172 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



enigma to many. One contemporary compared him 

 to Pico Delia Mirandola for the universality of his 

 knowledge, while another styled him " the Pliny of 

 his age for lying." To John Evelyn he was "an 

 arrant mountebank." He fell in love with Venetia, 

 daughter of Sir Edward Stanley of Tonge Castle, a 

 lady of rare beauty and of great intellectual attain- 

 ments, who had been his playfellow in childhood. 

 His mother opposed the match, but the two pledged 

 their troth, and Digby went to Paris, where he was 

 received at the French Court. Lest worse things 

 should come to him, he thought it well to publish a 

 report of his death, and to fly to Italy, where he spent 

 two years in Florence. He was in Madrid when 

 Charles and Buckingham came there on the business 

 of the Spanish wedding, and his handsome person 

 and charming manners made him a great favourite 

 with the Spanish ladies. He returned to Portsmouth 

 in 1623, and sojourned fora time with his mother at 

 Gayhurst. When James knighted him at Hinchen- 

 brooke, that monarch, out of constitutional nervous- 

 ness, turned his face away from the sword, and would 

 have thrust it into Digby's eye, if Buckingham had 

 not interposed. The lovers again met, and they 

 were married in 1625, when he had explained 

 the report of his death, and the adventures in 

 which he had been concerned. There is much of 

 romance in the relations of Kenelm Digby and Venetia 

 Stanley. A large edible snail, the helix pomatia, 

 abounds in the woods at Gayhurst, and is quite 

 peculiar to the place. These were originally brought 

 from the South of France by Sir Kenelm Digby for 

 his wife, who was then fading away in consumption. 



FRONT. 



The snails are whitish in colour, tinged with red, bury 

 themselves in the autumn, and hibernate until the 

 spring. 



Sir Kenelm Digby's eldest son was killed at 

 St. Neot's battle, and his younger son, John Digby, 

 succeeded at Gayhurst. The place then came to two 

 co-heiresses, who married respectively Sir John 

 Conway and Mr. Richard Mostyn, and these gentle- 

 men sold Gayhurst in 1704 to Mr. George Wright, 

 son of Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Keeper of the Privy 

 Seal. It was purchased along with the manor of 

 Stoke Geddington at the cost of 2 7,000. The 

 descendants of the new possessor continued to reside 

 thereuntil 1830, when the sole daughter and heiress 

 of the last Wright of Gayhurst died. The estates 

 then devolved upon the family of Wyndham of 

 Cromer in Norfolk, the name of Wright being 

 adopted in addition, and they have since passed to 

 the present proprietor. They are certainly a beautiful 

 possession. 



Having now described the very interesting 

 history of Gayhurst, something may be said about the 

 house itself. It obviously belongs to two periods 

 mainly, for, while the east and north fronts bear the 

 aspect of Jacobean times, the west front is of a later 

 period, and has classic features. A house with 

 such a history must needs have had something 

 mysterious about it, and some of the old hiding- 

 holes survive. One is said to have been concealed 

 by its revolving roof, which formed the floor 

 of an upper apartment, and here legend says 

 that Digby and Catesby, and even Guy Fawkes 

 himself, discussed their nefarious projects. Those 



