LIFE OF LORD SCUDAMORE. 
35 
studey I shall please, calls me to give my advise, which I doe heartily for no other end but your good. When you have 
finished the last book of the Phisicks, I wish you would goe through all the rest of Aristotle’s Naturall Philosophy, and then to 
reade over his Metaphisicks ; and so from thence to proceede to his Morall Philosophy. Constant I am to what I have often 
declared, that I would have no study to take you off from Aristotle untill you have read him All over. Hasten likewise to 
finish Euclide. Justinian’s Institutes of the Civill law I would exhort you to reade. But in all action the right Timing of 
a thing is a circumstance of great weight. The time I could wish for Justinian is when you resolve to reade the grounds of the 
Comon Law of England, which will be a study that will make you that are an Englishman fitt for employment. And Justinian 
will furnish with Notions which will prepare the Understanding and make it more susceptible of the maxims of the Comon 
Law. For your afternoon study I doe much approve of Mr. Old’s motion, that is, the pleasant and usefull study of the Globes. 
To which purpose your Tasker hath undertaken to informe'himself in London what are now the best Globes, the best Mapps, 
and who it is that hath lately written in the low countreys in Mercator’s way, and is to be preferred (as hee saith) before 
Mercator. Hereof hee will write mee an account to the ende that upon my purse your desire may be promoted. This letter 
I would have you communicate to Mr. Old. 
I heare that the last yeare’s cider proves dead. This bearer, who is my household servant, I have sent with a remedy, 
and in case the Vice-chancellor should bee gone up to London to the Convocation before his coming to Oxford, I wish you to 
intreat Mistress Benson, with the remembrance of my service to her, to admit this bearer to perform his part which hee is sent 
to doe. I presume I need not use many words to move you to assist in all things, that this bearer may doe handsomely and 
effectually that which my love to you is the motive of. God bless you with his Grace, and I rest 
“Your loving Grand-Tasker, 
“Homelacie, Oct. 8, 1667.” “John Scudamore. 
Lord Scudamore has been accredited by some late writers with the establishment of the 
terraced walks and the neatly clipped hedges of Yew-tree, which now form so striking a characteristic 
of the Holme Lacy gardens, but this was not the case. The times were far too troublous for the 
exercise of the “ topiary art ” as it was called, even if the idea had been in unison with Lord 
Scudamore’s character, which it certainly was not. This Dutch system of gardening required a far 
more peaceful time for its introduction—a proper time for the practice of 
“ Retired leisure 
That in trim gardens takes its pleasure.” 
This “topiary art” did not become fashionable until the reigns of William III., and Anne. 1 
1 The Mansion of Holme Lacy was erected about the year 1545, on a site previously occupied by buildings that, tradition 
asserts, formed the dwelling of Walter de Lacy and his heirs. It has twice undergone great alterations since Lord Scudamore’s 
time. He spent nothing on it himself, but he is thought, during his residence in France, to have procured the designs for 
rebuilding it, which were afterwards carried out in part by his grandson, the second Viscount. It was in the style of a French 
Chateau, built of reddish stone, with high pitched roof, and projecting carved oak cornices. It was strikingly similar in 
design to Clarendon House in London, which is so frequently mentioned by Evelyn in his Diary The approach to the house 
was from the North, through a lofty arch which led into a quadrangle, formed by the steward’s house, laundry, dairy, stables, 
cider house, &c. Passing through the quadrangle under a second and deeper archway, the broad gravelled terrace was 
crossed to reach the house door. The steep roof of the quadrangle, its projecting cornices, with the bell tower on the one 
side and the clock tower on the other, while strictly in character with those of the Mansion, gave to both a singularly 
picturesque appearance. 
“ In keeping with such a house were the gardens, in which the topiary artist reigned supreme, and alley answered alley, with 
a regularity to modern eyes monotonous. Yet the trim yew hedges and straight walks help us to recall the smoothly-polished 
lines in which Pope, a frequent visitor, sang the praises of the ‘ Man of Ross ;’ and we may fancy Gay as wandering through 
the maze, gaining there a fresh experience in ‘ The art of walking the streets,’ although the poet’s friendship was rather with 
Lady Scudamore (Frances, daughter of Simon, Lord Digby) than with her husband, yet it serves to complete the chain of 
poetic associations, with which Spenser was the first to link this noble family.” (“ Manor Houses of Herefordshireby the 
Rev.J. C. Robinson , M.A.) 
The second grand alteration was not so happy. Sir Edwyn Scudamore Stanhope (c. 1825) swept away the quadrangle with 
