This is the Studiolo of Sir Rowland Hill (c.1495-1561). It was his secure office at Soulton, his country headquarters, where he served as an elite statesman under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. He held inquisitorial powers, and the rights to seize and hold prohibited items in both the Catholic and Protestant dispensations (as a commissioner AGAINST heretics and FOR ecclesiastical causes).
In this room, he would have kept his most important and dangerous items. He is thought to have sheltered Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I’s godfather, here, implying the presence of immensely important books in the 1550s, including a copy of Magna Carta which he was depicting holding on his monument in the City of London, where he was buried and which was lost in the Great Fire of London. The state importance of this place is underlined by the house being raided by soldiers in 1643 during the Civil War. During the raid, Old Sir Rowland’s chair of estate was smashed, as evidenced by its seventeenth-century repair.
He worked from this house on the publication of the Geneva Bible, a project considered treasonous and heretical at the time. However, it was subsequently ratified by Archbishop Matthew Parker and Elizabeth I. A priest hole in this room reminds us of the dangers of the 16th century, inviting us to consider the risks and lengths people went to for their beliefs, and the nature of persecution that continues in different forms today.
Beyond the south-facing window lies the woodland that inspired Thomas Lodge Jr.’s Rosalynde (1590), which in turn gave birth to Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Closer to the house is the dancing pavement, an 1847 pebble mosaic replacing the original Tudor ceilings. This mosaic depicts the dance that concludes the play and was a part of courtly and city life for centuries, tracing its roots back to antiquity.
