Kenna's Kingdom: a Ramble Though Kingly Kensington
Brown, R. Weir
1881
CHAPTER VII. KENSINGTON HOUSE and KENSINGTON SQUARE.
CHAPTER VII. KENSINGTON HOUSE and KENSINGTON SQUARE.
WE had not long left and were walking along quickly, with a mind full of the sad story of Margaret Gardiner, of the frivolities of , the narrow-mindedness of Wilberforce, and the culinary talent of Soyer, when the heavy thud of the mason's hammer, and the chip, chip of the cold chisel fell on our ears, and, looking up, we beheld the evil fairybricks-and-mortar-hard at work again. Having knocked down poor old Kensington and Colby Houses, she was now engaged in rearing on their site a structure, so stupendous and palatial, as almost to make us forget that she was an evil fairy at all. | |
144 | Yes; the two old houses were gone; scarce anything remained of them but a part of the wall; and we feel it but right to pause in our wanderings and sing a pean over their departed glories, before the great, new mansion should have completely crushed all vestiges of its predecessors under its heel. There was a great deal of historic moss that used to cluster over the two old dwellings; and it is pleasant to remember that historic moss will continue green, long after the buildings which have given birth to it have rotted away. The shadows of the beautiful Duchess who lived at in the reign of George the First, of her neighbour-the old miser-at Colby House, of the worthy pedagogue, friend of the great lexicographer, of the unfortunate heir to the crown of France, and of the talented novelist and authoress, will flit about the old spot for many a year to come, until the new house has grown old and has historical memories of its own. |
The beautiful Duchess was Louise de Querouaille, mistress of Charles the Second, around whom, notwithstanding her baby face and luxurious beauty, hang many dark state secrets. Louis the Fourteenth | |
145 | and our merry monarch had entered into a bargain. Charles sold himself, his religion, and his country to Louis; and Louis agreed to pay Charles an annual salary. England was to become Roman Catholic and aid the French king in subduing the Protestant Dutch; and the Grand Monarque was to pay the money regularly, and send over French soldiers in case any Englishmen were stupid enough to object to the arrangement. Louis evidently thought he had the best of the bargain, and he actually threw in a French mistress, gratis, so that Charles might not repent, and think the terms too hard. This French beauty was Louise de Querouaille. She did not live in then. It does not, in fact, appear to have been built till the time of William the Third. But when Charles was dead, and his brother had been driven from the English throne for attempting to carry out similar propositions to those contained in the French compact, Madame Louise, now Duchess of Portsmouth, paid occasional visits to this country, and, in the reign of George the First, actually put in a claim for a pension from the English Government. The old miser, Sir Thomas Colby, may have |
146 | been her neighbour, for Colby House was built in . How Sir Thomas must have glared at the pretty baby-face looking out of the neighbouring window, as he thought of any of his much coveted money, which he had been obliged to part with in the shape of taxes, being bestowed on her. Colby died in a very characteristic manner. In the middle of one night the baronet recollected that he had left the keys of the wine cellar on the table. Visions of his servants running off with a bottle of his port wine rose before his eyes, and he was not satisfied until he had gone down stairs and returned with the key in safety. But he was unwell at the time and the exposure to the night air caused his death. He died without a will, and his large fortune, over two hundred thousand pounds, was shared among his nearest relations, who were day labourers. But to return to . In Dr. Johnson's time it was inhabited by his friend, the worthy old schoolmaster, James Elphinstone. Johnson seems to have been there pretty often himself, and some of his fierce bearish retorts, recorded by Boswell, were uttered there. Elphinstone was successful in his school, but |
147 | his attempts to appear in print were not so prosperous. He published a translation of some Latin epigrams, which Garrick said was more difficult to understand than the original. One of his hobbies was the reformation of spelling on the phonetic principle, but mankind could not be brought to spell cat with a k; and his works on this subject, though decidedly better than the epigrams, have long ago been forgotten. |
Mr. Elphinstone is almost forgotten too, and the French Jesuits' School which succeeded his academy has more interesting memories for us. Very different were the Jesuitical schoolmasters from the worthy translator of epigrams. The orator Shiel describes the head of the establishment as a little slender, and gracefully constructed Abbe, with irreproachably fitting clothes, silk waistcoat, black stockings, small shoes buckled with silver, and a smile made up of guile and weakness. As might have been guessed from his whole manner, and, above all, perhaps, from his sloping forehead, he was one of the old French noblesse-Monsieur le Prince de Broglie. Most of the pupils were sons of the unfortunate French refugees who had fled from their country during the horrors of | |
148 | the Reign of Terror; some were the children of French West Indian planters. Both these Creoles and their companions, differ as they might on other subjects, agreed at least on one point, hatred towards England. Nothing could exceed the patriotic rapture of the sons of the French nobles when they heard of some fresh victory obtained by France, the country that had beheaded their fathers, or driven them into exile, over England, the country that had given them shelter. Charles the Tenth, or " Monsieur," as he was then called, visited , and the Duke de Grammont and many other noblemen were among its pupils. But we must linger no longer with the French emigrant school, nor can we do more than mention Mrs. Inchbald, authoress, actress, and a really good woman, who lived there when the house had been turned into a Catholic boarding establishment, where the Archbishop of Jerusalem performed mass. Mrs. Inchbald lived at other houses in the neighbourhood, and was buried in the churchyard. in speaking of which we shall have to mention her again. |
We can scarcely regret the downfall of Kensington | |
149 |
and Colby Houses, for with them the" Rookeries," that
unfathomable abode of misery and vice, has gone
too. It was traditionally said to have been tenanted
by the remains of the population of Saint Giles's,
expelled from their old haunts by the march of civilization. And now they have once more been driven
out, like the wild Indians of North America; perhaps,
like them, to meet at last with extermination amid
the march of improvement. Farewell then, Kensington and Colby Houses! How often have we
passed them unheeded, and now that they have gone
for ever, we look back on them regretfully, as on old
friends whom we have scarcely appreciated sufficiently
when they were by our side. All we can do now is
to cherish the old associations that clung about them,
and keep them, a little longer, from falling into blank
forgetfulness.
