Looking at the ruin of Pendragon Castle, I try to picture the scene when Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, claimed her inheritance in 1649. She had left her estranged husband and his grand houses in London and his country seat at Wilton House near Salisbury and headed north. Her aristocratic, landowning friends in the south must have been bewildered by her decision . Where is Pendragon Castle? Why go north?
Walking in the footsteps of Lady Anne, Countess of Pembroke, we left behind the General Election. That night, the SNP emerged as a new force to be reckoned with, three party leaders resigned and political careers crashed and burned. So what was the context of Lady Anne’s journey from Wilton House to Pendragon Castle?
England and Scotland were two sovereign kingdoms when Lady Anne Clifford was born in the reign of Elizabeth 1st and she was thirteen when James V1th of Scotland became James 1st of England and united them. Philip, Earl of Pembroke, was her second husband and Wilton House near Salisbury was visited by kings. Here Mary Sidney wrote The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, completing the work begun by her brother Sir Philip Sidney. Here was the perfect place, this beautiful landscape of chalk downland and the woods surrounding Wilton House. If you could find Paradise anywhere surely it was here in the south. But the elegance and high civilisation of Wilton came crashing down in 1642 when Civil War broke out. The violence and brutality that came with it is documented by Adam Nicholson in his book The Earls of Paradise, England and the Dream of Perfection. And after my latest excursion to Pendragon and Lady Anne’s Way I reread it. I try to imagine Lady Anne’s journey north in the aftermath of Civil War- a countess with a great household and all the trappings of wealth travelling through a war-ravaged kingdom.
In his Arcadia, Sir Philip Sidney explored the idea of perfection and found it in the beauty of the landscape about Wilton and in its high civilisation during the reign of Elizabeth 1. He was right, it’s lovely. I know Wilton and its countryside from years of living in the south west of England.
Whilst writing Cumbrian Contrasts my focus has often been on this northern region of Mallerstang, Wild Boar Fell and the source of the River Eden. It is wild and beautiful, a striking contrast to the countryside around Salisbury. And the name Eden resonates, that first garden, Paradise. A lost Paradise, a place to escape to. Is it possible to find Paradise in the 21st century? Where would you look for it and what would make it so remarkable?
Whilst writing Cumbrian Contrasts my focus has often been on this northern region of Mallerstang, Wild Boar Fell and the source of the River Eden. It is wild and beautiful, a striking contrast to the countryside around Salisbury. And the name Eden resonates, that first garden, Paradise. A lost Paradise, a place to escape to. Is it possible to find Paradise in the 21st century? Where would you look for it and what would make it so remarkable?
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