Hollywood Hall. A tale of 1715

Front matter

Edward Emngton at the porch of the Jolly Tapster. P. 12. HOLLYWOOD HALL. A TALE OF 1715. BY JAMES GRANT, AUTHOR OF "THE BOHANCE OF WAE," " AIDE-DE-CAMP," " ABTHUB BLANE," etc. etc. " The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together : our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not ; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues." All's Well that Ends WeU. LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, WAR.NES, & ROUTLEDGE, FARRINGDON STREET; NEW YORK: 56, WALKER STREET. 1859.

Preface

. I have often feared that the preface to a novel resembled the flourish of trumpets which accompanies the order to " draw swords " on a cavalry parade ; but if, according to Shakspeare, a good play needs no epilogue, a good novel needs no preface ; and while it remains for the public to decide upon the good or bad quality of the following pages, some explanation may be necessary. The escape of the Princess Clementina Sobieski is an historical fact, and its details are somewhat similar to those given in the " Memoirs of Charles Lewis Baron de Pollnitz," in the Dublin edition of 1738; while the "Expedition" of Briga dier Macintosh, the capture of Holy Island, and the general events of Forster's insurrection, with most of the personages who figure therein, belong to history.. I have adhered to the latter wherever I could do so, engrafting upon it my own story, which, in many instances, I.have made subservient to the events of the time ; and this is the more necessary, when we remember that there are too many of the reading public whose ideas of the past are solely derived from historical novels. " I heartily despise," says Flint, " the idle declamations which I often hear against romances. Poesv and romance

PREFACE.

. are higher and holier matters of the intellectual world. All noble conceptions, all holy thoughts in the mind, are un doubtedly connected with the qualified love and indulgence of romantic feeling. I have heard many a good soul declaim that he would be glad if there was nothing of romance in the world. I should regard him who could or would destroy the illusions of fancy and of the imagination as I would the evil genius who would destroy foliage and flowers from the trees, and give us but the naked stem." 26, Danube Steeet, Edinburgh, March, 1859. CONTENTS. CHAP. pAGE 1. CHESTEE 1 2. THE INN 7 3. SQUIRE WILLOUGHBY 11 4. THE SINGING-GIRL 19 5. ENGLAND IN 1715 24 6. THE THEEE TALBOTS 30 7. A SERIOUS SCRAPE 36 8. KING GEORGE'S JUSTICES OE THE PEACE 40 9. THE SECEET LETTEE 47 10. THE HALL 50 11.

THE AEDENS 55 12. THE BREAKFAST 59 13. WHICH TREATS OE MT PREVIOUS HISTOEY 64 14. THE PEINCESS CLEMENTINA 72 15 IN WHICH I BEGIN TO DETECT "A GEEEN-EYED monstee" 83 16. A WEEK AFTEE 92 17. STEUGGLES OF THE HEAET 100 18. LUCY 105 19. THE SQUIEE AGAIN Ill 20. IN CHESTEE AGAIN 116 21. THE BEOKEN-CEOSS GANG 120 22. suspicions CONTENTS. VI CHAP. PAGB 23. A HOLE IN THE FLOOR 132 24. I CONSULT SIE LENNAED 141 25. THORLEY CAPTURED 1^6 26. HOPE I52 27. STEANGE DOUBTS 158 28. STRANGEE STILL 163 29. OUE MESSENGER RETURNS 168 30. ADIEU 176 31. ANNA 181 32. THE GREENRIG 187 33. THE CONFERENCE 193 34. WE PROCLAIM THE KING 199 35. AN ALARM 204 36. NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING WON 213 37. THE " LIVELY PEGGIE " 217 38. the "royal anne" 220 39. treachery , 227 40. THE HOLY ISLAND 233 41. THE ATTACK 240 42. the recapture 244 43.

