Yorkshire Tragedy.
Rookwood Place was a fine, old, irregular pile, of considerable size, presenting a rich, picturesque outline,
with its innumerable gable-ends, its fantastical coigns, and tall crest of twisted chimneys. There was no
uniformity of style about the building, yet the general effect was pleasing and beautiful. Its very irregularity
constituted a charm. Nothing except convenience had been consulted in its construction: additions had from
time to time been made to it, but everything dropped into its proper place, and, without apparent effort or
design, grew into an ornament, and heightened the beauty of the whole. It was, in short, one of those glorious
manorial houses that sometimes unexpectedly greet us in our wanderings, and gladden us like the discovery of
a hidden treasure. Some such ancestral hall we have occasionally encountered, in unlooked-for quarters, in our
native county of Lancaster, or in its smiling sister shire; and never without feelings of intense delight,
rejoicing to behold the freshness of its antiquity, and the greenness of its old age. For, be it observed in
passing, a Cheshire or Lancashire hall, time-honored though it be, with its often renovated black and white
squares, fancifully filled up with trefoils and quatrefoils, rosettes, and other figures, seems to bear its years so
lightly, that its age, so far from detracting from its beauty, only lends it a grace; and the same mansion, to all
outward appearance, fresh and perfect as it existed in the days of good Queen Bess, may be seen in admirable
preservation in the days of the youthful Victoria. Such is Bramall--such Moreton, and many another we might
instance; the former of these houses may, perhaps, be instanced as the best specimen of its class,--and its class
in our opinion, is the best--to be met with in Cheshire, considered with reference either to the finished
decoration of its exterior, rich in the chequered coloring we have alluded to, preserved with a care and
neatness almost Dutch, or to the consistent taste exhibited by its possessor to the restoration and maintenance
of all its original and truly national beauty within doors. As an illustration of old English hospitality--that real,
hearty hospitality for which the squirearchy of this country was once so famous--Ah! why have they bartered
it for other customs less substantially English?--it may be mentioned, that a road conducted the passenger
directly through the great hall of this house, literally "of entertainment," where, if he listed, strong ale, and
other refreshments, awaited his acceptance and courted his stay. Well might old King, the Cheshire historian,
in the pride of his honest heart, exclaim, "I know divers men, who are but farmers, that in their housekeeping
may compare with a lord or baron, in some countries beyond the seas;--yea, although I named a higher
degree, I were able to justify it." We have no such "golden farmers" in these degenerate days!
The mansion, was originally built by Sir Ranulph de Rookwood--or, as it was then written, Rokewode--the
first of the name, a stout Yorkist, who flourished in the reign of Edward IV., and received the fair domain and
broad lands upon which the edifice was raised, from his sovereign, in reward for good service; retiring thither
in the decline of life, at the close of the Wars of the Roses, to sequestrate himself from scenes of strife, and to
consult his spiritual weal in the erection and endowment of the neighboring church. It was of mixed
architecture, and combined the peculiarities of each successive era. Retaining some of the sterner features of
earlier days, the period ere yet the embattled manor-house peculiar to the reigns of the later Henrys had been
merged into the graceful and peaceable hall, the residence of the Rookwoods had early anticipated the gentler
characteristics of a later day, though it could boast little of that exuberance of external ornament, luxuriance of
design, and prodigality of beauty, which, under the sway of the Virgin Queen, distinguished the residence of
the wealthier English landowner; and rendered the hall of Elizabeth, properly so called, the pride and boast of
our domestic architecture.
The site selected by Sir Ranulph for his habitation had been already occupied by a vast fabric of oak, which he
in part removed, though some vestiges might still be traced of that ancient pile. A massive edifice succeeded,
with gate and tower, court and moat complete; substantial enough, one would have thought, to have endured
for centuries. But even this ponderous structure grew into disuse, and Sir Ranulph's successors, remodelling,
repairing, almost rebuilding the whole mansion, in the end so metamorphosed its aspect, that at last little of its
original and distinctive character remained. Still, as we said before, it was a fine old house, though some
changes had taken place for the worse, which could not be readily pardoned by the eye of taste: as, for
instance, the deep embayed windows had dwindled into modernized casements, of lighter construction; the
wide porch, with its flight of steps leading to the great hall of entrance, had yielded to a narrow door; and the
Rookwood, by William Harrison Ainsworth 26