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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Summer Days in Shakespeare Land, by Charles
+G. Harper
+
+
+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: Summer Days in Shakespeare Land
+
+
+Author: Charles G. Harper
+
+
+
+Release Date: April 6, 2014  [eBook #45328]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER DAYS IN SHAKESPEARE LAND***
+
+
+This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
+
+                             [Picture: Cover]
+
+               [Picture: The Guild Chapel and Nash’s House]
+
+
+
+
+
+                              SUMMER DAYS IN
+                             SHAKESPEARE LAND
+
+
+  SOME DELIGHTS OF THE ANCIENT TOWN OF
+  STRATFORD-UPON-AVON AND THE COUNTRY ROUND
+  ABOUT; TOGETHER WITH A SKETCH OF THE LIFE
+  OF MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
+
+  IN WHICH MANY THINGS BOTH NEW AND ENTER-
+  TAINING ARE TO BE FOUND, PRETTILY SET FORTH
+  FOR THE PLEASURE OF THE GENTLE READER; AND
+  WHEREIN CERTAIN FANATICS ARE HANDSOMELY
+  CONFUTED.
+
+  WRITTEN BY CHARLES G. HARPER, AND
+  FOR THE MOST PART ALSO ILLUSTRATED BY HIM
+  WITH A PEN
+  OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS ARE FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
+
+                             [Picture: Logo]
+
+                                 NEW YORK
+                           JAMES POTT & COMPANY
+                       LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD.
+
+                                   1913
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                      RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+                 BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,
+                           AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+BY “Shakespeare Land,” as used in these pages, Stratford-on-Avon and the
+country within a radius of from twelve to twenty miles are meant;
+comprising parts of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, and some portions
+of Worcestershire which are mentioned by Shakespeare, or must have been
+familiar to him.  So many thousands annually visit Stratford-on-Avon that
+the town, and in some lesser degree the surrounding country, are thought
+to be hackneyed and spoilt for the more intellectual and leisured
+visitor; but that is very far from being the case.  Apart from such
+acknowledged centres of Shakespearean interest as the Birthplace at
+Stratford-on-Avon, the parish church, and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage at
+Shottery; and excepting such great show-places as Kenilworth and Warwick
+castles, Shakespeare Land is by no means overrun, and is in every way
+charming and satisfying.  Stratford town itself, the very centre of
+interest, is unspoiled; and the enterprise of the majority of
+Shakespearean pilgrims is of such a poor quality, and their intellectual
+requirements as a rule so soon satisfied, that the real beauties of the
+Warwickshire villages and the towns and villages of the Cotswolds are to
+them a sealed hook.  Except these byways be explored, such an essential
+side of Shakespeare as that I have touched upon in the chapter
+“Shakespeare the Countryman” will be little understood.
+
+It is thus entirely a mistaken idea to think the Shakespeare Country
+overdone.  On the contrary, it is much less known than it ought to be,
+and would be, were it in any other land than our own.  And Stratford
+itself has not done so much as might have been expected in exploiting
+possible Shakespearean interest.  Ancient house-fronts that the poet must
+have known still await the removal of the plaster which for two centuries
+or more has covered them; and the Corporation archives have not yet been
+thoroughly explored.
+
+Incidentally these pages may serve to expose some of the Baconian
+heresies.  If there be many whose judgment is overborne by the
+tub-thumping of the Baconians, let them turn to some of the extravagances
+of Donnelly and others mentioned here, and then note the many local
+allusions which Shakespeare and none other could have written.
+
+The Bacon controversy, which since 1857 has offered considerable
+employment for speculative minds, and is still in progress, is now
+responsible for some six hundred books and pamphlets, monuments of
+perverted ingenuity and industrious research misapplied; of evidence
+misunderstood, and of judgment biased by a clearly proclaimed intention
+to place Bacon where Shakespeare stands.  These exceedingly well-read
+gentlemen, profited in strange concealments, have produced a deal of
+skimble-skamble stuff that galls our good humours.  The veriest antics,
+they at first amuse us, but in a longer acquaintance they are, as Hotspur
+says of Glendower, “as tedious as a tired horse, a railing wife; Worse
+than a smoky house.”
+
+This is no place to fully enter the discussion, but we may here note the
+opinion of Harvey, the great contemporary man of science, on Bacon, the
+amateur of science.  “My Lord Chancellor,” he said, “writes about Science
+like a Lord Chancellor.”  Any one who reads Bacon’s poetry will notice
+that the poets might have applied the same taunt to his lines.
+
+Yet they tell us now, these strange folk, eager for a little cheap
+notoriety, not only that “Bacon wrote the Greene, Marlowe, and
+Shakespeare plays,” but that his is the pen that gives the Authorised
+Version of the Bible its literary grace.  Well, well.  They say the owl
+was a baker’s daughter; a document in madness.
+
+                                                        CHARLES G. HARPER.
+
+_Ealing_, _August_ 24, 1912.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                     PAGE
+CHAPTER I               1
+  The Beginnings of
+  Stratford-on-Avon.
+CHAPTER II              6
+  The Shakespeares—John
+  Shakespeare, Glover,
+  Woolmerchant—Birth of
+  William
+  Shakespeare—Rise and
+  Decline of John
+  Shakespeare—Early
+  Marriage of William.
+CHAPTER III            12
+  Anne Hathaway,
+  Shakespeare’s
+  bride—The hasty
+  marriage—Shakespeare’s
+  wild young days—He
+  leaves for
+  London—Grendon
+  Underwood.
+CHAPTER IV             22
+  Continued decline in
+  the affairs of John
+  Shakespeare—William
+  Shakespeare’s success
+  in London—Death of
+  Hamnet, William
+  Shakespeare’s only
+  son—Shakespeare buys
+  New Place—He retires
+  to Stratford—Writes
+  his last play, _The
+  Tempest_—His death.
+CHAPTER V              34
+  Stratford-on-Avon—It
+  has its own life,
+  quite apart from
+  Shakespearean
+  associations—Its
+  people and its
+  streets—Shakespeare
+  Memorials.
+CHAPTER VI             49
+  Shakespeare’s
+  Birthplace—
+  Restoration, of
+  sorts—The business of
+  the Showman—The
+  Birthplace Museum—The
+  Shakespearean Garden.
+CHAPTER VII            60
+  Church Street—The
+  “Castle” Inn—The Guild
+  Chapel, Guild Hall and
+  Grammar School—New
+  Place.
+CHAPTER VIII           75
+  The Church of the Holy
+  Trinity,
+  Stratford-on-Avon.
+CHAPTER IX             85
+  The Church of the Holy
+  Trinity,
+  Stratford-on-Avon
+  (_continued_)—The
+  Shakespeare grave and
+  monument.
+CHAPTER X              92
+  The Church of the Holy
+  Trinity,
+  Stratford-on-Avon
+  (_concluded_)—The
+  Shakespeare grave and
+  monument—The Miserere
+  Seats.
+CHAPTER XI            101
+  Shottery and Anne
+  Hathaway’s Cottage.
+CHAPTER XII           114
+  Charlecote.
+CHAPTER XIII          127
+  Shakespeare the
+  countryman.
+CHAPTER XIV           136
+  The ‘Eight
+  Villages’—‘Piping’
+  Pebworth and ‘Dancing’
+  Marston.
+CHAPTER XV            147
+  The ‘Eight Villages’
+  (_concluded_).
+CHAPTER XVI           164
+  The ‘Swan’s
+  Nest’—Haunted?—
+  Clifford
+  Chambers—Wincot—
+  Quinton, and its club
+  day.
+CHAPTER XVII          174
+  Chipping Campden.
+CHAPTER XVIII         186
+  A Deserted
+  Railway—Villages of
+  the Stour
+  Valley—Ettington and
+  Squire
+  Shirley—Shipston-on-
+  Stour—Brailes—Compton
+  Wynyates.
+CHAPTER XIX           195
+  Luddington—Welford—
+  Weston-on-Avon—Cleeve
+  Priors—Salford Priors.
+CHAPTER XX            201
+  Evesham.
+CHAPTER XXI           211
+  Broadway—Winchcombe—
+  Shakespearean
+  Associations—Bishop’s
+  Cleeve.
+CHAPTER XXII          219
+  Tewkesbury.
+CHAPTER XXIII         230
+  Clopton
+  House—Billesley—The
+  Home of Shakespeare’s
+  Mother, Wilmcote—Aston
+  Cantlow—Wootton
+  Wawen—Shakespeare
+  Hall, Rowington.
+CHAPTER XXIV          238
+  Welcombe—Snitterfield—
+  Warwick—Leicester’s
+  Hospital—St. Mary’s
+  Church and the
+  Beauchamp Chapel.
+CHAPTER XXV           254
+  Warwick Castle.
+CHAPTER XXVI          266
+  Guy’s Cliff—The Legend
+  of Guy—Kenilworth and
+  its
+  Watersplash—Kenilworth
+  Castle.
+CHAPTER XXVII         283
+  Coventry.
+INDEX                 291
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+The Guild Chapel and Nash’s House                       _Frontispiece_
+“Shakespeare’s Farm,” formerly the “Ship” Inn,                      19
+Grendon Underwood
+Chapel Street, Stratford-on-Avon                                    37
+The Harvard House                         _To face_                 42
+The Harvard House: Panel Room                                       44
+Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon                              46
+The Memorial Theatre                      _To face_                 48
+Shakespeare’s Birthplace                                            50
+The Kitchen, Shakespeare’s Birthplace                               54
+The Room in which Shakespeare was born                              56
+Shakespeare’s Signet-ring                                           58
+The “Windmill” Inn                                                  61
+The Guild Chapel, Guild Hall, Grammar School and                    65
+Almshouses
+The Schoolmaster’s House and Guild Chapel                           69
+The Head Master’s Desk, Stratford-on-Avon Grammar                   70
+School                                    _To face_
+Ancient Knocker, Stratford-on-Avon Church                           80
+Shakespeare’s Monument                    _To face_                 86
+Inscription on Shakespeare’s Grave                                  89
+The Chancel, Holy Trinity Church, with Shakespeare’s                92
+Monument                    _To face_
+A Stratford Miserere: The Legend of the Unicorn                    100
+Shottery                                                           103
+Anne Hathaway’s Cottage                                            106
+The Living-room, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage                           109
+Anne Hathaway’s Bedroom                                            112
+Lucy Shield of Arms                                                120
+The “Tumbledown Stile,” Charlecote        _To face_                120
+The Gatehouse, Charlecote                                          123
+Charlecote                                                         125
+“Piping Pebworth”                                                  140
+“Dancing Marston”                                                  142
+Dining-Room, formerly the Kitchen, King’s Lodge                    145
+“Drunken Bidford”                                                  149
+The “Falcon,” Bidford                                              150
+“Haunted Hillborough” (1)                                          151
+“Haunted Hillborough” (2)                                          153
+“Hungry Grafton”                                                   154
+The Hollow Road, Exhall                                            156
+“Papist Wixford”                                                   157
+Brass to Thomas de Cruwe and wife, Wixford                         159
+“Beggarly Broom”                                                   162
+Clopton Bridge, and the “Swan’s Nest”                              166
+Clifford Chambers                                                  168
+Old Houses, Chipping Campden              _To face_                174
+The Market House, Chipping Campden           ,,                    174
+Grevel’s House                                                     177
+Interior of the Market House, Chipping Campden   _To               178
+face_
+Chipping Campden Church                                            182
+Brass to William Grevel and wife, Chipping Campden                 184
+Compton Wynyates                                                   192
+Boat Lane, Welford                                                 198
+Bell Tower, Evesham                                                204
+The Almonry, Evesham                                               206
+Abbey Gateway, Evesham                                             209
+High Street, Tewkesbury                                            223
+The “Bear” Inn and Bridge, Tewkesbury                              227
+The Arden House, Home of Shakespeare’s mother,                     233
+Wilmcote
+Wootton Wawen Church                      _To face_                234
+Shakespeare Hall, Rowington                                        236
+Leicester’s Hospital, Warwick                                      239
+Leicester’s Hospital: the Courtyard       _To face_                240
+Leicester’s Hospital: one of the Brethren    ,,                    244
+The Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick                                      246
+The Crypt of St. Mary’s, Warwick                                   248
+Cæsar’s Tower, Warwick Castle                                      263
+Kenilworth Castle: Ruins of the Banquetting Hall                   278
+Stained Glass Window Inscription                                   289
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+                   The Beginnings of Stratford-on-Avon.
+
+NINETY-FIVE miles from the City of London, in the southern part of
+Warwickshire, and on the left, or northern bank of the Avon, stands a
+famous town.  Not a town famed in ancient history, nor remarkable in
+warlike story, nor great in affairs of commerce.  It was never a strong
+place, with menacing castle or defensive town walls with gates closed at
+night.  It stood upon a branch road, in a thinly-peopled forest-district,
+and in every age the wars and tumults and great social and political
+movements which constitute what is called “history” have passed it by.
+
+Such is, and has been from the beginning, the town of Stratford-on-Avon,
+whose very name, although now charged with a special significance as the
+birthplace of Shakespeare, takes little hold upon the imagination when we
+omit the distinguishing “on Avon.”  For there are other Stratfords to be
+found upon the map of England, as necessarily there must be when we
+consider the origin of the name, which means merely the ford where the
+“street”—generally a paved Roman road—crossed a river.  And as fords of
+this kind must have been very numerous along the ancient roads of this
+country before bridges were built, we can only be astonished that there
+are not more Stratfords than the five or six that are found in the
+gazetteers.
+
+The Roman road that came this way was a vicinal route from the Watling
+Street where Birmingham now stands, through Henley-in-Arden and Alcester,
+the Roman station of _Alauna_.  Passing over the ford of the Avon, it
+went to London by way of Ettington, Sunrising Hill, and Banbury.  Other
+Roman roads, the Fosse Way and Ryknield Street, remodelled on the lines
+of ancient British track-ways, passed east and west of Stratford at an
+equal distance of six miles.
+
+All the surrounding district north of the Avon was woodland, the great
+Forest of Arden; and to the south of the river stretched a more low-lying
+country as far as the foot of the Cotswold Hills, much less thickly
+wooded.  In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the Forest of Arden was
+greatly diminished, these districts owned two distinctive names: the
+forest being called “the Wooland,” and the southward pasture-lands “the
+Feldon.”
+
+The travellers who came this way in early Saxon times, and perhaps even
+later, came to close grips with the true inwardness of things.  They
+looked death often in the face as they went the lonely road.  The wild
+things in the forest menaced them, floods obscured the fords, lawless men
+no less fierce than the animals which roamed the tangled brakes lurked
+and slew.  “Now am I in Arden,” the wayfarer might have said,
+anticipating Touchstone, “the more fool I; when I was at home I was in a
+better place; but travellers must be content.”
+
+No town or village then existed upon the banks of Avon, and the first
+mention of Stratford occurs in A.D. 691, when a monastery situated here
+is named.  It was an obscure house, but with extensive and valuable lands
+which Bishops of Worcester hungered for and finally obtained.  The site
+of this monastery was scarcely that of the existing town of Stratford,
+but was where the present parish church stands, in what is known as “Old
+Stratford,” which is on the extreme southerly limit of the town.  It was
+thus situated at some little distance from the ford, which was of course
+exactly where the Clopton Bridge now crosses the river.  At that ford
+there would probably even then have been a hermit, as there was later,
+charged with the due guidance of travellers, and in receipt of offerings,
+but of him we know nothing, and next to nothing of the monastery.
+
+The Bishops of Worcester, having thus early obtained a grant of the
+monastery and its lands, became lords of the manor and so remained for
+centuries, wielding in their spiritual and manorial functions a very
+complete authority over the town which gradually arose here.  To resist
+in any way the Church’s anointed in matters spiritual or temporal would
+have been to kick most foolishly against the pricks, for in his one
+autocratic capacity he could blast your worldly prospects, and in the
+other he could (or it was confidently believed he could) damn you to all
+eternity.  Thus it may well be supposed that those Right Reverend were
+more feared than loved.
+
+It was an agricultural and cattle-raising community that first arose
+here.  “Rother Street” still by its name alludes to the olden passage of
+the cattle, for “rother” is the good Anglo-Saxon word “hroether,” for
+cattle.  The word was known to Shakespeare, who wrote, “The pasture lards
+the rother’s sides.”
+
+In 1216 the then Bishop of Worcester obtained a charter for a fair, the
+first of four obtained between that date and 1271.  The fairs attracted
+business, and about 1290 the first market was founded.  The town had
+begun to grow, slowly, it is true, but substantially.  At this period
+also that Guild arose which was originally a religious and charitable
+fraternity, but eventually developed into surprising issues, founding a
+grammar-school and becoming a tradesmen’s society, whence the
+incorporation of the town in 1553, and the establishment of a town
+council derived.  Camden, writing about this time, was able to describe
+it as “proper little mercat towne.”
+
+In that era which witnessed the incorporation of the town of
+Stratford-on-Avon and the birth of Shakespeare the population was some
+2000.  It is now about 8300; a very moderate increase in three hundred
+and fifty years, and much below the average rate for towns, by which
+Stratford might now have had a population of about 16,000.
+
+The incorporation of this little town in the reign of Edward the Sixth
+was a great event locally.  It included the restitution to the people of
+the place of the buildings and the property of the Guild of Holy Cross
+which had been confiscated in 1547, when also the inhabitants had been
+relieved from the yoke of the Bishops of Worcester, whose manor had been
+taken away from them.  It is true that the manorial rights had not been
+abolished and that the property and its various ancient privileges had
+only been transferred to other owners, but it was something to the good
+that the Church no longer possessed these things.  These were not
+arbitrary changes, the whim of this monarch or that, Henry the Eighth and
+Edward the Sixth did only what others in their place would and must have
+done.  They were certainly sovereigns with convictions of their own, but
+their attitude of mind was but the _Zeitgeist_, the spirit of the age,
+and they did not so much originate it as be swayed by it.  Those
+statesmen who have been held meanly subservient to them were, after all,
+men of like convictions.  They saw the old order to be outworn and
+existing institutions ripe for change.  It was the age of the Renascence.
+Everywhere was the new spirit, which was remodelling thought as well as
+material things.  It was the age, above all things, of the new learning.
+These feelings led the advisers of the young king, Edward the Sixth, to
+counsel the restitution to the town of the property of the Guild
+dissolved only six years earlier, with the important provision that the
+grammar-school was to be re-established and maintained out of its
+revenues.  To this provision we distinctly owe the dramatist, William
+Shakespeare, who was born at the very time when the educational
+advantages thus secured to the children of the townsfolk had settled down
+into smoothly working order.  Education cannot produce a Shakespeare, it
+cannot create genius, but it can give genius that chance in early
+elementary training without which even the most adaptive minds lose their
+direction.
+
+The ancient buildings of the Guild, which after its long career as a kind
+of lay brotherhood for what modern people would style “social service,”
+had attained an unlooked-for development as the town authority, thus
+provided Stratford with its Grammar School and its first town-hall.  In
+those timbered rooms the scholars received their education, and for
+eighty years, until 1633, when the first hall built especially for the
+corporation was opened, the aldermen and councillors met there.  Among
+them was John Shakespeare.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The Shakespeares—John Shakespeare, Glover, Wool-merchant—Birth of William
+Shakespeare—Rise and Decline of John Shakespeare—Early Marriage of
+William.
+
+A MODERN man who now chanced to own the name of “Shakespeare” would feel
+proud, even of that fortuitous and remote association with the greatest
+figure in English literature.  He might even try to live up to it,
+although the probabilities are that he would quite early forgo the
+attempt and become a backslider to commonplace.  But available records
+tell us no good of the earliest bearers of the name.  The first
+Shakespeare of whom we have any notice was a John of that name.  He was
+hanged in 1248, for robbery.  It is a very long time ago since this
+malefactor suffered, and perhaps he was one of those very many
+unfortunate persons who have been in all ages wrongfully convicted.  But
+the name was not in olden times a respectable one.  It signified
+originally one who wielded a spear; not a chivalric and romantic knight
+warring with the infidel in Palestine, or jousting to uphold the claims
+to beauty of his chosen lady, but a common soldier, a rough man-at-arms;
+one who was in great request in his country’s wars, but was accounted an
+undesirable when the piping times of peace were come again and every man
+desired nothing better than to sit beneath his own vine and fig-tree.  We
+have record of a certain Shakespeare who grew so weary of the name that
+he changed it for “Saunders.”  But Time was presently to bring revenge,
+when William Shakespeare, afterwards to become a poet and dramatist of
+unapproachable excellence, was born, to make the choice of that recreant
+bearer of the name look ridiculous.
+
+One Shakespeare before the dramatist’s time had reached not only
+respectability but some kind of local eminence.  This was Isabel
+Shakespeare, who became Prioress of the Priory of Baddesley Clinton, near
+Knowle.  Baddesley Clinton is in the ancient and far-spreading Forest of
+Arden, and near it is the village of Rowington, where there still remains
+the very picturesque fifteenth-century mansion called Shakespeare Hall,
+which is said to have been in the dramatist’s time the residence of a
+Thomas Shakespeare, an uncle.  But William Shakespeare’s genealogy has
+not been convincingly taken back beyond his grandfather Richard (whose
+very Christian name is only traditional), who is stated to have been a
+farmer at Snitterfield, three miles from Stratford-on-Avon.
+
+Warwickshire was, in fact, extremely rich in Shakespeares, many of them
+no relatives of the dramatist’s family.  They grew in every hedgerow, and
+very many of them owned the Christian name of William, but they spelled
+their patronymic in an amazing number of ways.  It is said to be capable
+of four thousand variations.  We will forbear the most of these.
+“Shaxpeare” is the commonest form.  The marriage-bond for William
+Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway spells his name “Shagspere,” and the
+dramatist himself spells it in two different ways in the three signatures
+on his will, which forms to the Baconians conclusive proof of the two
+following contradictory propositions (1) that he did not know how to
+spell his own name, and (2) that, the spelling being different, the
+so-called signatures were written by a law-clerk!  As a matter of fact,
+the spelling of one’s name was in those times a matter of taste and
+fancy, which constantly varied.  Sir Walter Raleigh, contemporary with
+Shakespeare, was a scholar whom no one will declare an illiterate, yet he
+wrote his own name, with a fine disregard of consistency and of what
+future generations might say, “Rawley,” “Ralegh,” “Rawleighe” and
+“Rauleygh.”
+
+In any case, the “law-clerk” theory will hardly do.  A law-clerk who
+wrote such a shocking bad hand as the six signatures of Shakespeare
+display could not have earned his living with lawyers and conveyancers.
+They are signatures, nearly all of them, which might confidently be taken
+to a chemist, to be “made up,” but exactly how he would read the
+“prescription” must be left to the imagination.
+
+Sure and certain foothold upon genealogical fact is only reached with
+William Shakespeare’s father, who established himself at
+Stratford-on-Avon about 1551, when he seems to have been twenty-one years
+of age.  He was described at various times as a fell-monger and glover, a
+woolstapler, a butcher and a dealer in hay and corn.  Probably, as a son
+of the farmer at Snitterfield, he was interested in most of these trades.
+His home and place of business in the town was in Henley Street, then, as
+now, one of the meaner streets of the place.  Its name derives from this
+forming the way out of Stratford to the town of Henley-in-Arden.
+
+The very first thing we have recorded of John Shakespeare at Stratford is
+his being fined twelve pence for having a muck-heap in front of his door.
+Twelve pence in that day was equal to about eight shillings and sixpence
+of our own times; and thus, when we consider the then notoriously dirty
+and insanitary condition of Stratford, endured with fortitude, if not
+with cheerfulness by the burgesses, we are forced to the conclusion that
+Mr. John Shakespeare’s muck-heap must have been a super muck-heap, an
+extremely large and offensive specimen, that made the gorge of even the
+least squeamish of his fellow-townsmen rise.  Two other tradesmen were
+fined at the same time, and in 1558 he was, in company with four others
+(among whom was the chief alderman, Francis Burbage) fined in the smaller
+sum of fourpence for not keeping his gutter clean.
+
+By 1556, however, he would seem to have been prospering, for in that year
+he purchased two copyhold tenements, one in Henley Street, next the house
+and shop now known as “the birthplace” which he was already occupying;
+the other in Greenhill Street.  Next year he married Mary Arden, of
+Wilmcote, three miles from Stratford, daughter of Robert Arden, yeoman
+farmer of that place, said on insufficient evidence to have been kin to
+the ancient knightly family of Arden.  She had become, on her father’s
+death in December 1556, owner of landed property called Asbies, at
+Wilmcote, and some like interests at Snitterfield, in common with her
+brothers and sisters.  She was thus, in a small way, an heiress.
+Wilmcote being then merely a hamlet in the parish of Aston Cantlow, they
+were married at the church of that place.
+
+John Shakespeare was now a rising tradesman, and in this same auspicious
+year became a member of the town council, a body then newly established,
+upon the granting of a charter of incorporation in 1553.
+
+On September 15th, 1558 his daughter Joan was baptized.  She died an
+infant.  In 1565, after serving various municipal offices, he became an
+alderman.  Meanwhile, at the close of November 1562, a daughter,
+Margaret, was born, who died the next year; and in 1564, on April 26th,
+his son William was baptized.  The date of the poet’s birth is
+traditionally St. George’s Day, April 23rd; now, with the alteration in
+the calendar, identical with May 5th.
+
+In that year the town was scourged by a terrible visitation of the
+plague, and John Shakespeare is recorded, among others, as a contributor
+to funds for the poor who suffered by it.  On August 30th he paid twelve
+pence; on September 6th, sixpence; on the 27th of the same month another
+sixpence; and on October 20th eightpence; about twenty-two shillings of
+our money.  It is only by tradition—but that a very old one—that William
+Shakespeare was born at “the birthplace” in Henley Street; but there is
+no reasonable excuse for doubting it, unless we like to think that he was
+born at the picturesque old house in the village of Clifford Chambers,
+which afterwards became the vicarage and is now a farmhouse.  A John
+Shakespeare was at that time living there, two miles only from Stratford,
+and it has been suggested that he is identical with the father of
+William, and that in this plague year he took the precaution of removing
+his wife out of danger.
+
+In 1566 we find a link between the Shakespeares and the Hathaways in
+John.  Shakespeare standing surety for Richard Hathaway; and in the same
+year his son Gilbert was born; another Joan being born in 1569.  In 1568
+and 1571 he attained the highest municipal offices, being elected
+high-bailiff and senior alderman, and thus, as chief magistrate, is found
+described in local documents as “Mr.” Shakespeare.  In 1571 also his
+daughter Anne, who died in 1579, was born; and in 1573 a son, Richard.
+In 1575 he purchased the freehold of “the birthplace” from one Edmund
+Hall, for £40.
+
+Early in 1578 the first note of ill-fortune is sounded in the career of
+John Shakespeare.  Some financial disaster had befallen him.  In January,
+when the town council had decided to provide weapons for two billmen, a
+body of pikemen, and one archer, and assessed the aldermen for six
+shillings and eightpence each and the burgesses at half that amount, two
+of the aldermen were excused the full pay.  One, Mr. Plumley, was charged
+five shillings, and Mr. Shakespeare was to pay only three and fourpence.
+The following year he defaulted in an assessment for the same amount.
+Meanwhile, he had been obliged to mortgage Asbies, which had come to him
+with his wife, and to sell the interests at Snitterfield.  The
+Shakespeares, although they in after years again grew prosperous, never
+recovered Asbies.
+
+No one knows what caused these straitened circumstances.  Possibly it was
+some disastrous speculation in corn.  In the midst of this trouble, his
+seven-year-old daughter, Anne, died, and another son, Edmund, was horn,
+1580.  He ceased to attend meetings of the town council, and his son
+William entered into an improvident marriage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s bride—The hasty marriage—Shakespeare’s wild
+young days—He leaves for London—Grendon Underwood.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was but eighteen and a half years of age when he
+married.  Legally, he was an “infant.”  His wife was by almost eight
+years his senior, but if we agree with Bacon’s saying, that a man finds
+himself ten years older the day after his marriage, the disparity became
+at once more than rectified.  She was one Anne, or Agnes, Hathaway; her
+father, Richard, being a farmer of Shottery.  The Hathaways were numerous
+in this district, there being at that time no fewer than three families
+of the name in Shottery and others in Stratford.  Anne had no fewer than
+eight brothers and sisters, all of whom, except two, are mentioned in
+their father’s will.  Richard, who describes himself in his will as
+“husbandman,” executed that document on September 1st, 1581, and died
+probably in the June following, for his will was proved in London on July
+9th, 1582.  Storms of rival theories have raged around the mystery
+surrounding this marriage, of which the register does not exist.  It is
+claimed that Shakespeare was married at Temple Grafton, Luddington,
+Billesley, and elsewhere, but no shadow of evidence can be adduced for
+any of these places.  All we know is that on November 28th, 1582, Fulke
+Sandells and John Richardson, farmers, of Stratford, who had been
+respectively one of the “supervisors” and one of the witnesses of Richard
+Hathaway’s will, went to Worcester and there entered into a “Bond in £40
+against Impediments, to defend and save harmless the right reverend
+father in God, John, Lord Bushop of Worcester” from any complaint or
+process that might by any possibility arise out of his licensing the
+marriage with only once asking the banns.  These two bondsmen declared
+that “William Shagspere, one thone partie and Anne Hathaway of Stratford”
+(Shottery was and is a hamlet in the parish of Stratford-on-Avon) “in the
+dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize marriage together.”
+This document, discovered in the Worcester Registry in 1836, is
+sufficiently clear and explicit; but a complication is introduced by a
+license issued the day before by the Bishop for a marriage “inter Wm.
+Shaxpere et Anna Whateley de Temple Grafton.”  It has been suggested
+that, as there were Whateleys living in the neighbourhood, and that as
+there were numerous Shakespeares also, with many Williams among them,
+this was quite another couple, while others contend that “Whateley” was a
+mistake of one of the clerks employed in the Bishop’s registry, and that
+the name of Temple Grafton as “place of residence” of the bride was a
+further mistake, that being the place intended for the ceremony.  In any
+case, the point is of minor interest for the registers of Temple Grafton
+do not go back to that date, and the fabric of the church itself is quite
+new.  We do not know, therefore, where Shakespeare was married, nor when;
+and can but assume that the wedding took place shortly after the bond was
+signed.
+
+Six months later, Shakespeare’s eldest daughter was born, for we see in
+the register of baptisms in Holy Trinity church, Stratford, the entry:—
+
+    “1583, May 26th, Susanna, daughter to William Shakespere.”
+
+The reason for the hurried visit of the two farmers to Worcester, to
+hasten on the marriage with but one “asking” in church now becomes
+evident.  They were friends of the late Richard Hathaway, and were
+determined that young Shakespeare should not get out of marrying the girl
+he had—wronged, shall we say?  Well, no.  There have been many moralists
+excessively shocked at this pre-nuptial intimacy, and they assert that
+Shakespeare seduced Anne Hathaway.
+
+But young men of just over eighteen years of age do not, I think, beguile
+young women nearly eight years older.  Anne probably seduced him; for
+woman is more frequently the huntress and the chooser, and man is a very
+helpless creature before her wiles.
+
+The extravagances of the Baconians may well be illustrated here, for
+although the subject of Shakespeare’s marriage has no bearing upon the
+famous cryptogram and the authorship of the plays, Donnelly spreads
+himself generously all over Shakespeare’s life, and lightheartedly
+settles for us the mystery of the bond _re_ the marriage of Anne Hathaway
+and the license to marry Anne Whateley by suggesting that _both_ names
+are correct and refer to the same persons.  He says Anne Hathaway married
+a Whateley and that it was as a widow she married William Shakespeare,
+her maiden name being given in the bond by mistake!  The sheer absurdity
+of this is obvious when we consider that if Mr. Donnelly is right, then
+the bondsmen made the yet grosser error of describing the widow as a
+“maiden.”  She was actually at that time neither wife, maid nor widow.
+
+Again, Richard Hathaway the father made his will in September 1581,
+leaving (_inter alia_) a bequest to Anne “to be paide unto her at the
+daie of her marriage.”  She was a single young woman then, and yet
+according to the Donnellian view she was already, fifteen months later, a
+widow, again about to be married.
+
+Apologists for this hasty marriage, jealous for the reputation of
+Shakespeare, are keen to find an excuse in the supposition that he was a
+Roman Catholic and that he was already married secretly, probably in the
+room in the roof of Shottery Manor House, which is supposed to have been
+used at this period as a place of secret worship.  But there is no basis
+for forming any theory as to Shakespeare’s religious convictions.  A yet
+more favourite assumption is that Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway went
+through the ceremony of “hand-fasting,” a formal betrothal which,
+although not a complete marriage and not carrying with it the privileges
+of marriage was a bar to either of the parties marrying another.  Jack
+was thus made sure of his Jill; and, perhaps even more important, Jill
+was certain of her Jack.  But if this ceremony had taken place, there
+would have been no necessity for that hasty journey of those two friends
+of the Hathaways to Worcester.
+
+Nothing is known of the attitude of Shakespeare’s parents towards the
+marriage, nor has any one ever suggested how he supported himself, his
+wife and family in the years before he left Stratford for London.  At the
+close of January 1585, his twin son and daughter, Hamnet and Judith were
+born, and they were baptized at Stratford church on February 2nd.
+Whether he assisted his father in his business of glover, or helped on
+his farm, or whether he became assistant master at the Grammar School, as
+sometimes suggested, is mere matter for speculation.  John Aubrey,
+picking up gossip at Stratford, writes—
+
+    “Mr. William Shakespear was borne at Stratford upon Avon in the
+    county of Warwick.  His father was a butcher, and I have been told
+    heretofore by some of the neighbours, that when he was a boy he
+    exercised his father’s trade, but when he kill’d a calfe he would doe
+    it in a high style, and make a speech.”
+
+That may or may not be true, but it looks as though William had, about
+this impressionable age, become stage-struck.  He had had numerous
+opportunities of seeing the players, for his father had in his more
+prosperous days been a patron of the strolling companies, both as a
+private individual and as a member of the town council.  In 1569 two such
+troupes, who called themselves the “Queen’s servants,” and “servants of
+the Earl of Warwick,” gave performances before the corporation and were
+paid out of the public monies; a forecast of the municipal theatre!  And
+no doubt John Shakespeare, together with many other Stratford people,
+went over to Kenilworth during the magnificent pageants given there by
+Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1575, in honour of Queen Elizabeth; taking
+with him his little boy, then eleven years of age.  Thus would the
+foundations of an ambition be laid.
+
+At this time, 1585, John Shakespeare’s affairs, from whatever cause, were
+under a cloud.  They had been declining since 1578, when he had been
+obliged to mortgage some of the property that had been his wife’s, and
+now he was deprived of his alderman’s gown.  William about this time,
+whether in 1585 or 1587 is uncertain, left Stratford for London, whither
+some of his boyhood’s friends had already preceded him, among them
+Richard Field.
+
+Stratford at this time was certainly no place for William, if he wished
+to emulate Dr. Samuel Smiles’ worthies and conform to the gospel of
+getting on in the world, the most popular gospel ever preached.  In 1587,
+Nicholas Lane, one of his father’s creditors, sought to distrain upon
+John Shakespeare’s goods, but the sheriff’s officers returned the doleful
+tale of “no effects,” and so he had his trouble for nothing.  It is,
+however, curious that even when reduced to his last straits, John
+Shakespeare never sold his property, the house in which he lived and
+carried on business, in Henley Street.
+
+In addition to the discredit attaching to being thus one of the
+Shakespeares who had come down in the world, William, according to the
+very old, strong and persistent tradition, was at this time showing a
+very rackety disposition.  He consorted with the wilder young men of the
+town and went on drinking bouts with them.  Sometimes, with them, he
+raided the neighbouring parks and killed the deer and poached other game;
+and the old tradition hints that on these occasions the others made good
+their escape and Shakespeare was generally caught.  Sir Thomas Lucy of
+Charlecote, who was the chief sufferer from the exploits of these youths,
+is said to have had Shakespeare whipped, imprisoned and fined for his
+part in them.
+
+To London, therefore, William Shakespeare made his way.  With what
+credentials, if any, did he go?  He had friends in London, among them
+Richard Field, a schoolfellow, who in 1579 had gone thither, to become
+apprentice to a printer, and in 1587, about this time when Shakespeare
+left home, had set up in business for himself and become a member of the
+Stationers’ Company.  Shakespeare may quite reasonably have sought his
+help or advice; and certainly Field six years later published
+Shakespeare’s _Venus and Adonis_, dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of
+Southampton, the foremost literary and dramatic patron of the age, from
+whose friendship and powerful aid all intellectual aspirants hoped much.
+
+It is quite likely that Shakespeare left Stratford with a company of
+travelling actors, and reaching town with them, gradually drifted into
+regular employment at one of the only two London theatres that then
+existed, “The Theatre” and the “Curtain” both in Shoreditch.
+
+It is of some interest to speculate upon the manner in which Shakespeare
+journeyed to London, and the way he went.  Was he obliged to walk it, in
+the traditional manner of the poor countryman seeking his fortune in the
+great metropolis?  Or did he make the journey by the carrier’s cart?
+There are two principal roads by which he may have gone; by
+Newbold-on-Stour, Long Compton, Chapel House, and Woodstock to Oxford,
+Beaconsfield and through High Wycombe and Uxbridge, 95 miles; or he might
+have chosen to go by Ettington, Pillerton Priors, Sunrising Hill, Wroxton
+and Banbury, through Aynho, Bicester, Aylesbury, Tring and Watford to
+London, 92¾ miles.  Such an one as he would probably first go to London
+by way of Oxford, for, like Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure,” he would
+doubtless think it “a city of light.”  There are traditions at Oxford of
+Shakespeare’s staying at the “Crown” inn in the Cornmarket in after
+years.  Sometimes he would doubtless go by the Banbury and Bicester
+route: and along it, at the village of Grendon Underwood, to the left of
+the road between Bicester and Aylesbury, as you journey towards London,
+there still linger very precise traditions of Shakespeare having stayed
+at what was formerly the “Old Ship” inn.
+
+Grendon Underwood, or “under Bernwode” as it is styled in old records,
+appears in an old rhyme as—
+
+    “The dirtiest town that ever stood,”
+
+but it was never a town, and, whatever may once have been its condition,
+it is no longer dirty.
+
+[Picture: “Shakespeare Farm,” formerly the “Ship” Inn, Grendon Underwood]
+
+It is not at first sight easily to be understood why Shakespeare, or any
+other traveller of that age journeying the long straight stretch of the
+old Roman road, the Akeman Street, between Bicester and Aylesbury, should
+want to go a mile and a quarter out of his way for the purpose of
+visiting this place, but that they did so is sufficiently proved by the
+comparative importance of the house that was until about a hundred and
+twelve years ago the “Old Ship” and is now known as “Shakespeare Farm.”
+It is clearly too large ever to have been built for an ordinary village
+inn, and is said to have formerly been even larger.  If, however, we
+refer to old maps of the district, it will he found that, for some
+unexplained reason, the ancient forthright Roman road had gone out of
+use, and that instead of proceeding direct, along the Akeman Street, the
+wayfarers of old went a circuitous course, through Grendon Underwood.
+When this deviation took place does not appear; but it was obviously one
+of long standing.  The first available map showing the roads of the
+district is that by Emanuel Bowen, 1756, in which the Akeman Street is
+not shown; the only road given being that which winds through Grendon.
+The next map to be issued—that by Thomas Jeffreys, 1788—gives the Akeman
+Street, running direct, between point and point, and avoiding Grendon, as
+it does now.  That was the great era of turnpike-acts, providing for the
+repair and restoration of old roads, and the making of new; and this was
+one of the many highways then restored.  The “Old Ship” inn, at Grendon
+Underwood, at which Shakespeare and many generations of travellers had
+halted, at once declined with the making of the direct road, and soon
+retired into private life.
+
+The Shakespeare tradition comes down to us through John Aubrey, who,
+writing in 1680, says—
+
+    “The humour of the constable, in _Midsomer-night’s Dreame_, {21} he
+    happened to take at Grendon, in Bucks—I thinke it was Midsomer night
+    that he happened to lye there—which is the roade from London to
+    Stratford, and there was living that constable about 1642, when I
+    first came to Oxon.”
+
+The village constable referred to was well known to one Josias Howe, son
+of the rector, born at Grendon, March 29th, 1612, died August 28th, 1701,
+who told Aubrey the story at Oxford, in 1642.
+
+The lofty gabled red brick and timber end of Shakespeare Farm,
+illustrated here, is the earlier part of the building, although the whole
+of it is probably as old as Shakespeare’s time.  That earlier wing, the
+part to which tradition points, is not now occupied, and is, in fact, in
+a very dilapidated condition, occasional floorboards, and even some of
+the stairs, being missing.  Where the wearied guests of long ago rested,
+broody hens are set by the careful farmer’s wife on their clutches of
+eggs.  There is little interesting in the architectural way in these dark
+and deserted rooms, but the flat, pierced, wooden banisters of the
+staircase are genuinely old and quaint.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Continued decline in the affairs of John Shakespeare—William
+Shakespeare’s success in London—Death of Hamnet, William Shakespeare’s
+only son—Shakespeare buys New Place—He retires to Stratford—Writes his
+last play, _The Tempest_—His death.
+
+THAT Shakespeare left his wife and family at home at Stratford-on-Avon
+every one takes for granted.  He “deserted his family,” says a rabid
+Baconian, who elsewhere complains of the lack of evidence to support
+believers in the dramatist; forgetting that there is no evidence for this
+“desertion” story; only one of those many blanks in the life of this
+elusive man, by which it would appear that while he was reaching fame and
+making money in London as a playwright and an actor, he held no
+communication with his kith and kin.  There remains no local record of
+William Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon between the year 1587, when he
+joined with his father in mortgaging the property at Asbies, Wilmcote,
+which had been his mother’s marriage portion, until 1596, when the
+register of the death of Hamnet, his only son, occurs at Stratford
+church, on August 11th.  But this is sheer negative evidence of his not
+having visited his native town for over ten years, and is on a par with
+the famous Baconian argument that _because_ no scrap of Shakespeare’s
+handwriting, except six almost illegible signatures, has survived,
+_therefore_ he cannot have written the plays still attributed to him.
+
+Meanwhile, his father’s affairs steadily grew worse, and in 1592 he was
+returned as a “recusant” by the commissioners who visited the town for
+the purpose of fining the statutable fine of £20 all those who had not
+attended church for one month.  John Shakespeare’s recusancy has been
+unwarrantably assumed to be due to Roman Catholic obstinacy; but the fine
+was remitted because it was shown that he was afraid to go to church “for
+processe of debt”; which, together with the infirmities of age, or
+sickness, was a lawful excuse.
+
+Shakespeare’s success in London as an actor, a reviser and editor of old
+and out-of-date plays, as manager, theatre-proprietor and playwright, is
+due to that sprack-witted capacity for excelling in almost any chosen
+field of intellectual activity with which a born genius is gifted.  The
+saying that “genius is a capacity for taking pains” is a dull, plodding
+man’s definition.  Genius will very often fling away the rewards of its
+powers through just this lack of staying power, and no plodding pains
+will supply that intuitive knowledge, that instant perception, which is
+what we call genius.