HALT NEAR FENWICK 251 44. CAPTAIN CLAYTON 255 45. THE SHEEPFOLD 259 46. FORSTER EETEEATS 265 47. A STRANGE EENCONTRE 269 48. WE LEAVE ENGLAND ..' 275 49. BRIGADIER MACINTOSH 281 50. OUR SCOTTISH AUXILIARIES 291 51. THE SEVEN HEPBUENS OF KEITH 296 52. WE MARCH FEOM KELSO 316, 53. PENRITH 32o CONTENTS. VII CHAP. PA0E 54. THE MOATED HOUSE 325 55. MES. NEVILLE 329 56. THE GATE 338 57. THE ROUT OF LONSDALE 341 58. THE BARRICADES OF PEESTON 347 59. THE TWELFTH OF NOVEMBEE 352 60. THE THIRTEENTH OF NOVEMBER 359 61. DISCORD 365 62. GENEEAL WILLIS 369 63. MY SECEET AGAIN 377 64. A EEVELATION 383 65. THE SURRENDER 388 66. THE MARCH TO CHESTEE 395 67. stanhope's DRAGOONS 404 68. THE GANG , 411 69. CALUMNY 414 70. ANOTHER CRIME ' 424 71. HOW THE SQUIRE FOUGHT THE DUEL 428 72. THE CASTLE OF CHESTER 434 73. chatty's letter 439 74. WILLOUGHBY RENEWS HIS SUIT 444 75. DR. SKALPEL 454 76. a confession 461 77. THE LAST 466 notes HOLLYWOOD HALL.

Chapter I. Chester

Where I, the narrator of the following pages, was born, who were my family, and what were my antecedents, my chief adventures, fortunes, and misfortunes, the reader will discover in the gradual progress or development of thjs, my narrative, which commences on an era most important to myself, as it was the means of involving me in some of the most dangerous broils and stirring events of the time, though it led ultimately to unravelling the mystery which for many years previously had surrounded me. To begin, then, at once : — On an evening in the last days of August, 1715, I landed at Chester, from a small Dutch lugger of eighty tons (the Fraulein), which had made a prosperous voyage from Dun kirk to the Dee, laden with — I know not what, as I j^ever cared sufficiently to inquire,- — and bidding farewell to her taciturn skipper, whose dull grey eyes, and bulbous-shapen nether man I see in memory yet before me, I stood upon the shore, lonely and irresolute ; for, though born an Englishman, I was a stranger in the land, knowing little more of it than the language, that my name was Edward Erringtou, and that I was somewhere about four or five and twenty years of age.

I fear the reader may deem this mode of beginning remark able, perhaps eccentric ; but my life has been a strange and wayward one, influenced by circumstances beyond my own B CHESTER. control ; and thus I have commenced my story at the epoch that seemed of most importance to myself-an epoch that was not without importance to all the British isles. My sword, my cloak-bag, and a packet of secret and dangerous papers, of which I was the bearer and custodies were my sole possessions ; and, with these under my arm, I walked thoughtfully and slowly from the landing-place towards the ancient capital of the county palatine, which is so picturesquely situated on the north bank of the Dee, encircled by its time-worn ramparts — of old, its bulwark against the Scots and Welsh. Above these rose the towers of its castle, and the spire of the cathedral, all steeped in the red light of the setting sun ; while mellowed faint and far in sunny distance lay the azure estuary of the Dee, dotted by white sails, the county of Flint, and the dark Welsh mountains rising above the evening haze.

As the sun sank, his red light deepened on the massive walls of Chester, and threw a lurid glare on the square cathedral tower ; and then, the broad, blue waters of the Dee, that wound between their flat, but fertile and well wooded banks, gleamed with golden and purple ripples that ran before the evening wind. In this year the harvest had been early, and remarkably successful : in some places the fields were already bare, or covered only by yellow stubble, and I saw those huge and creaking four-wheeled wains, which are so peculiarly English, laden with golden grain, winding slowly and laboriously over the upland, behind the smoking team, or along the highway, brushed by the droop ing foliage of the oak and chesnut trees that rose above the thick hedgerows, or the old green silent lanes that led to the snug homestead of the country squire or tbe sturdy yeoman.

