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.

[Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE, WALES.]

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_

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration: THE DUCAL PALACE]

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.