CASTLE HOWARD, 



YORKSHIRE. 



A I 1 I I-.R from Vanbrugh t<> his patron reminds 

 us that in the first quarter of the eighteenth 

 century the great world was mail with the 

 magnificent extravagance of building. The 

 Knglish nobles who had seen the Court of the sun- 

 king at Versailles, came home in discontent with the 

 l.>\v roofed manor houses of their fathers, and far and 

 wide the ancient Knglish homes were laid in ruins, to 

 rise again with domes and porticoes and pilasters. 

 The age of the powdered wig and enamelled snuff-box 

 w.i- ill at case in the timbered hall, whose great fire- 

 place warmed a household without the needful 

 distinction of persons. At this time rose Castle 

 Howard, one of the most splendid monuments of its 

 period, a vast house, a Yorkshire Versailles. 



The Karl of Carlisle for whom Castle Howard 

 was planned was chief of the Howards of Naworth, 



a younger branch of the great family which has so 

 long headed the roll of our temporal |x - ers with its 

 Dukedom of Norfolk. The Howards may IK- called 

 the most English of our great nobles. No legend 

 worthy of notice derives them from an invading 

 Norman. Their founder, an Knglish judge out of 

 Norfolk, died in the early years of tin- fourteenth 

 century, and no genealogist's ingenuity has done 

 more than guess that his aiuestors were Norfolk 

 rustics. But from this time onward the thread of 

 the pedigree can never be lost, tor his descendants 

 were knights and rich landlords, sheriffs of their 

 counties, making great marriages, until at last Sir 

 Robert Howard; wedding with a daughter of the 

 Mowbrays allied the Howards to the blood nn.il, 

 and Sir John Howard became Constable of the 

 lower, I.ord High Admiral of England, Karl 





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