Curfew time was at hand, so I hastened on to reach an inn for the night, as, from all I could learn of my country. men, the time was a perilous one for a stranger, a wan- CHESTER. derer, especially such as I, to be abroad ; for in those days of political plotting and intriguing any unfortunate wight who failed to satisfy the scruples, prejudices, or suspicions of every insolent parish constable, pig-headed alderman, or Whig justice of the peace, was instantly deemed a Jesuit or a Frenchman in disguise, and after being wholly ducked and half-killed by the mob, was committed to prison till the authorities could discover whether he was guilty or not ; and nowhere were the atrocious and inhospitable laws enacted by George I. — himself a foreigner — against foreigners, Catholics, and Jacobites, more rigidly enforced than in the county palatine of Chester.* On the very evening of my arrival, a poor pedlar, for the double crime of being an Irish man and Catholic, had, for these great offences, been ducked in the Dee, and been publicly hanged on Parkgate Road.

To me, who had just arrived from the court of the exiled king, bearing letters to General Forster, Sir Lennard Arden, in Cheshire, and other gentlemen in the north of England, for the purpose of raising an insurrection to effect a second restoration of the house of Stuart, this anecdote about the poor Irishman, with similar information which I received at the Watergate of Chester from a gossiping keeper, had an effect the reverse of soothing or pleasing. The gate at which I presented myself is defended by a ravelin, named of old the Bonewaldesthorne Tower, and the river then ran close to its walls, in which were several huge iron rings for mooring boats and' barges. I was closely scrutinized here by the gate-keeper, who, perhaps, detected something foreign in my air, the cut of my coat, or the cock of my hat j but a current coin of the realm, slipped into his hand silenced all his scruples, moral, political, and reli.o-ious, and I was forthwith permitted to pass into the venerable city of Chester, where the quaint old thorough- * "A private soldier received nine hundred lashes yesterday, and was drummed out of his regiment, with a rope about his neck, having been found guilty of being a papist." — Chester Journal, 1727.

B CHESTER. 4 fares were darkening, as the shades of evening deepened in them, and the last ray of the sun faded from the carved pin nacles of the cathedral spire. Four principal streets intersected the town, diverging from a common centre named the Pentise, an ancient building situated at the junction of the North and East-gate streets, wherein the royal and noble were banqueted in the days of old. These streets — I write of them as I saw them in 1715 -were old and fantastic in their architecture, elaborate in their details, and, strange to say, their substructure was cut down to the depth of several feet into the living rock. On a level with these were low warehouses, surmounted by balustraded galleries, named by the citizens rows. Along these rows, which served as footpaths, were the shops and houses, which were connected with the streets by occasional flights of steps.

The more antique mansions were easily distinguished by their steep angular gables and projecting oriels, — their deep shady galleries and latticed casements, — their heavy wooden railings, enormous pillars, and trans verse beams of oak. In those dusky galleries, and under those oak arcades, or aloug the rows, a few persons were still lingering, to enjoy the balmy atmosphere of the pleasant harvest evening. Here and there one might see an old lady who retained the towering commode, the countless flounces and furbelows of the early days of Queen Anne, — a mode of attire which made a dame of fashion, as the Spectator has it, " resemble a Friesland hen ; " and there too were old gentlemen with the little cocked hats, enormous wigs, square-tailed coats, and long slender swords of the same period ; their antique dresses giving greater effect to the antique aspect of the place where they promenaded, practising the suave gallantry of the old school, bearing the train, fan, or pouncet-box of their lady Iriends, or shaking their powdered wigs close together, as they conferred, perhaps ominously, on the dark political events that were to come, and paused to stare at me when I CHESTER. passed, little dreaming that in my cloak-bag were the matches that would fire the mine.

Remarkable as the aspect of this old city was, it did not seem like other places I had seen abroad, either strauge or new to me. The stately cathedral of England's three last Henries, — the ancient castle, the origin of which is lost in obscurity, — the quaint streets of carved oak and painted plaster, — all seemed to me familiar, as if I had seen them at least once before ; and yet, so far as I knew, I stood for the flrst time within the walls of Chester ! It was strange, un accountable, and mysterious, that this old city, with all its striking features, should have this effect upon me ; and I struggled — groped, as it were, among the mists of memory — to remember where or when I had seen such a place before ; but I looked vainly back into the dreary void, from whence these dim and wild and unconnected recollections floated ; for there are times with us all when incidents, faces, places, voices, and music, come before us with apparent familiarity, though we have actually seen the former or heard the latter for the first time.