+
+It was the psychological moment for such an one as Shakespeare to come to
+London.  The drama had future before it: the intellectual receptivity of
+the Renascence permeated all classes, and the country was prosperous and
+growing luxurious.  Playwrights were numerous, but as yet their
+productions had not reached a high level, excepting those of Marlowe, to
+whose inspiration Shakespeare at first owed much.  If Shakespeare lived
+in these times he would be called a shameless plagiarist, for he went to
+other authors for his plots—as Chaucer had done with his _Canterbury
+Tales_, two hundred years earlier, and as all others had done in between.
+Not a man of them would escape the charge; but what Shakespeare took of
+plot-construction and of dialogue he transmuted from the dull and
+soulless lines we could not endure to read to-day, into a clear fount of
+wit, wisdom and literary beauty.
+
+Shakespeare’s career of playwright began as a hack writer and cobbler of
+existing plays.  As an actor his technical knowledge of the requirements
+of the stage rendered his help invaluable to managers, and the conditions
+of that time gave no remedy to any author whose plays were thus altered.
+It may be supposed from lack of evidence to the contrary, that most other
+dramatic authors submitted to this treatment in silence; perhaps because
+they had all been employed, at some time or other in the same way.  But
+one man seems to have bitterly resented a mere actor presuming to call
+himself an author.  This was Robert Greene, who died Sept. 3rd, 1592,
+after a long career of play-writing and pamphleteering.  He died a
+disappointed man, and wrote a farewell tract, published after his death,
+which includes a warning to his fellow-authors and an undoubted attack
+upon Shakespeare, under the thin disguise of “Shake-scene.”
+
+It is to be considered that Shakespeare had by this time been five years
+in London; that he had proved himself singularly adaptable, and had
+finally, on March 3rd, 1592, attained his first popular success, in the
+production at the newly-opened “Rose Theatre” on Bankside, Southwark
+(third London playhouse, opened February 19th, 1592), of _Henry the
+Sixth_.  It was a veritable triumph.  The author played in his own piece,
+and the other dramatists looked on in dismay.  Jealousy does not seem to
+have followed Shakespeare’s good fortune, and the numerous references to
+him as poet and playwright by others are kindly and fully recognise his
+superiority.  Only Greene’s posthumous work exists to show how one
+resented it.  The tract has the singular title of “A Groats-Worth of Wit
+bought with a Million of Repentance.”  Incidentally it warns
+brother-dramatists against “an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers
+that with his _Tygers heart wrapt in a players hide_ supposes he is as
+well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an
+absolute _Johannes factotum_ is, in his ovine conceite, the only
+Shake-scene in a countrie.”
+
+The identification of this crow in borrowed plumage, this “Shake-scene,”
+is completed by the line, “O tiger’s heart, wrapp’d in a woman’s hide,”
+which is a quotation from the Third Part of _Henry the Sixth_, where the
+Duke of York addresses Queen Margaret; while the term “Johannes
+factotum,” _i.e._ “Johnny Do-everything,” is a sneer at Shakespeare’s
+adaptability and many-sided activities.
+
+The merits of Shakespeare as an actor are uncertain.  Greene seems to
+imply that he was of the ranting, bellowing type who tore a passion to
+tatters and split the ears of the groundlings.  Rowe, who wrote of him in
+1709 says: “The top of his performance (as an actor) was the Ghost in his
+own _Hamlet_”; not an exacting part; other traditions say Adam in _As You
+Like It_, an even less important character, was his favourite; but the
+suggestion we love the better to believe is that his best part was the
+cynical, melancholy, philosophic Jaques.  Donnelly, chief of the Bacon
+heretics, has in his _Great Cryptogram_, a weird story of how Bacon wrote
+the part of Falstaff for Shakespeare, to fit his great greasy stomach.
+He knew Shakespeare could not act, and so provided a part in which no
+acting should be required; turning Shakespeare’s natural disabilities to
+account, so that, if the audience could not laugh with him in his acting,
+they should laugh at him and dissolve into merriment at the clumsy antics
+of so fat a man!
+
+There are actor-managers in our times—no actor-author-managers like
+Shakespeare—who deserve the cat-calls and the missiles of their
+audiences.  They do not merely “lag superfluous on the stage,” but ought
+never to be on it; like the celebrated actor-manager whose impersonation
+of Hamlet was, according to Sir W. S. Gilbert’s caustic remark, “funny
+without being vulgar.”  It is not conceivable that Shakespeare himself,
+who puts such excellent advice to actors into the mouth of Hamlet, should
+himself have been incompetent.
+
+With Shakespeare’s leap into fame, in 1592, went a simultaneous “boom,”
+as it might now be termed, in theatres and the drama.  Theatres
+multiplied in London, theatrical companies grew prosperous, and such men
+as Shakespeare, Merle and the Burbages amassed wealth.
+
+In 1596 died William Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, whose burial
+register in the books of Holy Trinity church, Stratford, runs—
+
+    “August 11th, Hamnet, filius William Shakespeare.”  His father must
+    surely have been present on this occasion.  This year is generally
+    said to be that in which the dramatist who in his time had played
+    many parts, returned to his native town, a made man.  He came back
+    with his triumphs ringing fresh in his ears, for that season
+    witnessed the great success of the production of _Romeo and Juliet_.
+    In July, also, his father had applied to the Heralds’ College for a
+    grant of arms, an application for a patent of gentility which would
+    have come absurdly from a penniless tradesman.  The inference
+    therefore, although we have no documentary evidence to that effect,
+    is that William Shakespeare had not only kept in touch with his
+    people, but had helped his father out of his difficulties and was
+    himself the instigator of this application for a grant of arms.  The
+    application was eventually successful.  The arms thus conferred are:
+    “Or, on a bend sable, a tilting spear of the first, point upwards,
+    steeled proper.  Crest, a falcon, his wings displayed, argent,
+    standing upon a wreath of his colours and supporting a spear in pale,
+    or.”  The motto chosen was “Non sanz droiet.”
+
+What was this right to heraldic honours and the implied gentility they
+carried, the Shakespeares claimed?  It was based upon a quibble that John
+Shakespeare’s “parent, great-grandfather and late antecessor, for his
+faithful and approved service to the most prudent prince king H. 7 of
+famous memorie, was advanced and rewarded with lands and tenements geven
+to him,” etc.  The description of the miserly Henry the Seventh as
+“prudent” is, like “mobled queen,” distinctly “good”; but we are not
+greatly concerned with that, only with the fact that the martial and
+loyal antecessors claimed for John Shakespeare were really those of his
+wife.  He adopted his wife’s family, or rather, her family’s pretensions
+to call cousins with the more famous Ardens.
+
+William Shakespeare had returned to Stratford a well-to-do man, with an
+income which has been estimated at about £1300 of our money, but he had
+not yet completed his work, and his reappearance in his native town was
+not permanent.  You figure him now, the dramatist and manager, with
+considerable shares in the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres, rather
+concerned to relinquish the trade—not a profession, really, you know—of
+actor, but with his company much in request at Court and in the mansions
+of the great.  He was, one thinks, a little sobered by the passage of
+time; and by the death, this year, of his only son; and quite sensible of
+the dignity that new patent of arms had conferred upon his father and
+himself.  To mark it, he bought in 1597 a residence, the best residence
+in the town, although wofully out of repair.  It was known, with some
+awe, to his contemporaries as “the great house.”  Sixty pounds sterling
+was the purchase money: we will say £480 of present value.  It was bought
+so cheaply probably because of its dilapidated condition, for it seems to
+have been built by Sir Hugh Clopton in 1485, and at this time was “in
+great ruyne & decay & unrepayred.”  Shakespeare thoroughly renovated his
+newly-acquired property, and styled it “New Place.”
+
+He did not, apparently, at once take up his residence here, for his
+theatrical company was acting before the Queen at Whitehall in the spring
+and he would doubtless have been present, and perhaps accompanied them
+when they were on tour in Kent and Sussex in the summer.  But he was at
+Stratford a part of the next year, which was a year of scarcity.  He had
+accumulated a large stock of corn, over against the shortage, and in a
+return made of the quantity of grain held in the town he held ten
+quarters.  In the January of this year he contemplated buying some land
+at Shottery.  “Our countriman, Mr. Shaksper,” wrote Abraham Sturley to
+Richard Quiney on January 24th, “is willinge to disburse some monei upon
+some od yarde land or other att Shotterei or neare about us.”  It would
+seem that Shakespeare did not, after all, purchase this land.  Perhaps he
+could not get it a bargain, and what we know of his business
+transactions, small though it may be, all goes to show that he was a keen
+dealer and not at all likely to spend his money rashly.
+
+This year is remarkable for the writing of a letter to Shakespeare by
+Richard Quiney, the only letter addressed to him now in existence.  It is
+dated October 25th and addressed from Carter Lane, in the City of London.
+Shakespeare was apparently then at Stratford—
+
+    “TO MY LOVEINGE GOOD FFRENDE AND CONTREYMANN MR. WM. SHACKESPERE DLR
+    THEES:
+
+    “Loveinge Contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a ffrende, craveinge
+    yowr helpe with xxx _li_ uppon Mr. Bushell’s & my securytee, or Mr.
+    Myttons with me.  Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, & I
+    have especiall cawse yow shall ffrende me muche in helpeinge me out
+    of all the debettes I owe in London, I thancke god, & muche quiet my
+    mynde wch wolde nott be indebeted.  I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in
+    hope of answer for the dispatche of my Buysenes.  Yow shall nether
+    loase credytt nor monney by me, the Lorde wyllinge; & nowe butt
+    perswade yowrself soe, as I hope, & yow shall not need to feare butt
+    with all hartie thanckefullenes I wyll holde my tyme & content yowr
+    ffrende, & yf we Bargaine farther, yow shalbe the paiemr. yowrselfe.
+    My tyme biddes me hastene to an ende, & soe I commit thys [to] yowr
+    care, & hope of your helpe.  I feare I shall nott be backe thys night
+    ffrom the Cowrte.  Haste.  The Lorde be with yow and with vs all,
+    amen.  ffrom the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25th October, 1598.
+
+                                                     “Yowrs in all kyndnes
+                                                            “RYE. QUYNEY.”
+
+There is nothing to show directly what was Shakespeare’s reply to this
+request for the loan of so considerable a sum; which, however, was not
+the personal matter it would seem to be.  Quiney was a substantial man,
+mercer and alderman of Stratford, and was in London, incurring debts in
+the interests of the town, whose law business he was furthering.  He
+wanted nothing for himself.
+
+It is curious that this letter was discovered among the town’s papers,
+not among any Shakespeare relics, and it is believed was never actually
+sent after being written; for another letter is extant, addressed by one
+of the town council, Abraham Sturley, to Quiney, on November 4th, in
+which he says: “Ur letter of the 25 October . . . which imported . . .
+that our countriman Mr. Wm. Shak. would procure us monei. . . .”  It
+would appear, therefore, that on the very day he was writing, Quiney had
+received assurance from Shakespeare that he would lend.
+
+In 1600 Shakespeare’s company played before the Queen at Whitehall, and
+on several occasions in 1602: their last performance being at Richmond in
+Surrey on February 2nd, 1603.  The following month the great Queen died.
+In 1602 Shakespeare had been buying land in the neighbourhood of
+Snitterfield and Welcombe from the Combes; no less than 107 acres, and in
+succeeding years he considerably added to it; further, in July 1605,
+expending £440 in the purchase of tithes.  Early in September 1601, his
+father, John Shakespeare, had died.  Seven years later, also in
+September, died his mother.  In 1607, his eldest daughter, Susanna,
+married Dr. John Hall, and on the last day of the same year his brother
+Edmund, an actor, was buried in St. Saviour’s, Southwark.
+
+It was in 1609 that Shakespeare retired permanently to Stratford.  He and
+his players had been honoured by the new sovereign from the very
+beginning of his reign; but Shakespeare now severed his active connection
+with the stage.  In this year his famous Sonnets were published, those
+sugared verses addressed to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which
+he laments having made himself “a motley to the view.”  Henceforth he
+would be a country gentleman and dramatic author, and let who would seek
+the applause of the crowd.  He now wrote the _Taming of the Shrew_, whose
+induction is permeated with local allusions; he bought more land in the
+neighbourhood of Stratford; he kept some degree of state at New Place.
+In 1611 he sold his shares in the theatres, but in 1612 bought property
+at Blackfriars.  Thus Shakespeare passed his remaining years.  As Rowe,
+his earliest biographer says, they were spent “as all men of good sense
+will wish theirs to be; in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his
+friends.”
+
+His last dramatic work, _The Tempest_, was written in 1611, and bears
+evidences of being consciously and intentionally his last.  It is easily
+dated, because of the references in it to the “still vex’d Bermoothes,”
+the Bermuda islands, which were discovered by Admiral Sir George Somers’
+expedition in 1609.  The “discovery” was made by the Admiral’s ship, the
+_Sea Venture_, being driven in a storm on the hitherto unknown islands.
+The disasters, the adventures, and the strange sights and sounds of the
+isles were described by Sylvester Jourdain, one of the survivors, in an
+account published October 1610, called “A Discovery of the Bermudas,
+otherwise called the Isle of Divels.”
+
+Shakespearean students find a purposeful solemnity in the treatment of
+the play, and some perceive in the character of the magician, Prospero, a
+portraiture of himself, his work done, and with a foreboding of his end,
+oppressed with a sense of the brief span and the futility of life—
+
+             “We are such stuff
+    As dreams are made of, and our little life
+    Is rounded with a sleep.”
+
+Thus he brings his labours to an end—
+
+                   “this rough magic
+    I here abjure; and, when I have required
+    Some heavenly music, (which even now I do,)
+                   . . . I’ll break my staff,
+    Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
+    And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
+    I’ll drown my book.”
+
+The retirement of Shakespeare rather curiously synchronises with the
+spread of Puritanism, that slowly accumulating yet irresistible force
+which, before it had expended its vigour and its wrath was destined to
+abolish for many years the theatre and the actor’s calling, and even to
+behead a king and work a political revolution.  The puritan leaven was
+working even in Stratford, and in 1602 the town council solemnly decided
+that stage-plays were no longer to be allowed, and that any one who
+permitted them in the town should be fined ten shillings.  This edict
+apparently became a dead letter, but in 1612 it was re-enacted and the
+penalty raised to £10.
+
+We may perhaps here pertinently inquire: Did Shakespeare himself become a
+Puritan?  Probably so moderate and equable a man as he seems to have been
+belonged to no extreme party; but it is to be noted that Dr. John Hall,
+husband of his eldest daughter, was a Puritan, and that Susanna herself
+is described in her epitaph as “wise to salvation,” which means that she
+also had found the like grace.
+
+In 1614 Shakespeare seems to have entertained a Puritan divine at New
+Place, according to a somewhat ambiguous account in the Stratford
+chamberlain’s accounts, in which occurs the odd item: “One quart of sack
+and one quart of claret wine given to the preacher at New Place.”  If we
+may measure his preaching by his drinking, he must have delivered
+poisonously long sermons.  But the town council were connoisseurs in
+sermons, just as the council of forty years earlier had been patrons of
+the drama; and they sought out and welcomed preachers, just as their
+forbears had done with the actors.  Only those divines do not seem to
+have been paid for their services, except in drink.  They were all
+thirsty men, and the council rewarded their orations with the same
+measure as given to the preacher at New Place.
+
+In January 1616, William Shakespeare instructed his solicitor to draft
+his will.  No especial reason for this settlement of his worldly affairs
+appears to be recorded.  In February his daughter Judith was married to
+Thomas Quincy, vintner, son of that Richard who eighteen years earlier
+had sought to borrow the £30.  In March he was taken ill and the draft
+will was amended without being fair-copied, a sign, it may be argued, of
+urgency.  It bears date March 25th, and has three of the poet’s
+signatures; one on each sheet.  But he lingered on until April 23rd,
+dying on the anniversary of his birthday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Stratford-on-Avon—It has its own life, quite apart from Shakespearean
+associations—Its people and its streets—Shakespeare Memorials.
+
+STRATFORD-ON-AVON would be an extremely interesting town, both
+historically and scenically, even without its Shakespearean interest.  It
+does not need association with its greatest son to stand forth easily
+among other towns of its size and command admiration.  It is remarkably
+unlike the mind’s eye picture formed of it by almost every stranger.  You
+expect to see a town of very narrow streets, rather dull perhaps and with
+little legitimate trade, apart from the sale of picture-postcards, fancy
+china, guide-books, miniature reproductions of the inevitable Shakespeare
+bust, and the hundred-and-one small articles that tourists buy; but
+Stratford-on-Avon is not in the least like that.  It is true that with a
+singular lack of humour there is a “Shakespeare Garage,” while we all
+know that Shakespeare never owned a motor-car; that the bust is
+represented in mosaic over the entrance to the Old Bank, founded in 1810,
+upon which Shakespeare could never, therefore, have drawn a cheque; and
+that the Shakespeare Hotel not only bears the honoured name, but also a
+very large copy of the bust over its porch, and names all its rooms after
+the plays.  Honeymoon couples, I believe, have been given the room called
+_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, and _Cymbeline_, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ and
+many another will astonish the guest at that really very fine and ancient
+hotel.  I forget if there be a bedroom named after _Two Gentlemen of
+Verona_.  If so, it must obviously be one of the double rooms mentioned
+in the tariff.
+
+They gave me _As you Like It_, and it was sufficiently comfortable: I
+liked it much.  On the other hand, _Macbeth_ makes one fearful of
+insomnia.  “Macbeth does murder sleep.”  Not poppy nor mandragora—well,
+let it be.
+
+It is also true that the old market-house, a quaint isolated building of
+late eighteenth or early nineteenth century standing at the junction of
+Wood and Henley Streets with Bridge Street, and now a Bank, has for
+weather-vane the Shakespeare arms and crest of falcon and spear; and it
+is no less undeniable that the presiding genius of the place has his
+manifestations in many other directions; but all these things, together
+with the several antique furniture and curio shops where the unique
+articles—of which there is but one each in the world—you purchase to-day
+are infallibly replaced to-morrow, are for the benefit of the visitor,
+the stranger and pilgrim.  “I was a stranger and ye took me in,” I
+murmured when the absolute replica of the unmatched article I had
+purchased was unblushingly exposed for sale within a day or two.
+
+The Stratfordian notices none of these things: they are there, but they
+don’t concern him.  You think they do, and that if a suggestion were made
+that the town should be renamed “Shakespeare-on-Avon” he would adopt it
+and be grateful; but you would be quite wrong; he would not.  If you
+caught a hundred Stratford people, _flagrante delicto_, in the pursuit of
+their daily business and haled them into the Guildhall or other
+convenient room and set them an examination paper on Shakespeare, no one
+would pass with honours.  Why should any of them?  They have grown up
+with Shakespeare; they accept him as a fact, just as they do the rising
+and setting of the sun and the waxing and waning of the moon; but they
+are not interested in him any more than they are in the courses of those
+luminaries.  They talk of anything but Shakespeare, and I have met and
+spoken with many who have never been inside the Birthplace, or to Anne
+Hathaway’s Cottage, or in the Harvard House, or indeed to any of the
+show-places in and about the town.  They each save about half a guinea in
+the aggregate, but they don’t do so either by way of self-denial or
+economy.  They are simply not interested.
+
+               [Picture: Chapel Street, Stratford-on-Avon]
+
+Stratford would lose a very great deal if the world in general were to
+become as indifferent to the Swan of Avon; but it would still be a
+prosperous market-town, dependent upon the needs of the surrounding
+agricultural villages.  Agriculture has ever been the mainstay of
+Stratford, and as far as we can see, ever will be.  All around in the
+Avon valley stretch those rich pastures that still “lard the rother’s
+sides,” and on market days there come crawling into the streets, among
+the cattle and the sheep, carriers’ carts from many an obscure village,
+with curious specimens of countryfolk who have not lost the old habit of
+looking upon Stratford as the centre of the universe.  So much the better
+for Stratford.  “’Tain’t much as I waants,” said one to the present
+writer, “an’ I rackon I can get it at Stratford ‘most as good as anywheer
+else.  Besides, I du like to come to town sometimes, an’ see a bit of
+life.”
+
+One can, in fact, see a good deal of life in the town, but the liveliest
+time—quite apart from the Shakespeare Festival, which is exotic and
+mostly for visitors—is the Mop Fair, much more familiarly known as
+“Stratford Mop.”  This annual event is held somewhat too late for the
+average visitor’s convenience; on October 12th, when the tourists have
+mostly gone home.  It is the great hiring-fair for farm servants and
+others: perhaps we had better say, was, for the hiring has almost wholly
+fallen into disuse, together with the so-called “Runaway Mop,” of a
+fortnight after, at which the servants already hired and not pleased with
+their bargain might re-engage.
+
+I think the average visitor might not, after all, be pleased with
+Stratford Mop, which is in some ways a very barbarous affair; the chief
+barbarity of course being the roasting of oxen whole in the streets; a
+loathly spectacle, and not one calculated to increase respect for our
+ancestors, whose great idea of fit merry-making for very special
+occasions was this same roasting of cattle whole and making the public
+conduits run wine.  The last sounds better, but from the accounts
+preserved of the wine dispersed at such times we know that the quantity
+was meagre and the quality exceedingly poor.
+
+But the vast crowds resorting to Stratford for the Mop see nothing
+gruesome in the spectacle.  Special trains run from numerous places, and
+all the showmen in the country seem to have hurried up for the event.
+
+The streets of Stratford are broad and pleasant, with a large proportion
+of ancient houses still left; half-timbered fronts side by side with more
+or less modern brick and plaster, behind which often lurks a rich old
+interior, unknown to the casual passer-by.  Sometimes a commonplace
+frontage is removed, revealing unexpected beauty in an enriched
+half-timber framing which the odd vagaries in taste of bygone generations
+have caused to be thus hidden.  There is in this way a speculative
+interest always attaching to structural alterations in the town.  In this
+chance fashion the fine timbering of the so-called “Tudor House” was
+uncovered in 1903, and other instances might be given.  Recently, also,
+Nash’s House has been completely refronted, in fifteenth century style,
+wholly in oak.  In fact, we might almost declare that Stratford is now
+architecturally, after many years, reverting to the like of the town
+Shakespeare knew.  And if the modernised house-fronts were systematically
+stripped, among them that occupied by Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son at the
+corner of High Street and Bridge Street, the house occupied for many
+years by Judith Shakespeare and her husband, Thomas Quiney, the vintner,
+Stratford would become greatly transformed.
+
+But the mention of Bridge Street is a reminder that here at any rate a
+great change has been made.  It is the widest of all the streets, and is
+in fact a very wilderness of width.  All the winds that sport about the
+neighbourhood seem to have their home in Bridge Street.  Your hat always
+blows off when you turn the corner into it, and the dust and homeless
+straws go wandering up and down its emptiness, seeking rest in the Avon
+over the Clopton Bridge, but always blown back.  Now Bridge Street was
+not always like this.  In Shakespeare’s time, and until 1858, when the
+last of it was cleared away, a kind of island of old houses occupied part
+of this roadway.  It was called “Middle Row.”  Such a collection of
+houses was the usual feature of old English towns.  There was an example
+in London, in Holborn, with exactly the same name; but it disappeared
+somewhat earlier than its Stratford namesake.  Pictures survive of this
+Bridge Street landmark.  I think a good many Stratford people regret it,
+but regrets will not bring it back.  We think of the irrevocable, and of
+Herrick’s witch—
+
+    “Old Widow Prowse, to do her neighbours evil,
+    Has given, some say, her soul unto ye Devill;
+    But when sh’as killed that horse, cow, pig, or hen,
+    What would she give to get that soul again?”
+
+But the Stratford folk, unlike Widow Prowse, did their spiriting with the
+best intentions.  Unfortunately, good intentions notoriously pave the way
+to hot corners.
+
+It was a very picturesque old row, with the “Swan” inn hanging out its
+sign; and perhaps, in these times of reconstructions, it may even yet be
+rebuilt, after the evidences of it that exist.
+
+In Bridge Street is another landmark in the way of literary associations.
+The “Red Horse” hotel has a large, dull and uninteresting plaster front,
+but American visitors find the house attractive on account of Washington
+Irving’s stay there about a hundred years ago, when he was writing of
+Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s country.  The sitting-room he occupied is
+kept somewhat as a shrine to his memory, and the chair he fancifully
+called his “throne” is still there, but you may not sit in it.  It is
+kept under lock and key, in a cupboard with glass doors.  The poker he
+likened to his sceptre is kept jealously in the bar.  Citizens of the
+United States ask to see it, and it is reverently produced and unfolded
+from the many swathings of “Old Glory” in which it is enwrapped: “Old
+Glory” being, it is necessary to explain to Britishers, the United States
+flag, the “stars and stripes.”  Gazing upon it, they see that it is
+engraved with a dedicatory inscription by another citizen of the U.S.A.
+
+If you proceed down Bridge Street you come presently to the Clopton
+Bridge that crosses the Avon, and so out of the town.  The bridge is one
+of the many works of public utility and practical piety executed,
+instituted, or ordained in his will by Sir Hugh Clopton, the greatest
+benefactor Stratford has known.  A scion of that numerous family, seated
+at Clopton House a mile out of the town, he went to London and prospered
+as a mercer, becoming Lord Mayor in 1492.  Leland, writing in 1532,
+quaintly tells of him and his bridge: “Hugh Clopton aforesaid made also
+the great and sumptuous Bridge upon Avon, at the East ende of the Towne,
+which hath 14 great Arches of stone and a long Causey made of Stone, lowe
+walled on each syde, at the West Ende of the Bridge.  Afor the tyme of
+Hugh Clopton there was but a poore Bridge of Tymbre, and no Causey to
+come to it; whereby many poore Folkes and others refused to come to
+_Stratford_ when Avon was up, or comminge thither, stood in jeopardye of
+Lyfe.  The Bridge ther of late tyme,” he proceeds to say, “was very
+smalle and ille, and at high Waters very hard to come by.  Whereupon, in
+tyme of mynde, one Clopton a very rich Marchant and Mayr of London, as I
+remember, borne about _Strateforde_, having neither Wife nor Children,
+converted a great Peace of his Substance in good workes at _Stratford_,
+first making a sumptuus new Bridge and large of Stone when in the midle
+be a VI great Arches for the main Streame of Avon, and at eache Ende
+certen small Arches to bere the Causey, and so to pass commodiously at
+such tymes as the Ryver riseth.”
+
+The bridge was widened in 1814.  I do not think that great benefactor of
+Stratford intended that tolls should be charged for passing over his
+bridge, but in the course of time, such charges were made, and the very
+large and imposing toll-house that remains shows us that it is not so
+very long since the bridge has been freed again.
+
+There are many who consider the Harvard House to be the most delightful
+piece of ancient domestic work in the town, and it is indeed a gem.  The
+history of it is absolutely clear.  It was built in 1596 by one Thomas
+Rogers, alderman.  His initials and those of his wife Alice, together
+with the date are still to be seen, carved on the woodwork beneath the
+first-floor window.  The carved brackets supporting the first floor
+represent the Warwick Bear and Ragged Staff and the bull of the Nevilles.
+The bull is easily recognisable, but the bear is only to be identified
+after considerable study, and looks a good deal more like a pig.
+Katharine Rogers, daughter of the builders of this house, married Robert
+Harvard of Southwark, butcher, in 1605.  Almost everything in Stratford
+pivots upon Shakespeare, or is made to do so, and it is therefore not
+difficult to imagine Rogers’ beautiful little dwelling being erected here
+at the very time when Shakespeare was contemplating purchasing New Place,
+and the dramatist’s interest in it.  Rogers, being, like John Shakespeare
+on the town council, must have been very closely acquainted with the
+family.  The Rev. John Harvard, son of Robert and Katharine, emigrated to
+the New England States of America in 1637 and died of consumption the
+following year, at Charleston, leaving one half of his estate, which
+realised £779 17_s._  2_d._, together with his library of over 300
+volumes, to a college then in contemplation; the present Harvard
+University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, described as the oldest and among
+the richest seats of learning in the United States; although the
+“learning” displayed there has not yet hatched out any world-shaking
+genius; genius being, as we who visit Stratford cannot fail to see, a
+quality quite independent of the academies, and springing, fully-equipped
+to do battle with the world, in the most unpromising places.
+
+                       [Picture: The Harvard House]
+
+It is not long since the Harvard House was restored and dedicated to the
+public, and particularly to the use of Harvard students; in October 1909,
+to be precise.  It had passed through various hands, and finally was
+offered for sale by auction.  The biddings failed to reach the reserve
+price and the property was withdrawn at £950.  Chicago, in the person of
+a wealthy native of that place, came to the rescue, and it was privately
+bought for the purpose of converting it into a “house of call,” whatever
+that may be, for Americans touring this district, and especially, as
+already noted, for students of Harvard—who obtain admission free.  Other
+persons pay sixpence.
+
+It is a place of very great seclusion, for Harvard students (who mostly
+study the more lethal forms of football and baseball nowadays) are rare;
+and I guess if you want to track the Americans in Stratford, you must go
+to the Shakespeare Hotel, anyway, or to the “Red Horse.”  The house was
+in the occupation of a firm of auctioneers and land agents until the
+purchase.  The “restoration” of the exterior has been very carefully and
+conservatively done, and the interior discloses some particularly
+beautiful half-timbered rooms.
+
+From time to time it seems good to amiable and well-meaning persons to
+set up “Shakespeare memorials” in Stratford, and it is equally amiable in
+the town to accept them.  Thus we see in Rother Street an ornate gothic
+drinking-fountain and clock-tower, the “American Memorial Fountain,”
+given in 1887 by that wealthy Shakespearean collector, George W. Childs,
+proprietor of the _Philadelphia Ledger_.  It includes also the function
+of a memorial of the first Victorian Jubilee.  Shakespearean quotations
+adorn it, including the apposite one from _Timon of Athens_: “Honest
+water, which ne’er left man i’ th’ mire.”
+
+But Shakespeare serves the turn of every man, and if you like your beer,
+you can set against this the equally Shakespearean quotation, “A quart of
+ale is a dish for a king.”
+
+The Memorial Fountain rather misses being stately, and it would be better
+if the quarter chimes of its clock did not hurry so over their business,
+as if they wanted life to go quicker, and time itself to be done with.
+Amity is the note of Mr. Childs’ fountain, and the “merry songs of peace”
+are the subject of one of the carved quotations: that is why the British
+Lion and the American Eagle alternate in effigy at the angles, supporting
+their respective national shields of arms.  The British Lion looks tame
+and the American Eagle is a weird fowl wearing the chastened “dearly
+beloved brethren” expression of a preacher at a camp meeting.
+
+The Shakespeare Memorial by the riverside is the partial realisation of a
+project first considered in 1769, at the jubilee presided over by
+Garrick, revived in 1821 and again in 1864.  This was an idea for a
+national memorial, to include a school of acting: possibly with
+Shakespeare’s own very excellent advice to actors, which he placed in the
+mouth of Hamlet, set up in gilded words of wisdom in its halls.  The
+school for actors has not yet come into being, but at the annual
+festivals, when Shakespearean companies take the boards in the theatre
+which forms a prominent part of the Memorial, you may witness quaint new
+readings of the dramatist’s intentions.
+
+                 [Picture: The Harvard House: Panel Room]
+
+The great pile of buildings standing by the beautiful Bancroft gardens,
+in fine grounds of its own beside the river, “comprises,” as auctioneers
+and house agents might say, the theatre aforesaid, a library, and picture
+gallery.  It was built 1877–79 from funds raised by a Memorial
+Association founded by Mr. Charles E. Flower of Stratford-on-Avon, and
+very widely supported.  The architect, W. F. Unsworth, whose name does
+not seem to be very generally known, has produced a very imposing, and on
+the whole, satisfactory composition, whose shape was largely determined
+by that of the original Globe Theatre of Shakespeare’s own time in
+Southwark.  It is of red brick and stone, and a distinct ornament to the
+town and the riverside, although its gothic appears to have here and
+there a rather Continental flavour.  A little more pronounced, it might
+seem almost Rhenish.  But let us be sufficiently thankful the Memorial
+did not take shape in Garrick’s day, when it would certainly have assumed
+some terrible neo-classic form.  There are some particularly good and
+charming gargoyles over the entrance, notably that of Puck carrying that
+ass’s head with which Bottom the Weaver was “translated,” in _Midsummer
+Night’s Dream_.  A sketch of it appears on the title-page of this book.
+I do not think a description of the theatre, the library, or the picture
+gallery would serve the object of these pages, and I do not propose to
+describe the monument designed, executed and presented by Lord Ronald
+Gower, because that is done in every guide-book, and because I do not
+like that extremely amateurish and flagrantly-overpraised work: may the
+elements speedily obliterate it!
+
+Quick-growing poplars have reached great heights since the buildings were
+first opened, and the Theatre and Memorial is being rapidly obscured by
+them.  It looks its best from the Clopton Bridge, and combines with Holy
+Trinity church to render the town, viewed from the other side of the
+Avon, a place of considerable majesty and romance.
+
+Crossing either that ancient bridge to the “Swan’s Nest” inn which has
+become subdued to the poetry in the Stratford air and has abandoned its
+old name, the “Shoulder of Mutton,” we may roam the meadows opposite the
+town.  Or we may equally well cross the river by the long and narrow red
+brick tramway bridge, built in 1826 for the purposes of the
+Stratford-on-Avon and Shipston-on-Stour Tramway: an ill-fated but heroic
+project that immediately preceded steam railways.  The Great Western
+Railway appears to have some ownership in the bridge, and by notice
+threatens awful penalties—something a little less than eternal
+punishment—to those who look upon—or cycle upon—it.
+
+            [Picture: Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon]
+
+Somehow we reach those free and open meadows over against the town where
+the Avon runs broad and deep down to the mill and the ruined lock, just
+opposite the church.  It is from these meadows that the accompanying
+drawing of the church was taken.  The breadth of the river between the
+Clopton Bridge and the church is exceptional, and gives a great nobility
+to the town.  Both above and below these points it becomes much narrower,
+and the navigation down stream is a thing of the past.  The Avon down to
+Binton and up beyond Charlecote is, in fact, rendered impassable by
+difficulties created by the Lucy family of Charlecote, and by the Earl of
+Warwick.  Private ownership in navigable or semi-navigable streams is an
+ancient and complicated affair concerned with rights of fishing, of weirs
+and mill-leets, and other abstruse and immemorial manorial privileges,
+and it has furnished the lawyers with many a fat brief.  It has cost the
+Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon £700 in recent years, in a dispute about
+this ruined lock and the impeded access to the river past the church and
+the mill, to the other decayed lock at Luddington.  The Lucys gained the
+day, and that is why we cannot go boating down the river from Stratford.
+
+We may cross the stream just below this point, by a footbridge, and come
+into the town again past the big corn-mill whose ancient ownership caused
+all this trouble.  The present building is only about a century old, but
+it is the representative of the original mill that stood on this spot
+over a thousand years ago, and belonged then and long afterwards to the
+Bishops of Worcester.  The exquisite humour of the manorial law ordained
+not only that the people of Stratford were under obligation to have their
+corn ground here, but that they were also made to pay for it.  And as
+competitive millers were thus barred, there can be no doubt but that
+corn-milling was an expensive item.  The old churchmen loved eels, useful
+for Friday’s dish, and the Bishops of Worcester were sometimes accustomed
+to take consignments of them in place of money payments for use of the
+mill.
+
+The possibilities of the Avon in the matter of floods are very eloquently
+set forth on the walls of this mill: the astonishing high-water marks of
+floods for a century past being marked.  Scanning them, it seems strange
+that mill and church and a good part of the town itself have not been
+washed away.
+
+Passing through Old Town into Church Street, the fine Elizabethan
+three-gabled residence seen on the way, on the right hand, is Hall’s
+Croft, the home of Dr. John Hall, Susanna Shakespeare’s husband, before
+they removed to New Place following upon Shakespeare’s death.  The old
+mulberry-tree in the beautiful garden at the back of the house is said to
+have been planted by her.
+
+                     [Picture: The Memorial Theatre]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Shakespeare’s Birthplace—Restoration, of sorts—The business of the
+Showman—The Birthplace Museum—The Shakespearean garden.
+
+TO Henley Street most visitors to Stratford-on-Avon first turn their
+steps; a little disappointed to discover that it is by no means the best
+street in the town and must have been rather a poor outskirt at the time
+when John Shakespeare came in from Snitterfield, to set up business in a
+small way.  There is, as the sentimental pilgrim will very soon discover
+for himself, a plentiful lack of sentiment nowadays in the business of
+showing Shakespeare’s Birthplace.  For it is a business, and conducted as
+it is on extremely hard-headed lines, yields a considerable profit; a
+profit disposed of strictly according to the terms on which the
+Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust is defined in its Parliamentary powers.
+Enough has already been said to show the sensitive soul that his
+sensibilities are apt to be extremely tried when he comes this way; but
+then, to be sure, there can be but a small proportion of such among the
+40,000 persons who annually pay their sixpences (and another to see the
+Birthplace Museum next door).  Sometimes, when the dog-star rages and
+tourists most do gad about, a solid phalanx of visitors, each provided
+with his ticket from the office down the street, will be found lined up,
+waiting, like the queues outside the London theatres, for earlier
+arrivals to be quickly disposed of.  The bloom of sentiment, as delicate
+as that upon a plum or peach, is rudely rubbed off by these things, by
+rules and regulations and the numbered ticket; but the very fame of
+Shakespeare and the increasing number of visitors who have, or think they
+have—or at the very least of it think they ought to have—an intelligent
+interest in a great man’s birthplace brings about this horrid nemesis of
+the professional showman.
+
+                   [Picture: Shakespeare’s Birthplace]
+
+If you be a little exacting, and would keep the full freshness, the
+sweetest savour of hero-worship, be content not to see the Birthplace,
+and especially not that garden at the back of it.  It was not, you know
+it quite well, in the least like this when John Shakespeare lived here
+and had his wool-store next door, where the Birthplace Museum is now, and
+sometimes bought and sold corn or carried on the trade of glover.  The
+place has had so many changes of fortune, the appearance of the exterior
+itself has been so utterly changed and so conjecturally restored, that
+the thinking man loses a good deal of confidence.  And the interior: the
+rooms without furniture or sign of habitation are like a body whence the
+soul has fled.
+
+The building did not, for one thing, stand alone as it does now, the
+houses on either side having been pulled down after it was purchased in
+1848; with the, of course, entirely admirable idea of the better
+lessening its risk from fire.  The effect, and that of the hedges with
+their hairpin railings, is to give the place the very superior appearance
+of a private house.  If old John Shakespeare could be summoned back and
+taken for a walk along Henley Street, he would be surprised at many
+things, but by none more than by the odd disappearance of every man’s
+midden and the altered appearance of his own house.  He would wonder what
+had become of his shop, and assume no doubt that the occupier had made
+his fortune and retired into private life.  He would not know that it is
+still a place of business, and among the best-paying ones in Stratford,
+too.
+
+William Shakespeare succeeded to the property of his father, and in his
+turn willed this Henley Street dwelling-house to his sister, Joan Hart,
+for life.  She had become a widow a few days only before his death, but
+herself survived until 1646.  The woolshop—now the Museum part—he left to
+his daughter Susanna, who on the death of her aunt came into possession
+of all the building.  At her decease, being the last descendant of her
+father, she willed it to Thomas Hart, the grandson of her aunt, Joan
+Hart.  From him it descended to his brother George, who in his own
+lifetime gave it to his son, Shakespeare Hart, whose widow passed it on
+to another George Hart, nephew of her late husband.  In 1778 George was
+gathered to his fathers and Thomas, his son, reigned in his stead; in
+1793 leaving what had been the woolshop to his son John and the
+Birthplace to his son Thomas, who three years later made over his share
+to his brother John.  On the death of this person in 1800 the property
+passed to his wife for the remainder of her life, and then to his three
+children, as co-partners.  Since early in the eighteenth century it had
+been mortgaged up to the hilt, and the three partners were practically
+obliged to sell in 1806.  Thus the last remote link with Shakespeare’s
+kin was severed.  Thomas Court, the purchaser, died in 1818, and on the
+death of his wife in 1847 the house was purchased by public subscription,
+on behalf of the nation.  This transaction was completed in the following
+year, at a cost of £3000, the purchase being in 1866 handed over to the
+Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon, who held it in trust until the
+incorporation of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1891.
+
+In all this time the structure suffered many changes, the former woolshop
+being opened as an inn, the “Maidenhead,” even in Shakespeare’s own time,
+1603.  Later it became the “Swan and Maidenhead,” and had its front
+new-faced with brick in 1808.  Meanwhile, the Birthplace had in 1784
+become a butcher’s shop, hanging out the sign board “The immortal
+Shakespeare was born in this house.”  In the course of these changes the
+dormer windows had disappeared, about 1800, and the whole was in a very
+dilapidated state.  The restoration work of 1857–58, renewing the
+vanished dormers in the roof, pulling down the brick front and
+reinstating a timber-framed elevation, and generally placing the building
+again in a weather-proof condition, cost nearly a further £3000.
+
+Photographs scarcely give a correct impression of the exterior as thus
+restored.  They reproduce the form, but not the true tone and quality of
+the timber and plaster, and in truth they make the house look better than
+it is.  The quality of the exterior materials is not convincing and makes
+the house look very unauthentically new.  The timbers and the plaster may
+be even better than they were in John Shakespeare’s time, but we do not
+wish them to be, and there is a spruceness and a kind of parlourmaidenly
+neatness about the place which we feel quite sure the man who was fined
+for having a muck-heap in front of his house, and for not keeping his
+gutter clean never knew.  Painted woodwork, mathematically true, and the
+kind of plaster facing we see here were unknown in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries.  Roughly split oak formed both interior and exterior
+framing to John Shakespeare’s house, and the houses of his neighbours,
+and it was only in Victorian times that the neatness and the soullessness
+expressed here became the obsession of craftsmen.  In short, they do
+these things much more convincingly to-day at Earl’s Court.
+
+Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who is a very much greater person than Columbus and
+discovered America in the monetary sense, while Columbus only added to
+his geographical knowledge and not to his wealth, has also discovered
+Stratford-on-Avon, and has generously given the town a public library and
+the Trustees of the Birthplace two old cottages, all in Henley Street.
+At the offices you purchase tickets for the Birthplace and the Birthplace
+Museum, and may well, before doing so, look into that public library,
+formed out of one of those ancient timber-framed houses Stratford is
+fortunate enough to possess in profusion.  It is a charmingly remodelled
+building, very well worth inspection.
+
+             [Picture: The Kitchen, Shakespeare’s Birthplace]
+
+But let us to the Birthplace.  At the door we are met by a caretaker.  If
+it be late in the day he will be a little, or possibly very, husky.  In
+any case he is hurried.  He hastens us into a stone-floored room in which
+a multitude of people are already waiting.  They look as if they were
+attending an inquest, or, at the best of it, a seance, and expected every
+moment to be called upon to view the body, or to hear knockings or see
+ghostly shapes.  He shuts the door.  It is a solemn moment, and in the
+passing of it we do actually hear knockings, loud and impatient—but they
+are not spirits from the vasty deep: only other and impatient visitors
+who have paid their sixpences.  But they must wait.
