'erbyshire Jrch^ological 



I^ATURAL |[l STORY loCIETY. 



S'lje Hogal Wnkt of iHttocastle." 



By Sir George Sitwell, Bart. 



HEN the " loyal Duke of Newcastle," general, author, 

 dramatist, architect, and professor of the noble arts 

 of horsemanship and of the use of the sword, returned, 

 with his talented but eccentric Duchess, to England, 

 after sixteen years of exile, he hardly knew at first whether there 

 was anything left out of his estate of ;2^2 2,000 a-year in lands 

 which he could call his own. Welbeck was in disrepair and 

 Boisover in ruins ; by fines and forfeitures he had lost a million 

 sterling, and of his eight parks only one had survived. As 

 became a philosopher, and one who had lost more than he had 

 gained by royal favour, he forswore the Court, and settled himself 

 in the country with the intention of devoting the rest of his life 

 to the repair of his wasted inheritance. But there was one injury 

 which not even a philosopher could forgive, and the Duchess 

 admits that he mourned over the ruin of those magnificent woods 

 at Clipston, of which she gives so delightful a description : — 



" The rest of the Parks [except Welbeck] were totally defaced 

 and destroyed, both Wood, Pales, and Deer; amongst which 



VOL. XIII. 2 



