Belvoir, Art\u2019s master-piece, and Nature\u2019s pride,
\nHigh in the regions of etherial air,
\nAbove the troubled atmosphere…
\nSee with what comely state
\nIt unconcern’d o’erlooks the humble plains,
\nAnd, from its eminence, commands
\nThe fruitful vale, and far out-stretched lands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/files\/2013\/07\/Belvoir.jpg\")
<\/a>Belvoir in its nineteenth century incarnation, the castle Jonson stayed in having burnt down<\/p><\/div>\n
And as Jonson climbed the 200 steps up the hill to the castle, he will have been able to look out over the Vale, to see the spires of Lincoln Cathedral on its own mound and those of the myriad of warm sandstone churches in between, a \u2018most delicious and pleasing prospect, being accounted one of the best prospects in the land\u2019. Leland described the Vale \u2018barren of wood [but] very large and very plentiful of good corn and grasses\u2019. The spires will have included that of Bottesford where still lie the ancestors of Jonson\u2019s host that day, the earl of Rutland (more on this in the next blogpost).<\/p>\n
<\/a>Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland<\/p><\/div>\n
Francis, 6th earl of Rutland, had inherited the title from his lively brother Roger in 1612. The family had close connections with the court, and the literary world: Roger\u2019s wife had been Elizabeth, daughter of the famed Elizabethan poet, Sir Philip Sidney. She had been one of Jonson\u2019s patrons, the addressee of several of his poems, and had also performed in court masques. Jonson described her to Drummond of Hawthornden as \u2018nothing inferior to her father [Philip Sidney] in poesy\u2019. Sadly for Jonson, she too died prematurely a fortnight after her husband in 1612. The new earl\u2019s countess was Cicely Hungerford, a known recusant, and Francis had also embraced Catholicism, which added a frisson of danger to their household in a militantly Protestant period. But despite this Francis was a trusted advisor to the king. He was also a patron of the arts, commissioning an impresa from William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage in 1613 for that year\u2019s accession day tilt, and took part in a couple of Jonson\u2019s court masques.<\/p>\n
Theirs was a busy and numerous household as befitted their noble status, and lofty surroundings. The Rutlands\u2019 accounts portray a rich picture of generous hospitality, and varied entertainment, and a vivid example of what was expected of a noble establishment in Jacobean England. That summer, for instance, \u2018one rundlet of muscadell\u2019, a cask of 17 gallons of sweet white wine, was sent to Belvoir, so Jonson will have drunk well. Jonson meets Andrew Marks, a gentleman of the household, its music master, and lutenist, and Captain Stratford, a veteran of the Low Countries military campaigns, the earl\u2019s general factotum. The Rutlands, like other nobles, had a private chaplain too, reputedly a Catholic, though they also had close ties to the very Protestant vicar of Bottesford whom Jonson was to meet a couple of days later.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Charles Cotton, The Compleat Gamester, or, Instructions how to play at billiards, trucks, bowls, and chess, 1674<\/p><\/div>\n
The earl spent a fortune on silverware and goldware for gifts and important occasions, hiring extra gilt bowls for royal visits, with neighbouring nobles lending hangings and furnishings for such occasions. Several payments were made for travelling musicians to play for the household, in addition to its own musicians. The Rutlands\u2019 involvement at court necessitated appropriate clothing, in 1616 a goldsmith being paid \u00a330 for 25 yards of silver velvet; 2 yards of crimson mantua velvet cost \u00a310 a few years later. The countess had received a gold chain set with 138 small diamonds costing \u00a3251 in 1613, and the earl\u2019s chains for Garter ceremonies had diamonds added to them. Francis Rutland liked to gamble too, while bowling \u2018at the Greene\u2019 with the king, or playing chess or \u2018pennie pricke\u2019, a betting game of throwing something at a coin as target, or gleek, a card game. In 1615, 20 shillings were delivered to the earl whilst playing pennyprick with Captain Stratford and other gentlemen in the Great Chamber at Garradon.<\/p>\n
In temporary residence that July at Belvoir, was Robert Bertie, Lord Willoughby, Francis Rutland\u2019s close friend, colleague in the drainage of Lincolnshire fens, and his regular hunting companion. This last was probably why Willoughby was there that week, for it was \u2018venison season\u2019 which according to Aubrey\u2019s Brief Lives was the months of July and August, the traditional months too of King James\u2019s summer progresses, as he hunted his way around the shires. Rutland\u2019s accounts show he was a keen huntsman, of deer, foxes and hares, as well as enjoying hawking for pheasants, and he was also careful to preserve the hunting in his region for the king, in 1619 appointing gamekeepers to look after the game there \u2018for the King\u2019s sport\u2019. Jonson was to see this earl hunting, as he was to see several other instances of this pastime, benefitting indeed from it in the sides of venison that he to receive…<\/p>\n
Belvoir<\/a>\u00a0remains the home of the earls of Rutland, though much of the castle that Jonson will have stayed in has long disappeared, damaged in the Civil Wars and a nineteenth century fire. What’s more, the account is sadly silent on the nature and extent of his entertainment here – Jonson’s companion was ill, it seems, and not party to whatever transpired. In the light of the very full household records preserved in the Rutland manuscripts, we can conjecture: but in this instance, the ‘Foot Voyage’ itself doesn’t fill in the blanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Ben Jonson approached Belvoir castle from the east, he will have seen it from some distance, standing proud on its rock overlooking the Vale of Belvoir; in fact, pretty much the same effect as you get today as you … Continue reading