|
The present high-pressure existence is not very favourable to the proper enjoyment of such recollections, and who is there that, leading a busy, bustling, every day life, does not often long for a pause, a break | |
150 | during which he should have nothing to do but to furbish up old memories, to think of what has been done, and what yet remains to be done, when the myriads of innumerable trifles, which have been put off " until I have time," may be accomplished. |
We fancy that the origin of Squares may be traced to this feeling. Just turn out of the busy high road of Kensington, and take a glance at either of the two which lie on the south side of the high road: and . How silent they seem. How forgetful of the outside world. How wrapt up in themselves. The houses in are just the sort of places for girls' schools-for young ladies, it seems, are like hyacinths, and must remain during the earlier portion of their lives in the dark, in order that they may be the more dazzling and brilliant when once that preliminary period of probation is outlived. Just the sort of houses where dwell crammers, mysterious beings, who soak Latin, Greek, and mathematics into the heads of aspirants for civil and military honours ; dread men these, who laugh in their sleeves at examiners and commissioners, and who turn out suc | |
151 | cessful candidates as biscuits are turned out at Huntly and Palmer's manufactory. The old Square looks stolidly on all the changes which it has undergone; and they are many. A very old Square; report says it was commenced in the reign of James the Second; and Covent Garden market, said to be the oldest of London squares, was only built a half century earlier. Of course it has been repaired, and partially rebuilt since then, but some of the houses are still very old. |
Let us then drift back a couple of centuries and we shall find that the Square, though in an unfinished state, is crowded with fashionable company. The ladies are in rich dresses, and looped-up skirts, sleeves tight to the elbow, and large turned-back cuffs, long gloves, and lace ruffles; the hair towering above to a height of a foot or more, ornamented with ribbons and lace. The gentlemen in long waistcoats and tights, big wigs, hats with turned up brims, rosetted or buckled shoes. | |
Foremost among the fair sex stands the " famous beauty and errant lady" Hortensia Mancini, niece of the celebrated cardinal, with her babyish, voluptuous face. When Charles the Second was an exile on the | |
152 | continent, he had offered her his hand in marriage. But the fortunes of the Stuarts were at a low ebb, the power of Mazarin was great, and the Cardinal had modestly declined the offer. Hortensia married, became very rich, and very unhappy, deserted her husband, or was abandoned by him; came to England penniless, and is now living as the mistress of the man who had once offered her his hand. Charles presented her with a pension of four thousand a year, which-she accepted. |
Among the gentlemen are St. Evremond, satirical, lively, and amusing; Sidney Godolphin, who was "never in the way, and yet never out of the way." He and Hortensia would get on well together, for they had at least one taste in common-that of cardplaying. But those who sought the favour of the Duchess of Mazarin, had to endure her frowns as well as enjoy her smiles. Her temper was naturally uncertain, and she probably rendered it worse by too great devotion to the great whiskey-god usquebaugh. She did not die in Kensington, but in a small house in Paradise Row, Chelsea. A few years later and we meet Sir Richard Blackmore, physician and | |
153 | poet. We scarcely ever hear the name now-a-days, yet Johnson, in his" Lives of the Poets," allots a larger space to the biography of Blackmore, than to that of Gray! Certainly if poetry were to be measured by quantity, Sir Richard has a decided advantage over the author of the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard -heroic poems in ten and twelve books, philosophical ones in six or seven, poems on sacred subjects, on the "Redemption," the "Creation," and the "Nature of Man," and such odd trifles as " Poetical Advice to a Weaver of Tapestry !" Not content with poetry, he tried prose-religious essays, a philosophical literary magazine, works on small pox, gout, rheumatism, the king's evil-in short, on every ill that man endures; works on contemporary history, on natural theology, on the Book of Job, a Satire on Wit, a new version of the Psalms, and an essay on Divine eloquence! Where are all these works now? Were they, it maybe asked so very poor? Poor, undoubtedly, but not worse than volume after volume of prose and rhyme, which issues daily from the London presses. The wits of that age were very severe upon Sir Richard, and yet the greatest aspersions that they could cast upon his moral cha |
154 | racter were that he had once been a schoolmaster, and that he lived in the city. Pity, perhaps, that so good a man should have spent a life in covering paper with what none would read. His heroic poem on Prince Arthur, does not seem to us quite so black as it has been painted, and says something for his taste that he should have chosen the same subject which had so great an attraction for Milton, and which has been made the groundwork of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." |
