The castles and abbeys of England_ Vol. 2 of 2 William Beattie 1744 downloads.pdf

Th e P roj ect G u t en b erg eBo ok o f Th e cast l es a n d
ab b ey s o f En gl an d ; Vol . 2 o f 2
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Title: The castles and abbeys of England; Vol. 2 of 2

Author: William Beattie

Illustrator: W. H. Bartlett
Joseph Clayton Bentley
Samuel Bradshaw
Edward Paxman Brandard
Charles Cousen
S. T. Davis
W. Deebles
W. Whimper
Arthur Willmore

Release date: November 21, 2020 [eBook #63832]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63832

Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASTLES
AND ABBEYS OF ENGLAND; VOL. 2 OF 2 ***

List of Illustrations
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THE

CASTLES AND ABBEYS

OF

ENGLAND,
FROM THE NATIONAL RECORDS, EARLY CHRONICLES, AND
OTHER
STANDARD AUTHORS.

BY WILLIAM BEATTIE, M.D.,
GRAD. OF EDIN.; MEMB. OF THE ROYAL COLL. OF PHYS., LONDON; OF THE HIST.

INSTIT. OF FRANCE; AUTHOR OF
“SWITZERLAND,” “SCOTLAND,” “THE WALDENSES,” “RESIDENCE IN GERMANY,” ETC.
ETC.

————————————
ILLUSTRATED BY UPWARDS OF TWO HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS.
———————————

SECOND SERIES.

GEORGE VIRTUE:
LONDON AND NEW YORK.

STERIOTYPED AND PRINTED

WILLIAM MACKENZIE, 48 LONDON STREET.

GLASGOW.

LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS.

Chepstow Castle.
STEEL ENGRAVINGS. ARTISTS. ENGRAVERS. PAGE.
Chepstow Castle, from
the Iron Bridge across
the Wye.—This View,
looking towards the
West, shows part of the
Town, the Castle Gate,
the Citadel, the Keep, or
Marten’s Tower, the
Western Gate, the House
and Groves Persefield,
with the precipitous
banks of the River. W. H. Bartlett. C. Cousen. 3
Chepstow Castle and
Bridge, taken from the
right bank of the Wye,
near the West Gate of the
Castle.—This View,
looking Eastward, shows
the principal features of
the Castle on the right;
the New Bridge, the
Harbour, with the
Scenery on the left bank
of the Wye. W. H. Bartlett. E. Brandard. 13
Chepstow Castle and
Town, from the
Wyndcliff, showing the
windings of the Wye, its
junction with the Severn,
and the opposite coasts. W. H. Bartlett. E. Brandard. 26, 27

WOODCUTS.
Vignette, Castles and
Abbeys. W. Beattie. Mason. 1
Shield, Sword, and Helmet. Sargent. Evans. 12
Plan of Chepstow Castle. W. H. Bartlett. W. Whimper. 13
Marten’s Tower, the ancient W. H. Bartlett. W. Whimper. 15
Keep of Chepstow

Castle.
Ancient Oratory adjoining
the Keep. W. H. Bartlett. W. Whimper. 23
The Arched Chamber in the
Castle Rock. W. H. Bartlett. W. Whimper. 24
Passage leading to the
Arched Chamber. W. H. Bartlett. W. Whimper. 25
Military Trophies; Age of
Chivalry. 30

Tinterne Abbey on the Wye.
STEEL ENGRAVINGS. ARTISTS. ENGRAVERS. PAGE.
The Western Window of
Tinterne Abbey.—This
View is taken from a
point near the Great
Altar, showing in the
foreground the clustered
Pillars and Arches which
formerly supported the
Central Tower; the Door
on the right leading to
the Cloisters; Sepulchral
Slabs, the Effigy of a
Knight, with the much-
admired Window to the
West, and other features. W. H. Bartlett. A. Willmore. 39
The Refectory of the
Abbey. W. H. Bartlett. C. Cousen. 52
The Devil’s Pulpit.—This
View is taken from a
romantic rock so called,
on the left bank of the
Wye, commanding a
view of the Abbey
westward; the Abbot’s
Meadows stretching
along the right bank of
the Wye; the Church of
Chapel-hill; the Village
of Tinterne Parva lining
the rim of the River
Crescent. W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley. 62
The Ferry at Tinterne.— W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley. 66
This Plate, taken from
the left bank of the Wye,
presents a North View of

the Abbey, with the
Western Front, the Nave,
North Transept, part of
the great Eastern
Window, Remains of the
Cloisters, the Abbey
Gate communicating
with the Ferry, with
other Conventual
Buildings now in ruins,
or transformed into
Cottages. The River at
this point is of sufficient
depth to float a
moderately-sized trading
craft.
Tinterne Abbey, West
Front, taken from the
Road leading to the
“Beaufort Arms” and the
Ferry, shows the much-
admired West Window,
in correct and beautiful
detail; the Door opening
into the Nave, the
Southern Aisle, Buttress,
Pinnacle, Clerestory
Windows, &c., with their
masses of luxuriant and
interlacing Ivy. W. H. Bartlett. A. Willmore. 103
Doorway leading into the
Cloisters. W. H. Bartlett. E. J. Roberts. 105
Doorway leading into the
Sacristy. W. H. Bartlett. E. J. Roberts. 113
WOODCUTS.
South Transept, Tinterne
Abbey. W. H. Bartlett. W. Whimper. 31
Cistercian Monk. Dugdale. W. Whimper. 34
View from Entrance,
Tinterne Abbey, taken
from the Nave, showing
the great Eastern
Window. W. H. Bartlett. W. Whimper. 40
Initial Letters, illustrative
of Baronial, Monastic, 1, 1, 3, 13,
and Chivalrous Subjects. 31
Mutilated Effigy of Earl
Strongbow, or Roger
Bigod. 41

Shields of the Clare and
Bigod Families, from the
Encaustic-Tile Pavement
in the Abbey. 42
Walter de Clare; Armorial
Ensigns of the Family. 44
Richard de Clare; Ancient
Family Shield. 48
Hospitium, or Guest Hall,
with portions of the
Refectory, and other
Conventual Buildings. 50
Conventual Alphabet,
Letter H; Abbey Gate,
Procession. 51
Inner View; Sketch of an
Altar, Tomb, &c. 54
Conventual Alphabet,
Letter P. 56
Conventual Letter O. 60
Abbatial Crosier, Cap, and
Cushion. 62
Letter A. 65
Ground Plan of Tinterne
Abbey. 108
Five smaller Woodcuts,
illustrative of the
subject.
Goodrich Castle. 122

Raglan Castle.
STEEL ENGRAVINGS. ARTISTS. ENGRAVERS. PAGE.
The Avenue, west of the
Castle, from which the
remains of the State
Apartments are seen
through the trees
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley. 128
The Paved Stone Court W. H. Bartlett. S. Bradshaw. 151
The Baronial Hall, W. H. Bartlett. E. J. Roberts. 154
showing the great Bay
Window on the right of
the Dais, with the
Worcester Arms
overhead; the ancient
Fire-place, with W

worked in brick over the
Arch; the Corbel-heads
that supported the Roof,
&c. &c.
Gateway in the Fountain
Court, with the Baronial
Chapel W. H. Bartlett. E. Brandard. 156
The Moat.—This View of
the Keep and adjacent
Towers is universally
admired, both for the
splendour of
architectural detail and
the picturesque grouping
of the features which it
displays W. H. Bartlett. C. Cousen. 158
The Gateway Towers, as
described in the text,
with the Moat and part
of the Donjon Tower on
the left W. H. Bartlett. E. Brandard. 177
The Keep or Donjon
Tower, from the Moat;
on the right are seen the
Gateway Towers, and in
the centre is the Keep. In
front, opening upon the
water, is the old sally-
port; and on the right
bank, partially concealed
by trees, is the private
walk, formerly
ornamented with statues
and shell-work, as
described in the text. The
Keep is represented in
the same state as when it
was left by General
Fairfax after the siege W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley. 200
View from the
Battlements.—This
View is taken from the
top of the Keep, with the
Moat, the Gatehouse, the
Paved Court, &c., and
Landscape to the
westward W. H. Bartlett. A. Willmore. 220

WOODCUTS.
Goodrich Castle 122

Ancient Armour 131
Feudal and Military
Trophies 136
Morning of the Tournament 138
The Boar’s Head 146
Old Apartments in the
Gateway Tower 153
Plan of the Castle 160
Baronial Trophies 175
The Armourer 178
The Arquebusier 185
The Tower of Gwent, or
Keep 194
Window in the State
Apartments 198
The Garter 213
State Gallery, with ancient
Statues of the Earl and
Countess of Worcester 217
View from the Battlements
of the Keep, looking to
Raglan Church 222
View taken from the old
Bowling Green, with the
Keep in the centre, and
the Gate to Fountain
Court on the left 226
Apartments called King
Charles’s, carved
Chimney-piece on the
left, and Windows
looking S. and S.W. 227
The old Baronial Kitchen,
as described in the text 234
Bridge over the Monnow,
described in the text 239

Llanthony Abbey.
STEEL ENGRAVINGS. ARTISTS. ENGRAVERS. PAGE.
The Nave of Llanthony
Abbey, with the Central
Tower, part of the South
Transept, fragments of
the Chancel, and great
East Window W. H. Bartlett. W. Deebles. 244

Llanthony Abbey from
the North-west, showing
the great West Door—
the two Square Towers
—the Nave—North
Aisle—the great Tower
connecting the
Transepts, with
fragments of the great
Eastern Window W. H. Bartlett. E. Brandard. 258
Llanthony Abbey from
the rising Ground north
of the Ruins, showing
the whole Abbey, as it
now appears, in the
distance, with its
surrounding Scenery, as
presented from that point
of view W. H. Bartlett. S. T. Davis. 272

WOODCUT.
The Abbey Church from the
East.

Uske—Pembroke—Cardiff—
Tenby.
STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
Uske Castle and Town,
showing the river Uske
and the Bridge in the
foreground—the ancient
Castle on the right, with
the Town under the
acclivity—in the back
ground, the picturesque
Scenery for which the
banks of the Uske are so
remarkable W. H. Bartlett. A. Willmore. 283
Pembroke Castle from the W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen. 293
Water, comprising the
Principal Gateway—the
Postern—the great
Round Tower, or Donjon
—the Outworks. On the
left, part of the Tower;
and westward, in the

horizon, the remains of
the ancient Nunnery
Pembroke Castle.—
Interior of the Great
Court—Gateway,
Towers, and
Fortifications W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen. 308

WOODCUTS.
Round Tower of Uske
Castle—Chamber in the
same—Curthose Tower
in Cardiff Castle. 284, 286, 311

Manorbeer Castle—Neath Abbey
—Kidwelly Castle—Llanstephan
Castle—Carew Castle—Margam
Abbey—Appendix.
STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
Manorbeer Castle, near
the Church W. H. Bartlett. 321
Kidwelly Castle, from the
Gwendraeth W. H. Bartlett. 332
Kidwelly Castle, from the
Inner Court—Chapel on
the right W. H. Bartlett. 334

WOODCUTS.
Neath Abbey, the Crypt 331
Ancient Dwellings near
Manorbeer Castle 335
Margam Abbey, the Crypt 348

THE CASTLE OF CHEPSTOW,

Monmouthshire.
Around us spread the hills and dales,
Where Geoffrey spun his magic tales,
And called them history: the land
Whence Arthur sprung, and all his band
Of gallant knights.—Bloomfield.

T has been justly remarked by statistical writers, that, in point of
fertility, picturesque scenery, and classic remains, the county of
Monmouth is one of the most interesting districts in the kingdom.
Highly favoured by nature, it is literally studded over with the
labours and embellishments of art. Watered by noble rivers,
sheltered by magnificent woods and forests, interspersed with industrious
towns and hamlets, and enriched by the labour and enterprise of its
inhabitants, it presents all those features of soil and scenery which contribute
to the beauty and stability of a country. From whatever point the traveller
may enter this county, historical landmarks meet him at every step: feudal
and monastic ruins, rich in the history of departed dynasties, divide his
attention, and fill his mind with their heroic deeds and pious traditions. In
fields where the husbandman now reaps his peaceful harvest, he traces the
shock of contending armies; whose deadly weapons still rust in furrows
which their valour had won, and which the blood of the Roman, the Saxon,
and Briton had fertilized. From these he turns aside to contemplate the
fragments of baronial grandeur, which attest the glory of chivalry, but now,
like sepulchral mounds, proclaim the deeds of their founders:—such is the
Castle of Raglan.
In another district, sculptures, pavements, altars, statues, coins, and
inscriptions, bear testimony to Roman sway:—such is the Silurian settlement
of Caerleon, with its classic vicinity.
On another hand, where the ivy has clasped its hallowed walls, as if to
prop their decay, the traveller halts at some monastic rain; and, amid the

crumbling fragments of its lofty arches, its richly-carved windows, shafts,
and capitals, dwells with a deep and melancholy interest on the page of its
eventful history. In such places the voice of Tradition is never mute: the
vacant niche, the dismantled tower, the desecrated altar, the deserted choir—
all discourse eloquent and impressive music; and in places where the sacred
harp was once strung, its chords seem still touched by invisible hands:—
such are the Abbeys of Tinterne and Llanthony.
It is among these remains and monuments of the past—the early homes
of saints and heroes of the olden day—that we propose to conduct the reader.
In the tour projected, we avail ourselves of such materials as personal
investigation, with that of distinguished predecessors, poets, and historians,
has furnished from times of remote antiquity, down to the present day.
The scenery of the Wye is of classic and proverbial beauty: it is the
theme alike of poet and historian, the annual resort of pilgrims—whether
admirers of the picturesque, or valetudinarians; and nowhere in the kingdom
is nature more lavish of those charms which attract all classes of tourists,
than in the course and confines of this beautiful and romantic river.[1] There
—
Be thine object health or pleasure,
Historic sites or classic treasure;
The Roman camp, the Norman grave,
Or war-tower crumbling o’er the wave;
Or fertile vale, or vocal woods,
Or hills, and flocks, and crystal floods;

CHEPSTOW CASTLE,
From the Iron Bridge across the Wye.

And haunts and homes that love to claim
The patriot’s or the poet’s name—
Then hither bend thy pilgrim way,
Where Taga’s classic waters play;
And here thy weary heart shall find,
What soothes and renovates the mind.

hepstow is of Roman foundation—the Strigulia of ancient
authors—and was for centuries one of the favourite strongholds of
the kingdom. By the antiquarian researches, which are now
conducted with unprecedented success and spirit, numerous
vestiges of ancient times have been brought to light, and many more, it is
believed, are reserved for the labours of archæology. The vicinity abounds in
military encampments, all more or less remarkable for the strength of their
position, and pointing to those days of border warfare when ‘might was
right,’ and the sword the acknowledged lawgiver. But in the description of
Chepstow, our observations must be restricted to the subjects selected for
illustration; and these are so correctly depicted in the scene before us, that

the reader will obtain a far more correct idea from the delineations of the
pencil, than from any description that could be conveyed by the pen.
Chepstow is supposed, and with much probability, to have been the chief
seaport of the Silurian colony, as both Caerwent and Portscwet have for
many centuries been deserted by the sea. Where the Roman galleys once
flanked the beach, landing their freight of mailed cohorts, the modern
steamer now unloads her crowded deck of peaceful tourists, merchants,
mechanics, and students of the picturesque.
In its general appearance—in its street architecture—Chepstow still
presents some isolated features of the primitive style. Of these, the principal
is the Western Gate, of unquestionable antiquity; and, in point of date, taking
precedence of the castle itself. By a charter given in the 16th Henry VIII.,
the bailiffs were to have their prison for the punishment of offences within
the Great Gate, “which they have builded by our commandment.” This is
supposed to be a renewal of the ancient liberties of the town, granted by
Howel Dhu, A.D. 940.
The Church, part of a Benedictine priory of Norman work, has
undergone many alterations and repairs; but repairs, in some cases, are more
fatal to the style and symmetry of ecclesiastical monuments, than the
wasting hand of time, or even the shocks of violence—for they only
disfigure what they meant to adorn; and, by deviating widely from the
original plan, lose or debase all its original beauty. The nave and aisles are
nearly all that remain of the original edifice.[2] The church has disappeared;
but the pillars which supported the central tower are still preserved on the
eastern extremity, and convey some idea of the massive strength of the
original edifice. The western porch is justly admired for its zigzag tracery;
and, in this respect, it presents one of the finest specimens that have
descended to our day, of the true Saxo-Norman character. The church
contains several monuments, not remarkable for their style or antiquity; the
chief of which is that to the memory of the second Earl and Countess of
Worcester, with their effigies at full length, in the attitude of prayer.
The repairs and restorations lately effected in this church, were suggested
and carried out by the joint taste and liberality of the late Bishop of Llandaff
and the parishioners. The result is creditable to the parties concerned; and
here, it is to be hoped, their pious labours will not be suffered to terminate.
The original priory was an alien branch of the Benedictine monastery of
Cormeilles.

The acrostic, written upon himself by the regicide Henry Martin—first
discarded from the chancel, and latterly from the sacred enclosure, by a
former vicar—has somewhat recovered from its disgrace, by gaining
admittance into the vestry, but only on sufferance. In the town and
immediate neighbourhood are some remains of religious houses, under
various denominations; for the situation of Chepstow, presenting many
advantages for commerce, was not less favourable for monachism.
In iron times, when laws of battle were,
That weakly folk, of prowess small in fight,
The galling gyves of vassalage should bear;
Ere castle seneschals, with pale affright,
Heard the shrill horn wind of the errant knight—
A foeman firm affianced to be
To all who wrong’d the feeble of their right—
Such folk the Church let from their thraldom free,
A deed that had not shamed the Knight of Chivalry.
Econ. of Monast. Life.

We were told of a pleasing custom, transmitted from early times, and still
observed here, that of repairing every Palm-Sunday to the graves of departed
friends, and ornamenting them with flowers—much in the same way as the
populace of Paris repair every All Saints’ morning to Père-la-Chaise, to
scatter flowers and evergreens over the graves of their relations.
One of the finest points of view is the centre of the new iron bridge,
comprising the castle, the vessels at anchor under the stupendous wall of
rock on which it is erected; with the lawns and groves of Piercefield—a
favourite and familiar name in the list of picturesque tours—closing the
landscape. The former bridge[3] was of prodigious height, erected on piles.
The present structure was founded in 1815; and in the March of that year, the
tide rose from low-water mark to the remarkable height of fifty-one feet two
inches. The new bridge consists of five arches, the centre one of which is
one hundred and twelve feet in span; the two adjoining arches have a span of
seventy feet, and the two outer ones a span of fifty-four feet each. It is of
massive cast-metal, resting on stone piers; and its total length is five hundred
and thirty-two feet.
The depth of the moorings in the river here is so great, that, at low water,
ships of 700 tons burthen may ride safely at anchor. The rise of tide is from
thirty to nearly sixty feet, a circumstance scarcely to be paralleled—and
caused by the extraordinary swell of water at the rocks of Beechley and

Aust, which, by protruding far into the Severn, near the month of the Wye,
obstruct the flow of tide, and thus impel it with increased rapidity into the
latter.[4] In January, 1768, according to our local guide, it attained the height
of seventy feet: its greatest rise of late years has been fifty-six feet.
In 1634, we are informed, Colonel Sandys attempted to make the Wye
navigable by means of locks; but after much labour and expense, the
experiment failed, and the locks were removed. Every one curious in the
phenomena of natural history, has heard of the intermitting well of
Chepstow, which ebbs and flows inversely with the tide—that is, when the
tide ebbs, the well flows; and when the tide flows, the well ebbs: when the
tide is at its height, the well is nearly dry; a little before which it begins to
subside, and soon after the ebb it gradually returns. It is neither affected by
wet nor dry weather, but is entirely regulated by the tide. It is thirty-two feet
in depth, and frequently contains fourteen feet of excellent water.
In melancholy connection with the old bridge of Chepstow, is a family
calamity which drew from the late poet Campbell an epitaph[5] worthy of his
pen. The victims by the sudden catastrophe were a lady and her two
daughters, personal friends of the poet, and for whom he entertained
sentiments of great esteem and regard. The lady and her daughters were on a
visit at Chepstow; and, after hearing sermon, went on the river in a boat. The
tide was running strong at the time; and in his attempt to clear the centre
arch of the bridge, the boatman missed his aim—the frail bark struck against
the wooden pier, and upset; and the lady and her two daughters were carried
down by the stream and lost. Their lifeless remains were afterwards
recovered, and buried in the churchyard of Monckton, where a tomb, erected
to their memory, bears the following inscription:—

“In deep submission to the will above,
Yet with no common cause for human tears,
This stone to the lost Partner of his love,
And for his children lost, a mourner rears.
One fatal moment, one o’erwhelming doom,
Tore threefold from his heart the ties of earth—
His Mary, Margaret, in their early bloom,
And Her who gave them life, and taught them worth.

“Farewell, ye broken pillars of my fate!
My life’s companion, and my two first-born!
Yet while this silent stone I consecrate
To conjugal, paternal love forlorn—
Oh, may each passer-by the lesson learn
Which can alone the bleeding heart sustain—
Where friendship weeps at virtue’s funeral urn—
That, to the pure in heart, to die is gain!”

It is somewhat remarkable, that the text of Scripture which they had just
heard expounded in the parish church the same morning, was—“For to me to
live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Of the principal victim in this calamity,
Campbell thus speaks in a private letter to a friend:—“We looked to Mrs.
Shute as truly elevated in the scale of beings for the perfect charity of her
heart. The universal feeling of lamentation for her, accords with the benign
and simple-minded beauty of her character.”
As the limits and object of this work do not permit us to enlarge our
remarks on the particular history of Chepstow, we now proceed to that of the
castle, whose roofless walls, and moss-clad ramparts, carry us back to the
Norman Conquest, and fill an ample page in its subsequent history. The
present structure, on a Roman or Saxon foundation, is ascribed to William
Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford,[6] upon whom his kinsman the Conqueror had
bestowed vast possessions, in this and the neighbouring counties, which
could only be secured by sword and stronghold. On the forfeiture of his son
Roger, it passed to the Clares, another great Norman family.
The hereditary lords of the town and castle were the old Earls of
Pembroke, of the house of Clare, the last of whom was the renowned
Richard[7] Strongbow, ‘Earl of Striguil, Chepstow, and Pembroke,’ who died
in 1176, leaving a daughter, Isabel, by whose marriage the estates and title
passed into the family of Marshall, and afterwards, by a similar union, into
that of Herbert. In the reign of Edward the Fourth, the castle, manor, and
lordship of Chepstow, were held by Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who was

beheaded after the battle of Banbury, in 1469. By the marriage of Elizabeth,
sole daughter and heiress of William Herbert—Earl of Huntingdon, and Lord
Herbert of Raglan, Chepstow, and Gower—it descended to Sir Charles
Somerset, who was afterwards created Earl of Worcester. It is now one of the
numerous castles belonging to his illustrious descendant, the Duke of
Beaufort.
During the wars of the Commonwealth, the castle was garrisoned by the
king’s troops; but, in 1645, Colonel Morgan, governor of Gloucester, at the
head of a small body of horse and foot, entered the town without much
difficulty; and, on the 5th October, sent the following summons to Sir Robert
Fitzmaurice: “Sir,—I am commanded by his Excellency, Sir Thomas Fairfax,
to demand this castle for the use of the King and Parliament, which I require
of you, and to lay down your arms, and to accept of reasonable propositions,
which will be granted both to you and your soldiers, if you observe this
summons: and further, you are to consider of what nation and religion you
are; for if you refuse the summons, you exclude yourself from mercy, and
are to expect for yourself and soldiers no better than Stinchcombe quarter. I
expect your sudden answer, and according thereunto shall rest your friend,—
Thomas Morgan.”
To this summons the governor answered: “Sir,—I have the same reason
to keep this castle for my master the King, as you to demand it for General
Fairfax; and until my reason be convinced, and my provisions decreased, I
shall, notwithstanding my religion and menaces of extirpation, continue in
my resolution, and in my fidelity and loyalty to the king. As to Stinchcombe
quarter, I know not what you mean by it; nor do depend upon your
intelligence for relief, which in any indigence I assure me of; and in that
assurance I rest your servant,—Robert Fitzmaurice.
“P.S.—What quarter you give me and my soldiers, I refer to the
consideration of all soldiers, when I am constrained to seek for any.”
Stinchcombe, near Dursley on the Severn, was a place where the
Parliament accused Prince Rupert of putting their men to the sword.
In consequence of this answer the siege was commenced, and carried on
with so much vigour, that, in the course of four days, the castle surrendered,
and the governor and his garrison were made prisoners of war. Later in the
history of that melancholy period, it was surprised by a body of royalists,
under Sir Nicholas Kemeys. Cromwell then directed his whole strength upon
it, and reduced the town; but, for a time, found the castle impregnable. At

last, however, exhausted with fatigue, and on the verge of famine, the
garrison were forced into a parley with the besiegers; and, in the surrender of
the fortress, Sir Nicholas Kemeys “was killed in cold blood.” The following
is Colonel Ewer’s report[8] on the reduction of Chepstow Castle. His letter is
addressed to the Honourable William Lental, Speaker of the House of
Commons:—
“Sir,—Lieutenant-General Cromwell, being to march towards Pembroke
Castle, left me with my regiment to take in the Castle of Chepstow, which
was possessed by Sir Nicholas Kemish [or Kemeys], and with him officers
and soldiers to the number of 120. We drew close about it, and kept strong
guards upon them, to prevent them from stealing out, and so to make their
escape. We sent for two guns from Gloucester, and two off a shipboard, and
planted them against the castle. We raised [razed] the battlements of their
towers with our great guns, and made their guns unusefull for them. We also
plaid with our shorter pieces into the castle. One shot fell into the governor’s
chamber, which caused him to remove his lodgings to the other end of the
castle. We then prepared our batteries, and this morning finished them.
About twelve of the clock, we made a hole through the wall, so low that a
man might walk into it. The soldiers in the castle, perceiving that we were
like to make a breach, cried out to our soldiers that they would yield the
castle, and many of them did attempt to come away. I caused my soldiers to
fire at them to keep them in. Esquire Lewis comes upon the wall, and speaks
to some gentlemen of the county that he knew, and tells them that he was
willing to yield to mercy. They came and acquainted me with his desire, to
which I answered, that it was not my work to treat with particular men, but it
was Sir Nicholas Kemish, with his officers and all his soldiers, that I aimed
at; but the governor refused to deliver up the castle upon these terms that
Esquire Lewis desired, but desired to speak with me at the drawbridge, while
I altogether refused to have any such speech with him, because he refused
Lieutenant-General Cromwell’s summons; but, being overpersuaded by
some gentlemen of the country that were there, presently I dismounted from
my horse, and went unto the drawbridge, where he through the port-hole
spake with me. That which he desired was, that he, with all his officers and
soldiers, might march out of the castle without anything being taken from
them; to which I answered, that I would give him no other terms but that he
and all that were with him should submit unto mercy, which he swore he
would not do. I presently drew off the soldiers from the castle, and caused

them to stand to their arms; but he refusing to come out upon those terms,
the soldiers deserted him, and came running out at the breach we had made.
My soldiers, seeing them run out, ran in at the same place, and possesst
themselves of the castle, and killed Sir Nicholas Kemmish, and likewise him
that betrayed the castle, and wounded divers, and took prisoners as
followeth:—Esquire Lewis, Major Lewis, Major Thomas, Captain Morgan,
Captain Buckeswell, Captain John Harris, Captain Christopher Harris,
Captain Mancell, Captain Pinner, Captain Doule, Captain Rossitre,
Lieutenant Kemmish, Lieutenant Leach, Lieutenant Codd, Ensign Watkins,
Ensign Morgan, with other officers and soldiers, to the number of 120. These
prisoners we have put into the church, and shall keep them till I receive
further orders from Lieutenant-General Cromwell.
“This is all at present, but that I am your humble servant,
“Isaac Ewer.”
“Chepstow, May 28, 1648.”
The captain who carried the news of this event to London was rewarded
with fifty pounds; and Colonel Ewer, with the officers and soldiers under his
command, received the thanks of parliament. This was the closing scene of
its warlike history; and from that period down to the present, the Castle of
Chepstow has remained a picturesque and dismantled ruin.
Of this brave but unfortunate governor of the castle, we collect the
following particulars:[9]—
Sir Nicholas Kemeys, Bart.,[10] the sixteenth in descent of this
honourable house, “was colonel of a regiment of horse, raised for the king’s
service, and governor of Chepstow Castle, which he bravely defended
against the powerful efforts of Cromwell and Colonel Ewer; nor did he
surrender that fortress but with his life, fighting in the most gallant manner,
till death arrested his farther exertions.”[11] There is a traditional story, that
“the Parliamentary troops, as soon as they entered the castle, in revenge for
Sir Nicholas’ obstinate resistance, mangled his body in the most horrid
manner, and that the soldiers wore his remains in their hats, as trophies of
their victory; but a branch of the Kemeys family,” says the writer, “told me
they considered it as one of those acts of the times, which each party adopted
to stigmatize the memory of its political opponents. Not a stone, it is said,
nor other tribute of recollection, in any cemetery in Monmouthshire, records
the spot in which the remains of this brave officer were deposited.”[12]

A portrait of Sir Nicholas Kemeys was “in the possession of the late Mrs.
Sewel[13] of Little Kemeys, near Usk, in this county, now the property of
John G. Kemeys, Esq. The picture is a three-quarters length. He is drawn in
armour, and seems about forty years of age. He appears to have possessed a
good person, if an opinion might be formed from his portrait. He has a fine
open countenance, round face, dark piercing eyes, an aquiline nose, and
wore his own hair, which was black and rather curly.” According to the
fashion of his day, he is represented with whiskers, and a small tuft of hair
growing under the lower lip—or, in modern phraseology, an imperial.
“Although it is what an artist would pronounce a dark picture, yet, on the
whole, it is in good preservation. There are two more portraits of this
gentleman—one in the possession of the late Sir Charles Kemeys, Bart. of
Halsewell, in Somersetshire; the other at Malpas, near Usk, probably all
painted at the same time and by the same artist, but whose name has not
been handed down in conjunction with his works.”
The house of Kemeys,[14] “originally De Camois, Camoes, and Camys, is
of Norman extraction, and the name of its patriarch is to be found on the roll
of Battle Abbey. Large possessions were granted to the family in the counties
of Sussex and Surrey; and, so early as the year 1258, Ralph de Camois was a
baron by tenure. He was succeeded by his son, Ralph de Camois, who was
summoned to parliament in the 49th year of Henry III.; and his descendants
sat among the peers of the realm, until the demise, issueless, of Hugh de
Camois, who left his sisters (Margaret, married to Ralph Rademelde, and
Aleanor, wife of Roger Lewknor) his coheirs. A branch of the family which
had settled in Pembrokeshire, there enjoyed large possessions, and, as lords
of Camaes and St. Dogmaels, exercised almost regal sway. In the conquest
of Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, the Camays were much
distinguished, and were rewarded with grants of “Kemeys Commander” and
“Kemeys Inferior.” One branch became established at Llannarr Castle, in
Monmouthshire (now in the possession of Colonel Kemeys-Tynte), and
another fixing itself at Began, in Glamorganshire, erected the mansion of
Kevanmably, the residence of the present chief of the family.
“Edward Kemeys, son of Edward Kemeys who was at the conquest of
Upper Gwent, married the daughter and heiress of Andrew de Began, lord of
Began, a lineal descendant of Blethyn Maynerch, lord of Brecon, and thus
acquired the lordship of Began, which, for centuries after, was the principal
abode of his descendants. His great-great-great-grandson, Jenkin Kemeys of

Began, married Cristley, daughter of Morgan ap Llewellyn, by whom he had
one son, Jevan; and a daughter, married to Jevan ap Morgan of New Church,
near Cardiff, in the county of Glamorgan, and was grandmother of Morgan
Williams—living temp. Henry VIII.—who espoused the sister of Thomas
Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and had a son, Sir Richard Williams, who
assumed, at the desire of Henry VIII., the surname of his uncle Cromwell;
and through the influence of that once-powerful relative, obtained wealth
and station. His great-grandson was the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.[15]
From Jenkin Kemeys was lineally descended Sir Nicholas Kemeys of
Kevanmably, who represented the county of Glamorgan in parliament, and
was created a baronet 13th May, 1642. This gentleman, remarkable for his
gigantic stature and strength, was pre-eminently distinguished by his loyalty
to Charles I., and on the breaking out of the civil war (as we have already
observed), having raised a regiment of cavalry, was invested with the
command of Chepstow Castle.”
Notwithstanding the alliance with the blood of Cromwell, loyalty seems
to have been hereditary in the house of Kemeys. In the family biography we
have the following anecdote:—“Sir Charles Kemeys—knight of the shire for
Monmouth, in the last parliament of Queen Anne, and for Glamorgan in the
two succeeding parliaments—when on his travels, was shown great attention
by George I. at Hanover, and frequently joined the private circle of the
Elector. When his majesty ascended the British throne, he was pleased to
inquire why his old acquaintance Sir Charles Kemeys had not paid his
respects at court; and commanding him to repair to St. James’s, sent him a
message, the substance of which was—that the King of England hoped Sir
Charles Kemeys still recollected the number of pipes he had smoked with
the Elector of Hanover in Germany. Sir Charles, who had retired from
parliament, and was a stanch Jacobite, replied, that he should be proud to
pay his duty at St. James’s to the Elector of Hanover, but that he had never
had the honour of smoking a pipe with the King of England.”
Sir Charles Kemeys died without issue, when the baronetcy expired, and
his estates devolved on his nephew, Sir Charles Kemeys-Tynte, Bart. of
Halsewell, at whose demise, also issueless, his estates vested in his niece,
Jane Hassell, who married Colonel Johnstone, afterwards Kemeys-Tynte,[16]
and was mother of the present (1838) Colonel Kemeys-Tynte of Halsewell
and Kevanmably. Through the Hassells, the family of Kemeys-Tynte claim
descent from the Plantagenets.[17]

We now proceed to a brief description of the castle in its ruinous state.

CHEPSTOW CASTLE AND BRIDGE.
From the right bank of the Wye.

Plan of Chepstow Castle.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLAN.

1. Entrance Gateway. 7. Hall, or Chapel.
2. Marten’s Tower. 8. Third Court.
3. Well. 9. Sunken Way and Drawbridge.
4. First Court. 10. Fourth Court.
5. Rooms above the Vaulted Chamber. 11. Sunken Way and Bridge.
6. Second Court. 12. Perpendicular Cliff.

UILT on a lofty perpendicular rock, that rises sheer from the bed
of the Wye, the position of the Castle is at once strong and
commanding; while, on the land side, the great height and massive
strength of its walls and outworks, present the remains of all that
ancient art could effect to render it impregnable.
The grand entrance is defended by two circular towers of unequal
proportions, with double gates, portcullises, and a port-hole, through which
boiling water or metallic fluids could be discharged on the heads of the

besiegers. The massive door, covered with iron bolts and clasps, is a genuine
relic of the feudal stronghold. The knocker now in use is an old four-pound
shot. This introduces us to the great court, sixty yards long by twenty broad,
and presenting the appearance of a tranquil garden. The walls are covered
with a luxuriant mantle of ivy, through which the old masonry appears only
at intervals; and here the owl finds himself in undisturbed possession, unless
when roused by the choir of numberless birds that flit from tree to tree, or
nestle among the leaves. The lover of solitude could hardly find a retreat
more suited to his taste. The area, interspersed with trees, and covered with a
fine grassy carpet, is annually converted into a flower and fruit show, for the
encouragement of horticulture, under the patronage of the noble owner.
The castle, as one of its historians conjectures, is of the same antiquity as
the town itself, to which it served the purposes of a citadel; but the precise
epoch, neither Leland, Camden, nor any topographical writer has been able
to ascertain. Stow, indeed, attributes the building of the castle to Julius
Cæsar, but there is no evidence to support his supposition. Camden, on the
contrary, thinks it of no great antiquity; for several affirm, says he, that “it
had its rise, not many ages past, from the ancient Venta”—the Venta
Silurum of Antoninus. Leland, in his Itinerary, says—“The waulles begun at
the edge of the great bridge over the Wye, and so came to the castle, which
yet standeth fayr and strong, not far from the ruin of the bridge. In the castle
ys one tower, as I heard say, by the name of Longine.[18] The town,” he adds,
“hath nowe but one paroche chirche: the cell of a blake monk or two of
Bermondsey, near London, was lately there suppressed.”
During the life of Charles-Noel, fourth Duke of Beaufort, the castle was
let on a lease of three successive lives to a Mr. Williams, a general merchant
or trader, who adapted some of the great apartments to the following
purposes, namely—the great kitchen to a sail manufactory; the store-room to
a wholesale wine-cellar; the grand hall, or banqueting-room, was occupied
by a glass-blower; and the circular tower by the gate, leading into the second
court, was used as a nail manufactory. After the death of Mr. Williams, the
roofs fell in, one after another—that of the Keep in 1799, the year in which
the lease expired; and thus the stately castle was reduced to its present
condition—a vast and melancholy ruin.
The only apartments now inhabitable are those of its loyal and intelligent
warden and his family, whose civility and general information respecting the
castle are very acceptable to its daily visitors.

One of the principal towers was converted, during the above-named
lease, into a glass manufactory, the furnace of which has left its scars deeply
indented in the solid masonry.
In a small chamber off the banqueting-hall, seventy-five pieces of ancient
silver coin were recently discovered, and are now at Badminton Park; but of
what value or of what reign we have not yet ascertained.
An ancient door—as ancient, we are told, as the castle itself—opens upon
the second court, of very nearly the same dimensions as the first, and now
also converted into a garden. Beyond this is an apartment, supposed by some
to have been the garrison chapel;[19] but its pointed arches and elaborately-
carved windows, all evincing an air of stately dignity, leave no doubt of its
having been the great baronial hall, where the Clares, the Marshalls, and
Herberts, drew around them their chivalrous retainers.
Connected with this, by a winding path, is a third court, now cultivated as
an orchard; so that, with trees, flowers, and luxuriant ivy, the whole
enclosure presents a mass of vegetation, in which the stern features of
warlike art have almost disappeared.
A walk along the ramparts westward from this point, commands some
glimpses of beautiful scenery, with the Wye at the base of the rocks
expanding in the form of a lake, where vessels are seen riding at anchor, and
boats passing to and fro—here gay with pleasure parties, and there laden
with foreign or inland produce.

The Keep is another object which the tourist will regard with interest, as
the twenty years’ prison of Henry Marten, whose vote, with those of his
“fellow-regicides,” at the trial of Charles the First, consigned that
unfortunate monarch to the block. To his epitaph written upon himself we
have already alluded; and the reader is no stranger, probably, to Southey’s
lines on the room where he was confined, which, with a sarcastic parody
written by Canning, will be found in these pages.
Henry Marten, who attained such unenviable notoriety, was the son of
Sir Henry Marten, a judge of the Admiralty, and M.P. for Berkshire. He was
an able and active partisan of Oliver Cromwell, one of the “Executive
Council;” and in the old prints representing the trial of the martyr-king,
Marten occupies the chair on Cromwell’s left hand, immediately under the

arms of the Commonwealth.[20] At the Restoration, he was brought to trial,
and sentenced to death; but his sentence was afterwards commuted to
imprisonment for life. In the keep of this castle, since called “Marten’s
Tower,” he spent twenty years; but much was done to soften the rigour of his
sentence. “His wife was permitted to share his imprisonment; he was
attended by his own domestic servants, who were accommodated in the
same tower; and he had permission to visit, and receive visits from his
friends in the town and neighbourhood. He died in 1680, at the mature age of
seventy-eight, neither disturbed by the qualms of conscience, nor enfeebled
by the rigour of confinement; and left behind him the character of a liberal
and indulgent master.” At a comparatively recent period, the principal
chamber of the Keep was frequently used by the inhabitants of Chepstow as
a ball-room; and there is now residing in the town a lady, who remembers
having been present at more than one of these festive reunions.
For the following notice of this “stern republican,”—somewhat different
from the preceding—we are indebted to Heath’s description of Chepstow:—
Henry Marten,[21] commonly called Harry Marten, was born in the city of
Oxford, in the parish of St. John the Baptist, in a house opposite to Merton
College Church, then lately built by Henry Sherburne, gent., and possessed,
at the time of Harry’s birth, by Sir Henry, his father. After he had been
instructed in grammar-learning in Oxford, he became a gentleman
commoner of University College in the beginning of 1617, aged fifteen
years, where, and in public, giving a manifestation of his pregnant mind, had
the degree of Bachelor of Arts conferred upon him in the latter end of the
year 1619. Afterwards he went to one of the Inns of Court, travelled into
France, and on his return married a lady of considerable worth; but with
whom, it is said, “he never afterwards lived.”[22]
In the beginning of the year 1640, he was elected one of the knights for
Berks, to serve in the parliament that began at Westminster the 13th of April;
and again, though not legally, in October, to serve in the parliament that
began at the same place on the 3d of November following. We shall not enter
into his political actions on the great theatre of public life—as they are to be
found in all the histories of England, from the reign of Charles I. to the
Restoration—but content ourselves with noticing those parts of it which are
more peculiarly interesting to the traveller in Monmouthshire, namely, the
manner in which he passed his time, with occasional anecdotes, during his
confinement in the castle of Chepstow.

Wood, an ultra-royalist, gives the following character of him:—“He was
a man of good natural parts—was a boon familiar, witty, and quick with
repartees—was exceeding happy in apt instances, pertinent and very biting;
so that his company, being deemed incomparable by many, would have been
acceptable to the greatest persons, only he would be drunk too soon, and so
put an end to all their mirth for the present. At length, after all his rogueries,
acted for near twenty years together, were passed; he was at length called to
account for that grand villany, of having a considerable hand in murdering
his prince, of which being easily found guilty, he was not to suffer the loss of
his life, as others did, but the loss of his estate, and perpetual imprisonment,
for that he came in upon the proclamation of surrender. So that, after two or
three removes from prison to prison, he was at length sent to Chepstow
Castle, where he continued another twenty years, not in wantonness,
riotousness, and villany, but in confinement and repentance, if he had so
pleased.”
“This person—who lived very poor, and in a shabbeel condition in his
confinement, and would be glad to take a pot of ale from any one that would
give it to him—died with meat in his mouth, that is, suddenly, in Chepstow
Castle (as before mentioned), in September, 1680; and was, on the 9th day of
the same month, buried in the church of Chepstow. Some time before he
died he made the epitaph, by way of acrostic, on himself, which is engraved
on the stone which now covers his remains.”
Mrs. Williams—“wife of the person who had the care of the castle, and
who died in 1798, at a very advanced age—well knew and was intimately
acquainted with the women who waited and attended on Harry Marten
during his confinement in the castle. They were two sisters, and their maiden
name was Vick.
“From what I could learn, I am of opinion that the early part of Marten’s
confinement was rather rigorous; for whatever Mrs. Williams mentioned had
always a reference to the latter part of it; and in this conjecture I am
supported by her remark, that though he had two daughters living, they were
not indulged with sharing their father’s company in prison till near the close
of his life. In the course of years, political rigour against him began to wear
away, and he was permitted not only to walk about Chepstow, but to have
the constant residence of his family, in order to attend upon him in the castle.
This indulgence at last extended itself so far, as to permit him to visit any

family in the neighbourhood, his host being responsible for his safe return to
the castle at the hour appointed.
“One anecdote of Marten, as mentioned by Mrs. Williams, I shall here
repeat. Among other families who showed a friendly attention to the
prisoner, were the ancestors of the present worthy possessor of St. Pierre,
near Chepstow. To a large company assembled round the festive dinner-
board Marten had been invited. Soon after the cloth was removed, and the
bottle put into gay circulation, Mr. Lewis, in a cheerful moment, jocularly
said to Marten, ‘Harry, suppose the times were to come again in which you
passed your life, what part would you act in them?’ ‘The part I have done,’
was his immediate reply. ‘Then, sir,’ says Mr. Lewis, ‘I never desire to see
you at my table again;’ nor was he ever after invited.[23]
“Great credibility,” says our authority, “deserves to be attached to this
story, as containing Marten’s political opinion at that day; and, to support a
belief in it, the late Rev. J. Birt, canon of Hereford, thus speaks of him, in his
letter to the Rev. J. Gardner, prefixed to his ‘Appendix to the History of
Monmouthshire:’—‘Henry Marten, one of the incendiary preachers during
the great rebellion, was, at the Restoration, imprisoned for life at Chepstow,
and buried there. As far as I can recollect, he died as he lived, with the fierce
spirit of a republican.’ The Rev. Mr. Birt, who died at the advanced age of
ninety-two, held distinguished preferment in the neighbourhood of
Chepstow, and had been in the habits of intimate acquaintance with all the
first families in the county. His testimony might therefore be said to stamp
the anecdote with the sanction of truth, without seeking for farther evidence.
“Of his personal appearance, a friend of mine—on the authority of the
late Mr. Harry Morgan, attorney at Usk, whose father had been in Marten’s
company, and by whom he had been informed of it—says that Mr. Morgan
described him, in general terms, as ‘a smart, active little man, and the
merriest companion he ever was in company with in his life.’ Wood praises
his social qualities, and talent for conversation; but that ‘he lived in a
shabbeel condition, and would take a pot of ale from any one that would
give it to him,’ may be doubted; unless he meant that the kindness shown to
him by the families in and near Chepstow admitted such an interpretation.[24]
“Let us attend him to the grave. It is hardly possible to admit that such a
mind as that of Marten would have penned—much less to suppose that he
would have wished to have engraved on his tomb—the wretched doggerel
that goes under the name of his ‘Epitaph,’ and which is said to have been

written by him during his confinement in the castle. Not the smallest
circumstance respecting his funeral is left on record; and whether his
obsequies were marked with public procession, or whether he retired to the
grave unnoticed and unregarded, tradition has not preserved the slightest
memorandum.”
His biographer might, without difficulty, have concluded that—in those
times, at all events—an imprisoned rebel would not be permitted to have any
but the most private funeral. All that we are certain of is, that he was buried
in the chancel of the church of Chepstow; and that, on a large stone from the
Forest of Dean, is still to be traced the following “Epitaph, written on
himself,” by way of acrostic, but now much defaced:—
(ARMS.)
Here, September the ninth,
was buried
A true Englishman,
Who, in Berkshire, was well known
To love his country’s freedom ’bove his own;
But being immured full twenty year,
Had time to write, as doth appear,

HIS EPITAPH.

H ere or elsewhere—all’s one to you, to me—
E arth, air, or water, gripes my ghostly dust,
N one knows how soon to be by fire set free:
R eader, if you an oft-tryed rule will trust,
Y ou’ll gladly do and suffer what you must.
M y time was spent in serving you, and you;
A nd death’s my pay, it seems, and welcome too:
R evenge destroying but itself, while I
T o birds of prey leave my old cage, and fly.
E xamples preach to the eye.—Care thou, mine says,
N ot how you end, but how you spend your days.[25]

Having retired to that asylum which is the common lot of humanity, his
ashes were for some years permitted to rest in peace. But at length a
clergyman of the name of Chest, we are told, was appointed to the vicarage
of Chepstow, who, glowing with admiration for those principles of the
constitution which he considered had been subverted, openly declared that
the bones of a regicide should never pollute the chancel of that church of
which he was vicar, and immediately ordered the corpse to be disinterred,

and removed to the place where it now reposes, in the middle of the north
transept, and over it the stone is placed that bears the epitaph before
mentioned.
About this time, as Heath informs us, “there came to reside at Chepstow a
person of the name of Downton, who afterwards married a daughter of the
Rev. Mr. Chest; but, whatever affection he might cherish for the lady, the
father was one unceasing object of his ridicule and contempt; and when the
vicar died, he publicly satyrised him in the following lines:—
‘Here lies at rest, I do protest,
One Chest within another;
The chest of wood was very good—
Who says so of the other?’ ”

Marten’s apartment, as we have said, was in “the first story of the
eastern tower, or keep; for this part of the building contained only a single
room on each floor, if we except those near the top. Could he have detached
from his recollection the idea of Sterne’s starling—‘I can’t get out, I can’t
get out’—the situation might have been chosen out of remembrance or
tenderness to the rank he had formerly held in society; for though it bore the
name of a prison, it was widely different from the generality of such places.
The room measured fifteen paces long, by twelve paces wide, and was very
lofty. On one side, in the centre, was a fire-place, two yards wide; and the
windows, which were spacious, and lighted both ends of the apartment, gave
an air of cheerfulness not frequent in such buildings. In addition to this, he
could enjoy from its windows some of the sweetest prospects in Britain. This
apartment continues to bear the name of ‘Marten’s Room’ to this day, and
few travellers enter the castle without making it an object of their attention.”
“Marten,” says Mr. Seward, “was a striking instance of the truth of Roger
Ascham’s observation, who, in his quaint and pithy style, says
—‘Commonlie, men, very quick of wit, be very light of conditions. In youth,
they be readie scoffers, privie mockers, and over light and merrie. In age
they are testie, very waspish, and always over miserable; and yet few of
them come to any great age, by reason of their miserable life when young;
and a great deal fewer of them come to show any great countenance, or
beare any great authority abroade, in the world; but either they live
obscurely, men wot not how, or dye obscurely, men mark not when.’[26]

“In the dining-parlour of St. Pierre, near Chepstow, there hung,” in the
time of the writer, “a painting, said to be of Harry Marten. He is represented
at three-quarters length, in armour. In his right hand he holds a pistol, which
he seems about to discharge; while with the left he grasps the hilt of his
sword. Behind him is a page, in the act of tying on a green sash; the whole
conveying an idea that the person was about to undertake some military
enterprise. Judging from the picture, the likeness appears to have been taken
when Marten was about forty-five years of age. He there seems of thin or
spare habit, with a high forehead, long visage; his hair of a dark colour, and
flowing over the right shoulder. The cravat round the neck does not
correspond with the age in which he lived, being tied in the fashion of
modern times. There is a great deal of animation and spirit in his
countenance, characteristic of the person it is said to represent.”[27]
Having adverted to Mr. Southey’s “Inscription,” and its parody by George
Canning, we subjoin the following copies from the originals. The first, by
Southey, is thus headed:—
Inscription
For the apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Harry Marten the regicide
was imprisoned thirty years.
For thirty years secluded from mankind,
Here Marten lingered. Often have these walls
Echoed his footsteps, as with even tread
He paced around his prison. Not to him
Did nature’s fair varieties exist:
He never saw the sun’s delightful beams,
Save when through yon high bars he poured a sad
And broken splendour. Dost thou ask his crime?
He had rebelled against the king, and sat
In judgment on him; for his ardent mind
Shaped goodliest plans of happiness on earth,
And peace and liberty. Wild dreams! but such
As Plato loved; such as with holy zeal
Our Milton worshipp’d. Blessed hopes! awhile
From man withheld, even to the latter days,
When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfilled!

