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Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present

Note 22 — ENGLISH CASTLE-BUILDING.

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From Poundbury may be seen Woolverton House, formerly the seat of the Trenchard family, and in it the fortunes of the House of Russell, humanly speaking, began to rise in the ascendant. When the Archduke of Spain was obliged to land at Weymouth, he was brought to the Sheriff of Dorset, and lived at Woolverton House. The Sheriff, not being able to speak in any language but "Dorset," found it difficult to converse with the Archduke, and bethought him of a young kinsman, named Russell, who had been a factor in Spain, and sent for him. The young man made himself so agreeable to the Archduke that he brought him to London, where the King took a fancy to him, and in time he became Duke of Bedford, and was the founder of the House of Russell.

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