Explore "The Tragedy of Beningbrough Hall" by Sabine Baring-Gould on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In 1670, Beningbrough Hall, a fine Elizabethan red-brick mansion, stood in a park near the junction of the Ouse and Nidd. The old house has been pulled down, and replaced by an edifice neat and commodious, as the guide-books would say, and we need say no more.
In 1670 Beningbrough Hall belonged to a Roman Catholic family of the name of Earle. Mr. Earle, the proprietor, was in somewhat embarrassed circumstances, and was mixed up with some of the plots then rife. He was much away from the Hall -- generally in London; but the house was full of servants, under the control of a steward, Philip Laurie, and a housekeeper, named Marian -- a comely woman, just passing into middle age.