Chapter I: Part 1

Romantic Castles and Palaces

BOOKS BY MISS SINGLETON.

_FAMOUS PICTURES, SCENES AND
BUILDINGS DESCRIBED BY
GREAT WRITERS._

TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES.
GREAT PICTURES.
WONDERS OF NATURE.
ROMANTIC CASTLES AND PALACES.
FAMOUS PAINTINGS.

* * * * *

PARIS.
LONDON.
A GUIDE TO THE OPERA.
LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART.

Romantic
Castles and Palaces

As Seen and Described
by Famous Writers

EDITED AND TRANSLATED

BY ESTHER SINGLETON

AUTHOR OF “TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES,” “GREAT PICTURES,”
“WONDERS OF NATURE,” “PARIS,” AND “A GUIDE TO THE OPERA,”
AND TRANSLATOR OF “THE MUSIC DRAMAS OF RICHARD WAGNER”

_With Numerous Illustrations_

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1911

_Copyright, 1901_
BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

First edition, published October, 1901.

Preface

In making a selection from the large number of castles and palaces that might be included, I have endeavoured to choose those that would appeal equally to the lovers of fine architecture and to the lovers of history and legend.

There is probably no class of buildings that engages the interest of so many different minds as the castle. To the architect, such strongholds as Conway, Warwick, Arundel, Lambeth, Blois, Caernavon, Kronborg, Windsor, Urbino, Berkeley, Amboise, Loches, etc., etc., are valuable studies. For example, Conway, half castle, half palace, contains Early Decorated architecture in Queen Eleanor’s Oratory and fine lancet windows; the donjon of Arundel dates from the days of King Alfred; Warwick, one of the few mediæval fortresses that has lasted unchanged from the time of William the Conqueror to that of King Edward VII., shows us what Kenilworth and the other baronial castles of England were like; the feudal stronghold of Berkeley has also preserved its ancient appearance through seven centuries; Windsor retains its Norman Keep and affords a splendid example of the dwelling-place of royalty; the mediæval fortress of Amboise with its Flamboyant Gothic chapel displays a wonderful contrast of styles; and at Blois four periods of architecture may be contemplated side by side. Turning to palaces, it is sufficient merely to name the Ducal Palace, the Alhambra, Hampton Court Palace, Fontainebleau, Chenonceaux, Futtehpore-Sikri, and the Palace of Shah Jehan to recall the wealth that exists in such vast volumes of art and architecture. The Mikado’s Palace, and the Summer Palace at Pekin transport us into another and mysterious world, appealing strongly to our imagination.

The castle was built for defence as well as for a dwelling-place; the palace, generally speaking, is the abode of monarchs or nobles; and as both have been the scene of plots, imprisonments, murders, entertainments, love-making, marriages, births and deaths, their walls enclose innumerable memories of history and legend. As the most brilliant displays of human pleasure and the blackest manifestations of human conduct have occurred in their halls, towers and dungeons, the phantoms of the most striking characters in history hover amid their crumbling and ivy-clad stones.

In every castle there are one or two characters, events, or legends that dominate all the others. For instance, in the Vaults of Kronborg Holger Danske (Ogier le Danois, beloved of Morgan le Fay) sleeps; but the better-remembered legend is that of the pale ghost that walks the platform at Elsinore in the nipping and eager air of midnight. Glamis is the supposed scene of Macbeth’s murder of Duncan; Warwick is associated with the legendary Guy, the Wars of the Roses and the great Earl, the “King-Maker;” Linlithgow is rich in Stuart memories,--it was the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots; Caernavon was the birthplace of the first Prince of Wales; Raby was the home of the famous Nevilles; Harry Hotspur dwelt at Alnwick; the shadow of Louis XI. darkens Plessis-les-Tours; Wyclif, Stephen Langton and the Lollards cling to Lambeth; Futtehpore-Sikri recalls the splendours of the great Akbar; Wolsey dominates Hampton Court Palace; Catherine de’Medici presides over Chaumont; Charles VII., Joan of Arc and Agnes Sorel may be evoked at Chinon; Berkeley was the scene of the murder of Edward II.; Agnes Sorel is again at Loches; François I., Henri IV. and Diane de Poictiers haunt Fontainebleau; the Riccardi is filled with Medici crimes; the sombre Vecchio holds memories of the brilliant and wicked Cosmo I.; and as the entire history of Florence may be read in the walls of the latter palace, so all the events and phases of Venetian story are centred in the Ducal Palace. Chenonceaux, “the fairy palace of Armida,” and Kensington are exceptional in containing no stains of blood. Leigh Hunt aptly remarks: “Windsor Castle is a place to receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace, to see fashions in; Kensington Palace a place to drink tea in,” exhibiting “the domestic side of royalty.” Its gardens, however, call up all the fashion, beauty and wit of the Eighteenth Century.

We may suggest to the lovers of beautiful scenery that the pleasure they experience is often largely due to the presence of the castle in the landscape; and we may remind him, what an important feature Turner made of the castle in his paintings. Sometimes, indeed, he went so far as to introduce one when his artistic feeling told him that a peak or crag was incomplete without its embattled towers. What would the rock of Edinburgh be without “Auld Reekie,” or the parks of Arundel, Berkeley, or Alnwick without their grey towers seen through vistas framed in foliage? The Wartburg in the Thuringer Forest, and Stirling and Conway, surrounded by the mountains of Scotland and Wales, are also notable examples of the aid of the castle in completing the picturesque effect of the landscape.

The translations have been made especially for this book; and in order to give as much continuous history of each building as possible, I have sometimes been compelled to cut. Otherwise, the essays remain unchanged.

My thanks are extended to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for their kind permission to reprint the selections from Hawthorne.

E. S.

NEW YORK, _August, 1901_.