In the medical profession Blackmore obtained considerable reputation, and it was probably his appointment as Court-physician to William the Third, that made him choose for a residence. Bishop Hough lived in the Square for several years, and it is an honour to Kensington to have such a name on its visitors' list. | |
In the troubled times of , when the bigoted James the Second was busily engaged in his plan to convert Protestant England into a Roman Catholic kingdom, Hough was elected President of Magdalene College, Oxford. The High Commission Court, in obedience to the King's wishes, pronounced Hough's | |
155 | election to be illegal, and a royal letter shortly afterwards arrived recommending Parker, Bishop of Oxford,. a concealed Papist, and an avowed favourer of the Court measures, to the vacant place. Magdalene College rose in arms, all Oxford blazed with indignation. The royal mandate was disobeyed. At last Special Ecclesiastical Commissioners were sent to Oxford. Hough was ejected, Parker was installed in his place. The Fellows of the College proved refractory; they were dismissed, and probably no single act of James's reign, with the exception of the Trial of the Seven Bishops, was more damaging to his cause. When the Prince of Orange passed through Oxford in the following year, the magistrates of the town came in state to welcome him, and the College offered to coin their plate for his service. The revolution was accomplished. Dr. Hough became Bishop of Oxford, and lived in ease and affluence until the advanced age of ninety-three. |
Besides Dr. Hough, can boast of two other Bishops: Mawson, Bishop of Ely, who occupied the house at the south west corner, and who died there in , and Herring, Bishop of Bangor | |
156 | afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. The latter resided in the south east corner, in a house which was afterwards occupied by the celebrated Tallyerand, churchman and diplomatist, and who, we are told, paid his bills regularly, a practice for which he cannot be too highly honoured. |
The summit of prosperity was attained by the Square long before the time of the French statesman. Faulkner tells us that in the reign of George the Second, the demand for lodgings there was so great that an ambassador, a bishop, and a physician have been known to occupy apartments in the same hous e and that upwards of forty carriages were kept in and about the neighbourhood. | |
Most of our fellow ramblers will remember that it was in that Thackeray's " Esmond had the honour of entertaining the old Pretender. They will call to mind the dinner party, and the guests: Captain and Mrs. Steele, who drove to Kensington "from their country house at Hampton Wick," Lieutenant-General Webb, Esmond's kind patron and commander; St. John, the great Tory miuister; the Duke of Hamilton, who so nearly made Beatrice a | |
157 | Duchess; and the Duchess of Ormond; and last, Esmond's kind, good mistress, and that bewitching and heartless coquette Beatrice Esmond himself had a lodging at Kensington, near the Square. |
Shall we recall the fearful treason that was hatched there, and how the plot was defeated by the very man whom it was intended to make a king; how Esmond spent one night at the Greyhound tavern in an agony of love-sick fear; how the great Jacobite meeting was held at the King's Arms; out of the window of which Green and the barracks could plainly be seen, and how from that window the baulked conspirators saw the staunch Whig soldiers of Argyll's old regiment take the place of Ormond's Tory-led Guards, and how, in consequence of this and other matters, the plot failed, and came to the throne-most of which is unhistoric and untrue, but is, nevertheless, as familiar to us as the historical and truthful account of good 's accession. | |
The old Square has a musty appearance now, and there is but little to remind one of its departed glories. So we wave it an unregretful adieu, and once more entering High Street, pass on until we arrive at Earl's | |
158 | Terrace, at the back of which stands what is called in Knight's "London" a delicious square, known as Edwardes, the family name of Lord Kensington. Its great peculiarity is that the central enclosure is more spacious and better cultivated than the size of the houses would seem to warrant. Garden ground near London costs money, and landlords are not usually anxious to leave much of their property in advantageous situations uncovered with interest-paying brick and mortar. Tradition says that was the work of a Frenchman, that he existed about the commencement of the present century, and that he built the square with a view to the time when the British Isles would form part of La Grande Empire which Napoleon was forming, and when French tastes and French incomes would rule the market. Leigh Hunt, in his old Court Suburb, tells us that Coleridge once had lodgings in the square, and this seems very probable. If so, it is the only great name of which the square can boast, for the houses are not big enough to hold ambassadors, politicians, or prelates. |