+
+“This is the house where Shakespeare was born.  You will be shown
+presently the actual room where he was born, upstairs.”
+
+“It became a butcher’s shop afterwards, didn’t it?” asks some one.  The
+showman looks grieved: the interruption throws him out of gear, like a
+bent penny in a slot machine.  Besides, it isn’t in the programme.  “You
+must excuse me, sir, and not keep people waiting.  This was the living
+room.  The chimney corner remains exactly as it was when Shakespeare was
+a boy.  Have you tickets for the Museum?  Those who have will go through
+that door to the right.  This room at the back is the kitchen.  If you
+will ascend the staircase, you will be shown the birth-room.  Mind the
+step.”
+
+A dark steep climb, and a narrow passage leads into the former front
+bedroom.  It is almost entirely bare, only an old chair or two and an old
+coffer emphasising its nakedness.  The rough plaster walls and the
+ceiling are appallingly dirty; Mrs. Shakespeare would be thoroughly
+ashamed of it, if she could but revisit her home.  A plaster cast of the
+inevitable Shakespeare bust stands in the room, sometimes on the coffer,
+and sometimes on a spindly-legged table, and looks with serene amusement
+upon the proceedings.  The old person who used to show the birth-room has
+apparently been superseded.  She used to patronise the bust, and afforded
+some people much secret amusement.  “Plenty room ’ere for the mighty
+brain,” she would say, drawing her hand across that broad and lofty brow;
+“there will never be more than one Shakespeare, sir.”
+
+            [Picture: The Room in which Shakespeare was born]
+
+The present attendants have less time for that kind of thing, and hurry
+on with their mechanical tale.  Why don’t the Trustees economise, and get
+a gramophone?  “This is the room where Shakespeare was born.  The
+furniture you see does not belong to his time.  Some of the glass in the
+window is original; you can tell it by the green tint.  Them laths, sir,
+in the ceiling?  They’re iron, and put up to preserve the original
+ceiling.  No one is allowed in the room above.  The ceiling and the
+walls, as you will observe, are covered with names.  Before visitors’
+books were provided, visitors were invited to write their names here.
+You will see that they have fully availed themselves of the privilege,
+and those who had diamond rings have scratched theirs on the
+window-panes.  Here you will see the signature of General Tom Thumb, who
+visited the Birthplace with his wife.  His name was Stratton.  Its
+position, not very much higher than the skirting-board, shows his height.
+Helen Faucit’s name appears on the beam overhead.  Sir Walter Scott’s
+name, and Thomas Carlyle’s will be seen on the window.”
+
+We take these and all other signatures on trust, for they are nearly
+every one terrible scrawls, and are all so extremely crowded together,
+and the plaster is so dirty, and the glass so nearly opaque that with
+this and with that they are hardly ever legible.
+
+In a back room hangs an oil portrait of Shakespeare: the so-called
+“Stratford” portrait, bought in 1860 by William Hunt, the town clerk,
+together with the old house in which it then hung.  It has been cleaned
+and restored and elaborately framed, and it will be observed that it is
+further guarded by being enclosed in a steel safe: extraordinary
+precautions in behalf of a work which is almost certainly spurious.
+
+And so we descend and sign the visitors’ book.  A very bulky volume is
+filled in less than a year, and still the number grows.  There were
+27,038 visitors in 1896, and 49,117 in 1910.  The extremely fine and
+lengthy summer of 1911 did not, as might have been supposed, bring a
+record return.  On the contrary, the numbers fell in that year to 40,300.
+
+Returning to the kitchen, where in the yawning chimney-place a bacon
+cupboard will be noticed, we leave by the garden at the back.  But
+meanwhile the Birthplace Museum has been left undescribed.  Visitors who
+have sprung a sixpence for that are taken through from the front room,
+the living-room.  Here are kept many and various articles more or less
+associated with Shakespeare, and some that have no connection with him at
+all.  The most interesting are the documents relating to this house; the
+original letter written by Richard Quincy to Shakespeare in 1598; and a
+deed with the signature of Shakespeare’s brother Gilbert, who was a
+draper or haberdasher in London, dated 1609.  A desk from the Grammar
+School, the chair from the “Falcon” at Bidford, in which Shakespeare is
+supposed to have sat, portraits, prints; a perfect copy of the 1623 First
+Folio edition of the plays, purchased at the Ashburnham Sale in 1898, and
+other rare editions, make up the collection, together with a sword said
+to have been Shakespeare’s, and an interesting gold signet-ring, with the
+initials “W. S.” entwined with a true-lover’s knot, found in a field
+outside the town, near the church, early in the nineteenth century.  It
+is said to have been Shakespeare’s ring, but scarcely sufficient stress
+seems to be laid upon the undoubted authenticity of it.  Shakespeare’s
+will, drafted in January 1616, originally bore the concluding words: “In
+witness whereof I have hereunto put my seale,” but this was afterwards
+altered to “hand,” the assumption being that it was the loss of this
+signet ring which necessitated the alteration.
+
+                   [Picture: Shakespeare’s Signet-Ring]
+
+Haydon, the painter, wrote to Keats in 1818, about the discovery, “My
+dear Keats, I shall go mad!  In a field at Stratford-on-Avon, that
+belonged to Shakespeare, they have found a gold ring and seal with the
+initials ‘W.S.,’ and a true-lover’s knot between.  If this is not
+Shakespeare’s whose is it?  I saw an impression to-day, and am to have
+one as soon as possible: as sure as you live and breathe, and that he was
+the first of beings, the seal belonged to him, O, Lord!”
+
+Among the exhibits in the Museum are the town weights and measures, the
+sword of state, and altogether some fine miscellaneous feeding for the
+curio-fancier.
+
+The cellars under the building are not shown, nor is the western part of
+it, where the town archives are stored.
+
+The garden at the back is laid out in beds planted with the flowers
+mentioned by Shakespeare in his works, and in the middle of the well-kept
+gravelled path is the base of the ancient town cross which formerly stood
+at the intersection of Bridge Street and High Street.  It is a pleasant
+place, and its present condition is the result of care, the outcome of
+much pious thought.  But we may declare with all the emphatic language at
+our command, that when William Shakespeare and his brothers Gilbert,
+Richard and Edmund, and his sister Joan played out here in the back yard,
+it was very little of a garden, and not at all tidy unless they were
+angel-children, which we have no occasion to suppose.  It seems to have
+been originally an orchard, but no doubt Mr. John Shakespeare put it to
+some use in connection with the several trades he followed.
+
+The piety is undoubted, but it is a little overdone, and everything is in
+sample.  They are not very good specimens of marigolds we see here, but
+still they are obviously marigolds, and we do not—no really we don’t—need
+the label that identifies them and the other flowers.  We can quite
+easily recognise the winking Mary-bud, that beautiful flower whose golden
+eyes are among the loveliest blossoms in an old-fashioned garden; we know
+the rose, the jasmine, the gillyflower, the sunflower, the stock, the
+ladysmock, and the whole delightful posy, and wonder who and what those
+folk may be who cannot recognise them, and require these cast-iron labels
+for their information.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Church Street—The “Castle” inn—The Guild Chapel, Guild Hall, and Grammar
+School—New Place.
+
+CHURCH STREET is the most likeable of all the streets of Stratford.
+There you do not, in point of fact, actually see the church, which is out
+away beyond the end of it.  The features of this quiet and yet not dull
+thoroughfare are the few and scattered shops in among private houses, and
+a quaint old inn of unusual design, the “Windmill.”  It is illustrated
+here, and so the effective frontage, with its row of singularly bold
+dormer windows need not be more particularly described.  The interior is
+almost equally interesting, and has a deep ingle-nook with one of those
+bacon-cupboards that are so numerously found in the town and district.
+It is a house that attracts and holds the observant man’s attention, and
+it has been so greatly admired by an American visitor that a complete set
+of architectural drawings was made for him and an exact replica built in
+Chicago a few years ago.
+
+Opposite the “Windmill” inn is a fine Georgian mansion called “Mason
+Croft,” obviously once occupied by a person of importance, many years
+since.  But the chief feature of Church Street is the long range of
+half-timbered buildings with its striking row of massive chimney-stacks,
+ending with the imposing stone tower of the Guild Chapel.  It is entirely
+right that these buildings should bulk so largely to the eye, for in them
+is centred the greater part of Stratford’s history.  They are the
+timeworn and venerable buildings of that ancient Guild of Holy Cross
+whose beginnings are in the dim past and have never been definitely
+fixed.  The earliest facts relating to the Guild take the story of it
+back to 1269, when its first Chapel was begun, and when the
+semi-religious character of the fraternity was its more important half.
+
+                      [Picture: The “Windmill” Inn]
+
+The Guild may be likened to a mutual benefit society of modern times,
+with the addition of the religious element.  It was founded in
+superstition, but lived that down and became not only an institution of
+the greatest service, but also the originator of the Grammar School, and
+an informal town council and local authority, which, strangely enough, in
+its later and almost wholly secularised character, withstood the
+exactions of the Bishops of Worcester, the old-time lords of the manor
+and their stewards, and finally, after being dissolved in 1547, was
+re-constituted as the town council of the newly incorporated borough in
+1553.
+
+The original form of the Guild was that of a subscription society for men
+and women.  Its benefits, unlike those of the Foresters and the
+Oddfellows of to-day, were chiefly spiritual.  It employed priests to
+look after the religious needs of its members during life and to pray for
+the health of their souls after death.  It secured these then greatly
+desired benefits at a reduced rate, just as the modern benefit society
+employs the club doctor.  It also in many ways promoted kindliness and
+good-fellowship, helped the poor, and often found husbands for
+unappropriated spinsters by the simple process of endowing them.  This
+was all to the good.  Somewhat later the Guild espoused the cause of
+education, and certainly had a grammar school at the close of the
+fourteenth century, payments to the schoolmaster being the subject of
+allusion in the Guild’s archives in 1402.  Once a year the entire
+membership went in stately procession to church, and returning to the
+Guild Hall indulged in one of those gargantuan feasts whose records are
+the amazement of modern readers.  Of the 103 pullets, and of the geese
+and the beef recorded to have been consumed at one of these feasts in the
+beginning of the fifteenth century we say nothing, but on the same
+occasion they drank “34 gallons of good beer,” and “39 gallons of small
+ale,” perhaps on the well-known old principle that “good eating deserveth
+good drinking.”  The 73 gallons of ale not being enough they sent out and
+had some more in by the cistern, a method which seems determined and
+heroic.  The account thus includes “1 cestern of penyale,” for which they
+paid the equivalent of eight shillings, and “2 cesterns of good beer
+bought from Agnes Iremonger for 3_s._”; that is to say, about twenty-four
+shillings’ worth.  They seem to have had enough, “’Tis merry in hall when
+beards wag all,” and there can be no doubt that the company who on this
+occasion drank pottle-deep were merry enough.
+
+The Guild also added morality plays to its entertainments; but all these
+lively proceedings formed but one side to its activities.  It fulfilled
+many of the functions of local government, and strictly too, and its
+aldermen and proctors were officials not likely to be disregarded.  The
+authority of the Guild was supported by its wealth, contributed by the
+benefactions of the members, which rendered it in course of time, after
+the lord of the manor, the largest landowner in and about the town.
+
+It was not so great a change when the old Guild was reconstructed and
+became the town council.  By that time it had ceased its early care for
+the future of its members’ souls, and had become in some of its
+developments much more like a Chamber of Commerce.  But it had not
+forgotten to make merry and its love-feasts continued, and its morality
+plays with them, although they had become a little more after the secular
+model.
+
+These traditions were continued into the town council, as they could
+scarcely fail to be, for the members of that body had been also officials
+of the Guild.  John Shakespeare, high Bailiff in 1569, was responsible
+for inviting a company of actors to perform in the Guild Hall, and others
+did the like.
+
+The Guild Chapel, founded in 1296 and largely rebuilt by the generosity
+of Sir Hugh Clopton in the fifteenth century, is the chief of the Guild’s
+old buildings.  It is not now of much practical use, but of venerable
+aspect and considerable beauty.  The tower, porch and nave are Clopton’s
+work, the beautiful porch still displaying his shield of arms and that of
+the City of London, although greatly weathered and defaced.  He did not
+touch the chancel, which had already been restored; and the exterior
+still shows by force of contrast the greatness of Clopton’s gift; his
+nave entirely overshadowing in its comparative bulk the humble
+proportions of the chancel.  Frankness is at least as desirable a quality
+in a book as in the affairs of life, and so it may at once be admitted
+that the interior of the Guild Chapel is extremely disappointing.  It is
+coldly whitewashed, and the ancient frescoes discovered a hundred years
+ago have faded away.  They included a fine, if alarming to some minds,
+representation of the doom, a fifteenth-century notion of the Judgment
+Day.  Alarming to some minds because of the very high percentage of the
+damned disclosed at this awful balancing of accounts.  Illustrations of
+this, among the other frescoes, survive, and have a fearful interest.  It
+is pleasing to see the towering mansions of the Blest on the left hand,
+with St. Peter waiting at the open door welcoming that, ah! so small
+band; but on the right, where green, pink and blue pig-faced devils with
+asses’ ears are tormenting their prey, whanging them with bludgeons and
+raking them in with three-pronged prokers, casting them into Hell’s
+Mouth, and finally roasting them in a furnace, the prospect is vile.
+Shakespeare must have been perfectly familiar with these horrific things,
+and Falstaff’s likening of a flea on Bardolph’s fiery nose to a “black
+soul burning in hell fire,” looks very like a vivid recollection of them.
+Some day, perhaps, when the Shakespearean cult at Stratford is more
+advanced (it is only in its youth yet) these frescoes will be renewed,
+from the careful records of them that have been kept.
+
+    [Picture: Guild Chapel, Guild Hall, Grammar School and Almshouses]
+
+The lengthy line of the Guild Hall and the almshouses of the Guild is one
+of the most effective things in the town.  It dates from 1417.  For many
+years, until 1894, the stout timbering was hidden away beneath plaster,
+and few suspected the simple beauty of the honest old oak framing hidden
+beneath.  The plaster was spread over it _to preserve the oak from the
+weather_.  Let us italicise that choice specimen of stupidity, not
+because it is unique or even rare, for it is found all over the country,
+and elsewhere in this very town of Stratford, and here and everywhere
+else it is at last being found out; but because the italics are needed
+somewhere, to drive home the peculiar dunderheadedness of it.  I think
+perhaps, after all, plaster was coated over old timbering, not so much
+for the preservation of it as because generations had been born who could
+not endure the uneven lines of the old work.  The woodwork of those later
+heirs of time was true to a hair’s breadth and planed down to an orderly
+smoothness: not riven anyhow from the logs.  A conflict of ideals had
+arisen, and the new era was ashamed of the handiwork of the old.
+
+There have been times when architects were also ashamed of their
+chimneys, and disguised them and hid them away, as though a chimney were
+an unnatural thing for a house and to be abated and apologised for.  The
+only time to apologise for a chimney is when it smokes inside the house
+instead of out; and it is pleasant to see that whoever designed and built
+the long and lofty range of chimneys that rises, almost like a series of
+towers, from this roof ridge, had not the least idea of excusing them.
+
+The hall of the Guild occupies almost half the length of the lower floor.
+The remainder forms the almshouses formerly occupied by the poorer
+brethren of the Guild and still housing the pensioners enjoying their
+share of the Clopton benefactions.  They wear on the right arm a silver
+badge displaying the Clopton cross, a cross heraldically described as a
+“cross pattée fitchée at foot.”
+
+The interior of the Guild Hall displays firstly that long ground-floor
+hall in which the Guild members met and feasted or transacted business,
+and where their morality plays and the entertainments given by their
+successors, the earlier town councils, were acted.  Here such travelling
+companies as those who called themselves “the Earl of Leicester’s
+servants,” and other troupes of actors, occasionally performed.
+Shakespeare as a boy must have seen them, and thus probably had his
+attention first directed to the stage as a career.
+
+From this long hall the room variously styled the “Armoury,” or the small
+Council Chamber or “’Greeing Room,” is entered.  This Agreeing Room,
+perhaps for the inner councils of the Guild, was re-panelled about 1619,
+when the door leading from the hall was built; and as a sign of
+rejoicing, the royal arms were painted over the fireplace at the time of
+the Restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660.  Here also at one time
+the arms of the town guard were kept.
+
+The present School Library, overhead, occupies the room under the roof,
+formerly the large Council Chamber of the Guild.  The heraldic white and
+red roses painted on the west wall, the red countercharged with a white
+centre and the white with red, were placed there in 1485, marking the
+satisfaction of the townsfolk at the marriage of Henry the Seventh with
+Elizabeth of York, and the union of the rival Houses of York and
+Lancaster.
+
+Out of this room opens the Latin Schoolroom of the Grammar School.  The
+first portion of it was once separate, and known as the Mathematical
+Room.  Here we are on the scene of Shakespeare’s schooldays, the
+schoolroom where he learnt that “small Latin and less Greek,” with which
+Ben Jonson credited him; a room still used in the education of Stratford
+boys.  He pictured the schoolboy of his own and every other time in the
+lines—
+
+             “The whining schoolboy, with his satchel
+    And shining morning face, creeping like a snail
+    Unwillingly to school.”
+
+How unwillingly we do not fully comprehend until we look more closely
+into the schooling of those days.  It was a twelve-hour day, begun
+extremely early in the morning, and continued through the weary hours
+with some exercise of the rod.
+
+We know exactly who were the masters of the Grammar School in the years
+1571 to 1580, when Shakespeare received his education here, in common
+with the other children of the town.  They were Walter Roche, who was a
+Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and afterwards rector of
+Clifford Chambers; succeeded in 1572 by Thomas Hunt, afterwards
+curate-in-charge at Luddington; and in 1577 by Thomas Jenkins, of St.
+John’s College, Oxford.  These may have been pedants, but they were
+scholars, and qualified to impart an excellent education.  They were in
+fact men distinctly above the average of the schoolmasters of that age,
+and live for all time in the characters of Holofernes in _Love’s Labour’s
+Lost_ and Sir Hugh Evans in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_; the title
+“Sir,” being one, not of knighthood, but of courtesy, given to a
+clergyman.  Shakespeare’s allusions to schools, masters and scholars, and
+his Latin conversations in the plays, modelled on the school methods then
+in vogue, are much more numerous and illuminative than generally
+supposed.  We find, indeed, an especially intimate touch with
+Shakespeare’s schooldays in the description of Malvolio in _Twelfth
+Night_ as “like a pedant that keeps school i’ the church”; a remark whose
+significance is not evident until we read that during Shakespeare’s own
+schooldays the buildings were extensively repaired and that for a time
+the master and pupils were housed in the Guild Chapel.
+
+           [Picture: The Schoolmaster’s House and Guild Chapel]
+
+The Latin Schoolroom has an outside staircase built in recent years to
+replace the original, abolished in 1841.  The half-timbered house
+standing in the courtyard was formerly the schoolmaster’s residence; it
+is now, with the need for accommodating the natural increase of scholars,
+used for additional class-rooms.
+
+Shakespeare, retiring early from his interests in London and the
+playhouses, and coming home to Stratford a wealthy man, hoping to live
+many years in the enjoyment of his fortune, settled in the old mansion he
+had bought, adjoining the scene of his own schooldays.  He must have
+looked with a kindly eye and with much satisfaction from the windows of
+New Place, upon the schoolboys coming and going along the street, as he
+himself had done.  Not every one can be so fortunate.  Perhaps the
+reigning schoolmaster of the time even held up the shining example of Mr.
+William Shakespeare, “who was a schoolboy here, like you, my boys,” to
+his classes, and carefully omitting the factors of chance and
+opportunity, promised them as great success if they did but mind their
+books.  Perhaps, on the other hand—for these were already puritan
+times—their distinguished neighbour was an awful example: author of those
+shocking exhibitions called stage-plays, at this time forbidden in the
+town, under penalties, and an actor, “such as those rogues whom we but
+the other day sent packing from our streets.  Beware, my lads, lest you
+become wealthy after the fashion of Mr. Shakespeare.  ‘What profiteth it
+a man, if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’”
+
+    [Picture: The Headmaster’s Desk, Stratford-on-Avon Grammar School]
+
+Shakespeare, although he had become a personage of great consideration,
+with a fine residence, many times removed from his father’s humble house
+in Henley Street, had not changed into a more salubrious neighbourhood.
+The Stratford of his day and for long after was a dirty and insanitary
+place, according to our notions, but the townsfolk did not seem to be
+troubled by these conditions, and it never occurred to them that the
+plagues and fevers that carried off many of their fellows to Heaven—or
+whatever their destination—untimely were caused by the dirt and the vile
+odours of the place.  Stratford of course, was not singular in this, and
+had its counterpart in most other towns and villages of that age.  The
+town council, however, drew the line at the burgesses keeping pigs in
+part of the houses, or allowing them to wander in the streets; and
+enacted a fine of fourpence for every strayed porker.  But the townsfolk
+regarded the authority’s dislike of pigs as a curious eccentricity, and
+the swine had their styes and roamed the streets exactly as before.  The
+biggest of the six municipal muckhills that raised their majestic crests
+in the streets all the year round was situated in Chapel Lane, opposite
+Shakespeare’s door, but there is no record of his having objected to it.
+It was this, however, and the deplorable condition of Chapel Lane in
+general, then notoriously the dirtiest thoroughfare in the town, which
+probably caused the poet’s death; for the opinion now generally held is
+that he died of typhoid fever.
+
+Down Chapel Lane then ran an open gutter: a wide and dirty ditch some
+four or five feet across, choked with mud.  All the filth of this part of
+the town ran into it and discharged into the river.
+
+There is no pictorial record of New Place, as it was when Shakespeare
+resided in it.  He was unfortunate in living long before the age of
+picture-postcards, and never knew the joy of seeing illustrations of his
+house, “New Place; residence of Mr. William Shakespeare” (with the
+tell-tale legend “Printed in Germany.” in ruby type on the back), for
+sale in all the shop windows.  Poor devil!
+
+New Place passed by Shakespeare’s will to his daughter Susanna and her
+husband Dr. Hall.  They removed from their house “Hall’s Croft,” Old
+Stratford, shortly afterwards, Shakespeare’s widow probably living with
+them until her death in 1623.  Dr. Hall died in 1635.  In 1643, Mrs. Hall
+here entertained Queen Henrietta Maria for three weeks, at the beginning
+of the royalist troubles, when the Queen came to the town with 5000 men.
+In 1649 she died, two years after her son-in-law, Thomas Nash, whose
+house is next door.  Somewhere about this time all the Shakespeare books
+and manuscripts would seem to have disappeared.  The puritan Dr. Hall
+disapproved of stage-plays, and his wife, Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna,
+could neither write nor read; and thus the complete destruction of the
+dramatist’s records is easily accounted for.
+
+Nash’s widow, Shakespeare’s granddaughter, married again, a John Barnard
+who was afterwards knighted.  Lady Barnard died childless at her
+husband’s place at Abington, Northamptonshire, and was buried there,
+leaving New Place to her husband, who died four years later, in 1674.  By
+a strange chance, the house that had been sold out of the Clopton family
+now came back to it by marriage, Sir Edward Walker who bought the
+property in 1675, leaving Barbara, an only child, who married Sir John
+Clopton.  His son, Sir Hugh, came into possession of an entirely
+new-fronted house, for his father, careless of its associations, in 1703
+had made great alterations here.  Illustrations of this frontage which
+survived until 1759, show that it was not at all Shakespearean; being
+instead most distinctly and flagrantly Queen Annean, in the semi-classic
+taste of that day, with a pediment and other architectural details which
+we are convinced Shakespeare’s New Place never included.
+
+The ill-tempered Rev. Francis Gastrell who bought New Place in 1753
+completed the obliteration of the illustrious owner’s residence.  There
+cannot, happily, be many people so black-tempered as this wealthy
+absentee vicar of Frodsham, in Cheshire, who, resident for the greater
+part of the year in Lichfield, yet found Stratford desirable at some time
+in the twelve months.  His acrid humours were early stirred.  He had no
+sooner moved in than he found numbers of people coming every day to see
+Shakespeare’s mulberry-tree in the garden, so he promptly had it cut
+down, to save himself annoyance.  Then he objected to the house being
+assessed for taxes all the year round, although he occupied it only a
+month or two in the twelve; and when the authorities refused to accept
+his view, he had the place entirely demolished.  Thus perished New Place.
+The site of it, after passing through several hands, was finally
+purchased, together with the adjoining Thomas Nash’s house, by public
+subscription in 1861; and both are now the property of the Shakespeare
+Birthplace Trust.
+
+The site of New Place is open to the view of all who pass along Church
+Street and Chapel Lane, a dwarf wall with ornamental railing alone
+dividing it and its gardens from the pavement.  Sixpence, which is the
+key that unlocks many doors in Shakespeare land, admits to the
+foundations, all that remain of the house, and also to the “New Place
+Museum,” in the house of Thomas Nash.  Strange to say, the Trustees do
+not charge for admission to the gardens.  Is this an oversight, or a
+kindly wish to leave the stranger an odd sixpence to get home with?
+Nash’s house, odiously re-fronted about the beginning of the nineteenth
+century, showed a stuccoed front with pillared portico to the street
+until recently.  This year (1912) the alterations have been completed by
+which the frontage is restored by the evidence of old prints to its
+appearance in Nash’s time.  The interior remains as of old.  Among the
+relics in the Museum are chairs, tables, a writing-desk, and other
+articles rather doubtfully said to have belonged to Shakespeare; a
+trinket-box supposed to have been Anne Hathaway’s, and an old
+shuffle-board from the “Falcon” inn opposite, on which Shakespeare is
+said to have played a game with friends at nights, when he felt bored at
+home.  Unfortunately for tradition and the authenticity of this
+“Shakespearean relic,” the “Falcon” was a private house in Shakespeare’s
+lifetime, and for long after.  It is known to have become an inn only at
+some time between 1645 and 1668.  The sign was chosen probably in
+allusion to the Shakespeare crest.  Reproductions of portraits of
+Shakespeare’s friends complete the collections in Nash’s House.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+            The Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon.
+
+THE parish church of Stratford-on-Avon is a building larger, more lofty,
+and far more stately than most towns of this size can boast.  There is
+reason for this exceptional importance, first in the patronage of the
+Bishops of Worcester, on whose manor it was situated, but chiefly in the
+benefactions of John of Stratford, one of three remarkable persons born
+here in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries.  John, Robert, and Ralph,
+who took their distinguishing name from the town of their birth, were all
+of one family; the first two were brothers, the third was their nephew.
+John, born in the closing years of the thirteenth century, became
+successively Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of Canterbury, and was,
+like most of the great prelates of the age, a statesman as well, filling
+the State offices of ambassador to foreign powers and Lord Chancellor of
+the realm.  He died in 1348.  His brother Robert early became rector of
+Stratford-on-Avon, in 1319.  He it was who first caused the town to be
+paved; not, of course, with pavements that would meet the approval of a
+modern town council or the inhabitants, but probably with something in
+the nature of cobbles roughly laid down in the deep mud in which, up to
+that time, the rude carts of the age had foundered.  It was this mud that
+set a deep gulf between neighbours, and had led indirectly to the
+establishment in 1296 of the original Guild Chapel, a small building
+which stood on the site of the existing larger structure.  It was founded
+by Robert, the father of John and Robert, largely for the spiritual
+welfare of those old or infirm persons who were not able to attend
+service at the parish church, by reason of the distance!  Not, we may be
+sure, the distance of actual measurement, for the church is at the end of
+the not very long street, and a leisurely walk brings you to it in two
+minutes; but a distance of miles reckoned in the hindrances and
+disabilities provided by the roads of that age.  Nothing in the story of
+Stratford could more eloquently describe to us the condition of its
+streets and the then remoteness of the Old Town district.
+
+But to return to Robert of Stratford, who eventually became Bishop of
+Chichester and died in 1362.  He it was who supervised his brother John’s
+gifts to the church, which was then an incomplete building, languishing
+for want of means to complete it.  Apparently it had long before been
+decided to replace the small original Norman church with a larger and
+much more ambitious building, in the Early English style, judging from
+traces of both those architectural periods discernable in the tower; but
+the Bishops of Worcester would not loosen their purse-strings
+sufficiently, and awaited the coming of that benefactor who, they were
+morally certain, was sure to appear sooner or later and compound with
+Heaven for his evil courses on earth by completing it.  They did not,
+however, reckon on any of their own cloth doing so, for sheer joy of the
+work.
+
+John of Stratford’s works included the widening of the north aisle and
+the rebuilding of the south; the remodelling of the central tower and the
+addition of a timber spire, which remained until the eighteenth century,
+when it was replaced (1764) by the present loftier stone spire, which
+rises eighty-three feet above the roof of the tower.  In 1332 he founded
+the chantry chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr in the church.  There five
+priests were appointed to sing masses “for ever,” for the good of the
+souls of founder and friends.  John of Stratford was a great and wise
+man, but he did not know that “where the tree falls, there shall it lie”;
+nor could he foresee that his “for ever” would be commuted by the
+Reformation into a period of two hundred years.
+
+He endowed his chantry chapel with liberality; almost extravagance, and
+even purchased the advowson of the church from the Bishop.  This
+extremely liberal endowment was perhaps necessary, for he had considered
+the eternal welfare of a good many people besides himself and his
+relations, and included even the sovereigns of England, present and to
+be, and all future Bishops of Worcester.  The priests, therefore, had
+their hands full, and shouldered some heavy responsibilities; for—not to
+go into individual cases, or specify some of the shocking examples—it
+does not need much imagination to perceive that a tremendous deal of
+intercession would be necessary for so unlimited a company as this.
+Perhaps, in the circumstances, he could not possibly endow his chantry
+too richly.
+
+I do not know how his priests fared for lodgings.  He seems to have
+omitted that important detail.  But his nephew Ralph supplied the
+omission, and, in 1351, three years after his uncle’s death, built a
+house for them adjoining the churchyard.  It was styled then and for
+centuries afterwards “the College.”  Thus the church of Stratford-on-Avon
+became more richly endowed than the usual parish church, and was known as
+“collegiate.”
+
+Many worthy folk followed the precedent set by the founder, and added to
+the beauties of the church; chief among them Thomas Balsall, Warden of
+the College in the second half of the fifteenth century, who built the
+present choir or chancel between the years 1465–1490.  The last
+beautifier and benefactor was Dean Balsall’s successor, Ralph
+Collingwood.  His is the north porch of the church, and he undertook and
+completed an important alteration in the nave; unroofing it, removing the
+low Decorated clerestory, probably of circular windows, and taking down
+the walls to the crown of the nave-arcades; then building upon them the
+light and lofty clerestory we see at this day.  He added choir-boys to
+the establishment, and further endowed the College, for their
+maintenance.  These were the last works in the long history of the
+church.  In 1547 the Reformation came and swept away John of Stratford’s
+chantry and confiscated the endowments.  The priests were scattered, and
+four years later their College was given by the king to John Dudley, the
+newly-created Earl of Warwick and lord of the manor in succession to the
+Bishops of Worcester.  The College reverted to the Crown, and in 1576 it
+was let by Queen Elizabeth to one Richard Coningsby, who in turn let it
+to John Combe.  It was a fine and picturesque residence, familiar enough
+to Shakespeare, who was on intimate terms with Combe, and received from
+him a bequest of £5 on his death in 1614.  It was demolished in 1799.
+
+The church is approached through the churchyard by a fine avenue of
+lime-trees leading up to the north porch, where a verger, or some such
+creature, habited in a hermaphrodite kind of garment, which is neither
+exactly clerical nor lay, waits for the visitor’s sixpences; for you may
+not enter for nothing, unless perhaps at times of divine service, and
+even then are allowed but grudgingly by these clerical entrepreneurs, who
+suspect you have come not so much for worship as with the idea of
+depriving them of a sixpence.  I think, however, you would find it
+difficult to glimpse the chancel and the Shakespeare monument before the
+intention would be suspected and the enterprising person successfully
+headed off.
+
+We will first encircle the exterior, where the many gravestones of
+departed Stratford worthies lean at every imaginable angle, the oldest of
+them, almost, or perhaps absolutely, contemporary with Shakespeare, grown
+or growing undecipherable.  Some day Stratford will be sorry for
+neglecting them and their possible interest in the comparative study of
+Shakespeare and his fellow-townsmen.  But everything connected, either
+intimately or remotely, with him has always been neglected until the
+record has almost perished.  It is the singular fate of Shakespearean
+associations.
+
+The exterior of the fabric, it will soon be noticed, is greatly
+weathered; more particularly the Perpendicular chancel, which must at no
+distant date be restored.  It is surprising, and an excellent tribute to
+the security of the foundations of this work, built on the banks of the
+river over four hundred years ago, that its walls have not fallen
+seriously out of plumb, like that of the north nave-arcade; especially
+when the rather daring slightness of the design is considered, consisting
+of vast mullioned and transomed windows with but little wall-space
+between.  The gargoyles leering down from the dripstones are a weird
+series of bat-winged creatures of nightmare-land.  On the south side,
+however, is a very good Bear and Ragged Staff gargoyle, and next it,
+going westward, a nondescript Falstaffian monster, his legs amputated by
+time and weather.
+
+The churchyard wall goes sheer down into the water of the Avon.  The elms
+look down upon the stream, the rooks hold noisy parliaments in their
+boughs, and the swans float stately by.
+
+Entering by the roomy north porch, where the person with the bisexual
+garments will take your sixpence and sell you picture-postcards, it is
+noticed that the good Late Perpendicular stone panelling is obscured, and
+the effect destroyed, by the extreme licence given in the placing of
+monumental tablets on the walls; a practice, judging from the dates upon
+them, still in existence.  It is quite clear from this that the building
+might well be in better hands.
+
+           [Picture: Ancient Knocker, Stratford-on-Avon Church]
+
+A very fine brazen knocker with grotesque head holding the ring in its
+mouth is a feature of the doorway.  Although affixed to late
+fifteenth-century wood-work, the knocker would seem really to be nearly
+two hundred years earlier.  It appears on picture-cards without number as
+the “Sanctuary Knocker,” and metal reproductions of it are to be had in
+the town; but there is nothing to show that this church was ever one of
+those that owned the privilege of sanctuary.  In the inexact modern way,
+every curious old knocker on church doors is “sanctuary”; but in reality
+the ancient privilege was too valuable to be granted with the
+indiscriminate freedom this would argue.
+
+Immediately within the church is seen the old register-book in a glass
+case, containing the entries recording the baptism and burial of
+Shakespeare, with the broken bow of the old font at which he was
+baptised.  Many years ago it was removed from the church, to make room
+for a new, and lay neglected in a garden in the town.  It has been
+re-lined with lead, and is used for baptisms, on request.
+
+From the west end of the nave, where these relics are placed, the long
+view eastward shows this to be a very striking example of those churches
+whose chancels are not on the same axis with the rest of the building.
+The chancel in this instance inclines very markedly to the north.  The
+symbolism of this feature in ancient churches is still matter for
+dispute; and it is really doubtful if it is symbolical and not the
+product of inexact planning, or caused by some old local conditions of
+the site which do not now appear; or whether it was thought to produce
+some acoustical advantages.  It is thought that no example can be adduced
+of an inclination southwards, and that, therefore, the feature is a
+designed one.  The favourite interpretation is that it repeats the
+inclination of the Saviour’s head upon the Cross.
+
+Advancing up the nave, it will soon be noticed that the north nave-arcade
+is greatly out of plumb, and leans outwards; a result, no doubt, of
+Collingwood’s alterations and additions placing too heavy a weight upon
+it.
+
+At the east end of the north aisle is the former Lady Chapel, now and for
+long past known as the Clopton Chapel, from the tombs of that family
+placed there.  No structural difference, no variation in the plan of the
+church, marks the chapel from the rest of the building, from which it is
+screened very slightly by a low pierced railing on one side, and on the
+south, looking into the nave, by the ornate stone screen erected by Sir
+Hugh Clopton, the founder of the family chapel and architect of his own
+fortunes.  It is a part of the tomb intended for himself, and there can
+be no doubt but that he saw it rising to completion with the satisfaction
+of a man assured of being not only wealthy, but hoping to live in fame as
+the benefactor of his native town, for which he did so much.
+
+The screen is crested with elaborate pierced conventional Tudor foliage,
+and fronted with his arms, and with those of the City of London, the
+Grocers’ Company, and the Merchants of the Staple.  The brass inscribed
+plates have long since been torn away, and the tomb is entirely without
+inscription or effigy; as perhaps it is well it should be, for, in spite
+of all these elaborate preparations, and although directing that he
+should lie here, Sir Hugh Clopton was, after all, buried in the City of
+London, where he had made his fortune, and of which he was Lord Mayor in
+1492, and in which he died in 1496.  The church of St. Margaret,
+Lothbury, where he was buried, perished in the Great Fire of London, one
+hundred and seventy years later.
+
+Sir Hugh Clopton died a bachelor, and the other tombs are those of his
+brother’s descendants.  That of William Clopton, who died in 1592 and is
+described simply as “Esquire,” stands against the north wall of the
+Chapel.  He was great-nephew of Sir Hugh.  He is represented in armour,
+and his wife, who followed him four years later, lies beside him in
+effigy, both figures with prayerfully raised hands.  Above them, on the
+wall, quite by themselves, are represented the interesting family of this
+worthy pair, seven in all, sculptured and painted in miniature, in the
+likeness of so many big-headed Dutch dolls, with the name of each duly
+inscribed; Elizabeth, Lodowicke, Joyce, Margaret, William, Anne, and
+again William, the first of that name having died an infant, as did also
+Elizabeth and Lodowicke.  These three are represented as little
+mummy-like creatures, swathed tightly in linen folds.
+
+But the most gorgeous of all the Clopton tombs is the next in order of
+date.  This is the lofty and extremely elaborate and costly monument of
+George Carew, Earl of Totnes and Baron Clopton, who married Joyce, eldest
+daughter of the already mentioned William Clopton.  He died in 1629, and
+his wife in 1636.  This costly memorial, together with that to her father
+and mother, was her handiwork, and she seems to have completely enjoyed
+herself in the progress of the commission.  The Countess of Totnes and
+her husband are represented in full-length, recumbent effigies,
+sculptured in alabaster.  The Earl is shown in armour and his wife is
+seen habited in a white fur robe, coloured red outside.  A deep ruff is
+round her neck, and she wears a coronet.  The Earl of Totnes was Master
+of the Ordnance to James the First; hence the symbolical sculptured
+implements of war in front of the monument; including two cannon, two
+kegs of powder and a pile of shot; one mortar, a gun, some halberds and a
+flag.
+
+A later inscription records that Sir John Clopton caused these tombs to
+be repaired and beautified in 1714.  In 1719 he died, aged 80; and in
+course of time his own tomb became a candidate for repair.  No Cloptons
+then survived to perform that pious office, which was observed by Sir
+Arthur Hodgson, the owner of Clopton House, in 1892.
+
+The monument of Sir Edward Walker, who died in 1676, is the memorial of a
+man who held some important positions.  He was Charles the First’s
+Secretary of War, and afterwards Garter King-of-Arms and military editor
+of Clarendon’s _History of the Rebellion_.  He has some interest for the
+students of Shakespeare’s life, for it was he who bought New Place in
+1675.
+
+There are some smaller tablets on the walls, including one with a little
+effigy of a certain Amy Smith, who was for forty years
+“waiting-gentlewoman” to the Countess of Totnes.  She is seen devoutly
+kneeling at a _prie-Dieu_ chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon (_continued_)—The
+Shakespeare grave and monument.
+
+WE now pass beneath the arches of the central tower, under the organ and
+past the transepts, into the chancel.  The chief interest is, quite
+frankly, the Shakespeare monument and the graves of his family; although
+even were it not for them, the building itself and the curious carvings
+of the miserere seats would attract many a visitor.
+
+It is with feelings of something at last accomplished, some necessary
+pilgrimage made, that the cultured traveller stands before the monument
+on the north wall and looks upon it and on the row of ledger-stones on
+the floor.  But the sentiments of Baconian mono-maniacs are not at all
+reverent and respectful.  They come also, but with hostile criticism.  I
+think they would like to tear down that monument, and I am quite sure
+they would desire nothing better than permission to open that grave and
+howk up whatever they found there.  For to them Shakespeare is “the
+illiterate clown of Stratford”; a very disreputable person; an impostor
+who could neither write nor act, and yet assumed the authorship of works
+by the greatest genius of the age, Francis Bacon.  Twenty-four years ago
+in his Great Cryptogram, Ignatius Donnelly exposed the fraud and unmasked
+Shakespeare.  Some one at that time referred in conversation with one of
+Mr. Donnelly’s ingenious countrymen to “Shakespeare’s Bust.”  “Yes, he
+is,” rejoined that free and enlightened citizen: “he is bust and you
+won’t mend him again.”
+
+He referred to the alleged cryptogram said to be by Bacon, and purporting
+to be discovered in the First Folio edition of the play, _Henry the
+Fourth_.  It is amusing reading, this deciphered cipher, and if we were
+to believe it and Bacon to be its author, we should have no need to
+revise the old estimate of Bacon, “The wisest, wittiest, meanest of
+mankind.”  We should, however, find it necessary to emphasise “meanest,”
+because he is made to reveal himself as one who wrote treasonable plays,
+and, being afraid to admit their authorship, bribed Shakespeare in a
+heavy sum to take the risk and retire out of danger to Stratford-on-Avon.
+It is not a convincing tale; but it is printed with much elaboration; and
+Bacon is made to show an astonishingly intimate knowledge of
+Shakespeare’s family and affairs.  He uses very ungentlemanly, not to say
+unphilosophical, language, and leaves Shakespeare without a shred of
+character.  He shows how suddenly this misbegotten rogue, this whoreson
+knave, this gorbellied rascal with the wagging paunch and the many
+loathsome diseases which have made him old before his time leaves London,
+where he is in the midst of his fame as a dramatist, and retires to live
+upon his ill-gotten wealth as a country gentleman in his native town of
+Stratford-on-Avon.  He was never an actor, and only succeeded in one
+part, that of Falstaff, for which he was peculiarly suited because of his
+great greasy stomach, at which, and not at the excellence of his acting,
+people came to laugh.  Thus says Bacon; always according to Mr. Ignatius
+Donnelly, in the bi-literal cipher he persuaded himself he found.  Here
+we see Bacon the philosopher, in very angry, unphilosophic mood, as
+abusive as any fish-fag or Sally Slapcabbage.
+
+                    [Picture: Shakespeare’s Monument]
+
+And then this cuckoo, this strutting jay, who sets up to be a gentleman
+with a brand-new coat of arms presently dies, untimely, at fifty-two
+years of age, just like your Shakespeares!  He must have had some good
+reason of his own for it; probably the better to do Bacon out of his due
+fame with posterity.  But Bacon was not to be outwitted.  He heard early
+in 1616 that Shakespeare was in failing health, and sent down on that
+three days’ journey from London to Stratford-on-Avon two of Shakespeare’s
+friends, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson, who were in the secret of the
+authorship.  They were instructed to see that if Shakespeare really
+insisted upon dying, the secret should not be divulged at the time.  And
+Shakespeare, like the ungrateful wretch he was, did die.  The diary of
+the Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, contains an entry in
+1662, referring reminiscently to Shakespeare’s last days—
+
+    “Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Jonson had a merrie meeting, and it
+    seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a feavour there
+    contracted.”