Hence there is in the mind a confused sense of having seen or heard those things before, — a sense so perplexing that we know not whether to regard them as the casual revival of some long-forgotten dream, or the dim recollection of a past state of existence, coming back un bidden to the human soul. Germany does not want for mystical philosophers, who readily adopt the latter opinion ; but almost every one is occasionally sensible of the emotion or the reflection to which I refer. How frequently, indeed, comes the inward thought — " This event has happened to me before. I have before said, or done, or heard this ! " But when — where — how 1 Such were the perplexing ideas that oppressed me, as on that evening I walked through the darkening streets of Chester. So powerfully did they affect my fancy, that at CHESTER. times I felt as if in a dream ; and twice, under the sense of this mystery stood still, with irresolution, to consider whether I had actually left the Fraulein, the Dutch lugger, and was fully awake, or asleep in my hammock ; but such wild German fantasies are opposed to the purer principles of the learned men of old, to revealed religion, and to philosophy.

" The ancient philosophers," says a quaint work, " are often very happy in their illustrations. For example, con ceiving the soul to be a portion or emanation of the Divi nity, separated from the original source, and for a season encased or confined in the body, but ultimately destined to return to it, and be absorbed in that infinite source, they compared it to water enclosed in a vessel, set adrift upon the ocean : as long as the vessel lasts, the water contained in it is kept distinct from the element on which it floats ; but when it breaks or decays, the contents at once escape, and are absorbed in tbe illimitable ocean." Be all this as it may, I know not, being no casuist, and only such a philosopher as the camp and the battle have made me. "If I am not becoming insane," thought I, on approach ing the great cathedral, " there should be a house near it with three huge vanes and a round porch."

Hurrying on, I reached the church, and, lo ! to my wonder, almost to my terror, on the west side of the North-gate Street, there stood a large house, of quaint aspect, having three steep projecting gables, each surmounted by a great creaking vane of gilded copper. Each gable rose from two tiers of galleries, formed by beams of carved oak, which rested on fantastic pillars of the same material. In the centre was an arched porch, within and about which a num ber of smokers and idlers loitered. " The house of my waking dream !" I exclaimed in a breathless voice. I approached nearer. THE INN. 7 It bore a signboard, and proved to be the King's Head inn, kept by " Tom Tapster." " Good," said I, " though it bears not the effigy of my king, I shall repose me here for the night very well, no doubt."

Chapter II. The Inn

On the signboard swung the representation of a plain, somewhat vulgar-looking elderly personage, having a red coat garnished by a blue ribbond, star, and enormous white wig, and whose large nose resembled nothing in tbis world save a huge misshapen potato. The portrait of this gentleman, known by discontented folks as " the Elector," had everywhere, during the last twelve months, superseded those of her late majesty, the good Queen Anne of happy memory, tbe last Stuart who occupied the throne of Britain. The crowd that loitered about the porch, listening to the song of a pretty girl, an itinerant balladier, made way for me as I approached ; and though all eyes were fixed on me with curiosity and scrutiny, there were a few men who per ceived that I was a stranger, and kindly said, " Good evening, master ;" while others, remarking that I wore laced clothes and a silver-hilted sword, touched their hats with the real or pretended respect that such appurtenances, being sug gestive of a good purse, are sure to secure.

I was welcomed and ushered in by the landlord, — a bluff, jolly, full-faced, and bald-pated person (like all landlords in novels, plays, and pictures), but clad in rough English cloth of popinjay-blue, with carsie hosen, and wearing a huge white apron. He pressed me to lay aside, or commit to his custody, my leathern cloak-bag ; but, knowing the value and THE INN. the danger of the secret papers it contained, I replied that " it was no incumbrance whatever ; that I was weary, and wished to be shown to my apartment." This he immediately ordered to be prepared for me : I then ordered a stoup of brandy, and we drank it together ; after which he continued to hover about me, anxious, apparently, to discover who I was, and from whence I came ; but find ing me oblivious of his presence, and rather taciturn, he rejoined the group in the porch, where the girl was still singing for money.

