io6 



ROYAL GARDENS 



architect. Among many massive, rather grandiose works in 

 pseudo-classic style, he built Blenheim for the first Duke of 

 Marlborough. During the years it was building he is said 

 to have been continuously quarrelled with by the Duchess. 

 That is, however, a fate likely to have happened to any one 

 employed by the imperious lady. 



Soon after the mansion was finished, the estate was sold 

 to Thomas Holies Pelham, Earl of Clare, from whom its 

 name is derived. The Earl afterwards became Duke of 

 Newcastle and Prime Minister. During his ownership a 

 large new reception-room was built without much regard 

 for the proportion and parts of Vanbrugh's design, and many 

 of the superb trees for which Claremont is famous were 

 planted by the Duke. After his death in 1768, the estate 

 was bought by the great Lord Clive. He pulled the mansion 

 down and erected the present one, which still remains pretty 

 much as he left it. He laid out the grounds anew, and 

 planted a vast number of trees. The whole of this work 

 was entrusted to " Capability " Brown, and cost upwards of 

 ^100,000. Some authorities say that Kent, who started as a 

 painter of landscapes, and after studying in Rome became a 

 fashionable landscape-gardener, planned the park and grounds 

 at Claremont. However that may be, he and Brown seem 

 to have worked together in several instances. With Bridge- 

 man, they were employed, either together or within a very 

 short time of each other, by Queen Caroline, wife of George 

 IL, when she was making important additions to the gardens 

 at Kensington Palace. And this may well have happened 

 also at Claremont. 



Macaulay, in his well-known essay on Clive, after giving 

 him immense credit for the splendour of his achievements in 

 India, alluding to the marked unpopularity of returned Anglo- 

 Indians says, " Clive was eminently the Nabob, the ablest, 

 the most celebrated, the highest in rank, the highest in 

 fortune, of all the fraternity. His wealth was exhibited in a 

 manner which could not fail to excite odium. He lived with 

 great magnificence in Berkeley Square. He reared one palace 