The next is the parody by Canning, as published in the first number of the
Anti-Jacobin, 1797:—

Inscription

For the door of the cell in Newgate, where Mrs. Brownrigg the ’prentice-
cide was confined
previous to her execution.
For one long term, or e’er her trial came,
Here Brownrigg lingered. Often have these cells
Echoed her blasphemies, as with shrill voice
She screamed for fresh Geneva. Not to her
Did the blithe fields of Tothill, or thy street,
St. Giles, its fair varieties expand;
Till at the last, in slow-drawn cart, she went
To execution. Dost thou ask her crime?
She whipped two female ’prentices to death,
And hid them in the coal-hole. For her mind
Shaped strictest plans of discipline. Sage schemes,
Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine
Of the Orthyan goddess he bade flog
The little Spartans: such as erst chastised
Our Milton when at college. For this act
Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws! but time shall come
When France shall reign, and laws be all repealed!

Adjoining the Keep, or Marten’s Tower, is a small chamber, or Oratory,
remarkable for the elegance of its proportions, and the chaste but elaborate
style of its ornaments. The lancet-pointed window, encircled by rows of
delicately-carved rosettes, is in fine preservation.—See the opposite page.
The narrow path which, at a height of six feet above the ground, connects
this portion of the castle with the donjon tower, commands a range of
beautiful scenery, the prominent features of which are the lawns and groves
of Persefield, the precipitous but picturesque banks of the river, with a noble
background for the picture in the commanding summit of the Wynd Cliff,
which overlooks the scene.
The West Gate, a Gothic archway, strongly defended by a double
portcullis, with moat and drawbridge, opens into the fourth or principal court
already noticed; and as portions of Roman brick are here observed in the
masonry, some doubts have arisen as to its date: but whether furnished from
an earlier building on the spot, or transported hither from the ruins of
Caerleon, is a question which, so far as the writer could ascertain, is still
undecided. It seems very

probable, however, that the commanding site occupied by the present castle
was originally that of a strong military post, built and garrisoned by the
Romans, the ruins of which were converted into a Norman fortress by
William Fitzosborne.

In the view from the right bank of the Wye, the western gate is seen in all
its elegant and massive proportions. The square tower, with its machicolated
parapet, angular turrets, and vertical balustrariæ—through which flights of
arrows or other missiles met the assailants—give a striking foreground to the
picture; while the contiguous towers and bastions, lessening as they recede,
and assuming new and often fantastic shapes, present a vast and highly
diversified mass of buildings. Here clothed with trees and shrubs, there
jutting forward in bare and broken fragments, and here again rising sheer
and high from the water’s edge, their huge blocks of masonry seem as if they
were rather the spontaneous work of nature than the laborious productions of
art. In this view are comprised the whole line of embattled walls flanking the
river, the new bridge, and part of the lower town; the rocky boundaries to the
southward, with the modern quay, where the daily steamer discharges her
cargo and passengers. The precipitous cliffs, by which the river is there
confined, terminate upwards in wooded and pastoral scenes—enlivened here
and there by cottages and farms, which command some remarkable and
striking views of the river, the town and castle, with its western landscapes
of hill, forest, and park-like scenery. A short way beyond the extreme verge
of the engraving, the river Wye will shortly be spanned by a magnificent
bridge, part of the South Wales Railway, now in progress.

An arched Chamber, cut in the natural rock overhanging the river at a
great height, is supposed to have been used as a prison, but more probably as
a store-room; for, by anchoring the boats close to the rock, their cargoes for
the service of the garrison, whether provisions[28] or ammunition, could be
easily hoisted into security by means of a windlass; and no doubt, under the
cloud of night, and with a spring-tide, many a goodly bark has been thus
relieved of its freight; nor is it improbable that adventurous captives may
have thus found their way to some friendly bark, and regained their freedom.
[29] In the hands of a skilful romance writer, this scene might be turned to
excellent account—more particularly if the descending basket contained a
damsel “flying from tyrants jealous,” and her lover-knight stood in the boat

to receive her—all heightened by such dramatic machinery as midnight, with
the tender hopes and imminent hazards of the enterprise, would easily
supply. But all this is foreign to the spirit of archæology, which turns with
disdain from such puerile vanities, and beckons us forward to the breach
where the iron balls of the Commonwealth were directed with such fury in
the last assault. Their batteries played from the opposite height, which the
guide will point out as the commanding position which rendered the cause of
the defenders so useless and desperate, and added another triumph to the
Parliamentary cannon.
The Passage, or gallery, leading down to the vaulted chamber, is
accurately shown in the annexed woodcut. It has an air of Gothic antiquity
that harmonizes well with the place, for its pointed style and proportions
clearly show that it belongs to the earliest portion of the structure. The
massive arch, seen through the opening, is that of the mysterious chamber
already noticed. The window,[30] terminating the vista, overlooks the river,
and seems to project from the precipitous rocks that here form an
impregnable barrier to the fortress; and even when the tide is at its full, the
window seems suspended at a dizzy height above the water. The uses to
which the passage and its chamber were originally applied, were probably
those of a temporary refuge and retreat; and were, no doubt, well understood
and appreciated by the Norman castellan, to whom the means of successful
resistance or safe retreat were the grand objects in a feudal residence.
Such are the general features of this ancient stronghold.[31] But on the
minuter points of its history, architecture, and internal arrangements, our
restricted limits will not permit us to enlarge; but, aided by faithful
engravings and woodcuts, the descriptions, however brief, may serve to
convey a detailed and correct notion of the whole.
Persefield.—In the immediate environs, many objects are found to
invite the traveller’s attention; but, as a combination of rich English scenery,
the attractions of Persefield, or Piercefield, stand pre-eminent. The house
and grounds are thus briefly described: The latter extend westward along the
precipitous banks of the Wye, as shown in the engraving. On the north is the
Wind-Cliff, or Wynd Cliff. The grounds are divided into the lower and upper
lawn by the approach to the house, a modern edifice, consisting of a stone
centre and wings, from which the ground slopes gracefully but rapidly into a
valley profusely shaded with ornamental trees. To give variety to the views,

and disclose the native grandeur of the position, walks have been thrown
open through the woods and along the precipitous margin of the river, which
command the town, castle, and bridge of Chepstow, with the Severn in the
distance, backed by a vast expanse of fertile valleys and pastoral hills. But to
describe the romantic features of this classic residence with the minuteness
they deserve, would far exceed our limits; it is a scene calculated to inspire
the poet as well as the painter; and it is gratifying to add that, by the taste
and liberality of the owner, strangers are freely admitted to the grounds and
walks of Persefield.
The Wynd Cliff.—This lofty eminence commands one of the finest and
most varied prospects in the United Kingdom; while the scenery of the Cliff
has a particular charm for every lover of the picturesque. Poet, painter, and
historian, have combined their efforts to make it a place of pilgrimage; but,
to be seen in all its beauty, the rich and various tints of autumn and a bright
sun are indispensable accessories. It may be called the “Righi” of the Wye,
commanding a vast circumference of fertile plains and wooded hills, all
enlivened

Chepstow Castle and Town.
From the Windcliff.

with towns, villages, churches, castles, and cottages; with many a classic
spot on which the stamp of history is indelibly impressed—names embodied
in our poetry, and embalmed by religious associations. From the edge of the
precipice, nearly a thousand feet in height, the prospect extends into eight
counties—Brecon, Glamorgan, Monmouth, Hereford, Gloucester, Wilts,
Somerset, and Devon.
For the enjoyment of this inspiring scene, every facility has been
supplied; and even the invalid tourist, with time and caution, may reach the
summit without fatigue. “The hand of art,” says the local guide, “has
smoothed the path up the declivity, tastefully throwing the course into
multiplied windings, which fully accord with its name, and the nature of the
scenery which it commands. At every turn some pendant rock girt with ivy,
some shady yew, or some novel glimpse on the vale below, caught through
the thick beechy mantle of this romantic precipice, invite the beholder to the
luxury of rest.” Still ascending, the tourist penetrates a dark-winding chasm,
through which the path conducts him in shadowy silence to the last stage of
the ascent, which gradually discloses one of the most enchanting prospects
upon which the human eye can repose. From the platform to the extreme
verge of the horizon, where the Downs of Wiltshire and the Mendip hills
form the boundary line, the eye ranges over a vast region of cultivated fields,
waving forests, and populous towns, sufficient of themselves to furnish the
resources of a principality.
The pens of Reed, Warren, and Gilpin, have been successively employed
in sketching the features of this magnificent panorama; but nothing can be
more correct and graphic than the following description by Fosbroke:
—“What a cathedral is among churches, the Wynd Cliff is among prospects.
Like Snowdon, it ought to be visited at sunrise, or seen through a sunrise-
glass called a Claude, which affords a sunrise view at mid-day, without the
obscuration of the morning mist. This cliff is the last grand scene of the
Piercefield drama. It is not only magnificent, but so novel, that it excites an
involuntary start of astonishment; and so sublime, that it elevates the mind
into instantaneous rapture. The parts consist of a most uncommon
combination of wood, rock, water, sky, and plain—of height and abyss—of
rough and smooth—of recess and projection—of fine landscapes near, and
excellent prospective afar,—all melting into each other, and grouping into

such capricious lines, that, although it may find a counterpart in tropic
climes, it is, in regard to England, probably unique. The spectator stands
upon the edge of a precipice, the depth of which is awful to contemplate,
with the river winding at his feet. The right screen is Piercefield ridge, richly
wooded; the left is a belt of rocks, over which, northward, appears the
Severn, with the fine shores between Thornbury and Bristol, rising behind
each other in admirable swells, which unite in most graceful curves. The first
foreground appears to the eye like a view from the clouds to the earth, and
the rich contrast of green meadows to wild forest scenery,—the farm of
Llancaut, clasped in the arms of the winding river, backed by hanging wood
and rock. The further horn of the crescent tapers off into a craggy informal
mole, over which the eye passes to a second bay; this terminates in
Chepstow Castle, the town and rocks beyond all mellowed down by
distance, into that fine hazy indistinctness which makes even deformities
combine into harmony with the picture.”[32]
An observatory, the guide informed us, was intended some years since
to have crowned this noble eminence, and a subscription was got up for the
purpose; but some difference having arisen between the projectors of the
scheme and the proprietor of the land, it was dropped. It was suggested by a
local writer, that a few Doric columns with architraves, however rude, would
have had an imposing effect on the summit of the Wynd Cliff, and reminded
the classic traveller of the ruined temple of Minerva on the Sunium
promontory. “It might,” he says, “be partially immersed in wood; while, in
the native rock, niches might be hollowed out; and on a tablet, at the finest
point of view, the following words should be inscribed:—Valentine
Morris[33] introduced these sublime scenes to public view. To him be
honour: to God praise.”[34] This is concise and classical; but it is reserved
probably for another generation to witness the completion of the design.
The whole scene, from this point to the Abbey of Tinterne, presents an
uninterrupted combination of picturesque and romantic features. Above are
hanging cliffs, richly clothed in variegated woods, perfumed with flowers,
irrigated by murmuring rivulets, fountains, and cascades, and rendered vocal
by the songs of birds. These woody solitudes are the annual resort of
nightingales, whose note is familiar to every late and early tourist, who with
slow and lingering step measures his leafy way between Chepstow and
Tinterne—unable to decide at what point of the road there is the richest
concentration of scenery. It is, indeed, a sylvan avenue of vast and

variegated beauty, reminding us of the softer features of Helvetian
landscape.
Far below, and seen only at intervals through its thick curtain of foliage,
the classic Vaga continues its winding course. Here basking in sunshine,
there sweeping along under shadowy cliffs—now expanding its waters over
a broad channel, or rushing through deep ravines, it is often enlivened by
boats laden with produce, or visitors in pleasure-barges, who make the
“descent of the Wye,” as, in former days, pilgrims made that of the Rhine
and Danube; for the boats that perform the trip from Ross to Chepstow,
make, in general, but one voyage, and are otherwise employed or broken up
at its conclusion—
Facilis descensus Averni—
Sed revocare gradum.

It is but recently, says a periodical authority, that the Wye has become at
all frequented on account of its scenery. About the middle of last century, the
Rev. Dr. Egerton, afterwards Bishop of Durham, was collated by his father to
the rectory of Ross, in which pleasant town, situated on the left bank of the
river, and just at the point where its beautiful scenery begins, the worthy
doctor resided nearly thirty years. He was a man of taste, and had a lively
enjoyment of the pleasures of society amidst the beautiful scenery of his
neighbourhood. His chief delight was to invite his friends and connections,
who were persons of high rank, to pay him summer visits at Ross, and then
to take them down the Wye—
“Pleased Vaga echoing through its winding bounds,”—

which, as well as the town of Ross, had derived a new interest from the lines
of Pope. For this purpose, we are told, Dr. Egerton built a pleasure-boat; and,
year after year, excursions were made, until it became fashionable in a
certain high class of society to visit the Wye. But when the rector of Ross
was consecrated to the see of Durham, his pleasure-boat, like that of the
Doges of Venice and Genoa, was suffered to rot at anchor; and with no
successor of similar means and taste to follow his example, excursions on
the Wye became unfrequent, because no longer fashionable. Yet the beauties
of the scenery once explored, became gradually more attractive; and some
pilgrim of Nature, deviating now and then from the beaten track, spoke and

sang of its beauties, until, having again caught the public ear, it was admitted
that we had a “Rhine” within our own borders—with no vineyards and fewer
castles, but with a luxuriance of scenery peculiarly its own, and with remains
of feudal and monastic grandeur which no description could exaggerate. Mr.
Whately, a writer on landscape gardening, and an exquisite critic, first
directed attention to the new weir at Tinterne Abbey, and one or two other
scenes on its banks; and, in 1770, the Wye was visited by William Gilpin,
who did good service to taste and the lovers of nature by publishing his tour.
The same year, a greater name connected itself with the Wye—for it was
visited by the immortal author of the “Elegy in a Country Churchyard.” “My
last summer’s tour,” says Gray, in one of his admirable letters to Dr.
Wharton, “was through Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire,
Herefordshire, and Shropshire—five of the most beautiful counties in the
kingdom. The very principal sight and capital feature of my journey was the
river Wye, which I descended in a boat for nearly forty miles, from Ross to
Chepstow. Its banks are a succession of nameless beauties.”[35] The
testimony thus bequeathed to it by the illustrious Gray, has been confirmed
and repeated by Wordsworth, while other kindred spirits, following each
other in the same track, have sacrificed to Nature at the same altar, and
recorded their admiration in immortal song:—
... “Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
“How oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!”
Wordsworth, July 13, 1798.

Authorities quoted or referred to in the preceding article:—Dugdale’s
Monasticon.—Baronage.—Camden’s Britannia.—Leland’s Itinerary.—
County History.—Local Guides: Heath.—Wood.—De la Beche.—Williams.
—Thomas.—Roscoe.—Burke’s Peerage and Commoners.—Chronicles.—
Giraldus Cambrensis.—William of Worcester.—History of the

Commonwealth.—Life of Cromwell.—Notes by Correspondents.—MS.
Tour on the Wye, 1848; with other sources, which will be found enumerated
in the article upon Tinterne Abbey.

TINTERNE ABBEY.
“There are some, I hear, who take it ill that I mention monasteries and
their founders; I am sorry to hear it. But, not to give them any just offence,

let them be angry if they will. Perhaps they would have it forgotten that our
ancestors were, and we are, Christians; since there never were more certain
indications and glorious monuments, of Christian piety than these.”—
Camden’s Britannia, Pref. Ages of Faith, Book xi.
he Abbey of Tinterne, though one of the oldest in England,
makes no conspicuous figure in its history, a proof that its abbots
were neither bold nor ambitious of distinction, but devoted to the
peaceful and retiring duties of their office. We do not find that the
secluded Tinterne was ever the scene of any rebellious outbreak, or the
refuge of any notorious criminal. From age to age, the bell that summoned to
daily matins and vespers was cheerfully obeyed; and all they knew of the
great world beyond the encircling hills, was learned, perhaps, from the daily
strangers and pilgrims who took their meal and night’s lodging in the
hospitium.
The name of Tinterne, as etymologists inform us, is derived from the
Celtic words din, a fortress, and teyrn, a sovereign or chief; for it appears
from history, as well as tradition, that a hermitage, belonging to Theodoric or
Teudric, King of Glamorgan, originally occupied the site of the present
abbey; and that the royal hermit, having resigned the throne to his son
Maurice, “led an eremitical life among the rocks of Dindyrn or Tynterne.” It
is also mentioned, as a remarkable coincidence in history, that two kings,
who sought Tinterne as a temporary place of refuge, only left it to meet
violent deaths. The first was Theodoric, who was slain in battle by the
Saxons, under Ceolwilph, King of Wessex, in the year 600, having been
dragged from his seclusion by his own subjects, in order that he might act
once more as their leader. The next was “the unfortunate King Edward,[36]
who fled from the pursuit of his queen,” Isabella. The Welsh monarch is said
to have routed the Saxons at Mathern, near Chepstow, where his body was
buried. Bishop Godwin says, that he there saw his remains in a stone coffin;
and on the skull, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years, the wound of
which he died was conspicuous—thus verifying the tradition as to the place
and manner of his death.
Nothing could be more happily chosen for the seat of a religious
community, than the beautiful valley of which these ruins are the unrivalled
ornament. It would be difficult to picture, even with the aid of a fertile
imagination, scenes more fitted to cherish devout feelings; to instruct us,

from the tranquil bosom of Nature, to look up to Nature’s God; and in the
exclusion of the busy world, to feel aspirations of gratitude continually
ascending towards Him who enriched the valley with his bounty, and in
homage to whom that temple and its altars were first erected. The latter, as
the work of man, and a prey to neglect and violence, have disappeared or
crumbled into ruins; but the former, as the work of God, has lost nothing of
its original beauty. The woods that curtain the scene; the river that sweeps
along under pendent cliffs of oak; the meadows and orchards that cover and
adorn its banks,—all continue as luxuriant, as copious and abundant, as
verdant and blooming, as on that day when the first pilgrim-father planted
his cross in the soil, and consecrated the spot to the service of God.
It has been often observed—and the observation is confirmed by fact—
that those venerable ascetics, who acted as pioneers in the army of Christian
pilgrims, were no mean judges of soil and climate, and generally chose some
fertile spot upon which nature had bestowed her special favour. But many
instances may be pointed out where they chose even the inhospitable desert
for their habitation; and, by unremitting labour, transformed that desert into a
garden. To the personal example of those ancient Cistercians, the country is
indebted for many improvements in all branches of cultivation and
embellishment. From the model-garden and orchard of the monastery, hints
were communicated and lessons taught, which found their way into every
part of the country, and carried with them the principal arts of civilization
and improvement. Thus, what first gave a prosperous agriculture to our own
shores, is still in operation upon the barbarous islands of the Pacific, where
Christian missions, religious fraternities, are busily propagating, by their
own example, those domestic and mechanical arts which are the safest and
best introduction to religious knowledge. Of this happy influence on the
minds and habits of the peasantry, none of the monastic orders was more
fully sensible than the Cistercians, whose laborious but abstemious lives,
sumptuous temples, and gorgeous ritual, threw an air of luxury upon every
spot where the Order had once set its name.[37]
From the shadowy woods which shelter and encompass it, Tinterne may
be justly denominated the Vallis umbrosa of Monmouth; but the fertility of
the soil, and solemn retirement of the scene, so desirable for a great
sanctuary in the “Ages of Faith,” had an immense advantage in the noble
and navigable river which formed the channel of communication between
the interior and the sea; and, like an artery supplying nutriment to the

system, brought its supplies of provision or treasure to the very gate of the
abbey. And many a goodly cargo of corn from Hereford, and wine from
Normandy, has been disembarked at that old pier, where the abbot’s galley
has degenerated into a clumsy ferryboat, with old Richard Tamplin, the
ferryman, for its commander.
From ancient historical sources, which treat of the origin, progress, and
dissolution of this abbey, we select the following materials:—The founder
was Walter de Clare, a name famous in the annals of chivalry and church-
building. The first stone was laid in the thirty-first year of the twelfth
century; but more than a century and a half elapsed before its completion. In
those days churches were the work of generations; and it was rarely, indeed,
that the founder lived to witness the fulfilment of his vow. “These all died in
faith.” In 1287, we are told the White Friars took possession of the edifice
consecrated to the Blessed Virgin,[38] and commenced those hallowed
services which the Eighth Henry, by his sic volo, was destined to silence.
These services, however, had lasted for centuries; and who shall say, during
the lapse of barbarous times, how much crime was prevented, how much
good effected, by those holy men. Shut out from the haunts and habits of
secular life, they exercised their spiritual functions, we may charitably
believe, in a manner that drew many penitents to their altar; and, in the midst
of wars and tumults, displayed the sacred banner of peace, and published the
doctrine of salvation. Their record is on high. And, in justice to the
Cistercians, it must be confessed, that if less learned, they were more
exemplary, and not more worldly, than some other fraternities of higher
pretensions. They exercised and patronised agriculture; and planting
themselves, as the rule directed, in the depths of forests, or on desert heaths,
they drew from the earth such sustenance as it would yield to the hand of
labour; and trusted to those who sought their spiritual aid and counsel, for
the means of building and embellishing their altars.
The order of Cistercians, as the reader is aware, made its appearance in
England about the year 1128. In imitation of Christ and his twelve Apostles,
the brotherhood was limited to twelve, with an abbot at their head, according
to the rule of the Founder:—“Et sicut ille monasteria constructa, per
duodecim monachos adjuncto patre disponebat, sic se acturos
confirmabant.”—Mon. Ang. iv. 699. Their first establishment in England was
at Waverley, in Surrey; and in the course of time, their numbers had so

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man becoming alarmed at the gradual decay of vital religion among the
brotherhood, and their wilful neglect of the rules instituted by their founder,
adopted measures for the immediate reformation of the order. Having
obtained the Pope’s sanction in support of his design, he chose twenty-one of
the brethren, and retiring from Molesme to the neighbourhood of Chalons-
sur-Saone, took up his abode in the wilderness[39] of Citeaux; where, under
the protection of Otho, Duke of Burgundy, and the Bishop of Chalons, he
laid the foundation of a religious house, in which the rules of St. Benedict
were to be strictly enforced, and the character of his followers restored. But
the wisdom and piety of Robert having introduced several improvements
into the rules of St. Benedict, the brotherhood began to present features so
distinct from the parent establishment, that, on the return of St. Robert to
Molesme, his successor, Albericus, obtained a charter from the Pope,
constituting the monks of Citeaux into an independent order—that of
Cistercians, or Whitefriars. Their rules were positive and stringent; they
involved the surrender of all secular affairs into the hands of lay brothers, so
that their lives and labours might be exclusively devoted to the exercise of
charity and the service of the altar. In their choice of localities for the
establishment of new houses, they were enjoined, as already observed, to
avoid cities, and go forth into the wilderness. This was favourable to
pilgrimages; and with the fruits of these, and benefactions from all classes,
what they had found a desert on their arrival, was speedily converted by
labour and industry into a garden; and what was at first only a cell or chapel,
was gradually extended into a church and abbey. The revenue of the order
was divided into four parts—to the bishop, a fourth; to the priests, a fourth;
to the exercise of hospitality, a fourth; and another fourth for the support of
widows and orphans, the relief of the sick, and the repairs of churches and
cloisters. And inasmuch as they could not find, either in the life or rule of St.
Benedict,[40] that their founder had possessed any churches, or altars, or
ovens, or mills, or towns, or serfs; or that any woman was ever permitted to
enter his monastery, or any dead to be buried there, except his sister; they
therefore renounced all these things: “Ecce hujus seculi divitiis spretis
cœperunt novi milites Christi cum paupere Christo pauperes inter se tractare,
quo ingenio, quo artificio, quo se exercitio in hac vita se hospitesque divites
et pauperes supervenientes quos ut Christum suscipere præcipit regula
sustentarent.” For a time the Cistercians continued in exemplary observance

of their rules: poverty and humility walked hand in hand; but, in proportion
as their revenues increased, their discipline began to relax; a taste for
luxury[41] succeeded; and whoever has visited their splendid abbeys abroad,
will readily confess that, while professing abstinence and self-denial, they
were lodged like princes, and like princes shared in the vanities and
pleasures of the world. Their ruling passion was said to be avarice; but if
they amassed riches, they spent them with a princely liberality; and their
buildings, in this and other countries, present some of the finest specimens of
taste ever raised by the hand of man.[42]
Cistercians were Benedictines, according to the letter of the rule,
without mitigation.[43] Their peculiarities are thus described in Dugdale’s
Warwickshire:[44]—“First, for their habits, they wear no leather or linen, nor
indeed any fine woollen cloth; neither, except it be on a journey, do they put
on any breeches, and then, after their return, deliver them fair washed.
Having two coats with cowls, in winter time they are not to augment, but in
summer, if they choose, they may lessen them; in which habit they are to
sleep, and after matins not to return to their beds. For prayers, the hour of
Prime, they so conclude, that before the Lauda it may be daybreak, strictly
observing their rule, that not one iota or tittle of their service is omitted.
Immediately after Lauda, they sing the Prime; and after Prime, they go out
performing their appointed hours in work. What is to be done in the day,
they act by daylight; for none of them, except he be sick, is to be absent from
his diurnal hours or Complinæ. When the Compline is finished, the steward
of the house and he that hath charge of the guests go forth, but with great
care of silence serve them.
For diet, “the Abbot assumes no more liberty to himself than any of his
convent, everywhere being present with them, and taking care of his flock,
except at meat, in regard his talk is always with the strangers and poor
people. Nevertheless, when he eats, he is abstemious of talk or any dainty
fare; nor hath he or any of them ever above two dishes of meat; neither do
they eat of fat or flesh, except in case of sickness; and, from the ides of
September till Easter, they eat no more than once a day, except on Sunday,
and not even on festivals.
“Out of the precincts of their cloyster they go not but to work; neither
there nor anywhere do they discourse with any but the abbot or prior. They
unweariedly continue their canonical hours, not piecing any service to
another, except the vigils for the deceased. Their manual labour was as

follows: In summer, after Chapter, which followed Prime, they worked till
Tierce; and, after Nones, till Vespers. In winter, from after Mass till Nones,
and even to Vespers, during Lent. In harvest, when they went to work in the
farms, they said Tierce and the conventual Mass immediately after Prime,
that nothing might hinder their work for the rest of the morning; and often
they said divine service in their places where they were at work, and at the
same hours as those at home celebrated in the church.[45]
“They observe the office of St. Ambrose, so far as they can have perfect
knowledge thereof from Millain; and, taking care of strangers and sick
people, do devise extraordinary afflictions for their own bodies, to the intent
their souls may be advantaged.” Of the same Order—
Hospinian says—“They allowed to candidates a year’s probation, but no
reception to fugitives after the third time. All fasts were observed according
to the rule: to visitors prostration was enjoined, with washing of feet. At the
Abbot’s table sat the guests and pilgrims: they laboured more than the rule
required: delicate habits were exploded: obsolete and primitive fervour was
diligently revived and practised. But of this powerful order, avarice was the
besetting vice: they were great dealers in wool, generally very ignorant, and,
in fact, farmers rather than monks.”[46] The best account of this brotherhood,
as Fosbroke has told us, is to be found in the Usus Cisterciensium; but of
their habits and ceremonies further notice will be found when we come to
treat of the more opulent houses. Guyot le Provins, first a minstrel, then a
monk, has thus satirized them in a poem, which he called a bible, or, more
properly, libel. The Cistercian “abbots and cellarers have ready money, eat
large fish, drink good wine, and send to the refectory, for those who do the
work, the very worst. I have seen these monks,” he affirms, “put pig-sties in
churchyards, and stables for asses in chapels. They seize the cottages of the
poor, and reduce them to beggary.”—With this brief account of the Order,
we return to the subjects selected for illustration.
In a historical sketch, by the late Archdeacon Coxe, the ruins of Tinterne
Abbey are thus described, and his description is at once accurate and
graphic:—
“We stopped to examine the rich architecture of the west front; but the
door being suddenly opened, the inside perspective of the church called forth
an instantaneous burst of admiration, and filled us with delight, such as I
scarcely ever before experienced on a similar occasion. The eye passes
rapidly along a range of elegant Gothic pillars, and, glancing under the

sublime arches which once supported the tower, fixes itself on the splendid
relics of the eastern window—the grand termination of the choir.
“From the length of the nave, the height of the walls, the aspiring form of
the pointed arches, and the size of the east window, which closes the
perspective, the first impressions are those of grandeur and sublimity. But as
these emotions subside, and we descend from the contemplation of the
whole to the examination of the parts, we are no less struck with the
regularity of the plan, the lightness of the architecture, and the delicacy of
the ornaments. We feel that elegance, no less than grandeur, is its
characteristic, and that the whole is a combination of the beautiful and the
sublime. The church, constructed in the shape of a cathedral, is an excellent
specimen of Gothic architecture in its purity. The roof has long since fallen
in, and the whole ruin is thus thrown open to the sky; but the shell is entire:
all the pillars are standing, except those which divided the nave from the
northern aisle, and their situation is marked by the remains of their bases.
The four lofty arches which supported the tower, spring high in the air,
reduced to narrow rims of stone, yet still preserving their original form. The
arches and pillars of the transepts are complete: the shapes of all the
windows may yet be discriminated; the frame of the west window is in
perfect preservation, the design of the tracery is extremely elegant, and,
when decorated with painted glass, must have produced a gorgeous effect.
The general form of the east window is also entire, but its frame is much
dilapidated. It occupies the whole breadth of the choir, and is divided into
two large and equal compartments by a slender shaft, not less than fifty feet
in height, with an appearance of singular lightness, which, in particular
points of view, seems as if suspended in the air. To these decorations of art,
nature has added her own ornaments. Some of the windows are wholly
obscured, others partially shaded, with tufts of ivy, or edged with lighter
foliage:

W.H. Bartlett A. Willmore
THE WESTERN WINDOW.
Tintern.

the tendrils creep along the walls, wind round the pillars, wreath the capitals,
or, hanging down in clusters, obscure the space beneath. But instead of
dilapidated fragments, overspread with weeds and choked with brambles, the
floor is covered with a smooth verdant turf, which, by keeping the original
level of the church, exhibits the beauty of its proportions, heightens the
effect of the gray stone, gives relief to the clustered pillars, and affords an
easy access to every part. Ornamented fragments of the roof, remains of
cornices and columns, rich pieces of sculpture, carved stones and mutilated
figures of monks and warriors, whose ashes repose within these walls, are
scattered on the green sward, and contrast present desolation with former
splendour.”
Although the exterior appearance of these ruins is not equal to the inside
view, yet in some positions—particularly to the east—they present
themselves with considerable effect. From a point on its left bank, and about
half a mile down the river, the ruins assume a new character; and seeming to
occupy a gentle eminence, impend over the river without the intervention of
a single cottage to intercept the view. “The grand east window, wholly
covered with shrubs, and half-mantled with ivy, rises like the portal of a
majestic edifice embowered in wood. Through this opening, and along the
vista of the church, the clusters of ivy, which twine round the pillars or hang
suspended from the arches, resemble tufts of trees; while the thick mantle of
foliage, seen through the tracery of the west window,[47] forms a
continuation of the perspective, and appears like an interminable forest.”
The Abbey is a cruciform structure, built, it is said, after the model of
Salisbury Cathedral,[48] consisting of a nave, north and south aisles,
transepts, and choir. Its length from east to west is two hundred and twenty-
eight feet, and from north to south, at the transepts, one hundred and fifty
feet. The nave and choir are thirty-seven feet in breadth; the height of the
central arch is seventy feet, of the smaller arches thirty feet; of the east
window sixty-four feet, and of the west window forty-two feet. The total
area originally enclosed by the walls of the abbey is said to have been thirty-
four acres.

The exterior of the western front is singularly striking; but, on entering,
as already observed, the scene that represents itself is indescribably grand
and impressive. “When we stood at one end of this awful ruin,” says Gilpin,
“the elements of earth and air its only covering and pavement, and the grand
and

VIEW FROM ENTRANCE.
VIEW FROM ENTRANCE.

venerable remains which terminated both, perfect enough to form the
perspective, yet broken enough to destroy the regularity, the eye was above
measure delighted with the beauty, the grandeur, the novelty of the scene.”
The inner walls of the church are nearly entire; most of the elegant and
massive columns, as already noticed, which separated the nave from the
south aisle are yet standing; and the four lofty and magnificent arches which

formerly supported the central tower are nearly perfect. The columns that
divided the nave from the north aisle have fallen; but their bases still occupy
the ground, showing their number, shape, and dimensions.
Windows.—The magnificent windows are little altered by time: and
though somewhat obscured by a luxuriant and graceful drapery of ivy, the
tendrils of which twine in their tracery, creep along the walls, encircle the
columns, and form natural wreaths around the capitals, the forms of the
principal objects are still so far preserved as to be easily discriminated. The
tracery of the western window, as already observed, is exquisite; while the
eastern window,[49] high and graceful, and occupying nearly the whole
breadth of the choir, with its slender umbilical shaft rising to a height of fifty
feet, and diverging at the top into rich flowery traces, has quite a magical
effect. The other windows, though less ornamented, are all in character, and
have the same elegant design and finish.[50]
The floor, originally covered with encaustic tiles, is now enveloped in a
thick smooth matting of grass, trimmed like a bowling-green, and here and
there spotted with little heaps of mutilated sculpture, and striped with flat
tombstones—all thrown open to the winds of heaven.
The effigy of a knight in chain armour, a pavache shield, and crossed
legs, is supposed to be that of Strongbow, first Earl of Pembroke, already
noticed, but more probably that of Roger Bigod, as Strongbow is historically
known to have been buried in Dublin. This interesting relic, that had escaped
the ravages of time and the hostile spirit of resolution, was at last, as Mr.
Thomas informs us, wilfully mutilated by a native of the village.[51]
The next relic is a group of the Madonna and Child, much disfigured, but
with sufficient evidence of its having been the work of a skilful artist. Mr.
Bartlett considered it to be of very graceful design and execution.
Near the eastern window is the sculptured head of a friar, with the
tonsure, but otherwise quite disfigured.
In the centre, between the transepts, is another broad stone slab, supposed
to cover the ashes of the founder; but the fall of the tower, and the
continual dropping of loosened fragments—until the ruin became an object
of interest and consideration—have not left one of the sepulchral tablets or
inscriptions entire. Many fragments may be discovered among the rubbish,
but to reunite the scattered members were a very hopeless task. In the
southern aisle is the only sepulchral antiquity that bears a legible inscription.

It is elaborately carved in black or slate marble, with a cross finely

sculptured on its surface longitudinally, and near its base three trouts,[52] so
entertwined as to form the symbolic triangle, with the figure of a salmon on
the right and left. The inscription, in black letter, along the top of the cross,
is simple—

“Hic jacet humatus Johann: Willino.”

The sepulchral brasses have all disappeared. For a century and more after
the Dissolution, the Abbey appears to have been abandoned to every species
of wilful depredators, who defaced the altars, ransacked the graves, and
carried off without molestation whatever was curious or portable.

In the same aisle, close to the wall, and now preserved with great care, is
the lately-discovered pavement of encaustic tiles, with escutcheons of the
ancient Clare and Bigod families intertwined. The figures on these coloured
tiles represent flowers, animals, and knights in full career at a tournament.
This pavement was probably that of a private altar, belonging to the founder,
or benefactor of the Abbey. In the process of clearing away the vast
accumulation of rubbish, many of the ancient memorials were removed in
fragments; and of the few that remain, not one, probably, now covers the
dust over which it was originally placed.
Leaving the grassy lawn-like floor of the Abbey, the ascent to the top is
still practicable by means of a spiral staircase in an angle of the northern

transept. Those who conclude their survey of the ruins by this experiment,
will be amply rewarded for any fatigue it may occasion. At the time of our
visit, however, in the month of August last year, some unexpected obstacle
prevented the custodier from gratifying our curiosity by a view from the
summit: for the steps were either so unsafe or deficient, as to make the
experiment rather hazardous.
Mr. Thomas, from whose notes we have already quoted, and whose late
professional residence near the Abbey rendered him familiar with all its
minutest features, tells us that the prospect it commands is highly
picturesque; and in turning from the outward landscape, to look down into
the cloistered depths below, the view of clustering pillars, lofty arches,
mullioned windows, and flowing tracery, is indescribably grand and
impressive.
The broken summit of the walls, throughout its whole outline, is adorned
with a profusion of shrubs and flowers, that, with interlacing leaves and
tendrils, cover the mouldering coping like a fragrant mantle. Where the
labour of man appears to decay, nature has put forth her vigour and beauty,
and transformed those roofless walls into a wild botanic garden. Here, and
amidst the débris immediately adjoining, Mr. Thomas[53] found a luxuriant
crop of shrubs and flowers, all of different families, some of them rare, and
in number between forty and fifty.
Reed, in his ‘Remains,’ gives the following eloquent and highly poetical
description of the Abbey by moonlight:—“The great tree or vegetable rock,
or emperor of the oaks, if you please, before which I bowed with a sort of
reverence in the fields of Tinterne, and which for so many ages has borne all
the blasts and bolts of heaven, I should deem it a gratification of a superior
kind to approach again with an ‘unsandalled foot,’ to pay the same homage,
and to kindle with the same devotion. But I should find amidst the
magnificent ruins of the adjoining Abbey, something of a sublime cast, to
interest and give pregnancy to my feelings. I must be alone. My mind must
be calm and pensive. It must be midnight. The moon, half-veiled in clouds,
must be just emerging from behind the neighbouring hills. All must be silent,
except the wind gently rustling among the ivy of the ruins; the river lulling,
by its faint murmurings, its guardian genius to repose; and the owl, whose
funereal shriek would some time die along the walls in mysterious echoes. I
should then invoke the ghosts of the Abbey; and Fancy, with one stroke of
her magic wand, would rouse them from their dusty beds, and lead them into

the centre of the ruin. I should approach their shadowy existences with
reverence; making inquiries respecting the customs, and manners, and
genius, and fate of antiquity—desire to have a glimpse of the destiny of
future ages, and enter upon conversations which would be too sacred and
even dangerous to communicate.” The lines by Sir Walter Scott, on “Melrose
Abbey by Moonlight,” are equally descriptive of Tinterne.[54]
It has been well observed, that, as the Abbey of Tinterne is the most
beautiful and picturesque of all our Gothic monuments, so is the situation
one of the most sequestered and delightful. One more abounding in that
peculiar kind of scenery which excites the mingled sensations of content,
religion, and enthusiasm, it is impossible to behold. There, every arch
infuses, as it were, a solemn energy into inanimate nature; a sublime
antiquity breathes mildly in the heart; and the soul, pure and passionless,
appears susceptible of that state of tranquillity which is the perfection of
every earthly wish.[55] By the late Sir C. Colt Hoare, a man of taste and
many travelled acquirements, this “seat of devotion, solitude, and
desolation,” is pronounced as surpassing every other ruin he had seen in
England or in Wales. Captain Barber, whose “Tour” is now very scarce, was
so charmed with the scene, that he locked himself up in the Abbey, and
employed several hours in delineating its picturesque features.
From the general aspect of this venerable pile—a coup d’œil that never
fails to captivate the stranger—we proceed to a few detached features of the
picture, all more or less interesting as relics of men, and times, that have
long passed away.
Walter de Clare, the founder, was grandson of Osbert, Lord of
Tudenham and Wollaston, by gift of William the Conqueror.[56] He departed
this life on the 10th of March, 1139, and dying without issue, was succeeded
by his brother, Gilbert[57] de Clare, who survived him nine years, and dying
on the 6th of January, 1148, was buried in the church of Tinterne. This
Gilbert de Clare left two sons by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Walleran,
Earl of Melent—Richard, surnamed Strongbow, and Baldwin,[58] who,
“fighting stoutly on the part of King Stephen, at the battle of Lincoln, was
there taken prisoner.” Richard was one of the witnesses to that “solemn
accorde,” made in 1153, between King Stephen, and Henry, Duke of
Normandy, whereby the latter was to succeed to the crown of England after
the king’s demise. In the year 1170 [16 Henry II.], the said Richard, Earl of

Striguil or Pembroke, being stript
of his paternal inheritance by King
Henry II., invaded Ireland, and
captured the cities of Dublin and
Waterford. Soon after this event,
when “the king, who was then at
Argentine, was consulting with his
nobles about an expedition into
that realm; certain messengers
from this earl being present,
offered, on the part of Richard, the
above-named cities, with all the
castles which he had there
captured, at the death of Dermot,
king of Dublin, whose daughter
and heiress he had married.” With
this conciliatory offer, King Henry
was so well pleased, that he restored to him all his lands, both in England
and Normandy, and freely granted that he should enjoy all those in Ireland
which he had received in dowery with his wife, constituting him at the same
time constable or governor of that realm, and “thereupon passing thither,
subdued it wholly without any considerable resistance.”
By the daughter of the said King of Dublin or Leinster, this last earl of his
family, Richard Strongbow[59] left an only child, Isabel, who remained in
ward fourteen years to the king, and was then given in marriage to William
Marshall, who thereupon became Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Striguil, or
Chepstow, and took possession of Leinster, with all the inheritance of the
said Strongbow; and being thus advanced to that honour, he bore the royal
sceptre of gold, with the cross on the head of it, at the solemn coronation of
King Richard I.[60] The history of this family is given at full length in the
Monasticon and Baronage of England, but it is much too diffuse for our
purpose. William Marshall, who, by his marriage with Isabel, only child of
Richard de Clare, came into possession of his estates and titles, was a great
benefactor to the church; he built and endowed many religious houses both
in England and Ireland; and having, by his last will and testament,
constituted the abbot of St. Augustine’s at Bristol, and Henry Fitzgerald, his
executors, he departed this life at Caversham, in the third of Henry II. Being

thence carried to Reading, his body was received in solemn procession by
the monks of the abbey, and placed in their choir, whilst mass was celebrated
for him. It was then taken to Westminster, where the solemnity was again
performed, and on Ascension-day it was consigned to the earth[61] with the
following epitaph:—
Sum qui Saturnum sibi sensit Hibernia: Solem
Anglia; Mercurium Normannia; Gallia Martem.

These complimentary lines, meant to record his virtues, are characteristic
of the times when heathen mythology was so frequently called in to assist in
the eulogy of some great champion or benefactor of the Christian church. He
certainly appears to have merited all that could be said of him as a great
mover and promoter of monastic fraternities—especially the Cistercians;
and in the same strain, Matthew of Paris has recorded that this mighty earl
was a severe tamer of the Irish, a great favourer of the English, achieved
much in Normandy, and was an invincible soldier in France—“Miles
strenuissimus, ac per orbem nominatissimus.”[62] But of the five sons whom
he left behind, with the fair and flattering prospect that his name and titles
would descend through many generations, all died prematurely and without
issue. This deplorable fact was much commented upon at the time:—“Some
did attribute it to God’s especial judgment, by reason that, when the said
William, first earl, was a great commander in Ireland, and, according to the
practice of soldiers, exercised such cruelties of fire and sword as usually
accompany that sort of life, he took away by violence two fair manors from
a reverend bishop there, and possessed himself of them as the acquisition of
war; and that the bishop, after frequent and earnest entreaties for their
restitution, without any effect, did thereupon pronounce the sentence of
excommunication against him for the fact, which he the earl contemned.”
The bishop,[63] having proceeded to London, made his grievous wrong
known to the king, showing wherefore he had excommunicated the said earl.
“Whereupon the king, then very pensive, desired the bishop that he should
go to his grave and absolve him, and then he would satisfy his desire.
Whereupon the bishop went, and the king with him, and spoke as followeth:
‘O William! who liest here buried, and shackled with the fetters of
excommunication, if these lands which thou most injuriously didst take from
my church, be restored with full satisfaction, either by the king or any of thy
kindred or friends, I then absolve thee: otherwise, I ratify that sentence to

this end, that, being wrapt up with thy sins, thou mayest remain condemned
in hell.’ ”
The king, who was “much displeased at these his expressions, blamed
him for his ghostly rigour;” but anxious to remove the curse from the
illustrious defunct, he sent private messages to the heir and his brothers,
advising them in a friendly manner to come to terms with the bishop, and
thus “in mercy release their father’s soul.” But the brothers were obstinate;
they would not restore even an acre of bog, nor a stock of timber; observing
that, “as the old doting bishop hath pronounced the sentence unjustly, the
curse will fall upon himself. For my part,” quoth the heir, “I will never
lessen my patrimony descended to me by inheritance.” The king being still
under tutelage, and fearing the resentment of so powerful a family, “forbore
to displease them.” But the bishop, hearing thereof, was much grieved,
taking more offence at their contumacy, than of the injury first done by their
father; and going to the king, he said, “Sir, what I have spoken, I have
spoken; and what I have written is not to be reversed: the sentence therefore
must stand; the punishment of evil-doers is from God; and, therefore, the
curse which the Psalmist hath written, shall come upon this earl, of whom I
do thus complain. His name shall be rooted out in one generation, and his
sons shall be deprived of the blessing—increase and multiply. Some of them
shall die a miserable death, and their inheritance shall be scattered. And this,
O king, thou shalt behold in thine own lifetime, yea, in thy flourishing
youth.”
Having spoken “thus much in the bitterness of his spirit, the bishop
departed thence, leaving the defunct earl enthralled with that curse.
Whereupon it happened that, in a few years after, all his sons died without
issue.”[64]
William, his successor, who, “in his father’s lifetime, had taken part with
the barons, then in arms against the king, was one of those betwixt whom
and the King those covenants were made, whereby the government of the
realm was placed in xxv. of them, and the city of London thereupon put into
their hands. Yea, so great a confidant was he of that rebellious pack, that they
constituted him to be one of those xxv., for which respect amongst them he
underwent the sentence of excommunication by the Pope. But upon the
death of King John, which happened soon after, his noble father reduced him
to obedience; so that he became loyal to King Henry the Third, and

thereupon had a grant of the lands of Saier de Quinci, Earl of Winchester,
and David, Earl of Huntingdon, two of those great rebels, for his support
in the king’s service.”
A few years after this, “whilst he, the said William Marshall, was in
Ireland, Leoline, Prince of Wales, took two of his castles; and having cut off
the heads of those whom he found therein, manned them with his own
soldiers. But when tidings thereof came to him, he soon returned into
Wales; and having, with a great power, won them again, took the like
revenge upon the Welsh: and thinking this not enough, he invaded the lands
of Leoline, and wasted them with fire and sword. Whereupon Leoline
advanced towards him with all his strength, but to little purpose; for,
encountering him in battle, the Marshall totally routed his whole army, of
which to the number of nine thousand were slain and taken.” This earl
married Eleanor, daughter of King John; and dying at Kilkenny, in 1231,
was there buried in the choir of the Mendicant Friars.[65]
Richard, his brother and
successor, being irritated by the
violent conduct of the king and his
ministry, formed an alliance with
Llewellyn ap Jowarth, Prince of
Wales, and in 1233 defeated the
king’s army at Grosmont; but
with dutiful respect for his
sovereign, he fell back with the
Cambrian army before sunrise, to
allow his Majesty’s retreat from
the Castle of Gloucester. Henry,
not appreciating the generous
conduct of his reluctant foe,
resisted this attack; and on the
return of the Lord Marshall to his
estates in Ireland, he was
treacherously wounded to death at Kildare,[66] and there buried by the side of
his brother William, whom he had survived only three years.