The bar of the King's Head was a sombre place enough. It was low in the ceiling, paved with square red bricks, which emitted an earthy odour, and was entirely panelled with old oak, which by dint of time and polishing had be come black as ebony. As the season was warm, no fire was necessary in the wide fireplace, and light was only admitted by a little old-fashioned iron lattice, that overlooked a gloomy stable-yard. One end of the bar was occupied by a long sideboard, whereon, and above which, on shelves, were various kinds of silver, pewter, and horn drinking-cups, with pewter plates and copper saucepans, polished and shining in the light of two candles, which were now lighted, in square bottomed holders of silver, and placed on the old oak table by a smart barmaid. She snuffed, trimmed them, and glanced at me slily with a pair of quick and merry blue eyes, expect ing, as usual, some gallant or bantering speech ; but my heart was heavy and sad, — I scarcely knew why, — and sighing, I turned away from her.

Even a pretty woman could not charm me then, or lure me from myself. Left alone, I had no resource but to read over, with vacant listlessness, the advertisements and broadsheets tbat were pasted on the heavy oaken mantelpiece, contesting for prece dence with a row of china cups and dels platters, and turning rapidly to dark-yellow in the tobacco fumes expended by a smoking-club which met nightly in the bar. One of these placards was a particular description of " A villain wearing a THE INN. brigadier wig and mounted on a bay mare, who with holster pistols, and a brass-mounted hanger, did, on the 1 6th current, feloniously set upon the London and Chester mail, and did, after firing two bullets through the panels thereof, to the great danger and discomfort of certain lieges therein," carry off the mail-bags.

Below was an advertisement, stating " that a young lady who is to set out for London in a post-chaise, would be glad to hear of a companion going that way. Inquire at the King's Head, Chester." Others were documents announcing the sale of hops, cheese, tobacco ; and, as I knew not to what part ofthe isle of Britain niydutymight take me, I made a special memorandum of the following : — " G.R. The Berwick and London stage begins to move on Monday, 18th Oct., 1715. All that desire to pass from Berwick to London, let them repair to John Blair's, at the English Gate, every other Saturday, or to the Swan in Hol born, every other Monday, where they will be received in a comfortable stage, and civilly treated, the which stage per forms the whole journey in eighteen days. — _£5 English the fare. — God save the King !

" While I was concluding my memorandum of this, a sour featured old fellow, wearing a loose blue coat, and large hat bound with yellow galloon, entered with an air of vulgar importance and bustle, and bade me " Good morrow." " Your servant, sir," said I, but made no other response. " You are a stranger hereabout, master, I understand." "Understand!" I reiterated with annoyance ; "then people have been talking about me ." •' People will talk, Master." " Of course — well ?" said I impatiently. " They have been marvelling what your purpose here may be." " What may yours be, fellow 1" I asked with hauteur. " Sir, I am Mr. Timothy Spry, a constable of this parish," he replied, looking as if these words were more than enough to make me tremble. THE INN. 10 " And what matters it to me who you are ?"

" Well— all I have to say, sirrah, is that in these ticklish times it behoves every true-born Englishman to see that our glorious constitution, the Protestant succession, and the Church as established by law, are— are— are — " " Are what V " Not interfered with." " Mr. Constable," said I, " I presume you are repeating, parrot-like, the political cant of some tipsy magistrate. I am a stranger here in your city of Chester, and have no desire to molest or interfere with any one. To-morrow, God willing, I leave the city " " For where, sir ." " You are very inquisitive," said I, smiling, to conceal my rising anger, and knowing, too, it would have been most unwise to involve myself in a brawl with a rude, officious jack-in-office like this. " I am going to Hollywood Hall, some miles distant from this.

If you have any communications to make, send them there, and Sir Lennard Arden, or I, will attend to them. I have replied to your questions, and now I have but one to ask you — whether you will leave this room in the usual manner by the door, or head foremost by the window ?" Either this threat, or the mention of an influential name, silenced the insolence of the constable ; he lifted his huge triple-cocked hat, and made a cringing, awkward bow, by scraping on the tiled floor with his left foot. He then proceeded, with great solemnity and importance, to fix by four wafers above the mantelpiece, a royal proclamation, surmounted by a crown and the initials G. R., concerning the pains and penalties incurred by those who " harboured foreigners, especially papists and popish priests." This alarming document was signed by Sir Harry Leigh, Bart., a justice of the peace for tbe county palatine of Cheshire.

