I think it's time for some sober scholarship, as
opposed to pub crawling for Raleigh 400 - though there's more of that to come.
East Budleigh’s Syon House, pictured above and described as ‘the
perfect boutique country house B and B’, would at first glance seem to
have no connection to Sir Walter. It’s a fine 18th century building overlooking
the village of Otterton, and in fact is separated from the older part of East
Budleigh and Raleigh’s birthplace by the main road.
Syon House Brentford, London: the west aspect
Credit: Russ Hamer
Syon House, at Brentford, is the spectacular London home of the
Duke of Northumberland. The house was
built in the sixteenth century on the site of the Medieval Syon Abbey, and came
to the family of the present owners in 1594. Syon has many layers of history
and has seen some profound changes over the centuries
So what’s the link to the other Syon House in East Budleigh? They’re both Georgian in design of course, but we have to dig a little deeper.
The Vision of St Bridget, detail of initial letter
miniature, dated 1530, probably made at Syon. The document is a conveyance of
lands bequeathed to Sheen Priory by the will of Hugh Denys(d.1511) to Syon (BL
Harley MS 4640,f.15)
Redesigned in the 18th century by the architect
Robert Adam and replacing an earlier building, the Brentford Syon House gives
little hint to visitors that it was once a medieval monastery. But down in the
crypt you’ll find much earlier stone foundations, and the curious story of the
religious order founded by the Swedish visionary St Bridget and its link with
Otterton.
Hugo the Otterton salt worker: sculpture by Angie Harlock-Wilkinson in Fairlynch Museum
Following the Norman
invasion of 1066, Otterton was given by William the Conqueror to the Abbey of
Mont St Michel in France and a priory was set up. Its various trade interests
included exploitation of the salt marshes at Budleigh Salterton. You can
discover the story of the Prior of Otterton and Hugo the salt worker who was
too fond of his cider, at the town’s Fairlynch Museum.
During the wars between England and France, in
1414 King Henry V seized the manor of Otterton and granted it to the monastery
of Bridgettines which he had established by royal charter on the banks of the
Thames. Its full title was given as ‘The Monastery of St Saviour and the Saints
Mary the Virgin and Bridget of Syon of the Order of St Augustine and of St
Saviour’. The foundation stone of Syon Monastery was laid by the King himself
in 1431, the name coming from the Bible’s description of Syon or Zion, the
citadel of Jerusalem.
Syon Monastery retained ownership of Otterton
Priory for just over a century. Then came the turmoil of the Reformation in the
reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The monks were
dispersed, and the monastic half of Otterton’s church was pulled down, or
simply allowed to decay.
View across the Thames of Syon House before the alterations of the 1760s by Robert Griffier (1688-1760), landscape painter from London who was active
in Amsterdam
As for Syon Monastery itself, the King’s minister
Thomas Cromwell himself took an active role in ensuring its closure. Its monks
were finally expelled in 1539. The estate was acquired by the Lord Protector to
the young King Edward VI, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who built the first
version of Syon House in the Italian Renaissance style.
More religious and political upheavals took place,
including the Duke’s execution for treason in 1552, and the lease of Syon House
was finally given in 1594 to Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland.
Portrait of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and friend of Raleigh, by the Exeter-born artist Nicholas Hilliard, painted 1590-95.
Framed oval portrait version of Hilliard's larger work
Ten years younger than Sir Walter, Percy had an
unusual
interest in scientific and alchemical experiments
which he shared with Raleigh and which gained him the nickname of the ‘Wizard
Earl’.
He was also extremely wealthy, finally coming into
possession not only of Syon House but of Petworth in Sussex.
The Molyneux globe at Petworth
Image credit Mark Sherouse
At this time both men were part of the select
coterie of intellectuals based at Raleigh’s London residence, Durham House. The
Molyneux cartographical globe at Petworth is supposed to have been given to him
by Raleigh, one of many expensive gifts which the two exchanged and Sir Walter
is known to have consulted the library there in the course of his scholarly
pursuits.
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland (the
'wizard earl'), painted as a philosopher, posthumously in 1641, by Anthony van Dyck, at Petworth House.
©NTPL/Derrick E. Witty
Under King James I, Northumberland was a long-term
prisoner in the Tower of London, suspected of having played a part in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. According to the Percy Family History, he took
with him into captivity ‘a large number of books, retorts, crucibles, alembics,
zodiacal charts and globes’, also a selection of his favourite pipes. Food,
good wine, and quantities of tobacco were sent to him regularly, and baskets of
fruit were dispatched from his orchards at Syon.
There were also visitors, and he had living with
him three wise men, scientists known as the ‘Three Magi’ who assisted him with
his experiments. He played chess and draughts, and an early version of
kriegspiel, for one item in his accounts is for 300 model soldiers and other
necessary equipment.
Raleigh too, having offended Queen Elizabeth’s
successor, was a fellow-prisoner with Northumberland at this time. Their
friendship and the intellectual curiosity that they shared, along with their
dislike of King James - ‘the wisest fool in Christendom’ - would no doubt have helped to make their
lives more tolerable than those of most of the Tower of London’s residents.
William Shakespeare and a Raleigh connection - apart from that earring. This was long thought to be the only portrait of William Shakespeare that had any claim to have been painted from life, until another possible life portrait, the Cobbe portrait, was revealed in 2009. The portrait is known as the 'Chandos portrait' after a previous owner, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. It was the first portrait to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1856.
It may be by a painter called John Taylor who was an important member of the Painter-Stainers' Company
In Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594),
there is a mention of the ‘School of Night’. It has been argued that this
refers to a circle of scientific investigators including Northumberland, which
met at Syon House, though other commentators think the word ‘school’ is a
misprint for something like ‘shawl’.
Since Northumberland was often considered to be an atheist, the ‘school’
was sometimes referred to as the ‘School of Atheism’. Raleigh was the supposed leader.
Reading about this episode in Raleigh's life makes
you realise how far he had evolved from the brutal thug that he was in his
youth. And I enjoyed finding the answer to the puzzle that I first encountered
when I saw Syon House on the map on a walk around East Budleigh.
For more insights into the Percy family see
http://www.percyfamilyhistory.com/?page_id=534
The East Budleigh Syon House website is at
http://www.syonhousedevon.co.uk/
FOR THE RALEIGH 400 CALENDAR OF
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IN 2018 CLICK ON
http://raleigh400.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/raleigh-400-calendar-of-events-in-2018.html
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