Caversham Park - A King's Prison

On Monday I had the great pleasure of talking about Ashdown House on BBC Radio Berkshire’s History Hour. It was wonderful to be invited and I hope it brings in some more visitors to see “our” special house. Ashdown gets so little publicity and is such a jewel – it deserves to be more widely known!

Visiting Caversham Park for the interview was in itself a treat because it was one of the Craven estates that I had not previously seen. The parallels with Ashdown are striking. Both can trace their origins back pre-Conquest and both were established as hunting chases in the 13th century. During the medieval period one of Caversham’s most famous owners was William Marshal, a close advisor to both King Richard I and King John, who rose to become regent for Henry III. William Marshal was the embodiment of the chivalric ideal and a celebrated knight. Arguably there are parallels there with William Craven five hundred years later.

The Craven family acquired Caversham Park in the early 17th century as part of their extensive investment in land. By 1643 it had been sequestered by the parliament along with all of William Craven’s other estates apart from Coombe Abbey. King Charles I was imprisoned at Caversham in July of that year. As at Ashdown, trees on the estate were felled to build Cromwell’s Navy. The Elizabethan manor house and the estate suffered much damage during this period but when William Craven regained his lands in 1660 he rebuilt Caversham Park, probably with William Winde as the architect. By 1689 it was the sixth largest house in Oxfordshire. (Like Ashdown, Caversham has moved county!) It was sold on Craven’s death in 1697 and came into the Cadogan family.

The terrace at the front of the house dates from the Georgian period when Capability Brown landscaped the grounds. The current mansion, however, dates from the 1850s. I was allowed a special peek into the grand Victorian reception rooms on the ground floor. The atrium, (pictured above) which was once the entrance to the stables, is particularly impressive.

I’m looking forward to doing more research into Caversham Park during the period of Craven ownership so if anyone has any information, please get in touch!

Sir William Craven - Gentleman?

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to attend a performance of The City Madam at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon. This would have been enough of a treat on its own but the fact that the play, a satiric comedy, was written in 1632 and reflects on the consumer culture of the early 17th century was an added bonus. The story contrasts the city and the court, new money and old and as such throws a contemporary spotlight (okay, that's an anachronism but you know what I mean) on precisely the society in which Sir William Craven, founder of the Craven family fortunes, rose to prominence.

The playright, Philip Massinger, was the son of a provincial gentleman and a tradesman's daughter who was very familiar with the scramble up the social ladder in 17th century society. As such he was well-placed to ask the question "What makes a gentleman?" John Evelyn, in The Mode, 1661, complained: "How many times have I saluted the fine man for the master, and stood with my hat off to the gay feather, when I found the bird to be all this while but a daw." Clothes, it seems, not birth, did maketh the gentleman, at least superficially.

In scene two of The City Madam Sir Maurice Lacy makes fun of the gentleman Mr Plenty with the following words: "Thy great-grandfather was a butcher, and his son a grazier; thy sire constable of the hundred and thou the first of thy dunghill created gentleman." This demonstrates the arrogance but also the fear and dislike that the aristocracy had for those rich men on the rise.

One of the themes of the play is that there should be a distinction between the city and the court. Wives of city merchants, no matter how rich, should not ape their betters in the aristocracy, either in terms of their dress or in their proud attititudes. Their social climbing is ridiculous; inappropriate and a poor example. The character of Lady Frugal, for example, dresses with extraordinary ostentation in her silks and furs despite the fact that she is the daughter of a country farmer who was only "ladified" because her husband made a fortune.

Sir William Craven fits beautifully into this profile of a man on the make. He came from a poor family, he was a self-made man and he rose to be Lord Mayor of London. He married late, when he had made his pile, into the rich mercantile class to which he now belonged. He bought himself a knighthood. His wife was thereby "ladyfied." Craven was also renowned for his charitable giving - another feature of rich London merchants - both in the City and back home in Yorkshire where he endowed a school, rebuilt the parish church, paid for a bridge and causeway to be built and undertook many other good works. He was also a moneylender to the aristocracy, which increased his fortune immeasurably.

