BRITAIN AND ERANCE. l6TH TO l8TH CENTURY
stone-gabled manor-house with its mullioned windows and its
extreme ornamental restraint, was still alive. Thus English architec-
ture between 1530 and 1620 is a composite phenomenon with
French and Flemish elements prevailing, where we are near the
court, and English traditions, as soon as we get away from it. Much
of it is derivative, both in the sense of imitation and of conserva-
tism, but occasionally a new expression is developed as original and
as nationally characteristic as Lescot's Louvre.
Burghley House, near Stamford, is the work of William Cecil,
Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's trusted adviser and friend. It is a
mighty rectangle of about 160 by 2,00 feet with an inner courtyard.
The central feature of this courtyard is a three-storied pavilion,
dated 1585 (pi. LXXXJ). It is again designed on the French trium-
phal arch motif with the typically French niches between the coupled
columns. It has three orders, correctly applied; but on the third
floor between the Corinthian columns there sits an utterly incon-
gruous English mullioned and transomed bay window (the English
have at no time been happy without bay windows) and above that
the pavilion shoots out bits of strapwork and obelisks—a crop of
Flemish decoration. The analysis of style is confirmed by docu-
mentary evidence. We know that no architect in a modern sense
was wholly responsible for the building. Lord Burghley himself
must have made a good many of the suggestions embodied in the
design. He represents a coming type: the architectural dilettante.
In 1568 he wrote to Paris for a. book on architecture, and some years
later he wrote again specifying one particular French book which
he desired. On the other hand it is also certain that workmen for
Burghley came from the Netherlands and that a certain amount
of work was actually done at Antwerp and then shipped to England.
Thus Flemish as well as French motifs are easily accounted for. What
is harder to understand is why this happy-go-lucky mixing up of
foreign phrases with the English vernacular (the chimney stacks are
coupled Tuscan Doric columns complete with entablature) does
not appear disjointed. The England of Queen Elizabeth—this is all
that can be said by way of an explanation—possessed such an over-
flowing vitality and was so eager to take in all that was sufficiently
adventurous and picturesque and in some cases mannered that it
could digest what would have caused serious trouble to a weaker age.
However, while Burghley (and Wollaton Hall of 1580 and die
entrance side of Hatfidd of 1605-12) are spectacular and stimu-
15.6