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diff --git a/10120.txt b/10120.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7526106 --- /dev/null +++ b/10120.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9340 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of England of My Heart--Spring, by Edward Hutton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: England of My Heart--Spring + +Author: Edward Hutton + +Release Date: November 18, 2003 [EBook #10120] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND OF MY HEART--SPRING *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +ENGLAND of my HEART + +SPRING + +BY + +EDWARD HUTTON + + +WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS BY +GORDON HOME + + +MCMXIV + +TO MY FRIEND +O.K. + + +INTRODUCTION + + +England of my heart is a great country of hill and valley, moorland +and marsh, full of woodlands, meadows, and all manner of flowers, and +everywhere set with steadings and dear homesteads, old farms and old +churches of grey stone or flint, and peopled by the kindest and +quietest people in the world. To the south, the east, and the west it +lies in the arms of its own seas, and to the north it is held too by +water, the waters, fresh and clear, of the two rivers as famous as +lovely, Thames and Severn, of which poets are most wont to sing, as +Spenser when he invokes the first: + + "Sweete Themmes runne softly till I end my song"; + + +or Dryden when he tells us of the second: + + "The goodly Severn bravely sings + The noblest of her British kings, + At Caesar's landing what we were, + And of the Roman conquest here...." + +Within England of my heart, in the whole breadth of her delight, there +is no industrial city such as infests, ruins, and spoils other lands, +and in this she resembles her great and dear mother Italy. Like her, +too, she is full of very famous towns scarcely to be matched for beauty +and ancientness in the rest of the world, and their names which are +like the words of a great poet, and which it is a pleasure to me to +recite, are Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, Bath, +Wells, Exeter, and her ports, whose names are as household words, even +in Barbary, are Dover, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, and Bristol. +All these she may well boast of, for what other land can match them +quite? + +But there is a certain virtue of hers of which she is perhaps unaware, +that is nevertheless among her greatest delights: I mean her infinite +variety. Thus she is a true country, not a province; indeed, she is +made up of many counties and provinces, and each is utterly different +from other, and their different genius may be caught by the attentive +in their names, which are Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, +Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and +Berkshire. Her variety thus lies in them and their dear, and let us +hope, immortal differences and characteristics, their genius that is, +which is as various as their scenery. For England of my heart not only +differs fundamentally from every other country of the known world, +but from itself in its different parts, and that radically. Thus in +one part you have ranges of chalk-hills, such as no other land knows, +so regular, continuous, and tremendous withal, that you might think +some army of archangels--and such might well abide there--had thrown +them up as their vast and beautiful fortifications, being good Romans +and believing in the value of such things, and not as the heathen +despising them. These chalk downs are covered, as indeed becomes +things so old, with turf, the smoothest, softest, and sweetest under +the sun. + +There are other hills also that catch the breath, and these be those +of the west. They all bear the beautiful names of home, as Mendip, +Quantock, Brendon, and Cotswold. And as there are hills, so there are +plains, plains uplifted, such as that great silent grassland above +Salisbury, plains lonely, such as the Weald and the mysterious marsh +of Romney in the east by which all good things go out of England, as +the legions went, and, as, alas, the Faith went too, another Roman +thing many hundred years ago. There is also that great marsh in the +west by the lean and desolate sea, more mysterious by far, whence a +man may see far off the great and solemn mountains of another land. +By that marsh the Faith came into England of my heart, and there lies +in ruin the greatest of its shrines in loving but alien hands, and +desolate. + +I have said nothing of the valleys: they are too many and too fair, +from the fairest of all through which Thames flows seaward, to those +innumerable and more beloved where are for sure our homes. I say +nothing of the rivers, for who could number them? Yet I will tell you +of some if only for the beauty of their names, passing the names of +all women but ours, as Thames itself, and Medway, Stour, and Ouse and +Arun and Rother; Itchen and Test, Hampshire streams; and those five +which are like the fingers of an outstretched hand about Salisbury in +the meads, Bourne and Avon and Wylye and Nadder and Ebble; and those +of the West, Brue, which is holiest of all, though all be holy, Exe +and Barle, Dart and Taw, Fal under the sloping woods, Tamar, which is +an eastern girdle to a duchy, and Camel, which kissed the feet of +Iseult, and is lost ere it finds the sea. + +Of the uplifted moorlands which are a part of the mystery of the west, +of the forests, of the greenwood, of the meads, of the laughing coast, +white as with dawn in the east, darkling in the west, I know not how +to speak, for in England of my heart we take them for granted and are +satisfied. They fill all that quiet and fruitful land with their own +joy and beneficence, and are a part of God's pleasure. Because of them +the name of England of my heart might be but Happiness, or--as for +ages we have named that far-off dusky Arabia,--Anglia Felix. + +And yet, perhaps, the chief thing that remains with the mere sojourner +in this country of mine, the true Old England, is that in the whole +breadth of it, it is one vast graveyard. Do you not know those long +barrows that cast their shadows at evening upon the lonely downs, +those round tumuli that are dark even in the sun, where lie the men of +the old time before us, our forefathers? Do you not know the grave of +the Roman, the mystery that seems to lurk outside the western gate of +the forgotten city that was once named in the Roman itinerary and now +is nothing? Do you not know many an isolated hill often dark with +pines, but, more often still, lonely and naked where they lie of whom +we are come, with their enemies, and they call the place Battlebury or +Danesbury, or for ever deserted like all battlefields it is nameless? +If you know not these you know not England of my heart, though you +know those populous graveyards about the village churches where the +grass is so lush and green and the dead are more than the living; +though you know that marvellous tomb, the loveliest thing in all my +country, where the first Earl of Salisbury lies in the nave of the +great church he helped to build; though you know that wonder by the +roadside where Somerset and Wiltshire meet; though you know the +beauty that is fading and crumbling in the little church under the +dark woods where the dawn first strikes the roots of the Quantock +Hills. + +There is so much to know, and all must be got by heart, for all is a +part of us and of that mighty fruitful and abiding past out of which +we are come, which alone we may really love, and which holds for ever +safe for us our origins. + +After all, we live a very little time, the future is not ours, we hold +the present but by a brittle thread; it is the past that is in our +hearts. And so it is that to go afoot through Southern England is not +less than to appeal to something greater and wiser than ourselves, out +of which we are come, to return to our origins, to appeal to history, +to the divine history of the soul of a people. + +There is a _genius loci_. To look on the landscapes we have always +known, to tread in the footsteps of our fathers, to follow the Legions +down the long roads, to trudge by the same paths to the same goal as +the pilgrims, to consider the silence of the old, old battlefields, to +pray in forgotten holy places to almost forgotten deities, is to be +made partakers of a life larger and more wonderful than that of the +individual, is to be made one with England. For in the quietness of +those ancient countrysides was England made by the men who begat us. +And even as a man of the Old Faith when he enters one of his +sanctuaries suddenly steps out of England into a larger world, a +universal country; so we in the earthwork by Thannington or the Close +of Canterbury, or upon the hill where Battle Abbey stood, surely have +something added to us by the genius of the place, indeed pass out of +ourselves into that which is England, a splendour and a holiness +beyond ourselves, which cannot die. + +It is in such places we may best face reality, for they lend to +history all its poetry and, as Aristotle knew, there is more truth in +poetry than in history. And this, at least to-day, is perhaps the real +value and delight of our churches; I mean those great sanctuaries we +call Cathedrals which stand about England like half-dismantled castles +and remind us more poignantly than any other thing of all we are fain +to forget. There are the indelible words of our history most clearly +written. Consider the bricks of S. Martin's, the rude stones of the +little church of Bradford, the mighty Norman work of Romsey, the Early +English happiness of Salisbury, the riches and security of the long +nave of Winchester. Do we not there see the truth; can stones lie or +an answer be demanded of them according to folly? And if a man would +know the truth, let us say, of the thirteenth century here in England, +where else will he find any answer? Consider it then, the joy as of +flowers, the happiness as of Spring, in that architecture we call +Early English, which for joy and happiness surpasses any other in the +world. The men who carved those shafts and mouldings and capitals +covering them with foliage could not curb their invention nor prevent +their hands from beauty and joy. They forgot everything in their +delight, even the great logic of design, even to leap up to God, since +He was here in the meadows in this garden of ours that He has given us +and blest. + +But these great buildings, scarcely to be understood by us save by the +grace of God and now a little lonely too, missing so many of their +sisters, and certainly in an alien service, are how much less +appealing and less holy than those village churches so humble and so +precious that everywhere ennoble and glorify England of my heart. They +stand up still for our souls before God, and are to be loved above all +I think--and even the humblest of them is to be loved--for the tombs +they shelter within and without. More than any Cathedral they touch in +us some profound and fundamental mystery common to us all, that is the +life and the energy of the Christian soul. They, above all, express +England, England of my heart, in them we find utterance, are joined +with the great majority and together approach, in their humility, +beauty, and quietness, God who has loved us all and given us England +therein and thereby to serve Him in delight. They kneel with the hind +and now as ever in the name of Our Lord. It is enough. The Cathedrals +are haunted by the Old Faith, and by Rome, whose they are: but the +village churches are our own. Nor though we be of the Old Faith let us +be too proud to salute their humility. They stand admittedly in the +service of man, and this at least is admirable in the Church of +England of my heart--I mean her humility. To her, unlike Rome, +absolute Truth has not been revealed; she is so little sure of anything +that she will condemn no man, no, not one of her officers, though he +deny the divinity of Christ. She desires only to serve: and if any +man, even an atheist, can approach the God he ignorantly denies most +easily through her open gates, she will not say him nay, nor deny him, +nor send him away. It is her genius. Let us salute its humility. + +And so I look upon England of my heart and am certain I am of the +civilisation of Christ. He hath said, ye shall not die but live-- +England blossoms in fulfilment. He hath founded his Church, whose +children we are, whether we will or no, and after a far wandering +presently shall return homeward. For those words endure and will +endure; more living than the words even of our poets, more lasting +than the cliffs of the sea, or the rocks of the mountains, or the +sands of the deserts, because they are as the flowers by the wayside. + +Therefore England is not merely what we see and are; it is all the past +and all the future, it is inheritance; the fields we have always +ploughed, the landscape and the sea, the tongue we speak, the verse we +know by heart, all we hope for, all we love and venerate, under God. +And there abides a sense of old times gone, of ancient law, of +friendship, of religious benediction. + +E. H. + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + TO CANTERBURY + THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO DARTFORD + +CHAPTER II + THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO ROCHESTER + +CHAPTER III + THE PILGRIMS' ROAD--ROCHESTER + +CHAPTER IV + THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO FAVERSHAM + +CHAPTER V + THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO CANTERBURY + +CHAPTER VI + THE CITY OF ST THOMAS + +CHAPTER VII + CAESAR IN KENT + +CHAPTER VIII + THE WEALD AND THE MARSH + +CHAPTER IX + RYE AND WINCHELSEA + +CHAPTER X + THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS + +CHAPTER XI + LEWES AND SIMON DE MONTFORT + +CHAPTER XII + THE DOWNS + +CHAPTER XIII + THE WEALD + +CHAPTER XIV + TO ARUNDEL AND CHICHESTER + +CHAPTER XV + CHICHESTER + +CHAPTER XVI + SELSEY, BOSHAM AND PORCHESTER + +CHAPTER XVII + SOUTHAMPTON + +CHAPTER XVIII + BEAULIEU AND CHRISTCHURCH + +CHAPTER XIX + THE NEW FOREST AND ROMSEY ABBEY + +CHAPTER XX + WINCHESTER + +CHAPTER XXI + SELBORNE + +INDEX + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +CHEYNEY COURT AND THE CLOSE GATE, WINCHESTER + +SHOOTERS' HILL + +DARTFORD CHURCH AND BRIDGE + +THE GATEWAY OF THE MONASTERY CLOSE, ROCHESTER + +ROCHESTER + +CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRISTCHURCH GATE + +WEST GATE, CANTERBURY + +ON THE STOUR NEAR CANTERBURY + +CHILHAM + +A CORNER OF ROMNEY MARSH + +RYE + +WINCHELSEA CHURCH + +BATTLE ABBEY + +LEWES CASTLE + +THE DOWNS + +THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, NORTH OF LEWES + +ARUNDEL CASTLE + +THE MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER + +BOSHAM + +THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL'S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON + +IN THE NEW FOREST + +ROMSEY ABBEY + +NORTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL + +ST CROSS, WINCHESTER + +SELBORNE FROM THE HANGER + + + + +ENGLAND OF MY HEART + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO CANTERBURY + +FROM THE TABARD INN TO DARTFORD + + +When I determined to set out once more to traverse and to possess +England of my heart, it was part of my desire first of all to follow, +as far as might be, in the footsteps of Chaucer's pilgrims. Therefore +I sought the Tabard Inn in Southwark. + +For true delight, it seems to me, a journey, especially if it be for +love or pleasure, should always have about it something of devotion, +something a little rigid too, and dutiful, at least in its opening +stages; and in thus determining my way I secured this. For I promised +myself that I would start from the place whence they set out so long +ago to visit and to pray at the tomb of the greatest of English +saints, that I would sleep where they slept, find pleasure in the +villages they enjoyed, climb the hills and look on the horizons that +greeted them also so many hundred years ago, till at last I stood by +the "blissful martyr's tomb," that had once made so great a rumour in +the world and now was nothing. + +In many ways I came short of all this, as will be seen; but especially +in one thing--the matter of time. Chaucer and his pilgrims are +generally thought to have spent three and a half or four days and +three nights upon the road. It is true they went ahorseback and I +afoot, but nevertheless a man may easily walk the fifty-six miles from +London to Canterbury in four days. I failed because I found so much to +see by the wayside. And to begin with there was London itself, which I +was about to leave. + +It was very early on an April morning when I set out from my home, +coming through London on foot and crossing the river by London Bridge. +It was there I lingered first, in the half light, as it were to say +good-bye. + +I do not know what it is in London that at long last and in some quite +impersonal way clutches at the heart and receives one's eager +affection. At first, even though you be one of her children, she seems +and for how long like something fallen, calling you with the +monotonous, mighty, complaining voice of a fallen archangel, +ceaselessly through the days, the years, the centuries and the ages. +She is one of the oldest of European cities, she is one of the most +beautiful, of all capitals she is by far the most full of character: +and yet she is not easy to know or to love. Perhaps she does not +belong to us, but is something apart, something in and for herself, a +mighty and a living thing, owing us nothing and regarding us, whom +she tortures, with a sort of indifference, if not contempt. + +And yet she is ours after all; she belongs to us, is more perhaps our +very likeness and self than the capital of any other people. What is +Berlin but a brutalised village, or Paris now but cosmopolis, or Rome +but a universe? She is ours, the very gate of England of my heart. For +she stands there striding the boundary of my country, the greatest of +our cities, the greatest even of our industrial cities--a negative to +all the rest. To the North she says Nay continually, for she is +English, the greater successor of Winchester, and in her voice is the +soul of the South, the real England, the England of my heart. + +Ah, we have never known her or loved her enough or understood that she +is a universe, without the self-consciousness of lesser things or the +prepared beauty of mortal places. Indeed, she has something of the +character of the sea which is our home, its changefulness, its +infinity, its pathos in the toiling human life that traverses it. +Almost featureless if you will, she is always under the guidance of +her ample sky, responding immediately to every mood of the clouds; and +in her, beauty grows up suddenly out of life and is gone e'er we can +apprehend it.... + +But to come into Southwark on a Spring morning in search of Chaucer +and the Tabard Inn is to ask of London more than she will give you. It +is strange, seeing that she is so English, that for her the living are +more than the dead. Consider England, southern England, if you know +her well enough, and remember what in the face of every other country +of Europe she has conserved of the past in material and tangible +things--roads, boundaries, churches, houses, and indeed whole towns +and villages. Yet London has so little of her glory and her past about +her in material things, that it is often only by her attitude to life +you might know she is not a creation of yesterday. It is true the fire +of 1666 destroyed almost all, but apparently it did not destroy the +Tabard Inn, which nevertheless is gone--it and its successors. + +Something remained that should have been sacred, not indeed from +Chaucer's day but at least from that of the Restoration, something +that was beautiful, till some forty years ago. All is gone now; of the +old Inn as we may see it in a drawing of 1810, a two-storied building +with steepish roofs of tiles, dormer windows and railed balconies +supported below by pillars of stone, above by pillars of wood, +standing about two sides of a courtyard in which the carrier's long +covered carts from Horsham or Rochester are waiting, nothing at all +remains. The last of it was finally destroyed in 1875, and the Tabard +Inn of the new fashion was built at the corner as we see. + +The old hostelry, which besides its own beauty had this claim also +upon our reverence, that it represented in no unworthy fashion the +birthplace as it were of English poetry, owes of course all its fame +to Chaucer, who lay there on the night before he set out for +Canterbury as he tells us: + + When that Aprille with his shoures sote + The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote.... + Bifel that, in that season on a day + In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay + Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage + To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, + At night was come into that hostelrye + Wel nyne and twenty in a companye + Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle + In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle, + That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde; + The chambres and the shelter weren wyde, + And wel we weren esed atte beste + And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, + So hadde I spoken with hem everichon, + That I was of hir felawshipe anon + And made forward erly for to ryse, + To take our wey, there as I yow devyse. + + +It is in these verses lies all the fame of the Tabard, which it might +seem was not a century old when Chaucer lay there. In the year 1304 the +Abbot of Hyde, near Winchester, bought two houses here held of the +Archbishop of Canterbury by William de Lategareshall. The abbot bought +these houses in order to have room to build himself a town house, and +it is said that at the same time he built a hostelry for travellers; at +any rate three years later we find him applying to the Bishop of +Winchester for leave to build a chapel "near the inn." In a later deed +we are told that "the abbots lodgeinge was wyninge to the backside of +the inn called the Tabarde and had a garden attached." Stow, however, +tells us: "Within this inn was also the lodging of the Abbot of Hide +(by the city of Winchester), a fair house for him and his train when he +came from that city to Parliament." + +Here then from the Inn of the Abbot of Hyde Chaucer set out for +Canterbury with those pilgrims, many of whose portraits he has given us +with so matchless a power. The host of the inn at that time was Harry +Bailey, member of Parliament for Southwark in 1376 and 1379. He was the +wise and jocund leader of the pilgrimage as we know, and though Chaucer +speaks of him last, not one of the pilgrims is drawn with a livelier +touch than he: + + Greet chere made our hoste us everichon + And to the soper sette us anon; + And served us with vitaille at the beste, + Strong was the wyn, and wel to drinke us leste. + A semely man our hoste was with alle + For to han ben a marshal in an halle; + A large man he was eyen stepe, + A fairer burgeys is ther noon in Chepe; + Bold of his speche and wys, and wel y-taught, + And of manhod him lakkede right naught. + Eek therto he was right a mery man, + And after soper pleyen he bigan, + And spak of mirthe amonges others thinges, + Whan that we hadde maad our rekeninges.... + + +A noble portrait in the English manner; there is but one, and that is +wanting, we should have preferred. I mean the portrait of Chaucer +himself--that "wittie" Chaucer who "sate in a Chaire of Gold covered +with Roses writing prose and risme, accompanied with the Spirites of +many Kyngs, Knightes and Faire Ladies." For that we must go to a lesser +pen, to Greene, who thus describes him in his vision: + + His stature was not very tall, + Lean he was; his legs were small + Hos'd within a stock of red + A button'd bonnet on his head + From under which did hang I ween + Silver hairs both bright and sheen; + His beard was white, trimmed round; + His countenance blithe and merry found; + A sleeveless jacket, large and wide + With many plaits and skirts side + Of water-camlet did he wear; + A whittle by his belt he bear; + His shoes were corned broad before; + His ink-horn at his side he wore, + And in his hand he bore a book;-- + Thus did this ancient poet look. + + +There is one other personage upon whom indeed the whole pilgrimage +depended of whom Chaucer says next to nothing, but we should do wrong +to forget him: I mean the "blissful martyr" himself--St Thomas of +Canterbury. In old days, certainly in Chaucer's, we should have been +reminded of him more than once on our way e'er we gained the Tabard. +For upon old London Bridge, the first stone bridge, built in the end of +the twelfth century, there stood in the very midst of it a chapel of +marvellous beauty with a crypt, from which by a flight of steps one +might reach the river, dedicated in honour of St Thomas Becket. This +chapel was built in memory of St Thomas by one Peter, priest of St Mary +Colechurch, where the martyr had been christened. It was this same +Peter who began to build the great bridge of stone, and when he died he +was buried in the chapel he had erected in the midst of it. + +Such a wonder was, however, by no means the only memorial here, at the +very opening of the way, of the great and holy end and purpose of it. + +Every schoolboy knows St Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth, but not all know +that the saint whose name that hospital bears is not the Apostle, but +England's Martyr. Now, until 1868 St Thomas's Hospital stood not in +Lambeth but in Southwark, upon the site of London Bridge Station. +[Footnote: The fact is still remembered in the name of St Thomas +Street, leading out of the Borough High Street on the east.] It seems +that within the precincts of St Mary Overy a house of Austin Canons, +now the Anglican Cathedral of St Saviour, Southwark, was a hospital for +the sick and poor founded by St Thomas, which after his beatification +was dedicated in his honour. But in the first years of the thirteenth +century, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, rebuilt the little +house in a healthier situation--_ubi aqua est uberior et aer est +melior_--where the water was purer and the air better, and this new +house, finished in 1215, of course also bore the name of St Thomas of +Canterbury. That the hospital fulfilled its useful purpose we know from +a petition which it presented to Pope Innocent VI., in 1357, wherein it +was stated that so many sick and poor resorted to it that it could not +support its charges. Not quite two hundred years later, in 1539, a few +days before the feast of St Thomas upon December 29, it was surrendered +to King Henry VIII., the infamous Layton having been its visitor. From +the king it was bought by the City of London, a rare comment upon its +suppression, and so notoriously useful was it that Edward VI. was +compelled to refound it, and therefore in some sort it still remains to +us. It is curious to note that, ages before the hospital came to +Lambeth, St Thomas was at home there, for he had a statue upon the +Lollards' Tower, and it was the custom of the watermen to doff their +caps to it as they rowed by. + +It is meet and right that this pilgrimage should be begun with thoughts +of St Thomas, and especially of what we owe to him, for the first few +miles of the way upon what we need not doubt was of old the Pilgrims' +road, is anything but uplifting, crowded though it be with memories, +most of them of course far later than the Canterbury pilgrimage. As you +go down the Borough High Street, for Southwark is of course the old +_borgo_ of London, and all the depressing ugliness of modern life, it +is not of anything so serene as that great poet of the fourteenth +century, the father of English poetry, that you think, but of one who +nevertheless, in the characteristic nationalism of his art, in his +humanity and love of his fellow-men, was only second to Chaucer, and in +his compassion for the poor and lowly only second to St Thomas: I mean +Charles Dickens. No one certainly can pass the site of the Marshalsea +Prison without recalling that solemn and haunting description in the +preface to "Little Dorrit": "Whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, +turning out of Angel Court leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on +the very paving stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its +narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if at +all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will +look upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; will stand among the +crowding ghosts of many miserable years." + +It is still of Dickens most of us will think in passing St George's +Church, for was it not there that Little Dorrit was christened and +married, and was it not in the vestry there she slept with the burial- +book for a pillow? But St George's has other memories too, for it was +there that Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, who staunchly refused the +oath of supremacy to Elizabeth, was buried at midnight after his death +in the Marshalsea, on September 5th, 1569. There too General Monk was +married to Anne Clarges. + +These memories, for the most part so unhappy, have, however, nothing to +do with the Pilgrims' Way. No memory of that remains at all amid all +the dismal wretchedness of to-day, until one comes to the "Thomas a +Becket" public-house at the corner of Albany Road. This was the site of +the "watering of Saint Thomas": + + A-morwe, whan that day bigan to springe, + Up roes our host, and was our aller cok, + And gadrede us togirde, alle in a flok, + And forth we riden, a litel more than pas + Unto the watering of seint Thomas. + + +The "watering of St Thomas" was a spring dedicated to St Thomas, and +it came to be the first halting-place of the pilgrims. It is still +remembered in the name of St Thomas's Road close by, and not +inappropriately in the tavern which bears St Thomas's name. It was +here that the immortal tales were begun: + + And there our host bigan his hors areste, + And seyde; Lordinges, herkneth, if yow leste. + Ye woot your forward, and it yow recorde + If even-song and morwe-song acorde, + Lat see now who shal telle the firste tale.... + + +No memory of the pilgrims would seem to remain at all in the road +after St Thomas's watering until we come to Deptford. The "Knight's +Tale" and the "Miller's Tale" have filled, and one would think more +than filled that short three miles of road, till in the Reve's +Prologue the host began "to spake as loudly as a king...." + + Sey forth thy tale and tarie nat the tyme, + Lo, Depeford! and it is half-way pryme. + + +Nothing more lugubrious is to be found to-day in the whole length of +the old road than Deptford; but it is there that we begin to be free +of the mean streets. For Deptford, which the pilgrims reached, after +their early start, at "half-way pryme"--any hour, I suppose, between +six and nine--lies at the foot of Blackheath Hill above Greenwich: + + Lo, Greenwich, ther many a shrewe is inne. + +Deptford Bridge, the only remaining landmark of old time, by which +we cross Deptford Creek, had in the fourteenth century a hermitage at +its eastern end dedicated in honour of St Catherine of Alexandria, and +Mass was said there continually from Chaucer's day down to the +suppression in 1531, the king, Henry VIII., having previously helped +to repair the chapel. + +It is at Deptford, as I say, that we begin to leave the mean streets, +for at the cross-roads we turn up Blackheath Hill, and though this is +not in all probability the ancient way, it is as near it as modern +conditions have allowed us. The old road, as far as can be made out, +ran farther to the east, quite alongside Greenwich Park, and not over +the middle of the Heath, as the modern road does. Blackheath is not +alluded to in Chaucer's poem, though it must have been famous at the +time he was writing, for in 1381 Jack Straw, Wat Tyler, and their +company were there gathered. Perhaps the most famous spectacle, +however, that Blackheath has witnessed was not this abortive revolt +of the peasants nor the rising of Jack Cade in 1450, but the meeting +here in 1400 of King Henry IV. and the Emperor of Constantinople, who +came to England to ask for assistance against the ever-encroaching +Turk, then at the gates of Constantinople, which some fifty years +later was to fall into his hands. Blackheath, indeed, has always played +a considerable part in the history of southern England, partly because +it was the last great open space on the southern confines of London, +and partly because of the royal residence at Greenwich. Fifteen years +after it had seen a guest so strange as the Emperor of the East, it +saw Henry V. return from Agincourt, and the Mayor of London with the +aldermen and four hundred citizens, "all in scarlet with hoods of red +and white," greet the hero king. + + ... London doth pour out her citizens + The mayor and all his brethren in best sort + Like to the senators of the antique Rome + With the plebeians swarming at their heels, + Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in! + + +Across the Heath we go, taking the road on the right at the triangle, +before long to find ourselves perhaps for the first time on the very +road the pilgrims followed--the great Roman highway of the Watling +Street. + +I call the Watling Street a great Roman highway, for that, as we know +it, is what it is, but in its origin it is far older than the Roman +occupation. It ran right across England from the continental gate at +Dover, through Canterbury to Chester, fording the Thames at Lambeth, +and it was the first of the British trackways which the Romans +straightened, built up, and paved. It has been in continuous use for +more than three thousand years, and may therefore be said to be the +oldest road in England. It is older than the greatness of London, for +in its arrow flight across England it ignores the City. After the ford +at Lambeth, to-day represented by Lambeth Bridge, an older crossing of +the Thames than that at London Bridge, it mounted the northern slope, +passing perhaps across the present gardens of Buckingham Palace and +the eastern end of Hyde Park, where to-day it is lost or merely +represented by Grosvenor Place and Park Lane, to cross the great +western road out of London at Tyburn, the original "Cross Roads," the +ancient place of execution close by the present Marble Arch, and to +pursue its way, as we may see it still, directly and in true Roman +fashion down what we know as Edgware Road. That great north-western +highway lies over the very pavement of the Romans, which lies only a +few feet below the surface of the modern road. + +It is then upon this most ancient highway that in the footsteps of the +Britons, the Romans their beneficent conquerors, and the English +pilgrims our forefathers, we shall march on to Canterbury. The road of +course is broken here and there, indeed in many places, and notably +between Dartford and Rochester, but for the most part it remains after +three thousand years the ordinary highway between the capital and the +archi-episcopal city. + +The Watling Street takes Shooters' Hill, so called, I suppose, from +the highwaymen that infested the woods thereabouts, in true Roman +fashion, and it is from its summit that we get the first really great +view on our way, for that so famous from Greenwich Park does not +properly belong to our journey. We must, however, turn to another and +a later poet than Chaucer for any description of that tremendous +spectacle. Here indeed, more than in any other prospect the road +affords, the horizon is changed from that Chaucer looked upon. + +[Illustration: SHOOTERS' HILL] + +For we turn to gaze on London, the Protestant, not the Catholic, city: + A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping, + Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye + Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping + In sight, then lost amid the forestry + Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping + On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; + A huge dun cupola like a foolscap crown + On a fool's head--and there is London town! + + Don Juan had got out on Shooters' Hill + Sunset the time, the place the same declivity + Which looks along that vale of good and ill + Where London streets ferment in full activity; + While everything around was calm and still + Except the creak of wheels which on their pivot he + Heard--and that bee-like, babbling, busy hum + Of cities, that boil over with their scum. + + +The prospect eastward across the broad valley of the Darent, if less +wonderful, is assuredly far lovelier than that north-westward over +London; but from the top of Shooters' Hill we probably do not follow +the actual route of the ancient way until we come to Welling. The +present road down the hill eastward is said to date from 1739 only. +[Footnote: See H. Littlehales, "Some Notes on the Road from Canterbury +in the Middle Ages" (Chaucer Society, 1898).] + +There is nothing to keep us in Welling, nor indeed in Bexley Heath, +except to note that they are the first two Kentish villages upon our +route, now little more than suburban places spoiled of any virtue they +may have possessed. It is said that at Clapton Villa in the latter +place there is preserved "an ancient and perfect sacramental wafer"-- +perhaps an unique treasure. + +The road runs straight on through a rather sophisticated countryside, +almost into Crayford, but in preparing to cross the Cray the old road +has apparently been lost. We may be sure, however, of not straying +more than a few yards out of the way, if we keep as straight on as +maybe, that is to say, if we take the road to the right at the fork, +which later passes Crayford church on the south. + +Crayford, though it be anything but picturesque, is nevertheless not +without interest. It is the Creccanford of the "Saxon Chronicle," +and was the scene of the half-legendary final battle between the +Britons here and Hengist, who utterly discomfited them, so that we +read they forsook all this valley, even, so we are asked to believe, +those strange caves which they are said to have burrowed in the chalk +for their retreat, and which are so plentiful hereabouts, but which +assuredly are infinitely older than the advent of the Saxon pirates. + +The real interest of Crayford, however, as of more than one place in +this valley, lies in its church. This is dedicated in honour of the +companion of St Augustine, St Paulinus, who became the third Bishop of +Rochester. The form of the church is curious, the arcade of the nave +being in the midst of it, while the chancel, of about the same width +as the nave, is possessed of two arcades and divided into three +aisles; thus the arcade of the nave abuts upon the centre of the +chancel arch. Parts of the church certainly date from Chaucer's day, +but most of it is Perpendicular in style. + +More interesting than Crayford itself are North Cray and Foot's Cray +in the upper valley beyond Bexley. At North Cray there is one of the +best pictures Sassoferrato ever painted, a Crucifixion, over the altar. +At Foot's Cray, the church, besides being beautiful in its situation, +possesses a great square Norman font. + +These places are, however, off the Pilgrims' Road, which climbs up +through Crayford High Street, and then in about two miles begins to +descend into the very ancient town of Dartford, where it is said +Chaucer's pilgrims slept, their first night on the road. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PILGRIMS' ROAD + +FROM DARTFORD TO ROCHESTER + + +The entry into Dartford completes the first and, it must be confessed, +the dullest portion of the Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury. Here at +Dartford the pilgrims slept, here to-day we say farewell to all that +suburban district which now stretches for so many miles in every +direction round the capital, spoiling the country as such and making +of it a kind of unreality very hard to tolerate. The traveller must +then realise that it is only at Dartford his pleasure will begin. + +Dartford, as one sees at first sight, is an old, a delightful, English +town, full of happiness and old-world memories. Its situation is +characteristic, for it lies in the deep and narrow valley of the +Darent between two abrupt hills, that to the west of chalk, that to +the east of sand, up both of which it climbs without too much +insistence. Between these two hills runs a rapid stream from the Downs +to the southward, that below the town opens out suddenly into a small +estuary or creek. Where the Watling Street forded the Darent there +grew up the town of Dartford, on the verge of the marshes within reach +of the tide, but also within reach of an inexhaustible river of fresh +water. The ford was presently replaced by a ferry, and later still, in +the latter years of Henry VI., by a great bridge, as we see, but the +town had already taken its name from its origin, and to this day is +known as Dartford, the ford of the Darent. + +The situation of Dartford is thus very picturesque, and as we might +suppose its main street is the old Roman highway that the pilgrims +used. This descends the West Hill steeply after passing the Priory, or +as it is now called the Place House, the first religious house which +Dartford could boast that the pilgrims would see. In Chaucer's day +this was a new foundation, Edward III., in 1355, having established +here a convent of Augustinian nuns dedicated in honour of Our Lady and +St Margaret. The house became extremely popular with the great +Kentish families, for it was not only very richly endowed, but always +governed by a prioress of noble birth, Princess Bridget, youngest +daughter of Edward IV., at one time holding the office, as later did +Lady Jane Scrope and Lady Margaret Beaumont: all are buried within. In +the miserable time of Henry VIII., when it was suppressed, its +revenues amounted to nearly four hundred pounds a year. The king +immediately seized the house for his own pleasure, but later gave it +to Anne of Cleves. On her death it came back to the Crown, but James +I. exchanged it with the Cecil family for their mansion of Theobalds. +They in their turn parted with it to Sir Edward Darcy. Little remains +of the old house to-day, a gate-house of the time of Henry VII., and a +wing of the convent, now a farm-house; but considerable parts of the +extensive walls may be seen. + +It may well have been when the bell of that convent was ringing the +Angelus that Chaucer and his pilgrims entered Dartford on that April +evening so long ago. As they came down the steep hill, before they +entered the town, they would pass an almshouse or hospital, midway +upon the hill, a leper-house in all likelihood, dedicated in honour of +St Mary Magdalen. Something of this remains to us in the building we +see, which, however, is later than the Reformation. + +Nothing I think actually in the town can, as we see it, be said to +have been there when Chaucer went by except the very noble church. He +and his pilgrims looked and wondered, as we do still, upon the great +tower said to have been built by Gundulph as a fortress to hold the +ford, which, altered though it has been more than once, is still +something at which one can only admire. The upper part, however, dates +from the fifteenth century. Then there is the chancel restored in +1863, the north part of which is supposed to have been built in the +thirteenth century in honour of St Thomas himself, no doubt by the +pilgrims who, passing by on their way to Canterbury, were wont to +spend a night in Dartford town, and certainly to hear Mass in the +place of their sojourn e'er they set out in the earliest morning. The +screen is of the fourteenth century, as are the arcades of the nave +and the windows on the north, and these too Chaucer may have seen; but +all the monuments, some of them interesting and charming, are much +later, dating from Protestant days. Certain brasses, however, remain +from the fifteenth century, notably that of Richard Martyn and his +wife (1402), that of Agnes Molyngton (1454), and that of Joan Rothele +(1464). There is, too, a painting of St George and the Dragon at the +end of the south chancel chapel, behind the organ. + +Within the town one or two houses remain, perhaps in their +foundations, from the fifteenth century. The best of these is that on +the left just west of the church, at the corner of Bullis Lane. This +house, according to Dunken, the historian of Dartford, was the +dwelling of one "John Grovehurst in the reign of King Edward IV. That +gentleman in 1465 obtained permission of the Vicar and church-wardens +of Dartford to erect a chimney on a part of the churchyard, and in +acknowledgment thereof provided a lamp to burn perpetually during the +celebration of divine service in the parish church. The principal +apartment in the upper floor (a room about twenty-five feet by twenty +feet) was originally hung round with tapestry, said to be worked by +the nuns of the priory, who were occasionally permitted to visit at +the mansion. The principal figures were in armour, and two of them as +large as life, latterly called Hector and Andromache; in the +background was the representation of a large army with inscribed +banners." + +[Illustration: DARTFORD CHURCH AND BRIDGE] + +The churchyard upon which John Grovehurst was allowed to erect a +chimney was till about the middle of the nineteenth, century larger +than it now is, part of it at that time being taken "to make the road +more commodious for passengers." This road was of course the +Pilgrims' Road, the Watling Street. That this always passed to the +south of the church is certain, but it may have turned a little in +ancient time to take the ford. It turns a little to-day to approach +the bridge, and thereafter climbs the East Hill. + +Dartford Bridge, which already in the Middle Ages had supplanted ford +and ferry, happily remains to the extent of about a third of the width +of the two pointed arches which touch the banks. It was kept in order +and repair by the hermit who dwelt in a cell at the foot of the bridge +on the east, a cell older than the bridge, for the hermits used to +serve the ford. Here stood the Shrine of Our Lady and St Catherine of +Alexandria, which was much favoured by the pilgrims, so we may well +suppose that Chaucer and his friends did not pass it by without a +reverence. + +Here too at the eastern end of the town stood a hospital dedicated in +honour of the Holy Trinity, but this Chaucer knew not, any more than +we may do, for it was only founded in 1452. It seems, however, to have +been built really over the stream upon piers, perhaps in something +the same way as the thirteenth-century Franciscan house at Canterbury +was built, which we may still see. + +Dunken tells us that "the steep ascent of the Dover road leading +towards Brent was in ancient times called St Edmunde's Weye from its +leading to a Chapel dedicated to that saint situated near the middle of +the upper churchyard." This chapel, of which nothing remains, Edward +III. bestowed upon the Priory of Our Lady and St Margaret. On its +site, such is the irony of time, a "martyr's memorial" has been +erected to the unhappy and unfortunate folk burnt here in the time of +Queen Mary. + +But Dartford is too pleasant a place to be left with such a merely +archaeological survey as this. It is a town in which one may be happy; +historically, however, it has not much claim upon our notice, its +chief boast being that it was here the first act of violence in the +Peasants' Revolt of 1381 occurred, when Wat Tyler broke the head of +the poll-tax collector who had brutally assaulted his daughter. Wat or +Walter--Tyler, because of his trade, which was that of covering roofs +with tiles--would seem, however, not to have been a Dartford man at +all. The very proper murder of the tax-collector would appear to have +been the work of a certain John "Tyler" of the same profession, here +in Dartford. + +The Peasants' Revolt, which, alas! came to nothing, brings us indeed +quite into Chaucer's day, but it would have had little sympathy from +him, nor indeed has it really anything specially to do with this town. +The true fame of Dartford, which is its paper-making, dates from the +end of the sixteenth century, when one Sir John Speelman, jeweller to +Queen Elizabeth, is said to have established the first paper-mill. + +If Dartford is poor in history, nevertheless it is worth a visit of +more than an hour or so for its own sake, as I have said. It boasts of +a good inn also, and the country and villages round about are +delicious. All that upper valley of the Darent, for instance, in which +lie Darenth, Sutton-at-Hone, Horton Kirby, and, a little way off +Fawkham, Eynsford, and Lullingstone, is worth the trouble of seeing +for its own beauty and delight. + +There is Darenth for instance, Darne, as the people used to call it, +only two miles from the Pilgrims' Road, it is as old as England, and +doubtless saw the Romans at work straightening, paving, and building +that great Way which has remained to us through so many ages, and +which the Middle Age hallowed into a Via Sacra. What can be more +worthy and right than that a modern pilgrim should visit this little +Roman village to see the foundations of the Roman buildings, to +speculate on what they may have been, and generally to contemplate +those origins out of which we are come? + +And then there is the church too, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, +the dear little lady who is so wonderfully and beautifully represented +in Westminster Abbey for all to worship her, high up over the rascal +politicians. All the village churches in England of my heart are +entrancingly holy and human places, but it is not always that one +finds a church so rare as that of St Margaret in Darenth. For not only +is it built of Roman rubble or brick, the work of the Saxons, the +Normans, and of us their successors, but it boasts also an arch of +tufa, has an Early English vaulted chancel of two stories, and a +Norman font upon which are carved scenes from the life of St Dunstan, +to say nothing of a thirteenth-century tower. + +Not far away at Horton Kirby, to be reached through South Darenth, are +the remains of Horton Castle and a very interesting, aisleless +cruciform church of Our Lady with central tower, a great nave, arcaded +transepts, and much Early English loveliness, to say nothing of the +Decorated tomb of one of the De Ros family, lords of Horton Castle, +and fifteenth- and sixteenth-century brasses. Horton got its name of +Kirby in this manner. At the time of the Domesday Survey the place was +held by Auschetel de Ros from Bishop Odo, but the heir of De Ros was +Lora, Lady of Horton, who married into the north-country family of +Kirby, who, however, had for long owned lands hereabouts. In the time +of Edward I. the Kirby of that day, Roger, rebuilt the castle, but it +is not the ruins of his work we see, these being of a much later +building. Nor will any one who visits Horton fail to see Fawks, the +famous old Elizabethan mansion of the London Alderman Lancelot +Bathurst, who died in 1594. + +All this valley, as I have said, was used and cultivated by the +Romans, whose work we find not only at Darenth but also here at +Horton. At Fawkham, however, on the higher ground to the east I found +something more germane to the pilgrimage. For in the old church of +Our Lady there, over the western door, is a window in which we may see +one William de Fawkham clothed as a pilgrim with a book in his hand, +and on one side a figure of Our Lord, on the other the Blessed Virgin. + +But the goal of my journey from the highway was reached at Eynsford. +Here indeed I found my justification for leaving the road while on +pilgrimage to Canterbury. For not only is Eynsford a beautiful place +in itself, beautifully situated, but it was the quarrel which William +de Eynesford had with St Thomas Becket, when the great archbishop was +in residence at Otford Castle, that led to the murder in Canterbury +Cathedral and the great pilgrimage which has brought even us at this +late day on our way. + +Becket's quarrel with the king and the civil power was, as we know, +concerning the liberty of the Church, and more particularly here a +dispute as to the presentation to the church of St Martin in Eynsford, +which still retains many features of that time. After the martyrdom, +William de Eynesford, though he does not appear to have been directly +concerned in the murder, was excommunicated, and Eynsford Castle was +left without inhabitants, for no one would enter it. It fell into +decay, and was never after used or restored or rebuilt, only Henry +VIII. venturing to use it as a stable; but his work has been cleared +away, and what we see is a ruin of the time of St Thomas, and indeed +in some sort his work. The ruin bears a strong resemblance to the +mighty castle of Rochester, and though it is of course very small in +comparison with that capital fortress, it must have been a place of +some strength when Henry II. was king. + +St Martin's Church, whose spire rises so charmingly out of the +orchards white with spring, has a fine western doorway and tower of +Norman work, and a chancel and south transept lighted by Early English +lancets. That tower certainly heard the rumour of St Thomas's murder, +and frightened men no doubt crowded into that western door to hear +William de Eynesford denounced from the altar. + +Now when I had seen all this and reminded myself thus of that great +tale which is England, I set out on my way back to Dartford, passing +by the footpath through the park to the south-east towards +Lullingstone Castle, which, however, is not older in the main than the +end of the eighteenth century. + +And then from Lullingstone through the shining afternoon I made my way +by the western bank of the Darent to Sutton-at-Hone, where there are +remains of a Priory of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem; the place +is still called St John's. The church dedicated to St John Baptist is +a not uninteresting Decorated building, the last resting place of that +Sir Thomas Smyth of Sutton Place, who was not the least of Elizabethan +navigators, director of the East India Company, interested in the +Muscovy trade, and treasurer of the Virginia Company (1625). So I came +back to Dartford and on the next day set out once more for Canterbury. + +One leaves Dartford, on the Pilgrim's Road, with a certain regret, to +find oneself, at the top of the East Hill, face to face with a problem +of the road. For there on the hill-top the road forks; to the left +runs the greater way of the two, into Gravesend; straight on lies a +lane which after a couple of miles suddenly turns southward to +Betsham, where the direct way is continued by a footpath across +Swanscombe Park. Which of these ways was I to follow? That question +was hard to answer, because the road through Gravesend is full of +interest, while the direct way is almost barren all the way to +Rochester. There can be little doubt, too, that many of the pilgrims +on the way to Canterbury did pass through Gravesend, to which town +doubtless many also travelled from London by water, while others +landed there from Essex and East Anglia. But the lane which is the +straight way and its continuation in the footpath across Swanscombe +Park is undoubtedly the line of the Roman road and in all probability +the route of Chaucer. + +Face to face with these considerations, being English, I decided upon +a compromise. I determined to follow the Gravesend road so far as +Northfleet, chiefly for the sake of Stone, and there by a road running +south-east to come into the Roman highway again, two miles or so east +of Swanscombe Park, whence I should have a practically straight road +into Rochester. + +I say I chose this route chiefly for the sake of seeing Stone. This +little place, some two miles and a half from Dartford, has one of the +loveliest churches in all England, to say nothing of a castellated +manor house known as Stone Castle. "It is a common jest," says +Reginald Scot, writing in the time of Elizabeth, "It is a common jest +among the watermen of the Thames to show the parish church of Stone to +their passengers, calling the same by the name of the 'Lanterne of +Kent'; affirming, and that not untruly, that the said church is as +light (meaning in weight not in brightness) at midnight as at +noonday." The church, indeed, dedicated in honour of Our Lady is a +very beautiful and extraordinarily interesting building of the end of +the thirteenth century, in the same style as the practically +contemporary work in Westminster Abbey and, according to the architect +and historian, G.E. Street, who restored it, possibly from the design +of the same master-mason. Certainly nothing in the whole county of +Kent is better worth a visit. It would seem to have been built with a +part of the money offered at the shrine of St William in the Cathedral +of Rochester upon the Pilgrim's Way; for Stone belonged to the Bishops +of Rochester, who had a manor house there. The nave, aisles, chancel, +and tower are all in the Early English style and very noble work of +their kind, built in the time of Bishop Lawrence de Martin of +Rochester (1251-1274); while to the fourteenth century belongs the +vestry to the north of the chancel and the western windows in nave and +aisles and the piers of the tower as we now see them. Perhaps the +oldest thing in the church is the doorway in the north aisle which +would seem to be Norman, but Street tells us that this "is a curious +instance of imitation of earlier work, rather than evidence of the +doorway itself being earlier than the rest of the church." + +Within, the church is delightful, increasing in richness of detail +eastward towards the chancel where nothing indeed can surpass the +beauty of the arcade, so like the work at Westminster, borne by +pillars of Purbeck, its spandrels filled with wonderfully lovely, +delicate, and yet vigorous foliage. Here are two brasses, one of 1408 +to John Lambarde, the rector in Chaucer's day, the other of 1530 to +Sir John Dew. In the north aisle we may find certain ancient paintings +the best preserved of which represents the Madonna and Child. + +The north aisle of the chancel is not at one with the church; it was +built in the early sixteenth century by the Wilshyre family as their +Chantry. Here lies Sir John Wilshyre, Governor of Calais in the time +of Henry VIII. The glass everywhere is unfortunately modern. + +One leaves Stone church with regret; it is so fair and yet so +hopelessly dead that one is astonished and almost afraid. Less than a +mile along the road, to the north of it one passes Ingress Abbey, +where once the nuns of Dartford Priory had a grange. The present +house, once the residence of Alderman Harmer, the radical and +reformer of our criminal courts, was built of the stone of old London +Bridge. + +Here upon the high road one is really in the marshes by Thames side; +but a little way off the highway to the south on higher ground stands +Swanscombe and it is worth while to see it for it is a very famous +place. "After such time," says Lambarde, quoting Thomas the monk and +chronicler of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, "after such time as +Duke William the Conqueror had overthrown King Harold in the field at +Battell in Sussex and had received the Londoners to mercy he marched +with his army towards the castle of Dover, thinking thereby to have +brought in subjection this county of Kent also. But Stigande, the +archbishop, perceiving the danger assembled the countrymen together +and laid before them the intolerable pride of the Normans that invaded +them and their own miserable condition if they should yield unto them. +By which means they so enraged the common people that they ran +forthwith to weapon and meeting at Swanscombe elected the archbishop +and the abbot for their captains. This done each man got him a green +bough in his hand and beare it over his head in such sort as when the +Duke approached, he was much amazed therewith, thinking at first that +it had been some miraculous wood that moved towards him. But they as +soon as he came within hearing cast away their boughs from them, and +at the sound of a trumpet bewraied their weapons, and withall +despatched towards him a messenger, which spake unto him in this +manner:--'The Commons of Kent, most noble Duke, are ready to offer +thee either peace or war, at thy own choice and election; Peace with +their faithfull obedience if thou wilt permit them to enjoy their +ancient liberties; Warr, and that most deadly, if thou deny it +them.'" + +They prevailed according to the legend and this as some say is the +difference between the Men of Kent and the Kentish Men, for the former +retained their old liberties and were never conquered, and these dwelt +in the valley of Holmsdale; but the rest were merely _victi_. As the +old rhyme has it-- + + The vale of Holmsdale + Never conquered, never shall. + + +It is pleasing with the memory of all this in one's heart--and upon it +there is a famous song--to come upon Swanscombe church, in which much +would seem to be of Saxon times, as parts of the walls of both nave and +chancel, and the lower part of the tower, where one may see signs of +Roman brick. The nave, however, at least within, is late Norman if not +Transitional, and the windows in the chancel are Norman and Early +English. Here, too, is the tomb of Sir Anthony Weldon, the malicious +gossip [Footnote: He was the author of "The Secret History of the first +Two Stuart Kings" and of "A Catt may look at a King, or a Briefe +Chronicle and Character of the Kings of England..."] of the time of +James I., who had acted as clerk of the kitchen to Elizabeth. His wife +lies opposite him with others of his family. It is more interesting for +us, however, to note that in Chaucer's day the church was chiefly +famous for its shrine of St Hildefrith, a soveran advocate against the +vapours. + +I left Swanscombe in the early afternoon, and passing through +Northfleet with its great church of St Botolph I followed the road with +many happy glimpses of the Thames, avoiding Gravesend and making +southward for the Watling Street, which I found at last, and an old +Inn at the cross roads upon it. Thence I marched upon what I took to +be the veritable way and was presently assured of this at Singlewell, +which it is said was originally Schingled well, that is a well roofed +with shingles of wood. This well stood within the parish of Ifield, +but so famous was it, for it was known to every pilgrim, that it +presently quite put out the name of the parish, which in 1362 is +described as Ifield-juxta-Schyngtedwell, and to this day the place is +marked on the maps as Singlewell or Ifield. A chapel was soon built +beside the well and here doubtless the pilgrims prayed and made +offerings. Singlewell, however, must not be confused with St Thomas's +well a mile further on the road, which is still used and still known +as St Thomas's well. + +All this proved to me that I was indeed upon the old road, and so I +went on across Cobham Park without a thought of the great house, +intent now on the noble city of Rochester, which presently as I came +over the last hill I saw standing in all its greatness over the broad +river of Medway, its mighty castle four square upon the further bank. +Then was I confirmed in my heart in the words of Chaucer-- + + Lo Rouchestre stant here fast by. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PILGRIMS' ROAD + +ROCHESTER + + +One comes down the hill into Rochester, through Strood, on this side +the Medway, to find little remaining of interest in a place that has +now become scarcely more than a suburb of the episcopal city. Some +memory, however, lingers still in Strood of St Thomas, for certain +folks there hated him and to spite him one day as he rode through the +village they cut the tail from his horse. Mark now the end of this +misdeed. In Strood thereafter everyone of their descendants was born, +it is said, with a tail, even as the brutes which perish. + +The church of Strood, restored in 1812, is without interest, but close +to the churchyard is the site of a Hospital, founded, in the time of +Richard I., who endowed it, by Bishop Glanville of Rochester. This +place must have been known to Chaucer and his pilgrims. It was +dedicated in honour of Our Lady and cared for "the poor, weak, infirm +and impotent as well as neighbouring inhabitants or travellers from +distant places, until they die or depart healed." Those who served it +followed the Benedictine Rule. A singular example of the hatred of +these for the monks of Rochester appears in the story of the fight +between the monks and the Hospital staff with whom sided the men of +Strood and Frinsbury, a village hard by, which took place in the +orchard of the Hospital. The Bishop, however, soon brought all to +reason, and as a punishment the men of Strood were obliged to go in +procession to Rochester upon each Whit-Monday, carrying the clubs with +which they had assaulted the monks. + +[Illustration: THE GATEWAY OF THE MONASTERY CLOSE, ROCHESTER] + +That Strood stood on the ancient way its name assures us, since it is +but another form of Street or Strada, as they say in Italy. From +Strood we cross the great iron bridge, the successor of that at the +Strood end of which Bishop Glanville built a small chapel. The story +of the bridge is interesting. We do not know that there was a bridge +at all in Roman times, but certainly a wooden bridge was supplemented +in the time of Richard II. by a new one of stone, consisting of +twenty-one arches of different spans. This bridge stood higher up the +river than that of to-day, nearer indeed to the Castle, and as at its +western end there was a chapel, so at its eastern under the Castle, +John de Cobham founded, in Chaucer's time, in 1399, a Chantry for all +Christian souls, of which some ruins remain. This bridge, patched, +altered, and constantly repaired, lasted till the existing bridge was +built in our own time on the site of the old one of wood. + +From the bridge we enter the High Street, almost certainly lying over +the old Roman road. Here are the old Inns, the Crown, the Bull, and +the King's Head. It is even probable that Chaucer may have stayed at +the Crown, the oldest of the three, not of course in the present +house, but in that which stood on the same site till 1863, and which +was said to date from the fourteenth century. [Footnote: The old house +was famous at least as the scene of Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," pt. i. +act ii. sc. i., as the resting-place of Queen Elizabeth in 1573, and as +the inn honoured by Mr Pickwick. It should never have been destroyed.] + +In Rochester, serene and yet active, the very ancient seat of a +bishopric, we have something essentially Roman, the fortress on the +Watling Street guarding the passage of the Medway, precisely as +Piacenza was and is a Roman fortress upon the Emilian Way guarding the +passage of the Po. The Romans called the place Durobrivae, and though +we know little of it during the Roman occupation of Britain, we may be +sure it was a place of very considerable importance, as indeed it has +remained ever since, twice in fact in our history the possession of +Rochester has decided a whole campaign. + +Rochester, indeed, could not have escaped the military eye of the +Romans. It must be remembered that the natural entry into England is +by the Straits of Dover, and that for a man entering by that gate +there is only one way up into England and that the line of the Watling +Street, for he must cross the Thames, even though he be going only to +London. The lowest ford upon the Thames is that at Lambeth, which the +Watling Street used. Now there is but one really formidable obstacle +in the whole length of the Watling Street south of the Thames. That +obstacle is the estuary of the Medway, which Rochester guarded and +possessed. Rochester then was first and foremost a great fortress, +just as Piacenza was and is. + +What was its fate in the Dark Age that followed the failure of the +Roman administration we do not know; but with the advent of St +Augustine Rochester at once received a Bishop. It was, indeed, the +first post in St Augustine's advance from Canterbury, King Ethelbert +himself building there a church in 597 in honour of St Andrew. It thus +became a spiritual as well as a material fortress. Of its fate after +the Battle of Hastings we know little, but it submitted without +resistance and came into the hands of that Odo of Bayeaux who gave so +much trouble to William Rufus. + +It is now that we see Rochester suddenly appear in its true greatness. +Odo, expelled by William, had on the Conqueror's death returned and +successfully obtained of Rufus his estates, among them the Castle of +Rochester, which he had built. In 1088, however, he was once more in +rebellion against the Crown on behalf of the Conqueror's eldest +brother, Robert of Normandy. Rufus struck him first at Pevensey, which +was the Norman gate of England. He took it but unwisely released Odo, +on his oath to give up Rochester Castle and leave the country. +Rochester was then in the hands of Eustace of Boulogne, sworn friend +of Duke Robert, and when Odo appeared with the King's Guard before the +Castle, demanding its surrender, he, understanding everything, +captured his own lord and the king's guard also and brought them in. +Rufus then turned to his English subjects and demanded their +assistance, for his Barons were then, as they have invariably been +throughout English history, against the Crown, which truly represented +and defended the people. They flocked to the Royal Standard, and after +six weeks' siege, plague and famine ravaging the garrison, Odo +surrendered and was imprisoned at Tonbridge, and later expelled the +kingdom. As this great rascal Bishop came out of Rochester Castle, +the English youths sang out "Rope and Cord! Rope and Cord for the +traitor Bishop." But Odo was too near to the king. + +That was the first time we know of in which Rochester stood like the +gage of England; the second was in the Barons' wars. When King John, +in 1215, had taken Rochester and notably discomfited the rascal +Barony, they immediately invited Louis of France to assist them. He +set sail with some seven hundred vessels, landed at Sandwich, and +retook Rochester, which had been so badly damaged that it could not +defend itself. Forty-eight years later, in 1264, Henry III. being +king, Simon de Montfort coming into Kent, burnt the wooden bridge +over the Medway which was too strongly held by the loyal inhabitants +of Rochester for him to capture, took the city by storm, sacked the +Cathedral and the Priory, and laid siege to the Castle. He failed, and +Lewes could not give him what Rochester had denied. + +Rochester Castle, which hitherto only famine had been able to open, +was to fall at last to Wat Tyler and his Peasants in 1381, with the +help of the people of the city. After that culminating misery of the +fourteenth century, which was so full of miseries, Rochester plays +little part in history for many years. She appears again to take part +in innumerable pageants, such as that in which Henry VIII. in 1540, +and on New Year's day, first saw Anne of Cleves and was astonished at +her little beauty, or that which greeted Elizabeth in 1573, or that +which greeted Charles I. and his bride after their wedding at +Canterbury, or that which shouted for the Merry Monarch, when Charles +II. rode down the High Street in 1660, after his landing at Dover. It +was his brother, unfortunate and unhappy, who came in without any +herald and stole away in the night of December 19, 1688, having +foregone a throne and lost a kingdom. + +All these, sieges or pageants, however, what are they but a tale that +is told. There remains, in some sort at least, the Cathedral. This is +the oldest thing in Rochester and the most lasting. It was founded in +the end of the sixth century as we have seen, and its first Bishop +was that St Justus who had come with St Augustine from the monastery +of St Andrew on the Coelian Hill in Rome, the monastery we now know +by the name of the man who sent them, St Gregory the Great. St +Augustine and St Justus were not, however, at first received with +enthusiasm in Rochester. Indeed, it is said that fish tails were hung +to their habits as they went through the city and that in consequence +the people of the diocese of Rochester were ever after born with +tails, and were thus known as caudati or caudiferi, while upon the +Continent this beastly appellation was even till our fathers' time +applied to all English people. + +What the Cathedral suffered in the centuries between its foundation +and the Norman Conquest, we shall never rightly know. That it was +ravaged, burnt and sacked by the Danes is certain and it seems even at +the time of the Norman Conquest to have scarcely recovered itself. +Indeed, Pepys, who was in Rochester in 1661, tells us that he found +the western doors of the church still "covered with the skins of +Danes." Nor did it fare much better when Odo of Bayeaux was lord. But +when Gundulph, the associate of the good and great Lanfranc, became +bishop in 1077, the Cathedral was almost entirely re-established and +the Priory which served it rebuilt. Gundulph, however, would have +nothing to do with the seculars who had hitherto served the great +church. He established Benedictine monks in their place and Ernulph, +Prior of Canterbury, where Lanfranc had done the same, succeeded him. + +Of the Saxon church which St Justus built, he and his successors, +nothing remains but the foundations discovered in 1888. This church, +which was very small, about forty-two feet long by twenty-eight feet +in breadth, was furnished with an apse, but had neither aisles nor +transepts. + +Of the first Norman church which Bishop Gundulph built, very little +remains, perhaps a part of the crypt, the nave, and the great fortress +tower he built on the north side of the church. This church was a very +curious piece of Norman building. It was a long aisled church, that +was unbroken from end to end, but the choir-proper was shut off from +its aisles by walls of stone as at St Albans. There were no transepts +or central tower, but two porches, one on the north and the other on +the south, and in the angle formed by them with the choir, Gundulph +built towers, one a belfry, the other a fortress detached from the +church. To the south of the nave stood the first monastery and it is +there that we may still see fragments, five arches in all, of +Gundulph's nave. + +It was Ernulph who built the second monastery to replace the probably +wooden buildings of the first, to the south of the choir of which +parts remain to us. This done, he turned to the Cathedral and began +entirely to rebuild it, recase it with Caen stone or to remodel what +he left. It is therefore twelfth century Norman work we see at +Rochester. All this work, however, some of it not twenty-five years +old, was damaged in 1179 by fire, and once more the monks began to +rebuild their church. They seem to have begun on the north aisle of +the choir, and then to have set to work on the south aisle. Thence +they proceeded to rebuild the eastern end of the church, erecting a +transept beyond the old choir, finishing their new sanctuary in 1227. + +The work did not stop there, however; by 1245 the north-west transept +was finished, and by 1280 the south-west and the two eastern bays of +the nave. It is astonishing to find the monastery able to support such +immense and extravagant operations, but we know that in 1201 the monks +had successfully established a new shrine in their church, the shrine +of St William. This popular sanctuary was the tomb of a Scotch pilgrim +from Perth who had been a baker. "In charity he was so abundant that +he gave to the poor the tenth loaf of his workmanship; in zeal so +fervent that in vow he promised and in deed attempted, to visit the +places where Christ was conversant on earth; in which journey he made +Rochester his way, where, after he had rested two or three days, he +departed towards Canterbury. But ere he had gone far from the city, +his servant--a foundling who had been brought up by him out of +charity--led him of purpose out of the highway and spoiled him both of +his money and his life. The servant escaped, but his master, because +he died in so holy a purpose of mind, was by the monks conveyed to St +Andrews and laid in the choir. And soon he wrought miracles +plentifully." + +The enormous fame of St William and the popularity of his shrine, not +only with those who were on the way to Canterbury, but with such as +were merely travellers to the coast, lasted for nearly a hundred +years, enriching the monks of Rochester. By the end of the thirteenth +century, however, this shrine of St William had been utterly eclipsed +by the fame of the shrine of St Thomas. For this reason, then, the +monks of Rochester were happily never able to rebuild their nave, +which remains a Norman work of the twelfth century. + +In the fourteenth century the central tower was at last completed, but +it ceased to exist in 1749. Indeed, the resources of Rochester seem to +have been small after the third quarter of the thirteenth century. +They had no Lady Chapel and when one was provided it was contrived +out of the south-west transept. Later the north aisle of the choir, +always dark on account of Gundulph's tower, was heightened and vaulted +and lighted with windows. Later still, similar Perpendicular windows +were placed in the old nave, the Norman clerestory was destroyed and a +new one built, together with a new wooden roof and the great western +window was inserted. In 1830 Cottingham, and in 1871 Scott, worked +their wills upon the place under the plea of restoration. Little has +escaped their attention, neither the beautiful Decorated tomb of +Bishop Walter de Merton (1278) nor that of Bishop John de Sheppey +(1360). The best thing left to us in the Cathedral and that which +gives it its character is the great western doorway with its sombre +Norman carving of the earlier part of the twelfth century. The nave is +also beautiful and the crypt is undoubtedly one of the most +interesting monuments left in England. Of the Priory practically +nothing remains but a few fragments. + +[Illustration: ROCHESTER] + +Doubtless Chaucer and his company did not leave the great church +unvisited nor fail to look curiously, nor perhaps to pray, at the +shrine of St William, for they, too, were travellers and pilgrims. But +the spectacle in the little city which it might seem most filled their +imagination, as it does ours, was not the Cathedral at all, but the +great Keep which stands above it, frowning across the busy Medway. +Nothing more imposing of its kind than this great Norman Castle remains +in England. Having a base of seventy feet square, and consisting of +walls twelve feet thick and one hundred and twenty feet high, it still +seems what in fact it was, almost impregnable by any arms but those of +the modern world. Its great weakness lay always in the matter of +provision, but it was perfectly supplied with water, by means of a well +sixty feet under ground, in which stood always ten feet of water. From +this well a stone pipe or tunnel, two feet nine inches in diameter, led +up to the very roof, access to it being given on each of the four +floors into which the keep was divided within. These apartments one +and all were divided from east to west by walls five feet thick, so +that on each floor there were two chambers forty-six feet long by +about twenty feet in breadth. That this enormous keep is the work of +Gundulph and contemporary with the Tower of London, there seems to be +no reason to doubt. Of the great part it played in English history I +have already spoken. But even in ruin it impresses one as few things +left to us nowadays, when everything we make is so monstrous in +comparison with the work of our fathers, are able to do. To stand +there on the platform a hundred and twenty feet in the air and look +out over the Medway crowded with shipping, ringing, echoing with +factories on either shore, to see the great ships in the tideway and +the fog and smoke of Chatham and its dockyards down the stream, is to +receive an impression of the fragile, but tremendous, greatness of our +civilisation such as few other places in South England would be able +to give us suddenly between two heart beats. + +Such a vision of feverish and yet noble energy and endeavour, wholly +material if you will, and seemingly unaware of any world or life but +this, is altogether alien from Rochester itself, where an old +fashioned leisure, an air almost Georgian lingers yet. Indeed, one +expects to meet Mr Pickwick in the High Street or at least Charles +Dickens come in from Gadshill. + +The only mood that has quite passed from Rochester, and that is yet +more securely crystallised there in the Cathedral and the Castle than +any other, is that of the Middle Age. You will not find it in any of +the churches now, nor in any inn that is left to us, nor in the houses +often both interesting and charming. All day long Rochester expects +the coach and not the pilgrims; but at night, under a windy sky, if +you wander up the hill and linger about the Cathedral in the shadow of +the great Keep while the moon reels steeply up the heavens, you may +in early Spring at any rate return for a little to that age which +built such things as these, so that they have outlasted everything +that has followed them and put it under their feet. And yet their +heart was set upon no such victory, but in the heavens. It was the +great and self-forgetting act of an obscure baker, but a saint of +God, that built the mighty half abandoned church we see at Rochester, +nor was he for sure altogether forgotten when all England went by to +kneel and to pray beside Becket's shrine at Canterbury, raised there +in a heavenly cause, which must prevail in the end, though neither +Rochester nor Canterbury to-day might seem to bear out any such +certainty. + +The modern pilgrim, knowing what he knows, will be fain to remember at +Rochester, on his way to St Thomas, one who died in the same cause, +but as it might seem, disastrously without success. + +For the liberty of the Church St Thomas died, that neither the king +nor any civil power should control, or govern that which Christ had +founded long ago upon the rock of Peter. In that same cause died +Blessed John Fisher, the last Catholic Bishop of Rochester, in the year +1535. He was almost the first of Henry's victims, and he was beheaded, +as was Blessed Thomas More, for refusing to recognise the royal +supremacy. It was treason to deny the king's right to the title of +Supreme Governor of the Church in England; and though it be still +treason to deny it, a host to-day will gladly stand beside St Thomas +Becket and Blessed John Fisher of Rochester. + +This quarrel need never have arisen had not Henry, perjured and +adulterous, desired to make the Pope his accomplice in putting away +his lawful wife in order that he might marry Anne Boleyn. Because the +Pope refused to aid him in this crime Henry destroyed the Catholic +Church in England, and he and his successors founded the so-called +Church of England, with himself as first Supreme Governor. + +Among those who had most strenuously opposed the claim for divorce was +Blessed John Fisher of Rochester, and with equally unflinching +firmness he opposed the doctrine of the royal supremacy. He asserted +that "The acceptance of such a principle would cause the clergy of +England to be hissed out of the society of God's Holy Catholic +Church." He was right, his prophecy has come true, and he nearly won. +His opposition so far prevailed that a saving clause was added to the +oath of convocation, "so far as the law of God allows." This Henry +refused. The King persecuted him, Anne Boleyn tried to poison him, all +England was putrid with lies concerning him contrived by those masters +of lies, the Tudors; but the imperial ambassador asserted that the +Bishop of Rochester was "the paragon of Christian prelates both for +learning and holiness," and the Pope made him Cardinal with the title +of San Vitalis. Henry, in November 1534, with the passing of the Act +of Supremacy, attainted him of treason and declared the see of +Rochester vacant. But Blessed John Fisher said, as St Thomas had said, +"The King our Sovereign is not supreme head on earth of the Church in +England." For this he was condemned to die a traitor's death; that is, +to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered at Tyburn in order that +Henry might enjoy his Kentish mistress in peace, and found a new +Church eager to acknowledge his adultery as lawful and to enjoy the +spoil of God. + +That death, once shameful but soon to be rendered glorious by the +Carthusians, was denied to Fisher. His sentence was commuted to that +of death by beheading upon Tower Hill, where he suffered upon June +22, 1535. His head was exposed on London Bridge; his body, interred +without ceremony, now lies in the Tower, where a little later that of +Blessed Thomas More was laid beside it--two countrymen of St Thomas +Becket martyred in the same cause. + +They might seem to have died in vain; their cause, as old as +Christendom, might seem to have been long since defeated. Not so: this +battle truly is decided, but in their favour, and my little son may +live to see the glory of their victory. For he shall know and believe +in his heart that his love and hope are set upon a country and a city +founded in the heavens of which David sang, to which St John looked +forth from Patmos, and of which these our Saints have told us. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PILGRIMS' ROAD + +ROCHESTER TO FAVERSHAM + + +The old road leaves Rochester to pass through Chatham, and is by no +means delightful until it has left what Camden called "the best +appointed arsenal the world ever saw." Chatham, indeed, is little else +but a huge dockyard and a long and dirty street, once the Pilgrim's +Way. There is, however, very little to detain us; only the Chapel of +St Bartholomew to the south of the High Street is worth a visit for +Bishop Gundulph's sake, for he founded it. Even here, however, only +the eastern end is ancient. The parish church of Our Lady was for the +most part rebuilt in 1788, but it still keeps a good Norman door to +the south of the nave. It was here that Our Lady had in Chaucer's day +a very famous shrine concerning which the following rather gruesome +legend is told. The body of a man, no doubt a criminal or suicide, +having been cast upon the beach in this parish, was buried here in +the churchyard. Our Lady of Chatham, however, was offended thereby, +and by night went Herself to the house of the clerk and awakened him. +And when he would all trembling know wherefor She was come. She +answered that near to Her shrine an unshriven and sinful person had +been laid, which thing offended Her, for he did naught but grin in +ghastly fashion. Therefore unless he were removed She Herself must +withdraw from that place. The Clerk arose hurriedly we may be sure, +and, going with Our Lady along towards the church, it happened that +She grew weary and rested in a bush or tree by the wayside, and ever +after this bush was green all the winter through. But the Clerk, going +on, dug up the body and flung it back into the water from which it +had so lately been drawn. + +Now, as to this story, all I have to say of it is that I do not +believe a word of it. Not because I am blinded by any sentimentalism +of to-day, which, as in a child's story, brings all right for everyone +in the end; but for this very cogent reason that of all created beings +Our Lady is the most merciful, loving and tender--Refugium +Peccatorum. + +Also I know a better story. For it is said that one day Our Lord was +walking with Sampietro in Paradise, as the Padrone may do with his +Fattore, when after a while He said, not as complaining exactly but +as stating a fact, "Sampietro, this place is going down!" + +Here Sampietro, who is always impetuous and knew very well what He +meant, dared to interrupt, "Il Santissimo can't blame me," said he +huffily. "Il Santissimo does not suppose they all come in by the gate? +_Che Che!_" + +"Not come in by the gate, Sampietro. What do you mean?" said Our Lord. +"If Il Santissimo will but step this way, round by these bushes," said +Sampietro, "He shall see." And there sure enough He saw; for there was +Our Lady drawing us all up helter-skelter, pell-mell, willy-nilly into +Heaven in a great bucket, to our great gain and undeserved good. O +clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria. + +The road between Chatham and Sittingbourne might seem to be +unquestionably that by which the pilgrims rode, and as certainly the +Roman highway. It is, however, rather barren of mediaeval interest, +little being left to us older than the change of religion. At Rainham +we have a church, however, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, parts +of which date from the thirteenth century, though in the main it is a +Perpendicular building. Within are two ornaments of the late +seventeenth century, and two brasses, one to William Bloor, who died +in 1529, and the other to John Norden, who died in 1580, and to his +four wives. As for William Bloor, there is a local story of some +relation of his, Christopher Bloor by name, and of a nightly journey +on a coach driven by a headless coachman beside whom sits a headless +footman, and all drawn by headless horses, Christopher himself sitting +within, his head in his hands. So much I heard, but I could not find +out what it portended or referred to. + +But it is not till we come into Newington that we find any sign or +memory of St Thomas or the Pilgrimage. This village, however, became +famous as a station for the pilgrims, because on his last journey from +London to Canterbury, the great Archbishop here administered the rite +of Confirmation. A cross was erected to commemorate this event, and +there the pilgrims knelt to pray. But Newington in St Thomas's day was +better known on account of a great scandal involving the name of the +convent there. This convent was held of the king, of his manor of +Middleton. We read that divers of the nuns, "being warped with a +malicious desire of revenge, took advantage of the night and strangled +the lady abbess, who was the object of their fury and passionate +animosities, in her bed; and after, to conceal so execrable an +assassination, threw her body into a pit, which afterwards contracted +the traditional appellation of Nun-pit." [Footnote: Philipotts, +"Villare Cantianum," quoted by Littlehales, _op. cit._ p. 27.] Now +whether this tale be true or an invention to explain the queer name +"Nun-pit" we shall never know, but as it happens we do know that the +nuns were removed to the Isle of Sheppey and that St Thomas persuaded +King Henry II. to establish at Newington a small house of seven +secular canons to whom was given the whole manor. But curiously +enough, one of these canons was presently found murdered at the hands +of four of his brethren. Exactly where this convent was situated +would seem to be doubtful. What evidence there is points to Nunfield +Farm at Chesley, about a mile to the south of the high road. + +Newington itself in its cherry-orchards is a pretty place enough to- +day, with an interesting, if restored, church of Our Lady in part of +the thirteenth, but mainly of the fourteenth century. It is a fine +building with charming carved details and at least four brasses, one of +the end of the fifteenth century (1488) to William Monde, two of the +sixteenth century (1510 and 1581) and one of the year 1600. There is +nothing, however, in the place to delay anyone for long, and the +modern pilgrim will soon find himself once more on the great road. + +On coming out of Newington such an one will find himself in about a +mile at Key Street, where is the Fourwent Way, in other words the +cross roads, where the highway from the Isle of Sheppey to Maidstone +crosses the Pilgrims Way. Here of old stood a chapel of St +Christopher or another, at which the pilgrims prayed, and remembering +this, I too, at the cross roads, though there was no chapel, prayed in +the words of the prayer which begins: + + St Christopher who bore Our Lord + Across the flood--O precious Load.... + + +So I prayed, "er I come to Sidingborne," as Chaucer says. + +The author of "Sittingbourne in the Middle Ages" tells us that, +"Mediaeval Sittingbourne consisted of three distinct portions. The +chief centre of population was near the church, but there was an +important little hamlet called Schamel at the western extremity of the +parish on the London Road ... as any traveller from London approached +Sittingbourne in the Middle Ages, the first thing to attract his +attention was a chapel and hermitage standing on the south side of the +road, about three parts of the way up that little hill which rises +from Waterlanehead towards the east; this was Schamel Hermitage and +the Chapel of St Thomas Becket, to which were attached houses for the +shelter of pilgrims and travellers. A small Inn called "The +Volunteers" now stands upon or close to the site of this ancient +chapel and this hermitage." The chapel and hermitage it seems were +first built at Schamel in the time of King John, when they were +occupied by a priest named Samuel. He said Mass daily in the chapel +and gave such accommodation as he had to wayfarers, by whose alms he +lived. After his death the chapel fell into disrepair, but in the time +of Henry III. it was rebuilt on a larger scale. A hermit named +Silvester, of the "Order of St Austin," was appointed to the house +which had now attached to it four lodgings for pilgrims on the road to +Canterbury. But on Silvester's death it was realised that the chapel +interfered so much with the parish church that before the end of the +thirteenth century it was suppressed. It re-arose, and in Chaucer's +day would seem to have been in a flourishing condition; at any rate it +continued till the spoliation. + +If indeed Chaucer and his pilgrims slept in Sittingbourne, as one may +well believe, it is probable that they slept either at this chapel at +Schamel or at the Lion Inn in the town. This Inn was certainly in +existence in his time, and there in 1415 King Henry V. was entertained +on his return from Agincourt by the Squire of Milton. There, too, in +all likelihood, Cardinal Wolsey rested in the autumn of 1514, and +there Henry VIII., who spoiled the face of England and changed her +heart, "paied the wife of the Lyon in Sittingbourne by way of rewarde +iiiis. viiid." for the accommodation given. This famous Inn stands in +the centre of the town, the road passing to the south of it. Unhappily +the church is less interesting, having been almost entirely rebuilt in +1762; but close by it were some old houses which apparently once +formed part of another old Inn called the White Hart. Certainly much +of the town must have been devoted to the entertainment of travellers. + +From Sittingbourne I wandered out to Borden, lovely in itself and in +its situation upon the rising ground under the North Downs. It +possesses a very fine church with a low Norman tower and western door +of the same date. Within is a very nobly carved Norman arch under the +belfry. + +If Schamel was, as it were, the western part of Sittingbourne with its +chapel and hermitage, Swanstree was the eastern part, and it, too, had +its chapel of St Cross and its hospital of St Leonard. There is, +however, this difference, that, whereas the priest and people of +Sittingbourne did all they could to suppress the chapel and hermitage +of Schamel, they on the contrary did all they could to encourage the +chapel and hospital of Swanstree. Why? Because pilgrims coming from +London or the north with full pockets towards Canterbury, would reach +Schamel _before_ passing through Sittingbourne, but Swanstree only +_after_ passing through the town! + +Following the Pilgrim's Road out of Sittingbourne one soon comes to +Bapchild, where at the exit from the village on the north side of the +road of old stood an oratory, and a Leper's Hospital, of which nothing +seems really to be known save that it was founded about the year 1200. +According to Canon Scott-Robertson, it was dedicated in honour of St +James, which is a curious dedication for a Leper House, but common +enough in a Hospital for pilgrims. Oratory and Hospital have alike +disappeared, but close by the place where they stood there still +remains St Thomas's Well, now known as Spring Head or Spring. + +So I went on through Radfield, where of old was a wayside chapel, and +Green Street to the Inn at Ospringe, passing, half a mile away to the +north, Stone Farm, and, nearer the road, the ruins of Stone Chapel, +another of those little wayside oratories still so common in Italy +and France but which nowadays in England we lack altogether. + +Ospringe itself is an interesting place. To begin with, the very +ancient inn by the roadside, together with the equally old house +opposite were once, according to Hasted, the historian of Kent, a +Hospital founded by Henry II., for the benefit especially of pilgrims. +This hospital, he tells us, "was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and +was under the management of a master, three brethren and two clerks +existed till the time of Edward IV." Henry VIII., having seized by +force all such property as this in England, gave this Hospital to St +John's College in Cambridge, which still owns it to the loss of us poor +travellers. No doubt what money comes to the college from this poor +place goes to the support and bolstering up of the Great Tudor Myth +upon the general acceptance of which most of the vested interests in +England largely depend. But let us poor men lift up our hearts. The +Great Tudor Myth is passing, and every day it is becoming more evident +that it can be supported very little longer. Let us determine, +however, that we will not be taken in again, and under the pretence of +a reformation of religion fix upon our necks a new political despotism +worse than the Whig and Protestant aristocracy that the sixteenth +century brought into being, to the irreparable damage of the Crown +and the unspeakable loss of us the commonalty. May St Thomas avert an +evil only too likely to befall us. As for Ospringe, however, it was +after all in some sort royal property, the Crown having anciently a +Camera Regis there for the King's use when he was on his way to +Canterbury or to France. + +At Ospringe I left the great road to visit Davington and to sleep at +Faversham. The long spring day was already drawing in when I came into +Davington, as delightful and charming a little place as is to be found +anywhere along the great road. Upon a hill-top there perhaps the +Romans had a temple or a villa, at any rate they called the place +Durolevum, and so it stands in the Antonine _Itinerary_. There is +evidence, too, that the site was not abandoned when with the failure +of their administration and the final departure of the Legions, there +went down the long roads, our youth and hope. Where the present church +stands, in part a Norman building, there was probably a Saxon Chapel. +Then in 1153 came Fulke de Newenham and founded here and built a +Benedictine nunnery in honour of St Mary Magdalen. That the house was +never richly endowed nor large at all, we may know from that name it +had--the house of the poor nuns of Davington. We know, however, very +little about them or it, but its poverty did not save it of course at +the dissolution. The Priory was then turned into a manor house, and +this in part remains so that we find there a part of the cloisters of +the time of Edward I., and other remains of Edward III.'s time. Then +in Elizabeth's day the house seems to have been practically rebuilt. +As for the little church, it owes all it is to-day to its late owner +and historian, Mr Willement, and though it is not in itself of very +great interest it serves as a memorial of his enthusiasm and love. + +Davington is less than a mile out of the town of Faversham, and +therefore it was not quite dark when I made my way into that famous +place. Faversham must always have been an important place from its +position with regard to the great road. We have seen how the source +of the greatness of Rochester lay in its position upon the Watling +Street where that great highway crossed the Medway. Faversham has half +Rochester's fortune, for it stands where the road touches an arm or +creek of the Swale, that important navigable waterway, an arm of the +sea which separates Sheppey from the mainland. + +The Swale there served the road and made of Faversham a port, but the +road did not cross it and therefore the Swale, unlike the Medway, was +never an obstacle or a defence. Thus Faversham never became a great +fortress like Rochester; it was a port, and as it happened a Royal +Villa, where so long ago as 930 Athelstan held his witan. Its fate, +however, after the Conquest, was to be more glorious. In 1147 Stephen +and his wife, Matilda, founded an abbey of Benedictine monks here at +Faversham in honour of Our Lord, and known as St Saviours, upon land +she had obtained from William of Ypres, Stephen's favourite captain, +in exchange for her manor of Littlechurch in this county. At the end +of April 1152 she fell sick at Hedingham Castle in Essex, and dying +there three days later, was buried in the abbey church at Faversham. +In August of the following year her eldest son, Eustace, was laid +beside her, and in 1154 Stephen, the King, was also buried here. The +abbey was, as I have said, dedicated to Our Saviour, and this because +it possessed a famous relic of the True Cross which had been the gift +of Eustace of Boulogne; the abbey was thus founded "In worship of the +Croys," and one might have expected some such dedication as "Holy +Cross." As founder, the King, for he and his Queen had been equally +concerned in the foundation, claimed after the death of the abbot +certain toll such as the abbot's ring, drinking cup, horse and hound. +The abbot was a very great noble, held his house "in chief" and sat in +Parliament. At the Suppression Henry VIII. granted the place to Sir +Thomas Cheynay. Now mark the almost inevitable end. The Cheynays were +living on Church property obtained by theft; at the least they were +receivers of stolen goods. Do you think they could endure? They +presently sold to a certain Thomas Arden, sometime Mayor of +Faversham. Upon Sunday, 15 February 1551, this man was foully murdered +in the abbey house he called his own, by a certain Thomas Mosby, a +London tailor, the lover of Alice Arden, Thomas Arden's wife. This +tragic affair so touched the imagination of the time that not only +did Holinshed relate it in detail, but some unknown writer who, by not +a few, has been taken for Shakespeare himself, used the story as the +plot for a play. Arden of Faversham, according to the dramatist, was a +noble character, modest, forgiving, and affectionate. His wife Alecia +in her sleep by chance reveals to him her adulterous love for Mosby; +but Arden forgives her on her promising never again to see her +seducer. From that moment she plots with her lover to murder her +husband, and succeeds at last, after many failures, by killing him in +the abbey house by the hands of two hired assassins, while he is +playing a game of draughts with Mosby. All concerned in the affair +were brought to justice, but the abbey of Faversham was no longer +coveted as a place of abode. + +Almost every stone has disappeared of the abbey church in which lay +Stephen, his Queen, and their son. It stood on the northern side of +the town, where indeed the Abbey Farm still remains. It is to the +parish church of Our Lady of Charity that we must turn for any memory +of the conventual house where many a pilgrim must often have knelt to +venerate the relic of the Holy Cross. + +The great church which remains to us is said to have been used by the +monks, and if not part of the abbey itself which would seem to have +stood at some distance from it, more than one thing that remains in it +would seem to endorse such a theory. To begin with, the church is +very spacious, and cruciform in plan, though the tower is at the west +end. This, however, is a very ugly affair, dating from 1797. In the +main the great church, which has been tampered with at very various +times, if not rebuilt, must have been Early English in style. As we +see it we have a building divided into three aisles, in nave, chancel +and transepts. The nave as it is at present may be neglected, but in +the north transept we have a curious hagioscope or other opening in +the shape of a cross and there used to be some remains of paintings; +the Nativity, the Virgin and Child, the Gloria in Excelsis, the +Crucifixion and the holy women at the Sepulchre of Our Lord. In the +chancel were other remains of paintings. There still remain the very +noble stalls which seem to assure us of the monastic use of the +church, and a fine altar tomb of the fifteenth century; this on the +north side. On the south are very fine sedilia and piscina. Close by +is a brass to William Thanbury, the vicar here, dating from 1448. The +inscription considering the use of the church to-day, is pathetic; for +there we read CREDO IN SANCT. ECCLES. CATH., a pleasing misreading of +the true text which every one, though for different reasons, will +rejoice to read. + +We are told by local tradition or gossip that the tomb at the end of +the south aisle is that of King Stephen. This, however, could only be +true if this were indeed the church of the monastery. The tomb is +Decorated in style and has a canopy, but is without inscription. + +Our Lady of Charity was, however, chiefly famous for its chapel of St +Thomas of Canterbury on the north side of the chancel, and for its +altars of SS. Crispin and Crispian and of St Erasmus. Many pilgrims +turned aside from the road to visit Faversham which was not a station +on the pilgrimage, for the sake of these shrines and altars and +especially to pray in the chapel of St Thomas. + +It is said, indeed, that "no one died who had anything to leave +without giving something to St Erasmus light." As for SS. Crispin and +Crispian they were the patrons of the town and leapt into great fame +after the victory of Agincourt upon their feast day, October 25, when +the King had invoked them upon the field. + + This day is called the feast of Crispian; + He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, + Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named, + And rouse him at the name of Crispian. + + And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by + From this day to the ending of the world, + But we on it shall be remembered. + + +The two saints, Crispin and Crispian, are not less famous in France +than in England. They were indeed Rome's missionaries in Gaul about +the middle of the third century. They seem to have settled at +Soissons, where now a great church stands in their honour. There they +practiced the craft of cobblers and of all cobblers they are the +patrons. After some years the Emperor Maximian Hercules coming into +Gaul, a complaint concerning them was brought to him. They were tried +by that most inhuman judge Rictius Varno, the Governor, whom, +however, they contrived to escape by fleeing to England and to +Faversham, where, as some say they lived, but as others assert they +were shipwrecked. For us at any rate their names are secure from +oblivion, not so much by reason of the famous victory won upon their +day as because Shakespeare has gloriously recorded their names with +those familiar in our mouths as household words: + + Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter, + Warwick, and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester.... + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE PILGRIMS' ROAD + +FAVERSHAM TO CANTERBURY + + +From Faversham at least to the environs of Canterbury, the Pilgrim's +Road seems to be unmistakable, for the Watling Street runs all the way +straight as a ruled line. Yet so few are the remaining marks of the +pilgrimage, so little is that great Roman and mediaeval England +remembered by men or even by the fields or the road which runs +between them with so changeless a purpose, that at first sight we +might think it all a myth. And yet everything that is fundamental or +really enduring and valuable in our lives we owe to that England which +was surely one of the most glorious and strong, as well as one of the +happiest, countries in Europe. Yet must the disheartened voyager take +comfort, for in how many small and negligible things may we not see +even to-day the very mark and standard of Rome, her sign manual after +all, under the rubbish of the modern world. And if you desire an +example, let me give you weathercocks. + +No man can walk for day after day along this tremendous road which +leads us straight as a javelin thrust back through all the lies and +excuses to the truth of our origins, without noticing, and especially +since he must keep an eye on the wind and the weather, the astonishing +number of weathercocks there be between London and Canterbury. Upon +almost every steeple, chanticleer towers shining in the sun and wildly +careering in the winds of spring. You think that nothing at all, the +most ordinary sight in modern England? But for the seeing eye it +reveals, how much! Everyone of these weathercocks crows there on the +tip top of the steeple over each town or village because of an order +of the Pope. They were to be the sign of the jurisdiction of St Peter, +and that by a Bull of the ninth century. How entrancing it is to +remember such a thing as that in the midst of modern England. + +In spite of the weathercocks and their watchfulness, however, the +memories of the great pilgrimage between Faversham and Harbledown are +dishearteningly few. One might surely expect to find something at +Preston for instance, where, coming out of Faversham, one rejoins the +Watling Street, but there is nothing at all to remind one of the great +past of the Way. It is true that Preston church, dedicated in honour +of St Catherine, is both ancient and beautiful, and once belonged to +the monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury; but neither in its +channel, which must once, before the eastern window was inserted in +1862, with its single lancets and sedilia, have been extraordinarily +fine, nor in the nave, is there any memory at all of St Thomas or the +Pilgrims. It is not indeed until we come to Boughton that we are +reminded of them. + +The older part of the parish of Boughton is South Street, where, +however, nothing now remains older than the sixteenth century at the +earliest. Here, however, was anciently a wayside chapel to the south +of the road where now Holy Lane turns out of it. About a mile, or +rather less, to the south, and clean off the road, stands on the crest +of a steep, though not a high hill, the lovely village of Boughton +under Blee, which, curiously enough, if we consider what is omitted, +is mentioned by Chaucer, + + When ended was the lyf of seint Cecyle, + Er we had riden fully fyve myle, + At Boghton under Blee us gan atake + A man, that clothed was in clothes blake, + And undernethe he hadde a whyt surplys.... + It semed he had priked myles three. + + +This man who, with his yeoman, overtakes the pilgrims, is the rich +canon, the alchemist who could pave with gold "all the road to +Canterbury town." He is said to have already ridden three miles, but +whence he had come it is impossible to say. That the pilgrims who had +ridden not quite five miles had come from Ospringe might seem +certain, and since they were overtaken by the Canon it is possible +that he was coming from Faversham. It is, however, more important to +explain, if we can, what the pilgrims were doing more than a mile off +the true Way at Boughton under Blean. The church of SS. Peter and +Paul is of some interest and of considerable beauty it is true, but so +far as we may know there was no shrine there of sufficient importance +to draw the pilgrims from the road, as at Faversham, nor one might +think would they be easily diverted from the goal of their journey +almost within reach. All sorts of routes have been given here, one +going so far as to lead the pilgrims south and east quite off the +Watling Street and across the old green road, the Pilgrims Way from +Winchester, to enter Canterbury at last by the South Gate. This is +absurd. No good explanation has yet been offered, but perhaps we may +be near the truth if we suggest that Chaucer and his pilgrims never +visited Boughton under Blean and the church of SS. Peter and Paul at +all. After all we have in Chaucer's text (Frag. G. Canon's Yeoman +Prologue) merely the name, and that in the old form, Boghton under +Blee. All this wild woodland and forest country which lies on a great +piece of high ground stretching north-east and south-west across the +Way parallel with the valley of the Great Stour, between Faversham and +Canterbury, hiding the one from the other, was known as the Blean. It +is equally certain that the village of Dunkirk was known as Boughton +until the middle of the eighteenth century, when a set of squatters +took possession of the ground, then extra parochial as of a "free- +port" from which no one could dislodge them. The district including +the greater part of the forest was afterwards erected into a separate +villa called the "villa of Dunkirk." Now Boughton Hill rises abruptly +beyond the village of Dunkirk, and it may well be that this and not +the tiny hamlet nearly a mile to the south of the great Way, was +Chaucer's Boghton under Blee, where the Canon and his yeoman overtook +the "joly companye," and rode in with them to Canterbury. And it is +there at Mad Tom's corner that we first catch sight of the glorious +city of St Thomas. + +"Mad Tom's corner!" That name, it is needless to say I hope, has no +reference to the great archbishop or the pilgrimage. Mad Tom's corner, +whence we get our first view of Canterbury, is intimately connected +with the gate close by, called Courtenay's gate, and refers to the +exploits of a mad Cornishman who came to Kent and especially to +Canterbury about 1832, and presently proclaimed himself to be the New +Messiah and showed to his deluded disciples the sacred stigmata in his +hands and feet. It was the custom of these unhappy people to meet in +the woods of the Blean, and it is said one may still see their names +cut upon the trees. Mad Tom, who, besides proclaiming himself to be +the Messiah, claimed also to be the heir to the earldom of Devon, and +called himself Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtenay, the Hon. Sydney +Percy, Count Moses Rothschild and Squire Thompson, to say nothing of +Knight of Malta and King of Jerusalem, was a madman, with a method in +his madness and a certain reasonable truth behind his absurdities. His +mission was, he said, to restore the land to the people, to take it +away, that is to say, from the great rascal families of the sixteenth +century, the Russells, Cavendishes and so forth, who had appeared like +vermin to feed upon the dead body of the Church, to gorge themselves +upon her lands and to lord it in her Abbeys and Priories. In the minds +of these people Tom was not only mad but dangerous. Mad he certainly +was, for all his dreams. Nevertheless he stood for Canterbury in the +year of the Reform Bill and polled 275 votes, and in the following +year he started a paper called the _Lion_ which ran to eighteen +numbers. Five years later, however, he had become such a nuisance +that a warrant was safely issued against him "on the charge of +enticing away the labourers of a farmer." Tom shot one of the +constables who served the warrant, and on the afternoon of the last +morning of May in 1838, two companies of the 45th regiment were +marched out of Canterbury to take him. They found him here in Blean +Wood, surrounded by his followers. He, however, was a man of action, +and he promptly shot the officer in command. The soldiers then began +to fire, and next minute were charging with fixed bayonets. Tom and +eight of his followers were killed, and three more died a few days +later. + +One may well ask what can have induced the stolid Kentish folk to +follow so wild a Celt as this. We shall probably find the answer in +the fact that Tom was exceedingly handsome in an Italian way, having +"an extraordinary resemblance to the usual Italian type of the +Saviour." Also, without doubt, he voiced, though inanely, the innate +resentment of the English peasant against the great sixteenth century +robber families and their sycophants. These great families, now on +their last legs and about to be torn in pieces by a host, financial +and disgusting, without creed or nationality, seven times worse than +they, laughed at Tom. They do not laugh at those who, about to compass +their destruction, led by another Celt, have digged a pit into which +they trample headlong, and astonishing as it might seem, to the regret +of that very peasantry which has hated them for so long. At least, and +let us remember this, if they were greedy and unscrupulous their vices +were ours, something we could understand. They were of our blood, we +took the same things for granted, had the same prejudices, and after +all the same sense of justice. They with us were a part of Europe and +looked to Rome as their ancestor and original. But those who are about +to displace them! Alas, whence do they come who begat them, from what +have they issued out? I cannot answer; but I know that with all their +faults, their sacrilege, robbery, and treason, Russell, Cavendish, +Cecil and Talbot are English names, and they who bear them men of our +blood, European, too, and of our civilisation. But who are those that +now begin to fill their places? Aliens, Orientals and worse now +received without surprise into the peerage of England and the great +offices of justice. And the names which recall Elizabeth and whose +syllables are a part of our mother tongue, are obliterated by such +jargon as these. + +These are miserable thoughts to come to a man on the road to +Canterbury, but they are inevitable to-day in England of my heart. The +new times belong to them. Let us then return to the old time before +them and here for the first time in sight of Canterbury let us +remember St Thomas, the greatest of English Saints, the noblest +English name in the Roman calendar. + +All that wonder which greets you from Mad Tom's corner upon Boughton +Hill is, rightly understood, the work of St Thomas, and we might say +indeed that the great Angel Steeple was the last of his miracles for +it is the last of the Gothic in England, and it rose above his tomb, +while that tomb was still a shrine and a monument in the hearts of +men. For "the church dedicated to St Thomas erects itself," as Erasmus +says, "with such majesty towards Heaven that even from a distance it +strikes religious awe into the beholders." + +So I went on my way in the mid-afternoon down hill to what in my heart +I knew to be Bob-up-and-down on the far side of which lies and climbs +Harbledown and the hospital of St Nicholas. + + Wite ye nat wher ther stant a litel town + Which that y-cleped is Bop-up-and-down + Under the Blee in Caunterbury weye? + + +This "littel town" it might seem, has disappeared, unless indeed it be +Harbledown itself, which certainly bears geographically much +resemblance to that descriptive name, as Erasmus describes it in his +strange book. "Know then," says he, "that those who journey to +London, not long after leaving Canterbury, find themselves in a road +at once very hollow and narrow and besides the banks on either side +are so steep and abrupt that you cannot escape; nor can you possibly +make your journey in any other direction. Upon the left hand of this +road is a hospital of a few old men, one of whom runs out as soon as +they perceive any horseman approaching; he sprinkles his holy water +and presently offers the upper part of a shoe bound with an iron hoof +on which is a piece of glass resembling a precious stone. Those that +kiss it give some small coin.... Gratian rode on my left hand, next to +the hospital, he was covered with water; however he endured that. When +the shoe was stretched out, he asked the man what he wanted. He said +that it was the shoe of St Thomas. On that my friend was angered and +turning to me he said, 'What, do these brutes imagine that we must +kiss every good man's shoe? Why, by the same rule, they would offer +his spittle to be kissed or other bodily excrements.' I pitied the old +man, and by the gift of a small coin I comforted his trouble." + +It is easy to see that we are there in the modern world on the very +eve of the Reformation. The unmannerly Gratian was John Colet to be +the Dean of St Paul's, hardly defended from the charge of heresy by +old Archbishop Wareham. And like so many of his kidney he seems to +have forgotten the scripture upon which, as he would have asserted, +his whole philosophy and action was based,--the scripture I mean which +speaks of One, "the lachet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop +down and unloose." We shall not have the opportunity of being so +proud and impatient as Dean Colet of unhappy memory, for no shoe, +alas, of St Thomas or any other saint will be offered for our +veneration in the Hospital of St Nicholas at Harbledown to-day. Yet +not for this should we pass it by, for of all places upon the road, it +best of all conserves the memory of those far away days when Chaucer +came by, and half-way up the hill rested awhile and prayed, e'er from +the summit he looked down upon Canterbury. + +The Hospital of the Forest or Wood of Blean, dedicated in honour of St +Nicholas, lies upon the southern and western side of the last hill +before the western gate of the city. It was founded in 1084 by +Archbishop Lanfranc, and no doubt for a time served as a hospital for +Lepers, but it was soon appropriated for the use of the sick and +wayfarers generally, and though nothing save the chapel remains to us +from Lanfranc's day, the whole place is so full of interest that no +one should pass it by. + +The chapel became in time the parish church of this little place on +the hillside which grew up about the hospital which itself was +probably placed here on account of the spring of water known as St +Thomas's or the Black Prince's well, south and west of the building. +Most of the chapel is of Norman building, the western doorway for +instance, the pillars and round arches on the north of the nave dating +from Lanfranc's time. But the south side is later, of the thirteenth +century, and the font and choir are later still, being Perpendicular +fifteenth century work. + +The hospital, however, as we see it, is a rebuilding of the +seventeenth century, but it was fundamentally restored in the +nineteenth. In the "Frater Hall," however, are some interesting +remains of the old house, among them a fine collection of mazers and +two bowls of maple wood, in one of which lies perhaps the very +crystal which Erasmus saw, and which was set in the upper leather of +the shoe of St Thomas. + +Below the hospital in the orchard is the old well known as St +Thomas's. Above it grows an elder, surely a relic of the days of the +Pilgrimage. For the elder was known as the wayfaring tree and was +sacred to pilgrims and travellers. It is not strange then, that it +should cool with its shade the spring of St Thomas; it is only strange +that the vandal has spared it for us to bless. But why the elder was +sacred to travellers I do not know. + + Wayfaring Tree! What ancient claim + Hast thou to that right pleasant name? + Was it that some faint pilgrim came + Unhopedly to thee + In the brown desert's weary way + 'Midst thirst and toils consuming sway, + And there, as 'neath thy shade he lay, + Blessed the Wayfaring Tree? + + +But doggerel never solved anything. In truth a very different story is +told of the elder and on good authority too. For if we may not trust +Sir John Maundeville who tells us that, "Fast by the Pool of Siloe is +the elder tree on which Judas hanged himself ... when he sold and +betrayed our Lord," Shakespeare says that, "Judas was hanged on an +elder," and Piers Plowman records: + + Judas he japed + With Jewish siller + And sithen on an elder tree + Hanged himsel. + + +It is from the quietness and neglected beauty of this well of St +Thomas that under the evening I turned back into the road and, +climbing a little, looked down upon what was once the holiest city of +fair England. + + Felix locus, felix ecclesia + In qua Thomae vivit memoria: + Felix terra quae dedit praesulem + Felix ilia quae fovit exsulem. + + +In that hour of twilight, when even the modern world is hushed and it +is possible to believe in God, I looked with a long look towards that +glory which had greeted so often and for so many centuries the eager +gaze of my ancestors, but I could not see for my eyes like theirs were +full of tears. + + + + CHAPTER VI + + THE CITY OF ST THOMAS + + +When a man, alone or in a company, entered Canterbury at last by the +long road from London, in the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth +century, he came into a city as famous as Jerusalem, as lovely as +anything even in England, and as certainly alive and in possession of a +soul as he was himself. + +When a man comes into Canterbury to-day he comes into a dead city. + +I say Canterbury is dead, for when the soul has departed from the body, +that is death. Canterbury has lost its soul. + +Go into the Cathedral, it is like a tomb, but a tomb that has been +rifled, a whited sepulchre so void and cold that even the last trump +will make there no stir. It was once the altar, the shrine, and as it +were the mother of England, one of the tremendous places of Europe into +which every year flocked thousands upon thousands upon thousands of +men. The altar is thrown down, the shrine is gone and forgotten, in all +that vast church the martyred Saint who made it what it was is not so +much as remembered even in an inscription or a stone; and the +enthusiasm and devotion of centuries have given place to a silence so +icy that nothing can break it. The place is dead. + +I remember very well the first time I came to Canterbury. I was a boy, +and full of enthusiasm for St Thomas, I would have knelt where he +fell, I would have prayed, yes with all my fathers, there where he was +laid at last on high above the altar. But there was nothing. I was +shown, as is the custom, all that the four centuries of ice have +preserved of the work of my forefathers; the glorious tombs of King +and Bishop, the storied glass of the thirteenth century, unique in +England, the litter and the footsteps of thirteen hundred years. I was +led up past the choir into that lofty and once famous place where for +centuries the greatest and holiest shrine in England stood. All about +were still grouped the tombs of Princes; Edward, the Black Prince, the +hero of Crecy, Henry IV., the usurper, Cardinal Chatillon; but of the +shrine itself, of the body it held up to love and honour and worship +there was nothing, no word even, no sign at all to tell that ever such +a thing had been, only an emptiness and a space and a silence that +could be felt. + +Later I was led down into that north-west transept, once known as the +Martyrdom, where St Thomas laid down his life; and left alone there, I +remember I tried in all that dumbness and silence to recollect myself, +to pray, at least to recall, something of that great sacrifice which +had so moved Christendom that for centuries men flocked here to +worship--where now no man kneels any more for ever. + +I remember very well how it came to me in that tingling and icy silence +that St Thomas died for the liberty of the Church, that here in England +she might not become the king's chattel or anyway at all the creature +of the civil power. I was too young to smile when I remembered that in +the very place where St Thomas laid down his life in that cause, there +sits to-day in his usurped place one who eagerly acknowledges the king +as the "Supreme Governor of the Church within these realms." Yet in my +heart I heard again those tremendous words, "Were all the swords of +England hanging over my head you could not terrify me from my obedience +to God and my Lord the Pope." They who slew him fled away, and their +title, shouted in the winter darkness that filled the church, was heard +above the thunder and has echoed down the ages since: Reaux! Reaux! +King's men! King's men! Is it not they who now sit in Becket's place? + +But to-day I am content with a judgment less bitter and less logical. +Who may know what is in the heart of God? Perhaps after all, after this +age of ice, Canterbury will rise again and my little son even may hear +them singing in the streets, gay once more and alive with endless +processions that noble old song: + + Laureata novo Thoma, + Sicut suo Petro Roma, + Gaude Cantuaria! + + +[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRISTCHURCH GATE] + +For though St Thomas be forgot in Canterbury, he is on high and +valiant, and one day maybe he will return from exile as before, to +accomplish wonderful things. + +And indeed dead as she is and silent, Canterbury is worthy of +resurrection if only because she is as it were a part of him and a +part, too, of our origins, the well, though not the source from which +the Faith was given us. For some thirteen hundred years when men have +spoken of Canterbury, they have had in mind the metropolitan church +of England, the great cathedral which still stands so finely there in +the rather gloomy close behind Christ Church gate, rightly upon the +foundations of its predecessors, Roman, Saxon, and Norman buildings. +Ever since there was a civilisation in England, there has been a +church in this place; it is our duty, then, as well as our pleasure to +approach it to-day with reverence. + +Canterbury began as we began in the swamps and the forests, a little +lake village in the marshes of the Stour, holding the lowest ford, not +beyond the influence of the sea nor out of reach of fresh water. When +great Rome broke into England lost in mist, here certainly she +established a city that was as it were the focus of all the ports of +the Straits whence most easily a man might come into England from the +continent. Canterbury grew because she was almost equally near to the +ports we know as Lympne, Dover, Richborough and Reculvers, so that a +man setting out from the continent