Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire is the county in the Duchess’s Native World where the Duchess’s soul returns to visit her husband, the Duke, accompanied by the Empress’s soul. The journey makes the region more than a point on their route: through Sherwood Forest and the damaged estate at Welbeck, it brings the splendor and resources of the Blazing-World face to face with the consequences of civil war in the Duchess’s home country.

The Journey to Welbeck

After the Duchess’s soul has spent time with the Empress in the Blazing-World, she asks permission to return to her husband. The Empress agrees, and the two souls set out together for Nottinghamshire, where the Duke resides. Their travel is possible in subtle air-shaped vehicles: because these are too fine to be seen or heard by human beings, their passage through the landscape remains imperceptible to its inhabitants.

They pass through Sherwood Forest, which delights the Empress as a dry, level, wooded place, pleasant in both winter and summer and neither very muddy nor dusty. Its concentrated woodland prompts her comparison between the amount of timber on land and the greater abundance of wood she perceives on the seas—in the form of ships. The route then brings them to Welbeck, the Duke’s residence, surrounded by woods so dense that the Empress remarks on how much timber occupies so small an area.

Civil-War Loss and the Estate

The Duchess explains that the English civil war has ruined many of the country’s best timber trees and principal palaces. Her husband has lost half his woods, along with houses, land, and movable goods; the losses to his personal estate amount to more than half a million pounds. Against the abundance of the Blazing-World, this account gives Nottinghamshire’s landscape and household a history of depletion rather than plenty.

Moved by the Duchess’s account, the Empress wishes that some of the gold in her own world could repair the Duke’s losses. The Duchess thanks her, but makes clear that a well-meant wish cannot restore what has been destroyed; she says that God has given the Duke patience to bear his misfortunes. Welbeck itself is described not as a magnificent residence but as a useful habitation. When the Empress asks whether it is the Duke’s only house, the Duchess tells her that he also has Bolsover Castle, about five miles away, though it is stripped of its furnishings. The Empress still wants to see it for its architecture.

Reunion and the Empress’s Counsel

At Welbeck, the Duke comes out into the courtyard to see his horses of manage. The Duchess’s soul is so overjoyed at seeing him that her aerial vehicle grows bright, as if lit by the sun. The Duke cannot perceive the two visiting souls, but his appearance makes visible the force of the Duchess’s attachment and, within the episode’s account, the way a soul’s passions can alter its bodily vehicle.

The Nottinghamshire visit also prepares a larger exchange between the friends. After returning to the Blazing-World, the Duchess’s soul later asks leave to go back to her husband; the Empress grants it, but asks first for her impartial friend’s advice on governing. She fears that factional contentions among the world’s different peoples may lead to rebellion and disorder. The Duchess counsels a return to the earlier arrangement of one sovereign, one religion, one law, and one language. Thus Nottinghamshire is both the destination of a personal reunion and the setting for a contrast between the Duke’s damaged estate and the Empress’s effort to preserve political unity.

Narrative Significance

The county’s significance lies in this deliberate contrast. The Empress arrives from a world represented by extraordinary wealth and sovereign power, but in Nottinghamshire she encounters the irreparable effects of war on woods, houses, land, and property. The Duchess’s loyalty to her husband is expressed not through a grand political gesture but through the wish to be with him and the candid account of what he has lost; the Empress’s sympathy, in turn, cannot undo that history.

The visit also anchors the tale’s imaginative journey in named English places. Sherwood Forest and Welbeck are observed through the Empress’s travelling perspective, while the Duchess supplies the political history that explains the landscape’s losses. Nottinghamshire consequently joins the work’s themes of friendship and world-making to a specific home-country setting marked by civil conflict and material damage.