Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey [Map]

Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey is in Isle of Sheppey, Kent [Map].

Pepy's Diary. 05 Sep 1663. I hear this day that Sir W. Batten (age 62) was fain to put ashore at Queenborough [Map] with my Lady, who has been so sick she swears never to go to sea again. But it happens well that Holmes is come home into the Downes, where he will meet my Lady, and it may be do her more good than she looked for. He brings news of the peace between Tangier and the Moors, but the particulars I know not. He is come but yesterday.

Pepy's Diary. 18 Aug 1665. Thence with great pleasure up the Meadeway, our yacht contending with Commissioner Pett's (age 55), wherein he met us from Chatham, Kent [Map], and he had the best of it. Here I come by, but had not tide enough to stop at Quinbrough [Map], a with mighty pleasure spent the day in doing all and seeing these places, which I had never done before.

Pepy's Diary. 17 Nov 1665. Sailed all night, and got down to Quinbrough [Map] water, where all the great ships are now come, and there on board my Lord, and was soon received with great content. And after some little discourse, he and I on board Sir W. Pen (age 44); and there held a council of Warr about many wants of the fleete, but chiefly how to get slopps and victuals for the fleete now going out to convoy our Hambro' ships, that have been so long detained for four or five months for want of convoy, which we did accommodate one way or other, and so, after much chatt, Sir W. Pen (age 44) did give us a very good and neat dinner, and better, I think, than ever I did see at his owne house at home in my life, and so was the other I eat with him.

Evelyn's Diary. 08 May 1666. To Queensborough [Map], where finding the Richmond frigate, I sailed to the buoy of the Nore to my Lord-General (age 57) and Prince Rupert (age 46), where was the Rendezvous of the most glorious fleet in the world, now preparing to meet the Hollander.

Evelyn's Diary. 02 Jun 1672. At Sheerness [Map], I gave his Majesty (age 42) and his Royal Highness (age 38) an account of my charge, and returned to Queenborough [Map]; next day dined at Major Dorel's, Governor of Sheerness; thence, to Rochester, Kent [Map]; and the following day, home.

Queenborough Castle

In 1376 John Savile of Shelley and Golcar (age 51) was elected MP Yorkshire in the Good Parliament. During the Good Parliament, he was sufficiently trusted to conduct Thomas Caterton from Queenborough Castle [Map] for interrogation before Parliament. Caterton had been appealed for treason by Sir John Annesley, and the court party, including Gaunt (age 35), was anxious to protect him from attack. In the event, they were able to hold off the opposition, despite some damning revelations about their conduct of the war-effort. The duke (age 35) himself was singled out for particular criticism, and during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 he fled into Scotland, leaving his Savoy Palace [Map] to be destroyed by the London mob. Gaunt (age 35) was, understandably, reluctant to cross the border again without the protection of a sizeable bodyguard. In late Jun 1376, therefore, his leading retainers in the north were instructed to provide an escort for his journey to Knaresborough [Map]. Not only did John Savile of Shelley and Golcar (age 51) mobilize a personal retinue of ten men-at-arms and 40 archers; he also helped to suppress the rebellion in the north by serving on two commissions for the punishment of insurgents.

In 1477 William Cheney (age 33) was appointed Constable of Queenborough Castle.

Letters of Horace Walpole. 07 Aug 1572. This morning we have been to Penshurst [Map] - but, oh! how fallen!341 The park seems to have never answered its character: at present it is forlorn; and instead of Sacharissa's342 cipher carved on the beeches, I should sooner have expected to have found the milkwoman's score. Over the gate is an inscription, purporting the manor to have been a boon from Edward VI to Sir William Sydney. The apartments are the grandest I have seen in any of these old palaces, but furnished in tawdry modern taste. There are loads of portraits; but most of them seem christened by chance, like children at a foundling hospital. There is a portrait of Languet343, the friend of Sir Philip Sydney (age 17); and divers of himself and all his great kindred; particularly his sister-in-law, with a vast lute, and Sacharissa, charmingly handsome, But there are really four very great curiosities, I believe as old portraits as any extant in England: they are, Fitzallen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Humphry Stafford, the first Duke of Buckingham; T. Wentworth, and John Foxle; all four with the dates of their commissions as constables of Queenborough Castle, from whence I suppose they were brought. The last is actually receiving his investiture from Edward the Third, and Wentworth is in the dress of Richard the Third's time. They are really not very ill done.344 There are six more, only heads; and we have found since we came home that Penshurst belonged for a time to that Duke of Buckingham. There are some good tombs in the church, and a very Vandal one. called Sir Stephen of Penchester. When we had seen Penshurst, we borrowed saddles, and, bestriding the horses of our postchaise, set out for Hever [Map]345, to visit a tomb of Sir Thomas Bullen, Earl of Wiltshire, partly with a view to talk of it in Anna Bullen's walk at Strawberry Hill. But the measure of our woes was not full, we could not find our way and were forced to return; and again lost ourselves in coming from Penshurst, having been directed to what they call a better road than the execrable one we had gone.

Note 341. Evelyn, who visited Penshurst exactly a century before Walpole, gives the Following brief notice of the place:-"July 9, 1652. We went to see Penshurst, the Earl of Leicester's, famous once for its gardens and excellent fruit, and for the noble conversation which Was wont to meet there, celebrated by that illustrious person Sir Philip Sidney, who there composed divers of his pieces. It stands in a park, is finely watered, and was now full of company, on the marriage of my old fellow-collegiate, Mr. Robert Smith, who marries Lady Dorothy Sidney, widow of the Earl of Sunderland."-E.

Note 342. Lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of Philip, Earl of Leicester [Note. Mistake? She was a daughter of Richard, Earl of Liecester, she was a sister of Philip Earl of Leicester]; of whom Waller was the unsuccessful suitor, and to whom he addressed those elegant effusions of poetical gallantry, in which she is celebrated under the name of Sacharissa. Walpole here alludes to the lines written at Penshurst-

"Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark

Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark

Of noble Sydney's birth; when such benign,

Such more than mortal-making stars did shine,

That there they cannot but for ever prove

The monument and pledge of humble love;

His humble love, whose hope shall ne'er rise higher,

Than for a pardon that he dares admire."-E.

Note 343. Hubert Tanguet, who quitted the service of the Elector of Saxony on account of his religion, and attached himself to the Prince of Orange. He died in 1581.-E.

Note 344. In Harris's History of Kent, he gives from Philpot a list of the constables of Queenborough Castle, p. 376; the last but one of whom, Sir Edward Hobby, is said to have collected all their portraits, of which number most probably were these ten.

Note 345. Hever Castle was built in the reign of Edward III, by William de Hevre, and subsequently became the property of the Boleyn family. In this castle Henry VIII passed the time of his courtship to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn; whose father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was Created Earl of wiltshire and Ormond, 1529 and 1538.-E.

On 01 Mar 1617 Edward Hoby (age 57) died at Queenborough Castle [Map].