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The fair Dutchy of Baden has been lately torn by convulsions, insurrections, civil wars; but all these horrors have been swept away by the cannon, and at the bayonet's point: Baden is pacified: Baden is quiet, and smiles again, it is said, with that smile which that lovely country best knows how to wear under the influence of a bright summer sun. There at least the Flâneur may find a satiety of revolution, disgust of frantic politics, or, at all events, that stagnation from utter prostration after a recent fever fit, which bears, at least, the semblance of peace, quiet, and repose. Heidelberg, with its wondrous ruins, and sweet gardens, in which decaying art, and ever-reviving nature strive to rival each other in the production of the picturesque, filled him with pleasant souvenirs of old times, although chattering, self-imposing guides would awake recollections of recent insurrection, and recall the odious word "revolution" by pointing out the spots where lately frantic German Red Republicans in fantastic costume sat, ill at ease, on horseback to marshal revolutionary troops, that far outdid Falstaff's ragged regiment in varied finery of military attire-where a Polish would-be-general issued drunken commands from a window, with champagne glass in hand-where vapouring and bellowing revolutionary heroes, seized with a sudden panic at the news of the advance of the Prussians, suddenly rushed towards the town-gate, which led in the contrary direction to the enemy. Along the charming railroad, which skirts the commencing line of the mountains of the Black Forest, there were garlands, and flower-devices, and banners, hung upon each pretty Swiss-cottage-looking station-house, to celebrate the birthday of the Grand Duke after his return to his dominions; and although traces of the recent battle-plain were visible, now and then along the road in trampled fields, and woods, the trees in which, exhibited blackened trunks, burned by the hands of passing “ friends of liberty ;" and station-houses battered by the cannon of insurgents, showed dark ruins; and a broken bridge told where a struggle had taken place; the garlands, and the devices, and the banners seemed to throw a colouring of fresh joyousness over the recent scenes of anarchy, bloodshed, and death.

And beyond lay Baden-Baden, cosseted so lovingly by nature's loveliest charms amidst its deliciously romantic hills: and there surely, where fashion revelled formerly, and, if contention there was, it was that of flirtation, and foreign hands flung around wealth, which the fortunate inhabitants had but to stretch forth their hands to catchthere surely, in Baden-Baden, the paradise of German bathing-places, the garden of Eden, where there was a serpent truly, but one which might be avoided by the way-the serpent of Play-there surely, in that bower of mountain, and wood, and valley, and mountain-stream, all of the loveliest and most picturesque-there surely was rest, and peace from politics. But even Baden-Baden told a tale too sad to listen to, but which could not but be heard, of fallen glories, and absent visitors, and empty hotels, and impoverished families. Disgusted at the revolutionary plague, which had so lately raged among its hills, although now dispersed, "guests" had held back in shyness. In the garden was still the serpent, however: and even that bright wily beast had put on a political skin, by its scoffing opposition to the law of a Frankfort Parliament, and the decree of a vain Central Ministry for its suppression. In the desolation of Baden-Baden, there might still be quietude from revolutionary politics, however. Again Everywhere gleamed again Prussian uniforms-at every shaded

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table in the public gardens Prussian officers vaunted their occupation of the revolutionary country, as a conquest, achieved to Prussia; whilst, on the hill-side among the peasantry, were curses "not loud but deep," against these northern Germans, who were regarded as usurping aliens; and the infatuated men murmured their hope of the time, when they might again take up the musket to fight for rights, which they understood not, or even already possessed; and those who wept loudly over the delusion of friends, fallen among the insurgents, whispered vengeance beneath their breath; and even those, who had all to lose by revolutions, railed bitterly against that Prussian occupation, which alone had saved their country from utter anarchy; and nowhere had sad experience taught the lesson of wisdom and a little reason to German senselessly politicising heads. The taint of politics was again in every breath of air-the word "revolution" still echoed among mountains. The case was hopeless. The Flâneur turned back his steps to a country, where, if there be no escape from politics, there is' at least peace from revolutions. He had lost all trust in the immediate future quiet of Germany from the lesson of his "revolutionary ramble on the Rhine."

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CASTLES AND MANSIONS ON THE MEDWAY AND ITS TRIBUTARY STREAMS.

