Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/242

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CHAPTER VI

LORD SHELBURNE AND THE MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM

1763-1765

For a year and more after the events just related Shelburne seems to have availed himself in earnest of the opportunity of cultivating the retirement on the charms of which he had formerly insisted when writing to Fox. While his enemies at Court were blackening his character, he was buying MSS., entertaining his friends, making a lake at Bowood,^[1] and restoring order on his estate at Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, which, on his succession, he says he "had found tenanted by beggars and bankrupts, universally out of repair, great part uninclosed, and the bounds of the rest in the worst possible order. No tenants could be got to take it without a great deal being done, and without

↑ Bowood anciently constituted part of the royal forest of Pewisham, which extended from Chippenham to Devizes, and from Lacock to Calne, and was bounded on the north and west by the River Avon. It was disafforested at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and granted in life estates and reversions to the courtiers of James I. and Charles I. These were forfeited under the Commonwealth. According to John Britton, the Wiltshire antiquary, the forest was then again thrown open, and the Parliamentary Commissioners, wishing to convey the deer of the former owners over Lockswell Heath to Spye Park, with what view is not quite clear, were embarrassed as to the means of effecting their object, till the clothiers of the neighbourhood constructed a skirted road of broadcloth between those places, and so accomplished their removal. At the Restoration the forest again came into the hands of the Crown, fresh grants were made, and Bowood was leased for ninety-nine years to Sir Orlando Bridgman, whose son, in 1726, obtained the fee. On his death it was sold to John, Earl of Shelburne. The present house was then built, but it has since been largely added to. The grounds were laid out by the Earl of Shelburne, the subject of this book, under the advice of "Capability" Brown, and Mr. Hamilton, of Pains' Hill. (See for further details Historical, Topographical, and Antiquarian Sketches of Wiltshire, by John Britton, and Canon Jackson's notes at p. 34 of his edition of Aubrey's Wiltshire.) Wycombe had been part of the Petty estates inherited by John Fitzmaurice. (See note, Chap. I. p. 1.)

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[1] Bowood anciently constituted part of the royal forest of Pewisham, which extended from Chippenham to Devizes, and from Lacock to Calne, and was bounded on the north and west by the River Avon. It was disafforested at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and granted in life estates and reversions to the courtiers of James I. and Charles I. These were forfeited under the Commonwealth. According to John Britton, the Wiltshire antiquary, the forest was then again thrown open, and the Parliamentary Commissioners, wishing to convey the deer of the former owners over Lockswell Heath to Spye Park, with what view is not quite clear, were embarrassed as to the means of effecting their object, till the clothiers of the neighbourhood constructed a skirted road of broadcloth between those places, and so accomplished their removal. At the Restoration the forest again came into the hands of the Crown, fresh grants were made, and Bowood was leased for ninety-nine years to Sir Orlando Bridgman, whose son, in 1726, obtained the fee. On his death it was sold to John, Earl of Shelburne. The present house was then built, but it has since been largely added to. The grounds were laid out by the Earl of Shelburne, the subject of this book, under the advice of "Capability" Brown, and Mr. Hamilton, of Pains' Hill. (See for further details Historical, Topographical, and Antiquarian Sketches of Wiltshire, by John Britton, and Canon Jackson's notes at p. 34 of his edition of Aubrey's Wiltshire.) Wycombe had been part of the Petty estates inherited by John Fitzmaurice. (See note, Chap. I. p. 1.)

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