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Houghton House
Houghton House is a ruined mansion house in the parish of Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire. It is a Grade I listed building, positioned above the surrounding countryside, and commands excellent views. Built from 1615 to 1621, it is said that the house was the model for ''House Beautiful'' in John Bunyan's ''The Pilgrim's Progress'' (1678). It was abandoned in 1794 and stripped (by the owner) of its interiors and roof for sale as building supplies. Today the property is owned by English Heritage, and is open to free public access during daylight hours. Descent Herbert The estate of Houghton was granted by King James I of England (1603-1625) to Mary Sidney, Mary Herbert, Dowager Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621), a.k.a. Mary Sidney, a courtier, writer, translator, and literary patron, who commenced the building of the existing house in about 1615. Two architects were very likely responsible for the design, John Thorpe, who worked in the Jacobean architecture, Jacobean tradition, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manor House
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals with manorial tenants and great banquets. The term is today loosely applied to various country houses, frequently dating from the Late Middle Ages, which formerly housed the landed gentry. Manor houses were sometimes fortified, albeit not as fortified as castles, and were intended more for show than for defencibility. They existed in most European countries where feudalism was present. Function The lord of the manor may have held several properties within a county or, for example in the case of a feudal baron, spread across a kingdom, which he occupied only on occasional visits. Even so, the business of the manor was directed and controlled by regular manorial courts, which appointed manorial officials such as the bailiff, granted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl Of Elgin
Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Elgin, 3rd Lord Bruce of Kinloss (2 December 1599 – 21 December 1663), of Houghton House in the parish of Maulden in Bedfordshire, was a Scottish nobleman. Early life Born in Edinburgh in 1599, Thomas Bruce was the second son of Edward Bruce, 1st Lord Kinloss by his wife Magdalene Clerk. He succeeded to the Scottish peerage title as 3rd Lord Bruce of Kinloss in August 1613, aged 13, on the death of his elder brother, Edward Bruce, 2nd Lord Kinloss, killed in a duel with Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset. The family estates included Whorlton Castle and manor given to his father by King James I of England in 1603. The King granted the wardship of Thomas and the estates to his mother Magdalene, until he came of age at 21. In 1614 Viscount Lisle acknowledged Thomas Bruce as a matchmaker in a marriage planned between his son, Robert Sidney, and Elizabeth Cecil. Instead she married Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire. In 1624, King James I granted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deer Park (England)
In medieval and Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland, a deer park () was an enclosed area containing deer. It was bounded by a ditch and bank with a wooden park pale on top of the bank, or by a stone or brick wall. The ditch was on the inside increasing the effective height. Some parks had deer " leaps", where there was an external ramp and the inner ditch was constructed on a grander scale, thus allowing deer to enter the park but preventing them from leaving. History Some deer parks were established in the Anglo-Saxon era and are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon Charters; these were often called ''hays'' (from Old English ''heġe'' (“hedge, fence”) and ''ġehæġ'' (“an enclosed piece of land”). After the Norman conquest of England in 1066 William the Conqueror seized existing game reserves. Deer parks flourished and proliferated under the Normans, forming a forerunner of the deer parks that became popular among England's landed gentry. The Domesday Book of 1086 record ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Russell, 5th Duke Of Bedford
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford (23 July 1765 – 2 March 1802) was an English aristocrat and Whig politician, responsible for much of the development of central Bloomsbury. Life Francis Russell, eldest son of Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock (died 1767), by his wife, Elizabeth (died 1768), daughter of William Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, was born at Woburn Abbey and baptized on 20 August 1765 at St Giles in the Fields. In January 1771 he succeeded his grandfather as Duke of Bedford, and was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, afterwards spending nearly two years in foreign travel. Whilst abroad in 1784 he was involved in a menage a trois with Charles Maynard, second Viscount Maynard, and his wife Anne, Lady Maynard. This liaison was with Russell's grandmother's approval and it continued until 1787.A. A. Hanham, ‘Parsons, Anne ancymarried name Anne Maynard, Viscountess Maynard] (c.1735–1814/15)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Russell, Marquess Of Tavistock
Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock (27 September 1739 – 22 March 1767) was a British politician and the eldest son of the 4th Duke of Bedford and his second wife Lady Gertrude Leveson-Gower. From 1759 to 1761, he sat in the Irish House of Commons as Whig Member of Parliament for Armagh Borough and then in the British House of Commons for Bedfordshire until 1767. He was elected as a Bailiff to the board of the Bedford Level Corporation in 1761, a position he held until his death. On 8 June 1764, he married Lady Elizabeth Keppel, the youngest child of the 2nd Earl of Albemarle. They had three sons: *Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford (1765–1802) *John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (1766–1839) *Lord William Russell (1767–1840) Lord Tavistock died in 1767 after falling from his horse while hunting. Their eldest son succeeded his grandfather as 5th Duke of Bedford Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heir Apparent
