heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

156 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
solemnity, attended by a large
concourse of the neighbouring nobility and
gentry, May, 1633. Amongst the rest came his children Lord Brackley,
Mr. Thomas and Lady Alice Egerton. They had been on a visit at the
house of a relation in Herefordshire, and in passing through Haywood
Forest were benighted, and the Lady Alice was even lost for a short time,
or, as the poet rendered it :
" And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with temper'd awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms :
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's State
And new entrusted scepter, but their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this dreer wood,
The nodding horrors of whose shady brows
Threat the forlorn and wandering passenger."
Milton must have been very young at the time he composed the " Masque,"
founded probably on Fletcher's " Faithful Shepherdess," an arcadian comedy
recently published, and on the story of " Circe," the subject of a mask, written
by William Browne, and performed by the students of the Inner Temple, 1615.
The music to Comus was written by Henry Lawes, a vicar-choral of Salisbury
Cathedral, who himself acted the part of " the attendant spirit, afterwards in
"the habit of Thysis." Lady Alice, aged 13, acted "the Lady;" Lord
Brackley, aged 12, "the first Brother." Thomas Egerton performed the
part of " the second Brother." The " Masque" was performed at Michaelmas,
1634.
Charles I. was splendidly received and entertained here on going
to pay a visit to Lord Powis ;
and also stayed a night here in his flight
Civil War. In 1646 the castle, garrisoned
from Wales during the unhappy
for the King, was delivered up to the Parliament, and was a few years
after shorn of its magnificence, its stately furniture being inventoried and
sold. There is
something rather touching in some of the details of its
ancient splendour and the "
prices they fetched, e.g. Suite of old tapestry
" hangings, containing in all 120 ells, at 2 s.
per ell, 15; two pictures, the one
" of the late King, the other of his Queen (probably by Vandyke), los."
Lord Carberry was appointed Lord President at the Restoration, under
whom Butler enjoyed the office of steward, and in an apartment over the
gateway of the castle is said to have written his inimitable " Hudibras."
Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield, was the last.
In 1659 the office was abolished, and since then the castle has
gradually fallen into decay.
Sir Francis Eure died in 1621, having married as his second wife
Ellen, daughter and co-heir of William Wynne-Maurice, of Clenneny, county
Salop, and widow of Sir John Owen, secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham.