A 1903 play and a 1924 film are based on the novel.
History
Historically, Dorothy Vernon, the daughter of Sir George Vernon, the owner of Haddon Hall, married John Manners, the second son of Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland (circa 1492 - 1543) in 1563.[1] Sir George supposedly disapproved of the union, possibly because the Mannerses were Protestants and the Vernons were Catholics. According to legend, 18-year-old Dorothy eloped with Manners.[1]
In the novel, neither Dorothy Vernon nor John Manners has any siblings. Also, John Manners' father is alive. In the novel, the elopement takes place in 1568 (an adjustment needed to make it line up with Queen Mary's flight to England, which is a plot point in the novel).
The story is narrated by Sir George Vernon's 35-year-old cousin, Malcolm François de Lorraine Vernon. Raised in France, he became enamored of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was a youth there, and followed her to Scotland. Historically, Mary was captured, imprisoned, and forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in July 1567, but in the novel, Malcolm receives word of Mary's capture in the Fall. He immediately flees to England, and heads to Haddon Hall to take refuge with Sir George. On the way, he meets and becomes friends with John Manners, son of Sir George's hated enemy Thomas Manners (Lord Rutland).
Years earlier, Sir George had suggested that Malcolm marry George's daughter Dorothy as a way to keep the Vernon properties held by Vernons. Dorothy at the time had been an awkward adolescent; she now is a mature, strong-willed, red-headed beauty. On his way to Haddon Hall, Malcolm (still in the company of John Manners) encounters Dorothy, her aunt, and her friend Madge, all of whom live at Haddon Hall. Catching glimpses of each other, John Manners and Dorothy instantly begin to be attracted to each other. Malcolm, by contrast, sees his cousin as too beautiful and strong-willed to make a good wife.
As the book progresses, Dorothy and John develop a secret romance, aided by Malcolm and hidden from her father, who first presses her to marry Malcolm, and then the son of the Earl of Derby. Various dramatic elements include a chapter in which Dorothy is imprisoned in her bedroom, but manages to disguise herself as Malcolm to escape and meet John; John fails to recognize her, thinking her a male stranger, and makes some embarrassing remarks about his previous love affairs, and then when he realizes she is a woman, fails to recognize her as Dorothy, but attempts to kiss her, causing her to reveal herself. Later, John disguises himself and takes a job as a household servant at Haddon Hall to be able to spend time with Dorothy; she fails to recognize him for days until he reveals himself.
This ruse ends when Dorothy quarrels with her father, who attempts to strike her. John jumps in the way and is struck unconscious, and a distraught Dorothy reveals that this is the lover her father suspected her of having. Her father orders him imprisoned in the dungeon, to be hanged the next day if the blow to his head does not kill him, but Malcolm, aided by Dorothy's Aunt (also named Dorothy), arrange for his escape.
Subsequently, Queen Mary escapes from Scotland and takes secret refuge at Lord Rutland's estate.
Queen Elizabeth arrives to visit Haddon Hall. Sir George brings the Stanleys (the Earl of Derby and his oafish son) to ratify the marriage contract before the Queen, but Dorothy publicly humiliates the Stanleys, ruining the arrangements and amusing the Queen. Meanwhile, her father has already begun to nurse a hope she might marry the Queen's favorite, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester.
Unable to see John for an extended period of time, and knowing that the seductive Queen Mary is staying at his home, Dorothy becomes crazed with jealousy and tells Queen Elizabeth of Queen Mary's location. Elizabeth rouses a troop of soldiers to arrest Mary. Remorse-stricken, Dorothy attempts to arrive at Lord Rutland's before the troops, but fails, and John, his father, and Queen Mary are all arrested, and Dorothy's father finds out John's identity.
Malcolm shares a carriage with Queen Mary and a sleeping, exhausted Dorothy for the return to Haddon Hall, and during the trip Mary manages to regain his allegiance and romantic interest (despite his being engaged to Madge) and he promises to help her escape to France. Mary also attempts to gain the allegiance of the Earl of Leicester, but he betrays her to Elizabeth, resulting in Malcolm's arrest.
Queen Elizabeth tells Dorothy she will free John and Lord Rutland if Dorothy can prove that they planned only to get Mary out of Scotland, and had no part in any conspiracy to place Mary on the throne of England. By speaking with him in the dungeon, which is equipped with a speaking tube for eavesdropping, Dorothy exonerates John and his father, and they are set free. Elizabeth decides Malcolm may go free as well, provided he leaves England and returns to France.
Sir George, furious at Malcolm's part in aiding Dorothy's and John's romance, tells him to leave Haddon Hall, so Malcolm gathers his belongings and apologizes to Madge and prepares to head to Lord Rutland's estate, where he will await the passport allowing him to leave England. As he leaves, Madge joins him, forgiving him, and they plan that she will accompany him to France as his wife.
