In the centre of the ceiling of the Gothic Library at Stowe is an amazing work of heraldry: The Stowe Armorial.
The Library was commissioned by George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham (often called Nugent Buckingham). It was built to a design by Sir John Soane between 1805 and 1807. The armorial is a 1.4m diameter heraldic painting of the 719 quarterings of the Temple, Nugent, Brydges, Chandos and Grenville families, including ten variations of the English Royal arms, the arms of Spencer, De Clare, Valence, Mowbray, Mortimer and De Grey. The painting is signed and dated P. Sonard 1806 (see Stowe House, Michael Bevington 2002).
Somewhere, sometime in a book and certainly on the Internet, this fascinating work has been renamed the Grenville Diptych. That, to put it colloquially, it ain’t. The OED tells us that a diptych is “an altar-piece or other painting composed of two leaves which close like a book.” (http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/53277). The Stowe Armorial does not have two leaves, neither can an immovable object in a ceiling be folded.
This myth is widespread and on eBay and Amazon you can buy prints of the “Grenville Diptych”. They are lovely images but a diptych they ain’t.
Andy Boddington
See also http://www.dukesofbuckingham.org.uk/dukes/misc/geneaology/stowe_armorial.htm (which has a larger image).
John Broadway (1771-1836) was clerk of the works to myself and the Duchess at Stowe until his death there in 1836. He was a first-class steward and a family friend.
His untimely death was a great shock. Anna Eliza, the Duchess, wrote to her cousin Captain Percy Grace with the news:
We experienced a dreadful shock a Month ago from the awful death of poor Broadway who fell from a trap Door a height of twelve feet upon a Stone Pavement & was instantly killed close to the Room where we were at breakfast. It is impossible to describe the effect it had upon us all & I trust the awful lesson of the uncertainty of this life will be of lasting benefit!
Broadway was one of the last remaining Catholics at Stowe. My mother was a Catholic and, even though my father was Protestant, he was a great supporter of the Catholic cause—as I have been also. In my parents' time, there were a good number of Catholics at Stowe including the librarian Charles O'Conor, an excommunicated Irish priest. After the death of my father, Catholic worship was outlawed at Stowe—though we of course remained loyal to our friends and estate workers who practised the Catholic faith.
Broadway was buried a few miles from Stowe at in the graveyard at Holy Trinity Church, Hethe, Oxfordshire.
Of your Charity
Pray for the Souls of
John Broadway
Who Died at Stowe, 26, Feb. 1836
Aged 65 Years
Alexander Broadway
Son of the above Who Died at York
23, June 1851, Aged 46 Years
and Martha, his wife
Who Died at Edinburgh 24 June 1880
Aged 74 Years
Chandos and Buckingham
My mineral and fossil collection at Stowe is almost unequalled. I purchased the mineral collection of Abbé Haüy, the celebrated founder of crystallography, after his death. The collection cost me £4,000, around £3 million today! The ten thousand specimen collection is housed in my Museum set in the flower garden at Stowe, along with my natural history, fossil and archaeological specimens.
My prize specimen is not, however, within the Haüy collection. It is the complete skeleton of a Plesiosaurus which I purchased from fossil collector, dealer and palaeontologist Mary Anning for 100 guineas (£105) in 1823. There is great excitement about this huge specimen, one of the largest discovered. It measures about 10 feet long (3 meters).
The Plesiosaurus has created a great deal of scientific interest, and I have allowed it to be examined by my friend and correspondent Dr William Buckland. A plaster cast of the specimen has been made by Sir Frances Chantrey, and a lithograph from this has appeared in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London.
The Rev William Daniel Conybeare used this fossil to confirm and revise his analysis of plesiosaur anatomy at a meeting of the Geological Society in 1824. Many commentators have since noted that he failed to mention Mary Anning by name, and accuse the men of stealing credit due to her. Conybeare's presentation was made at the same meeting as that at which Buckland described the dinosaur Megalosaurus. The whole matter has been sensational and Mary Anning rightly earned the epithet “the greatest fossilist the world ever knew”.
The Plesiosaurus was sold to the British Museum in 1848 for the frankly modest sum of 8 guineas (£8 8s). The Haüy collection went under the hammer for a scarcely better sum of 310 guineas (£325 10s) to M Dufrénoy, who purchased it for the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris.