Gilbert, the third son, married a daughter of Alexander, King of
Scotland, and died in 1242.
Walter Marshall, the fourth son, died at Goodrich Castle, in December,
1245. And—
Anselm, the fifth and last son of this doomed family, died like his
brothers, childless, in the same month of the same year, in the Castle of
Striguil or Chepstow, and was interred with his brother in Tinterne Abbey.
Of their five sisters, Eve, the youngest, married “William de Braliuse or
Braose,[67] of whose family more hereafter.
The male line in him having thus failed, Maude, their surviving sister, and
heiress to the family possessions, was espoused to Hugh Bigod, Earl of
Norfolk. From this alliance sprang two sons, Hugh and Roger, or Rudulfus.
The younger of whom, Roger, in right of his mother, was installed lord-
marshal of the kingdom, and granted a charter[68] to Tinterne Abbey,
confirming those granted by the Clares and Marshalls, and adding large
possessions to the brotherhood. Maude, on the death of her husband, Hugh
Bigod, married John de Warren, Earl of Surrey; and departing this life, anno
1248, was buried in the Abbey of Tinterne; when her four sons—two by each
marriage—carried her body into the choir. To prosecute the descent farther,
would far exceed our limits; but readers who may feel curious to trace the
genealogy of the founders, will find ample details in the Baronage, the
Monasticon, and old chronicles.
Of Earl Roger it is told, that, being “openly reproached by the king as a
traitor, he replied with a stern countenance that he lied; and that he, Bigod,
never was, nor would be a traitor;” adding, “if you do nothing but what the
law warranteth, you can do me no harm.” “Yes,” quoth the king, “I can
thrash your corn and sell it, and so humble you.” “If you do so,” replied
Bigod, “I will send you back the heads of your thrashers.”
The Hospitium, or guest-chamber, was generally a large room with
columns, like the body of a church, and called palatium—the original
meaning of which was a place of short residence. If a visitor came before
dinner to the refectory, notice was given to the refectioner; if he was too late
to dine with the convent, he staid in the locutorium, or parlour, until the
refectory was swept, and then was introduced. The hosteler provided all
things fit for Mass for the visitors; and if he was prevented, any one asked by
him sang the mass and hours to them, for they had divine service as well as

the convent. The visitors had meat and drink at solicitation, and the hosteler
was to fetch the viands according to the rank of the person; all which,
however, was accompanied with the appendage of a “soiled table cloth, very
indifferent wine, grease in the salt, and a clownish servant.” The
hospitaler[69] could not introduce them to the collation before the end of the
first verse. When this was over, he lighted his lantern with which the visitors
waited before the Chapter door. He then introduced them into the parlour,
after which they had refection, and Complin was sung to them. When the
visitors wished to depart before daybreak, or at that time, the hosteler took
the keys of the parlour from the Prior’s bed; but on Sundays, before
procession, no one could receive the benediction, or ceremony of dismission.

Persons of rank were received with processions and high honours. One of
the great bells was struck three times, to give the monks notice of
assembling in the church to robe themselves. Visitors were allowed to make
a stay of two days and two nights, and on the third day, after dinner, they
were to depart. If by accident a guest could not then go, the hosteler signified
his request to the Abbot, or Prior, for a longer stay. If in health, he was to be
present at Matins, and follow the convent in everything, unless he had leave

to the contrary. Women were to be received who came with an honourable
suite.[70] Particular attention was paid to the parents of monks, for whom
necessaries and food were to be provided whenever they came to see their
children—especially on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, wheresoever they
took refection, in the town or house; and they were to be honourably
received on the Vigil.[71]
The Refectory, as described by monastic writers, was a large hall
wainscoted on the north and south sides, and in the west and nether parts
was a long bench of stone, in mason-work, from the cellar-door to the
pantry, or cove-door. It had a dresser in it: above the wainscot was a large
picture of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. John; but in most places—and
here perhaps—was the Cross or Crucifixion, to which, on entering the Fratry
with washed hands, the monks made obeisance with their faces to the east.
Within the door on the left was an Almery—where stood the grace-cup (the
classical αγαθου δαιμονος), out of which the monks, after grace every day,
drank round the table—and another large one on the right, with smaller
within, where stood the mazers, of which each monk had his peculiar one,
with a ewer and basin, which served the Sub-prior to wash his hands in at the
table, of which he sat as chief.[72] At the west end was a loft above the cellar,
ascended by stairs with an iron railing, where the convent and monks dined
together, the Sub-prior sitting at the upper end of the table. At the south end
of the high table, within a glass window-frame, was an iron desk, ascended
by stone steps, with an iron rail, where lay a Bible, out of which one of the
novices read a part in Latin during dinner. The readers at the table were to
give ear to the Prior in case of error; and if they did not understand his
correction, they were to begin the verse again, even repeatedly, until they
comprehended the Prior’s meaning. When the reader had finished, the
master of the novices rang a silver bell hanging over his head, to call one of
them to come to the high table to say grace; a single stroke of this bell
(skilla), signified the conclusion of the lecture or the meal.[73]
ospitality, which the monastic rule enjoined upon all its
professors, was faithfully practised by the Cistercians. The
Refectory, as well as the Hospitium, or Guest Hall, of this Abbey,
appears to have been an elegant and capacious chamber, with a vaulted stone
roof supported on Gothic pillars, the massive bases of which still remain.
But as the buildings were long thrown open as a stone quarry, for the use of
the public, the squared and sculptured materials with which they were built

and adorned, were employed for ages in constructing those shapeless hovels
which now cluster, as if in mockery, around the sacred pile, and show to
what base uses in this changing world, even the masterpieces of art may be
applied.
The Dole.—An opening in the wall of the refectory westward, shows the
place where the monk appointed to that duty, administered to the poor their
daily portion of bread and beer. To that door the hungry and the weary never
applied in vain—
Pilgrim, whosoe’er thou art,
Worn with travel, faint with fear,
Halt, or blind, or sick of heart,
Bread and welcome wait thee here.

At the east end of the Refectory was “a neat table, with a screen of
wainscot over it, for the master of the novices, the elects, and novices, to
dine and sup at: two windows opened into the refectory from the great
kitchen, one large for principal days, the other smaller for ordinary days; and
through these the dishes were served. Over against the door in the cloister
was a conduit or lavatory, for the monks to wash their hands and faces, of a
round form, covered with lead, and all marble, excepting the outer wall,
without which they might walk about the Tower. After the monks had waited
a while on the Abbot, they sat down at two other tables, placed at the sides
of the refectory, and had their service brought in by the novices, who, when
the monks had dined, sat down to their own dinner. Fires in the refectory
were ordered from All-hallows Day to Good-Friday, and the wood was
found by the cellarer. Pinafores or super-tunics, to protect the clothes at
dinner, are mentioned by Lynwood, and occur in foreign consuetudinals.
Giraldus Cambrensis, on dining with the Prior of Canterbury, “noted sixteen
dishes, besides intromels,” or entremets; “a superfluous use of signs, much
sending of dishes from the Prior to the attending monks, and from them to
the lower tables;” with “much ridiculous gesticulation in returning thanks,
with much whispering, loose, idle, and licentious discourse;” herbs brought
in but not tasted; numerous kinds of fish, roasted, boiled, stuffed, fried, eggs,
dishes exquisitely cooked with spices; salted meats to provoke appetite;
wines of various kinds; pimento made of wine, honey, and spices; with
claret, mead, and other beverages. Respecting these, it was not unusual, says
Barnard, to see brought a vessel half full to try the quality and flavour of the

wine; and that, after proof thereof, the monks decided in favour of the
strongest. Superior dinners were always given on the feasts of the Apostles;
but it was not lawful, it seems, to eat the flesh of any animal nourished on
the earth, because this had been cursed by God; but the curse not extending
to air and water, birds were permitted, as created of the same element as fish.
Hence the prohibition of quadrupeds; but as it was found

The Refectory.
Tintern Abbey.

impossible for inland monasteries to have fish enough, to eat flesh became
unavoidable.[74] However, to the great rule all their articles of food bore
relation; namely, bread, beer, soup, beans for soup, all Lent; oats for gruel,
on Thursdays and Saturdays, in that season; flour for pottage, every day in
the same season; fried dishes, wastels, or fine bread for dinner and supper,
on certain feasts; formictæ, or fine flour cakes, in Advent, Christmas, against
Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and certain feasts; ‘fat things,’ which appear to have
been bacon,[75] were frequent with the Præmonstratenses; black beans and
salt, with the Clugniacks; general bad fare with the Cistercians. In certain

solemnities, we are told the convent was in the habit of retiring with the
Abbot, leaving a few in the refectory, in order to eat meat elsewhere; and
that they frequently dined in ‘extra-cloister’ apartments, where “they used to
invite women (devout nuns, perhaps) to talk, eat, and drink with them.”[76]
Diet was strictly prescribed; variety of viands was forbidden; flesh was
allowed only to the sick or invalids; fish, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese, were
not to be used on common days, but only on special occasions, as dainties or
“pittances.”[77] None but their guests and the sick were allowed any other
than brown bread; they might use the common herbs of the country; but
pepper and other spices were forbidden.
These observations, quoted from various authorities, apply to the
monastic Orders generally, among whom the regulations of the refectory
appear to have been nearly the same; but that order to which the Abbey of
Tinterne belonged, professed the greatest abstinence, mortified diet, and
abhorrence of all luxuries. To the devout taste of St. Bernard, the most rigid
rules were the most agreeable; and hence he became a Cistercian, the
strictest of the monastic orders in France. At that time they were but few in
number, for, owing to their excessive austerities, men were discouraged from
joining them. Bernard, however, by his superior genius, his eminent piety,
and his ardent zeal, gave to this Order a permanent lustre and celebrity. At
the age of twenty-three, with more than thirty companions, he entered into
the monastery, and was afterwards appointed Abbot of Clairval. To those
noviciates who desired admission, he used to say—“If ye hasten to those
which are within, dismiss your bodies which ye brought from the world; let
the spirit alone enter here; the flesh profiteth nothing.” “Yet, amidst all these
disagreeable austerities,” says his biographer, “the soul of Bernard was
inwardly taught of God; and as he grew in the divine life, he learned to
correct the harshness and asperities of his sentiments.”
The Cistercian habit, as shown in the preceding woodcut, was a white
robe in the nature of a cassock, with a black scapular and hood. Their
garment was girt with a black girdle of wool; in the choir, they had over it a
white cowl, and over that a hood, with a rochet hanging down, bound before
to the waist, in a point behind to the calf of the leg. When they went abroad,
they wore a cowl and a great hood, all black, which was also the choir habit.

The Lay Brothers of this Order were clad in a dark colour; their
scapular hung down about a foot in length before, and was rounded at the
bottom. Their hood was like that which the priests wore over their cowl,
excepting the difference of the colour. In the choir they wore a cloak or
mantle, reaching to the ground, and of the same colour as the habit.
The Novices, who were clerks, wore the same habit in the church, but it
was all white; their scapular was not of the same length in all places, for
sometimes it reached only half-way down the thigh, in others to the midleg,
or even to the heels.[78]
The sumptuary regulations extended even to the ornaments of their
churches, and the vestments of the ministers. The altar cloth, the alb, and the
service, were to be of plain linen; the stole and maniple, which were at first
of cloth, were allowed afterwards to be of silk. Palls, capes, dalmatics, and
tunics, were forbidden. The crosses were to be of wood, painted; and it was
forbidden to have them made of carved work, or of silver or gold. The cruets
for the service of the altar, were not to be of gold or silver: the chalice and
fistula might be of silver gilt; the candlesticks were to be iron, and the
censers of iron or copper. Pictures or painted glass were not to be allowed
in their churches; which in all monasteries of this order were dedicated to
God, under the invocation of the Virgin Mary.
Cistercians, according to the reformed rule, were obliged to perform
their devotions together seven times every twenty-four hours. The
Nocturnal, the first of these services, was performed at two o’clock in the
morning; two Matins, or Prime, commenced at six o’clock; Tierce, at nine
o’clock; the Sexte, at twelve o’clock; the None, at three in the afternoon;
Vespers, at six; and the Compline, at seven o’clock in the evening. As the
monks retired to bed at eight, they had six hours to sleep before the
Nocturnal began; and if they again betook themselves to rest, after that
service, it was not considered any fault or infringement of the rule; but after
matins, they were not permitted to have the same indulgence. At the first
stroke of the convent-bell for prayers, they were to suspend all matters of
business in which they might happen to be engaged at the moment; and
those who copied books, or were employed in any kind of writing—even if
they had begun a text letter—were not allowed to finish it. They were to fast
every day in Lent, till six o’clock in the evening. During meals, as already
mentioned in these pages, the Scriptures were read to them by one of the

brethren, who performed this and
other offices in weekly rotation.
After the Compline, all
conversation was prohibited, and
they silently retired to rest. The
dormitory was a long barrack-like
room, not divided into separate
cells, where each monk had his
own bed furnished with a mat,
blanket, coverlet, and a pillow
which was not to exceed a foot and
a half in length. When any of the
fraternity went abroad, they always
walked in couples, so that each
might be a check upon the other,
and incite him to edifying
thoughts.[79]
At a General Chapter of the
Cistercian Order, held in the year
1134, it was resolved that the rules
of St. Benedict regarding diet,
clothing, morals, and divine
service, should continue to be strictly observed; and to these were added
many new regulations for the suppression of luxury. It was directed that their
monasteries, as already observed, should be founded in the most retired and
solitary places; that the members of the Order should provide the necessaries
of life by the labour of their hands. They were allowed, however, to possess
lands, rivers, woods, vineyards, and meadows; with sheep, oxen, horses, and
other domestic animals; but no deer nor bears, nor other animals kept
merely[80] for pleasure. They were forbidden to possess tithes, the
advowsons or revenues of churches, dues of ovens or mills, bond-servants,
or even rents of lands.[81] The reason for these restrictions was, that they
might not live by the labour of others; yet, upon the pretext of enabling the
monks to live in greater retirement and abstraction from the world, they were
allowed to admit into their community a certain number of lay brothers,
called converts, whose office consisted in managing the secular business of
the Convent, including the cultivation of their lands, in which they were

permitted to employ hired servants. These lay brethren did not take the
monastic vow; but in every other respect they were treated exactly like the
professed monks.
With regard to the extension of their order, no convent was allowed to
send forth a colony, unless the community consisted of at least sixty monks,
and held a license, both from the general chapter, and from the archbishop,
or bishop. Each monastery, as we have said, was to consist of at least twelve
monks and their superiors;[82] and before they could be brought to their new
residence, the buildings required for their immediate accommodation were to
be provided; namely, an oratory, a dormitory, a stranger’s cell, and a porter’s
lodge. The books required for divine service, were also to be got ready. The
superior of the new establishment was bound to pay a visit to the parent
monastery once a year; and the Abbots of all the monasteries of the
Cistercian order, were obliged to attend the General Chapter held annually
at Cisteaux,[83] those only excepted, who were excused by sickness or
distance. Abbots in Scotland, Ireland, and Sicily, were obliged to be present
only every fourth year. In some cases it was even allowed to send delegates.
[84]

rofessions.—No person desirous of becoming a monk was
suffered to enter upon his noviciate under fifteen years of age. The
candidate having made his petition to be admitted, was, after four
days, brought before the abbot, and a select number of the monks
in the Chapter-house, where he threw himself down with his face to the
ground. Being asked by the Abbot what he desired, he replied,—“The mercy
of God and yours.” Upon this the Abbot made him stand up, and explained
to him the strictness of the rules, and the self-denial required in keeping
them; after which, he asked him if he was willing to submit to the restraint
they imposed. Upon his replying in the affirmative, the Abbot admonished
him, and when he concluded with these words,—“May God finish the good
work which he hath begun in thee;” all who were present said, Amen! and
then the candidate bowed, and retired to the guest-chamber.
A similar ceremony was observed when he was again introduced into the
Chapter-house next day, after having read the rules of the Order. On the
third day, he was admitted into the cell of the novices, and began the year of
his probation; during which he was prepared and instructed for taking the
vows, by a person called the Master of the Novices, who was usually one of

the oldest and most learned of the monks. At the conclusion of the
twelvemonth’s probation, when it was supposed he had had a sufficient trial
of their discipline and manner of life, he was again formally interrogated;
and if he persisted in his request, he was allowed to make his profession, and
become a regular member of the Order.[85] The following is a copy of the
formulary used in English monasteries on such occasions:—
“The first petycion in the Collogium: ‘Syr, I besyche yow and alle the
Convent for the luffe of God, our Ladye Sanct Marye, Sanct John of
Baptiste, and alle the hoyle cowrte of hevyne, that ye wolde resave me to
lyve and dye here emongs yow, in the state of a monke, a prebendarye and
servant unto alle, to the honour of God, solace to the companye, prouffet to
the place, and helth unto my sawle.’
“The answer unto the examinacyon: ‘Syr, I tryste through the helpe of
God, and your good prayers, to keep alle these thyngs ye have now heyr
rehersede.’
“The first petycion before the profession: ‘Syr, I have beyn heyr now this
twellmonth nere hand, and lovyde be God, me lykes ryght well both the
ordour and the companye. Whereupon I besyche yow, and all the companye,
for the luffe of God, our Ladye Sanct Marye, Sanct John of Baptiste, and alle
the hoyle companye of hevyn, that ye will resave me unto my profession, at
my twellmonth day, according to my petycion which I made when I was first
resaved heyr emongs yow.’ ”[86]
The Cistercians, much to their honour, took considerable pains to
cultivate and promote learning. The transcribing of books was one of the
principal occupations in all their monasteries. A certain number of the
brotherhood were constantly employed in the Scriptorium, in making
copies of the most esteemed works, to furnish and augment the common
library. None, however, were permitted to write new books, without first
obtaining a license to that effect from the General Chapter. In the principal
monasteries a chronicle was kept, in which the monks recorded, in Latin, the
most remarkable events, both of general and local interest, that occurred
within their knowledge.[87] The chronicle of Tinterne Abbey, as partly
transcribed in the Monasticon, contains copies of those deeds and charters,
by which former rights and privileges were confirmed, and new benefactions
added; but it includes no chronicle of passing events, public or private.

Many and great were the privileges, franchises, and immunities granted
to this Order in general, by sundry kings and pontiffs; and on some
particular houses were conferred very special favours. The brothers of the
order were exempted from appearing in any court, or at the trial of any cause
whatever, if the distance from the monastery exceeded two days’ journey.
They were exempted from tithes; the ordinary could not call upon, nor
punish them for any crime; neither could their houses be visited by any one,
except their own abbot. Their benefactors, those who frequented their mills
[molendini], as well as their friends and servants, were all exempted from
the ban of excommunication.[88] Boniface XI. made an effort to relieve
them still farther, by exempting them from the payment of tithes for their
lands, though let out to others; but this was rejected by King Henry IV., who
would not permit the bull for that purpose to be executed. The monks of
Tinterne, in common with their brethren of that order, enjoyed all the
privileges and immunities here named. They were great proficients in the
science of agriculture; and from the skill manifested in the cultivation of the
abbey lands, and in those occupied by their tenants, produced the happiest
effects on that important branch of rural economy.
The Cloister, which is so often described in poetry as the abode of
religious harmony, was nevertheless subject, at times, to all those unruly
passions which in the world engender strife amongst brethren, and destroy
the quiet of secular life. Every monastery contained within its own walls,
those elements of malice and dissension, which it required no common
energy on the part of the abbot to regulate and subdue. Perverse men,
clothed in the robe of meekness, were a constant source of trial to those
patterns of monastic discipline, who laboured to correct and reform them.[89]
Persecution within the cloister existed occasionally under two forms: men of
eminent sanctity suffered it from degenerate brethren, sometimes, simply on
account of their superior justice; and at others, in consequence of their
endeavours to reform them. Sometimes when the monastery fell under the
dominion of an evil superior, the monks who persevered in sanctity fled
from his persecution.[90]
The character of a good Cistercian monk, contrasted with one of an
opposite disposition, is thus drawn:—It happened that the pious Gobert, a
monk of Villars, having to undertake a journey for the arrangement of certain
affairs, set out accompanied by one of the brothers named Peter. Arriving

late in the evening at a town where they were to pass the night, they were
fatigued and exhausted with the labour and heat of the day; and Peter,
causing a table to be spread, drew from the bag he carried, abundant
provisions, and then ordered cups to be served, and many things made ready
for their repast. To the pious Gobert, all this seemed to be more than
necessary, more than was consistent with perfect moderation, and his
conscience silently accused him of yielding too readily to the force of
temptation. But after both had supped, he did not venture to give utterance to
the compunctious feelings that were then passing in his mind. Next morning,
however, as they were again prosecuting their journey through umbrageous
lanes, he began meekly and humbly to disclose his thoughts; expressing his
fears that the expense of the previous day had exceeded their wants; adding,
that the patrimony of Christ ought not to be spent in superfluities, but given
to the poor; that beneficed clerks are only dispensers of the Church, not
lords of its substance; that when, in the words of St. Ambrose, we assist the
poor, we give nothing of our own, but only that which the church appoints us
to dispense; and, therefore, that ecclesiastical goods belong not to clerks, but
to the poor.[91]
Saying these and other things that pressed heavily on his mind, Gobert
lamented that he should have squandered the money which did not belong to
him. But brother Peter did not receive this reproof with a humble mind; on
the contrary, he became so angry that he did not answer him a word. Thus
they rode on for nearly three hours, Peter all the while preserving a sullen
and painful silence, which the holy Gobert observing, he tried to soothe and
turn away his displeasure, by addressing him in terms of mild and brotherly
affection. At last, seeing that he could make no impression upon him, he
said, “My brother, it is time for us to discharge the service of hours to our
Creator!” Whereupon, according to the custom of the Cistercians, they
dismounted and knelt down to begin the office. In this posture of devotion,
while brother Peter was prostrate on the earth, Gobert, with clasped hands
turned towards him, and bursting into tears, humbly implored his forgiveness
for having, by words of admonition and seeming reproof, moved his
resentment. But as this did not appear to soften the monk’s obdurate heart,
he continued his entreaties, and declared that he would not rise from his
knees until he had forgiven him. At last, touched and overcome by so much
Christian humility, brother Peter relented; and, taking Gobert by the hand,
with feelings of mingled shame and contrition, raised him up; and having

freely forgiven him,[92] and received his forgiveness, they went on their way
rejoicing.
Thus far the chronicle, which the reader will find quoted in the Ages of
Faith. “But,” says the learned author, “it was chiefly as reformers of their
respective communities, that the holy men of monastic life suffered
persecution.” In estimating the fortitude of those who laboured in this
vineyard, it is to be observed, that specious arguments were never wanting to
excuse the evil for which they sought a remedy. The monks of St. Benedict,
according to Orderic Vitalis, who resisted the reform introduced by the
Abbot Robert,[93] defended themselves on this ground, urging that the
different circumstances of the times required a life different from that of the
hermits of Egypt. “God forbid,” said they, “that valiant knights, that subtile
philosophers, and eloquent doctors, merely because they have renounced the
world, should be obliged as mean slaves to occupy themselves in ignoble
works.[94] On these occasions, however, the real source of hostility was
seldom avowed. Much was advanced in the time of St. Bernard, in respect to
the colour of habits; but St. Peter the Venerable disengaged the question
from its adventitious appendages: “Perhaps,” said he, writing to St. Bernard,
“there is another and a deeper cause for this dissension between the
Clugniacs and the Cistercians—between the ancient and the modern
communities. We are restorers of piety that was grown cold; we are
distinguished from others in manners, as well as in habits and customs. This
is the secret and urgent cause of the breach of charity and of tongues, that are
sharpened like swords against us. And oh, how much to be deplored, if the
abstinence, the purity of a whole life; if invincible obedience, if unbroken
fasts, if perpetual vigils, if such a yoke of discipline, if so many palms of
patience, if so many labours—not so much of an earthly, as of a celestial life
—should be dissipated by one hiss of the serpent: how much to be deplored,
if the old dragon should thus, in an instant, with one breath, dissipate all
your treasures collected by the grace of God, and leave you empty in the
sight of the Supreme Judge!”[95]
f the miraculous legends connected with these institutions, the
following, taken from the annals of a sister abbey,[96] may serve as
a specimen:—One evening, three strangers knocked at the abbey
gate, and being admitted to lodge there for the night, were
immediately conducted into the church, as the rule of St. Benedict directs;
and having there finished their devotions, they were led back to the Guest

Chamber, and welcomed in by brother Walter. Thence, as soon as the
ceremony of washing their feet was over, they were summoned to the
Refectory; but scarcely had they taken their seats, when it was discovered
that one of the strangers was missing, and his chair empty. “Where,” said the
hospitaller, addressing the other two; “where is your companion?”
“Companion!” said the strangers, greatly surprised at the question; “thy
servants had no companion.” “Nay,” quoth the friar, “say not so, I pray you;
for ’tis but this instant that I placed three at table, and he who sat betwixt
you has left his chair empty.” “Nay, we assure thee,” rejoined the strangers,
“that no third person entered with us, neither have we journeyed hither with
any man; but, being overtaken by night, we came along to the abbey gate,
nor have we spoken to any man, save only thyself.” Strong in his own
conviction, friar Walter was immovable; and calling the porter and another
monk to his assistance, the fact of a third person having entered was
confirmed by their united testimony. Hereupon the strangers could only
repeat what they had already asserted; but to give it more solemnity, they
called St. Benedict himself to witness the truth of their words. All was
amazement; diligent search was made, but no foot had repassed the gate, nor
was any stranger to be found in church or cloisters; so the two visitors, being
spared all further question, were hospitably entertained for the night, and
dismissed with the usual benediction. The next night, however, the
hospitaller had a vision in his sleep: a personage of angelic features appeared
to him; and with a voice like that of celestial music, said, “Walter, dost thou
know me? I am the stranger whose sudden disappearance last night so
greatly moved the warder. Know then, that by the good pleasure of heaven I
am appointed to watch over this Monastery; to attend the outgoing and the
incoming of every holy brother; and that my present errand is to certify that
the alms and oblations of this community, more especially of your Abbot,
have ascended in sweet memorial to heaven, and are accepted.” Again—
Waltheof, an abbot of whom we read in the Cistercian Annals, had many
severe trials to undergo, not only with refractory monks, but with the arch-
fiend himself, who appeared to have delegated the management of his other
affairs to inferior powers of darkness, in order that he himself might direct
his whole force and strategy against the uncompromising Waltheof. But the
abbot, aware of all these machinations, never lost an inch of ground; every
fresh rencontre was to him a fresh triumph; for knowing the strength and
skill of the enemy, he took up the shield of faith, and, cased in this armour of

proof, met his spiritual foe with a look of contempt and defiance. To report
their numerous conflicts, would be to recapitulate the days of the life of
Waltheof—for it was literally a warfare. At length, one evening after
Compline—when all the monks had retired to the dormitory—the abbot
continued lingering in the church; for, feeling a weight at heart, he wished to
unburden his grief in solitary prayer and meditation. At such moments, it is
well known, the powers of darkness are always most active—most on the
alert; and Waltheof no sooner looked down the left aisle, than he perceived
the arch-fiend moving stealthily from behind a pillar. In this instance he had
assumed the habit of a monk; but as he cast no shadow behind him, and
caused no sound as he shuffled along the tesselated floor, the abbot soon
recognised his old customer, and calmly waited for him at the foot of the
altar. Seeing himself thus baffled, the fiend suddenly threw aside his cowl,
and assumed the terrific form of a soldier, armed at all points, and of such
gigantic proportions, that in a moment every pillar in the nave seemed to
have dwindled into insignificance. His grand object, as the abbot foresaw,
was to inspire him with sudden terror, and thus drive him from his sanctuary;
but the attempt was vain. He then brandished a huge spear, and belching
forth streams of blue fire as he approached, made a feint, as if he would have
hurled the weapon at his head. But the abbot, continuing to make the sign of
the cross, kept the great adversary of mankind at bay; yet still finding that he
did not quit the sacred pile, he armed himself with the pix which contained
the sacred wafer; and then advancing, exclaimed, “Behold, thou wicked
soldier, thou base hireling! here is thy judge, who shall quickly send thee to
the bottomless pit! Wait for him if thou darest!” What need of words; at this
sight the foul fiend suddenly collapsed in all his terrific proportions, and
vanished in a cloud of smoke.[97]
These two examples may suffice to give the reader some idea of the
numerous legends with which the monastic annals abound: and, in addition
to what has been already said of the internal administration of this order, we
shall, from time to time, introduce other particulars, drawn from various
sources, but chiefly from their own chronicles.

Environs.—It would be difficult to name a locality that, within so small
a compass, contains so many richly-varied landscapes, as the Vale of
Tinterne. In whatever direction we move, the eye is arrested by new features,
new combinations of the graceful and picturesque. A saunter along the river,
where it forms a crescent between the abbey and the village, will gratify
every lover of the picturesque, and bring before him the beauty and
freshness of nature, in striking contrast with the sublime but faded
monuments of art. The best hour for enjoying this scene is about sunset; and,
on returning, the tourist may ascend the Chapel Hill, and thence, in a more
extended panorama, look down upon what would have furnished a rich
subject for the pencil of Claude. The river, with its fantastic windings, here
clamorous among shallows—there gliding away with the rapid but inaudible
march of time—masses of brown rock overhanging the pass, gleaming in
confused blocks through the trees that clamber up their

The Vale of Tintern.
From the Devil’s Pulpit.

steep sides, or crown their pinnacles with masses of verdure; while here and
there a cottage, with its whitewashed walls, gives new life and interest to the
scene.
How oft the pilgrim, lingering here,
Beneath that yew’s sepulchral shade,
Hath dropt the penitential tear,
And, sighing to himself, hath said—
There’s solace here for all my woe,
St. Mary’s altar gleams below;
And blessèd be the hand divine,
That leads the pilgrim to her shrine.

But the point from which the Abbey of Tinterne is seen to most
advantage, is that chosen by Mr. Bartlett in the illustration opposite. The way
to the ‘Devil’s Pulpit,’ as it is called, runs along the left bank of the Wye,
and, in its winding course, presents many little glimpses of the vale and

river, that, like small cabinet-pictures, serve as a gradual introduction to the
splendid panorama of nature—the features of which are here so faithfully
illustrated by the pencil, as to render description superfluous.
The river, rolling far below—
Here swift as time, there still and slow;
O’ershadowed here with arching bowers,
There sweetly fringed with summer flowers;
The Vale—where, through its orchard trees,
The curling vapour meets the breeze,
And, vast and venerably grand,
The Abbey’s mouldering arches stand,—
All these a wondrous scene impart,
To charm the eye and melt the heart;
The scroll of ages to unfold,
And paint the wondrous men of old.

Of this lofty and romantic scene Mr. Thomas writes:—“Who shall
describe the glories of this splendid view? Who cannot but involuntarily
think of the second scene in the Temptation, when the prince of the power of
the air took the Prince of peace into an exceeding high mountain, and
showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, in a
moment of time? But let no satanic thought break in upon the holy influence
which the soul delights to cherish in this lovely spot! It seems as though
imagination, that potent enchantress of the mind, had transmitted us to some
pinnacled mountain to show us the peace, the beauty, and permanence of the
works of God, in vivid contrast with the feeble, the transitory, the desolated
works of man—the ruined abbey encircled by the everlasting hills. This
comprehensive panorama contains the most pleasing combination of nature
and art, mountain and meadow, water and wood. There flows the glassy
Wye, coiled like a serpent, and either buried in woods, or gliding peacefully
through meadows spangled with fleecy flocks. Its buoyant bosom bears a
little bark freighted with the gay partizans of pleasure, whose scarlet banner
is playing with the summer’s breeze. The distant sounds of a solitary flute
harmonize with the busy hum of bees, and the song of some half-secluded
bird. Again, we hear the hoarser cry of the mariner, and the metallic voice of
an industrious anvil. The unpretending church of Tinterne, in its unspotted
whiteness, contrasts with its aged companion—a sombre yew, which, like an
ample pall, is overshadowing the clustered monuments of death.”
Lancaut cliffs, which contribute a striking feature to this part of the
scenery, are rendered still more interesting by the following tradition:—

During the calamitous war, so often referred to in these pages, Sir John
Winter was eminently distinguished by his devotion to the royal cause. The
personal risks and pecuniary sacrifices to which he was daily exposed, only
served to give more warmth to his loyalty. When the Parliament sent their
first troops to the banks of the Wye, Winter converted his house at Sidney
into a fortress; and so promptly and skilfully was this accomplished, that it
was rendered not merely inaccessible, but so well provisioned and fortified
as to be able to stand a siege. In this, perhaps, there was some little
exaggeration; for the garrison, then at Gloucester, and acting under the
direction of skilful and determined leaders, were not likely to have been
foiled, had they made any such attempt. Their grand object was Chepstow
Castle; and if that fortress was ultimately found to be untenable, the defence
of a private fortalice must have been a rash and hopeless attempt. It proves,
nevertheless, that his loyalty admitted of no fear, and was prepared for every
extremity. Acting under the command of Lord Herbert—whose operations
will be detailed in our account of Raglan—Winter, by his rapid movements,
frequently alarmed the troops under General Massey. But after the siege of
Gloucester was raised by the Earl of Essex, the king’s interest in that part of
the country was much impaired; and the Parliamentary forces continuing to
advance, Sir John Winter was compelled by urgent duties to abandon his
own residence, and retire across the frontier. In his retreat, however, through
the forest of Tudenham, Cromwell’s dragoons were immediately on his
traces; escape was seemingly impossible—he was completely hemmed in by
the enemy on one hand, and the Wye on the other; and though well mounted,
he soon perceived that his pursuers were sensibly gaining upon him.
Determined that they should never boast of having taken him prisoner, he
turned his horse’s head suddenly towards the rocks, which now bear his
name, and by means, he knew not how, quickly disappeared and descended
the cliffs in safety. At the base of these rolled the Wye, then in flood tide; but
plunging into the river, his gallant steed carried him safely to the opposite
bank, where he was soon joined by a party of royalists, and congratulated
upon his miraculous escape. The point at which he descended the rocks is
still called Winter’s leap. Of his escape, by scrambling down the cliff, there
is no doubt; but to represent it as the result of a leap[98] on horseback, would
be to assume the peculiar privilege of “Geoffrey of Monmouth.”
After this perilous feat, the hardy royalist returned to his house at Sidney;
but finding it, on closer inspection, to be quite untenable, he had it

demolished, and then, joining the king’s forces, took part in the battle of
Naseby, which gave a finishing blow to the king’s affairs.
walk from the Abbey to the village of Tinterne Parva, will never
fail to interest the stranger; in this short distance, many new
features and new combinations of scenery crowd upon the view,
and carry the mind back to remote times, when the cloister bell
was the only sound that broke in upon the stillness of the scene. Sweeping
round the outer ring of the crescent, within which the river flows in a deep
smooth channel, the road is overhung by masses of rock, shaded by trees,
and skirted by cottages, which, from the situations they occupy, rather than
any taste or merit in their construction, present a picturesque appearance. As
we advance, the scene is continually changing: the old abbey walls, beautiful
from whatever point they are contemplated, assume a comparatively new
aspect from the western approach, particularly about sunset, when the whole
building appears as if bathed in a flood of yellow light. To enjoy the scenery
of the place under such circumstances, is worth a long day’s pilgrimage. The
river, which here doubles upon itself, so as to take the form of a horse shoe,
is of a depth navigable for small craft; and though here and there fretted by
rocks, the surface, as we passed, was smooth and limpid; through which, as
in a mirror, the picturesque scenery on its banks appeared in distinct and
beautiful reflexion.
Near to the Cross, the ancient market-place of the village, the stranger is
shown a ruined edifice, partly covered with ivy, and bearing the evidence of
having suffered less from time than violence. This is supposed to have been
the villa, or extra-cloister residence of the abbots of Tinterne, to which at
certain seasons they could retire from the exercise of their public functions,
and enjoy the privileges of social life—the society and conversation of
friends and strangers, without the forms and austerities of the cloister. Of this
building, nothing but a few shapeless walls is left; but from the size and
structure of the windows, square-headed and divided by transoms, it seems
probable that the house is not earlier than the reign of Elizabeth. Mr. Thomas
thinks, that from its Tudor-Gothic style, it was probably built by the abbot
and some of the brotherhood, as a retreat about the period when the original
foundation was dissolved. During the war which devastated the frontier in
1645-6, it was taken and ransacked by the soldiers of the Commonwealth.
Since that period it has often changed its owners; and at one time, we are

told, though on rather uncertain ground, it was the residence of the family of
Fielding the novelist—
Whose name
Still draws the pilgrim to its shattered frame,
And bids him linger ’neath its shadow.

The parish church of Tinterne Parva is a small but very ancient building,
irregularly divided into porch, nave, and chancel. Its erection, according to
the historian of the abbey, was anterior to the foundation of the monastery
itself; and by some writers it is even considered to have been the parent
church. The evidences of its great antiquity may be found in the building
itself; and a practised eye will detect indications of a British origin, in certain
niches or circular arched windows in the massive walls of the western side.
The porch, which is chaste and in good preservation, is a subsequent
erection, and yet of a remote age. The chancel, which “most uncouthly joins
the nave,” is the latest portion of the fabric. There are fragments of some
antique monuments scattered about the floor—memorials of ecclesiastics—
which, the writer sarcastically observes, “have been judiciously cut up, and
squared, to mend the pavement!” By this sage arrangement, the parochial
economy has been brought into the sharpest practice; and although it has
evinced no special veneration for the sainted dead, or the hallowed relics of
antiquity, yet “the ruinous expense of hauling fresh slabs from the quarry, on
the opposite side of the way, has been most considerately spared.” Moreover,
he adds, “the pipe of the stove within, is picturesquely thrust through the
only Gothic window remaining in the nave!”[99]
As if its smoke, though dark and somewhat denser,
Were meant to represent the ancient Censer,
That once, with daily sacrifice, perfumed
The ground where saints and heroes lay inhumed.

By the churchyard stile, as Mr. Thomas happily describes it, “and beneath
the dark mantling boughs of the yew-tree, a scene of exquisite sweetness
steals upon the eye. The beautiful meadows beyond are skirted by a ridge of
lofty woods, with the gentle Wye flowing like a liquid mirror below. Beneath
the

The Ferry at Tintern.

renewed limbs of an aged elm-tree, hollowed and blasted by the storms of
many winters, a flock of unmolested sheep repose in grateful shade; these
are, indeed, made “to lie down in green pastures,” and are “led beside the
still waters.”
It would be difficult to picture to the mind’s eye a scene of more
enchanting repose; in such a place as this, with such objects before him, the
verdant pastures, the pendent groves, the winding river, the tranquil sky,—
where the very clouds, with their fleecy wings stretched forth in vain to
catch the subtile current, seem like a fleet becalmed on the wide ocean,
waiting for the breeze;—with these before him, ambition forgets the world;
sorrow looks up with more cheerful resignation; cares and disappointments
lose both their weight and their sting: with so little of sordid earth, so much
of the sublimity of nature to contemplate, his thoughts become chastened,
soothed, and elevated; and the heart expands under a new sense of
happiness, and a feeling of brotherly kindness and benevolence towards
everything that breathes. He feels the poet’s exhortation in all its force—

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come, like a blight,
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, the shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth into the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teaching!

And then turning to Wordsworth:—
For I have learnt
To look on Nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the roused ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows, and the woods,
And mountains, and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create,
And what perceive.

Striguil.—The whole frontier of this interesting country—the land of
Gwent—is sprinkled over with picturesque ruins,—the crumbling remains of
those warlike strongholds raised by the Norman barons, as a defence to their
newly-acquired possessions, which were brought into frequent jeopardy by
the martial and reluctant subjects of the new dynasty. To these we can only
advert in passing—for the plan on which this work is conducted, does not
admit of their being noticed in detail. In the second century after the
Conquest, six of these strongholds were erected near the British forest of
Wentwood[100]—a still venerable chase of between two and three thousand
acres in extent, and associated with many events in the history and traditions
of the Welsh frontiers. The grand object of these castles was to form a chain
of garrisoned forts for the protection of Norman interests against the

incursions of a people who, although compelled to pass under a foreign
yoke, still gloried in their independence, and embraced every occasion to
prove that their martial spirit, though bowed, was not broken.
One of the strongest of these embattled fastnesses was Castell-glyn-y-
Striguil,[101] erected, according to Doomsday-book, by the Norman warrior
so often named in this work, William Fitzosborne. In Hammer’s Irish
Chronicle,[102] however, its erection is ascribed to Gilbert Strongbow, whose
life and family we have already noticed in the account of Tinterne Abbey.
The remains of this castle, though inadequate to convey any just notion of its
original strength, are still sufficiently marked with regard to its size and
proportions. Its outworks have mouldered down into shapeless masses, over
which nature has thrown so dense a matting of underwood, that the traces of
art have been almost obliterated. The form “was that of an oblong square,
the angles of which, as usual in such cases, were defended by octagonal
towers;”[103] at one extremity was the donjon, or keep, the situation of which
is indicated by the shapeless mound of vegetation, which draws nutriment
from its débris. The walls were encircled by a deep moat, supplied by two
mountain rivulets, which unite at this point to form the Troggy, one of the
silver tributaries of the river Usk.
The other castles Avhich deserve a cursory notice, are, Llanvair,
Llanvaches, Pencoed, Dinham, and Penhow.[104] The latter, an ancient seat
of the Seymours, occupies a bold and romantic situation. The acclivity
which forms the direct approach to it, is nearly perpendicular. The view
which it commands consists of a valley, or rather wooded ravines, in the
foreground; and in the distance, a range of barren hills that bound the
horizon—
Hills that, giving birth
To circling fountains, glad the parent earth;
And from their bosom, framed for martial toil,
Sent forth the guardian heroes of the soil.

By the marriage of the Lady Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour, with
Henry the Eighth, and the birth of their son, afterwards Edward the Sixth, the
house of Penhow was placed in a situation to compete with that of Raglan;
and by the fortuitous influence thus acquired, the Seymours took a leading
authority in the management and direction of county affairs.

This castle, or rather fortalice, appears to have derived its strength, more
from its isolated and once inaccessible position, than from the extent of its
walls or outworks. A portion of the interior has been repaired and rendered
habitable, or rather a house has been erected on the site of the old berçeau,
and thus future patriots and statesmen may yet “come forth of Penhow.”
Llanvair, about six miles west from Chepstow, was the ancient residence
of the Kemeys family, from whom sprang Sir Nicholas Kemeys, the last
governor of Chepstow Castle, whose heroic but tragical fate has been
already noticed in these pages. The ruins of this ancient homestead are too
inconsiderable to challenge more than a passing glance from the tourist. The
same may be said of Dinham, a hamlet in the parish of Llanvair-Discoed.
Goldcliffe, “so called,” says Camden, “because the stones there, of a
golden colour, by reverberation of the sunne shining full upon them, glitter
with a wonderful brightnesse. Neither can I be easilie perswaded that nature
hath given this brightnesse in vaine unto the stones, and that there should be
a flowre here without fruit; were there any man that would serch into the
veines there, and using the direction of Art, enter into the inmost and
secretest bowels of the earth.”[105] But what was a mystery in the days of
Giraldus, and even of Camden, admits of a very simple solution. The Gold
Cliff, so called, consists of a rock nearly perpendicular, which rises abruptly
to the height of a hundred feet in an extensive moor.[106] It consists of
limestone strata, nearly horizontal and parallel, supported by a base of brown
sandstone, abounding with yellow mica. The brilliant effect of the sun upon
this micaceous surface, was a reason for the old belief in the neighbourhood,
that the rock contained gold, and was therefore considered as a situation of
peculiar value and sanctity.[107] The church of Goldcliffe belonged to a
priory founded and endowed in 1113, by Robert de Chandos, eighteen
years earlier than that of Tinterne Abbey, who, by the persuasion of Henry
the First, annexed it to the Abbey of Bec, in Normandy, whence a prior and
twelve Black, or Benedictine, friars were conveyed to it. On the suppression
of alien priories, Henry Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, obtained of King
Henry the Sixth the patronage of the priory, with permission to annex it to
the Abbey of St. Mary, at Tewkesbury, to which it was made a cell in 1442.
The Cambro-Britons, however, being offended at this measure, obliged the
prior and monks of Tewkesbury to quit Goldcliffe in 1445; but in the
following year they were permitted to return. In the twenty-ninth of the reign

of Henry the Sixth, Goldcliffe Priory was granted to the college at Eton, and
to Tewkesbury again. At the accession of Edward the Fourth, but seven years
later, it was restored to Eton college, in whose possession it has since
remained.[108]
Caldicot.—The castle of this name is said to have been erected by one of
the ancient Bohuns, earls of Hereford, hereditary lords-high-constables of
England,[109] for nearly two hundred years. From them the castle descended
to Henry, Duke of Lancaster, and upon his accession to the throne as Henry
the Fourth, it was invested in the crown. The ivy-mantled walls enclose a
large court, with three entrances. The principal gateway is flanked by lofty
square towers; and on the east side are the remains of the hall, comprising a
range of windows, of large size and elegant workmanship. The style of
masonry, as shown in the construction of the walls, is excellent; the courses
of large and equal sized stones, are accurately squared and jointed; but the
whole construction has more the appearance of an ancient domestic
residence, than of a British stronghold—well suited for the accommodation
of a feudal baron and his retinue in times of peace, but ill prepared to resist
an enemy, or sustain a siege.
Yet there Tradition tells her tale
Of warrior-knights in glittering mail—
Of martial feat, and festive hall,
And banners waving from the wall;
When Cambria’s rival spears were bent
For martial joust and tournament;
While Beauty, from her lattice high,
Surveyed the scene with radiant eye—
And Cambria’s Chivalry in arms
Did faithful homage to her charms.

But Caldicot, how lonely now!
The wreath has withered from thy brow;
The scene of song and martial deeds
Is now a wilderness of weeds!
Ah, such at last the homes shall be
Of England’s proudest Chivalry!