Despite this rampant and some might say entirely admirable social climbing, Craven was still very much a man of the upper middle classes, not the aristocracy, when he died in 1618. What happened next in the Craven family, though, was possibly even more interesting in terms of upward mobility. In his will Craven specified that his wife (for obvious reasons now one of the most sought-after widows in London!) should invest some of his billions in land. This she did, buying estates at Combe Abbey, Ashdown, and Stokesay amongst many others. This was an interesting move. Arguably land was a good investment but it also had strong social implications as well. Craven was posthumously moving his fortune and his family's social positioning from the middle to the upper class.

The transformation of a "poor" family into an aristocratic one was achieved in only two generations when Sir William Craven's sons William and John became respectively First Earl of Craven and Baron Craven of Ryton. The entire family in fact moved up the social scale with Sir William's brothers and sisters and their children becoming country gentry and moving on the edge of aristocratic society. At the end of the 16th century no one would for a moment have considered the apprentice William Craven to be a gentleman. In 1664 his sons were undeniably aristocrats in that they both held titles in the peerage.

Interestingly William First Earl of Craven chose not to further consolidate his family's position in the aristocracy through a rich marriage. A suggested betrothal between him and Lady Mary Cavendish did not come off and he never married at all. And although he was undeniably a member of the court and prominent in the aristocracy, old prejudices of blood and title still persisted. The First Earl was very much looked down upon as an arriviste by members of the "old" nobility. It was ever thus...

The Romance of it All!

In a week when the National Trust and Harlequin Mills & Boon announced that a historical romance was being published to commemorate 400 years of Ham House (left), I thought it would be nice to put forward Ashdown House's own romantic credentials. Indeed there can be few historic houses in the country that could rival Ashdown as far as scandal, love and sex are concerned. After all, it was home to the outrageous Elizabeth Berkeley, the beautiful 18th century Lady Craven, whom Horace Walpole called "infinitamente indiscreet." Lady Craven took lovers with the same flair that her husband took mistresses (sauce for the goose...), finally left Lord Craven to travel extensively through Europe and to more exotic climes, and set herself up as "sister" to the Margrave of Ansbach. It is said that Lady Craven received the news of her husband's death on the Friday, went into her widow's weeds on the Saturday and by the Sunday was wearing white satin and many diamonds, in which outfit she married the Margrave. The happy couple returned to England, purchased a villa on the banks of the Thames and, supremely indifferent to the disapproval of high society, held glamorous parties and entertained lavishly.

Evidently Lady Craven's eldest son had inherited something of his mother's unconventional ways, for he was the first lover of the notorious courtesan Harriette Wilson, who lived with him at Ashdown House for some time. I don't think Harriette was much taken with either the house or the country. Or with William, for that matter. I have talked about William, Harriette and Jane Austen (there's a menage a trois for you!) in a previous blog post so will say no more here about the Regency rakehell Earl of Craven other than to note that he went on to marry an actress.

But of course the Ashdown love story to end all love stories has to be the tale of the First Earl of Craven and Elizabeth, the Winter Queen. Indeed it is said that Ashdown was built "for the love of a woman who never lived to see it." Craven first met Elizabeth, daughter of King James I, when he was a soldier fighting in the 30 Years War in Europe and she was the was the stunningly pretty, charming and charismatic wife of Frederick, the Elector Palatine. Elizabeth attracted to her service a whole cadre of knights who worshipped her in the courtly traditions of medieval love; they included her cousin Christian of Anhalt, who used to carry her glove as a token when he rode into battle. There is a record of the Christmas celebrations at Heidelberg during the early years of Elizabeth's marriage when a host of infatuated young gentlemen threw themselves at Elizabeth's feet and pledged their swords to her service. Her husband Frederick was apparently not amused.