Contents

CONWAY CASTLE 1
GRANT ALLEN.

THE DUCAL PALACE 8
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.

PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 21
SIR WALTER SCOTT.

ARUNDEL CASTLE 32
ALICE MEYNELL.

PALAZZO VECCHIO 41
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.

KENSINGTON PALACE 51
LEIGH HUNT.

THE MIKADO’S PALACE 61
PIERRE LOTI.

WARWICK CASTLE 68
LADY WARWICK.

THE ALHAMBRA 78
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.

LAMBETH PALACE 89
JOHN RICHARD GREEN.

CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS 99
JULES LOISELEUR.

FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 105
LOUIS ROUSSELET.

CAERNAVON CASTLE 115
WILLIAM HOWITT.

A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 124
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.

FONTAINEBLEAU 133
GRANT ALLEN.

THE RICCARDI PALACE 143
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.

RABY CASTLE 153
WILLIAM HOWITT.

CASTLE DEL MONTE 162
I. EDWARD LEAR.
II. HENRY SWINBURNE.

THE GENERALIFE 169
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.

CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX 174
JULES LOISELEUR.

DUBLIN CASTLE 179
LADY WILDE.

SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 183
WILLIAM HOWITT.

WHITEHALL PALACE 190
LEIGH HUNT.

THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 199
HORACE MARRYAT.

CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 210
JULES LOISELEUR.

WINDSOR CASTLE 217
THE MARQUIS OF LORNE.

THE PALACE OF URBINO 226
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

ALNWICK CASTLE 236
CUTHBERT BEDE.

THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 245
J. J. BOURRASSEE.

STIRLING CASTLE 254
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 259
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.

PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 267
J. J. BOURRASSEE.

HAMPTON COURT PALACE 275
ERNEST LAW.

THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 285
BHOLANAUTH CHUNDER.

EDINBURGH CASTLE 295
I. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
II. JAMES NORRIS BREWER.

LAMBTON CASTLE 304
WILLIAM HOWITT.

ARANJUEZ 310
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.

GLAMIS CASTLE 314
LADY GLAMIS.

CHÂTEAU DE CHINON 321
J. J. BOURRASSEE.

THE SUMMER PALACE 329
MAURICE PALEOLOGUE.

BERKELEY CASTLE 337
ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN.

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 346
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

ROCCA MALATESTIANA 354
CHARLES YRIARTE.

THE WARTBURG 360
L. PUTTICH.

CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE 367
JULES LOISELEUR.

BLARNEY CASTLE 375
MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL.

CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES 380
J. J. BOURRASSEE.

THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 390
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Illustrations

CONWAY CASTLE _Wales_ _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

THE DUCAL PALACE _Italy_ 8
PALACE OF LINLITHGOW _Scotland_ 21
ARUNDEL CASTLE _England_ 32
PALAZZO VECCHIO _Italy_ 41
KENSINGTON PALACE _England_ 51
THE MIKADO’S PALACE _Japan_ 61
WARWICK CASTLE _England_ 68
THE ALHAMBRA _Spain_ 78
LAMBETH PALACE _England_ 89
CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS _France_ 99
FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI _India_ 105
CAERNAVON CASTLE _Wales_ 115
WINTER PALACE _Russia_ 124
FONTAINEBLEAU _France_ 133
THE RICCARDI PALACE _Italy_ 143
RABY CASTLE _England_ 153
CASTEL DEL MONTE _Sicily_ 162
THE GENERALIFE _Spain_ 169
CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX _France_ 174
DUBLIN CASTLE _Ireland_ 179
SANS SOUCI _Germany_ 183
WHITEHALL PALACE _England_ 190
THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG _Denmark_ 199
CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE _France_ 210
WINDSOR CASTLE _England_ 217
THE PALACE OF URBINO _Italy_ 226
ALNWICK CASTLE _England_ 236
THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD _France_ 245
STIRLING CASTLE _Scotland_ 254
THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS _Turkey_ 259
PLESSIS-LES-TOURS _France_ 267
HAMPTON COURT PALACE _England_ 275
THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN _India_ 285
EDINBURGH CASTLE _Scotland_ 295
LAMBTON CASTLE _England_ 304
ARANJUEZ _Spain_ 310
GLAMIS CASTLE _Scotland_ 314
CHÂTEAU DE CHINON _France_ 321
THE SUMMER PALACE _China_ 329
BERKELEY CASTLE _England_ 337
THE CASTLE OF CHILLON _Switzerland_ 346
ROCCA MALATESTIANA _Italy_ 354
THE WARTBURG _Germany_ 360
CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE _France_ 367
BLARNEY CASTLE _Ireland_ 375
CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES _France_ 380
THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM _England_ 390

Castles and Palaces

CONWAY CASTLE

GRANT ALLEN

To call the town at the mouth of the Conway plain Conway is as absurd as if we were to call the town at the mouth of the Tyne plain Tyne instead of Tynemouth.

By whatever name we call it, however, Conway town itself is equally interesting and equally beautiful. It still presents perhaps the best specimen yet remaining in Britain of a mediæval borough, begirt to this day with its Thirteenth Century walls, and overlooked by the towers of its strong castle-fortress. Even Telford’s graceful suspension-bridge, in admirable harmony of tone and plan with the surrounding buildings, hardly detracts at all from the old-world character of the familiar scene; nay, I am not sure that it does not even add somewhat to its picturesqueness. As much cannot be said for the huge iron boxes of Stephenson’s tubular bridge which carries the London and North-Western line across the river on its way to Holyhead. But taken as a whole, the mouth of the Conway, with its town and castle, has hardly an equal perhaps in Britain, save the mouth of the Dart in the equally Celtic Devonian uplands.

