House and Garden 
and was so ruinous that the gate-house was fitted up 
for her reception and hung with such stuffs as could 
be found. Her soldier-guard and attendants, who 
lived in the rambling, ruinous palace, grumbled 
sorely during the long cold and wet nights of a weary 
winter. The Princess liked not her captivity and 
envied a poor milkmaid who was “singing pleasantlie, 
and wished herselfe to be a milkmaid.” One day 
she wrote some sad verses on a shutter with a piece 
of burnt wood, and on another day she inscribed 
with a diamond on her window-pane the words: 
‘ ‘ Much suspected of me 
Nothing proved can be 
Quoth Elizabeth Prisoner.” 
She whiled away the time by studying her books, 
working embroidery and coquetting with astrology 
under the guidance of the celebrated Dr. Dee, past 
master of the art. She came here again on several 
occasions under happier circumstances, and re¬ 
paired the dilapidations of the old palace. An 
island in the lake, called after her name, still pre¬ 
serves her memory. Sir Robert Cecil speaks ill of 
the old house in the times of James 1 . “I'he place 
is unwholesome,” he writes, “all the house standeth 
upon springs. It is unsavoury, for there is no savour 
hut of cows and pigs. It is uneaseful, for only the 
King and Queen with the privy chamber ladies, and 
some three or four of the Scotch Council, are lodged 
in the house, and neither chamberlain nor one English 
councillor have a room.” Those who know Sir 
Walter Scott’s Woodstock need not be reminded of 
the strange adventures of the Parliamentary Com¬ 
missioners who took possession of the rambling old 
building, and of the pranks played upon them by 
“an adroit and humorous Royalist, named Joe 
Collins,” who “summoned spirits from the vasty 
deep” and raised ghosts numerous enough to tax 
the energies of the Psychical Society, and at last 
frightened the commissioners away. It was a merry 
time for old Woodstock. But the ghosts have gone 
with the old house, which has given place to the 
lordly Blenheim, with which we are now mainly 
concerned. 
On June i8th, i705Qess than a year after the 
battle was fought, from which the palace takes its 
name, the grateful nation began to rear this pile and 
to bestow upon the hero of many fights a gift of an 
estate of over 2000 acres. Lands in England were 
formerly held by many curious tenures, e. g. provid¬ 
ing men-at-arms for the king’s service, presenting 
a rose to the king whenever he passed through the 
manor, holding the king’s head when he crossed the 
sea, etc. This custom of grand or petit sergeantry 
was revived when the nation gave this estate to the 
Duke, who, or his successors, was required on the 
anniversary of the day of the battle of Blenheim to 
render to the sovereign at Windsor “one standard or 
colours with three fleur-de-lis painted thereon, as an 
acquittance for all manner of rents, suits and ser¬ 
vices due to the Crown.” 
The house has been called with truth “the ex¬ 
travagant culmination of Palladian grandeur.” Its 
cost was enormous. The sum of £300,000 was 
expended, of which the nation gave £240,000, the 
rest being supplied by the Duke and Duchess. 
The great Duke did not live long enongh to inhabit 
his palace, and the Duchess, the famous Sarah 
Jennings, or la belle Jennings, the favourite and then 
the bitter opponent of Queen Anne, quarreled 
hopelessly with Vanbrugh. She thwarted him in 
every way, and actually refused him admittance to 
see his own work. The poor architect, cheated of 
his salary, was obliged to stand without the gates of 
Blenheim, and pass two uneasy nights at “the Bear” 
without a glimpse of his wonderful erection. Duch¬ 
ess Sarah was indeed a remarkable lady, head¬ 
strong, passionate, revengeful, and yet withal a 
faithful loving wife at a time when conjugal faith¬ 
fulness was not a common virtue in the courts of the 
last Stuart monarchs. A writer who has carefully 
read the records of her time, and has formed a very 
fair and just estimate of the character and conduct of 
the Duchess, says that “he who shall study in detail 
the story of the building of Blenheim will arise from 
his delectable task with no small knowledge of the 
England that passed from the rule of the Stuarts to 
the dynasty of Hanover. ” 
We will examine this stupendous mansion, this 
monument of Palladian grandeur, possessing amidst 
all its magnificence the faults and failings of pseudo¬ 
classicism. 
Leaving the old town of Woodstock, once famous 
for its gloves, we pass through the Triumphal Gate, 
which has a large central arch and two posterns 
with an entablature supported by double de¬ 
tached columns raised on pedestals. An inscription 
records that—“This gate was built in the year after 
the death of the most illustrious John, Duke 
of Marlborough, by order of Sarah, his most be¬ 
loved wife, to whom he left the sole direction of 
many things that remained unfinished of this fabric. 
The services of this great man to his country, the 
pillar will tell you, which the Duchess has erected 
for a lasting monument of his glory and her 
affection towards him, 1723.” 
On entering the park by this gate a magnificent 
view of the noble house greets the eye. The archi¬ 
tectural critic will not fail to perceive the remarkable 
vigour of design, however much he may scoff at the 
extravagance of Palladian grandeur. It possesses 
the usual regularity of plan. There is a great court¬ 
yard facing the principal building, and on each side 
two smaller courts, the kitchen and stable courts, 
surrounded by buildings. A grand vision of towers, 
colonnades, porticoes and exuberant variety of 
design greets us from whatever point of view we 
54 
