DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0472
England in the Time of the Renaissance
443
Kenilworth to her favourite in the fifth year of her reign, and Leicester had added to the
old castle, which was surrounded by a very wide moat, a new wing, and furnished it
with wonderful things.
Laneham says that beside the new wing Leicester's plan was carried out for a garden,
which embraced an acre or more, and lay to the north.
Close to the wall is a beautiful terrace, ten feet high and twelve feet broad, quite level, and freshly
covered with thick grass, which also grows on the slope. There are obelisks on the terrace at even
distances, great balls, and white heraldic beasts, all made of stone and perched on artistic posts, good
to look at. At each end is a bower, smelling of sweet flowers and trees. The garden ground below is crossed
by grassy avenues, in straight lines on both sides, some of the walks, for a change, made of gravel,
not too light and dusty, but soft and firm and pleasant to walk on, like the sands by the sea when the
tide has gone out. There are also four equal parterres, cut in regular proportions; in the middle of each
is a post shaped like a cube, two feet high; on that a pyramid, accurately made, symmetrically carved,
fifteen feet high; on the summit a ball ten inches in diameter, and the whole thing from top to bottom,
pedestal and all, hewn out of one solid block of porphyry, and then with much art and skill brought
here and set up. Flowering plants, procured at great expense, yield sweet scent and beauty, with fresh
herbs and flowers, their colours and their many kinds betraying a vast outlay; then fruit-trees full of
apples, pears, and ripe cherries—a garden, indeed, so laid out that, either on or above the lovely terrace
paths, one feels a refreshing breeze in the heat of summer, or the pleasant cool of the fountain. One
can pluck from their stalks, and eat, fine strawberries and cherries.
Thus Laneham, and he cannot sufficiently praise the song of the birds and the view
of field and river beyond the flowers and trees. " It is Paradise, in which the four rivers
are wanting, but so is the fatal tree. Certainly there is herein a witness to a noble mind
that can in such wise order all."
Sir Walter Scott makes Elizabeth and Leicester stroll through the pleasaunce in con-
fidential talk; but his poetic fancy carries him too far when he leads us from terrace to
terrace, from parterre to parterre. We can to-day identify the site of this castle-garden
with its grass terrace and the four main beds north of the castle. The fruit-trees, at that
time kept strictly to the orchard in Italy, are here an ornament of the pleasure-garden.
Lord Burleigh, clever and prudent, for many years Elizabeth's Prime Minister,
made for himself one of the most striking gardens in England at Theobalds, to the north
of London, in Hertfordshire. Lord Burleigh, as he said himself, had only wanted to
build a small house, but the constant visits of the queen forced him to enlarge it more
and more, and in the end it became one of the stateliest castles of his time. He was sober-
minded and sensible, and he succeeded in leaving behind him a great property for his
successors, which no other minister of Elizabeth did—a property not won by robbery
and oppression, but from regular income and economy. But, economical as he was, he
passionately loved laying out his gardens, his walks, his fountains, and this was done
at Theobalds most delightfully and at great expense; the avenues were so long that one
could walk for as much as two miles without coming to the end. Fortunately many
descriptions of the place are extant, though they are of various dates. Round the castle
there were several gardens, all separate, and in no special relation to one another. The
south front looked on the main garden, of very different dimensions from the one at
Kenilworth, for it covered seven acres. The brick walls on three sides of it had a pleasing
appearance, because of the light violet colour that some English bricks take on.
At first, as Hentzner notices in 1598, this garden was almost entirely surrounded
by a moat, which was so wide that one could drive along it, but later this was closed in,
443
Kenilworth to her favourite in the fifth year of her reign, and Leicester had added to the
old castle, which was surrounded by a very wide moat, a new wing, and furnished it
with wonderful things.
Laneham says that beside the new wing Leicester's plan was carried out for a garden,
which embraced an acre or more, and lay to the north.
Close to the wall is a beautiful terrace, ten feet high and twelve feet broad, quite level, and freshly
covered with thick grass, which also grows on the slope. There are obelisks on the terrace at even
distances, great balls, and white heraldic beasts, all made of stone and perched on artistic posts, good
to look at. At each end is a bower, smelling of sweet flowers and trees. The garden ground below is crossed
by grassy avenues, in straight lines on both sides, some of the walks, for a change, made of gravel,
not too light and dusty, but soft and firm and pleasant to walk on, like the sands by the sea when the
tide has gone out. There are also four equal parterres, cut in regular proportions; in the middle of each
is a post shaped like a cube, two feet high; on that a pyramid, accurately made, symmetrically carved,
fifteen feet high; on the summit a ball ten inches in diameter, and the whole thing from top to bottom,
pedestal and all, hewn out of one solid block of porphyry, and then with much art and skill brought
here and set up. Flowering plants, procured at great expense, yield sweet scent and beauty, with fresh
herbs and flowers, their colours and their many kinds betraying a vast outlay; then fruit-trees full of
apples, pears, and ripe cherries—a garden, indeed, so laid out that, either on or above the lovely terrace
paths, one feels a refreshing breeze in the heat of summer, or the pleasant cool of the fountain. One
can pluck from their stalks, and eat, fine strawberries and cherries.
Thus Laneham, and he cannot sufficiently praise the song of the birds and the view
of field and river beyond the flowers and trees. " It is Paradise, in which the four rivers
are wanting, but so is the fatal tree. Certainly there is herein a witness to a noble mind
that can in such wise order all."
Sir Walter Scott makes Elizabeth and Leicester stroll through the pleasaunce in con-
fidential talk; but his poetic fancy carries him too far when he leads us from terrace to
terrace, from parterre to parterre. We can to-day identify the site of this castle-garden
with its grass terrace and the four main beds north of the castle. The fruit-trees, at that
time kept strictly to the orchard in Italy, are here an ornament of the pleasure-garden.
Lord Burleigh, clever and prudent, for many years Elizabeth's Prime Minister,
made for himself one of the most striking gardens in England at Theobalds, to the north
of London, in Hertfordshire. Lord Burleigh, as he said himself, had only wanted to
build a small house, but the constant visits of the queen forced him to enlarge it more
and more, and in the end it became one of the stateliest castles of his time. He was sober-
minded and sensible, and he succeeded in leaving behind him a great property for his
successors, which no other minister of Elizabeth did—a property not won by robbery
and oppression, but from regular income and economy. But, economical as he was, he
passionately loved laying out his gardens, his walks, his fountains, and this was done
at Theobalds most delightfully and at great expense; the avenues were so long that one
could walk for as much as two miles without coming to the end. Fortunately many
descriptions of the place are extant, though they are of various dates. Round the castle
there were several gardens, all separate, and in no special relation to one another. The
south front looked on the main garden, of very different dimensions from the one at
Kenilworth, for it covered seven acres. The brick walls on three sides of it had a pleasing
appearance, because of the light violet colour that some English bricks take on.
At first, as Hentzner notices in 1598, this garden was almost entirely surrounded
by a moat, which was so wide that one could drive along it, but later this was closed in,