Yet to the Welshman, the towers of Conway, beautiful as they are from every point of view, must long have seemed a badge of servitude. We forget too often in looking at these picturesque relics of the lawless days how stern and business-like they must once have appeared, how suggestive of none but purely military and aggressive associations. Time has softened the murderous effect of keep and bastion, and left us nothing but the graceful tinge of poetic mediævalism. But when Edward I. impressed into his service the unpaid labour of the conquered Welsh to raise his great castles around the disaffected mountain land, he did it with the distinct and deliberate purpose of holding in check for the future all wild aspirations of the native race after Cymric independence. The great triangle formed by the three strong castles of Harlech, Caernavon, and Conway (like the famous Austrian quadrilateral in North Italy) was a standing menace to the national movement and an effectual curb upon the national desire to rise in revolt. The three proud strongholds occupy the keys to the three chief routes into the heart of Snowdonia. Harlech blocks the way by the Vale of Festiniog or the Pass of Aberglaslyn: Caernavon guards the bare ravine of Llanberis: Conway frowns down upon the Bettws road and stops the coast path by Penmaenmawr and Bangor. Dominated and daunted by these three imposing fortresses, so vastly superior in design and construction to the little tower keeps of her native princelings, the mountain heart of Gwynedd lay still for centuries, only galvanized for a moment once into spasmodic life, during the troublous times of civil commotion in England, by the adventurous spirit of that Deeside chief whose name Englishmen travesty into Owen Glendower.

Nowhere is the genius of Edward’s great architect, Henry of Elreton, more conspicuous than in this noble pile at Conway. Half castle, half palace--for Edward meant to be king as well as conqueror--it combined the military solidity of Anglo-Norman work with the domestic magnificence of later Tudor mansions. Its great hall, in particular, must have formed, when perfect, one of the most regal and splendid reception rooms then existing in any part of England. The remaining lancet windows of the royal private apartments, and the beautiful early-decorated workmanship of Queen Eleanor’s oratory, survive to show with what royal state Edward kept his court both here and at Caernavon. For it is quite a mistake to regard the greatest of Plantagenets as a mere savage conqueror--the “ruthless king” of Gray’s immortal calumny. If Edward repressed sternly, he meant to reign peacefully. The “massacre of the bards” and all the other poetical rubbish with which Welsh legend has clouded the history of the national defeat, must be relegated to the limbo of exploded fable. The plain truth is that, when once Llewelyn and Dafydd were dead, Edward’s whole policy in the Welsh question was a policy of conciliation. His object was to pacify and Anglicize the disaffected uplands, to make communications safe through what had once been the stronghold of Taffy, that typical robber outlaw, and to reorganize the broken Celtic community on the familiar model of the English kingdom. It was not in mere play, therefore, that he presented to the Welsh his own eldest son, born by deliberate arrangement an indigenous Welshman in Caernavon Castle, as the first Prince of Wales of a new and more powerful line, or that he built and decorated those great royal reception rooms in his Cambrian palaces, where the chieftains of Gwynedd and the rude lords of Anglesey might for the first time see and be duly impressed by the splendour and the glitter of Anglo-Norman chivalry.

Viewed from this wider standpoint, the beautiful chain-bridge and the ugly boxes of Stephenson’s iron monstrosity are themselves in a certain sort the direct heirs and truest modern representatives of Edward’s wise and necessary policy. So seen, they cease to interfere with the unity of the view and merge into one with the great Plantagenet design of the palace-castle. For both these important works, with their still vaster and more wonderful sister-bridges over the Menai at Bangor, form to this day the outer and visible sign of that coalescence of the Celtic and Teutonic elements in Britain to which Edward devoted all his life and energy. The first great roads made by the first great road-makers in England were the roads that connected London, the centre of the empire, with the Irish packets at Holyhead; and both those roads, whether coastwise or internal, by Glan Ogwen or Penmaenmawr, led through the wildest parts of Wild Wales. The greatest life task of the greatest engineer before the railway period--Telford--was the Holyhead road: the greatest life task of the inventor of the locomotive and his still abler sons--George and Robert Stephenson--was the iron line from London to Holyhead. In these gigantic undertakings, Celt and Saxon were united for all, and the better day of fraternal friendship was inaugurated in full sight of Edward’s threatening castle towers. Dr. Arnold loved to look at the railway engine, snorting steam across the midland acres, and think that feudalism was dead forever. It is pleasant in like manner to look even at Stephenson’s hideous tubular bridge, and think, that ill as it contrasts in beauty with the Plantagenet turrets, it is nevertheless the symbol of that complete fellowship between Saxon and Celt in this land of Britain which forms the final goal and ideal of our national unity.

The vale of Conway does not stop abruptly at Conway town; it prolongs itself seaward by gentle degrees far into the shallow waters of Beaumaris Bay. On either side lie the wide tidal sandbanks, formed of material which the river has washed down from the peaks of Snowdon, Glyder, and the Carnedds, the very source from which they are derived being often traceable in the mineralogical peculiarities of the individual grains. About these sands the weird and melancholy Celtic fancy has woven a variation on the common mournful Celtic legend of the submerged country--the legend which meets us again under a hundred disguises in the story of Sythenin Cardigan Bay, the floods of Sarn Badrig, the lost land of Lyonesse, and the sunken city of Is on the coasts of Brittany.

Wherever the Cymric Celt remains, there these stories survive and accompany him. Perhaps they may inclose some true kernel of tradition about the terrific submergence which undoubtedly once took place round the coasts of the two Britains--the greater and the less--at the period when the forest-bed of post-glacial date was swallowed up by the devouring Atlantic. It seemed more probable, however, and it is certainly far more comforting to believe that the vast earth-movement took place so quietly, and was spread over so many peaceful centuries, that it was no more recognized by the men who lived during its gradual progress than the slow and gradual submergence of Scandinavia--an inch at a time--is noticed in our own day by the Norwegian peasant. Rather do these stories reflect and embody the gloomy fancy of a conquered people, whose traditions of glory all referred to a remote and unreal past, and who felt in their despair that the very elements themselves had wrested from them those fertile lands which their fathers had never really owned or cultivated.

