In all the stories of our countryside is none more tragic than the ruin of this great house. It was in the great days of Elizabeth that Cowdray was at the height of its glory, with old Anthony Browne living in high state here.

Courtier though he was, he had the courage of an Englishman and the English love of liberty. His father was standard-bearer to Henry the Eighth and, though a staunch Roman catholic, he received from the king rich monastic estates. When the king lay dying it was Anthony Browne who was chosen to tell him that his end was near, and Anthony himself died a year after.

In Queen Mary's terrible reign the son was made Lord Montague, and in Elizabeth's reign he was sent on a mission to Spain. So great a trust she had in him that Elizabeth overlooked his speech in the Lords against the Act of Supremacy, when Sir Anthony Browne the Second declared that her Roman Catholic subjects were loyal and peaceful, and that taking such an oath was repugnant to any man's freedom of mind - for who so void of honour as to take religion by compulsion.

When the Armada loomed on the horizon, and Elizabeth rode down to Tilbury to review her army, Sir Anthony with his son and grandson at his side led out 200 horsemen to greet her. In happier days he welcomed her to a week of junketing and brilliant entertainment at Cowdray Castle. The Armada was over and security had come again to England, and the queen enjoyed her feastings within these splendid walls.

Anthony died and was buried in Midhurst church, but they brought him back with his glorious tomb to Easebourne. He must almost have turned in his grave on that day when the wonder of Cowdray, all its beauty and glory and the treasures within it, came crashing to the ground. There was within these walls the sword of the Conqueror, his coronation robe, and the roll of Norman knights read over on the morning of the Battle of Hastings, and all these perished in the fire.

The eighth Lord Montague was travelling abroad and never heard the tragic news, for before it could reach him he ventured too far in a boat on the cataracts of the Rhine and was drowned. His valet tried to stop his setting out on his hazardous adventure; he exceeded his duty by pulling him back, so that the viscount's collar and tie came off in the valet's hand. The valet came home to England with the tragic news; he arrived to find the castle a blackened ruin, with a collar and tie as all that was left of its owner.

Cowdray passed to the viscount's sister, who married Mr Poyntz and had two sons. She lies close by Sir Anthony in the chapel at Easebourne, and if her face is a little sad it is perhaps because she is thinking of the day when she looked from the window and saw her two boys drown. So passes away, in fire and water and in sorrow, the glory of Cowdray Castle.

See 'The Curse of Battle Abbey'

 

 

 

 

 

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