+
+Donnelly suggests that Drayton and Jonson in Bacon’s interest duly saw
+Shakespeare buried, and so deeply that it would be for ever unlikely he
+should be exhumed, and Bacon’s secret revealed.  He founds this upon a
+letter discovered in 1884 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, written in
+1694 by one William Hall, of Queen’s College, to a friend, Edward
+Thwaites; in which, in the course of describing a visit to
+Stratford-on-Avon, he states that Shakespeare was buried “full seventeen
+feet deep—deep enough to secure him!”  This recalls at once the reply of
+one of Mr. Donnelly’s irreverent countrymen before the tomb of Nelson in
+St. Paul’s Cathedral.  The verger had pointed out that the Admiral’s body
+was enclosed in a leaden coffin and a wooden outer covering, and then
+placed in a marble sarcophagus weighing 90 tons.  “I guess you’ve got
+him!” exclaimed the contemplative stranger; “if ever he gets out of that,
+cable me, at my expense!”  No doubt Ben Jonson and Drayton guessed they
+had got Shakespeare safe enough, but to make doubly sure (says Donnelly)
+they invented and had engraved the famous verse which appears on the
+gravestone, involving blessings upon the man who “spares these stones”
+and curses upon he who moves the poet’s bones.  The world has always
+thought Shakespeare himself was the author of these lines.  The reason
+for them is found in the horror felt by Shakespeare—and reflected in
+_Hamlet_—at the disturbance of the remains of the dead.  In his time it
+was the custom to rifle the older graves, in order to provide room for
+fresh burials, and then to throw the bones from them into the vaulted
+charnel-house beneath the chancel.  This revolting irreverence, which, as
+a long-established custom at that time, seemed a natural enough thing to
+the average person, was horrific to one of Shakespeare’s exceptional
+sensibilities; and he adopted not only this deep burial but also the
+curse upon the sacrilegious hand that should dare disturb his rest.
+There is not the least room for objection to this story; but the
+Baconians know better.  “_There must have been some reason_,” objects
+Donnelly, in italics.  There was; the reason already shown.  But in
+dealing with a fellow like Shakespeare you—if you are a Baconian—have to
+go behind the obvious and the palpable and seek the absurd and
+improbable.  It does not appear what Shakespeare’s widow, his daughters,
+his sons-in-law and his executors were doing while Drayton and Ben Jonson
+were thus having their own Baconian way with Shakespeare’s body.  They,
+according to this theory, simply looked on; which we might think an
+absurd thing to suppose, except that nothing is too absurd for a
+Baconian, as we shall now see.
+
+              [Picture: Inscription on Shakespeare’s Grave]
+
+Not only did Drayton and Jonson invent and get these verses engraved,
+they also—more amazing still—inserted Bacon’s bi-literal cipher into
+them.  Now it is to be remarked here that the deeply-engraven lines upon
+which so many thousands of pilgrims gaze reverently are not, in their
+present form, so old as they appear to be, but were recut, and the
+lettering greatly modified, about 1831.  Not one person in ten thousand
+of those who come to this spot is aware of the fact, and no illustration
+of the original lettering exists; but George Steevens, the Shakespearean
+scholar, wrote of it, about 1770, as an “uncouth mixture of small and
+capital letters.”  He transcribed it, and so also in their turn did
+Knight and Malone.  Some slight discrepancies exist between these
+transcriptions, in the exact dispositions of the letters, but the actual
+inscription appears to have been as under—
+
+    “Good Frend for Iesvs SAKE forbeare
+    To diGG T-E Dvst Enclo-Ased HE.Re.
+    Bleste be T-E Man Yt spares T-Es Stones
+    And cvrst be He Yt moves my bones.”
+
+The hyphens between the words “the” and “thes” represent the old-time
+habit of engraving some of the letters conjoined, as seen repeated in the
+existing inscription illustrated here, in which the word “bleste” forms a
+prominent example.  In that word the letters “ste” are in like manner
+conjoined, leading very many of the not fully-informed among the copyists
+of inscriptions to read it “blese.”
+
+Halliwell-Phillipps, the foremost Shakespearean authority of his age
+(whom his arch-enemy, the emphatic F. J. Furnivall delighted, by the way,
+to style “Hell-P”) thus refers to the re-cut inscription in his _Outlines
+of the Life of Shakespeare_, 1881—
+
+    “The honours of repose, which have thus far been conceded to the
+    poet’s remains, have not been extended to the tombstone.  The latter
+    had by the middle of the last century (_i.e._ about 1750) sunk below
+    the level of the floor, and about fifty years ago (_c._ 1831) had
+    become so much decayed as to suggest a vandalic order for its
+    removal, and in its stead _to place a new slab_, one which marks
+    certainly the locality of Shakespeare’s grave, and continues the
+    record of the farewell lines, but indicates nothing more.  The
+    original memorial has wandered from its allotted station no man can
+    tell whither—a sacrifice to the insane worship of prosaic neatness,
+    that mischievous demon whose votaries have practically destroyed so
+    many of the priceless relics of ancient England and her gifted sons.”
+
+The cipher which Donnelly, the resourceful sleuthhound, pretends he has
+found in the older inscription, is destroyed by the re-arrangement in the
+new.  It was not, he says, the sheer illiteracy of the local mason who
+cut the original letters that accounts for the eccentric appearance of
+capitals where they have no business to be; for the hyphen which so oddly
+divides the word “Enclo-Ased”; for the full-stops in “HE.Re.” or for the
+curious choice that writes “Iesvs” in small letters and “SAKE” in large
+capitals.  No; it was the necessities of the cipher which accounted for
+this weird “derangement of epitaphs”; and Donnelly proceeds to emulate
+the conjurer who produces unexpected things from empty hats, and he
+finally arrives at this startling revelation—
+
+    “Francis Bacon wrote the Greene, Marlowe, and Shakespeare plays.”
+
+As Mark Twain—another Baconian—says, “Bacon was a born worker.”  Yes,
+indeed; but he understates it, if we were to believe this revelation.  To
+have done all this he would need to have been a syndicate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon (_concluded_)—The
+Shakespeare grave and monument—The Miserere Seats.
+
+THE Baconians are so extravagant that it becomes scarce worth while to
+refute their wild statements; but when they are carried to these
+extremities we may well note them, for the enjoyment of a laugh.  But
+perhaps Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence gives us the better entertainment when
+he tells us that Bacon wrote the preface to the Authorised Version of the
+Bible, and was in fact the literary editor of that translation and
+responsible for its style!
+
+ [Picture: The Chancel, Holy Trinity Church, with Shakespeare’s Monument]
+
+With an ineffable serenity the portrait-figure of Shakespeare (generally
+called a “bust,” but it is a half-length) in the monument looks down from
+the north wall of the spacious chancel upon the graves of himself and his
+family.  The monument itself is thoroughly characteristic of the
+Renascence taste of the period: in the church of St. Andrew Undershaft,
+in the city of London, you may see a not dissimilar example to John Stow,
+the historian, who died eleven years before Shakespeare.  He also, like
+Shakespeare’s effigy, holds a quill pen in his hand.  The accompanying
+illustration renders description scarce necessary, and it is only to the
+portrait that we need especially direct attention.  In common with
+everything relating to Shakespeare, it has been the subject of great
+controversy: not altogether warranted, for it is certain that it was
+executed before 1623, seven years after the poet’s death, when his widow,
+daughters and sons-in-law were yet living, and it seems beyond all
+reasonable argument to deny that a monument erected under their
+supervision should, and does, in fact, present as good a likeness of him
+as they could procure.  The effigy was sculptured by one Gerard Johnson
+(or Janssen), son of a Dutch craftsman in this mortuary art, whose
+workshop being in Southwark near the “Globe” theatre, must have rendered
+Shakespeare’s personal appearance familiar to him, while the features are
+considered to be copied from a death-mask which was probably taken by Dr.
+John Hall, husband of Shakespeare’s elder daughter, Susanna.
+
+The inscription runs—
+
+    “Ivdicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
+       Terra tegit, popvlvs mæret, Olympus habet.”
+
+which is translated thus—
+
+    “He was in judgment a Nestor, in genius a Socrates, and in art a
+    Virgil; the earth covers, the people mourn, and heaven holds him.”
+
+There then follow the English lines—
+
+    “Stay, Passenger, why goest thov by so fast?
+    Read if thov canst, when enviovs Death hath plast
+    Within this monvment, Shakespeare, with whome
+    Qvick Natvre dide; whose name doth deck ye Tombe
+    Far more then coste, sith all yt He hath writt
+    Leaves living art but page to serve his witt,
+
+                                                      “Obiit ano doi 1616,
+                                                    Ætatis 53, Die 23 Ap.”
+
+The author of Shakespeare’s epitaph is unknown.  It would seem to have
+been some one who had not seen the monument, and knew nothing of its
+character; for he imagines his lines are to be inscribed upon a tomb
+within which the poet’s body is placed.  But however little he knew of
+Shakespeare’s monument, he knew the worth of his plays and poems:
+“Shakespeare, with whom quick nature died.”  It is the very summary, the
+quintessence, of Shakespearean appreciation.
+
+Like everything else associated with Shakespeare, the monument has had
+its vicissitudes.  The effigy, originally painted to resemble life,
+showed the poet to have had auburn hair and light hazel eyes.  In 1748 a
+well-meaning Mr. John Ward repaired the monument and retouched the effigy
+with colour, and in 1793 Malone persuaded the vicar to have it painted
+white; an outrage satirised by the lines written in the church
+visitors’-book in 1810—
+
+    “Stranger, to whom this Monument is shewn,
+    Invoke the Poet’s curse upon Malone
+    Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste betrays,
+    And smears his tombstone as he marr’d his plays.”
+
+It was not until 1861 that the white paint was scraped off and the
+original colour restored, by the light of what traces remained.
+
+Opinions have greatly varied as to the merits of the portrait, and many
+observers have been disappointed with it.  Dr. Ingleby, for one, was
+distressed by its “painful stare, with goggle eyes and gaping mouth.”
+But the measure of this disappointment is exactly in proportion to the
+perhaps exaggerated expectations held.  We must bear in mind that the
+sculptor worked from a death-mask, and that the expression was thus a
+conventional restoration.
+
+Mark Twain, who, like the egregious Ignatius Donnelly, did not believe
+that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, founded a good deal of his disbelief
+on the unvexed serenity of this monumental bust.  It troubled him greatly
+that it should be there, so serene and emotionless.  “The bust, too,
+there in the Stratford church.  The precious bust, the priceless bust,
+the calm bust with the dandy moustache and the putty face, unseamed of
+care—that face which has looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim
+for a hundred and fifty years, and will still down look upon the awed
+pilgrim three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle,
+subtle expression of a bladder.”  What, then, did he expect?  A tragic
+mask, a laughing face of comedy?  But Mark Twain hardly counts as a
+Shakespeare critic.
+
+It is forgotten by most people that the painting and scraping have
+wrought some changes, not for the better, in the expression of the face,
+tending towards making it what Halliwell-Phillipps too extravagantly
+calls a “miserable travesty of an intellectual human being.”  However
+lifeless the expression, we see the features are those of a man of
+affairs.  They are good and in no way abnormal.  The brow is broad and
+lofty; the jaw and chin, while not massive, perhaps more than a thought
+heavier than usual.  This was a man, one thinks, who would have succeeded
+in whatever walk of life he chose, and that is exactly the impression
+derived from the known facts and the traditions of Shakespeare’s life.
+
+There have been numerous arguments in recent times in favour of digging
+that dust which the poet’s curse has thus far kept inviolate, but the
+courage has been lacking to it; whether in view of the curse or in fear
+of public opinion seems to be uncertain.
+
+The late J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps wrote, about 1885: “It is not many
+years since a phalanx of trouble-tombs, lanterns and spades in hand,
+assembled in the chancel at dead of night, intent on disobeying the
+solemn injunction that the bones of Shakespeare were not to be disturbed.
+But the supplicatory lines prevailed.  There were some amongst the number
+who, at the last moment, refused to incur the warning condemnation and so
+the design was happily abandoned.”
+
+Nor would it appear that the graves of his family have been disturbed.
+They lie in a row, with his own, before the altar, a position they occupy
+by right of Shakespeare having purchased the rectorial tithes, and thus
+becoming that curious anomaly, a “lay rector.”  It matters little or
+nothing where one’s bones are laid, but the doing this, and thus
+acquiring the right of sepulture in the most honoured place in the
+church, seems to imply that Shakespeare expected to found a family, and
+to see that his name was honoured to future generations in his native
+town.
+
+We are not to suppose that the clergy of that time welcomed Shakespeare’s
+burial in this honoured place, but they could not help themselves.  He
+had acquired the right, and although he had lived well into a time when
+puritanism had banished plays and players from Stratford, and although as
+a playwright he must have been regarded by many as a lost soul—unless,
+indeed, he became a converted man in his last year or so—his rights had
+to be observed.
+
+Immediately next the wall is the flat stone that marks the grave of Anne
+Shakespeare, who survived her husband, and died August 6th, 1623, aged
+sixty-seven.  An eight-line Latin verse, probably by her son-in-law, Dr.
+John Hall, and couched in the most affectionate terms, is inscribed upon
+a small brass plate; it is thus rendered—
+
+    “Milk, life thou gavest.  For a boon so great,
+    Mother, alas! I give thee but a stone;
+    O! might some angel blest remove its weight,
+    Thy form should issue like thy Saviour’s own.
+    But vain my prayers; O Christ, come quickly, come!
+    And thou, my Mother, shalt from hence arise,
+    Though closed as yet within this narrow tomb,
+    To meet thy Saviour in the starry skies.”
+
+Next in order comes the slab covering the grave of Shakespeare himself,
+and following it that of Thomas Nash, husband of Elizabeth Hall,
+grand-daughter of the poet.  He died in 1647, aged fifty-three, and is
+honoured in a four-line Latin verse.  Fourthly comes the grave of Dr.
+Hall, who died in 1635, aged sixty, with a six-line Latin verse, and next
+is that of Susanna, Shakespeare’s elder daughter, wife of Dr. Hall.  She
+died in 1649, aged sixty-six, and has this poetic appreciation for
+epitaph—
+
+    “Witty above her sexe, but that’s not all,
+    Wise to Salvation was good Mistris Hall,
+    Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this
+    Wholy of him with whom she’s now in blisse,
+    Then, Passenger, ha’st ne’re a teare
+       To weepe with her that wept with all?
+    That wept, yet set herselfe to chere
+       Them up with comforts cordiall.
+    Her Love shall live, her mercy spread,
+    When thou hast ne’re a teare to shed.”
+
+This touching tribute was nearly lost in the gross outrage perpetrated in
+or about 1707, when it was erased for the purpose of providing room for
+an inscription to one Richard Watts.  Happily Dugdale, in his monumental
+history of Warwickshire, had recorded it, and it was re-cut from that
+evidence in 1836.
+
+It is gratifying to note that no monuments to self-advertising members of
+the theatrical profession, or others keen to obtain a reflected glory
+from association with Shakespeare, have been allowed here, although we
+have to thank an aroused public opinion, and not the clergy, the natural
+guardians of the spot, for that.  It was proposed, a few years ago, to
+place a memorial to that entirely blameless actress, well versed in
+Shakespearean parts, Helen Faucit, Lady Martin, on the wall opposite
+Shakespeare’s monument, and it was nearly accomplished.  The clergy
+blessed the project, the public were allowed to hear little or nothing
+about it, and the thing would have been done, except for protests raised
+at the eleventh hour.  The monument eventually found its way to the
+Shakespeare Memorial, where it may now be found, but those responsible
+for the proposal were not wholly to be baulked, and the evidence of their
+persistence is to be seen in the nave, where a very elaborate dark-green
+marble pulpit, in memory of Helen Faucit, and given by her husband, Sir
+Theodore Martin, attracts attention.
+
+There has been a good deal of praise and admiration of the modern stained
+glass in the noble windows of the chancel and the windows of the church
+in general, including those given by American admirers of Shakespeare,
+but the truth is that there is no stained glass in Stratford church above
+the commercial level of the ordinary ecclesiastical furnisher, and the
+sooner the fact is recognised, the better for all concerned.  The
+guidebooks will tell you nothing of this, but we have to see things for
+ourselves, and use our own judgment.
+
+The tomb of the rebuilder of the chancel, Thomas Balsall, is little
+noticed.  It is seen under the east window, on the north side, and is a
+greatly mutilated, but still beautiful, altar-tomb.  Above it, on the
+wall, is the monument with fine portrait-busts of Richard Combe and his
+intended wife, Judith, who died 1649.  The altar-tomb, with effigy, of
+John Combe, 1614, of the College, and of Welcombe, a friend of
+Shakespeare, is against the east wall.  Combe was a man of wealth, who
+did not disdain the part of money-lender.  He had the reputation of an
+usurer, although ten per cent. was his moderate rate, and, according to
+the tradition, hearing it said that Shakespeare had an epitaph waiting
+for him, begged to hear it.  This, then, was what he heard—
+
+    “Ten in a hundred lies here engraved,
+    ’Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved.
+    If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb?
+    Ho! ho! says the Devil, ’tis my John-a-Combe.”
+
+It is an idle story, and the verse is adapted from an epigram in the
+jest-books of the age.
+
+A prominent feature of a collegiate church was the stalls, with their
+miserere seats, for the priests, and we have here stalls for twenty-six,
+still retaining their beautifully carved seats, little injured by time or
+violence.  We do, in fact, frequently find the miserere carvings
+uninjured in cathedrals, abbeys and collegiate churches; largely because
+they are always on the underside of the seats and thus apt to be
+overlooked.  Those at Stratford are well up to the general level of
+interest and amusement.
+
+Amusement?  Yes.  The very broadest fun, sometimes particularly coarse,
+lurks in these often unsuspected places; and the greatest artistry of the
+wood-carver too, who will turn at random from the loving rendering of
+flower or foliage, to sacred symbols; then to the representation of birds
+and beasts and extraordinary chimeras that never existed outside the
+frontiers of Nightmare Land; and to queer domestic or social scenes.
+Here we find prime examples of such things.  Under one seat a Crown of
+Thorns and the I.H.S. occur, on either side of a scene showing a man and
+wife fighting.  He has a long beard which she is pulling with one hand,
+while with the other she bastes him with a ladle.  She employs her feet,
+too, in kicking him.
+
+Under the next seat we see this domestic strife resumed, but it is shown
+in two scenes, over which a central woman-headed beast presides.  Here
+the termagant pulls her husband’s beard and tears his mouth open, while
+he retaliates by pulling her hair.  The other scene represents the taming
+of the shrew.  A naked woman is being thrashed by a man, and a dog
+completes the retribution by biting her leg.
+
+Among the other carvings we note the favourite Bear and Ragged Staff of
+this district; a beggar’s monkey, with chained tin pot, or
+drinking-vessel, and a variety of minor subjects.  Among the most
+interesting is that example illustrated here.
+
+        [Picture: A Stratford Miserere: The Legend of the Unicorn]
+
+The subject is that of the once-popular legend of the unicorn, which was,
+according to mediæval story, an animal of the fiercest and most untamable
+kind, and only to be captured in one way.  This way was to find a virgin,
+at once of great beauty and unquestioned virtue, and to conduct her to
+the unicorn’s haunts in the greenwood.  Immediately the animal, tame only
+in the presence of a pure virgin, would come and lay its head gently and
+fearlessly in her lap; whereupon the hunter would steal forth and slay
+the confiding beast.
+
+It is to be remarked here that the person who could invent such a story,
+whatever else he was, and however fearless his imagination, was, clearly
+enough, no sportsman.  It is quite easy to imagine such an one shooting a
+sitting pheasant, or poisoning a fox.
+
+Here, in the illustration, we perceive the maiden, not so beautiful as
+the carver intended her to be, caressing the confiding unicorn and
+apparently scratching him behind the ear, while an unsportsmanlike person
+digs him in the rump at leisure, with a spear-headed weapon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+                  Shottery and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage.
+
+THE hamlet of Shottery, now growing a considerable village, is but one
+mile from the centre of Stratford.  You come to it most easily by way of
+Rother Street, and at the end of that thoroughfare will observe a
+signpost marked “Footpath to Shottery.”  The spot is not inspiring, and
+one could well wish Shottery, the home of Anne Hathaway and the scene of
+Shakespeare’s wooing, had not been so near the town.  Stratford is a
+pleasant place, and as little bedevilled with modern unhistorical suburbs
+as any town of its size; but there is a red rash of new and quite
+typically suburban villas on these outskirts.  I feel quite sure the
+sanitation is perfect and that there are baths and hot and cold water
+laid on to every one of these “desirable residences”; and no one would
+breathe upon the obvious respectability of the people who live in them.
+Respectable?  Most certainly; why, by the evidence of one’s ears in
+passing, every house appears to have a piano; and the possession of one
+would seem in these times to be by far a better-accepted criterion of
+respectability than the ownership of a gig; which Carlyle in his day
+noted as the ideal.  Now, it is quite certain that none of the houses
+Shakespeare ever dwelt in had any sanitation at all; if he ever took a
+bath, he was as exceptional in that matter as in most other things, and
+quite unlike his generation.  New Place had neither hot nor cold water
+laid on, and never had a piano.  Judged by modern standards Shakespeare
+could scarcely have been respectable: his era did not even know the word
+in its present meaning, which is a terrible thought; let us pause to
+contemplate the deficiencies of our ancestors.
+
+Well, we will not, at any rate, stay to look longer at these
+developments, but, like that rogue, Autolycus, “jog on the footpath way,”
+a little disillusioned perhaps, because it presently leads to a level
+railway-crossing which was not here when Shakespeare went across the
+fields in the summer evenings to see Anne Hathaway.  Thence coming upon
+allotment gardens, where we more or less “merrily hent the stile-a,” we
+arrive at Shottery by way of some tapestry works and a book-bindery.
+
+Shottery, it is at once seen, has been spoiled, utterly and irredeemably,
+unless the recent doings are levelled with the ground and wholly
+abolished—which we need not expect to be done.  Deplorable activity has
+lately been manifested here, in the building of rows of small, cheap
+cottages.  The bloom has been rudely rubbed off the peach, and the
+idyllic place which the hero-worshipper fondly expected has ceased to be.
+Yet parts of it are good.  You may turn your back upon these things and
+see a very charming double row of old cottages, the Post Office among
+them, as ancient and rustic and half-timbered as the rest, with a very
+noble group of trees for background, and by way of foreground a red brick
+and timber barn belonging to Shottery manor-house, whose old stone
+dovecote stands yet in the garden.  I have sketched these old cottages,
+in an attempt to show you how charming the scene really is.
+
+                           [Picture: Shottery]
+
+It has been suggested that the roomy loft beneath the roof of the
+manor-house was used as a secret Roman Catholic place of worship when
+that religion was proscribed, and that the mystery of Shakespeare’s
+marriage is to be explained by the ceremony having taken place here.
+But, ingenious although the suggestion may be, it has no shred of
+evidence to support it, nor would it appear from anything we know of
+Shakespeare’s religious beliefs, that he was a Roman Catholic at all,
+much less a fanatical one, as such a proceeding would argue.
+
+Anne Hathaway’s cottage should certainly stand in this, the better part
+of the village, but it is situated at the extreme further end; and the
+hapless artist who seeks to sketch the scene already described will find
+himself acting as a kind of honorary signpost to it.  The tragedy of his
+fate is that the best point of view happens to be from the middle of the
+road, and that the interruptions from motor-cars, largely carrying
+Americans, who invariably ask, “Saay, is this the waay to Anne
+Hathawaay’s cottuj?” are incessant.
+
+The famous cottage, which is really more than a cottage and part of a
+farmhouse, comes into view as you round a corner and cross a small brick
+bridge over Shottery Brook.  The bridge is so overhung and shut in by
+trees that you scarcely notice it to be a bridge at all; but if these be
+early summer days and the season not exceptionally dry, the brook can be
+heard hoarsely plunging beneath, over a quite respectably large weir.
+When Mistress Anne Hathaway lived at the farmhouse now called her
+cottage—which is an entirely wrong use of the possessive case, for it
+never belonged to her—Shottery Brook was to be crossed only by a
+watersplash for vehicles, and a plank footbridge for pedestrians; but
+progress and the prosperity of the county funds have changed all that.  I
+wish they had not: it would be all the better if one came to the place
+just in the way Shakespeare used.
+
+The rustic cottage, still heavily thatched, comes before one’s gaze with
+that complete familiarity which is the result of numberless
+illustrations.  It stands at right-angles to the road, with a large
+garden in front of it.  I would be enthusiastic about that garden if I
+honestly might, but truth forbids me to compete with the exaggerated
+praise of it commonly lavished by writers upon this scene.  It is just a
+pleasant rustic garden, partly used for growing beans, cabbages, potatoes
+and the usual cottager’s produce; with the customary borders and beds of
+old-fashioned flowers.  A stone-paved path leads up to the door.
+Hundreds of such gardens beautify the old cottages of the Warwickshire
+villages and hamlets; and many of them, I declare it, are very much
+better.  The house itself is built in the customary local manner, on a
+rough blue lias foundation, with thick walls partly of the same material,
+here and there varied by red brick, and framed with ancient timbering.
+Latticed windows light the various rooms.  It is a building of rather
+late in the fifteenth century, and appears to have been first tenanted by
+the Hathaways in 1556, when one John of that name, described as an
+archer, was living here.  “Hewlands” was then the name of the farm.  The
+Hathaway family did not actually possess it until 1610, when Bartholomew,
+Anne’s eldest brother, purchased the property.
+
+Anne Hathaway was the eldest of the three daughters of Richard, who died
+in June 1582.  His four sons, Bartholomew, Thomas, John, and William,
+were provided for, and the daughters were left £6 13_s._ 4_d._ each.
+Anne, or “Agnes,” as she is described in the will, the names being in
+those times interchangeable, was to receive hers on the day of her
+marriage; her sister Catherine on the like occasion; and Margaret was to
+receive her share at the age of seventeen.  Anne was married in a hurry
+to William Shakespeare at the close of November in the same year.  The
+Shakespearean connection with the cottage at Shottery is thus not
+altogether so intimate or so continuous as would at first be supposed.
+
+                    [Picture: Anne Hathaway’s Cottage]
+
+The Hathaways would appear to have executed numerous repairs to the
+farmhouse which Bartholomew had acquired, and to this day we may see a
+stone tablet let into one of the chimneys, bearing the initials “I H”
+(for John Hathaway) and the date 1697; while the same initials and date,
+together with those of “E H” which doubtless stand for Elizabeth
+Hathaway, his wife, occur on the bacon-cupboard in the ingle-nook of the
+living-room.  The last of the Hathaways was another John, who died in
+1746, but the house remained in the hands of descendants until 1838.  At
+last it came into possession of one Alderman Thompson, of
+Stratford-on-Avon, who in 1892 sold it to the Trustees of Shakespeare’s
+Birthplace, for £3000.  The furniture was bought for a further £500.  The
+Alderman is said to have made a very good thing out of it, but he would
+probably have done still better if he had waited a few years longer.  The
+average number of visitors, who pay sixpence each to view the cottage, is
+40,000 a year.  The simplest calculation shows that to mean an income of
+£1000, and the upkeep cannot be very expensive.  But the heavy thatch
+will soon again have to be renewed.  The plentiful lack of understanding
+among many of the visitors is such that they frequently appear to think
+the thatch as old as Shakespeare’s day.  It must, of course, have been
+many times re-covered, and at the present time it is again in a
+dilapidated condition, sodden through with the weather of many years, and
+precariously held together by wire netting stretched over it.  A very
+garden of weeds grows there: shepherds’ purse, groundsel, candy-tuft and
+dandelion; and poppies wave their red banners on the roof-ridge.
+
+There are twelve rooms in the house, and of these seven are shown.  The
+showing is a very business-like proceeding nowadays.  At the garden gate
+you read the strict rules of the Trust, and then, having paid your
+sixpence, receive a printed and numbered ticket.  A party of four hundred
+and fifty persons from Sheffield was expected on the last occasion the
+present writer visited the place, and exactly how much mental sustenance
+or what clear impression that half-battalion of excursionists could have
+received, it would be difficult to say.  “We have to put ’em through
+quick,” said one in charge.  Obviously it must needs be so, else how
+would all see the house before day was done?
+
+Entering by a low-browed doorway, a stone-paved passage opens into rooms
+right and left.  On the left, down two steps, is the living-room, also,
+like all these ground-floor rooms, stone-floored.  Overhead are old oaken
+beams and joists, and the rough walls are partly panelled.  There are
+pictures without number of this old-world interior, the most
+characteristic of them that showing Mrs. Baker, who for many years
+received visitors, sitting by the fireside, in company with her old
+family Bible, in which the births, marriages and deaths of many Hathaways
+are recorded.  She proved her descent from them by way of a niece of Anne
+Hathaway; whom, it is rather curious to reflect, no one ever thinks of
+styling by her married name, “Mrs. Shakespeare.”  I cannot help thinking
+she would have resented it, if addressed by her maiden name.
+
+But Mrs. Baker, who lived in the cottage for seventy years and appeared
+to be almost as permanent a feature of it as the very walls and
+roof-tree, died in September 1899, at the age of eighty-seven.  Still,
+however, the photographic view of the old lady sitting there is easily
+first favourite among all the interior views of the cottage; and many are
+those visitors who, coming here and not seeing the familiar figure, miss
+it as keenly as they would any intimate article of furniture.
+
+           [Picture: The Living-Room, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage]
+
+An old and time-worn wooden settle stands beside the ingle-nook.  One may
+still sit in the corner seats, but a modern grate occupies the hearth on
+which the logs were burnt in the Hathaways’ time.  Little square recesses
+in the wall show where the tinder-box was kept, and where those who sat
+here in olden times set down their jug and glass.  The brightly-burnished
+copper warming-pan that hangs here, together with the bellows, is not, I
+think, credited with a Hathaway lineage.  These once necessary, but now
+obsolete, household articles are simply placed here for the purpose of
+giving a more convincing air to this old home; but one suspects that some
+day, when the critical attitude relaxes, they will acquire a kind of
+brevet rank, and perhaps eventually even fully qualify as genuine
+heirlooms.
+
+The spacious bacon-cupboard, where the flour was also stored, in the
+thickness of the wall on the left-hand side of the ingle-nook, is a very
+fine specimen.  The neighbourhood of Stratford is particularly rich in
+these old bacon-cupboards, which indeed seem to be almost a peculiar
+feature of the district.  There is one at Shakespeare’s Birthplace, in
+the town, and another at the “Windmill” inn, in Church Street, and
+numerous other examples exist in private houses; but this is the best
+specimen I have yet seen, and the better kept; the open lattice-work
+oaken door, bearing the initials “I. H., E. H, I. B., 1697,” being well
+polished.  A further storage place for bacon is the cratch (otherwise the
+“rack”) in the roof-joists.  You see it in the accompanying illustration.
+
+The long, broad mantel-shelf bears the usual collection of candlesticks
+and “chimney ornaments.”  Under a window is an old table, with the
+visitors’-book, and on the opposite side of the room stands an equally
+old dresser, with a display of blue and white plates and dishes: a
+grandfather’s clock between it and the door.  Gaping visitors are usually
+shown, by partial demonstration, with flint-and-steel, how our
+long-suffering and patient ancestors struck a light, but the process is
+not demonstrated in its entirety.  To strike a spark off a flint with a
+piece of steel is an easy matter, but if the whole process of directing
+the sparks upon the tinder in the tinder-box and then blowing the tinder
+into a flame were gone through, visitors would be very much more
+astonished at the inconveniences endured by our forbears before the
+invention of matches.  To get a light in this way was the most chancy
+thing in the world.  The tinder might possibly catch with the first
+spark, or again it might take a quarter of an hour.  I think Job must
+have taken his first lessons in patience with flint-and-steel and tinder
+on a cold winter’s morning.  We see, from these fire-raising
+difficulties, a reason why our ancestors very rarely allowed the fires on
+their hearthstones to go out.  Fuel was cheap in the country, and
+commonly to be had for the mere gathering of it, while if you let your
+fire burn out, it could only be lighted again at considerable pains.
+These seem altogether tales of an olden time, and they do actually strike
+the visitors to Shottery as very remote indeed; but there are yet many
+persons living to whom flint-and-steel and the tinder-box were as
+matter-of-course and necessary articles as the match-box is now.
+
+The room to the right of the entrance-passage is the kitchen.  Here again
+is an ingle-nook, and heavy beams support the floor above.  A very tall
+man could not walk upright in this room, for these timbers are only about
+5 ft. 11 inches from the floor.  The ancient hearth remains here, and the
+oven runs deep into the masonry: a considerable space—almost large enough
+to be called a room—running round to the back of it.  The little window
+seen rather high up in the wall of the house as you enter by the
+garden-gate lights this space.
+
+Returning across the passage and through the living-room, the dairy, a
+little stone-flagged room is seen at the back.  The door here, like most
+of the others, has the old English wooden latch known as the “Drunkard’s
+latch” because its cumbrous woodwork affords so good a hold for fumbling
+fingers.
+
+                    [Picture: Anne Hathaway’s Bedroom]
+
+Upstairs, on the left, is “Anne Hathaway’s bedroom,” where the chief
+object is a beautiful, but decrepit as to its lower legs, four-post
+sixteenth-century bedstead.  The legs have assumed a permanently
+knock-kneed position, which humorous visitors affect to believe was
+caused by the bed having been used, something after the fashion of the
+Great Bed of Ware, not only for one person, but in common.  It is indeed
+a very large bedstead.  Apart from its size, it is certainly the finest
+article of furniture in the house, the headboard being beautifully carved
+with grotesque figures in the Renascence style then in vogue.  The sheets
+are of old hand-spun flax, and a glass-covered case displayed on the bed
+contains a pillow-case of fine linen and beautiful needlework,
+traditionally the work of Anne.  The mattresses of this bedstead and of
+the plainer one in the next bedroom are of plaited rushes.  Here rough
+bed-curtains, dyed a dull yellow by a vegetable dye, are obviously of
+great age.  A small slip room of no interest is shown, opening out of
+this second bedroom, and with that the exploration of the house is
+concluded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+                               Charlecote.
+
+TO Charlecote, four miles east of Stratford, is an expedition rarely ever
+omitted by the Shakespearean tourist, for it is associated with one of
+the most romantic traditions of the poet’s life; that of the famous
+poaching incident, which may well have been the disposing cause of his
+leaving his native town and seeking fortune in London.  The balance of
+opinion is strongly in favour of accepting the story, which comes down to
+us by way of Archdeacon Davis, Vicar of the Gloucestershire village of
+Sapperton, who died in 1708.  He says the youth “was much given to all
+unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from Sir Thomas
+Lucy, who had him oft whipped and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made
+him fly his native county, to his great advancement.”
+
+This does not at first sight present a flattering picture of William
+Shakespeare, but we have to consider that the deer- and game-raiders of
+that era were not on the blackguardly level of the modern poacher.  They
+were commonly sportive and high-spirited youths, who went about the
+business of it in company.  At the same time, he ought at this juncture
+to have given up this hazardous sport.  The probable date of his leaving
+for London, fleeing before the anger of Sir Thomas Lucy, is either the
+summer of 1585 or 1587.  He was in the former year twenty-one years of
+age, had already been two years and a half a married man, and was the
+father of three children.  In imagination we can hear John Shakespeare’s
+friends prophesying that his son Will would “come to no good.”  The same
+ungenerous thing has no doubt been prophesied of every high-couraged lad
+from time immemorial.
+
+In revenge for Sir Thomas Lucy’s reprisals Shakespeare is said to have
+written some satirical verses and fastened them on the park gates of
+Charlecote.  Some of the lines have, in tradition, survived—
+
+    “A Parliament member, a Justice of Peace,
+    At home a poor scarecrow, in London an Ass,
+    If lousy is Lucy, as some folk miscall it,
+    Then Lucy is lousy, whatever befall it.
+       He thinks himself great,
+       Yet an ass in his state
+       We allow by his ears with but asses to mate.”
+
+This has been styled a “worthless effusion,” and attempts have been made
+to pooh-pooh it; but whatever its worth or otherwise, it distinctly shows
+that _sæva indignatio_—that unmeasured fury which is one of the stigmata
+of the literary temperament.  Its extravagance is no point against it,
+and to show that Sir Thomas Lucy was neither a scarecrow nor an ass is
+altogether beside the mark.
+
+Shakespeare, rubbing his hurts, put all the hatred he could into his
+rhythmic abuse, and did not stop to consider how closely it tallied with
+actualities.  Now let us reconstruct the actual man.  The real Sir Thomas
+was a personage of wealth inherited unimpaired, and of undoubted culture
+and esteem: in the words of his contemporaries a “right worshipful
+knight.”  He reigned long in the home of his ancestors at Charlecote, to
+which he succeeded in 1552, upon the death of his father.  He was then
+only twenty years of age, and he lived until 1602.  He had for tutor none
+other than John Foxe, the martyrologist, to whom his father, Sir Thomas,
+had given shelter.  “Foxe, forsaken by his friends, and accused of heresy
+for professing the reformed religion, was left naked of all human
+assistance; when God’s providence began to show itself, procuring for him
+a safe refuge in the house of the Worshipful Knight, Sir Thomas Lucy, of
+Charlecote in Warwickshire, who received him into his family as tutor,
+and he remained there till his pupils no longer needed instruction.”
+Foxe was married here, at Charlecote, in 1547.
+
+In common with the rich landowners of his time, Sir Thomas Lucy was a
+patron of architecture and the arts, and in no way the inferior of his
+contemporaries, as the beautiful hall of Charlecote, built by him,
+sufficiently proves.  Six years after coming into his inheritance he
+demolished the old mansion and erected that we now see.  The house of
+Lucy had never before lived in such state as that he enjoyed.  In 1565 he
+received the honour of knighthood, and first sat in Parliament in 1571:
+in all these and succeeding years filling the usual local magisterial
+offices of a personage of his station.  He is said to have entertained
+Queen Elizabeth on her progress to Kenilworth, in 1572, and the entrance
+porch to the front of the house is said to have been added for the
+occasion; a tradition that may well be true, for it is a more elaborate
+structure than the surrounding composition.  It is two storeys in height,
+and in stone: the frontage in general being chiefly of brick.  It is also
+obviously an addition, and is not exactly central.  The building of it
+converted the ground plan into the semblance of a capital E, which was
+the courtly way among architects and their patrons of paying a compliment
+to Queen Elizabeth.  Is it not thus sufficiently clear that in the
+building of his new mansion Sir Thomas had overlooked this customary
+compliment and that he hurriedly added it, over against the Queen’s
+coming?  The prominence of the sculptured royal arms over the doorway,
+with the initials “E.R.,” lend support to this view.
+
+This very magnificent person might well “think himself great,” for he was
+the most considerable landowner in the district, and everywhere deferred
+to.  Besides providing himself with a stately new residence he paid great
+attention to preserving game on his various estates, and is found in
+March 1585, about the time of Shakespeare’s alleged poaching exploit, in
+charge of a Bill in Parliament for its better preservation in the parks
+of England, which he would appear to have considered not sufficiently
+protected by the law of some twenty-three years earlier, prescribing
+three months’ imprisonment for deer-stealing and a fine of three times
+the damage done.
+
+Here, then, you have a portraiture of that personage whom Shakespeare so
+grossly travestied.  Nor did that impudent ballad suffice to clear the
+score, for he returned to him in later years, and in the Second Part of
+_Henry the Fourth_ we find “Justice Shallow” at his country house in
+Gloucestershire, entertaining Sir John Falstaff, and bragging of what a
+gay dog and a wild fellow he was in his young days in London; “every
+third word a lie.”  The “old pike” was, says Falstaff, “like a man made
+after supper with a cheese-paring,” a figure of fun.
+
+“Old pike” gives the key to Shakespeare’s meaning, and must at the time
+have been well understood locally to refer to the luces, or pike, in the
+Lucy arms; but, growing bolder, he much more fully, offensively, and
+unmistakably caricatures Sir Thomas Lucy under the same name of “Justice
+Shallow” in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_.  The play indeed most
+prominently opens with him represented as having come up to Windsor from
+Gloucestershire for the purpose of laying an information before the Star
+Chamber against Sir John Falstaff for having killed his deer—
+
+    _Shallow_.  Sir Hugh, persuade me not.  I will make a Star-chamber
+    matter of it—if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse
+    Robert Shallow, esquire.
+
+    _Slender_.  In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and _coram_.
+
+    _Shallow_.  Ay, Cousin Slender, and _cust-alorum_.
+
+    _Slender_.  Ay and _ratalorum_, too; and a gentleman born, master
+    parson, who writes himself, _armigero_, in any bill, warrant,
+    quittance, or obligation, _armigero_.
+
+    _Shallow_.  Ay, that we do, and have done any time these three
+    hundred years.
+
+    _Slender_.  All his successors, gone before him, have done’t; and all
+    his ancestors, that come after him, may; they may give the dozen
+    white laces in their coat.
+
+    _Shallow_.  It is an old coat.
+
+    _Evans_. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees
+    well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.
+
+Another passage a little later contains an allusion which we try in vain
+to interpret.  What was the story of the keeper’s daughter?  There is
+more in this, we may say, than meets the eye.  Who knows how the
+deer-stalking may have been complicated by some incident of a more tender
+and romantic nature?  Keeper’s daughters are notoriously comely and
+buxom, and imagination may frame a pretty story out of this quaint
+disclaimer of Falstaff’s—
+
+    _Falstaff_.  How, Master Shallow, you’ll complain of me to the king?
+
+    _Shallow_.  Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke
+    open my lodge.
+
+    _Falstaff_.  But not kissed your keeper’s daughter?
+
+    _Shallow_.  Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.
+
+    _Falstaff_.  I will answer it straight.—I have done all this.—That is
+    now answered.
+
+    _Shallow_.  The Council shall know this.
+
+    _Falstaff_.  ’Twere better for you, if it were known in counsel:
+    you’ll he laughed at.
+
+Falstaff’s last remark is a play upon the words “Council,” a more or less
+public body, and “counsel,” private talk.  That is to say Shallow will be
+a fool, and laughed at if he takes so trivial an affair before so weighty
+a tribunal as the Star Chamber, and would be better advised to seek his
+friends’ counsel about the affair.
+
+Perhaps the “keeper’s daughter” who was not kissed, was, after all, not
+kissable, or perhaps the allusion really was an insinuation that Sir
+Thomas Lucy himself kissed his keeper’s daughter.  It was in any event
+obviously a gibe perfectly easy of comprehension at the time in Stratford
+and round about, and enshrines some forgotten scandalous gossip.