In the final chapter of the novel, during a party in Queen Elizabeth's honor, Dorothy tricks her father into letting her steal away for a few crucial minutes, supposedly to court the Earl of Leicester's affections. Instead, she is met by John, who literally carries her off despite her last-minute uncertainty, and they elope to his father's hall where they bid farewell to Malcolm and Madge, who move to France and don't see them again (as of the close of the novel, forty years later).
Elizabeth Cavendish, later Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, known as Bess of Hardwick, of Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, was a notable figure of Elizabethan English society. By a series of well-made marriages, she rose to the highest levels of English nobility and became enormously wealthy. Bess was reportedly a shrewd businesswoman, increasing her assets with business interests including mines and glass-making workshops.
Duke of Rutland is a title in the Peerage of England, named after Rutland, a county in the East Midlands of England. Earldoms named after Rutland have been created three times; the ninth earl of the third creation was made duke in 1703, in whose family's line the title continues. The heir apparent to the dukedom has the privilege of using the courtesy title of Marquess of Granby.
John James Robert Manners, 7th Duke of Rutland,, known as Lord John Manners before 1888, was a British statesman.
Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, KG of Chenies in Buckinghamshire and of Bedford House in Exeter, Devon, was an English nobleman, soldier, and politician. He was a godfather to the Devon-born sailor Sir Francis Drake. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Devon (1584-5).
Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, KG, KB was an English peer and politician. He was the nephew of Catherine Parr and brother-in-law of Lady Jane Grey through his first wife.
Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye near Bakewell, Derbyshire, a former seat of the Dukes of Rutland. It is the home of Lord Edward Manners and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it has been described as "the most complete and most interesting house of [its] period". The origins of the hall are from the 11th century, with additions at various stages between the 13th and the 17th centuries, latterly in the Tudor style.
Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland, 12th Baron de Ros of Helmsley, KG, of Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, was created Earl of Rutland by King Henry VIII in 1525.
George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, 6th Earl of Waterford, 12th Baron Talbot, KG, Earl Marshal (c. 1522/1528 – 18 November 1590) was an English magnate and military commander. He also held the subsidiary titles of 15th Baron Strange of Blackmere and 11th Baron Furnivall. He was best known for his tenure as keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots between 1568 and 1585, his marriage to his second wife Elizabeth Talbot, as well as his surviving collection of written work.
Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland was the eldest surviving son of John Manners, 4th Earl of Rutland and his wife, Elizabeth nee Charleton. He travelled across Europe, took part in military campaigns led by the Earl of Essex, and was a participant of Essex's rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I. He was favoured by James I, and honoured by his contemporaries as a man of great intelligence and talent. He enjoyed the friendship of some of the most prominent writers and artists of the Elizabethan age and Jacobean age. In 1603 he led an Embassy to Denmark, homeland of James' Queen Anne of Denmark.
John Manners, 8th Earl of Rutland, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 until 1641 when he inherited the title Earl of Rutland on the death of his second cousin George Manners, 7th Earl of Rutland.
John Manners, 1st Duke of Rutland and 9th Earl of Rutland was a British MP, and Whig politician. His divorce from his first wife caused much comment, partly because it was thought to have political implications.
Haddon Hall is an English light opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by Sydney Grundy. The opera, set at the eponymous hall, dramatises the legend of Dorothy Vernon's elopement with John Manners, resetting the tale in the 17th century.
Grace, Lady Manners was an English noblewoman who lived at Haddon Hall near Bakewell, Derbyshire. She founded Bakewell's Lady Manners School in 1636.
Sir John Fortescue of Salden Manor, near Mursley, Buckinghamshire, was the seventh Chancellor of the Exchequer of England, serving from 1589 until 1603.
Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall is a 1924 American silent historical drama film directed by Marshall Neilan and starring Mary Pickford. The script by Waldemar Young was based upon the 1902 novel Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Charles Major.
The Vernon family was a wealthy, prolific and widespread English family with 11th-century origins in Vernon, Normandy, France. Their extant titles include Baron Vernon and Vernon baronets of Shotwick Park.
George Vernon was and a prosperous and hospitable landowner and MP in Derbyshire, who came from a long line of wealthy landowners. He was the son of Richard Vernon and Margaret Dymoke. His family seat was at Haddon Hall, England's best preserved medieval manor house and today a major tourist attraction. He was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Derbyshire in 1542.
Dorothy Vernon, the younger daughter of Sir George Vernon and Margaret nee Talbois, was the heiress of Haddon Hall, an English country house in Derbyshire with its origins in the 12th century. She married John Manners in 1563. The couple's descendants, the Dukes of Rutland, continue to own Haddon Hall. A legend grew up in the 19th century that Vernon and Manners eloped, and a number of novels, dramatisations and other works of fiction have been based on the legend.
Eleanor Manners, Countess of Rutland, was lady-in-waiting to five wives of King Henry VIII of England: Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr.
Sir George Manners (1569–1623) of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, England, served as a Member of Parliament for Nottingham, 1588–1589, and for Derbyshire, 1593–1596. His elaborate triple-decked monument with kneeling effigies of himself and his wife and family survives in the Vernon/Haddon Chapel, All Saints Church, Bakewell, Derbyshire.
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