An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the birth of a more eligible heir is known as heir presumptive. Today these terms most commonly describe heirs to hereditary titles (e.g. titles of nobility) or offices, especially when only inheritable by a single person. Most monarchies refer to the heir apparent of their thrones with the descriptive term of ''crown prince'' or ''crown princess'', but they may also be accorded with a more specific substantive title: such as Prince of Orange in the Netherlands, Duke of Brabant in Belgium, Prince of Asturias in Spain (also granted to heirs presumptive), or the Prince of Wales in the United Kingdom; former titles include Dauphin in the Kingdom of France, and Tsesarevich in Imperial Russia. The term is also used metaphorically to indicate a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woburn Abbey
Woburn Abbey (), occupying the east of the village of Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the family seat of the Duke of Bedford. Although it is still a family home to the current duke, it is open on specified days to visitors, along with the diverse estate surrounding it, including the historic landscape gardens and deer park (by Humphry Repton), as well as more recently added attractions including Woburn Safari Park, a miniature railway and a garden/visitor centre. Pre-20th century Woburn Abbey, comprising Woburn Park and its buildings, was set out and founded as a Cistercian abbey in 1145. Taken from its monastic residents by Henry VIII and given to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, in 1547, it became the seat of the Russell family and the Dukes of Bedford, who demolished the original abbey building and built their house on the monastic site, although the name ''Abbey'' was retained. The Abbey was largely rebuilt starting in 1744 by the architects Henry Fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
4th Duke Of Bedford
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, (30 September 17105 January 1771) was an 18th-century British statesman.G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910–1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 82-84, volume VIII, page 500.Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, 2 volumes (Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 1999), volume 2, page 1871. Bedford was a leading Whig political figure around the time of the Seven Years' War, and negotiated the Treaty of Paris which ended the conflict in 1763. He was also an early promoter of cricket and a patron of the arts who commissioned many works from artists, most notably Canaletto. Early life He was the fourth son o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James II Of England
James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His reign is now remembered primarily for conflicts over religious tolerance, but it also involved struggles over the principles of absolutism and the divine right of kings. His deposition ended a century of political and civil strife in England by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown. James succeeded to the thrones of England, Ireland, and Scotland following the death of his brother with widespread support in all three countries, largely because the principles of eligibility based on divine right and birth were widely accepted. Tolerance of his personal Catholicism did not extend to tolerance of Catholicism in general, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl Of Ailesbury
Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury (later styled Aylesbury) and 3rd Earl of Elgin (1656 – 16 December 1741), styled Lord Bruce between 1663 and 1685, was an English politician and memoirist. He was the son of Robert Bruce, 2nd Earl of Elgin, and Lady Diana Grey. His maternal grandparents were Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford, and Lady Anne Cecil, daughter of William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Exeter. His ''Memoirs'', which were not published until long after his death, are a valuable source for English history in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Early life Lord Bruce was elected member of parliament for Marlborough between 1679 and 1681, and for Wiltshire in 1685. He became a Gentleman of the Bedchamber in 1676. From 1685, when he inherited the earldom, to 1688, he was a Lord of the Bedchamber, Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire (the latter in the absence of the Earl of Sandwich) and was a Page of Honour, at the coronation of King James II on 23 April 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diana Cecil
Diana Cecil, Countess of Oxford (1596-1654) was an English aristocrat. She was a daughter of William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Exeter and his second wife Elizabeth Drury, a daughter of Sir William Drury and Elizabeth Stafford. Her portrait was painted by William Larkin, the artist known as the "Comet Master", by Cornelius Johnson, and Anthony van Dyck. In 1624 she married Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford. He died at the siege of Breda in 1625. In 1629 she married Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Elgin. She died on 26 February 1654. Thomas Bruce built the Ailesbury Mausoleum in her memory in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church, Maulden, Bedfordshire. The octagonal building was constructed over an existing crypt. Inside the Mausoleum there is a monument to Diana, and marble busts of Thomas Bruce and of his grandson Edward Bruce. References External links Portrait of Diana, Countess of Elgin, with a portcullis, Hardwick Hall, National Trust {{DEFAULTSORT:Cecil, Diana 1654 deaths Daug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb, or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum. Overview The word ''mausoleum'' (from Greek μαυσωλείον) derives from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria, whose large tomb was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Historically, mausolea were, and still may be, large and impressive constructions for a deceased leader or other person of importance. However, smaller mausolea soon became popular with the gentry and nobility in many countries. In the Roman Empire, these were often in necropoles or along roadsides: the via Appia Antica retains the ruins of many private mausolea for kilometres outside Rome. Whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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