+
+These are passages that the Baconians boggle at.  They cannot be
+explained away by any ingenuity, and thus form a convincing stand-by for
+those hardened and unrepentant folk who still believe that Shakespeare
+wrote his own plays.  The play upon the name of Lucy and the luces in the
+family arms is too direct to be mistaken.  Master Shallow is a Justice of
+the Peace in Gloucestershire, and Sir Thomas Lucy was an ornament of the
+Bench both in that shire and in Warwickshire.  The “dozen white louses,”
+instead of the three which would match with the number of luces in the
+Lucy arms, were no doubt a variant introduced by the dramatist in order
+to keep himself clear of those very Star Chamber proceedings with which
+Sir John Falstaff was threatened.  One might not in those times defame
+with impunity a man’s coat of arms.
+
+A further objection to the Baconian authorship, if necessary, is to be
+found in the extreme unlikeliness of Bacon, who himself was armigerous,
+casting such patent ridicule upon the heraldic achievement of one with
+whom he had no quarrel.  In the case of Shakespeare, the animus is
+abundantly evident.
+
+The way to Charlecote is over the Clopton Bridge and to the left.  It is
+the Kineton road.  Past Tiddington the way goes level, along the
+beautiful roads shaded by the luxuriant hedgerow timber we expect in
+these parts; and presently, when we have begun impatiently to wonder when
+Charlecote will come into view, a lodge and entrance are seen on the left
+side of the highway.
+
+                      [Picture: Lucy Shield of Arms]
+
+We hear much of the passing shows of this world, but we have often to
+marvel at their permanence.  The kith and kin of Shakespeare are all gone
+long ago, but here at Charlecote are still Lucys.  There have been Lucys
+of Charlecote since 1216, and their “old coat” is still displayed over
+this entrance to the park.  They are not, it is true, of the old unmixed
+blood, and the present family own the name only by adoption, the direct
+line having been broken in 1786, when a second cousin, the Rev. John
+Hammond, inherited the property and assumed the name of Lucy.  The
+present owner also, Mr. Fairfax-Lucy, assumed the name on marrying one of
+the two daughters of Mr. Henry Spenser Lucy, who died in 1890.
+
+              [Picture: The “Tumble-Down Stile,” Charlecote]
+
+There are but three luces, or pikes, in the old coat of the Charlecote
+Lucys.  They are displayed, in herald’s language, thus: “gules, semée of
+crosses crosslet, three luces hauriant argent;” that is to say, on a red
+ground sown with silver crosses-crosslet, three silver pike in an upright
+position, rising to take breath.  The family motto is “By truth and
+diligence.”  On old deeds sealed with the Lucy seal the three pike are
+shown intertwined.
+
+The park, well-wooded, but only about 250 acres in extent, presents a
+fine picture viewed from these gates, but the mansion is not seen; the
+chief approach being a considerable distance along the main road, and
+thence along a public by-road to the village of Charlecote.  Crossing a
+bridge over the Wellesbourne stream which joins the Avon in the park, the
+locally celebrated “Tumble-down Stile” is immediately on the right hand.
+This is a wooden fence not by its appearance to be distinguished above
+any other fence of wood, but so contrived that the stranger unversed in
+its trick, and seeking to climb over it to the footpath beyond, suddenly
+finds one end collapsing and himself most likely on the ground.  This
+contrivance, generally understood to have been a freak of the late Mr.
+Henry Spenser Lucy, keeps the village of Charlecote supplied with a stock
+of elementary humour all the year round, and is invariably pointed out by
+fly-men driving visitors from Stratford.  Not every one who comes to
+Shakespeare Land comes with the capacity for fully understanding and
+being interested in its literary and historic features, but all have the
+comprehension of this within their reach.
+
+There, on the left, stretches the woodland park, entered either by a
+rough five-barred rustic gate, or by the imposing modern ornamental gates
+flanked by clumsy sculptured effigies of boars squatting on their rumps.
+Entering by the unpretending gate first named, one comes beneath the
+trees of a noble avenue to the beautiful gatehouse standing in advance of
+the hall and giving admission to a courtyard filled with the geometrical
+patterns of a formal garden.  The wild verdure of the park reigns here,
+outside that enclosure, and trim neatness forms the note within; a
+contrast greatly loved in those times when Charlecote was planned.  It
+was to the planning of country mansions exactly what the antithetic
+manner is to literature: both give the spice of sharp contrast.
+
+There are to this day deer couching in the bracken of the park, and they
+come picturesquely up to the gatehouse and peer within.  There are also
+strange piebald sheep, with long fat tails, very curious to look upon.  I
+do not know what breed they are, or whence they come, for the reply
+received to an inquiry elicited this strange answer from a typical
+Warwickshire boy: “Thaay be Spanish sheep from Scotland.”  Possibly some
+of those who read these pages may recognise the kind; but if they came
+from Spain to Charlecote by way of Scotland they must have been brought
+somewhat out of their way.
+
+The gatehouse, so strikingly set in advance of the mansion, is the most
+truly picturesque feature.  Its red brick and stone have not been
+restored, and wear all those signs of age which have been largely
+smoothed out and obliterated from the residence.  Charlecote is not what
+is known as a “show house.”  It is not one of those stately mansions
+which are open to be viewed at stated times; and strangers are admitted
+only occasionally and by special grace.  Long bygone generations of Lucys
+hang in portraitures by famous masters upon the walls of the great hall,
+the library, and the drawing-room; and the library contains a copy of the
+_Merry Wives of Windsor_, published in 1619; an edition which does not
+contain the opening scene with Mr. Justice Shallow.
+
+                   [Picture: The Gatehouse, Charlecote]
+
+Charlecote church was entirely rebuilt in 1852.  Surviving views of the
+former church prove it to have been a small, mean building, unworthy of
+housing the fine tombs of the Lucys; and so we need not regret the
+rebuilding, except to be sorry it was not deferred a few years longer,
+until the efflorescent would-be Gothic of that period had abated.  You
+who gaze upon the exterior of Charlecote can have not the least doubt
+about the enthusiasm of the designer, who seems to have been even more
+Gothic than the architects of the Middle Ages.  It is a small church he
+has designed, but the exterior is overloaded with ornament; and if the
+building be indeed small, the gargoyles are big enough for a cathedral,
+while the interior has a much-more-than Middle Ages obscurity.  It is a
+church of nave without aisles, and the nave has the unusual feature of
+being vaulted in stone.  It is dark even on a summer day.  The architect
+was also the designer of Bodelwyddan church, in North Wales.
+
+North of the chancel, in a very twilight chapel, are the three ornate
+tombs of the Lucys.  The first of these is of that Sir Thomas who was
+Shakespeare’s “Justice Shallow.”  It is on the right hand.  He lies
+there, in armoured effigy, beside his wife Joyce, who pre-deceased him in
+1595.  He survived until 1600.  His bearded face has good features, and
+he certainly does not in any way look the part of Shallow.  Nor does the
+noble tribute to his wife, inscribed above the monument, proclaim him
+other than a noble and modest knight—
+
+    Here entombed lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy, wife of Sir Thomas Lucy, of
+    Charlecote, in the county of Warwick, knight, daughter and heir of
+    Thomas Acton, of Sutton, in the county of Worcester, Esquire, who
+    departed out of this wretched world to her Heavenly Kingdom the 10th
+    day of February, in the year of our Lord God, 1595, of her age lx.
+    and iii.  All the time of her lyfe, a true and faithful servant of
+    her good God; never detected in any crime or vice; in religion most
+    sound; in love to her husband most faithful and true; in friendship
+    most constant.  To what was in trust committed to her most secret.
+    In wisdom excelling; in governing of her house, and bringing up of
+    youth in the fear of God, that did converse with her most rare and
+    singular; greatly esteemed of her betters; misliked of none unless
+    the envious.  When all is spoken that can be said; a woman so
+    furnished and garnished with Virtue as not to be bettered, and hardly
+    to be equalled by any; as she lived most virtuously, so she dyed most
+    godly.  Set down by him that best did know what hath been written to
+    be true.
+
+                                                              THOMAS LUCY.
+
+In front of the monument are little kneeling effigies of Thomas and Anne,
+the only son and daughter of this pair.  On the left is the much more
+elaborate monument of Sir Thomas the Second, who died, aged fifty-four,
+in 1605, only five years later than his father.  It is a gorgeous
+Renaissance affair of coloured marbles.  This Sir Thomas lies in effigy
+alone, his first wife having no part or lot in the monument; the
+black-vestured and black-hooded kneeling effigy of Constance, his second,
+mounting guard in front in a very determined fashion.  Her back is
+towards you in entering the chapel, and a very startling creature she is.
+An amazing line of little effigies of their children, each represented
+kneeling on his or her little hassock, decorates the front of the
+monument.  There are six sons and eight daughters, earnestly praying.
+
+                          [Picture: Charlecote]
+
+The third and last tomb is that of yet another Sir Thomas, third son and
+successor of the last named.  He was killed by a fall from his horse in
+1640.  He is sculptured beautifully in white marble, and is represented
+reclining on his elbow.  He bears a strong resemblance to Charles the
+First.  Beneath is the equally fine effigy of his wife Alice—a lovely
+work.  She is wearing a chain like that of an Order, with a very large
+and prominent locket, or badge, about the size of an egg, which is,
+however, quite plain.  The significance of it has been wholly lost.  On
+either side of Sir Thomas are panels sculptured in relief: on the left a
+representation of him galloping on horseback, and on the right shelves of
+classic authors, possibly to indicate that he was a man of culture and
+refinement.  This beautiful monument was executed in Rome, by Bernini, to
+the order of Lady Lucy, at a cost of 1500 guineas.
+
+The exterior of this modern church is rapidly weathering, and the
+over-rich carving of it is being rigorously searched by rains, frosts and
+thaws.  It will be better for sloughing off these florid adornments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+                       Shakespeare the countryman.
+
+WE have abundant evidence of Shakespeare the countryman in his works, and
+of the Warwickshire man some evidences, too.  In the splendid speech of
+the Duke of Burgundy, in _Henry the Fifth_, he makes the Frenchman talk
+with an appreciation of agricultural disaster which only an English
+farmer, and a Warwickshire or Gloucestershire farmer, too, could show.
+In the miseries of France, worsted by war, the Duke speaks thus—
+
+    “Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
+    Unprunèd dies: her hedges even-pleach’d,
+    Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
+    Put forth disorder’d twigs: her fallow leas
+    The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
+    Doth root upon; while that the coulter rusts
+    That should deracinate such savagery:
+    The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
+    The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,
+    Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
+    Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems
+    But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
+    Losing both beauty and utility.”
+
+Bacon would not have made a Frenchman speak with so English a tongue, in
+the way of the Midlands, nor could he if he would, for he knew no more
+than the real Burgundy could have known, those details of agricultural
+life; and he certainly could not have identified a “kecksie,” or a
+“keck,” as the Warwickshire children still call the hemlock, of whose
+dried stems they make whistles.
+
+“Easy it is of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know,” says Demetrius, in
+_Titus Andronicus_.  That ancient Roman is made to talk like any
+Warwickshire agricultural labourer who takes his lunch in the hedgerow,
+off a “shive o’ bread, a bit o’ cheese or baacon and a drap o’ summit;
+maybe a tot o’ cider or maybe a mug of ale.”  After which he will “shog
+off” to work again; using in that local word “shog” the expression
+Shakespeare places in the mouth of Nym, in _Henry the Fifth_.  At the
+close of the day he will be “forewearied,” as King John describes
+himself.
+
+In his plays Shakespeare follows the year all round the calendar and
+touches every season with magic.  You feel convinced, from the sympathy,
+the joyousness, and the intimate touches, of his country scenes that he
+was a rustic at heart, and that he must have longed, during those many
+years when he was winning success in London, to return not only to his
+native place—to which the heart of every one turns fondly—but to the
+meadows, the cornfields, the hills and dales and the wild flowers around
+the town of Stratford-on-Avon.  There again, when spring was come, to
+hear “the sweet bird’s note,” whether it were “the throstle with his note
+so true,” “the ousel cock so black of hue, with orange tawny bill,” “the
+wren with little quill;”
+
+    “The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
+    The plain-song cuckoo gray,”
+
+or better still the mad joyous outbursts of the skylarks’ songs (“And
+merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks”) in those wide horizons in May:
+these, you are certain, were Shakespeare’s ideals.
+
+Of all the seasons, although he writes sympathetically of every one,
+Shakespeare best loved the spring.  He is not exceptional in that, for it
+is the season of hope and promise, when the risen sap in the trees makes
+the leaves unfold and the buds unsheath their beauties, when beasts and
+birds respond to the climatic change and hibernating small creatures and
+insects awake from their long sleep; and no less than the trees and
+plants, the animals and insects, all mankind finds a renewal of life.
+
+    “It was a lover and his lass,
+          With a hey and a ho, and a hey nonino,
+    That o’er the green cornfield did pass
+          In the spring-time, the only merry ring-time,
+    When birds do sing, hey ding-a-ding
+    Sweet lovers love the spring.”
+
+Thus the pages sung in the Forest of Arden; and Shakespeare, be sure, put
+something of himself into the character of Autolycus the pedlar, who
+after all was a man of better observation, judging by his song, than
+rogues of his sort commonly be—
+
+    “When daffodils begin to peer,—
+       With hey! the doxy over the dale,—
+    Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year;
+       For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.
+
+    The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,—
+       With hey! the sweet birds, O how they sing!—
+    Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
+       For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
+
+    The lark that tirra-lirra chants,—
+       With hey! with hey! the thrush and the jay:—
+    Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
+       While we lie tumbling in the hay.”
+
+Shakespeare, we like to think, had the tenderest feeling for those same
+daffodils with which Autolycus begins his song; for in lines that are
+among the most beautiful he ever wrote, he makes Perdita speak of—
+
+             “Daffodils,
+    That come before the swallow dares, and take
+    The winds of March with beauty.”
+
+Here we find, not for once only, Shakespeare and that other sweet singer,
+Herrick, curiously in sympathy—
+
+    “Sweet daffodils, we weep to see
+    You haste away so soon.”
+
+He does not care so ardently for the rose, although he seems, rather
+indifferently it is true, to admit that it is the queen of flowers.  But
+it delays until summer is upon us.  It does not dare with the daffodil.
+
+He returns again and again to the more idyllic simple flowers of nature
+that the gardener takes no account of.  He paints the cowslips in a few
+words of close observation.  They are Queen Mab’s pensioners—
+
+    “The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
+    In their gold coats spots you see;
+    Those be rubies, fairy favours,
+    In those freckles live their savours.”
+
+And in every cowslip’s ear the fairy hangs a pearl, from her harvest of
+dew-drops.
+
+Shakespeare’s Warwickshire was rich—and it is so still, although it is a
+very much more enclosed countryside than in his day—in wild-flowers; the
+gillyflower, the wallflower that loves the nooks and crannies of ruined
+walls as much as does the jackdaw; the candy-tuft, the foxglove that
+still stands like a tall floral sentinel in many a hedgerow around
+Snitterfield; with many another.
+
+             “Here’s flowers for you;
+    Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
+    The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun.”
+
+The “flowers,” however, mentioned in that quotation are, with one
+exception, herbs.  Such as they grace and make fragrant the old gardens
+of many a cottage the casual tourist never sees.  There they have grown
+for generations, in great clumps and beds; not in meagre and formal
+patches, as in some “Shakespearean gardens” that could be named.  In the
+byways, in short, where things are not consciously on show, everything
+is, paradoxically enough, better worth seeing.  There the homely virtues
+of the people are better displayed; the flowers are brighter and their
+scent sweeter; and there the sun is more mellow.  In the byways old mossy
+walls still stand, russet brown and sere in drought, as though the moss
+were a dead thing, but green again so soon as ever the rain comes; and
+old roofs bear the fleshy house-leek in great patches, as though they had
+burst into some strange vegetable elephantiasis.  That is Warwickshire as
+it is off the beaten track, yonder, at the horizon, where the sky meets
+the earth: a vague direction, I fancy, but sufficient.  We must not
+divulge all things.
+
+The ragged-robin that blooms later in every hedge; the “crow-flower” as
+Shakespeare names it; the “long purple,” otherwise the wild arum;
+pansies—“that’s for thoughts”—some call them “love-in-idleness”; all
+figure in _Hamlet_, where you find a good deal of old country folklore in
+Ophelia’s talk.  “Rosemary, that’s for remembrance”; fennel and
+columbines: “there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me; we may call it
+herb of grace o’ Sundays;—you may wear your rue with a difference.”
+
+There is sometimes an almost farmer-like practical philosophy underlying
+his observation, as where Biron says, in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_: “Allons
+allons! sow’d cockle reap’d no corn”; and in _King Lear_, in the
+reference to—
+
+    “Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
+    In our sustaining corn.”
+
+The corn-cockle is of course better known as the “cornflower,” whose
+beautiful blue is so contrasting a colour with the scarlet of the
+poppies, that equally fail to win the farmer’s admiration.
+
+But the greater the study we give to Shakespeare and his treatment of
+flowers, the more evident it becomes that his sympathies were all with
+the earlier, springtime blossoms that dare, not quite with the daffodils,
+but soon after the roaring ides of March are overpast.  Thus, he makes
+Perdita resume, with—
+
+                “Violets dim,
+    But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
+    Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses
+    That die unmarried ere they can behold
+    Bright Phœbus in his strength.”
+
+The “daisies pied,” the “lady-smocks all silver-white,” that is to say,
+the white arabis which the Warwickshire children of to-day call
+“smell-smocks,” and the “cuckoo buds of yellow hue,” otherwise the
+buttercups, out of which the cuckoo is in old folklore supposed to drink,
+he tells us, all “paint the meadows with delight.”  He could never have
+written those lines with care and thought and in cold blood: he must have
+seen those meadows with all the delight he expresses, and the words
+themselves must needs have been penned with enthusiasm.  This is a thesis
+easily susceptible of proof.  The lovely cuckoo-song at the close of
+_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, which with a charm unmatched tells us of those
+flower-spangled meads, has no bearing upon the action of the play: it is
+written in sheer enjoyment, and it is in the same spirit that his other
+allusions to the fields and hedgerows and woodlands, the “bosky acres”
+and the “unshrubbed down,” are conceived.  Ariel, that tricksy sprite of
+_The Tempest_, is a true countryman’s fancy, as clearly to be seen in the
+lines—
+
+    “Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
+    In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
+    There I couch when owls do cry,
+    On the bat’s back I do fly.”
+
+Here, as often elsewhere, the dramatist and the poet are at odds.
+Shakespeare the actor-playwright, with every necessity of the stage—its
+entrances and exits, and the imperative need for the action of the play
+to be maintained—halts the story so that the other Shakespeare, the
+idyllic poet, the lover of nature, shall picture some scene for which he
+cares everything, but which to the Greeks—for Greeks here read the London
+playgoers of his time—must have meant foolishness.
+
+Such an instance, among many, is Oberon’s speech to Puck, in _Midsummer
+Night’s Dream_—
+
+    “I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
+    Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
+    Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
+    With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
+    There sleeps Titania.”
+
+For these lines and such as these Shakespeare risked the brickbats, the
+cat-calls and the obloquy that awaited the dramatist whose action
+dragged.  There is no excuse for them—except that of their beauty, and
+that to the groundlings was less than nothing.
+
+That bank whereon the wild-thyme grew must have been, I like to think,
+somewhere in The Dingles, a curious spot just north-east of Stratford, to
+the left of the Warwick road, as you go up to Welcombe.  I think there
+are no “dingles” anywhere nearer London than the midlands; none in name,
+although there may be many in fact.  By a “dingle” in the midlands a deep
+narrow vale, or natural gully is meant.  The word is especially well
+known in Shropshire and the Welsh borders, where such features, between
+the enfolding hills, are plentiful.  Here The Dingles are abrupt and
+deeply winding gullies, breaking away from the red earth of the Welcombe
+uplands: a very tumbled and unspoiled spot.  Elms look down from the
+crest of them, and ancient thorn-trees line their sides.  It seems quite
+a sure and certain thing that Shakespeare when a boy knew this spot well
+and frequented it with the other Stratford boys of his age; catching,
+perhaps the “earth-delving conies,” and I am afraid—for all boys are
+cruel except those in the Sunday-school books, and they are creatures in
+the nature of sucking Galahads imagined by maiden aunts—I am afraid, I
+say, also birds’-nesting.
+
+The Dingles, doubtless, formed in Shakespeare’s mind the site of
+Titania’s bower.  Perhaps you may find it yourself, if you seek there,
+somewhere about midsummer midnight, in the full of the moon, when
+possibly her obedient fairies will be as kind and courteous as of old to
+that gentleman who has the good fortune to discover the magic spot, and
+may—
+
+    “Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
+    Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
+    With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries.”
+
+If these adventures do befall you, tell no one; for you will not find
+belief, even in this same Shakespeare land.
+
+It is, however, much more likely that your walk will be solitary, and
+that for the apricots and grapes you will have to wait until you have
+returned to your hotel in the town.
+
+The last two years of Shakespeare’s life were concerned with a heated
+local question: none other than that of the proposed enclosure of the
+Welcombe common fields, including The Dingles, by William Combe who had
+by the death of his father become squire of Welcombe and had at once
+entered into an agreement with the lord of the manor and other
+landholders to enclose the land.  The corporation and townsfolk of
+Stratford were bitterly opposed to this encroachment.  Shakespeare’s
+interest in the matter appears to have been only that of an owner of
+tithes in these fields, and his sympathies were clearly against any such
+extension of private rights.  An entry under date of September 1615 among
+others in the still-existing manuscript diary of Thomas Greene, then
+clerk to the corporation, who calls Shakespeare his cousin, is to the
+effect that Shakespeare told J. Greene (brother of the town clerk) that
+he—Shakespeare—“was not able to bear the enclosing of Welcombe.”  The
+ambiguous and ungrammatical wording of Greene’s diary often renders his
+meaning obscure and has caused a great conflict of opinion about
+Shakespeare’s attitude in this affair, some reading it as in favour of
+the enclosure.  It really appears to have been one of benevolent
+neutrality, and could scarcely have been otherwise.  He himself was a
+neighbouring landowner, and friendly with others, but sentimentally, he
+looked with aversion upon those proposed doings.  He “was not able to
+bear” the enclosure of the place he had roamed when a boy, but that did
+not give him the right to intervene at law.  The corporation went to law
+with Combe and his fellows and won their case, but by that time
+Shakespeare had passed from these transient scenes.  To this day The
+Dingles is common land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+      The ‘Eight Villages’—‘Piping’ Pebworth and ‘Dancing’ Marston.
+
+NO one who has ever sojourned in Shakespeare land can remain in ignorance
+of what are the “Eight Villages.”  The older rhymes upon them are printed
+upon picture-postcards, and on fancy chinaware, and reprinted in every
+local guide-book; and now I propose to repeat them, not only for their
+own sake and for the alleged Shakespearean authorship, but because the
+pilgrimage of those villages offers many points of interest.  One need
+offer no excuse for this descriptive chapter, because although the rhymes
+themselves are trite, the places are by no means so well known; your
+average Shakespeare Country tourist being rarely so enterprising as he is
+commonly—and quite erroneously—supposed to be.  Stratford-on-Avon,
+Evesham, Warwick, Kenilworth and Coventry, with their comfortable hotels,
+furnish forth the average pilgrim.  But if you are to know Shakespeare
+land intimately, and if you would come into near touch with the poet and
+know him at closest quarters, you must linger in the villages that in
+every circumstance of picturesqueness are dotted about the valley of the
+Avon.  There, as freshly as ever, when spring has not waned too far into
+summer, the
+
+    “Daisies pied and violets blue,
+       And ladysmocks all silver-white,
+    And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
+       Do paint the meadows with delight.”
+
+“Shakespeare is Bacon,” dogmatically asserts the ancient hyphenated
+baronet who in these latter days posts pamphlets broadcast (incidentally
+favouring me with one, uninvited) seeking to dethrone our sovereign bard.
+Well, let who will cherish the impious opinion; but all the countryside
+around Stratford disproves it; the trees, the fields, the wild flowers,
+the rustic talk, which Bacon could never have known, that are all
+faithfully mirrored in the plays.
+
+But let us to the Eight Villages, whose fame rests upon a legend of olden
+drinking-bouts and of competitions between different towns and villages,
+to decide whose men could drink the most liquor.  In Shakespeare’s time,
+it seems, Bidford held the championship of all this countryside, and had
+two valiant coteries of tipplers who drank not only for their own
+personal gratification, but went beyond that and inconvenienced
+themselves for the honour and glory of their native place.  Further than
+this, local patriotism cannot go.  So famous were the doings of the
+Topers and the Sippers of this spot that it became familiarly known as
+“Drunken” Bidford; an unfortunate adjective, for it was bestowed not by
+any means because those convivial clubmen could not carry their liquor
+like men, but was intended as a direct tribute of admiration to their
+capacity for it.  In short, such was their prowess that they went forth,
+conquering and to conquer, in all the surrounding villages.  On an
+historic occasion the daring fellows of Stratford went forth and
+challenged the Bidford men on their own ground, Shakespeare traditionally
+among them.  The Topers were not at home; they had gone to drink Evesham
+dry; but the Sippers held the fort and duly maintained the honour of
+Bidford.  At the “Falcon” inn the contest was waged, and the Stratford
+men were ignominiously worsted, drawing off from the stricken field while
+yet there remained some with full command of their legs, and ability to
+carry away those of their number who had wholly succumbed.  In this sort
+they went the homeward way towards Stratford, which is more than six
+miles distant, but they had proceeded no further than three-quarters of a
+mile when they sank down by the roadside and slept there the night, under
+a large crab-apple tree.  When morning dawned—when night’s candles were
+burned out and jocund day stood tiptoe on the meadows—they arose
+refreshed, the majority eager to return to Bidford and try another bout;
+but Shakespeare refused.  He had had enough of it.  He had drunk with—
+
+    “Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,
+    Haunted Hillborough, Hungry Grafton,
+    Dodging Exhall, Papist Wixford,
+    Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.”
+
+Such is the legend.  There are those who believe it, and there are again
+those who do not.  The quatrain does not seem to fit in with the story,
+and indeed bears evidence of being one of those injurious rhymes
+respecting neighbouring and rival villages fairly common throughout
+England, often reflecting severely, not only upon the characteristics of
+those places, but also upon the moral character of their inhabitants.
+Indeed, the present rhymes are mildness itself compared with some, with
+which these pure pages shall not be sullied.  But although we may not
+place much faith in the Shakespearean ascription, those go, surely, too
+far who refuse to believe Shakespeare capable of taking part in one of
+these old-time drinking-bouts.  Shakespeare, we are nowadays told, could
+not have descended to such conduct; but in holding such a view we judge
+the poet and the times in which he lived by the standards of our own age;
+a very gross fallacy indeed.  It is not, nowadays, “respectable” for any
+one, no matter the height or the obscurity of his status, to drink more
+than enough; but he who in those times shirked his drink was accounted a
+very sorry fellow.  What says Sir Toby Belch, in _Twelfth Night_?  “He is
+a coward and a coystril that will not drink till his brains turn o’ the
+toe like a parish top.”  To this day, in the banqueting-room of Haddon
+Hall, we may see what the jovial souls who were contemporary with
+Shakespeare did to the man who could not or would not finish his tankard.
+There is an ingenious handcuff in the panelling of that apartment in
+which the wrist of such an one was secured, and down his sleeve the drink
+he had declined was poured.  Nay, only a hundred and fifty years ago, the
+hospitable hosts and the best of good fellows were those to whom it was a
+point of honour to see that their guests were made, in the modern police
+phrase, “drunk and incapable,” so that they had to be carried up to bed.
+Mr. Pitt did not commonly get much “forrarder” on three bottles of port,
+and generally made his best speeches in the House when, having generously
+exceeded that allowance, he was quite drunk.  Mr. Fox was a worthy fellow
+to him.  Nobody thought the worse of them—in fact, rather the better—for
+it.  To be drunk was the mark of a gentleman; to be excessively drunk—the
+very apogee of inebriety—was to be “as drunk as a lord”; no man could do
+more.
+
+The villages whose bygone outstanding features are thus rhythmically
+celebrated are scattered to the west and south-west of Stratford-on-Avon,
+between six and eight miles distant; the two first-named in that
+widespreading level which stretches almost uninterruptedly between that
+town and Evesham.  Pebworth, whose name would seem to enshrine the
+personal name of some Saxon landowner—“Pebba’s weorth”—is quite
+exceptionally placed on a steep and sudden hill that rises rather
+dramatically from the level champaign.
+
+                        [Picture: Piping Pebworth]
+
+There is more than a thought too much of new building and of corrugated
+tin roofing about the Pebworth of to-day, and when I came up along the
+village street a steam-roller was engaged in compacting the macadam of
+the roadway.  I thought sadly that it was not at all Shakespearean; yet,
+you know, had the roads been of your true Shakespearean early
+seventeenth-century sort, one would not have penetrated to these scenes
+with a bicycle at all.  No one pipes nowadays at Pebworth; there is not
+even a performer on the penny whistle to sound a note, in evidence of
+good faith.  It is a pretty enough village, but not remarkably so, and
+offers the illustrator the smallest of chances, for the church which
+crowns the hill-top is so encircled with trees that only the upper part
+of its tower is visible.  The church, in common with nearly all the
+village churches within the Shakespeare radius, is locked, doubtless with
+a view to extracting a sixpence from the amiable tourist.  Old tombstones
+to a Shackel, Shekel or Shackle family—the name is spelled in many
+ways—abound here.
+
+Long Marston lies in the midst of this pleasant, level country, six miles
+south-west of Stratford-on-Avon, and on a yet somewhat secluded road; its
+old-time retirement that recommended it to the advisers of the fugitive
+Charles the Second, when seeking a way for him to escape from the country
+after the defeat of his hopes at the Battle of Worcester, September 3rd,
+1651, being little changed.  Marston is the only village I have ever
+known which owns three adjectives to its name.  “Long” Marston is the
+better known of them; “Dancing” Marston is another, and “Dry” Marston—or
+“Marston Sicca,” as the pedantic old topographers of some two centuries
+ago styled it forms the third.  Whatever fitness may once have attached
+to the sobriquet of “Dancing” has long since disappeared, nor are the
+traditions of its olden morris-dancers one whit more marked than those of
+any other village.  In the days when Marston danced, the neighbouring
+villages footed it with equally light heart and light heels, so far as we
+can tell.  “Dry” Marston, too, forms something of a puzzle to the
+observer, who notes not only that it is low-lying and that the little
+Dorsington Brook meanders close at hand on the map, in company with other
+rills, but also observes that a stone-paved causeway extends for a
+considerable distance along the road at the northern end of the village;
+evidently provided against flooded and muddy ways.  Finally, if “Marston”
+does not derive from “marshtown,” then there is nothing at all in
+derivatives.  We are thus reduced to the better-known name, “Long”
+Marston.
+
+                       [Picture: “Dancing Marston”]
+
+Doubtless the stranger expects to find a considerable village, with a
+long-drawn street of cottages; but Marston is not in the least like that.
+Instead, you find ancient half-timbered and thatched cottages, scattered
+singly, or in groups of two or three, fronting upon the level road, each
+situated in its large garden, where it seems as much a product of the
+soil as the apples and pears, or the more homely cabbages, beans, and
+potatoes, and appears almost to have grown there, equally with them.  A
+branch line of the Great Western Railway, it is true, runs by, with a
+station, but at Long Marston station the world goes easily and leisurely;
+sparrows chirp in the waiting-room and rabbits sport along the line;
+while such work as goes on in the goods-yard is punctuated by yawns and
+illuminative anecdotes.  All this by way of praising these old-world
+surroundings.
+
+Among the cottages is an older whitewashed group, set back from the road.
+In pre-Reformation times this was the Priest’s House.  Across the way
+stands the pretty little fourteenth-century church, with little of
+interest within, but possessing a fine timbered north porch of the same
+period, the timbering at this present time of writing being again exposed
+to view after having been covered up with plaster for more than a
+century.
+
+It was on the evening of September 10th, the seventh day after the
+disastrous Battle of Worcester, that King Charles and his two companions,
+Mr. Lassels and Jane Lane, came to Long Marston and found shelter at the
+house of Mr. John Tomes.  The King was in the character of “Will
+Jackson,” servant of Mistress Jane Lane; in that capacity riding
+horseback in front of her, while she rode pillion behind him.  We may
+readily picture the King, in his servant’s disguise, kept in his proper
+place in the kitchen, while Lassels and Jane Lane were entertained by the
+master of the house in the best parlour.  Blount, in his _Boscobel_,
+published in 1660, the year of the Restoration, illuminates this historic
+incident with an anecdote that gives the brief sojourn at Long Marston as
+piquant and homely a savour as that of King Alfred’s burning the cakes in
+the cottage where he was in hiding, away down in the Somersetshire Isle
+of Athelney, nearly eight hundred years before the troubles of the
+Stuarts were heard of.  Supper was being prepared for Mr. Tomes’ guests,
+and the cook asked “Will Jackson” to wind up the roasting-jack.  “Will
+Jackson,” says Blount, “was obedient, and attempted it, but hit not the
+right way, which made the maid in some passion ask, ‘What countryman are
+you, that you know not how to wind up a jack?’  To which Charles, who was
+ever blessed with that happy quality the French call _esprit_, for which
+we have no exactly corresponding word, replied, ‘I am a poor tenant’s son
+of Colonel Lane, in Staffordshire; we seldom have roast meat, and when we
+have, we don’t make use of a jack.’”
+
+Every one in Long Marston can point out “King’s Lodge,” as this historic
+house is now known.  Somewhat altered, externally and internally, but
+still in possession of descendants of the John Tomes who sheltered the
+King after Worcester Fight, it still retains the famous roasting-jack,
+now carefully preserved in a glass-case, in the room that was in those
+times a kitchen, and later became a cider cellar, and is now the
+dining-room.
+
+The Tomes family—who pronounce their name “Tombs,” and have many kinsfolk
+who also spell it in that fashion—have a curious and dismal pictorial pun
+upon their ancient patronymic, by way of coat of arms.  It represents
+three white altar-tombs on a green ground; to speak in the language of
+heraldry: Vert, three tombstones argent.
+
+        [Picture: Dining Room, Formerly the Kitchen, King’s Lodge]
+
+John Tomes suffered for his loyalty.  Some of his lands were sequestrated
+and he was obliged to leave the country; nor did the Royal favour
+subsequently shown his family advantage them very greatly; the liberty
+granted them of hunting, hawking and fishing from Long Marston to Crab’s
+Cross, in the neighbourhood of Redditch, being, it may well be supposed,
+of little value.
+
+Although, as already noted, changes have been made at “King’s Lodge,” one
+may yet, in the quaint dining-room which was then the kitchen, sit in the
+Ingle-nook of the great fireplace, in which it may be supposed “Will
+Jackson,” having doubtless kissed the cook—if indeed, she were a kissable
+cook—and thus made amends for his unhandiness with the roasting-jack, was
+afterwards allowed a seat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+                   The ‘Eight Villages’ (_concluded_).
+
+‘Haunted’ Hillborough, ‘Hungry’ Grafton,
+
+‘Dodging’ Exhall, ‘Papist’ Wixford,
+
+‘Beggarly’ Broom, and ‘Drunken’ Bidford.
+
+“HAUNTED Hillborough,” which comes next in order in this rhymed survey,
+is geographically remote from Long Marston, not so much in mere mileage,
+for it is not quite three miles distant, measured in a straight line, but
+it is situated on the other, and Warwickshire, side of the Avon, at a
+point where the river is not bridged.  In short, the traveller from Long
+Marston to Hillborough will scarcely perform the journey under six miles,
+going by way of Dorsington and Barton, always along crooked roads, and
+thence through Bidford.  Dorsington is an entirely pretty and extremely
+small village with a church noticeable only for the whimsical smallness
+of its red-brick Georgian tower.  Why, in a lesser-known local rhyme,
+which does not find celebrity upon postcards and fancy articles at
+Stratford-on-Avon, Dorsington should be known as “Daft” is more than I
+can say; unless it be that the facile alliteration is irresistible.
+There are reasons sufficient for this lack of popularity, in the lines in
+which Dorsington’s name occurs—
+
+    “Daft Dorsington, Lousy Luddington,
+    Welford for witches, Hinton for bitches,
+    An’ Weston at th’ end of th’ ’orld.”
+
+Barton, through which we come into Bidford, is, as might perhaps be
+suspected from its name, merely a rustic hamlet, for “barton” is but the
+old English word for a cow-byre or a barn.  It is that “Burton Heath”
+mentioned in the _Taming of the Shrew_, of which Christopher Sly, “old
+Sly’s son,” “by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by
+transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker,” was a
+native.
+
+From Barton we cross the Avon into Bidford over an ancient bridge of
+eight arches built in 1482 by the brethren of Alcester priory to replace
+the ford by which travellers along the Ryknield Street had up to that
+time crossed the river.  The eight arches of Bidford achieve the rather
+difficult feat of being each of a different shape and size, and the heavy
+stonework itself has been extensively patched with brick.  Here the Avon
+is encumbered with eyots and rushes, very destructive to the navigation,
+but affording very useful foregrounds for the illustrator.
+
+Bidford is wholly on the further, or Warwickshire, side of the river, and
+is a rather urban-looking place of one very long and narrow street.  It
+has a population of over a thousand, and thus, I believe, comes under the
+official definition of a “populous place,” whose inns and public-houses
+are permitted to remain open until 11 p.m., which may or may not be a
+consideration here.  The inns of Bidford are numerous, but they do not
+appear to enjoy their former prosperity.  I adventured into one of them
+one thirsty summer day, for the purpose of sampling some of the “perry”
+advertised for sale within.  There was no joy in the sour sorry stuff it
+proved to be.  You get quite a quantity of it for three-halfpence; but it
+is odds against your drinking half of it.  The landlady dolefully spoke
+of the state of trade.  She had not taken half-a-crown that day.  Truly,
+the glories of Bidford have departed!
+
+                       [Picture: “Drunken Bidford”]
+
+The old “Falcon” inn, an inn no longer, nor for many years past, stands
+in the midst of this very considerable village, close by the parish
+church, whose odd and not beautiful tower forms a prominent object in the
+view from the bridge.  It is not in the least worth while to enter that
+church, for it has been almost wholly rebuilt.  The nave has a ceiling,
+and there are deal doors, painted and grained to resemble oak.  The
+chancel, reconstructed in the more florid and unrestrained period of the
+Gothic revival, is a lamentable specimen of architectural zeal not
+according to discretion.
+
+                     [Picture: The “Falcon,” Bidford]
+
+It is nearly a century since the “Falcon” ceased to be an inn.  It then
+became a workhouse, and thus many a boozy old reprobate whose courses at
+the “Falcon” had brought him to poverty ended his days under the same
+roof.  Cynic Fortune, turned moralist and temperance lecturer, surely was
+never in a more saturnine humour!
+
+                     [Picture: “Haunted Hillborough”]
+
+The old sign of the inn eventually found its way to Shakespeare’s
+birthplace.  It pictured a golden falcon on a red ground, and bore
+additionally the arms of the Skipwith family, the chief landowners in
+Bidford.  With the sign went an old chair in which Shakespeare is
+traditionally said to have sat.  To-day the “Falcon” is let in tenements,
+and also houses the village reading-room and library.  The building
+deserves a better fate, for, as will be noted from the accompanying
+illustration, it has that quality, as admirable in architecture as in
+men, character.  It is of two distinct styles: the half-timbered gable
+noted along the street being doubtless the oldest portion, apparently of
+the mid-fifteenth century.  This would seem to be the original inn.  The
+main block seems to be about a century later, and would thus have been a
+recent building in Shakespeare’s youth.  It was added apparently at a
+period of unbounded prosperity and is wholly of stone.  The stone is of
+that very markedly striated blue lias much used in this district, and is
+set in a traditional fashion once greatly followed, that is to say, in
+alternate narrow and broad hands or courses.
+
+Proceeding from Bidford along the Stratford road for Hillborough the
+haunted, the site of the ancient crab-apple tree is found, where the
+defeated Stratfordians slept off the effects of their carouse.  The road
+is hedged now and the fields enclosed and cultivated, but in
+Shakespeare’s time the way was open.  The spot is marked on Ordnance maps
+as “Shakespeare’s Crab,” and although the ancient tree finally
+disappeared in a venerable age on December 4th, 1824, when its remains,
+shattered in storms and hacked by relic-hunters, were carted off to
+Bidford Grange, a younger tree of the same genus has been planted on the
+identical site.  We may note the spot, interested and unashamed, because
+although the rhymes upon the eight villages are almost certainly not
+Shakespeare’s—though probably quite as old as his period—that is no
+reason for doubting the poet’s taking part in the drinking contest.
+“Because thou art virtuous, shall there be no cakes and ale?” and because
+we do not follow the customs of our ancestors shall we think them in
+their generation—and Shakespeare with them—disreputable?  I think not,
+although, with these things in mind, I live in daily expectation of an
+article in some popular journal, asking, “Was Shakespeare Respectable?”
+I think the poet was, apart from his literary genius, an average man,
+with the weaknesses of such; and all the more lovable for it.
+
+                     [Picture: “Haunted Hillborough”]
+
+Hillborough is reached by turning in a further mile to the right, off the
+high road, at a point where a meadow is situated locally known as
+“Palmer’s Piece.”  Palmer, it appears, was a farmer who drowned his wife
+in the Avon, and was gibbeted on this spot for the crime.
+
+A mile’s journey along narrow roads, down towards the river, brings the
+pilgrim to Hillborough.  Now Hillborough is not a village: it is not even
+a hamlet, and is indeed nothing but the remaining wing of an old
+manor-house, now a farm, and in a very solitary situation.  It will
+thunder and lighten, and rain heavily when you go to Hillborough—it
+always does when you seek interesting places in remote spots—but these
+conditions seem only the more appropriate to the haunted reputation of
+the scene; although what was the nature of the hauntings has eluded every
+possible inquiry.  It is thus curiously and wholly in keeping that the
+old manor-house and its surroundings should look so eerie.  Noble trees
+romantically overhang the house; remains of old buildings whose
+disappearance mournful ghosts might grieve over, lend a dilapidated air
+of the Has Been to the place; and an ancient circular stone pigeon-house,
+a relic of the former manor, stands beside a dismal pond.  But the ghosts
+have ceased to walk.
+
+                       [Picture: “Hungry Grafton”]
+
+A mile and a half across the Stratford road, is situated the fourth of
+these eight villages, “Hungry” Grafton.  The real name of the place is
+Temple Grafton.  “Hungry” is said to be an allusion to a supposed poverty
+of the soil, but farmers of this neighbourhood, although fully as
+dissatisfied as you expect a farmer to be, do not lend much help to the
+stranger seeking information.  “I’ve varmed wuss land an’ I’ve varmed
+better,” was the eminently non-committal reply of one; while another was
+of the opinion that “it ’on’t break us, nor yet it ’on’t make us.”
