KNOLE CASTLE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 265, 5 August 1929, Page 10

KNOLE CASTLE

“YEOMAN OF THE GUARD” CHARITY PLAY IN COURTYARD [By Nellie M. Scanlan.] The Dome of Knole by fame enrolled, The Church of Canterbury, The hops, the beer, the cherries there Would fill a noble story. Knole, with its seven courtyards, its fifty-two stairs, its three hundred and sixty-five rooms, has its foundations back in the days before records were kept. It first comes into prominence when Bouchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, bought it in 1456. Later Queen Elizabeth gave it to her cousin, Thomas Sackvilie, first Earl of Dorset, and it has been the home of the Sackvilles ever since. Knole is one of the most famous castles in England, the pride of Kent. When a Sackvilie Inherits Knole it dominates his life, and the wonderful old castle, grim and grey, with its turrets and battlements, its galleries of famous pictures, its state rooms, its gardens and park lands, exacts allegiance from the sons of the great, the gay, the tragic ancestors, whose lives were lived within its walls.

In the Stone Court, on a summer night, “The Yeoman of the Guard” was played for charity. In the open courtyard, under the stars, the audience sat. On a temporary stage against the grey walls of Kentish Rag, beneath the clock tower, the ancient costumes and quaint characters of a past period came and went, with singular fitness, despite the provocative levity of Gilbert and Sullivan.

The centre of the stage was against a great, deep archway, leading to the Grass Court, with the I ver beyond. And the flitting to and fro of off-stage figures in this distant courtyard, enhanced the picture, and added a further touch of realism. Here and there, at the diamond-paned windows around the court, appeared a pretty face in a mob cap, or the flashing scarlet of a passing Yeoman. The performance began in daylight, but as night advanced hidden lights played against the grey-walled stage, and pierced the deep archway to the court beyond. It was an excellent performance. Somehow it sent one’s mind backward over the centuries. Jack Point jested where fools had laughed centuries before. As Dame Carruthers sang: “The screw may twist and the rack may turn,” I recalled how little that was truly sanguinary could be associated with the long history of Knole. But I do remember reading of one, Henry Mattock, a servant, being fined threepence for “scolding to extremity on Sunday without cause.” It was a Sackvilie who first took Nell Gwynn from the theatre, and, it is said, afterwards sold her favour to King Charles 11. It was a later Sackvilie who bestowed his patronage upon Peg Woffington, for many of the Sackvilles spent lavishly in supporting the theatre, poets, and artists. Portraits of Nell and Peg are still at Knole, as well as Baccelli, an Italian actress who found favour with the Earl nearly a century later. But the sculptured Buccelli, reclining, was removed to the attic by the circumspect lady who succeeded her. There have been Sackvilles good and bad, pathetic, and comic; poets, statesmen, madmen, gay roisterers, and taciturn recluse, or tragic, mumbling figures, spent before their time, as well as harmless, worthy, inconsequential persons. As the last chord died away, and Jack Point, poor heart-broken jester, falls dead at the feet of his lost love, the Yeoman marched across the stage to form a curtain. Knole is at Sevenoaks, and these were the Sevenoaks Players, of which Lady Sackvilie —the new Lady Sackvilie—is patron. A few months ago, the late Earl died, unmarried, and Knole came to a younger brother, who was Governor of Guernsey. They had just taken possession of their great inheritance, and when it was announced that Lady Sackvilie would make a little speech, interest was stimulated, for this was the first appearance of the new chatelaine of Knole. No doubt they were expecting a gracious, dignified lady, perhaps a ‘little shy, but part of the tradition of the old castle. With an impetuous rush, a youngish woman, handsome, her auburn hair shingled, a brilliant diamond pendant on her flame velvet gown, and slashed draperies hanging from the sleeves of her evening wrap, came from the dim archway. “My Lord and Master,” she said, and blew a kiss to the balcony, presumably to her husband. A hush fell. Turning her back to the audience, and throwing out her arms in an embracing gesture: “Fellow mummers,” she began. Then they realised that she belonged to the other side of the footlights. Facing the audience later, and combing her shingled hair with her fingers: “I’m turribly afraid. ... I don’t know what to say,” she continued with apparent confidence. Then they knew that she belonged to the other side of the Atlantic. I thought of the Sackvilie tradition— Nell Gwynn, Peg Woffington, Baccelli —England. Ireland, Italy had shared the favour of the Sackvilles. To-day it is America. But she wears the golden circlet, and bears the honoured name, unlike the mummers -of other days.