Mathern is remarkable as the burial-place of Theodoric or Teudrick, the
hermit king of Glamorgan, already mentioned.[110] His hermitage “among
the rocks of Tinterne,” to which he had retired for repose and meditation in
the evening of life, is supposed to have stood on the site of the present
abbey, which had thus, in the traditional records of the people, a spot already

consecrated by royal example, as a foundation for those gorgeous altars by
which it was subsequently distinguished.
When dragged from his retreat by the supplications of his family and
subjects, and armed once more against the Saxons, he solemnly enjoined his
son that, in the event of his falling in battle, they should erect a Christian
church over his remains, as a monument of his faith and patriotism. The
battle that speedily ensued, as tradition reports, was a great victory, but a
victory purchased with the blood of Teudrick; for during the fierce conflict
that had covered the Vale of Tinterne with the slain, he received a blow from
a Saxon battle-axe which proved fatal. From the field he was conveyed
homeward as far as Mathern, where he died; and there his son, who
succeeded him in the chieftainship, erected a church to his memory, the
name of which has perpetuated his martyrdom.[111]
The foundation of this church in its primitive state, consisted, like other
British structures, of a nave only—a side aisle and chancel appear to have
been added at a very early date; and, subsequently to these, a tower was
erected which completed the sacred edifice, and rendered it more
conspicuous as a historical landmark, and place of pilgrimage. It is
distinguished by handsome Gothic windows, portions of which are adorned
with stained glass; and the roof is supported by Saxon arches, resting on
massive octagon piers.
On a plain mural tablet in the Chancel of this ancient church, is the
following inscription, supposed to have been written by Bishop Godwin. The
fact of its being the sepulchre of the British Prince Teudrick, was finally
ascertained by the discovery of his stone coffin, in which the skeleton was
found almost entire. On the skull, also, in accordance with local tradition, a
fracture was observed, which clearly indicated the manner of his death, and
confirmed the testimony of local history.
The following is the inscription:—“Here lyeth entombed the body of
Theodoric, King of Morganuch, or Glamorgan, commonly called St.
Theodoric, and accounted a martyr, because he was slain in battle against
the Saxons, being then pagans, and in defence of the Christian Religion. The
battle was fought at Tynterne, where he obtained a great victory. He died
here, being on his way homeward, three days after the battle, having taken
order with Maurice, his son, who succeeded him in the kingdom, that in the
same place where he should happen to decease, a church should be built, and

his body buried in the same, which was accordingly performed in the year
600.”
“On ascending the tower of this church,” says Mr. Thomas, “a scene of
great extent and surpassing beauty is spread before the eye; on one side you
have a long reach of water, strewn with vessels and rocks; on the other a
wide undulating tract of land, overspread with villas and smiling meadows,
crowded with many a gentle herd; while beneath, and not the least
interesting objects of this scene, are those melancholy wrecks of bygone
splendour—Mathern Palace and Moinscourt.” The first of these two objects,
the old episcopal residence, is now “the ruinous retreat of some humble
followers of the plough.” The north and north-east portions, comprising the
porch and tower, were erected by Bishop De la Zouch, who was consecrated
in the year 1408, and the chapel hall, and some other compartments, were
added by Miles Sulley, who came to the see in 1504. Moinscourt, now
reduced to the humble uses of a farmhouse, was another of the palaces,
belonging to the see of Llandaff, and supposed to have been erected by
Bishop Godwin, who made it his favourite residence. Passing beneath a
Gothic porch, crowned with two lofty turrets, we enter a spacious
quadrangular court, at the extremity of which stands the palace. Over the
entrance is an escutcheon, on which are sculptured the arms of Godwin,
impaled with those of the see, and bearing the date of 1603. The court was
formerly adorned with two monuments of Roman antiquity found in the
vicinity—one a votive altar, the other an inscription, recording the rebuilding
of the Temple of Diana, by T. F. Posthumius Varus. It was from the ancient
Roman slabs, built into the garden walls of this residence, that Bishop
Godwin supplied the drawings and inscriptions for Camden’s Britannia.[112]
Before adverting to the final suppression of Tinterne Abbey, and the
confiscation of its revenues to the king’s treasury, we shall now take a brief
view of the circumstances which led to this grand revolution in our
ecclesiastical government—quoting for our authority those writers of
unquestionable veracity, who have treated of that momentous epoch. First,
with regard to the
Dissolution.—“Never,” says an historian of this epoch,[113] “never was
there any exploit, seemingly so full of hazard and danger, more easily
achieved than the subversion of our English monasteries.” The church
commissioners presented a startling report of the vices[114] and deceptions of
the monks and nuns; and, what was of equal weight in the condemnation,

they sent in the title-deeds of their estates, with the inventory of their plate,
jewels, and ready money. Upon this a bill was introduced, giving unto the
king and his heirs all monastic establishments, the revenues of which did not
exceed two hundred pounds sterling a year, with every kind of property
attached to them, whether real or personal. Three hundred and eighty of the
lesser houses fell within this category, and were suppressed; whereby the
king was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds per annum—an enormous
sum in that day—in addition to a hundred thousand pounds in ready money,
plate, and jewels. The bill, according to one writer, was not passed through
the House of Commons without some difficulty; but Henry, sending for the
ministers, and telling them that he would have either the bill or their heads,
they passed it immediately.
The parliament, which, by successive prorogations, had sat for the
unprecedented term of six years, was now dissolved; and Henry, after all
their passive obedience, appears to have been disgusted at this their last and
feeble effort at opposition. He now named other commissioners to take
possession of the suppressed monasteries, and to prepare measures for the
seizure of others. If these men, mostly the friends of Cromwell or of
Cranmer, had a better religion before their eyes, they certainly were not
blind to the charms of lucre, and the temptations of fair houses and fat
glebes; as many of them made a harvest for themselves, out of the spoils of
the monks and nuns.[115]
The superiors of the suppressed houses were promised small pensions for
life, which were very irregularly paid. All the monks not twenty-four years
of age were absolved from their vows, and turned loose upon the world
without any kind of provision; the rest, if they wished to continue in the
profession, were divided among the greater houses that were still left
standing. The poor nuns were turned adrift to beg or starve; having nothing
given to them, save one common gown for each.[116] “These things,” says
Godwin, “were of themselves distasteful to the vulgar sort, of whom each
one did, as it were, claim a share in the goods of the church; for many being
neither monks, nor allied to monks, did, notwithstanding, conceive that it
might hereafter come to pass that either their children, friends, or kindred,
might obtain their share; whereas, when all their property was once
confiscated, they could never hope for any such advantages. But the popular
commiseration for the thousands of monks and nuns who were, almost
without warning given, thrust out of doors, and committed to the mercy of

the world, became a more forcible cause of discontent. There were not
wanting desperate men to take advantage of this state of public feeling; and
it was diligently rumoured in all parts, that this was but the beginning of
greater evils and more general spoliations—only a trial of their patience;
that, as yet, the shrubs and underwood were but touched; but unless a speedy
remedy were applied, the end would be with the fall of the lofty oaks.” At
the same time, the crowds of poor, who, by an ancient but defective system,
had derived their support from the monastic establishments, became furious
at finding their resources cut off, and at seeing the monks who had fed them
now begging like themselves by the roadsides.
In the midst of these general discontents, Cranmer and Cromwell issued
certain doctrinal injunctions to the clergy, which were too novel to find
immediate favour with the multitude; and certain Protestant reformers, who
had more courage than they, ventured to print books about Iconolatria,
image-worship, auricular confession, transubstantiation, and other
fundamental tenets and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The king,
who assumed all the authority in matters of dogmas that had ever been
claimed by the popes, and much more than they had ever put in practice in
England, pronounced rewards and sentences which irritated both parties
alike, and all these questions were referred to him—thus occupying a good
deal of his time, and keeping in dangerous activity his old political bile.[117]
We find the Lord Chancellor Audley writing in great perturbation to
Cromwell, telling him that “there is a book come forth in print, touching the
taking away of images, and begging to know whether he was privy to the
publishing thereof,” which Cranmer probably was,[118] though, had such a
fact been known to his master at that moment, his neck would have been in
jeopardy. The chancellor says, “I assure you, in the parts where I have been,
some discord there is, and diversity of opinion among the people, touching
the worshipping of saints and images; and for creeping, kneeling at cross,
and such like ceremonies heretofore used in the church, which discord it
were good should be put to silence; and this book will make much business
in the same, if it should go forth. Wherefore,” he continues, “I pray you, I
may be advised whether you know it or no, for I intend to send for the
printers and stop them; but there may be many abroad. It were good that the
preachers and people abstained from opinions of such things, till such time
as by the report of such as the king’s highness hath appointed for the
searching and ordering of laws of the church, his grace may put a final order

on such things, how his people and subjects shall use themselves without
contention. And if the people were thus commanded by proclamation to
abstain till that time, such proclamation, drawn in honest terms, would do
much good to avoid contention.”[119]
The king was by no means backward in issuing his final orders and
decrees spiritual; and the reformers herein concealing their ulterior views, he
was led to reduce the number of sacraments from seven to three—Baptism,
the Lord’s Supper, and Penance; to forbid the direct adoration of images; to
abrogate a number of saints’ days or holidays, especially such as fell in
harvest time; to declare the Scriptures, with the Apostolic, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds, the sole standards of faith; to order every parish priest to
expound these to his parishioners in plain English; and to direct the printing
and distribution of an English translation of the Bible, one copy of which
was to be kept in every parish church. The king, in his wisdom, insisted on
the necessity of auricular confession, and denounced any questioning of the
‘real presence’ in the eucharist as a damnable heresy, to be punished with
fire and faggot. Purgatory, he confessed, puzzled him; steering a middle
course, he declared himself to be uncertain on this head; and kindly
permitted his subjects to pray for the souls of their departed friends,
provided only that they fell into none of the old abuses of enriching religious
houses and shrines for this object.[120]
“Meanwhile,” says the historian, “the king continued much prone to
reformation, especially if anything might be gotten by it.” Nothing was more
easy than to prove that all the monastic orders had been engaged in the late
insurrection;[121] and as many of the richest abbeys and priories remained as
yet untouched, there was no want of wise counsellors, all anxious to share in
the spoil, who recommended their total suppression. In some cases, out of a
dread of martial law, or, what was equally bad, a prosecution for high
treason, the Abbots surrendered, gave, and granted their abbeys unto the
king, his heirs and assigns for ever; but still many replied, like the prior of
Henton, “that they would not be light and hasty in giving up those things
which were not theirs to give, being dedicated to the Almighty for service
to be done to his honour continually, with other many good deeds of charity
which be daily done in their houses to their Christian neighbours.”[122]
“These recusants were treated with great severity; the prisons were crowded
with priors and monks, who died so rapidly in their places of confinement,
as to excite a dreadful suspicion.”

Without waiting for a “needless act of parliament, the king suppressed
many other houses; and soon after, with the full consent of Lords and
Commons, finished the business, by seizing all the abbeys without
exception, with all the other religious houses, except a very few, which, at
the earnest petition of the people, were spared or given up to the
representatives of their original founders.” Before proceeding to the “final
suppression, under the pretence of checking the superstitious worshipping of
images, he had laid bare their altars, and stripped their shrines of everything
that was valuable; nor did he spare the rich coffins and the crumbling bones
of the dead.” At the distance of four hundred years—exasperated at that
extraordinary man’s opposition to the royal prerogative—he determined to
execute vengeance on the bones and relics of
Thomas a Becket.—The Martyr’s tomb was broken open; and by an
insane process, worthy of a Nero or a Caligula, a criminal information was
filed against him as “Thomas Becket, some time Archbishop of Canterbury;”
and he was formally cited to appear in court, and answer to the charges.
Thirty days were allowed the saint; but we need hardly inform our readers
that his dishonoured relics rested quietly at Canterbury, and did not appear to
plead in Westminster Hall. With due solemnity the court opened its
proceedings.[123] The attorney-general eloquently exposed the case for the
prosecution, and the advocates of the saint—who no doubt spoke less boldly
—were heard in defence; and that being over, sentence was pronounced, that
“Becket” had been guilty of rebellion, treason, and contumacy; that his
bones should be burnt as a lesson to the living not to oppose the royal will;
and that the rich offerings with which many generations of men, native and
foreign, had enriched his shrine, should be forfeited to the crown as the
personal property of the traitor. “In the month of August,” continues the
historian, “Cromwell, who must have smiled at the course pursued, sent
down some of his commissioners to Canterbury, who executed their task so
well, that they filled two immense coffers with gold and jewels, each of
them so heavy that it required eight strong men to lift it.” “Among the rest,”
says Godwin, “was a stone of especial lustre, called the Royal of France,
offered by King Louis VII., in the year 1179; together with a great massive
cup of gold, at what time he also bestowed an annuity on the monks of that
church of an hundred tuns of wine. This stone was afterwards highly prized
by the king, who did continually wear it on his thumb.” A few months after,
the king, by proclamation, stated to his people, that forasmuch as it now

clearly appears Thomas Becket had been killed in a riot provoked by his
own obstinacy and insolence, and had been canonized by the Bishop of
Rome merely because he was champion of that usurped authority, he now
deemed it proper to declare that he was no saint whatever, but a rebel and
traitor to his prince: and that, therefore, he, the king, strictly commanded that
he should not be any longer esteemed or called a saint; that all images and
pictures of him should be destroyed; and that his name and remembrance
should be erased out of all books, under pain of his majesty’s indignation,
and imprisonment at his grace’s pleasure.[124]
The revenues of Tinterne Abbey, though far inferior to others of the
same order, particularly those in Yorkshire, were still sufficient for the
maintenance of the brotherhood, the repairs and decoration of the buildings,
and the exercise of hospitality, which formed so important a feature in the
monastic code. The estimate recorded by Dugdale is probably under the
mark; while that of Speed may possibly exceed, by a few pounds, the actual
rental of the abbey lands. The former has computed it at £192. 1s. 3d., the
latter at £252. 11s. 6d., sums which, taking into account the value of money
in those times, give no mean idea of its annual resources. This sum,
however, is exclusive of the daily tribute received from the pious hands of
pilgrims, and the donations of many distinguished guests, who, from time to
time, sat at the Abbot’s table, or found refuge in its sanctuary.
The details of the first endowments[125] of Tinterne Abbey, as well as
various later benefactions, down to the seventh year of Henry the Third, are
contained in a charter of confirmation from William Marshall, grandson of
Walter de Clare, the founder.
“Herein,” says Tanner, “were thirteen religious about the time of the
dissolution, when the estates belonging to this monastery were rated at £256.
11s. 6d. in the gross, and £192. 1s. 4-1/2d. per annum, clear income.”
The site of Tinterne Abbey, with all the monastic buildings, was granted
28th Henry VIII. to Henry, Earl of Worcester. It is still the property of his
descendant, the Duke of Beaufort. Leland, mentioning Tinterne Abbey in his
Collectanea, says, “There was a sanctuary granted to Tinterne, but it hath not
been used many a day.”
The common seal of this monastery is appended to an instrument dated in
the 6th of Henry VIII., whereby the abbot and convent appoint Charles, Earl
of Worcester, and Henry Somerset, Lord Herbert, his son and heir apparent,

chief stewards of their manor of Arle in Norfolk. The subject of this seal, of
which only a mutilated impression in red wax remains, was the Virgin Mary
and the infant Saviour, seated under an ornamented arch—in a niche
underneath, was an abbot, with his crosier, on his knees praying. Nearly the
whole of the legend is gone, the only part remaining being.... RII. BEATE.
William Marshall, the “vetus Marescallus,” as he is called in black-
letter chronicles—who married the daughter and heiress of Richard
Strongbow—became the founder of a new Cistercian Abbey, near Wexford,
in Ireland. Finding himself, once upon a time, in great peril during a voyage
thither, he made a vow to the Virgin Mary, that if by her help he escaped
shipwreck, and once more set foot on dry land, he would testify his gratitude
by founding an abbey to her honour. The ship having got safe into port, he
lost no time in commencing the pious work, to which, in compliment to her
elder sister on the Wye, he gave the name of Tynterna de Voto.
Daughters of Tinterne.—In addition to what has been already
mentioned of the two daughters,[126] or offshoots, of Tinterne on the Wye,
we collect the following particulars:—
Tinterne Abbey, in the County of Wexford.—“This abbey was situated
on the shore of Bannow Bay, in the barony of Shelburne, three miles north-
east of Duncannon Fort. William, Earl of Pembroke, as already mentioned,
being in great danger and peril at sea, made a vow to found an abbey in that
place where he should first arrive in safety; and the place was the bay in
question. He accordingly performed his vow, dedicated his abbey to the
Virgin Mary, endowed it, and settled a convent of Cistercian monks in it,
whom he brought from Tinterne in Monmouthshire. Archdale gives the
particulars of the Earl of Pembroke’s endowment of this house, from King.
The whole, however, was not completed in the earl’s lifetime, for Dugdale
has given King John’s charter confirming the bequest of thirty carucates of
land to this abbey in the earl’s will.”[127]
Kingswood Abbey.—“Roger de Berkeley received by gift of William
Rufus certain lands, upon condition that he should confer them upon some
monks or canons; but being prevented by death, he bequeathed them to
William de Berkeley[128] his nephew, upon the same terms. And of which
William, I find that he bestowed upon the monks of Tynterne, in Wales, a
certain Desart near Berkeley, called Kingswood, there to found an abbey

of the Cistercian Order; and that Maud the Empress, daughter to King
Henry the First, confirmed that grant. The convent was built, but during the
troublous reign of Stephen they removed to Haselden; but thence, on the
return of peace, they were expelled by the proprietor, and again took up their
abode at Kingswood. Reginal D. S. Walerick repenting, invited them back
to Haselden; but, after a time, the place being found very inconvenient for
lack of water, they were removed by him to Tetbury, Kingswood all this
time being left as a mere grange of the monastery. Of this the heir of the
founder complained, and required that the convent should return thither,
according to the conditions upon which it was given by his ancestor. A
general chapter of the whole Order, however, decided against him, and
determined that Kingswood should remain as a mere farm belonging to the
convent of Tetbury; but that mass should always be sung at Kingswood,
privately, by one monk, who was to have for his labour twenty-seven marks
and a half. But after this, by another general chapter of that Order, it was
agreed that the Abbot of Waverley, in Surrey, should rebuild Kingswood with
the consent of the founder, and confirmation of the King; which being done
without the privity of the convent at Tetbury, and Abbot of Tynterne, who
opposed the same. Upon a meeting of divers other abbots at Kingswood, it
was concluded, that the monks placed at Kingswood should be recalled, and
that place reduced unto the state of a grange to Tettebiry, as it was before.”
These transmutations, however, were not yet concluded: “for Tettebiry being
found a narrow place, too little for an abbey, and having no fuel but what
was brought from Kingswood, which was far distant, Bernard de S. Walerick
came to accord with Roger de Berkley, the founder of Kingswood, and
therefore, obtaining a grant from him of forty acres of land adjoining to
Kingswood, translated those monks from Tettebiry thither, and called it
Kingswood, as a name of most note.”[129] Such were the vicissitudes of this
abbey.
According to Pope Nicholas’ taxation, the spiritualities of this monastery
amounted in 1291 to the annual sum of £6. 4s. 4d.; the temporalities to £47.
17s. 2d.; making a total of £54. 1s. 6d. There is no valuation of Kingswood
in the general ecclesiastical survey of the 26th Henry VIII., though Tanner
says it was valued at that time, according to Dugdale, at £244. 11s. 2d. per
annum; according to Speed, at £254. 11s. 2d.; clear, £239. 19s. 7-3/4d. In a
MS. record in the whole at £254. 5s. 10d. A survey of this house, taken in the

29th Henry VIII., is preserved in the appendix to the Monasticon
Anglicanum. There is also a minister’s ‘accompt’ of it in the Augmentation
office, 32nd Henry VIII.; but its possessions are there answered for, in gross,
at the sum of £245. 8s. 8d., the whole of its estates being then on lease to Sir
Nicholas Peyntz, Knt., under the seal of the Court of Augmentations, dated
10th March, 29th Henry VIII., for a term of twenty-one years at the above
rent. In the second year of Queen Elizabeth, the site of this house was
granted to Sir John Thynne, Knt. The register of Kingswood Abbey was in
the possession of John Smith, Esq. of Nibley, in the county of Gloucester.
The common seal represented the Blessed Virgin crowned, holding in her
arms the infant Jesus, and standing between two elegant pilasters,
surmounted by a canopy; the field diapered; in base, under an arch, the half
figure of a monk praying; the legend much flattened, so that no more of it
can be read than S.COF ... CONVENTUS ... DE KINGEWOD. An impression of this
seal on red wax is appendant to a conventual lease, temp. Henry VIII., in the
Augmentation office.[130]
ROM the above cursory notice of the spiritual daughters of “Holy
Tinterne,” we return to the Mother-Abbey.
In England, says an eminent Catholic writer, the scheme of
plundering the ecclesiastical property by men of a certain class,
had never been wholly abandoned. In Henry the Fourth’s time there was “the
laymen’s parliament of those who countenanced Wickliffe, and loved the
lands far better than they did the religion of the Church; but their designs at
that time were defeated by the stout and religious opposition of Thomas
Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, and other Prelates.”[131] Against these
evils the ancient canons of the church in Germany provided, by prohibiting
the faithful from holding any communication with men who disturb priests,
and the state of the church.[132] “Now,” he continues, “if St. Thomas and
the clergy of the middle ages are to be condemned for resisting such
injustice by prayers, and law, and canonical censures, what will be thought
of St. Ambrose, and other pastors of the early church, who, by still more
uncompromising firmness, believed that they were imitating the apostles?”
St. Ambrose declares that he will never relinquish the churches to the Arians,
as the Emperor Valentinian commands, unless by force. “If any force remove
me from the church, my flesh,” he says, “may be disturbed, but not my
mind; for I am prepared to suffer whatever a priest may suffer, if the emperor
should exert his regal power. I will never abandon the church voluntarily;

but I cannot oppose force. I can grieve, I can weep, I can groan; against
arms, soldiers, and Goths, tears are my arms; for these are the weapons of a
priest. Otherwise I neither ought to resist, nor can I resist. When it was
proposed to me to deliver up the vessels of the church, I sent word that I
would willingly give up what was mine own, whether lands or houses, gold
or silver; but that I could take nothing from the temple of God, nor lightly
abandon what I had received to guard—not to deliver up. Fear not, therefore,
for me, dearly beloved, since I know that whatever I am about to suffer, I
shall suffer for Christ; and the will of Christ must be fulfilled, and that will
be for the best. Let them decree the penalty of death, I fear it not; nor will I
on that account desert the martyrs; for whither could I go where all things
would not be full of groans and tears, when Catholic priests are ordered to be
driven from the churches, or to be struck with the sword if they resisted; and
this decree to be written by a bishop, who should quote ancient examples to
prove himself most learned? Auxentius, thirsting for blood, demanded my
church; but I say with the prophet—‘Absit ut ego patrum meorum tradam
hæreditatem!’ Naboth was prepared to defend his vineyard at the expense of
his blood. If he could not give up his vineyard, neither will we give up the
church of Christ. Do I then return a contumacious answer? I have answered
as a priest; let the emperor act as an emperor. Last year,” he adds, “when I
was invited to the palace, and introduced before the council, when the
emperor wished to take from us the church, I should have been subdued by
the contemplation of the royal hall, and I should not have kept the constancy
of a priest, or should have departed with loss of right. Do they not remember,
then, how the people rushed to the palace, and overwhelmed every force,
declaring that they would die for the faith of Christ? Then I was desired to
appease the people, which I did by engaging that the church should not be
given up; but now the Arians wish to give law to the church, and accuse us
of sedition in resisting the emperor. Let him take our tribute or our lands, if
they ask treasure: our treasure is the poor of Christ; our defence is in the
prayers of the poor. These blind, and lame, and weak, and aged persons, are
stronger than robust warriors. I am to give to Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar;
to God what belongs to God: the tribute is Cæsar’s, but the church is God’s.
As for the fire, or sword, or banishment, which are threatened, we fear them
not.”[133]

Again, writing to his sister Marcella, he says: “Not only the basilica
without the walls is now demanded, but also the new and greater one within
the city. When the prince summoned me to resign them, I replied, what was
of course, that ‘the temple of God could not be given up by a priest.’ The
emperor cannot invade the house of a private man, and will he dare to take
possession of the house of God! The palace belongs to the emperor, the
church to the priest. If he be a tyrant, I desire to be aware of it, that I may
know how to prepare against him, for I have the power to offer my body. If
he thinks himself a tyrant, why does he delay to strike? By ancient laws
empires were given by priests, not taken from them; and it is a common
saying, that emperors have rather desired priesthood, than priests empire.
The tyranny of a priest is his infirmity; for ‘when I am weak, then am I
strong.’ ”
With examples like this before them—and numerous others might here be
cited—it is not surprising that many of the monastic priesthood preferred to
endure fines, imprisonment, and even death, to the enjoyment of that life and
freedom which could only be purchased by acts of apostacy. And on this
portion of our subject we avail ourselves of an eloquent passage from one of
the most popular works of the day:—
The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity was the first of a long
series of salutary revolutions. It is true that the church had been deeply
corrupted both by that superstition, and by that philosophy, against which
she had long contended, and over which she had at last triumphed. She had
given a too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools,
and to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Roman policy and Gothic
ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had contributed to
deprave her; yet she retained enough of the sublime theology, and
benevolent morality of her earlier days, to elevate many intellects, and to
purify many hearts. Some things also which, at a later period, were justly
regarded as among her chief blemishes, were in the seventh century, and
long afterwards, among her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order should
encroach on the functions of the civil magistrate, would, in our time, be a
great evil. But that which in an age of good government is an evil, may, in an
age of grossly bad government, be a blessing. It is better that mankind
should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened
public opinion, than by priestcraft; but it is better that men should be
governed by priestcraft than by brute violence,—by such a prelate as

Dunstan, than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance, and
ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to rejoice when a class, of
which the influence is intellectual, rises to ascendancy. Such a class will
doubtless abuse its power; but mental power, even when abused, is still a
nobler and better power than that which consists merely in corporeal
strength. We read in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles of tyrants who, when at the
height of greatness, were smitten with remorse; who abhorred the pleasures
and dignities which they had purchased by guilt; who abdicated their
crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences by cruel penances and
incessant prayers. These stories have drawn forth bitter expressions of
contempt from some writers who, while they boasted of liberality, were in
truth as narrow-minded as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was
to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard received in the
Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet surely a system which,
however deformed by superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into
communities previously governed only by vigour of muscle, and by audacity
of spirit; a system which taught even the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he
was, like his meanest bondsman, a responsible being, might have seemed to
deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists.
[134]

The same observations will apply to the contempt with which, in the last
century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages, the sanctuaries, the
crusades, and the monastic institutions of the middle ages. In times when
men were scarcely ever induced to travel by liberal curiosity, or by the
pursuit of gain, it was better that the rude inhabitant of the north should visit
Italy and the East as a pilgrim, than that he should never see anything but the
squalid cabins, and uncleared woods, amidst which he was born.[135]
In times when life and female honour were exposed to daily risk from
tyrants and marauders, it was better that the precinct of a shrine should be
regarded with an irrational awe, than that there should be no refuge
inaccessible to cruelty and licentiousness. In times when statesmen were
incapable of forming extensive political combinations, it was better that the
Christian nations should be roused and united for the recovery of the Holy
Sepulchre, than that they should, one by one, be overwhelmed by the
Mahometan power. Whatever reproach may, at a later period, have been
justly thrown on the indolence and luxury of religious orders, it was surely
good that, in an age of ignorance and violence, there should be quiet

cloisters and gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safely cultivated;
in which gentle and contemplative natures could find an asylum; in which
one brother could employ himself in transcribing the Æneid of Virgil, and
another in meditating the Analytics of Aristotle; in which he who had a
genius for art, might illuminate a martyrology, or carve a crucifix; and in
which he who had a turn for natural philosophy, might make experiments on
the properties of plants and minerals. Had not such retreats been scattered
here and there, among the huts of a miserable peasantry, and the castles of a
ferocious aristocracy, European society would have consisted merely of
beasts of burden, and beasts of prey. The church has many times been
compared to the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis; but never was
the resemblance more perfect than during the evil time, when she rode alone,
amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great
works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed; bearing within her that
feeble germ, from which a second and more glorious civilization was to
spring.[136]
NDER the blasting influence of an arbitrary power, that found its
zealous instruments in the Commissioners appointed for that
service, the suppression and confiscation of the English
monasteries were quickly followed by a long train of national
misery and degradation, of which lamentable evidence is found in the
chronicles of that period. From these popular and authentic sources we
extract the following picture:—
In the final seizure of the abbeys and monasteries of England, the richest
fell first. In the spring of 1540, all the monastic establishments of the
kingdom were suppressed, and the mass of their landed property was divided
among courtiers and parasites. The gold and silver, and costly jewels of
shrines, had partly gone in that direction, and had partly been kept for the
king’s use. The troubled fountain of the Reformation, it has been said, sent
forth two streams—the one of sweet, the other of bitter waters.[137] “It is the
duty of an impartial historian to dwell for a time by the bitter stream.
Between the ignorant zealots of the new doctrines, and the rudeness of the
men employed in the suppression, who were all most anxious for spoil, and
who probably cared little for any form of religion, or any decency of
worship, innumerable works of art were destroyed; magnificent specimens
of architecture were defaced and left roofless. Statues and pictures, many of
them the productions of Italian masters,—and which had, in the eye of taste,

a sort of holiness independent of Saints and Madonnas,—were broken to
pieces or burnt. The mosaic pavements of the chapels were torn up; and the
same brutal hands smashed the painted windows, which, almost more than
anything else, gave beauty and glory to our old abbeys and cathedrals. The
church-bells were gambled for, and sold into Russia and other countries.
Horses were tethered to the high altar; cattle were kept in stall in the very
recesses of the shrines and the chapels; and these, according to good
authority, were at times the least bestial of the occupants.” “The libraries, of
which all the great houses contained one, numerously if not judiciously
stocked,—but wherein existed, no doubt, many a book in manuscript, which
we would now willingly possess,—were treated with the greatest contempt.
And here we should wonder why the enlightened men who promoted the
Reformation did not interfere, were we not convinced of the danger of
opposing the king’s will, and the ruffianly character of the persons to whom
the task of suppression and destruction was committed.” “Some books,” says
Spelman, “were reserved to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots,
some sold to the grocers and soapboilers, and some sent over the sea to
bookbinders—not in small numbers, but at times whole shipfuls, to the
wondering of foreign nations. A single merchant purchased, at forty shillings
a-piece, two noble libraries, to be used as grey paper; and such as having
already sufficed for ten years, were abundant enough for many years more.”
Such is the testimony of an eye-witness.[138]
All the abbeys were totally dismantled, except in those cases where they
happened to be the parish churches also, or where they were rescued in part
by the petitions and pecuniary contributions of the pious inhabitants, who
were averse to the worshipping of God in a stable. Cranmer and Latimer in
some cases petitioned the king; but, as it is proved by their letters, they were
too dependent on the court, and too fearful of its wrath to do very much.
Latimer was the bolder of the two; and even before the final dissolution, he
ventured to condemn in public the practice, which Henry had already
adopted, of converting some of the monasteries into stables, conceiving it a
monstrous thing that abbeys, which were ordained for the comfort of the
poor, should be kept for the king’s horses! “What hast thou to do with the
king’s horses?” retorted a noble courtier of the right stamp—“Horses be the
maintenance and part of a king’s honour, and also of his realm; wherefore, in
speaking against them, ye are speaking against the king’s honour!”[139] The
following were the

Results.—The men who had recommended the wholesale spoliation of
the church, had represented it as a never-failing fund, which would enable
the king to carry on the government with none—or but the slightest taxes;
and which would furnish him with the means of creating and supporting
earls, barons, and knights, and of forming excellent institutions for the
promotion of industry, education, and religion. But, in the event, the property
was squandered in a manner which is scarcely accountable; for the king had
the conscience to demand from parliament “a compensation for the expenses
he had incurred in reforming the religion of the state:” and within a year
after the completion of his measures, “the obsequious parliament voted him
a subsidy of two-tenths and two-fifteenths for this express purpose. It is a
striking fact, that none of the objects contemplated and spoken of were
promoted by the money of the religious houses—always excepting the
making and supporting of certain noblemen.”[140] Pauperism increased; as
the whole body of the poor, which had been supported by the monks, who
had funds for that purpose, were thrown, clamorous and desperate—
unprepared for, and unprovided with, employment—upon the wondering
nation, which had not before been aware of the extent of the evil. Education
declined most rapidly; the schools kept in the monasteries were at an end;
while other schools, and even the universities, were deserted. Religion was
not promoted; for nothing but miserable stipends were given to the
preachers, and none but poor and unlettered men would accept the office. To
preach at St. Paul’s Cross had been a great object of clerical ambition; but
now there was a difficulty of finding a sufficient number of preachers for
that duty: and about four years after the final suppression, Bonner, Bishop of
London, wrote to Parker, then Master of Corpus College, importuning him to
send him some help from Cambridge; and not long after—during the short
reign of Edward the Sixth—Latimer said, “I think there be at this day ten
thousand students less than were within these twenty years.”
In the Country, “the rural parishes were served by priests who had
scarcely the rudiments of education.” Following an example set them by the
king—who required Cromwell to give a benefit to a priest who was kept in
the royal service, because “he had trained two hawks for his majesty’s
pastime, which flew and killed their game very well”[141]—the patrons of
livings gave them to their menials as wages or rewards; to their gardeners, to
the keepers of their hawks and hounds; or otherwise they let in fee both
glebe and parsonage; so that whoever was presented to the benefice would

have neither roof to dwell under, nor land to live upon, being but too happy
if his tithes afforded him a chamber at an alehouse, with the worshipful
society of the dicers and drinkers who frequented it. According to Latimer,
the parish priest, under these circumstances, frequently kept an alehouse
himself—thus uniting the more profitable calling of a tapster with that of a
preacher of the gospel.[142]
So completely were the funds absorbed, and so greedy were the courtiers
to keep fast hold of what they got, that no proper recompense was reserved
for Miles Coverdale and his associates, who translated and published the
first complete English Bible—the greatest achievement of the age, and the
measure that most effectually promoted the Reformation. Coverdale himself
was left in great poverty; and the printers, in order to cover their expenses,
were obliged to put a high price upon their copies—thus impeding the
circulation of the book, and thwarting the wishes expressed by the king
himself.[143]
In addition to these lamentable facts, the destruction of the monasteries
left important gaps in the physical accommodations of the people, which not
a pound sterling of the spoil was devoted to fill up. The monasteries had
been hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries for the poor; caravanseras to the
wayfarer; and in the absence of inns, the badness of roads, and the thinness
of the population, their value in this respect had been felt both by rich and
poor. In many of the wilder districts, the monastery had served as a nucleus
of civilization; and sociality, personal safety, and hospitality, were nowhere
to be found but within these walls.
RANMER deplored “the woeful dissipation of church property,
which he would have applied to the uses of religion, education,
and charity; but he had not often the courage to press this subject
with the king, whose displeasure, more easily excited than ever,
was equivalent to a death-warrant. The archbishop, however, did what he
could with safety to himself; and Henry, startled perhaps by a popular outcry,
resolved to appropriate a part of the spoil to the advancement of religion.
Parliament passed an act for the establishing of new bishoprics, deaneries,
and colleges, which were to be endowed with revenues raised on the lands of
the monasteries. But it was too late; the money and lands were gone, or the
king and his ministers needed all that remained. The number of new
bishoprics was reduced from eighteen to six—those of Westminster, Oxford,
Peterborough, Chester, Bristol, and Gloucester; and these were so scantily

endowed, that they hardly afforded the new bishops the means of living.” At
the same time fourteen abbeys and priories were converted into cathedrals
and collegiate churches, with deans and prebendaries; but the king kept to
himself a part of the lands which had been attached to them, and charged the
Chapters with the obligation of contributing annually to the support of the
poor, and the repairing of the highways.[144]
The preamble of the act for the suppression of the lesser monasteries thus
concludes: “Whereupon the said Lords and Commons, by a great
deliberation, finally be resolved that it is, and shall be, much more to the
pleasure of Almighty God, and for the honour of this his realm, that the
possessions of such houses now being spent and wasted for the increase and
maintenance of sin, should be used and committed to better uses, and the
unthrifty religious persons so spending the same, to be compelled to reform
their lives.”[145]
Besides that at Canterbury, already noticed,[146] “other shrines had been
plundered, and certain miraculous images and relics of saints had been
broken in pieces at St. Paul’s Cross, and the machinery exposed, by which
some of the monks had deluded the superstitious people;” but now every
shrine was laid bare; or, if any escaped, it was owing to the poverty of their
decorations and offerings.
Among the rest of these condemned images, there was “a crucifix in
South Wales, called by the common people David-Darvel-Gatheren,
which, according to an old legend or prophecy, was one day to fire a whole
forest. It happened at this time that there was one Forest, a friar, who, after
taking the oath of supremacy, repented of the deed, and declared it unlawful;
wherefore he was condemned as a relapsed traitor and heretic. Hitherto King
Henry, ‘Defender of the Faith,’ had burned the Reformers, and hanged the
Catholics; but on the present occasion, he could not resist the temptation to
make a point, or to figure as a mighty engine of fate, and a fulfiller of
prophecy.” “The miraculous image was accordingly conveyed from Wales to
Smithfield, to serve as fuel with faggots and other materials; and there, on
the twenty-second of May, 1539, the monk was suspended by the armpits;
underneath him was made a fire of the image, wherewith he was slowly
burned—and thus by his death making good the prophecy that the image
should fire a whole forest. There was a pulpit erected near the stake, from
which Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, preached a sermon; and there
was also a scaffold in the centre for the accommodation of the Dukes of

Norfolk and Suffolk, the Lord Admiral Howard, the Lord Privy Seal,
Cromwell, and divers others of the council; together with Sir Richard
Gresham, Lord Mayor, and many citizens of repute, who stayed to witness
the frightful execution.”[147] By frequent spectacles like this, the minds of
the people were brutalized to a degree previously unknown in England.[148]
From these revolting details of a fierce and persecuting spirit—a spirit
opposed in every sense to that of Christianity—we turn with pleasure to the
inspiring influence which monastic times and institutions have been
supposed to exercise over the dominions of poetry and the fine arts; and of
this Warton has transmitted us a glowing sketch:—The customs, institutions,
traditions, and religion of the middle ages were favourable to poetry. Their
pageants, processions, spectacles, and ceremonies, were friendly to imagery,
to personification, and allegory. Ignorance and superstition, so opposite to
the real interests of human society, are the parents of imagination. The very
devotion of the Gothic times was romantic. The Catholic worship, besides
that its numerous exterior appendages were of a picturesque, and even of a
poetical nature, disposed the mind to a state of deception, and encouraged, or
rather authorized, every species of credulity. Its visions, legends, and
miracles, propagated a general propensity to the marvellous, and
strengthened the belief of spectres, demons, witches, and incantations. These
illusions were heightened by churches of a wonderful mechanism, and
constructed on such principles of inexplicable architecture, as had a
tendency to impress the soul with every false sensation of religious fear. The
savage pomp, the capricious heroism, of the baronial manners, were replete
with incident, adventure, and enterprise; and the untractable genius of the
feudal policy held forth those irregularities of conduct, discordancies of
interest, and dissimilarities of situation, that framed rich materials for the
Minstrel-muse.
The tacit compact of fashion, which promotes civility by promoting
habits of uniformity—and therefore destroys peculiarities of character and
situation—had not yet operated upon life; nor had domestic convenience
abolished unwieldy magnificence. Literature, and a better sense of things,
not only banished these barbarities, but superseded the mode of composition
which was formed upon them. Romantic poetry gave way to the force of
reason and inquiry: as its own enchanted palaces and gardens
instantaneously vanished, when the Christian champion displayed the shield
of truth, and baffled the charms of the necromancer.

The study of the classics, together with a colder magic and a tamer
mythology, introduced method into composition; and the universal ambition
of rivalling those new patterns of excellence, the faultless models of Greece
and Rome, produced that bane of invention—imitation. Erudition was made
to act upon genius; fancy was weakened by reflection and philosophy. The
fashion of treating everything scientifically, applied speculation and theory
to the arts of writing. Judgment was advanced above imagination, and rules
of criticism were established. The brave eccentricities of original genius, and
the daring hardiness of native thought, were intimidated by metaphysical
sentiments of perfection and refinement. Setting aside the consideration of
the more solid advantages, which are obvious, and are not the distinct
subject of our contemplation at present, the lovers of true poetry will ask,
What have we gained by this revolution? It may be answered, Much good
sense, good taste, and good criticism: but in the meantime we have lost a set
of manners, and a system of machinery, more suitable to the purposes of
poetry, than those which have been adopted in their place. We have parted
with extravagances that are above propriety; with incredibilities that are
more acceptable than truth; and with fictions that are more valuable than
reality.[149]
N addition to what has been already noticed in these pages,
respecting the employment of the monks within the walls of their
monasteries, and by which they daily contributed to the public
good, we present to the reader the following epitome of their
industrial habits, as recorded by monastic writers. In every
conventual establishment there was a chamber called the Scriptorium, or
writing-room; but it was sometimes applied to a more remote place, where
there was room for other employments. The only persons who had free
access to this apartment were the abbot, prior, sub-prior, and precentor.
There was an especial benediction of the Scriptorium. Writing of books, as a
monastic employment, is to be found in the earliest eras. Among British
monks, St. David, the tutelary saint of Wales, had a study, or writing-room,
and began the Gospel of St. John in golden letters with his own hands.
The Antiquarii in monasteries, were industrious men continually
employed in making copies of old books, either for the use of the monastery,
or for their own emolument. Du Cange says, that Antiquarii were those
scribes who repaired, composed, and re-wrote books, old and obsolete with

age, in opposition to the Librarii, who wrote both new and old books. Those
of the religious community, who were found dull at the study of letters, were
employed in writing and making lines. The monastic scribes were certain
persons selected by the Abbot. The senior monks were employed on the
church books; the junior monks in letter-writing, and matters which required
expedition. Du Cange mentions a singular kind of scribes, called
Brodiatores, who wrote books and letters in the manner of embroiderers,
so lightly representing the object that it almost escaped the sight. It is to such
writers, perhaps, that Petrarch thus alludes: “His writing was not wandering,
nor loaded like that of writers of our age, who flatter the eye from afar, and
fatigue it when near.”[150]
To the credit of the monastic scribes, “very few instances of bad writing,”
says the late Mr. Fosbroke, “have occurred during my researches.” In one
manuscript, indeed, there was a shocking scrawl, which he took to be the
writing of a nun, the lines being irregular, the letters of various size, and of
rude make. Writing, after the Norman invasion, was neglected by the Anglo-
Saxons. A neat running epistolary hand is quite modern, except among
papers written by lawyers. Hamlet says—

“I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair.”

The Gilbertine rule prohibited the employment of hired writers—more
probably, as Mr. Fosbroke thinks, limners. “At St. Alban’s, however, such
limners, or writers, had commons from the alms of the monks and cellarer,
that they might not be interrupted in their work by going out to buy food.”
These had the too frequent drunken habits of artisans, who (‘because every
man,’ says Johnson, ‘is discontented with his avocation, from the obligation
to pursue it at all times, whatever be the state of his mind’) too often abuse
relaxation. Barclay, without knowing that stimulants—however injurious, in
a prudential and medical view, and never a good means—prevent, by the
providential extraction of good from evil, much hypochondriacal influence
and tedium, which might end in madness or suicide, says—
“But if thou begin for drinke to call and crave,
Thou for thy calling such good rewarde shalt have,
That men shall call thee malapert or dronke,
Or an abbey loune, or limner of a monke.”—Eclogue 2.[151]

Printing.—This invention occasioned the following results: The scribes
having less employment, there were few good artists of this kind, and
writing lost much of its former beauty. About the year 1546, when all the
religious houses had been dissolved, limners and scribes were reduced to
great distress for want of employment; for, besides printing, engraving,
“invented about 1460, superseded the illumination of initials and margins.
The last specimen was the sectionary of Cardinal Wolsey at Oxford. Besides
the rule, it was inquired whether the monks had made, taken, and received
the king’s age and succession, according to act of parliament; for they were
obliged to record these, and the births of the royal family, as well as other
public events.”
Bookbinding was generally very gorgeous; gold, relics, silver plate,
ivory, velvet, and other expensive adornments, were bestowed upon the
books relating to the church service—hence the vast amount of plunder
derived from this source alone at the Dissolution, when the Vandal
emissaries, hired for the work of destruction, stripped the sacred books of
their gold, silver, and jewels, and sold them to the highest bidder. These
ornaments, however, were not confined to the books of the Altar; for we hear

of a book of Poems, finely ornamented, bound in velvet, and decorated with
silver-gilt clasps and studs, intended for a present to the king.
Books were written on purple vellum, in order to exhibit gold or silver
letters, and adorned with ivory tablets. The most common binding was a
rough white sheepskin, lapping over the leaves sometimes, with or without
immense bosses of brass, pasted upon a wooden board; and sometimes the
covers were of plain wood, carved in scroll and similar work. There were
formerly leaden books with leaden covers, and books with wooden leaves.
[152]

Music-schools, says Davies, were built within the church. Great pains
were taken with the pupils, who were instructed in the musical service of the
altar.[153] Music, says Giraldus, was so prevalent in the middle age, that even
whistling became a fashion and amusement, from being asked for by an
archbishop. In his own time, as Erasmus informs us, “they introduced into
the church a certain elaborate theatrical species of music, accompanied with
a tumultuous diversity of voices. All,” says he, “is full of trumpets, cornets,
pipes, fiddles, and singing. We now come to church as to a playhouse; and
for this purpose ample salaries are expended on organists, and societies of
boys, whose whole time is wasted in learning to sing,—not to mention the
great revenues which the church squanders away on the stipends of singing
men, who are commonly great drunkards, buffoons, and chosen from the
lowest of the people. These fooleries,” he adds, “are so agreeable to the
monks, especially in England, that youths, boys, &c., every morning, sing to
the organ, the Mass of the Virgin Mary, with the most harmonious
modulations of voice; and the bishops are obliged to keep choirs of this sort
in their families.”
Libraries.—Mr. Nichols has made the following excellent remarks upon
the library of Leicester Abbey:—From the catalogue it seems rather doubtful
whether, in the library of this religious house, there might be any one
complete collection of all the Holy Scriptures. Supposing Biblie, in the first
article, to have included both the Old and the New Testaments, it was a tome
defective and worn. The second consisted of each book of the Old Testament
only; and the third contained the Gospels, without any mention of the Acts of
the Apostles, of the Epistles, or of the Apocalypse. There is, however, a
second mention of “Actus Aplor’ gloss’, Apocalyps’ gloss’, Eple Pauli [but
of no other apostle] gloss’, Eple Canonice;” and among the last occurs the
“Canticus Canticorum.” Perhaps, he adds, there might be some of those

Augustine monks, to whom the divine oracles in the learned languages
would have been of little use; and yet to these was not indulged a translation
in English, there being in the Consistorial Acts at Rochester, the minutes of a
rigid process against the Precentor of the priory of that cathedral, for
retaining an English Testament, [154]
in disobedience to the general injunction of Cardinal Wolsey, to deliver
up these prohibited books to the bishops of the respective dioceses.[155]
It is worthy of remark, that Petrarch, as we learn from his “Memoires,”
whenever he made a long journey, carried his books along with him upon
extra horses, as carefully as others, passing through the Desert, carry their
provisions of daily food.
Leland’s story of the library of the Franciscans at Oxford has been often
told: it was only accessible to the warden and bachelors of divinity; was full
of cobwebs, moths, and filth; and contained no books of value, the best
having been surreptitiously carried away.[156] In the monastic libraries the
books were contained in painted presses or almeries. In the Abbatial
libraries, according to the catalogues given by Leland, there were only the
following classics—Cicero and Aristotle, which were common; Terence,
Euclid, Quintus Curtius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Julius Frontinus, Apuleius,
and Seneca. From this disregard of the classics—not to the shameful
destruction only of the monastic libraries at the Dissolution—probably
ensued that loss of the Decades of Livy, &c., which has been so justly
lamented.[157]
Museum.—Adjoining the abbey library, says Erasmus, “was a certain
small but elegant museum, which, upon the removal of a board, exhibited a
fire-place if the weather proved cold, otherwise it appeared a solid wall.[158]
Coryatt saw a stuffed crocodile in an abbey”—the one solitary specimen,
perhaps, of Natural History.[159]
Upon the utility of profane learning in ecclesiastical studies, Petrarch has
thus emphatically expressed himself:—“I know by experience,” he says,
“how much human learning may contribute to give just notions, to make a
man eloquent, to perfect his morals, and, what is more, to defend his
religion. If it be not permitted to read the poets and heathen authors, because
they do not speak of Christ, whom they did not know, with how much more
reason ought we to prohibit heretical works? Yet the defenders of the Faith
studiously peruse them. Profane literature, like certain solid aliment, does

not hurt a good stomach, only a weak one. Reading, though wholesome to a
sound mind, is poison to a feeble intellect. I know that letters are no
obstacles to holiness, as some pretend. There are many roads to heaven.
Ignorance is that which the idle take. The sciences may produce as many
saints as ignorance. And surely we ought not to compare an ignorant
devotion to an enlightened piety.”[160]
Monastic Wit.—Speaking of the wit and humour that often enliven the
otherwise dull uniformity of monastic writings—“I met with the following
epigram,” says Mr. Fosbroke, “in a MS. of the Ashmole library, of which I
have never seen a copy; but as it was in a collection of poems made in the
sixteenth century, I cannot tell its age:”—

Marriage, saith one, hath oft compared bin
Unto a fest, where meet a public rout;
Where those that are without would fain get in,
And those that are within would fain get out.