+
+The Shakespearean tourist will not be pleased with Grafton, for the
+squire of the adjoining Grafton Court practically rebuilt the whole
+village some forty years ago.  It is true that was not a heroic
+undertaking, for it is a small village, but the doing of it very
+effectually quenches the traveller’s enthusiasm.  Even the church was
+rebuilt in 1875: a peculiarly unfortunate thing, because the old building
+was one of those for which claim was made for having been the scene of
+Shakespeare’s marriage, that elusive ceremony of which no register
+survives to bear witness.  It is only in practical, unsentimental England
+that these things are at all possible.  A furious desire to obliterate
+every possible Shakespearean landmark would almost seem to have possessed
+the people of the locality, until quite recent years.  Grafton, whose
+“Temple” prefix derives from the manor having anciently been one of the
+possessions of the Knights Templar, stands on a hill.  The site is
+thought to have been covered in olden times with scrub-woods, “Grafton”
+or “Greveton,” taking its name from “greves”; a word signifying
+underwoods.  Similar place-names are found in Northamptonshire, in
+Grafton Regis and Grafton Underwood, situated in Whittlebury Forest.
+
+The only possible picture in “Hungry” Grafton is that sketched here, from
+below the ridge, where a brook runs beneath the road, beside a group of
+red-brick cottages.  If you ascend the road indicated here and pass the
+highly uninteresting church and schools, you come to the hamlet of Ardens
+Grafton, a very much more gracious and picturesque place, although in
+extremely tumbledown and dilapidated circumstances.  It is very much of a
+woodland hamlet, and appears to owe the first part of its name rather to
+that circumstance than to ownership at any time by the Arden family:
+Ardens in this case signifying a height overlooking a wooded Vale.
+
+                    [Picture: The Hollow Road, Exhall]
+
+The situation of the place does in fact most aptly illustrate the
+derivation, for it stands upon a very remarkable ridge, which must needs
+be descended by a steep and sudden hill if we want to reach Exhall.
+Descending the almost precipitous and narrow road with surprise, the
+nearly cliff-like escarpment is seen trending away most strikingly to the
+north.
+
+                       [Picture: “Papist Wixford”]
+
+We are now in the valley of the river Arrow.  On the way to Exhall we
+come—not led by Caliban—to “where crabs grow,” for the hedgerows here are
+remarkable for the number of crab-apple trees.  Shakespeare must have had
+them in mind when he wrote _The Tempest_.  Exhall lies in a beautiful
+country, on somewhat obscure byways that may have given the place that
+elusive character with strangers to which it owes its nickname of
+“Dodging”: although, to be sure there are the other readings of
+“Dadging,” whose meaning no one seems to comprehend; and “Drudging,”
+which it is held is the true epithet, given in allusion to the heavy
+ploughlands of the vale.  Yet another choice has been found, in
+“Dudging,” supposed to mean “sulky”; but the ingenuity of commentators in
+these things is endless.  There is, at any rate, in coming from Ardens
+Grafton, no modern difficulty in finding Exhall.  It is a little village
+of large farms, with a small aisle-less Early English and Decorated
+church whose interest has been almost wholly destroyed by the so-called
+“restoration” of 1863.  A window with the ball-flower moulding
+characteristic of the Decorated period remains in the south wall, and
+there are brasses to John Walsingham, 1566, and his wife; but for the
+rest, the stranger within these gates need not regret the church being
+locked, in common with most others in Shakespeare land.  The hollow road
+at Exhall, with high, grassy banks and the group of charming old
+half-timbered cottages illustrated here is a delight.  The builder who
+built them—they are certainly at least a century older than
+Shakespeare—built more picturesquely than he knew, with those sturdy
+chimney-stacks and the long flight of stairs ascending from the road.
+
+          [Picture: Brass to Thomas de Cruwe and Wife, Wixford]
+
+There are orchards at Exhall where I think the “leather-coats” such as
+Davy put before Shallow’s guests yet grow: they are a russet apple, and,
+like the “bitter-sweeting,” own a local name which Shakespeare, the
+Warwickshire countryman, knew well enough, but of whose existence Bacon
+could have known nothing.  What says Mercutio to Romeo?  “Thy wit is a
+very bitter sweeting: it is a most sharp sauce.”  And if you, tempted by
+the beautiful yellow of that apple, pick one and taste it, you will find
+the bitterness of it bite to the very bone.
+
+Exhall takes the first part of its name, “ex,” from the Celtic word
+_uisg_, for water: a word which has given the river Exe its name, and
+masquerades elsewhere as Ouse, Exe, Usk, Esk, and so forth.  But the
+river Arrow is a mile distant, and Wixford, which comes next, whose
+boundaries extend to that stream, is much better entitled to its name,
+which was originally “uisg-ford,” meaning “water-ford.”
+
+“Papist” Wixford is said to have derived its nickname from the
+Throckmortons, staunch Roman Catholics, who once owned property here.
+The Arrow runs close by the scattered cottages of this tiny place, which
+might be styled merely a hamlet, except that it has a parish church of
+its own.  A delightful little church it is, too, placed on a ridge and
+neighboured only by some timber-framed cottages.  Luxuriant elms group
+nobly with it, and in the churchyard is a very large and handsome
+yew-tree, whose spreading branches, perhaps more symmetrical than those
+of any other yew of its size in this country, are supported at regular
+intervals by timber struts, forming a curious and notable sight.  There
+are monumental brasses in the little church; by far the best of them,
+however, is the noble brass to Thomas de Cruwe and his wife Juliana,
+appropriately placed in the south chapel that was founded by him.  Thomas
+de Cruwe—whose name was really “Crewe,” only our ancestors were used to
+spell phonetically—was scarcely the warlike knight he would, from his
+plate-armour and mighty sword, appear to be.  He was, in fact, chief
+steward to Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and attorney to the
+Countess Margaret, widow of his predecessor.  He was, further, a “Knight
+of the Shire,” or member of Parliament, in 1404, and Justice of the
+Peace; and having filled these various professional and official
+positions, let us hope with as much satisfaction to his employers and
+others as obviously to his own advantage, he died at last in his bed, as
+all good lawyers, even of his date, the beginning of the fifteenth
+century, ought to do, in the year 1418.  The date of his death is,
+however, not mentioned on the brass, the blanks in the inscription, left
+for the purpose, having never been filled.  His wife Juliana, who had
+been the widow of one of the Cloptons, predeceased him, in 1411, and
+Thomas de Cruwe caused this beautiful and costly brass to be engraved in
+his own lifetime.  The incomplete inscription is by no means unusual,
+numerous brasses throughout the country displaying similar unfilled
+spaces; pointing to the indifference with which the date of departure of
+the dear departed was all too often regarded by their more or less
+sorrowing heirs, executors, and assigns.
+
+                       [Picture: “Beggarly Broom”]
+
+This splendidly-engraved brass, which ranks among the largest and finest
+in England, is mounted on a raised slab measuring nine by four feet; the
+effigies five feet in height.  A curious error of the engraver of this
+monument is to be noted, in the omission of Thomas de Cruwe’s sword-belt
+or baldrick, by which the sword hanging from his waist has no visible
+means of support.  The odd badge—apparently unique in heraldry—of a naked
+human left foot is seen many times repeated on the brass.  No explanation
+of it seems ever to have been offered.  We might have expected a cock in
+the act of crowing, for “Crewe,” for our ancestors dearly loved puns upon
+family names and were never daunted by the vapidity or appalling
+stupidity of them; but in this case they forbore.
+
+The penultimate village of these rhymes, “Beggarly” Broom, also stands
+upon the Arrow.  Marston, as we have seen, dances no more, nor does
+Pebworth pipe; the supernatural no longer vexes Hillborough, and Grafton
+is not so hungry as you might suppose.  Exhall is not difficult to find,
+and there are not any Roman Catholics at Wixford; while Bidford is not
+obviously drunken.  But Broom is just as beggarly as ever.
+
+Broom was originally a hamlet of squatters on a gorsy, or broom-covered
+heath, and a hamlet it yet remains.  Modern times have brought Broom a
+railway junction and a bridge across the Arrow, where was until recently
+only a ford; but Broom is not to be moved into activity by these things,
+or anything.  Anglers come by cheap tickets from Birmingham and fish in
+the Arrow, and swap lies at the “Hollybush” and “Broom” inns about what
+they have caught, but there still is that poverty-stricken air about the
+place which originally attracted the notice of the rhymester, centuries
+ago.  A flour-mill, still actively at work by the river, and a new house
+being built, do little to qualify this ancient aspect of squalid decay,
+which seems to extend even to the inhabitants, who may be observed
+sitting stolidly and abstractedly, as though contemplating the
+immensities.  They are probably only wondering whence to-morrow’s dinner
+is coming, a branch of philosophical inquiry of poignant interest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The ‘Swan’s Nest’—Haunted?—Clifford Chambers—Wincot—Quinton, and its club
+                                   day.
+
+TWELVE miles south of Stratford, across the level lands of the Feldon,
+you come to Chipping Campden, perched upon the outlying hills of the
+Cotswold country.  The inevitable way southward out of Stratford town
+lies over the Clopton Bridge, and then, having crossed the Avon, the
+roads diverge.  To the left you proceed for Charlecote and Kineton;
+straight ahead for Banbury and London; and to the right for Chipping
+Campden or for Shipston-on-Stour.  The point where these roads branch and
+go their several ways was until recently a very charming exit from or
+entrance to the town.  Here stands the old inn, the “Swan’s Nest,” _ex_
+“Shoulder of Mutton,” by the waterside, and opposite are the grounds of
+the old manor-house, enclosed behind lofty and massive brick walls.
+
+The “Swan’s Nest” is a red-brick house of good design, built in 1677,
+when an excellent taste in architecture prevailed.  The sign was then the
+“Bear,” a very usual name in these marches of the Warwick influence.  It
+arose upon the site of a hermitage and Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene that
+had long subsisted upon the alms of travellers this way, generations
+before Sir William Clopton built his bridge, and remained for some time
+afterwards, until the Reformation swept all such things away.
+
+The manor-house opposite is now to let, and long has been.  They say it
+is haunted—but “they”?  Who then are they?  No very reliable folk, be
+sure: only those irresponsible gossips who scent mysteries behind every
+board announcing “This Desirable Mansion to Let.”  The more desirable the
+mansion, the more inexplicable that it should not be desired of some one
+and become let.  As the months go by and lengthen into years and the
+house-agents’ boards begin themselves to show some evidences of
+antiquity, the mystery deepens and the ghost is born.  I think this
+especial ghost was born in the bar-parlour of the “Swan’s Nest.”  But it
+is difficult to get any exact information about this spirit.  It would
+be: it invariably is.  Whether the midnight spook be some mournful White
+Lady who looks from the dust-grimed windows of yonder gazebo upon the
+road, or some horrific spectre who like the ghost of Hamlet’s father
+“could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul” and
+make
+
+    “Each particular hair to stand on end,
+    Like quills upon the fretful porcupine,”
+
+I cannot say.  But the local gossip will not lessen as time goes on and
+the place remains unlet.  There could not, for one thing, be a much
+better setting for ghostly manifestations.  It is true that the road is
+one much used by traffic, and by motorists in especial, whose dust and
+horrid odours might well disgust any but the hardiest of wraiths; but
+here is the old garden-pavilion or gazebo on the wall at the fork of
+roads, with its quaint roof and the windows from which the people of the
+manor would look out upon the traffic when it was not so dusty and did
+not stink so much, and here are still the trunks of the magnificent elms
+that until recently cast a grateful shade upon the road and made the
+bridge-end so beautiful a scene.  But the elms have been lopped and show
+cruelly amputated limbs, and no one looks any more from the gazebo: it is
+an eloquent picture of the Past.
+
+             [Picture: Clopton Bridge, and the “Swan’s Nest”]
+
+Beyond this spot we leave the Shipston road and turn to the right, coming
+in two miles to Clifford Chambers, which is not the block of offices or
+residential flats its name would seem to the Londoner to imply, but a
+picturesque village, taking the first part of its name from an olden ford
+on the Stour, and the second part from the manor having formerly been the
+property of the house-stewards, or “Chamberers,” of the great Abbey of
+Gloucester.
+
+The village street of Clifford Chambers stands at an angle from the road,
+and so keeps its ancient character the better, for the way through it
+down to the Stour is only a rustic track.  Clifford Chambers is therefore
+entirely unspoiled.  Here is the church, grouping beautifully with the
+ancient parsonage, now a farmhouse again, as it was during the time of
+the plague at Stratford, in the year when William Shakespeare was born,
+and when a mysterious John Shakespeare was living here.  “Mysterious”
+because nothing more is known of him, and because the question arises in
+some minds, “Was the John Shakespeare then living at Clifford Chambers
+identical with the John Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, father of
+William?  Was William Shakespeare, in fact, born here, instead of at ‘the
+Birthplace’ in Henley Street, or did John Shakespeare remove his wife and
+infant son hither when the plague broke out in the summer of 1564?”  Any
+question of this being the birthplace would seem to be at once disposed
+of by the undoubted baptism of William Shakespeare at the parish church
+of Stratford-on-Avon; but the summer retreat of the Shakespeares to this
+place may yet be a field for interesting speculation.
+
+                       [Picture: Clifford Chambers]
+
+There is not a more charming old black-and-white house in the
+neighbourhood than this, with its long range of perpendicular timbers,
+roughly-split in the old English fashion, which might well show some
+“restorers” how to do it; and the odd outside stairway at the gable-end,
+roofed over with its little penthouse roof.  It comes well enough in
+black and white, but forms a feast of mellow colour, in the rich but
+subdued tints that the lichens and the stains of time and weather have
+given.
+
+Facing up the rustic street, more like a village green than street, is
+another and a statelier house: the manor-house, enclosed within its
+garden-walls.  It is of stone, in the early years of the eighteenth
+century, when Queen Anne reigned.
+
+    “Anna, whom three realms obey,
+    Who sometimes counsel takes, and sometimes tay.”
+
+The view through the gates, flanked with imposing masonry piers crested
+with what the country folk call “gentility balls,” shows a delightful
+picture of old-world stateliness.  Time within this enclosure seems to
+have stood still.  You can imagine people living here who still take “a
+dish of tay,” who are “vastly obleeged” when you ask them how they do,
+and protest they are “mighty well,” or have “the vapours,” as the case
+may be, instead of being, as they would be in other surroundings and in
+the vile phrases of to-day, “awfully fit,” or “feeling rotten.”
+
+You can imagine, I say, the owners of this fine old manor-house drinking
+their dish of tay out of fine old “chancy,” as they used to call it;
+still speaking in the fashion that went out of date with the death of the
+great Duke of Wellington, who was among the last, I believe, to say
+“obleeged” and to call a chair a “cheer.”  Now only the most rustic of
+rustics talk in this manner, and when they say “cowcumber,” and
+“laylock,” and speak of “going fust” they are thought vulgar and reproved
+by their children.  But such was the pronunciation used by the best in
+the land in years gone by.
+
+There are the loveliest gardens in the rear of this old manor-house, with
+orchards of apples and pears and wall-fruit beyond, and an older wing by
+a century or so.
+
+The main road goes straight ahead for some miles, with Long Marston
+rather more than a mile on the right.  It is fully described in these
+pages, in the first of the two chapters on the “Eight Villages.”  On the
+left is the old farm-house which is all that is left of the hamlet of
+Wincot, the place where “Marian Hacket, the fat alewife,” mentioned by
+Christopher Sly in the induction to the _Taming of the Shrew_, had her
+alehouse, at which that drunken tinker had run up a score.  Many of the
+hamlets round about are “cotts,” “cotes,” or “cots”; Grimscote, Foxcote,
+Hidcote, Idlicote, Darlingscott, and others.  Wincot as a hamlet of
+Quinton finds mention in the registers of that church, and in them,
+November 21st, 1591, is still to be found the entry recording the baptism
+of Sara Hacket, daughter of Robert Hacket.  The fat Marian, therefore,
+who allowed drunken undesirables to run up scores, was probably a real
+person.
+
+As we make for Quinton the tree-crowned height of Meon Hill, an outpost
+of the Cotswolds, forms a striking landmark in this vale.  It is,
+according to the Ordnance Survey, 637 feet high, and its position gives
+it an appearance of even greater eminence.  At its foothills lies the
+village of Quinton, in a district very little disturbed by strangers, and
+in summer days one of quiet delights.  Coming over to Quinton one
+afternoon, from a day of hospitable entertainment at King’s Lodge, Long
+Marston, I cycled along the quiet sunlit road, past the old tollhouse
+with its little strip of wayside garden, and silently came upon a black
+cat, appreciatively and with much evident enjoyment smelling the
+wall-flowers growing there.  One never before credited cats with a liking
+for sweet scents.
+
+Only one event during the year disturbs the serenity of Quinton.  At
+other times it drowses, like all its fellow villages of the vale; but
+this one occasion is like that in Tennyson’s _May Queen_, the “maddest,
+merriest day.”  It is the day when Quinton Club holds high revel.  I do
+not know what is the purpose of Quinton Club, but the occasion of its
+merry-making is like that of a village fair, and all those travelling
+proprietors of steam roundabouts, cocoa-nut shies, shooting-galleries and
+popular entertainments of that kind who attend fairs make a point of
+visiting this celebration.  And indeed I do not know what Quinton would
+do without them and the many stall-keepers who come in their train.
+
+To say merely that Quinton is not a large place would be to leave some
+sort of impression that, if not a little town, it was at least a
+considerable village.  It is, as a matter of fact, a very small one, but
+to it on this day of days resort the people of those neighbouring places
+unfortunate enough to have neither club nor fair of their own, and you
+may see them trudging from all directions; driving in on farm-wagons
+seated with kitchen-chairs for this purpose, or cycling.  Towards
+evening, when most of the countryside has arrived, the strident tones of
+the steam organ that forms not the least important part of the
+roundabout, the thuds of the heavy mallets on the “try-your-strength”
+machines, the shouting of the cocoa-nut shy proprietors, and the general
+hum and buzz of the fair astonish the stranger afar off.  Near at hand,
+the scent of fried fish is heavy on the air and gingerbread is hot i’ the
+mouth, and in the centre of the hurly-burly the steam roundabout blares
+and glares, presided over by a very highly-coloured full-length portrait
+of no less a person than Lord Roberts, in the full equipment of Field
+Marshal; the surest test of a soldier’s popularity.  Lord Kitchener has
+never yet become the presiding hero over the galloping horses of the
+steam roundabout: he is perhaps something too grim for these occasions.
+
+I think, beneath the pictured face of Lord Roberts there lurks the
+countenance of he who was the popular favourite immediately before him;
+Lord Wolseley, who for twenty years or more was in the shrewd opinion of
+the showmen, the most attractive personality to preside over the
+steam-trumpets, the odious “kist o’ whustles,” the mirrors and the
+circulating wooden horses.  The showmen know best, they are in touch with
+popular sentiment; and be sure that if you scraped off Lord Roberts, you
+would find the face of Lord Wolseley there.  Indeed, the possibility of a
+real stratum of military heroes is only limited by the age of the machine
+itself; and if it were only old enough one might penetrate beyond Lord
+Wolseley to Lord Raglan, and even back to that ancient hero of the inn
+signs, the Marquis of Granby.
+
+The fine church of Quinton looks across the road to the village inn, the
+“College Arms.”  The arms are those of Magdalen College, Oxford, owner of
+the manor.
+
+The church is a Decorated building, with fine spire, and contains some
+interesting monuments; chief among them an altar-tomb with a very fine
+brass to Joan Clopton, widow of Sir William Clopton, who died in 1419.
+An effigy, on another altar-tomb, seen in the church, is said by some to
+be that of her husband; others declare it to be that of one Thomas le
+Roos.  She survived her husband several years, dying about 1430, in the
+habit of a religious recluse, or “vowess.”  She lived probably in a cell
+or anchoress’s hold built on to the church and commanding a view of the
+altar, and must have had a singularly poor time of it in all those eleven
+years.  No trace remains of her uncomfortable and singularly dull
+habitation.  This misguided lady was by birth a Besford of Besford in
+Worcestershire, and her coat of arms, displayed separately and also
+impaled with that of her husband, has six golden pears on a red ground,
+by way of a painfully farfetched pun on “Besford.”  Not even the most
+desolating punster of our own time could or would torture “Besford” into
+“Pearsford,” but our remote ancestors were capable of the greatest
+enormities in this way.
+
+Some of the red enamel still remains in the heraldic shields on this fine
+brass, which, including its canopy, is six feet four inches long.  The
+figure of Joan Clopton, and the brass in general, is in excellent
+condition, perhaps because the descendants of the family took care of it.
+One of them, a certain “T. Lingen,” whose name appears upon the tomb,
+repaired it in 1739.  A Latin verse occupies the margin of the brass,
+with little figures of pears repeated at intervals.  The verse has been
+translated as follows—
+
+    “Vowed to a holy life when ceased her knightly husband’s breath,
+    Joan Clopton here, Anne’s grandchild dear, implores Thy grace in
+    death;
+    O! Christ, for Thee, O! Jesu blest, how largely hath she shed
+    Her bounteous gifts on poor and sick—how hath she garnished
+    Thy stately shrines with splendour meet—how hath she sent before
+    Her earthly wealth to Thee above, to swell her heavenly store,
+    For such blest fruits of faith, O grant, in Thine own house her home:
+    Soft lies an earthly tomb on those to whom these heavenly blessings
+    come.”
+
+A scroll above her head is inscribed with the words—
+
+    “Complaceat tibi due eripias me
+    Due ad adiuuand’ me respice”
+
+an appeal that may be rendered, “Be good and loving to me, O Lord.”
+
+A striking instance of the affection inspired by Queen Elizabeth is to be
+noticed in the Royal arms of her period over the chancel arch, bearing,
+in addition to “that glorious ‘Semper Eadem’” alluded to by Macaulay in
+his ballad on the Armada, the inscription “God love our noble Queen.”
+
+Resuming the way to Chipping Campden, the road passes the spot marked on
+the maps “Lower Clopton.”  This, or the other tiny hamlet away on the
+left, called “Upper Clopton,” was the home of that first Shakespeare
+recorded in history, who was hanged in 1248 for robbery.  Through
+Mickleton, a more considerable village than its neighbours, and deriving
+its original name of “Mycclantune,” the “larger town,” from that fact, up
+climbs the highway to Campden.
+
+It is in some ways difficult to imagine Campden the busy and prosperous
+place it once unquestionably was; but the quiet old streets, lined with
+houses almost every one of good architectural character; and the old
+market-house, and the fine church give full assurance of the commercial
+activity and the wealth that have departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+                            Chipping Campden.
+
+CAMPDEN’S position as a market town dates back to Saxon times, when the
+verb “ceapan,” to buy, gave the prefix “Chipping” to it.  The town rose
+to greater prosperity when the ancient wool-growing wealth of the
+Cotswolds was doubled by the manufacture in these same districts of the
+cloth from those wealth-bringing fleeces; and great fortunes were amassed
+by both wool-merchants and clothiers.  The rise of England from an
+agricultural and a wool-growing country, such as Australia now is, to a
+manufacturing community directly concerned such towns as Stroud,
+Northleach, Burford and Chipping Campden, which, with the introduction of
+weaving, earned two profits instead of one.  There are perhaps a dozen
+little Cotswold towns whose great churches were rebuilt in the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries, in a magnificent style by the wealthy merchants
+of the time, whose monumental brasses still in many cases remain,
+representing them standing upon sheep, or woolsacks, or with the tailor’s
+shears between their legs; the origins of their wealth.  When the cloth
+manufacture largely migrated to the Midlands and the north, such towns as
+Campden, Burford, and Northleach began to decay, and now that Australia
+is the chief source of the wool supply it is difficult to see how they
+are ever to recover.  They are not on the great routes of traffic, and
+railways do not come near them.
+
+                 [Picture: Old Houses, Chipping Campden]
+
+              [Picture: The Market House, Chipping Campden]
+
+Campden is situated on a kind of shelf or narrow plateau upon the
+Cotswolds.  You come steeply up to it, and, leaving it, rise as steeply
+as before.  Like most of its neighbours on Cotswold, it is a stone-built
+town, grown grey with age and weathering.  When some new mason-work is
+undertaken—which is not often—the stone is seen to be of a pale biscuit
+colour; but it soon loses that new tint and rapidly acquires the rather
+sad hue of the older work.
+
+The traveller fresh from Stratford, where brick, and timber-framed and
+plastered houses abound, feels astonishment in the sudden transition to a
+place like Campden, in which I believe there is not a single example of
+timber-framing.
+
+The old town of Campden is extraordinarily full of architectural
+interest; with domestic work ranging from the mid-fourteenth century
+house of the Grevels to the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the
+town began to decline and building ceased.  No modern suburbs are found
+on the outskirts of Campden.  I do not know how the town manages to
+exist.  There is a railway station, but it is a mile away and it is only
+incidental and placed on the line to Evesham and Worcester.  No great
+genius was ever born at Campden, or if he was, he missed fire and
+perished unknown.  Therefore it is not a place of pilgrimage, and only
+parties of architectural students, measuring up or sketching some of the
+charming bits with which it abounds; or artists, or contemplative
+ruminative folk who want to escape from the eternal hustle of this age
+and its devilish gospel of “get on or get out” ever go there.  “Past” is
+traced over its every building.  “There was a time” might be inscribed
+over the open-sided and quaintly-colonnaded market-house; and “Yesterday”
+should be the town motto.  There are little courts off the main street
+where the leisured explorer in Campden will find remains of the old wool
+warehouses, with here and there a traceried Gothic window.  Many old
+sundials still exist on the walls; in particular a charming example near
+the market-house with the initials W. S. T. and date 1690; and dated
+house-tablets show with what pride the old inhabitants looked upon their
+homes.
+
+But the pride of all the ancient houses of Campden is that house where
+William Grevel lived in the fourteenth century.  It is not a very large
+house, one thinks, for so wealthy a man as he was, described as he is on
+the brass in the church as “the flower of the wool-merchants of all
+England,” but it presents a charming frontage to the street and has an
+oriel window of peculiar beauty, presided over by two huge and hideous
+gargoyles, the one representing a winged, bat-like monster with gaping
+mouth and a ferocious expression; the other a kind of demon dog with
+glaring eyes of intense malignity—the late Mr. William Grevel’s familiar
+spirits, perhaps.
+
+Every one well-read in the history of his country knows that the ranks of
+its aristocracy and its peerage have constantly been reinforced from the
+trading classes.  It is a matter of money.  When a man has great
+possessions he finds the House of Lords waiting to receive him.  It has
+been so for centuries, and not only so, but the ennobled have in their
+own later generations given younger sons to trade.  The different
+processes are still seen working; and why not?  Wealth will secure
+consideration, and younger sons who cannot always marry money must in
+their turn go into trade and make it.
+
+                        [Picture: Grevel’s House]
+
+The old wool-merchants and clothiers often rose to the peerage on their
+own account, or married their sons and daughters into its ranks.  William
+Grevel, who was a descendant of other mercantile Grevels, never became
+more than a wealthy trader.  As such he died in 1401, and it was not
+until just over two centuries had passed that his descendant, Fulke
+Greville, entered the lists of the coroneted as Baron Brooke; the eighth
+Baron Brooke not becoming Earl of Warwick until 1759.  The Grevels—or
+“Grevilles,” as they afterwards spelt their name—therefore only belatedly
+won to that haven where they would be; but most others were more
+fortunate.  Baptist Hicks, for example, is an extraordinary instance of
+swift accumulation of wealth.  He, however, made it in London, as a
+mercer and perhaps a good deal more as a moneylender.  He lent money to
+James the First among others, and became so warm a man that he returned
+in 1609 to his native Gloucestershire and purchased the manor of Campden,
+building a magnificent country seat next the church.  The cost of this
+was £29,000: over £200,000 according to present value.  He had so much
+money and so fine a house that he, being already a Knight, was in 1628
+created a Viscount.  He died the following year, not like Tennyson’s
+Countess of Burleigh, because of the weight of an honour to which he had
+not been born, but by reason of age and possibly chagrin that he had not
+been created an Earl.
+
+He was a benefactor to Campden, and built the charming group of
+almshouses that stand on the left-hand on the way to the church.
+
+Past these almshouses, the way goes directly to the church, a noble
+building of date somewhere about 1530.  It owes its present stately
+proportions and Perpendicular style largely to the benefactions of Grevel
+and others.  The tower is remarkable for a buttress which is in some ways
+a kind of highly-developed mullion running through the centre of the
+window of the lower stage.  It is perhaps rather more curious than
+beautiful, and as it cannot be of any constructional value and adds
+little if anything to the stability of the tower, we can only regard it
+as one of those freaks of the last phase of Gothic architecture which
+tell us, if we have but the wit to understand, that, Reformation or no
+Reformation, with Henry the Eighth or without, the Gothic spirit was
+dying.
+
+        [Picture: Interior of the Market House, Chipping Campden]
+
+The curious ogee-shaped roof of a building seen in the foreground of the
+accompanying view of the church is that of a garden-pavilion, or gazebo,
+of Campden House, the lordly mansion built in 1613 by Sir Baptist Hicks,
+first Viscount Campden.  I have seen curious old illustrations of this
+fine house, by which it would seem to have been a place of extraordinary
+grandeur.  It is said to have been the largest house ever built in
+England, and stood upon eight acres of ground.  This truly extensive
+mansion existed no longer than thirty-two years, for it was burnt by
+order of Prince Rupert in 1645.  During that time of civil war Campden
+House had been a notable rallying-place for the Royalists, who under a
+rough soldier, Sir Henry Bard, had made themselves a pestilent nuisance,
+not only to their natural enemies, but even to sympathisers.  If they
+needed anything in the way of food, forage, or apparel, they took it
+where it was to be found, whether from Roundhead or Royalist.  They raped
+the very clothes off the country people’s backs.  “A man,” says one of
+these lamenting rustics, “need keep a tight hold of his very breeches, or
+’tis odds but what these Sabines will have them, and if he is let keep
+his shirt, it is thought a matter of grace.”  So it was not altogether
+regretfully that they saw Bard and his brigands depart while there
+remained one of those indispensable articles, or a hat, or pair of shoes
+in the neighbourhood.  When the garrison left, they fired the mansion.
+It was never rebuilt, and to this day its ruins stand to keep the tale in
+mind.
+
+That the church was rebuilt in the very last years of the Late
+Perpendicular style is more and more evident as you approach and examine
+it.  William Grevel in 1401 left a hundred marks towards the work, and
+you will be told locally that the present building is the result of that
+gift.  But not very much could have been done with such a sum, and in any
+event, the fabric is distinctly and unmistakably over a hundred years
+later in date.  The ogee pinnacles and mouldings, and especially the
+flattened arches of the nave-arcade tell their architectural tale in a
+way that cannot be gainsaid.
+
+On the floor of the chancel is the fine brass to William Grevel, 1401,
+and Marion, his wife, 1386.  It is, with its canopied work, eight feet
+nine inches high; the figure of Grevel himself being five feet four
+inches.  We see him habited in the merchant’s dress of his period, and
+with the forked beard that was then the usual wear of the elderly among
+his class, as Chaucer says, in his _Canterbury Tales_: “A marchant was
+there with a forked beard.”
+
+Other brasses are to William Welley, merchant, 1450, and wife Alice; John
+Lethenard, merchant, 1467, and his wife Joan; and William Gybbys, 1484,
+with his three wives, Alice, Margaret and Marion, and seven sons and six
+daughters.
+
+The stately monument of Baptist Hicks, first Viscount Campden, and his
+wife occupies the south chancel chapel.  It is one of the works of
+Nicholas Stone and his sons, whose extraordinarily fine craftsmanship as
+sculptors and designers of monuments in the seventeenth century redeemed
+to a great extent the rather vulgar ostentation which marked in general
+the neo-classic style of the age.  The monument takes up nearly all the
+floor space and rises to a great height.  Beneath a canopy formed by it
+rest the recumbent marble effigies of that ennobled wool-merchant and
+sometime Lord Mayor of London, and his wife, habited in the robes of
+their rank, and with coronets on their heads.  They are impressive in a
+very high degree.  A long Latin inscription narrates his good deeds and
+expatiates upon the good fortune of Campden which benefited by them.
+
+It is not easy to excuse the deplorable taste which produced the large
+monument against the wall to Edward Noel, 2nd Viscount Campden, who died
+1642, and his widow, Juliana, 1680.  We would like to believe that the
+idea of it was none of Nicholas Stone’s, but was dictated by the mortuary
+grief of that thirty-eight years’ long widow, who no doubt found great
+satisfaction and consolation in coming every now and then to open its
+doors and look at the gruesome white marble figures, larger than life, of
+herself and her husband, representing them standing hand in hand, in
+their shrouds.  They remind one very vividly of the lines in _Ruddigore_—
+
+    “And then the ghost and his lady toast
+       To their churchyard beds take flight,
+    With a kiss perhaps on her lantern chaps
+       And a grisly, grim ‘Good-night!’”
+
+The visitor to Campden church is told that the black marble doors
+disclosing these figures and now fixed permanently open, against the
+wall, were generally closed during the lifetime of the widow, and were
+opened at her decease.  The long epitaphs tell us in detail about her,
+her husband, and her family.  On the left-hand is that to the husband—
+
+“This monument is erected to preserve the memory and pourtrait of the
+Right Honourable Sr. Edward Noel, Viscount Campden, Baron Noel of
+Ridlington and Hicks of Ilmington.  He was Knight Banneret in the warrs
+of Ireland, being young, and then created Baronet anno 1611.  He was
+afterwards made Baron of Ridlington.  The other titles came unto him by
+right of Dame Juliana, his wife, who stands collaterall to him in this
+monument, a lady of extraordinary great endowments, both of vertue and
+fortune.  This goodly lord died at Oxford at ye beginning of the late
+fatall civil warrs, whither he went to serve and assist his sovverain
+Prince Charles the First, and so was exalted to the Kingdom of Glory, 8°
+Martii 1642.”
+
+The right hand door is inscribed with the lady’s own description, and of
+her children’s fortunes—
+
+    “The Lady Juliana, eldest daughter and co-heire (of that mirror of
+    his time) Sr. Baptist Hicks, Viscount Campden.  She was married to
+    that noble Lord who is here engraven by her, by whom she had Baptist,
+    Lord Viscount Campden, now living (who is blessed with a numerous and
+    gallant issue).  Henry, her second son, died a prisoner for his
+    loyalty to his Prince.  Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was married
+    to John Viscount Chaworth: Mary, her second daughter, to the very
+    noble Knight, Sr Erasmus de la Fontaine.  Penelope, her youngest
+    daughter, died a mayd.
+
+    “This excellent lady, for the pious and unparallel’d affections she
+    retained to the memory of her deceased lord, caused this stately
+    monument to be erected in her lifetime, in September Anno Dom. 1664.”
+
+A very charming mural monument to the Lady Penelope shows a
+delicately-sculptured bust.  She is seen wearing a dress with deep
+Vandyck lace collar.  As with the other monuments, it is clearly from the
+hands of the Stone family.  The Lady Penelope, who died young in 1633, is
+traditionally said to have died from the effects of pricking her finger
+when working in coloured silks.  The position of the hand is said to be
+in allusion to the accident.  A companion figure is that to the Lady Anne
+Noel, wife of the Lady Penelope’s brother, Baptist.  She died 1636.
+
+                    [Picture: Chipping Campden Church]
+
+The “Campden Wonder,” at which people in 1662 marvelled, is still an
+unsolved mystery, and ever likely to remain so.  The story of it began in
+1660, on August 16th, when William Harrison, a staid elderly man of about
+sixty years, who had been trusted for many years as the steward of the
+widowed Juliana, Viscountess Campden, went to Charingworth, three miles
+away, to collect some rents.  When night had come and he had not
+returned, his wife sent a servant, John Perry, in search.  By morning,
+when he too had not come back, Mrs. Harrison grew more alarmed and sent
+her son, Edward, who met Perry returning, without having seen anything of
+his master.  Young Harrison persuaded the man to go to Ebrington with him
+and to raise further inquiries.  There they heard that William Harrison
+had called the evening before and rested, and that he had then left.  He
+had then about £23 on him.
+
+On their way back to Campden, young Harrison and Perry met a woman who
+handed them a bloodstained comb and band which that morning she had found
+in the furze on the road between Ebrington and Charingworth.  They were
+those of the missing man, but of him no trace could be found.  It did not
+take long to come to the conclusion that Perry must have had a hand in
+his master’s disappearance, and he was arrested on suspicion of murder.
+He had told so many contradictory tales that he was rightly suspected,
+and after a week’s imprisonment he had yet another story.  He now
+“confessed” that his mother, Joan Perry, and his brother Richard had long
+urged him to rob his master, and that at last they had on this occasion
+waylaid and robbed him, afterwards strangling him and throwing the body
+into the great mill-sink of the neighbouring Wallington’s Mill.  The comb
+and band had been put on the road by himself.
+
+John Perry’s mother and brother were accordingly arrested and the three
+were tried at Gloucester and convicted, notwithstanding the fact that no
+body had been found, and in spite of the piteous protestations of
+innocence by Joan Perry and Richard, and in face of the avowal by John
+that he must have been mad when he “confessed.”  He now declared he knew
+nothing of Harrison’s death; but in spite of all these doubts, the three
+were executed, on Broadway Hill.  Joan was hanged first, and Robert next.
+John calmly saw them die and listened to their last appeals to him to
+confess and to exonerate them.  He was hanged last, protesting that he
+had never known anything of his master’s death, or even if he were dead.
+But, he added, they might hereafter possibly hear.
+
+The countryside congratulated itself upon being rid of three
+undesirables.  The old woman had always been reputed a witch.  And when
+the affair was becoming a stale and exhausted topic, one autumn evening
+at dusk, two years later, Mr. William Harrison, for whose murder three
+persons had been convicted and hanged, returned and walked into his own
+house.
+
+He gave forth an ingenious but preposterous story to account for his two
+years’ absence.  As he was returning home, he said, on the evening of his
+disappearance, he was intercepted by three horsemen who attacked, wounded
+and robbed him, and carrying him to a neighbouring cottage on the heath,
+nursed him there until it was possible to carry him across country to
+Dover, where they put him aboard a vessel and sold him to the captain,
+who had several others in like case with himself on his ship.  They
+voyaged from Deal and after about six weeks’ sail they were seized by
+Turkish pirates and he and the others were put aboard the Turkish ship
+and sold as slaves in Turkey.  His master lived near Smyrna.  After
+serving him as a slave for nearly two years, the elderly Turk died and
+the slave escaped to the coast, where he persuaded some Hamburg sailors
+to take him as a stowaway to Lisbon.  There he met an Englishman who took
+compassion upon him and found him a passage to England.  Landing at
+Dover, he made his way directly home.
+
+      [Picture: Brass to William Grevel and Wife, Chipping Campden]
+
+This cock-and-bull story was all that the country ever had in the way of
+satisfaction.  Harrison went about his steward’s business as before,
+trusted and respected, and died ten years later.  In after years some
+suspicion seems to have fallen upon the son, but for what reason does not
+appear.  That industrious Oxford diarist, Anthony Wood, who took a keen
+interest in the affair, as did all the country, says, “After Harrison’s
+returne, John was taken down [from his gibbet] and Harrison’s wife soon
+after (being a snotty covetous presbyterian) hung herself in her owne
+house.  Why, the reader is to judge.”
+
+In leaving Campden and its memories, I must not let it be supposed that
+in speaking of the town as decayed and belonging to the past I either
+intend to slight it or forget the Guild of Handicraft established here in
+1892.  Removed from London in that year, it has sought to bring back in
+these more and more commercial and factory times the craftsman’s old
+traditions of artistic and individual work, no matter in what trade.  In
+printing, bookbinding, enamel-work, jewellery and cabinet-making it has
+sought by precept and example to further the teachings of Ruskin and
+Morris, and has created a new feeling here and elsewhere which has
+effects in places little suspected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+   A Deserted Railway—Villages of the Stour Valley—Ettington and Squire
+           Shirley—Shipston-on-Stour—Brailes—Compton Wynyates.
+
+THERE is not an uninteresting road among the eight that lead out of
+Stratford, and all are beautiful.  But none has more beauty than that
+which runs southward to Shipston-on-Stour.  This way, or by the route
+leading through Ettington and Sunrising Hill, you go to Compton Wynyates,
+that wonderfully picturesque old mansion of the Comptons, Marquises of
+Northampton, which has remained unaltered for centuries in its
+remoteness, and is still not easily accessible.  The Shipston road then,
+for choice, to Compton Wynyates.  It follows, more or less closely the
+valley of the Stour, and here and there touches the river; while
+companionably, all the way run the grass-grown cuttings and embankments
+of that long-abandoned Stratford and Shipston Tramway whose red brick
+bridge is a feature of the Avon at Stratford town.
+
+The deserted earthworks and ivy-grown bridges of this forgotten
+undertaking, now this side of the road and then the other, excite the
+curiosity of the stranger, but he will rarely find anyone to tell him the
+meaning of them, and at the best only vaguely.  Their story is one of
+unfulfilled hopes and money flung ruinously away; for they are the only
+traces of the Central Junction Railway projected in 1820, to run through
+to Oxford and London.  It was a horsed tramway, and was opened through
+Shipston to Moreton-in-the-Marsh in 1826.  A remunerative traffic in
+general agricultural produce and goods was expected, but the enterprise
+seems to have been weighted from the beginning with the heavy expenses of
+construction.  Estimated by Telford at £35,000 for the Stratford-on-Avon
+to Moreton section, they soon reached £80,000.  But the doom of the
+project was sounded by the introduction of the locomotive engine, almost
+simultaneously with the opening.  In 1845 it was leased to the Oxford,
+Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, a scandalously inefficient line
+whose initials, “O. W. W.” suggested to saturnine wags the appropriate
+name of “Old Worse and Worse.”  This ill-managed affair was eventually
+absorbed into the Great Western Railway, which now owns these relics.
+
+Little villages are thickly set along the course of the Stour, to the
+right of the road; ancient settlements, each but a slightly larger or
+smaller collection of farmhouses, barns and thatched cottages, with a
+church in their midst.  Here the Saxon farmers came and early cultivated
+the rich meadow-lands, leaving the poorer uplands long unenclosed and
+untitled; and to every little community came the clergy and set up a
+church and tithed those farmers who earned their livelihood by the sweat
+of their brows.  Such a village is Atherstone-upon-Stour, where a
+majestic red brick farmhouse, dating from the seventeenth century,
+neighbours a debased little church.  There is little of interest in that
+church, and the loathly epitaph to William Thomas, a son of the rector,
+who died in 1710, aged nine, of smallpox, decently veils in the obscurity
+of eighteenth century pedagogic Latin the full particulars given of his
+disease.
+
+A rather larger village is Preston-upon-Stour, reached from the highway
+after passing the lovely elm avenues of Alscot Park.  Thatched cottages
+looking upon an upland green, with village church presiding over it, are
+the note of Preston.  Tall stone gate-piers of the eighteenth century,
+with fine wrought-iron gates, give entrance to the churchyard.  The
+interior of the church is, however, a very shocking example of the
+eighteenth-century way with Gothic buildings.
+
+Smaller than any of these places by the lovely little Stour is
+Whitchurch, just before the larger village of Alderminster.  It lies off
+to the right, not often troubled by the stranger.  The place-name is
+thought to derive from a supposed former dedication of the church to St.
+Candida, or Wita.  “Alderminster” means probably “the alderman’s town,”
+the property in Saxon times of some wealthy landowner, and has no
+ecclesiastical associations or monastic history that would account for
+the “minster” in the place-name.
