PENSHURST! How many, and how glorious, are the associations connected with this ancient house—“the seat of the Sidneys!” Every great name, memorable in the Augustan age of England, is linked with it for ever; while its venerable aspect, the solemnity of surrounding shades, the primitive character of the vicinity, together with its isolated position—far away from the haunts of busy men—are in perfect harmony with the memories it awakens. Here lived the earliest and bravest of the Anglo-Norman Knights. Here dwelt the ill-fated Bohuns—the three unhappy Dukes of Buckingham, who perished in succession—one in the field, and two on the scaffold. And here flourished the Sidneys! Here, during his few brief years of absence from turmoil in the turbulent countries of Ireland and Wales, resided the elder Sidney, Sir Henry, who, although his fame has been eclipsed by the more dazzling reputation of his gallant son, was in all respects good as well as great—a good soldier, a good subject, a good master, and a good counsellor and actor, under circumstances peculiarly perilous. This is the birth-place of “the darling of his time,” the “chiefest jewel of a crown,” the “diamond of the Court of Queen Elizabeth.” Here, too, was born, and here was interred the mutilated body of, the “later Sidney;” he who had “set up Marcus Brutus for his pattern,” and perished on the scaffold—a martyr for what he called “the good old cause,” one of the many victims of the meanest and worst of his race. With the memories of these three marvellous men—the Sidneys, Henry, Philip, and Algernon—are closely blended those of the Worthies of the two most remarkable Eras in English History. Who can speak of Penshurst without thinking of Spenser!

of Shakspere—of Ben Jonson, the laureate of the Place—of Raleigh, the “friend and frequent guest”—of Broke, whose proudest boast is recorded on his tomb, that he was “the servant of Queen Elizabeth, the Counsellor of King James, and THE FRIEND of Sir Philip Sidney”—of the many other immortal men, who made the reign of Elizabeth the glory of all Time!

Reverting to a period less remote, who can think of Penshurst without speaking of the high spirits of a troubled age?—

Although its glory is of the past, and nearly two centuries have intervened between the latest record of its greatness and its present state,—although it has been silent all that time,—a solemn silence broken only by the false love-note of an unworthy minstrel, for the names of “Waller and Sacharissa” dishonour rather than glorify its gray walls—who does not turn to Penshurst as to a refreshing fountain by the wayside of wearying History?

Penshurst—“the seat of the Sidneys”—adjoins the village to which it gives a name. It is situated in the weald of Kent, nearly six miles south-west of Tonbridge, and about

thirty miles from London. The neighbourhood is remarkably primitive. As an example of the prevailing character of the houses, we have copied a group that stands at the entrance to the Church-yard—a small cluster of quiet cottages, behind which repose the rude forefathers of the Hamlet, with brave Knights of imperishable names; and facing which, is an Elm of prodigious size and age, that has seen generations after generations flourish and decay. The sluggish Medway creeps lazily round the Park, which consists of about 400 acres, finely wooded, and happily diversified with hill and dale. A double row of Beech-trees of some extent, preserves the name of “Sacharissa’s Walk;” and a venerable Oak, the trunk of which is hollowed by Time, is pointed out as the veritable tree that was planted on the day of Sir Philip’s birth; of which Rare Ben Jonson thus writes,—

—to which Waller makes reference as “the sacred mark of noble Sidney’s birth;” concerning which Southey also has some lines; and from which a host of lesser Poets have drawn inspiration.

Until within the last twenty or thirty years, the house was in a sadly dilapidated state. Its utter ruin, indeed, appeared a settled thing, until the present proprietor, Lord De L’Isle, set himself to the task of its restoration. It is now rapidly assuming its ancient character—a combination of several styles of architecture, in which the Tudor predominates. One of Mr. Hoarding’s drawings represents it “under repair,” as it now is; the other gives a view of the Mansion, from the principal approach, through the Park. In the first, the back-entrance to the Hall is seen between two rude buttresses, and the roof of the Hall is shown above the broken wall. Opposite, is the old Court-yard Bell, which bears the date of 1649. It is supported on a wooden frame, richly covered with ivy. A print of it forms the Initial Letter to this History. In Mr. Harding’s second view is exhibited the West Front, the north front being seen in quick perspective; on the left, is “Sir Henry’s Tower,” containing his arms, and an inscription stating that he was Lord Deputie General of the Realm of Ireland in 1579. This Tower terminates the north wing, the only part of the building as yet completely restored. In the north wing is the principal entrance, by an ancient gateway leading through one of the smaller Courts to the great Hall. Over this Gateway is an antique Slab, setting forth that “The most religious and renowned Prince, Edward the Sixt, kinge of England, France and Irelande, gave this house of Pencestre, with the Manors, landes and appurtenaynces therunto belonginge unto his trustye and well beloved servant syr William Sidney, Knight Banneret.”

The Exterior of the Mansion is, however, an assemblage of erections of various times, and furnishes some examples of singular incongruity. But the “restorations” are proceeding

in good taste and with sound judgment; and the Seat of the Sidneys will, in the course of a few years, regain its rank as one of the finest and most extensive edifices of the County of Kent.

The Interior is also in progressive improvement; but the new and the old are at present awkwardly and ungracefully mingled. The “Hall” is still comparatively untouched, and the more interesting of its characteristic features are in no peril of further destruction; the business of the architect being limited to repairing the inroads of time. The pointed timber Roof, upon which the slates are laid, is supported by a series of grotesque figures (corbels), each the size of life. The Screen of the Gallery is richly carved and panelled. The Gallery—“the Minstrels’ Gallery”—fills the side opposite the Dais. The Gothic Windows are narrow and lofty. Every object calls to mind and illustrates a Feudal age. The oak Tables, on which retainers feasted, still occupy the Hall; in its centre are the huge Dogs, (pictured on the preceding page), in an octagonal enclosure, beneath the louvre, or lanthorn, in the Roof, which formerly

permitted egress to the smoke. A stone Staircase (indicated in the appended print) leads from the Hall to the Picture Gallery and the State Apartments. They are filled with family Portraits, all of which possess considerable interest, although few are of much worth. Among them are several of Sir Philip and Algernon Sidney; one of Sir Philip’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke, to whom he addressed the “Arcadia,” and who is immortalised by Ben Jonson in his famous Epitaph to “the subject of all verse;” and one, by Lely, of the “Sacharissa” of the muse of Waller. A small Chamber in the Mansion contains, however, a few treasures of rarer value than all its copies of “fair women and brave men.” Among some curious family relics and records, is a lock of Sir Philip Sidney’s hair; it is of a pale auburn. A lock of the hair of the ill-fated Algernon is also with it; in tint it nearly resembles that of his illustrious great uncle.

But “Penshurst Place” is interesting chiefly because of its associations; and these are indeed of a high order. Our history of the family is, necessarily, brief. Until the reign of Edward the Sixth, the Manor of Peneshurste[62] had received a rapid succession of lords. In the reign of Edward the First, it was in the possession of Sir Stephen de Peneshurste, or Pencestre—“a very learned man,” according to Harris, and a “famous warden of the Cinque Ports.” In that of Edward the Second, it was the property of Sir John de Pulteney, who “had licence to embattle it,”—and who was four times Lord Mayor of London. In that of Richard the Second, it was sold to the Regent Duke of Bedford. On his death, his brother, “the good Duke Humphrey,” inherited; and on his death—by murder, at Bury, in 1446—the estate reverted to the Crown, and was granted by Henry the Sixth to his kinsman, Humphrey de Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. In his family it remained until the reign of Henry the Eighth, when, by the attainder of Edward Duke of Buckingham, it fell again to the Crown. By Edward the Sixth, it was given to Sir Ralph Fane; but on his execution, as an accomplice of the Protector Somerset, it was by letters patent granted to Sir William Sidney (one of the heroes of Flodden Field) and his heirs—Sir William being lineally descended from Sir William Sidney, Knight, Chamberlain to the Second Henry, “With whom he came out of Anjou.” In 1553, his son, Sir Henry, inherited. Sir Henry was from infancy bred at Court, being “a companion, and many times a bedfellow,” to the young Prince, afterwards Edward the Sixth, by whom he was knighted. He was twice Lord Deputy of Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth—a period of trouble and continual danger; during which he discharged his duty as an energetic soldier, a sound practical reformer, and a merciful man. The Historians of his time describe him as “of a very public spirit, of great abilities, modest, pious, and patient; and in his younger years, for comeliness and beauty, the ornament of the Court.”