Craven's devotion to Elizabeth lasted for over 40 years, during which her fortunes were on the slide. Frederick's acceptance of the throne of Bohemia in 1619 provoked the Holy Roman Emperor into a response that saw the Protestant forces defeated at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620. Elizabeth and Frederick were forced into exile and Elizabeth lived for 40 years in The Hague before the restoration of her nephew King Charles II finally saw her return to England. Her son Charles Louis eventually reclaimed his ancestral Palatine lands but Frederick had died in exile and Elizabeth, pawning her jewellery and her furniture to make ends meet, was increasingly reliant on both the moral and financial support of courtiers such as William Craven. One letter from her to him reports: "We have no money... and today if none be found we shall have neither bread nor meat nor candles..." Craven was clearly a man who could take a hint; he provided vast sums of money to support Elizabeth's household through her exile.

Opinion is divided over the relationship Elizabeth had with Craven. There are those who say that they were secretly married and there are even suggestions that one of the generous payments that Craven made to Charles I during the English Civil War (£50 000) had as a condition that he be permitted to marry Elizabeth, a twist worthy of a historical romance. In the 18th century the marriage of William and Elizabeth was spoken of openly within the Craven family but there appears to be no evidence to support it. Confusingly, at one point it was rumoured that Craven wanted to marry Elizabeth's eldest daughter, the Princess Elizabeth Palatine, the greatest beauty of the age. Elizabeth senior was twelve years older than William Craven, her daughter considerably younger.

In his youth a match had been put forward between William Craven and Lady Mary Cavendish but it came to nothing and she bemoaned the fact that he seemed to prefer soldiering to paying court to her! After this there is no record of Craven showing an interest in any woman other than Elizabeth. This is striking for a man who was not only one of the ten richest landowners in seventeenth century England but also had a title and estates to pass on to subsequent generations. Also striking is the fact that William Craven remained at Elizabeth's court in The Hague during the period of the English Civil War rather than return to fight for her brother Charles I despite being an experienced soldier, a staunch supporter of the Stuart cause and a financial benefactor to Charles. One might deduce from this that William's love for Elizabeth was stronger than his support for the Stuart cause in England and indeed stronger than his concern over the fate of his own estates - an interesting debate.

So was William's love for Elizabeth courtly or rather less rarefied? Was it requited or unrequited? Were they secretly married? The nature of Elizabeth's correspondence with Craven is irreproachably formal, though there might have been some fun in writing in formal terms to a secret lover. Against the match is also Elizabeth's sense of her own consequence; when all was said and done she was a queen and the daughter of a king. Craven was the son of a self-made man who had made a fortune in the cloth trade, bought himself a knighthood and invested in land. The match would have been beyond unequal.

What we do know is that on Elizabeth's return to England in 1661 it was William Craven who put his house in London at her disposal and he also began work on two houses on his Berkshire estates, Hamstead Marshall, which was to mirror Elizabeth's palace in Heidelberg, and Ashdown House, a tiny white palace for a queen. Elizabeth died before either of these projects were completed. A secret marriage between the two of them may be in dispute. What is not in dispute is the devotion William Craven showed to Elizabeth of Bohemia for over 40 years.

The richest of the rich

Where did it all go right for the Craven family? It began with the birth in approximately 1548 of a son William, to Beatrix and William Craven in Appletreewick in Yorkshire. William was born in one of two cottages that now form part of the church of St John the Baptist in Appletreewick. He attended a "Dames School" in nearby Burnsall, a place where basic education was provided to the children of poor working families before they themselves were old enough to go out to work. In 1560 William got his big chance when he was chosen to be the new apprentice to Robert Hulson, a Burnsall man who had become a merchant tailor in London.

Based on Craven's later career one can speculate about his rise to riches. He was a clever boy who worked hard and was utterly determined to succeed. After he became a member of the Merchant Tailors' Company in 1569, Craven went into businesss with Hulson and when Hulson died he left his former apprentice £5, “a mourninge gown and my shop at Breedstreete corner of Watling Street with the lytle shoppe and warehowse thereunto adjoining, for a terme of three years.” This bequest was made to William "for failthful and diligent service to me done." He had evidently been a loyal and industrious business partner.

After Hulson's death Craven expanded the business and became a Warden of the Merchant Tailors Company on 4th July 1594. He married late, in 1597, when he was already a man of substance and could look for a wife who was younger but was of equal wealth and stature. Elizabeth Whitmore was the daughter of William Whitmore, another merchant tailor, and her brother George went on to be Lord Mayor of London. Elizabeth and William Craven had six children.

