MARPLE HALL AN ANCIENT MANOR HOUSE

...Behind the Queen, to the left of the picture, is a globe crystal, with the motto, "Vedo tutto e molto manca," while on the rim of the sieve is painted, "In terra il ben mal dimora in sella," and close to the head of the Queen "Stanco riposo e riposando affaro," which in English reads, "1 see everything, and much is lacking," "On earth the good keeps its place in the saddle, but uneasily," and ?*Weary, I rest and while resting I have much to do...

...These used to be at Bradshaw Hall, Lancashire, and belong in date to the time of the Civil War...

...From the large oriel window there is a good View of the woods and what remains today of the Meerpool, and beyond of the distant hills...

...Isherwood, the last of the famous Bradshaw family who built and lived in the house dating from the 17th century, to write of some of its most inter-esting features for the readers of La Fol-lette's Magazine...

...His lover, Miss Bradshaw, was watching from the windows and singing his favorite ditty to the accompaniment of her lute: "Sir Guy to the Holy Land hath gone, And his Ladye Love sits in her bower...

...Behind this gable runs a gallery known as "the glory hole," in which some hundred and fifty years ago two skeletons were found in a recess that had been discovered when alterations were being made to a chimney...

...This valley was formerly covered by a sheet of water known as "the Meer pool," and save for what is now known as the Grotto Pond with its island connected to the meadow by a bridge of stone, and having on it a curious old "building called the Grotto, and the top of the valley nearest to Chadkirk, this land has been drained and converted into meadowland...

...However, be this as it may, and of course it is merely fiction, as a matter of fact, as regards the present time, the sadness of the people who have in the past lived in the house, as evidenced by their portraits on its walls, somehow still seems to belong to the atmosphere of their old home, which is ever tinctured with more than a flavor of gloom "as if Calamity had but just begun," and was lurking in the corners of its rooms, and treading its staircases, and creeping along its passages...

...In the center amid clouds are pictures of Pan, the god of pleasure, holding a wine-cup, with his hand resting on a golden flagon engraved with masks and musical Instruments, and Father Time holding a large hour-glass, with, at his fee$, a wine-cup overturned...

...rooms at the deanery were two portraits attributed to Holbein—the one of Martin Luther, the other of Erasmus...

...while above the mantlepiece is an escutcheon carved with the Bradshaw arms, which was formerly in the grammar school at Marple Hall that was founded by President Bradshaw—to be putted down in the latter part of the nineteenth century When this carving was removed here...

...Anon upon the terrace walk The ghost is also seen, Encased in suit of armor brighs Of steel and silver sheen...

...As it stands today it remains as it was first designed and erected, save for such slight alterations made early in the nineteenth century as the conversion of some of its lattice casements into the more modern form of sash windows, the squaring of the wall above these to make the gables which remain still behind, and the heightening of the living and dining rooms by the conversion of the end of the house in which they are situated from three stories to two...

...It seems curious that by, it is to be presumed, unconscious irony, Victor Hugo should have ehosen as the hero of "L'homme qui rit" a member, through his mother, Anne Bradshaw, of this laughter-lacking family, but "so it ip...

...The subjects of this glass are taken from Holy Scripture—Abraham with the angels, Saul and David, Christ with the doctors in the temple, with the Woman of Samaria at the Well, and rising from the dead...

...The more important one has its heavy balustrades surmounted with finely carved vases of fruit and flowers...

...Frieze of Dragon Pattern ON THE opposite side of this bedroom of President Bradshaw in the long passage which runs the length of the house between pilasters of black oak, is a square room panelled with a gilded frieze of dragon pattern, and a fine overmantel of the Bradshaw arms carved, with the date of this, 16G6\ From this room a circular staircase leads under a dome op through high folding doors, to the drawing room which is above and similar in size and height to the dining room beneath...

...Belonged, to the Vernons THIS earlier house or houses, the deeds at Marple show, belonged successively to the Barons Strokeport, the Eatons, the Vernons of Haddon Hall, and lastly to Sir John Stanley, who married a daughter and co-heiress of Sir George Vernon, known as "King of the Peak," and was herself sister of that Dorothy Vernon who tradition says eloped wtih young Manners, and so brought Haddon Hall into the family now represented by the Duke of Rutland...

