Even King James, it is said, was not exempt from the designs of the wicked. In the State Paper Office is the following entry:—“A man named Peacock, a schoolmaster, to be committed to the Tower and tortured, ‘for practising sorcery on the King, to infatuate him in Sir Thomas Lake’s business.’”
By the death of her brother, Lady Katherine, whose more advanced years, and probably, whose courage and sense enabled her to master the dark terrors of the wicked Joan and her daughters, became a personage of no little importance in those venal times, when even a show of affection was scarcely thought necessary for the preliminary arrangements of the nuptial tie. Belvoir, her father’s proud possession, stands upon the eminence, the fine prospect from which gave it the name it bears, in all its stately antiquity.[276] It was built in the time of the Conqueror, by Robert de Belvedeir, standard-bearer to the monarch. The edifice is seated on the confines of the counties of Lincoln and Leicester, Nottingham and Rutland, and it commanded, in the time of Francis Manners, until the present day, fourteen lordships.[277] Of this domain, Lady Katherine was now sole heiress. Repeated visits had been made by King James to it, and, indeed, a sojourn at Belvoir was always a principal feature in a royal progress. A singular custom was formerly observed on the occasion of a royal visit to this castle. A family in Nottinghamshire, who held the Manor of Staunton, by the office of castle guard of the strong hold of Belvoir Castle, called the Staunton Tower, were required to present the keys of that tower to the monarch, in the same manner as the keys of a town are offered. The tenure required, in feudal times, that—
“Unto this forte with force and flagge, The Staunton’s stock should sticke, For to defende against the foe, Which at the same might kicke.”[278]
The interior was destroyed by fire, in 1816; it has been rebuilt in a style of great magnificence.
The present Duke of Rutland traces his descent in direct line from the founder of the castle, Robert de Belvedeir.
In January, 1814, when George IV., then Prince Regent, was received at Belvoir Castle, the key of Staunton Tower, of gold, and beautifully wrought, was presented to him in the drawing-room, on a gold cushion, by the Rev. Dr. Staunton, with a suitable address. Nichols’s Progress, vol. ii., p. 458.