+
+The road grows extremely beautiful at the crossing of the Stour by
+Ettington Park and the approach to Newbold.  Here, where a by-road to
+Grimscote goes off on the right, an ornate pillar standing on the grass
+serves the purpose of a milestone and bears the sculptured arms—the gold
+and black pales (heraldically paly of six, or and sable)—of a former
+owner of Ettington Park, generally spoken of in the neighbourhood as
+“wold Squire Shirley, what lived yur tharty yur agoo.”  It was in 1871
+that he erected this elaborate stone which I think must be the only
+poetical milestone in England.  It is not great poetry, and there is not
+much of it; but it shows the immense possibilities of wayside
+entertainment, if all its fellows were made to burst into song—
+
+                      “6 miles
+    To Shakespeare’s Town, whose name
+       Is known throughout the earth;
+    To Shipston 4, whose lesser fame
+       Boasts no such poet’s birth.”
+
+You will see here that my own notion, earlier in these chaste pages, of
+re-naming the town “Shakespeare-on-Avon” germinated, however
+unconsciously, in “wold Squire Shirley’s” brain, over forty years since.
+
+But this is not all.  Two Latin and English verses are added to the tale
+of it—
+
+    “Crux mea lux,
+    After darkness light.
+    From light hope flows.
+    And peace in death,
+    In Christ is sure repose.
+             Spes 1871.
+    Post obitum Salus.
+    In obitu Pax
+    In hue Spes
+    Post tenebras lux.”
+
+The shields of arms include the nine roundels of the see of Worcester,
+and a further shield of the Shirley arms, with a canton ermine.
+
+This poetical squire was Mr. Evelyn Philip Shirley, kinsman of Earl
+Ferrers.  He refronted his house at Ettington Park, and indulged himself
+fully in that elaborate mansion in the verse he loved so well and
+composed so ill.  In the hall still remains the shield of arms he set up
+there, displaying these same alternate black and gold stripes which come
+down from the times of Sewallis, and beneath it another of his
+compositions—
+
+    “These be the pales of black and gold
+    The which Sewallis bore of old;
+    And this the coat which his true heirs
+    The ancient house of Shirley bears.”
+
+Ettington Park is now without a tenant and is, I believe, to be sold.
+Thus passes the pride of this branch of the Shirleys.
+
+It is a lovely park and a stately house, with the ivied ruins of the
+ancient church adjoining, including the tombs and effigies of older
+Shirleys and others who would make excellent ancestors for any
+enterprising purchaser.  “I don’t know whose ancestors they were,” says
+the Major-General in the _Pirates of Penzance_, of the monuments in the
+ruined chapel on the estate he has bought, “but I know whose they are.”
+
+The Squire, besides his activities in the way of bad rhymes, stumbling
+metres, and obvious moral sentiments, was an antiquary, and keen to alter
+the spelling of the place-name “Eatington” to “Ettington,” on the coming
+of the railway in 1873.  He showed that it is “Etendone” in Domesday
+Book, and that Dugdale, the historian of Warwickshire, was the first to
+spell it Eatington in 1656.  But Dugdale, who knew the name derived from
+the watery situation of the place, was right, and Domesday wrong, as it
+very often is in these matters, the Norman-French compilers of it not
+being at all well-equipped for rendering the, to them, alien names
+correctly.
+
+Passing pretty scenes at Newbold-on-Stour, the road bears away from the
+river and touches it again at the equally pretty village of Tredington.
+The spire of Honington is then seen on the left, and Shipston-on-Stour is
+entered.  There is a railway station at Shipston, the terminus of a
+little branch line from Moreton-in-the-Marsh.  When the railway reached
+so far it exhausted all its energies and could do no more.  It might be
+supposed, from the efforts to reach Shipston by rail, that it was an
+important place, whose traffic was well worth securing—perhaps even, from
+its name, a port; but it is long since this old market-town was a place
+of any commercial value, and no ships ever sailed the little Stour.  They
+were sheep, not ships, that gave Shipston its name, and it first appears
+in history, nine hundred and fifty years ago, as “Scepewasce”; that is to
+say, the place where the sheep were washed in those Saxon times.  It was
+written “Scepwaesctun” in 1006, and is “Scepwestun” in Domesday; _i.e._
+the Sheepwash Town.
+
+To Brailes, over two miles from Shipston, the road rises, commanding
+views down upon the left over “the Feldon,” as the district between this
+and Stratford-on-Avon is known; that clearing in the ancient Forest of
+Arden which is by no means so bare of timber as might be supposed, and
+itself indeed looks from this height very like a forest.  At Brailes is
+the parish church, proudly styled the “Cathedral of the Feldon.”  It is
+large, its tower is lofty, rising to a hundred and twenty feet, and it
+stands in a prominent position.  Its Perpendicular architecture is good,
+too, but there is nothing, internally, of a cathedral about it.
+
+At the “George” inn, Brailes, the traveller to Compton Wynyates will do
+well to refresh himself before he proceeds further, for not only has he
+come far, but when he has threaded the steep and winding lanes beyond
+which that romantic manor-house of the Comptons lies in its deep,
+cup-like hollow, he will need something wherewith to fortify his
+energies, especially as it is extremely likely he will lose himself on
+the way, and as there is no likelihood of his being able to refresh
+himself when there.  Romance, lovely scenery, and picturesque
+architectural grouping are not well seen when fasting.
+
+“Wynyates” is a puzzling word, which may mean “Vineyards” or “Windgates”:
+the first for choice.  The place, let it be impressed upon the stranger,
+is a house, not a village; although, looking sheerly down upon the hollow
+where its crowded gables and many clustered chimneys are seen, with its
+adjoining church, a village it might appear to be.  There was once,
+indeed, such a place, but it disappeared so long ago that no one can tell
+us anything about it, and its church, which stood upon the site of the
+present building, was battered to pieces and “totally reduced to
+rubbish,” as Dugdale tells us, during the siege of the mansion in 1644.
+
+Thus the Comptons, Marquises of Northampton, have the place all to
+themselves.  And it is very likely that the explorer also will have
+Compton Wynyates to himself, for this is but one of the residences of
+that noble family, whose chief seat is at Castle Ashby, away in
+Northamptonshire, and it is occupied for only a short interval in every
+year.  By an admirable generosity and courtesy the stranger may generally
+be assured of permission to see the interior of the mansion, a privilege
+very well worth exercising.
+
+Sir William Compton, the builder of Compton Wynyates, was the descendant
+of a long line of obscure squires who had been settled here for
+centuries.  He owed his advancement in life to being brought up with
+Henry the Eighth, who cherished an affection for him and gave his friend
+the Castle of Fulbrook, which was situated between Stratford-on-Avon and
+Warwick.  Sir William Compton did a singular thing with the gift.  He
+pulled it down and transported the materials by packhorse or mule-train
+the dozen miles or so across country to this secluded hollow, and with
+them built the charming house we now see.  Fulbrook Castle, it would thus
+appear, was less of a castle than a slightly embattled manor-house, built
+of red brick, with tall moulded chimney stacks, in the reign of Henry the
+Sixth.  It had been in existence only some eighty years.  Its chimneys,
+according to tradition, were taken whole, the mortar being so strong that
+the bricks could not be separated.  Thus the singularity of a brick house
+in a stone district is explained.
+
+                       [Picture: Compton Wynyates]
+
+It is red brick such as that of Hampton Court: a lovely mellow red,
+further toned by more than four hundred and fifty years.  The remains of
+a moat, and some beautiful gardens, form an exquisite setting.  Little
+has ever been done to alter the mansion.  It is built around a
+quadrangle, and is entered by the original brick porch with the Royal
+arms of the Tudor period above.  Within is the Great Hall, panelled in
+oak, with timbered roof and minstrel-gallery.  The adjoining dining-room,
+oak-panelled and with richly-decorated plaster ceiling, displaying the
+heraldic devices of the Comptons, is next the domestic chapel.  On the
+door above are the withdrawing-rooms communicating with the
+chapel-gallery.  Here is “Henry the Eighth’s Bedchamber,” afterwards used
+by Queen Elizabeth when she visited Henry Compton, grandson of Sir
+William, in 1572, shortly after creating him Baron Compton.  His son
+William is the hero of that Compton romance which brought the family
+great wealth.  He fell in love with the daughter and heiress of the
+enormously rich Sir John Spencer, alderman of London, but the father did
+not approve of it and refused to allow his daughter to hold any converse
+with her lover, who then had recourse to an ingenious stratagem.  He
+enlisted the Spencer’s family baker upon his side, bribing him to be
+allowed to carry the domestic bread to the house, and duly disguised
+appeared one morning with his load.  He was so early that the alderman
+gave him sixpence and a homily on the virtues of diligence and
+punctuality.  But when the loaves had been delivered, the lady herself
+took her place in the basket and was carried away in it and promptly
+married.  Her father, cheated of the better match he had looked for,
+disinherited her, and the Spencer wealth would have gone other ways but
+for Queen Elizabeth, who when the first child of these enterprising
+lovers was born asked Sir John Spencer to be sponsor with her at the
+baptism of a child she was interested in, and to adopt it.  He
+unsuspectingly agreed and thus became godfather and guardian of his
+grandson, who inherited the riches so nearly lost.  The resourceful lover
+and husband, father of this fortunate boy, Spencer Compton, was created
+Earl of Northampton by James the First.  Spencer, the second Earl, fought
+for King Charles at Edge Hill, October 23rd, 1642, and was slain at
+Hopton Heath the following March.  In June 1644, the Royalist garrison of
+Compton Wynyates was besieged, and the house was captured in two days,
+and held throughout the war by the Roundheads, in spite of the bold
+moonlight attack in December, when the two brothers, Sir Charles and Sir
+William Compton, at the head of a daring party from Banbury, surprised
+the outposts, rushed the drawbridge which then crossed the moat, and
+fought a long hand to hand fight in the stables, before they were driven
+back.
+
+The long wooden gallery under the roof on one side of the house is known
+as “the Barracks.”  Here the garrison lay during those times.  A panelled
+room in the tower is known as the “Council Chamber.”  Above it is the
+“Priest’s Room,” apparently at some time used as a secret chapel, for on
+the wooden window-shelf may be seen the five rudely-cut crosses for an
+altar.
+
+The church destroyed in the troubles of the civil war was rebuilt in 1663
+by the third Earl of Northampton, and contains the battered monuments of
+Sir William Compton, builder of the mansion, and his wife; and of Henry,
+first Baron Compton; retrieved from the moat, into which, after being
+broken up, they had been thrown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+     Luddington—Welford—Weston-on-Avon—Cleeve Priors—Salford Priors.
+
+THE way from Stratford to Evesham is a main road, the road through
+Bidford, that already described in the chapters on the “Eight Villages,”
+and hardly to be mentioned again except that by making some variations
+here and there, two or three villages not otherwise to be visited may be
+included.  The first is Luddington, two and a half miles from the town,
+on a duly sign-posted road to the left, an excellent road, although not
+marked so on the maps.  Luddington, besides being a village of one long
+row of old thatched cottages close to the Avon, is of some mild interest
+as being the place of which Thomas Hunt, one of Shakespeare’s
+schoolmasters, became curate-in-charge, and where, some say, Shakespeare
+was married.  But the old church was burnt down many years ago and
+rebuilt in 1872, and the register, supposed to have been destroyed at the
+same time, was long kept in private hands, finally disappearing
+altogether.  The late Mr. C. E. Flower, of Stratford-on-Avon, stated
+that, in his younger days, “no one dreamed of disputing the assertion
+that Shakespeare was married at Luddington old church”; and many others
+declared that they had seen the entry in the book.
+
+The way through Luddington crosses over the railway and rejoins the main
+road half a mile short of Binton station.  Welford lies away to the left.
+
+Welford is a kind of show place in the Stratford district.  “Ah! if you
+want to see a pretty place, you should go to Welford.”  The experienced
+traveller and amateur of rural beauty hears this with a certain amount of
+misgiving, for the popular suffrages might mean tea-gardens and all the
+materials towards making a happy day for those very many people who think
+nature unadorned to be a dull affair at the best.  But Welford is quite
+as good as it is represented to be.  One might almost style it the most
+picturesque village in the neighbourhood.
+
+There is a good deal of Welford in the aggregate, but it is so scattered
+that it has the appearance of half a dozen hamlets.  It is best reached
+by turning off the road to Bidford just short of Binton railway station.
+A few yards bring you to what are called “Binton bridges,” across the
+Avon, here running in overgrown channels, thick with “the vagabond flag,”
+and shaded by willows that recall the lines in _Hamlet_—
+
+    “There is a willow grows askant the brook
+    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.”
+
+You may notice, when the wind ruffles the leaves of the willow, that the
+description is exact; the underside of a willow-leaf being different from
+the upper, and of a hoary, grey-white tint.
+
+“Binton bridges” are not, as might perhaps be assumed, bridges side by
+side, but are continuations, across the two channels of the river.
+Immediately across them the sign of the “Four Alls” inn attracts notice.
+It is a picture-sign showing the King, “I rule all”; a bishop, “I pray
+for all”; a guardsman, “I fight for all”; and a mournful-looking person,
+seated, wearing a suit of black clothes and a thoughtful expression of
+countenance: “I pay for all.”  It is a sign to be matched in other parts
+of the country, and was invented long ago by some sardonic person who had
+pondered deeply upon the functions of the Monarchy, the Church, the Army,
+and the tax-payer.  But he lacked the savage, saturnine humour of the
+person who thought of the “Five Alls,” another sign not unknown in the
+length and breadth of the land.  The Fifth All being the Devil: “I take
+all!”
+
+The first part of Welford soon appears, on the right.  It might be styled
+the chief part, because here, among the scattered groups of cottages, the
+church is found.  The church itself is only mildly interesting, but the
+old lych-gate is a quaint survival, as weather-worn and rustic and
+untouched as Welford itself; its rude timbers seamed and bleached with
+the weather of over four centuries.  Past the church you come down Boat
+Lane to the river, where the weir can be heard roaring.  There are some
+particularly sketchable cottages in this lane, as will be seen by the
+illustration over-leaf.
+
+Returning, and proceeding southwards, other ancient thatched cottages are
+passed, and then we come to the maypole, doubtless regarded as the centre
+of the village.  It is still dressed on May Day every year, and stands
+here all the year on its mound, a thing for the stranger to wonder at,
+gaily painted in bands of red, white and blue.  It is not, of course, the
+only existing maypole in England.  I myself, _moi que vous parle_, know
+about a dozen; but they are sufficiently unusual to attract attention.
+
+The rest of Welford straggles along a broad street to the left, and
+presently ends obscurely in meadows leading to the river.  Across
+field-paths one comes in this direction to the very out-of-the-world
+little village of Weston-on-Avon.  The explorer who finds Weston feels
+like some member of the Geographical Society who has wandered in strange,
+outlandish parts and comes back to read a paper on the subject; but I
+dare say it is similarly discovered very frequently.  Meanwhile, I have
+no travellers’ tales to tell of the manners and customs of the people,
+who are, as commonly elsewhere, of two sexes and walk upright on their
+hind legs, and some are old and some young, and others yet middle-aged.
+And there is the railway station of Milcote, only a mile away, situated
+in a field.  No one seems ever to go to it, or come from it; “Milcote”
+being a species of dream place represented only by two remote houses.  I
+believe the station must have been set down there by some railway manager
+suffering from strong delusions.
+
+                      [Picture: Boat Lane, Welford]
+
+Weston-on-Avon is really a very charming little place, with a small
+aisle-less Late Perpendicular church, remarkable for the continuous range
+of windows high up in the north wall, giving the interior an unusual
+brightness and grace.  The tower is furnished at its angles with
+gargoyles of an unusual size and imaginative quality.
+
+Returning to Welford, a by-road leads by the meadows called “Welford
+Pastures” to Barton, and across the Roman road, the Ryknield Street, to
+the hamlet of Marlcliff, below Bidford, where the Avon becomes broader
+and navigable and lined with beautifully wooded cliffs, densely covered
+with foliage to the water’s edge.  A mile further is the village of
+Cleeve Priors, where the picturesque old “King’s Arms” inn, with its
+horseman’s upping-block in front, dates from 1691.  Here, too, is a small
+seventeenth-century manor-house, with heavily-barred and grated door,
+breathing old-time distrust and suspicion.
+
+Returning through the village to the waterside, the river may be crossed
+here, by the long plank footbridge, only one plank wide, at Cleeve Mill
+and lock; and Abbot’s Salford reached, on the Evesham main road, just
+missing Salford Priors, where, if we wish to see it, there is a fine old
+church.  Salford Priors was anciently the property of the Priory of
+Kenilworth, and Salford Abbots that of Evesham Abbey.  Here, enclosed
+within a jealous high wall, is the old Hall, generally called “the
+Nunnery,” because of a Roman Catholic sisterhood having been established
+here in modern times.  It is a small Jacobean mansion, very tall in
+proportion to its size, and curiously huddled together.  Quaint curved
+and re-curved gables of a bygone fashion, deeply set windows, and lofty
+stone chimney-stacks, give the place a reticent look; the look of a house
+with a history and secrets of its own.  There are so many amateurs of the
+quaint and historic nowadays that the occupiers of Salford Hall have
+grown a little tired of showing strangers the genuine old hiding-hole in
+the garret; behind a quite innocent-looking cupboard.  You open the
+cupboard and see a commonplace row of shelves.  No one would suspect a
+secret there.  But when a wooden peg is removed, the shelves, together
+with the back of the cupboard, push back on hinges, admitting to a
+hiding-hole for priest or cavalier, or any whose necessities led him to
+store himself uncomfortably away here.  Once inside, the fugitive could
+fix the door with a peg, so that it could not be moved from without.
+
+Harvington, which comes next on our way to Evesham, is a delightful
+cluster of old timbered houses, with a church whose Norman tower has been
+given a modern spire.  The village is at least half a mile from the
+river, but it takes its name, originally “Herefordtun,” from an ancient
+paved ford still there, a most charming and interesting scene.  The ford
+is practically a submerged paved road, such as those by which the Romans
+crossed rivers, and is broad enough for wagons to pass.  The roads on
+either side are, however, only byways, leading to the Littleton villages
+and the Lenches.
+
+Norton, whose full name is Abbot’s Norton, comes next.  It was for some
+years, until the beginning of 1912, the property of the Orleans family,
+one of the exiled Royal houses of France; but the Duc d’Orléans has now
+sold his estates and his residence at Wood Norton, close by, to Mr.
+Justice Swinfen Eady.  Norton has yet more, and very fine timbered
+houses, and in its church lie a number of the Rigg family, in effigy on
+altar-tombs emblazoned to wonderment with their heraldic honours and
+those of their wives.  The marble lectern is a relic from Evesham Abbey.
+
+From Norton the road enters Evesham along Greenhill, where the battle was
+fought in 1265, and where the suburbs now chiefly extend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+                                 Evesham.
+
+THE legendary story of Evesham’s origin takes us back to the year 701,
+when one of the Bishop of Worcester’s swineherds, seeking a strayed sow,
+penetrated the forest that then covered this site, and here found his sow
+and also a ruined chapel, relic of an ancient and forgotten church.  A
+modern discoverer of ruins would find shattered walls and nothing else,
+but Eof, the swineherd, beheld a vision of the Virgin and attendant
+saints singing there.  Instead of worshipping, he ran, almost scared out
+his life, and only ventured back under the protection of Bishop Ecgwin
+himself, who saw the same wonderful sight and heard the singing.  There
+could be but one outcome of this: the founding of a religious house upon
+the spot; and thus arose the great Benedictine monastery of Eof’s-hamme.
+Even in those times there would seem to have been people who could not
+digest this story, as the Bishop soon found, and he seems to have been so
+stricken by the tales told of him that he considered nothing less than a
+pilgrimage to Rome would avail him much.  His preparations for departing
+were peculiar.  He chained his legs together and having locked the chain,
+threw the key into the river.  Arrived at Rome in spite of this amazing
+difficulty (we are not told how he got there!), a salmon bought for him
+proved to contain, when cut open, the key to unlock his fetters.  The
+salmon had swallowed it in the Avon and had swum across seas!  This
+cumulative outrage upon common sense then proceeds to tell us how the
+bells of Rome rang of themselves, and how impressed was the Pope.
+Nothing afterwards ever astonished him: his capacity for wonder was
+filled to the brim.  These unparalleled occurrences seemed to this
+credulous and doddering old pontiff so strong a proof of Ecgwin’s honesty
+that he forthwith conferred upon his monastery not only many valuable
+privileges, but freed it from the authority of Worcester.  And Ecgwin,
+third Bishop of Worcester, resigned the greater post for the lesser, and
+became first Abbot of Evesham.  There appears to have been an early doubt
+as to what the name was to be, for it is once referred to as
+“Ecguineshamme”; but the legendary herdsman Eof easily won the honour,
+and although Ecgwin was created a saint after his death, the place never
+acquired his name and thus we have “Evesham” instead of “Exham,” as the
+place would probably otherwise have been called.
+
+On this foundation of incredible story the future wealth and power of the
+great Abbey of Evesham was laid.  Its Abbots never grew ashamed of the
+stupid lies, and to the last sealed their deeds and documents with seals
+bearing representations of Ecgwin’s unlocked fetters and other incidents
+of his fantastic invention.  In spite of fire, invasion and even early
+confiscation of some of its property, Evesham Abbey grew wealthier and
+more influential.  Its Abbots were of those great mitred Abbots who sat
+in Parliament, prone to anger and violence on occasion; and not
+infrequently they were of the type of Abbot Roger, who in the thirteenth
+century expended the substance of the monastery on riotous living and
+kept his seventy monks and sixty servants so ill-clothed and fed that
+they went in rags and even starved.  No bite nor sup for them; and when
+they crawled into the Abbey, the leaky roof poured water on them.  Some
+died of starvation.  It would take long to tell in full the story of the
+many years in which this strange Abbot ruled.
+
+But the monastery and its great Abbey church easily survived this
+miserable time, and fresh architectural glories were added.  Even at the
+last, when the suppression of the great religious houses under Henry the
+Eighth was impending, more building was in progress.  Abbot Lichfield,
+the last of the long line, then ruled, and was building the Bell Tower,
+which almost alone remains of the Abbey church.  That church, 350 feet in
+length, and its many chapels and chantries, filled with the tombs of
+generations of benefactors who had hoped by their gifts to be prayed for
+“for ever,” was destroyed in almost the completest manner.  Even Thomas
+Cromwell, the most zealous of Henry the Eighth’s coadjutors, was
+impressed with the beauty of this great mass of buildings; but all
+efforts to avert the destruction, and to put them to some collegiate use,
+failed.  Not even the great Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds disappeared quite
+so completely as this of Evesham.  Leland, writing in 1540, six years
+later, remarked, with astonishment: “Gone, a mere heap of ruins.”
+
+The position of the town upon the meadow-lands by the Avon is enshrined
+in the second half of the place-name, which in this case is not the more
+common “ham,” indicating a “home,” or settlement, but “hamme,” a
+waterside meadow.  You do not see the justness of this until the river
+has been crossed by the fine modern bridge, and the town viewed from
+Bengeworth, on the other side of Avon.  Thence those meadows are seen,
+with the Abbey Bell Tower, and the towers and spires of the churches of
+St. Lawrence and All Saints, making an unusual grouping, with a certain
+grandeur in their contrasting dispositions.  We may readily admit that
+the famous Bell Tower is the finest architectural work in Evesham,
+because the admission will make it the easier to criticise its great
+defect, its comparative dwarfness.  Built in 1533 by Abbot Lichfield, it
+was the last work of the Gothic era at Evesham, and is perhaps one of the
+most striking examples of the Perpendicular period:
+
+                      [Picture: Bell Tower, Evesham]
+
+embodying the features of the style in the highest degree, in the long
+lateral panellings wholly covering its surface.  It is the more
+noticeable because of its solitary position.  But to lavish upon it the
+unqualified praise that is commonly given is alike uncritical of its own
+defect of insufficient height, and shows an ignorance or forgetfulness of
+the grander proportions of the central tower of Gloucester Cathedral,
+very closely resembling it in style, or of the unmatched towers of the
+Somersetshire churches, many of which are not only loftier, and with far
+better and varied details, but have also that sense of height which is
+rather painfully lacking here.
+
+The entrance from the Market Place to what were once the Abbey precincts,
+where the churches of St. Lawrence and All Saints stand closely
+neighbouring one another, in one churchyard, is by the so-called Norman
+Gateway.  There is not much left of the Norman work, the upper part being
+a half-timber building, apparently of the fifteenth century.  The view
+into this corner from the Market Place is very picturesque, but it was
+better before the adjoining public library was built, a few years ago.
+Not only were some charmingly old-world houses destroyed to make way for
+it, but it is itself a building lamentably out of character with its
+surroundings.  The church of St. Lawrence, very late in style and
+remarkable for the originality of its tower and spire, has some delicate
+and elaborate work; and in that of All Saints is the richly-panelled and
+fan-vaulted chantry built by Clement Lichfield, the last Abbot of
+Evesham, who lies here.
+
+A relic of the Abbey of a more domestic character is seen in the lovely
+little building on Abbey Green called the Almonry.  It was formerly the
+place where the almoners distributed their doles, and is of all periods
+from Early English to Perpendicular, its materials ranging from stone to
+timber, brick and plaster.  Many generations have had something to say in
+the building of it, and the present has at the moment of writing these
+lines said yet another word, stripping off the plaster with which the
+front had been covered for some two centuries.  The sturdy oak timbering
+is now uncovered, and is a revelation to many of unsuspected beauty.  An
+ancient stone lantern is inside the building, which is now occupied as
+the “Rudge Estate Office.”  Perhaps, now that these new and better ways
+with old buildings are revealing long-forgotten craftsmanship, attention
+will be turned to the ancient Booth Hall, or market-house, still standing
+in the Market Place, covered in like manner with plaster.
+
+                     [Picture: The Almonry, Evesham]
+
+It would not be well to leave Evesham without referring to the greatest
+event in its history, the fierce battle fought here August 4th, 1265, at
+Greenhill, on the road to Worcester.  Simon de Montfort, Earl of
+Leicester, in arms against Henry the Third, and with the King himself a
+prisoner in his hands, lay at Evesham the night before with his army.  De
+Montfort and his men were at mass early the next morning and then marched
+out to meet an enemy who outnumbered them and had cut off every avenue of
+escape.  They were fighting for the popular cause, and De Montfort,
+Frenchman though he might be, was the chosen champion of English
+liberties.  Privilege and the reactionaries had their way that day, for
+Prince Edward and his numerically superior and encircling army cut down
+De Montfort and his men in swathes.  None asked or gave quarter on that
+fatal day.  A large number hewed their way through and fled to the Castle
+of Kenilworth, but the old Simon and his son Henry were slain.  The King
+himself was almost slain by mistake.  The sculptured base of an obelisk
+on the site of the battle at Abbey Manor, Greenhill, portrays this
+incident, with the King’s words, “I am Henry of Winchester, your King.
+Do not kill me.”
+
+“It is God’s grace!” exclaimed the dying De Montfort.  The exultant enemy
+did not scruple to mutilate his body and to send portions of it about the
+country.
+
+“Such,” says Robert of Gloucester,
+
+    “was the murder of Evesham, for battle none it was,
+    And therewith Jesus Christ ill pleased was,
+    As he showed by tokens grisly and good.”
+
+In spite of the Ban of Kenilworth, which forbade the people to regard
+Simon de Montfort as a saint, and forbade them to pay reverence to his
+memory, the resting-place of what remains of him could be collected was
+before the High Altar of the Abbey Church, and there thousands prayed and
+miracles were performed.  For generations his shrine was the best asset
+of the church and contributed largely to its rebuilding.
+
+The next important warlike incident at Evesham was also the last; the
+assault and capture of the town in May 1645 by Massey, the Parliamentary
+Governor of Gloucester, in spite of a gallant defence by Colonel Legge
+and his small garrison of 700 men.  It was a three-to-one business, for
+Massey had 2000 men at his disposal.  Since then the town has had peace
+to follow that fruit-farming and market-gardening career which it has
+pursued with ever-increasing success for two centuries.  There are not
+many tree- and bush-fruits uncultivated in the Vale of Evesham, whose
+deep rich soil yields abundantly to the growers’ efforts, but the plum is
+the speciality of this Vale.  It is not like the fabled Arthurian Vale of
+Avalon, “where comes not hail nor frost”; for indeed the belated frosts
+of spring are the bugbear of the Evesham fruit-farmer, and he has been
+driven in self-defence of late years, to combat those nipping
+temperatures by burning nightly “smudges” of heavy oil, to take the sting
+out of the airs that would otherwise congeal his fruit-buds at the time
+of their setting, and thus ruin his prospect of a crop.  The plum—and
+especially the yellow “egg plum”—is the Evesham speciality, and in April
+its blossom fills the Vale like snow.  But there are comparatively few
+strangers who see that wonderful spectacle.  If the close of April be
+kind, you may see it and rejoice, but if the month be going out in rain
+and wind, then it is better to be at home than on Cotswold or in this
+sink of alluvial earth below those hills.  I was caught in April showers
+at Evesham, on a day that was “arl a-collied like,” as they say in these
+parts, meaning gloomy and overcast; and then “the dag came arn, an’ then
+et mizzled, an’ grew worser ’n worser, until et poured suthin tar’ble.”
+And there I stood long in one entry off the High Street until I was tired
+of it, and then in another, and thus having done Evesham by double entry,
+ended the unprofitable day by staying the night, while the wind raged,
+and it hailed and rained and snowed by turns and simultaneously.  But the
+next morning was a glorious one, although the roads were full of puddles
+and strewn with plum-blossom ravaged from the orchards by those nocturnal
+blasts.
+
+                    [Picture: Abbey Gateway, Evesham]
+
+One need not be long at Evesham to note the extraordinary number of
+fruit-growers and market-gardeners hereabouts, as shown by the many
+wagons, or floats, on their way to or from the railway station with
+baskets and hampers of apples, pears, plums, gooseberries, currants,
+tomatoes, or asparagus; while to travel south of the town, through the
+favoured Vale, by any road you please, is to see that these are highly
+specialised cultivations that give as distinct a character to this
+landscape as do the hop-gardens or the cherry-orchards of Kent.
+
+Leaving Evesham, it will be noticed how very much after the style at
+Stratford the Avon has been artificially widened and made to wear an
+almost lakelike effect, with a kind of everyday gala appearance.  Here
+are trim grassy edges and public gardens; and boats and punts to be had
+for the hiring: a tamed and curbed Avon, like the Round Pond or the
+Serpentine in Kensington Gardens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+     Broadway—Winchcombe—Shakespearean Associations—Bishop’s Cleeve.
+
+“AN Eden of fertility,” says an old writer, dwelling with satisfaction
+upon the Vale of Evesham.  The neat orchards of to-day, with their long
+perspectives, and with bush-fruit planted in between the lines of plum
+and apple-trees, to economise every inch of this wonderful soil, would
+seem to him even more of an Eden, neater and more extended than in his
+day.  It is not, you will say, the most picturesque form of cultivation,
+but it has that best of picturesque beauty to some minds, the
+picturesqueness of profit.  I never yet knew a farmer who could see a
+cornfield with an artist’s eye, and was the better pleased the more the
+poppies, corn-cockles, and herb-daisies grew in it.  For generations
+past, you will be told, the fruit-growing of the Vale of Evesham has been
+steadily giving less profit, and scarce a man among the growers but will
+declare the times are ruining the trade.  But the pastures continue to be
+planted as extensions of the orchards, and the railway traffic in fruit
+is an increasing branch of business.  The only possible inferences,
+therefore, are that these jolly-looking market-gardeners, who live so
+well and look so prosperous, thrive on ruination and really cultivate the
+plum for the æsthetic but fleeting pleasure of seeing every spring that
+wondrous vale of snow-white blossom that spreads out below Cotswold.
+
+Five miles or so south-eastwards across the vale brings you into
+Broadway, a village exploited some thirty years ago, and now, converted
+from the rustic place it was, into a residential district.  The old
+houses and cottages remain, but the simple rustic folk who lived in them
+are dispersed, and in their old homes live that new class of appreciative
+and cultivated people with anything at command, from great wealth down to
+a sufficient independence.  A generation ago people of this class would
+have thought life out of London or such great centres unendurable.  They
+would have missed their town life and the shopping and all the
+thousand-and-one distractions, and if you had suggested Broadway or any
+such place, they would indignantly have asked if you wanted them to “bury
+themselves alive.”
+
+And now ideals have changed, or perhaps more exactly, a new class of
+persons has been born.  The wealthy who cannot live away from the centres
+of life still numerously exist, but there are great numbers of the
+leisured who have culture and resources within themselves and are not
+dependent for their amusement upon extraneous things.  Also we have in
+these days of swift travel by road and rail to reckon not only with the
+“week-ender” (who does not trouble Broadway much), but upon that class
+who will have it both ways, will take the best of town, and when the
+country is most desirable will leave town to others and retire to such
+places as this.
+
+These things have made Broadway a very different place from what it was a
+generation ago.  The old people, sons of the soil, have been
+disinherited, and strangers—not only the “foreigners,” of whom the
+rustics speak, meaning merely people not of the same shire, but
+foreigners from overseas—are living in their homes, and they still resent
+it, even though they may earn more in wages and in “tips” from the
+tipping classes.  The sense of place and of justice too, is strong in the
+blood of the countryman, and he feels it to be a shame that strangers
+should come from remote countries and covet the house where he and his
+fathers lived, and turn him out.  It is an outcome of the recent
+appreciation of country life which is creating bitterness and resentment,
+not at Broadway alone, but all over the country. {213}
+
+The broad street, with its grey stone houses, is to outward seeming very
+much the same, but there is a neatness, an unmistakable sense of money
+about the place.  Every little plot of grass in front of the houses at
+the upper end, that never used to know the attentions of the mower, has
+become a lawn; small cottages have been enlarged and thrown into one
+another, and farmhouses, whose ancient features have been ingeniously
+adapted by resourceful architects, have become residences of the most
+delightful type.  A little golfing, some motoring, half a dozen other
+interests and the modern craze for collecting, fill the lives of the
+people who live here.  A retired actress collects pewter, and others scan
+the neighbourhood with the amiable object of snapping up rare and
+valuable pieces of china or furniture at much less than their worth from
+country-folk who are ignorant of their value.  There is a curiosity shop
+in the village, too, where the stranger may find bargains, or may not;
+and I am told—although I have never seen him—that an innocent-looking old
+person carrying a rare specimen of a grandfather’s clock under his arm
+may generally be seen crossing the road by the “Lygon Arms,” at times
+when obviously wealthy, and possibly American and appreciative, occupants
+of motorcars drive up.  The suggestion is that very often this ingenious
+person sells his rare, and possibly “unique,” clock at a stunning price
+and will be seen in another day or two with the fellow of it.  This has
+been indignantly denied by the outraged people of Broadway, but
+reaffirmed in print, and I will leave it at that.
+
+My amiable friend, Mr. S. B. Russell of the “Lygon Arms,” is of those who
+deny this quaint tale.  The “Lygon Arms” itself has become a stately
+house, both without and within.  As the “White Hart,” of olden days it
+dates back to 1540.  Traditionally Cromwell lay here, the night before
+the Battle of Worcester, and there are even traditions of Charles the
+First staying here, ten years earlier.  I am not concerned to deny or to
+affirm these legends.  In any case, it would be sheer futility to do so,
+for no evidence survives.  But it is likely enough, for the “White Hart,”
+as it then was, ranked with the best—as it does now, if I may say it.  We
+may readily judge of its then standing, by the fine Jacobean stone
+entrance doorway, built by John Trevis in 1620, and still admitting to
+the house.  It bears his name and that of Ursula his wife, with the date,
+and seems to mark a general restoration of the already old hostelry
+undertaken at that time.  John Trevis—or “Treavis”—himself lies in
+Broadway old church, an interesting old building a mile or more distant
+from the village, and situated along a lonely wooded road, adjoining an
+ancient manor-house lately restored with much taste and discrimination.
+Trevis died in 1641, and has a brass to his memory.  This old church is
+in a solitary situation, and is largely superseded by a modern building
+near the village.  There is a palimpsest brass in the chancel, and hard
+by is an enriched wooden pulpit, bearing this distinctly apposite and
+characteristically Reformation-period inscription: “Prov. 19.  Wher the
+word of God is not preached, the people perish.”
+
+But to return to Broadway and the “Lygon Arms.”  Thirty years ago the
+house had fallen into a very poor condition, and the great stone building
+with its fine rooms and its air of being really a private mansion, had
+declined to the likeness of a village alehouse.  It was all the doing of
+the railways, which had disestablished the coaches, and brought
+desolation upon this road, in common with most others.  But in the dawn
+of the new era of road travel the present proprietor bought the house,
+and has by degrees reinstated those stone mullions which had been torn
+from the windows and replaced at some extraordinarily inappreciative
+period by modern sashes; and has wrought altogether, a wonderful
+transformation.  The “Lygon Arms,” is now as stately a hostelry as ever
+it was.
+
+I reach the old town of Chipping Campden by another route, and so will
+not climb on this occasion the steep, mile-long Broadway Hill by which
+you come this way to it.  I will turn instead further south, to
+Winchcombe.
+
+Winchcombe, it may be thought, is a far cry from Stratford-on-Avon.  It
+is twenty-four miles distant, but though twenty-four miles formed in
+olden days a very much more considerable journey than now, the place and
+its surroundings were familiar to Shakespeare.  If you would seek here
+local allusions in the plays, wherewith to belabour the Bacon fanatics,
+there is no lack in this district of “Cotsall,” those Cotswolds on which
+Page’s fallow greyhound was outrun: a portion of those “wilds in
+Gloucestershire,” whose “high wild hills and rough uneven ways, Draw out
+our miles and make them wearisome,” as Northumberland complains in _King
+Richard the Second_.
+
+Shakespeare knew most that was to be known about the Cotswold Hills, and
+when he makes Shallow bid Davy “sow the headland with red wheat,” he
+alludes to an olden local custom of sowing “red lammas” wheat early in
+the season.
+
+He was familiar with the consistency of Tewkesbury mustard, with which,
+doubtless, the Stratford folk of his day relished their meat, and he
+finds in it an apt illustration of a dull man’s attempted sprightliness:
+as where he makes Falstaff say, “He a good wit, hang him baboon! his wit
+is as thick as Tewkesbury mustard.”
+
+Here, in the neighbourhood of Winchcombe, familiar rhymes, generally
+uncomplimentary, upon surrounding places are attributed to him almost as
+freely as are those upon the “Eight Villages.”  They tell of—
+
+    “Dirty Gretton, Dingy Greet,
+    Beggarly Winchcombe, Sudeley sweet;
+    Hanging Hartshorn, Whittington Bell,
+    Dull Andoversford, and Merry Frog Mill.”
+
+The epithets vary with the different narrators of the lines.  Those
+quoted above do not in general fit the places, except beautiful Sudeley
+and perhaps “once upon a time” Frog Mill, which, in spite of its name was
+probably of old a sufficiently merry place, for it is the name of an
+ancient and once renowned inn adjoining Andoversford: an inn where men
+made merry until the railway came hard by and disestablished its custom.
+
+Winchcombe it is difficult to believe ever “beggarly.”  It is an old and
+picturesque market town in the Cotswolds, with a noble and particularly
+striking Perpendicular church, with clerestoried nave and central tower,
+and an array of monstrously gibbering gargoyles.  Next it is a curious
+old inn, oddly named the “Corner Cupboard.”  Here, too, at the “George”
+inn, are some traces of the hostelry formerly maintained by the Abbots of
+Winchcombe for pilgrims to their altars.  Sudeley Castle, in its park a
+mile away, is a place of great interest, now restored, with a modern
+altar-tomb and effigy to Catherine Parr, sixth and last wife of Henry the
+Eighth, who resided here.
+
+Gretton is a village two miles from Winchcombe, on the Tewkesbury road,
+and Greet is a wayside hamlet in between.  We have no authority for the
+Shakespearean authorship of the rhymes, but “old John Naps of Greece,”
+who is mentioned with “Peter Turf and Henry Pimpernell” as cronies of
+Christopher Sly, was not “of Greece” but of this place.  “Greece” is one
+of those many misprints that in the early folios and quartos continue to
+puzzle critics.  In one of them Hamlet declares he can tell the
+difference between “a hawk and a handsaw,” and it was long before
+“handsaw” was seen to be a printer’s error for “heronshaw,” a young
+heron.  To emigrate John Naps from Greet to Greece was a comparatively
+easy matter, in type, if not in actual travel.  We will allow, for
+argument’s sake, that this by itself might not be convincing evidence
+that Shakespeare knew Greet and intended to refer to it; but we have
+Davy, Shallow’s servant in the Second Part of _Henry the Fourth_,
+referring to “William Visor of Woncot,” who has an action at law against
+“Clement Perkes of the hill.”  By “Woncot,” is meant the hamlet of
+Woodmancote, three miles west of Winchcombe, a place then and now called
+“Woncot,” locally.  The name, correctly spelt in the original edition of
+1600, has been mistakenly altered to “Wincot,” in later issues.  At
+Woodmancote the family of Visor, sometimes spelled “Vizard” was in
+Shakespeare’s time and until recent years living.  It lies beneath
+Stinchcombe Hill, locally “the Hill,” which rises to the imposing height
+of 915 feet.  There, it has been ascertained, the Perkes family then had
+their home.  The name of Perkes was variously spelled “Purkis” and
+“Purchas.”  The last representative appears to have been one “J. Purchas,
+Esq., of Stinchcombe Hill, near Dursley, Glos.,” who is mentioned in the
+_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1812, as having died at Margate, in his
+seventy-fifth year.
+
+It is a tremendous and a beautiful view from the lofty plateau of Cleeve
+Common as you go from Winchcombe to Woodmancote and Bishop’s Cleeve, on
+the way to Tewkesbury.  I shall never forget the glory of that evening of
+early summer when, romping out of Cheltenham, our car breasted the long
+rise to this view-point and we halted here as the westering sun sank
+across the golden-blue distance of the Vale of Avon, with the Malvern
+Hills, grey and indistinct, beyond.  Distant views of the Promised Land
+could have made no better promise of beauty and plenty.
+
+From this Pisgah height you come “down-a-down-a,” as Ophelia says, to
+Bishop’s Cleeve, thinking upon the sheer appropriateness of the
+place-name; not the “Bishop” part of it, but the “Cleeve”; which stands
+of course for “cleft,” or “cliff.”  Thenceforward, the way lies along the
+levels into Tewkesbury, through Stoke Orchard and Treddington.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+                               Tewkesbury.