...and beyond one sees on the horizon the hills of Longerdale and Peristone...

...door, before which is a high, massive pillared sundial on a flight of steps...

...These Derbyshire Bradshaws were in origin a cadet branch of the old family of Bradshaw of Bradshaw Hall, near Bolton le Woord in Lancashire, now and had held lands since the time of the Norman Conquest of England...

...Perhaps this last note of colour shows that he at least was not without one touch of frivolity in his character, for in his diaries one reads entries such as these: "Spent Christmas at Glos-sop fair, vainly...

...Before the house on the south front there Is a forecourt stretching some distance ori either side and surrounded by high walla of red sandstone, these with a gateway: and pillars at the corners of the-enclosure surrounded by large balls of grey Derbyshire stone...

...Of the old families who built and lived in these old Cheshire houses, very many have long since become extinct, or are represented today by descendants who no longer are their owners or occupants...

...The old man, supposing from the tenor of his mistress' instructions that the Cavalier, no less than the letter, was an enemy to his master's family, instead of taking him to the ford conducted him to a deep part of the Meerpool, where both horse and rider were drowned...

...Around the cornice of this bed are carved the following mottoes: "I.iOve God and honor the King3...

...She is wearing a red velvet dress richly embroidered with pearls and precious stones, carrying in one hand a sieve and in the other a glove...

...This picture much resembles a portrait of Queen Elizabeth found at Tirza some years ago, which had been left there, it is believed, by Lord Leicester, when on his travels, save that this last, although bearing the above mottoes, is painted on canvas, while the Queen's dress is less elaborate, black and with fewer jewels than the one in the Marple portrait...

...The north front of the house is gabled similarly- to the south and other -sides and faces the terrace on the edge of the rocks above the ?alley, along which terrace, it is said, tho fisost of President Bradshaw is wont to pace, headless, and carrying his head, cut off after the exhumation from the Westminster Abbey vault, and set up on a spike on the roof of Westminster Hall...

...An Old Legend HE suddenly broke into a cry for help as Sshe saw the fatal plunge, and the destruction in the Meerpool of her lover, and with him, of all her hopes...

...The other piece, "Winter," has, within a border representing all manner of shells, also bearing the ciphers of the King, at its background a stormy sk> and desolate barren country with a melancholy Styx-like river before a deserted looking chateau...

...A body of two thousand persons, for example •—the writer speaks from circumstances within his own experience—quitting one morning a manufacturing town, when the strike had been continued for some time,and,began to be severely felt, and made a visit to a neighboring squire...

...The eldest, Henry, completed the present house commenced by his grandfather and continued in building by his father, known in the deeds as "Henry Bradshaw the Younger," having been a colonel in Cromwell's army in the North, a sheriff of the county, and a judge at the trial of the unfortunate Lord Derby which Was held at the home of his kinsman, Francis Bradshaw, Bradshaw estate Lancashire, which trial was followed by the barbarous execution of the Earl and Bolton le Moors...

...Among the pictures he had in his...

...I .a Toilette visited Marple Hall and found it of such interest that they asked Mr...

...As one looks out as she did, and is still supposed to do, some word* written somewhere by Algernon Swinburne, in What has been published of bta written prose, seem somehow to be exactly appRcable to what one's eye looks upon: "Muffled b> woods with a grim sad beauty of its own, and seemingly knee-deep in sere ' leaves aD the yeaT Yotmd, up to the nose and eyes in black, damp woods and with thick...

...On the stable buildings and above the entrance to the big barns with th-vr heavy oak beams and ponderous stone the initials and date: B HE 1669 which show that these were time of that Henry Bradshaw who married Eiza-beth Legh, and put up the leaden <pipes on the house...

...She, however, directed the servant to replace the letters where she found them, and in the morning she called to her old trusty serving man, Christopher, and putting a gold piece in his hand, instructed him to lead the young cavalier and his horse to the ford which crossed the River Goyt in the valley to the west of the house, but to be sure to make some pretense of holding on to the saddle bag as the horse entered the stream, and at any risk to contrive to unloose it and sink it in the river...