and doubtful in which port he would +land, wholly at the mercy of wind and tide as he was, would name +Canterbury to his correspondent in England as a place of meeting. Thus +Canterbury increased. There in the Roman times doubtless a church +arose which, doubtless, too, perished in the Diocletian persecution. +That it re-arose we know, for Venerable Bede describes it as still +existing when, nearly two hundred years after the departure of the +Roman legions, St Augustine came into England, sent by St Gregory to +make us Christians. He came, as we know, first into Kent to find +Canterbury the royal capital of King Ethelbert, and when, says Bede, +"an episcopal see had been given to Augustine in the king's own city +he _regained possession (re_cuperavit) with the king's help, _of a +church there which he was informed had been built in the city long +before by Roman believers_. This he consecrated in the name of the +Holy Saviour Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, and fixed there a home +for himself and all his successors." [Footnote: Bede, _Hist. Eccl._, I. +xxviii.] This church, rudely repaired, added to and rebuilt, stood +until Lanfranc's day, when it was pulled down and destroyed to make +way for the great Norman building out of which the church we have has +grown. + +The little church which Lanfranc destroyed and which had seen so many +vicissitudes, was probably a work of the end of the fourth century, at +any rate in its foundations. Eadmer indeed who tells us all we know of +it says that it was built on the plan of St Peter's in Rome. "This +was that very church," he writes, "which had been built by Romans as +Bede witnesses in his history, and which was duly arranged in some +parts in imitation of the church of the blessed Prince of the Apostles, +Peter, in which his holy relics are exalted by the veneration of the +whole world." We shall never know much more than Eadmer tells us, for +if the foundations still exist they lie within the present church. It +is recorded, however, that in the time of St Elphege the church was +badly damaged by the Danes, the archbishop himself being martyred at +Greenwich. No doubt as often before, the church was patched up, only to +perish by fire in 1067, the year after the Battle of Hastings. + +When Lanfranc then entered Canterbury, he found his Cathedral a mere +ruin, but with his usual energy, though already a man of sixty-five, he +set to work to re-establish not only his Cathedral but also the +monastery attached to it. He did this on a great scale, providing +accommodation for three times the number of monks that had served the +Cathedral in the decadent days of the Saxon monarchy, and when this was +done he first "destroyed utterly" the Romano-Saxon church and then "set +about erecting a more noble one, and in the space of seven years, 1070- +1077, he raised this from the foundations and brought it near to +perfection." That he worked in great haste and too quickly seems +certain. In fact it must be confessed that Lanfranc's church in +Canterbury was a more or less exact copy of his church of St Stephen at +Caen, but, built much more quickly, was too mean for its purpose. It +soon became necessary to rebuild the choir and sanctuary; the nave, +however, was allowed to stand until the end of the fourteenth century; +but even then its design so hampered the builders of the present nave, +for it had been decided to preserve one of Lanfranc's western towers, +that to this day the nave of Canterbury is too short, consisting of +but eight bays. + +Lanfranc's choir was of but two bays and an apse. This was too +obviously inadequate to be tolerated by the monks. In 1096 it was +pulled down and a great apsidal choir of ten bays was built over a +lofty crypt, with a tower on either side the apse and an eastern +transept having four apsidal chapels in the eastern walls, two in the +north arm and two in the south. All this was done in the time of St +Anselm and finished in 1115, when Conrad was Prior of Christ Church. + +It was this church with Lanfranc's short Norman nave, western facade +and towers, and Conrad's glorious great choir high up over the crypt, +a choir broader than the nave and longer too, and with two transepts, +the western of Lanfranc's time, the eastern of St Anselm's, that St +Thomas knew and that saw his martyrdom in 1170. + +Materials for the life of St Thomas are so plentiful that his modern +biographers are able to compose a life fuller perhaps in detail and +fact than would be possible in the case of any other man of his time. +But no account ever written of his martyrdom is at once so simple and +so touching as that to be found in the Golden Legend. It was this +account which the man of the Middle Age knew by heart, and which +brought him in his thousands on pilgrimage to Canterbury, and +therefore I give it here. + +"When the King of France had made accord between St Thomas and King +Henry, the Archbishop," Voragine tells us, "came home to Canterbury, +where he was received worshipfully, and sent for them that had +trespassed against him, and by the authority of the Pope's Bull openly +denounced them accursed, unto the time they came to amendment. And +when they heard this they came to him and would have made him assoil +them by force; and sent word over to the King how he had done, whereof +the King was much wroth and said: If he had men in his land that loved +him they would not suffer such a traitor in his land alive. + +"And forthwith four knights took their counsel together and thought +they would do to the King a pleasure and emprised to slay St Thomas +and suddenly departed and took their shipping toward England. And when +the King knew of their departing he was sorry and sent after them, +but they were in the sea and departed ere the messenger came, +wherefore the King was heavy and sorry. + +"These be the names of the four knights: Sir Reginald Fitzurse, Sir +Hugh de Morville, Sir William de Tracy and Sir Richard le Breton. + +"On Christmas Day St Thomas made a sermon at Canterbury in his own +church and, weeping, prayed the people to pray for him, for he knew +well his time was nigh, and there executed the sentence on them that +were against the right of Holy Church. And that same day as the King +sat at meat all the bread that he handled waxed anon mouldy and hoar +that no man might eat of it, and the bread that they touched not was +fair and good for to eat. + +"And these four knights aforesaid came to Canterbury on the Tuesday in +Christmas week, about evensong time and came to St Thomas and said that +the King commanded him to make amends for the wrongs he had done and +also that he should assoil all them that he had accursed anon or else +they should slay him. Then said Thomas: All that I ought to do by +right, that will I with a good will do, but as to the sentence that is +executed I may not undo, but that they will submit them to the +correction of Holy Church, for it was done by our holy father the Pope +and not by me. Then said Sir Reginald: But if thou assoil not the King +and all other standing in the curse it shall cost thee thy life. And St +Thomas said: Thou knowest well enough that the King and I were accorded +on Mary Magdalene day and that this curse should go forth on them that +had offended the Church. + +"Then one of the knights smote him as he kneeled before the altar, on +the head. And one Sir Edward Grim, that was his crossier, put forth his +arm with the cross to bear off the stroke, and the stroke smote the +cross asunder and his arm almost off, wherefore he fled for fear and so +did all the monks that were that time at Compline. And then each smote +at him, that they smote off a great piece of the skull of his head, +that his brain fell on the pavement. And so they slew and martyred him, +and were so cruel that one of them brake the point of his sword against +the pavement. And thus this holy and blessed archbishop St Thomas +suffered death in his own church for the right of all Holy Church. And +when he was dead they stirred his brain, and after went in to his +chamber and took away his goods and his horse out of his stable, and +took away his Bulls and writings and delivered them to Sir Robert +Broke to bear into France to the King. And as they searched his +chambers they found in a chest two shirts of hair made full of great +knots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and coming +down into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the ground +would not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but they +supposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And then +they knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about, +how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body and +unclothed him and found bishop's clothing above and the habit of a +monk under. And next his flesh he wore hard hair, full of knots, which +was his shirt, and his breech was of the same, and the knots sticked +fast within his skin, and all his body full of worms; he suffered +great pain. And he was thus martyred the year of Our Lord one thousand +one hundred and seventy-one, and was fifty-three years old. And soon +after tidings came to the King how he was slain, wherefore the King +took great sorrow, and sent to Rome for his absolution...." + +Of the King's penance Voragine says nothing, but indeed it must have +reverberated through Europe, though not perhaps with so enormous a +rumour as the humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV. before Pope Gregory +VII. at Canossa scarce a hundred years before had done. The first and +the most famous of Canterbury pilgrims came to St Dunstan's church upon +the Watling Street, outside the great West Gate of Canterbury, as we +may believe in July 1174. There he stripped him of his robes and, +barefoot in a woollen shirt, entered the city and walked barefoot +through the streets to the door of the Cathedral. There he knelt, and +being received into the great church, was led to the place of Martyrdom +where he knelt again and kissed the stones where St Thomas had fallen. +In the crypt where the body of the martyr was preserved, the King laid +aside his cloak and received five strokes with a rod from every Bishop +and Abbot there present, and three from every one of the eighty monks. +In that place he remained through the whole night fasting and weeping +to be absolved on the following day. + +[Illustration: WEST GATE, CANTERBURY] + +The martyrdom of St Thomas, the penance of the King, these world- +shaking and amazing events might in themselves, we may think, have +been enough to transform the church in which they took place, if as +was thought at the time, heaven itself had not intervened and +destroyed Conrad's glorious choir by fire. This disaster fell upon +the city and the country like a final judgment, less than two months +after the penance of the King in 1174, and within four years of St +Thomas's murder. + +Something of the great masterpiece that then perished is left to us +especially without, and it is perhaps the most charming work remaining +in the city, the tower of St Anselm, for instance, and much of the +transept beside it. + +For the rest the choir of Canterbury, as we know it, the choir began +in 1174 by William of Sens, is as French as its predecessor, but in +all else very different. In order perhaps to provide a great space for +the shrine of the newly canonised St Thomas of Canterbury, to whose +tomb already half Europe was flocking, the choir was built even longer +than its predecessor. The great space provided for the shrine in the +Trinity Chapel behind the choir and high altar opened on the east into +a circular chapel known, perhaps on account of the relic it held, as +Becket's Crown. Till 1220 when all was ready, the body of St Thomas lay +in an iron coffin in the crypt, and the great feast and day of +pilgrimage in his honour was the day of his martyrdom, December 29, so +incredibly honourable as being within the octave of the Nativity of Our +Lord. But in 1220 it was decided to translate the body from the crypt +to the new shrine in the Trinity Chapel in July, for the winter +pilgrimage was irksome. From that year a new feast was established, the +feast of the Translation of St Thomas upon July 7th, and thus in +England down to our own day, St Thomas has two feasts, that of his +Martyrdom on December 29, when still his relics are exposed in the +great Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, and in the little church of St +Thomas, the Catholic sanctuary in Canterbury, and that of his +Translation upon July 7th. + +Of that first summer pilgrimage to the new shrine of St Thomas we have +very full accounts. It was the most glorious and the most extraordinary +assemblage that had perhaps ever been seen in England. The Archbishop +had given two years' notice of the event, and this had been circulated +not only in all England, but throughout Europe. "Orders had been issued +for maintenance to be provided for the vast multitude not only in the +city of Canterbury itself, but on the various roads by which the +pilgrims would approach. During the whole celebration along the whole +way from London to Canterbury, hay and provender were given to all who +asked, and at each gate of Canterbury in the four quarters of the city +and in the four licensed cellars, were placed tuns of wine to be +distributed gratis, and on the day of the festival, wine ran freely +through the gutters of the streets." In the presence of the young +Henry III., too young himself to bear a part, the coffin in which lay +the relics of St Thomas was borne on the shoulders of the Papal +Legate, the Archbishop Stephen Langton, the Grand Justiciary Hubert de +Burgh, and the Archbishop of Rheims, from the crypt up to the Trinity +Chapel in the presence of every Bishop and Abbot of England, of the +great officials of the kingdom and of the special ambassadors of every +state in Europe. + + Of bishops and abbots, prior and parsons, + Of earls and of barons and of many knights thereto, + Of sergeants and of squires and of his husbandmen enow, + And of simple men eke of the land--so thick hither drew. + +So was St Thomas vindicated and God avenged. And St Thomas reigned as +was thought for ever on high, in the new sanctuary of his Cathedral +Church. + +I say he reigned on high. The choir and sanctuary of Canterbury had +even in St Anselm's time as we have seen, been high above the nave. +William of Sens designed the new choir, as high as the old, but very +nobly raised still higher, the great altar, and higher yet the Chapel +of the Trinity in which stood the shrine. St Thomas had an especial +devotion to the Holy Trinity. It was in a former Trinity Chapel that +he had said his first Mass, and whether on this account or another, +his devotion was such that it was he who first established that Feast, +till then merely the octave of Whitsunday. His shrine then was well +placed in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity. + +In examining the church to-day one can well understand the beauty of +William of Sens' idea, and see, too, where, and perhaps understand +why, it really fails or at least comes short of perfection. + +William of Sens trained in Latin traditions had, and rightly, little +respect, we may think, for the work of the past. He would have had all +new. But by 1174, unlike Anselm in 1096, and still more unlike +Lanfranc in 1070, he had in all probability a genuine English and +national prejudice to meet, an English dislike of destruction and an +English hatred of anything new. + +It has been said that the failure of William of Sens' design was due +to the meanness of the monks of Christ Church. But meanness is not an +English failing; on the contrary, our great fault is the very +opposite, extravagance. It was surely not meanness and at such a time +and in such a cause that forced the monastery to deny William of Sens +the free hand he desired; it was prejudice and a fear, almost +barbaric; of destruction. The monks forced their builder to +accommodate the new choir to what remained of the old work. They +refused to sacrifice St Anselm's tower on the south or the tower of +St Andrew on the north, therefore the wide choir of Canterbury, +already wider than the nave and growing wider still as it went +eastward, had to be strangled between them, and to open again as well +as it could into the Trinity Chapel and the Corona. All that was old, +too, and that they loved they used; the old piers of the crypt were to +remain and still to support the pillars of the choir, which were thus, +no doubt to William's disgust, unequally placed so that here the +arches are pointed but there round. In many ways William must have +considered his employers barbarians, and in the true sense of that +much abused term, he was right. No man brought up in the Greek and +Latin traditions would have hesitated to destroy in order to build +anew. The English cannot do that; they patch and make do, and what +must be new they cannot love until it is old; their buildings are not +so much works of art as growths, and there is much to be said for +them. Only here at Canterbury their prejudice has been a misfortune. +Not even the most convinced Englishman can look upon the twisted and +constricted choir of Canterbury and rejoice. + +William of Sens, however, hampered though he was, is responsible for +the work we see. It is true he died after some four years of work at +Canterbury, falling one day from a scaffold, but William the +Englishman who followed him only completed what was really already +finished. The design, the idea, and the genius of Canterbury choir are + +French, spoiled by English prejudice, but undoubtedly French for all +that. + +As it appeared when that great Transitional choir was finished, +Canterbury Cathedral remained till 1379. It is true that the north +wall of the cloister and the lovely doorway in the north-east corner +were built in the Early English time. It is equally true that the +lower part of the Chapter House and the screens north and south of the +choir and a glorious window in St Anselm's Chapel are Decorated work, +but the Cathedral itself knows nothing of the Early English or of the +Decorated styles. It stood till 1379 with a low and short Norman nave +and transept to the west, and a great Transitional choir and transept +to the east. In 1379 Lanfranc's nave and transept were destroyed. + +It may be thought that at last a great and noble nave would be built +north of the Frenchman's choir. Not at all. Again the English prejudice +against destruction--a lack of intellectual daring in us perhaps-- +prevented this. One of the western towers of Lanfranc was to remain, +and therefore the new nave though loftier than the old, was no longer, +and it remains a glory certainly without, but within a hopeless +disappointment saved from utter ineffectiveness only by the noble +height of the great choir above it. It remains without life or zest, +not an experiment but a task honestly and thoroughly done in the +Perpendicular style. + +To the same period belong the great western screen of the choir, the +Chapel of St Michael and the Warrior's Chapel in the south transept, +the Lady Chapel in the north transept, the Chantry and the tomb of +Henry IV. in the Trinity Chapel, the Black Prince's Chantry and the +screens of the Lady Chapel in the Crypt, the upper part of the Chapter +House, now lost to us by restoration, and the south-west Tower. + +There remained at the end of the fifteenth century but one thing +needed--the central Tower. This, as it happened, was to be the last +great Gothic work undertaken in this country, and in every way it is +one of the most impressive and successful. Begun in 1475 and finished +in 1503, the Angel Steeple is the last of Catholicism in England, and +I like to think of it towering as it does over that dead city, and the +low hills of Kent, over all that was once so sacred and is now +nothing, as a kind of beacon, a sign of hope until it shall ring the +Angelus again and once more the sons of St Benedict shall chant the +Mass of St Thomas before the shrine new made: _Gaudeamus omnes in +Domino, diem festum celebrantes, sub honore beati Thomae Martyris, de +cujus passione gaudent angeli et collaudant filium Dei_. + +For the great shrine, which for so long had been the loftiest beacon +in England of the Christian Faith, was destroyed. It was the first +work of the last Henry to avenge his namesake, and having made another +Thomas martyr in the same cause, to wipe out for ever all memory of +the first who had steadfastly withstood his predecessor. It is strange +that the severed head of Blessed Thomas More should lie in the very +church whence Henry II. set forth to do penance for the murder of the +first Thomas. + +We have no authentic record of the final catastrophe, such deeds are +usually done in darkness. All we really know is that in 1538 "the +bones, by command of the Lord (Thomas) Cromwell, were there and then +burnt ... the spoile of the shrine in golde and precious stones filled +two greate chests such as six or seven strong men could doe no more +than convey one of them out of the church." That the shrine was of +unsurpassed magnificence we have many witnesses. "The tomb of St Thomas +the Martyr," writes a Venetian traveller who had seen it, "surpasses +all belief. Notwithstanding its great size it is wholly covered with +plates of pure gold; yet the gold is scarce seen because it is covered +with various precious stones as sapphires, balasses, diamonds, rubies +and emeralds; and wherever the eye turns something more beautiful than +the rest is observed; nor in addition to these natural beauties is the +skill of art wanting, for in the midst of the gold are the most +beautiful sculptured gems, both small and large as well as such as are +in relief, as agates, onyxes, cornelians and cameos; and some cameos +are of such size that I am afraid to name it; but everything is far +surpassed by a ruby, not larger than a thumb-nail, which is fixed at +the right of the altar. The church is somewhat dark and particularly in +the spot where the shrine is placed, and when we went to see it the sun +was near setting and the weather cloudy; nevertheless I saw the ruby as +if I had it in my hand. They say it was given by a king of France." + +To carry out the theft with impunity it was first of all necessary to +degrade the great national hero and saint and expose his memory to +ridicule. In November 1538 St Thomas was declared a traitor, every +representation of him was ordered to be destroyed, and his name was +erased from all service books, antiphones, collects and prayers under +pain of his Majesty's indignation, and imprisonment at his Grace's +pleasure. The saint indeed is said to have been cited to appear at +Westminster for treason, and there to have been tried and condemned. +That seems, too superstitiously insolent even for such a thing as +Henry. But we may believe Marillac, the French Ambassador, when he +tells us "St Thomas is declared a traitor _because_ his relics and +bones were adorned with gold and stones." + +So perished the shrine and memory of St Thomas, and with it the +thousand year old religion of England to be replaced by one knows not +what. + +With the destruction of religion went the destruction of the religious +houses. Of these the chief was the Benedictine monastery of Christ +Church which lay to the north of the Cathedral and whose monks from St +Augustine's time had always served it. Almost nothing remains of this, +save the Cloister and Chapter House and Treasury attached to the +Cathedral, the Castellum Aquae, now called the Baptistery, the Prior's +Chapel, now the Chapter Library, the Deanery, once part of the Prior's +lodging, the Porter's gate, the Norman staircase of the King's school +and the fragmentary ruins scattered about the precincts, including +the remains of the Archbishop's Palace in Palace Street. + +Not less venerable than the Benedictine House of Christ Church was the +other Benedictine monastery, also founded by St Augustine in honour of +SS. Peter and Paul, to which dedication St Dunstan added the name of +St Augustine himself. This stood outside the city to the east. It is +said to have been founded by St Augustine outside the walls with a +view to his own interment there since it was not the Roman custom, as +we know, to bury the dead within the walls of a city. So honourable a +place in the Order did this great house hold that we are told the +abbot of St Augustine's Canterbury sat next to the abbot of Monte +Cassino, the mother house, in the councils of the Order, and none but +the archbishop himself consecrated the abbot of St Augustine's, and +that in the Abbey Church. This also Henry stole away, seizing it for +his own use. But by 1844 what was left of the place had become a +brewery, and to-day there remains scarcely more than a great +fourteenth century gateway and hall, the work of Abbot Fyndon in 1300. +Of the church there is left a few fragments of walling, of St +Augustine's tomb, nothing whatsoever. + +Less still remains to us of the smaller religious houses that abounded +in Canterbury. Of the Austin Canons, the Priory of St Gregory founded +by Lanfranc in 1084 near St John's Hospital, also a foundation of +Lanfranc, in Northgate Street, really nothing, a fragment of old +wall; of the Nunnery of St Sepulchre, a Benedictine house, nothing at +all. As for the Friars' houses scarcely more remains. Of the earliest, +the Dominican house, only the scantiest ruins of the convent, the +refectory, however, once in the hands of the Anabaptists, is now a +Unitarian chapel. Of the White Friars, nothing. Of the Franciscan +house, the charming thirteenth century ruin that stands over the river +to the south of St Peter's Street. That is all. + +The Canterbury of St Thomas is no more, it perished with his shrine +and his religion. Even the hospital he is said to have founded, which +at any rate was dedicated in his honour, was suppressed by Edward VI.; +it is, however, still worth a visit, if only for the sake of the wall +painting recovered in 1879, in which we see the Martyrdom, and the +penance of the King. + +But in Canterbury to-day St Thomas is really a stranger, no relic, +scarcely a remembrance of him remains; yet he was the soul of the +city, he is named in the calendar of his Church St Thomas of +Canterbury. + +No relic do I say? I am wrong. Let all the pilgrims of the past come +in at the four gates in their thousands and their thousands; let the +great processions form as though this were a year of jubilee, they +shall not be disappointed. Yet it is not to the Cathedral they shall +go, but to an ugly little church (alas!), in a back street, where over +the last altar upon the Epistle side there is a shrine and in the +shrine a relic--the Soutan of St Thomas. The place is humble and meek +enough to escape the notice of all but the pilgrims who sought and +seek Canterbury only for St Thomas. + +Musing there in the late spring sunshine, for the church is open and +quiet, and within there is always a Guest, I fell asleep; and in my +sleep that Guest came to me and I spoke with Him. It seemed to me that +I was walking in early morning--all in the England of my heart--across +meadows through which flowed a clear translucent stream, and the +meadows were a mass of flowers, narcissus, jonquil, violet, for it was +spring. And beyond the meadows was a fair wood all newly dressed, and +out of the wood there came towards me a man, and I knew it was the +Lord Christ. And I went on to meet Him. And when I was come to Him I +said: "I shall never understand what You mean ... I shall never +understand what You mean. For You say the meek shall inherit the +earth.... I shall never understand what You mean." + +And He looked at me and smiled, and stretching forth His hands and +looking all about He answered: "But I spoke of the flowers." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE VALLEY OF THE STOUR + +CAESAR IN KENT + + +It was upon as fair a spring morning as ever was in England, that I +set out from Canterbury through the West Gate, and climbing up the +shoulder of Harbledown, some little way past St Dunstan's, turned out +of the Watling Street, south and west into the old green path or +trackway, which, had I followed it to the end, would have brought me +right across Kent and Surrey and Hampshire to Winchester the old +capital of England. This trackway, far older than history, would +doubtless have perished utterly, as so many of its fellows have done, +but for two very different events, the first of which was the +Martyrdom of St Thomas, and the other the practice of demanding tolls +upon the great new system of turnpike-roads we owe to the end of the +eighteenth century. For this ancient British track leading half across +England of my heart, a barbarous thing, older than any written word +in England, was used and preserved, when, with the full blossoming of +the Middle Age in the thirteenth century, it might have disappeared. +It was preserved by the Pilgrims to St Thomas's Shrine. All those men +who came out of the West to visit St Thomas, all those who came from +Brittany, central and southern France and Spain, gathered at +Winchester, the old capital of the Kingdom, and when they set out +thence for Canterbury this was the way they followed across the +counties; this most ancient way which enters Canterbury hand in hand +with the Watling Street by the West Gate. + +To describe a thing so ancient is impossible. It casts a spell upon +the traveller so that as he follows under its dark yews across the +steep hop gardens of Kent from hillside to hillside, up this valley or +that, along the mighty south wall of the North Downs to the great ford +of the Medway, and beyond and beyond through more than a hundred miles +to Winchester he loses himself; becomes indeed one with his +forefathers and looks upon that dear and ancient landscape, his most +enduring and most beautiful possession as a child looks upon his +mother, really with unseeing eyes, unable to tell whether she be fair +or no, understanding indeed but this that she is a part of himself, +and that he loves her more than anything else in the world. + +But that glorious way in all its fulness was not for me. I had +determined to follow the Pilgrims' Road but a little way, indeed but +for one long day's journey, so far only as Boghton Aluph, where it +turns that great corner westward and proceeds along the rampart of the +Downs. But even in the ten miles twixt Canterbury and Boghton, that +ancient way gives to him who follows it wonderful things. + +To begin with, the valley of the Stour. There can be few valleys in +this part of England more lovely than this steep and wide vale, +through the hop gardens, the woods and meadows of which, the Great +Stour proceeds like a royal pilgrim, half in state to Canterbury, and +on to the mystery of the marshes, and its death in the sea. Above +Canterbury certainly, and all along my way, there is not a meadow nor +a wood, nor indeed a single mile of that landscape, which has not been +contrived and created by man, by the love and labour of our fathers +through how many thousand years. And this is part of the virtue of +England, that it is as it were a garden of our making, a pleasaunce we +have built, a paradise and a home after our own hearts. And in that +divine and tireless making we, without knowing it, have so moulded +ourselves that we are one with it, it is a part of us, a part of our +character and nature. There lie ever before us our beginnings, the +earthworks we once defended, the graves we built, the defeats, the +victories, the holy places. By these a man lives, out of these he +draws slowly and with a sort of confidence the uncertain future, glad +indeed of this divine assurance that there is nothing new under the +sun. + +Such monuments of an antiquity so great that they have no history but +what may be gathered from barrows and stones, accompany one upon any +day's journey in southern England, but it is only in one place that a +man can stand and say: Here began the history of my country. That +place as it happens lies as it should upon the Pilgrims' Road. + +Beyond Harbledown, some two miles from Canterbury, he Pilgrims' Road +along the hillside passes clean through earthwork of unknown antiquity. +Well, it was here the Seventh Legion charged: here, indeed, we stand +upon the very battlefield which saw the birth of civilisation in our +island. Lying there in the early morning sunshine I considered it all +over again. + +Caesar's first landing in Britain in B.C. 55 had been, as he himself +tells us, merely a reconnaissance. In the following summer, however, +he returned in force, indeed with a very considerable army, and with +the intention of bringing us, too, within that great administration +which he and his adoptive son Augustus were to do so much to make a +final and in many ways an indestructible thing. + +It might seem that in spite of the lack of the means of rapid +communication we possess, the admirable system of Roman roads enabled +Caesar to administer his huge government--he was then in control of +the two Gauls--with a thoroughness we might envy. After his first +return from Britain in the early autumn of B.C. 55 he crossed the +Alps, completed much business in Cisalpine Gaul, journeyed into +Illyricum to see what damage the Pirustae had done, dealt with them +effectively, returned to Cisalpine Gaul, held conventions, crossed the +Alps again, rejoined his army, went round all their winter quarters, +inspected all the many ships he was building at Portus Itius and other +places, marched with four Legions and some cavalry against a tribe of +Belgae known as the Treviri, settled matters with them, and before the +summer of B.C. 54 was back at Portus Itius, making final preparations +for the invasion of Britain. + +This invasion, glorious as it was to be, and full of the greatest +results for us, was accompanied all through by a series of petty +disasters. Caesar had purposed to set out certainly early in July, but +delay followed upon delay, and when he was ready at last, the wind +settled into the north-west and blew steadily from that quarter for +twenty-five days. It had been a dry summer and all Gaul was suffering +from drought. The great preparations which Caesar had been making for +at least a year were at last complete, the specially built ships, wide +and of shallow draft, of an intermediate size between his own swift- +sailing vessels and those of burthen which he had gathered locally, +were all ready to the number of six hundred, with twenty-eight _naves +longae_ or war vessels, and some two hundred of the older boats. But +the wind made a start impossible for twenty-five days. + +It was not till August that the south-west came to his assistance. As +soon as might be he embarked five Legions, say twenty-thousand men, +with two thousand cavalry and horses, an enormous transport, and +doubtless a great number of camp followers, leaving behind on the +continent three legions and two thousand horse to guard the harbours +and provide corn, and to inform him what was going on in Gaul in his +absence, and to act in case of necessity. + +He himself set sail from Portus Itius, which we may take to be +Boulogne, at sunset, that is to say about half-past seven; but he must, +it might seem, have devoted the whole day to getting so many ships out +of harbour. The wind was blowing gently from the south-west, bearing +him, his fortunes and ours. At midnight the second of those small +disasters which met him at every turn upon this expedition fell upon +him. The wind failed. In consequence his great fleet of transports +was helpless, it drifted along with the tide, fortunately then running +up the Straits, but this bore him beyond his landing-place of the year +before, and daybreak found him apparently far to the east of the North +Foreland. What can have been the thoughts of the greatest of men, +helpless in the midst of this treacherous and unknown sea? To every +Roman the sea was bitter, even the tideless Mediterranean, how much +more this furious tide-whipt channel. Caesar cannot but have +remembered how it had half broken him in the previous year. Very +profoundly he must have mistrusted it. But his Gaulish sailors were +doubtless less disturbed; they expected the ebb, and when it came, +every man doing his utmost, the transports were brought as swiftly as +the long ships to that "fair and open" beach where Caesar had landed +in the previous summer, the long beach which Deal and Sandwich hold. + +Caesar himself, as it happens, does not tell us that he landed in the +same place upon this his second invasion of Britain as he had done +before; it is to Dion Cassius that we owe the knowledge that he did +so. It is Caesar, however, who tells us that he landed about mid-day +and that all his ships held together and reached shore about the same +time. He adds that there was no enemy to be seen, though, as he +afterwards learned from his prisoners, large bodies of British troops +had been assembled, but, alarmed at the great number of the ships, +more than eight hundred of which, including the ships of the previous +year and the private vessels which some had built for their +convenience, had appeared at one time, they had retreated from the +coast and taken to the heights. The heights must have been the hills +to the south of Canterbury, nearly a day's march from the sea. + +If Caesar landed, as we know from Dion Cassius that he did, in the +same place as he had done in the previous year, he must have known all +there was to know about the natural facilities there for camping, +about the supply of fresh water for instance. But perhaps he had not +considered the dryness of the summer. In any case it might seem to +have been some pressing need, such as the necessity for a plentiful +supply of fresh water, which forced him immediately to make a night +march with his army. Leaving as he tells us, under Quintus Atrius, +ten cohorts, that is, as we may suppose, two cohorts from each of his +five legions, and three hundred horse to guard the ships at anchor, +and to hold the camp, hastily made between midday and midnight, in the +third watch, that is between midnight and three o'clock, he started +with his five legions and seventeen hundred horse, as he asserts, to +seek out the enemy. Something, we may be sure, more pressing than an +attack upon a barbarian foe there was no hurry to meet, must have +forced Caesar to march his army sleepless now for two nights, one of +which had been spent upon an unusual and anxious adventure at sea, out +of camp, in the small hours, into an unknown and roadless country in +search of an enemy which had taken to its native hills. The necessity +that forced Caesar to this dangerous course was probably a lack of +fresh water. He was seeking a considerable river, for the smaller +streams, as he probably found, could not suffice after a long drought +for so great a force as he had landed. + +He himself asserts that he advanced "by night" across that roadless and +unknown country a distance of twelve miles. We know of course of what +the armies of Caesar were capable in the way of marching; there have +never been troops carrying anything like their weight of equipment +which have done better than they; but to march something like fifteen +thousand men and seventeen hundred horse twelve miles in about three +hours into the unknown and the dark, is an impossible proceeding. That +march of "about twelve miles" cannot have occupied less than from six +to eight hours, one would think, and the greater part of it must have +been accomplished by daylight, which would break about half-past three +o'clock. As we have good reason to think, Caesar's march, however long +a time it may have occupied, was in search of fresh water, and it is +significant that when the Britons were at last seen, they "were +advancing to the river with their cavalry and chariots from the higher +ground." In other words, Caesar's march had brought him into the valley +of the Great Stour, where he not only found the water he sought, but +also the enemy, who had probably followed his march from the great +woods all the way. + +[Illustration: ON THE STOUR NEAR CANTERBURY] + +The spot at which Caesar struck the valley was, as we may be sure, that +above which the great earthwork stands, opposite Thannington. Here upon +the height was fought the first real battle of Rome upon our soil. It +was opened by the Britons who "began to annoy the Romans and to give +battle." But the Roman cavalry repulsed them so that they again sought +refuge in the woods where was their camp, "a place admirably fortified +by nature and by art ... all entrance to it being shut by a great +number of felled trees." But like all barbarians, the Britons were +undisciplined and preferred to fight in detached parties, and as +seemed good to each. Every now and then some of them rushed out of the +woods and fell upon the Romans, who continually were prevented from +storming the fort and forcing an entry. Much time was thus wasted +until the soldiers of the Seventh Legion, having formed a _testudo_ +and thrown up a rampart against the British fort, took it, and drove +the Britons out of the woods, receiving in return a few, though only a +few, wounds. Thus the battle ended in the victory of our enemies and +our saviours. Caesar tells us that he forbade his men to pursue the +enemy for any great distance, because he was ignorant of the nature +of the country, and because, the day being far spent, he wished to +devote what remained of the daylight to the building of his camp. + +Caesar speaks of this camp and rightly of course, as a thing of +importance. We know from his narrative, too, that it was occupied by +some fifteen thousand foot and seventeen hundred horse, with their +baggage and equipment for more than ten days. Where did it stand? It +must have been within reach of the river, for without plentiful water +no such army as Caesar encamped could have maintained itself for so +long a period as ten days; exactly where it was, however, we shall in +all probability never know. + +Wherever it was, there Caesar spent the night, both he and his army, +sleeping soundly, we may be sure, after the sleepless and anxious +nights, one spent in the peril of the sea, the other in a not less +perilous night march in a roadless and unknown country. + +Yet did Caesar sleep? Towards sunset the wind arose, and all night a +great gale blew. This was the fourth misfortune the expedition had +experienced. It had first been delayed for twenty-four days in +starting; it had then lost the wind and had been for hours at the mercy +of the tide, only landing at last when the day was far spent after a +whole night upon the waters; it had been compelled by lack of water to +quit the camp at the landing-place without rest, and utterly weary and +sleepless, to undertake a perilous night march in search of water. And +now in the darkness, after the first encounter with the enemy, a great +gale arose. + +How often during that night must Caesar have awakened and thought of +the sea and his transports. It was, as he would remember, just such a +storm which had ruined him in the previous summer. To avoid a like +disaster he had had his boats built for this expedition, shallow of +draft and with flat bottoms that they might be beached. But with the +Mediterranean in his mind and the certain weather of the south, Caesar, +seeing the August sky so soft and clear, had anchored and not beached +the ships after all. Perhaps the late landing, the necessity of +building a large camp, and finally the perilous lack of water had +prevented him from calling upon his men for a task so enormous as the +beaching of eight hundred ships. Whatever had prevented him, that +task was not undertaken. The eight hundred ships were anchored in the +shallows, when, upon that third night of the expedition, a great gale +arose. + +Anxious though he must have been, very early in the morning of the +following day, he sent out three skirmishing parties to reconnoitre +and pursue the defeated Britons of the day before; but the last men +were not out of sight when gallopers came in to Caesar from Quintus +Atrius, at the camp by the shore, to report "almost all the ships +dashed to pieces and cast upon the beach because neither the anchors +and cables could resist the force of the gale, nor the sailors or +pilots outride it, and thus the ships had dashed themselves to pieces +one against another." + +The appalling seriousness of this disaster, as reported to Caesar, was +at once understood by him. He recalled his three parties of +skirmishers, and himself at once returned to Quintus Atrius and the +ships. He tells us that "he saw before him almost the very things +which he had heard from the messengers and by letters"; but he adds +that only "about forty ships were lost, the remainder being able to be +repaired with much labour." This he at once began with workmen from the +Legions, and others he brought from the Continent, and at the same +time he wrote to Labienus at Portus Itius "to build as many ships as +he could." Then he proceeded to do what he had intended to do at +first; with great difficulty and labour he dragged all the ships up +on the shore and enclosed them in one fortification with the camp. In +these matters about ten days were spent, the men labouring night and +day. Then he returned to the main army upon the Stour. + +But that delay of ten days had given the Britons time to recover +themselves and to gather all possible forces. Caesar returned to his +army to find "very great forces of the Britons already assembled" to +oppose him, and the chief command and management of the war entrusted +to Cassivellaunus, who, though he had been at war with the men of +Kent, was now placed, so great was the general alarm, in command of +the whole war. + +Caesar, however, cannot have been in any way daunted save perhaps by +the memory of the time already lost and the advancing season. He at +once began his march into Britain. We may well ask by what route he +went, and to that question we shall get no certain answer. But it +would seem he must have marched by one of two ways for he had to cross +the Stour, the Medway and the Thames. We may be sure then that his +route lay either along the old trackway which, straightened and built +up later by the Romans, we know as the Watling Street, which fords the +Medway at Rochester, and the Thames at Lambeth and Westminster, or by +the trackway we call the Pilgrims' Way along the southern slope of the +North Downs, in which case he would have forded the Medway at +Aylesford and the Thames at Brentford. The question is insoluble, +Caesar himself giving no indications. + +Now, when I had well considered all this, I went on to that loveliness +which is Chilham; passing as I went, that earthwork older than any +history called Julaber's Grave, marked by a clump of fir trees. Here +of old they thought to find the grave of that Quintus Laberius, who +fell as Caesar relates, at the head of his men, on the march to the +Thames; but it was probably already older when Caesar passed by, than +it would have been now if he had built it. + +No one can ever have come, whether by the Pilgrims' Road or another, +into the little hill-village of Chilham, into the piazza there, which +is an acropolis, without delight. It is one of the surprises of +England, a place at once so little, so charming and so unexpected that +it is extraordinary it is not more famous. It stands at a point where +more than one little valley breaks down into the steep valley of the +Stour and every way to it is up hill, under what might seem to be old +ramparts crowned now with cottages and houses, till suddenly you find +yourself at the top in a large piazza or square closed at the end by +the church, at the other by the castle, and on both sides by old lines +of houses; really a walled _place_. + +The church dedicated in honour of Our Lady is of some antiquity in the +main and older parts, a work of the fourteenth century replacing +doubtless Roman, Saxon and Norman buildings, but with later additions, +too, of the Perpendicular time in the clerestory, for instance, and +with much modern work in the chancel. Of old the place belonged to the +alien Priory of Throwley in this county, itself a cell of the Abbey of +St Omer, in Artois; but when these alien houses were suppressed, +Chilham like Throwley itself went to the new house of Syon, founded by +the King. To-day, apart from the English beauty of the church, not a +work of art but of history, its chief interest lies in its monuments, +some strangely monstrous, of the Digges family--Sir Dudley Digges +bought Chilham at the beginning of the seventeenth century--the +Colebrooks, who followed the Digges in 1751 and a Fogg and a Woldman, +the latter holding Chilham until 1860. There is little to be said of +these monuments save that they are none of them in very good taste, +the more interesting being those to Lady Digges, and a member of the +Fogg family, both of the early seventeenth century, in which the +Purbeck has been covered with a charming arabesque and diapered +pattern in relief. + +[Illustration: CHILHAM] + +But it was not the church, beautiful though I found it on that +afternoon of spring, that made me linger in Chilham, but rather the +castle, which occupies the site of a Roman camp; and perhaps of what a +camp? It may be that it was here Caesar lay on the first night of his +resumed march after the disaster of the ships. It may be that it was +here, after all, that Quintus Laberius fell, and that here he was +buried so that the ancient earthwork known as Julaber's Grave, though +certainly far older than Caesar, was in fact used as the tomb of the +hero whose immortality Caesar insured by naming him in his +Commentaries. Who knows? If Julaber is not a corruption of Laberius as +the old antiquaries asserted, and as the people here about believe, +one likes to think it might be, for no other explanation of this +strange name is forthcoming. + +So I went on through King's wood, and as I came out of it southward I +saw a wonderful thing. For I saw before me that division or part of +the world which stands quite separate from any other and is not +Europe, Asia, Africa nor America, but Romney Marsh. It lay there +under the sunset half lost in its own mists, far off across the near +meadows of the Weald, for I was now upon the southern escarpment of +the North Downs and in the foreground rose the town of Ashford where +I was to sleep. It was twilight and more, however, before I reached +it, for in those woods I heard for the first time that year the +nightingale, and my heart, which all day had been full of Rome, was +suddenly changed, so that I went down through the dusk to Ashford, +singing an English song: + + By a bank as I lay, I lay, + Musing on things past, heigh ho! + In the merry month of May + O towards the close of day-- + Methought I heard at last-- + O the gentle nightingale, + The lady and the mistress of all musick; + She sits down ever in the dale + Singing with her notes smale + And quavering them wonderfully thick. + O for joy my spirits were quick + To hear the bird how merrily she could sing, + And I said, good Lord, defend + England with Thy most holy hand + And save noble George our King. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE WEALD AND THE MARSH + + +Ashford as we see it to-day, a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, +is altogether a modern place and really in the worst sense, for it +owes its importance and its ugliness to the railway; it is a big +junction and the site of the engineering works of the South Eastern +and Chatham Company. Lacking as it is in almost all material +antiquity, it has little that is beautiful to show us, a fine church +with a noble tower that has been rather absurdly compared with the +Angel Steeple at Canterbury--nothing more--and its history is almost +as meagre. It stands, the first town of the Kentish Weald, where the +East Stour flows into the Great Stour, in the very mouth of the deep +valley of the latter which there turns northward through the Downs. To +the North, therefore, it is everywhere cut off by those great green +uplands, save where the valley, at the other end of which stands +Canterbury, breaks them suddenly in twain. To the south it is cut off +by a perhaps greater barrier; between it and the sea, stands the +impassable mystery of Romney Marsh. In such a situation, before the +railways revolutionised travel in England, how could Ashford have had +any importance? Even the old road westward from Dover into Britain, +the Pilgrims' Way to Stonehenge or Winchester passed it by, leaving it +in the Weald to follow the escarpment of the Downs north or west. No +Roman road served it, and indeed it was but a small and isolated place +till the Middle Age began to revive and recreate Europe. Even then +Ashford was probably late in development. + +Its history, if one may call it history, is concerned with the owners +of the manor of Ashford and not with any civil or municipal records. +Indeed the earlier chroniclers, though they speak of Great Chart and +Wye, know nothing of Ashford which in Domesday Book appears to have +consisted of a few mills and a small church, the manor being in +possession of Edward the Confessor, while St Augustine's at Canterbury +and Earl Godwin held certain lands thereabout. Hugh de Montfort got +what the King and Earl Godwin had possessed, after the Conquest, but +the Monastery of St Augustine's seems to have continued to hold its +land. We know nothing more of Ashford, which, as I have said, till +late in the Middle Age consisted of a church and two mills and a dene +for the pannage of hogs in the Weald. It is not one of the many +owners of the Manor who is remembered to-day in Ashford as its +benefactor, but the Lord of the Manor of Ripton during the Wars of the +Roses, Sir John Fogge, who was Treasurer of the Royal Household and a +Privy Councillor. In the fourteenth century the church had passed to +Leeds Abbey, and with the abbey the church of Ashford remained until +the suppression, when it passed to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. +It was not, however, the Abbey of Leeds that rebuilt it as we see it, a +poor example it must be confessed in spite of the nobility of the +tower, of the latest style of English Gothic architecture, the +Perpendicular. It was Sir John Fogge, who for this and other reasons, +is the father of the town. He lies in a great tomb in the chancel. As +for the Smyths, who lie in the south transept, Thomas, and Alicia his +wife held the manor of Ashford in the sixteenth century. Alicia was the +daughter of Sir Andrew Judde to whom the manor of Ashford had been +mortgaged in the time of Henry VII. Her son, Sir Michael Smyth, lies +close by. The family were later ennobled and bore the title of +Viscounts Strangford. + +For the outside world, however, Sir John Fogge is not Ashford's +greatest son. This honour belongs surely to Jack Cade whom Shakespeare +speaks of as the "headstrong Kentish man John Cade of Ashford," and +who, according to the poet, if headstrong, proved in the end so feeble- +minded that in Shakespeare's play we might seem to have a picture of +one suffering from general paralysis of the insane. Jack Cade, however, +was, as we are beginning to realise, a much greater and more +significant figure than Shakespeare allows us to see. + +But Ashford is not made for lingering, it is all for departure, the +roads, if not the trains, lead swiftly away north, south, east and +west. As for me I went by the south-west road which said twelve miles +to Tenterden. + +I went under a fine rain on a day of married white and blue, and even +before I had forgot Ashford, which was long before I crossed the Stour, +the rain had ceased, the sun shone forth and a great wind came out of +the marsh and the sea full of good tidings, so that climbing up to +Great Chart I laughed in my heart to be in England on such a day and on +such a road. + +Great Chart, as I saw while still far off, is a village typical of this +country that I love, if indeed a place so completely itself is typical +of anything: a little English village, but it outfaces the whole world +in its sureness of itself, its quietness and air of immemorial +antiquity. Many a city older by far looks parvenu beside Great Chart. +Let us consider, with tears if you will, what they are making of Rome +and be thankful that our ways are not their ways. For what wins you at +once in Great Chart is the obvious fact that it has always stood there +on its hill over the Weald, and as far as one may see at a glance, much +the same as it stands to-day. And what delights you is the church there +on the highest ground, on the last hill overlooking the great Weald, a +sign in the sky, a portent, a necessary thing natural to the landscape. + +What you see is a rectangular building with three eastern gables over +three Decorated windows, a long nave roof over square Perpendicular +windows and clerestory, flat outer roofs and tall western Tower, a +noble thing significant of our civilisation and the Faith out of which +it has come. + +Within, one finds a church like and yet unlike that at Ashford. Nave +and chancel are of the same width, and the arcades run from end to end +of the church really without a break, though half way a wall, borne by +three arches, crosses the church separating the chancel and its +chapels from the nave. The central arch of the three is of course the +chancel arch, but the wall it bears does not reach to the roof so that +the nave, clerestory and roof are seen running on beyond it. All this +is curious rather than lovely, but like every other strangeness in +England of my heart, it is to be explained by the long, long history +of things still--Deo gratias--remaining to us, so that when I said +that our buildings were growths rather than works of art I spoke +truth. + +The church of St Mary of Great Chart is not mentioned in the Domesday +Survey, but that a church existed here in the twelfth century is +certain, for even in the present building we have evidences of Norman +work, for instance in the walling of the south chapel, and in the +vestry doorway. According to the Rev. G.M. Livett, [Footnote: K.A.S. +26.] the Norman nave was as long as that we have, which is built in +all probability on its foundation. The aisleless Norman church, +however, had a central tower to the east of the present chancel arch +and transepts, as well as a chancel. This church appears to have stood +till the fourteenth century, when it was entirely rebuilt and +reclaimed, and all the lower part of the present church built, to be +heightened and lengthened at the end of the fifteenth century when the +clerestory and the chancel arcade were built, a new aisle wall set up +on the north and the south aisle raised, the rood loft built or +rebuilt. + +We are reminded of all this history by the fine altar tomb in the +north chapel where lie William Goldwell and Alice his wife (d. 1485). +Their son James was Vicar of Great Chart in 1458, and became Bishop of +Norwich in 1472, when he obtained from the Pope "an indulgence in aid +of the restoration of Great Chart church which had been damaged by +fire." Here is the cause and the source of the fifteenth century +alterations and the church we see. The brasses in the church are also +interesting. Many of them commemorate the Tokes of Godinton, who +founded the almshouse in the village, which, rebuilt more than once I +think, we still see. All these things and more than these the great +yew in the churchyard has seen as its shadow grew over the graves. + +From Great Chart I went on through the spring sunshine across the +Weald to Bethersden, whose quarries have supplied so much of the grey +marble one finds in Kentish churches, in the monuments and effigies +and in the old manor houses in the carved chimney-pieces fair to see. +These quarries are now all but deserted, but of old they were the most +famous in Kent, which is poor in such things. Most of the stone for +the cathedrals and greater religious houses in the county came from +Caen, whence it was easily transported by water; but this stone not +only weathered badly, but was too friable for monumental effigies or +sculpture. For these harder stone was needed, resembling marble, and +this Bethersden supplied, as we may see, in the Cathedrals of +Canterbury and Rochester and especially at Hythe where the chancel +arcade is entirely built of it. + +Something too we may learn at Bethersden of the true nature of the +Weald. I shall have something to say of this later, but here at any +rate the curiously difficult character of this country in regard to +the going may be understood, though of course less easily now than of +old. It is said that before, at the end of the eighteenth century, +the excellent system of roads we still use was built up, the ways +hereabouts were so bad--they are still far from good--that when spring +came it was customary to plough them up in order that they might dry +off. We hear of great ladies going to church in carriages drawn by +teams of oxen. Hardly passable after rain, the roads, says Hasted, +were "so miry that the traveller's horse frequently plunged through +them up to the girths of the saddle; and the waggons sank so deep in +the ruts as to slide along on the nave of the wheels and axle of +them. In some few of the principal roads, as from Tenterden hither, +there was a stone causeway, about three feet wide, for the +accommodation of horse and foot passengers; but there was none further +on till near Bethersden, to the great distress of travellers. When +these roads became tolerably dry in summer, they were ploughed up, and +laid in a half circle to dry, the only amendment they ever had. In +extreme dry weather in summer, they became exceedingly hard, and, by +traffic, so smooth as to seem glazed, like a potter's vessel, though a +single hour's rain rendered them so slippery as to be very dangerous to +travellers." The roads in fact were and are, little more than lanes +between the isolated woods across the low scrub of the old Weald. + +The church of Bethersden is dedicated to St Margaret. It follows the +local type having a nave with north and south aisles and a chancel with +north and south chapels, vestry, south porch and western tower. The +place is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but about 1194 we find +Archbishop Herbert confirming the church of St Margaret of +Beatrichesdenne, with the chapel of Hecchisdenne (Etchden) to the +Priory of St Gregory in Canterbury. No sign of this Norman church +remains, the building we see in Bethersden being mainly Perpendicular; +but the double lighted windows at the west end of the north aisle are +Early English and there is a Decorated niche under the entrance to the +rood left. The tower is modern, but possesses a fourteenth century +bell. + +It is curious that though the church is dedicated to St Margaret and +the fair, according to Hasted, was held upon July 20th, St Margaret's +day, the place should be spoken of as Beatrichesdenne as though there +were some local St Beatrice; but of her we know nothing. + +Bethersden is connected with the Lovelaces for they owned it, Richard +Lovelace, the poet, having sold Lovelace Place to Richard Hulse, soon +after the death of Charles I. Three members of the Lovelace family +lie in the church, their tombs marked by brasses; William Lovelace +(1459) another William Lovelace, gentleman (1459), and Thomas Lovelace +(1591). + +From Bethersden I went on to High Halden, which stands upon a ridge +out of the Weald, a very characteristic and beautiful place, with a +most interesting church dedicated to Our Lady. Indeed I do not know +where one could match the strange wooden tower and belfry and the +noble fourteenth century porch, masterpieces of carpentry, which close +on the west the little stone church of the fifteenth century. Within +the most interesting thing left to us is the glass in the east window +of the south chancel where we see the Blessed Virgin with her lily, +part of an Annunciation. There, too, in another window are the arms of +Castile and of Leon, a strange blazon to find in the Weald of Kent. + +But characteristic as Great Chart, Bethersden and High Halden are of +this strange wealden county, they do not express it, sum it up and +dominate it as does Tenterden Town, some two or three miles to the +south of High Halden. + +If we look at the ordnance map we shall see that the town of Tenterden +is set upon a great headland thrust out by the higher land of the +Kentish Weald, southward and east towards those low marshlands that +are lost almost imperceptibly in the sea, and are known to us as +Romney Marsh. This great headland, in shape something like a clenched +fist, stands between the two branches of the Rother, the river which +flows into the sea at Rye, and which was once navigable by ships so +far up as Small Hythe just under the southern escarpment of the +headland upon which Tenterden stands. Hither so late as 1509 the +Rother was navigable, and we find Archbishop Warham on the petition of +the people licensing a small chapel there of St John Baptist still in +existence, for the use of the inhabitants and as a sanctuary or a +graveyard for the burial of those wrecked on the "sea-shore" _infra +predictum oppidum de Smallhyth_. + +Now in this lies all the greatness of Tenterden. Rye, which had early +been added to the Cinque Ports, was a place of very considerable +importance, but upon the east it was entirely cut off by Romney Marsh, +upon the west, too, a considerable marshland closed by a great and +desolate hill country closed it in, but to the north was a navigable +river, a road that is, leading up into England, and at the head of it +a town naturally sprang up. That town was Tenterden, and her true +position was recognised by Henry VI., when he united her to Rye. Till +then she was one of "the Seven Hundreds" belonging to the Crown. +Domesday Book knows nothing of her; as a place of importance, as a +town that is, she is a creation of Rye, and her development was thus +necessarily late and endured but for a season. I suppose the great +days of Rye to have been those of the thirteenth and fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries; and it was therefore during this period that +Tenterden began its career as a town. After the failure of the sea, +Rye sank slowly back into what it is to-day, but Tenterden would +appear to have stood up against that misfortune with some success, +for we find Elizabeth incorporating it under a charter. + +There can be but few more charming towns in Kent than Tenterden as we +see it to-day, looking out from its headland southward to the great +uplifted Isle of Oxney beyond which lies the sea, and eastward over +all the mystery of Romney Marsh. The church which should, one thinks, +have borne the name of St Michael, is dedicated in honour of St +Mildred. It is a large building of the thirteenth, fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries, the tower, its latest feature, being also its +noblest. Indeed the tower of Tenterden church, if we may believe the +local legend, is certainly the most important in Kent. For it is said, +and, rightly understood, there may after all be something in it, to +have been the cause of the Goodwin Sands. Fuller asserts "when the +vicinage in Kent met to consult about the inundation of the Goodwin +Sands (date not given) and what might be the cause thereof, an old man +imputed it to the building of Tenterden steeple in this county; for +these sands, said he, were firm sands before that steeple was built, +which ever since were overflown with sea-water. Hereupon all heartily +laughed at his unlogical reason, making that effect in Nature which + +was only the consequent on time; not flowing from, but following after +the building of that steeple." + +According to Latimer, however, it was Sir Thomas More who drew this +answer from the ancient, and if this be so, it certainly fixes the +date. "Maister More," says Latimer, "was once sent in commission into +Kent to help to trie out (if it might be) what was the cause of Goodwin +Sands and the shelfs that stopped up Sandwich haven. Thither cometh +Maister More and calleth the countye afore him, such as were thought to +be men of experience, and men that could of likelihode best certify him +of that matter, concerning the stopping of Sandwich haven. Among others +came in before him an olde man with a white head, and one that was +thought to be little lesse than an hundereth yeares olde. When +Maister More saw this aged man he thought it expedient to heare him say +his minde in this matter, for being so olde a man it was likely that he +knew most of any man in that presence and company. So Maister More +called this olde aged man unto him and sayd, 'Father,' sayd he, 'tell +me if ye can what is the cause of this great arising of the sande and +shelves here about this haven the which sop it up that no shippes can +aride here? Ye are the oldest man that I can espie in all this +companye, so that, if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of all +likelihode can say most in it, or at least wise more than any other man +here assembled.' 