Be this as it may, local legend declares that the Lavan sands--the very name in Welsh means Banks of Lamentation--represent the relics of a rich lowland hundred, engulfed by the sea at one wild swoop in the early part of the Middle Ages. About a fathom deep, off Y Foel Llus, lies a submarine bank still known as Llys Helig, or Helig’s Palace. Here, according to tradition, stood the lofty castle of the Cymric lord who owned for miles around the fertile plain; and Welsh imagination still sees at low tide through the clear water of the bay the boundary stones of the ancient road that passed from the British stronghold at Rhuddlan to the fortress of Treganwy, now equally overwhelmed beneath the sands of Beaumaris. It is a little unfortunate for the truth of the tale that similar evidences of historical verity are always produced in favour of Caer Is and all the other Celtic buried cities--and that no Saxon eye has ever clearly beheld them.

THE DUCAL PALACE

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

The Ducal Palace as we see it to-day dates from Marino Faliero and is the successor of an older one begun in 809 under Angelo Participazio and carried on by the different Doges. It was Marino Faliero who caused the two façades on the Mole and the Piazzetta to be built in 1355 as they now are. This construction brought happiness neither to him who ordered nor to the architect: the former was decapitated and the latter hanged.

Into this strange edifice,--at once a palace, senate, tribunal and prison under the government of the Republic,--we enter by a charming door in St. Mark’s corner, between the pillars of St. John of Acre and the great, thick column supporting the entire weight of the immense white and rose marble wall that gives such an original aspect to the ancient palace of the Doges.

This door, called Della Carta, is in charming architectural taste, adorned with little columns, trefoils and statues, without counting the inevitable, indispensable winged lion of St. Mark, and leads into the great interior court by a vaulted passage. This somewhat singular arrangement of an entrance so to speak placed without the edifice to which it leads has the advantage of not interfering in any way with the unity of its façades, which are not broken by any projection except that of their monumental windows.

Before passing under the arcade, let us glance over the exterior of the palace to note a few of its interesting details. Above the thick and robust column of which we have just spoken, there is a bas-relief of savage aspect representing the _Judgment of Solomon_, with mediæval costume and a certain barbarity of execution that renders it hard to recognize the subject. This bas-relief opens into the long twisted little columns that cordon each angle of the building.

On the façade of the Piazzetta, up on the second gallery, two columns of red marble mark the place whence the death sentences were read,--a custom that still exists to-day. All the capitals are in exquisite taste and inexhaustible variety. Not one is a repetition. They contain chimæræ, children, angels, fantastic animals, and sometimes Biblical or historical subjects, mingled with foliage, acanthus, fruits and flowers that forcibly show up the poverty of invention of our modern artists: several bear half effaced inscriptions in Gothic characters, which in order to be fluently read would require a skilful paleographer. There are twenty-seven arcades on the Mole and eighteen on the Piazzetta.

The Porta della Carta leads you to the Giant’s Staircase, which is not itself gigantic, but takes its name from the two colossi of Neptune and Mars, a dozen feet in height, by Sansovino, standing on pedestals at the top of the flight. This staircase, leading from the courtyard to the second gallery that decks the interior as well as the exterior of the palace, was raised during the dogedom of Agostino Barbarigo by Antonio Rizzio. It is of white marble, decorated by Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua with arabesques and trophies in very slight relief, but of such perfection as to be the despair of all the ornamenters, carvers and engravers in the world. It is no longer architecture, but goldsmith’s work, such as Benvenuto Cellini and Vechte alone could produce. Every morsel of this open balustrade is a world of invention; the weapons and casques of every bas-relief, each one different, are of the rarest fancy and the purest style; even the slabs of the steps are ornamented with exquisite _niello_, and yet who knows anything of Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua? The memory of mankind, already wearied with a hundred illustrious names, refuses to retain any more, and consigns to oblivion names that are deserving of all glory.

If we turn around on reaching the head of this staircase, we see the inner side of the doorway of Bartolomeo, flowered over with volutes and plated with little columns and statues, with remnants of blue painting starred with gold in the tympanums of the arch. Among the statues, one in particular is very remarkable: it is an Eve by Antonio Rizzio of Verona, carved in 1471. The other side, facing the Wells, was built in 1607 in the style of the Renaissance, with columns and niches full of antique statues from Greece, representing warriors, orators, and divinities. A clock and a statue of the Duke Urbino, carved by Gio Bandini of Florence in 1625, complete this severe and classic front.

Letting your glance fall towards the middle of the court, you see what look like magnificent bronze altars. They are the mouths of the cisterns of Nicolo de’ Conti and Francesco Alberghetti. The first dates from 1556, the second from 1559. Both are masterpieces. Besides the obligatory accompaniment of griffins, sirens, and chimæræ, various aquatic subjects taken from the Scriptures are represented in them. One could not imagine such richness of invention, such exquisite taste, such perfection of carving, nor such finished work as is displayed by the kerbs of these wells enriched with the polish and verdigris of time. Even the inside of the mouth is plated with thin sheets of bronze branched with a damascene of arabesques. These two wells are said to contain the best water in Venice.

Near the Giant’s Staircase is an inscription framed with ornaments and figures by Alessandro Vittoria recalling the passage of Henry III. through Venice; and farther on in the gallery at the approach to the golden staircase are two statues by Antonio Aspetti,--Hercules and Atlas bending beneath the starry firmament, the weight of which the mighty hero is about to transfer to his own bull-neck. This magnificent staircase, adorned with stuccos by Vittoria and paintings by Giambatista, is by Sansovino, and leads to the library which now occupies several rooms of the Palace of the Doges. To attempt to describe them one by one would be a work of patience and erudition that would require a whole volume.

