OF KENILWORTH.] DESCENT OF THE CASTLE-ENTRANCE TO GREAT HALL.

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It may be readily imagined that a castle with so many powerful recommendations was not lost sight of by the king and his advisers; and as Prince Henry was in want of a country palace befitting his name and station, that of Kenilworth was at once suggested to him as possessing every requisite for a princely residence. But, independently of that splendour to which it had been raised by the late Earl of Leicester, the castle was strongly associated with the lives and actions of former sovereigns, who had either made it their residence, or the scene of alternate conflict or festivity, from the days of Henry the First to those of Elizabeth. Enhanced by these recommendations, it was an object of ambition with the prince to obtain possession of it, and with this view," affecting it as the noblest and most magnificent thing in the midland

parts of this realm, he made overture by special agents" to Sir Robert Dudley, to purchase the castle and domain for a sum not exceeding fourteen thousand five hundred pounds. This was probably not more than one-fourth of its value; but as the offer came from a quarter where he could expect little favour, and seeing no prospect of his being ever restored to his paternal inheritance, the unfortunate heir was driven to the painful alternative of either disposing of his right for the sum offered, or of provoking by non-compliance the resentment of the court. "Whereupon, in consideration of 14,5007. being paid within the compass of a twelvemonth, certain deeds were sealed and fines levied settling the inheritance thereof."

Having completed the transfer the last hope was abandoned, and Dudley resolved never to return to a country in which he had received such manifest injustice. The conditions were, that three thousand pounds should be paid within a twelvemonth after the ratification of the transfer; but the money, which was to have been remitted to him at Florence in Italy, was lost by the failure of the merchant in whose hands it had been incautiously placed. Of the remaining sum of eleven thousand five hundred, nothing was ever paid; yet on the death of Henry the Prince of Wales, his brother Charles took possession of the castle and manor as heir to his brother, and obtained a grant out of the Exchequer for four thousand pounds to be paid to the Lady Alice, wife of Sir Robert Dudley, in lieu of her jointure, but which was not paid for many years, to the damage of the said lady. It remained thus in the possession of Prince Charles till his accession to the throne: after which, in the first year of his reign, he made a grant of it to Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth, Lord Carey, his eldest son, and Thomas Carey, Esq., in whose hands it continued till

"Teint du sang de son Roi, l'hypocrite Cromwell

Etablit, par degrés, son pouvoir criminel :

Usurpateur habile autant que politique,

De l'état qu'il transforme en une république,

Il renverse à son gré les anciens fondemens."-FASTES BRITANN.

Having then fallen into the hands of Oliver, the castle and manor were divided amongst several of his officers, who paying no respect either to the splendour of the edifice, the richness of the furniture, or the beauty of the landscape in which the castle was embosomed, regarded it only in a pecuniary point of view; and apprehensive, probably, that their tenure was very insecure, made haste to convert every thing available into money. They stript the castle of its princely decorations, cut down the timber, drained the lake, and demolished the very walls for the sake of the materials. They threw open the park and chase, killed and dispersed the deer, and subdivided the whole into distinct farms, the rental of which they continued to receive and appropriate to their own use till the Restoration. These officers were Colonel Hawkesworth, Major Creed, Captain Phipps, Captain Ayres, Captain Smith, Captain Matthews, and four others, of the names of Hope, Palmer, Clark, and Coles. "These new lords of the manor," says the old record of that day, “tyrannize and govern the parish as they list. They pull down and demolish the castle, cut down the king's woods, destroy his parks and chase, and divide the lands into farms amongst themselves and build houses for themselves to dwell in. Hawkesworth seats himself in the gate-house of the castle, and drains the famous pool consisting of several hundred acres of

OF KENILWORTH.]

DESCENT AND PLAN OF THE CASTLE.

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ground. Hope and Palmer enclose a fourth part of the commons called the King's Woods from the inhabitants, and take it as their own free estate. In 1657 these petty lords, attended by some of the inhabitants of the parish,

took a survey and gave in an estimate of all the lands within the liberties of

the said manor, and in the following year, on the fourteenth of June, made their perambulation and went their procession round the bounds of the parish. But, on the twenty-seventh of May, 1660, King Charles the Second came to enjoy his own dominions, and among others the lands and manor of Kenilworth. Hereupon these soldiers soon scampered away, when the daughters of Lord Carey, Earl of Monmouth, intercede and prevail to hold that said manor, as their father before them, by lease or leases from the crown." But this having nearly expired, he granted the reversion of the whole manor to Laurence Lord Hyde, second son to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, whom he created Baron Kenilworth and Earl of Rochester. On the death of this nobleman in 1711, he was succeeded in his estates and titles by Henry his only son, who, at the death of Edward the third Earl of Clarendon in 1723, succeeded to that title also. But leaving no male issue at his decease in 1753, his granddaughter, the lady Charlotte Capel-daughter of William Capel, Earl of Essex, and the lady Jane Hyde his wife, then dead-became the representative of the Hyde family, and, in pursuance of the will of the late earl, took the name and arms of Hyde. This lady married the Honorable Thomas Villiers, second son of the Earl of Jersey, who in 1756 was created by George the Second Baron Hyde of Hindon, in the county of Wilts. He

had the further title of Earl of Clarendon conferred upon him by George the Third, and at his death in 1786, was succeeded by his eldest son the late earl, whose family honours are inherited by his nephew, George William-Frederick