...This piece of tapestry is signed "E...

...In the first are life-sized pictures of Bacchus and Flora holding up a wreath of flowers encircling a representation of Louis XIV hunting the stag...

...Adjacent to the house on the west side of it beyond the wall of the forecourt is a large block of stables and other out-buildings built of red sandstone, to which one enters under an arch surmounted by a clock tower and pigeon cot of red brick crowned with a weather vape in -the form' of the stag at gaze, the Bradshaw crest...

...and much other richly colored old English glass in various designs...

...The coloring is brilliant—crimson, blue, greens, yellows—mellowed by time but still vivid...

...This Anne Bradshaw Victor Hugo makes out to have been a daughter of President Bradshaw, who however, in his will makes no bequest to any children of his own, so it may be presumed he died, as the family pedigree shows, without lawful issue...

...written in 1648-1660 entitled, "The Letter-book of Colonel Henry Bradshaw ,a parliamentary officer, containing drafts and copies of let...

...Her mind became disordered, and from that day until her death her one consolation was to wander along the woods and beside the banks of the Meerpool-singing and playing to her dead lover his favorite melody...

...So runs the legend, and as a fact there is the coincidence of the undoubted finding of these horse accoutrements with the helmet, all belonging to the period when it is supposed to have happened in situ, as besides: that Colonel Bradshaw had one daughter, and that she died unmarried...

...It is at Oxford, too, that there is to be seen exhibited the steeLlined steel hat that was worn by President John Bradshaw at the trial of the King...

...The young man, holding a commis-sion in the Royalist army, was sent by his commanding officer to carry confidential letters to the King at Rowton Heath...

...They look at us from their frames, all or nearly all of them with expression of fixed melancholy and sadness, "a listening fear, as if Calamity had but begun," nor, one feels, the sadness felt by the person at the prospect of leaving the world and parting from his home and cherished wife—as expressed by Horace so beautifully: "Eheu, fugaces, Postume, Postume, LabUntur-anni,________.„ Linguenda tellus, et domus, et placens Uxor -•—_______----, . . , but rather due to a consciousness of the vanity of earth, by things as they exist, as though the subjects of the portraits really felt all the time themselves, in the words of the old Antiphor, to be "dolentes et flentes in Lac lacrymarumvalle...

...They gave their pledge and remained tranquilly encamped while preparations were made to satisfy them...

...always grateful...

...They solicited sustenance often in great numbers, but even then their language was mild and respectful, and they were easily satisfied and...

...To those who have not read the story, I may add for information that what lends an air of reality to the fiction which makes this descendant of the Bradshaws a laughing man, is that the laughing expression of his face was artificial and not inscribed and natural, being the result of mutilation of his features, when he was kidnapped by Spanish gypsies, with the object of making him saleable at the court of James I, who delighted in buffoons and dwarves and all manner of human freaks, and monstrosities...

...Together with the pictures the walls are hung with a number of helmets, cuirasses, and old swords—one of the latter an enormous two-handed weapon standing seven feet high, and some pikes and balder-iches...

...During the Commonwealth he had as his London residence the deanery of Westminster, where there may still be seen his bedroom and'study from which opens out a gallery looking down into the nave of the church, and which his ghost is still said to haunt...

...And so we leave his tomb in America, and go back to take a last glimpse at his old home in England, with, perhaps, a thought in one's mind that it deserves the tribute paid by Walter Pater in his description of "White Nights," "Marius the Epicurean's" old home...

...and belong to a set mentioned by Murtz in his book on tapestry...

...Fine Old Furniture IN THIS room is some fine furniture of the time of Charles II, and a quantity of good China, Oriental and old Dresden, as well as some family portraits and miniatures...

...Library Is Noted Room IN THE library, a room leading out of the hall, in which there is a carved cornice and panelled windowscale (under windows of stained glass) decorated with the arms of families connected by intermarriage with the Bradshaw of Marple: Foljambe, Clarton, Eyre, Stafford, Bagsshawe, Winnington, Wells, Bowdon, Shalecross, Hibbert, Newton, Marbury, Barcroft, Legh, Barcroft, Isherwood, Pimlot, Evelyn, Salvir, Brabir, Attcroft, and Orreli, is a portrait of Colonel Henry Bradshaw, in armor with the buff sleeves of the jerkin showing beneath, and round his waist a red sash...