Acrostics were known to the Greeks; but the monks used those of a
hieroglyphical kind, which could seldom be divined unless by aid of the
inventor himself. In the hollow stonework over the kitchen chimney of
Kingswood Abbey in Wilts—already noticed in this work—are a Tiger, hart,
ostrich, mermaid, ass, and swan; the initial letters of which make the name
of the founder, T h o m a s.[161]
Abbey Seals.—That of Tinterne Abbey, as already noticed in this
volume, page 75, is imperfect.[162] Of ecclesiastical and monastic seals,
those of a round form generally denoted, according to Lewis and Blomfield,
something of royalty in the possessor, or a more than ordinary extent of
jurisdiction. Monasteries of royal foundation had commonly round seals;
bishops and superiors of houses had usually oval seals; the former held the
pastoral staff in their left hands, abbots in their right. The earliest conventual
seals commonly bore mere rude representations of their patron saints; the
more recent were highly finished, the most common device being the
superior of the house praying to the patron saint, who was represented as
looking down upon him. Previously to the reign of Edward the Third, the
conventual seals represented their patron saints and abbots seated upon
thrones; but after this period, they as constantly exhibited these figures
sitting or standing beneath canopies and arches. The Patron saint subduing
and treading upon the dragon, was symbolical of his overcoming sin. A star,

the symbol of the Epiphany, and a crescent of the increase of the Gospel, are
frequently introduced into the seals.[163] In the Cistercian and
Premonstratensian orders, the custody of the seal, though in general ill
observed, was committed to the prior, and four others of the establishment
elected for that trust.
Abbeys had not only different seals for different purposes, but these were
often altered and changed; though, from the seal of Hyde Abbey being worth
fifteen marks, the expense of having them engraved must have been
extremely high. But so careless were the monks in the custody of it, that
Matthew Paris mentions that it was thrown aside among a chest of papers.
The abbot’s Bajulus, or domestic monk, was also the bearer of this seal. A
silver seal and chain—‘sigillum argenti cum cathena’—is mentioned as that
of a plain monk.[164]
Luxury.—With respect to luxuries—which in some monasteries, it was
alleged, were earned to a degree quite inconsistent with their professed
abstinence—Thomas Pennant, Abbot of Basingwerk, is said to have given
twice the treasure of a king in wine, and was profuse of more humble
liquors. The apartments for the reception of persons of quality, according to
Davies, were furnished in a most expensive and gorgeous manner. But their
profuse expenditure in wine, it must be remembered, was in consequence of
a too liberal hospitality; for, while the monks themselves were restricted to a
meagre diet, their guests, when men of rank and influence, were plentifully
regaled with whatever was best in cellar and larder; and the whole country
furnished no better cooks or butlers than were to be found in conventual
houses.
ISTERCIAN abbeys, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, avoided
all the bad consequences of cells, in the irregularities of their
inhabitants, by having none; and by remedying all defects by
visitors and chapters. Yet the Abbey of Kingswood, already
noticed, was a cell of Tinterne, and the scene of as many irregularities and
abuses, perhaps, as the cells of any other monastic order. The brethren who
stayed at cells were to be three in every place, or two at least. “In food, in
clothing, and the tonsure, they did not vary from the common institution.
They kept silence at table, and did not speak in the church. They sung
compline at an early seasonable hour, in summer and winter; and did not run
about the village or elsewhere.” It was thought a great grievance to be sent to
remote cells, or from cell to cell; and scandalous tales were occasionally told

of the licentious lives of some of the monks, whom the abbots had sent
thither for penance and reformation.[165]
In reference to the introduction of Cistercian monks into England, we
annex the following from an old Chronicler:—“About this time,” says he,
“by means of one Stephen Hardyng, a munke of Sherburne, an Englyshe
man of the order of Sisteaux, or whyte munkes, had his beginning in the
wildernesse of Cystery, within the Provynce of Burgoyne, as witnesseth
Ranulph, munke of Chester: but other wryters, as Jacobus Philippus, and the
auctor of Cronyca Cronycorū, Matheolus, with other sayen, yᵗ this Stephen
was the second abbot of yᵗ place, and that it was founded by the means of
one Robert, abbot of Molynēse, in the yere of Grace, M.lxxx.xviij, which, to
follow their sayinge, shulde be in the ix yere of yᵉ reyne of this Kynge”
[Rufus.] “This order was after brought into Englande by one called Walter
Espeke, that founded the firste abbey of yᵗ religion at Ryuall [Rivaux],
about the yere of Grace xi.c.xxxi., the which shulde be about the xxxi. yere
of the firste Henry, than Kynge of Englande.” This last is the correct date of
the introduction of white friars into this country, and he adds:—“Somewhat
of their religion is towched in the x chapitre of the vii boke of
Polychronicon.”[166]
Abbey Windows.—Warton says the stem of Jesse was a favourite
subject, and Sugerius thus proves it: “I have caused to be painted a beautiful
variety of new windows from the first, which begins with the stem of Jesse
in the caput ecclesiæ, or part where the altar was erected. Any miraculous
events happening to persons were represented in their chapels and churches
in stained glass, or such as happened within the knowledge of the erector.
Common subjects were a genealogical series of benefactors; arms and
figures of donors of lights; the seven sacraments of the Romish Church;
many crowned heads, with curled hair and forked beards, represent the
Edwards, Richard the Second, and Henry the Fourth; whole length figures
with crowns and sceptres, Jewish kings, connected with some Scriptural
history, universally so when in profile.” The principal subjects in the great
window of Tinterne Abbey appear to have been arms and figures of the
founder, and of a series of benefactors. The last fragment, after many years
of desolation, was a shield of the Bigod family.
Cowls.—With respect to the habit, it is recorded that many noblemen,
and others of high rank, gave directions that, after their decease, they should

be dressed in monk’s gear, and be thus consigned to the grave. This was a
very common practice in Wales; for as it was written, that “all were monks
who shall gain heaven, or rather that there were none there but monks,”[167]
it became necessary to assume the garb at least, as a safe though
surreptitious passport to those happy seats. It was usual in some cases to
wear the garb during sickness only, and lay it aside on the return of health; in
others, to keep it in reserve for their death. Lewis, Landgrave of Hesse, said
to his attendants—“As soon as I am dead, put on me the hood of the
Cistercian order; but take very diligent care not to do so while I am
living.”[168]
MSS., Books.—In addition to what has been already quoted on this
subject, it was long a proverbial saying, that a convent without a library, was
like a castle without an armoury. When the monastery of Croydon was burnt
in 1091, its library, according to Ingulphus, consisted of nine hundred
volumes, of which three hundred were very large. “In every great abbey,”
says Warton, “many writers were constantly busied in transcribing, not only
the service-books for the choir, but books for the library.”[169] The
Scriptorium of St. Alban’s Abbey was built by Abbot Paulin, a Norman,
who ordered many volumes to be written there about the year 1080.
Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the copies. Estates were often granted for the
support of the Scriptorium. We find some of the classics written in the
English monasteries very early. Henry, a Benedictine monk of Hyde Abbey,
near Winchester, transcribed, in the year 1178, Terence, Boethius, Suetonius,
and Claudian. Of these he formed one book, illuminating the initials, and
forming the brazen bosses of the covers with his own hands. Other instances
of the same kind are added. The monks were much accustomed both to
illuminate and to bind books, as well as to transcribe them. “The scarcity of
parchment,” it is afterwards observed, “undoubtedly prevented the
transcription of many other books in these societies. About the year 1120,
one Master Heugh, being appointed by the monastery of St. Edmondsbury,
in Suffolk, to write and illuminate a grand copy of the Bible for their library,
could procure no parchment for this purpose in England.” Paper made of
cotton, however, was certainly in common use in the twelfth century; though
no evidence exists that the improved kind, manufactured from linen rags,
was known till about the middle of the thirteenth.[170]
The pavement lately discovered in the Abbey Church of Tinterne, and
described at page 42 of this volume, forms an interesting relic of its internal

decorations. There is abundant proof, in the Norman centuries, that mosaic
work was adopted as an embellishment of the high altar, and, as in the
present instance, in the front of shrines. At first, these pavements exhibited
scripture stories, painted upon glazed bricks and tiles of an irregular shape,
fitted together as the colour suited, and upon the same plan as the glass in
windows. By an improvement in the succeeding ages, the bricks, as in the
specimen before us, were made equilateral, and about four inches square;
which, when arranged and connected, produced an effect closely resembling
the Roman designs, yet wanting their simplicity and taste. The wreaths,
circles, and single compartments, retain marks of Gothic incorrectness, and
of as gross deviation from the original as the Saxon mouldings.
At what period heraldic devices were introduced cannot be ascertained
with precision; but it is probable that, when they were first carved or painted
upon escutcheons, or stained in glass, the floors received them likewise as a
new ornament. The arms of founders and benefactors were usually inserted
during the middle centuries after the Conquest, when many of the greater
abbeys employed kilns for preparing them, from which the conventual, and
their independent parish, churches were supplied. Some writers have
conjectured that the painted tiles were made by Italian artists settled in this
country; and it has been thought that monks, having acquired the art of
painting and preparing them for the kiln in the manner of porcelain, amused
their leisure hours by designing and finishing them.
The altar-pavement here under notice is of an early period; but in
those of a later age, when the branch of encaustic painting had reached
perfection, the exquisite delicacy and variety of the colours—though seldom
of more than two—are particularly discernible. The use of these painted
bricks, or tiles, was confined to consecrated places, almost without
exception; and those discovered since the Reformation have been all found
upon the sites of convents, preserved either in churches or in houses, to
which tradition confirms their removal.[171]
Amongst the encaustic relics of a later date, family arms, impaled and
quartered, as well as scrolls, rebuses, and ciphers, are very frequent. In the
present instance, the tile exhibits a quartering of the Clare and Bigod
shields. In others, the arms are interspersed with various devices, or single
figures, such as griffons, spread eagles, roses, fleurs-de-lis, &c., of common
heraldic usage, but not individually applied. It appears that in some instances
they formed a kind of tesselated pavement, the middle representing a maze,

or labyrinth, about two feet in diameter, so artfully contrived that a man,
following all the intricate meanders of its volutes, could not travel less than a
mile before he got from one end to the other. The tiles are baked almost to
vitrifaction, and wonderfully resist damp and wear.[172] Actual tesselated
pavements once existed. A manuscript Anglo-Saxon Glossary, cited by
Junius, says—“Of this kind of work, mosaic in small dies, little is used in
England. Howbeit, I have seen of it a specimen upon church floors, before
altars—as before the high altar at Westminster—though it be but gross.”[173]
Abbey Wire-works.—Among the objects of local industry in Tinterne,
to which the stranger’s attention is usually directed, the Abbey Wire-works
are the most interesting. “These,” to quote the words of the late Mr. Thomas,
“as well as the stately pile in their vicinity, amongst whose silent recesses the
tourist has so often and fondly trodden, are also the dominions of Art. But
how widely different is the scene! Here she is met with in her busy
laboratory, controlling and directing the energies of mankind, and seizing
upon the very subjects of nature—the gurgling water and the lambent flame
—to make them tributaries to her ambitious designs; whilst there, in the
precincts of that ruined fane, she is beheld indolently reclining in the flowery
lap of her indulgent rival—just as we have seen the wasted form of a lovely
maiden pillowed on the bosom of her elder sister, and gently languishing
through the departing hours of her insidious disease.”
It was in the seventeenth century, during the times of the Stuart dynasty,
that certain Swedish and German artisans, flying from continental tyranny,
were induced to seek an asylum within the pale of the British constitution,
and introduce into their adopted country the art of forging wire. They were
received with open arms; locations were assigned them, denominated Seats;
and a privilege of a vote in parliamentary elections, with an exemption from
taxes, were constituted as part of the favours which our discerning
government thought proper to confer. Of these seats Tinterne was one from
the very first immigration; and here many of the descendants of the original
settlers are still employed in the handicraft of their forefathers. Of the
methods used in the manufacture of iron-wire before the introduction of
improved machinery, tradition has preserved the following outline:—
“A large beam was erected across the factory, to which were affixed as
many seats—in the form of large wooden scales—as there were men
employed, who were fastened in them by means of a girdle round their

bodies. The artificers were employed near each other, while between them
stood a piece of iron pierced with holes of different dimensions, for reducing
the wire to an appropriate size. The worked iron was heated; the beam was
put in motion by a water-wheel; and as the workmen swung backwards and
forwards, they passed and repassed the iron through the holes described with
forceps, until it was reduced by force to the required diameter. The motion
was regulated; and if any workman chanced to miss seizing the iron with his
forceps, he suffered a considerable shock on the return of the beam.”
On the introduction of the improved system of wire factories, the nature
of the contracts between the principals and their workmen underwent a
necessary change. The struggle, however, was continued for some time, but
ultimately subsided in the adoption of the present plan, and the alterations
which it introduced. Under the management of the late Mr. Thompson—
whose mausoleum forms a conspicuous object in the adjoining cemetery—
the Tinterne Wire Works acquired a new impetus, which has been
successfully kept up by his able and intelligent successor.
Natural History.—On this interesting subject, we take advantage of the
following notes from the journal of the late Mr. Thomas of Tinterne:—April
2d, half-past seven A.M. Notwithstanding a cold north-easterly wind, with
fugitive showers, I saw a nightingale, for the first time this year, on the road
to Chapel Hill, perched upon the topmost branch of a budding thorn. He
uttered one or two of those rich, cheerful, metallic notes, so characteristic of
his song; and quickly returned to his busy search for food amongst the low
bushes adjoining. One of my friends informed me that he had listened to its
music the evening before; and another averred that he had heard the
nightingale as early as the second week of March. If these accounts be true,
which I have not the slightest reason to doubt, they seem to favour the idea
that some of these lovely songsters hibernate amongst us. Naturalists, by
common consent, name the last week of April as the period of their ordinary
arrival in this island. It seems probable, however, that those which winter
amongst us undergo some variation of plumage, which may lead a cursory
observer—if he did not pass them by unnoticed—to confound them with the
female redbreast, the hedge-sparrow, or some other unpretending bird.
In point of song from Nature’s choristers, says an enthusiastic admirer of
the Wye, these woods might challenge all England. It is impossible to enjoy
a higher treat of the kind than the harmony of these little warblers on a fine
summer’s evening, when, on each side of the Wye, they seem to vie with

each other in the richness and fullness of their notes. Mr. Heath had the
following anecdote from Signor Rossignol, so celebrated for his imitations
of the feathered tribes:—“While at Monmouth,” said he, “I often walked
towards Hadnock at a late hour of the night, for the purpose of comparing
my own notes with those which I attempted to imitate. First, I began with
those of the blackbird, when every bird of that species within hearing would
instantly awake as it were with the rapture of day. Then came the thrush,
next the nightingale, and so on, until I had called forth the song of every bird
in the woods; and thus I continued to amuse myself for an hour together. If,
in the meantime, a traveller happened to be passing the road, he was
immediately forced to conclude that he had quite mistaken the time of
day!”[174]
Walnut-trees.—The Abbey appears to have been sheltered and enriched
in its prosperous days by extensive orchards; but of the lofty walnut-trees,
that formerly spread their luxuriant branches in its vicinity, one only
remains. These trees were of great age: under their shadow many generations
of monks and pilgrims had found shelter and repose; but having long
survived their patrons, and attained that fatal majesty which insured their
destruction, the axe was applied with ruthless force to their stems; they were
hewn down, burnt, or sold; and the rich soil, from which they had derived
their strength and fertility for centuries, was converted into patches of
cabbage and potato ground, profusely bordered with weeds, and enlivened
with pigsties that, to imaginative tourists, perhaps, may recall the memory of
Friar Bacon.
The Abbot’s Meadow.—“I have often felt incommunicable delight,”
writes Mr. Thomas, “in a walk southward along the meadows skirting the
Wye. During the bright summer evenings, the glorious sun tinges the
summits of the encircling hills with his oblique golden rays, while a gentle
breeze makes the ripening grass wave in elegant undulations. How sweet at
that pensive hour to sit upon the sedgy bank, and hear the artless music of
the feathery tribes! The reedwren chants his vesper-song; full many a robin
swells it by his perennial response; whilst the inimitable thrush and tender
cushat revive the thrilling echo on the distant cliff.”
During this concert, “you turn round to behold the abbey embosomed
amidst apple-trees, and so singularly foreshortened that the beautiful western
window appears through the eastern. The entrance of the western valley is at

the same time so happily disposed, that the effulgent light of the setting sun
is seen through the roseate windows, gilding the interior of the abbey with an
unearthly brightness; whilst, to complete the scene, multitudes of noisy daws
are seen careering in fanciful circles, high in the balmy air, before they retire
to roost within the mantling ivy of the ‘roofless house of God.’ ”
At such an hour how appropriate the lines:—
“When day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of even,
And we could almost think we gaze
Through golden vistas into heaven;
Those hues which mark the sun’s decline,
So soft, so radiant, Lord, are thine!”—Moore.

At length a poetic sound breaks upon the ear—the whetting of a scythe;
and how picturesque are the fields beyond! After passing through a
succession of luxurious meadows, you arrive at the humble and ivied ruins
of a Piscatory. This building is apparently of ancient date, and was intended
to supply the monastery during those numerous fasts in which the good
abbots were wont to exchange “the very best meat for the very best
fish.”[175] Soon after passing this ruin, the hitherto placid Wye falls noisily
over a broad and shallow weir, and the steep wood encroaches upon its
rocky bank. Our footsteps, therefore, pursue a sinuous path through its deep
and pensive shade, until we somewhat suddenly emerge upon a tabular
meadow, encompassed by an amphitheatre of ivied rocks, a stupendous
rampart, at whose base the Wye is winding, and, at the same time, reflecting
in its peaceful bosom the majestic scene.[176]
Climate of Tinterne.—On this subject, a late intelligent medical
practitioner at Tinterne says:—“I may here remark, that I am unacquainted
with any warmer spot than this in England. Protected on the north and west
by a steep hill, it is open alone to the east and south: it has therefore the sun
upon it during the greater part of the day. On the third of February, 1839, at
half-past 2 in the afternoon,” he adds, “while my thermometer on the mantel-
shelf over the fire ranged at 60°, it rose to 99° outside the door. At nightfall,
which ushered in a severe frost, the mercury fell to 44°. On the twenty-third
of the same month, at 3 o’clock P.M., the thermometer ranged at 109°
Fahrenheit, or nearly 34° Reaumur; at half-past 11 at night, the mercury fell
to 45° Fahr. On the fifteenth of May, at 12.16 P.M., the thermometer on the

mantel-shelf indicated 50° Fahr. At 3 P.M. a violent snow-storm came on,
succeeded at nightfall by a nipping frost.” These facts sufficiently indicate

The Door into the Cloister.
Tinterne Abbey.

the capricious nature of the climate of Tinterne, where the transitions from a
winter to a high summer temperature, and vice versa, are so frequent and
remarkable.
Incidental Remarks.—During the plunder of this abbey church, which
was long carried on with impunity, many interesting relics of antiquity
appear to have been either mutilated, or carried off and sold. Among other
fragments of ancient art, was a brass hand grasping a spear, taken from a
tomb in the church in which was found a body entire, with leathern buskins,
and buttons on the coat; but which, on exposure to the air, crumbled into
dust. Human skeletons, we are told, were found in an orchard to the
eastward, formerly the abbey cemetery. From the size of these—monks or
soldiers—it was ascertained that their living owners must have been
considerably beyond the common stature. On the legs of one of them were
found cloth buskins in apparent preservation; while the metal studs, or
buttons, it is added, were almost bright. No coffins were found; the bodies
were simply deposited under large flat stones; and were probably of an order
inferior to those interred within the church. Adjoining the north door, a
portion of wall, long supposed to be the side of a cloister, was at last stripped
of the ivy that covered it, and disclosed a range of fine Gothic windows.[177]
And when the rubbish that encumbered the entrance leading into the cross
aisle was removed, two stones were found inscribed with the following
memorials:—
Hic jacet Johannes de Lynas.
Hic jacet Henricus de Lancaut.[178]

At the entrance by the west doorway a flight of steps was also discovered,
which at the time was supposed to communicate with a vault, or crypt, under
the church. But the passage was not explored; and the stone with which the
opening was originally covered, was restored to its place. It is the opinion of
antiquaries, however, that there is no crypt, or vault, under the church. Of
Tinterne village, which still seems to derive its support from casual
visitors to the abbey, much cannot be said in commendation. Little, if any
improvement seems to have been made for many years, owing, we were
told, to the restrictions laid upon building. With encouragement in this

respect alone—or even with the ordinary accommodations of a spacious
inn[179]—the place might speedily change its complexion, and become a
cheerful and thriving hamlet. But, as in the days of Gilpin, it presents
nothing inviting. The penury of the inhabitants may be less remarkable; “but
they still occupy little huts raised among the ruins of the monastery, and
seem as if a place, once devoted to indolence, could never again become the
seat of industry.” “As we left the abbey,” says he, “we found the whole
hamlet at the gate, either openly soliciting alms, or covertly, under pretence
of carrying us to some part of the ruins which each could show, and which
was far superior to anything which could be shown by any one else. The
most lucrative occasion could hardly have excited more jealousy and
contention.” In the present day, the duties of the abbey cicerone are
performed by a sensible and well-informed guide, named Christian Payne.
Of the accommodations to be had at Tinterne Abbey in his day, Captain
Barber has left the following reminiscence:—“Having despatched an
attendant for a barber on my arrival at the inn, a blacksmith was forthwith
introduced, who proved to be the only shaver in the place. The appearance of
this man, exhibiting, with all the grim sootiness of his employment, his
brawny arms bare to the shoulders, did not flatter me with hopes of a very
mild operation; nor were they increased when he produced a razor that, for
massiveness, might have served a Polyphemus. I sat down, however, and
was plentifully besmeared with soap-suds. After this he attempted to supply
the deficiency of an edge, by exerting his ponderous strength in three or four
such vigorous scrapes as, without exciting my finer feelings, drew more
tears into my eyes than might have sufficed for a modern tragedy. I waited
no longer; but releasing myself from his iron gripe, determined to pass for a
Jew Rabbi, rather than undergo the penance of another ‘shaving at
Tinterne.’ ”

Plan of the Abbey.—The following simplified description may
probably assist the reader to form a correct notion of the sacred and
conventual buildings, of which the abbey was originally composed; and of
the various compartments into which, in their former and perfect condition,
these were so admirably arranged and subdivided:—
Entering the church by the west doorway, the visitor passes along the
nave, with the “pillared aisles” on his right and left, and the newly-
discovered pavement. In the distance, and directly opposite, under the great
east window, is the high altar, as distinctly shown in the engraved
illustration. Moving along the nave, he observes five distinct clustered
pillars, surmounted by the magnificent arches, described in these pages. At
the commencement of the north and south transepts, he will examine the
bases of the four massive columns which formerly supported the great
central tower; the doors and windows of the transepts; the sepulchral
fragments scattered along the smooth grassy parterre of the choir; then, at
the north-west corner of the north transept, he will ascend a few steps of a
spiral staircase leading to the top of the church; and, from the gallery which
runs round within the wall, look down on the scene before and beneath him.
Descending to the transept floor, he will enter a door near the angle where
the nave and north transept unite; and entering a passage northward, through
a richly ornamented doorway, he will observe the following apartments, viz.:
—
The Cloister on the left, forming a considerable quadrangle, the sides of
which are of the same length as the nave of the church, on which it closely
abuts, running parallel with it to the west doorway, and bordering the public

road. Here, also, are some mutilated sepulchral effigies of ancient abbots,
crosses, &c., from which the inlaid brasses have been sacrilegiously
purloined. On the right hand of the visitor, as he enters, is the ancient
Vestry, or sacristy, an oblong chamber, divided into two compartments,
the second of which opens by a doorway into the North Transept. Closely
adjoining this on the north, is
The Chapter-house, of the same form and dimensions as the vestry,
but not subdivided. Farther again on the right is a large hall, with the remains
of five central pillars that supported the arched stone roof, supposed to be the
ancient
Hospitium, or guest-chamber, already described in these pages. On the
east of this, and running parallel with it, are the remains of offices or
apartments—probably dormitories—the precise use of which has not been
ascertained. Beyond, eastward, lay the Cemetery. Adjoining the Hospitium
on the west, and connecting it with the Refectory, are several small
buildings, with the remains of other dormitories on the upper floor.
Immediately adjoining this, on the west, is the
Refectory, a spacious hall, in which the brethren, as already described,
sat at table. The Lectern, or pulpit-desk, at which a reader presided during
meals, is still visible about the middle of the west side. From the refectory, a
tourniquet-door, for the passage of viands only, communicated with the
kitchen; and close to this is the dole, where the indigent and wayfaring poor
were daily supplied with victuals and refreshments. The kitchen runs parallel
with the cloisters, and the west entrance of the church, along the public road
leading to the ferry.
The Scale annexed to the Plan of the Abbey—as shown by the woodcut—
will enable the reader to ascertain, with tolerable accuracy, the dimensions of
all the compartments named.

1 Doorway leading into the Cloisters.
2 Effigies of Abbots—the brasses removed.
3 Door leading into the Vestiary and Sacristy.
4 The Chapter-house—bases of pillars.
5 Supposed Hospitium, or Guest-Hall—bases of central pillars.
6 Buildings, with dormitories in the upper floor.
7 The Lectern, or Reading-Desk, during meals.
8 Tesselated pavement, lately discovered.

9 Staircase leading to the Triforia, and top of the abbey.
10 Aperture for serving the dishes from the kitchen.
11 Dole, for the distribution of food to the poor.

Proportions.— Length of Chancel and Nave, 228 feet.
Length of Transepts across, 150 “
Height of the Tower Arches, 70 “
Height of the lesser Arches, 30 “

As a specimen of the marvellous connected with these ruins, we cannot
resist introducing another characteristic
Legend.—A party of gentlemen—horresco referens—who had
inspected the abbey, employed several labourers to dig in the orchard
adjoining, in hopes of discovering some antiquities. Part of one day and the
following night were spent in this employment, when at last they were
successful, and two human skeletons were discovered. Next day the same
party resolved to celebrate their discovery by a dinner in the abbey. But
scarcely had they commenced their sacrilegious repast, when a thick
darkness overspread the horizon; deep thunder raised its tremendous voice,
and shook the surrounding hills; lightnings flashed

Tintern Abbey.
West Front.

throughout the ruin in sheets of livid flame; hail, succeeded by torrents of
rain, deluged the plain, and
“Peal on peal
Crashed horrible, convulsing earth and heaven!”

During this sudden and tremendous visitation, the indignant spirit of
Strongbow—accompanied by the spectral forms of many whose death-
sleep had been thus wantonly disturbed—arose from the grave, and fixed his
eyes upon the petrified strangers. Then raising his gauntleted hand, he
pointed to the abbey door—which at the sight had mysteriously opened—
and sternly beckoned the impious visitors to depart! The awful signal was
instantly obeyed; and some crawling, others trembling—all pale and
speechless, the daring adventurers rushed from his presence, they knew not
how, and fled they knew not whither; while the savoury viands left behind
them were instantly swept over the abbey walls in a whirlwind.
The Engraved Views of Tinterne Abbey.
I.—The West Entrance,[180] a beautiful specimen of Decorated Gothic;
the principal feature of which is the great west window, of which all visitors
and writers on this subject have expressed their unqualified admiration. The
stonework of this magnificent feature is nearly entire; the five mullions, tall,
slender, and elaborately moulded, retain their original forms; and,
terminating in the rich flowing tracery that fills and completes the arch,
appear as if they wanted nothing but the ancient painted glass to restore the
window to its primitive splendour. The ivy inserting itself into every joint,
and hanging in graceful festoons, seems more like artificial garlands woven
in honour of a fête day, than as the sure emblem and evidence of dilapidation
and decay. Beneath this window is the richly-carved double doorway leading
into the nave. On the right hand is another window communicating with the
southern aisle, surmounted by a window of three compartments, and two
buttresses terminating in pinnacles, of which only one remains. On the left
hand is the north aisle, in form and dimensions exactly corresponding with
the former, but much less perfect. Closely adjoining this were the abbey
cloisters, the remains of which have been noticed in a former page.
II.—The Vale of Tinterne,[181] as it is seen from a point—in the woods
covering the left bank of the Wye—called the Devil’s Pulpit. This engraving
conveys a most correct, beautiful, and comprehensive view of the abbey, and

its circumjacent scenery. In the backgrounds is seen the hill country
stretching westward towards Monmouth. On the left, crowning an eminence
that overlooks the village and abbey, stands the church of Chapel-hill, with
the characteristic feature of an immense yew-tree expanding its gloomy
branches over the cemetery. Beneath is seen the public road from Chepstow
running westward, and branching off in the village to right and left; the latter
branch running along the hills towards Raglan, and the former following the
course of the Wye to Monmouth. To the right, under the wooded rocks which
appear to overhang its channel, the Wye is seen making a curve like a
horseshoe, so as to form a peninsula, the outer rim of which, as described in
the text, is lined with houses that rise one above the other, and planted here
and there with tall poplars, and refreshed with numerous springs and
rivulets, that, after murmuring down the rocks, throw their crystal tribute
into the Wye. Here the river is seen enlivened with passage-boats, by means
of which a daily communication between the villages above and below the
abbey is kept open for the conveyance of market produce, or the
convenience of passengers.
In the foreground lies the glory of the scene—the abbey and its
appendages—the latter much curtailed; but once, as history informs us,
enclosing the goodly space of thirty-four acres. The view looks down upon
the conventual church, showing the nave and transepts in their cruciform
proportions, with the magnificent east window opening upon some rich
productive orchards, the ground of which was consecrated in former times as
the abbey cemetery. Stretching along the river eastward is a luxuriant tract of
pasture land, called the Abbots’ Meadows, already described. Nothing can be
more soothing and tranquil than this scene, embosomed, as it is, among
sylvan landscapes, and bordered by a river whose smooth yet swift-flowing
waters are heard in the calm summer evening like distant music.
“And ever, as the summer sun goes down,
From bank to bank, amidst yon leafy bower,
The woodland songsters trill harmonious notes;
Till every tree that crowns the verdant steep,
Or shades the stream, that flows in amber light,
Sends forth its melody.”

III.—From the Chancel, westward.[182] This is justly considered to be
the most imposing view in the whole abbey; and is that to which every
stranger visiting the ruins is conducted at the close of his survey. The point

from which it is taken, is under the area of the great tower, near the further
angle of the north transept and chancel. Looking through the lofty arches
that supported the central tower, it takes in the west window, the window of
the north aisle, the nave, and on the right, the doorway leading into the
cloisters—of which an engraving is here given—with the massive clustered
pillars, lofty and delicately moulded arches, in which an airy lightness,
combined with strength and solidity, strike the spectator with feelings of awe
and admiration, to which it is hardly possible to give expression—
“Silence sublime, and stillness how profound;
Yet every arch, with clustered ivy hung,
And every column, as thou gazest round,
Seems to address thee in thy native tongue;
Telling how first these mighty structures rose,
And how they fell beneath their Vandal foes.”

In the centre are the two sepulchral slabs, already described in another
portion of the text; and on the left, leaning against the base of one of the
pillars, is a mutilated statue, supposed to be that of Roger Bigod, or Gilbert
de Clare, as shown in the woodcut, page 41. In various parts of the chancel,
choir, and transepts, as well as in the nave and aisles, many dilapidated
fragments are collected in heaps; among which the visitor will distinguish
pieces of elaborate carving, particularly some ingenious and fancifully
sculptured bosses, the connecting ornaments of the richly-groined roof that
once overhung this gorgeous temple, and echoed back the anthems of its
assembled choir.
IV.—From the Ferry,[183] on the opposite or left bank of the Wye. On
the foreground is the landing-place, from which a road,[184] or bridle-path,
winding along the wooded heights, already noticed in our description of the
‘Devil’s Pulpit,’ presents many picturesque, and some romantic points of
view. The river is here the boundary line between the counties of Monmouth
and Gloucester, or, anciently, between England and South Wales. Directly
opposite, and terminating the causeway leading up from the ferry, is an
archway, the ancient watergate of the abbey. Through this gate the
monastery received its supplies from the barges that daily ascended and
descended the river, or lay at anchor under the protection of the abbey; for
here, we were told, there is depth of water—which is increased at every tide
—sufficient to float vessels of seventy tons burthen. The grove, which
occupies the space between the water and the abbey walls, consists chiefly

of apple and pear-trees, which form a continuous girdle of orchards round
the abbey church, and are particularly luxuriant and productive, on the site of
the ancient burial-ground. The ring of offices with which the abbey was
originally enclosed on nearly three sides, has almost disappeared, leaving
only the foundations, upon which, from time to time, mean hovels have been
hastily thrown together—ill adapted for the health, comfort, or even
convenience of human beings.
The prominent features of the abbey as seen from this point, and taken in
detail are—the nave, terminating in the great west window, with its own
five lancet-pointed windows rising above the trees; the north transept, part
of the south, and two windows of the chancel.
Following the course of the river eastward, richly-wooded rocks are seen,
closing the landscape, and commanding the minute and beautiful view of the
“Vale of Tinterne,” already given as an illustration. All beyond the white sail
on the stream is a scene of richly-wooded rocks on the left bank, and on the
right a wide expanse of smooth and verdant meadows. The hills,
immediately overlooking the abbey on the south, possess the same
picturesque character as those opposite, but are enlivened by more frequent
habitations, and with more traces of industry and cultivation. The ferry-
house, close to the watergate, presents some features of antiquity; and
stands, probably, on the old foundation of what was occupied by the abbot’s
Charon of the olden time. A glance at the debris, under which some of the
monastic buildings here lie half buried, suggests an idea that, with due
permission and encouragement, antiquaries could hardly fail to discover
excellent “diggings” in these purlieus. But thus far the prying archæologist
has been regarded with suspicion and distrust, and condemned to look upon
the antiquities of Tinterne as treasures laid up for the benefit of future
generations.
V.—Doorway leading into the Cloisters.—This beautiful specimen
of art is one of the very finest in the abbey. The elegance of the design is
only surpassed by the elaborate taste and skill displayed in its execution. The
clustered mouldings of the doorway; the wavy multifoil outline of the inner
arch; the beautifully carved ornament that surrounds the whole like a riband
of delicate lacework; the whole crowned with the symbolic trefoil resting on
the apex of the arch, present a combination of features—all harmonizing,

and all elaborately adjusted to one another—rarely to be met with even
among the masterpieces of Decorated Gothic.[185]
Looking through this doorway, the window in the distance is that of the
southern aisle, through which are seen the woods on the opposite hill; and
inside the walls the ivy is seen climbing in verdant masses along the arches
and pillars of the nave. Under the broken steps, where the group of figures is
represented, are the remains of sepulchral stone-slabs, covering the resting-
place of the old abbots, and formerly inlaid with the symbols of their holy
office, as

The Door from Cloister into Sacristy.
Tintern Abbey.

represented in the engraving. But the brasses have long since disappeared,
and left only the empty grooves to which they had been so elaborately
adjusted by the skilful artists of that day. Brasses, or Latten, are considered
to be good illustrations of the architecture of their period, owing to the
designs of canopies, crosiers, &c. delineated upon them. They are seldom to
be met with in any reign prior to that of Edward the Second; nor did they
become general till towards the close of the fourteenth century, when the
effigies are commonly surmounted by arched canopies, ogee-shaped and
crocketed, of the same kind of inlaid work elaborately engraven. These
subsequently vary, according to the style of the age, and in general rather
preceding than following it. Of the brasses, which—owing to the rank and
character of its founder and benefactors, as well as its abbots and others—
must have formed no inconsiderable feature in the decorations of Tinterne
Abbey, not a fragment remains.
Where Latten marked the abbots’ grave,
And sculpture spread her trophies round it;
Rank weeds in wild luxuriance wave,
And mock the gaudy shrine that crowned it.
Here, they who for the Cross had died,
And they who led the way to glory—
Here mitred pomp, and martial pride,
Have not a stone to tell their story.

VI.—Doorway leading into the Sacristy.—This is a double doorway
—a specimen of the Early English—divided by a moulded shaft, with a
circular opening, or quatrefoil, over it. The outer arch is deeply ‘recessed,’
consisting of five or six successive shafts, or mouldings, on either side,
without capitals, and meeting above at the centre of the arch. The inner
arches are foliated, and the cusps richly fluted. Clasping this elegant and
massive structure, the ivy has so incorporated itself with the masonry, that—
massive as it is—art must gradually yield to that natural process which
seems to make every root of ivy, if once insinuated between the jointed
stones, act like a fulcrum for their dislodgment—

“Ha, ha!” laughs the Ivy, “let men uprear
Their ‘Castles and Abbeys,’ far and near;
Pile upon pile, let their fabrics rise,
Darkening the earth, and mocking the skies;
Lifting their turrets so haughtily—
Boasting their grandeur—but what care I?
Buttress and bastion, cloister and hall—
I conquer them all—I conquer them all!”

VII.—The Refectory.[186]—Of this building enough remains to show,
that, in their palmy days, the Abbots of Tinterne had a truly noble hall for
their private and state entertainments. Of refectories in general, some
account has been already given at page 51 of this volume. Of the style of
architecture employed in this dining-hall, the numerous windows, with their
mullioned partitions, tall shafts, and foliated arches, face-shafts, and corbel
heads along the walls, from which sprang the lofty groined vault that
covered and connected the whole, present a tolerably distinct picture.
“Along the roof a maze of mouldings slim,
Like veins that o’er the hand of lady wind,
Embraced in closing arms the key-stone trim,
With hieroglyphs and cyphers quaint combined,
The riddling art that charmed the Gothic mind.”

With regard to the minor details, we may notice the dole, a small double
aperture, near the archway on the left; and on the opposite side, is another
door through which the dishes were handed in from the kitchen. Near the
dole is a low-arched doorway in the eastern wall, showing the passage by
which communication was kept up with the adjoining offices, the hospitium,
the locutorium, and the dormitories. The situation of the reading-desk, or
lectern, will be seen by referring to the new plan of the abbey here
introduced; and this closes our notice of the engraved illustrations.

“On the whole,” says Grose, summing up his observations on Tinterne,
“though this monastery is undoubtedly light and elegant, it wants that
gloomy solemnity so essential to religious ruins; it wants those yawning
vaults and dreary recesses, which strike the beholder with religious awe—
make him almost shudder at entering them, and call into his mind all the
tales of the nursery. Here, at one cast of the eye, the whole is comprehended,
nothing is left for the spectator to guess or explore; and this defect is

increased by the ill-placed neatness of the poor people who show the
building, and by whose absurd labour the ground is covered over by a turf,
as even and trim as that of a bowling-green, which gives the building more
the air of an artificial ruin in a garden, than that of an ancient decayed
abbey.”
“How unlike,” he adds, “the beautiful description of the poet!—
‘Half-buried there lies many a broken bust,
And obelisk and urn, o’erthrown by time,
And many a cherub here descends in dust,
From the rent roof and portico sublime;
Where reverend shrines in Gothic grandeur stood,
The nettle or the noxious nightshade spreads;
And ashlings, wafted from the neighbouring wood,
Through the worn turrets wave their trembling heads.’ ”

These objections have been repeated by other writers of unquestionable
taste; but we may venture to predict, that among the numerous strangers who
annually resort to these deserted shrines, few will return home without
expressions of unqualified admiration of “Tinterne, as it is.” The care
employed by its noble owner in arresting the progress of decay, is creditable
to his taste and reverence for antiquity. Had these ruins been consigned, as
some would have had them, to the wasting hand of time, their vaulted
wonders would long ere now have fallen piecemeal into the area beneath;
but wherever a stone is observed to be losing its hold, the hand of art is
immediately applied to restore it to its original place: and thus, what might
have passed away in a few inclement seasons, has been propped up and
secured for the delight of many generations to come.
And lo, these mouldering fragments to sustain,
Her graceful network nature’s hand hath hung;
Bound every arch with a supporting chain,
And round each wall her living verdure flung;
And o’er the floor that sepulchres the dead—
The saints and heroes of departed years;
The flower of memory lifts its modest head,
And morning sheds her tributary tears.—W.B.

Poetical Votaries.—Having quoted so largely from chroniclers and
other prose writers in the preceding pages, we must not quit the subject of
Tinterne Abbey, without selecting a few stanzas from those minstrels who

have sought and found inspiration on the spot. Wordsworth, from whose
poem on the Wye we have already quoted, addresses the following
Lines to a Cistercian Monastery.
‘Here man more purely lives, less oft doth fall,
More promptly rises, walks with nicer heed,
More safely rests, dies happier; is freed
Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains withal
A brighter crown.’ On yon Cistercian wall
That confident assurance may be read;
And, to like shelter, from the world have fled
Increasing multitudes. The potent call
Doubtless shall cheat full oft the heart’s desire;
Yet, while the rugged age on pliant knee
Vows to rapt Fancy humble fealty,
A gentler life spreads round the holy spires;
Where’er they rise the sylvan waste retires,
And aëry harvests crown the fertile lea.

Tinterne Abbey on the Wye.
Sudden the change; at once to tread
The grass-grown mansions of the dead.
Awful to feeling, where, immense,
Rose ruin’d grey magnificence;
The fair wrought shaft all ivy-bound,
The tow’ring arch with foliage crowned,
That trembles on its brow sublime,
Triumphant o’er the spoils of time.
There, grasping all the eye beheld,
Thought into mingling anguish swell’d,
And checked the wild excursive wing,
O’er dust or bones of priest or king;
Or rais’d some Strongbow warrior’s ghost,
To shout before his banner’d host.
But all was still. The chequered floor
Shall echo to the step no more;
No airy roof the strain prolong,
Of vesper chant or choral song—
Tinterne! thy name shall hence sustain
A thousand raptures in my brain;
Joys, full of soul, all strength, all eye,
That cannot fade, that cannot die.—Bloomfield.

Evening at Tinterne Abbey.

A pilgrim, at the vesper hour,
I stood by Tinterne’s hallowed tower;
While o’er the walls, in golden hue,
The setting sun its farewell threw;
Then, paling slowly, flushed and fled,
Like a smile from the cheek of the recent dead.
* * * *
’Tis night—on the ivy-mantled walls
The shadows deepen, and darkness falls;
And forth from his roost, in the fretted aisle,
The solemn owl wheels round the pile;
But no lighted shrine, no vesper-song,
Is seen, or heard, these aisles among;
For hymnless now the day returns,
And voiceless sets on their nameless urns;
Nor laud, nor chant, nor matin chime,
Retard the fleeting steps of time.
* * * *
The Shrine, from which the anthem rushed,
When evening glowed, or morning blushed,
Like them, who reared the pile on high—
A landmark pointing to the sky;
Like them, by slow and sure decay,
That shrine is crumbling o’er their clay.—W.B., 1848.

The Abbey by Moonlight.

I tread the moonlit abbey! Oh, my soul,
How nobly art thou struggling to be free,
Spurning the temple’s, and the world’s control,
And feeling most inadequate to thee
The loftiest dome, the grandest scenery;
O’er views that would oppress thee or appal,
Rising, like light bark o’er the mounting sea;
And where, if weak or mortal thou wouldst fall,
Expanding to survey and compass more than all!

Palace of Piety! Devotion here
Should wear a crownèd angel’s robe of white,
And antedate the ardours of a sphere,
Where all is tranquil as this noon of night!
The moon—the regal moon—intensely bright,
Shines through the roseate window of the west;
Each shaft, an artificial stalactite
Of pendent stone, with slumber seems oppressed,
Or with a charmèd dream of peaceful rapture blessed.

And through thy lofty arch, a single star
Is gazing from a depth of spotless blue,
As if to learn how soft thy splendours are,
And feel them deeply, as I fain would do!
While now supine upon thy pave of dew
I let thy loveliness my soul pervade,
And pass with unimpeded influence through
Its quiet depths, like moonlight through thy shade,
To haunt with beauty still that shrine of hopes decayed.

Forgive me, abbey of the watered vale—
Forgive that, when I feel my spirit swell
With an unwonted energy, I fail
To hymn thy desolated glories well!
Not yet the chrysalis has burst its shell—
Not yet expanded its immortal wings;
The restless rudiments of vast powers tell
The soul a deathless thing; from earth she springs,
But fast and feebly falls, the while of thee she sings.
J. C. Earle, St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford.

Tinterne Vesper-Hymn.

Like crimson on the dimpled Wye
Sleeps the glowing summer sky;
O’er the landscape, widely thrown,
Belted rock, and mountain cone;
Hamlet, tower, and haunted stream,
Are basking in the vesper-beam;
And holy friars, robed in white,
Cross them in the waning light—Ave Maria!

Now, along the abbey walls,
Soft the purple gloaming falls;
Aloft, on every turret’s height,
In the dim and doubtful light,
Here retiring, there advancing,
Weeds are waving, wings are glancing,
And yon effigies of stone
Seem to hail the vesper-tone—Ave Maria!

Deeper yet, and deeper still,
From winding stream, and wooded hill,
Shadowy cliff and rippling weir,
Nature’s music fills the ear;
Notes of mingling praise and prayer
Float along the solemn air,
Where, from cloistered arches dim,
Swells the everlasting hymn—Ave Maria!

Hark, ’tis midnight! but, unsleeping,
Here their faithful vigil keeping;
Pale white friars raise again,
In lengthened chant, the solemn strain!
Hark! throughout the sacred dwelling,
High the mingled notes are swelling;
Angels, stooping from the sky,
Bear the sacrifice on high—Ave Maria!—W. B. 1849.

Appendix.
Of the Abbots of Tinterne the historical notices are very scanty. The
following occur in the “Parliamentary Writs,” by Sir Francis Palgrave:—[187]
A.D. 1294.—Abbas de Tynterne is summoned to a council of the
clergy, to be held before the King in person, at Westminster, on the
Feast of St. Matthias the Apostle, on the twenty-first day of
September, and twenty-second of Edward I. Again—
1295.—The Abbas de Tynterne is summoned to Parliament at
Westminster, on Sunday next after the feast of St. Martin, thirteenth
day of October, and twenty-third year of the reign of Edward I.,
prorogued to Sunday next, before the Feast of St. Andrew the
Apostle, the twenty-seventh of November. Thirdly—
1296.—Summoned to Parliament at Bury St. Edmund’s, on the
morrow of All-Souls, November the third day, and twenty-fourth
year of the reign of Edward I.
1300.—Abbas de Tynterne—Letter of Credence addressed to him
concerning the expedition against the Scots—at Blith, the
seventeenth day of January, and twenty-eighth year of the reign of
Edward I. Again, the same year, the abbot was summoned to
Parliament in London, on the second Sunday in Lent, being the sixth
day of March.
1301.—Abbas de Tynterne is summoned to Parliament at Lincoln—
in eight days of St. Hilary—the twentieth day of January, and
twenty-eighth year of the reign aforesaid.
1305.—Summoned to Parliament at Westminster, on Tuesday, in fifteen
days of the Purification, the sixteenth of February; afterwards
prorogued to Sunday next, after the Feast of St. Matthias the
Apostle, the twenty-eighth day of February—but to which he was
not resummoned—and thirty-third year of the reign of Edward I.

1316.—Abbas de Tynterne, certified pursuant to writ, tested at
Clipston, March the fifth, as one of the lords of the township of Acle,
[188] in the county of Norfolk, in the ninth year of the reign of

Edward II.
1316.—Johannes de Tynterne, certified in like manner, as holding
part of the burgh of Lyme-Regis, in the county of Dorset, in the
ninth year of the reign of Edward II.

The following is the original document referred to in various passages of
the foregoing articles on Chepstow and Tinterne:—
Genealogia Fundatoris (Ex MS. Codice in Bibl. Cottoniana [sub Effigie
Vitellii, F. 4], fol. 7).
Gunnora Comitissa Normanniæ duas habuit sorores, una Turulpho de
Ponte-Adamaro conjuncta erat in matrimonio, et procreavit Humfridum de
Vetulis qui fuit pater Rogeri de Bellomonte, ex quo comites de Warwike et
Leicestriæ processerunt.
Turketillus fuit frater istius Turulphi, cujus filius Hasculfus de Harecurt
aliam sororem predictæ Comitissæ Gunnoræ con ... erat duos procreavit
filios; scilicet Walterum de Giffard, primogenitum, qui alium Walterum
procreavit, et dictus fuit Walterius Giffard secundus. Rohesia, una sororum
Walteri (duas plures enim habuit) conjuncta in matrimonio Ricardo filio
comitis Gisleberti, qui in re militari, tempore Conquestoris omnes sui
temporis magnates præcessit. Prædicta Rohesia supervixit et renupta
Eudoni, dapifero Regis Normanniæ qui construxit castrum Colecestriæ,
cum cœnobio, in honore Sancti Johannis, ubi sepultus fuit, cum conjuge sua,
tempore Henrici primi. Margareta filia eorum nupta fuit Willielmo de
Mandevill, et fuit mater Gaufredi filii comitis Essexiæ et jure matris,
Normanniæ dapifer. Prædictus Ricardus apud sanctum Neotum jacet
sepultus. Huic rex Willielmus concessit baroniam De Clare, villam verò
cum castello de Tunbridge, de Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, pro aliis terris in
Normannia, perquisivit in excambium. Baldwinus, frater istius Ricardi,
Willielmum, Robertum, et Ricardum, cum tribus sororibus genuit. Ex
prædicta Rohesia hanc sobolem procreavit Ricardus, Rogerus natu

secundus terras patris sui in Normannia adeptus est; Walterus dominium
Wenciæ inferioris, in Wallia, qui construxit Abbatiam de Tinterna,
anno Domini MCXXXI; obiit sine prole.[189]
The Deed, by which the privileges originally granted by the founders
were confirmed and completed by Roger Bigod, after the lapse of a hundred
and seven years, is expressed in the following terms:—
Rogerus le Bygod Comes Norfolciæ, et Mareschallus Angliæ,
Salutem in Domino. Noverit universitas vestra me intuitu Dei et pro salute
animæ nostræ, et animarum antecessorum nostrorum, et hæredum
nostrorum, concessisse et confirmasse Deo et ecclesiæ beatæ Mariæ de
Tinterna, Abbati et monachis et eorum successoribus ibidem Deo
servientibus, in liberam puram et perpetuam elemosynam, omnes terras et
possessiones, libertates, et liberas consuetudines subscriptas quas habent ex
donis antecessorum nostrorum et aliorum fundatorum seu donatorum, sive
ex dono nostro—videlicet: Totam hayam de Porcassek, et ex altera parte co
opertorium nemoris c̃ omnibus pertinentiis suis in bosco et plano, et quicquid
habet in Pentirk de tenementis terris redditibus boscis et planis c̃ aliis
libertatibus suis et totam terram de Modisgat c̃ omnibus suis pertinentiis—
videlicet: cum pastura ovium et aliorum animalium suorum ubique in chacia
nostra de Tudenham, et de Subbosco in dictu chacia quicquid eis
necessarium fuerit ad ardendum et ad hayas claudendas, etc. His testibus
domino Joanne le Bÿgod fratre meo: Dom. Joanne le Bÿgod Stocton:
Nicholao de Kingeston, militibus: Elya de Aylbreton, tunc Seneschallo meo
de Strugull: Philippe de Mora: Rogero de Sancto Mauro: Willielmo de
Dynam: Andreæ de Bellocampo, et aliis.
Datum apud Modesgat, quarto die Augusti, anno Domini M.CCCI.

Authorities quoted or referred to in the preceding article on Tinterne
Abbey and its vicinity:—Dugdale’s Monasticon and Baronage—Thomas’s
Tinterne—Camden—Giraldus Cambrensis—Robert of Gloucester—
Matthew Paris—William of Worcester—Fosbroke’s British Monachism—
Dallaway’s Arts—Reed—Barber—Mores Catholici—Life of St. Bernard—
French Monastic Writers—Annales et Usus Cistercienses—Morton’s
Monastic Annals—Nicolson’s History—West’s Furness—Wonders and

Traditions of Wales—Bp. Godwin—Burnet—Pictorial Hist. of Engl.—Sir H.
Ellis’s Original Letters—Wilkins’s Concilia—Macaulay’s History—Blunt’s
Sketch of the Reformation—Latimer’s Sermons—Madden’s Penalties—
Warton—Taylor’s Index Monast.—Heraldic Enquiries—Henniker—Cowel
—Chronicles of England—Local historians and poets—Gilpin—Heath—
Barber—Thomas, whose work on “Tinterne and its Environs” is the best
hand-book that has yet appeared on this locality—Notes taken by the Editor
during a Tour on the Wye—Hints and Suggestions from Correspondents, etc.

On taking leave of Tinterne, we shall here introduce a short notice of—
Goodrich Castle, once a stronghold of the Marshalls, whose names
have been so often recorded in connection with the abbey. It stands on a
finely wooded promontory, round which the river Wye flows in a
semicircular direction. By whom it was originally founded is unknown,
though the near affinity of its name to that of ‘Godricus Dux,’ who occurs
as a witness to two charters granted by King Canute to the abbey of Hulm,
has given birth to a not improbable conjecture that he was the founder. The
Keep is evidently of a date antecedent to the Conquest; but the surrounding
works are principally Norman, though various additions and alterations may

be distinguished as the workmanship of different periods, even down to the
time of Henry VI.
In its general outline, this castle forms a parallelogram, with a round
tower at each angle, and a square ‘keep’ standing in the south-west part of
the enclosed area. The common thickness of the exterior walls is somewhat
more than seven feet; the length of the longest sides—that is, those towards
the south-east and north-west, including the projections of the towers—is
about 176 feet; and that of the south-west and north-east sides about 152
feet.