Buckingham and Chandos
In July 1815, Napoleon surrendered at the last we were free to visit the continent. I had missed out on the Grand Tour that so many young men journeyed as a rite of passage due to the wars, and now at the age of 38 I could at last begin to explore the continent. I left England with my sister Lady Mary in November 1815. It was a stormy passage across the Channel and the trip did not get any better after that. Lady Mary, writing from our house in Pall Mall, tells Doctor Charles O'Conor of the difficulties I faced during the holiday.
My Brother arrived [in London] very ill with a bilious attack, fever & inclination to Gout. He was not well the whole time we were in Paris. I think that the damp muggy weather we had there disagreed with him as well as the light wines the only beverage to be found. He was so anxious to get here for the opening of Parliament that in spite of illness & our remonstrances he leaves Paris & was so ill upon the road that I thought he could not have continued his journey. After he had at last got here I was often afraid that he would have a serious illness, & his spirits were so low that he could not be left a moment. He is now however thank God quite well has been once to the House of Lords & is resuming his usual occupations & amusements.
I had decided to return home to Stowe, which I had yet to make my own after the death of my father and mother. My wife Anna Elisa preferred her family home at Avington and I was often so busy with politics that I lived mostly at Buckingham House in Pall Mall. Stowe in consequence had become somewhat neglected.
It is my Brothers intention as soon as Politics will allow him, to set out for Stowe where (I know it will please you to hear it) he means to live quietly for several months. Heaven grant that this intention may last, as you & I my dear Dr will then again have the happiness of seeing our terrestrial paradise looked upon as the home of its owners… as it has hitherto only been used by my Brother & Sister as a sort of Inn for a few months of the year, where they receive the whole county & live in a constant mob… to her justice, I really think my Sister [Anna Elisa] is trying to like the place & interest herself in it, which a quiet life there would promote more than anything.
The south front of Stowe House printed on silk (1917)
The original image is by Alexander Francis Lydon (c. 1865)
Lady Mary then wrote about the general state of the country.
The distress of the country is dreadful—here trades people in extensive business [?] for bills of a few shillings, & sell their goods at half price, & to add to the misery smuggling is so much practiced that French Goods are every where preferred & bought, & in the country Farmers cannot pay their rent or labourers so that there again the lower class is starving. I believe never was so much misery as there is now. The higher class too are all poor. Houses to let without end in every street. […] It really is most serious, & however Ministers may pass over other things they must in some way relieve the Agricultural interest—as a farmers wife I speak feelingly on this subject.
This most miserable scene was England less than a year after she had defeated its arch enemy after 16 years at war. Victory can be bitter as well as sweet.
Chandos & Buckingham
Richard Temple, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (myself) died at Stowe at about a quarter before eight o’clock on Thursday morning, the 17 January 1839. I was not buried but interred in my tomb at the Columbarium at Wotton.
The following lament was written by W. Cheddington (can anyone identify Cheddington?):
On the lamented decease of His Grace The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
“Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus tam chari capitis”
Gone is a Spirit from the lower world,
Deeply imbued with every classic lore;
For, where fair Science its bright gems unfurled,
There was he found, esurient of its stone.
Alas, the noblest first are grave-ward hurl’d,
Leaving us meaner mortals to deplore
Their flitting hence,—Chandos & Buckingham’s no more.
Gone is a spirit which his Country loved,
Its Laws, its Liberties, its ancient Throne!
Dear was his presence wheresoe’er he moved,
For his the heart to list to Pity’s groan.
The generous past he ever most approved.
In most shades his gentle Virtues shone,
And in proud Courts & Senates, Temple’s power was known.
Weep, science! weep ye many classic Arts!
Weep, Princely Stowe, thy Master no more!
Deep-musing Charity in Sorrow starts,
And learns his loss most keenly to deplore.
His many virtues live in grateful hearts,
And his pure fame unbleach’d by deeds of gore,
Shall live unfading, Peace in they immortal store.
Weep we the dead, the husband & the Sire,
Not long surviving her, whose heart enshrined
All that the gentlest graces can admire
Of Piety’s most cultural, active mind.
Mourn we the honor’d Dead on sorrow’s lyre,
Then seek the living, & this comfort find,
Chandos succeeds; the Patriot, Generous, True & Kind
W. Cheddington
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