'Yea forsooth, good maister,' quod this olde man, 'for +I am well nigh an hundred yeares olde and no man here in this company +anything neare unto mine age.' 'Well, then,' quod Maister More, 'how +say you in this matter? What thinke ye to be the cause of these shelves +and flattes that stop up Sandwiche haven?' 'Forsooth syr,' quod he, 'I +am an olde man. I think Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin +Sandes. For I am an old man syr' quod he, 'and I may remember the +building of Tenterden Steeple and I may remember when there was no +steeple at all there. And before that Tenterden Steeple was in +building there was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands that +stopped the haven; and therefore I thinke that Tenterden steeple is +the cause of the destroying and decaying of Sandwich haven." + +Post hoc, propter hoc and this silly old man has been held up to all +ensuing ages as an absurdly simple old fellow. But what after all if +he should be right in part at least? + +Tenterden church, we are told, belonged to the Abbey of St Augustine +in Canterbury, which also owned the Goodwin Sands, part, it is said, +of the immense domain of Earl Godwin. Now it was in their hands that +the money collected throughout Kent for the building and fencing of +the coast against the sea had always been placed. We learn that "when +the sea had been very quiet for many years without any encroachings," +the abbot commuted that money to the building of a steeple and +endowing of the church in Tenterden, so that the sea walls were +neglected. If this be so, that oldest inhabitant was not such a fool +as he seems to look. + +I slept under the shadow of Tenterden steeple and very early in the +morning set out for Appledore, where I crossed the canal and came into +the Marsh. I cannot hope to express my enthusiasm for this strange and +mysterious country so full of the music of running water, with its +winding roads, its immense pastures, its cattle and sheep and flowers, +its far away great hills and at the end, though it has no end, the +sea. It mixes with the sea indeed as the sky does, so that no man far +off can say this is land or this is water. + +It is famous as a fifth part of the world different from its fellows. +And indeed, if it resembles anything I know it is not with the wide +moors of Somerset, Sedgemoor, or the valley of the Brue, nor with the +great windy Fenland in the midst of which Ely rises like a shrine or +a sanctuary, I would compare it, but with the Campagna of Rome, whose +tragic mystery it seems to have borrowed, at least in part, whose +beauty it seems to wear, a little provincially, it is true, and whose +majesty it apes, but cannot quite command. It is the Campagna in +little; the great and noble mountains, the loveliest in the world are +sunk to hills pure and exquisite upon which, too, we may still see the +cities, here little towns and villages, as Rye, Winchelsea, Appledore, +Lympne or Hythe, dear places of England of my heart, and all between +them this mysterious and lowly thing not quite of this world, a +graveyard one might think, as the Campagna is, a battlefield as is the +Trasimeno plain, a gate and certainly an exit not only out of England +but from the world and life itself. + +As one wanders about England here and there, one comes to understand +that if its landscape is unique in its various charm and soft beauty, +it is also inhuman in this, that most often it is without the figure +of man, the fields are always empty or nearly always, the hills are +uniformly barren of cities or towns or villages, it is a landscape +without the gesture of human toil and life, without meaning that is, +and we can bear it so. But no man could live in the Marsh for a day +without that gesture of human life that is there to be seen upon every +side. Lonely as it is, difficult as it is to cross, because of its +chains and twisting lines of runnels, man is more visibly our comrade +there than anywhere else in England I think, and this though there be +but few men through all the Marsh. He and his beasts, his work too, +and his songs, redeem the Marsh for us from fear, a fear not quite +explicable, perhaps, to the mere passenger, but that anyone who has +lingered there during a month of spring will recognise as always at +his elbow and only kept out of the soul by the humanity which has +redeemed this mysterious country, the shepherd with his flock, the +dairyman with his cows, the carter with his great team of oxen in the +spring twilight returning from the fields. And then there are the +churches, whose towers stand up so strong out of the waters and the +mist so that their heads are among the stars, and whose bells are the +best music because they tell not only of God and his Saints but of +man, of the steading and of home. + +[Illustration: A CORNER OF ROMNEY MARSH] + +Take Appledore, for instance, with its fine old church, with its air +of the fourteenth century and its beautiful old ivy grown +tower, once a port they say, on the verge of the Marsh; what +could be more nobly simple and homely? Within, you may, if you +will, find, in spite of everything, all our past, the very altar at +which of old was said the Holy Mass, the very altar tomb maybe where, +upon Maunday Thursday Christ Himself was laid in the sepulchre, an old +rood loft, too, certain ancient screens complete, a little ancient +glass. What more can a man want or at least expect from England of my +heart? And if he demand something more curious and more rare, at Horn's +Place, not a mile away, is a perfect chapel of the fifteenth century +which served of old some great steading, where, for a hundred years +Mass was perhaps said every day and the Marsh blessed. Or take Snargate +with its church of St Dunstan. It, too, has a fine western tower of the +fifteenth century, but much of the church dates from the thirteenth, +and upon the north chancel roof-beams are heraldic devices, among them +an eagle and the initials W.R. And here is a piece of fine old glass in +which we may see the Lord Christ. Or take Ivychurch; so noble and +lovely a thing is the church that even without it catches the breath, +while a whole afternoon is not enough to enjoy its inward beauty. Or +take Brenzett, where, it is true, the church has been rebuilt, but +where you will still find a noble seventeenth century tomb with its +effigies in armour. + +It is, however, at Romney, Old Romney and New, that we shall find the +best there is to be had I think in this strange country from which the +waters have only been barred out by the continual energy of man. We are +not surprised to find that New Romney is older than Old Romney, it is +almost what might have been expected, but no one can ever have come to +these places without wonder at the nobility of what he sees. + +At New Romney there were of old five churches, dedicated in honour of +St John Baptist, St Laurence, St Martin, St Michael, and St Nicholas, +for Romney was, in the time of Edward I., the greatest of the Cinque +Ports. It fell when, as we are told, in a great storm the course of +the Rother was changed so that it went thereafter to serve Rye, and +New Romney fell slowly down so that to-day but one of those five +churches remains, that of St Nicholas. But what a glorious church it +is, and if the rest were like it, what idea must we have of the +splendour of New Romney in the thirteenth century? This great Norman +church of St Nicholas with its partly fourteenth century nave, its +clerestory, its fine chancel with sedilia and Easter sepulchre, and +noble pinnacled tower is perhaps the greatest building in the Marsh. +It belonged to the Abbey of Pontigny and was served by its monks who +had a cell here, and the town it adorns and ennobles, was the capital +of all this district. + +Nothing so glorious and so old remains in Old Romney, where the church +of St Clement has nothing I think, earlier than the thirteenth +century, and little of that, being mainly a building of the fourteenth +and fifteenth centuries, and yet it is not to be despised, for where +else in the Marsh will you find anything more picturesque or anything +indeed more English? + +Not at Dymchurch for all its Norman fragments. But Dymchurch is to be +visited and to be loved for other reasons than that of beauty. It is +the sentinel and saviour of the Marsh, for it holds back the sea from +all this country with its great wall, twenty feet high and twenty +feet broad and three miles long. Also here we have certain evidence of +the Roman occupation of the Marsh, and may perhaps believe that it was +Rome which first drained it. + +I said that the church of St Nicholas at New Romney was the noblest +building in the Marsh. When I said so had I forgotten the church of +All Saints at Lydd, which is known as the Cathedral of the Marshes. +No, glorious as All Saints is, it has not the antiquity of St +Nicholas; it is altogether English and never knew the Norman. For all +that, it is a very splendid building with a tower standing one hundred +and thirty-two feet over the Marsh, a sign and a blessing. And yet +before it I prefer the bell tower, built of mighty timber, aloof from +the church, lonely, over the waters at Brookland. All Saints at Lydd +belonged to Tintern Abbey, but All Saints at Brookland to St +Augustine's at Canterbury, and as its font will tell us it dates from +Norman times, for about it the Normans carved the signs of the Zodiac. + +Brookland, hard to get at, stands on the great road which runs south- +westward out of the Marsh and brings you at last out of Kent into +Sussex at Rye. It was there I lingered a little to say farewell. +As one looks at evening across that vast loneliness, so desolate +and yet so beautiful and infinitely subject to the sky, lying +between the hills and sinking so imperceptibly into the sea, +one continually asks oneself what is Romney Marsh, by whom +was it reclaimed from the all-devouring sea, what forces built +it up and gathered from barrenness the infinite riches we see? +Was it the various forces of Nature, the racing tides of the +straits, some sudden upheaval of the earth, or the tireless +energy of men--and of what men? Those seventeen miles of richest +pasture which lie in an infinite peace between Appledore and +Dungeness, to whom do we owe them and their blessedness? That wall at +Dymchurch which saves the marshes, Romney, Welland, Guildford and +Denge, who contrived it and first took advantage of those great banks +of shingle and of sand which everywhere bar out the great tides of the +straits and have thus created and preserved this strange fifth part of +the world? Was it the Romans? May we see in Romney Marsh the greatest +material memorial of their gigantic energy and art to be found in the +western provinces, a nobler and a greater work than the Wall as well +as a more lasting? And if this be so, how well is the Marsh named +after them, for of all they did materially in our island, this work of +reclamation was surely the worthiest to bear their name. + +But to these questions there can perhaps never be an answer. Certainly +the very aspect of the Marsh recalls nothing so much as the Campagna +of Rome, in its nobility, loneliness and infinite subjection to the +sun, the clouds, and the sky, so that at evening there we might almost +think that Rome herself lay only just beyond that large horizon, and +that with an effort we might reach the great gate of San Giovanni e'er +darkness fell. It is as though in the Marsh our origins for once and +unmistakably were laid bare for us and we had suddenly recognised our +home. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +RYE AND WINCHELSEA + + +Out of the vagueness and loneliness of the Marsh, with its strange +level light and tingling silence, I climbed one spring evening at +sunset into the ancient town of Rye, and at first I could not believe +I was still in England. No one I think can wander for more than a few +days about the Marsh, among those half deserted churches, far too big +for any visible congregation, whose towers in a kind of despair still +stand up before God against the sea, raging and plotting far off +against the land, without wondering at last into what country he has +strayed. In Rye all such doubt is resolved at once, for Rye is pure +Italy, or at least it seems so in the evening dusk. When I came up +into it in the spring twilight out of the Marsh, I was reminded of one +of those Italian cities which stand up over the lean shore of the +Adriatic to the south of Rimini, but it was not of them I thought when +in the morning sunlight I saw those red roofs piled up one upon +another from the plain: it was of Siena. And indeed Rye is in its +smaller, less complete and of course less exquisite way very like the +most beautiful city in Tuscany. Here, too, as in Siena, the red-roofed +houses climb up a hill, one upon another, a hill crowned at last by a +great church dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin. But here the +likeness, too fanciful for reality, ceases altogether. It is true that +Siena looks out beyond her own gardens and vineyards upon a desert, +but it is a very different desolation upon which Rye gazes all day +long, out of which she rises with all the confidence, grace, and +gaiety of a flower, and over which she rules like a queen. + +From the Porta Romana of Siena or the outlook of the Servi, you gaze +southward across the barren, scorched valleys to the far-away +mountains, to Monte Amiata, the fairest mountain of Tuscany. From the +Ypres Tower of Rye or the Gun Garden below it, you look only across +the level and empty Marsh which sinks beyond Camber Castle +imperceptibly into the greyness and barrenness of the sea. To the +east, across the flat emptiness, the Rother crawls seaward; to the +west across the Marsh, as once across the sea, Winchelsea rises +against the woods, and beyond, far away, the darkness of Fairlight +hangs like a cloud twixt sea and sky. + +Indeed, to liken Rye to any other place is to do her wrong, for both +in herself and in that landscape over which she broods, there is +enough beauty and enough character to give her a life and a meaning +altogether her own. From afar off, from Winchelsea, for instance, in +the sunlight, she seems like a town in a missal, crowned by that +church which seems so much bigger than it is, gay and warm and yet +with something of the greyness of the sea and the sea wind about her, a +place that, as so few English places do, altogether makes a picture in +the mind, and is at unity with itself. + +And from within she seems not less complete, a thing wholly ancient, +delightful, with a picturesque and yet homely beauty that is the child +of ancientness. Yet how much has Rye lost! The walls of Coeur de Lion +have fallen, and only one of the gates remains; but so long as the +church and the beautiful strong tower of William de Ypres stand, and +the narrow cobbled streets full of old and humble houses climb up and +down the steep hill, the whole place is involved in their beauty and +sanctity, our hearts are satisfied and our eyes engaged on behalf of a +place at once so old and picturesque and yet so neat and tidy and +always ready to receive a guest. + +A place like Rye, naturally so strong, a steep island surrounded by +sea or impassable marsh, must have been a stronghold from very early +times; it is in fact obviously old when we first hear of it as a gift, +with Winchelsea, of Edward the Confessor's to the Benedictine Abbey of +Fecamp just across the grey channel in Normandy. Both Rye and +Winchelsea remained within the keeping of the Abbey of Fecamp until, +for reasons of State easy to be understood, Henry III. resumed the +royal rights in the thirteenth century, compensating the monks of +Fecamp with manors in Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire. For before the +end of the twelfth century it would seem Rye with Winchelsea had +become of so much importance as a port as to have been added to the +famous Cinque Ports, Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney and Hastings. From +this time both play a considerable part in the trade and politics of +the Channel and the Straits. + +It was to enable her to hold herself secure in this business and +especially against raids from the sea that the Ypres Tower was built +in the time of King Stephen, by William of Ypres, Earl of Kent. It was +a watch tower and perhaps a stronghold, but it was never sufficient. +Even in 1194 Coeur de Lion permitted the town to wall itself. +Nevertheless Louis the Dauphin of France took Rye, and it may well +have been this which determined Henry III. to take the town out of the +hands of the monks of Fecamp and to hold it himself. + +Doubtless Rye's greatest moment was this thirteenth century, nor did +she appear much less in the fourteenth and the first half of the +fifteenth century. But often sacked and burned, the town was +practically destroyed by the French in 1378 and 1448, when only the +Ypres Tower, part of the church, the Landgate, the Strandgate and the +so-called chapel of the Carmelite Friars escaped destruction. But from +this blow Rye recovered to play a part, if a small one, in the defeat +of the Armada, and though the retreat of the sea, which seems to have +begun in the sixteenth century, undoubtedly damaged her, it did not +kill her outright as it did Winchelsea, for she had the Rother to help +her, and we find her prosperous not only in the time of the +Commonwealth, but even to-day, when, with the help of a new harbour +at the mouth of the river, she is still able to carry on her trade. + +[Illustration: RYE] + +Nothing in fact strikes the visitor to Rye more than the bustle and +life of a place obviously so old. All the streets are steep and narrow +and the chief of them, the High Street, seems always to be gay and +full of business, and is as truly characteristic of Rye as those still +and grass-grown ways cobbled and half deserted, which lead up to the +noble great church in its curious _place_. + +It is of course to this great sanctuary dedicated in honour of the +Blessed Virgin, that everyone will go first in Rye. It has been called +the largest parish church in England, and though this claim cannot be +made good, it is in all probability the largest in Sussex, is in fact +known as the Cathedral of East Sussex, and if a church became a +cathedral by reason of its beauty and size it might rightly claim the +title. It is certainly worthy of the most loving attention. + +The church of Our Lady at Rye is a great cruciform building with +clerestory, transepts, and central tower, but without western doors, +the chief entrance being in the north transept. The church is of all +dates from the Norman time onward, a very English patchwork, here due +to the depredations, not so much of time, as of the French who have so +often raided and burnt the town. The oldest part is the tower, which +is Norman, as are, though somewhat later, the transepts, where certain +details show the Transitional style. In this style again, but somewhat +later, is the nave. The chancel and its two chapels are Early English, +but with many important Decorated, Perpendicular and modern details, +such as the arcade and the windows. The Early English chapel upon the +north is that of St Clare, that upon the south is dedicated in honour +of St Nicholas. In the south aisle of the nave is an Early English +chantry, now used as a vestry. The communion table of carved +mahogany is said to have been taken from a Spanish ship at the time +of the Armada, but it would seem certainly not to be older than the +end of the seventeenth century. The curious clock whose bells are +struck by golden cherubs on the north side of the tower, is said to +have been a gift of Queen Elizabeth and to be the oldest clock in +England still in good order. It is probably of late Caroline +construction, but even though it were of the sixteenth century its +claim to be the oldest clock now at work in England could not be +upheld for a moment, that in Wells Cathedral being far older. The +pulpit is of the sixteenth century. In the north aisle is a curious +collection of Bibles and cannon balls, and here, too, is a small +window with glass by Burne Jones. + +To the south-west of the church is the so-called Carmelite Chapel, a +late Decorated building. What exactly this was and to whom it +belonged, is uncertain; it was not a chapel of Carmelite Friars. The +only establishment belonging to that Order within the county of Susses +was at Shoreham, founded in honour of the Blessed Virgin, by Sir John +de Mowbray in 1316. + +So far as we know the only religious to be found in + +Rye at the time of the spoliation were the Austin Friars. Their house +still stands--a building of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth +century--on the Conduit Hill. It has passed through many strange uses, +among others that of a Salvation Army barracks. It is now the Anglican +Church House. This was the only settlement of the Austin Friars in +Sussex, and of its origin nothing is known. In 1368 we hear that the +prior and convent of the Friars Eremites of St Austin in Rye permitted +one of their brethren, a priest, to say Mass daily, at the altar of St +Nicholas, in the parish church for the welfare of William Taylour of +Rye, and of Agnes his wife. In 1378 the town granted them a place +called "le Haltone" near the town ditch. But apart from these two facts +their history is altogether wanting. + +From the parish church one descends south-east to the Ypres Tower. This +watch tower and stronghold was built in the time of King Stephen by +William of Ypres, Earl of Kent, and is in many ways the most impressive +building left to us in Rye. It is undoubtedly best seen from the river, +but it and the garden below it afford a great view over the marshes on +a clear day, eastward to the cliffs of Folkestone and westward to +Fairlight. In itself it is a plain rectangular building with round +towers at the angles, but with nothing of interest within. Yet what +would Rye be without it. For many years it was the sole defence of the +town. + +Most of those who come to Rye enter the town, and with a sudden +surprise not to be found elsewhere, by the Landgate upon the north. +There were, it is said of old, five gates about the town, but +this is the only one left to us. Nothing, or almost nothing, +of the walls remain. Doubtless the French destroyed anything +in the nature of fortification so far as they could, only the +Ypres Tower they failed to pull down or to burn, and this great round +towered gateway upon the north--why we do not know? + +It is the Landgate which gives to Rye its power of surprise, so that a +man coming up from the railway, at sight of it, is suddenly +transported into the Middle Age, and in that dream enters and enjoys +Rye town, which has never disappointed those who have come in the +right spirit. For besides the monuments of which I have spoken there +are others of lesser interest, it is true, but that altogether go to +make up the charm and delight of this unique place. Among these I will +name Mermaid Street where the grass grows among the cobbles and where +stands the Mermaid Inn and the half timber house called the Hospital, +Pocock's School and Queen Elizabeth's Well. Better still, for me at +least, is the life of the river and the shipyards, where, though Rye +is now two miles from the sea, ships are still built and the life of +the place and its heart are adventured and set upon the great waters. + +So alluring indeed is this little town that one is always loath to +leave it, one continually excuses oneself from departure. One day I +delayed in order to see the famous poem in the old book in the town +archives which I already knew from Mr Lucas's book. It is certainly +of Henry VIII.'s time, and who could have written it but that unhappy +Sir Thomas Wyatt who loved Anne Boleyn-- + + What greater gryffe may hape + Trew lovers to anoye + Then absente for to sepratte them + From ther desiered joye? + + What comforte reste them then + To ease them of ther smarte + But for to thincke and myndful bee + Of them they love in harte? + + And sicke that they assured bee + Ehche toe another in harte + That nothinge shall them seperate + Untylle deathe doe them parte? + + And thoughe the dystance of the place + Doe severe us in twayne, + Yet shall my harte thy harte imbrace + Tyll we doe meete agayne. + + +Then one sunny afternoon I went out by the road past Camber Castle +across Rye Foreign for Winchelsea on its hill some two miles from Rye +to the west. + +There is surely nothing in the world quite like Winchelsea. Lovelier by +far than Rye, not only in itself, but because of what it offers you, +those views of hill and marsh and sea with Rye itself, like I know not +what little masterpiece of Flemish art, in the middle distance +eastward, Winchelsea is a place never to be left or at worst never to +be forgotten. One comes to it from Rye on a still afternoon of spring +when the faint shadows are beginning to lengthen, expecting little. In +fact, if the traveller be acceptable, capable of appreciating anything +so still and exquisite, Winchelsea will appear to him to be, as it is +one of the loveliest things left to us in England, place, as Coventry +Patmore so well said, in a trance, La Belle an Bois dormant. Nowhere +else in England certainly have I found just that exquisite stillness, +that air of enchantment, as of something not real, something in a +picture or a poem, inexplicable and inexpressible. How spacious it is, +and how quiet, full of the sweetness and the beauty of some motet by +Byrd. History is little to us in such a place, which is to be enjoyed +for its own sake, for its own unique beauty and delight. And yet the +history of Winchelsea is almost as unique as is the place itself. + +Winchelsea when we first hear of it as given by King Edward Confessor +to the monks of Fecamp, was not set upon this hill-top as we see it +to-day, but upon an island, low and flat, now submerged some three +miles south and east of the present town. Here William the Conqueror +landed upon his return from Normandy when he set out to take Exeter +and subdue the West; here again two of those knights who murdered St +Thomas landed in their pride, hot from the court of Henry their +master. Like Rye, its sister, to whom it looked across the sea, +Winchelsea was added to the Cinque Ports and was presently taken from +the monks of Fecamp by Henry III. It was now its disasters began. +In 1236 it was inundated by the sea as again in 1250, when +it was half destroyed. Eagerly upon the side of Montfort it +was taken after Evesham by Prince Edward, and its inhabitants +slain, so that when in 1288 it was again drowned by the sea +it was decided to refound the town upon the hill above, then in +the possession of Battle Abbey, which the King purchased for this +purpose. At that time the hill upon which Winchelsea was built, and +still stands, was washed by the sea, and the harbour soon became of +very great importance, indeed until the sixteenth century, when the +sea began to retire, Winchelsea was of much greater importance than +Rye. The retreat of the sea, however, completely ruined it, for it was +served by no river as Rye was by the Rother. + +The town of Edward I., as we may see to-day, by what time has left us +of it, was built in squares, a truly Latin arrangement, the streets +all remaining at right angles the one to the other. It had three gates +and was defended upon the west, where it was not naturally strong, by +a great ditch. It was attacked and sacked by the French as often as +Rye, though not always at the same time. Thus in 1377, when Rye was +half destroyed, Winchelsea was saved by the Abbot of Battle, only to +be taken three years later by John de Vienne, when the town was burnt. +No doubt these constant and mostly successful attacks deeply injured +the place which, after the sea had begun to retreat in the sixteenth +century, at the time of Elizabeth's visit in 1573, only mustered some +sixty families. From that time Winchelsea slowly declined till there +remains only the exquisite ghost we see to-day. + +One comes up out of the Marsh into Winchelsea to-day through the +Strand Gate of the time of Edward I., and presently finds oneself in +the beautiful and spacious square in which stands the lovely fragment +of the church of St Thomas of Canterbury. + +This extraordinarily lovely building dates from the fourteenth +century. As we see it, it is but a fragment, consisting of the chancel +and two side chapels, but as originally planned it would seem to have +been a cruciform building of chancel, choir with side chapels, a +central tower, transept and nave. It is doubtful, however, whether +the nave was ever built, the ruins of the transepts and of two piers +of the tower only remain. + +I say it was doubtful whether this nave was ever built. It has been +asserted, it is true, that it was burnt by the French either in 1380 +or in 1449, but it seems more probable that it was never completed +owing to the devastation of the Black Death of 1348-9, though certain +discoveries made of late would seem to endorse the older theory. +Certain it is that until the end of the eighteenth century, there +stood to the south-west of the church a great bell tower, a detached +campanile, now dismantled, whose stones are said to have been used to +build Rye Harbour. + +The church, as we have it, is one of the loveliest Decorated buildings +in the county; the Perpendicular porch, however, by which we enter does +not belong to the church but possibly came here from one of the +destroyed churches of Winchelsea, St Giles's or St Leonard's. Within +we find ourselves in a great choir or chancel, with a chapel +on either hand, that on the right dedicated in honour of St +Nicholas and known as the Alard Chantry, that on the left the Lady +Chapel known as the Farncombe Chantry. The arcades which divide these +chapels from the choir are extraordinarily beautiful, as are the +restored sedilia and piscina with their gables and pinnacles and +lovely diaper work. The windows, too, are very noble and fine, and rich +in their tracery, which might seem to be scarcely English. + +[Illustration: WINCHELSEA CHURCH] + +In the Chapel of St Nicholas, the Alard Chantry, on the south, are the +glorious canopied tombs of Gervase Alard (1300) and Stephen Alard. The +first is the finer; it is the tomb of the first Lord High Admiral of +England. The sepulchral effigy lies cross-legged with a heart in its +hands and a lion at its feet; and about its head two angels once +knelt. The whole was doubtless once glorious with colour, traces of +which still remain on the beautiful diaper work of the recess. The +tomb of Stephen Alard is later, but similar though less rich. Stephen +was Admiral of the Cinque Ports in the time of Edward II. Another of +the family, Reginald, lies beneath the floor where of old a brass +marked his tomb (1354). + +In the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, the Farncombe Chantry, are three +tombs all canopied with a Knight in chain armour, a Lady, and a young +Squire. We are ignorant whose they may be. It is certain that these +tombs are older than the church, and they are said to have been +brought here from old Winchelsea. + +But Winchelsea has other ruins and other memories besides those to be +found in the parish church. + +The Franciscans, the Grey Friars, were established in Winchelsea very +early, certainly before 1253; and when old Winchelsea was destroyed +and the new town built on the hill by the King it was agreed that no +monastery or friary should be built there save only a house for the +Friars Minor. This was erected where now the modern mansion called +'The Friars' stands, the old convent having been pulled down so lately +as 1819. A part of the ruined Chapel of the Blessed Virgin remains, +however, the choir and apse. Decorated work not much later than the +parish church, and of great beauty. Unhappily we know absolutely +nothing of the Friars in Winchelsea, except that when the house was +suppressed in 1538 it was exceedingly poor. + +The Franciscans, however, were not the only Friars in Winchelsea in +spite of the agreement made at the foundation of the new town. In 1318 +Edward II. granted the Black Friars, the Dominicans, twelve acres on +the southern side of the hill. This situation was found inconvenient, +and in 1357 the Dominicans obtained six acres "near the town." +Nothing, or almost nothing, remains of their house. + +Besides these two religious houses, Winchelsea possessed three +hospitals, those of St John, St Bartholomew and Holy Cross. + +The Hospital of St Bartholomew was near the New Gate on the south-west +of the town, and dated from the refounding of Edward. Nothing remains +of it, or of the Hospital of Holy Cross, which had existed in old +Winchelsea and was set up in the new town also near the New Gate. But +the oldest and the most important of the three hospitals was that of +St John. A fragment of this remains where the road turns towards +Hastings to the north of the churchyard. Close by is the thirteenth- +century Court House. + +It is always with regret I leave Winchelsea when I must, and even the +beautiful road through Icklesham into Hastings will not reconcile one +who has known how to love this place, to departure. And yet how fair +that road is and how fair is the Norman church of St Nicholas at +Icklesham upon the way! The road winds up over the low shore towards +Fairlight, ever before one, and at last as one goes up Guestling Hill +through a whole long afternoon and reaches the King's Head Inn at +sunset, suddenly across the smoke of Hastings one sees Pevensey Level, +and beyond, the hills where fell the great fight in which William Duke +of Normandy disputed for England with Harold the King. At sunset, when +all that country is half lost in the approaching darkness, one seems to +feel again the tragedy of that day so fortunate after all, in which +once more we were brought back into the full life of Europe and renewed +with the energy Rome had stored in Gaul. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS + + +It is not often on one's way, even in England of my heart, that one +can come upon a place, a lonely hill-side or a city, and say: this is +a spot upon which the history of the world was decided; yet I was able +on that showery morning, as I went up out of Hastings towards Battle +and saw all the level of Pevensey full of rain, to recall two such +places in which I had stood already upon my pilgrimage. For I had +lingered a whole morning upon the battlefield where the Romans first +met and overthrew our forefathers and thus brought Britain within the +Empire; while at Canterbury I had been in the very place where, after +an incredible disaster, England was persuaded back again out of +barbarism into the splendour of the Faith and of civilisation. These +places are more than English, they are European sanctuaries, two of +the greater sites of the history of Europe. Perhaps as much cannot +rightly be said for the hill where the town of Battle stands, the +landing-place at Pevensey and the port of Hastings. + +And yet I don't know. What a different England it would have been if +William of Normandy had failed or had never landed here at all. And if +such an England could have endured how changed would have been the +whole destiny of Europe. I am not sure after all that we ought not to +be as uplifted by the memory of Hastings as we are or should be by the +memory of Caesar's advent. At any rate since Hastings was fought and +won in the eleventh century any national prejudices that belong wholly +to the modern world are quite as much out of place with regard to it as +they are with regard to Caesar or St Augustine. And if we must be +indignant and remember old injuries that as often as not were sheer +blessings, scarcely in disguise, let us reserve our hatred, scorn and +contempt for those damned pagan and pirate hordes that first from +Schleswig-Holstein and later from Denmark descended upon our Christian +country, and for a time overwhelmed us with their brutish barbarism. +As for me I am for the Duke of Normandy; without him England were not +the England of my heart. + +Now the great and beautiful road up out of Hastings, seven miles into +Battle, is not only one of the loveliest in Britain, every yard of it +is full of Duke William's army, and thence we may see how in its +wonderful simplicity all that mighty business which was decided that +October morning on the hill-top that for so long Battle Abbey guarded +as a holy place, was accomplished. For looking southward over the +often steep escarpment, always between three and five hundred feet +over the sea plain, we may see Pevensey Castle, the landing, Hastings, +the port, and at last come to Battle, the scene of the fight that gave +England to the Norman for our enormous good and glory and honour. + +I say that the struggle for the English crown between Duke William of +Normandy and Harold, King of England, was in no sense of the word a +national struggle; on the contrary, it was a personal question fought +and decided by the Duke of Normandy and his men, and Harold and his +men. Indeed the society of that time was altogether innocent of any +impulse which could be called national. That society, all of one piece +as it was, both in England and in Gaul, was wholly Feudal, though +somewhat less precisely so here than in Normandy. Men's allegiance +was not given to any such vague unity as England, but to a feudal +lord, in whose quarrel they were bound to fight, in whose victory they +shared, and in whose defeat they suffered. The quarrel between King +Harold and Duke William was in no sense of the word a national +quarrel but a personal dispute in which the feudal adherents of both +parties were necessarily involved, the gage being the crown and spoil +of England. This is at once obvious when we remember that the ground +of William's claim to the throne was a promise received from King +Edward personally, unconfirmed by council or witan, but endorsed for +his own part by Harold when shipwreck had placed him in Duke William's +power. Such were the true elements of the dispute. + +It is true that the society of that time was, as I have said, all of +one piece both in England and in Gaul, but it is certain that in +England that society was less precisely organised, less conscious of +itself, less logical in its structure, in a word less real and more +barbarous than that of the Normans. The victory of Duke William meant +that the sluggish English system would be replaced or at any rate +reinvigorated by an energy and an intelligence foreign to it, without +which it might seem certain that civilisation here would have fallen +into utter decay or have perished altogether. The service of Duke +William then, while not so great as that of Caesar and certainly far +less than that of St Augustine, was of the same kind; he rescued +England from barbarism and brought us back into the full light of +Europe. The campaign in which that great service was achieved divides +itself into two parts, the first of which comes to an end with the +decisive action at Hastings which gave Duke William the crown; the +second consists of three great fighting marches, the result of which +was the conquest of England. I am only here concerned with the first +part of that campaign, and more especially with the great engagement +which was fought out upon the hill-top which the ruins of Battle Abbey +still mark. Let us consider this. + +Harold, the second son of Earl Godwin, was crowned King of England at +Westminster upon the feast of the Epiphany in the year 1066. When Duke +William heard of it he was both angry and amazed, and at once began to +call up his feudatories to lend him aid to enforce his claim to the +Crown of England against King Harold. This was not an easy thing to +do, nor could it be done at all quickly. It was necessary to gather a +great host. + +Those lords who owed him allegiance had as often as not to be +persuaded or bribed to fulfil their obligation; and they with their +followers and dependents were not enough; it was necessary to engage +as many as possible of those chiefs who did not own him as lord; these +had to be bought by promises of gain and honour. Also a considerable +fleet had to be built. All this took time, and Harold was therefore +perfectly aware of what Duke William intended, and gathered his forces, +both of ships and men, to meet him in the south of England. All through +the spring and summer he waited, in vain. Meantime, soon after Easter, +a strange portent appeared in the heavens "the comet star which some +men call the hairy star," and no man could say what it might mean. It +was not this, however, which delayed William; he was not ready. It is +possible that had he been able to advance during the summer the whole +history of England might have been different. As it was, when autumn +was at hand with the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin, Harold's men were +out of provisions and weary of waiting; they were allowed to disperse, +Harold himself went to London and the fleet beat up into the Thames, +not without damage and loss, against the wind, which, had he but known +it, now alone delayed the Duke. + +But that wind which kept William in port brought another enemy of +Harold's to England with some three hundred galleys, Hardrada of +Norway, who came to support the claims of Tostig, now his man, King +Harold's exiled brother, to Northumbria; for the Northumbrians had +rebelled against him, and Harold had acquiesced in their choice of +Morkere for lord. Neither Morkere nor his brother Edwin, with their +local forces, was able to meet Hardrada with success. They attempted +to enter York but at Fulford on the 20th September they were routed, +and Hardrada held the great northern capital. + +Meanwhile Harold had not been idle. Gathering his scattered forces he +marched north with amazing speed, covering the two hundred miles +between London and Tadcaster in nine days, to meet this new foe; but +this almost marvellous performance left the south undefended. He +entered York on September 25th, and on the same day, seven miles from +the city at Stamford Bridge, he engaged the enemy and broke them +utterly. Three days later William landed at Pevensey. + +What could Harold do? He did all that a man could do. William had +landed at Pevensey upon Thursday, September 28th. It is probable that +Harold heard of it on the following Monday, October 2nd. Immediately +he set out for London, which by hard riding he reached, though +probably with but a few men, on Friday, October 6th, an amazing +achievement, only made possible by the great Roman road between York +and London. Upon the following Tuesday and Wednesday he was joined by +his victorious forces from the north, who had thus repeated their +unequalled feat and marched south again as they had north some two +hundred miles in nine days. Upon Wednesday, October 11th, Harold +marched out of London at the head of this force, and by the evening of +October 13th--a day curiously enough to be kept later as the feast of +St Edward the Confessor--this heroic force had marched in forty-eight +hours some sixty miles across country, and was in position upon that +famous hill some two hours from the coast, overlooking the landing- +place of William at Pevensey and the port he had seized at Hastings. +That great march has, I think, never been equalled by any British army +before or since. + +It might seem strange that William, who had landed at Pevensey upon +the 28th of September, had not advanced at all from the sea-coast when +Harold and his men appeared upon that hill after their great march +from York upon October 13th. But in fact William, Norman as he was, +had a very clear idea of what he intended to do. He left little to +chance. He landed his men at Pevensey, seized upon Hastings and +beached his ships; then for a whole fortnight he awaited the hot and +weary return of Harold. Harold appeared upon the evening of October +13th. Upon the following day, a Saturday, the battle William had +expected was fought, Harold was slain and his heroic force destroyed. + +The story of that day is well known. Harold's forces were drawn up upon +the ridge where the ruins of Battle Abbey now stand. William, upon the +thirteenth, had marched out of Hastings and had occupied the hill to +the east called Telham, where to-day stands Telham Court. In those days +probably no village or habitation of any sort occupied either of these +heights; one of the chroniclers calls the battlefield the place of +"the Hoar Apple Tree." + +It is said that the night of October 13th was passed by Harold and his +men in feasting and in jollity, while the Normans confessed their sins +and received absolution. However that may be, in the full daylight, +about nine o'clock of Saturday, October 14th, the battle was joined. + +This tremendous affair which was to have such enormous consequences +was opened by the minstrel Taellefer, who had besought leave of Duke +William to strike the first blow. Between the two armies he rode +singing the Song of Roland, and high into the air he flung his lance +and caught it three times e'er he hurled it at last into the amazed +English, to fall at last, slain by a hundred javelins as he rode back +into the Norman front. + +Thus was begun the most famous battle ever fought in England. It +endured without advantage either way for some six hours till the +Norman horse, flung back from the charge, fell into the Malfosse in +utter confusion, and the day seemed lost to the Normans. But Odo, +Bishop of Bayeux, retrieved it and from that time, about three +o'clock, the Normans began to have the advantage. The battle seems to +have been decided at last by two clever devices attributed to William +himself. He determined to break Harold's line, and since he had not +been able to do this by repeated charges, he determined to try a +stratagem. Therefore he ordered his men to feign flight, and thus to +draw the English after them in pursuit. This was successfully done, and +when the English followed they were easily surrounded and slain. +William's other device is said to have been that of shooting high into +the air so that the arrows might turn and fall as from the sky upon +the foe. This stratagem is said to have been the cause of Harold's +death; for it was an arrow falling from on high and piercing him +through the right eye that killed him or so grievously wounded him +that he was left for dead, to be finally killed by Eustace of Boulogne +and three other knights. + +With Harold down there can have been little hope of victory left to +his men, and indeed before night William had planted the Pope's banner +where Harold's had floated and held the battlefield. There he supped +among the dead, and having spent Sunday, October 15th, in burying the +fallen, he set out not for London, but for Dover, for his simple and +precise plan was to secure all the entries into England from the +continent before securing the capital. When he had done this he +marched up into England by the Watling Street, burned Southwark, +crossed the Thames at Wallingford, received there the submission of +the Archbishop of Canterbury, and at Berkhampstead the submission of +London and the offer of the Crown which he received at Westminster at +Mass upon Christmas Day; twelve days less than a year after Harold +had been crowned in the same place. + +One comes to Battle to-day along that great and beautiful road, high +up over the sea plain, which still seems full with memories of the +Norman advance from Hastings, thinking of all that great business. If +one comes up on Tuesday, upon payment of sixpence, one is admitted +to the gardens of the house in which lie the ruins of the +abbey William founded in thankfulness to God for his victory, the high +altar of which was set upon the very spot where Harold fell: "Hic +Harold Rex interfectus est." + +It was while William was encamped upon Telham Hill, expecting the +battle of the morrow, that he vowed an abbey to God if He gave him the +victory. He was heard by a monk of Marmoutier, a certain William, +called the Smith, who, when Duke William had received the crown at +Westminster, reminded him of his promise. The King acknowledged his +obligation and bade William of Marmoutier to see to its fulfilment. The +monk thereupon returned to Marmoutier, and choosing four others, +brought them to England; but finding the actual battlefield unsuited +for a monastery, since there was no water there, he designed to build +lower down towards the west. Now when the King heard of it he was angry +and bade them build upon the field itself, nor would he hear them +patiently when they asserted there was no water there, for, said he: +"If God spare me I will so fully provide this place that wine shall be +more abundant there than water is in any abbey in the land." Then said +they that there was no stone. But he answered that he would bring them +stone from Caen. This, however, was not done, for a quarry was found +close by. Also the King richly endowed the house, giving it all the +land within a radius of a league, and there the abbot was to be +absolute lord free of bishop and royal officer, [Footnote: The unique +privileges of the abbot of Battle included the right to "kill and take +one or two beasts with dogs" in any of the King's forests.] and very +many manors beside. Yet ten years elapsed before the Abbey of Battle +was sufficiently completed to receive an abbot. In 1076, however, +Robert Blancard, one of the four monks chosen by William of Marmoutier, +was appointed, but he died e'er he came to Battle. Then one Gausbert +was sent from Marmoutier, and he came with four of his brethren and +was consecrated "Abbot of St Martin's of the place of Battle." Beside +the extraordinary gifts and privileges which the Conqueror +had bestowed upon the Abbey in his lifetime, upon his death he +bequeathed to it his royal embroidered cloak, a splendid collection of +relics and a portable altar containing relics, possibly the very one +upon which Harold had sworn in his captivity in Normandy to support +his claim to England. William is said to have intended the monastery +to be filled with sixty monks. We do not know whether this number ever +really served there. In 1393, but that was after the Black Death, +there appear to have been some twenty-seven, and in 1404 but thirty. +In 1535, on the eve of the Suppression, Battle Abbey was visited by +the infamous Layton who reported to Thomas Cromwell that "all but two +or three of the monks were guilty of unnatural crimes and were +traitors," adding that the abbot was an arrant churl and that "this +black sort of develish monks I am sorry to know are past amendment." +Little more than two years later the abbot surrendered the abbey and +received a pension of one hundred pounds. The furniture and so forth +of the house was then very poor. "So beggary a house I never see, nor +so filthy stuff," Layton writes to Wriothesley. "I will not 20s. for +all the hangings in this house...." In August 1538 the place was +granted to Sir Anthony Browne, who is said to have removed the cloak +of the Conqueror and the famous Battle Abbey Roll to Cowdray. This +rascal razed the church and cloisters to the ground, and made the +abbot's lodging his dwelling. It is said that one night as he was +feasting a monk appeared before him and solemnly cursed him, +prophesying that his family should perish by fire. To the fulfilment of +this curse Cowdray bears witness even to this day. + +[Illustration: BATTLE ABBEY] + +What spoliation, time and neglect have left of the Abbey is beautiful, +especially the great fourteenth century gateway which faces the Market +Green. Nothing save the foundations is left of the great church. From +the terrace, doubtless, we look across the battlefield, but all is so +changed, the bleak hill-top has become a superb garden, that it is +impossible to realise still less to reconstruct the battle, and indeed +since we can only visit the place amid a crowd of tourists, our present +discomfort makes any remembrance of the fight or of the great and +solemn abbey which for so long turned that battlefield into a sanctuary +impossible. + +Nor indeed are we more fortunate in the parish church which was +originally built by Abbot Ralph in the twelfth century. It has been so +tampered with and restored that little remains that is unspoilt. There, +and I think most fittingly, lies that Sir Anthony Browne who got Battle +Abbey from the King who had stolen it. + +Now when I had seen all this I went on my way, and because I was +unhappy on account of all that theft and destruction, and because where +once there had been altar and monks to serve it, now there was none, +and because what had once been common to us all was now become the +pleasure of one man, I went up out of Battle into the hills by the +great road through the woods and so on and up by Dallington and +Heathfield and so down and down and down all a summer day across the +Weald till at evening I came to Lewes where I slept. I remember +nothing of that day but the wind and the hills and the great sun of +May which went ever before me into the west so that I soon forgot to +be sorry and rejoiced as I went. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +LEWES AND SIMON DE MONTFORT + + +I do not know of a more beautiful town than Lewes in all the wide +south country; it is beautiful not only in itself but in its +situation, set there upon an isolated hill over the Ouse and +surrounded, as though they were great natural bastions set there in +her defence, by Malling Hill on the north, Mount Caburn on the west, +the broken heights of the Downs to the south, through which the Ouse +flows towards Newhaven and the sea, and on the east by Mount Harry +under which was fought the very famous battle of Lewes in which Simon +de Montfort took his king prisoner. + +The natural strength and beauty of this situation has been much +increased by the labour of man, for Lewes is set as it were all in a +garden out of which it rises, a pinnacle of old houses crowned by the +castle upon its half precipitous hill. It is a curiously un-English +vision you get from the High Street for instance, looking back upon +the hill or from the little borgo of Southover or from Cliffe, and yet +there can be few more solidly English places than Lewes. + +That the Romans had here some sort of settlement there can be no +doubt, that Lewes was a place of habitation in the time of the Saxons +is certain, indeed in Athelstan's day it boasted of two mints, but the +town, as it appears to us in history, grew up about the Cluniac +Priory of St Pancras under the protection of the Castle, and to these +it owes everything except its genesis. + +Whatever Lewes may have been before the Conquest that revolution saw +it pass into the power of one of the greatest of William's nobles, +that William de Warenne who was his son-in-law. It was he and his wife +Gundrada, generally supposed to be the Conqueror's daughter, who +founded the Priory of St Pancras at Southover. It is probable, even +certain, that a chapel, possibly with some sort of religious house +attached to it, existed here before William de Warenne obtained from +the Conqueror the rape and town of Lewes. In any case it can have +been of small importance. But within ten years of the Conquest William +de Warenne and his wife determined to found an important monastery at +the gates of their town, and with this intention they set out on +pilgrimage for Rome to consult, and to obtain the blessing of, the +Pope. They got so far as Burgundy when they found that it was +impossible to go on in safety on account of the war between the Pope +and the Emperor. When they found themselves in this predicament they +were not far from the great Abbey of SS. Peter and Paul at Cluny. + +Now the Cluniac Congregation, the first great reform of the +Benedictine Order, had been founded there in the diocese of Macon in +910, and it was then at the height of its power and greatness. Cluny +was the most completely feudal of the orders, for the Cluniac monks +were governed by Priors each and all of whom were answerable only to +the Abbot of Cluny himself, while every monk in the Order had to be +professed by him, that mighty ecclesiastic at this time can have been +master of not less than two thousand monks. Cluny's boast was its +school and the splendour of its ceremonies and services; God was +served with a marvellous dignity and luxury undreamed of before, and +unequalled since Cluny declined. It was to this mother house of the +greatest Congregation of the time that William de Warenne turned with +his wife when war prevented them on the road to Rome, and we cannot +wonder that they were so caught by all they saw that they determined +to put the monastery they proposed to build under the Abbot of Cluny +and to found a Cluniac Priory at the gates of their town of Lewes. +They therefore approached the Abbot with the request that he would +send three or four of his monks to start the monastery. They did not +find him very willing; for the essence of Cluny was discipline, the +discipline of an army, and doubtless the Abbot feared that, so far +away as Sussex seemed, his monks would be out of his reach and might +become but as other men. But at last the Conqueror himself joined his +prayers to those of William de Warenne, and in 1076 the Abbot of Cluny +sent the monk Lanzo and three other brethren to England, and to them +William de Warenne gave the little church of St Pancras especially +rebuilt for their use with the land about it, called the +Island, and other lands sufficient to support twelve monks. But the +Abbot of Cluny had no sooner agreed to establish his congregation in +England than he seems to have repented. At any rate he recalled Prior +Lanzo and kept him so long that William de Warenne, growing impatient, +seriously thought of transferring his foundation to the Benedictines; +but at length Prior Lanzo returned and all was arranged as was at +first intended. The monastery flourished apace and grew not only in +wealth but in piety. Prior Lanzo proved an excellent ruler, and the +Priory of St Pancras at Lewes became famous for its sanctity through +all England. + +To the same William de Warenne Lewes owes the foundation or the +refoundation of its Castle the second centre about which the town +grew. + +A glance at the map will assure us that Lewes could not but be a place +of great importance, increasing with England in wealth and strength. +The South Downs stand like a vast rampart back from the sea, guarding +South England from surprise and invasion. But this great wall is +broken at four different places, at Arundel in the west where the Arun +breaks through the chalk to find the sea, at Bramber where the Adur +passes seaward, at Lewes where the Ouse goes through, and at +Wilmington where the Cuckmere winds through the hills to its haven. +Each of these gaps was held and guarded by a castle while the level +eastward of Beachy Head was held by Pevensey. Of these castles I +suppose the most important to have been Lewes, for it not only held +the gap of the Ouse but the pass by Falmer and in some sort the +Cuckmere Valley also. + +[Illustration: LEWES CASTLE] + +But the great day of Lewes Castle was that of Simon de Montfort--I +shall deal with that later. Here it will be enough to point out that +only a fragment of the great building with its double keep, whose ruin +we see to-day, dates from the time of the first De Warenne, the rest +being a later work largely of Edward I's. time. + +Let me now return to the Priory which, in the development of the town, +played a part at least as great as that of the Castle. + +The Priory had always been famous for its piety, and in 1199, Hugh, +who had been Prior there till 1186, was raised to be Abbot of Cluny +itself. This is interesting and important for we have thus an ex-Prior +of Lewes as Abbot of Cluny during the great dispute between the Order +and the Earl of Warenne. In 1200 Lewes was without a Prior, and Abbot +Hugh appointed one Alexander. For some reason or other De Warenne +refused to accept him and even went so far as to claim that the +appointment lay with him, an impossible pretension. Yet even within +the Priory he is said to have won support, certain of the monks +claiming that, save for a tribute of one hundred shillings a year to +Cluny, they were independent. The Pope was appealed to and he of +course gave a clear decision, not in the English way of compromise, +which is the way of a barbarian and a coward, but like an honest man +deciding 'twixt right and wrong. His judgment was wholly in favour of +the Abbot of Cluny. The Earl then began to bluster and to attempt to +appeal beyond the Pope; he even dared to place armed men at the Priory +gate and to stop all communications with Cluny. The Abbot replied by +an interdict upon Lewes, and things were in this confusion when the +Pope appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of +Chichester and Ely to hear what De Warenne had to say in excuse for his +violence. The Abbot of Cluny himself came over and was insulted in +Lewes by De Warenne's men. In appointing English judges to hear the +case the Pope must have known that all would end in a compromise. At +any rate this is what happened, and it was decided that in future, when +a vacancy occurred, the Abbot of Cluny should nominate two candidates +of whom De Warenne should choose one for Prior. This ridiculous +judgment decided nothing. Of two things, one; either the Abbot was +right or he was wrong. If he were right why should he forego his claim, +to satisfy De Warenne who was wrong? A decision was what was needed. In +1229 the Pope rightly declared the compromise null and void, and the +Abbot of Cluny regained his rights. At once the moral condition of the +house improved, and when it was visited in 1262 everything was reported +to be satisfactory, and unlike any other Cluniac house in England this +of Lewes was not in debt. + +The turning point in the history of the Priory would seem to have been +the one great moment in the story of the town; the appalling affair in +which it was involved by Simon de Montfort in 1264 when he took the +town, then Henry III.'s headquarters, and captured the King and young +Prince Edward. It would seem that De Montfort's soldiers had very +little respect for holy places, for we read that not only were the +altars defiled but the very church was fired and hardly saved from +destruction. + +The quarrel between the King and his barons would seem, too, to have +involved the monks, for we find the sub-prior and nine brethren were +expelled from Lewes for conspiracy and faction and went to do penance +in various houses of the Congregation. Indeed such was the general +collapse here that before the end of the century the Priory was +practically bankrupt. + +That Lewes suffered severely from the Black Death of 1348-49 is +certain, but we know very little about it, and indeed the history of +the house is negligible until, in the beginning of the fifteenth +century the whole system of Cluny was called in question and it was +claimed on behalf of Lewes that it should be raised to an abbacy with +the power to profess monks. It will be remembered that the Abbot of +Cluny--the only Abbot within the Congregation--alone could profess, and +in times of war, such as the fourteenth century, this must have been +very inconvenient. Indeed we read of men who had been monks their whole +life long, but had never been professed at all. It is therefore not +surprising that such a claim should at last have been put forward. It +is equally not surprising that such a claim was not allowed. The Abbot +of Cluny refused to raise Lewes to the rank of an abbey, but he granted +the Prior the privilege of professing his monks; this in 1410. So +things continued till in 1535, the infamous Layton was sent by Thomas +Cromwell to inquire into the state of the Priory of Lewes, to nose out +any scandal he could and to invent what he could not find. His methods +as applied to Lewes are notorious for their insolence and brutality. He +professes to have found the place full of corruption and rank with +treason. And in this he was wise, for his master Cromwell wanted the +house for himself. Upon November 16, 1537, the Priory of St Pancras at +Lewes was surrendered. It was then served by a Prior and twenty-three +monks and eighty servi; and it and its lands were granted by the +King to Thomas Cromwell. + +Such was the end of the most famous Cluniac house in England, the +sanctuary founded by that De Warenne who had built up Lewes between +his Castle on the height and his monastery in the vale. Almost nothing +remains to-day of that great and splendid building, but in 1845, in +building the railway, the coffins of the founders De Warenne and his +wife Gundrada were found. These now lie in St John's Church, here in +Southover close by, which belonged to the Priory. It was originally a +plain Norman building of which the nave remains, the rest of the +church as we see it, being for the most part either Perpendicular or +altogether modern. + +Of course the Priory of St Pancras was not alone in the fate that +befell it at the hands of the Tudor in 1537. The only other religious +house in Lewes suffered a like fate. This was the convent of the +Franciscans, dedicated, as most authorities agree, in honour of Our +Lady and St Margaret. The Friars Minor were established in Lewes +before 1249, and their convent was one of the last to be surrendered, +in 1538. + +From St John's Church, the visitor, not without a glance at the old +half timber house close by said to have been the residence of Anne of +Cleves, will pass up to the High Street where, under the Castle, +stands the parish church of St Michael, the only ancient part of which +is the round Norman tower, a rare thing. A fourteenth century brass to +one of the De Warennes is to be seen within. Further west is the +Transitional Norman church of St Anne, with curious capitals on the +south side of the nave. Here is a fine basket-work Norman font, and +in the south aisle at the east end a vaulted chapel. To the north of +the chancel is a recessed tomb. + +But it is not in the churches we have in Lewes that we shall to-day +find the symbol, as it were, of that old town, still so fair a thing, +which held the passage of the Ouse through the Downs and in the +thirteenth century witnessed the great battle in which Simon de +Montfort, mystic and soldier, defeated and took captive his king. For +that we must go to the Castle ruin that crowns Lewes as with a +battlement. + +The Castle is reached from the High Street near St Michael's church by +the Castlegate. It was founded, as I have said, by the first De +Warenne, but the gate-house by which we enter is later, dating from +King Edward's time, the original Norman gate being within. The Castle +had two keeps, a rare feature. Only one of these remains, reached by a +winding steep way, and of this only two of the fine octagonal towers +are left to us. These two are thirteenth century works. From the +principal tower, now used as a museum, we may get the best view of the +famous battlefield under Mount Harry, one of the most famous sites of +the thirteenth century in England, for the battle that was fought +there seemed to have decided everything; in fact it decided nothing, +for its result was entirely reversed at Evesham by the military genius +of Prince Edward. + +The cause contested upon these noble hills to the north-west of Lewes +is one which continually recurs all through English history; the cause +of the Aristocracy against the Crown. The monarchies of western +Europe, which slowly emerged from the anarchy of the Dark Ages and +helped to make the Middle Age the glorious and noble thing it was, +are, if we consider them spiritually at least, democratic weapons, or +rather, politically, they seem to sum up the national energy and to +express it. In them was vested, and this as of divine right, the +executive. Without the Crown nothing could be done, no writ issued, no +fortress garrisoned. In the Crown was gathered all the national ends, +it was a symbol at once of unity and of power. Against this glorious +thing in England we see a constant and unremitting rebellion on the +part of the aristocracy. It was so in the time of King John when the +rascal barons curbed and broke the central government; it was so in +the time of Henry III. when Simon de Montfort led, and for a time +successfully, the rebellion. It has been so always and not least in +the Great Rebellion of the seventeenth century so falsely represented +as a democratic movement, when the parvenu aristocracy founded upon +the lands and wealth of the raped Church in the sixteenth century, +broke the Crown up and finally established in England a puppet king, a +mere Venetian Doge incapable, as we have seen in the last few years, +of defending the people against an unscrupulous and treasonous +plutocracy led by a lawyer as certainly on the make as Thomas +Cromwell. The infamous works of such men as these have most often been +done under the hypocritical and lying banner of the rights of the +people as though to gain his ends the devil should bear the cross of +Christ. It is so to-day; it was so in the time of Simon de Montfort. + +I have said that the King was the fountain of all power in the England +of Simon; it was therefore his supreme object to get possession of the +King's body that he might have control of the executive machinery of +the country and thus in fact be king _de facto_. It was this which he +achieved upon the battlefield of Lewes in 1264. + +For some ten years before that battle the Barons of England had been +restless under the yoke of the central government, the Crown, which +stood not for them but for us all. They had already wrung from Henry +III. under compulsion, when he was within their power and not a free +agent, certain concessions which now he refused to confirm to them. +They called him liar and covered him with the same abuse that their +successors hurled at Charles I.; but Henry stood firm, he refused +what had been dragged from him by force, and Simon de Montfort, Earl +of Leicester, raised an army not from the people but from his own +feudal adherents and his friends and took the field, striking into the +valley of the Severn, where he seized Hereford, Gloucester, Worcester +and Bridgnorth with their castles. Then he marched straight upon +London where, among the Guilds, he had many adherents and friends. War +seemed inevitable, but, as it happened, a truce was called, and the +question which Simon had made an excuse for his rising, the question +of the King's refusal to confirm the grant of privileges wrung from +him by force, was submitted for decision to St Louis of France, +undoubtedly the most reverent, famous, and splendid figure of that +day. St Louis, unlike an Englishman, decided not with a view to peace +as though justice were nothing and right an old wives' tale, but +according to law and his conscience, honestly and cleanly before God +like an intelligent being. Of two things one, either the King was +right or he was wrong. St Louis decided that the King was right, and +this upon January 23rd, 1264. + +Simon refused to abide by the decision. This man in his own conception +was above law and honour and justice, he was the inspired and +privileged servant of God. In this hallucination he deceived himself +even as Oliver Cromwell did later and equally for his own ends. He, +too, would break the Crown and himself govern England. He, too, was +brutal beyond bearing, proud and insolent with his inferiors, +imperious even to God, a great man, but one impossible to suffer in +any state which is to endure, a dangerous tyrant. + +This great mystical soldier at once took the field, and when Henry +returned from Amiens, where the court of St Louis had sat, he found +all England up, the Cinque Ports all hot for Simon, London ponderous +in his support, and in all south-eastern England but one principle +fortress still in loyal hands, that of Rochester. + +North and west of London, however, things were less disastrous, and +Henry's first move was to secure all this and to cut off London, the +approach to which he held on the south-east in spite of everything, +since he commanded Rochester, from the Midlands and the West. Simon's +answer was the right one; he struck at Rochester and laid siege to it. +Down upon him came King Henry to relieve it and was successful. Simon +swept back upon London, there he gathered innumerable levies and +again advanced into the south against the King. + +Henry having relieved Rochester, marched also into the south, +doubtless intent upon the reduction of the Cinque ports; for this, +however, Simon gave him no time. He came thundering down, half London +weltering behind him, across the Weald, and Henry, wheeling to meet +him, came upon the 12th of May up the vale of Glynde and occupied +Lewes. On the following day Simon appeared at Fletching in the vale of +the Weald, some nine miles north of Lewes; there he encamped. Very +early in the morning of the 14th May, Simon arrayed his troops and +began his march southward upon the royal army. Dawn was just breaking +when his first troopers came over the high Down and saw Lewes in the +morning mist, the royal banners floating from the Castle--all still +asleep. Slowly and at his ease Simon ordered his men. Upon the north, +conspicuously, he set his litter with his standard above it and about +it massed the raw levies of London. Upon the south he gathered the +knights and men-at-arms led by the young Earl of Gloucester. As for +himself he remained with the reserve. Then when all was ready he gave +the order and both wings, north and south, began to advance upon the +town "hoping to find their enemies still abed." + +Simon's plan was a simple one, he hoped to surprise his foes and he +intended in any case to throw his main strength southward upon the +Priory of St Pancras, while pretending that his main attack was to be +upon the Castle. He did not altogether succeed in surprising his +foes, but in everything else he was successful. The royalists were +aware of his approach only at the last moment, so that when they +poured out of the Castle and Priory and town they were in some +confusion. Then Prince Edward, observing the standard of Simon over +the litter, flung himself upon the Londoners, who broke and fled while +he pursued them, nor did he stay his hand till he was far away from +Lewes. He returned at last victorious and triumphant to find Simon's +banner floating from Lewes Castle, the King of the Romans and the King +of England in Simon's hands and the day lost. Weary though he was, he +attempted with all the impetuosity of youth to reverse that verdict. +Through the streets of Lewes he fought, till at length he was forced +to take refuge in the church of the Franciscans, where indeed Simon +found him. + +Such was the battle of Lewes, which gave all England to De Montfort for +more than a year; till indeed Lewes was reversed, by Prince Edward who, +escaping from his hands at Hereford, gathered a new army about him and +forced Simon to meet him upon the field of Evesham where, when the +great soldier-mystic saw the royal banners upon the dawn, he cried out +that last great word of his, "The Lord have mercy on our souls for our +bodies are Prince Edward's": to be answered when he demanded mercy, +"there is no treating with traitors." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE DOWNS + +LEWES TO BRAMBER + + +Perhaps after all the most fundamental truth about Lewes is that she is +the capital of the South Downs, and the South Downs are the glory of +the South Country; from the noble antiquity of Winchester to the +splendour of Beachy Head they run like an indestructible line of Latin +verse beneath the blazon of England. They stand up between the land and +the sea, the most Roman thing in England, and of all English land it is +their white brows that the sun kisses first when it rises over the sea, +of all English hills every morning they are the first to be blest. + +The most Roman thing in England I call them; and indeed this "noble +range of mountains" has not the obvious antiquity of the Welsh +mountains or the Mendip Hills, nor the tragic aspect as of something as +old as time, as old as the world itself, of the dark and sea-torn +cliffs of Cornwall, or the wild and desolate uplands of Somerset and +Devon. The South Downs seem indeed not so much a work of Nature as of +man; and of what men! In their regular and even line, in their +continuity and orderly embankment, in their splendid monotony of +contour they recall but one thing--Rome; they might be indeed only +another work of that mighty government which conceived and built the +great Wall that stretches from the Solway to the Firth of Forth which +marked the limit of the Empire and barred out its enemies. And this +wall of the South Downs, too, marked but another frontier of the same +great government; beyond it lay the horizons unknown, and it barred +out the sea. + +But how much older than Rome are the South Downs! Doubtless before the +foundation of Rome, e'er Troy was besieged, these hills stood up +against the south and served us as a habitation and a home. Nor indeed +have we failed to leave signs of our life there so many thousand years +ago, so that to-day a man wandering over that great uplifted plateau +which slopes so gradually towards the sea, though he seem to be +utterly alone, as far as possible from the ways and the habitations of +men, immersed in an immemorial silence, in truth passes only from +forgotten city to forgotten city, amid the strongholds and the burial +places of a civilisation so old that it is only the earth itself which +retains any record or memory of it. Here were our cities when we +feared the beast, before we had knowledge of bronze or iron, when our +tool and our weapon was the flint. + +The man, our ancestor, who chipped and prepared the flints for our use +at Cissbury for instance, doubtless looked out upon a landscape +different from that we see to-day and yet essentially the same after all. +The South Downs in their whole extent slope, as I have said, very +gradually seaward and south, and there of old were our cities chiefly set, +but northward their escarpment is extraordinarily steep, rising from time +to time into lofty headlands of which the noblest, the most typical and +the most famous is Chanctonbury. Standing above that steep escarpment a +man to-day looks all across the fruitful Weald till far off he sees the +long line of the North Downs running as it were parallel with these +southern hills, and ennobled and broken by similar heights as that of +Leith Hill. Between, like an uneven river bed with its drifts and +islands of soil, running from west to east, lies the Weald, opening at +last as it were into the broad estuary of Romney Marsh, half lost in +the sea. And what we see to-day our neolithic forefathers saw too--with +a difference. Doubtless the Downs then were as smooth and bare as they +are now, but the Weald, we may be sure, was different, wilder and +certainly fuller of woodland, though never perhaps the vast and +impenetrable forest of trees of which we have been told. + +I say that the Downs, now deserted save by the shepherd and his flock, +were of old populous, and of this fact the evidence is plentiful. There +is indeed not one of the five main stretches of the Downs that does not +bear witness to the immemorial presence of man. To say nothing of the +discoveries about Beachy Head, the earthworks there, and the neolithic +implements and bronze weapons discovered about East Dean and Alfriston, +we have in the Long Man of Wilmington, that gigantic figure cut out in +the chalk of the hill-side, something comparable only with the Giant of +Cerne Abbas in Dorset and the White Horses of Wiltshire. That figure is +some two hundred and forty feet in height and holds in each hand a +stave or club two hundred and thirty feet long. It would seem +impossible to be certain either of its age or its purpose, but we may +perhaps be sure that it lay there upon the Downs above Polegate before +the landing of Caesar, and it may have been the foundation of one of +those figures described by him as formed of osiers and filled with +living men to be destroyed by fire as a sacrifice for our barbarian +gods. + +Nor is this all. The whole range of the Downs as I say is scattered +thick with the work of our pre-historic forefathers. In Burlough Castle +and Mount Caburn we have fortresses so old that it is impossible to +name the age in which they were contrived and built, nor can we assert +with any confidence who they were that first occupied the camp upon +Ditchling Beacon, the highest point of the South Downs, or who first +defended Wolstanbury. And it is the same with those most famous places +Cissbury Ring and Chanctonbury. But the flint mines upon Cissbury give +us some idea of the neolithic men, our forefathers, which should and +does astonish us. The Camp itself is less wonderful than the mines upon +the western side of it. Here we have not only numerous pits from ten to +seventy feet in diameter and from five to seven feet deep, but really +vast excavations leading to galleries which tap a belt or band of +flints. That these mines were worked by neolithic man it is impossible +to doubt, but he may not have discovered or first used them. They may +be older than he, though all record even upon that marvellous hill- +side, has been lost of those who first exploited them. Nor is +Chanctonbury, though it cannot boast of mines such as these, less +astonishing or less ancient. The camp set there following the contour +of the hill can only have been one of the most important in south- +east England. It commands the camps at Cissbury, the Devil's Dyke, +High Down and White Hawk, the whole breadth of the Weald lay beneath +it and a signal displayed upon Leith Hill upon the North Downs could +easily be answered from this noble mountain; Mount Caburn itself was +not more essentially important. + +It has been thought that the Romans may have used Chanctonbury, but if +so they have left but little mark of their occupation, and indeed, +though the Downs as a whole far off are stamped with so Roman a +character, there is but one spot in their whole length where we may +say; here certainly the Legions have been. That spot lies upon the +last division of the Downs towards the west, the line of hills which +stands between Chichester and the Weald. + +It is certain that the Romans were, in Sussex, most at home on that +great sea plain towards which the Downs slope so gradually southward. +Here indeed they built their town of Regnum, and perhaps towards the +end of their occupation of Britain they laid out the only purely military +highway which they built here from Regnum to London Bridge. This great +Roman road, known as the Stane Street, coming out of the eastern gate +of Chichester, takes the Downs as an arrow flies, crossing them +between Boxgrove and Bignor, nor is the work of Rome even to-day +wholly destroyed, for there under Bignor Hill we may still see the +pavement of their Way, while at Bignor itself we have perhaps the +best remains of a Roman villa left to us in Sussex. + +[Illustration: THE DOWNS] + +But though all these marks and signs, the memory and the ruins not +only of our forefathers, but of those our saviours who drew us within +the government of the Empire so that we are to-day what we are and not +as they who knew not the Romans, make the Downs sacred to us, it is +not only or chiefly for this that we love them or that in any thought +of Southern England, when far away, it is these great hills which +first come back into the mind and bring the tears to our eyes. We love +them for themselves, for their beauty and their persistence +certainly, but really because we have always known them and they more +than any other thing here in the south remind us and are a symbol of +our home. A man of South England must always have them in his heart + +for every day of his childhood they have filled his eyes. And to-day +more especially they stand as a sign and a symbol. For not only are +they the first great hills which the Londoner sees, but they offer the +nearest relief and repose from the modern torture and noise of that +enormous place which has ceased to be a city and become a mere asylum +of landless men. From the mean and crowded streets he seeks with an +ever increasing eagerness the space of the Downs, from the noise and +confusion and throng, this silence and this emptiness; from the +breathless street, this free and nimble air, which is better than +wine. And so to-day more than ever the Downs have come to stand as a +symbol of an England half lost, which might seem to be passing away, +but that is, as indeed these hills assure us, eternal and +indestructible, the very England of our hearts, which cannot die. +There are some doubtless who grumble at this invasion and are fearful +lest even this last nobility should be destroyed by the multitude or +this last sanctuary desecrated by the rapacity of the rich, or this +last silence broken by the brutal noise of the motor car. But the +Downs are too strong, they have seen too many civilisations pass away, +and the men and the ages that built upon their hill-sides have become +less than a dream in the morning. They remain. And is it nothing that +in our day if a man hears a bird sing in a London street in spring it +is of the Downs he thinks, if the wind comes over the gardens in some +haggard suburb it is these hills which rise up in his mind, these +hills, which stand there against the south, our very own from +everlasting to everlasting. + +But to possess the Downs at least as a symbol, to dream of them as a +refuge, it is not necessary to know them in all their secret places, +to have seen all their little forgotten homesteads, or to be able to +recognise all their thousand steep tracks one from another. + +For me indeed the Downs, long as I have known them, remain most dear +as a spectacle, but this you will miss altogether if you are actually +upon them, lost amid their rolling waves of green turf with only the +sky and the wind and the sun for companions. Therefore when I set out +from Lewes to go westward I did not take the way up past the race- +course over the battlefield south of Mount Harry towards Ditchling +Camp and Beacon. Let me confess it, I followed the road. And what a +road! In all South England I know no other that offers the traveller +such a spectacle, where above him, in full view, that great rampart +stands up like a wall, peak speaks to peak, till presently with a +majesty and a splendour, not to be matched I think in our island, +Chanctonbury stands forth like a king crowned as with laurel towering +upon the horizon. + +Now this road I followed passes westward out of Lewes and then turns +swiftly north, climbing as it goes, under the Downs beyond Offham, +turning west again under Mount Harry and so on past Courthouse Farm +and Plumpton church, which stands lonely in a field to the north of +the road, till suddenly by Westmaston church under Ditchling Beacon it +turns north again towards the Weald and enters the very notable +village of Ditchling. All that way is worth a king's ransom, for it +gives you all the steepness of the Downs upon their steepest side, +their sudden north escarpment, towering up over the Weald some seven +hundred feet or more. On a spring morning early I know no way more +joyful. + +Ditchling Beacon itself stands some eight hundred and fifty feet above +the sea and is the highest point in all the range of the South Downs, +though it lacks the nobility of Chanctonbury. The earthworks here are +irregular and not very well defined, but there is a fine dewpound to +the east of the camp though perhaps this has not much antiquity, a +seemingly older depression now dry in the north-west corner is rather +an old rainwater ditch than a dewpound. Altogether it might seem that +Ditchling Camp was rather a refuge for cattle than a military +fortress. + +Ditchling village is charming, with more than one old half-timber +house, and the church of St Margaret's is not only interesting in +itself, but, standing as it does upon rising ground and yet clear of +the great hills, it offers you one of the finest views of the Downs +anywhere to be had from the Weald. It consists of a cruciform building +of which the north transept and the north wall of the nave were +rebuilt in the thirteenth century. The chancel, however, has some +beautiful Early English work to show and the nave is rather plain +Transitional. The eastern window and most of the windows in the nave +are of the early Decorated period, the window in the south chancel +aisle being somewhat later. + +Something better than Ditchling church awaits the traveller at Clayton +where the little church of St John the Baptist possesses a most +interesting chancel arch, round and massive, that may well be Saxon. +The chancel itself is of the thirteenth century with triple lancets at +the western end with two heads, perhaps of a king and queen on the +moulding. Here, too, on the south chancel wall is a fine brass of 1523 +in which we see a priest holding chalice and wafer. In the nave are +the remains of frescoes of the Last Judgment. + +Right above Clayton rises Wolstanbury, a hill-top camp or circular +work some two hundred and fifty yards in diameter. It is interesting +because it is curiously and cleverly fortified, the rampart being +built up below and outside the fosse, owing to the steepness of the +hill. To the left are certain pits which may have been the site of +dwellings; certainly many neolithic implements have been found here. + +Below Wolstanbury which thrusts itself out into the Weald like a great +headland nearly seven hundred feet in height, lies Pyecombe to the +south-west. This little place which lies between the heights of +Wolstanbury and Newtimber Hill is celebrated for two things, its +shepherds' crooks and the Norman font of lead in the little church +whose chancel arch is Norman too. You may see here even in so small a +place, however, all the styles of England, for if the font and chancel +arch are Norman, the lancets in the chancel are Early English, the +double piscina is Decorated and the windows of the nave are +Perpendicular while the pulpit is of the seventeenth century. + +Pyecombe is hard to reach from Clayton without a great climb over the +Downs, but there is a way, though a muddy one, which turns due west out +of the Brighton road where the railway crosses it. This leads one round +the northern side of Wolstanbury (and this is the best way from which +to visit the camp on the top) and so by a footpath past Newtimber +Place, a moated Elizabethan house well hidden away among the trees west +of the road to Hurstpierpoint. + +From Pyecombe there is a delightful road winding in and out under the +Downs about Newtimber Hill to Poynings. Poynings is, or should I say +was, one of the loveliest, loneliest and most unspoiled villages to be +found here under the Downs, but of late it has been accessible by +railway from the Devil's Dyke and Brighton. Nothing, however, can spoil +the beauty and interest of its church which is, I suppose, one of the +earliest Perpendicular works in the county, built before 1368 by the +third Baron de Poynings, some remains of whose old manor-house may +still be found east of the churchyard. The church is a Greek cross with +central tower, and is dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity. +Everything in it is charming, especially the beautiful eastern window, +the triple sedilia and the piscina; but the pulpit and altar rails are +of the seventeenth century as is the great south window which once +stood in Chichester Cathedral. The Poynings lie in the south transept, +but their tombs have been defaced. The north transept is the Montagu +Chapel; here in the window is some old glass in which we may see the +Annunciation. + +The Devil's Dyke, which stands right above Poynings, is a great trench +in the Downs, dug according to the legend by the devil, whose genial +intention it was to drown holy Sussex by letting in the sea. He was +allowed from sunset to sunrise to work his will, but owing to the +vigilance of those above who had Sussex particularly in their keeping, +the cocks all began to crow long before the dawn, and the devil, +thinking his time was spent, went off in a rage before he had +completed his work. This would seem to prove what I have often +suspected that the devil is as great a fool as he looks. + +The camp above the Devil's Dyke is of the usual design of a hill-top +fortress, the defence following the natural line of the hill, the +look-out having been apparently upon the north-west, whence a +remarkably extensive view is to be had both over the Weald and the +Downs. But as no water would seem to have been conserved here it is +difficult to believe that this camp was ever a permanent fortress +which only a very large number of people could have defended. +Nevertheless a great number of neolithic implements have been found +there. + +From Poynings in full view of Chanctonbury the beautiful road runs all +the way at the foot of the Downs to that great gap through which the +Adur seeks the sea, and which of old was guarded by Bramber Castle. On +the way it passes through the loveliest of villages, to wit, Edburton, +where in the Early English church of St Andrew is the second of the +three Norman fonts of lead within this county. The church is +altogether interesting, for if it is for the most part of the +thirteenth century, it has a charming Decorated eastern window +and it is said that Archbishop Laud himself presented the +pulpit and altar rails. What the two low side windows were for I +know not, but the chapel on the north was dedicated in honour of St +Catherine of Alexandria. + +It was already dusk when I came out of Edburton church, the late dusk +of a day in early May; and so, liking the place passing well, I +determined to sleep there and soon found a hospitable cottage. In the +morning I liked the place better still, and remembering the "tarmac" +and the sophistication (alas!) of Steyning, I decided to stay where I +was two or three days and to visit thence a place in the Weald it had +long been my desire to see. And so having made up my mind, before +nine o'clock I set out on my way. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE WEALD + + +There can be no one who has stood upon one of the great heights of the +Downs north and south, upon Ditchling Beacon, Chanctonbury or Leith +Hill, who, looking across the Weald, has not wondered what this +country, lying between the two great chalk ranges, might be, what is +its nature and its history and what part it has played in the great +story of England. For even to the superficial onlooker it seems to +differ essentially not only from the great chalk Downs upon which he +stands, but from any other part of England known to him. It lies, +thickly sprinkled with scattered and isolated woodlands, a mighty +trench between the heights, not a vast plain but an uneven lowland +diversified by higher land but without true hills, and roughly divided +west and east into two parts by a great ridge known by various names, +but in its greater part called the Forest, St Leonard's Forest, +Ashdown Forest, Dallington Forest, and so forth. This country which we +know as the Weald is obviously bounded north and south by the Downs +which enclose it, as they do, too, upon the west, where between +Winchester and Petersfield and Selborne the two ranges narrow and +meet. Thence, indeed, the Weald spreads eastward in an ever widening +delta till it is lost in the marshes and the sea. + +Such is the aspect of this great country as we see it to-day from any +of the heights north and south of it; but what is its true character +and what is its history? + +We hear of it first under a Saxon name, Andredeswald, whence we get our +name of the Weald, and we find it always spoken of not only by the +Saxons, but by the Romans before them as an obstacle, though not, it +would seem, an insurmountable one. It was, in fact, a wild forest +country of clay containing much woodland, everywhere covered with +scrub, and traversed by various sleepy and shallow streams. That it was +difficult to cross we have Roman evidence; that it was a secure hiding- +place we know from the Saxons; but as we look upon it to-day neither of +these historic facts is self-evident, and therefore a curious myth has +grown up with regard to the Weald; and the historian, seeking to +explain what is not to be understood without time and trouble and +experience, tells us that the Weald was once an impenetrable forest, a +whole great woodland and undergrowth so thick that no man might cross +it without danger. Such an assertion is merely an attempt on the part +of men, who do not know the Weald, to explain the facts of which I have +spoken, namely, that the Weald appears as an obstacle in our early +history, though not insurmountable, and that it continually offered a +secure hiding-place and refuge to the fugitive. + +The Weald as it appears to us first, is the secure home of those who +first smelted the ironstone in which it abounds, and as such it +remained during many ages. But the two main facts about it which help +to explain everything in its history are first that it consisted for +the most part of clay, and secondly that it was everywhere ill +watered. Let us consider these things. + +The Weald, even as we see it to-day, tilled and cultivated and tended +though it be, remains largely a country of scattered woodland, very +thickly wooded, indeed, as seen in a glance from any height of the +Downs, but revealing itself, as we traverse it, as a country of +isolated woods, often of oak, and with here and there the remains of +a wild and rough moorland country, of which, as we may think, in the +Roman times, it, for the most part, consisted. It later possessed some +six forests properly so called, but itself was never a legal forest +nor in any sense of the words an impenetrable wood. It always +possessed homesteads, farms and steadings, but almost nowhere within +it was there a great or populous town; men lived there it is true, but +always in a sort of isolation. And this was so not because the Weald +was an impassable forest of woodland and undergrowth--it was never +that; but because of its scarcity of water or more accurately its +uncertainty of water and its soil, the Wealden clay. The state of +affairs anciently obtaining in the Weald does not fundamentally differ +from what obtains to-day, and in a word it was and is this: in dry +weather there is no water, but the going is good; in wet weather there +is plenty of water, but the going is impossible. Of course, these +conditions have in modern times been modified by the building of roads +and the sinking of wells and the better embankment and preservation of +the rivers, but in Roman times, as later, the Weald was an obstacle +because it was difficult, though never impossible, to cross on account +of the badness of the going or the lack of water. It was a secure +hiding-place for such a fugitive as a Saxon king because he could not +be pursued by an army; he himself with a few followers could move from +steading to steading and enjoy a certain amount of state, but a +pursuing army would have perished. + +Evidence in support of this explanation of the secret and character of +the Weald is not far to seek. The Weald lay between the Channel and +its ports, that is to say, the entries into England from the +continent, and the Thames valley; it was then an obstacle that had to +be overcome. Had it been merely a great woodland forest, it would not +have troubled the Romans who would merely have driven a great road +through it. But the Romans had more to face than an impenetrable +woodland or the roughness of the country; they had to overcome the +lack of water, and therefore in the Weald their day's march of some +twelve miles was pressed to double its normal length. The French +armies, according to Mr Belloc, do exactly the same thing in the Plain +of Chalons to-day. And indeed a man may see for himself, even yet, +what exactly the Weald was if in summer he will cross it by any of the +winding byways that often become good roads for a mile or so and then +lapse again into lanes or footpaths. Let him follow one of these afoot +and drink only by the wayside. And then in winter let him follow the +same tracks if he can. He will find plenty of water, but his feet will +be heavy with clay. For an army or even a regiment to go as he goes +would be almost impossible, and this not because of the woodland or +undergrowth, but because of the lack of water, the lack of towns or +large villages and the clay underfoot. + +Such then was the nature of the barrier which lay between the ports of +the Channel and the valley of the Thames. The Weald was indeed +inhuman, and this helps to explain why it was not only a barrier but a +refuge. + +We read in the rude chronicle of the Saxons of two men who sought +refuge in the Weald, in the seventh and eighth centuries. The first of +the three was Caedwalla, (659?-689) a young man of great energy, +according to Bede, and probably a dangerous aspirant to the West-Saxon +throne. At any rate he was exiled from Wessex and he took refuge with +his followers in the forest of Anderida, that is to say in the Weald. +There about 681 he met St Wilfrid who had fled, too, from the West +Saxon kingdom. Wilfrid was busy converting the South Saxons, and +Caedwalla, going from steading to steading with his followers, saved +from any considerable pursuit by the nature of the country, became +great friends with him. This, however, did not prevent him in 685 +from ravaging Sussex, slaying the South Saxon king and at last +succeeding his old enemy Centwine upon the West Saxon throne. +Caedwalla, after conquering the Isle of Wight and putting +to death the two sons of King Arvaldus, having allowed them first to +be baptised, was himself converted, and to such purpose that he laid +down his crown, went on pilgrimage to Rome, and was baptised under the +name of Peter, by the Pope, on the vigil of Easter 689. He died, +however, before Domenica in albis, and was buried in Old St Peter's, +nor was he the only English king that lay there. + +All this came out of the Weald; but it is most significant for us +because it allows us to understand the nature of this refuge and what +it offered in the way of safety to an exile. + +This is confirmed by the experience of Sigebert, King of the West +Saxons. He, too, first took refuge in the Weald when deposed by his +witan. He fled away and was pursued, we read, by Cynewulf, so that he +took refuge in the forest of Andred where he was safe from pursuit by +many men, being killed at last at Privet near Petersfield in Hampshire +by a swineherd in revenge for his master's death. Such then was the +nature of the Weald and such fundamentally it remains, a stubborn and +really untameable country, even to-day not truly humanised, still +largely empty of towns and villages but scattered with isolated farms +and steadings. And the essential inhumanity of the true heart of the +Weald is borne out by the scarcity of religious houses there. Only the +little Priory of Rusper, a small Benedictine nunnery perhaps founded by +one of the De Braose family before the end of the twelfth century, and +the small Benedictine nunnery of Easebourne founded in the thirteenth +century may be said to belong to the true Weald; of the others, such +as the Abbey of Robertsbridge, the Priories of Michelham and Shulbred, +the Abbeys of Otham, Bayham, and Dureford not one is really old or +stands really within the true Weald. Nor are they of very much +importance. The greatest of these houses was the Cistercian Abbey of +Robertsbridge founded in 1176 by Alfred de St Martin, Sheriff of the +rape of Hastings, within which the abbey stood, really upon the last +of the forest ridge towards the Level of Pevensey. It is true that this +abbey played a considerable part in history during the first years of +its existence; for it was the Abbot of Robertsbridge who set out with +the Abbot of Boxley to search for Coeur de Lion in 1192 and who found him +in Bavaria, and we find the Abbot of Robertsbridge employed more than +once again as an ambassador; but its fame soon dwindled, and though +it escaped the first suppression and indeed survived till 1538 it +could boast then of but eight brethren. + +[Illustration: THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, NORTH OF LEWES] + +The only other houses as old as Robertsbridge are those of Otham and +Dureford, houses of Premonstratensian Canons, neither in the heart of +the Weald, and both dating from the twelfth century. The other +religious houses, Michelham and Shulbred of the Augustinian Canons, +Easebourne of Augustinian nuns and Bayham the successor of Otham, all +date from the thirteenth century, and indeed no more belong to the +true Weald than do the rest. It is, in fact, only to-day that a great +monastery stands in the heart of the Weald, and of all wonderful +things that is a Carthusian House of the like of which Pre-reformation +England boasted but twelve, and Sussex none at all. + +It was one day as I came over the Adur by Moat Farm that I became +aware of this great establishment, for there suddenly, as I turned a +corner, by the Lord, the road was full of Carthusian monks all in +their white habits, a sight as marvellous as delightful once more upon +an English road. And so I found my way to the great house of St Hugh +at Parkminster. + +One should learn to be astonished at nothing in England of my heart, +for it will beggar one's admiration. But Carthusians! Was it not this +Order which Henry II. had brought into England as part of his penance +for the murder of St Thomas? Was it not this Order which had first been +established in my own Somerset, and alone of all Orders in England by a +Saint, and which there at Witham and at Hinton, still so fair and +lovely, built its first two houses in England, of which all told there +were but twelve? Was it not this Order that had faced and outfaced +Henry Tudor to the last so that the monks of the London Charterhouse +were burnt at the stake at Tyburn? + +Well is this monastery dedicated in honour of St Hugh. And if you do +not know why let me write it here. It is well known that after the +murder of St Thomas and Henry II.'s public repentance for his part in +all that evil, Pope Alexander III. gave him for penance a crusade of +three years in the Holy Land, but when that was found not to be +convenient he commuted it for the building of three monasteries of +which one was to be Carthusian, for the Carthusians at that time had no +house in England. This Order had been founded at Grenoble in 1086 by St +Bruno, who had been sent by St. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, to a desert +spot in the Alps 14,000 feet above the sea. There St Bruno founded his +monastery known as the Grande Chartreuse. His monks were hermit monks, +each had, as each has still, his own little dwelling. The Order, which +has never been reformed--Cartusia nunquam reformata Quia nunquam +deformata--and has uniformly followed the Rule approved by +Pope Innocent XI., recognises three classes of brethren, the +fathers, the conversi or lay brethren, and nuns. Each house is +governed by a Prior and each monk lives, as I have said, in a separate +dwelling of five little rooms and a tiny cloister, or rather +ambulatory, facing a little garden. His food is given him through a +hatch at the foot of the stairs leading to his rooms. He attends Mass +in Choir, Matins and Vespers too, but the other Hours are said in his +cell. As the Carthusians were when they first came into England so +they are to-day. + +But it is not in honour of St Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, that the +monastery at Parkminster is dedicated, but of quite another saint. + +When Henry II. set out to found a Carthusian house in England in +obedience to the Pope, the place he chose for it was Witham in +Selwood, a solitude, for the Rule of the Order demanded it, and that +is also why we have this monastery in the Weald to-day. It bears +witness as nothing else could do to-day, perhaps, to the true +character of the Weald. + +Witham, it is true, was not so desolate as the Grande Chartreuse, but +it was in the heart of the Forest, far from the abode of men. Even to- +day Witham is not easy to reach by road. This house, thus founded did +not flourish; whether the place was too hard for the monks, or whether +there was some other cause we know not, but the first two priors, +though both from the Grande Chartreuse, failed to establish it. Then +King Henry was advised to beg of the mother-house her great and +shining light, Hugh of Avalon, not of Avalon in England, but of Avalon +in Burgundy. He was successful in his request. The Bishop of Bath and +Wells, his ambassador, then in the Alps, was able to bring Hugh home +with him, though the loss of that "most sweet presence," as the Prior +declared, widowed his house; and Hugh came to England and to Witham +and was received as "an angel of the Lord." It is in honour of this +great and holy man, later Bishop of Lincoln and known as St Hugh of +Avalon, that the Carthusian monastery of Parkminster is dedicated. I +have here no room to speak of him, the true founder of the Order in +England, of his holy, brave and laborious life in Selwood or of his +rule there of ten years. He is forgotten even at Witham and his name +no longer, alas, means anything to us whom he served. Only the +Carthusians have not forgotten, and to the keeping of no other saint +in the Calendar could they so honourably have entrusted their new +house. + +This monastery, founded in the Weald, upon October 17, 1877, is a +great, if not a beautiful, pile of buildings, and is, in fact, one of +the largest houses of the Order in the world. The visitor rings at the +gate, and is admitted by a lay-brother dressed in the beautiful white +habit, caught about the waist by a leathern girdle from which a rosary +hangs. Upon his feet are rough shoes and his head is shorn but he +greets you with a smile of welcome and leads you into a large +quadrangle, where before you is the great Romanesque church with a +chapel upon one side and the refectory upon the other, and all about +are cloisters. Here over the entrance to the church is a statue of St +Hugh. Within, the church is divided by a screen into two parts, the +choir for the Fathers, the nave for the lay-brothers. Over the screen +is a rood, and beneath, two altars, dedicated in honour of St John the +Baptist, who went into the desert, and St Bruno, the founder of the +Order. From the church one is led to the Chapter House, in which there +stands an altar and Crucifix, and there upon the walls are depicted +scenes from the martyrdom of the London Carthusians in the time of +Henry VIII. From the Chapter House one is led to the Chapel of the +Relics, where there is a beautiful silver reliquary that belonged to +the English Carthusians before the Reformation, and in it is a relic +of St Thomas of Canterbury. Here, too, is the stole of St Hugh and a +bone of St Bruno. + +The monastery proper lies behind the church, where a vast quadrangle, +the Great Cloister, some three acres in extent, opens out, surrounded +on three sides by the little houses of the monks, with the graveyard +in the midst. Here the monks live, and are buried without coffin or +shroud in their white habits, the hood drawn over the face. The cells +are delightful to look upon, "a solitude within a solitude"; each +consists of five rooms, two below and three above, reached by a +staircase, the whole approached from a passage closed by a door giving +on to the Great Cloister. Here live and pray some thirty-six monks, +with a like number of conversi or lay-brothers. + +I do not know in all England a place more peaceful than this one, more +solemn and salutary to visit in the confusion of our modern life. Here +is one of the lightning conductors that preserves the modern world +from the wrath of God. Let others think as they will, for me the +monastery of St Hugh in the Weald is holy ground. + +And at any rate, even though you may not agree with me so far, in this +at least I shall carry you with me, when I say that this monastery, +and especially because it is Carthusian, bears out the old character +of the Weald and endorses it. I have said the Weald was ever a wild +and inhuman place where only few men could go together, without great +towns and with only infrequent villages; not a thick or impenetrable +woodland but a difficult and a lonely country sparsely scattered with +steadings. Well, it is such places that the Carthusians have ever +sought out for their houses, such was Witham and such was the Grande +Chartreuse also. That a Carthusian monastery should have been founded +to-day in the midst of the Weald proves, if anything can, that it has +not yet wholly lost its character. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +TO ARUNDEL AND CHICHESTER + + +From my little quiet retreat at Edburton, I set out one May morning to +follow the road under the Downs, through Steyning for Arundel and +Chichester, because it is one of the fairest ways in all the world, +and, rightly understood, one of the most interesting. And to begin +with, I found myself crossing one of those gaps in the South Downs, +each of which is held by a castle. The one I now crossed was that made +by the Adur, and it was held by the Castle of Bramber. + +Now Bramber, merely beautiful to-day, must in the old times always have +been of importance, for it holds an easy road through the rampart of +the Downs, one of the great highways into Normandy, because of the +harbour of Shoreham at the mouth of the Adur, one of the principal +ports upon this coast. Of immemorial antiquity, the harbour of +Shoreham, first of Old Shoreham, perhaps the Roman Portus Adurni, and +then when that silted up of New, has played always a great part in the +history of South England. That the Romans knew and used it is certain. +It was probably here that the Saxon Ella and his three sons Cymne, +Cissa, and Wlencing, landed in 477, and it is not likely that it was +neglected by the Normans, who, in fact, built here a very noble +cruciform church, dark and solemn, indeed, rather a fortress than a +church. It was at Shoreham certainly that John landed when he returned +to England to make himself king after the death of Coeur de Lion, and +we may gather some idea of the real importance of the port from the +fact that it furnished Edward III. with twenty-six ships for his fleet +in 1346. Thereafter the place declined, but history repeated itself +when Charles II., in flight in 1651 and anxious to reach the French +coast, set out from Shoreham and landed at Fecamp. Shoreham thus was +an important way in and out of England, but the road by which it lived +was not in its keeping at all, but in the power of the Castle of +Bramber which dominated and held it on the north side of the Downs, +where it issued out of the pass or gap made by the Adur. + +Bramber Castle stands upon a headland thrust out into the valley and +the Weald in the very mouth of the pass; and even in its ruin, only an +old gateway tower and a fragment of the lofty barbican in which is a +Norman window remain. It is easy to understand how important and how +strong it must once have been. Indeed, Norman though these remains +are, it was by no means the Normans who first fortified this +promontory and held this pass. It is probable that the Castle of +Bramber occupies the site of a Roman Castellum and a Saxon fortress, +some say a palace of the Saxon kings. After the Conquest the castle +came into the hands of the great William de Braose, lord of Braose, +near Falaise in Normandy, who received such great estates in England +from the Conqueror. He fixed his seat, however, here at Bramber, and +built or rebuilt the Castle which became the greatest fortress in his +possession. Later, by marriage, it passed to the Mowbrays, and from +them descended to the Dukes of Norfolk, the present Duke, indeed, +still holding it. It is, however, of William de Braose we think in +Bramber; for he not only built the great Castle which gives its +character to the place even to-day, but the church of St Nicholas +also, under the Castle, of which the nave and tower of his time only +remain. He built it indeed as a chapel to his Castle, and to serve it +he founded there a small college of secular canons under a dean, and +endowed it with the church of Beeding and many tithes, among them +those of Shoreham. But about 1080 William de Braose seems to have +repented of what he had done, for he then granted to the Abbey of St +Florent in Saumur the reversion of the church of St Nicholas here, +when the last of the canons then living in his college at Beeding +should have died. It was thus that the Abbey of St Florent came to +establish a Priory at Beeding, or Sele as the monks called it, and +this about 1096; and William's son Philip confirmed them in his +father's gifts, and before the end of the twelfth century this alien +priory possessed the churches of Sele, Bramber, Washington, Old +Shoreham and New, to say nothing of the little chapel of St Peter on +the old bridge between Bramber and Beeding. + +This old bridge over the Adur is worth notice, for it is said to have +been first established by the Romans upon a road of theirs that ran +under the north escarpment of the Downs from Dover to Winchester. +Certain Roman remains have indeed been found there, and the chapel of +St Peter _de veteri ponte_ was doubtless founded in order to guard it +and keep it open and in order. + +Evil days fell upon the Priory with the rise of nationalism and the +wars of the fourteenth century. Like every other alien house it came +under suspicion of spying, and being near the coast, indeed, at the +very threshold of an important gate, it was seized by the Crown. At +last, in 1396, Richard II. permitted it to naturalise itself, and its +only connection thereafter with St Florent was the payment of a small +annual tribute. But the misfortunes of the Priory were not over. For +sixty years or more all went well, but in 1459 the Bishop of +Winchester bought the patronage of the place from the Duke of +Norfolk, and won leave from the Pope and the Bishop of Chichester to +suppress it and appropriate it to his new College of St Mary Magdalen +in Oxford. The suppression, however, was not to take effect till the +last monk then living should die, and this came to pass in 1480. For +thirteen years the Priory was unoccupied, and then in 1493 the Fellows +of Magdalen allowed the Carmelite Friars of Shoreham to use the place, +their own house in Shoreham having been engulfed by the sea. These +White Friars were the poorest in all Sussex; so poor were they that +they failed even to maintain themselves at Sele. In July 1538, when +the Bishop of Dover came to visit the place, he found "neither friar +nor secular, but the doors open ... and none to serve God." Such was +the end of the house William de Braose had built in the first years of +the Conquest. What remains of it will be found in the church of St +Peter in Upper Beeding, an Early English building of no great interest +save that it contains many carved stones from the Priory, a window and +a door also from the same house, upon the site of which the vicarage +now stands. + +William de Braose, who made Bramber his chief seat, must have had an +enormous influence upon building in this neighbourhood, which abounds +in Norman churches such as those of Botolphs and Coombes, to say +nothing of those at Shoreham Old and New; but he was by no means the +only renewer of life here. + +The most beautiful thing in the still beautiful village of Steyning is +the great church of St Andrew, but with this the Lord of Bramber has +nothing to do; the Benedictine Abbey of Fecamp rebuilt this noble +sanctuary, but its foundation is said to be due to an English saint, +St Cuthman, who, having been a shepherd boy, upon his father's death +came out of the west into Sussex bearing his mother, who was crippled, +in a kind of barrow which he dragged by a cord. A thousand queer +stories are told of him as he went on his way, happily enough it +seems, until he came to Steyning, where the cord of his barrow broke. +There he built a hut for his mother, and constructed a little church +of timber and wattles in which at last he was buried. In his life he +had performed divers miracles so that his grave became a place of +pilgrimage, and it is said to have been about this shrine that the +village and church of Steyning grew up. It remained a holy place, and +Ethelwolf, the father of Alfred, is said to have been buried there, +his body later being removed to Winchester. + +That the place was of some sort of importance would seem to be +evident, for we find Edward the Confessor, granting the manor and +churches of Steyning to the Benedictines of Fecamp, Harold taking it +from them, and the Conqueror restoring it. Two churches at Steyning +are spoken of in the Domesday Survey, and it has been thought that the +second of these is really that at Warminghurst. But we find a church +in Steyning in the thirteenth century served by secular canons. This +was, however, in all probability the church of St Andrew we know, +which in 1290 was a royal free chapel answerable neither to the +Archbishop nor to the Bishop of Chichester, but to the Abbot of Fecamp +only. The College of Canons had by then, if indeed it ever served +this church, been dissolved. At the suppression of the alien priories +in the fifteenth century Steyning passed to the new Abbey of Sion. + +There can be no doubt that the church we have at Steyning is due to +the Benedictines of Fecamp, and it is one of the noblest buildings in +the county. Of the earlier church they built here much would seem to +remain, the rudely carved arches at the eastern end of the aisles, the +Norman window on the north, and much of the aisle walls. This church +was probably cruciform and may have been larger than that we now see. +It was rebuilt again by the monks in the middle of the twelfth +century, when the great chancel arch we have, the beautiful nave +arcades and clerestory were built, with the fine mouldings and +capitals and dog-tooth ornament. The font, too, would seem to be of +about this time. The tower only dates from the sixteenth century, and +the chancel is modern. + +Now Steyning lies under Chanctonbury, but I resisted the temptation to +spend the afternoon in the old camp there looking over the "blue +goodness of the weald," for I wished especially to visit the church of +Wiston, and to see, if I might, Wiston House, which Sir Thomas +Shirley built about 1576, and where those three brothers were born who +astonished not only Sussex and all England, but Rome itself and the +Pope by their marvellous daring and adventures. + +The old manor house is delightfully situated in its beautiful park +under the dark height of Chanctonbury, and though much altered, +retains on the whole its fine Elizabethan character. The manor +originally belonged to the De Braose, from whom it passed by marriage +to the Shirleys. In the church, a small Decorated building, there is +a fine brass of 1426 to Sir John de Braose, on which over and over +again we read Jesu Mercy: this in the south chapel. His little son is +buried under an arch on the north, where there is a curious effigy of +him. The first Shirley, whose monument we find here, though only in +part, is that of Sir Richard, who died in 1540; but it was Sir Thomas, +who also has his monument, that built Wiston and was the father of +those three remarkable sons. He was the great-grandson of Ralph Shirley +of Wiston, and the son of William Shirley, who died in 1551. Till his +time the family had of course been Catholic; it was he who first +abandoned the Faith; perhaps it was this spirit of adventure so +unfortunate in him which descended to that famous "leash of brethren" +and drove them out upon their adventures. The least remarkable and the +most unfortunate of these sons of his was the eldest, Thomas, whose +life, however, as a soldier and freebooter, both on shore in the Low +Countries and at sea, is sufficiently full of adventure to satisfy +anyone. He came, however, to utter grief at last, and had to sell +Wiston, retiring to the Isle of Wight, where he died in 1630. + +It was his brother Anthony who really made the Shirleys famous. He had +graduated at Oxford in 1581, and having, as he said, "acquired those +learnings which were fit for a gentleman's ornament," he went to the +Low Countries with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and was present at +the battle of Zutphen, where Sir Philip Sidney fell. In 1591 he was in +Normandy with the Earl of Essex, whom he devotedly followed, in support +of Henry of Navarre, who made him a knight of St Michael. For accepting +a foreign knighthood without her leave, Elizabeth locked him up in the +Fleet, and only let him out when he promised to retire from the +Order. This he actually did, but his title stuck to him, and he was +always known as Sir Anthony. He then married Elizabeth Devereux, a +first cousin of his patron, the Earl of Essex; but the marriage was +unfortunate; he could not abide his wife, and in order to "occupy his +mind from thinking of her vainest words," in 1595 he fitted out with +Essex's aid and his father's a buccaneering expedition to the Gulf of +Guinea. But in something less than two years after the most amazing +adventures he came home to Wiston under the Downs, "alive but poor," +and with his passion for adventure in nowise abated. In 1597 he +accompanied Essex on the "Islands voyage," but, seeking more paying +adventure, in the winter of 1598 he consented at Essex's suggestion to +lead a little company of English adventurers to assist Cesare D'Este to +regain his Duchy of Ferrara, then in the hands of the Pope. He set +forth, but upon reaching Venice found that Cesare had submitted. Again +he was out of employment; but it was upon the quays of Venice that he +conceived the most astonishing enterprise that even an Englishman has +ever undertaken. He proposed to set out for Persia with the object of +persuading the Shah to ally himself with Christendom against the Turk, +and hoped also to establish commercial relations between England and +Persia. Upon this astonishing Crusade he left Venice with his brother +Robert and twenty-five Englishmen disappointed of a row in Ferrara, on +May 29, 1599, for Constantinople. Thence he went on to Aleppo, and so +down the Euphrates, to Babylon, to Isapahan and Kazveen, where +he met the Shah Abbas the Great. There, thanks to the Shah's +two Christian wives, he had a good reception; the rank of Prince +was conferred upon him, and he won the concession, for all Christians, +of the right, not only to trade freely, but to practise their religion +in Persia. For five months he remained at the court of the Shah, and +then returned to Europe as his ambassador to invite all Christian +powers to ally themselves with Persia against the Turk. He went first +to