2 " THE LOYAL DUKE OF NEWCASTLE." 



was also Clipston-Y2x\i, of seven miles compass, wherein my Lord 

 had taken much delight formerly, it being rich of wood, and 

 containing the greatest and tallest Timber-trees of all the Woods 

 he had ; in so much, that onely the Pale-row was valued at 

 ;^2,ooo. It was water'd by a pleasant River that runs through 

 it, full of Fish and Otters ; was well stock 'd with Deer, full of 

 Hares, and had great store of Partriges, Foots, Pheasants, &c., 

 besides all sorts of Water-fowl \ so that this Park afforded all 

 manner of sports, for Hunting, Hawking, Coursing, Fishing, 

 &c." 



I have some twenty or thirty letters which passed between the 

 Duke and George Sitwell, of Renishaw, with reference to a former 

 purchase of timber in Clipston ; and, as the paper upon which 

 they are written is fast turning to dust, so that in places they are 

 illegible, and in a few years more there may be little left to read, 

 I am anxious to put in print a few characteristic extracts. The 

 correspondence is worth preserving, not only for the incidental 

 information which it gives about so interesting a personage as the 

 Duke, but as illustrating the relations existing at this time 

 between English nobles and country gentlemen. At the present 

 day distinctions in rank are considered to be distinctions only, 

 and not differences, but in the seventeenth and early eighteenth 

 centuries our nobles considered themselves to be superior beings; 

 and, indeed, in many cases the superiority was a real one, and 

 not merely a fanciful assumption. 



After the forfeiture of the Newcastle estates, the Trustees for 

 the Commonwealth sold the wooils at CHpston to a Mr. Clarke, 

 who commenced at once to cut them down by the thousand.* 

 Lord Mansfield, the Duke's eldest son, who was at that time in 

 great want of money, persuaded Mr. Sitwell, in 1656, to buy 

 what was left of the woods, and accepted ;^i,ooo for his 

 confirmation of the sale. Some of these trees the purchaser 



* In 1655 the borderers of Sherwood Forest complained that the Forest, 

 and especially Clifton Woods, were ruined by Mr. Clark, who had cut down 

 1,000 trees in the heart of the forest, and was daily felling more. — Cal. Doni. 

 State Papers. 1655, p. 137. 



