Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/193

168 if he desired, a trencher of substantial food and a cup of ale, mark the succeeding era of rude feasting and free hospitality. The third epoch brought in the more lofty ceilings, richly gilt, the halls panelled with oak, the carved cornices, and the bay windows, decorated with armorial bearings.

The state bed-room at Haddon Hall is still adorned with ancient hangings of Gobelines. Their subjects seem to be taken from the imagery of Æsop's Fables. The bed is surmounted by a canopy of green silk velvet, fourteen feet in height, and lined with thick, white satin. Its embroidered curtains were wrought by the needle of the Lady Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert Manners, and are a commendable trophy of her industry. But the hands of pilferers have been so busy in abstracting shreds and fragments of this rich, antique couch, that it has been found necessary to protect it by an enclosure, something like the railing erected around the bed of Mary of Scotland, in the old Holyrood palace.

The various improvements made by the houses of Vernon and Manners may be plainly traced. The first of these obtained possession of this time-honored structure in the time of Henry the Sixth, and the latter, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. So liberal was the housekeeping of Haddon, that one hundred and forty servants were employed and maintained there by the first duke of Rutland, in the time of Queen Anne. Now all is silence and loneliness within its bounds. Two hundred years have elapsed since it was