Sir Philip Sidney—styled “the Incomparable”—was his eldest son; and at Penshurst he was born, on the 29th of November, 1554. His life was one scene of romance from its commencement to its close. His early years were spent in travel; and on his return, he was married to the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, a lady of many accomplishments, and of “extraordinary handsomeness;” but his heart was given to another. The Lady Penelope Devereux won it, and kept it until he fell on the field of Zutphen. Family regards had forbad their marriage; but she was united to the immortal part of him, and that contract has not been yet dissolved. She is still the Philoclea of the “Arcadia,” and Stella in the Poems of Astrophel. It is unnecessary to follow, in detail, the course of Sir Philip Sidney’s life. There is no strange inconsistency to reason off, no stain to clear, no blame to talk away. We describe it when we name his accomplishments. We remember it as we would a dream of uninterrupted glory. His learning, his beauty, his chivalry, his grace, shed a lustre on the most glorious reign recorded in the English annals. England herself, “by reason of the wide-spread fame of Sir Philip Sidney,” rose exalted in the eyes of foreign nations. He was the idol, the darling, of his own. For, with every sort of power at his command, it was his creed to think all vain but affection and honour, and to hold the simplest and cheapest pleasures the truest and most precious. The only displeasure he ever incurred at Court, was when he vindicated the rights and independence of English Commoners in his own gallant person, against the arrogance of English Nobles in the person of the Earl of Oxford. For a time, then, he retired from the Court, and sought rest in his loved simplicity. He went to Wilton; and there, for the amusement of his dear sister, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, he wrote the “Arcadia,” between the years 1579 and 1581.[63] Again, however, he returned to Court, and his Queen seized every opportunity to do him honour. He received her smiles with the same high and manly gallantry, the same plain and simple boldness, with which he had taken her frowns. In the end, Elizabeth—who, to preserve this “jewel of her crown,” had forcibly laid hands on him when he projected a voyage to America with Sir Francis Drake, and laid her veto on his quitting England, when he was offered the crown of Poland—could not restrain his bravery in battle, when circumstances called him there. At Zutphen, on the 22nd of September, 1586, he received a mortal wound.[64]

We may place implicit faith in the testimony of all the contemporaries of Sir Philip Sidney—and by all of them he is described as very near perfection; their praises must have been as sincere as they were hearty; for his fortune was too poor to furnish him with the means to purchase them with other than gifts of kindly zeal, affectionate sympathy, cordial advice, and generous recommendations to more prosperous men. From Spenser himself we learn, that Sidney

In his dedication of the “Ruins of Time” to Sidney’s sister, he speaks of her brother as “the Hope of all learned men, and the Patron of my young Muse.”—“He was,” writes Camden, the great glory of his family, the great hope of mankind, the most lively pattern of virtue, and the darling of the learned world.” Sir Philip dying without issue, he was succeeded by his brother, Sir Robert, created Lord Sidney of Penshurst, and afterwards Earl of Leicester, by James I. He died at Penshurst in July 1626, and was succeeded by his son, Robert. “Though never of their faction,” he remained in retirement at Penshurst during the domination of the Parliament and the rule of the Protector, and died there in November 1677, in the 82nd year of his age. His eldest son succeeded to the title and estates, and lived in troubled times the life of an easy gentleman. Not so the second son—the famous scion of the Sidneys, whose name is scarcely less renowned in history than that of his great-uncle, Sir Philip. Algernon Sidney was born at Penshurst in 1621. He had scarcely reached the age of manhood when he was called upon to play his part in the mighty drama then acting before the