The old hall of the Grand Council is one of the largest you could find anywhere. The Court of Lions at the Alhambra would easily go inside it. On entering, you stand still, struck with astonishment. By an effect that is somewhat frequently found in architecture, this hall looks much larger than the building that contains it. A sombre and severe wainscoting, where bookcases have taken the place of the seats of the old senators, serves as a plinth for immense paintings that extend all around the walls, broken only by windows, below a line of portraits of the Doges and a colossal gilded ceiling of incredible exuberance of ornamentation, with great compartments, square, octagonal and oval, with foliage, volutes, and rock-work in a taste scarcely appropriate to the style of the palace, but so imposing and magnificent that you are quite dazzled by it. Unfortunately, the pictures by Paul Veronese, Tintoret, Palma the Younger, and other great masters, that filled these superb frames have now been removed on account of indispensable repairs.

That side of the hall by which you enter is entirely occupied by a gigantic _Paradise_ by Tintoret, which contains a world of figures. It is a strong painting and it is a pity that time has so greatly darkened it. The smoky shadows that cover it belong to a Hell rather than to a Glory. Behind this canvas, a fact that we have not been in a position to verify, it is said that there is an ancient _Paradise_ painted in green camaïeu upon the wall by Guariento of Padua in 1365. It would be curious to be able to compare this green _Paradise_ with the black one. It is only Venice that has one depth of painting below another.

This hall is a kind of Versailles museum of Venetian history, with the difference that if the exploits are not so great, the painting is far better. It is impossible to imagine a more wonderful effect than is produced by this immense hall entirely covered by these pompous paintings that excel in the Venetian genius. Above these great historical scenes, is a row of portraits of the Doges by Tintoret, Bassano, and other painters; as a rule, they have a smoky and bearded appearance, although, contrary to the impression we form, they have no beards. In one corner the eye is arrested at an empty and black frame that makes a hole as dark as a tomb in this chronological gallery. It is the space that should be occupied by the portrait of Marino Faliero, as told by this inscription: _Locus Marini Phaletri, decapitati pro criminibus_. All the effigies of Marino Faliero were also destroyed, so that his portrait may be said to be undiscoverable. However, it is pretended that there is one in the possession of an amateur at Verona. The republic wanted to destroy the memory of this haughty old man who brought it within an inch of ruin in revenge for a youth’s jest that was sufficiently punished by a few months’ imprisonment. To finish with Marino Faliero, let us note that he was not beheaded at the head of the Giant’s Staircase, as is represented in several prints, since that stairway was not built till a hundred and fifty years later, but in the opposite corner at the other end of the gallery, upon the top of a flight of steps since demolished.

We will now name the most celebrated chambers of the palace without pretending to describe them in detail. In the chamber _dei Scarlatti_, the chimney-piece is covered with marble reliefs of the finest workmanship. On the impost also is seen a very curious bas-relief in marble representing the Doge Loredan on his knees before the Virgin and Child, accompanied by several saints,--an admirable piece of work by an unknown artist. The Hall of the Shield: here the arms of the living Doge were emblazoned. It is hung with geographical charts by the Abbé Grisellini that trace the discoveries of Marco Polo, so long treated as fabulous, and of other illustrious Venetian travellers, such as Zeni and Cabota. Here also is kept a globe, found on a Turkish galley, engraved upon wood and of strange configuration being in accordance with Oriental ideas and covered with Arabic characters cut with marvellous delicacy; also a great bird’s-eye view of Venice by Albrecht Dürer, who made a long stay in the city of the Doges. The aspect of the city is generally the same as to-day, since for three centuries one stone has not been laid upon another in the Italian cities.

In the Hall of the Philosophers, a very beautiful chimney-piece by Pierre Lombard is to be noticed. The Hall of Stuccos, so called because of its ornamentation, contains paintings by Salviati, Pordenone, and Bassano: the _Virgin_, a _Descent from the Cross_, and the _Nativity of Jesus Christ_. The banquet-hall is where the Doge used to give certain feasts of etiquette,--diplomatic dinners, as we should say to-day. Here we see a portrait of Henry III. by Tintoret, very strong and very fine; and facing the door is the _Adoration of the Magi_, a warm painting by Bonifazio, that great master of whose work we possess scarcely anything in Paris. The Hall of the Four Doors has a square anteroom, the ceiling of which, painted by Tintoret, represents Justice giving the sword and scales to the Doge Priuli. The four doors are adorned with statues of grand form by Guilio del Moro, Francesco Caselli, Girolamo Campagna, and Alessandro Vittoria; the paintings that enrich the room are masterpieces.

From this hall let us pass into the Anti-Collegio; it is the waiting-room of the ambassadors, the architecture being by Scamozzi. The envoys of the various powers who came to present their credentials to the Most Serene Republic could scarcely have been in a hurry to be introduced: the masterpieces crowded with such lavishness into this splendid anteroom would induce anyone to be patient. The four pictures near the door are by Tintoret, and among his best. These are the subjects: _Mercury and the Graces_; _Vulcan’s Forge_; _Pallas, accompanied by Joy and Abundance, chasing Mars_; and _Ariadne consoled by Bacchus_. Apart from a few rather forced foreshortenings and a few violent attitudes in which this master took pleasure on account of their difficulty, we can do nothing but praise the virile energy of touch, the warmth of colour, the truth of the flesh, the lifelike power and that forceful and charming grace that distinguishes mighty talents when they have to render sweet and gentle subjects.

