For nearly 400 years, Cassiobury Park served as the grounds and gardens for a great house which became the seat of the Earls of Essex. It remained in the ownership of the Capell family for the majority of that time, and a number of interesting characters can be found in their family tree.

Arthur Capell, first baron Capell of Hadham, fought as a Royalist in the Civil War. He was captured and charged with leading the Royalist uprising in East Anglia. After being sent to the Tower of London, he achieved something few others have been able to do: he escaped. Unfortunately, he was soon recaptured. For the crime of remaining loyal to his king, the Parliamentarians condemned him to death. In May, 1649, he was beheaded. His headless ghost is said to walk Cassiobury Park in early March every year.

His son, another Arthur, the first Capell to bear the title of Earl of Essex, also found himself on the wrong side of the law. He was arrested at Cassiobury House, reportedly while gathering peaches in his garden, after the discovery of the Rye House Plot of 1683, a plan to assassinate Charles II and his brother, James. There was little evidence for Arthur’s involvement in the plot, but he was imprisoned in the Tower all the same. Three weeks after entering the Tower he was found with his throat cut, lying in a pool of blood with a razor on the ground beside him. His death has been the cause of much speculation, occasionally attributed to Charles and James. But most agree that it was probably suicide. The King, genuinely distressed at the news of Arthur’s death, remarked that Arthur should have known that he would spare him, for Arthur’s father died in the service of Charles I.

Ironically, as both his father and grandfather had been imprisoned there, the second Earl of Essex, Algernon Capell, acted as Constable of the Tower of London. Algernon also held the office of Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King William III. His duties would have included waiting on the king when he ate in private, helping him to dress, guarding the bedchamber and water closet, and providing companionship. Algernon was later made a Privy Counsellor by Queen Anne.

William Capell, the third Earl of Essex, used his position of power to the benefit of others. He was one of the founding governors of the Foundling Hospital, a charity created in 1739 to care for abandoned children. One of their top priorities was children’s health, combating smallpox, consumption and dysentery to help prevent epidemics.

The fifth Earl, George Capel-Coningsby, used his money for a rather different cause. He was a major patron of the arts and was responsible for building up a large fine art collection at Cassiobury. He entertained a number of noted British artists at Cassiobury House, including J.M.W. Turner and Edwin Henry Landseer, and commissioned works from them.

He also set about a major reconstruction of the family seat at Cassiobury, engaging the services of architect James Wyatt, the man responsible for rebuilding several colleges at Oxford University and restoring Marshalsea Prison.

Appropriately for an art lover, George’s first wife was talented and prolific amateur artist Sarah Bazett. At the age of seventy-six, George remarried, this time to vocalist and actress Catherine Stephens, who performed in operas in Covent Garden and played various Shakespearean characters on the London stage, including Ophelia in Hamlet and Desdemona in Othello. The Earl died a year after their marriage, and Catherine survived him by 43 years.

Evidence of one of the sixth Earl’s hobbies can still be seen in the park today. Arthur Algernon Capell developed an enthusiasm for a new and popular game that came about in the 1860s: croquet. The gardens of Cassiobury House were one of the first places in Britain in which croquet was played. The Earl hosted lavish croquet parties there, and even launched his own Cassiobury brand croquet set, made in his sawmills in Watford. A croquet club still plays regularly at Cassiobury Park today.

Arthur was the first Earl to open the grounds of Cassiobury to the local residents of Watford, allowing the public free access to the park on the condition that they did not hold picnics there. This helped to make him a popular man with his poorer neighbours.

By the time the seventh Earl of Essex, George Capell, inherited Cassiobury House, the family fortune was beginning to diminish. In 1893, Christie’s held an auction of some of the valuable paintings, books, porcelain and furniture from the collection at Cassiobury.

Fortunately, in the same year, George married the US socialite Adele Grant, the heiress to Grant Locomotive Works. Their wedding at St Margaret’s, Westminster, was noted in the New York Times as a grand social event. A society beauty, Adele was one of the so-called ‘Lovely Five’, and a portrait of her can be seen in the Watford Museum today.

It was Adele’s money that supported the estate in the early years of the 20th century and allowed the Earl to continue to host lavish parties. Cassiobury House enjoyed a high society profile at the time. In 1902, George and Adele received the young Winston Churchill and King Edward VII at Cassiobury.

The Earl purchased a Cartier diamond tiara, known as the ‘Essex Tiara’, for Adele. The same tiara was later worn by Clementine Churchill at the 1953 coronation.

Despite such lavish expenses, the family were aware that the upkeep of Cassiobury was becomingly increasingly expensive. In 1909, they were forced to sell 184 acres of parkland to Watford Borough Council for housing. Cassiobury House was let furnished while the family moved back to London.

In 1916, George Capell was killed at the age of 58 when he was run over by a taxi. Six years later, Adele made the decision to sell Cassiobury House. A large sale of the contents was held over a period of ten days in June, 1922. A number of significant works of art and interior fittings, including a grand chestnut staircase, are now on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Five years after Adele’s death, in 1927, the house was demolished, leaving only the memory of the interesting and unique characters who once roamed its halls.

William Jennings Capell, a retired grocery clerk from California and cousin to the 11th Earl, is the current heir to the Earldom of Essex. He will become the 12th Earl if the current Earl, Paul Capell, dies before him without fathering a legitimate son.