The Road Goes Ever On: Oxburgh Hall

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Oxburgh Hall

In 15th century England apparently it was stylish to build fortified residences, including moats. (You had to get permission from the king to crenellate). These were show-castles, of which Bodiam is perhaps most famous, but which also include Nunney (Vicki's family castle, in the West), Oxburgh, and perhaps Ightam Mote in Kent. In at least two of these cases, the founder had fought in the Hundred Years War, which was a happy war for the English, for a time. Veterans returned wealthy from their enterprises abroad, burning and raping and pillaging, even capturing the French king. The most profitable enterprise was capturing royalty or nobility, whose family would then pay an enormous ransom. Nunney evidently was designed as a replica of the Bastille. We'd seen three of these and wanted to visit Oxburgh, which, if not the most scenic, is certainly the best preserved, along with its gardens and interesting historic contents.

Oxburgh; rhymes with Edinburgh

Everything looks fine on the outside, but the inside is almost totally scaffolded:
a dormer collapsed and fell off the roof; inspection suggested that the entire roof
be replaced, at a cost of 6 million L; can't build scaffolding from the moat

The place is crammed with period and original paintings and
furnishings

Concealed door in library

Gorgeous carving throughout

So Mary Queen of Scots was not popular with her subjects, abdicated, and fled
to England, hoping for the protection of her cousin QE1; and indeed, Elizabeth
protected her to the extent of placing her under house arrest and lodging her, for
some years, with the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was the 4th husband of Bess of
Hardwick, who, through a variety of circumstances and productive marriages, was
the richest woman in England, after only QE1 herself; anyhow, to while away the
hours, and years, Bess and Mary sewed together, and at Oxburgh are two of their
embroideries; above is a panel done by Bess

And this is a panel done by Mary: "Virtue flourishes with a wound," and you
can see the gardener cutting down a barren vine (Elizabeth?) and allowing
productive one (Mary?) to grow; it's doubtful Elizabeth ever saw this, but she
had Mary executed in due course

Room after room, a whole hallway of beautifully tooled and painted leather

The master suite, leading to

The priest hole: the Bedingfeld's were Catholics, and,
unlike so many, on both sides of the Wars of Religion, came
out largely unscathed...by keeping their heads down and
playing nice with whomever happened to be king or queen;
the priest hole here (a place to hide the priest if the priest-
hunters dropped by) was under the suite's garderobe (loo)

Something you'd expect at the British Library and not out here in the hustings...
Henry VIII's courteous request that the Bedingfelds (good Catholics) find a
place to bury Catherine of Aragon, his first wife, who had been living (now
divorced) in a nunnery; click to enlarge and read a fascinating letter