William was by now well on the way to making a fortune and moving up in the fluid social world of the Elizabethan middle class. Opportunities provided by trade gave men such as Craven a route not merely to money but also to influential municipal connections. He was elected Alderman of the Bishopsgate Ward of London in 1600, became Sheriff of London in 1601, was knighted in 1603 and became Lord Mayor of London in 1610. He made his money in the wholesale of cloth for the domestic market, providing, for example, cloth worth almost £600 for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth I. Later on in his career he became a moneylender to the aristocracy, and his debtors included Sir Robert Cecil, the 2nd Earl of Essex and the 9th Earl of Northumberland.

Craven was associated with a number of charitable projects in London and he also became a benefactor to Burnsall and Appletreewick. He paid for renovations to St Wilfrid's Church Burnsall in 1612, furnishing the main body of the church and the chancel with seats and "stalls of wainscot" and he walled the churchyard and had gates added. He paid for a bridge to be built over the River Wharf and had a causeway built from Appletreewick to the church. This was visible until the mid-20th century but is now buried. A rather charming verse was painted onto the church wall to record Craven's generosity:

This church of beauty most, repaired and bright,

Two hundred pouds or more, did cost Sir William Craven, knight,

Many other works of charity whereof no mention here;

True tokens of his bounty in this parish did appear.

His place of his nativity in Appletreewick is seen,

And late of London Lord City Mayor he hath been.

There is a second verse in a similar vein referring to "that bountiful knighte" and his genersoity once again! The total sum Craven spent restoring the church and its grounds was about £600, the equivalent of about £80,000 today.

Craven also built and endowed Burnsall Grammar School in 1605, giving £20 per annum to pay a schoolteacher and £10 for an usher (assistant schoolmaster). The scholars received free education in Latin and English but had to pay one shilling a week for tuition in Maths. The school statutes give a fascinating insight into both Sir William's benevolent paternalism and into the influence which the rest of his family were already exerting in local affairs. All documents relating to the governance of the school were to be kept in a chest in the schoolhouse. The chest had three locks and the three keys were held by the Rector of Burnsall, Sir William and his relatives Robert and Antony Craven. The keys were handed down through the family and the statutes decreed that they should be held by "two men of the name of Craven from the Parish of Burnsall" for as long as there were Craven descendents in the parish.

The school was built on land given by Sir Stephen Tempest, the local squire. The Tempest family had been well-established in the Appletreewick area for three hundred years; it would be interesting to know how they felt about the re-appearance of the newly rich and knighted Sir William Craven in a county where they had always been influential, especially as in 1601 Craven bought the manor house Elm Tree in Appletreeewick, which he re-named High Hall. It was situated opposite the cottage where he had been born. Again this seems a significant statement in Craven's rise to eminence.

When Sir William Craven died in 1618 he left a fortune of £125,000, the equivalent of £5.3 billion in today's values which enable his widow and sons to buy a considerable landed estate and his surviving daughters to marry into the aristocracy.

It was said of the later Cravens that Sir William made all the money and subsequent generations spent it. Whilst this is somewhat unfair, a look at the family tree serves to demonstrate the difference that one "boy-made-good" could make to the future of an entire family. Craven's eldest son William went on to become the first Earl of Craven, a notable soldier and the builder of Ashdown and other grand houses. His second son John became Baron Craven of Ryton. One of his cousins became Master of the Horse to Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia and another became her usher. Several other Craven nephews and cousins were knighted and married into the aristocracy. Perhaps the most interesting early descendent is Mary Craven who became Lady Andros. As a result of her connection to the first Earl of Craven she gained a place at the court of King Charles II and went on to marry Sir Edmund Andros, gentleman in waiting to Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia and later one of the early colonial governors of America. Mary died in Boston in 1688. It was a long way from Appletreewick and a graphic illustration of how high the Craven family had risen on the coattails of one man.

References: Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.richestoftherich.com/richlist.php?richindex=133 , A Short History of Burnsall School by Stockdale and Townend, Burnsall Church and its Story by M L Dawson.