But the marvel of this sanctuary of art is the _Rape of Europa_, by Paul Veronese. What lovely white shoulders! what blonde curling tresses! what round and charming arms! what smiles of eternal youth in this wonderful canvas in which Paul Veronese seems to have spoken his final word! Sky, clouds, trees, flowers, meadows, seas, tints, draperies, all seem bathed in the glow of an unknown Elysium. If we had to choose one single example of all Paul Veronese’s work, this is the one we should prefer: it is the most beautiful pearl in this rich casket.

On the ceiling the great artist has seated his dear Venice on a golden throne with that amplitude of drapery and that abundant grace of which he possesses the secret. For this _Assumption_, in which Venice takes the place of the Virgin, he always knows how to find fresh blues and new radiance.

The magnificent chimney-piece by Aspetti, a stucco cornice by Vittoria and Bombarda, blue camaïeu by Sebastian Rizzi and columns of _verde antique_ and Cipolin marble framing the door complete this marvellous decoration in which shines the most beautiful of all luxuries,--that of genius.

The reception-hall, or the Collegio, comes next. Here we find Tintoret and Paul Veronese, the former red and violent, the other azure and calm; the first, suited to great expanses of wall, the second, for immense ceilings. We will not speak of the camaïeu, the _grisailles_, the columns of _verde antique_, the little arches of flowered jasper and sculptures by G. Campagna: we should never finish; and those are the ordinary sumptuous details in the Palace of the Doges.

There are many other admirable rooms in the Ducal Palace that we have not mentioned. The Hall of the Council of Ten, the Hall of the Supreme Council, the Hall of the State Inquisitors, and many others. Upon their walls and ceilings sit side by side the apotheosis of Venice and the Assumption of the Virgin; the Doges on their knees before some Madonna or other; and mythological heroes or fabulous gods; the Lion of St. Mark and Jupiter’s Eagle; the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and a Neptune; Pope Alexander III. and a short-kilted Allegory. Mix up stories from the Bible and holy Virgins beneath baldaquins, captures of Zara embroidered with more numerous episodes than one of Ariosto’s songs, and surprises of Candia with jumbles of Turks; carve the door-cases; cover the cornices with mouldings and stucco; set up statues in every corner; lay gold upon everything that is not covered by the brush of a superior artist; say: “All those who have laboured here, even the obscure, had twenty times as much talent as our celebrities of the present day; and the greatest masters have employed their lives here;” and then you will have a feeble idea of all this magnificence that defies description. Painters, whose names are not uttered once a century, here hold their place in most terrible proximities. You would say that genius was in the air at that climacteric epoch of human progress and that nothing was easier than to produce masterpieces. The sculptors especially, of whom no one ever speaks, display an extraordinary talent and are not in the least inferior to the greatest painters.

Close to the door of one of these rooms we still see, though robbed of all its prestige of terror, and reduced to the condition of an unused letter-box, the ancient Lion’s Mouth to which the informers came to cast in their denunciations. Nothing remains now but a hole in the wall: the jaw has been removed. A sombre corridor leads you to the Hall of the State Inquisitors, to the Leads, and to the Wells that have served as a text for an infinity of sentimental declamation. Certainly there are no beautiful prisons; but the truth is that the Leads were large chambers covered with lead, a material with which the roofs of most of the edifices of Venice are covered and which has nothing particularly cruel about it; and that the Wells were not below the level of the lagoon. We visited two or three of these cells. Covered with wood on the inside, they had a low door and a little opening facing the lamp fixed to the roof of the passage. A wooden camp-bed occupied one of the corners.

It was black and stifling, but without any melodramatic accessories. Upon the walls are decipherable several of those inscriptions that prison weariness engraves with a nail upon the wall of the tomb: signatures, dates, short sentences from the Bible, philosophical reflections appropriate to the spot, a timid sigh for liberty, sometimes the cause of the imprisonment, such as the inscription in which a captive says that he has been incarcerated for sacrilege. At the entrance to a corridor they showed us a stone seat on which those who were secretly executed in the prison were made to sit. A slender cord cast around the neck and twisted like a garotte strangled them in the Turkish manner. These clandestine executions were only for state prisoners convicted of political crimes. The deed being done, the corpse was bundled into a gondola through a door opening on to the Canal della Paglia and it was taken away to be sunk with a cannon-ball or stone at the feet in the Orfanello Canal which is very deep and where fishermen are forbidden to cast their nets.

Vulgar assassins are executed between the two columns at the entrance of the Piazzetta. The Bridge of Sighs, which seen from the Paille Bridge, looks like a cenotaph suspended over the water, has nothing remarkable inside: it is a double corridor divided by a wall which serves as a covered way from the Ducal Palace to the Prison, the severe and solid edifice built by Antonio da Ponte, and situated on the other side of the Canal facing the lateral façade of the Palace which is supposed to have been built from the plans of Antonio Riccio. The name of the Bridge of Sighs, given to that tomb that connects two prisons, probably comes from the lamentations of the unfortunates going from their cell to the tribunal and back again, broken by torture, or in despair after condemnation. In the evening this Canal, squeezed between the high walls of the two sombre edifices and illumined by some rare gleam, has a very sinister and mysterious aspect, and the gondolas that glide along there bearing some handsome pair of lovers going to get a little fresh air on the lagoon, look as if they have a burden for the Orfanello Canal.

We have also visited the ancient apartments of the Doge; nothing remains of their primitive magnificence except a highly ornamental ceiling divided into gilded and painted hexagonal compartments. In these spaces, shielded by foliage and rosebushes, was an invisible hole through which the State Inquisitors and the members of the Council of Ten could spy upon what the Doge was doing at all hours of the day and of the night. The walls, not content with listening by an ear, like the prison of Denys the Tyrant, watched with an ever open eye, and the Doge who had conquered at Zara or at Candia heard, like Angelo, “steps in his walls” and felt a mysterious and jealous watch all about him.