...Here vulgarity seemed to be impossible, "the place, though in no way magnificent, was still deservedly dear, full of venerable memories, and with aliving sweetness of its own for today...

...These letters contain much that is of interest regarding the events of the...

...A fine suit of chain armor stands on one of the landings, and on the walls family portraits and two large pieces of Beauvais tapestry representing, respectively, autumn (a scene during harvest in the cornfield) and the other a village with boys skating on a pond, and a farm yard with cattle, and a man :»i;!i;Tg a pig-Panels of Oak MANY of the upstairs rooms are pa elled in oak, and in one of the bedrooms there - is a gable of timber and plaster, which is all that is left of the old house and shows that this latter was built in the style of what is called in Cheshire,* "Magpie Architecture...

...Civil War, as well as the political aspect of af...

...Gloom Typifies Ball ENTERING the bouse from either the north in or south front, one comes into a long, low''- roofed, oak-beamed hall which runs right 'across the house...

...Otherwise the whole building is practically inside and out just as it was when finished, as the date carved above the entrance on the north front facing the terrace tella us in 1657...

...From her eyes downcast the tears fall fast As she sits in her lonely tower...

...This hall is an interesting specimen of the Puritan hall in its lack of the loftiness of the banqueting hall of Tudor-Stuart days—in fact «it gives the impression that it is better adapted for prayer-meetings than for revelry and feasting...

...Picture of Mar pie Hall I MAY ADD that Disraeli learned this story from William Hope of the Deep-dene, who was himself a friend of both the statesman-novelist and her whom he calls" the "fair Castelian...

...de Blond," he having been tapissier royal at the Gobelins from 1701-1727...

...As Told By Disraeli IN THE Bodleian Library at Oxford there is preserved an interesting manuscript...

...Having broke the seal and read the dispatch, she was horrified to find that they contained express instructions denouncing her husband and his family...

...Sir John Stanley sold the property of Marple in 1606 to Harry Bradshaw, a younger 1 son of'William Bradshaw of Bradshaw Hall, Derbyshire, a house situated near Chapel on the Firth, a portion of, which still remains as a farm with, however, before it a remnant of its once greater importance, a very fine late Jacobean stone gateway, decorated with carvings ' of the Bradshaw arms and quarterings and the rebus of the family name and of the wife of the member of the family who built it...

...and "Before you close your eyea in sleep, think how ydu have spent the day, if well, thank God, if not, repent...

...The entrance into the house on the south Bide is through a heavy, black oak, nail-studded door beneath a porch supported by pillars, with a balcony...

...Oh...

...Pictures by Gheeraerts BOTH these pictures are the work of Mark Gheeraerts, a pupil of Holbein, it is believed...

...and Miss Bradshaw, a daughter of Colonel Henry Bradshaw, were secret lovers, and, although the respective families to which they belonged took opposite sides in the great rebellion, they continued on good terms, and afterwards intermarried...

...On either side are high and leafless trees with ivy clinging up their steins, and below a gre-t mass of dead game, hares, pheasants, snipe, bustards, etc., together with melons, marrows, and other vegetables...

...but yet I think he too may, as his elder brother, have had his genial side in as much as he bequeathed legacies in his will to a very great number of his personal friends, and seems to have forgotten none of his tenants, or his tenants and neighbors in the many properties he possessed throughout England, all of which were sequestered after his death when the Restoration of the royal family took place...

...The whole house seemed ready for a funeral to leave it, and the hall just the place for the consumption of "baked meats" and possit ale," by grim-faced puritan mourners in black cloaks and shovel hats, or wearing the heavy, rusty armor that still stands, mounted on lay figures, looking like mutes behind the black oak benches, chairs, and tables...

...Old faces glimmer through its doors, old footsteps tread its upper floors," as has been remarked by visitors to the place...

...a stag at gaze under an oak tree fruct.: ppr...

...They entered the, park in order-men, women, and children—rand then seating themselves in the immediate vicinity of the mansion, they sent a deputation to announce, that they were starving and to entreat relief...

