“Make yourself strong, marquis—make yourself strong,” he said. “There is no saying what may happen. If a rising should take place, you will be prepared. Have you many friends about you?”
“I have many retainers, gentlemen of no great means, who are content to serve me,” replied Dorset.
“Trust not too much to them,” rejoined the admiral, “but secure, if you can, the yeomen and the franklins—they will aid you best. Find out the ringleaders and those who have most influence with the commonalty, and spare no efforts to win them over. Be familiar with them. Go to their houses. Flatter their wives and daughters. Take with you a flask or two of wine, a venison pasty, a cold capon, or such matters, and sit down with them. In this manner you will win their hearts, and have them at your commandment. D’ye note me, marquis?”
“Right well, admiral,” he replied. “You are a rare plotter.”
“You will find the plan efficacious,” said the admiral; “and so well do I think of it, that I intend to pursue it myself.”
Other hints were given, which Dorset promised to turn to account. As usual, he was in want of money, and before taking leave of the admiral, had increased his debt to him by another five hundred pounds.
Pursuing the plan he had recommended to Dorset, Seymour spent a portion of his time at Sudley Castle, in Gloucestershire, where he kept up a princely establishment, and by his hearty and engaging manner won the good opinion of all the yeomen and franklins in the neighborhood.
Situated about a mile from Winchcombe, amid the beautiful hills of Gloucestershire, this magnificent castle was erected by Lord Boteler, who subsequently assumed the title of Sudley, in the reign of Henry VI., on the site of a still more ancient edifice, constructed by Radulphus, Earl of Hereford, at the time of the Conquest. “The Lord Sudley who builded the castle,” says old Leland, “was a famous man of war in King Henry V. and VI.th’s days; and was an admiral, as I have heard, on sea; whereupon it was supposed and spoken, that it was partly builded ex spoliis Gallorum; and some speak of a tower in it called Portmare’s Tower, that it should be made of a ransom of his. One thing was to be noted in this castle, that part of the windows of it were glazed with beryls. King Edward IV. bore no good will to the Lord Sudley, as a man suspected to be in heart devoted to King Henry VI., whereupon, by complaints he was attached, and going up to London, he looked from the hill to Sudley, and said, ‘Castle of Sudley, thou art the traitor, not I!’ Afterwards, he made an honest declaration, and sold his castle to King Edward IV.”
This splendid structure, described by another quaint old writer, Fuller, as “of subjects’ castles the most handsome habitation, and of subjects’ habitations the strongest castle,” continued in the possession of the Crown till the accession of Edward VI., when it was bestowed, as we have seen, upon Lord Seymour. Large sums were expended by the admiral upon its enlargement and improvement, and, while heightening its beauty, he contrived, at the same time, materially to increase its strength. It contained many noble apartments, all of which were furnished with the gorgeous taste characteristic of its possessor. The chapel attached to the castle was exquisitely beautiful; the windows of the lovely fane, as mentioned by Leland, being filled with beryls.
Sudley Castle, as we have just stated, was within a mile of the ancient and picturesque town of Winchcombe, which up to the time of Henry VIII. had boasted a mitred abbey. Its domains were watered by the little river Isborne. Surrounded by lovely hills, and embosomed in stately groves, from the midst of which sprang its lofty towers, the princely edifice commanded enchanting prospects. Its size, strength, and the richness and beauty of its architecture, rendered it one of the noblest specimens of a castellated mansion to be met with in the kingdom. Unluckily, but few remains of its former grandeur are left. Taken by the Republican party in 1642, it was partially destroyed by them, its halls dismantled, its beautiful chapel unroofed, the windows of the fane rifled of their beryls, and the repose of the dead lying within its walls profaned. Still, though the castle is now but a ruin, and the stars look down into the roofless aisles of the desecrated chapel, enough is left to attest its former grandeur and magnificence; while a glorious western window, with a canopied niche on either side, shows what the chapel must have been when beautified by Lord Seymour.