PALACE OF LINLITHGOW

SIR WALTER SCOTT

Linlithgow, distinguished by the combined strength and beauty of its situation, must have been early selected as a royal residence. David, who bought the title of Saint by his liberality to the church, refers several of his characters to his town of Linlithgow, and in that of Holy Rood expressly bestows on the new monastery all the skins of the rams, ewes, and lambs belonging to his Castle of Linlitcu which shall die during the year.

The convenience afforded for the sport of falconry, which was so great a favourite during the feudal ages, was probably one cause of an attachment of the ancient Scottish monarchs to Linlithgow, and its fine lake. The sport of hunting was also followed with success in the neighbourhood, from which circumstance it probably arises that the ancient arms of the city represent a black greyhound-bitch tied to a tree. Tradition, however, ascribes other causes for this remarkable emblem, but is, as usual, rather inconsistent in accounting for it otherwise. One legend says simply, that such a hound was found so tied on the small island on the east side of the loch. Another tradition hints at a witch who used to assume this shape. A third more ungallantly adopts a metaphorical meaning, and affirms that a mistress of one of the kings was designated under this hieroglyphic. A Celt, according to Chalmers, might plausibly derive the name of Linlithgow from _Lin-liath-cu_, the Lake of the Greyhound. Chalmers himself, seems to prefer the Gothic derivation of _Lin-lyth-gow_, or the Lake of the Great Vale. _Non nostrum est._

The Castle of Linlithgow is only mentioned as being a peel (a pile, that is, an embattled tower surrounded by an outwork). In 1300 it was rebuilt or repaired by Edward I., and used as one of the citadels by which he hoped to maintain his usurped dominion in Scotland. It is described by Barbour as “meihle and stark and stuffed weel.” Piers Luband, a Gascoigne knight, was appointed the keeper, and appears to have remained there until the autumn of 1313, when the Scots recovered the Castle under the following interesting circumstances:--

There was, says our authority, Barbour, dwelling in the neighbourhood of Linlithgow, a stout-hearted husbandman, named William Binnock, who, observing that the Scots were on every hand recovering from the English the castles and fortresses which the invaders possessed within Scotland, could not brook that the peel in his vicinity, which was large, strong, and well supplied with arms and garrisons, should remain unassailed. He formed a stratagem, equally remarkable for ingenuity and audacity. The garrison was usually supplied by Binnock with hay, and they had lately required from him a fresh supply. He assured them of the excellence of the forage, and undertook to send it in early in the morning. But the hay was so arranged on the wain as to conceal eight well-armed and determined men; the team was driven by a sturdy peasant, who bore a sharp axe under his gaberdion. Binnock himself walked beside the waggon, to superintend, as it seemed, the safe delivery of the forage. The porter, on approach of Binnock, with his well-known wain, lowered the drawbridge and raised the portcullis. Just at the very gateway, the driver, as he had been instructed, drew his axe suddenly and cut asunder the soam, or tackle, by which the oxen were attached to the waggon. Binnock at the same instant struck the warder dead, and shouted the signal word, which was “Call all, call all.” The assailants jumped from amongst the hay, and attacked the astonished garrison. The wain was so placed that neither could the gate be shut nor the portcullis lowered, nor the bridge raised, and a party of Scots, who were in ambush for the purpose, rushed in to second their forlorn hope, and were soon masters of the place.

Bruce, faithful to his usual policy, caused the peel of Linlithgow to be dismantled, and worthily rewarded William Binnock, who had behaved with such gallantry on the occasion. From this bold yeoman the Binnies of West Lothian are proud to trace their descent; and most, if not all of them, bear in their arms something connected with the waggon, which was the instrument of his stratagem.

When times of comparative peace returned, Linlithgow again became the occasional residence of the sovereign. In 1411 the town was burned by accident, and in 1414 was again subjected to the same calamity, together with the Church and Palace of the King, as is expressly mentioned by Bower.

The present Church, which is a fine specimen of Gothic architecture, having a steeple surmounted by an imperial crown, was probably erected soon after that calamity.

The Palace arose from its ashes with greater splendour than before; for the family of Stuart, unhappy in so many respects, were all of them fortunate in their taste for the fine arts, and particularly for that of architecture. The Lordship of Linlithgow was settled as a dowry upon Mary of Gueldres in 1449, and again upon Margaret of Denmark in 1468.

James the Fourth, as splendid a gallant, seems to have founded the most magnificent part of Linlithgow Palace; together with the noble entrance betwixt two flanking towers bearing on rich entablatures the royal arms of Scotland, with the collar of the Order of the Thistle, Garter, and Saint Michael.

James IV., also erected in the Church a throne for himself, and twelve stalls for Knights Companions of the Thistle. It was sitting here, in the time of public worship, and musing, perhaps, on his approaching invasion of England, that he received a singular advice from a singular personage, which we cannot express better than in the words of Pitscottie:--

“At this time the King visited Linlithgow, where he was at the Council, very sad and dolorous, making his prayers to God to send him a good success in his voyage. And there came a man clad in a blue gown, belted about him with a roll of lining, and a pair of _brottikines_ on his feet, and all other things conform thereto. But he had nothing on his head but side hair to his shoulders, and bald before. He seemed to be a man of fifty years, and came fast forwards, crying among the lords, and specially for the King, saying, that he desired to speak with him; while at the last he came to the desk where the King was at prayers. But when he saw the King, he gave him no due reverence nor salutation, but leaned him down gruffly upon the desk, and said, ‘Sir King, my mother has sent me to thee, desiring thee not to go where thou art purposed, which if thou do, thou shalt not fare well in thy journey, nor none that is with thee. Farther, she forbade thee, not to mell nor use the counsel of women, which if thou do, thou wilt be confounded and brought to shame.’ By [_the time_] this man had spoken these words to the King, the even-song was near done, and the King paused on these words, studying to him an answer. But in the meantime, before the King’s eyes, and in presence of the whole lords that were about him for the time, this man evanished away, and could no more be seen. I heard Sir David Lindsay, Lyon-herald, and John Inglis, the Marishall, who were at that time young men and special servants to the King’s grace, thought to have taken this man, but they could not, that they might have speired [_asked_] further tidings at him, but they could not touch him.”