The keep stands somewhat in the same manner as those of Porchester,
Pevensey, and Castleton, close to the outward wall of the castle; and, like
them, it has no window on the outside next the country. It had evidently
three rooms or floors, one above the other; all of them, however, were very
small, being only fourteen feet and a half square; and the room on the first
floor had no sort of internal communication with the dungeon beneath—
which had not even a single loophole for light and air, but was connected by
a very narrow passage to a still smaller dungeon, strongly secured under the

platform belonging to the steps of the entrance, and having a very small air-
hole on the same side. “The original windows are Saxon; that in the middle
of the upper story seems to have remained just as it was from the very first,
without any alteration; and the manner in which the two large side columns
stand, somewhat within the arch, is consistent with the fashion adopted by
the Saxons, and continued even to the time of Edward the Confessor. The
large zigzag ornament on each side, between the columns, is in the rude
form in which it was generally used by the early Saxons; and so also is that
of the zigzag moulding, or band, that is carried by way of ornament quite
across the tower, just under the window; and it is very remarkable, that the
middle projecting buttress is carried no higher than this ornament.”[190]—
See the preceding wood-cut.
The window in the apartment beneath is similar in its general
construction; but the columns which support the arch are somewhat higher,
and a semicircular moulding of zigzag is carried beneath the arch; the middle
part of the window, however, has been altered—a stone frame for glass
having been inserted, of the style and age of Henry the Sixth, and probably
in the time of the celebrated Earl Talbot, whom tradition represents as having
his own chamber in this tower. In the second apartment is a fire-hearth,
and, in an angle of the wall, a circular staircase leads to the upper story. “To
this staircase is a most remarkable doorway; it has one large transom stone,
as if to aid the arch to support the wall above, and in this respect it resembles
several other Saxon structures, in which this singular fashion seems to have
been uniformly adopted, until it became gradually altered by the introduction
of a flattish under-arch, substituted in the room of the transom stone.”[191]
The principal entrance was by a flight of steps on one side, distinct
from the main building, and ascending to a platform before the doorway
leading to the second chamber. The entrance to the dungeon, or lower
apartment, was under “a very remarkable sort of pointed arch, formed of flat
sides, which seems, from the appearance of the wall around it, and from its
peculiar style, to have been inserted many ages after the tower was built, and
in the time of Edward III.; a suspicion that appears to be most strongly
confirmed, by the circumstance, that about the twenty-second year of
Edward the Third, Richard Talbot, its then lord, obtained the royal
license[192] for having in his castle a prison for male-factors, having also the
cognizance of pleas of the crown, &c., within his lordship of Irchinfield. The
bottom of the keep-tower would undoubtedly, as usual, be the place where

such a prison would be established; and on that occasion it should seem that
this new and strong door-frame was first constructed, whilst the very
annexation of the lordship of Irchinfield, or Urchenfield, to the possession of
this keep-tower, both of which his lordship appears to have been possessed
of before this license was granted, shows the exceedingly high antiquity of
this castle, since Urchenfield was, indeed, the very place where St. Dubricius
founded his college of Religious, about A.D. 512, to live, like the original
Eastern recluses, by the work of their own hands.”[193] The body of the keep
is an exact square of twenty-nine feet.
In describing the additions made to this fortress in the Norman times, and
during the successive reigns to the time of Henry the Sixth, we shall follow
Mr. King, and begin with the strongly-fortified entrance, which,
commencing between two semicircular towers of equal dimensions, near the
east angle, was continued under a dark vaulted passage, to an extent of fifty
feet. “Immediately before the entrance, and within the space enclosed by the
fosse, was a very deep pit, hewn out of the solid rock, formerly crossed by a
drawbridge, which is now gone, but which evidently appears to have exactly
fitted, and to have closed, when drawn up, the whole front of the gateway
between the towers. About eleven feet within the passage was a massive
gate, the strong iron hinges of which still remain: this gate and the
drawbridge were defended on each side by loopholes, and overhead by rows
of machicolations in the vaulting. Six feet and a half beyond this was a
portcullis, and about seven feet further a second portcullis; the space
between these was again protected by loopholes and machicolations. About
two feet more inward was another strong gate, and five feet and a half
beyond this, on the right, a small door leading to a long narrow gallery, only
three feet wide, formed in the thickness of the wall, and which was the
means of access to the loopholes in the eastern tower, as well as to some
others that commanded the brow of the steep precipice towards the north-
east.” These works appear to have been thought sufficient for general
defence; but a resource was ingeniously contrived for greater security, in
case they had all been forced: “for a little further on are many stone
projections in the wall on each side, like pilasters, manifestly designed for
inserting great beams of timber within them, like bars, from one side of the
passage, which was about nine feet ten inches wide, to the other, so as to
form a strong barricade, with earth or stones between the rows of timber,

which would in a short time, and with rapidity, form a strong massy wall.”
Beyond these the passage opened into the great inner court of the Castle.
Chapel.—The ruins of the chapel run parallel with the entrance on the
left; the style of the broken ornaments, and particularly of those about its
great window, show this to have been repaired and adorned even so late as
the reign of Henry the Seventh. In one part is a very remarkable niche, and
near it a smaller one, for holy water. On the opposite side is also another
niche for the same purpose. Beneath the chapel was a deep vault, and over it
a chamber, with a fireplace, which still appears projecting from the wall.
Adjoining the chapel, and near the entrance, is a small octagonal watch-
tower, which rises above the other buildings, and commands a fine view
over the surrounding country.
The buildings between the chapel and the south or garrison tower, to the
upper part of which a passage, or covered-way, led along the top of the outer
wall, are mostly in ruins. Here appear to have been the stables. The garrison
tower adjoins the entrance to the keep; its foundation is a square of about
thirty-six feet; but the three outward angles diminish as they ascend, and
form triangular buttresses, so that the upper part of the tower is circular. The
walls are at least eight feet in thickness. The entrances to this tower were so
continued, that there was access to it from every part of the walls. It
contained three floors, and in each of them a fire-hearth. The interior forms
an irregular octagon, about twenty feet in diameter from the angles, and
about seventeen from side to side.
Great Tower.—The wall that extended between the keep and the west
tower is in ruins. This tower, which is also greatly dilapidated, appears of
more modern construction than the former, and is probably of the time of the
Edwards. Its outward form is circular; but the interior is somewhat of an
octangular figure, but very irregular, its general dimensions being thirty-
three feet long, and twenty-five feet broad. In this appears to have been the
great kitchen; the fireplace is still distinguishable, with a recess and
loophole on each side. Here was a small doorway, or sally-port,
communicating with a sort of outer ballium, which runs on the north-west
side, and was enclosed by an outer wall. On this side also, and ranging
between the west tower and the north or Ladies’ tower, were the state
apartments.

The Hall was a magnificent room of the time of Edward the First, as
clearly appears from the style and architecture of its remains, and
particularly from its long, slender, and narrow windows. This apartment was
sixty-five feet long, and twenty-eight feet broad. Some years ago it
contained a single beam of oak, “without knot or knarle,” sixty-six feet long,
and nearly two feet square throughout its whole length. On the north-west
side is the great fireplace; and behind it, projecting into the outer ballium, a
vast mass of solid stonework, or buttress, which, in its upper part, appears to
have had some little apartment, or guard-chamber. The hall communicated
towards the north with a kind of withdrawing or retiring room, about twenty-
nine feet by seventeen and a half, in which appears to have been a window
looking into the hall. From this second apartment, a passage led into what
seems to have been the great
State-room, which was fifty-five feet and a half long by twenty broad.
At the upper end, or towards the north, are two beautiful pointed arches,
springing from a well-wrought octagon pillar in the middle of the apartment,
and resting on corbels at the sides. Here seem to have been two large
windows; but the walls are so much broken, or closely mantled with ivy, that
this cannot with certainty be affirmed. The architecture of this part of the
building is of the time of Henry the Fifth or Sixth. At the north angle of this
room is an opening leading into the north or Ladies’ tower, which is so
situated on the brow of a high and steep precipice, as to be the most
defensible part of the castle. From the apartment within, which is a neat
octagon, about fifteen feet in diameter, is a most beautiful view over the
adjacent country. From the common appellation of this tower, there can be
little doubt of its having been appropriated as a “Ladies’ bower.” Beyond the
state-room, in the north-east wall, is a square recess and loophole, supposed
to have been formed for the lodging and seat of the warden.
Such was the original construction of Goodrich Castle; but almost every
part has yielded to the iron tooth of age, and to the more speedy demolition
of war. The ruins, however, are extremely grand; the massive towers are
finely mantled with ivy; and even the great moat is embellished with the
luxuriant foliage of tall forest-trees. From the adjoining woods the crumbling
turrets have a very striking and interesting effect; and seen from the water,
the view has been truly characterized as “one of the grandest upon the Wye.”

Whoever was the original founder of this Castle, “whether Godricus Dux,
who witnessed King Canute’s charters, or any chieftain prior to him,” it is
certain that the earliest authenticated record yet discovered, is of A.D. 1204,
when it was given by “King John to William Strigul, Earl Marshall, to hold
by the service of two knights’ fees.” His son Walter, Earl of Pembroke—as
noticed in a former page of this volume—died here in December, 1245. It
was afterwards conveyed by a female to William de Valentia, Earl of
Pembroke, whose third son, Aymer de Valence, became his heir, and was
murdered in France in 1323. From him it passed to the Talbots, by the
marriage of Elizabeth Comyn, daughter of Joan, his second sister, with Sir
Richard, afterwards Lord Talbot, who procured the license from Edward the
Third to have a prison here. This Richard was a renowned soldier and
statesman; and is thought to have expended a considerable part of the
ransoms, obtained from his prisoners taken in the French wars, on the
reparation and improvement of Goodrich Castle. His descendant, John
Talbot, the great Earl of Shrewsbury, who was killed at the battle of
Castillon, in the year 1453, was first buried at Rouen; and in enumeration of
his titles on the monument raised to his memory, he is styled “Lord of
Goderich and Orchenfield.” His successors were equally distinguished for
bravery, and were frequently employed in offices of great trust. George,[194]
the sixth earl, had the custody of Mary, Queen of Scots, committed to his
charge. That these places were really alienated is improbable, as Gilbert,
seventh Earl of Shrewsbury, was in possession of this castle and manor at the
period of his death in the 14th of James the First. Elizabeth, his second
daughter and co-heiress, conveyed them in marriage to Henry de Grey, Earl
of Kent, in whose family they continued till the year 1740, when, on the
death of Henry, Duke of Kent, they were sold to Admiral Griffin.
In the civil wars between Charles I. and his Parliament, Goodrich Castle
was alternately possessed by both parties. It was first seized by the
Parliamentary army; but afterwards fell into the hands of the Royalists, who
sustained a siege of nearly six weeks against Colonel Birch. The colonel
began the siege on the 22nd of June, 1646. On the third of August, as
appears from Whitelocke, “Colonel Birch entered some of the works of
Gotherich Castle, whereupon the garrison hung out a white flag for parley,
which Birch refused, and went on storming, until they all submitted to
mercy. In the castle, besides the governor, were 50 gentlemen and 120
soldiers, with arms, ammunition, and provisions.” On the twenty-fifth the

Parliament gave orders that the Countess of Kent should be informed that
there was a necessity for demolishing the castle; and that “on the
demolishing thereof, satisfaction should be made to her. On the first of
March following, they finally resolved that the castle should be totally
disgarrisoned, and slighted. The breaches of the Ladies’ tower, which is the
most effectually ruined, were said to have been chiefly occasioned by the
battering of the cannon during the siege.”[195]

RAGLAN CASTLE,

Monmouthshire.
“Stranger! ponder here awhile;
Pause in Raglan’s ruined pile;
All that wealth and power, combined,
With skill to plan, and taste refined,
To rear a structure fit to be
The home of England’s Chivalry,
Was lavished here!—where, met in hall,
Mailed Barons kept their festival;
The night in lordly wassail spent—
The day in tilt and tournament:
Yet still, when England’s woes began,
Were first to arm and lead the van;
To shield the Monarch in his need,
In Freedom’s glorious cause to bleed;
To Loyalty surrendering all—
Then, with their falling King to fall!”

The Castle of Raglan is one of the most picturesque ruins in the
kingdom, and closely associated with a momentous period of our national
annals. Though roofless, tenantless, and dismantled, it still presents a
majestic and venerable aspect. No visitor of taste or sensibility will ever
traverse its spacious but long-deserted halls, without feeling a deep interest
in its eventful history.
It was on a bright autumnal evening that we quitted the comfortable little
inn, the “Beaufort Arms,” at Raglan, to make our first survey of this baronial
stronghold; and at that hour, and season of the year, it was seen through its
embowering trees in all its glory. Ascending the gentle eminence on which it
stands, we came to the outer gate, or barbican, portions of which still remain,
and crossing the ballium, now covered with rich verdant pasture, we were
received by the intelligent Warden, who conducted us to the majestic
gateway, and pointed out to us, as we proceeded, the more imposing features
of the Castle, as they alternately met and receded from the eye.

The Avenue.
Raglan Castle.

The vista through the Gateway, taking in the Great Court—once adorned
with statues and fountains, but now, like everything around it, abandoned to
the weather, is very striking; while the absolute silence which pervades the
scene, contrasts forcibly with its ancient stir and splendour, and compels us,
while fancy is peopling it with troops of chivalry and their retainers, to
exclaim, “Where are they?” A long wooden table with benches, the last
symbols of that hospitality for which its noble owners were once
conspicuous, stood on the grassy floor. But these were no relics of the
ancient banquet-hall, but of a modern festive meeting, when the tenants upon
the estates had met to express their attachment to the noble Marquess and his
family. The manner in which the kitchen had been refitted for their
entertainment, showed that it must have been ‘got up’ in a style not
unworthy of its feudal renown; and, “as for the venison,”—

“Finer or fatter
Ne’er ranged in a forest, or smoked on a platter.”

We arrived, however, too late for the feast, though another, a much
simpler, and palatable treat awaited us—that which Nature, luxuriating
amidst the ruins of Art, had lavishly spread before us. Such piles of masonry,
such masses of ivy, were never before brought together! Here and there,
indeed, the sturdy ramparts looked through their leafy screen with a sort of
ghastly whiteness, like Hobbes’ spectre from behind the yew-tree, or the
bones of some enormous skeleton, upon which the kindly hand of Nature
had suspended her own green mantle. Nothing could be more strikingly
novel and picturesque. Along the vast framework of the castle, on which the
wealth and taste of centuries had been employed, until its strength and
beauty could receive no farther additions from the hand of man, a straggling
forest of vegetation expanded its mingling branches. Under the same leafy
covert, from the timid wren to the ill-omened raven, birds of every feather
had found a congenial roost. From the sepulchral yew the moping owl
looked out upon everything around her as her own domain and cherished
inheritance. Over our heads bats performed their swift circles in the still
twilight sky; while daws chattered from the ancient keep, as if they had
never heard a musket-shot, nor felt the slightest apprehension of being
disturbed in their possession. On a lofty spray that overtopped every other
tree, a loving thrush serenaded his mate in the fragrant thicket below.
Numerous smaller birds, that seemed puzzled from the very abundance of
the accommodation where to fix their roost, kept up a constant fluttering
amongst the branches; while here and there was heard a bickering of wings
and twittering of bills, as if contending for possession of some favourite
branch for the night. Surely, we thought, there is room enough here for all;
and yet even there—among those spacious green arbours, place and position
were as eagerly sought and coveted by the feathered tribes, as by the equally
volatile and jealous retainers of a court.
At length all was seemingly adjusted; the stillness of night pervaded the
scene; the last shadows of twilight had faded into one common pall; and
night, attended by a host of sparkling satellites, took quiet possession of the
long line of courts that once swarmed with life and enjoyment.
And now, between the western sky—that still retained some warm
lingering traces of sunset—and the donjon tower, mousing owls were seen

enjoying their solemn pastime, here swimming lazily through the arched
court, then along the battlements, or the margin of the clear glassy moat;
then soaring aloft, and settling for a minute or two among the dark ivy; but
still returning to make another circle and finding no wings abroad but their
own.
The contemplation of this Castle, at any period of the day, is calculated to
make a lasting impression; but when the rising moon shot her mellow light
through its old shattered casements, and the breeze seemed to waken at the
same instant and set all the ivy in motion, the scene became still more
impressive. Among the deep shadows that invested the spacious courts,
every prominent object was now brought suddenly into view; and, with a
little aid from fancy, the waving of plumes, and the flashing of steel armour,
seemed distinctly visible on the battlements; while the fragments of
crumbling masonry that lay scattered below, as if struck by an enchanter’s
wand, presented the semblance of animated groups, that waited only the
word of command to start into life and motion. The stillness, too, which but
half an hour before had pervaded every court and tower, was succeeded by a
soft rustling among the leaves, that now flickered like quicksilver as the
moonlight fell upon them, and then lost itself in their massive branches;
whilst the shrubs and flowers that grew wild and vigorous in every court, or
clambered up the walls and archways, seemed to give forth their mingled
odours to the night wind, as it passed wooingly through their leaves, and
filled the air with incense.
“We seemed to tread on faëry land;
For, in every thing around us,
We felt the touch of a viewless hand,
And we heard the notes of a seraph band,
Whose magic spell had bound us;
While bright yclad, as in days of yore,
The Knight of Raglan strode before.”

The Pitched-court; the hall of state, with its magnificent bay-window; the
chapel; the fountain-court, with the grand staircase on the south side opening
upon it; then the elegant portal leading to the grand terrace that overlooks
Raglan church, were all traversed in succession, with nothing to distract
attention, or disturb the solitude, but the whistle of a night-hawk, or the
sound of our own footsteps on the grassy carpet, that now forms the
universal ‘pavement’ of these once sumptuous apartments. For over the once

tesselated floor, and the tapestried walls, weeds have thrown an oblivious
mantle, while—
“Ha, ha!” laughs the Ivy, “old Time to me
Hath given the glory and mastery!
So poets may sing, if it like them well,
From early matins till vesper bell;
And others may list to their minstrelsie—
I’ve a song of my own—so what care I?
Your castles, though stately, and strong, and tall,
I conquer them all—I conquer them all!”

But as the faint outline here sketched will be filled up when we take the
architectural features of the Castle in detail, we pass on to a few preliminary
remarks.

Ancient armour. [196]

Grose, in his ‘Antiquities,’ observes that this castle is of no great
antiquity, having been founded, as he conjectures, about the close of the
fifteenth century, although many important additions were subsequently
added. In the time of Henry VIII., as Leland informs us, Raglan, “yn Middle
Venceland [Wentland], was a fair and pleasant castel, with to goodlye parkes
adjacent;” and “the laste Lord Herbertes,” as Morgan told him, “builded all
the best coffes of the Castle of Raglan.” Camden, in his account of the
Silures, or Monmouthshire, notices it very briefly, as “a fair house of the
Earl of Worcester’s, built castel-like.”[197]
It is not stated by Grose on what authority he places Raglan Castle among
the strongholds erected in the time of Henry VII. His observations can apply
only to those portions of it which are comparatively modern. The Citadel, or
Yellow Tower of Gwent, is of unquestionable antiquity. In the family history
we are told that Sir John Morley, a military knight, who lived in the time of
Richard II., resided here as ‘lord of Raglan Castle.’ But postponing this
question at present, as one that will be considered more fully when we come
to examine the Castle in detail, we shall merely observe that although, as it
now appears, the Castle does not indicate any more distant origin than the
reign of Henry V., yet traces may be discovered in various portions of towers
built, or reconstructed, during every subsequent reign, down to that of
Charles I.—with whose fate it is so painfully associated. Owing to the
circumstance named, the learned antiquary may discover ‘a disunion of
styles;’ but taken as a whole, the Castle of Raglan presents a remarkable
harmony of proportions that hides every minute discrepancy, heightens the
general effect, and leaves the spectator under a pleasing conviction that, in
design and execution, it is the work, not of many, but of one master mind.
But to this subject we shall return; and, in the meantime, we proceed to give
a brief sketch of
The Founders of Raglan.—By Mr. Jones the name of the founder is
traced to that of Sir William ap Thomas.[198] This date, however, is too
modern, and only a repetition of the conjecture thrown out by Grose. There
is every reason to believe that the Clares, as early as the thirteenth century,
had a castle at Raglan, the site, of which is now occupied by the Citadel, or
Tower of Gwent, erected probably in the reign of Henry V. The above-named
Sir William ap Thomas resided at Raglan Castle during the reign of Henry
V., who knighted him for his valour in the wars of France. He married
Gladys, daughter of Sir Richard Gam, and widow of Sir Roger Vaughan,[199]

by whom he had three sons and a daughter. Of his eldest son, William, first
Earl of Pembroke, we shall speak hereafter. But of the old military Lords of
Raglan, little of historical interest has descended to modern times. From
Richard Strongbow, of whom a notice has been given in the preceding
sketches of Chepstow and Tinterne, Raglan descended to Walter Bloet, “in
consideration of soldiers, money, and arms,” furnished by him for the
expedition to Ireland, of which Strongbow was the leader. By the marriage
of the daughter and heiress of Bloet with Sir James Berkeley, it passed into
and remained in that ancient family until the reign of Henry V., when it
became vested in Sir William ap Thomas, already mentioned; whose eldest
son was created by Edward IV. Lord of Raglan, Chepstow, and Gower, and
commanded to assume the surname of Herbert, in honour of his ancestor
Hubert Fitz-Henry, chamberlain to King Henry I. To this nobleman was
entrusted the care of the Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., who was
for some time a prisoner in Raglan Castle. Sir Hubert was created, in 1469,
Earl of Pembroke, in acknowledgment of his zeal to the house of York; but
his career was brief and disastrous, for having the same year raised a corps
of Welshmen, he marched against the Lancastrians under the Earl of
Warwick, and being taken prisoner at Dane’s Moor, was beheaded at
Banbury on the 27th of July.[200] Of these calamitous events, the following
account, abridged from the old Chronicle, may not be unacceptable to the
reader:—
“King Edward hearing of these Northerne proceedings, and that his
brother and Warwicke were preparing against him, sent for the Lord Herbert,
whom he had created Earl of Pembroke, to be his general in the North; and
therefore accompanied with Sir Richard Herbert his brother, and eighteen
thousand well-furnished Welshmen, marched towards the enemy; and after
him was sent Humfrey Lord Stafford, with sixe thousand archers, to second
him in his warres. These lords meeting together had notice by espials that the
Northerne made towards Northampton; to intercept whom, the Lord
Stafford, lately made Earl of Devonshire, was employed; and Sir Richard
Herbert, who with two thousand horse layd themselves covertly by the side
of a wood, and suddenly set upon the rereward, the rest having passed; but
the Northerne very nimbly turned about and bad the Welshmen such
welcome, as few of them returned to tell of their entertainment. The king
understanding of this hard beginning, mustered his subjects on every side,
intending to cope with the Northerne himself. And Earle Warwicke, as

forward to advance his fortunes, gathered his friends, with purpose to
encounter with Pembroke and his Welsh. But before any supplies came to
either of them, it chanced the armies to meete unawares upon a fair plaine
called Dane’s Moor, neere to the towne of Hedgecot, three miles from
Banbury, and presently fell to a bickering, wherein Sir Henry Nevill, knight,
son of the Lord Latimer, upon a lusty courage venturing somewhat too farre,
was taken prisoner; and notwithstanding he yielded himselfe to his takers,
was cruelly slaine; which unmartiall act rested not long unrepaied, with the
loss of most of the Welsh next day. For the field withdrawne, the Lord
Stafford repaired to Banbury, and there took his lodging, where his
affections were much enamoured vpon a faire damsell in the inne. But the
Earl of Pembroke coming to the same towne, tooke into the same inne, and
commanded the Lord Stafford to provide himself elsewhere, contrary to their
agreements made before. Whereat Stafford was displeased, and departing
thence with his whole band, left the Earl naked of men in the towne, and
disabled the field of the archers, whereby the day was lost upon the king’s
part, for which he shortly lost his owne head. The Northerne, inflamed for
the death of young Nevill, the next morning most valiantly set upon the
Welshmen, and by the force of archers drave them from their ground of
advantage, which Pembroke wanting supplied with his own prowess; and Sir
Richard, his brother, with his poll-axe twice made way through the battell
of the Northerne without any mortal or deadly wound; so that by their
valours it was verily supposed the field had been wonne, had not John
Clapham, an esquire and servant to Warwicke, displayed his lorde’s colours
with his white beare, and from an eminent place cried, ‘A Warwicke! A
Warwicke!’ Whereat the Welsh were so terrified as they turned and fled,
leaving their general and his brother alone in the field, who, valiantly
fighting, were encompassed and taken, with the death of five thousand of
their men. The Earl with his brother, Sir Richard Herbert, were brought to
Banbury, where, with ten other gentlemen, they lost their heads, Conyers and
Clapham being their judges.
“This second victory thus got, and the Northerne men now fleshed under
the leadinge of Robbin of Riddesdale,[201] hasted to the king’s manor of
Grafton, where the Earle Rivers, father to the queen, then lay, whom, with
his sonne John, they suddenly surprised, and in Northampton strucke off
their heads without any judgment. The death of these lords the king greatly

lamented, and sought to revenge: first, therefore, writing his commissions
for the apprehension of Humfrey, Lord Stafford of Southwicke, who, by
diligent search, was found at Brentmarsh, and beheaded at Bridgewater, as
he worthily deserved. Next hee prepared a mighty army, and with the same
marched towards Warwicke, his company encreasing ever as he went.”[202]
In another Chronicle the same disastrous events are thus related:—
“The Welshmen got first the West hill, hoping to have recovered the
East hill; which if they had obteyned the victorye had been theirs, as their
unwise prophesyers promised them before. The Northern men encamped
themselves on the South hill. The Erle of Pembroke and the Lord Stafforde
of Southwike were lodged at Banbery yᵉ day before yᵉ field, which was St.
James’s Day; and there the Erie of Pembroke put the Lord Stafforde out of
an inne wherein he delighted much to be, for the love of a damosel that
dwelled in the house, contrarie to their mutuall agreement by them taken;
which was, that whosoever obtained first a lodging, should not be deceyved
nor removed. After many great wordes and crakes had betweyne these two
captaynes, the Lord Stafforde in great despite departed with his whole
companye and band of archers, leaving the Erle of Pembroke almost
desolate in the towne, which with all diligence returned to his hoste lying in
the field unpurvoyed of archers, abiding such fortune as God would sende
and provyde.” In the mean time, “Sir Henry Nevil, son to the Lord Latimer,
tooke with him certaine light horsemen, and skirmished with the Welshmen
in the evening, even before their campe, where he did divers valyaunt feates
of armes; but, a little too hardy, he went so farre forward that he was taken
and yeelded, and cruell slaine; which unmerciful acte the Welshmen sore
rued the next day or night. For the Northern men being inflamed, and not a
little discontented with the death of thys nobleman, in the mornyng
valyauntly set on the Welshmen, and by force of archers caused them
quickly to descende the hill into the valey, where both the hostes fought.”
In this hot encounter, “the Erle of Pembroke behaved himselfe like a
hardy knight, and an expert capitaine; but hys brother, Syr Richard Herbert,
so valyauntly acquited himselfe, that with his poll-axe in his hand, as his
enemies did afterwards report, he twice by fair force passed thorough the
battaile of his adversaries, and without any mortal wound returned. If everye
one of his felowes and companions in arms had done but halfe the actes

which he that daye by his noble prowess achieved, the Northerne men had
obteyned neither safetie nor victorie.”
The chronicler then relates the circumstance which threw the Welshmen
into a panic, by which they lost five thousand men, and then records the
result with touching simplicity:—
“The Erle of Pembroke, Sir Richard Herbert,[203] his brother, and
divers were taken, and brought to Banbery to be behedded. Much
lamentacion and no lesse entreatie was made to save the lyfe of Syr Richard,
both for hys goodlye personage, which excelled all men there, and also for
the noble chivalrie that he had shewed in the fielde the day of the battaile;
insomuch that his brother, the Erle, when he should lay downe his head on
the blocke to suffer, says to Sir John Conyers and Clapham—‘Maisters, let
me die! for I am old; but save my brother, which is yung, lustie, and hardie,
mete and fit to serve the greatest prince of Christendome.’
“But Coniers and Clapham remembering the death of the yung knight,
Syr Henry Nevill, cosyn to the Erle of Warwicke, could not hear on that
syde; but caused the Erle and his brother, with divers other gentlemen to the
number often, to be there behedded.”[204]

William, eldest son of this unfortunate nobleman, succeeded to the
earldom of Pembroke, and was retained by the king to serve him in his wars
of France and Normandy for one whole year, with forty men-at-arms and
two hundred archers. But the king, being desirous to dignify his son Prince
Edward with the title of Earl of Pembroke, procured a resignation of the
same from this William, and in lieu thereof created him Earl of
Huntingdon, on the fourth of July, 1479. Four years later he was
constituted, by Richard III., Justice of South Wales, and entered into
covenants with the king to take Dame Catharine Plantagenet, his daughter, to

wife, before the feast of St. Michael following; as also to make her a
jointure in lands to the value of two hundred pounds per annum: the king
undertaking to settle upon them and their heirs male, lands and lordships of a
thousand marks per annum. But this lady dying in her tender years, it is
likely that this marriage did not take effect. He afterwards wedded Mary, the
fifth sister of Woodville, Earl Rivers, by whom he had an only daughter, at
whose marriage with Sir Charles Somerset, the Castle of Raglan, and its
dependencies, passed into the family of Worcester.
From the genealogical history of that house we collect the following
particulars:—The Sir Charles here named was a natural son of Henry, third
Duke of Beaumont, famous in his day for his desperate assault of the Castle
of St. Anjou, in which he put three hundred Scots to the sword, and hanged
all the Frenchmen therein. He was afterwards Governor of the Isle of Wight,
and of Calais; was finally taken prisoner at the battle of Hexham, and there
beheaded by Nevil for his adherence to the house of Lancaster. At his death
his son Charles assumed the name of Somerset, and being a person of
abilities attained to great wealth and honours under Henry VII.,[205] who
entered him of his Privy Council, made him Constable of Helmsley Castle,
Admiral of the Fleet, sent him as ambassador with the Order of the Garter to
the Emperor Maximilian, made him a Banneret, Knight of the Garter, and
Captain of the Royal Guard. On a second embassy to Maximilian, he
concluded two treaties—gave a bond for the payment of £10,000 in aid of
the Emperor against the Turks, and in support of the Christian religion.
Living in high favour with his sovereign, his good fortune was established
by his marriage with Elizabeth, heiress of William Herbert, Earl of
Huntingdon, in whose right, in 1506, he bore the title of Lord Herbert of
Raglan.
On the accession of Henry VIII. he continued in the same high offices;
and having, with six thousand men, attended the king into France, in 1513,
he was present at the taking of Therrouenne and Tournay. For his heroic
conduct in this campaign, he received the office of Lord Chamberlain for
life; and finally, on account of his descent from John of Gaunt, and
alliance to the king by blood, he was advanced the following year[206] to the
dignity of Earl of Worcester.

By his will, dated March 24, 1524, he ordered his body to be buried
beside that of his first wife in the chapel of Our Lady, now called Beaufort
Chapel, in the Castle of Windsor. He directed that, in case he departed this
life at Raibo, in London, or near the river Thames, his body should be
conveyed by water to the said church at Windsor, as privately as might be,
without pomp or great charge of torches, or clothing, hearse, wax, or great
dinner; but only that twenty men of his own servants should each have
mourning and bear a torch; and that the bier, or herse, should be covered
with black cloth, and have a white cross upon it.
Henry, the second Earl of Worcester, who, during his father’s lifetime,
had distinguished himself in the king’s service, and been knighted by
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was appointed one of the
commissioners for concluding a peace with the French. Departing this life in
1549, he was buried in the church of Chepstow, where a costly monument—
already noticed—was erected to his memory.[207]
William, his eldest son, and third Earl of Worcester, accompanied the
Marquis of Northampton into France, to present King Henry II. with the
royal insignia of the Garter. And again, in 1573, he was sent by Queen
Elizabeth as her representative at the christening of a daughter of Charles
IX., on which occasion, in the name of his royal mistress, he presented a font
in pure gold. He married Christian, daughter of Lord North of Earthlodge.
Edward, his only son and heir, was sent ambassador to the Court of
Scotland, to offer the Queen’s congratulations to King James on his return
from Denmark; and ten years later he was appointed Master of the Horse. At
the accession of King James, he continued in the same office, and was also
named one of the commissioners for executing the office of Earl-Marshall,
the Duke of Norfolk being then under sentence in the Tower.[208] He was
afterwards Lord Privy Seal; and dying on the third of March, 1628, ætatis
79, was buried in the family vault in Windsor Castle.[209]
In his youth, as recorded by his colleague Sir Robert Naunton, “this earl
was a very fine gentleman, and the best horseman and tilter of his times,
which were then the manlike and noble recreations of the Court, which took
up the applause of men, as well as the praise and commendation of ladies.
And when years had abated these exercises of honour, he grew then to be a
faithful and profound counsellor. He was the last liver of all the servants of

her favour, and had the honour to see his renowned Mistress, and all of them,
laid in the places of their rest; and for himself, after a life of very noble and
remarkable reputation, he died rich, and in a peaceful old age—a fate that
befel not many of the rest; for they expired like lights blown out—not
commendably extinguished—but with the snuff very offensive to the
standers by.”[210] Sandford describes him as “a great favourer of learning and
good literature.”

Procession.—Morning of the Tournament.

Henry, his son, the fourth earl, married Anne, daughter of John Lord
Russell, heir apparent to the Earl of Bedford; and, in 1642, was created
Marquess of Worcester. And this brings us down to the period, when the
family fortunes—like the fortress they inhabited—were destined to undergo
a lamentable change.
As the civil commotions increased, the Marquess fortified his castle of
Raglan, and there entertained his Sovereign with unbounded magnificence.
Such were his unlimited sacrifices to the royal cause, that the king, fearing
lest the garrison stores should become exhausted by his numerous suite,
offered to invest him with powers to exact supplies from the neighbouring
country. But with great magnanimity Worcester replied—“I humbly thank
your Majesty; but my castle would not long stand, if it leant upon the
country. I had rather myself be brought to a morsel of bread, than see one
morsel wrung from the poor to entertain your Majesty.” But of this more
fully when we describe the royal visit and the Siege.
From these brief introductory notices of the lives and services of the
primitive lords of Raglan, we proceed to give a few sketches of life, as it
generally passed in the retirement of their own domains, in the midst of their
friends and retainers at Raglan Castle.
Baronial Life.—Of the expenses of a nobleman’s family and household
in the olden time, some idea may be formed by adverting to the facts
adduced by writers of the day. In a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury, who
had the custody of Mary of Scotland, to the Marquis of Winchester, and Sir
Walter Mildmay, it is said—“May it please you to understand, that whereas I

have had a certain ordinary allowance of wine, amongst other noblemen, for
expenses in my household, without impost: the charges daily that I do now
sustain, and have done all this year past, well known by reason of the Queen
of Scots, are so great therein, as I am compelled to be now a suitor unto you,
that you will please to have a friendly consideration, unto the necessity of
my large expenses. Truly two tuns in a month have not hitherto sufficed
ordinarily; besides that which is sacrificed at times for her bathings, and
such like use; which seeing I cannot by any means conveniently diminish,
my earnest trust and desire is, that you will now consider me with such
larger proportion in this case, as shall seem good unto your friendly
wisdoms, even as I shall think myself much beholden for the same. And so I
commit you unto God. From Tetbury Castle, this 15 of January, 1569. Your
assured friend to my power.—G. Shrewsbury.”[211]
“This passage,” Mr. Lodge observes, “will serve to correct a vulgar error,
relating to the consumption of wine in those days, which, instead of being
less, appears to have been—at least in the houses of the great—even more
considerable than that of the present time. The good people who tell us that
Queen Elizabeth’s maids of honour breakfasted on roast beef, generally add,
that wine was then used in England as a medicine, for it was sold only by
apothecaries. The latter assertion, though founded on a fact, seems to have
led to a mistake in the former; for the word apothecary [from the Greek
αποθήχη, a repositorium] is applicable to any shopkeeper, or warehouseman,
and was probably once used in that general sense.”[212] In the retinues and
domestic attendance[213] of the nobles of this period, everything proclaimed
that the era of feudal authority and magnificence had departed. Accordingly,
when the civil wars had commenced, no peer, however wealthy or high in
rank, could drag after him a regiment, or even a company, of unwilling
vassals to the field. On the contrary, the meanest hind was free to choose
between king and parliament. Something, however, of the mere pomp of
feudalism was still maintained in the domestic establishments of the nobility
and wealthier gentry. “The father of John Evelyn, when he was sheriff of the
counties of Surrey and Sussex,[214] had a hundred and sixteen servants, in
liveries of green satin doublets, besides several gentlemen and persons of
quality, who waited upon him, dressed in the same garb.”
One of the largest, if not the very largest, of English establishments ever
maintained by a subject, was that of the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Dorset,
[215] heir of the Lord Buckhurst, and well-known poet of the court. It

consisted of two hundred and twenty servants, besides workmen attached to
the house, and others that were hired occasionally.
The chief servants of the nobility—so they were called, but they were
rather followers or clients—were still the younger sons of respectable, or
even noble families, who attached themselves to the fortunes of a powerful
patron, and served him either in court or military affairs, for which they were
allowed separate retinues in men and horses, with gratuities in money, and
promises of promotion.[216] The progress of improvement that had banished
minstrels, jugglers, and tumblers, from princely establishments, had
naturally introduced the drama in their room; and, accordingly, we
sometimes find a company of actors classed among the servants of the chief
noblemen, as well as a family physician, or even a whole band. A steward,
distinguished by a velvet jacket, and a gold chain about his neck, presided as
marshal of the household, and next to him was the clerk of the kitchen. But
these cumbrous appendages were daily lessening, as domestic comfort came
to be better understood. This improvement, however, had commenced still
earlier among those of less rank and pretension. All who had their fortune
still to seek in the court, or in the army, and all who repaired to the
metropolis in quest of pleasure, found, so early as the time of Elizabeth, that
the bustle and the scramble of new and stirring times, made a numerous train
of attendants an uncomfortable appendage. The gallant, and the courtier,
therefore, like Sir John Falstaff, studied “French thrift,” and contented
himself with a single “skirted page,” who walked behind him carrying his
cloak and rapier.[217]
In consequence of the extravagant living introduced during this period,
the spendthrift gentleman often sank into the serving-man, as we may see
from the frequent recurrence of such a transformation in the old plays. When
servants were out of place—as we learn from the same authentic pictures of
the real life of the times—they sometimes repaired to St. Paul’s Churchyard,
the great place of public lounge, and there stood against the pillars, holding
before them a written placard, stating their peculiar qualifications, and their
desire of employment.[218]
“But whatever retrenchment,” observes the same author, “might be
making in the household expenditure by a diminished attendance, it was
more than counterbalanced by an extravagance in dress, and personal
ornament, that had now become an absolute frenzy.” It is said that King
James almost daily figured in a new suit, a humour that soon became

prevalent among his courtiers. Still more generally influential than his own
example was that of his several handsome favourites, all of whom having
been indebted for the royal favour merely to their personal attractions,
spared no pains nor cost to give those natural advantages their full effect.[219]
When Buckingham was sent ambassador to France, to bring the Princess
Henrietta to England, he provided for this important mission a suit of white
uncut velvet and a cloak, both set all over with diamonds, valued at eighty
thousand pounds, besides a feather made of great diamonds. His sword,
girdle, hatband, and spurs, were also set thick with diamonds. Another suit
which he prepared for the same occasion, was of purple satin, embroidered
all over with pearls,[220] and valued at twenty thousand pounds. In addition
to these, he had twenty other dresses of great richness. As a throng of nobles
and gentlemen attended him, we may conceive how their estates must have
been impoverished by the purchase of chains of gold, ropes of pearl, and
splendid dresses, befitting the retinue of such an ambassador. Even a court
festival, of the time of James the First, must have made a perilous inroad
upon a year’s amount of the largest income. Thus, at the marriage of the
Princess Elizabeth to the Palatine, Lady Wotton wore a gown profusely
ornamented with embroidery, that cost fifty pounds a yard; and Lord
Montague spent fifteen hundred pounds on the dresses of his two daughters,
that they might be fit to appear at court on the same occasion.[221]
The following letter—which we quote from a work of great merit and
research—unfolds much of the domestic ‘economy’ and habits of a family of
distinction during this reign. It is addressed to William, second Lord
Compton, by his wife, soon after their marriage:—
“My Sweet Life—Now I have declared to you my mind for the settling
of your state, I suppose that it were best for me to think and consider within
myself what allowance were meetest for me. I pray and beseech you to grant
to me, your most kind and loving wife, the sum of £2,600, quarterly to be
paid. Also, I would, besides that allowance, have £600, quarterly to be paid,
for the performance of charitable works; and these things I would not,
neither will be, accountable for. Also, I will have three horses for my own
saddle, that none shall dare to lend or borrow: none lend but I; none borrow
but you. Also, I would have two gentlewomen, lest one should be sick, or
have some other let. Also, believe it, it is an undecent thing for a
gentlewoman to stand mumping alone, when God hath blessed their lord and
lady with a large estate.

“Also, when I ride a hunting or a hawking, or travel from one house to
another, I will have them attending; so for either of these said women, I must
and will have for either of them a horse. Also, I will have six or eight
gentlemen; and I will have my two coaches, one lined with velvet to myself,
and four very fair horses; and a coach for my women, lined with cloth and
laced with gold; otherwise with scarlet, and laced with silver; with four good
horses. Also, I will have two coachmen, one for my own coach, the other for
my women.
“Also, at any time when I travel, I will be allowed not only caroches and
spare horses for me and my women; but I will have such carriages as shall
be fitting for all; orderly, not pestering my things with my women’s; nor
theirs with either chambermaids; nor theirs with washing maids.
“Also, for laundresses, when I travel, I will have them sent away before
with the carriage, to see all safe. And the chambermaids I will have go
before, that the chamber may be ready, sweet, and clean. Also, for that it is
indecent to crowd up myself with my gentleman-usher in my coach, I will
have him to have a convenient horse, to attend me either in city or country.
And I must have two footmen. And my desire is that you defray all the
charges for me.
“And for myself, besides my yearly allowance, 1 would have twenty
gowns of apparel, six of them excellent good ones, eight of them for the
country, and six other of them very excellent good ones. Also, I would have,
to put in my purse, £2,000 and £200, and so you to pay my debts. Also, I
would have £6,000 to buy me jewels, and £4,000 to buy me a pearl chain.
Now, seeing I have been, and am, so reasonable unto you, I pray you do find
my children apparel and their schooling; and all my servants, men and
women, their wages.
“Also, I will have all my houses furnished, and my lodging-chambers to
be suited with all such furniture as is fit; as beds, stools, chairs, suitable
cushions, carpets, silver warming-pans, cupboards of plate, fair hangings,
and such like. So, for my drawing-chambers, in all houses, I will have them
delicately furnished, both with hangings, couch, canopy, glass, carpet, chairs,
cushions, and all things thereto belonging.
“Also, my desire is that you would pay your debts, build up Ashley
House, and purchase lands: and lend no money, as you love God, to my Lord
Chamberlain, who would have all—perhaps your life—from you.... So now

that I have declared unto you what I would have, and what it is that I would
not have, I pray you, when you be an earl, to allow me £2,000 more than I
now desire, and double attendance.”[222]
Prodigality in feasting and riotous living soon became as conspicuous as
extravagance with regard to dress. In proof whereof, we may mention the
ante-suppers of the epicurean Earl of Carlisle. Weldon informs us, that he
gave a banquet to the French ambassador at Essex House, where fish of such
huge size were served up, and which had been brought all the way from
Russia, that no dishes in England could hold them, until several were made
for the express purpose. The household expenditure of James the First was
twice as much as that of his predecessor, amounting to a hundred thousand
pounds annually.[223]
Country Life.—While such were the habits of the courtiers, the country
aristocracy still followed that kind of life so much familiarized to our minds
by the descriptions in the old songs and plays of “the golden days of good
Queen Bess.” The rural knight, or squire, inhabited a huge building—half
house, half castle—crowded with servants in homespun blue coats, many of
whom were only serviceable in filling up the blank spaces of the mansion;
but as these had been born in his Worship’s service, it was held as a matter
of course that they should live and die in it.
“The family rose at daybreak, and first of all assembled at prayers, which
were read by the family chaplain. Then came breakfast; after which the
master of the household and his sons got into their saddles, and went off to
hunt the deer, followed by some score of mounted attendants; while the lady
and her daughters superintended the dairy, or the buttery, prescribed the
day’s task for the spinning-wheels, dealt out bread and meat at the gate to the
poor, and concocted all manner of simples for the sick and infirm of the
village. If leisure still remained, the making of confections and preserves
was a never-failing resource; independently of spinning and sewing, or
perhaps embroidering some battle or hunting piece, which had been
commenced by the housewives of a preceding generation.”
At noon dinner was served up in the Great Hall, the walls of which were
plentifully adorned with stags’ horns, casques, antique brands, and calivers.
The noisy dinner-bell, that sent the note of warning over the country, gave
also a universal invitation and welcome to the hospitable board; and after

dinner sack, or home-brewed ‘October,’ occupied the time until sunset, when
the hour of retiring to rest was at hand.
Such was the ordinary history of a day in the country mansion. When the
weather prevented out-door recreation or employment, the family library,
containing some six or eight tomes, that had perhaps issued from the press of
Caxton, or Wynkyn de Worde, was in requisition; and, if the members of the
family could read, they might while away the hours in perusing these
volumes for the twentieth time. In this fashion, they derived their knowledge
of religion from the Bible, and the “Practice of Piety;” their Protestantism
and horror of Popery from “Fox’s Acts and Monuments;” their chivalrous
lore from “Froissart’s Chronicles,” or, perchance, the “Merry Gests of Robin
Hood;” their historical erudition from “Hall” or “Hollingshed;” and their
morality and sentiments from “the Seven Wise Masters,” or the “Seven
Champions of Christendom.”[224]
Holidays.—In such a state of life the set holidays were glorious eras; the
anticipation, the enjoyment, the remembrance of a single Christmas or
birthday, furnished matter for a whole month of happiness. On such an
occasion the lord of the manor was more than a king, as he proceeded with
his family through the crowds of assembled peasants, to witness their games
of merriment, and feats of agility or strength; for his smile inspired the
competitors with double strength or swiftness; while the prize acquired a
tenfold value because it was he who bestowed it. At evening, his bounty was
expressed by oxen roasted whole, and puncheons of mighty ale, with which
he feasted the crowd; while his house was thrown open to the throng of his
more immediate acquaintances and dependents. After the feast, his hall was
cleared for dancing; three fiddlers and a piper struck up; and as the “mirth
and fun grew fast and furious,” the strong oaken floor was battered and
ploughed in all directions by the hobnailed shoes of those who danced with
all their might, and with all their hearts.[225]
Such was the life of an old country gentleman when James succeeded to
the crown of England. But these habits, the last relics of the simplicity of the
olden times, did not long survive that event. Tidings of the gay doings at
court, and the wonderful good fortune of the royal favourites, reached the
ears of the aristocratic rustics; and from that moment rural occupations and
village maypoles lost their charm. The young were impatient to repair to the
metropolis; and the old were obliged to yield to the prevailing fashion. With
all the fierce impetuosity of novices, rural esquires, and well-dowried

country widows, rushed into the pleasures and excesses of a town life; and
thus, with a rapidity hitherto unknown in England, and at which moralists
became giddy, ancient manners were soon abandoned; fortunes, that had
accumulated for generations, vanished; the hereditary estates of centuries
became the property of men of yesterday; and the time-honoured names of
some of the most ancient families disappeared from the scroll of English
heraldry, and soon ceased to be remembered.[226]
When Charles came to the throne, “the coldness of his character and his
decorous habits discountenanced those coarse and profligate excesses; and
the courtiers endeavoured to conform to something like the rules of external
decency. A general sobriety of demeanour succeeded.” “But, as the stern
ascetic Puritans grew into power, and advanced to the destruction of the
monarchy with prayer and fasting, the court party soon became eager to
distinguish themselves by an entirely opposite behaviour. All the excesses of
the former reign were resumed; and Charles found himself unable to restrain,
or even to rebuke, his adherents, who swore, drank, brawled, and intrigued,
to show their hatred of the enemy, and their devotedness to the royal
cause.”[227]
Life at Raglan.[228]—Down to this eventful period, the castellated
mansion of Raglan had continued to bask in the sunshine of prosperity. Its
halls were frequented by the elite of rank and station, and by many of that
intellectual aristocracy whose genius threw so much lustre upon that and the
preceding reign. The Earl, whose revenues were princely, lived in a style
becoming the representative of an illustrious race; and while he observed
great state, and gave sumptuous banquets to the magnates of the land, he did
not neglect the humble votaries of the Muse.
Household.—The following record is taken from a “List of the
Household and method of living at Raglan Castle,” previous to the visit of
Charles the First:—
“At eleven o’clock in the forenoon the castle gates were shut, and the
tables laid—two in the dining-room; three in the hall; one in Mrs. Watson’s
apartment, where the chaplains eat (Sir Toby Matthews being the first); and
two in the housekeeper’s room for the ladies’ women.
“First.—The Earl entered the dining-room, attended by his gentlemen.
As soon as he was seated, Sir Ralph Blackstone, steward of the house,
retired. The comptroller, Mr. Holland, attended with his staff, as did the

sewer,
Mr.
Blackb
urne;
the
daily
waiter
s, Mr.
Cloug
h, Mr.
Selby,
Mr.
Scuda
more;
and
many
gentle
men’s
sons,
with
estates
from
two
hundre
d to
seven
hundre
d
pound
s a
year,
who
were
bred
up in the castle; my lady’s gentlemen of the chamber, Mr. Morgan and Mr.
Fox. At the first table sat the noble family, and such of the nobility as came
there.

