Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1878-08-20
Chllde Harold,s Grave.
kNEWSTEAD ABBEY AND ITS SURROUND.
INGS-BYRON AND MARY CHAWORTH.

Seven miller north of Nottingham,
writes the Lon dons correspondent of the
Chicago Times, stands thesvilIage of
Hucknall, in whose church lie the NOR
tai remains of George Gordon Noel, Lord
Byron, Of his daughter Ada, of his sister,
the Hon. Mrs. Leigh, and many another
of his line. Here, too, were brought
the remains Of the grandfather of Mary
Chaworth, slain in the duel with Lord
Byron's great uncle, which bloody af-
fray, happening long before their birth,
was the cause why they who loved each
other could never be man and wife, and
turned the lives of both to grief and
wretchedness.
Could the sensitive, impassioned and
gifted young poet have gained the sweet
and beautiful Mary Chaworth, mistress
of the neighboring estate-a woman ev-
cry way worthy Of 'him-how different
might have been the fate of both. She
married instead registering, fox-hunt-
ing, drinking squire of an old country
family, who dwelt not far off, lived o
sorrowful and heart-broken life with
him, and died in consequence of fright
and cold brought on by the riots at the
time the tories threw out the reform bill
in 1872. Alarmed by the fierce DEM
onstrations of the Nottingham work
men she fled from her hall, sought shell
ter in copse, where, through the live
long night, she was pelted by pitiless
tempest, and never recovered from the
effects. She died nine or ten years after
her boyish lover. Her grandson, the
worthy representative of his grandsire,
hut not of the lovely Mary of 1.-THE
lDream," is now the owner of Anners-
Hey. A mile north of Hucknall lies
Newstead, the seat of the Byrons, a no.
BILE estate, which. suppose, at moder-
ate calculation, would now sell for hall
a million sterling, or, as they say here, a
half million of money, for in England
nothing is considered money that is not
representedsby the pound sterling.
/ Newstead, as you know, was q noble
abbey of the middle ages, but at the
suppression of religious houses in the
reign of that pious monarch, Henry
Into secular hands, and became the
abode of the Byrons, and so, in due
i time, of the young poet. Here was held
those orgies, the reading of which
makes ones shudder. All the world
knows that among other bits of profan-
lity practiced by the half-wild young
peer, he dug up skull of former alb.
bot of the house, had it mounted with
i silver, and used it as a drinking cup
In consequence, it is said, the ghost Of
the abbot visited the "glympses of the
moon" for many G year, haunting es-
pecially the chamber of his lordshiE
land that of his page adjoining. Sc
, firmly has this tradition taken hold O
the Imagination Of men that few have
been induced to sleep in those chambers
since the poet left them. One senti-
mental traveller, I believe. was kindly
INDUCED by being. allowed to sleep il
Byroifs sbed and Byron's room, and
! while recalling many ''spoony" lines o
the poet, he ascribed his phantasy t.
, the alliance of superstition with the
: enthusiasm which directs the thoughts
and faith of poets, and stupidity confess
, ed himself to having slept undisturbed
There was also a tradition that SO Ions
as that skull remained above ground NJ
owner of Newstead would ever hay!
, male issue to inherit the estate. Byron
died without son to take his name ant
title; and the same was true of its mex
owner, his friend, Colonel Wildman
whose wife, by the way, was left
/ handed cousin to her Majesty the Queen
> the daughter of the Duke of Sussex
| with the Thar sinister in her escpt
cheon. Col. Wildman, honoring TIL
E memory of his friend, the bard, KEEP
: everything about the place much .as j
had been in his day.