Moscow, where he was, however, treated with contempt, as was his +mission. He went to Prague and was well received. At last, in 1601, +after visiting Nuremberg, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbruck, and Trent, he +arrived in Rome, and, professing enthusiasm for the Faith his father +had repudiated, was well received. The truth was, he was in grave money +difficulties, and indeed in 1603 was arrested by the Venetians and +imprisoned "in a certain obscure island near unto Scio." The English +Government, however, came to his aid and obtained his release, but +refused him permission to return to England. He went to Prague, and +thence on the business of the Emperor to Morocco. There he was received +in great state and remained five months. Before leaving, however, he +released certain Portuguese whom he found in slavery, and sailed with +them for Lisbon, where he hoped to reimburse himself for their ransom. +In this he was disappointed, so on he went to Madrid, where he was made +very much of and promised the Order of Sant'Iago. In the service now of +Spain, he went to Naples in 1607, after a visit to the Emperor at +Prague where he was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He seems +to have travelled considerably in Southern Italy, and after a brief +visit, to obtain money, to Madrid, set out for Sicily in command of a +fleet to attack the Moors and Turks. He achieved nothing and was +dismissed. In 1611 he appeared again in Madrid in utter poverty, but +the King took compassion upon him and gave him a pension, and in Madrid +he remained writing an account of his adventures till he died in +beggary. The English ambassador notes in 1619, "The poor man sometimes +comes to my house and is as full of vanity as ever he was, making +himself believe that he shall one day be a great prince." It might +indeed seem a long road from Wiston under the Downs to the Gulf of +Guinea, the Quays of Venice, Constantinople, the Euphrates, Babylon, +Moscow, Prague, Rome, and Morocco, to die at last a beggar in purse, +but in heart a great Prince in Madrid. + +Now, when I had been reminded of all this, I was directed to visit +Buncton Chapel to the north of Wiston Park, where I found indeed some +Norman work in the nave and chancel arch. And so I went on my way +through the failing afternoon by that beautiful road within sight of +the high Downs to the Washington Inn, where I slept, for it is a quiet +place not to be passed by. + +And on the morrow I went on my way, still through as fair a country as +is to be found in all South England, through Storrington, and so by way +of Parham Park, with its noble Elizabethan house and little church with +the last leaden font in Sussex, a work of the fourteenth century, to +Amberley in the meads of the Arun, a dear and beautiful place. + +Amberley boasts a Castle and stands right in the mouth of one of those +gaps in the Downs as Bramber does, the gap of the Arun, and it might +well be thought that Amberley held this pass. As a fact she did not. +That gap is held by Arundel; the Castle at Amberley was a palace of the +Bishop of Chichester, granted to the Bishop of Selsey long before the +Conquest; it was only castellated in the fourteenth century. It is none +the less an interesting ruin, very picturesque, with remains of a +chapel, while the beautiful house built within the castle walls early +in the sixteenth century is altogether lovely. And as for the church, I +can never hope to tell of all its interest and beauty. Certainly a +Norman church once stood here, of which the nave of that we see was +part, as was the very noble chancel arch; but the chancel itself, the +south aisle, and the tower are of the thirteenth century, while the +south door is very early Decorated, most beautifully carved. There is +not surely in all Sussex a more delightful spot than this lying so +quietly in the meads, with its beautiful church, its ruined castle, and +fine old Elizabethan house, where Arun bends slowly and lazily towards +the Downs and the sea. + +It was with real regret that on that May morning I left Amberley, +turning often to look back at it, and last from the great seven-arched +bridge over the Arun, whence one may look down stream upon the wooded +slopes of Arundel Park. Then I went on up the road that winds through the +steep village of Houghton swiftly up on to the Downs, wooded here very +nobly, and so at the top of Rewell Hill I turned to the left and made my +way through the noble park to the little town of Arundel. + +Now I cannot say why, but in spite of its seduction, which is full of +splendour, of its noble history and great buildings, I have never been +able to love Arundel. One is there always I feel too much in the shadow +of that mighty Castle which for the most part is not old at all, too +much in the power of that great new church that surely was never built +by English hands, which has altogether blotted out the older +sanctuary, and which, Catholic though it be, has never won my +affection. Arundel itself is all in the shadow of these two things, +each of which is too big for it, too heavy for free laughter and light- +heartedness. So it seems to me. + +All I can find in Arundel that pleases me lies in the little town +itself, and in the old church of which one half, the chancel, has been +closed to all who do not hold the Duke's written permission to enter +it--as though the house of God, even though it be the property of a +Catholic duke, were not by nature as it were free to all. And so there +is a kind of sorrowfulness about Arundel that spoils my pleasure in it, +yes, even in the very noble remains of the old Castle that are hidden +away within the sham Gothic affair of 1791. Even in the beautiful old +church, of which one half is closed, even in the steep little town +which might have been as gay as Rye, I felt, overwhelmed by the new +Castle and the new church, neither of which has any antiquity, +tradition, or beauty. + +[Illustration: ARUNDEL CASTLE] + +The old Castle, with its great circular Norman keep within the huge +sham "fortress" of the eighteenth century, beneath which the town lies +like one afraid to ask for mercy, should not be left unvisited, for it +was probably built by that Roger de Montgomery, who led the Breton +centre at Hastings, and has thus nearly a thousand years of history +behind it, to say nothing of three sieges, that of 1102, when it was +surrendered to Henry I., that of 1139, when Stephen there held Matilda +prisoner and allowed her to pass out, and that of 1643, when Waller +took it after seventeen days. + + + +Nor indeed should anyone fail to visit the beautiful parish church of +St Nicholas, a glorious cruciform building, Perpendicular in style, +built in 1380. It, too, has a long history. The church was originally +served by secular canons, but in 1177 the then Earl of Arundel +introduced in their place four or five monks under a Prior from St +Martin of Seez. In the fourteenth century, however, these alien monks +withdrew to their mother house, and in 1380 the Priory of St Nicholas +in Arundel was reconverted into a collegiate church. This college +consisted of a master and sub-master, ten chaplains, two deacons, two +sub-deacons, and five choristers. The choir of the church was the +chapel of the college, the remainder being parochial. The college +survived the general suppression, but was eventually bought by the Earl +of Arundel, who had previously offered a thousand pounds for it. And so +it was that after a long law-suit in 1880 the chancel of the parish +church of Arundel was given up to the Duke of Norfolk. + +I did not sleep in Arundel, but, though it was already afternoon, I set +out westward once more through the great park, and just before sunset I +came to the great church of Boxgrove, which stands between the road I +had followed from Arundel and the Roman Stane Street, where they +approach to enter the East Gate of Chichester together at last. This +great and beautiful sanctuary, gives one, I think, a better idea of +what the great monastic churches really were, than any other building +left to us in Sussex. It is like a cathedral for solemnity, and for +size too, though it is only a fragment, and its beauty cannot be +forgotten. + +In its foundation the church is very ancient, a small college of +secular canons serving it in Saxon times. But all was changed when +Robert de Haza, to whom Henry I. had granted the honour of Halnaker, in +1105 bestowed the church upon the Abbey of Lessay, which sent hither +its Benedictines and built for them a new sanctuary. Boxgrove was thus +an alien priory from 1108 till in 1339. Richard II. affirmed its +independence, and this was confirmed by the Pope in 1402. It seems +then to have been in a bad way, but later recovered. In the thirteenth +century it had boasted nineteen monks, but at the time of the +suppression it only mustered eight priests, who seem to have kept a +school for the children of the neighbourhood. What remains of the +Priory, not much more than a gateway, for most of it was destroyed in +1780, stands to the north of the church. + +The original Norman church here was cruciform. Of this building we +still see the tower, the transepts and the lower part of what remains +of the nave, and the arcade to the south. This Norman church was +greatly enlarged in the twelfth century, when the nave now destroyed +was built, the tower piers were then cased in the Transitional style +and the arches which carry the tower were altered. Later, about 1235, +the chancel we see and its aisles, as lovely as anything in southern +England, were added in the Early English style, that often reminds one +of Chichester Cathedral. To the fourteenth century belong the south +porch and more than one window in the aisles, while the font and other +windows are Perpendicular. + +I had often read of the unique vaulting of the choir of Boxgrove +Priory, but the twilight was so deep in the church, for it was already +evening, that I could not see it. I saw, however, the empty tomb, very +fine and splendid, of the Earl de la Warr, who begged Boxgrove of +Thomas Cromwell unsuccessfully; and then I went out and marched on into +Chichester, the East Gate of which I entered not long after dark. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CHICHESTER + + +The mere plan of Chichester proclaims its Roman origin. It is a little +walled city lying out upon the sea plain of Sussex, cruciform by reason +of its streets, North Street, South Street, East Street, and West +Street, which divide it into four quarters, of which that upon the +south became wholly ecclesiastical: the south-west quarter being +occupied by the Cathedral and its subject buildings, while the south- +east quarter was the Palatinate of the Archbishop. As for the quarter +north-east it was appropriated to the Castle and its dependencies, of +which however, nothing remains, while the quarter north-west was +occupied by the townspeople, and to-day contains their parish church of +St Peter Major. These four quarters meet at the Market Cross, whence +the streets that divide the city set out for the four quarters of the +world. + +To come into Chichester to-day even by the quiet red-brick street-- +South Street--from the railway station, the least interesting entry +into the city, is to understand at once what Chichester is; one of +those country towns that is to say, cities in the good old sense, +because they were the seat of the Bishop, which are not only the pride +of England, but perhaps the best things left to her and certainly the +most characteristic of all that she truly means and stands for. If such +places are without the feverish and confused life of the great +industrial centres of modern England, let us thank God for it, they +have nevertheless a quiet vitality of their own, which in the long run +will prove more persistent and strong than the futile excitement of +places noisy with machinery and wretched with the enslaved poor. Such +places as Chichester may indeed stand for England in a way that +Manchester, for instance, with its cosmopolitan population and +egotistical ambition, its greed, its helplessness, and appalling +intellectual mongrelism and parvenu and international society, can +never hope to do. England truly remains herself, the England of my +heart, because of such places as Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, +Wells, and those dear market towns which still remember and maintain +her great past and renew the ways of our forefathers. All are very old, +co-eval with England, all have sturdy and unforgotten traditions, and +in these, if we but knew it, lies our best hope for the future. + +Among these dear places Chichester is no exception, rather is she most +typical; she has an immemorial past, and out of it she will contrive +somehow or other to face and to outface whatever the future may bring. +Like everything that is best in England, that is indeed most typical of +ourselves, her origins are not barbarian, but Roman. Her ancient name +was Regnum, the city, it is said, first of Cogidubnus, King of the +Regni and Legate in Britain of Claudius Caesar. That the Romans built +and maintained an important town here cannot be doubted; the very form +of the city to-day would be enough to establish this, apart from the +notable discoveries of buildings, pavements, urns, inscriptions, and I +know not what else belonging to the whole of the Roman occupation of +Britain. It is obvious that Chichester played a great part in the Roman +administration of South Britain; its port was large, safe and +accessible, while it was the first town upon the east of that great +group of creeks and harbours which run up out of Spithead and +Southampton Water. Throughout the Middle Ages, Bosham, the port of +Chichester, maintained its position, while even in the eighteenth +century Chichester harbour was sufficiently important to warrant the +cutting of the canal which unites the Arun with Chichester Channel. +There is, however, something else which must always place beyond doubt +the importance of Chichester in Roman times. It was from Chichester, +out of the East Gate, that the great Roman road set forth for London, +the road we know as the Stane Street, chiefly, as we may suppose, a +great military way. This was the only Roman road over the South Downs, +the only road that connected London with the greater harbours of the +South Coast. Its terminus was Chichester. + +[Illustration: THE MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER] + +Of the early connection of the town with Christianity there is to say +the least high probability. An inscription found in North Street, and +now preserved at Goodwood, recording the dedication of a Temple by the +College of Smiths to Neptune and Minerva, would seem to refer to that +Claudia and that Pudens mentioned by St Paul, and thus to connect them +with Regnum. However that may be, we know that it with the rest of Britain +must have been a Christian city long before the failure of the Roman +administration. + +With that failure and the final departure of the Legions, Regnum fell +on evil days. Its position as the key to those harbours which had given +it its importance now exposed it to the first raids of the pirates. +These barbarians, according to legend, were Ella and his three sons, +one of whom, Cissa, is said to have given Chichester her name--Cissa's +camp, Cissa's Ceaster. Of Chichester's story during the Dark Ages we +know as little as we know of most of the cities of England, but that it +was destroyed utterly, as has been asserted, common sense refuses to +allow us to believe. It certainly continued to exist, in barbarous +fashion perhaps, but still to live, till with the conversion of the +English it began to take on a new life, and with the Conquest was +finally established as the seat of the Bishop. + +The apostle of the South Saxons, St Wilfrid, wrecked upon the flat and +inhospitable shore of Selsey, was, as we know, their first bishop. He +established his See, however, not at Chichester, but at Selsey where it +remained until the Conqueror began to reorganise England upon a Roman +plan, when more than one See was removed from the village in which it +had long been established to the neighbouring great town. So it was +with the Bishopric of Sussex, which in the first years of the Norman +administration was removed from Selsey to Chichester. + +Thus Chichester was restored in 1075 to the great position it had held +in the time of the Romans. Its lord was that Roger de Montgomery who +received it from the Conqueror, together with more than eighty manors, +and to him was due the castle which stood in the north-east quarter, +and the rebuilding of the Roman walls, which continually renewed and +rebuilt, still in some sort stand, upon Roman foundations, and mark the +limits of the Roman town. + +Of the South Saxon cathedral church at Selsey we know almost nothing. +It seems to have been established as a Benedictine house under an +abbot who was also bishop, but later the monks were replaced by secular +canons. Then when in 1075 the See was removed from Selsey to Chichester +the old church dedicated in honour of St Peter, which stood upon the +site of the present cathedral, was used as the cathedral church, and +the Benedictine nuns, to whom it then belonged were dispossessed in +favour of the canons. This, however, did not last long; by 1091 a new +Norman church, the work of Bishop Ralph, whose great stone coffin +stands in the Lady Chapel, had been built upon this site and dedicated +in honour of the Blessed Trinity, the old church being commemorated in +the nave, which still was used as the parochial church of St Peter +Major. This new building, however, was soon so badly damaged by fire +that it was necessary to rebuild it--this in 1114; but a like fate +befell it in 1187, and again the church was restored, this time by +Bishop Seffrid. Then in the thirteenth century came Bishop Richard. He +was consecrated in 1245, and ruled the diocese for eight years. This +man was a saint, and in 1261 he was canonised. Thus Chichester got a +shrine of its own, which became exceedingly famous and attracted vast +crowds of pilgrims, and thus indirectly brought so much money to the +church that great works, such as the transformed Lady Chapel, and the +many chapels which the Cathedral boasts, were able to be undertaken. + +St Richard of Chichester was not a Sussex man; he was born about 1197, +at Droitwich in Worcestershire, and thus gets his name Richard de +Wyche. His father, a man well-to-do, died, however, when Richard was +very young, and he being only a younger son fell into poverty. We find +him, according to his fifteenth-century biographer, labouring on his +brother's land, and to such good purpose, it is said, that he quite re- +established his family, and withal such love was there between the +brothers that the elder would have resigned all his estates in favour +of the younger. But Richard would not consent, preferring to go as a +poor scholar to Oxford, where, we learn, that he lived in the utmost +poverty sharing indeed a tunic and a hooded gown with two companions, +so that the three could only attend lectures in turn. At Oxford he +seems chiefly to have devoted himself to the study of Logic, and for +this purpose he presently went to Paris, returning, however, to Oxford +to take his degree. Thence once more he set out, this time to study +Canon Law at Bologna, where he not only won a great reputation, but was +appointed a public professor of that faculty. So beloved and respected +was he in that great university, where there was always a considerable +English contingent, that his tutor offered him his daughter in +marriage, and gladly would he have taken her, but that marriage was not +for him. So he set out for England and Oxford, where he was joyfully +received and indeed such was his fame that he was made chancellor of +the university. In truth, he was in such great demand that both +Canterbury and Lincoln wished to secure him, and at last Archbishop +Edmund Rich succeeded where Robert Grosseteste failed, and Richard +became chancellor of Canterbury and the dear friend of the Archbishop. +They were indeed two saints together, and even in their lifetime were +greeted as "two cherubim in glory." Together they faced the king, when +he continued to allow so many English bishoprics to remain vacant, and +together they went into exile to Pontigny, and later to Soissy, where +St Edmund died. Heart-broken by the loss of so dear a friend Richard +retired into a Dominican house in Orleans and immersed himself in the +study of Theology. There he was ordained priest, and there he founded a +chapel in honour of St Edmund. But Boniface of Savoy, who had succeeded +St Edmund in the archbishopric of Canterbury, besought him to return. +He obeyed, and was appointed rector of Charing and vicar of Deal in +1243, becoming once more Chancellor of Canterbury. But still there +remained the enmity of the King. Two good things Henry III. gave us, +Westminster Abbey and Edward I.; but he was almost as difficult as +Henry II., with regard to investitures. Fortunately he was not so +obstinate, or we might have had a martyr instead of a confessor in +Chichester, as we have in Canterbury. + +In the year 1244 the See of Chichester fell vacant by the death of +Bishop Ralph Neville, and at the King's suggestion the canons elected +their archdeacon, a keen supporter of his. Boniface at once held a +synod, quashed the election, and recommended his chancellor Richard as +Bishop, to which the chapter agreed. The king was, of course, furious. +Richard, who was received by him, could do nothing with him, and so +immediately appealed to the Pope, Innocent IV., it was, who consecrated +him at Lyons upon March 5, 1245. Even this did not move the King. +Richard returned to England, found the temporalities of his See +disgracefully wasted by the King, sought and obtained an interview with +Henry, but achieved nothing. For a time he lived at Tarring with a poor +priest named Simon, for in his own diocese he was a beggar and a +stranger as it were in a foreign land. In 1246, however, the Pope +having threatened excommunication, the King gave way, and Richard at +once began to reform his diocese, to discipline his priests, and to +restore the ritual of his cathedral, and indeed of all the churches in +his diocese. He lived a life of severe asceticism, and gave so much in +alms that he was always a beggar. Usurers were punished by +excommunication, and Jews were forbidden to build new synagogues. It +was he, too, who first established the custom of the Easter offering +contribution from the faithful to the Cathedral, known later as St +Richard's pence. He loved the Friars, more especially the Dominicans, +who had befriended him at Orleans, and to which Order his confessor +belonged. He ardently preached the crusade and was eagerly loyal to St +Peter. It was, indeed, as he was journeying through southern England, +urging men to take the Cross, that at Dover he fell ill and died there +during Mass in the Hospitium Dei. His body was buried in a humble +grave, we read, near the altar he had built in honour of St Edmund, his +friend, in the Cathedral of Chichester. And from the moment of his +death he was accounted a saint. Miracles were performed at his tomb, +which even Prince Edward visited, and in 1262, in the church of the +Fransicans at Viterbo, Pope Urban IV. raised him to the altar. In June +1276 St Richard's body was taken from its grave in the nave of +Chichester Cathedral, and in the presence of King Edward I. and a crowd +of bishops, was translated to a silver gilt shrine. Later, this was +removed to the tomb in the south transept. + +St Richard was not only a popular hero and saint both before and after +his death, to him and his shrine is due very much that is most lovely +in the Cathedral, and it was he who really reformed the chapter there. + +Chichester had always been served by a dean and chapter of secular +canons. The canons were originally, of course, resident, but the +chapter had always been poorly endowed, and as time went on residence +was actually discouraged. Perhaps then arose the canon's vicars who +represented the canons and chanted in choir. The vicars choral were, +however, not incorporated until 1465; they were assisted by ten or +twelve boy choristers, whose chief business it was, I suppose, to sing +the Lady-Mass in prick-song. Beside this company of canons, vicars and +choristers directly serving the cathedral, a number of chaplains served +the various altars and chantries within it, which at the Dissolution +numbered fifteen. St Richard not only reorganised the cathedral staff, +but also established the "use" of Chichester, which he ordered to be +followed throughout the diocese. This "use" was followed until 1444, +when, by order of the archbishop, that of Sarum, was established. + +With the Reformation, of course, everything but the Cathedral itself +and the form of its administration and government was swept away. Nor +was it long before even what Henry and Elizabeth had spared was +demolished. In 1643 Chichester was besieged by Waller and taken after +ten days. His soldiers, we read, "pulled down the idolatrous images +from the Market Cross; they brake down the organ in the Cathedral and +dashed the pipes with their pole-axes, crying in scoff, "Harke! how the +organs goe"; and after they ran up and down with their swords drawn, +defacing the monuments of the dead and hacking the seats and stalls." +Indeed, such was their malice that it is wonderful to see how much +loveliness remains. + +No cathedral, I think, and certainly no lesser church in England is so +completely representative of the whole history of our architecture as +is Chichester. In Salisbury we have the most uniform building in our +island, in Chichester the most various, for it possesses work in every +style, from the time of the Saxons to that of Sir Gilbert Scott. + +It was Bishop Ralph who before 1108 built the church we know, and +completed it save upon the west front, where only the lower parts of +the south-western tower are Norman. But work earlier than his, Saxon +work, may be seen in the south aisle of the choir, where there are two +carved stones representing Christ with Martha and Mary and the Raising +of Lazarus. Bishop Ralph's church was badly damaged by fire in 1114, +and it would seem that the four western bays of the nave date from the +following rebuilding and restoration. Then in 1187 the Cathedral was +burnt again, and Bishop Seffrid vaulted it for the first time--till +then only the aisles had been vaulted--building great buttresses to +support this and re-erecting the inner arcade of the clerestory. +Apparently the apse and ambulatory which till then had closed the +great church, on the east had been destroyed in the fire. At any rate +Bishop Seffrid replaced them with the exquisite retro-choir we have, +and square eastern chapels. He did the same with the old apses of the +transepts, and he recased the choir with Caen stone, using Purbeck very +freely and with beautiful effect. All this work is very late +Transitional, the very last of the Norman or Romanesque. + +Then in the thirteenth century, which was to see St Richard Bishop of +Chichester, the beautiful south porch was built, a pure Early English +work, the north porch almost as lovely and of the same date, and later +the sacristy beside the south porch. In St Richard's own day the south- +west tower was built as we see it. The Norman tower over the crossing +was destroyed and a lighter one built in its place as we see, and the +galilee was set up before the western doors. Then, too, the chapels +were built out from the nave aisles, upon the north those of St Thomas, +St Anna, and St Edmund, upon the south, those of St George and St +Clement, things unique in England, and all largely works of the second +half of the thirteenth century and the early Decorated style, which +indeed give to the Cathedral, with its dark Norman nave, all its charm, +its variety and delight. + +Not much later than this transformation of the nave, though the nave +itself was not touched, was the rebuilding or rather the lengthening +and transformation of the Lady Chapel. Fundamentally this beautiful +Decorated chapel is a Norman work, transformed into a Transitional one, +to be glorified and transfigured in the very end of the thirteenth +century, and now spoilt as we see. All this was done either by St +Richard himself, or with the money gathered at his shrine. + +In the first half of the fourteenth century little would appear to +have been built, save that certain beautiful windows, as that in the +end of the south aisle of the choir and that in the south transept, +with Bishop Langton's tomb beneath it, were inserted, and the fine +stalls were built in the choir. + +In the Perpendicular period the detached campanile was erected to the +north-west and the Cathedral was crowned by the great spire, a noble +work lost to us in our own time and replaced by the copy of Sir Gilbert +Scott. Later still, in the sixteenth century, a great stone screen, now +destroyed, was erected across the church, with chantries, and the +cloister was built. There, over a doorway on the south, is a shield, +with the arms of Henry VII., and two figures kneeling before the +Blessed Virgin, attended by an angel holding a rose. + +A few tombs of interest or beauty, which the Puritans failed to +destroy, remain to this great Catholic building. These are the tombs of +St Richard, of which I have spoken, in the north transept against the +choir, the restored Arundel Chantry and tomb of Richard Fitzalan in the +north aisle of the nave, and the exquisite Decorated tomb in the chapel +of St John Baptist at the eastern end of this aisle; little beside. + +It must indeed be confessed that when all is said and done, essentially +romantic as the Cathedral of Chichester is with its so various styles +of architecture, lovely as certain parts of it are still, it must +always have been a building rather interesting than beautiful, and it +has suffered so much from vandalism and restoration that it cannot be +accounted a monument of the first order. Nevertheless, I always return +to it with delight and am reluctant to go away, for in England +certainly a cathedral, even of the second order, of restricted grandeur +and spoilt beauty, may be a very charming and delightful and precious +thing as indeed this church of Chichester is. + +At any rate it is by far the most interesting thing left to us in the +city. The other churches, except perhaps St Olave's, are not worth a +visit; even in St Olave's everything has been done to make it as little +interesting as possible. + +The best thing left to us in Chichester, apart from the Cathedral and +its subject buildings, is, I think, St Mary's Hospital, a foundation +dating from the time of Henry II., which possesses a noble great hall, +and a pretty Decorated chapel, with old stalls, which is still used as +an almshouse. It stands upon the site of the first Franciscan house +established in Chichester. In 1269 the Friars Minor left this place and +moved to the site of the old Castle. There they built the church of +which the choir still remains, a lovely work ruined at the dissolution +and used as the Guildhall. It is now a store room. Nothing in +Chichester is more beautiful than this Early English fragment, which +seems to remind us of all we have lost by that disastrous revolution of +the sixteenth century, whose latest results we still await with fear +and dread. + + + +But let who will be disappointed in Chichester, I shall love it all my +days; not so much for these its monuments, but for itself, its +curiously sleepy air of disinterested quiet, its strong dislike of any +sort of enthusiasm, its English boredom, even of itself, its complete +surrender to what is, its indifference to what might be. May it ever +remain secure within sight of the hills, within sight of the sea, +steeped in the Tudor myth, certain in its English heart, that twice two +is not four but anything one likes to make it, nor ever hear ribald +voices calling upon it to decide what after all it stands for in the +world, denying it any longer the consolation it loves best of finding +in the conclusion what is not in the premises, or, as the vulgar might +put it, of having its cake and eating it too. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SELSEY, BOSHAM AND PORCHESTER + + +It was my good fortune, while I was in Chichester, to be tempted to +explore the peninsula of Selsey, which most authorities declare to have +no beauty and little interest for the traveller to-day. For St +Wilfrid's sake, I put aside these admonishments, and one morning set +out upon the lonely road to Pagham, across a country as flat as a fen, +of old, as they say, a forest, the forest of Mainwood, and still in +spite of drainage and cultivation very bleak and lonely with marshes +here and there which are still the haunt of all kinds of wild-fowl. + +It is only to the man who finds pleasure in the Somerset moors, the +fens of Cambridgeshire or the emptiness of Romney Marsh that this +corner of England will appeal, but to such an one it is full of +interest and certainly not without beauty. Pagham, however, of which I +had read, with its creek and harbour, its curious Hushing Well, its +golden sands, and extraordinary melancholy, as it were a ruin of the +sea, sadly disappointed me. Only its melancholy remains. Its harbour, +where of old we read the sea-fowl were to be seen in innumerable +flocks, and the whole place was musical with the cry of the wild-swan, +has been wholly reclaimed, and the famous Hushing Well no longer exists +at all. This last was a curious natural phenomenon and must have been +worth seeing. It consisted apparently of a great pool in the sea, one +hundred and thirty feet long by thirty feet broad, boiling and bubbling +and booming all day long. This was caused, it is said, by the air +rushing through a bed of shingle beneath which was a vast cavern from +which the sea continuously expelled the air as it rushed in. Nothing of +the sort exists at Pagham to-day; it has disappeared with the +reclamation of the harbour, which itself was formed, we are told, in +the fourteenth century by a tidal wave, when nearly three thousand +acres were inundated. The only thing which the continual fight of man +against water in this peninsula has left us that is worth seeing in +Pagham to-day is the church of St Thomas of Canterbury. This is an +Early English building much spoiled by restoration, the best thing +remaining being the beautiful arcade of the end of the twelfth century. +But the eastern window which consists of three lancets is charming, as +is the fourteenth-century chantry at the top of the north aisle, +founded in 1383 by John Bowrere. In the chancel is a curious slab with +an inscription in Lombardic characters, perhaps a memorial of a former +rector. The font is Norman. The church was probably built by one of +the early successors of St Thomas in the See of Canterbury; for Pagham +belonged to the Archbishops until the Reformation, and certain ruins of +their palace remain in a field to the south-east of the church. At +Nyetimber, on the Chichester road, a mile out of Pagham, are the ruins +of a thirteenth-century chapel. + +To reach Selsey and its old church of Our Lady, what remains of it, +from Pagham is not an easy matter, the footpaths across the fields +being sometimes a little vague. The walk, however, is worth the trouble +it involves, for you may thus gather some idea of the history of this +unfortunate coast, which the sea has been eating up for at least +fifteen hundred years. Indeed, in the time of St Wilfrid the peninsula +was probably nearly twice as big as it is to-day, and Selsey was +undoubtedly a little island, probably of mud, divided from the mainland +at least by the tide. It was here, St Wilfrid was shipwrecked in 666, +and it is from his adventures in Sussex that we learn of the +extraordinary barbarism of the South Saxons, two generations after the +advent of St Augustine. + +St Wilfrid's ship, it seems, was stranded on the mud flats, and the +quite pagan South Saxons attacked him and the crew, and it was only the +rise of the tide which floated the ship that saved them, with a loss of +five men. It was not till 681 that Wilfrid, really a fugitive, came +again into Sussex, and this time as to a refuge, for Ethelwalch, king +of the South Saxons, and his queen were then Christians, though their +people were still pagan. There was a certain monk, however, probably an +Irishman, who had a small monastery at Bosham encompassed by the sea +and the woods, and in it were five or six brethren who served God in +poverty and humility; but none of the natives cared either to follow +their course of life or to hear their preaching. Of these heathen St +Wilfrid at once became the Apostle. For, as Bede tells us, he "not only +delivered them from the misery of perpetual damnation, but also from an +inexpressible calamity of temporal death, for no rain had fallen in +that province in three years before his arrival, whereupon a dreadful +famine ensued which cruelly destroyed the people. In short, it is +reported that very often forty or fifty men, being spent with want, +would go together to some precipice, or to the sea-shore, and there +hand in hand perish by the fall, or be swallowed up by the waves. But +on the very day on which the nation received the baptism of faith there +fell a soft but plentiful rain; the earth revived again, and, the +verdure being restored to the fields, the season was pleasant and +fruitful. Thus the former superstition being rejected, and idolatry +exploded, the hearts and flesh of all rejoiced in the living God and +became convinced that He who is the true God had, through His heavenly +grace, enriched them with wealth, both temporal and spiritual. For the +bishop, when he came into the province and found so great misery from +famine, taught them to get their food by fishing; for their sea and +rivers abounded in fish, but the people had no skill to take them +except eels alone. The bishop's men having gathered eel-nets +everywhere, cast them into the sea, and by the blessing of God took +three hundred fishes of several sorts, which, being divided into three +parts, they gave a hundred to the poor, a hundred to those of whom they +had the nets, and kept a hundred for their own use. By this benefit the +bishop gained the affections of them all, and they began more readily +to hear his preaching and to hope for heavenly good, seeing that by his +help they had received that good which is temporal. Now at this time +King Ethelwalch gave to the most reverend prelate Wilfrid, land of +eighty-seven families, which place is called Selsey, that is, the +Island of the Sea-Calf. That place is encompassed by the sea on all +sides, except the west, where is an entrance about the cast of a sling +in width; which sort of place by the Latins is called a peninsula, by +the Greeks a chersonesus. Bishop Wilfrid, having this place given him, +founded therein a monastery, which his successors possess to this day, +and established a regular course of life, chiefly of the brethren he +had brought with him; for he, both in word and actions, performed the +duties of a bishop in those parts during the space of five years, until +the death of King Egfrid. And forasmuch as the aforesaid king, together +with the said place, gave him all the goods that were therein, with the +lands and men, he instructed them in the Faith of Christ and baptised +them all. Among whom were two hundred and fifty men and women slaves, +all of whom he by baptism, not only rescued from the servitude of the +devil, but gave them their bodily liberty also and exempted them from +the yoke of human servitude." + +The church and monastery which St Wilfrid thus founded at Selsey, +thereby establishing the bishopric of Sussex, have long since +disappeared beneath the sea. Camden, however, tells us that +he saw the foundations at low water; they lay about a mile to +the east of the little church of Our Lady, which remained complete +until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was all +pulled down except the chancel which we see to-day in the graveyard +which it serves as chapel. It is a work of the fourteenth century, and +within is the fine sixteenth-century monument of John Lews and his +wife. The old Norman font has been removed to the new church of St +Peter at Selsey, built largely out of old materials. There, too, is an +Elizabethan chalice and paten of the sixteenth century. + +Thus nothing at all remains at Selsey, not even the landscape as it was +in St Wilfrid's day. Till yesterday, however, one might realise in the +loneliness and desolation of this low, lean headland something of that +far-off time in which the great bishop came here and had to teach that +barbarous folk even to fish. Now even that is going, or gone, for the +new light railway from Chichester is bringing a new life to Selsey, +which, after all, it would ill become us to grudge her. + +By that railway indeed I returned to Chichester, and then at once set +out westward for Bosham, where I slept. Bosham is perhaps the most +interesting place in all this peninsula as well as probably the most +ancient. That Bosham was a port of the Romans seems likely, but that it +was the earliest seat of Christianity in Sussex after the advent of the +pagans is certain. There, as Bede tells us, St Wilfrid, when he came +into Sussex in 681, found a Scottish (most probably Irish) monk named +Dicul, who had, in a little monastery encompassed by the sea and the +woods, five or six brethren who served God in poverty and humility. +With the conversion of the South Saxons that monastery flourished, the +house grew rich, and Edward the Confessor bestowed it upon his Norman +chaplain Osbern, Bishop of Exeter, whom, of course, the Conqueror did +not dispossess. Indeed, the place became famous and appears in the +Bayeaux tapestry, in the very first picture, where we see "Harold and +his Knights riding towards Bosham" to embark for Normandy. Bosham, +indeed, was one of Harold's manors, his father, according to the +legend, having acquired it by a trick. _Da mihi basium_, says Earl +Godwin to the Archbishop Aethelnoth, thus claiming to have received +Bosham. That Earl Godwin held Bosham we are assured by the Domesday +Survey, which also speaks of the church, presumably the successor of +the old monastery of Dicul. This, as I have said, and as Domesday Book +tells us, Bishop Osbern of Exeter "holds of King William as he had held +it of King Edward." The Bishop of Exeter still held it, "a royal free +chapel" in the time of Henry I. Then was established here, in place, as +I suppose, of the monks, a college of six secular canons, the Bishop +being the Dean. Exeter, indeed, only once lost the church of Bosham, +and that in a most glorious cause, the cause of St Thomas. For when +Henry II. quarrelled with Becket [Footnote: Herbert of Bosham, possibly +a canon of Bosham, was St Thomas' secretary and devoted follower, and was +certainly born in Bosham.] he deprived the Bishop of Exeter, who took his +part, of this church and bestowed it upon the Abbot of Lisieux, who held +it till 1177, when it came once more to the Bishop of Exeter, who held it, +he and his successors till the Reformation. In 1548 the college was +suppressed, only one priest being left to serve the church, with a +curate to serve the dependent parish of Appledram. + +The church, as we have it to-day upon a little sloping green hill over +the water, is of the very greatest interest. The foundations of a Roman +building have been discovered beneath the chancel, and the foundation +and basis of the chancel arch may be a part of this building. But the +greater part of the building we have is undoubtedly Saxon; the great +grey tower, the nave, the chancel arch, one of the most characteristic +works of that period, and the chancel itself, though enlarged in later +times, are without doubt buildings of Saxon England. Mr Baldwin Brown +in his fine work upon "The Arts in Early England," thus speaks of it: +"The plan, as will be seen at a glance, has been set out with more than +mediaeval indifference to exactness of measurements and squareing, and +the chancel diverges phenomenally from the axis of the nave. The +elevations are gaunt in their plainness, and the now unplastered +rubble-work is rough and uncomely, but the dimensions are ample, the +walls lofty, and the chancel arch undeniably imposing." Of the bases +here he says: "These slabs are commonly attributed to the Romans, but +it is not easy to see what part of a Roman building they can ever have +formed. The truth is that they bear no resemblance to known classical +features, while they are on the other hand, characteristically Saxon. +The nearest parallel to them is to be found in the imposts of the +chancel arch at Worth in Sussex, a place far away from Roman sites. The +Worth imposts, like the bases at Bosham, are huge and ungainly, +testifying both to the general love of bigness in the Saxon builder +and to his comparative ignorance of the normal features which in the +eleventh century were everywhere else crystallising into Romanesque. +Saxon England stood outside the general development of European +architecture, but the fact gives it none the less of interest in our +eyes." + +The church of Holy Trinity, Bosham, is thus the most important Saxon +work left to us in Sussex, indeed save for the aisles and arcades and +the Norman and Early English additions to the chancel, that glorious +eastern window of five lancets, which in itself is worth a journey to +see, the clerestory, and the furniture we have here really a complete +Saxon work. The font is later Norman and not very interesting; but the +exquisite recessed tomb with the effigy of a girl lying upon it is a +noble work of the thirteenth century, said to mark the grave of +Canute's daughter. The crypt dates also from that time. Near the south +door is another fine canopied tomb, said to be that of Herbert of +Bosham. The windows are Norman in the clerestory and Early English and +Decorated elsewhere throughout the church. The stalls in the chancel +are Perpendicular. But here if anywhere in south-eastern England we +have a church dating from the Dark Age, in which happily we were +persuaded back again within the influence of the Faith and of Rome. +Bosham then for every Englishman is a holy place only second to +Glastonbury and Canterbury: it is a monument of our conversion, of the +re-entry of England into Christendom, of that Easter of ours which saw +us rise from the dead. + +A few ruins, mere heaps of stones, mark the site of the college to the +north of the church. Of Earl Godwin's manor-house only the moat remains +near an ancient mill towards the sea; and there, upon the little green +between the grey church and the grey sea, one may best recall the +reverent past of this lovely spot. Little is here for pride, much to +make us humble and exceeding thankful. God was worshipped here between +the sea and the greenwood when our South Saxon forefathers were not +only the merest pagans, but so barbarous that they knew not even how to +fish, when they were so wretched that in companies they would cast +themselves into the sea because there was no light in their hearts and +nothing else to do. Out of that darkness St Wilfrid led them, but even +before he came with the light of Christ and of Rome, in some half +barbarous way in this little place men prayed and Mass was said, and +there was the means of deliverance though men knew it not, being +barbarians. + +It is as though at Bosham we were able to catch a glimpse, as it were, +of all that darkness out of which we are come by the guiding of a star. + +[Illustration: BOSHAM] + +That Bosham was a harbour in Roman times, and that it had more than a +little to do with the founding of Regnum, and the building perhaps of +the Stane Street, I had long since convinced myself. All these creeks +and harbours were probably known and used even then, and certainly all +through the Middle Ages Bosham was of importance as a port; and the +series of creeks, the most eastern of which it served, and the most +western of which is Southampton Water, with Portsmouth Harbour between +them, was still among the greatest ports in England, easily the +greatest, I suppose, in the south country. + +In order to see something of this low and muddy coast, which has seen +so much of the history of England, I set out from Bosham very early one +morning, intending to make my way through Emsworth and Havant, by the +Roman road which joins Chichester and Southampton and runs across the +north of these creeks, which may perhaps be considered as one great +port of which only the more western part is famous still. + +That way has little to recommend it, and indeed I learned little, for +the modern world has obliterated with its terrible footsteps nearly all +that might have remained of our humble and yet so glorious past, and it +was still early morning when I crossed the Hampshire boundary and came +into the little town of Emsworth, once famous for its trade in foreign +wines, now, I suppose, best known as a yachting station. Emsworth was +originally of far less importance than Warblington, of which it was a +hamlet. There the fair was upon the morrow of the feast of the +Translation of St Thomas of Canterbury, to which saint the parish +church of Warblington is dedicated. This is a very beautiful and +interesting building, but it is obvious at once that it cannot always +have stood in the name of St Thomas, for part of its central tower--the +church consists of chancel, and nave, with a tower between them, north +chancel, vestry, north and south nave-aisles, and north porch--is of +Saxon workmanship. Only one stage of this, however, now remains, the +lower part having been altogether rebuilt. This tower was originally a +western tower, the Saxon church standing to the east of it. There is no +sign of Norman work here, and it seems probable that the Saxon church +remained until in the first years of the thirteenth century a new nave +and aisles were built to the west of the old tower, the lower part of +which was then removed and the tower supported by arches in order to +open a way into the nave of the old church, which thus became the +chancel of the new. It was then in all probability that the church was +newly dedicated in honour of St Thomas. The whole of the old church, +nave and chancel together, however, was destroyed before the end of the +thirteenth century, and a large new chancel built with a chapel or +vestry at the eastern end upon the north; at the same time the aisles +of the nave were rebuilt. Later in the fourteenth century the eastern +arch bearing the tower was rebuilt, and thus appeared the church which +in the main we still see. The difference in the north and south +arcades of the nave is, though, very striking here, because of the +great contrast between the exquisite and delicate beauty of the south +with its clustered columns of Purbeck and the plain round stone columns +of the north, common enough. Tradition has it that the church was built +by two maiden ladies who lived in the old castle near the church, and +that each built a side of the church according to her taste. One is +said to lie in the chapel at the east end of the south aisle, where +there is a tomb with effigy, the other in a tomb in the north aisle. +The "castle" came in 1551 to Sir Richard Cotton, whose son George +entertained Queen Elizabeth there for two days in 1586. In 1643 a +Richard Cotton held the "strong house" of Warblington against the +Parliament till it was taken by "sixty soldiers and a hundred muskets." +All that remains of the place to-day is a beautiful octagonal tower of +red brick and stone, once part of the main gateway. + +Now when I had seen all this I went on into Havant, and there at the +cross-roads I found the church of St Faith close by an old sixteenth- +century half-timbered house--the Old House at Home. Havant is, in +spite of the modern world, a place of miracle; for it possesses a +spring to the south-west of the church, called, I think, St Faith's, +which never fails in summer for drought, nor in winter for frost. But +for all that the most interesting thing in the town remains the church. +This is a cruciform building with a tower over the crossing, and is +as, we have it, of Norman foundation, though it seems to stand upon a +Roman site, coins having been found when the old nave was destroyed in +1832 and Roman brick and cement and foundations. The church we see, +however, dates absolutely from the late twelfth century, and is +nowhere, it would appear, older. Unhappily much is far later, the nave +being really a modern building and even the central tower has been +entirely taken down and rebuilt, and indeed all periods of English +architecture would seem to have left their mark upon the church between +the end of the twelfth century and our own day. The manor of Havant +belonged when Domesday Survey was made to the monks of Winchester. But +it is not of them but of William of Wykeham we think here, for his +secretary, Thomas Aylward, was rector of this parish and in 1413 was +buried here in the north transept, where his brass still remains, +showing his effigy vested in a cope. He was not the only notable rector +of Havant, for in 1723 Bingham, the author of the "Antiquities of the +Christian Church," was holding the living when he died. Three years +before he had been wrecked in the South Sea Bubble, and this is +supposed to have caused his death. His work was put into Latin, and +was, I think, one of the last English works to be translated into the +universal tongue. + +Out of Havant I went, nor did I stay now on my way until a little after +noon I reached Porchester; but in Bedhampton I did not forget to pray +for the soul of Elizabeth Juliers, who died there after a most +unfortunate and most wretched life in 1411. This lady, daughter of the +Marquis of Juliers and widow of John Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, took +the veil in her widowhood at Waverley. Then appears Sir Eustace +Dabrieschescourt, and she being young, in spite of her vow, marries +him. And having repented and confessed she devoted her life to penance, +being condemned daily to repeat the Gradual and the Penitential Psalms, +and every year to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas. This +penance, with others, she performed during fifty-one years. She was +married to Dabrieschescourt in the church of Wingham in Kent, and died +here in Bedhampton, and was buried in the church of St Thomas, for the +manor was her father's and part of her first dower. + +Porchester, where I found myself late in the afternoon, is a very +interesting and curious place. What we really have that is ancient +there is a great walled green about six hundred feet square. We enter +this area to-day on the west, the outer gate being thus opposite to us +in the eastern wall, the castle keep and bailey on our left in the +north-west corner, and the church to the south-east. All this is +mediaeval work, but the origins of Porchester are far older than that; +the place was a fortress of the Romans. + +It is certain that a Roman road ran, as I have said, from Southampton +to Chichester, which it entered by the West Gate, and met the Roman +military highway, the Stane Street which entered Chichester by the East +Gate, whither it had come from London' Bridge. This Roman road +doubtless served many a little port upon these creeks and harbours that +lie between Southampton Water and Chichester Harbour, but undoubtedly +the most important port upon that road, apart from the two cities which +it joined, was the Roman Porchester. + + + +It has been suggested, and not without reason, that the Stane Street +itself dates only from the latter part of the Roman occupation of +Britain, that it was, in fact, a purely military way built for the +passage of troops, which until the fourth century were certainly not +needed in any quantity in southern Britain. That they were needed then +was due to the Saxon pirates. The same pagan robbers, who, when the +Legions left us never to return in the first years of the fifth +century, might seem to have overrun the whole country. Now it seems +fairly certain that Roman Porchester was a military and perhaps a +naval fortress, built not earlier than the fourth century here at the +western extremity of what the Romans called the Litus Saxonicum, and +for the purpose of defending southern Britain from the raids of these +barbarous and pagan rogues. If so, it might seem to be of one piece +with that presumably purely military Way the Stane Street, and to give +it its meaning. + +At any rate, the mediaeval builder of Porchester Castle used, with the +help of rebuildings and patchings, the Roman fortifications, which did +not perhaps differ very much, and not at all in form, from those we +see. Roman Porchester was just what mediaeval Porchester was, a great +fortress, not a "city," nor a village, but a port similar to the others +that lined the Saxon shore from the Wash to Beachey Head. + +Of what became of the place in Saxon times we are entirely ignorant. +The Domesday Survey speaks of it as a "halla," but in the first half of +the twelfth century the Normans built a castle in the north-west corner +of the Roman enclosure, which in 1153 Henry II. granted to Henry +Manduit, and from that time it appears as the military port, as it +were, of the capital, Winchester; Henry II. Richard I. John and Henry +III. not only frequently taking up their residence at Porchester, and +there as in a strong place, transacting the most important business, +but they all of them most frequently set out thence for the Continent +in days when a king of England was as often abroad as at home. Except +Edward I. there is scarcely an English king from Henry II. to Henry +VIII. who did not use Porchester, and Elizabeth, the last royal +visitor, held her court in the Castle. + +As we see it to-day the keep of Porchester Castle resembles that of +Rochester, not only in its appearance, though there it comes short, but +in its arrangement. It is, however, surrounded by some later ruins of +the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the use of which has, I think, +never been ascertained. + +The whole place is extraordinarily impressive, and not less so on +account of its containing a church within the Roman walls, possibly +occupying the site of a Roman sanctuary. The church of Our Lady of +Porchester, however, as we see it, was, of course, a Norman building, +built not later than 1133 when Henry I. gave it to the Austin Canons as +their priory church, but about 1145 the canons were removed to +Southwick, where a house was built for them. They must, indeed, have +been very much in the way within so important a fortress seeing how +international the interests of their congregation were. The church, of +course, remained. It was originally a cruciform building, with central +tower, but the south transept has been destroyed as has the chapel east +of the north transept where now the vestry stands. The eastern apse, +too, has been replaced by a square end. Apart from these changes, +however, the church remains largely as it was in the time of Henry I., +the west front being especially fine, and the font with its relief of +the Baptism of Our Lord, a very notable Romanesque work. I lingered +long in Porchester, indeed till sundown. Nothing in all England rightly +understood is more reverent than this great ruin, not even the Wall. +It, too, like that great northern barrier, was built in our defence by +our saviours against our worst foes the barbarians, the pagans. It, +too, was an outpost of civilisation and of the Faith against the +darkness. Wherever Rome has passed, there a flower will blow for ever, +wherever Rome has been, there is light, wherever Rome has built, there +is something which moves us as nothing else can do, and not least here +in England of my heart upon the verge of the Saxon shore, while we +recall the past at evening and question the future, the future which +will not be known. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SOUTHAMPTON + + +When I left Porchester I went on into Fareham to sleep, and next +morning set out by train, for it was raining, to go to Clausentum. +Before I left the railway, however, the weather began to clear, and +presently the sun broke through the clouds, so that when I came into +Clausentum the whole world was again full of joy. + +Clausentum, which even to-day, is not without charm was as I understand +it, the mother of Southampton, a Roman, perhaps even a Celtic +foundation, for its name Clausentum is certainly of Celtic origin. Of +its high antiquity there can at least be no doubt, for there we may +still see parts of the Roman walls near nine feet thick and innumerable +Roman remains have been found within them. + +The situation of Clausentum, too, was rather Celtic than Roman. It +stands upon a tongue of land thrust out into the Itchen from the left +bank, between Northam and St Denys on the right bank; the river washed +its walls upon three sides, north, south and west, but upon the +landward side to the east it was protected by two lines of defence, an +outer and an inner, the one nearly three hundred yards from the other. +At first this arrangement might seem rather Celtic than Roman, and in +fact, it may well be that the Romans occupied here earthworks far older +than anything built by them in Britain, and yet it seems perhaps more +probable that they are responsible for all we have here, un-Roman +though it seems, and that the true explanation is that the outer +defences, while their work, are the older of the two; that with the +decline of their administration in the fourth century, with the +building of the Stane Street and the general walling of the Roman towns +this older and larger defence was abandoned, and the place, whatever it +may have been, reduced to a mere fort to hold which upon the landward +side the inner defence was there built. + +Of the fate of Clausentum in the Dark Age we know nothing; if it was a +mere fort with no life of its own it may or may not have been +abandoned; but it would seem certain that with the renewal of +civilisation in southern England, by the return of Christianity, a town +was established upon the right bank of the estuary opposite Clausentum. +This town was the first Southampton, and there Athelstane is said to +have established mints. This town, however, does not seem to have +occupied the same site as the Southampton we know, but rather to have +been gathered about St Mary's church to the north-east as Leland was +told when he visited Southampton in 1546. The place was probably burnt +by the Danes, and it is to one of them, to Canute, that we owe the +foundation of the town we know. If Canute was the founder of +Southampton, however, it was the Normans who really and finally +established it, the greatness of the place as a port really dating from +the Conquest. The Normans seem to have settled there early in +considerable numbers, and their energy and enterprise began the +development which continued throughout the Middle Age and the +Renaissance. In the seventeenth century, however, Southampton rapidly +declined, and this continued till in the time of our grandfathers it +was arrested and Southampton rose again, to become the chief port of +southern England. So extraordinary indeed has been her modern +development that it has completely engulfed the great town of the +Middle Age, which, for all that, still forms the nucleus as it were of +the modern city, though no one, I suppose would suspect it at first +sight. + +Of the greatness of Southampton in the Middle Age, however, there can +be no doubt. It was the best exit out of that England into Normandy, +the natural port of the capital Winchester, and its whole record is +full of glory. It was in a very real sense the gate of England. Hither +came the great ships from the South and the East, from the ports of +Normandy and Anjou, from Bayonne and Venice, with wine and Eastern +silks, leather from Cordova, swords and daggers from Toledo, spices +from India, and coloured sugars from Egypt. Here the merchants +disembarked to trade in the capital or to attend the great fair of St +Giles; hither came the pilgrims, thousands upon thousands, to follow +the old road from Winchester to the Shrine of St Thomas at +Canterbury; while out of Southampton streamed the chivalry of the +Crusades; hence "cheerly to sea" sailed the fleets of Coeur de Lion for +Palestine, of Edward III. for France, the army that won at Crecy, the +army that won at Agincourt. All the glory of mediaeval England +Southampton has seen pass by. + +That the abandonment of Guienne and Aquitaine by the English was a +severe blow to Southampton is certain, but still it had the Venice +trade, the "Flanders Galleys" laden with the spoil of the East, the +wines of the Levant, the "fashions of proud Italy"; and the real +decline of Southampton dates from the moment when Venice too was +wounded even to death by the discovery of the Cape route to the East +and the rise of Portugal. + +As it happens we have at the time of her greatest prosperity a +description of the town from the hand of Leland. "There be," he writes, +"in the fair and right strong wall of New Hampton, eight gates. Over +Barr Gate by north is the _Domus Civica_, and under it the town prison. +There is a great suburb without it, and a great double dyke, well +watered on each hand without it. The East Gate is strong, not so large +as Barr Gate, and in its suburb stands St Mary's Church, to the South +Gate joins a Castelet well ordinanced to beat that quarter of the +haven. There is another mean gate a little more south called God's +house gate, of an hospital founded by two merchants joined to it; and +not far beyond it is the Water Gate, without which is a quay. There are +two more gates. The glory of the Castle is in the dungeon, that is both +fair and large and strong, both by work and the site of it. There be +five parish churches in the town. Holy Rood Church standeth in the +chief street, which is one of the fairest streets that is in any town +in England, and it is well builded for timber building. There be many +fair merchants' houses, and in the south-east part was a college of +Grey Friars. Here was also an hospital called God's House, founded by +two merchants, appropriated since to Queen's College, Oxford." + +Of all this what remains? Happily more than might seem possible +considering the enormous modern development of the place. The town of +Southampton stood looking south-west upon a tongue of land thrust out +south into the water with the estuary of the Itchen upon the east, and +Southampton Water upon the west, upon the south were the vast mud-flats +swept by every tide which the great modern docks now occupy. The town +was, as we have seen, enclosed by walls, perhaps by Canute, certainly +by the Normans, and these seem to have been enlarged by King John, and +rebuilt and repaired after the French raid of 1338. They formed a rude +quadrilateral, roughly seven hundred yards from north to south, and +three hundred from east to west, were from twenty-five to thirty feet +high and of varying thickness. Something of them still remains, +especially upon the west of the town over the quays. Here we have two +great portions of the old wall which is practically continuous from the +site of the Bugle Tower upon the south, to the site of the Bigglesgate +about half-way up this western side. This portion includes two of the +old gates, the West Gate and the Blue Anchor Postern. Beyond the site +of the Bigglesgate the old wall has been destroyed as far as the +Castle, but from there it still stands all the way to the Arundel Tower +at the north-west corner of the town. So much for the western front. +Upon the north the wall is broken down at the western end, the Bargate, +which still stands, being isolated, but beyond two portions remain +complete as far as the Polymond Tower at the north-east angle. Upon the +east of the town there is very little standing until we come to the +southern corner, where God's House Tower and the South-East Gate +remain. Upon the south almost nothing is left. + +Southampton in its mediaeval greatness had eight gates, of which, as we +see, four remain: two upon the west, the West Gate and the Blue Anchor +Postern; one upon the north, the Bargate; upon the east, or rather at +the south-eastern angle of the walls, God's House or South-East Gate; +upon the south none at all. + +The West Gate is a plain but beautiful work of the fourteenth century, +a great square tower over a pointed arch, under which is the entry. The +tower within consists of three stages, the last being embattled and +now roofed, while the first is reached by a picturesque outside +stairway of stone, which served both it and the ramparts. Close by, +against the wall, is a timber building upon a stone basement, called +the guard-room, dating from the fifteenth century. + +The best portions of the old wall run northward from the West Gate over +the western shore road. This is Norman work added to in the fourteenth +century. Here is the Blue Anchor Postern, or as it is more properly +called, simply the Postern, little more than a round archway within the +great arcading and the wall itself. Just to the south of this gate is +the twelfth-century building known as King John's Palace. We follow the +grand old wall till it ends upon the site of the Bigglesgate, where we +turn eastward a little into the town and come to the Castle, of which, +unhappily, almost nothing remains. It consisted of a great Keep in the +midst of an enclosure, entered by two gates, the Castle Gate upon the +north-east where now is Castle Lane, and the Postern over the site of +which we have entered the Castle Green. The decay of this fortress +dates, at least, from the sixteenth century, and apparently before the +Civil War it had been pulled down. + +The walls still enclose the Bailey of the Castle upon the west. There, +in some sort, still stands the Castle Water Gate, a mere fragment, +within which is a great vaulted chamber some fifty feet long and +twenty-five feet high, with only one small window. From this +fragmentary gate the wall sweeps away to the salient, for the most +part Norman; but beyond the salient its character changes, two towers +appear--the Catchcold Tower of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth +century, and the fine Arundel Tower, now only a curtain of fourteenth- +century work in the Decorated style. + +It is in these western walls of the town that we shall get our best +idea of what mediaeval Southampton was, and if we add to our impression +by an examination of the two remaining gates, one upon the north and +the other at the south-east angle, we may perhaps understand how +formidable it must have appeared standing up out of the sea armed at +all points. + +Mediaeval Southampton had eight gates, of these, as I have said, but +four remain, the most notable of which is undoubtedly the Bargate, upon +the north. This is a fine work of various periods in two stages, the +lower consisting of a vaulted passage-way of fine proportions, a work +of the fourteenth century and the upper of a great hall, the Guildhall +now used as a court room. The original gate, of course, was Norman, and +this seems to have endured until about 1330 two towers were built on +either side, without the gate, and a new south front added. In the +first years of the fifteenth century a new north front was contrived, +and this remains more or less as we see it. Of old the gate was reached +by a drawbridge across a wide moat. + +Beyond the Bargate we come to the Polymond Tower or the Tower of St +Denys, beautiful with creepers. This would seem to be in some way +connected with the Priory of St Denys which held all the churches in +the town, as we shall see. As for its other name of Polymond, it would +seem to get it from that John Polymond, who, in the fourteenth century, +from which time the tower, as we see it, dates, was nine times mayor of +Southampton. + +As for the God's House Gateway, to reach it we must cross the town. It +is a plain but charming work of two periods, the gate proper being of +the thirteenth century, while the tower with the two-storied building +attached to it is of the fourteenth. From the beginning of the +eighteenth century until 1855 it was used as the town gaol. + +The old town of Southampton, a town within a town, is a fascinating +study, the interest of its gates and old walls is inexhaustible, but +apart from these it has little architectural beauty to boast of. For +all that it is amusing to linger there, if only to solve the problems +that time has contrived for us. Among these not the least is that of +the first site of the town. Not one of the churches in Southampton is +of any great beauty or interest, but it is astonishing to find that the +mother church is not in the town at all, but at least half a mile +outside it upon the north. Leland, as I have already said, was told, +when he was in Southampton in 1546, that the first town did not occupy +the site of that we see but was further to the north, where St Mary's +stands. The fact that St Mary's is the mother church would seen to +confirm this. Moreover, there is no mention in the Domesday Survey of +any church at all within the borough of "Hantune," and though we may +think that the church of St John then existed, St John's was never the +mother church; this was St Mary's which possessed all the tithes of the +town. In the time of Henry II. we find the King granting to the Priory +of St Denys, founded in 1124 by Henry I., a Priory of Austin Canons, +his "chapels" of St Michael, the Holy Rood, St Laurence and All Saints, +that is all the churches save St John's already granted to the Abbey of +St Mary of Lire, in Southampton. But that these chapels had some +relation to the mother church of St Mary might seem certain. Indeed the +rector of St Mary's was continually in controversy with the canons as +to his rights, and eventually, in the thirteenth century, he won the +day. In any case the mother church of Southampton was St Mary's, +outside the walls of the town. That a Saxon church stood upon this site +is certain, and this was possibly represented in Leland's time by the +chapel of St Nicholas, "a poor and small thing," which then stood to +the East of "the great church of Our Lady," which he saw and which +probably dated from the time of Henry I. This church was, alas, +destroyed by the town only a few years later because its spire was said +to guide the French cruisers into Southampton Water, and the stones +were used to mend the roads. It may be that the chancel escaped, or it +may be that a new and much smaller church was erected in 1579. This, +whichever it was, was much neglected till in 1711 a nave was built on +to it. Then in 1723 the chancel was destroyed, and a new one built. In +1833 this was rebuilt, and then in 1878 a new church was built, in +place of the old which was pulled down, by Street. Thus in St Mary's +church, the mother church of Southampton to-day, we have only a +lifeless modern building. + +Much the same fate has befallen the churches within the walls of +Southampton. The oldest, that of St John, was pulled down in the +seventeenth century, that of Holy Rood, in the High Street, was rebuilt +about fifty years ago, so was St Laurence, while All Saints was +destroyed in the eighteenth century. The only ancient church remaining +is that of St Michael, which, though not destroyed, was ruined in 1826. +It remains, however, in part, a Norman building, with an interesting +font of the twelfth century, a lectern of the fifteenth century, and a +fine tomb with the effigy of a priest in mass vestments. + +The same fate which has so brutally overtaken the churches of +Southampton has, with perhaps more excuse, fallen upon the old +religious houses. The Priory of St Denys, founded by Henry I., upon +which all these churches within the walls were in a sense dependent, +has been totally destroyed, a piece of ruined wall alone remaining, +the present church of St Denys dating from 1868. + +Nor does much remain of the Hospital of St Julian or God's House, +founded for the poor in the town, by Gervase le Riche, in 1197. It was +one of the most important hospitals in the diocese of Winchester, and +in 1343 the King, its protector, gave it to Queen's College, Oxford, +just founded by Queen Philippa. As the possession of this college it +survived the suppression, and was still carrying on its good work in +1560. About 1567, however, certain Walloons, refugees from the Low +Countries, settled in Southampton, and these were granted the use of St +Julian's Chapel by Queen's College. + +The house should have remained to us, but that in 1861, by as black an +act of vandalism as was ever perpetrated, this seat of learning swept +away all the old domestic buildings of the hospital, which dated from +its foundation, and in their place erected what we might expect, at the +same time "restoring" the chapel of St Julian, of course, out of all +recognition. May St Julian forget Queen's College, Oxford, for ever and +ever. + +[Illustration: THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL'S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON] + +Not far from this hospital for the poor the Grey Friars built their +house in 1237, or rather the burgesses of Southampton built it for +them, including a cloister of stone, but nothing remains at all of this +house. + +For the most part, too, the great houses that of old filled +Southampton, and helped to glorify it, are gone. "The chiefest house," +writes Leland, "is the house that Huttoft, late customer of +Southampton, builded on the west side of the town. The house that +Master Lightster, chief baron of the King's exchequer, dwelleth in, is +very fair; the house that Master Mylles, the recorder, dwelleth in, is +fair, and so be the houses of Niccotine and Guidote, Italians." Of +these, what remains? Nothing. The only noble dwelling is that called +Tudor House, in St Michael's Square, a fine half-timbered building, +and of this nothing is known. + +No, the only thing to be enjoyed in Southampton to-day is the old wall +with its gateways, that upon the west still valiantly outfaces the +modern world and recalls for us all that noble great past out of which +we are come. And yet I suppose Southampton is fulfilling its purpose +to-day more wonderfully than ever before. It was once the port of +England for those dominions oversea we held in France. They are gone, +but others we have since acquired, though less fair by far, remain. It +is to these Southampton looks to-day, south and east, as of old over +how many thousand miles of blue water. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BEAULIEU AND CHRISTCHURCH + + +While I was in Southampton, I made up my mind to visit a place which I +had all my life desired to see, but which I had never yet set eyes +upon, I mean Beaulieu Abbey in the New Forest. To this end I set out +early one morning, by steamboat, across Southampton Water, and landed +at Hythe, whence I had only to cross the eastern part of Beaulieu +Heath, a walk of some five miles, to find myself where I would be. + +The day was fair, the tide at the flood; in the woods, across the +water, I could see where Netley Abbey, another Cistercian house, +younger than Beaulieu, once lifted up its voice in ceaseless praise of +God, the Maker of all that beauty in which it stood, scarcely spoiled +even now by the amazing energy of the modern world. It was then with a +light heart that I set out by a byway under Furze Down, and so across +the open heath, coming down at last through the woods to the ruins of +the abbey and the river of Beaulieu. + +There can be no more delicious spot in the world. St Bernard loved the +valleys as St Benedict the hills, and as St Bernard was the refounder +of the Cistercian Order to which Beaulieu belonged, it, like Waverley, +Tintern, Netley, and a hundred others in England, was set in one of +those delicious vales in which I think England is richer than any other +country, and which here, in England of my heart, seem to demand rather +our worship than our praise. + +Beaulieu Abbey had always interested me. In the first place it was one +of the greatest, though not the earliest, houses in England of the +Cistercian Order, that reform of the Benedictines begun as William of +Malmesbury bears witness by an Englishman, Stephen Harding, sometime a +monk of Sherborne. And then it was the only religious house within the +confines of the New Forest. It seems that in the year 1204, just a year +after he had given the manor of Faringdon in Berkshire to St Mary of +Citeaux, and established there a small house of Cistercian monks, King +John founded this great monastery of St Mary of Beaulieu for the same +Order, making provision for not less than thirty brethren, and giving +it Faringdon for a cell. John endowed the house with some six manors +and several churches, gave it a golden chalice, and many cattle, as +well as corn and wine and money, and besought the aid of the abbots of +the Order on behalf of the new house. To such good purpose, indeed, did +he support Beaulieu, that Hugh, the first abbot, was alone his friend, +when Innocent III., in the spring of 1208 placed England under an +interdict. This Hugh went as the King's ambassador to Rome, and having +received promises of submission from the King, who awaited his return +in the mother house of the Order in England, at Waverley, +was successful in reconciling him with the Pope. In return +the King gave him a palfrey among other presents, and the +interdict being lifted, contributed nine hundred marks towards +the building of Beaulieu, to be followed by other even more generous +offerings. Nor was Henry III. neglectful of the place, so that in 1227 +upon the vigil of the Assumption, the monks were able to use their +church, though it was not till nineteen years later that the monastery +was completed, and dedicated in the presence of the King and Queen, +Prince Edward and a vast concourse of bishops, nobles, and common +folk, by the Bishop of Winchester. Upon that occasion, Prince Edward +was seized with illness, and, strange as it may seem, we are told that +the Queen remained in the abbey, to nurse him, for three weeks. But the +house was always under the royal protection. Edward I. constantly +stayed there, and the abbots were continually employed upon diplomatic +business. From 1260 to 1341, when he asked to be freed from the duty, +the abbot of Beaulieu sat in Parliament, and in 1368 Edward III. +granted the monks a weekly market within the precincts. One other +privilege, unique in southern England, Beaulieu had, the right to +perpetual sanctuary granted by Innocent III., and this seems to have +been used to the full in the Wars of the Roses, at least we find +Richard III. inquiring into the matter in 1463. There it seems Perkin +Warbeck had found safety, as had Lady Warwick after Barnet, and at the +time of the Suppression there were thirty men in sanctuary in the +"Great Close of Beaulieu," which seems to have included all the +original grant of land made to the abbey by King John. Beaulieu +evidently very greatly increased in honour, for in 1509 its abbot was +made Bishop of Bangor but continued to hold the abbey, and when he died +the abbot of Waverley, the oldest house of the Order in England, +succeeded him, the post being greatly sought after. The Act of 1526 +suppressing the lesser monasteries, in which so many Cistercian houses +perished, did not touch Beaulieu, but Netley fell early in the +following year, and the monks were sent to Beaulieu. Many then looked +for the spoil of the great abbey, among them Lord Lisle who besought +Thomas Cromwell for it, but he was denied. Indeed there seems to have +been no idea of suppressing the house at that time. But the Abbot +Stevens was a traitor. In 1538 he eagerly signed the surrender demanded +by the infamous Layton and Petre, and the site was granted to Thomas +Wriothesley, afterwards Earl of Southampton, from whose family it came +in the time of William III. to Lord Montagu, and so to the Dukes of +Buccleuch, who still hold it. + +Nothing can exceed the beauty of the remains of the house there by the +river, in perhaps the loveliest corner of southern England. The great +abbey church has gone, destroyed at the Suppression, but not a little +of the monastery remains. The great Gate House called the abbot's +lodging and now the Palace House, the seat of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, +a fine Decorated building with a beautiful entrance hall, may sometimes +be seen. From this one passes across the grass to the old Refectory, +now fitted up as the parish church, a noble work of the Early English +style of the thirteenth century, as is the fine pulpit with its arcade +in the thickness of the wall. Here of old the monk read aloud while his +brethren took their meagre repast. + +From the Refectory one comes into the ruined cloisters, lovely with all +manner of flowers, and so to the site of the old Chapter House, of the +sacristy and the monastic buildings. All that remains is in the early +Decorated style of the end of the thirteenth century. Here, too, upon +the north stood the great abbey church, three hundred and thirty-five +feet long, a cruciform building consisting of nave with two aisles, +central tower, transepts with aisles, chancel with circular apse and +chapels, now marked out in chalk upon the grass. All about are the +woods, meadows, fishponds and greens of the monks who are gone. + +I do not know how this strikes another who shall see it to-day, in all +its useless beauty, in the midst of our restless and unhappy England; +but what I felt has already been expressed and by so good an Englishman +as William Cobbett. + +"Now ... I daresay," he writes, "that you are a very good Protestant; +and I am a monstrous good Protestant too. We cannot bear the Pope, nor +"they there priests that makes men confess there sins and go down upon +their marrow-bones before them." But let us give the devil his due; and +let us not act worse by these Roman Catholics (who by the by were our +forefathers) than we are willing to act by the devil himself. Now then +here were a set of monks. None of them could marry, of course none of +them could have wives and families. They could possess no private +property; they could bequeath nothing; they could own nothing but that +which they owned in common with the rest of their body. They could +hoard no money; they could save nothing. Whatever they received as rent +for their lands, they must necessarily spend upon the spot, for they +never could quit that spot. They did spend it all upon the spot; they +kept all the poor. Beaulieu and all round about Beaulieu saw no misery, +and had never heard the damned name of pauper pronounced as long as +those Monks continued. + +"You and I are excellent Protestants; you and I have often assisted on +the 5th of November to burn Guy Fawkes, the Pope and the Devil. But you +and I would much rather be life holders under Monks than +rackrenters...." + +St Thomas Aquinas has told us that there were three things for a sight +of which he would have endured a year in Purgatory, not unwillingly: +Christ in the flesh, Rome in her flower, and an Apostle disputing. +Christ in the flesh, I would indeed I might have seen, and Rome in her +flower were worth even such a price, but for me an Apostle disputing +would, let me confess it, have little attraction. Instead I would that +I might see England before the fall, England of the thirteenth, +fourteenth or fifteenth century, England of my heart, with all her +great cathedrals still alive, with all her great monasteries still in +being, those more than six hundred houses destroyed by Henry, and not +least this house of the Cistercians in Beaulieu. And if I might see +that, I should have seen one of the fairest things and the noblest that +ever were in the world. + +From Beaulieu I set out in the afternoon across the Forest, and at +first over the western part of Beaulieu Heath for Brockenhurst. The +road across the heath is not in itself of much beauty, but it affords +some glorious views both of the Forest and the sea. As I drew nearer to +Brockenhurst, however, I came into the woods, and the sylvan beauty of +the vale, through which the Lymington River flows southward, was +delicious. Brockenhurst itself is charmingly embowered and is +surrounded by some of the loveliest of the woodlands. The church stands +high, perhaps as a guide, over a woodland churchyard, and is the +evident successor of a Norman building, as its south doorway and font +of Purbeck bear witness and the chancel arch too, unless indeed this be +earlier still. The chancel, however, dates from the fourteenth +century, a good example in its littleness of the Decorated style, but +it is half spoiled by the enormous pew which blocks the entrance. The +tower and spire and a good part of the nave are completely modern. The +great yew in the churchyard must date at least from Edward I.'s time, +and perhaps may have seen the day on which Red William fell. + + + +From Brockenhurst, on the following morning, I set out again over the +open heath for Boldre southward. Many a fine view over the woods I had, +and once, as I came down Sandy Down, I caught sight of the Isle of +Wight. Then the scene changed, and I came through meadows, and past +coppices into Boldre. In the midst of a wood, as it were, I suddenly +found the church, and this interested me more than I can well say, for +here again I found what at one time must have been a complete Norman +building. Surely if the history-books are right this is an astonishing +thing; but then, as I have long since learned, the history one is +taught at school is a mere falsehood from start to finish. There is +probably no schoolboy in England who has not read of the awful cruelty +and devastation that went with the formation of the New Forest, by the +Conqueror in 1079. It is generally spoken of as only less appalling +than the burning of Northumberland. It is said that more than fifty-two +parish churches within the new bounds of the New Forest were destroyed, +and a fertile district of a hundred square miles laid waste and +depopulated to provide William with a hunting-ground. Now if this be +true how does it come that upon my first day in the Forest I find a +Norman church at Brockenhurst with something very like a Saxon chancel +arch, and that upon my second day I walk right into another church in +part Norman too? This is surely an astonishing thing. It is also, I +find, a fact that much of the New Forest had been a royal hunting- +ground in the Saxon times, and that the afforestation of William is not +so much as mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle. The whole story of the +devastation of this great country would seem to rest upon the writings +of William of Jumieges or Ordericus Vitalis, neither of whom was alive +at the time of the afforestation. This must have been known surely to +our modern historians; but so is the history of England written. Our +real grievance against William was not his afforestation, but his cruel +Forest Law, which demanded the limb of a man for the life of a beast, a +thing I think unknown in England before his advent. It was this harsh +law, so bitterly resented, which at last, as we may think, cost William +Rufus his life. But the old tale remains, and therefore I was greatly +astonished in Boldre Church. + +Doubtless the original Norman church consisted of a nave, chancel and +north and south aisles. The south aisle remains, as does the arcade +which separates it from the nave. In the Early English time the north +aisle was rebuilt or added, perhaps, for the first time, and the +chancel rebuilt. Later the church was lengthened westward, and the +tower built at the eastern end of the Norman aisle. In that aisle there +is a tablet to William Gilpin, the author of "Forest Scenery," who was +vicar of Boldre for a generation, dying in 1804 aged eighty years. He +is buried in the churchyard. + +Boldre is certainly a place to linger in, a place that one is sorry to +leave, but I could not stay, being intent on Lymington. Therefore I +went down through the oak woods, over Boldre Bridge, to find the high +road, which presently brought me past St Austin's once belonging to +the Priory of Christchurch, under Buckland Rings to the very ancient +borough of Lymington, with its charming old ivy-clad church tower at +the end of the High Street. The church, in so far as it is old of the +thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has little to boast of, for it has +been quite horribly restored. In the long street of Lymington I slept. + +There seemed to be nothing to keep me in Lymington, and therefore, +early upon the following morning, I set out for Milford, five miles +away by the sea, and there I wonderfully saw the Needles and the great +Island and found another Norman church, Norman that is to say in its +foundations. All Saints, Milford, consists to-day of chancel with north +and south chapels west of it, transepts, nave with north and south +aisles, and a western chapel on either side the western tower, and a +south porch. It is a most beautiful and interesting building. Doubtless +there originally stood here a twelfth-century Norman church, consisting +of nave with aisles and chancel, of which two arches remain in the +south arcade of the nave. Then in the thirteenth century the church was +rebuilt, as we see it, and very beautiful it is, in its Early English +dress, passing into Decorated, in the chancel and transepts. + +From Milford, through a whole spring day, I went on by the coast as far +I could, westward to Christchurch. All the way, the sea, the sky, and +the view of the island and of Christchurch bay closed by Hengistbury +Head in the west, and the long bar on which Hurst Castle stands in the +east were worth a king's ransom. They say all this coast has strong +attractions for the geologist; but what of the poet and painter? Surely +here, when the wind comes over the sea and the Island, showing his +teeth, to possess the leaning coast, one may see and understand why +England is the England of my heart. At least I thought so, and lingered +there so long that twilight had fallen before I found myself under the +darkness of the great Priory of Christchurch, the goal of my desire. + +It was not without due cause and reason that I wished to see, instead +of an Apostle disputing, England before the fall. Indeed I am sure that +I should not have been unwise to exchange "Rome in her flower" for such +a sight as that; Christchurch proves it. + +We march up and down England and count up our treasures, of which this +Priory of Christchurch is not the least; but we never pause perhaps to +remember what, through the damnable act of Thomas Cromwell and Henry +Tudor, we have lost. What we have lost! hundreds of churches, hundreds +of monasteries as fine as Christchurch, and hundreds far more solemn +and reverent. Reading, which now gives a title to an Isaacs, (God save +us all!) was, before the fall, just a great monastery, a Norman pile as +grand as Durham or Ely. What of Glastonbury and Amesbury, older far, +and of those many hundred others which stood up strong before God for +our souls--without avail? They are gone; Christchurch in some sort +remains. + + + +Christchurch stands in the angle where the rivers Avon and Stour meet, +and it is thus secured upon the north, east, and south; its great and +perhaps its only attraction is the great Priory church in whose name +that of the town, Twyneham, has long been lost; but there are beside a +ruined Norman house, and a pretty mediaeval bridge over the Avon, from +which a most noble view of the great church may be had. This, which +dates in its foundation from long before the Conquest, is to-day a +great cruciform building consisting roughly of Norman nave and +transepts, the nave buttressed on the north in the thirteenth century, +fifteenth-century chancel and western tower, and thirteenth-century +north porch--altogether one of the most glorious churches left to us +in England. + +Its history, as I say, goes back far beyond the Conquest, when it was +served by secular canons, as it was at the time of the Domesday Survey, +when we find that twenty-four were in residence. But in the time of +William Rufus, Ranulph Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, his chief +minister, obtained a grant of the church and town of Christchurch, and +soon had suppressed all the canonries save five, and would have +suppressed them all but for the timely death of the Red King, which +involved the fall and imprisonment of his rascal minister. After an +interval, in which the church was governed by Gilbert de Dousgunels, +who set out for Rome to get the Pope's leave to refound the house, but +died upon the journey, Henry I. gave manor, town and church to his cousin, +Richard de Redvers, who proved a great benefactor to the Priory, and +established a Dean over the canons, one Peter, who was succeeded by +Dean Ralph. Then in 1150 came Dean Hilary, who as Bishop of Chichester, +petitioned Richard de Redvers to establish Christchurch as a Priory of +Canons Regular of St Austin. This was done; a certain Reginald was +appointed first prior, and he ruled Christchurch for thirty-six years +till, in 1186, he was succeeded by Ralph. It was not, however, till the +time of the third Prior that the high altar of the new church begun by +Gilbert and continued by Richard de Redvers and his priors was +dedicated upon the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury, 1195. This would +seem to prove that the Norman choir was not finished until then; +similar consecration of other altars would lead us to believe that +perhaps the vault and the clerestory of the nave were completed in +1234. At the same time the beautiful north porch was built and the +north aisle was buttressed. To the fourteenth century we owe the fine +rood screen restored in 1848, but the next great period of building was +the fifteenth century, when the Lady Chapel, with the chapels north and +south of it, were built, and later in the same century the great choir +was entirely re-erected. + +Thus Christchurch Priory grew until the Reformation. It escaped the +first raid of Cromwell in 1536, but in spite of the petition of John +Draper, the last Prior, in 1539 the house was demanded of him and he +surrendered it. The report of the vandals and sacrilegious persons who +received it is worth copying, if only to show their character. "We +found," they wrote, "the Prior a very honest, conformable person, and +the house well furnished with jewels and plate, whereof some be meet +for the king's majesty in use as a little chalice of gold, a goodly +large cross, double gilt with the foot garnished, and with stone and +pearl; two goodly basons double gilt. And there be other things of +silver.... In thy church we find a chapel and monument curiously made +of Caen stone, prepared by the late mother of Reginald Pole for her +burial, which we have caused to be defaced, and all the arms and badges +to be delete." It is consoling to note that one of the rascals that +signed that report, Dr London, was shortly afterwards exposed in his +true colours and openly put to penance for adultery before he died in +prison, where he lay for perjury. + +The report stated that the church was superfluous. It was the only true +word written there. When a religion is destroyed, its temples are +certainly superfluous. However, there was a considerable influence +brought to bear by the people of the neighbourhood, and the church +itself was granted them for their use. The Priory, which stood to the +south of the church, was, of course, destroyed. + +One might stand a whole month in that glorious building with this only +regret, that it is in the hands of strangers. The use to which it is +put is not that for which it was intended, and half the delight of the +place is thus lost to us. But no one can pass down that great avenue of +elms to the glorious north porch, a master-work of the thirteenth +century, without rejoicing that when all is said the church was saved +to us. The great Norman nave, with its thirteenth-century clerestory, +and alas, modern stucco vaulting, the Norman aisles and north transept, +are too reverent for destruction, the fifteenth-century choir and +eastern chapels too lovely. + +A certain amount of the old furniture remains to the church in the +restored screen of the fourteenth century, and the reredos over the +communion table and another in the Lady Chapel; here, too, is the old +altar stone of Purbeck. The chantry of the poor Countess of Salisbury, +who was beheaded for high treason in 1541, so brutally defaced by Dr +London and his infamous colleagues, stands there too upon the north; +and close by in the north chapel is the tomb with fine alabaster +effigies of Sir John and Lady Chydroke (d. 1455), removed from the +nave, and in the Lady Chapel lie its founders, Sir Thomas and Lady +West. Of the modern restorations and additions I have nothing to say, +and more especially of the monument to Shelley; a parody of a Pieta +merely blasphemous, beneath the tower. + +Now when I had seen all this, to say nothing of the old school-room +over the Lady Chapel and the Norman house and castle mound of the De +Redvers, somewhat sorrowful for many things, I began to think again of +the Forest, and immediately set out where the road led to Lyndhurst, +and this just before midday. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE NEW FOREST AND ROMSEY ABBEY + + +All day I went through the Forest, sometimes by green rides, enchanted +still, such as those down which Lancelot rode with Guinevere, talking +of love, sometimes over heaths wild and desolate such as that which +knew the bitterness of Lear, sometimes through the greenwood, ancient +British woodland, silent now, where the hart was once at home in the +shade, and where at every turn one might expect to come upon Rosalind +in her boy's dress, and think to hear from some glade the words of +Amiens' song: + + Under the greenwood tree + Who loves to lie with me, + And turn his merry note + Unto the sweet bird's throat; + Come hither, come hither, come hither.... + + +There are days in life of which it can only be said, that they are +blessed; golden days, upon which, looking back, the sun seems to shine; +they dazzle in the memory. Such was the day I spent in the byways of +Holmsley and Burley, in the upper valleys of Avon water, Ober water and +Black water, forest streams; in the silent woods, where all day long +the sun showered its gold, sprinkling the deep shade with flowers and +blossoms of light, where there was no wind but only the sighing of the +woods, no sound but the whisper of the leaves or the rare flutter of a +bird's wings, no thoughts but joyful thoughts filling the heart with +innocence. + + Who doth ambition shun, + And loves to live i' the sun, + Seeking the food he eats + And pleased with what he gets; + Come hither, come hither, come hither.... + + +At evening I came to Lyndhurst. + +Lyndhurst is the capital of the Forest; as its name implies it was +established in a wood of limes, a tree said to have been introduced +into England only in the sixteenth century. It is already spoken of in +the tenth century Anglo-Saxon ballad of the Battle of Brunanburh! + + Athelstan king, + Lord among earls, + Bracelet bestower and + Baron of barons; + He with his brother + Edmund Atheling + Gaining a lifelong + Glory in battle. + Slew with the sword-edge, + There by Brunanburh, + Brake the shield wall, + _Hew'd the lindenwood_, + Hack'd the battleshield, + Sons of Edward with hammered brands. + + +Oak, beech, and holly, which so largely make up the woodland of the New +Forest we have always had in England, but the limes which named +Lyndhurst it is said we owe to someone else, and if so it can only be +to the Roman. + +What the Forest was when the Romans administered the land we know not; +but in Anglo-Saxon times it was doubtless a royal hunting ground, +_terra regis_ and _silva regis_, for spoiling which by fire as for +killing the game therein fines must be paid. These royal hunting +grounds, of which the great Forest in Hampshire was certainly not the +least, only became legal "forests" with the Conquest, when they were +placed under a new Forest law of extraordinary harshness, which even in +the Conqueror's time indeed demanded an eye or a hand for the taking +of game, and in the days of the Red King the life of a man for the life +of a beast. + +The Conqueror, as we know, greatly enlarged the old "royal hunting +ground" here in Hampshire when he made the New Forest, and that act of +his which brought an immensely larger area than of old under a new and +incredibly harsher forest law gradually produced a legend of +devastation and depopulation here which, as I have already said, can no +longer be accepted as true. Henry of Huntingdon (1084?-1155) asserts +that "to form the hunting ground of the New Forest he (William) caused +churches and villages to be destroyed, and, driving out the people, +made it a habitation for deer." It is true that the Conqueror forged a +charter purporting to date from Canute in which the king's sole right +to take beasts of chase was asserted, and to this he appealed as +justifying his harsh new laws; but it is untrue that he depopulated +and destroyed a thriving district to make a wilderness for the red +deer. "We shall find," says Warner, "that the lands comprised in this +tract (the New Forest) appear from their low valuation in the time of +the Confessor to have been always unproductive in comparison with +other parts of the kingdom; and that notwithstanding this pretended +devastation they sunk (in many instances) but little in their value +after their afforestment. So that the fact seems to have been, William, +finding this tract in a barren state and yielding but little profit, +and being strongly attached to the pleasures of the chase, converted it +into a royal forest, without being guilty of those violences to the +inhabitants of which Henry of Huntingdon, Malmesbury, Walter Mapes, and +others complain." + +Of this great New Forest, Lyndhurst was made the capital and the +administrative centre, and such it is still. In Domesday Book we read: +"The King himself holds Lyndhurst, which appertained to Amesbury, +which is of the King's farm." + +The King granted a small part, namely, one virgate to "Herbert the +Forester," before 1086, and this Herbert is generally supposed to have +been the ancestor of those Lyndhursts who for so long held the +wardenship of the Forest. The King's house, a fine building of Queen +Anne's time, is the successor of the old royal lodge at least as old as +the fourteenth century, and is now occupied by the Deputy Surveyor of +the Forest. In the Verderers' Hall close by, the forest courts of the +verderers are still held. There, too, may be seen the old dock, certain +trophies of the chase and "the stirrup-iron of William Rufus," really +the seventeenth century gauge "for the dogs allowed to be kept in the +forest without expeditation, the 'lawing' being carried out on all +'great dogs' that could not pass through the stirrup." + +Lyndhurst itself, as we see it to-day, is devoid of interest; even the +church dates but from 1863, and its greatest treasure is the wall- +painting by Lord Leighton of the Wise and Foolish Virgins in the +chancel. A church, a chapelry of Minstead, certainly stood here in the +thirteenth century, but was destroyed, and a Georgian building erected +--in its turn to give place to the church we see. + +Lyndhurst, though almost without interest itself, is undoubtedly the +best centre for exploring the Forest, or, at any rate, perhaps the most +beautiful and certainly the most interesting parts of it. So by many a +byway I went northward to Minstead in Malwood, where I found a most +curious church, rather indeed a house than a church, with dormer +windows in the roof, an enormous three-decker pulpit within, galleries, +and two great pews, one with a fireplace, and I know not what other +quaint rubbish of the eighteenth century. All this I found enchanting, +and more especially because the nave and chancel seemed to me to be +originally of the thirteenth century, and certainly the font is Norman. +But the church with its eighteenth-century tower is perhaps the most +amazing conglomeration of the work of all periods since the twelfth +century to be found in southern England. + +From Minstead I went on up the Bartley water to Stone Cross, nearly +four hundred feet over the Forest, from which by good fortune I saw the +mighty Abbey of Romsey in the valley of the Test, where I intended to +sleep. Then I went down past Castle Malwood to where stands Rufus' +Stone. There I read: + + "Here stood the oak-tree on which an arrow shot by Sir + Walter Tyrrell at a stag glanced and struck King William II., + surnamed Rufus, on the breast, of which stroke he instantly + died on the 2nd August 1100. + + "King William II., surnamed Rufus, being slain as before related, + was laid in a cart belonging to one Purkess and drawn + from hence to Winchester and buried in the cathedral church + of that city. + + "That where an event so memorable had happened might + not hereafter be unknown this stone was set up by John Lord + Delaware who had seen the tree growing in this place anno + 1745. + + "This stone having been much mutilated and the inscriptions + on the three sides defaced, this more durable memorial + with the original inscription was erected in the year 1841 by + him. Sturges Bourne, warden." + +The memorial and inscription are of iron. + +The most famous thing that ever befell in the New Forest was this +strange murder or misfortune which cost the Red King his life. It +haunts the whole forest, and rightly understood fills it with meaning +and can never have been or be far from the thoughts of anyone who +wanders there, even as I have done in the excellent days of Spring. + +[Illustration: IN THE NEW FOREST] + +No less than three members of the Conqueror's family were killed in the +New Forest; first Richard, one of his sons, then another Richard, +bastard son of Duke Robert of Normandy, this in May 1100; and in August +of the same year, his son and successor William, surnamed Rufus. All +these deaths are said to have been caused by accidents, all were caused +by arrows; it is a strange thing. + + + +All we really know about the death of William Rufus may be found in the +English "Chronicle." "On the morrow was the King William shot off with +an arrow from his own men in hunting." Whether the arrow, as tradition +has it, was shot by Walter Tyrrel or no, whether it was aimed at the +King or no, can never now be known. The most graphic account of the +affair is given to us by Ordericus Vitalis, who, however, was not only +not present, but at best can have been but a child at the time, for he +died in 1150. For all that he doubtless had access to sources of which +we now know nothing, and the whole atmosphere of his story suggests +that, as we might expect, the King was murdered because of his general +harshness and oppression, perhaps especially exemplified in his Forest +Law. It was he and not the Conqueror who demanded the life of a man for +that of a beast; his father had been content with an eye or a limb. + +It would seem, according to Ordericus, that the whole country was full +of stories of terrible visions concerning the end of the King long +before his sudden death. Henry of Huntingdon, for instance, tells us +that "blood had been seen to spring from the ground in Berkshire," and +adds that "the King was rightly cut off in the midst of his injustice," +for "England could not breathe under the burdens laid upon it." +Ordericus himself says that "terrible visions respecting him were seen +in the monasteries and cathedrals by the clergy of both classes, and +becoming the talk of the vulgar in the market-places and churchyards, +could not escape the notice of the King." + +He then gives a particular instance: "A certain monk of good +repute and still better life, who belonged to the Abbey of St Peter at +Gloucester, related that he had a dream in the visions of the night to +this effect: 'I saw,' he said, 'the Lord Jesus seated on a lofty +throne, and the glorious host of heaven, with the company of the +saints, standing round. But while, in my ecstasy, I was lost in wonder, +and my attention deeply fixed on such an extraordinary spectacle, I +beheld a virgin resplendent with light cast herself at the feet of the +Lord Jesus, and humbly address to Him this petition, "O Lord Jesus +Christ, the Saviour of mankind, for which Thou didst shed Thy precious +blood when hanging on the Cross, look with an eye of compassion on Thy +people, which now groan under the yoke of William. Thou avenger of +wickedness, and most just judge of all men, take vengeance I beseech +Thee on my behalf of this William and deliver me out of his hands, for +as far as lies in his power he hath polluted and grievously afflicted +me." The Lord replied, "Be patient and wait awhile, and soon thou wilt +be fully avenged of him." I trembled at hearing this and doubt not that +the divine anger presently threatens the King; for I understood that +the cries of the holy virgin, our mother the Church, had reached the +ears of the Almighty by reason of the robberies, the foul adulteries +and the heinous crimes of all sorts which the King and his courtiers +cease not daily of committing against the divine law.'" + +On being informed of this, the venerable Abbot Serle wrote letters +which he despatched in a friendly spirit from Gloucester informing the +King very distinctly of all the monk had seen in his vision. + +William of Malmesbury also records that the King himself the day before +he died, dreamed that he was let blood by a surgeon, and that the +stream, reaching to heaven, clouded the light and intercepted the day. +Calling on St Mary for protection he suddenly awoke, commanded a light +to be brought and forbade his attendants to leave him. They then +watched with him several hours until daylight. Shortly after, just as +the day began to dawn, a certain foreign monk told Robert Fitz Haman +one of the principal nobility that he had that night dreamed a strange +and fearful dream about the King: "That he had come into a certain +church, with menacing and insolent gesture as was his custom, looking +contemptuously on the standers by. Then violently seizing the Crucifix +he gnawed the arms and almost tore away the legs; that the image +endured this for a long time, but at length struck the King with its +foot, in such a manner that he fell backwards; from his mouth as he lay +prostrate issued so copious a flame that the volumes of smoke touched +the very stars. Robert, thinking that this dream ought not to be +neglected as he was intimate with him, immediately related it to the +King. William, repeatedly laughing, exclaimed, 'He is a monk and dreams +for money like a monk; give him a hundred shillings.'" + +"Nevertheless," adds William of Malmesbury, "being greatly moved, the +King hesitated a long while whether he should go out to hunt as he +designed; his friends persuading him not to suffer the truth of the +dreams to be tried at his personal risk. In consequence he abstained +from the chase before dinner, dispelling the uneasiness of his +unregulated mind by serious business. They relate that having +plentifully regaled that day, he soothed his cares with a more than +usual quantity of wine." + +All this, I suppose, befell in the Castle of Malwood. + +After dinner the King prepared to hunt. "Being in great spirits," says +Ordericus, "he was joking with his attendants while his boots were +being laced, when an armourer came and presented him six arrows. The +King immediately took them with great satisfaction, praising the work, +and unconscious of what was to happen, kept four of them himself and +held out the other two to Walter Tyrrel. "It is but right," said he, +"that the sharpest arrows should be given to him who knows best how to +inflict mortal wounds with them." This Tyrrel was a French knight of +good extraction, the wealthy lord of the castles of Poix and Pontoise, +filling a high place among the nobles, and a gallant soldier; he was +therefore admitted to familiar intimacy with the King and became his +constant companion. Meanwhile as they were idly talking and the King's +household attendants were assembled about him, a monk of Gloucester +presented himself and delivered to the King a letter from his abbot. +Having read it, the King burst out laughing and said merrily to the +knight just mentioned, "Walter, do what I told you." The knight +replied, "I will, my lord." Slighting then the warnings of the elders, +and forgetting that the heart is lifted up before a fall, he said +respecting the letter he had received, "I wonder what has induced my +lord Serlo to write me in this strain, for I really believe he is a +worthy abbot and respectable old man. In the simplicity of his heart he +transmits to me, who have enough besides to attend to, the dreams of +his snoring monks and even takes the trouble to commit them to writing +and send them a long distance. Does he think that I follow the example +of the English, who will defer their journey or their business on +account of the dreams of a parcel of wheezing old women? + +"Thus speaking, he hastily rose and mounting his horse rode at full +speed to the forest. His brother, Count Henry with William de Bretanel, +and other distinguished persons, followed him, and having penetrated +into the woods the hunters dispersed themselves in various directions +according to custom. The King and Walter Tyrrel posted themselves with +a few others in one part of the forest and stood with their weapons in +their hands eagerly watching for the coming of the game, when a stag +suddenly running between them the King quitted his station and Walter +shot an arrow. It grazed the beast's grizzly back, but glancing from +it mortally wounded the king, who stood within its range. He +immediately fell to the ground, and, alas! suddenly expired." + +William of Malmesbury gives a somewhat different account of the King's +death. "The sun was declining when the King, drawing his bow and +letting fly an arrow; slightly wounded a stag which passed before him; +and keenly gazing followed it still running a long time with his eyes, +holding up his hand to keep off the power of the sun's rays. At this +instant, Walter, conceiving a noble exploit, which was, while the +King's attention was otherwise occupied, to transfix another stag +which by chance came near him, unknowingly and without power to prevent +it--oh gracious God!--pierced his breast with a fatal arrow. On +receiving the wound the King uttered not a word; but breaking off the +shaft of the weapon where it projected from his body, fell upon the +wound by which he accelerated his death. Walter immediately ran up, but +as he found him senseless and speechless he leaped swiftly upon his +horse, and escaped by spurring him to his utmost speed. Indeed, there +was none to pursue him; some consented in his flight, and others pitied +him, and all were intent on other matters. Some began to fortify their +dwellings; others to plunder, and the rest to look out for a new king. +A few countrymen conveyed the body, placed on a cart, to the cathedral +at Winchester, the blood dripping from it all the way. Here it was +committed to the ground within the tower, attended by many of the +nobility though lamented by few. Next year [really in 1107] the tower +fell; though I forbear to mention the different opinions on this +subject, lest I should seem to assent too readily to unsupported +trifles, more especially as the building might have fallen through +imperfect construction even though he had never been buried there. He +died in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1100, of his reign the +thirteenth, on the fourth before the nones of August, aged above forty +years." + +So died the Red King. Whose arrow it was that slew him, whether it came +aforethought from an English bow or by chance from that of Walter +Tyrrel, we shall never know. The Red King fell in the New Forest and +there was no one in all broad England to mourn him. William of +Malmesbury says that a few countrymen carried his body to Winchester. +We may well ask why not to Malwood Castle, which was close by? We may +ask, but we shall get no answer. According to a local legend it was a +charcoal burner of Minstead, Purkess by name, who found the King's body +and bore it away, and ever after his descendants have remained in +Minstead, neither richer nor poorer than their ancestor. As for Sir +Walter, he is said to have sworn to the Prior of St Denys de Poix, a +monastery of his foundation, that he knew nothing of the King's death. +Leland tells us that in his day not only did the tree still exist +against which, according to him, the arrow glanced off and struck the +King, but a little chapel remained there then very old, in which Mass +was wont to be offered for the repose of the King's soul. I wish that I +might have seen it, for it would have pleased me. + +Now when I had well considered all this, not without an orison for that +misguided King, I set off for Cadnam, and holding now only to the road, +marching fast, for it was late, I came over the ridge beyond Black +water into the valley of the Test, and so entered Romsey a little after +it was dark. + +[Illustration: ROMSEY ABBEY] + +Romsey, as I soon found on the following morning, has nothing at all to +offer the traveller except one of the most solemn and noble Norman +churches in all England, monastic too, for it was the church of the +great Benedictine Nunnery of Our Lady of Romsey. It is impossible to +exaggerate the impression this astonishing Norman pile, of vast size +and unsurpassed age and reverence, makes upon the traveller. One seems +in looking upon it to see before his eyes the foundation of England. I +cannot hope to describe it or to convey to another what it meant to me. +It is at once grandiose and reverent, of enormous, almost incredible +size and weight and strength larger than many a cathedral, heavy as a +kingdom, stronger than a thousand years. It seems to have been hewn +bodily out of the cliffs or the great hills. + +It is enormously old. The house was founded or perhaps refounded more +than a millennium ago by Edward the Elder in 907; his daughter was +abbess here, and here was buried. In 967 Edgar his grandson gave the +house to the Benedictines. It remained English after the Conquest, for +William seems not to have dealt with it and in 1086 the sister of Edgar +Atheling became abbess. Out of it Henry I. chose his bride that +Abbess's niece Maud a novice of Our Lady of Romsey. Said I not well +that it was as the foundation of England? + +We know little of the Abbey for near a hundred years after that, and +then in 1160 the daughter of King Stephen, Mary, whose uncle, Henry of +Blois, was Bishop of Winchester, became abbess, and it was decided to +rebuild the place. Thus the great Norman church we have, arose in the +new England of the twelfth century. Mary, princess and abbess, was, +however, false to her vows. How long she was abbess we do not know, +perhaps only a few months or even days. At any rate, in the very year +she became abbess, the year of her mother's death,[Footnote: See supra +under Faversham.] she forsook her trust and married the son of the Earl +of Flanders, and by him she had two daughters. Then came repentance; +she separated from her husband and returned to Romsey as a penitent. + +The great religious house which had grown up thus with England, +continued its great career right through the Middle Ages, about forty +nuns serving there in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, though +this number had dwindled to twenty-three at the time of the Surrender +in 1539. How this surrender was made we do not know; but whether with +or without trouble the result was the same, the great convent was +utterly destroyed. Many of the lands passed to Sir Thomas Seymour, and +the people of Romsey, who had always had a right to the north aisle of +the church, which indeed they enlarged at their own expense in 1403, +bought the whole from the Crown, for one hundred pounds, in 1554. + +I have said that there was undoubtedly a great Saxon church here, where +the Norman Abbey of Romsey now stands, and part of the foundations of +this great building were discovered in 1900. That building, founded by +Edward the Elder, rebuilt by Edgar and restored by Canute, stood till +the building of the present church in 1125. The older part of this +building (1125-1150) is to the east of the nave, and consists of +sanctuary and transepts: the nave was begun towards the end of the +twelfth century, the church being finished in the beginning of the +thirteenth. The church is cruciform, two hundred and sixty-three feet +long and one hundred and thirty-one wide; it consists of a great +sanctuary with aisles ending in chapels, square without, apsidal +within, wide transepts each having an eastern apsidal chapel, nave with +aisles, and over the crossing a low tower which was once higher, having +now a seventeenth century polygonal belfry. To the east of the +sanctuary stood two long chapels destroyed since the Suppression. We +have here, as I have said, one of the most glorious Norman buildings in +the world, Norman work which at the western end passes into the most +delightful Early English. The cloister stood to the south of the nave, +to the north stood of old the parish church, growing out of the north +aisle as it were, built so in 1403. This has been destroyed and the +north aisle wall has been rebuilt as in 1150. + +The church possesses more than one thing of great interest. The old +high-altar stone is still in existence, and is now used as the +communion table. In the south transept is a fine thirteenth century +effigy of a lady, carved in purbeck. At the end of the south aisle of +the choir is a remarkable stone Crucifix that evidently belonged to +the old Saxon church; about the Cross stand Our Lady, St John and the +Roman soldiers, above are angels. A later Rood is to be seen in the +eastern wall of the old cloister which abutted on to the transept; this +dates from the twelfth century. In the north aisle of the choir is a +very fine painting which used to stand above the high altar in Catholic +times. There we see still the Resurrection of Our Lord with two angels, +above are ten saints, among them St Benedict and St Scholastica, St +Gregory, St Augustine of Canterbury, St Francis and St Clare. +This fine work, which of old showed, above, Christ in Glory, is +of the end of the fourteenth century. + +Now when you have seen Romsey Abbey thus as it were with the head; then +is the time to begin to get it by heart. In all South England you may +find no greater glory than this, nor one more entirely our very own, at +least our own as we were but yesterday. It may be that such a place as +Romsey Abbey means nothing to us and can never mean anything again. But +I'll not believe it. For to think so is to despair of England, to +realise that England of my heart has really passed away. + +There are two ways by which a man may go from Romsey, in the valley of +the Test to Winchester, in the valley of the Itchen. The more +beautiful, for it gives you, if you will, not only Otterbourne, +Shawford and Compton to the west of the stream, but Twyford to the +east, the Queen of Hampshire villages, is that which makes for the +Roman road between Winchester and Southampton, and following up the +valley of the Itchen enters Winchester at last, by the South Gate, +after passing St Cross in the meads. The shorter road, though far less +lovely, is in some ways the more interesting; for it passes Merdon +Castle and Hursley, where the son of Oliver Cromwell lies, and for this +cause I preferred it. + +Merdon Castle, of which some few scanty ruins remain, was built by the +Bishop Henry of Blois about 1138, and no doubt it served its purpose in +the anarchy of Stephen's time, but thereafter it seems to have become +rather a palace than a fortress. The manor of Merdon had always +belonged to the See of Winchester, it is said, since 636, when it was +granted to the Bishop by King Kinegils. It remained with the Bishopric +until the Reformation, when it was granted to Sir Philip Hoby to be +restored to the Church by Queen Mary, and then again regranted to the +Hoby family about 1559. The manor had passed, however, by 1638 to +Richard Major, a miser and a tyrant, who "usurped authority over his +tentant" and more especially, for he was a fanatic Roundhead, "when +King Charles was put to death and Oliver Cromwell was Protector of +England and Richard Major of his Privy Council, and Noll's eldest son, +Richard, was married to Mr Major's Doll." Thus Merdon came into the +Cromwell family, another piece of Church property upon which that very +typical sixteenth-century family had already grown exceedingly wealthy. +Richard Cromwell (as he called himself) lived at Merdon a good deal, +till he succeeded his father in the usurped governance of England. But +when he was turned out in 1660 he found it safer to return to Merdon, +but only for a little while, France offering him, as he wisely thought, +a more secure asylum, not only from a charge of High Treason, but from +his creditors. While he was abroad, we learn he went under another +name; not a new experience for one of his family, which seems to have +had no legitimate name of its own, its members, Oliver amongst them, +signing in important personal matters such as getting hold of the +dowries of their wives, "Williams _alias_ Cromwell." It would, +therefore, be interesting to know under what alias this latest +descendant of the infamous minister of Henry VIII. corresponded with +the wife and family he had left at Merdon. He did not return to Merdon +till 1705, upon the death of his son Oliver. His wife had died in 1676, +and his time was soon to come. He died at Cheshunt in 1712, and was +buried with considerable pomp in Hursley church, where we may still see +his monument, moved from the old church and re-erected in that built by +the efforts of John Keble, vicar of this parish for thirty years, from +1836 to 1866. + +And so considering all these strange things I went on to Winchester. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +WINCHESTER + + +I do not know what it is that moves me so deeply in the old cities of +Southern England, in Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, most of all, +perhaps, in Winchester, unless it be that they sum up in a way nothing +else can do the England that is surely and irrevocably passing away. +How reverently we approach them, with what hesitation and misgiving we +try to express what we feel about them! They are indeed the sanctuaries +of England, sanctuaries in which it is wiser to pray than to exult, +since their beauty and antiquity, their repose and quietness, fill us +with an extraordinary uneasiness and amazement, a kind of nostalgia +which nothing really our own can satisfy. For if Winchester appeals to +us as the symbol of England, it is not the England of our day for which +she stands. Let Manchester or Sheffield stand for that, places so +unquiet, so meanly wretched and hopeless, that no one has ever thought +of them without a kind of fear and misery. Alas, they are the reality, +while Winchester gradually fades year by year into a mere dream city, +as it were Camelot indeed, too good to be true, established, if at all, +rather in the clouds, or in our hearts, than upon the earth we tread. +And if in truth she stands for something that was once our own, it is +for something we are gradually leaving behind us, discarding and +forgetting, something that after four centuries of disputation and +anarchy no man any longer believes capable of realisation here and now. +Yet Winchester endures in her beauty, her now so precarious +loveliness, and while she endures it is still possible to refuse to +despair of England. For she is co-eval with us; before we knew +ourselves or were aware of our destiny she stood beside the Itchen +within the shadow of her hills east and west, in the meads and the +water meadows. She saw the advent of the Roman, she claims to be +Arthur's chief city, as later she was the throne of the Saxon kings; in +her council chamber England was first named England. + +Of what indeed she was before the Romans came and drew us within their +great administration, we are largely ignorant; but we know that they +established here a town of considerable importance, which they called +Venta Belgarum, larger than Silchester, if we may believe that the +mediaeval walls stand upon Roman foundations, and certainly a centre of +Roman administrative life. Four Roman roads undoubtedly found in her +their goal and terminus, coming into her Forum from Sorbiodunum (Old +Sarum) upon the west, from Calleva (Silchester) upon the north, from +Porchester upon the south, and from Clausentum upon the south-west. Her +chief Temple in Roman times, before the advent of Christianity, was +that of Apollo, which is said to have occupied the site of the +Cathedral, close by was the Temple of Concord, while it is impossible +to believe that a town so plentifully supplied by nature with water +was without considerable baths. Legend has it indeed that Winchester +was the capital of the King Lucius, who is said in the second century +to have introduced Christianity into Britain. The first Christian +church, which he erected, traditionally stood upon the site of the +Cathedral. But alas, Lucius is a myth, his cathedral a church never +built with hands. We know nothing of any Christian church in Roman +Winchester, and though we may be sure that such a building certainly +existed, no excavation has so far laid bare its foundations. Indeed we +are almost as ignorant of Roman as we are of Celtic Winchester. Even +the lines of its walls are conjectural, we suppose them to be the same +as those of the Middle Age, yet such foundations of Roman buildings as +have been discovered, lie not only within an area much more restricted +than that which the mediaeval walls enclosed, but in certain instances +outside them. No discoveries of Roman foundations have been made to the +north of the High Street. This fact, however, formidable though it be, +does not of itself prove that the Roman walls did not coincide with the +mediaeval fortifications; it is even probable that they did, except at +the south-west corner, where stood the mediaeval castle. In any case, +the Roman walls, built we may think in the fourth century, enclosed an +irregular quadrilateral, and possessed four gates out of which issued +those four roads to Old Sarum, to Silchester, to Clausentum and to +Porchester. + +In the beginning of the fifth century the Roman administration which +had long been failing, to which one may think the building of those +walls bears witness, collapsed altogether, and with the final departure +of the Legions full of our youth and strength, Britain was left +defenceless. What happened to Winchester in the appalling confusion +which followed, we shall never know. It is said that in 495, three +generations that is to say after the departure of the Legions for the +defence of Rome, Cerdic and his son, Cymric, landed upon the southern +coast, and presently seized Winchester within whose broken walls they +established themselves. In the year 519, according to the "Saxon +Chronicle," "Cerdic and Cymric obtained the kingdom of the West Saxons; +and the same year they fought against the Britons where it is now named +Cerdicsford. And from that time forth the royal offspring of the West +Saxons reigned." That is all we know about it, and it is not enough +upon which to build an historical narrative or from which to draw any +clear idea even of what befell. All we can say with any sort of +certainty is that the Saxons, through long years of probably spasmodic +fighting, very gradually established themselves in southern England, +and out of it carved a dominion, the kingdom of Wessex, whose capital +was Winchester. Until the year 635 this kingdom, such as it was, was +pagan. In that year St Birinus converted the West Saxons and their King +Kynegils to Christianity. Though Kynegils seems immediately +to have begun to build a church in Winchester in which he +established monks and endowed it with the whole of the land +for a space of seven miles round the city, Winchester did +not become an episcopal See until the year 662. Till then, +Dorchester in the Thames Valley had been the seat of the Bishop +of Wessex, but in that year Kynewalch, the son and successor of +Kynegils, completed the church of Winchester, in which he had been +crowned, and his father buried, as for the most part were their +successors, and there he established a bishop. + +It was now that Winchester began her great career. She rose with the +fortunes of the Wessex kingdom until, in the time of Egbert, she +appears as the capital of the new kingdom of England which is so named, +and for the first time in her witan. + + The com kyng Egbryth + Ant wyth batyle ant fyht + Made al Englond yhol + Falle to ys oune dol; + Ant sethe he reignede her + Ahte ant tuenti folle yer: + At Wynchestre lyggeth ys bon, + Buried in a marble-ston. + +Egbert triumphed and established England none too soon. As early as +the year 787, according to the "Saxon Chronicle," "ships of the +Northmen" had reached our southern coasts, and Egbert had scarcely +named his new kingdom when they imperilled it. His son, Ethelwulf, who +came to his throne in 836, was to see Winchester itself stormed before +the invaders were beaten off; but beaten off they were, and it was in +Winchester that Alfred was to reign, to give forth his laws and to plan +his campaigns against the same enemy. He was victorious, as we know, +and at Ethandune not only broke his pagan foes, but dragged Guthrum, +their leader, to baptism. And in his capital he made and kept the only +record we have of the Dark Ages in England, the "Saxon Chronicle," +begun in Wolvesey Palace; founded the famous nunnery of St Mary to the +north-east of the Cathedral in the meads; and provided for the +foundation, by Edward his son, of the great New Minster close by, where +his bones at last were to be laid. The three great churches with their +attendant buildings must have been the noblest group to be seen in the +England of that day. Thus Winchester flourished more than ever secure +in its position as capital, so that Athelstan, we read, established +there six mints, and Edgar, reigning there, made "Winchester measure" +the standard for the whole kingdom: "and let one money pass throughout +the king's dominions, and let no man refuse; and let one measure and +one weight pass, such as is observed at London and Winchester." + +Such was Winchester at the beginning of the ninth century; before the +end of that century she was to suffer violence from the Danes; and in +the first years of the tenth century to fall with the rest of England +into their absolute power, and to see a Danish king, Canute, crowned in +her Cathedral. There, too, at last, that Danish king was buried. He was +a generous conqueror, and a great benefactor to his capital, and +with him passes much of the splendour of Winchester. Edward the +Confessor, though hallowed at Winchester, looked upon London +as his capital and there built the great abbey which was thenceforth +to see the crowning of England's kings. For St Edward was at +heart a Norman, and Winchester, beside summing up in itself all the +splendour of pre-Norman England, had been given by Ethelred to the +widow of Canute, Emma, the mother of St Edward. She allied herself with +the great Earl Godwin to oppose the Norman influence which St Edward +had brought into England, and it was only when she died that the king +came again into Winchester for Easter, and to hold a solemn court. +During that Easter week Earl Godwin died, and was buried in the +Cathedral. He was the last champion of Saxon England to lie there. + +Nothing marks the change that England had passed through during the +first half of the eleventh century more certainly than the fact that +William Duke of Normandy was crowned King of England, not in the old +Minster of Winchester but in that of St Peter, Westminster, which Pope +Nicholas II. in King Edward's time had constituted as the place of the +inauguration of the kings of England. It is true that William was later +crowned again in Winchester, as were Stephen and Coeur de Lion, but the +fact remains that from the time of William the Conqueror down to our +own day, as the Papal Bull had ordered, Westminster and not Winchester +has been the coronation church of our kings. This Bull marks, as it +were, the beginning of the decline of Winchester. Little by little, in +the following centuries, it was to cease to be the capital of England. +Little by little London was to take its place, a thing finally achieved +by Edward I., when he removed the royal residence from Winchester. + +Norman Winchester was, however, by no means less splendid than had been +the old capital of the Saxon kings. There Domesday Book was compiled, +and there it was kept in the Treasury of the Norman kings, and the only +name which it gives itself is that of the "Book of Winchester." There +the great Fair of St Giles was established by the Conqueror, which +attracted merchants from every part of Europe, and there in 1079 Bishop +Walkelin began, from the foundations, a new cathedral church completed +in 1093, of which the mighty transepts still remain. In 1109 the monks +of New Minster, which had suffered greatly from fire and mismanagement, +removed to a great new house without the walls upon the north, and +since this new site was called Hyde Meads, New Minster was thenceforth +known as the Abbey of Hyde; and certainly after the fire in 1141, if +not before, the great Benedictine Nunnery of St Mary was rebuilt. + +As for the Castle of Wolvesey, Bishop Henry of Blois rebuilt it in +1138. It was indeed in his time that Winchester suffered the most +disastrous of all its sieges, as we may believe, and this at the hands +of the Empress Matilda in 1141. The greater part of the city is then +said to have been destroyed; the new Abbey of Hyde was burned down not +to be rebuilt till 1182; the old Nunnery of St Mary was destroyed also +by fire; and we are told of more than forty churches which then +perished. "Combustibles were hurled from the Bishop's Castle," William +of Malmesbury tells us, "in the houses of the townspeople, who, as I +have said, rather wished success to the empress than to the bishop, +which caught and burned the whole abbey of nuns within the city and the +monastery which is called Hyde without the walls. Here was an image of +Our Lord crucified, wrought with a profusion of gold and silver and +precious stones, through the pious solicitude of Canute, who was +formerly king and presented it. This being seized by the flames and +thrown to the ground was afterwards stripped of its ornaments at the +command of the Legate himself; more than five hundred marks of silver +and thirty of gold, which were found in it, served for a largess to the +soldiers." + +It would, perhaps, be untrue to say that Winchester never really +recovered from the appalling sack and pillage which followed the flight +of Matilda; but it is true to assert that time was fighting against +her, and that the thirteenth century did not bring the splendid gifts +to her that it brought to so many of our cities. One great ceremony, +the last of its kind, however, took place in her Cathedral in 1194; the +second coronation of Coeur de Lion. "Then King Richard," we read, +"being clothed in his royal robes, with the crown upon his head, +holding in his right hand a royal sceptre which terminated in a cross, +and in his left hand a golden wand with the figure of a dove at the top +of it, came forth from his apartment in the priory, being conducted on +the right hand by the Bishop of Ely, his Chancellor, and on the left by +the Bishop of London. ... The silken canopy was held on four lances +over the King by four Earls. ... The King being thus conducted into the +Cathedral and up to the High Altar, there fell upon his knees, and +devoutly received the archbishop's solemn benediction. He was then led +to the throne, which was prepared for him, on the south side of the +choir. ... When Mass was finished the King was led back to his +apartments with the solemnities aforesaid. He then laid aside his robes +and crown, put on other robes and a crown that were much lighter, and +so proceeded to dinner, which was served in the monks' refectory." + +Winchester's next glory was the birth of Henry III., known to the day +of his death as Henry of Winchester--this in 1207. In 1213 the city was +the scene of the reconciliation of King John and Archbishop Stephen, +but in 1265 she was sacked by the younger de Montfort, and this seems +finally to have achieved her overthrow. When Edward I. came to the +throne in 1272 he abandoned Winchester. The city never regained its +place, London was too strong for it both geographically and +economically. Its trade, which remained very considerable until the +latter part of the fourteenth century, chiefly owing to its wool and +cloth, was, however, slowly declining, and politically the history of +the city becomes a mere series of incidents, among the more splendid of +which were the marriage of Henry IV. with Joan of Navarre in 1403; the +reception of the French ambassadors by Henry V. before Agincourt in +1415; the rejoicings for the birth in Winchester of Arthur Tudor the +son of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York in 1457; the meeting of the +Emperor Charles V. and Henry VIII. in 1522; and the marriage of Mary +Tudor to Philip of Spain in 1554. At that great ceremony, the last +Catholic rite the old Cathedral was to witness, there were present, +according to the Venetian Envoy, "the ambassadors from the Emperor, +from the Kings of the Romans and Bohemia, from your Serenity, from +Savoy, Florence, and Ferrara and many agents of sovereign princes. The +proclamation was entitled thus: Philip and Mary, by the grace of God, +King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, Ireland, Defender +of the Faith, Prince of Spain, Archduke of Austria, etc." + +But when Queen Elizabeth visited the city in 1560 (she was there four +times during her reign), she said to the mayor, "Yours Mr Mayor is a +very ancient city"; and he answered, "It has abeen, your Majesty, it +has abeen," and in spite of bad grammar he spoke but the truth, +Winchester's great days were over. Yet it saw the trial of Sir Walter +Raleigh in 1603, and the town having been taken by Waller in 1644 the +Castle was besieged by Cromwell himself in 1645. "I came to +Winchester," he writes, "on the Lord's Day the 28th of September. After +some disputes with the Governour we entered the town. I summoned the +Castle; was denied; whereupon we fell to prepare batteries, which we +could not perfect until Friday following. Our battery was six guns; +which being finished, after firing one round, I sent in a second +summons for a treaty; which they refused, whereupon we went on with our +work and made a breach in the wall near the Black Tower; which after +about two hundred shot we thought stormable; and purposed on Monday +morning to attempt it. On Sunday morning about ten of the clock the +Governour beat a parley, desiring to treat, I agreed unto it, and sent +Colonel Hammond and Major Harrison in to him, who agreed upon these +enclosed articles." + +Cromwell presently departed and the city caught a glimpse of the Royal +Martyr, the victim of the great families, as he passed from Hurst +Castle to Windsor and the scaffold in Whitehall. With the Restoration, +which was most gallantly welcomed in the old royal city, Charles II. +came to Winchester, and having been burnt out at Newmarket was, +according to Evelyn, "all the more earnest to render Winchester the +seat of his autumnal diversions for the future, designing a palace +there where the ancient castle stood.... The surveyor has already begun +the foundation for a palace estimated to cost L35,000...." But Charles +died too soon to finish this new house, which, it is said, Queen Anne +wished to complete, liking Winton well, but again death intervened. + +In spite of these royal fancies, however, Winchester, which had +suffered badly in the plague of 1667, continued to decline in +importance and in population, and to depend more and more upon the two +great establishments which remained to it, the Cathedral, founded by +Kynegils in 635 and re-established under a new Protestant +administration in the sixteenth century, and the College of St Mary of +Winchester founded by William of Wykeham in connection with the College +of St Mary, Winton, in Oxford, called New College, for the education of +youth and the advancement of learning. Winchester is, of course, as it +ever has been, the county-town of Hampshire, but it still maintains +itself as it has done now these many years chiefly by reason of these +two great establishments. + +Certainly to-day the traveller's earliest steps are turned towards +these two buildings, and first to that which is in its foundation near +eight hundred years the older--the Cathedral church once of St Swithin, +the Bishop and Confessor (852-863) and now since the Reformation of the +Holy Trinity. + +To come out of the sloping High Street past the ancient city Cross, +through the narrow passage-way into the precincts, and to pass down +that great avenue of secular limes across the Close to the great porch +of the Cathedral, is to come by an incomparable approach to perhaps the +most noble and most venerable church left to us in England. The most +venerable--not I think the most beautiful. No one remembering the Abbey +of Westminster can claim that for it, and then, though it possesses the +noblest Norman work in England and the utmost splendour of the +Perpendicular, it lacks almost entirely and certainly the best of the +Early English. Its wonder lies in its size and its antiquity. It is now +the longest mediaeval church not only in England, but in Europe, though +once it was surpassed by old St Paul's. It is five hundred and twenty- +six feet long, but it lacks height, and perhaps rightly, at least I +would not have it other than it is, its greatness lying in its +monotonous depressed length and weight, an enormous primeval thing +lying there in the meads beside the river. Winchester itself might seem +indeed to know nothing of it. The city does not rejoice in it as do +Lincoln and York in their great churches; here is nothing of the sheer +joy of Salisbury, a Magnificat by Palestrina; the church of Winchester +is without delight, it has supremely the mystery and monotony of the +plainsong, the true chant of the monks, the chorus of an army, with all +the appeal of just that, its immense age and half plaintive glory, +which yet never really becomes music. + +And Winchester, too, has all and more than all, the surprise of the +plainsong; the better you know it the more you are impressed. No one +certainly has ever come by the narrow way out of the High Street, down +the avenue of limes to the West Front without being disappointed; but +no one thus disappointed has ever entered into the church without +astonishment, wonder and complete satisfaction. It was not always so. +That long nave was once forty feet longer and was flanked upon either +side by a Norman tower as at Ely. Must one regret their loss? No, the +astonishment of the nave within makes up for everything; there is no +grander interior in the world, nor anywhere anything at all like it. Up +that vast Perpendicular nave one looks far and far away into the +height, majesty and dominion of the glorious Norman transept, and +beyond into the light of the sanctuary. It has not the beauty of +Westminster Abbey, nor the exquisite charm of Wells, but it has a +majesty and venerable nobility all its own that I think no other church +in England can match. + +Of the old Saxon church, so far as we really know, the only predecessor +of the present church, nothing really remains. This, as I have said, +had been founded by King Kynegils upon his conversion, by St Birinus in +635. We know very little about it, except that it was enlarged or +rebuilt in the middle of the tenth century by St Aethwold, and if we +may believe the poetical description of Wolstan, we shall be inclined +to believe the church was enlarged, for it appears to have been a very +complex building with a lofty central tower, having a spire and +weathercock, in accordance with the Bull of Pope Urban, and a crypt, +both the work of St Elphege. This church, which, like its successor +until the Reformation, was served by monks, stood till the year 1093, +when it was destroyed as useless, for the new Norman church of Bishop +Walkelin begun in 1079 was then far enough advanced to be used. It is +thus practically certain that the two churches did not stand on the +same site, the newer, it would seem, rising to the south of the older +building. But the sacred spot which, it would seem, every church, that +may ever have stood in this place, must have covered is the holy well, +immediately beneath the present high altar in the crypt of the Norman +building. This surely was within the Saxon building as it must have +been within any church that may have stood here in Roman times? + +The two great shrines of the Saxon church were, however, those of St +Birinus, the Apostle of Wessex, and of St Swithin, Bishop of Winchester +in the ninth century, the day of whose translation, July 15th, was, +till the Reformation, a universal festival throughout England. In his +honour the Saxon church, till then known as the church of SS. Peter and +Paul, was rededicated in 964. + +The great Norman church which Bishop Walkelin built to take the place +of the Saxon minster cannot fundamentally have differed very much from +the church we see, at any rate so far as its nave and transepts were +concerned. The eastern arm was, however, different. It consisted of +four bays, with north and south aisles at the end of which were +rectangular chapels, an apse about which the aisles ran as an +ambulatory, and beyond the apse an eastern apsidal chapel. Of this +church all that really remains to us is the crypt and the transept. In +the crypt we divine the old eastern limb of the church, and are +doubtless in the presence of the earliest work in the Cathedral. It is, +however, in the double aisled transepts that we can best appreciate how +very glorious that first Norman church must have been; there is nothing +in England more wonderful; and so far as I know there is nothing in +Europe quite to put beside them. If only the whole mighty church could +have remained to us! + +The first disaster that befell Bishop Walkelin's building was the fall +of the central tower in 1107, which all England, at the time, +attributed to the burial beneath it of William Rufus. The tower was +rebuilt, though not to its original height, but in the reconstruction, +the parts of the transept nearest to the tower were also rebuilt, and +thus we have here two periods of Norman work; the main building of 1107 +and the reconstruction after that date. + +Of the Transitional work of the second half of the twelfth century very +little is to be seen at Winchester. It was for the most part the period +of that great Bishop Henry of Blois, and he was probably too much +immersed in the brutal politics of his time, too busy building and +holding his castle to give much thought to the Cathedral. The font, +however, dates from his time, and perhaps a door in the north-western +bay of the south transept. + +The earliest Gothic work in the Cathedral is the chapel of St +Sepulchre, which was built upon the northern wall of the choir before +the north transept. There we may still see wall paintings of the +Passion of Our Lord. Not much later is the retro-choir. This consists +of three bays, and is the largest in England. It was begun in 1189 by +Bishop Godfrey de Lucy, and we must admit at once that it is wholly +without delight, and yet to build it the Norman apse was sacrificed. +According to Mr Bond, this was probably a very popular destruction. The +reversion, says he, "to the favourite square east end of English church +architecture was popular in itself. Almost every Norman cathedral ended in +an apse; and in the apse, high raised behind the high altar, sat the +Norman bishop facing the congregation; the hateful symbol of Norman +domination." This may have been so, but considering that the monastic +choir of Winchester occupied not one, as the choir does to-day, but +three bays of the nave from which it was separated by a vast rood +screen, though the Bishop had been as high as Haman, he would have been +scarcely visible to the populace in the western part of the nave. +Popular or no, however, the apse was sacrificed and the low retro-choir +built with the Lady Chapel in the Early English style. + +The next thing undertaken was to place in the old Norman choir the +magically lovely choir stalls (1245-1315) which happily still remain +to us. Perhaps it was their enthusiastic loveliness which led about +1320 to the rebuilding of the Presbytery and the lovely tabernacle in +the back of the wall of the Feretory. When all this was done there +remained of the old Norman church only the transepts and the nave. The +transepts remain to us still, but the nave was transformed, in the very +beginning of the Perpendicular time. It was transformed not rebuilt. +Bishop William of Wykeham has obliterated Bishop Walkelin, but +fundamentally the nave of Winchester remains Norman still. The +Perpendicular work is only a lovely mask, or rather just the sunlight +of the fourteenth century which has come into the dark old Norman +building. The most notable change is the roof, in Norman times a flat +ceiling, now a magnificent vault. But that century was not +content with transforming the nave, it littered it with the first of +its various delights, those chantries which are among the greatest +splendours of this Cathedral, and which still, in some sort, +commemorate Bishop Edingdon (1366), Bishop Wykeham (1404), +Bishop Beaufort (1447), Bishop Waynflete (1416), Bishop Fox (1528) and +Bishop Gardiner (1555) the last Catholic Bishop to fill the See. + +[Illustration: NORTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL] + +The transformation of the nave, which occupied full an hundred years, +was not, however, the last work undertaken in the Cathedral before the +change of religion. Bishop Courtenay, in the last years of the +fifteenth century, lengthened the Lady Chapel, and finally Bishop Fox +in the very beginning of the sixteenth century began the transformation +of the early fourteenth century Presbytery, but got little further +than the insertion of the Perpendicular windows. He did, however, +transform the Norman aisles there, and screened them, and upon the +screens in six fine Renaissance chests he gathered the dust of the old +Saxon saints and kings. + +But apart from its architecture the church is full of interest. Where +can we find anything to match the exquisite iron screen of the eleventh +century which used to guard St Swithin's shrine but which, now that is +gone, covers the north-west doorway of the nave? Is there another font +in England more wonderful than that square black marble basin +sculptured in the twelfth century with the story of St Nicholas? Is +there any series of chantries in England more complete or more lovely +than these at Winchester, or anywhere a finer fourteenth century +monument than that of Bishop Wykeham? Nowhere in England certainly can +the glorious choir stalls be matched, nor shall we easily find a pulpit +to surpass that in the choir here dating from 1520. If the restored +retablo over the high altar is disappointing in its sophistication, +we have only to pass into the Feretory to discover certain marvellous +fragments of the original reredos which are so beautiful that they take +away our breath--that broken statue of the Madonna and Child, for +instance, perhaps the loveliest piece of fourteenth century sculpture +to be found in England. No, however we consider the great church of +Winchester, it stands alone. As a mere building it is more tremendous +and more venerable than anything now left to us upon English soil; as a +burial place it possesses the dust not only of the Apostle of the heart +of England but of the greatest of the Saxon kings, while beneath its +mighty vault William Rufus sleeps, the only Norman king that lies in +England. And as a shrine of art it still possesses incomparable things. +It stands there as the Pyramids stand in the desert, a relic of a lost +civilisation; but by it we may measure the modern world. + +It is, too, when you consider it, utterly lonely. The revolution we +call the Reformation upon which the modern world turns and turns as +upon a pivot, while it spared Winchester Cathedral, though reluctantly, +swept away all the buildings which surrounded it. The great monastery +is gone, scarcely a sign of it remains. Nothing at all is left of the +famous nunnery of St Mary. Of Wolvesey Castle there are a few beautiful +ruins, of Hyde Abbey, all has been swept away, even the stones, even +the bones of Alfred. Nor have the other and later religious houses, +with which Winchester was full, fared better. It is difficult to find +even the sites of the houses of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the +Austin Friars, the Carmelites. And what remains of the College of St +Elizabeth, and, but for a Norman doorway, now in Catholic hands, of the +Hospital of St Mary Magdalen? Only the Hospital of St John remains at +the east end of the High Street, still in possession of its fine Hall and +Chapel, and the great school founded by William of Wykeham in 1382, +"for seventy poor and needy scholars and clerks living college-wise in +the same, studying and becoming proficient in grammaticals or the art +and science of grammar." It remains without compare, the oldest and the +greatest school in England, whose daughter is Eton and whose late +descendant is Harrow. + +To say that the Cathedral, the College and the Hospital of St John are +all that remains of mediaeval Winchester would not, perhaps, be +strictly true; but it is so near the truth that one might say it +without fear of contradiction. Most of the old churches even have +perished. There remain St John Baptist, which can boast of Transitional +arcades, and fifteenth century screen and pulpit; St Maurice with a +Norman doorway; St Peter with its twelfth and thirteenth century work; +St Bartholomew with some Norman remains near the site of Hyde Abbey; +and in the High Street there is more than one fine old house. The fact +that so little remains cannot altogether be placed to the discredit of +the Reformation and the Puritan fanatics. Until the eighteenth century +something remained of Hyde Abbey, much of the Hospital of St Mary +Magdalen; the city walls were then practically perfect, having all +their five gates, north, south, east and west, and King's gate; now of +all these only the Westgate of the thirteenth century remains to us +with the King's gate over which is the little church of St Swithin. + +But in spite of vandalism, forgetfulness and barbarism, often of the +worst description as in the mere indifference and ignorance that +scattered Alfred's bones, no one has ever come to Winchester without +loving it, no one has ever been glad to get away. Its innumerable +visitors are all its lovers and the most opposite temperaments find +here common ground at last. Walpole praises it, and so does Keats. "We +removed here," writes the latter in 1819 to Bailey, "for the +convenience of a library, and find it an exceedingly pleasant town, +enriched with a beautiful cathedral and surrounded by fresh-looking +country.... Within these two months I have written fifteen hundred +lines, most of which, besides many more of prior composition, you will +probably see next winter. I have written two tales, one from Boccaccio +called the 'Pot of Basil' and another called 'St Agnes Eve' on a +popular superstition, and a third called 'Lamia' (half-finished). I +have also been writing parts of my 'Hyperion,' and completed four acts +of a tragedy." + +"This Winchester," he writes again, "is a place tolerably well suited +to me. There is a fine cathedral, a college, a Roman Catholic chapel +... and there is not one loom or anything like manufacturing beyond +bread and butter in the whole city. There are a number of rich +Catholics in the place. It is a respectable, ancient, aristocratic +place, and moreover it contains a nunnery." "I take a walk," he writes +to his family, "every day for an hour before dinner, and this is +generally my walk; I go out the back gate, across one street into the +cathedral yard, which is always interesting; there I pass under the +trees along a paved path, pass the beautiful front of the cathedral, +turn to the left under a stone doorway--then I am on the other side of +the building--which, leaving behind me, I pass on through two college- +like squares, seemingly built for the dwelling-place of dean and +prebendaries, garnished with grass and shaded with trees; then I pass +through one of the old city gates and then you are in College Street, +through which I pass, and at the end thereof, crossing some meadows, +and at last a country of alley gardens I arrive, that is my worship +arrives, at the foundation of St Cross, which is a very interesting old +place.... Then I pass across St Cross meadows till I come to the most +beautiful clear river." + +That walk, or rather that over the meads to St Cross, is for every +lover of Winchester that which he takes most often I think, that which +comes to him first in every memory of the city. Its beauty makes it +sacred and its reward is an hour or more in what, when all is said, is +one of the loveliest relics of the Middle Age anywhere left to us in +England, I mean the hospital and church of St Cross in the meads of the +Itchen. + +Doubtless we are the heirs of the Ages, into our hearts and minds the +Empire, the Middle Age and the Renaissance have poured their riches. +Doubtless we are the flower of Time and our Age, the rose of all the +Ages. That is why, in our wisdom, we have superseded such places as St +Cross by our modern workhouses. + +St Cross was founded by the great Henry of Blois in 1133 for the +reception, the clothing and the entertainment of thirteen poor men, +decayed or past their strength, and the relief of an hundred others; it +was a mediaeval workhouse, called a hospital in those days, and in its +beauty and its humanity and its success it cannot, of course, compare +with the institutions which, since we have not been able to abolish +poverty altogether, we have everywhere established for the reception of +our unfortunate brethren. It would be odd indeed if eight hundred +years of Christian government, four hundred of them enjoying the +infinite blessings bestowed by the Reformation and the Protestant +religion, had not vastly improved these institutions for the reception +of the very poor. It is, in fact, in such establishments as our +workhouses that our "progress" is to be seen most clearly. + +[Illustration: ST CROSS, WINCHESTER] + +Well, it is something to be assured of that; and yet, let me confess +it, St Cross has a curious fascination for me. I feel there, it is +true, that I am in a world different from that in which we do so well +to rejoice, but such is my perversity I cannot help preferring the old +to the new. This is a mere prejudice, quite personal to myself, and +comes perhaps of being a Christian. When I look at St Cross I am +vividly reminded that this was once a Christian country with a +Christian civilisation; when I look at one of our great workhouses I +know that all that has passed away and that we have "progressed" so +fast and so far that Christianity has been left some four hundred years +behind us. St Cross is, as it were, a rock of the old Christian time +still emerging from the grey sea of the modern world. + +Bishop Henry de Blois intended, as I have said, to provide, by the +foundation of the Hospital of St Cross, for the maintenance of thirteen +poor men and the relief of an hundred others. His design was perverted +in the thirteenth century, but gloriously restored by the founder of +Winchester College and his successor in the Bishopric, Cardinal +Beaufort, who added to the original foundation the almshouse of Noble +Poverty, in which he hoped to support thirty-five brethren with two +priests and three nuns to minister to the inmates. The hospital, by the +merest good fortune, escaped suppression at the Reformation, but during +most of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and through +many years of the nineteenth its revenues were enjoyed by men +who, as often as not, had never seen the place, and so the poor +were robbed. Perhaps the most insolent abuse of the kind occurred +between 1808 and 1815. In the former year Bishop Brownlow North, +of Winchester, appointed his son Francis, later Earl of Guildford, +to be master. This man appropriated the revenues of the place +to the tune of fourteen hundred pounds a year, and when at last +the scandal was exposed, it was discovered that between 1818 and 1838 +he had taken not less than fifty-three thousand pounds in fines on +renewing leases, a manifest and probably wilful breach of trust, that +ought, one may think, to have brought him to the Old Bailey. The +exposure of this rascal led to a reformation of the administration, +which is now in the hands of trustees who elect thirteen brethren +provided for by Bishop Henry of Blois. These wear a black gown with a +silver cross. St Cross also still maintains certain brethren of Noble +Poverty, and these wear a red gown, and not less than fifty poor folk, +who do not live within its walls, while a very meagre wayfarer's dole +is still distributed to all who pass by so far as a horn of beer and +two loaves of bread will go. Each of the Brethren of St Cross beside a +little house and maintenance receives five shillings a week. + +All this sounds, if you be poor, too good to be true. It is too good to +owe its origin to the modern world, but not extraordinary for the +Middle Age, which was eagerly and even violently Christian. And just as +the institution seems in itself wonderful to us in our day, so do the +buildings, which, if one would really understand how gloriously strange +they are, should be carefully compared with the county workhouse. + +One enters the Hospital by a gate, and, passing through a small court, +comes to the great gatehouse of Cardinal Beaufort, consisting of +gateway, porter's lodge and great square tower. Here and there we still +see Cardinal Beaufort's arms and devices, while over the gate itself +are three niches, in one of which a kneeling figure of the Cardinal +remains. Within this gatehouse is a large quadrangle, about three sides +of which the hospital is set with the church upon the south, between +which and the gatehouse runs a sixteenth century cloister. The whole is +wonderfully quiet and peaceful, a corner of that old England, England +of my heart, which is so fast vanishing away. + +The noblest building of this most noble place, and the only one now +left to us which dates from its foundation by Bishop Henry of Blois is +the church. This is a great Transitional building, one of the finest +examples of that style in England, and dates from about 1160 to 1292. +It is a cruciform building with central tower, the nave and chancel +being aisled, the transepts, aisles and all, vaulted in stone in the +fourteenth century. The earliest part of the church is the chancel, +which has a square eastern end, and the lower parts of the transepts +probably date from the same time. These transepts were finished a +little later, when the nave was begun and finished, and the north porch +built in the thirteenth century. The clerestory of the nave dates from +the first half of the fourteenth century, and so does the great western +window. Much of the furniture of the church is interesting, such as the +fourteenth century tiles, the curious Norman bowl that does duty as a +font, the fourteenth century glass in the clerestory window of the +nave, and that, little though it be, of the fifteenth century in the +north transept, the fine fifteenth century screen between the north- +choir aisle and the chancel, the foreign sixteenth century woodwork in +the south-choir aisle, the curious wall painting of the Martyrdom of +St Thomas in the south transept, and the old Purbeck altar stone that +now serves as the communion table. Here, before the altar, lies John de +Campeden, appointed Master of St Cross by Bishop William of Wykeham in +1383, his grave marked by a good brass. + +Much, too, within the hospital is interesting, and the old men who +eagerly show one all these strange and beautiful things are most human +and delightful. Nevertheless, though the church would anywhere else +claim all our attention for a whole morning, and an afternoon is easily +spent poking about the hospital, it is not of the mere architecture, +beautiful though it be, that one thinks on the way back into +Winchester, across the meads beside the river which has seen and known +both the Middle Age and this sorrowful time of to-day, but of that +wondrous institution where poverty was considered honourable and +destitution not an offence or even perhaps a misfortune, where it was +still remembered that we are all brethren, and that Christ, too, had +not where to lay His head. All of which seems nothing less than marvellous +to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +SELBORNE + + +I set out from Winchester early one June morning by Jewry Street, as it +were out of the old North Gate to follow, perhaps, the oldest road in +old England towards Alton, intending to reach Selborne more than twenty +miles away eastward on the tumble of hills where the North Downs meet +the South, before night. + +I say the road by which I went out of Winchester and followed for so +many miles, through King's Worthy and Martyr Worthy, Itchen Abbas, New +Alresford and Bishops Sutton, is perhaps the oldest in England; in fact +it is the old British trackway from the ports of the Straights and +Canterbury to Winchester and Old Sarum, the western end, indeed, of the +way I had already followed from Canterbury to Boughton Aluph up the +valley of the Great Stour, known to us all as the Pilgrim's Way. For +though it is older than any written history, it was preserved from +neglect and death when the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were making +all new, here as elsewhere, by the pilgrims, who, coming from Western +England, from Brittany and Spain to visit St Thomas' shrine, used it as +their road across Southern England from Winchester to Canterbury. + +Now, though for any man who follows that road to-day it is filled with +these great companies of pilgrims, there are older memories, too, which +it evokes and which, if the history of England is precious to him, he +cannot ignore. + +To begin with the exit from Winchester: there in Jewry Street a Roman +road overlies the older British way, not indeed exactly, but roughly, +certainly as far as King's Worthy, whence it still shoots forth +straight as an arrow's flight over hill over dale to Silchester. The +very street by which he leaves the city, as it were, by the now +destroyed North Gate, is Roman, one of the four roads which met in the +Forum of Venta Belgarum and divided Roman Winchester into four +quarters, though, perhaps because of the marshes of the Itchen, not +into four equal parts as in Chichester. The present name of this road, +Jewry Street, indicates its character all through the Middle Ages, when +here by the North Gate, upon the road to London, the Jews had their +booths, and the quarter of Winchester which this road served was +doubtless their ghetto, the richest quarter of the city. + +It was not, however, of the Middle Age, but of the Dark Age I thought +as I issued out of Winchester where, not much more than a hundred years +ago, the old North Gate still held the way. In the year 1001, after the +battle of Alton, in which the men of Hampshire were utterly broken by +Sweyn and his Danes, this road was filled with the routed Saxons in +flight pouring into the city of Winchester. The record of that +appalling business is very brief in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," a few +lines under the date 1001. "A. 1001. In this year was much fighting in +the land of the English, and well nigh everywhere they (the +Danes) ravaged and burned so that they advanced on one course +until they came to the town of Alton; and then there came +against them the men of Hampshire and fought against them. +And there was Ethelward the King's high-steward slain, and Leofric at +Whitchurch and Leofwin the King's high-steward and Wulfhere the +bishop's thane, and Godwin at Worthy, Bishop Elfry's son, and of all +men one hundred and eighty; and there were of the Danish men many more +slain, though they had possession of the place of slaughter." A mere +plundering expedition, we may think, but it foretold with certainty the +rule of the Danes in England, which as we know came to pass, and was +not the catastrophe it might have been, because of the victory of +Alfred at Ethandune, a century and a half before, when he had made +Guthrum and his host Christians. Till the year 1788 Alfred's bones lay +beside this very gate through which the beaten Saxons poured into his +city in 1001. For though Hyde Abbey was destroyed at the Reformation +his bones seem to have been forgotten, to be discovered in the end of +the eighteenth century in their great leaden coffin and sold, I know +not to whom, for the sum of two pounds. + +I considered these unfortunate and shameful things as I went on along +this British, Roman, Saxon and English way, the way of armies and of +pilgrims into Headbourne Worthy, whose church stands by the roadside on +the north. + +This little church dedicated in honour of St Swithin is all of a piece +with the road, and illustrates it very well. Its beauty alone would +recommend it to the wayfarer, but it also possesses an antiquity so +great that nothing left to us in Winchester itself can match it. For in +plan, and largely in masonry too, it is a Saxon sanctuary, though a +late one, dating as it would seem from the early part of the eleventh +century. What we see is a beautiful little building consisting of nave +with curious western chamber, chancel, south-western tower and modern +south porch. The original church probably did not differ very much in +plan from that we have, but only the north and west walls of the nave +of the original building remain to us; the latter having the original +doorway of Binstead stone. The south wall of the nave and the tower +were rebuilt in the thirteenth century, as was the chancel, which is +now a modern building so far as its north and eastern walls are +concerned. In the late fifteenth century the western chamber was added +to the nave as in our own day the south porch. The best treasure of the +church is, however, the great spoilt Rood, with figures of our Lady and +St John, upon the outside of the west wall of the Saxon nave, to +preserve which, in the fifteenth century, the western chamber was +built. The western chamber was originally in two stages, the lower +acting as a porch to the church, the upper as a chapel with an altar +under the Saxon rood. It is needless to say that the Reformers, Bishop +Horne of Winchester it is said, the accursed miscreant who ordered the +destruction of all crucifixes in his diocese, defaced this glorious +work of art and religion, cutting the relief away to the face of the +wall so that only the outline remains. Nevertheless it is still one of +the most imposing and notable things left to us in southern England. + +Headbourne Worthy, granted to Mortimer after the Conquest, was the most +important of the three little places grouped here in a bunch which bear +that name. King's Worthy, where the road first turns eastward and where +the church, curiously enough, stands to the south of the way, +[Footnote: According to Mr Belloc (_The Old Road_) this modern road +does not exactly represent the route of the Pilgrim's Way which ran to +the south of King's Worthy church] was but a hamlet and of Martyr +Worthy, Domesday knows nothing. Little that is notable remains to us +in either place, only the charming fifteenth century tower of King's +Worthy church and a fourteenth century font therein. + +Much the same must be said of Itchen Abbas, Itchen A Bas, where the +road falls to the river, the small Norman church there having been both +rebuilt and enlarged in or about 1863, while an even worse fate has +befallen the church of Itchen Stoke, two miles further on, for it has +disappeared altogether. Nor I fear can much be said for the church of +New Alresford or the town either, for apparently, owing to a series of +fires, it has nothing to show us but a seventeenth century tower, a +poor example of the building of that time, the base of which may be +Saxon, while the windows seem to be of the thirteenth century. + +New Alresford would seem only to have come into existence as a town in +the end of the twelfth century, when it was re-established by Bishop +Godfrey de Lucy (1189-1204). The old road did not pass through it as +the modern road does; for as Mr Belloc seems to have proved the +Pilgrim's Way, which descended to the river at Itchen A Bas as we have +seen, crossed the ford at Itchen Stoke, Itchen Stakes that is, and +proceeded east by south where the workhouse now stands, coming into the +modern road again at Bishop Sutton. But though the Pilgrim's Way knew +it not, New Alresford is of high antiquity. Local tradition has it that +it owes its existence, as distinct from Old Alresford, "to a defeat +inflicted by the Saxons on a party of Danes near the village of West +Tisted about five miles (south) east of Alresford. The Saxons granted +quarter to the defeated enemy on condition that they went to the ford +over the River Alre [Footnote: It is curious that Guthrum was baptised +at Aller and then his Danes in the Alre] to be baptised. In +commemoration of the victory a statue of the Virgin was then erected in +the churchyard of Old Alresford." [Footnote: V.C.H., Hampshire, vol. 3, +p. 350.] Local tradition cannot, at any time, be put lightly aside, and +when as here it preserves for us one of the great truths of the early +history of modern Europe we should rejoice indeed. For here we have the +obvious reality of the eighth century when Europe, slowly recovering +itself and beginning to realise itself as Christendom, was everywhere +attacked by hordes of pagans. The work of Charlemagne, of Offa and of +Alfred was not merely the conquest of the barbarians, but really since +they could not be wholly destroyed, their conversion, and thus alone +could Christendom be certainly preserved. So after Ethandune Guthrum +must be christened at Aller, and after the fight here on the Alre the +defeated heathen must be christened at the ford. Since New Alresford +has preserved for us a memory of this fundamental act we can easily +forgive her lack of material antiquity. + +The little village thus founded, certainly still existed in the time of +the Conquest, and such it would always have remained but for Godfrey de +Lucy, Bishop of Winchester, who, among his many achievements, numbers +this chiefly that he made the Itchen navigable not only from +Southampton to Winchester but here also in its headwaters, and this by +means of the great reservoir, known as Alresford Pond, into which he +gathered the waters of many streams to supply his navigation. In +return, King John not only gave him the royalty of the river, but a +weekly market here for which he rebuilt the place and called it New +Market a name which was soon lost, the people preferring their old name +New Alresford. So the market town of New Alresford came into existence, +and, but for the unfortunate fires of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries, would bear upon its face the marks it now lacks of +antiquity. + +Bishop Godfrey de Lucy was constantly in residence at Bishop Sutton in +the palace there. The road passes through this delightful village a +mile or more to the east of New Alresford and something remains, the +ruins of the kennels it is said, of the palace. This was doubtless "the +manour-house ... a verie olde house somtyme walled round aboutte with +stone now decaied well waterid with an olde ponde or moote adjoyning to +it," of which we hear in the time of Edward VI. It seems to have been +destroyed in the Civil war, but even in 1839 much remained of it. +"Within the memory of many persons now living," writes Mr Duthy in +1839, "considerable vestiges of a strong and extensive building stood +in the meadows to the north of the church, which were the dilapidated +remains of an ancient palace of the Bishops of Winchester. The walls +were of great thickness and composed of flints and mortar, but it was +impossible to trace the disposition of the apartments or the form of +the edifice." Bishop Sutton had belonged to the church of Winchester +since King Ine's day, but in the early part of the eleventh century it +was held by Harold, and after the Conquest by Eustace of Boulogne. +Bishop Henry de Blois regained it for the church by exchange, in whose +possession it has remained but for a few brief intervals in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in one of which John Evelyn +bought it, until to-day. + +It is probably to this fact we owe the beauty and preservation of the +church here, with its fine twelfth century nave, not fundamentally +altered, and its chancel still largely of the thirteenth century. +Especially notable are the two Norman doorways in the nave and curious +supports of the belfry there, four naked and massive posts. + +[Illustration: SELBORNE FROM THE HANGER] + +Bishop Sutton was the last place I was to see upon the old road, for a +mile beyond that village I left it where it turned northward, to go +east into Ripley and so by the byways to climb into the hills, and +crossing them to descend steeply at evening into the village of +Selborne by the Oakhanger stream just before it enters that narrow +brief pass into the Weald. There in the twilight I stayed for awhile +under the yew tree in the churchyard to think of the writer, for love +of whom I had made this journey all the way from Winchester. + +"In the churchyard of this village," writes Gilbert White in "The +Antiquities of Selborne," "is a yew-tree whose aspect bespeaks it to be +of great age; it seems to have seen several centuries and is probably +co-eval with the church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity; the +body is squat, short and thick, and measures twenty-three feet in the +girth, supporting a head of suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male +tree, which in the spring sheds clouds of dust and fills the atmosphere +around with its farina.... Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine +at what period this tree first obtained a place in churchyards. A +statute was passed A.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I., the title of which is +"Ne rector arbores in cemeterio prosternat." Now if it is recollected +that we seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a churchyard +but yews, this statute must have principally related to this species of +tree; and consequently their being planted in churchyards is of much +more ancient date than the year 1307. As to the use of these trees, +possibly the more respectable parishioners were buried under their +shade before the improper custom was introduced of burying within the +body of the church where the living are to assemble. Deborah, Rebekah's +nurse, was buried under an oak--the most honourable place of interment +--probably next to the cave of Machpelah, which seems to have been +appropriated to the remains of the patriarchal family alone. The +further use of yew trees might be as a screen to churches, by their +thick foliage, from the violence of winds; perhaps also for the +purpose of archery, the best long bows being made of that material, and +we do not hear that they are planted in the churchyards of other parts +of Europe, where long bows were not so much in use. They might also be +placed as a shelter to the congregation assembling before the church +doors were opened, and as an emblem of mortality by their funeral +appearance. In the south of England every churchyard almost has its +tree and some two; but in the north we understand few are to be found." + +Even in that passage, full as it is of all the quietness of the English +countryside, something of the secret of Gilbert White, his ever living +incommunicable charm may be found: his extraordinary and gentle gift of +becoming, as it were, one with the things of which he writes, his +wonderfully sympathetic approach to us, his so simple and so consummate +manner. The man might stand in his writings for the countryside of +England, incarnate and articulate. He not only leads you ever out of +doors, but he is just that, the very spirit of the open air, the out- +of-doors of a country where alone in Europe one can be in the lanes, in +the meadows, on the hills under the low soft sky with delight every day +of the year. He teaches, as Nature herself teaches; we seem to move in +his books as though they were the fields and the woods, and there the +flowers blow and the birds sing. It is not so much that his observation +is extraordinarily wide and accurate, but that we see with his eyes, +hear with his ears, and the phenomena, beautiful or wonderful, which he +describes, we experience too, and because of him with something of his +love, his interest and carefulness. What other book ever written upon +Natural History can we read, who are not Naturalists, over and over and +over again, and for its own sake, not for the myriad facts he gathered +through a long lifetime, the acute observation and record of which have +won him the homage of his fellow scientists, but for the pure human and +literary pleasure we find there, a pleasure the like of which is to be +found nowhere else in such books in the same satisfying quantity, and +at all, only because of him. + +And so on the next morning the first place I went to see was The Wakes, +the house where this great and dear lover of England of my heart lived, +dying there in 1793, to lie in his own churchyard, his grave marked by +a simple headstone bearing his initials "G.W." and the date. In the +church is a tablet to him and his brother Benjamin, who has also placed +there in memory of him the seventeenth century German triptych over +the altar. But he needs no memorial from our hands; all he loved, +Selborne itself in all its beauty, the exquisite country round it, the +hills, the valleys, the woods and the streams are his monument, the +very birds in their songs remind us of him, and there is not a walk +that is not the lovelier because he has passed by. Do you climb up +through the Hanger and admire the beeches there? It is he who has told +us what to expect, loving the beech like a father, "the most lovely of +all forest trees whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its +glossy foliage or graceful pendulous boughs." Do you linger in the +Plestor? It is he who tells you of the old oak that stood there, and +was blown down in 1703 "to the infinite regret of the inhabitants and +the vicar who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again; +but all this care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time then +withered and died." Or who can pass by Long Lythe without remembering +that it was a favourite with him too. For he loved this place so well, +that as Jacob waited for Rachel so he for Selborne. He had been born +there, where his grandfather being then vicar, aged seventy-two years +and eleven months, he was to die in 1720. He went to school at Farnham +and Basingstoke, and then in 1739 to Oriel College, Oxford, where in +1744 he was elected to a Fellowship. Presently benefice after benefice +was offered him but he refused them all, having made up his mind to +live and die at Selborne. Selborne must then have been a very secluded +place, the nearest town, Alton, often inaccessible in winter one may +think, judging from the description Gilbert White gives of the "rocky +hollow lane" that led thither, but it is perhaps to this very fact that +we owe more than a few of those immortal pages ever living and ever +new. Since he was cut off from men he was able to give himself wholly +to nature. He is less a part of the mere England of his day than any +man of that time; he belonged only to England of my heart. Yet the +events of his time, though they touched him so little, were neither few +nor unimportant. The year of his birth was the year of the South Sea +Bubble. When he was a year old the great Duke of Marlborough died. His +eighth birthday fell in the year which closed the eyes of Sir Isaac +Newton. He was twenty-five in the "forty-five," when Prince Charles +Edward held Edinburgh after Preston Pans. He saw the change in the +calendar, the conquest of India by Clive, the victory and death of +Wolfe at Quebec the annexation of Canada, the death of Chatham, the +loss of the American Colonies, the French Revolution. And how little +all this meant to him! + +But anything connected with Selborne interested him, and he wrote of +and studied its "antiquities" as well as its "natural history." Nor +were these antiquities so negligible as one might think. In his day the +church was still an interesting building, and he has left us an +interesting account of it. But he does not forget to tell us, too, of +the Augustinian Priory of Selborne, that was founded in 1233 and stood +to the east of the village, the way to it lying through his beloved +Long Lythe, and the site of which is now occupied by Priory Farm, a few +ruins remaining. Nothing, indeed, that concerned his beloved village +was to him ungrateful. It is, without doubt, this careful love of his +for the things that were his own, at his door, common things if you +will, common only in England of my heart, that has endeared him to +innumerable readers, many of whom have never set foot upon our shores +and would only not be utter strangers here if they did, because of him. +Such at least is the only explanation I can give of his immortality, +his constant appeal to all sorts and conditions of men. + +Day by day as I wandered through the lanes and the woods that he had +loved with so wonderful and unconscious an affection, in a repose that +we have lost and a quietness we can only envy him, I tried to discover, +I tried to make clear to myself, what it really is that on a dull +evening at home, in a sleepless night in London, or in the long winter +evenings anywhere, draws me back again and again to that curious book. +But even there in Selborne the secret was hidden from me. In truth one +might as well inquire of the birds why they delight us, or of the +flowers why we love them so; for in some way I cannot understand +Gilbert White was gently at one with these and spoke of them sweetly +like a lover and a friend having a gift from God by which he makes us +partakers of his pleasure. + +And so spring drew to a close as I lingered in Selborne, for I could +not drag myself away. And when, at last, I determined to set out, the +Feast of St John was already at hand, so that I made haste once more +across the hills for Winchester on my way to Old Sarum and Stonehenge, +where I would see the sunrise on midsummer morning. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's England of My Heart--Spring, by Edward Hutton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND OF MY HEART--SPRING *** + +***** This file should be named 10120.txt or 10120.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/2/10120/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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