“Second.—At the second table in the dining-room sat knights and
honourable gentlemen attended by footmen.
“Hall.—In the hall, at the first table, sat Sir Ralph Blackstone, steward;
the comptroller, Mr. Holland; the secretary; the master of the horse, Mr.
Dolowar; the master of the fish-ponds, Mr. Andrews; my Lord Herbert’s
preceptor, Mr. Adams; with such gentlemen as came there under the degree
of a knight, attended by footmen, and plentifully served with wine.
“Second Hall.—At the second table in the hall—served from my lord’s
table, and with other hot meats—sat the sewer, with the gentlemen waiters
and pages, to the number of twenty-four.
“Third.—At the third table, in the hall, sat the clerk of the kitchen, with
the yeomen officers of the house, two grooms of the chamber and others.
“Other Officers of the household were—chief auditor, Mr. Smith; clerk
of the accounts, George Whithorn; purveyor of the castle, Mr. Salisbury;
ushers of the hall, Mr. Moyle and Mr. Cooke; the closet-keeper; gentleman
of the chapel, Mr. Davies; keeper of the records; master of the wardrobe;
master of the armoury; master-grooms of the stable for the war horses,
twelve; master of the hounds; master falconer; porter, and his man; two
butchers; two keepers of the home park; two keepers of the red deer park;
footmen, grooms, and other menial servants to the number of one hundred
and fifty. Some of the footmen were brewers and bakers.
“Out-officers were—the steward of Raglan, William Jones, Esq.; the
governor of Chepstow Castle, Sir Nicholas Kemys, Bart.;[229] housekeeper
of Worcester House, in London; James Redman, Esq.; thirteen bailiffs; two
counsel for the bailiffs to have recourse to; solicitor, Mr. John Smith.”[230]
Among other distinguished individuals, who at this time filled offices in
the household of Raglan, was the Earl’s—and soon afterwards the
Marquess’s—chaplain, Dr. Thomas Bayly; to whom we owe those amusing
“Apophthegms of the Marquess of Worcester,” published at the Restoration,
and from which we take the following farce, in the chaplain’s own words, as
presenting a characteristic picture of the times, when the Castle had become
the scene of extraordinary festivity:—
“I cannot tell whether it was upon the marriage of my Lord Edward
Herbert with the Earl Caernarvon’s sister, or the Lord Montague with the
Marquis of Worcester’s daughter, that there happened this merrie passage, or

mock wedding, as an echo to the voices that were heard in Hymeneus’
chappel, between those lovely couple—think which you please—who had
newly left being wholly themselves, by being half of each other; viz., one of
those two pair of lovers had no sooner united two hearts into one, and had
seated themselves by one of the too many proprieties belonging unto the
honourable state of matrimony, viz. the boord; but this Tom Deputy, an old
bachelour, chanced to cast his eye upon a pretty piece of waiting-woman,
one of the appurtenances to this honourable bride. Her, this jovial Tom,
having whetted his wit by the side of the marriage-bowle, fixes upon, being
enabled sufficiently thereby to follow any humour, as a fit subject to make
their ladiships some sport; which happened to be so suitable to the occasion,
and so well performed, that it soon captivated the cares also of all the
masculine nobility.
“Thus encountering the faire bride—‘Madam, you have the prettiest piece
of necessity yonder, at the side-table, that I know not how any man can be
without a wife that may have her for asking. Madam, will you give her me? I
protest I will marry her, and fancy myself to be a lord, and herself a lady.
“My mind to me a kingdom is;” which shall make her a sufficient joynture.’
“ ‘Tom, Tom,’ said the Marquess, ‘such men as you and I, whose joynts
are enfeebled with the strokes of many years, must not think to winne young
maides, by promising to make them joyntures of the mind. But will you
make her deputy of Deputy Hall? and landlady of all the land that is
belonging to it? and Mrs. of all the stock that is upon the land, and goods
that is within the house? Answer me this, and then you shall heare what my
daughter and her woman will say unto you.’
“ ‘With all my heart,’ said Tom; ‘and all the hoggs and poultry that is
about the house to boote; and she shall sleep upon six feather beds.’
“ ‘Why, then, it shall be a match,’ said the lady, ‘with all my heart.’
“ ‘Give me your hand, madam,’ sayes Deputy; ‘I will have her, if there be
no more evills in the world.’ And presently he makes his addresses to the
pritty little gentlewoman of the said table; who had heard all the discourse,
and was persuaded, then, upon his approach, to answer his humour with a
condescention at the first word, and informed that he was an old rich
bachelor; he accosting her after this manner—‘This pritty moppit, now thy
lady hath given her consent that I shall have thee, if thou saist so too, we’ll
be married as soon as they.’

“ ‘With all my heart, and thank you too,’ said the young gentlewoman.
“ ‘By my troth, a match,’ said he; ‘give me thy hand—‘tis done. I’ll break
such a jest this day as I never broke in my life.’
“ ‘Aye; but do not break your promise,’ said the gentlewoman.
“ ‘What! before all this company?’ said Deputy; ‘that were a shame.’
“Up he goes again to the lady, and tells her that they were agreed. My
lady drank to him upon the same condition. He pledged her, and wished the
wine might be his poison if he did not marry her after dinner. The lady,
willing to prefer her woman to such a fortune, held him to his word, and
required performance of his promise, giving her many and high
commendations.
“Tom went not from any part of his promise, onely the time excepted; and
that in regard he meant to buy himself some wedding clothes. The Marquess,
willing to remove that obstacle, told him that he thought his clothes would fit
him; and bid him goe unto his wardrope, and take what he had a mind to.
‘Give me your key,’ said Tom. It was delivered unto him. Up went he, and
then came down with his bever hat, sattin cloke, laid with plush, dawb’d
with a gold and silver lace, suite of the same, silk stockings, with roses and
garters suitable, inside and outside, capope, all as brave as if he carried a
lordship on his back.
“The lady-bride then takes her woman aside, and dresses her in one of her
richest and newest gownes—that should have made every day of that week
sensible of an exchange—with all things answerable thereunto; not without
some store of slight jewels; and brings her down, as glorious as the morne,
that breaks from the eastern hill, and chases night away.
“They look upon one another, and all upon them both. Tom cries out, ‘I
had best be in good earnest, my lady.’ Said my lady, ‘I thought you had been
in sober sadness.’ ‘Neither, madam,’ said the new bridegroome. ‘But, old
Tom, I hope,’ said the lady, ‘you will not make me take all this paines for
nothing?’ No, by no means,’ saith he; ‘if ever we repent, we will sell our fine
cloathes and buy cattle! It is better being a lord for a week, than a slave for
ever. Come thy wayes,’ quoth he—
‘How happy is the wooing
That is not long a doing!’

“Well—married they were, in the greatest pomp and ceremony; and the
Queen of Beauty took delight in leading the eyes of the vulgar, which by this
time were altogether fixed on the ladye of the May. Tom acted his scene of
mirth in the hall—which proved to be a thing of that convenience, as if it had
been an act of some set policie, to keep the crowd out of the parlour that the
masquers might have roome enough to dance in.
“At last, when the masque was ended, and time had brought in supper, the
‘Cushine’ led the dance, out of the parlour into the hall, and saluted the old-
new-made bridegroome and his lady, leading them into the parlour, to a table
which was furnished with the same allowance that was allotted for all the
nobles, where they were soon forced to sit down first—Tom taking upon him
as much good cheer as they could give him.
“In fine, supper being ended, the Marquess of Worcester asked the Lady-
bride, ‘If she had a hundred pounds about her?’ She answered, ‘No, my lord,
but I can send for as much.’ ‘I pray do,’ said the Marquess; ‘but it must be all
in gold.’ She sent for it, and presented it to her father; who pulled out
another purse of an hundred pieces, and put the two hundred pieces in the
bason, saying, ‘Madam, if you do not give earnest, Deputy will tell you in
the morning, that he married your woman but in jest.’ Whereupon some gave
fifty, others forty; some gave twenty, others ten; the least gave five gold
pieces, who sat at the table—in all, £700. The apparel and other gifts,
amounting to no lesse a value than one thousand pounds; which so
transported the old man, that he protested, ‘that now he was in the humour,
he would marry all the waiting gentlewomen they had; one every day in the
week, as long as the wedding lasted.’ My Lord Marquess replied, ‘Ay, but
Tom, you should have added, “at this rate.” ’...
“Not to be too tedious, the man—what with bounty, and what with that
which was as free to every man, as was their purses unto him, which was
good wine—the man was not himself when he should have gone to bed.
Which being related to my lord, his lordship took occasion to tell the
company the story of the beggar, who was made believe he did but dreame
of the happiness which really happened; and, thereupon, the marquess was
desirous to make experiment whether it could be related in the person of old
Thomas. In order whereto, he gave command that my friend Thomas should
be disrobed of his neat wedding garment, the rest of his fine clothes taken
from him, and himself carried unto his old lodging in the porter’s lodge; and

his wife to respite the solemnisation of the marriage, until his comportment
should deserve so faire an admission—the which was done accordingly.
“The next morning made the experiment to answer the height of all their
expectations; for news was brought unto the Marquess—all the rest of the
lords and ladies standing by—that Tom took all yesterday’s work but for a
dream; or, at least, seemed to do so to humour the fancy.... But I should be
endlesse,” says Bayly, “if I should relate unto you the sport that this fellow
made.
“To conclude: The Marquess called them both before him, and delivered
unto them the money, with many good exhortations to them both, thus
moralizing upon the premises”—in a strain very characteristic of that day:—
“ ‘That which was first in intention, is oftentimes, both with God and
man, the last in execution. As, for example, God had, before all worlds,
determined to show his love for mankind, by wedding his onely Sonne to his
Church; so

The Paved Stone Court.

Raglan Castle.

that thus much we have gained already, viz., that the marriage that was made
in paradise between Adam and Eve, though it was the first in time, yet it was
but secondary to the first intention; and he that said, “Before Abraham was, I
am,” was also before Adam was; and though the first marriage was but a
type of the second, yet the second, according to the aforesaid intention, was
an antecedent to the first. God, who having an intention to wed his Sonne to
his beloved spouse, the Church, gave way to this type, or figure, or—to
bring the similitude a little homer—mock-wedding, which was between
Adam and Eve, whom to make appear more worthy and glorious in the eyes
of his beloved, and all other creatures, he arrayed with full majesty, and the
robe of righteousness. His mercy—the lady and empress of all the glorious
attributes of God—arrais this type and figure of his Church with the robe of
innocence, and gives them both a large proportion of his grace. These
blessings, Adam, by tasting the forbidden fruit, lost with his paradise, and
slept in death. Gentlemen,’ concluded the Marquess, ‘I will not make any
application hereof, lest I may seeme to mistrust your wisdomes; but I have
nothing to say to the woman.’ ”[231]
The preceding is certainly a very curious passage in the history of
A potent, grave, and reverend signior.
It reminds one of some parts of Don Quixote and of Rabelais—all but the
sermon at the close—which may have been imitated from one of the old
“Mysteries” then in vogue. But to these “Apophthegms” and Dr. Bayly, the
“martial chaplain” of the household, we may return in a subsequent portion
of the work. In the meantime, we shall take a survey of Raglan Castle, as it
now appears, and then proceed to a narrative of the Royal Visits.
Architectural Details.—Of the strength, beauty, and attractions of this
stronghold—which we are now to examine with some degree of minuteness
—a quaint old poet[232] has thus recorded his admiration:—

A famous Castle fine
That Raglan hight, stands moated almost round;
Made of free-stone, upreight, as straight as line,
Whose workmanship in beauty doth abound,
With curious knots, wrought all with edged tool:
The stately Tower that looks o’er pond and poole;
The fountaine trim, that runs both day and night,
Doth yeald in shew a rare and noble sight.

This description, of course, applies to times long before the guns of
Fairfax had made a breach in the Yellow Tower; and while the Castle, with
all its regal appendages, was the cherished abode of its illustrious owner—a
repertorium of the fine arts, and the seat of unbounded hospitality. At no
period of its history, however—not even while it was inhabited by worth and
beauty, enriched with the precious works of art, and seemed to enclose
within its walls an earthly paradise—at no period did it ever present so many
features to fascinate the mind and eye of Taste as at this moment.
And “Why is it”—inquires one of the ablest writers of the day—“Why is
it that we feel so poetical a sympathy with the great men of ages long past?
Why do castles please most when they are dismantled, and palaces when
they are in ruins? Why is an old battle-field rather improved than otherwise
by a crop of standing corn? Because we can imagine nobler things than we
can see. Because the heroic deed, not vile flesh and blood, is the
impersonation of the hero. We should be rather displeased at meeting the
Iron Duke walking to a pedometer on the field of Waterloo. We would doubt
whether on the plain of Marathon we could be reconciled even to the ghost
of Miltiades. Greatness shines more brightly when it is abstracted from the
man.”
We will now, as proposed, take the building in detail, beginning with the
grand entrance, and proceeding onward, until we have completed the circuit
of the walls, the inner apartments, battlements, terraces, and outworks. On
these prominent features we shall dilate with more or less minuteness
according to the interest of the subject—but always directing the reader’s
attention more especially to those portions which have been chosen as
subjects of illustration.
Grand Entrance.—Here a magnificent and imposing spectacle bursts
upon the eye—three pentagonal towers, crowned with battlements, and
bearing on their mutilated outline marks of the cannon-shot directed against

it by the besiegers. These, however, are less defaced than any other portions
of the ruin, and are now invested with a luxuriant mantle of ivy, lichen, and
parasitical plants, as if Nature interposed to protect the venerable edifice
from further outrage and decay. In the gateway are grooves for two
portcullises. The two pentagonal towers on the right and left were
appropriated to the inferior offices of the castle. Immediately behind these
were rooms occupied by the garrison, or household troops. Adjoining these
on the right, was the third pentagonal tower, called the Closet Tower; and on
the left again were the officers’ apartments, which were demolished during
the operations of the siege.
Gateway.—Between the two foremost of the pentagonal towers, above-
named, the great portal—a work of imposing strength and fine gothic
proportions—opens into the second court. Halting under the archway, the
curious visitor will examine, with mingled pleasure and surprise, the fine
architectural details; the groined ceiling; its lofty span; its fine proportions,
in which grace, strength, and beauty are eminently combined: while the deep
grooves, worn smooth by the working of the double portcullis, show how
readily this hospitable gateway could be transformed, when occasion
required, into an impenetrable barrier, and employed as a destructive engine
of war. The old apartments in the gateway tower are correctly represented
in the following woodcut—

In a vaulted room in the east tower there is a remarkable echo; and thither
musical parties frequently resort during the fine season to spread their pic-
nic, and exercise their vocal powers. This apartment is considered to have
been the prison to which captives, or hostages of distinction, were formerly
consigned;[233] and certainly no place in the Castle presents an air of more
“hopeless security.” In the court below—as represented in a former woodcut
—several pieces of ancient armour, and some heavy cannon shot, are shown
to the visitor, as illustrative of the times to which they belong. The next
compartment is
The Paved Court.—All the buildings on the right of this court,
particularly the Closet Tower—the third pentagonal tower at the entrance—
suffered greatly from the enemy’s cannon during the siege; and here, on the
north-east side of the wall, the breach was effected that hastened the
capitulation. The Pitched, or Paved Court, the area of which was once the

parade ground, thronged with armed men, as they joined in some military
fête, or entered on some warlike preparation for the siege, is now surrounded
by only crumbling walls, and as verdant as a bowling-green. The towering
battlements are all richly festooned with ivy. Every crevice sends forth its
trees and shrubs, that seem to luxuriate in the old mortar; and under the same
canopy of leaves, as already noticed, birds of song and birds of ill omen
congregate together. At the extremity of the Paved Court, on the right, as we
proceed westward, and from the point marked by a seat under a shady ash-
tree, the visitor obtains an imposing view of the architecture on the south
side, which, with all its dilapidations, is eminently picturesque. “Its
boundary is there hung with the richest tapestry that Nature can weave—a
mantling vestment of evergreen—through which appears, in grand
proportions, the majestic window of the Hall of State.” This is a prominent
feature in the steel engraving.
The Kitchen.—At the extremity of the court, and opposite to the portal,
is an archway leading to the kitchen, which occupies the area of a pentagonal
tower, projecting beyond the walls northward, and of narrow compass, but
great solidity and strength. In an office adjoining is an extensive fireplace,
the arch of which, thirteen feet in the span, is formed by two massive stones.
The wide capacious chimney is worthy of notice. Beneath the kitchen is a
room in perfect preservation, called the Wet Larder, which may be easily
reached by a subterranean passage. From the kitchen a passage leads
southward across the lower end of the Pitched Court to the Buttery, and this
again to the common
Dining-Hall, or Parlour.—This apartment measures forty-nine feet in
length by twenty-one in breadth, with an opening at the east end into a
narrow cross passage, which also communicates, by three openings or doors,
with the great Hall, which lies between the Pitched Court and the Chapel,
and occupies nearly the whole space between this dining-hall and the
Officers’ Tower, at the great entrance. Adjoining these is the
Baronial Hall.—This stately apartment, running parallel with the ancient
chapel, occupies the interval between the two inner courts, and measures
sixty-six feet in length by twenty-eight in breadth. The chief indications of
its original grandeur consist in the majestic proportions—all of elegant
design and masterly execution. The great bay-window is a feature that
cannot fail to excite admiration; and were no other left entire, it would serve

to convey a very distinct picture of that feudal magnificence which was in
character with the splendour of its architecture. The fireplace, ten feet wide
by eight feet high, is well adapted to the size of the apartment, and to those
times when, instead of pit-coal, the branches or bole of a tree blazed on the
winter hearth.
Arms.—The arms of the Marquisate of Worcester, cut in stone, but much
obliterated, adorn the eastern wall; for the noble badge was an offensive
object to the republicans; and, on their taking possession of the castle, it was
probably

The Baronial Hall.
Raglan Castle.

used as a target,[234] and thus wantonly defaced. Over the fire-place, as
shown in the engraving, is the letter W. worked in brick.
Roof.—The geometrical roof, which once covered this noble hall, is
allowed by all writers on the subject to have been of admirable construction.
It was of Irish oak of the best quality, nicely adjusted, elaborately carved,

and so ingeniously framed and fastened together, that the whole appeared as
firm as if it had been chiselled out of a solid block; yet withal so lofty, so
light and airy in appearance, that it seemed rather to be suspended from the
sky above, than to rest upon the corbel heads and walls which it covered and
adorned. In the centre was a gothic louvre adorned with painted glass,
through which the descending light streamed upon the assembled guests—
their arms, dresses, and accoutrements, in all the colours of the rainbow.
At the lower end of the hall is the Buttery, an apartment, thirty-two feet
long by eighteen broad; and attached to this is another of equal dimensions,
called the Pantry.
Officers’ Barracks.—Opposite the door of the great Hall, on the south,
was a range of apartments, used as lodgings for the superior officers of the
garrison. During the siege these were razed to the ground by the enemy’s
artillery; so that the area on which they stood is now confounded with that of
the Fountain Court. The latter apartments are distinct from those already
described.
The Chapel.—The Baronial Chapel stands in the rear of the apartments
named. It is a long narrow structure, running parallel with the great Hall, and
forming the north side of the Fountain Court; but the vestiges that remain
convey no distinct notion of its architectural style and decorations; which
were, no doubt, in harmony with other sacred buildings of that age and its
character of a baronial chapel. If, however, we may form any opinion from
two rudely carved stone effigies[235] projecting from the wall on the north
side, and nearly covered with ivy, we should form but a very unfavourable
estimate of its ornamental sculpture: unless, indeed, the deformity they
exhibit be the result of wilful violence; and as they are at a good height, and
not approachable in the ordinary way, we had no means of ascertaining the
fact by close inspection. But the corbel heads, from which the arches sprung,
do not appear to justify a more favourable opinion; for the workmanship
exhibits neither skill in the design, nor spirit in the execution. The Chapel,
therefore, was of a date perhaps much anterior to the surrounding buildings,
and coeval with that of the Keep, or “Tower of Gwent,” a work of the
eleventh century.
The Fountain Court.—This court was formerly adorned with an
equestrian statue, mounted on a lofty pedestal, and embellished with a
fountain—the water for which was brought at great expense from the

neighbouring hills—and, after being thrown up in jets-d’eau, was conveyed
into the fish-ponds adjoining, so as to combine in its progress the useful with
the ornamental. But the pedestal, the marble basin, and the statue, with every
other fragment of the structure, have disappeared. The pipes that conveyed
the water have been ploughed up in the fields adjoining the castle; but the
classic beauty of the fountain lives in the history and traditions of the place:
and from a laughable incident related in the “Apophthegms,” and which will
be found in another portion of this work, we may infer that the Marquess of
Worcester took great pleasure in this kind of embellishments.[236]
South-west Tower.—Ascending the flight of steps commencing at the
grand entrance, on the south side of the court, we were conducted through
the desolate apartments, known traditionally as those occupied by Charles
the First, after his flight from Naseby. This tower, and the whole range of
apartments connected with it, are in a state of complete dilapidation; and
were it not for the wooden scaffolding that secures and facilitates the
visitor’s progress, a tour of the ramparts would be impracticable. A lady, we
were told, who happened to be near this spot during a rather high wind, was
blown over the wall; but an umbrella, which she had fortunately open in her
hand, acted like a parachute, and broke her fall; and thus she alighted among
the shrubs beneath without sustaining any material injury.
In these royal apartments, we were shown a tunnel, like a chimney, in the
wall of the king’s chamber, communicating with the outer rampart, by means
of which, in case of surprise or danger, the royal fugitive could have been
lowered in a basket, and enabled to make his escape beyond the walls. Had a
similar contrivance existed at Carisbrook, it would have served his purpose
better. But there he was indeed a prisoner. Here he had the lives and services
of a whole garrison at his command; with Worcester himself, the most
devoted friend the king ever possessed, to provide against every danger, and
supply every want.
A light and elegant stone window is here pointed out as that to which the
king often resorted, on account of the richly variegated and extensive view
which it commands of hill and dale, wood and water; trees, hamlets, and
farmhouses, covering a rich and well-cultivated tract of land. These natural
beauties are as fresh as ever; while the splendid building, from which he then

Gateway in the Fountain Court.
Raglan Castle.

contemplated the scene, is reduced to a lonely ruin—thus apostrophized by
the muse of Bloomfield:—
“Majestic Raglan! harvests wave
Where thundering hosts their watchword gave;
When cavaliers, with downcast eye,
Struck the last flag of loyalty!”

The Cellars.—These subterranean receptacles are of vast extent; and, in
massive strength and proportions—like a crypt under a cathedral—are
worthy of the noble edifice that covers them. In times of danger, and
particularly during the siege, they appear to have served the manifold
purposes of cellars, storehouses, larders, magazines, and muniments of war,
with provisions for a numerous garrison and household.
At the north-eastern part of the court, the buildings were nearly all
mutilated, or thrown down by the enemy’s batteries, which, from a rising
ground in the line of his approach, played with destructive force upon this
portion of the walls. Fragments, however, still remain to show the
predominant features of the Castle—its strength and beauty. From this point,
we are told, communication with the citadel was secured by means of a
sumptuous arched bridge, with a gate to correspond. But of these no distinct
vestiges are left. The “sumptuous bridge” is replaced by a rustic structure of
wood; the moat it spans is half filled with decayed vegetables and debris;
and the water, that formerly enclosed the Keep like a wall of crystal, is now
covered with a sluggish green surface, that exhibits a very different kind of
life.
In other parts of the moat, however, it is deep and transparent, mostly so
at the south corner, where masses of verdure—with a particularly old and
very picturesque tree, as shown in the illustration—are reflected as if in a
mirror. This is probably the most interesting point of view in the whole
Castle. Of a still summer evening, about sunset, the outline of the gray
towers and battlements, with all their contrasted features of light and shade,
beauty and decay—here fringed with wood, and there displaying honourable
scars—sleeps on the face of the water like an inverted picture. The scene,
with all its singular accompaniments, has then a dreaminess of romance
about it, similar to that which the Fata Morgana conjures up on the Straits of
Messina—but with this important difference, that the scenery here, however
romantic, is real and substantial; that all we behold is the work of Art, over

which Nature has only thrown her splendid illusion of cloud, sunshine, and
exuberant vegetation.
Tower of Gwent.—This tall and massive structure, built as if to defy
the united force of time and violence, forms the Citadel or Donjon-Tower of
the fortress; and points very expressively to those remote times, when the
peace of a great man’s household depended on the strength of his walls, and
the number and courage of his retainers. In a direct line with this Castle were
three gates; the first of brick, from which, at the distance of one hundred and
eighty feet, and with an ascent of many steps, was the White Gate, built of
square stone. At some distance on the left stands the Melin y Gwent, or
Yellow Tower of Gwent, which for strength, height, and workmanship,
surpassed most other towers, if not every other, in England or Wales. It had
six sides, each thirty-two feet wide, and ten feet thick, built of square stone,
and in height five stories. Its battlements, never meant to resist cannon shot,
are only eight inches thick; but so symmetrical and compactly set, that they
appear as if cut out of a solid block. During the siege—hereafter to be
described—this portion was soon demolished by the batteries directed
against it by Fairfax; but his heaviest guns, eighteen and twenty pounders,
took no more effect on the body of the tower, than if they had opened upon a
solid rock.[237] Our ancestors appear to have been particularly well skilled in
the composition of their cement, which in Raglan is now nearly as hard as
the stones it holds together. When the Goths and Vandals of the country—the
blind instruments of Fairfax—were summoned to demolish with their
pickaxes what the besiegers’ cannon had spared, their republican zeal was
attended with little success; for “after battering of the top,” they were
obliged, as we shall see, to desist from that method as fruitless, and adopt
other means for its destruction.[238]
This Tower communicated with the Castle by means of an elegant arched
bridge encircled by an outer wall, with six arched and embattled turrets, all
of square stone. Adjoining this was a deep moat, thirty feet broad, and
supplied by a clear running stream, from which the water-works, so much
the fashion in those days, threw up columns of water as high as the Castle
battlements. Along the edge of the moat, was a commodious sunken walk,
embellished with grotto-work, statues of the Twelve Cæsars, and otherwise
ornamented with the choicest productions of Nature and Art. This was the
walk to which the family could resort at all seasons, whether for exercise or
meditation. Within the walls and the green adjoining—then the bowling-

green, and twelve feet higher than the walk—was a garden plat, the size of
which was proportioned to the tower. Next to this plat—as shown in the
accompanying ground-plan—stood the Barn.
In casting the eye over the whole circuit of these buildings, the mind is
astonished at the immense labour which must have been exerted to collect
together such a quantity of materials of various descriptions. And here it may

The Moat.
Raglan Castle.

be observed that the majority of these baronial mansions are situated on, or
near, the bank of some navigable river, for the purpose of defending some
important pass or fortress, by means of which the carriage of stone is
attended with comparatively little expense or trouble; but in the present
instance, there is no navigable river nearer than the Wye, from which the
Castle is distant at Monmouth ten, and at Chepstow twelve miles.[239] And
what is very remarkable, there is no quarry in the neighbourhood from which
the stone employed in building the Castle could have been procured. It is of
a light grey colour, and very hard; but the name of the quarter from which it
was taken is still a matter of vague conjecture. No such stone as that used for
the chimney-pieces of Raglan is now to be found in Monmouthshire. Such is
the neatness and exactness with which the facing stones are laid, that they
exhibit the same perfect appearance as if the artist had but just left the
scaffold. “The bricks which compose the south wall are extremely well
baked, and of a quality not less durable than that of the stone.”
In the present day, we can form but a very imperfect notion of the extent
to which the original outworks were carried. When the demesnes of ancient
families are let out as farms, the tenant soon brings about a revolution of
ancient purposes. He adapts the whole to modern uses—to whatever will
best enable him to pay his rent. He calculates how many bushels of potatoes
will grow on the slope; how much the lawn will yield to the plough, how
much to pasturage; and how much grass may be annually shorn from the old
Bowling-green.
So has it fared with the renowned fortress of Raglan.[240] With little
interest in its history, little reverence for its ancient lords, every successive
tenant, during a long series of years, has only studied how to turn it to the
best advantage. Its ancient gardens have been obliterated; its lawns
converted into pasture; its fountains, streams, and fish-ponds have been dried
up; its materials carted away to erect some farmer’s homestead; its walls,
that so stoutly resisted the enemy’s shot, and returned it with interest, seem
to feel their degradation, and strive to hide it under a mantle of ivy.[241] Now,
however, the grounds are kept in good order; while every feature and
fragment of the venerable ruin are preserved with exemplary care by the
resident warden, who happily possesses a taste for archæology.

The accompanying ground-plan will enable the reader to trace the
various apartments of the Castle in the same order in which they are
described, and to follow with more interest the details of the Siege, upon
which we are now to enter.

1Keep, or Yellow Tower.
2Chambers destroyed in the Siege.
3Great Hall.
4Parlour, or small Dining-Room.
5Kitchen.
6Gateway and Staircase.
7Galleries and State-Rooms.
8Chapel.
9Gateway leading to the Bowling-Green.
10Spot formerly crossed by a bridge.
11 Breach made during the Siege.
12On the upper story is King Charles’ window.
13Moat surrounding the Keep.

“Our Donjon-tower is stout and tall,
Each rampart mann’d and steady;
And loyal hearts, from every wall,
Shout—‘Roundheads! we are ready!’

Then here’s a health to Charles our King;
And eke to noble Worcester!
To each, to-morrow’s fight shall bring
New loyalty and lustre!

Then hoist the Royal Standard high!
And crown our Chief with laurels!
And where’s the man that would not die
In combating for Charles?” &c. &c.

We have next to take a brief survey of that portion of the Revolutionary
movements, with which the history of Raglan and its loyal garrison are so
closely associated.
“The Parliament had now,” says Lord Clarendon, “such footing in
Pembrokeshire, that many of the principal gentlemen had declared for them;
and the harbour of Milford Haven gave their fleet opportunity to give them
all supplies and relief.” This being the state of those parts,
The Lord Herbert, eldest son of the Marquess of Worcester, not only
offered but desired to receive that command, and engaged himself “not only
to secure it from the opposition and malignity of the other party; but before

the spring to raise such a strength of horse and foot, and to provide such an
equipage to march with, that might reduce Gloucester, and then be added to
the King’s army when he should be ready to take the field. And all this so
much at his own charge, for his father, the Marquess, who was well able,
would furnish the money—as was pretended upon the King’s promise to
repay him when he should be restored to his own—that he would receive no
part of the King’s revenue, or of such money as his Majesty could be able to
draw for the supply of his own more immediate occasions.”
This was a very great offer, and such as no man else could so reasonably
make: for “the Marquess of Worcester was generally reputed the greatest
mony’d man in the kingdom; and probably might not think it an unthrifty
thing rather to disburse it for the King—who might be able to repay it—than
to have it taken from him by the other party; which would be hardly
questioned if they prevailed.”[242]
The Lord Herbert himself “was a man of more than ordinary affection for
the King; and one who, he was sure, would not betray him. For his religion,
it might work upon himself, but would not disquiet other men. For though he
were a Papist, he was never like to make others so; and his reputation and
interest were very great with many gentlemen of those counties, who were
not at all friends to his religion. It was to be hoped that the old grudges and
prejudices, which had been rather against the house of Worcester and the
Popish religion professed there, than against the person of their lord, would
have been composed, and declined by his fair and gentle carriage towards all
men—as of truth he was of a civil and obliging nature—and by the public-
heartedness of those who, for the Cause and conscience’ sake would, it was
hoped, sacrifice all trivial and private contentions to a union that must
vindicate the religion, honour, and justice of the kingdom. Upon these
reasons and these presumptions, the King granted such a commission as is
before-mentioned to the Lord Herbert; who, with more expedition than was
expected by many, or by others believed possible, raised a body of above
fifteen hundred foot, and near five hundred horse, very well and sufficiently
armed, which increased the merit of the service.”[243]
Of the royalist army, raised and paid by the Marquess of Worcester, the
command of the infantry was given to Major-General Lawley; that of the
cavalry to Lord John Somerset, his second son; while Lord Herbert took the
field as Commander-in-chief. Immediately on its being ascertained that
Monmouth had declared for the Parliament, Lord Herbert placed himself at

the head of a body of troops, and, joined by a party of volunteers from
Goodrich, placed them behind a rising ground near the town. Here, with
about forty intrepid followers, he proceeded to reconnoitre the enemy’s
position, and surmounting an earthen mound which they had thrown up, he
passed the ditch, and put the guard to the sword. They next succeeded in
breaking the port chain and forced an entrance for the cavalry; then, joining
their comrades, they entered the town at full gallop, and, surrounding the
main guard, made them prisoners. “The result of this expedition was the
capture of Col. Broughton, four captains, four lieutenants and ensigns, the
republican committee, and all the private soldiers, with a considerable
quantity of arms and ammunition.”
Raglan Castle by this time had been put into a state of thorough
defence, with a garrison of eight hundred men, many distinguished officers,
and all the necessaries for maintaining a long and vigorous resistance. The
Marquess himself—then on the verge of fourscore—infused by his presence
and conversation an invincible spirit of loyalty into the garrison; and
provisioned as it was, the place might well be viewed as almost impregnable.
The clashing exploit of Lord Herbert, however, was speedily followed by
a mortifying reverse; for as the King’s army was on its march to Gloucester,
it was met near Coleford by a rabble force of disaffected peasantry, whose
object was to obstruct the Royalists in their passage through the Forest of
Dean; and a scuffle ensuing, Colonel Lawley, the captain-in-chief, was
mortally wounded by a stone.[244] But order being restored, and Colonel
Brett taking the command, the Royalists continued their march until arriving
on the right bank of the Severn, they threw up defences at the “Vineyard”—
the Bishop’s palace—and there fixed their quarters. But in the meantime, Sir
William Waller, who was then with a regiment of horse on the borders of
Worcestershire, put himself in motion, and by forced marches took up his
position in front of the Royalists. This sudden apparition threw them into a
panic; for, considering themselves in their newly-fortified position quite
secure from all danger of surprise, Lord Herbert had gone to wait upon the
King at Oxford; while his brother, Lord John, who commanded the horse,
had set out with two or three troops on a reconnoitering party; so that no
officer of skill or authority was left to direct or head the forces. All,
therefore, was instant confusion in the camp; for, although their position was
strong, well supplied with cannon, and certainly not to be stormed by any
amount of cavalry that could be brought against them, yet they abandoned

all thoughts of defence, and without striking a blow, surrendered to the first
summons from Waller, on the simple grant of quarter.
This unexpected disaster was a death-blow to the army of Worcester; “the
raising of which was considered such an effort on the part of the Marquess,
that it could hardly have been accomplished by any other nobleman in the
realm.” That “mushroom army grew up and perished so soon, that the loss of
it was scarce apprehended at Oxford, because the strength, or rather the
numerical force, was not understood. But had the money,” as Lord
Clarendon observes, “that was laid out in raising and paying a body of men,
who never in the least degree advanced the royal interest, been brought into
the King’s receipt at Oxford, and employed to the most advantage, the war
might have been ended the next summer; for I have heard the Lord Herbert
say, that those preparations, and others which by that defeat were rendered
useless, cost above three score thousand pounds; the greatest part of
which”—an enormous sum in those times—“was advanced by his father, the
Marquess of Worcester.”[245] We now proceed to notice the
Royal Visit to Raglan, which in its loyal devotion remained unshaken
by these reverses; and the following anecdote gives us a favourable idea of
the good humour, combined with courtly magnificence, with which Lord
Worcester entertained the King on his first visit to the Castle. We relate the
anecdote on the authority of the family Chaplain:—
“Sir Thomas Somerset, brother to the Marquess, had a house which they
called Troy—the principal residence of the Duke of Beaufort—within five
miles of Raglan Castle. Sir Thomas Somerset being a neate man, both within
and without his house, as he was a complete gentleman of himself every
way, delighted very much in fine gardens and orchards, and in replenishing
and ordering them with all the varieties of choicest fruits that could be got,
and in defending his new plantations from the coldness of the climate by the
benefit of art. The earth, that was so much made of, proved so grateful to
him, that, at the same time that the King happened to be at his brother’s
house at Raglan, it yielded him wherewithal to send his brother Worcester
such a present, as at that time of the year and place, was able to make the
King and all his lords believe that the Sovereign of the Planets, with all his
prime electors, had new changed the Poles; and that Wales, the refuse and
outcast of the fair garden of England, had fairer and riper fruit growing upon
her stone rubbish, than England’s levels had in all her beds. This, presented

to the Marquess, he could not suffer to be presented to the King by any other
hands except his own. In comes the Marquess, at the latter end of supper, led
by the arm, having such a goodly presence with him, that his being led
became him, rather like some ceremony of state, than shew of impotence;
and his slow pace, occasioned by his infirmity, expressed a Spanish gravity,
rather than feebleness. Thus, with a silver dish in each hand filled with
rarities, and a little basket upon his arm, as a supply, in case his Majesty
should be over bountiful of his favours to the ladies that were standers by, he
makes his third obeysance and thus speaks:—
“ ‘May it please your Majesty, if the four elements could have been rob’d
to have entertained your Majesty, I think I had done my duty; but I must do
as I may. If I had sent to Bristol for some good things to entertain your
Majesty, there had been no wonder at all. If I had procured from London
some goodnesse that might have been acceptable to your Majesty, that had
been no wonder indeed. But here I present your Majesty’—placing his
dishes upon the table—‘with what neither came from Lincoln that was, nor
London that is, nor York that is to be;[246] but I assure your Majesty that this
present came from Troy.’ Whereupon the King smiled, and answered the
Marquess—‘Truly, my lord, I have heard that corne[247] now growes where
Troy town once stood; but I never thought there had grown any apricocks
there before.’ Whereupon the Marquess replied—‘Anything to please your
Majesty.’
“The fruit was very much admired by every one, and it was
acknowledged by all that were in the presence at that time, that they never
saw the King served in greater state in all their lives. There were some about
the King who followed my Lord Marquess when he departed the presence,
and told his lordship that he would make a very good courtier. ‘Aye,’ said the
Marquess, ‘I remember I said one thing that may give you some hopes of me
—Anything to please your Majesty.’ ”
Of the Marquess’s farther proficiency in the art and mystery of a courtier,
during the royal visit, we find this specimen:—
“The Marquess had a mind to tell the King, as handsomely as he could, of
some of his, as he thought, faults; and thus he continues his plot: Against the
time that his Majesty was wont to give his lordship a visit, as commonly he
used to do after dinner, his lordship had the book of John Gower lying before
him on the table. The King casting his eye upon the book, told the Marquess
he had never seen it before. ‘Oh!’ said the Marquis, ‘it is the book of books,

which if your Majesty had been well versed in, it would have made you a
king of kings.’ ‘Why so, my Lord?’ said the King. ‘Why,’ said the Marquess,
‘here is set down how Aristotle brought up and instructed Alexander the
Great in all the rudiments and principles belonging to a prince.’ And under
the persons of Alexander and Aristotle, he read the King such a lesson, that
all the standers by were amazed at his boldness; and the King supposing that
he had gone farther than his text would have given him leave, asked the
Marquess, ‘If he said his lesson by heart, or whether he spoke out of the
book?’ The Marquess replied, ‘Sir, if you could read my heart, it may be you
might find it there; or, if your Majesty please to get it by heart, I will lend
you my book.’ Which latter proffer the King accepted of, and did borrow it.
‘Nay,’ said the Marquess, ‘I will lend it you upon these conditions: First,
That you read it; secondly, That you make use of it.’ But perceiving how that
some of the new-made lords fretted, and bit their thumbs at certain passages
in the Marquess’s discourse, he thought a little to please his Majesty, though
he pleased not them, the men who were so much displeased already
protesting unto his Majesty, that no man was so much for the absolute power
of a king as Aristotle. Desiring the book out of the King’s hand, he told the
King that he would show him one remarkable passage to that purpose,
turning to that place that had this verse:—
“A king can kill, a king can save,
A king can make a lord a knave,
And of a knave a lord also,” &c.

“Whereupon there were divers new-made lords who slunk out of the
roome, which the King observing, told the Marquess—‘My lord, at this rate,
you will drive away all my Nobility!’
“The Marquess replied—‘I protest unto your Majesty, I am as new a
made lord as any of them all;[248] but I was never called knave and rogue so
much in all my life, as I have been since I received this last honour, and why
should not they bear their shares?’ ”
But the Marquess, like many of the King’s party, seems to have wanted
that undoubting confidence of success, which not unfrequently secures it.
How different from the determined tone of a Cromwell is this:—“When the
King first entered the gates of Raglan, the Marquess delivered his Majesty
the keys, according to the ordinary custom; the King restoring of them to the
Marquis, the Marquis said, ‘I beseech your Majesty to keep them, and you

please, for they are in a good hand; but I am afraid that ere it be long, I shall
be forced to deliver them into the hands of those who will spoil the
compliment.’ ” And so it happened.
The plans taken by the King, while residing in Raglan Castle, to persuade
the Marquess of Worcester to farther advances of money, afford a subject for
a humiliating chapter in the royal history. The aged Marquess had three
ruling principles—loyalty to the King, attachment to the Roman Catholic
religion, and fondness for money. His loyalty had been already extensively
drawn upon, and there remained now to be tried an attempt upon his
proselytizing zeal. He had now to be flattered with the idea that he might
possibly persuade the King to profess the tenets of his ancestors. Charles,
indeed, had not made great progress in Protestant doctrines; and the
Marquess, confident in his theological powers, imagined he would find an
easy convert. Here is Dr. Bayly’s account of the matter:—
“Thus affected was that noble and, indeed, in his way, heavenly disposed,
Henry, late Marquess of Worcester, to play the greatest prize that ever was
played between any two that ever entered within those lists. Three diadems
were to encounter with the tripple crowne, and the tripple crowne with three
sceptres. Opportunity, that lucky gamester, that hardly loses a game in
twenty, was on the Marquess’ side; time and place directed him how to take
points in his own tables; the King at that time being in the Marquess’s own
house at Raglan, and necessitated to borrow money to buy bread, after so
great a loss in battle. The King being thus put to play the aftergame with the
old Marquess, was a little mistrustful that he had not played the foregame
with him so well, as that he had not thereby prejudiced the latter: for, though
the Marquess and his son were the two ablest and most forward’st
shoulderers up of the declining throne, especially the chip of the old block,
whose disposition expressed itself most noble in not caring who had loved
the King, so that he might be but permitted to love Alexander; whom he
affected not only with the loyal respects of a subject towards his soveraigne,
but also with such passionate ways of expressions and laboriousnesse in all
good offices, as are wont to be predominant in those in whom simpathy is
the only ground of their affections; yet there were not wanting some kind of
men who made the averseness of this nobleman’s religion an occasion of
improving their own envies. Which, though it could never lose him the least
ground in his master’s good opinion of him—who never would judge no
more a saint by his face than a devil by his feet, but both according to their

several ingagements—yet there were some things which happened, as
having relation to this family, which were not altogether pleasing. However,
though his Majesty came thither ushered by necessity, yet he came neither
unwelcomed nor uninvited; and entertained as if he had been more than a
king, by reason of some late atchievements, rather than otherwise: and
though money came from him like drops of blood, yet he was contented that
every drop within his body should be let out at his command, so that he
might performe so meritorious a piece of worke as, he thought, the being an
instrument of bringing the father of his country to be the son of his church,
would be unto his soul’s health. The Marquess having these resolutions
within himselfe, thought to give them breath at the same time that his
Majesty should make his motion for a further supply of money, which he
daily and hourly expected; but was deceived in his expectations; for the
relation having already reach’d the King’s ear, how an accident had made me
no less fortunate to his lordship, than in being the means of preserving his
lordship’s person, and no inconsiderable fortune then in the same venture
with him; and how that I preserved both the one and the other, in concealing
both, for the space that the moon useth to be twice in riding of her circuit,
[249] (the particulars hereof, here to insert, would tend rather to much
arrogance than any purpose, wherefore I further forbear,) until such time as
the trust which Providence had reposed in me was crowned by the same
hand with such successe as brought the Marquess safe to his own house in
peace; which I had no sooner brought to passe, but the Marquess drew from
me a solemn engagement never to leave him so long as we both should live;
which I was so careful for to observe, that I neither left him in life nor death,
faire weather nor foule, until such time as he left me, and I laid him under
the ground in Windsor Castle, in the sepulchre of his fathers.”
The author of the notice of the Marquess of Worcester in “Lodge’s
Portraits,” says, that “the adventure here alluded to by Dr. Bayly is and must
remain unknown.” It is, however, made sufficiently clear in the “First
Apophthegm,” where Bayly tells us that he met the Marquess in the Welsh
mountains, “flying a danger with a softer pace than it made after him.”
Bayly, whose knowledge of the country must necessarily have been great,
had it in his power to conceal the Marquess. This was their first meeting, and
they ever after were inseparable. In nearly the words already used, Bayly in
this passage also says, “From which time forward, until the time that I laid
him in his grave in Windsor Castle, I never parted from him.”

