THE STATELY HOMES OF ENGLAND: LONGLEAT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2622, 15 June 1904, Page 71

THE STATELY HOMES OF ENGLAND : LONGLEAT.

The great social event of the new year in Wiltshire was the ball at Longleat. It is years since that stately pile had been

the scene of such a function, and immense interest had been awakened in the neighbourhood. House parties came from most of the great, mansions near. Large as is the stabling accommodation at Longleat, it had to be supplemented by huge marquees, where comfort for servants and horses had been carefully studied. Lady Bath, in a gauzy gown garlanded with silver wheatears, and clasped with magnificent diamonds, stood at the top cf the grand staircase, where scarlet poinsettias and snowy arum lilies made vivid contrast of colour an<L foliage. The rooms at Longleat are beautiful. Charles II and poor Catherine of Braganza have danced in its halls arid corrjdors. Their Majesties were the guests of Sir James Thynne and his wife, Lady Isabel Rich, daughter of the Earl of Holland. But it was their nephew — Thomas Thynne — who was Charles's friend — "Tom of Ten Thousand," as they called him at court. i It was a gay scene that ball at Longleat -in the Stuart times. Charles brought his Queen, Catherine of Braganza, but that > fact did not prevent the presence also of the imperious Castlemaine, the lovely Hamilton, and the rest of the frail beauties one knows so well by means of Lely's canvas. " Tom of Ten Thousand " ' was gayest of the gay." He had just married ' Elizabeth Percy, the greatest heiress m England, a child of 14, but already a widow, for she had been married when but 11 years old to the Earl of -Ogle, who died" ' the same year. { She was too young to leave her mother's roof, so Tom ruffled it at Longleat with j Whitehall tmtil she should be old enough ! to take upon her the duties of a wife. [ Meanwhile the notorious Konigsmark imagined he would like to many the heiress himself, and might do so were only Tom put out of the way. • Hired ruffians shot tlw» ; unfortunate man in his coach in Pall Mall, ; a deed which made a huge sensation at the time, and is carved in the stones of the sumptuous m'onumen+ erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. , Koningsmark, however, did not marry the She became the wife of the .proud ; Duke of Somerset, and ancestress to the j present line of Dukes of Northumberland, j Konigsmark met a violent death in the i apartments of Sophia of Zell, Queen of I George I. And a terrible tale of guilt and ; gaiety, of blood and laughter, it is as one looks back upon it now. i A different sort of court was held at Longleat when George IH, Queen Charlotte, and a suite of 45 persons were entertained by the great-great-grandfather of the present Marquis. Fanny Burney, who was in ! attendance on Queen Charlotte, gives rather a dismal account of the doings' then. The ; -house she. found "of .immense magnitude; • but sadly, in need of repair, and neither cheerful nor comfortable." But then the poor lady was put to sleep in a room" - haunted by the ghost of a bishop, and had ; to dine with the gentlemen of the family—{•the Marquis and Marchioness and the ladies ; dined ' with the King and Queen. " The - Weyinouthi — Thynnes, rather " — she writes, j."ar«r silent, and 'we had but poor talk or '[ entertainment." ~ } Longleat now is certainly in no need of re- ? pair ; and if no such brilliant beauties as t the Duchess of Cleveland and Louise de Quefrouaille danced in the cotillon the other " week, one should be glad enough to miss the j cadaverous visage of Charles or the vacant j face of "Farmer George."