THE ENGLISH HOME FROM 

 CHARLES I. TO GEORGE IV. 



I 



INTRODUCTION 



IN England, more than in any other country, the affections of 

 people in all ranks of life have clung round their homes ; and 

 to learn something of how those homes have changed in dis- 

 position and appearance with the changing times is an occupation 

 not only fascinating in itself, but one which leads into regions 

 of that personal interest which lends life and colour to the 

 pictures of the historian. 



So far as our present conception of a home is concerned, 

 the time of Elizabeth may be held to have seen its birth ; for, 

 although the English house has an ancestry which goes back 

 to the Conquest, yet it was in Elizabeth's days that houses 

 were first built almost exclusively for pleasure and delight. 

 Hers was a great age of house building. Peace, wealth, and 

 security from serious turmoil led men in all parts of the country 

 to reconstruct their old homes or to build new ones ; and records 

 remain, either in actual buildings or in old plans, of houses of 

 every size, from the great palaces of Burghley or Hatton wherein 

 they entertained their sovereign, down to the little house, not 

 forty feet square, which was devised for Sir Walter Raleigh in 

 St James's. Much pains and great skill were expended in con- 

 triving these houses so that they should be convenient and well- 

 looking. The planning of them was in the nature of a new 

 experiment, for there was no precedent, either of extent or 

 disposition, which was exactly to the point. The treatment of 

 the exterior in other words, their style of architecture was 

 also something fresh ; for it became the fashion, gradually in- 

 creasing in extent, to seek inspiration in this direction from 

 Italy, a country which for more than a century had produced 

 most marvellous buildings, both as to conception and as to the 

 lovely detail with which they were embellished. 



