Lydiard Ladies and Their Loyal Dogs

Dogs are a familiar sight in portraits and there are a couple featured in the collection at Lydiard Park. In one of Lady Johanna St John, painted in 1670 by Godfrey Kneller, she is shown against a classical backdrop with a small spaniel seated on a ledge alongside her, its paw resting on her arm in a very cute pose. When pictured at a woman’s feet or in her lap, the dog usually represents marital fidelity or in the case of a widow, fidelity to her husband’s memory. Spaniels of all sorts were popular in the 17^th century, particularly at the court of Charles II whose ministers would grumble at his paying more attention to his dogs than to government business. Spaniels were sporting dogs and pet dogs, and were status symbols associated with grand estates.

Continuing her association with dogs, Lady Johanna features a remedy on the very front page of her recipe book which has a rather delightful title: to cure any inward sickness or disease in a dog or a man that is bit with a mad dog. Containing crab claws, milk, rue, turmeric, bloodwort and liverwort among other ingredients, it was best administered while fasting. We can understand why.

The toy spaniel in the portrait of Henrietta St John aged two, the only surviving daughter of Henry, 1st Viscount St.John and his wife, Angelica Pelissary, served a slightly different purpose. It looks gentle and sweet, and Henrietta is stroking its soft ears. Painted in 1701, it’s a charming picture in which both the dog and the small child convey a sense of goodness. The dog wears a tiny red collar and looks very compliant and obedient.

A dog’s presence in a seventeenth-century nursery was not at all uncommon despite the hygiene implications, and it could when needed be used like a hot water bottle! Later, when she married and moved away from Lydiard, Henrietta became a renowned gardener, planting snowdrops, primroses, polyanthus and violets, transforming the gardens at Barrell’s Hall, her husband’s family home in Warwickshire. She described these flowers as “the beauties of childhood.” Perhaps some of those happy memories came from playing with her puppy in Lydiard Park.

Nowadays, the dogs at Lydiard are most likely to be all sorts of breeds, running around enjoying themselves in the park, just as Lady Johanna and Henrietta’s dogs did before them.

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