stories, less like a dwelling-house than a barrack, and it is 
 often called by that name. It seems to have consisted originally of one great hall 
 or dormitory (?) with cellars or chambers under it ; but the upper floor, lighted by 
 the dormer windows in the roof, is an insertion of the Elizabethan period. It may 
 possibly have been divided into cells like the dormitory of a monastery, with 
 a great hall-roof above it, and was probably intended only for soldiers who dined 
 in the great hall. 
 
 " As Sir John Devereux died a few months after he had obtained the licence to 
 build this new wing to the house, it is nearly certain that he did not live to com- 
 plete it, and very probable that it was not completed till long afterwards, for want 
 of suffic"ent funds, or from the family not requiring this large addition to the 
 house, until it came into the possession of the Duke of Buckingham, in the time 
 of Henry VI., uho completed it; and hence it has always gone by the name of the 
 Buckingham building. 
 
 " Sir John Devereux died in the 17th of Richard II., a.d. 1394, leaving his widow 
 Margaret possessed of the property. She lived until the lOtb Henry IV., 
 A.D. 1 109, and at her death, as I have said, the property reverted to Margaret, 
 the sister of her first husband. This Margaret was also twice married — first, to
 
 Penshnrst. 9 
 
 Richard Cliamberlayuo, of Shirbuni, Oxfordshiie, wl)ere a cattle of this period 
 remains; secondly, to Sir Philip de Clere, of Aldham St. Clere, in tlie parish of 
 Ightham, Kent. The manor descended to John do Clere, son of Sir Philip, and 
 he sold it to John, the great Duke of Bedford, third son of Henry IV., who 
 crowned his nephew, Henry VI., at Paris, He died in the 14th Henry VI., 
 and was succeeded in the manor by his brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 
 who held the offices of Constable of Dover and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, 
 and was for twenty-five years Protector and Governor of the whole realm of 
 England. Af his death Penshnrst fell to the King, Henry VI., who granted it to 
 his cousin Humphrey Staiford, Duke of Buckingham ; he held it until his death in 
 the battle of Northampton, in the 38th Henry VI., a.d, 1460, when the estate fell 
 to his grandson Henry, then only five years old, who became a leading character 
 in history, and held various high offices of state under Edward V., and was be- 
 headid at Salisbury by Richard III. This duke had married Katherine, daughter 
 of Richard Widville, Earl Rivers, and left issue several children by her. Edward, 
 the eldest, succeeded to this manor ; he was accused of conspiring the death of 
 Henry VIII., and was beheaded in the thirteenth year of that king. This manor 
 was then forfeited to the Crown, where it remained until Edward VI. granted it, 
 first to John, Earl of Warwick, who soon afterwards exchanged it hack to the 
 Crown. The King then granted it to Sir Ralph Fane, who was hanged on Tower- 
 hill, in the sixth year of his reign, as an accomplice of the Duke of Somerset. The 
 estate thus again fell to the Crown, and the King granted it in the same year to 
 Sir William Sidney, Knt., who had been a great soldier under Henry VIII., and 
 had been chambei-lain and steward to Prince Edward before his accession to the 
 throne. Sir William died in the following year, and left the estate to his son. 
 Sir Henry Sidney, who married Lady Mary Dudley, eldest daughter of the Earl 
 of Warwick (afterwards Duke of Northumberland), and sister of Dudley, Earl of 
 Leicester, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth. King Edward VI. died in the 
 arms of his faithful servant and friend, Sir Henry Sidney; who also died at 
 the age of fifty-seven, in the 38th of Elizabeth, a.d. 1597. He built another 
 wing to the house at Penshnrst, or rather added two sides to the front court, and 
 built the gatehouse. He also built the wing at the end of the Buckingham build- 
 ings, containing a long gallery, either for a picture-gallery or a ball-room. Such 
 long galleries usually fonii part of an Elizabethan house, and were sometimes used 
 for state reception-rooms. The bill for this part of the house is in existence, and 
 in possession of Lord De L'Isle. The cost was £500, equal to about £5,000 of our 
 money, which would be a fair price for the work done. At this period the fashion 
 of building had changed, and the custom of the lord and his retainers dining 
 together in the great hall had fallen into disuse, a larger number of smaller rooms 
 was therefore required for the use of the- family and guests, and the house was 
 made more comfortable according to modern ideas. But the more it approaches 
 to our own times and our own habits, the less of course becomes its historical and 
 archseolojjical interest. 
 
 " The next owner of the property was the celebrated Sir Philip Sidney, who was 
 killed at the battle of Zutphcn not many months after his father's death. He was 
 succeeded by his brother Sir Robert Sidney, created first Lord Sidney of Pens-
 
 I o Pens/mrst. 
 
 burst in the first year of James I., and in the third year Viscount Lisle, and in 
 the fifteenth Earl of Leicester, which title expired with Joceline, Earl of Leicester, 
 in 1743. But the property is still held by a branch of the same family, who suc- 
 ceeded by the female line to the property, though not to the title. 
 
 " The following extract from Mr. Pears' ' Life of Sir Philip Sidney' will, I think, 
 be acceptable on this occasion, although any attempt to praise Sir Philip Sidney in 
 Penshurst Place is ratlier like holding up a lantern to the sun : — 
 
 " ' Languet had now an opportunity of observing the manners of the English 
 Court, sounding the dispositions of the Queen's Ministers, and, what was far more 
 pleasant to him, he saw Sidney in his natural position, in the midst of loving and 
 admiring friends, under his father's roof, at their noble mansion at Penshurst. No 
 display of wealth and luxury could have impressed the mind of a foreigner at that 
 time with the idea of England's peace and security so strongly as the sight of the 
 hospitable country seat of an English gentleman of Sir Heary Sidney's stamp, 
 standing in the midst of broad pastures and noble timber, with clusters of decent 
 cottiiges nestling around it. No doubt Languet had in his thoughts the scenes he 
 had lately left, and was contrasting the dreary look of war-worn Belgium with the 
 blazing hearths and the rich Christmas cheer of Kent when he wrote shortly after 
 to Sidney and spoke of happy England, the abode of peace and hospitality.' 
 
 " We have no need of the blazing hearth to-day, but we see that it would not 
 have been wanting if called for — the logs are ready piled, and the gu. ts of Sir 
 Philip Sidney could not have seen in greater perfection this abode of he peace 
 and hospitality of happy England. 
 
 "The present noble owner is worthy of his family name and a fit repres ntative 
 of Sir Philip Sidney ; and we all, as archaeologists especially, are under a deep debt 
 of gratitude to him for the manner in which he is endeavouring to remedy the 
 effects of past neglect, and to restore this noble Palace to the state in which Sir 
 Philip Sidney saw it." 
 
 \_Reprinted from the Gentleman's Magazine.]
 
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