...It was, therefore, so lately as ¦when the present house was built, merely a small settlement in a district very sparsely populated and without roads, accessible to the outside world, as lying close to the track which In the neighborhood joined together the pack horsepaths that led respectively over the hills from Derby and the County of York, to Chester and North Wales, and crossed at a ford, which still exists, over the River Goyt about a mile from Marple Hall, near to the old chapel of Chadkirk, which, although Marple Hall does not, finds mention in "Doomsday Book" as "a place of Hawks"—some descendant of which birds of prey continue annually to...

...The house is built so that it forms almost a square of the red sandstone quarried from the rocks upon which it now ¦ stands...

...There is aft Marple Hall a portrait of Erasmus, bearing his name, similar in size and v'e to the Lambeth Martin Luther, and it is quite possible that this might be the missing portrait and has come here by the gift of President Bradshaw to his elder brother...

...six nails and a branch of oak for Bradshaw, and A sprig of barberry for Barbara, the Lady's Christian name...

...The border is of wreaths of flowers, fruit—» with parrots—and a number of family portraits...

...Another fine portrait is that of Sir Thomas Coventry (1578-1640) in his robes as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, by Lupo...

...God forgive me, I did idly pay in pleasure at Chester Christmases...

...while of the old manor houses themselves many have been pulled down or allowed to fall to ruin, and then have sunk to the level of being used as farm houss, while a few, owing to the circumstances of their later owners becoming Ticher by their marriage with heiresses, have long since been transformed into, or been eplaced by, more magnificent mansions that bear little or no resemblance to the smaller manor houss on the site of which they have been built...

...The original seal (in silver) from which this last impression was taken, is still preserved at Marple Hall, as is also the probate copy of John Bradshaw's will, a very bulky, voluminous document containing many legacies, including one of 10 pounds to John Milton, who it is said was a kinsman of the Marple Bradshaws, and a visitor to their house...

...In the tower is a fine old clock »f brass dating from the reign of Queen Anne, which still keeps good time and strikes the hours...

...Tall trees loaded with leaves and fruit and with their trunks clustered with "the gadding vine," bearing bunches of grapes are on either side, and in the background is to be seen the Palace of Fontaln-bleau and its gardens, while at the base is » large basket with masses of peaches and other fruit, the whole surrounded by a finely woven beautiful border of garlands of flowers and fruit and bearing on either side the cipher of Louis XIV, a double "L" surmounted by ti crown...

...Since the Restoration the former portrait has been taken back 10 the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury,-but the latter is still unaccounted for...

...These two fine tapestries are said to have been once at the Palace at Fontainbleau, and to have been brought to England at the time of the French Revolution when they were purchased and brought here, but as to What they cost and from whom they were bought there is no record to be found...

...This episode is thus described by Benjamin Disraeli in his novel, "Sybil:" "During the strike the people had never plundered except a few provision shops chiefly rifled by boys, and their.acts of violence had been confined to those with whom they were engaged in what, on the whole, might be described as a fair contest...

...On either side of the fire-place are two large frames, similar to those which used to hang above the Communion table in English churches, within them the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, but which here contain, the one the passage from the Book of Proverbs commencing "My son hear the instruction of your father," etc., and the other, "Although then be for thy pedigree accounted as ancient as Saturn, in power as mighty as Alexander, in wealth as rich as Croesus, or for thy beauty as Flora, yet if thou care less of religion and of thy God, thou •re a wretch most vile and miserable...

...I N ALL the counties of England and I Scotland there are still to be seen, scattered about the countryside, ancient houses that remain to this past, and which bring to us mem- ories of old families and persons long since dead, like the scent of the dried lavender still preserved in their oaken marriage chests and court cupboards within their walls...

...Buried at Westminster [FjpjlISTORY tells that President Bradshaw IIMII was, after his death in 1657, buried with - great pomp in Henry VII Chapel at Westminster in a vault where there were also laid the bodies of Oliver Cromwell and Henry, and that in 1660 their bodies were dug up and after indignities were performed on them as criminals., these were decapitated and their heads •set up as those of traitors on the roof of Westminster Hall...