world. He joined the Parliament, and became a busy soldier—serving with repute in Ireland, where he was “sometime Lieut.-General of the Horse, and Governor of Dublin”—until Cromwell assumed the position of a sovereign, when Sidney retired in disgust to the family seat in Kent, and began to write his celebrated “Discourses on Government.” At the Restoration, he was abroad, and “being so noted a republican,” thought it unsafe to return to England; for seventeen years after this event he was a wanderer throughout Europe,—suffering severe privations—“exposed (according to his own words) to all those troubles, inconveniences, and mischiefs, unto which they are liable who have nothing to subsist upon, in a place farre from home, wheare no assistance can possibly be expected, and wheare I am known to be of a quality which makes all lowe and meane wayes of living shamefull and detestible.” The school of adversity failed to subdue the proud spirit of the republican; and on his return to his native country—in 1677—at the entreaty of his father, who “desired to see him before he died,” the “later Sidney” became a marked man, whom the depraved Charles and his minions were resolved to sacrifice. He was accused of high-treason—implicated in the notorious Rye-house plot—carried through a form of trial on the 21st of November—and beheaded on Tower-hill on the 7th December, 1683.

Philip, Algernon’s brother, the third Earl, died in 1696. Three of his grandsons were successively Earls of Leicester. Jocelyn, the last Earl of this family, died in 1743, leaving no legitimate issue. His next brother, who died before him, had however two daughters, to whom the estate devolved as coheiresses, after a long course of litigation with a natural daughter of the late Earl. In the division of the property, Penshurst

Place was allotted to the youngest, Elizabeth, who was married to William Perry, Esq., of Turvile Park, Buckinghamshire. After the death of her sister, Lady Sherrard, Mrs. Perry was enabled, by purchase, to re-unite a part of her moiety to the Penshurst estate. This Mrs. Elizabeth Perry had an only son—Algernon Perry Sidney—who died in his mother’s life-time, but left two daughters; the eldest, Elizabeth, was married to Bysshe Shelley, Esq.; their son, John Shelley Sidney, inherited Penshurst and the manors and estates in Kent; he was created a Baronet in 1818; and his son, who married one of the daughters of his late Majesty William the Fourth, was elevated to the Peerage, by the title of Lord De L’Isle and Dudley, in 1835.

Consequently, Penshurst, “the seat of the Sidneys,” is now the inheritance of a very remote branch of the illustrious family.

The Church at Penshurst is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It immediately adjoins the Park; and is connected, by a private walk, with the garden of the Mansion. It is an ancient and very venerable structure, containing many monuments to the Sidneys,

and to members of the families of Draynowt, Cambridge, Egerton, Head, Darkenol, Pawle, and Yden. The most interesting and beautifully wrought of the tombs is to the memory of Sir William Sidney, Knight Banneret, Chamberlain and Steward to Edward the VIth, and Lord of the Manor of Peneshurste, who died in 1553. It stands in a small chapel at the west end of the chancel, and at the foot of the tomb is a very antique figure, carved in marble, supposed to be a memorial to Sir Stephen de Pencestre. Below, is the vault which contains the dust of generations of the Sidneys. Sir William Sidney’s monument is a fine example of art, elaborately and delicately sculptured; it contains a long inscription, engraved on a brass tablet, the lettering in which is as clear and as sharp as if it were the work of yesterday. The roof of this Chapel is peculiarly light and elegant. In both the exterior and interior the Church is highly picturesque. The oak gallery is one of the earliest erections of the kind that followed the Reformation. In our view of the exterior is introduced the entrance to the Sidney vault—a modern addition to the Church.

In all respects, therefore, a visit to Penshurst—now, by railroad, within an hour’s distance of the Metropolis—may be described as a rare intellectual treat; opening a full and brilliant page of history, abundant in sources of profitable enjoyment to the Antiquary, affording a large recompense to the lover, or the professor, of Art, and exhibiting Nature under a vast variety of seductive aspects.