Buchanan confirms this strange story on the word of a spectator, Sir David Lindsay, whose testimony he describes as unimpeachable. Thus supported, we have only to choose betwixt a deception and a supernatural appearance. The temper of James was one of those described by the poet as being “of imagination all compact.” He was amorous, devotional, and chivalrous. This renders it highly probable that the simulated vision was contrived by some of the numerous party who advised a continuance of peace with England, and who might be of opinion that counsels conveyed in this mysterious manner might have some effect on the romantic spirit of the King. It is usually supposed that the vision was intended to represent Saint Andrew; but the use of the words, “my mother,” seem rather to imply the Apostle John, who indicated by that term the Virgin Mary.

The death of James IV. and rout of his army clouded for many a day the glory of Scotland, and marred the mirth of her palaces.

James V. was much attached to Linlithgow, and added to the Palace both the Chapel and Parliament Hall, the last of which is peculiarly striking. So that when he brought his bride Mary of Guise there, amid the festivities which accompanied their wedding, she might have more reasons than mere complaisance for highly commending the edifice, and saying that she never saw a more princely palace. It was long her residence, and that of her royal husband, at Linlithgow. Mary was born there in an apartment still shown; and the ill-fated father dying within a few days of that event, left the ominous diadem which he wore to the still more unfortunate infant.

It is remarkable that during this reign there was acted at Linlithgow, in presence of the King, Queen, and whole court, and, so far as appears, with great applause, a play, or theatrical presentation, by Sir David Lindsay, called the _Satire of the Three Estates_, in which much coarse and indelicate farce and buffoonery is intermixed with the most pointed censure upon the affairs both of church and state. The comic mummery was undoubtedly thrown in with the purpose of Rabelais, to mitigate the edge of the satire, by representing the whole as matter of idle and extravagant mirth. But when the serious and direct tenor of the piece is considered, no one can doubt that the Prince before whom it was acted, and by whom it seems to have been well received, meditated reforms both in church and state, however diverted from them by the arts of the churchmen.

In the subsequent reign of Queen Mary, Linlithgow was the scene of several remarkable events; the most interesting of which was the assassination of the Regent Murray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. This James VI. loved the royal residence of Linlithgow, and completed the original plan of the Palace, closing the great square by a stately range of apartments of great architectural beauty. He also made a magnificent fountain in the Palace-yard, now ruinous, as are all the buildings around. Another grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the street of the town, which, with the number of fine springs, leads to the popular rhyme:

_Linlithgow for wells,
Stirling for bells._

Among the attendants of James the Sixth was a distinguished personage of a class which may be found in most places of public resort. This was the celebrated Rob Gibb, the king’s fool or jester. Fool as he was, Rob Gibb seems to have understood his own interest. Upon one occasion it pleased his sapient Majesty King Jamie to instal Rob in his own royal chair, the sport being to see how he would demean himself as sovereign. The courtiers entered into the king’s humour, overwhelming Rob Gibb with petitions for places, pensions, and benefices, not sorry perhaps to have an opportunity of hinting, in the presence of the real sovereign, secret hopes and wishes, which they might have no other opportunity of expressing. But Rob Gibb sternly repelled the whole supplicants together, as a set of unmercifully greedy sycophants, who followed their worthy king only to see what they could make of him. “Get ye hence, ye covetous selfish loons,” he exclaimed, “and bring to me my own dear and trusty servant, Rob Gibb, that I may honour the only one of my court who serves me for stark love and kindness.” It would not have been unlike King Jamie to have answered, “that he was but a fool, and knew no better.”

Rob’s presence of mind did not go unrewarded; for either on this or some future occasion, he was in such “good foolery” as to get a grant of a small estate in the vicinity of the burgh.

When the sceptre passed from Scotland, oblivion sat down in the halls of Linlithgow; but her absolute desolation was reserved for the memorable era of 1745–6 About the middle of January in that year, General Hawley marched at the head of a strong army to raise the siege of Stirling, then pressed by the Highland insurgents under the adventurous Charles Edward. The English general had expressed considerable contempt of his enemy, who, he affirmed, would not stand a charge of cavalry. On the night of the 17th he returned to Linlithgow, with all the marks of defeat, having burned his tents, and left his artillery and baggage. His disordered troops were quartered in the Palace, and began to make such great fires on the hearth as to endanger the safety of the edifice. A lady of the Livingston family who had apartments there, remonstrated with General Hawley, who treated her fears with contempt. “I can run away from fire as fast as you can, General,” answered the high-spirited dame, and with this sarcasm took horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions were realized; the Palace of Linlithgow caught fire, and was burned to the ground. The ruins alone remain to show its former splendour.

The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beautiful. It stands on a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost into the midst of the lake. The form is that of a square court, composed of buildings of four stories high, with towers at the angles. The fronts within the square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the rooms, as well as the width and character of the staircases, are upon a magnificent scale. One banquet-room is ninety-four feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty-three feet high, with a gallery for music. The King’s wardrobe, or dressing-room, looking to the west, projects over the walls so as to have a delicious prospect on three sides, and is one of the most enviable boudoirs we have ever seen.

There were two main entrances to Linlithgow Palace. That from the south ascends rather steeply from the town, and passes through a striking Gothic archway, flanked by two round towers. The portal has been richly adorned by sculpture, in which can be traced the arms of Scotland with the collars of the Thistle, the Garter, and Saint Michael. This was the work of James V., and is in a most beautiful character.