...The "manor houses" of this county Macauley uses in his "Essay on Rand's History of the Popes" to show by their typical significance as well as their remoteness of situation with "The Lords of Connaught" as an illustration "of the activity and ubiquity" of the early Jesuits at the time of the change of religion in England and the consequent persecution of the adherents of the old faith, under Queen Elizabeth...

...ters written by him...

...The court is laid out as a garden on either side of the carriage drive to the front...

...The story ends by his having been discovered, later on in his life, by his relatives, to find that he is the long lost" "Lord Clancharly...

...That a house or houses earlier in date to the present one occupied the present site' is clearly shown by the remains of foundations and fortifications visible as one looks from below up the rocks to the wall of the present day terrace...

...Isherwood kindly sent in this article.—Managing Editor's Note...

...These, as do other portraits of the Bradsbaws and their relatives in other parts of the house, depict the faces of grave-faced men and women...

...moist copses of alder and beech trees growing up against the very windows, kept hold of somehow by autumn in the midst even of spring...

...In this and several of the other rooms arc heavy Jacobean "four-poster" bedsteads, richly carved of black oak, the'finest of these in a room said to have been occupied by President Bradshaw when staying there...

...The hall is lighted at either end by long narrow lattice windows, heavily leadened in oval and diamond shapes, quarries filled with stained glass, much of which is in date a good deal earlier than the apartment itself, being of German origin of the sixteenth century...

...His wife, who had a spirit equal to the occasion, notwithstanding the presence of her young children, who must have well aggravated feminine fears, received the deputation herself, told them that of course she was unprepared to feed so many, but if they promised to maintain order and conduct themselves with decorum, she would take measures to satisfy their need...

...Francis receiving the Stigmata, while in the stained glass of the window hi engraved, "My brother Henry shall heir the land, my brother Frank shall be at his command, while I poor Jack shall do that which all the world shall wonder at...

...Marple Hall Is Unaltered OF THE few houses of the squires of- the early seventeenth Century that still stand today in the County of Chester in their original size and character, one of the least altered and in a way one of the most interesting is, perhaps, Marple Hall, in fact it has ¦been thus described by Ormerod, the Cheshire historian and- antiquary, as "one of the most interesting specimens of domestic architecture the county now contains...

...Its walls are hung with two large pieces of Gobelins tapestry, each measuring 20 by 16 feet, and are therefore a trifle smaller than the tapestry already described as being in the dining room beneath...

...The extreme form of Protestantism to which the Bradshaw family was adherent makes it impossible that this recess could have been used as what is known as a "Priest's Isle," or hiding place, of which many still exist in various old houses in the north of England, whose owners in the days of religious persecution adhered to the old faith...

...So seems the prophecy scribbled on the Wac-clesfield tombstone to have been fulfilled, "I poor Jack shall do that which all the world will wonder at...

...Ere thou pass, contemplate this cannon, nor regardless, behold that neath its base lies deposited the dust of John Bradshaw who nobly superior to selfish regards, despising alike the pageantry of courtly splendour, the blast of calumny, and the terror of regal vengeance, presided in the illustrious band of heroes and patriots who firmly and openly adjudged Charks Stuart, , tyrant of England, to a public and exemplary death, thereby presenting to the amazed world, and transmitting down to applauding ages, the most glorious .example of unshaken virtue, love of freedom, and impartial justice ever exhibited in the blood-stained heath of Human action...

...In the instance in question, the master...

...h«f had taken from Lambeth Palace, as contemporary records show...

...The house, too, as it now exists, amply deserves the tribute paid it by the antiquary, Ormerod, more than a century ago, showing still as it does in its essential characteristics that in the seventeenth century it was the home of a Puritan gentleman of moderate fortune, built in accordance with his taste, his income, and his position in life...

...On the walls hang a number of portraits, notably one, on panel, representing Queen Elizabeth, three quarters length seated...

...Over the window is a finely carved and gilded representation of St...

...This piece of tapestry is signed by La-Croix, who was tapissier royal at the Gobelins from 1C93 to 1724, and is estee.ced (as is also its fellow) in what is called "high warp...

...but, as regards the body of John Bradshaw, a tradition remains that this was removed to America and refburied there...