The constable gave a peculiar glance at this placard, another at me, and retired. In short, as a stranger, I felt myself viewed with a mistrust, and subjected to an im pertinent curiosity, which to a person of my spirit and temper, and, more than all, to one bound on a mission so dangerous as mine, were most annoying ; and which, I thought, but ill became a people who, while hating foreigners and suspecting strangers, had placed a foreign race of kings upon their throne, and driven their native princes into exile.

Chapter III. Squire Willoughby

Fearing tp excite fresh suspicion by remaining too much aloof from all, I drained my stoup of brandy, and after depositing my cloak and cloak-bag in my room, placed the key thereof in my pocket, and descended to the wooden porch to mingle with the crowd there, to seem, what I was far from being, at my ease ; and to hear the songs of the ballad-girl, which ever and anon drew a burst of applause from the listeners, and that which was better, a shower of copper and small silver coins. She sang the fine old ballad of the feat of Norris, Turner, and Willoughby, who with a thousand Englishmen, in Flanders, cut a passage through the whole Spanish army, under the Duke of Parma, when " The most courageous officers Were English captains three ; But the bravest man in battle Was the brave Lord Willoughby !

My appearance on the scene divided the attention with her. I was dressed in a suit of French grey velvet, richly embroidered with silver, and had a cravat and ruffles of point lace. I carried my sword at a waist-belt, in which were placed a pair of small silver-mounted pistols, the gift of one to have named whom there would have found me quarters gratis in the adjacent castle of Chester ; but they were (as I may privately inform the reader) a parting gift from the Princess Sobieski, the queen of the exiled court. The Parisian fashion of my little cocked beaver, which was edged with white feathers, drew all eyes upon me ; and as the report of my late distinguished acquaintance, Mr- Timothy Spry, the constable, had probably proved favourable, the gossips of the inn porch were disposed to treat me with every respect — the more so, perhaps, because I gave the poor singer a crown piece, which made her drop me a curtsey till her knees nearly touched the ground.

The curiosity about me was evidently irrepressible ; so mine host proceeded at once to question me, with the laudable in tention of enlightening himself in particular, and his fellow citizens in general. " Been in Chester before, master 1 " said he. " Never," said I briefly, while my mind reverted to the strange dreams in which its features must have become familiar to me. " A fine old city, sir." "Very!" Finding that I was becoming more reserved, after a pause Boniface went straight to the point. " You be a foreigner, master, I take it 1 " said he, bowing as low as his paunch would permit. " Nay," said I briefly, " I am no foreigner." "You speak mightily like one," said a plain-looking citizen, who wore a dress of braided cloth and a short bob perriwig. " Perhaps so, for I have been long in foreign lands : yet believe me, when I say that I am — thank God !— an English man."

" Right, sir,— I like that ! " said mine host, rubbing his fat hands approvingly. " My name is Edward Errington." "Zounds," he added, "I love thee for this, for I hate woundily all foreigners, Scots and Irishes too, as I do a blackamoor or a mug o' sour beer ! " " Ay," added he of the broadcloth and perriwig, " or the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender — the three natural enemies of England." " Nay, my friends," said I, laughing, " I go not so far in prejudice as you. My life was saved by a Scottish soldier at Stalhofen, under as heavy a fire as brave men ever faced ; and but for three stout Irishmen of Fitzgerald's regiment, I had been rotting now in tbe breach at Douay." " 'Sbodikins ! thou hast served in foreign wars, master 1 " said the host, as his round eyes dilated. " A little," said I cautiously ; " I have served against the States General."

" Who may he be . " " I mean their High Mightinesses the States General of Holland," said I, laughing at the simplicity of the question. " And what art thou now, lad 1 " " I am a traveller for a foreign commercial house." " Foreign again," grumbled Mr. Thomas Tapster, scratching his bald head ; " dom ! I begin to mislike thee again." " I mean a British merchant residing near Paris — Stuart and Co. We have connections all over Europe, but especially in Poland." " And you go to Hollywood Hall . " " To-morrow." " They are a brave, honest, and true old Cheshire family — the Ardens of Hollywood ; and I marvel much what man ner of dealings they can have with foreign merchants, who have partners in Poland, wherever that may be, for I never heard on't before." " We deal extensively in furs and sables : we could furnish enough to keep all England warm.