PENSHURST PLACE, AND MANOR,

WAS anciently the seat of a family of the name of Penchester, of whom there is mention made, says Harris, in the book of Domesday; in what other book or books the noble deeds of this family are recorded, during the subsequent one hundred and fifty years, we know not; but it appears by a deed in the Registrum Roffense, that in the year 1226, Sir Thomas de Peneshurst had the manor and mansion of Penshurst. This Sir Thomas left a son, Stephen, who was a minor in 1239, and whose uncle and trustee was Sir John Belemyns, canon of St. Paul's. In 1283, this Stephen had been made Sir Stephen de Penchester, and was Constable of Dover Castle, and Warden of the Cinque Ports. He had large possessions in the county, and was a man of great influence, from his general character and sagacity. He died in the reign of Edward I., leaving Margerie, his second wife, surviving, and two daughters, and was buried in the south chancel of Penshurst Church, where was formerly an altar tomb, on which was laid his effigy in chain mail. The tomb itself has been long destroyed, but a portion of the effigy still lies on the chancel pavement.

Of Sir Stephen's two daughters, the eldest, Joane, married Henry Cobham, of Cobham; and the youngest, Alice, married John de Columbers, whose arms were, sable a bend or, a label of three points argent. Alice had Penshurst Manor and mansion, assigned to her as her portion of the inheritance, and she very soon conveyed away this inheritance of her fathers to Sir John de Pulteney, of Misterton, in Leicestershire. In 1322, Sir John had license to embattle Penshurst, and in 1337 he obtained a grant of free warren for all his estates here. Few persons were ever held in higher estimation in his day than Sir John de Pulteney, and none, it would seem, more deservedly. Four times did the citizens of London elect him as their mayor; and his sovereign, Edward III., greatly respected and highly honoured him. He had very large possessions, and he very liberally dispensed them; being what was considered at the time as magnificently charitable. He had, moreover, a sound judgment, great discretion, and firm religious principles. Several churches were built at his expense; among others the church of Little All Hallows, in Thames Street; and St. Lawrence Poulteney, takes its name from him. He bore for his arms, argent a fesse dancette gules, in chief three leopard's heads sable; and, dying in 1295, was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Poulteney.

His wife, Margaret, surviving, and having a life_estate in this manor and mansion, re-married with Sir Nicholas Lovaine; upon which her son, Sir William Pulteney, vested his interest in these manors and estates in trustees; but he dying without issue in the year 1366, the trustees, in 1374, conveyed these and all other estates of which Sir John Pulteney died possessed, to Sir Nicholas Lovaine and Margaret, his wife, and their heirs for ever.

The Lovaines were a younger branch of the Ducal house of Lorraine. Godfrey de Lovaine, so called from the place of his birth, possessed lands in England, in right of his mother, who was a grand-daughter of

King Stephen. Sir Nicholas bore for his arms, gules, a fess argent between fourteen billets or, and died possessed of this manor, leaving one son, Nicholas, and a daughter, Margaret.

This Nicholas married Margaret, a daughter of John de Vere, Earl of Oxford. He died childless, leaving his wife surviving, and she having possession of this manor for life, and re-marrying Sir John Devereux, he, in her right, held it.

race.

Sir John was descended from a family which had their surname from Evreux, in Normandy, but they had long been settled in England, and Sir John was one of the most eminent of his highly-gifted He held high military command under Edward III. and Richard II., and many important trusts were confided to him. In 1388, being then a knight-banneret, he was made Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports; and, in 1393, he had license to fortify and to embattle his mansion house at Penshurst. In 1394, he died without issue, leaving Margaret, his wife, surviving, and holding this manor as part of her dower; but, in 1409, Margaret, his widow, died: and then the manor and mansion of Penshurst became the property of Margaret, the sister and heir of the second Sir Nicholas Lovaine. This Margaret was twice married; first to Richard Chamberlain, of Sherburn, Oxfordshire; and, secondly, to Sir Philip St. Clere, of Ightham. Both of these, in right of their wife, seem to have possessed this manor, which descended to Sir John de Clere, the son of Sir Philip, and he conveyed it, by sale, to John, Duke of Bedford, the third son of Henry IV. This Duke of Bedford fills too many pages in England's history to need any other notice here, than that dying in 1436, without issue, he was succeeded in the Manor of Penshurst by his next brother-Humphrey the Good, Duke of Gloucester. There is a foul blot in England's annals which records the death of the good Duke Humphrey, and the persecution, trial, and imprisonment of the Duke's second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Reginald, Lord Cobham, of Sterburgh Castle, in Surrey. The duke bore, for his arms, quarterly France and England, a bordure argent, and dying without issue, the Manor of Penshurst became the property of his cousin, and next heir, Henry VI., who immediately granted them to his near kinsman, Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham.