...The death warrant (still preserved in the House of Lords) has his signature standing first among those of the judges, together with his seal bearing the Bradshaw arms—arg, 2 bends sab.: between two martlets of the same, together with the family crest...

...As I have already said, the house and stables remain today almost exactly as when they were built, but beyond the boundaries of the park and woods which surround the old house, there has grown up in recent years, in the place of the old time wild and picturesque countryside that existed in the seventeenth century and continued thus until the coming of the Arkwrights and Stephensons, whom Ruskin regarded as no better than miscreants, with their spinning looms and steam engines, an ugly district, ever spreading, of activity and industry—the tentacles of large manufacturing towns such as Manchester and Stockport, that ever, threaten to destroy this little haunt of ancient peace, "an oasis still as it is" where "one can yet forget the engine's roar, the piston's stroke," but not that it is unfortunately in one of <those "six counties overhung with smoke," and no longer in an England that was once "ever white and clean...

...Then later on these came to be forgotten...

...Perhaps they may have been the remains of two hapless cavaliers, whom the Bradshaw spider had caught like flies in his puritan web, and having killed, stripped them of their clothing/concealing their naked bodies...

...reader, pass not on till thou hast blest his memory, and never, never forget that rebellion to tryants is obedience to God...

...It was from here that the luckless lover of "The Young Cavalier" is supposed to have witnessed his unhappy end...

...These two tapestries represent respectively "Autumn" and "Winter...

...During the supper he spoke of the letters with which he was entrusted, and remarked that he knew nothing of their contents...

...and it is said that ever since, as a presage of the death of one of the descendants in her family, she may be seen and heard, either gazing from a window or wandering along the valley playing and singing her sad refrain...

...The township of Marple is situated on the east of the county in what used to be a portion of the forest of Waccles Field...

...To whom these skeletons belonged it is impossible to say...

...Along the walla stand four complete suits of wail armor...

...He that hath not mercy shall miss, but he shall have mercy that merciful Is...

...Tis said, as when the moon's bright beams Illumine Marple Hall, A headless form is seen to glide Along the oaken wall...

...This way led by Marple, where he called in order to see his lover...

...These lines were, It la said, written by John Bradshaw when a boy at school, on a tombstone in the churchyard at Waccles field...

...Occupied By Direct Heir Yet another interesting fact connected with the old house is that it is still owned and occupied by the direct heir in descent of its builders, the three Henry Bradshaws, father, son, and grand-son: John Bradshaw Isherwood, the gveat-great-great-grandson of Mary Bradshaw, the wife of Nathaniel Isherwood, she having inherited the family property on the death of her last surviving brother, Sir Thomas Bradshaw, in 1743, then the direct male line of this family came to an end...

...In this bedroom there is a large picture of Catherine, wife of Charles IJ, depicted as S. Catherine of Alexandria, being martyred on the wheel, and rescued by angels, which has been attributed to Sir Peter Lely...

...Two oak staircases lead front the ground floor to the top of the house, and are also of seventeenth century date...

...beneath which scenes are descriptive inscriptions in Low German, and besides, a lady in Elizabethan dress...

...make their nest on the rocks close to Marple...

...on the south side there are three projecting gables that give it the form of the letter "E," which may be because the earlier house had been so designed in form out of compliment to Queen Elisabeth...

...a lion rampant, together with the Initials and date: H B E 1665, standing for Henry Bradshaw and his wife Elizabeth, who belonged to the last named Cheshire family, while her husband, who put up those pipes, was the eldest son and successor of the Parliamentary colonel, the latter having died in 1661 and having been summoned to London, where he was confined in the Tower, to answer for the part he had taken' against the King in the Civil War, and was severely reprimanded and heavily fined before he obtained his release...

...of the house was abroad in the fulfillment of public duties which the distracted state of the country devolved on him...

...and when all was over the deputation again waited on the lady to express to her their gratitude, and as the people quitted the domain they gave three cheers for the fair Castellan...

...He was well received by Colonel Bradshaw and invited to stay the night...

...On the walls of the house are some very fine lead waterpipes with handsome "sports" embossed with quaint designs and crests of the families of Bradshaw and Legh of Highlegh...