He continues—“And it was a strange thing, that during the time that I
was thus a bond-servant to his lordship, which was for the space of twelve
monethes thrice told, the difference in religion never wrought the least
difference in his disposals of trusts of the highest nature upon me; but his
speeches often shewed his heart, and his often lending me his ear, that they
were both as much mine as any man’s. Of which, it seems, his Majesty being
informed, I must be the beetle-head that must drive this wedge into the royall
stock; and was also told, that no man could make a divorce between the
Babilonish garment and the wedge of gold sooner than myself. To be brief—
I was ingaged in the business; I could neither deny the employment, nor well
tell how to go about it, I, not knowing the Marquess’ drift all this while,
thought the Marquess had feared nothing more than what I myself was most
afraid of, viz., that I should be made an instrument to let the same horse
bleed, whom the King himself had found so free, that he was unwilling to
give him the least touch with his spur. Howsoever, I went about it, and thus
began to tell his lordship:—‘My Lord, the thing that I feared is now fallen
upon me; I am made the unwelcome messenger of bad news—the King
wants money!’ At which word the Marquess interrupted me, saying, ‘Hold,
sir, that’s no news; go on with your business.’ ‘My Lord,’ said I, ‘there is one
comfort yet, that as the King is brought low, so are his demands; and, like his
army, are come down from thousands to hundreds: and from paying the
souldiers of his army to buying bread for himself and his followers. My
Lord, it is the King’s own expression, and his desire is but three hundred
pound.’ Whereupon my Lord made a long pause before he gave me one
word of answer. I knew by experience that in such cases it was best leaving
him to himself, and to let that nature, which was so good, worke itselfe into
an act of the highest charity—like the diamond, which is only pollished with
its own dust. At last he called me nearer to him, and asked me, ‘If the King
himself had spoken to me concerning any such business?’ To which I
answered, ‘That the King himself had not; but others did in the King’s
hearing.’ Whereupon he said, ‘Might I but speak unto him—but I was never
thought worthy to be consulted with, though in matters meerly concerning
the affaires of my own country—I would supply his wants, were they never
so great, or whatsoever they were.’ Whereupon I told his lordship that, ‘If
the King knew as much, he might quickly speak with him.’ Then said the
Marquess, ‘The way to have him know so much is to have somebody to tell
him of it.’ I asked his lordship, ‘If he would give me leave to be the
informer.’ He told me, ‘He spake it to the same purpose.’ I hastened from

him, with as much feare of being called back again, as I did towards the
King, with a longing desire of giving his Majesty so good an account of my
so much doubted embassie.
“Half going and half running through the gallerie, I was stopt in my way
by one Lieutenant-Collonel Lyllard, who told me, that if ever I had a mind to
do my Lord Marquess and the garrison any good, now was the time: for even
now one of the King’s ships had run herself on ground under the town of
Chepstow. Calling unto me the captain of her (one Captain Hill), who related
unto me that upon the surrender of Bristol he was forced to fly into the
sanctuary of the King’s quarters, having formerly revolted from the
Parliament, or rather returned to her due obedience. Telling me, moreover,
that she was fraught with store of goods and rich commodities, as sugar,
tobacco, linnen of all sorts, &c., and that the law in such a case appropriated
the King to such a part of her lading; which I better understood then than I
can relate unto you now; and that she had many fair brass and iron guns in
her, with proportionable ammunition, usefull for the garrison; and that, for a
word of speaking, I might have all this of the King for the use of the
garrison. I (considering that it would be nevertheless the King’s for being
converted to such an use, as also the business I was about) made no doubt
but that I could easily beg all this for the Marquess, in consideration of the
great charges his lordship had been at in entertaining his Majesty so long.
Neither was I deceived, for the King granted it willingly.
“But as to the matter in hand, I told his Majesty apart, that I had moved
his lordship in matter of money; but found him a little discouraged, in regard
that his Majestie having been twice at Raglan a moneth at a time, and that at
neither of those times he ever vouchsafed his lordship so much honour as
once to call him to councel, though it was in his own house, and must needs
be acknowledged to be one who knew the countrey, and the constitution of
the inhabitants, better than any other man that was about his Majestie had
reason to understand. Wherefore I told the King, I thought his lordship leant
my motion a deffer ear than he would have done, if his lordship had not been
thought so uselesse a creature; and that I perceived his lordship had a desire
to have some conference with his Majestie; which being obtained, I believed
his Majestie’s request would be easilie granted, and his expectations
answered in a higher measure than it may be his Majestie did believe. The
King said, ‘With all my hart: and as to the other business which so much
troubles my lord, in troth I have thought it a neglect in us heretofore; but the

true reason why I did forbear to do so was, because I thought my Lord of
Worcester did not desire it, by reason of his retiredness, unwieldiness of
body, and unwillingness of mind to stir abroad; and therefore I thought it a
contentment to him to be let alone.’ I told his Majestie, that I did verilie
believe that his Majestie was in the rights in both respects, both of his
Majestie’s and his lordship’s; and that if his Majestie had called him to
councel, I do verilie believe his lordship would have been desired to be
excused; but yet he did expect he should have been called. Whereupon the
King said, ‘I pray tell my Lord of Worcester, that I did not forbear that
respect unto him out of any disestimation I had either of his wisedome or
loyaltie; but out of some reasons I had to myself, which indeed reflected as
much upon my lord as they did on me. For had he used to have come to the
councel board, it would have been said that I took no other councel but what
was conveighed to me by Jesuites, by his lordship’s meanes: and I pray tell
him that that was the true cause.’ I told his Majestie that I would, and that I
thought it an easie matter to cause him to believe no less; but withal I
intimated to his Majestie that I knew the Marquess had an earnest desire to
have some private conference with his Majestie this night; which, if granted,
it might conduce very much to his Majestie’s behoof. The King said, ‘How
can that be?’ I told his Majestie that my lord had contrived it before his
coming to the castle, and told his Majestie of the privacie of the
conveighance. Thereat his Majestie smiled and said, ‘I know my lord’s drift
well enough: either he means to chide me, or else to convert me to his
religion.’ Whereupon I told his Majestie, I doubted not but that his Majestie
was temptation-proof as well as he was correction-free; and that he might
returne the same man he went, having made a profitable exchange of gold
and silver for words and sleep.”[250]
It seems to have been thought necessary to make a great state secret of
this conference; and, in order that the company might not observe any
communication going on between the King and the Marquess, who,
doubtless, knew his guests, he hastily made answer—“I will tell you what
you shall do, so that you shall not need to fear any such thing. Go unto the
yeoman of the wine cellar, and bid him leave the keys of the wine cellar with
you, and all that you find in your way, invite them down unto the cellar, and
shew them the keys, and I warrant you, you shall sweep the room of them if
there were a hundred; and when you have done leave them there.”[251] This
ruse appears to have been so successful, that after Bayly published his book,

some of those who had been in Raglan denied that ever there had been
private conversations between the King and the Marquess. But Bayly’s good
faith seems to have been unjustly suspected; and he replies to the objectors
with humour and severity in his Preface to the “Apophthegms.”
The Marquis having “lain down, the Chaplain found him asleep when he
went to let him know the time to meet the King was come. He expressed
much annoyance and fear on account of what had been arranged; but after
taking a pipe of tobacco and a little glassful of aqua mirabilis, he recovered
his spirits.”
Shortly after the King’s departure from Raglan, an adventure occurred
which placed the venerable Marquess in a novel and rather ludicrous
position. It was this:—
“There was a certain great man in the King’s army,[252] between whom
and the house of Raglan,” says Bayly, “there was at that time animosity. The
Marquess of Worcester had heard that this party should cast a dubious
saying, as the case then stood, viz., ‘That he intended to take Raglan in his
way;’ and was so far as good as his word, as that he marched into the parke,
and there drew up his men, and fac’d the Castle. Whereupon the line was
manned, and command was given that none should be suffered to come near
the line, nor within such a distance; which command was so observed, that
some of the officers of the army approaching within the place prohibited, the
centry bid stand. They did not. The centry called upon them again to stand.
They refused. The Lieutenant called upon the centry to give fire. The centry,
preferring the knowledge of his friends to his duty to his officer, did not give
fire; but swore he would give fire if they did not stand. Whereupon one of
them told him that it was such a Generall, and wonder’d that the officer
would bid the souldier give fire upon him. The Generall forthwith coming to
the drawbridge, desired to speak with the Lord Charles; whom he no sooner
saluted, but required satisfaction for the affront. He was desired to come into
the Castle, and told that the matter should be examined before him, and if
any affront were given, he should receive satisfaction. Whereupon, being
come within the Castle, the Lieutenant was sent for; who told the Generall,
that though he knew him to be the Generall, yet, as a souldier, he was not to
take any notice of him, until such times as he had declared himself, which
when he did, he respected him accordingly. Furthermore telling him, that he
had been an old souldier, and that he had in other parts seen rewards given
unto souldiers who stood centry, for firing upon their generall, having the

like occasions; but never knew it a fault before. All this would not serve turn.
The Generall said he was affronted, and must have satisfaction, requiring my
lord to call a councell of warre, and to do him justice; and so took his leave
and went his way. The Marquess of Worcester, sleeping upon his bed all
this while, and not dreaming of any of all this that had happened in the
interim, hearing the whole relation, he asked all his officers, ‘Whether or no
the Lieutenant had offended?’ They all answered, ‘No;’ and commended him
for what he had done. Then said the Marquess, ‘This is but a pretence—they
have a mind to quarrel with us. If ye should call a councell of warre, and
acquit him, that is what they desire, and thence they would ground their
quarrel; and if ye should inflict any punishment upon him to give them
satisfaction, that were basenesse and injustice; therefore I will have it thus:
Send a guard with him to the Generall of such souldiers as are able to
witness the truth; and let him try him at his councell of warre, and see what
law he hath for it, and so we shall break the neck of the quarrell.’
“ ‘And so,’ said the Lieutenant, ‘I shall hang by the neck for my labour!’
Whereat the Marquis replyed, ‘What friends hast thou in the garrison?’ The
Lieutenant made answer, ‘I have a wife and a daughter.’ Then said the
Marquis with some vehemence, ‘I protest unto thee, if they hang thee, I’ll
marry thy wife and provide for thy daughter.’ The Lieutenant replied, ‘I had
rather you would marry my daughter, and provide for me.’ ‘I protest,’ said
the Marquess, ‘so I will; I will marry thy daughter, and I will provide for
thee an honourable grave; but thou shalt be hanged first.’ ‘My Lord,’ said the
Lieutenant, ‘shall I bespeak my grave?’ ‘Thou shalt,’ said the Marquess.
‘Then,’ said the Lieutenant, ‘I will be laid in the vault in Raglan Church
between your father and your grandfather; and I pray God I may be hanged
before I see you again.’ And so saying he flung out of the roome, leaving my
Lord in the merriest veine that ever I saw him in; who, remembering
himself, sent him five pieces to beare his charges.
“The Lieutenant being brought to the Generall at Monmouth, the Generall
dismissed him of his guard, and sent him to Hereford with an oath at his
heeles, that he would hang him if there were no more men in England.
“Then the Lieutenant cried out, ‘This makes for us, sure enough. I do but
think how finely I shall lie between the two old earles.’... The particulars
hereof being brought to the Marquess, his lordship was not a little perplext
between feare of having his new mistresse and loosing his old friend; which
he had run himself into between jest and earnest. The time was come that the

Marquess was not so much merrier than we heretofore; but we were as much
merrie as he upon the return of this news. But the greatest sport of all was
concerning the hopefull Lady Marchioness, who was ever and anon
enquiring and asking many questions concerning the Marquess, whom she
never saw. What manner of man he was? How old? Whether he went with a
staff, or no? What was the reason he kept his chamber so much, and did not
come abroad sometimes? What ailments he had? And how long it was since
his lady died? With many other necessary questions to be asked by a young
woman in her condition.
“Sport enough there was for both the garrisons of Raglan and Hereford.
Nevertheless, it stood the Marquess upon to be sollicitous in the business,
being sore prest between two strong passions, love and pitty. Me he sends to
solicit the businesse, with instructions; whose telling me never so often, ‘that
it was no laughing matter,’ could not make me forbear laughing.
“But having taken my leave, his Lordship called me back again, and with
a loud and angry voice said to me, ‘Tell the Generall, that if he hang my
Lieutenant, I’ll hang the centry for not giving fire upon him when he was
bid.’ Whereupon I said unto his Lordship, ‘What doth he care how many you
hang?’ ‘God bless us all,’ said the Marquess; ‘if he neither cares who he
hangs of the King’s party, nor who other folkes hang; for aught I know he
cares not an’ we were all hanged.’
“So taking my second leave of the Marquess, and then my humble leave
of the Lady Elizabeth, who fearing nothing more but that I would prove too
good a sollicitor for her good, I went to Hereford, and made some sport
there; and so brought home the Lieutenant to his wife and daughter, who
ever after was called ‘My Lady Marquess.’ ”
We now proceed to that part of our subject, in which the desperate
fortunes of the Monarch are connected with his last visit to Raglan.
After the battle of Naseby, nothing prospered with the King. His army, it
was suspected, had not displayed on that day their former valour. Though not
disaffected, they were dispirited; the mass of the infantry threw down their
arms and cried for quarter; and with Cromwell’s horse thundering in his rear,
the King escaped to Leicester, and thence through Bewdley, in
Worcestershire, to Hereford. Only five days before this ruinous defeat he had
written in a letter to the Queen, that since the rebellion began, “his affairs
were never in so fair and hopeful a way.” On the sixth he was a fugitive. But
he had still hopes—strange as it must appear—of getting together an army in

South Wales.[253] At Hereford, Prince Rupert took leave of the King, and
hastened to Bristol, that he might put it into a condition to resist the
victorious army that was speedily to make its appearance before it; and
thence, says Lord Clarendon, “his Majesty went to Abergavenny to meet the
Commissioners. As they were for the most part persons of the best quality
and the largest fortunes of these counties, so they had manifested great
loyalty and affection from the beginning of the war, by sending many good
regiments to the army; and with their sons and brothers and nearest kindred
—many of whom had lost their lives bravely in the field. They now made as
large professions as ever, and seemed to believe that they should be able in a
very short time to raise a good army of foot, with which the King might
again look upon the enemy, and accordingly agreed what numbers should be
levied upon each of the counties.” From hence, says the historian, “his
Majesty went for the last time to Raglan Castle, the noble house of the
Marquess of Worcester, which was well fortified and garrisoned by him who
remained then in it.” There the King “resolved to stay till he saw the effect
of the Commissioners’ mighty promises. But in a short time he found that,
either by the continued successes of the Parliament armies, the particular
information whereof was every day brought to them by intelligence from
their friends, or the triumphs of their enemies in Monmouth or Gloucester,
there was little probability of their raising an army in those parts, where all
men grew less affected, or more frighted: which produced one and the same
effect.”
In his progress—for it was more like a “progress” than a retreat—through
Monmouthshire to Raglan, the King was greeted with every expression of
loyal sympathy by his Welsh subjects. In the “Iter Carolinum,” printed
amongst the “Somers’ Tracts,” it is recorded, “that King Charles slept at
Tredegar, the seat of Sir William Morgan, in this county, on the seventeenth
of July, 1645; and that he arrived at Sir Philip Morgan’s,[254] Ruperra, in
Glamorganshire, on the twenty-fifth, and there remained till the twenty-ninth
of the same month.” This must have been immediately before his return to
Raglan Castle, in August. Entering upon a melancholy progress from house
to house, among the staunch royalists of South Wales, he had thus sought
relief from the gloomy reflections by which his mind was oppressed after the
total defeat at Naseby.
At Raglan, however, says the historian, “the King, as on his former visit,
passed days and weeks in sports and ceremonies, in hunting and audience-

giving;” for every effort was employed by those around him to obliterate all
recollections of the past by promises and predictions of a brilliant future.
When his Majesty re-entered the gates of Raglan—which was indeed a
harbour of refuge in his distress—the loyal Marquess, kneeling down, kissed
his Liege’s hand; and then rising up saluted him with this compliment
—“Domine! non sum dignus.” To which the King replied—“My Lord, I may
very well answer you again: I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.
No man would trust me with so much money as you have done.” To which
the Marquess replied—“I hope your Majesty will prove a defender of the
Faith.”

By this time Lord Herbert (Earl of Glamorgan) had sailed for Ireland to
raise, if possible, new forces for the King’s service, and the renewal of the
war. Pleased with his zeal and loyalty, his Majesty had thus written to him
from Hereford:—
“Glamorgan—I am glad to hear that you are gone to Irland, and asseure
you that as myselfe is nowais disheartned by our late misfortune, so nether
this country; for I could not have expected more from them then they have
now freely undertaken, though I had come hither absolute victorious; which
makes me hope well of the neighbouring sheers; so that, by the grace of
God, I hope shortly to recover my late losse, with advantage, if such
succours come to me from that Kingdome which I have reason to expect; but
the circumstance of tyme is that of the greatest consequence, being that wᶜ
now is cheefliest and earnestliest recomended to you by your most asseured,
reall, constant frend,
“Charles R.”[255]

Among the numerous and more humble examples of loyal affection, by
which the fallen Monarch was soothed during his retirement in Raglan
Castle, the following is well deserving of notice:—The reverend individual,
whom his own act has immortalized, was Thomas Swift,[256] incumbent of
the neighbouring parish of Goodrich. Fully aware of the King’s pecuniary
distress, he mortgaged his estate; and with the money thus raised he
proceeded to Raglan Castle. The Governor, with whom he was personally
acquainted, asked the object of his visit, and whether he could serve him; for
he was equally esteemed as a zealous pastor, and a staunch royalist. “I am
only come,” said he, “to give his Majesty my coat;” and, in taking it off, the
Marquess pleasantly observed: “Thy coat, I fear me, is of little worth.”
“Why then,” said Swift, “take my waistcoat also.” And here was the hidden
treasure, for, on being ripped up, it was found to contain three hundred broad
gold pieces. “And the King,” says Lord Clarendon, “received no relief that
was more seasonable and acceptable than this during the war.” Mr. Swift’s
zeal and activity in the royal cause exposed him to much danger and many
sufferings. “He was plundered,” says Heath, “more than thirty times by the
Parliament’s army, and ejected from his church living. His estate was
sequestered, and he himself thrown into prison.”
At Raglan the King “stayed until news came that Fairfax, after taking
Leicester, had marched into the west, and defeated Goring’s troops at
Lamport; at the same time that the Scottish army, on its march, had taken a
small garrison between Hereford and Worcester by storm, and put all within
it to the sword;” while Prince Rupert sent for all those foot, which were
levied towards a new army to supply the garrison. But the expectations,
which had been industriously fostered in the King’s mind of a more
propitious fortune, became every day more faint. Of all the schemes that had
been set afoot for retrieving his past errors, and regaining the hearts of his
alienated subjects, not one was permitted to prosper. And as a fatal climax to
his unhappy fortunes, “it was at Raglan Castle,” says Lord Clarendon, “that
the King received the terrible information of the surrender of Bristol
(September 11, 1645), which he so little apprehended, that if the evidence
thereof had not been unquestionable, it could not have been believed. With
what indignation and dejection of mind the King received this
advertisement, needs no other description and enlargement than the setting
down in the very words of it the letter which the King writ thereupon to
Prince Rupert; which, considering the unspeakable indulgence his Majesty

had ever shewed towards that Prince, is sufficient evidence how highly he
was incensed by that act, which yet he took some time sadly to think of and
consider, before he would allow himself to abate so much of his natural
candour towards him. As soon as he received that surprising intelligence, the
King removed from Raglan Castle.”

The Gateway Towers.
Raglan Castle.

The King took leave of Raglan Castle on the 15th of September,
mournfully observing to the Marquess, that by so doing he hoped “to ease
his lordship of a heavy burden.” His Majesty then thanked his noble and
devoted host for the large sums of money which had been advanced to him
in the course of his troubles. Whereupon the Marquess replied: “Sire, I had
your word for the money; but I never thought to have been so soon repaid;
for now that you have given me thanks, I have all I looked for.”[257] Well
might the royal guest have expressed his feelings on quitting Raglan in the
following lines, taken from his own ‘Collection:’—

I fall! I fall!
Whom shall I call?
Alas! can he be heard,
Who now is neither loved nor feared?
You, who were wont to kisse the ground,
Where’er my honour’d steps were found,
Come, catch me at my last rebound!

How each admires
Heaven’s twinkling fires,
When from their glorious seat
Their influence gives life and heat!
But, oh! how few there are—
Tho’ danger from that act be far—
Will stoop and catch a falling star.[258]

“Distracted with a thousand griefs, and accompanied by a few trusty and
disconsolate servants, the royal victim wandered about the country, thankful
to accept protection from any one who had fortune or inclination to minister
to his distress. And many ‘cruel days’ to use his own words, were spent in
weary marchings without food, narrow escapes, and precipitate retreats,
before he took his last farewell of the land of Gwent.”[259]
On one occasion he was hotly pursued in his retreat through Shire
Newton, by a party of sixty Roundheads; but reaching a place called
Charleston Rock, near the New Passage, a fishing-boat was found, in which
he was safely ferried over the Severn into Gloucestershire. His pursuers
coming up in the meanwhile, but only to find their object defeated, seized
upon the remaining boats, and with drawn swords compelled the fishermen
to ferry them across. They hurried into the boats, and, with the royal fugitive
still in view, made all haste to be once more on his traces. The poor
fishermen, however, being royalists at heart, had no sympathy with these
king-hunters; but rowing lustily towards a reef of rocks called the “English
Stones,” within a gunshot of the Gloucester shore, there hauled in their oars;
and landing their freight on the rocks, told them the water was so shallow
that the boats could go no further, and they might easily wade to the opposite
bank. And such, in fact, was quite practicable at low water; but, in the
present instance, the tide flowed so rapidly, that in making the attempt to
reach the opposite bank the whole party were drowned.
Informed of the catastrophe, Cromwell abolished the ferry, which was not
renewed until 1718, after a protracted lawsuit between the proprietor of St.

Pierre and the Duke of Beaufort’s guardians,[260] when it was named the
“New Passage.”

Armourer.

The Siege.—Early the following spring a resolution was passed that the
Castle of Raglan, which had so often thrown open its gates to the King, and
still supported a garrison in his service, should be reduced without loss of
time. It was the last fortress that held out, and until its walls were
dismantled, and the garrison made prisoners, the spirit of loyalty in
Monmouth would never be thoroughly subdued. The Castle was accordingly
invested by Major-General Glenham and Sir Trevor Williams;[261] but the
latter, it has been asserted, was not very hearty in his opposition to the King;

for he had many misgivings respecting the ultimate designs of Cromwell,
who also, as it appears from existing documents,[262] was equally suspicious
of Sir Trevor. The first summons to surrender the Castle to Parliament was
received by the garrison with indignation and defiance.
Early in June they were joined by Colonel Morgan, who, with a strong
body of men[263] from Worcester, took the command. The troops of the
garrison made divers gallant sallies, and in one of these killed a cornet of
Morgan’s, and carried off the colours. But after the surrender of Oxford to
the Parliament, Colonel Morgan had a reinforcement of two hundred men,
and being now in a position, both as regarded the works and the efficiency of
the troops, to act with vigour, he sent the following summons:—
I.—Colonel Morgan to the Marquess of Worcester.
“My Lord,—By his Excellency’s command, this is my second summons,
whereby you are required forthwith to deliver to me, for the uses of both
Houses of Parliament, the Castle of Raglan, with all ordnance, arms,
ammunition, and provisions, and all other necessaries that belong to war,
that are now in it; which if you will be pleased to do, you may haply find
mercy, as other garrisons have had; and if you do refuse, expect but the ruin
of yourself, your family, and this poor distressed country. For I must
acquaint your lordship that his Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax, having now
finished his work over the kingdom except this Castle, hath been pleased to
spare his forces for this work, which are now upon their march this way with
all materials fit for it; though I made no doubt but I had of mine own
strength sufficient to effect it. If your lordship will deny to submit to this
summons, and that more blood must be spilt, your lordship may be confident
that you shall receive no favour from both Houses of Parliament. So,
expecting your answer this night by nine of the clock, I rest your lordship’s
servant,
“Tho. Morgan.
“From the Leaguer before Raglan,
“June 28, 1646.
“Upon the faith and honour of a soldier, this is a true copy of his
Majesty’s letter[264] to the Governors of Oxford, Lichfield, Wallingford, and
Worcester, and all other garrisons in England and Wales; which I thought fit
to present to your lordship, that you may clearly see what possibility of relief
you are like to have.”

II.—The Marquess of Worcester to Colonel Morgan.
“Sir,—I have received this day two advertisements from you; the first I
read, containing, as you would have me believe, a true copy of his Majesty’s
warrant to several garrisons upon honourable terms to quit. But truly, Sir, it
is not in the power of man to make me think so unworthily of his Majesty,
that to one, in the opinion of the world, that hath given, himself and family,
soe great a demonstrance and testimony of his and their faith and fidelitie
towards him, that he would not please so much as name his name, or Raglan.
I entreat you, give me leave to suspend my belief.[265]
“And for your second summons, it makes it too evident that it is desired
that I would die under a hedge like a beggar, having no house left to put my
head into, nor means left to find me bread. Wherefore to give you answer, I
make choice (if it soe please God) rather to dye nobly, than to live with
infamy. Which answer, if it be not pleasing to you, I shall not think you
worthy to be styled by me your loving friend,
“H. Worcester.
“From my House of Raglan,
“June 28, 1646.”
This was followed by a third letter from Colonel Morgan:—
“My Lord,—Since it is not in my power to make you nor your son
believe anything concerning the surrender of those garrisons, by his
Majesty’s order, that comes from me or any of our party: once more, and the
last before I send your answer to his Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax, I shall give
your lordship way to send an officer, with another of mine, to those lords in
Oxford to whom his Majesty’s letters were directed, for your better
satisfaction. This I do, my Lord, to prevent your utter ruin, and that of this
poor country, so much occasioned by your lordship’s obstinacy. I expect
your present answer, and rest your servant,
“Tho. Morgan.
“June 28th.”
IV.—The Marquess of Worcester to Colonel Morgan.
“Sir,—In respect of your mentioning of any respect or kindness towards
me, lest to be divulged to the world should do you any prejudice, I have
thought fit in your own letter to return you thanks for the same. And for Sir
Tho. Fairfax, if he were here with all his army, he should receive no other

from me than what you have had. I hope I serve (though not so well as I
should) a Master that is of more might than all the armies in the world; and
to his holy will and pleasure I submit myself, and yourself to do what you
think fitting.—Your friend and servant,
“H. Worcester.
“From my Dwelling at Raglan,
“June 28.”
In the first week of August ensuing, General Fairfax arrived from Bath to
hasten the siege—which was in great forwardness both for works and
approaches—and then sent in another summons[266] to the Marquess:—
V.—Sir Thomas Fairfax to the Marquess of Worcester.
“My Lord,—Being come into these parts with such a strength as I may
not doubt but, with the same good hand of Providence that hath hitherto
blessed us, in short time to reduce the garrison of Raglan to the obedience of
the Parliament, I have, in order thereto, thought good to send your lordship
this summons, hereby requiring you to deliver up to me, for the Parliament’s
use, the said garrison and Castle of Raglan; which, as it only obstructs the
kingdom’s universal peace, the rendition may beget such terms, as by delay
or vain hopes cannot hereafter be expected.—I remain, my Lord, your
lordship’s most humble servant,
“Tho. Fairfax.
“Leaguer before Raglan,
“August 7, 1646.
“Your lordship’s speedy answer to this summons is desired.”
VI.—The Marquess of Worcester to Sir Thomas Fairfax.
“Sir,—Although my infirmities might justly claim privilege in so sudden
an answer; yet, because you desire it, and I am not willing to delay your
time, to your letter of summons to deliver up my house, and the only house
now in my possession to cover my head in, these are to let you know, that if
you did understand the condition I am in, I daresay out of your judgment you
will not think it a reasonable demand. I am loth to be the author of mine own
ruin on both sides; and therefore desire leave to send to his Majesty to know
his pleasure what he will have done with his garrison. As for my house, I
presume he will command nothing; neither am I knowing how, either by law

or conscience, I should be forced out of it. To these I desire your return, and
rest your Excellency’s humble servant,
“H. Worcester.
“From my poor Cottage at Raglan,
“Aug. 7, 1646.”
VII.—Sir Thomas Fairfax to the Marquess of Worcester.
“My Lord,—Touching your sending to his Majesty, it is that which hath
been denied to the most considerable garrisons of England, further than an
account to his Majesty of the thing done upon the surrender; which I do else
freely grant to your lordship. And for that distinction which your lordship is
pleased to make, that it is your house, if it had not been formed into a
garrison, I should not have troubled your lordship with a summons; and
were it disgarrisoned, neither you nor your house should receive any disquiet
from me, or any that belong unto me.
“This I thought good to return to yours, and thereby to discharge myself,
before God and the world, of all extremities and sad consequences that will
ensue upon the refusal of the rendition of your garrison upon my summons.
—I remain yours,
“Tho. Fairfax.
“August 8.”

VIII.—The Marquess of Worcester to Sir Thomas Fairfax.
“Sir,—I do much confide in your honour, as that being at stake,
concerning leave to send to his Majesty, and will at this time forbear to make
further motion in it; only one thing which is extraordinary, I offer to your
consideration, for the just cause, besides my allegiance, of my reasonable
request; which is, That upon his Majesty’s promise of satisfaction, I am
above 20,000 pounds out of purse; and if I should do anything displeasing
unto him, I am sure all that is lost, and no benefit to the Parliament. If you
knew how well known I was, in Henry Earl of Huntington’s time, unto your
noble grandfather at York, I am assured I should receive that favour at your
hands that safely you might afford. God knows, if I might quietly receive my
means of subsistence, and be in security, with the Parliament’s approbation,
and freed from the malice of those gentlemen that are of the Committee
within this county, I should quietly quit myself of the garrison; for I have no
great cause to take delight in it. I have that high esteem of your worth,

nobleness, and true judgement, that knowing you will offer nothing ignoble
or unworthy for me to do, as the case stands with me, I desire to know what
conditions I may have, and I will return you present answer. And, in the
meantime, I rest your humble servant,
“H. Worcester.
“August 8, 1646.”

IX.—Sir Thomas Fairfax to the Marquess of Worcester.
“My Lord,—According to your lordship’s desire, I have returned you
conditions, such as may be fit and satisfactory to the soldiery. To your
lordship and family I have granted quiet and security from all violence of
any that belongs to me. I would persuade your lordship not to fear any ill or
disrespect from the Committee of this county; I shall easily reconcile that
party; or that they will not do anything but as they shall receive order from
the Parliament. By this means you are at liberty to send to the Parliament;
and upon a present surrender and submission to their mercy and favour, your
lordship cannot but think to receive better terms for yourself than if you
stand it out to the last extremity; when, besides the hazard of your person,
and of those in your family, (which I do presume are dear to you,) and the
spoil of the Castle, which cannot be avoided in extreme undertakings against
it; your lordship hath no reason to expect better than the Marquess of
Winchester received, who, in making good Basing House to the last,
narrowly escaped in his own person, lost his friends, subjected those that
escaped to great frights and hazard, his house and estate to utter ruin, and
himself to extremity of justice.
“Touching your lordship’s 20,000 pounds, your lordship hath liberty to
solicit about that by the same hands your lordship shall give an account of
the surrender to his Majesty. I desire your lordship upon receipt of these to
dismiss my trumpeter, and to return an answer by one of your own.
“Tho. Fairfax.”
X.—The Marquess of Worcester to Sir Thomas Fairfax.
“Sir,—The difficulty of resolution by the soldiers and officers (other than
I thought) causeth my request for your patience in not giving you full answer
to the conditions you sent me yesterday; but as soon as I shall obtain it, you
shall not be long without it. But one thing, and that of moment, I desire to be
satisfied in, Whether, if any conclusion should be made, that afterwards I

shall be left to the mercy of the Parliament, for alteration at their will and
pleasures; and if it be so, I shall endeavour in vain to study more about it.
For example, in my Lord of Shrewsbury’s case, and divers others, how
conditions have been broken doth a little affright me. I know, by your will
and consent, it should never be; but soldiers are unruly, and the Parliament
unquestionable; and, therefore, I beseech you pardon my just cause of fear,
and I will rest your humble servant,
“H. Worcester.
“August 11.”

XI.—Sir Thomas Fairfax to the Marquess of Worcester.
“My Lord,—I have perused your letter of this 11th of August. As to your
scruple, wherein you desire to be satisfied, (so far as I understand it,) I can
only give you this resolution, that what I grant I will undertake shall be made
good. As to the instance you give in my Lord of Shrewsbury’s case, the
actors in that breach (who were none of my army) have received their
censure, and by this time I believe the execution. But here, if any conclusion
be made while I stay, I dare undertake there shall be no such thing; or, if any,
there shall be reparation.
“Tho. Fairfax.
“August 11, 1646.”

XII.—The Marquess of Worcester to Sir Thomas Fairfax.
“Sir,—For the better accommodation of these unhappy differences, if you
please there may be a cessation of arms and working, and to engage your
honour for the return of my commissioners to-morrow by ten of the clock,
they shall wait upon you in your Leaguer; where they shall vindicate me
from being the only obstruction of the general peace. So, in expectation of
your sudden answer, I rest your humble servant,
“H. Worcester.
“August 13, 1646.”

XIII.—Sir Thomas Fairfax to the Marquess of Worcester.
“My Lord,—Having not yet received by any of your letters a direct
answer to the conditions I sent you, I have no grounds or consideration for
such a cessation of arms and working, as in your letter you desire; but if it be
your purpose to return your answer by commissioners, I shall, by the hour
you mention, appoint commissioners of mine own to receive the same in the
Leaguer as you desire, and engage myself for the safe return of yours, not
exceeding six commissioners and as many servants; and, in order to this, I
shall be content there be a cessation of arms and working from nine of the
clock to-morrow morning till two in the afternoon.—Yours,
“Tho. Fairfax.
“Uske, August 14.”

XIV.—The Marquess of Worcester to Sir Thomas Fairfax.

“Sir,—Had I not thought you had been in the Leaguer, to the end that the
propositions from the place, in answer to yours, might have been first
presented unto you; and to avoid delays, which I thought your side would
best like of, it was resolved to send commissioners together with our
propositions; but considering it was otherwise, I have sent you such as I am
advised unto, to take into your consideration. And because there is some
addition to yours, I would have been glad you had heard the just reasons
thereof, to the end you might not have been persuaded to slight them without
just cause. Your pleasure for the ordering of business, I, at your leisure,
expect; and, if you please, the dismission of this messenger; and so rest your
humble servant,
“H. Worcester.”
XV.—Sir Thomas Fairfax to the Marquess of Worcester.
“My Lord,—I have perused the propositions sent out by your
commissioners, which I find such as deserve no answer. I have offered your
lordship and the rest conditions which you may yet have, if you accept in
time. If there be any thing in them obscure, needing explanation, or wanting
circumstantials, for the better performing of the things intended therein I
shall be willing to appoint commissioners on my part to treat with yours to
that purpose upon these propositions of mine; provided you send
commissioners instructed with power to treat and conclude, and return your
resolution herein by six of the clock in the evening.—Yours, &c.,
“Tho. Fairfax.
“August 14, 1646.”

In the meantime the besiegers went on with their approaches toward the
Castle—their main works being not above some sixty yards distant—and
had planted four mortar pieces in one place, and two mortar pieces at
another, each mortar piece carrying a grenade shell twelve inches diameter.
Towards the end of the siege, whilst the cannon of Fairfax was playing
upon the Castle from the neighbouring height, and when casualties within
the walls were of hourly occurrence, an incident occurred, which shows that
in these perilous times even ladies deemed it necessary to apologise for
being afraid of leaden bullets. “One evening, during the hottest period of the
cannonade,” says Dr. Bayly, “there came a musket bullet in at the window of
the withdrawing room, where my lord used to entertain his friends with his
pleasant discourses after dinners and suppers, which, glancing upon a little

marble
pillar
of the
windo
w, and
from
thence
hit the
Marqu
ess
upon
the
side of
his
head,
and
fell
down
flatten
ed
upon
the
table,
which
breaki
ng the
pillar
in
pieces,
it
made such a noise in the room, that his daughter-in-law, the Countess of
Glamorgan, who stood in the same window, ran away as if the house had
been falling down upon her head, crying out—‘O Lord! O Lord!’ But at
length finding herself more afraid than hurt, she returned back again, no less
excusing her—as she was pleased to call it—rudeness to her father, than
acknowledging her fears to all the company. To whom the Marquess said:
‘Daughter, you had reason to run away when your father was knocked on the
head.’ Then pausing some little while, and turning the flattened bullet round

with his finger, he further said: ‘Gentlemen, those who had a mind to flatter
me, were wont to tell me that I had a good head in my younger days; but if I
don’t flatter myself, I think I have a good head-piece in my old age, or else it
would not have been musket proof.’ ”
Of the exemplary good order observed by the household, before the
establishment of a garrison within the Castle, an eye-witness has transmitted
the following testimony:—
“I have lived in Raglan Castle,” said he, “three years, and in all that time
I never saw man drunk, nor heard an oath, amongst any of all his (the
Marquess’s) servants; neither did I ever see a better ordered family; and that
which was most wonderful unto me was, that the servants of his house,
being half Papists and half Protestants, were never at variance in point of
religion—which was brought about by prohibiting disputations.[267] Neither
was any man the less accepted for his religion, if his service were
acceptable. But when the Castle was filled with officers and soldiers, he used
to be more grieved to hear and witness the drunkenness that was then and
there too much practised: insomuch, that when some of his chief officers had
told him, how that they had fortified such and such a place so and so; and
that the enemy could not come; and that there it was impossible. ‘Ay, ay,’
said my Lord; ‘but you have left the main place open and unprotected. You
have no fortifications against Heaven. For there is so much swearing and
drunkenness amongst you, that from thence I fear me will come our greatest
enemy, and you have made no provision against him.’ And, indeed, he said
justly; for, in truth, the royalists were grievously addicted to many vices, to
which, on the contrary, the companions and followers of Cromwell were
comparatively strangers.”
The importance attached by the Parliament to the reduction of Raglan
Castle is shown by the following report from their commissioner:[268]—
“Your assured friend and servant, W. C.,” (as the letter is signed,) writes
to the Parliament man from “Usk, August 15, 1646.—I shall now give you
an account how near our approaches are made unto the Castle. That which is
our maine work is about sixty yardes from theirs, and that’s the most. We
have planted four mortar pieces, each of them carrying a grenado shel twelve
inches diameter; and two mortar peeces planted at another place carrying
shels about the like compas; soe that in case the treatye doe breake off, we
are then ready to show by what extremitye they must expect to be reduced.
This we are very confident, that the grenadoes will make them quit their

workes and outhouses, and solely betake themselves into the Castle, which
indeed will be a worke of time before we are able to undermine it, in regard
we must mine down a hill[269] under a moate, and then the workes, before
we can come to the Castle; yet we conceive it feasible to be done with some
losse. Our engineer, Captain Hooper, a painful and honest man, proceeding,
as he hath begun, with exact running trenches, which we made so secure as
if they were workes against a storme, will, with God’s blessing, come within
ten yards in a few dayes; and then, I believe, we shall make galleries, mines,
and many batteries. The General is every day in the trenches, and yesterdaye
appointed a new approache, which the engineer of this army, who is now
returned from Worcester, is to carry on with all expedition. He has already
broken the ground, throwne up approaches of about an hundred yardes in
length and circuit, and is within sixty yards of the under part of their
workes.”
The writer then proposes that the Parliament should agree to moderate
terms, and accept of an honourable answer. That the plan might succeed he
deems quite certain, though not without farther loss; and he adds, in terms
less courteous than characteristic of the times, that “it would not be worth
while to gaine this old man’s carkasse at so dear a rate.”[270]
Aug. 14.—Fairfax appointed a new approach, which the engineer,
Captain Hooper, had so far proceeded in as to throw up approaches of an
hundred yards in circuit, making exact running trenches (as secure as if they
were works against a storm), coming within sixty yards of their works.
Aug. 15.—The Marquess sent forth his desire to treat upon the General’s
propositions; whereupon the treaty was appointed at Mr. Oates’s house,
(about a mile and a half from Raglan,) to begin at two of the clock that
afternoon. Fairfax’s commissioners were Colonel Birch, Mr. Herbert,
Quartermaster-General Grosvenor, Lieutenant-Colonel Ashfield, and Major
Tulida.
By Monday the 17th of August, two days after the date of this report, the
preliminaries for capitulation were finally arranged.[271]
Surrender.—During the blockade of Raglan, the Parliamentary General
fixed his head-quarters at Kevantilla House,[272] the residence of Mr. Oates,
about a mile and a half from Raglan; and there the treaty for the surrender of
the Castle was finally adjusted and prepared for signature. The commission
deputed for the occasion by Fairfax, were Colonel Birch, Quarter-Master

Herbert, General Grosvenor, Lieutenant-Colonel Ashfield, and Major
Tuliday. The meeting, as previously arranged, took place at two o’clock in
the afternoon of Saturday, August the fifteenth; and, on the Monday
following, the document was ratified, by appending to it the signatures of the
authorized commissioners. The capitulation was agreed to on the following
conditions:—
Article the First. The garrison, ammunition, and artillery of Raglan, to be
surrendered to General Fairfax on the third day after the ratification of the
said treaty; namely, at ten o’clock on the morning of the Wednesday
following, being the nineteenth day of August.
Article the Second, stipulated that all the officers, soldiers, and
gentlemen of the garrison, should march out with horses and arms; colours
flying; drums beating; trumpets sounding; matches lighted at both ends;
bullets in their mouths; and every soldier with twelve charges of powder and
ball; with permission to select any place, within ten miles of the Castle, for
the purpose of delivering up their arms to the general in command; after
which the soldiers were to be disbanded and set at liberty.
Article the Third, engaged the General’s safe conduct and protection to
all the gentlemen and others who had sought refuge within the walls of
Raglan Castle to their respective homes.
Article the Fourth, was an enlargement of the preceding article, by which
three months’ protection was guaranteed to certain other gentlemen, until
they should either have made their peace with Parliament, or departed the
realm.
Article the Fifth, guaranteed the protection and care of the sick and
wounded left in the Castle.
Article the Sixth, was an indemnity for all words and acts of the garrison
during the siege of the Castle.
On Wednesday the nineteenth of August, in pursuance of these
arrangements, the Castle and Garrison of Raglan were duly surrendered to
Sir Thomas Fairfax, for the use of both Houses of Parliament. The garrison,
which at first had mustered eight hundred men, was now reduced to less than
half that number; and as certain of the warlike muniments were becoming so
diminished as to expose them at last to the chances of seeing the Castle

entered by storm, a prolonged resistance must have been attended with
disastrous consequences.
“The garrison had no sooner marched out,” says an eye-witness, “than
Fairfax entered the Castle, took a view of it, had some conversation with the
Marquess, and then, quitting the scene of his last operation in the way of
siege, proceeded to Chepstow, where he was received in triumph by the
committee; and, after a brief halt in the Castle, returned to his head-quarters
at Bath,”
“A conqueror; and blushing on his sword
The stains of blood, by loyal Raglan pour’d.”

Yet Fairfax, as far as lay in his power, was very exact in observing every
condition to which he was a party. It is recorded to his honour, that, “far
from allowing violence, he would not even permit insults, or expressions of
triumph over the unfortunate Royalists.” Something of this generous bearing
towards his opponents may be observed in his correspondence with the
Marquess of Worcester. He is painted by historians as equally eminent for
personal courage and for humanity; and though strongly infected with
prejudices, or principles derived from religious and party zeal, he never
seems, in the course of his public conduct, to have been diverted, by private
interest or ambition, from adhering strictly to these principles. Sincere in his
professions, disinterested in his views, open in his conduct, “he had formed,”
says Hume,[273] “one of the most shining characters of his age, had not the
extreme narrowness of his genius in everything but in war, and his
embarrassed and confused elocution on every occasion but when he gave
orders, diminished the lustre of his merit, and rendered the part which he
acted, even when vested with the supreme command, but secondary and
subordinate.”
With this just tribute to his merits as a man and a soldier, we take leave of
the Conqueror of Raglan, annexing the following
Anecdotes.—When Fairfax, as we learn from the same authority, laid
siege to Raglan Castle, and fair terms were offered to all the garrison, the
Marquess only excepted, the generous old Nestor entreated his friends to
accept the proposal, and allow him to be the ‘Jonas.’ But this proposition, it
may be readily believed, had the opposite effect, of strengthening their
determination to stand by him to the last man. In thanking his officers for

their devotedness, he added, in his own peculiar way, “I do not much like
that way of embalming neither—to be served up to my audit as a thing
newly taken out of the cost of many friends’ blood.”
In the conversation above alluded to, when Fairfax took possession of the
Castle, the Marquess is said to have made a jocular request, bespeaking the
General’s indulgence in favour of some pigeons that still kept possession of
their ancient haunt. To which he gravely replied, that he was glad to perceive
his Lordship in so ‘merrie’ a frame of mind. Whereupon the Marquess told
him the following story:—
“There were two rogues once going up Holborn in a cart to be hanged;
but the one being very jocund on so serious an occasion, gave offence to his
companion, who, being very downcast, reproved him. ‘Tush, man,’ said the
other, ‘thou art a fool; thou wentest a thieving, and never once thoughtest of
what would become of thee; wherefore, being on a sudden surprised and
taken, thou fallest into such a shaking fit, that I am ashamed to see thee in
such a pitiful condition. Whereas I was resolved to be hanged before I fell to
stealing, which is the reason I go so composedly unto my death.’ So, in my
own case,” continued the Marquess, “I resolved to undergo whatsoever—
even the worst—evils that you were able to lay upon me, before I took up
arms for my sovereign; and, therefore, wonder not that I am so merrie.”
The fall of Raglan Garrison was a source of much triumph and
congratulation to the Parliamentary forces. “There were delivered up with
it,” says Rushworth, “twenty pieces of ordnance, but only three barrels of
gunpowder; for within the walls they had a mill with which they could make
a barrel a day. There was found, however, ‘great store of corn and malt, wine
of all sorts, and beer in abundance;’ but hay and forage for their horses had
been so completely exhausted, that these noble animals were almost starved
to death, and ‘had like to have eaten one another for want of meat, had they
not been tied with chains.’ ”
The captors found also great store of goods and rich furniture in the
Castle, which Fairfax committed to the care and custody of Mr. Herbert,
commissioner of the army, Mr. Roger Williams, and Major Tuliday, or
Tulida, to be inventoried. And in case any inhabitants of the country could
make a just claim to them—as having been violently taken from them, or
they compelled to bring them thither—that they should have them restored.

Agreeably to the terms of surrender, as recorded in the history of the
siege, there marched out of the Castle—“The Marquess of Worcester, then in
the eighty-fourth year of his age; the Lord Charles, the Marquess’s sixth son,
Lieutenant-Governor of the Castle under his father: [he subsequently retired
to Flanders, and died a canon of Cambray;] the Countess of Glamorgan; the
Lady Jones; Sir Philip Jones; Dr. Bayly, so often quoted in the preceding
narrative; Commissary Gwilliam; four Colonels; eighty-two Captains;
sixteen Lieutenants; six Cornets; four Ensigns; four Quartermasters; fifty-
two Esquires and Gentlemen.”
It is worthy of record in this place, that, of all the forts and garrisons in
the King’s interest, those of Raglan and Pendennis endured the longest
sieges, and held out the last of any forts or castles in England—being
bravely defended by two persons of very great age—and were at length
delivered up within a day or two of each other. “Raglan,” says Lord
Clarendon, “was maintained with extraordinary resolution and courage by
the old Marquess of Worcester (then 85) against Fairfax himself, until it
was reduced to the greatest necessity. Pendennis refused all summons;
admitting no treaty till all their provisions were so far consumed that they
had not victuals left for four-and-twenty hours; and then they treated, and
carried themselves in the treaty with such resolution and unconcernedness,
that the enemy concluded they were in no straits, and so gave them the
conditions they proposed, which were as good as any garrison in England
had accepted. The governor of Pendennis was John Arundel of Trerice, in
Cornwall, an old gentleman of near fourscore years of age, who, with the
assistance of his son Richard, afterwards made a baron in memory of his
father’s service, and his own eminent behaviour throughout the war,
maintained and defended the same to the last extremity.”[274]
Returning to the subject of Raglan, we must not overlook the following
predictions, as calculated to excite no little attention in times when
witchcraft, sorcery, and apparitions, were admitted as articles of popular
belief.
Prophecies.—Of the prophetic warnings which, from time to time, and
particularly during the siege, had taken possession of the vulgar mind
regarding the fall of Raglan and its hereditary lords, the following passage is
sufficiently characteristic:—One evening, during the progress of the siege,
one of his officers was relating to the Marquess how strangely the narrator,

Dr. Bayly, had escaped a shot by means of the iron bar of a window that
looked out upon the leaguer. Standing, for example, in a window of the
castle, there came a musket bullet and hit full against the edge of an iron bar
of a chamber window, so that it parted the bullet in halves, the bar
expatiating itself by degrees towards the middle; “one half of the bullet,”
said he, “flew by me on the one side, and the other half on the other side; so
that, by God’s providence, I had no hurt.”
“The Marquess hearing this, asked me in what chamber it was. I told him.
His Lordship then said, as I remember, ‘The window was cross-barred; and
you will never believe me,’ said he emphatically, ‘how safe it is to stand
before the Cross, when you face your enemy!’ ”
But returning to the subject of predictions:—“Never,” says the family
historian, “never was there a noble house so pulled down by prophecies—
ushered into its ruin by predictions, and so laid hold upon by signes and
tokens! I shall tell you no more,” he continues, “but what I have both read
and seen long before the fall of that proud fabric, which had the honour to
fall the last of any that stood upon the tearmes of honour. Now there was one
old book of prophecies that was presented to the Marquess, because it so
much concerned Raglan Castle, wherein there were these predictions:
namely, That there should come an Earl that should first build a white gate
before the castle-house, and after that should begin to build a red one; and
before that red one should be finished, there should be wars over all the
land.”
Now all this was fulfilled in the Marquess’s own day, who, having built
the one gate and begun the other, yet by reason of the distractions of the
time, was forced to discontinue the latter, which at the time of the siege
remained unfinished. Some one standing by while this prophecy was
mentioned, exhorted the Marquess—half in jest, half in earnest—to make
haste and finish his red-gate house, because we should have no quiet until
that were up.
“Hark’ye,” said the Marquess, “nobody shall ever prophesy so much
money out of my purse in such times as these! Besides, the prophet does not
say until, but before—‘before the red gate is up;’ and, for aught I know, if I
should make haste with that building, I should hasten the war to my own
sorrow; for the prophet says, ‘before the red-gate house shall be finished,

there shall be wars all over the land.’ But what if I had built neither the one
nor the other, how could this prophecie have concerned me?”
“Oh, my Lord,” said one of the company, “it is done; and you could not
otherwise choose but to do what you did.”
“Ay; but I can choose,” said the Marquess, “whether I will believe the
prophet or not.”
“Another prophecie there was,” continues our authority, “that the king of
the country should lose a great battle, [Naseby,] and afterwards fly to Raglan
Castle for safety; that the enemy should pursue him; and that after a short
time he should leave the Castle, and that the enemy should besiege and set
fire to the Castle wall. All of which was literally fulfilled.”
Moreover it was said, that “an eagle should come into the park and be
there slain, which should be a forerunner to the destruction of that house;
which I saw literally performed; but yet executed by one that never heard of
the prophecie. It was furthermore foretold, that a cloud of bats should hang
over the Castle before its final demolishment; this, three days before, all the
Castle beheld to their no small astonishment, and it continued a quarter of an
hour, about twilight, so thick that you could not, towards the middle of them,
see the sky, though clear. Being shot at with hail-shot, some of them fell
down, and the rest flew away.
“The Marquess being told of this, asked what those kind of creatures
might signify. Some about him answered, that they were scripture emblems
of ruin and desolation.[275] He then asked if they were all gone. It was told
him that they were. Whereupon the Marquess asked us whether or no the
enemy had begirt us round. It was answered that they had. ‘Then,’ said his
Lordship, ‘I am glad of it; for then those emblems of ruin cannot fly away
from us, but they must also fly over the heads of the enemy.’ ”
The Chaplain then proceeds, according to the superstitious belief of the
times, to relate the following prediction regarding the King himself:—“The
strangest prophecie of all,” he affirms, “both for signification and
accomplishment, is this, which I read before I saw it in this book, and
fourteen years before the war.” He then gives it in the Welsh language, and
explains that fab-anne, as it is one word, signifies a baby, and joined to
another Welsh word, should imply a crowned infant, that, on growing up to
man’s estate, and ruling these realms for a season, should at last “fall by the
stroke of an axe,” or, “he shall be slain with an axe.” We shall not detain our