Peter Smith, 'Lady Oxford's Alterations at Welbeck Abbey 1741–55', the Georgian Group Journal, Vol. Xi, 2001, Pp
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Peter Smith, ‘Lady Oxford’s alterations at Welbeck Abbey 1741–55’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XI, 2001, pp. 133–168 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2001 LADY OXFORD’S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY, – PETER SMITH idowhood could be a rare time of indepen - On July the Duke died unexpectedly, after Wdence for a woman in the eighteenth century, a riding accident at Welbeck, precipitating a and especially for one like the dowager Countess of mammoth legal battle over the Cavendish estates. By Oxford and Mortimer (Fig. ), who had complete his will all his estates in Yorkshire, Staffordshire and control of her own money and estates. Born Lady Northumberland were bequeathed to his year-old Henrietta Cavendish-Holles in , the only daughter Henrietta, while an estate at Orton in daughter of John Holles, st Duke of Newcastle, and Huntingdonshire passed to his wife and the remainder his wife, formerly Lady Margaret Cavendish, she of his considerable property passed to his nephew chose to spend her widowhood building, like her Thomas Pelham. This would have meant that the great-great-great-grandmother, Bess of Hardwick, former Cavendish estates in Nottinghamshire and before her. Derbyshire would have gone to Thomas Pelham, not Lady Oxford had fought hard, and paid a high Henrietta. When the widowed Duchess discovered price, to retain her mother’s Cavendish family estates, the terms of her husband’s will she ‘was indignant and she obviously felt a particularly strong beyond measure’ and ‘immediately resolved to attachment to them. These estates were centred dispute its validity’. The legal battle which ensued around the former Premonstratensian abbey at was bitter and complex, and it was only finally settled Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire, but also included the after the death of the Duchess by a private Act of Bolsover Castle estate in Derbyshire and the Ogle Parliament in . By this settlement Henrietta got Castle estate in Northumberland. Welbeck Abbey back most of the Cavendish estates including had been bought by Sir Charles Cavendish, third son Bolsover and Welbeck, but only after she and her of Bess of Hardwick, c. . Sir Charles and his son husband had to agreed to pay all the costs of the case, Sir William, who was created Duke of Newcastle- and other reparations, which amounted to a bill of upon-Tyne, employed the Smythsons to make many over £ , . Fortunately for Henrietta, her father alterations and additions to Welbeck, Bolsover and had purchased the Wimpole Hall estate in Ogle. On the death of the nd Duke in these Cambridgeshire and the Marylebone estate in estates passed to his third daughter Margaret, the wife London after making his controversial will, and these of John Holles, later th Earl of Clare, and eventually properties, which were consequently not affected by created st Duke of Newcastle of the second creation it, passed directly and undisputed to her in . in consequence of his marriage. He employed both Her marriage had been agreed by the late Duke of William Talman and Sir John Vanbrugh to make rival Newcastle and Robert Harley, the recently created designs for a palatial new house at Welbeck, and Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, father of her intended although nothing came of this, it seems that the Duke husband, Edward, Lord Harley. It took place in the did employ an unknown architect to make extensive Drawing Room at Wimpole Hall on August . alterations to the Abbey at this time. Lord Harley became the nd Earl of Oxford in , THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒ one of James Lees-Milne’s five Earls of Creation Countess’s many letters to her grandson at Bulstrode, whose ‘single-minded dedication to the cause of she explained the reason for her building activities at learning earned him considerable renown even Welbeck. It was she said ‘to incline my family to amongst scholars and writers on the continent.’ His reside at the only Habitable Seat of my Ancestors.’ ever expanding book and manuscript collection, She even sought the approval of the Duke and which ‘at his death [in ].... consisted of , Duchess, who would of course one day inherit to , printed books, , pamphlets, , Welbeck, saying in a letter of ‘I am anxious to manuscripts and many thousands of roles, charters hasten the architects draft, so that I might show it to and other documents’ was to become the nucleus of the Duke and Duchess,’ and that their ‘liking for the the British Library. His patronage extended to designs has been a great encouragement to me to go Handel, Dahl, Wootton, Thornhill, Rysbrack, Swift, on with the work.’ Defoe, Pope and Vertue. Eventually Lord Oxford’s Her interests were not confined to ‘the Seat of reckless generosity, passion for collecting and his her Ancestors’. They extended to the ancestors refusal to face up to his debts brought about a themselves, or at least their portraits, which she financial crisis, which came to a head in . A gathered together at Welbeck from Wimpole, Bolsover schedule of his debts, drawn up in , shows that and Dover Street, and which she employed George he owed £ , , exclusive of interest arrears. This Vertue, her late husband’s friend, to catalogue. document also records that most of the capital sums Horace Walpole, on his only visit to Welbeck in had been repaid by his wife and trustees before the stated ‘it is impossible to describe the bales of end of . They were forced to sell the already Cavendishes, Harleys, Holleses, Veres and Ogles: mortgaged Wimpole estate to Lord Hardwicke for every chamber is tapestried with them: nay, and with £ , in . Lord Oxford died in June ten thousand other fat morsels; all with their histories leaving an unusual will, written in , in which he inscribed’, and he ended by saying that Lady Oxford bequeathed the bulk of his estate outright to his had spent her widowhood ‘in collecting and widow, Henrietta. So, unlike most widows who monumenting the portraits and reliquaries of all the would normally have received a life interest in a small great families from which she descended’. Similar estate or the income from their jointure, Lady Oxford sentiments were expressed by Mrs Delany, who found herself, at the age of , in sole possession of stayed at Welbeck that same year: ‘Here everything all the surviving Cavendish estates . displays the antiquity of the noble race from whence Henrietta, now the dowager Countess of Oxford the owners are descended, and the walls are covered and Mortimer, decided to retire to Welbeck Abbey in family portraits’. These ancestral portraits were immediately after her husband’s death in , and in the only pictures that Henrietta retained from Lord she stated in a letter that ‘if possible my Harley’s collection, apart from a number of paintings inclination for retirement increases’. She lived on at which she and her late husband had commissioned Welbeck for the remaining fourteen years of her life, from John Wootton. These were of course mostly making only one major trip, to Scotland in , plus portraits of horses, and they reflect Lady Oxford’s occasional trips to London and to Bath for her other life-long interest in horses, riding and hunting, health. She also paid visits to Bulstrode Park in which she shared with most of her ancestors. She Buckinghamshire, to see her only daughter Margaret, even chose to be painted by Godfrey Kneller for her the wife of William Bentinck, nd Duke of Portland, full-length portrait in , in her finest riding attire. and her grandson William Henry Cavendish- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ‘a constant and Bentinck, Marquess of Titchfield. In one of the devoted friend of Lady Oxford,’ was one of her THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒ regular correspondents. Lady Oxford’s surviving the Marylebone estate development. What may be letters suggest that she was remarkably philosophical James’s survey drawing (Fig. ) shows the entrance about the troubles of owning a large estate, about life courtyard to the west of the main house with all the in general and even about her gradually declining surrounding buildings laid flat. It corresponds with health. Only her passion for building seems to have Samuel Buck’s view of the south front of Welbeck excited any real enthusiasm. When she wrote to her Abbey (Fig. ) of and with the description of young grandson she often expressed her annoyance the Abbey written by George Vertue in : ‘before and impatience with the rate of building works; for the house at Welbeck a Spacious large Court Yard example on December she wrote to her with Stables one side built & a Noble Riding grandson ‘I will go on with it [the building work] as House for the Managing of Horses on ye other side fast as circumstances permit. I have a hundred foot in length this was built in Duke Williams workmen employed and intend to have more when time.... .’ The drawing shows the western the weather is better and the days are longer. The (entrance) facade of the main house (Fig. ) as it had stucco men are working by candle light by night and been remodelled for the late Duke by an unknown in the early morning.’ And in another letter she stated, architect, with sashes throughout and a raised and ‘Welbeck improvements do not go as fast as I would pedimented three-window centre. The survey also wish. The many fairs, feasts and races are sad retarders records the rear or north facade of what became of our work.’ known as the Oxford Wing, showing that it too had The income and especially the timber from the been regularised with sash windows, plus the then Welbeck Abbey estate had been used to finance Lord surviving Smythson stables to the west and the Old Harley’s obsessive collecting, and Henrietta stated Riding School to the north.