...In this room there is also a beautiful portrait by the Chevalier D'essaints of Ellen Bradshaw Isherwood, the "Fair Castelian" of Disraeli's "Sybil," and a number of miniatures—amongst the latter one of President Bradshaw, which shows him to have been a very sour-faced man in appearance...

...Further down the list of judges with their signatures and seals, are those belonging to Thomas Logan, who was the president's usher, and in default of a seal of his order, used one belonging to the president, bearing the Bradshaw arms without the crest...

...In no county, perhaps, does there exist at the present time a greater number of these old structures than in the County Palatia of Chester, which itself, because of the great number of families of its "gentry," has been called by Caw-der—and the old chronicler King, in his 'Tale Royal of Cheshire,"—"That very deed plot of gentility," "Cheshire chief of men...

...It carries the name of its maker: Ne-wall of Stockport...

...and in a few hours the multitude were fed without- the slightest disturbance or the least breach of self-organized discipline...

...Beyond the valley one looks from the terrace that separates the house from the precipice, across to an ampitheatre of woods of beech, oak, alder, sycamore and holly...

...To these relics of the past belongs an old family tradition which runs as follows, as copied from an old manuscript: A young cavalier of a family well-known in Cheshire—Legh of High Legh...

...At Annapolis, I am told, there is still to be seen the following inscription engraved on a cannon: "Stranger...

...In one of the window ledges of the hall are a heavy military bridle bit, helmet, spurs, and stirrups of the time of Charles I. These were found in the mud at the bottom Of the Meerpool when it was drained and filled up...

...As the home of this-Henry Bradshaw and his descendants, Marple Hall possesses some historical interest, for, of his three grandsons, each one acquired celebrity, ot as some might say, notoriety, during the troublous times of what is called the "Great Rebellion...

...So far and no further does this reference by Macauley to the "old manor houses of Cheshire" apply to the subject of this sketch, for Marple was then and later a stronghold of a form of religion that gave but short shrift to the disciples of Ignatius Loyola...

...These figures support a wTcath of roses framing a representation of the entrance to the infernal regions, to which Time is pointing...

...It was from this latter that Ellen Bradshaw Isherwood, the wife of the late and mother of the present owner of Mar-pie Hall, displayed great coolness and presence of mind in addressing a mob of strikers from the factories in the neighborhood during the troubles so frequent to the Chartist risings in the forties of the century...

...The situation of the house is in itself remarkable, standing as it does on the edge of a precipice of red sandstone rock, with a sheer drop to the valley below of nearly a hundred and fifty feet...

...This glass makes the hall very gloomy, for unless the sun is shining very brightly through it, throwing kaleidoscopic colors about, it serves principally to make darkness visible, and the gloominess is increased by the masses of heavy black oaken furniture with which the hall is furnished...

...fairs daring the commonwealth, as viewed: from the standpoint of a man,, active himself, and intimate with the chief actors, military and civil, in the life of his own time in the drama of the Civil War on the parliamentary side...

...In John Leigh's "Legends and Lyrics of Cheshire" attention is called to this legend in a poem entitled "Marple Hall:" "High on a craggy, steep there stands, Near Marple's fertile vale, An ancient, ivy-covered house That overlooks the dale/ A many gabled house it is With antique turrets crowned, And many quaint device, designed In carvings rude, is found...

...while of his younger brothers, the one, Francis, was Ambassador to Russia during the Commonwealth, and his youngest and better known brother was that John Bradshaw who having served the office of Chief Justice of Cheshire and South Wales was chosen as president at the trial of King Charles I, and is described in Parliamentary and other documents as "the Lord Bradshaw...

...Bradshaw heard what he said, and either from curiosity or suspicion, determined to read them, and employed a French waiting woman then in her service to abstract them from the saddle bag that the young man had left in his chamber...

...Leading from, the hall is a long passage, paved as is the hall itself with black-white stones set in diamond pattern, and leading out of this and the hall are, among other rooms, a large and lofty dining room, the walls of which are hung with a large, fine piece of Beauvais tapestry representing the Vintage with its various processes: gathering the grapes, treading out the winepress, putting the wine in barrels, and tasting a sample of it...