This Duke of Buckingham was slain at the battle of Northampton, and his son had been slain, a few years previous, at the battle of St. Albans; so that the manor descended to his son's son, Henry, who became such a zealous partisan of the murderer and usurper, Richard III., and whose head Richard struck off one day in such haste in the Tower.

Henry's son, Edward, succeeded, however, to the honours and estates of his father; and it was this Duke of Buckingham that emptied the ewer of water into Wolsey's shoes, and for which Wolsey got up an accusation of high treason against him, and beheaded him.

The estates of a man condemned for treason, always falling to the Crown, the Manor of Penshurst became the property of Henry VIII., who, in the year 1545, considerably enlarged the park by purchases of different parcels of land-of Wells-place, amongst others, with its one hundred and seventy acres. Immediately upon Edward the Sixth's accession, in 1547, his council proposed to Anne of Cleves, an exchange of the house at Penshurst for her house at Bletchingly; but no exchange was effected. And then John, Earl of Warwick, would

seem to have had a grant of this manor; for, in the fourth of Edward VI., the Earl of Warwick granted it to that King, in exchange for other premises; and the King immediately gave the manor and mansion to Sir Ralph Fane, the grandson of Henry Fane, of Hilsden, Tonbridge.

This Sir Ralph Fane was a thick and thin partisan of the Duke of Somerset, and through his influence obtained from the Crown numerous grants of very extensive possessions, many of which had been devoted to religious uses. But Sir Ralph speedily became involved in all the troubles of his patron; and when the ambitious and impolitic Duke fell, Sir Ralph fell with him. His large estate secured his being accused of high treason, as they equally secured his attainder, and he was accordingly beheaded on Tower Hill.

The Manor of Penshurst, in consequence, reverting to the Crown, Edward VI. forthwith granted it to Sir William Sidney.

The Sidneys were originally from France, and when Henry the Second returned from Anjou into England, he brought with him Sir William Sidney, whom he made his chamberlain, and to whom he gave, among other manors and mansions, that of Kingesham, in Chichester, on the condition that he should furnish the King with a new string to his bow whenever he hunted on the royal demesnes in that neighbourhood. Sir William died in 1188, and was buried in the Abbey Church at Lewes; his son, Sir Simon, in 1213; and his grandson, Sir Roger, in 1239, were also buried there; but the next heir, Sir Henry, having married Matilda, an heiress of Stoke d'Albernon in Surrey, the family would seem about that time to have removed from Sussex into Surrey. A few years since there was, and perhaps still is, existing in an old house at Kingesham, the arms of the Sidneys carved in wood and stone; and while settled there they married chiefly among the Sussex families. Thus, one married the daughter of Sir Richard Husee, another the daughter of Sir Richard Ashburnham,—another the daughter of Robert Ore, of Ore,-and the Sir William who married the heiress of Clunford was M.P. for Sussex in 1428. Sir William's son and grandson, both of the same name, married heiresses, one of Malkarm, another of Barrington; and Sir William's greatgrandson, Sir Nicholas, married Anne, daughter of the Sir William Brandon who was standard-bearer to Henry of Lancaster in the battle of Bosworth Field, and who was there slain by the hand of Richard III. The son of this Sir Nicholas was the Sir William Sidney to whom Penshurst was granted by Edward VI., the family removing hence from Cranleigh, in Surrey.

As Sir William's mother was aunt to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who married Mary, the sister of Henry VIII., Sir William was necessarily much at the court of that monarch, and in high favour there; not that he shared in the spoils of the monasteries, as his nephew, Charles Brandon, and so many of the courtiers had done; but still the King forced one of these plundered possessions upon him, in exchange for the valuable manors of Kingston and Myton, amongst others, which Sir William possessed in the counties of York and Lincoln; and this one was the monastery of Robertsbridge, in Sussex. With the monastic lands and buildings probably went the furniture and the library, since there are still remaining in Penshurst Castle some eight or nine score of the original title-deeds, and deeds of gift and of purchase and exchange of lands, which the monastery had at any time

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