+
+THE little town of Tewkesbury, which numbers about 5500 inhabitants, and
+is one of the most cheerful and bustling, and withal one of the most
+picturesque towns in England, occupies a remarkable situation.  Not
+remarkable in the scenic way, for a more nearly level stretch of very
+often flooded meadow lands you will not see for miles.  The site of
+Tewkesbury is close upon, but not actually on, the confluence of
+England’s greatest river, the broad and turbid and rather grim Severn,
+with the Avon.  All around, but in grey and blue distances, are hills:
+the Cotswolds, the Bredon Hills, the greater Malverns, and the yet
+greater, but more distant Welsh mountains; but the Severn and the Avon
+flow through levels that extend considerable distances.  When those two
+rivers—so different in every respect; in size, in character, and in the
+very colour of their waters, the Avon being clear and bright, and the
+Severn a sullen, dun-coloured waterway—unite to flood these low-lying
+lands the only way to travel comfortably about the neighbourhood is by
+boat.  Tewkesbury is at all times particularly old-world and quaint, and
+it makes on these occasions an excellent substitute for Venice.  This
+peculiarity, or rather this contingency, let us say, perhaps explains the
+at first sight rather singular fact that the town should have been built
+on the Avon, half a mile from its junction with the Severn, and not upon
+the larger river at all.  It looks like a wanton disregard of the
+advantages that the Severn navigation would bring to the town, with
+riverside wharves and quays; but those who selected the site probably
+considered the Severn to be too dangerous a river, and so set their town
+back half a mile or so from its banks.  A consequence is that the
+external trade of Tewkesbury has always been negligible, and to-day,
+although the text-books tell you of its industry of making
+shirt-fronts—“particularly stiff shirt-fronts”—and the olden one of
+flour-milling, which is carried on by Avonside, the scale of their
+activities has never become large.
+
+The founding of Tewkesbury is said to have been the work of a
+seventh-century religious Saxon named Theoc, who established a church
+here; but the Roman station, _Etocessa_, was here first, and although the
+place-name is supposed to derive from Theoc, by way of “Theocsbyrig,” and
+the Domesday version, “Teodechesberie,” too little is known of him for us
+to take much interest in it.  It is rather interesting, however, to
+consider that, the site being among water-meadows, and that the land at
+the confluence of Severn and Wye is called “the Ham,” how very near
+Tewkesbury was to being called “Tewkesham.”
+
+The monastery that was thus seated by the two rivers became a flourishing
+Benedictine house, and after its full share of the early adversities of
+fire and sword, famine and flood, it resulted in the building of the
+grand Abbey church, which is still the greatest architectural glory of
+the town.  The re-founder of the monastery and builder of this noble and
+solemn example of Norman architecture was Robert Fitz Hamon, Earl of
+Gloucester, the greatest of the early Lords Marchers of Wales, and
+overlord of Glamorgan, who died in 1197, fighting in foreign wars.  He
+had seen so many post-mortem bequests go wrong and never reach their
+intended destination that he determined to perform his re-founding of
+monastery and church in his own lifetime.  Both were well advanced when
+he died, and the Abbey was finally consecrated in 1223; a remarkable
+example of expedition for those times.  I do not propose to narrate the
+story of the Abbey, which has no such picturesque and fantastic
+falsehoods as that of Evesham.  The monastery ran its course and was
+suppressed with others by Henry the Eighth, and the Abbey church was
+saved by the townsfolk, who paid the King the equivalent of £5000 for the
+site and fabric.  And so it remains to us to this day, more venerable by
+lapse of time, minus its Lady Chapel, and with evidences of the puritan
+zeal of rather more than a hundred years later than Henry’s great reform;
+but it is yet the veritable building of Fitz Hamon’s and of the
+generations that succeeded him.
+
+You cannot see this great Abbey church to advantage from the town.  It is
+only from the open meadows by the Severn, and its tributary brooks, where
+the little town is to be guessed at by the evidence of a few roofs and
+chimneys, that its great scale and solemn majesty are fully apparent.
+There the great central Norman tower and the magnificent and unique West
+Front of the same period are seen in their proper relation with the
+surroundings.  The long outline is very like that of St. Albans, but 237
+feet less; St. Albans Abbey being 550 feet long, and Tewkesbury 313 feet.
+
+The near view of the West Front and its great and deeply-embayed Norman
+window, filled not unsuitably with the Perpendicular tracery of three
+hundred years later, is no disillusionment; it is, after the glorious
+West Front of Peterborough, one of the most striking compositions of the
+kind in England, and the flanking Norman tourelles and spirelets have by
+contrast the most delicate appearance.
+
+Entering the building, a massive Norman nave is seen, singularly like
+that of Gloucester cathedral, and no doubt designed by the same hand.
+The same massive but disproportionately lofty columns, with dwarfed
+triforium and clerestory, proclaim a similar origin.  The columns are
+Fitz Hamon’s work, and the clerestory above, and the stone-vaulted roof
+are the additions of over two centuries later, when the builders had
+grown more daring and risked a heavy stone roof in place of the former
+flat wooden one.  Fitz Hamon’s transepts also remain and his choir, in
+its essentials; although in the same Decorated period which witnessed the
+addition of the clerestory and stone vaulting to the nave the Norman
+choir was remodelled.  To this period belong the seven windows filled
+with splendid old stained glass, representing all good benefactors, from
+Fitz Hamon onwards, praying for heavenly grace, but clinging to their
+ancient heraldic cognisances of long descent as tenaciously as though the
+authority of Garter King-at-Arms and all his fellow-kings and pursuivants
+extended to Heaven, and St. Peter was authorised to admit to the best
+places only those who could display these patents of gentility.  It is
+glorious old glass, more than much damaged and time-worn, but still
+splendid in design and colour.
+
+Behind the choir still runs the semi-circular ambulatory, as on the old
+Norman plan, but the Lady Chapel has disappeared.  Here too are some of
+the ancient chapels formerly clustered about the east end.  Here are some
+mouldering swords, deeply bitten into by Time’s teeth, from the
+battlefield of Tewkesbury.  Fitz Hamon’s chantry is not of his period: it
+was rebuilt more than three hundred years later; proof that he, and the
+health of his immortal part were kept in mind, and incidentally showing
+us that not all gratitude is, as cynics would declare, “a lively sense of
+favours to come.”
+
+                    [Picture: High Street, Tewkesbury]
+
+The so-called “Warwick” chantry, built 1422 by Isabel le Despencer in
+memory of her first husband, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Abergavenny, is
+in the last, and most elaborated style of Gothic architecture and
+decoration.  There are many other monuments: including the beautiful one
+of Hugh le Despencer and his wife Elizabeth.  Their splendidly sculptured
+alabaster figures lie there with a calm indifference contrasting with his
+violent end, for he was executed in 1349, at Hereford.  So often did the
+great nobles of those centuries suffer from the headsman’s axe and with
+such frequency did they die on the battlefield that it became a matter of
+pride to declare how rarely they ended peacefully and of old age, in
+their beds.  It was almost a slur upon one’s personal character to pass
+in this way, when one might in the last resource join some desperate
+rebellion and be handsomely slain; or at the very least of it, be taken
+and properly beheaded.
+
+These philosophical and historical considerations bring one, by a natural
+transition, to the Battle of Tewkesbury, fought in the meadows to the
+south of the town on May Day 1471.  The place where the fight raged
+fiercest was close by the Gloucester road, in the field still called
+“Bloody Meadow,” whose name it is understood the town council, in the
+interests of the rising generation, are keenly desirous of seeing changed
+to something more respectable.
+
+If you have never been to Tewkesbury, the battle will be a little unreal
+to you.  You may know perfectly well “all about the war, and what they
+killed each other for,” and you may even be a partisan of either White
+Rose or Red, and may throw up your cap for those rival Houses of York or
+Lancaster; but if you have never visited the scene where this great fight
+raged, it will remain shadowy.  But in Tewkesbury town, whose streets are
+still astonishingly rich in old timbered houses that stood on the morning
+of that great clash of arms where they do now, it is a vital thing.
+
+It was the last desperate venture of the Lancastrians, stricken to the
+ground on many an earlier occasion, but always hitherto recovering, to
+try conclusions again, for sake of right.  At Towton, Blore Heath,
+Hexham, and other places they had been slaughtered, and such victories as
+Wakefield, in which the Yorkists were decimated, were of no permanent
+value.  Only a month before Tewkesbury they had been signally defeated at
+Barnet, and their cause apparently broken; but here again the party was
+re-formed.  Queen Margaret, whose devotion and sorrows are among the most
+pitiful records of history, had come from France with her son, Prince
+Edward, the young hope of the Red Rose.  Gathering a force at Exeter,
+they advanced towards the midlands, hoping to join hands with Welsh
+sympathisers.  But the treacherous Severn, coming down from those
+Mortimer borderlands where the White Rose had ever been strongest, proved
+itself on this occasion the most useful ally of the Yorkists.  It was in
+flood and prevented that junction of the two Lancastrian armies whose
+combined force might have given them the day and changed the course of
+the nation’s story.
+
+The Yorkists, commanded by Edward the Sixth, came up from the direction
+of Cheltenham and found their opponents drawn up on the “plains near
+Tewkesbury,” as Shakespeare has it, in the Third Part of _Henry the
+Sixth_.  The battle was lost to the Lancastrians partly through their
+being deceived by a pretended flight of the troops commanded by Richard,
+Duke of Gloucester, and in a great measure by quarrels among themselves.
+Their ranks were broken and the battle was continued and ended by
+fighting and heavy slaughter in the streets of the town.  Finally the
+defeated Lancastrians took refuge in the Abbey church, from which they
+would have been dragged had not the monks in solemn procession prevented
+it.  Shakespeare adopts Holinshed’s account of the death of Prince
+Edward.
+
+Holinshed tells us that proclamation being made that a life-annuity of
+£100 should be paid to whoever brought the Prince, dead or alive, and
+that, if living, his life should be spared, Sir Richard Crofts brought
+him forth, “a fair and well-proportioned young gentleman, whom, when King
+Edward had well-advised, he asked him how he durst so presumptuously
+enter his realm with banner displayed, whereupon the prince boldly
+answered, saying, ‘To recover my father’s kingdom and heritage from his
+grandfather to him, and from him after him to me lineally descended’; at
+which words King Edward thrust him from him, or (as some say) stroke him
+with his gauntlet, whom directly George, Duke of Clarence; Richard, Duke
+of Gloucester; Thomas Grey, and William, Lord Hastings, that stood by,
+cruelly murdered; for the which cruel act the more part of the doers in
+their latter days drank the like cup by the righteous justice and due
+punishment of God.  His body was homely interred in the church of the
+monastery of the black monks of Tewkesbury.”
+
+The thanksgiving of the next day, Sunday, held by the Yorkists in the
+Abbey was one of those services in which the victors in a battle have
+always adopted the Almighty as a partisan.  In the same time-honoured
+fashion the King of Prussia, delighting in the defeats of the French in
+the war of 1870–71, was in the habit of exclaiming “Gott mitt uns,” and
+sending pious telegrams to the Queen, caricatured by the humorist of the
+time—
+
+    “Rejoice with me, my dear Augusta,
+    We’ve had another awful buster;
+    Ten thousand Frenchmen sent below—
+    Praise God from whom all blessings flow!”
+
+             [Picture: The “Bear” Inn and Bridge, Tewkesbury]
+
+The thanksgiving was followed next day by a ruthless, cold-blooded
+massacre of those who had been hiding in the town.  On the Tuesday the
+great nobles, leaders in the fight, were executed, and the Yorkist
+vengeance was complete.
+
+The nodding old gabled houses of Tewkesbury—many of them nodding so
+amazingly that it is surprising they do not fall—include a number of
+ancient inns: the “Wheatsheaf” and the “Bell” prominent among them.  The
+“Bell,” hard by the Abbey and the old flour-mills, has a bowling-green
+and owns associations with Mrs. Craik’s once-popular story, _John
+Halifax, Gentleman_: which, I believe, was considered eminently a tale
+for the young person.  “No,” said a bookseller long since, in my own
+hearing, to a hesitating prospective purchaser, “it is not a novel: it is
+an improving story, and may be read on Sundays.”  I do not know what is
+read by the young person nowadays, either on Sundays or week-days, but I
+am quite sure it is not _John Halifax_, _Gentleman_, and I am equally
+sure that the young person will in these times resent any choice made for
+him or her, and read or not read what he or she chooses.  But the
+monument to Mrs. Craik in the Abbey is inscribed to the author of the
+book, and as it is evidently a great source of interest to visitors,
+_John Halifax_ is perhaps not quite so out-of-date as we suppose him to
+be.
+
+The “Hop Pole” and the “Swan,” in their present form, belong to a later
+age; the first being the house where Mr. Pickwick and his friends made
+merry and drank so astonishingly.  But the “Old Black Bear,” as you leave
+the town for Worcester, is easily the most picturesque of all; in itself
+and in its situation by the rugged old Avon bridge.  The sign was, of
+course, originally that of the “Bear and Ragged Staff.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Clopton House—Billesley—The Home of Shakespeare’s Mother, Wilmcote—Aston
+Cantlow—Wootton Wawen—Shakespeare Hall, Rowington.
+
+THERE is a mansion of much local fame rather more than a mile out of
+Stratford, off the Henley road: the manor-house of Clopton, for long past
+the seat of the Hodgson family, but formerly that of one of the ancient
+families of Clopton, who are found not only in Warwickshire and
+Gloucestershire, but in Suffolk as well.  Widespread as they once were, I
+believe that the very name is now extinct.
+
+There is necessarily much mention of the Clopton name in these pages, for
+Sir Hugh Clopton was the great fifteenth-century benefactor of Stratford.
+He was a younger son of the owner of this manor.  The house has been time
+and again altered and partly rebuilt, but it still contains portraits of
+the Cloptons on the great Jacobean staircase, and painted on the walls of
+an attic, once used as a secret chapel by Roman Catholics, are to this
+day the black-letter texts upon which Ambrose Rookwood, prominent in the
+Gunpowder Plot of 1605, must have looked.  He had rented Clopton House
+for a time, in order to be conveniently near his friends, and to the
+meeting-place on Dunsmore, which the conspirators had appointed the scene
+of their rebellion when King and Parliament should have been blown
+sky-high by Guy Fawkes’ thirty-two barrels of gunpowder. After the
+failure of the plot and the arrest of the conspirators, the High Bailiff
+of Stratford was instructed to seize Ambrose Rookwood’s effects at
+Clopton House.  An inventory of them is preserved in the Birthplace
+Museum at Stratford, and affords some quaint reading.  Chalices, crosses,
+crucifixes, and a variety of obviously Papist articles, are in company
+with “an oulde cloake bagge,” whose value was sixpence, and “a white
+nagge,” twenty shillings.  The High Bailiff evidently cleared the house,
+taking all he could find, for mention is made of “one pair of old boots,
+2_d._ these being the goods of Ambrose Fuller.”  There is a further note
+that Ambrose Fuller had his old boots restored to him; the High Bailiff
+being presumably unable to find anything treasonable in them.
+
+Shakespeare is said to have taken his idea of Ophelia from Margaret
+Clopton, who in the misery of disappointed love is supposed to have
+drowned herself in a well in the gardens in 1592.  A Charlotte Clopton,
+too, is supposed to have been buried alive in the Clopton vault in
+Stratford church in 1564, when the plague visited the neighbourhood, and
+thus to have given Shakespeare a scene in _Romeo and Juliet_.  But it is
+only fair to say that the stories are legendary and not sustained by any
+known facts in the Clopton family history.
+
+From Clopton we will retrace our steps to Stratford, and thence set out
+anew, to visit some outlying villages of interest, better reached from
+the road to Alcester.
+
+The Alcester road is the least interesting road out of Stratford.  It
+leads past the Great Western Railway station, and thence up Red Hill,
+reaching Alcester, the Roman _Alauna_, in seven and a half miles.  There
+is little joy or interest to be got out of Alcester, which is a pleasant
+enough little town of 3500 inhabitants and a manufacture of needles, but
+not thrilling.  There is still some unenclosed land along this road, on
+the left, a rather wild upland common—the “unshrubb’d down”; and it is a
+tumbled up and down country on the right, where Billesley stands.
+Billesley is a parish, with a parish church and an ancient manor-house,
+but no village.  I can imagine the tourist—the cyclist, of course, who is
+a more enterprising person than most—saying, as he sees Billesley on the
+map, “I will put up there,” and I can imagine him, further, getting there
+under circumstances of night and rain and wind, and finding it to be the
+most impossible of places to stay at.  For there is no inn, and not the
+slightest chance of hospitality.  But it is well enough if you come to it
+in daytime, for it has the charm of singularity: the strangeness of the
+old manor-house behind its lofty enclosing garden-walls and the weirdly
+rebuilt eighteenth-century church at the end of a farm-road which you
+dispute with porkers and cluttering fowls.  Billesley church is one of
+the claimants for the honour of witnessing Shakespeare’s marriage, but on
+what evidence the claim rests no one can tell, and, in any case, it was
+entirely rebuilt afterwards.  The tradition is probably only a hazy
+association with the marriage of his grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall,
+whose wedding took place in the former building in 1639.  Little belief,
+either, can be given to the panelled room in Billesley Hall, said to have
+been a library in Shakespeare’s youth, in which he was allowed to study.
+
+Downhill and to the right, and you come to Wilmcote, the home of
+Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden.  It was in her time merely a hamlet of
+Aston Cantlow, but is now a separate ecclesiastical parish, with an
+uninteresting church.  Wilmcote is not a particularly inviting place, and
+not one of a number of boys playing cricket could tell me where was the
+home of Shakespeare’s mother.  However, in a place like Wilmcote it does
+not take long to solve such a point, even if it were to come to a
+house-to-house inquiry.  The home of the Ardens, yeomen-farmers, seems to
+modern ideas quite a humble house.  It is one of a row of ancient
+timber-framed and plastered cottage-like houses, with a large farmyard at
+the back.
+
+    [Picture: The Arden House, Home of Shakespeare’s Mother, Wilmcote]
+
+Rambling, low-ceilinged rooms with ingle-nooks in the fireplaces form the
+interior.  Some day, I suppose, when the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has
+ceased to expend much money in the collection of rare editions and in
+paying fat pensions to its super-annuated servants, it will seek to
+purchase the Arden home, and show to Shakespearean travellers the house
+in which Robert Arden, a sixteenth-century yeoman of some standing and
+some pretensions to gentility, yet sat at table with his farm-servants in
+the old way, just as in the remoter parts of the West of England is still
+done.
+
+It is generally supposed that Wilmcote is the place referred to by
+Shakespeare in the induction to the _Taming of the Shrew_ as “Wincot.”
+The name is locally pronounced in that way, as it would be when we
+consider the difficulty in ordinary rustic speech of twisting the tongue
+round “Wilmcote.”  But reasons are given on p. 169 for identifying it
+with Wincot in Quinton.  There is, however, another place which claims
+the honour; the unlovely Wilnecote, a brick and tile-manufacturing
+settlement on the Watling Street, over twenty-five miles distant.  It
+also is locally “Wincot,” and in Shakespeare’s time brewed a famous
+tipple.  Sir Aston Cokain, whose verses were published as near
+Shakespeare’s own day as 1658, had no difficulty in identifying it.
+Writing to his friend, Mr. Clement Fisher, who resided at Wilnecote, whom
+he addresses “of Wincott,” he says
+
+    “Shakespeare your Wincot ale hath much renown’d
+    That fox’d a beggar so by chance was found
+    Sleeping that there needed not many a word
+    To make him to believe he was a lord.
+    But you affirm (and in it seem most eager)
+    ’Twill make a Lord as drunk as any beggar,
+    Bid Norton brew such ale as Shakespeare fancies,
+    Did put Kit Sly into such lordly trances;
+    And let us meet there for a fit of gladness,
+    And drink ourselves merry in sober sadness.”
+
+It is quite evident, among other things, that Sir Aston Cokain wrote
+pretty bad verse, but the point to be emphasised is that there were
+certainly in Shakespeare’s time three “Wincots,” any one of which might
+have served his turn.  But the vanished ale-house of Wincot in Quinton is
+the place more particularly meant by him.
+
+                     [Picture: Wootton Wawen Church]
+
+“Stephen Sly” alluded to in the play, was a real person who seems to have
+been what people call “a character.”  He was probably a half-witted
+creature, the butt of Stratford, and occasionally appears in the
+unimpeachable records of the town as a servant of the Combes of Welcombe,
+or as a labourer.  There also appears in those same chronicles in later
+years a Joan Sly, who was fined in 1630 for travelling on the Sabbath: an
+offence not so great in itself, but very reprehensible in the eyes of the
+Puritan magistrates of that time.
+
+The parent village of Aston Cantlow is two miles from Wilmcote.  The site
+only of the ancient castle of the Cantilupes remains, behind the church,
+in a tangled moat still sometimes flooded by the little river Alne.  The
+old Court House, a long half-timbered building now divided into three or
+four cottages, is the chief feature of the village street.
+
+Wootton Wawen, in something less than another three miles, owes the first
+part of its singular name to its olden situation in the Forest of Arden,
+and the second part to the Saxon lord of the place, a landowner named
+Wagen, whose name appears as witness to the foundation charter of the
+monastery at Coventry founded by Leofric, the husband of Godiva, in 1043.
+It stands at a junction of roads, where the highway from Stratford
+through Bearley comes swinging up round a corner from the channels of the
+Alne, and runs, broad and imposing, on to Henley-in-Arden and Birmingham.
+The church, occupying a knoll, is a strange but beautiful group, with
+central tower in the Decorated style, a rather plain south chapel of the
+same period, and a beautiful nave clerestory of the fifteenth century.  A
+very large Decorated chancel east window has its moulding set with
+elaborate crockets.
+
+The stranger, attracted by this noble church, tries the door.  It is
+locked, but before he can turn away it will be opened by a girl, who
+says, “There is a fee of sixpence.”  There always is!
+
+You render tribute for sake of seeing the interior, uneasily suspecting
+that it is another sixpence gone towards some scheme of alteration which
+would not have your approval; but these things cannot be helped.
+
+                  [Picture: Shakespeare Hall, Rowington]
+
+The interior discloses some unexpected features, the lower part of the
+tower being unmistakably Saxon work, with very narrow arches to nave and
+chancel.  Here are two curious enclosed carved oak pews that were perhaps
+originally chantries, and a fine fifteenth-century oak pulpit.  A desk
+with eight chained books, and an ancient chest with ironwork in the shape
+of fleurs-de-lis, together with effigies and brasses to the Harewell
+family, complete an interesting series of antiquities.  Here is buried
+William Somerville, author of _The Chase_, who died in 1742.
+
+The town of Henley-in-Arden, with its broad and picturesque street and
+the “White Swan” inn, is much afflicted in these latter days by excessive
+motor traffic from Birmingham.  Beaudesert, a seat of the Marquis of
+Anglesey, adjoins it, and Preston Bagot, on the east, lies in a
+once-remote district.  The sign of the “Crab Mill” inn, on the way,
+alludes to a former manufacture of cider here.  The old manor-house of
+Preston Bagot, beside the road, is locally said to have been the first
+house built in the Forest of Arden, but of that we cannot, obviously, be
+at all sure.  There is a house about four miles onward, at Rowington
+Green, on the other side of Rowington, which looks, in parts, older.  It
+is the romantic-looking house known as “Shakespeare Hall,” for many years
+a farmhouse, but now the residence of Mr. J. W. Ryland, F.S.A.  It dates
+back to the early part of the fifteenth century, and had until recently a
+moat.  Traditionally, it was the home of one Thomas Shakespeare, a
+brother of William Shakespeare’s father; and Shakespeare is further said
+to have composed _As You Like It_ in the room over the porch.  We need
+not believe that tradition, which has no evidence to warrant it, although
+the house was once the home of one of the very numerous Shakespeare
+families in Arden, the poet’s family were relations.  The massive
+horseman’s “upping-block” has been allowed to remain, beside the
+front-door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+ Welcombe—Snitterfield—Warwick—Leicester’s Hospital—St. Mary’s Church and
+                          the Beauchamp Chapel.
+
+THE distance between Stratford and Warwick is eight miles, and the road,
+the broad highway, runs direct.  It is an excellent road, but for those
+who do not care overmuch for main routes, however beautiful, in these
+times, a more excellent way, for a portion of the journey at any rate, is
+by Snitterfield.  You turn off to the left from the tree-bordered main
+road at a point a mile and a half from Stratford, well in view of the
+lofty obelisk on the hillside at Welcombe which was built in 1873 to
+perpetuate the memory of the obscure person, a certain Mark Phillips, who
+had erected the mansion of Welcombe Lodge in 1869.  Without the aid of
+this monument he would by now have been completely forgotten; but it is
+120 feet in height and prominently visible from amazing distances, and so
+its object is attained.  Not perhaps exactly in the way originally
+intended, for being in a district where most things are associated in
+some way with Shakespeare, it is generally supposed to be one of them,
+and when the disappointed stranger finds himself thus deluded, he usually
+reflects upon Mark Phillips in the most scathing terms.
+
+Up at Welcombe are those Dingles already referred to.  The way to
+Snitterfield takes you uphill, past lands that once belonged to
+Shakespeare, and by a pond which is all that is left of the lake of
+Snitterfield Hall, a mansion demolished in 1820.  Here the road has
+reached a considerable height, commanding beautiful views down over the
+valley of the Avon at Hampton Lucy and Charlecote.
+
+                 [Picture: Leicester’s Hospital, Warwick]
+
+Snitterfield village is embowered amid elms.  The church is a rustic
+building in the Decorated style, with seventeenth-century pulpit and
+enriched woodwork of the same period furnishing the altar-rails.  Here
+the Rev. Richard Jago was vicar for twenty years, dying in 1781.  His
+duties did not bear heavily upon him, and he occupied most of his time in
+writing a long poem, “Edgehill, or the Rural Prospect Delineated and
+Moralised,” a published work which no one ever reads, the prospect of
+moralising held forth on the title-page scaring the timid.  His vicarage
+remains, and on its lawn are still the three silver birches planted by
+his three daughters.  There are some beautiful lime-trees and an ancient
+yew in the churchyard.  No relic of Henry Shakespeare, William
+Shakespeare’s uncle, or of his father or grandfather, who lived at
+Snitterfield, now remains.
+
+The road now trends to the right, and, steeply descending, regains the
+main route into Warwick.  The town of Warwick looms nobly before the
+traveller approaching from the west.  The broad level highway makes
+direct for it, and over the trees that border the road you see, as a
+first glimpse of the historic place, the lofty tower of St. Mary’s
+church, rising apparently an enormous height, and looking a most
+worshipful specimen of architecture.  On a nearer approach it sinks into
+less prominence, and, passing through an old suburb, with a porch-house
+on the right, formerly the “Malt-Shovel” inn, the West Gate of the town,
+with its chapel above it, takes prominence.
+
+              [Picture: Leicester’s Hospital: The Courtyard]
+
+The West Gate is one of the two surviving ancient gateways of Warwick and
+leads steeply up into the town beneath a rude-ribbed arch of great
+massiveness, based sturdily upon the dull red sandstone rock.  It is a
+very picturesque and in every way striking composition, and if it were
+not for the even more picturesque scene provided by Leicester’s Hospital,
+just within the gate, would be often illustrated.  But the nodding black
+and white gables of that almshouse effectually attract the greater
+notice.  The West Gate, with the chapel above, dates from about 1360.
+Nowadays it is almost only the curious visitor who passes through the
+long, tunnel-like arch, gazing with astonishment at the sudden outcrop of
+rock on which the building stands, and at the ribbed stone roof
+supporting the chapel.  A roadway has been made to the right of the gate,
+through the town walls, and the traffic goes that way by choice,
+obscuring the ancient defensive function and importance of this entrance
+to the town.  A chapel also occupies the like position over the East
+Gate, and shows that the people of Warwick prayed as well as watched.
+
+The Leicester Hospital, so-called because founded by Robert Dudley, Earl
+of Leicester, looks down with admirable effect from its elevated position
+on the left hand, as you come up into the town; but it would look even
+better if it were properly kept.  It very urgently needs a thorough
+overhauling, not in the necessity for any structural repairs, but with
+the object of treating the buildings in a sympathetic and cultured way.
+There is a vast difference between photographic views of what is called,
+in the Wardour Street way, “Leycester’s” Hospital, and the actual effect
+of looking upon the place with one’s own eyes.  The Hospital, in fact,
+looks very much better in photographs than it reveals itself to the
+disappointed gaze: simply because those responsible for the upkeep of it
+do not understand how to treat the old timbers, and have smeared them
+over with black paint.
+
+This Hospital or Almshouse occupies the site of the ancient united
+religious and charitable guilds of Holy Trinity and St.
+George-the-Martyr, with some of their surviving buildings.  These united
+fraternities had numerous activities.  They supported the priests who
+served in the chapels over East and West gates, and contributed towards
+the keep of others in the parish church; being also largely responsible
+for the maintenance of the great bridge, now and for long past in ruins,
+which carried the Banbury road across the Avon, in front of Warwick
+Castle.  They also supported eight poor persons of the Guild.  In common
+with all other religious, or semi-religious institutions, the Guild was
+dissolved in the time of Henry the Eighth, and its buildings were granted
+by Edward the Sixth to Sir Nicholas le Strange, from whom Dudley acquired
+them; or, according to another version of these transactions, Dudley had
+a gift of them direct from the town of Warwick, to which the Guild had
+voluntarily transferred its property.  This gift to the magnificent
+Dudley, the newly-created Earl of Leicester and possessor of vast wealth
+and power, was not for his own personal advantage, but for the purpose of
+helping him to establish an almshouse, which he at once proceeded to do,
+in the interest of “twelve impotent persons, not having above £5 per
+annum of their own, and such as either had been, or should be maimed in
+the warrs of the Queen, her service, her heirs and successors, especially
+under the conduct of the said Earl or his heirs, or had been tenants to
+him and his heirs, and born in the Counties of Warwick or Gloucester, or
+having their dwelling there for five years before; and in case there
+happen to be none such hurt in the Warrs, then other poor of Kenilworth,
+Warwick, Stratford super Avon in this county, or of Wootton under Edge or
+Erlingham in Gloucestershire, to be recommended by the Minister and
+Churchwardens where they last had their aboad; which poor men are to have
+Liveries (viz. Gowns of blew cloth, with a Ragged Staff embroydered on
+the left sleeve) and not to go into the Town without them.”
+
+Leicester and his magnificence, and all the direct lineage of the Dudleys
+have disappeared long ago.  Leicester himself, and after him his brother
+Ambrose, died childless, and the patronage of the Hospital passed to
+their sister Mary, who married Sir Henry Sidney of Penshurst.  Thence it
+has descended to Lord de L’isle and Dudley, the present representative of
+the Dudleys and the Sidneys.
+
+The entrance is by a stone gateway bearing the inscription “Hospitivm
+Collegiatvm Roberti Dvdlei Comitis Leycestriæ 1571.”  The great Dudley’s
+picturesque buildings deserve to be better kept, for they are among the
+daintiest examples of highly enriched half-timbering in England.  Passing
+beneath an archway with a sundial overhead, you enter a small quadrangle
+with a quaint staircase on one side, and gables with elaborate pierced
+verge-boards looking down upon the scene.  The famous Warwick badge of
+the Bear and Ragged Staff surmounts the finials and lurks under the
+eaves, in frequent repetition, together with the Porcupine, that of the
+Sidneys.  On the further side, over the windows of the Master’s Lodge, is
+the painted inscription, “Honour all men; love the brotherhood; fear God;
+and honour the King,” a quadripartite injunction which we may confidently
+affirm, no man ever yet observed.  Our own—but much more other
+people’s—natures will have to be very greatly amended before we are
+prepared to “honour all men.”
+
+You pay sixpence to be shown over the Hospital, and one of the twelve
+bedesmen acts as guide to the buildings and the very miscellaneous
+collections accumulated in them.  Nowadays the “blue gown” has become
+black, and the Bear and Ragged Staff badge is in silver, instead of
+embroidery.  A welcome change has come over their headgear.  Instead of
+the more or less rusty silk hats they wore during the greater part of the
+nineteenth century, they have now a “beefeater” hat similar to those worn
+by the Tower warders in London, but wholly in black.  The bedesmen no
+longer dine together as once they did, but each separately in his own
+quarters, because they could not always obey the injunction to “love the
+brotherhood,” and grew cantankerous in company, and quarrelled; but here
+is still the kitchen they have in common, containing many other things
+one does not expect to find in kitchens; an odd assortment, a Malay kris,
+a Russian helmet from the stricken fields of the Crimea, an oak cabinet
+from Kenilworth Castle, and a framed piece of needlework said to have
+been executed by Lady Robert Dudley, whom “historians” will persist in
+styling either by her maiden name, Amy Robsart, or else by the title of
+Countess of Leicester, she having died or been murdered many years before
+her husband became an Earl.  Perhaps we had better emphasise the word
+_said_.  Beneath that framed piece of needlework is a Saxon—more or less
+Saxon—chair.  A piece of Gibraltar rock, polished, is a further item
+displaying the catholicity of taste displayed here, together with the
+muskets with which the inmates of the Hospital were armed when the
+Chartist rising was supposed to threaten the security of Warwick.
+
+           [Picture: Leicester’s Hospital: One of the Brethren]
+
+The banqueting hall, a surviving portion of the old Guild buildings, very
+greatly needs restoration.  It has been grossly used and subdivided, the
+Minstrel Gallery having been taken out of it in order to provide a fine
+additional room for the Master’s residence; the Master being, of course,
+a clergyman with a fine fat stipend: the person who has the very best of
+it at Leicester’s Hospital.  In this once-beautiful banqueting hall, with
+its noble roof of Spanish chestnut, whitened with age, James the First
+was entertained by Fulke Greville in 1617.  Coal-bins and wash-houses now
+subdivide it.
+
+Flights of stone stairs lead up from the Hospital over the West Gate and
+into the chapel, a fine spacious building where the twelve old men have
+to attend every week-day morning at ten o’clock and listen to the
+perfunctory service read by the Master.  In addition to this spiritual
+treat, they attend service at the parish church on Sundays.  There is
+nothing to say about the interior of the chapel; it was “restored” by Sir
+Gilbert Scott, and so there would not be.
+
+For dulness and pretentious ugliness combined, the town of Warwick would
+be difficult to match; and the ugliest and dullest part of it is that
+main street called Jury Street, stretching between the West Gate and the
+East.  The ugliness is due to the great fire of 1694, which destroyed a
+great part of the town and necessitated a rebuilding at a period when
+architects were obsessed with the idea of designing “stately” buildings.
+What they considered stately we nowadays look upon with a shudder and
+style heavy and unimaginative.
+
+But the weirdest building in the town is that parish church of St. Mary
+whose tower looks in the distance so stately.  There were once ten
+churches in Warwick and there are now but two.  St. Mary’s was almost
+entirely destroyed in the great fire, in consequence of the frightened
+townsfolk storing their furniture in it, for safety.  The church itself
+was not threatened, but some of the articles hurriedly placed in it were
+alight, and thus it shared the fate of much else.
+
+The rebuilding of St. Mary’s was completed in 1704, as an inscription on
+the tower informs us.  I think those who placed that inscription here
+intended a Latin pun, a play upon the name of Queen Anne and the word
+anno, for “year”; for thus it runs: “Annaeauspiciis A° memorabili 1704.”
+One scarcely knows which is the more deplorable, the building or the pun;
+the first, probably, because not every one can see the play upon words,
+but the tower is an outrage impossible to escape.
+
+The bulk and loftiness of it are majestic, but its classic details in a
+Gothic framework have a curious effect on the beholder.  They seem, those
+unhallowed pagan alcoves, mounting stage by stage toward the skies, like
+some blasphemous insinuation.  The nave and transepts, rebuilt at the
+same time, are, oddly enough, not nearly so offensive, and it is rather a
+handsome as well as imposing interior that meets the stranger’s gaze.  It
+may be that it seems so much better because, warned by the outside, one
+expects so much worse.  That familiar ornament in classic architecture,
+the “egg and dart,” is an incongruous detail when worked into the
+capitals of columns in which the Gothic feeling predominates, and it
+sounds quite shocking when described; but here it comes with a pleasing,
+if scarcely ecclesiastical effect in this fine and well-proportioned
+interior.
+
+                 [Picture: The Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick]
+
+The chancel of St. Mary’s, together with the chapter-house on the north
+side of it and the Beauchamp Chapel on the south, escaped the fire, and
+remain uninjured to this day.  It is possible to peer through the locked
+iron gates of the chancel from the nave, which is the only portion of the
+church that is to be seen without payment, but to see the chapter-house,
+and the Beauchamp Chapel, to descend to the crypt and to mount the tower,
+you must pay and pay and pay again.  The clergy in all the wide radius of
+the Shakespeare Country have the keenest scent for sixpences, and would
+make excellent business men.  Better business men than clergymen, for all
+I know.  They have long since learnt to charge and to keep their doors
+locked until their charges are satisfied; and none understand the
+business better than those who have the keeping of St. Mary’s at Warwick.
+But, when you have paid for this and for that and for t’other, and are
+resting and reading, and possibly making notes in the nave, it is gross,
+I say, and offensive and blackguardly to be followed up and spied upon
+and to be asked if you are sketching!  “Because if you are it will be
+half-a-crown.”  I will now leave this unsavoury subject, wishing the
+clergy and churchwardens of St. Mary’s more enlightenment and the people
+they employ better discretion.
+
+The chancel, or choir, founded by Thomas Beauchamp, twelfth Earl of
+Warwick, who died 1369, is a stately Perpendicular work, with the
+altar-tomb of the founder and his wife Katharine, who died the same year,
+in the middle.  His armoured effigy, with crosses crosslet displayed on
+the breastplate, rests its feet upon a bear, and at the feet of his wife
+is a lamb.  He holds his wife’s hand.
+
+Around the tomb, in niches, are small figures representing members of the
+family, thirty-six in all.  In a grave near by, unmarked by any monument
+or inscription, lies William Parr, brother of Katharine Parr, last and
+surviving wife of Henry the Eighth.  He was created Marquis of
+Northampton, and died in 1571, sunk to such poverty that no money was
+forthcoming to bury him.  A few years later, Queen Elizabeth found a
+trifle, and he was decently interred, but no one ever thought it worth
+while to mark his resting-place.
+
+Passing the greatly-enriched Easter Sepulchre in the north wall, the
+Chapter House is entered by a corridor.  In the centre of this building
+stands the enormous monument to Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who was
+murdered by his man-servant in 1628.  “Delaying to reward one Hayward, an
+antient servant that had spent the most of his time in attendance upon
+him,” says Dugdale, “he received a mortall stab in the back by the same
+man, then private with him in his bed-chamber at Brooke House in London,
+30th Sept. ann. 1628, who, to consummate the tragedy, went into another
+room, and, having lockit the dore, pierced his own bowells with a sword.”
+
+The crypt is the oldest part of St. Mary’s, with Norman pillars.  It
+contains the old ducking-stool for scolding women.
+
+The entrance to that most gorgeous relic of old St. Mary’s, the Beauchamp
+Chapel, which is the principal item in the list of these ecclesiastical
+showmen, is on the east side of the south transept.  The mortuary
+magnificence of the Beauchamps obscures the dedication of the Chapel to
+Our Lady, and the generations that have passed since the building of it
+between the years 1443 and 1464, and its final consecration in 1475, have
+rightly agreed to style it by the name by which it now, and always has
+been, popularly known.  It reminds one very keenly of the insincere
+modern cant phrase which forms the dedication of memorial stained-glass
+windows.  “To the Glory of God and to the memory of —,” a shabby sop to
+the Almighty at which the soul revolts.  The very entrance is obviously
+proprietary, and shows us that this is really the Beauchamp mausoleum.
+
+               [Picture: The Crypt of St. Mary’s, Warwick]
+
+It is a magnificent entrance, a very highly-enriched work in panelled and
+sculptured stone, with the Warwick Bear and Ragged Staff on either side,
+facing the Beauchamp shield of crosses crosslet.  Near it, on the wall,
+and green with neglect, is the fine brass to Thomas Beauchamp, thirteenth
+Earl of Warwick, who died in 1401, and of his wife Margaret, who died
+1406.  It seems strange that out of all the money contributed by
+visitors, and chiefly on account of the Beauchamp monuments, there cannot
+be some small surplus set aside for a restoration of the altar-tomb on
+which these figures were placed up to that time when the great fire
+destroyed it and much of the church.  It is not well that so fine an
+example should remain on a wall; the most unsuitable position for a
+monumental brass.  The Earl, who is given the old original name of the
+Norman Beauchamps who came over with the Conqueror—“Bellocampo,” meaning
+“fair field”—is in complete armour, which has, besides the crosses
+crosslet of the family arms, a decorative border of ragged staves around
+his helmet.  The Countess is habited in an heraldic mantle of crosses
+crosslet.
+
+This Thomas Beauchamp was not so great or distinguished a man as his son,
+in whose honour the Beauchamp Chapel was erected.
+
+The Beauchamp Chapel is slightly below the level of the south transept
+and is entered down a flight of steps.  Photographs give an exaggerated
+idea of its size, but scarcely do justice to its beauty and the extreme
+richness of its details, still remarkable, although the ancient coloured
+glass has been mostly destroyed and the golden images of the altar have
+disappeared.  It is indeed due to the second Lord Brooke, who although a
+partisan of the Cromwellian side during the Civil War, was naturally keen
+to preserve the glories of Warwick, that the Chapel was not wholly
+destroyed in that age of tumults.  Lord Brooke was the son of that Sir
+Fulke Greville, first Baron Brooke, to whom James the First had granted
+Warwick Castle in 1605, and he no doubt looked upon the Beauchamps as
+ancestors, although there was never the remotest connection between that
+ancient martial family and his own, the Grevels, or Grevilles, who
+descend from the old wool-merchants of the name at Chipping Campden and
+elsewhere in the Cotswolds.  He adopted them, and took them over, so to
+speak, with the Castle; and a good thing too, for these old monuments,
+that they had so fortunate an adoption.
+
+The building is in the middle period of the Perpendicular style, that
+last manifestation of the Gothic spirit and the feudal ages, and is
+elaborately groined in stone.  The great Richard Beauchamp, who lies here
+in these gorgeous surroundings, directed by will the building of the
+Chapel and the erection of his monument.  He was the greatest as yet of
+his name, and appears to have been perfectly conscious of it, if we may
+judge by the state in which he ordained to lie.  He was also to prove the
+greatest to all time, for although his son Henry who succeeded him at his
+death in 1439 was created Duke of Warwick, his career was undistinguished
+and soon ended, for he died in 1445.  With him ended the long line of his
+race.
+
+Richard Beauchamp, fourteenth Earl of Warwick, whose effigy lies here in
+lonely magnificence on the altar-tomb he directed to be made, as though
+he were too great a personage to have his wife beside him, was holder of
+the greatest offices of State of his period.  The long inscription round
+his tomb tells us of some of these responsible posts—
+
+    “Preieth devoutly for the Sowel whom god assoille of one of the moost
+    worshipful Knights in his dayes of monhode and conning Richard
+    Beauchamp, late Earl of Warrewik, lord Despenser of Bergevenny and of
+    mony other grete lordships whos body resteth here vnder this tumbe in
+    a fulfeire vout of stone set on the bare rooch the whuch visited with
+    longe siknes in the Castel of Roan therinne decessed ful cristenly
+    the last day of April the yer of oure lord god A mccccxxix, he being
+    at that tyme Lieutenant gen’al and governer of the Roialme of
+    ffraunce and of the Duchie of Normandie by sufficient Autorite of
+    oure Sou’aigne lord the King Harry the vi., the whuch body with grete
+    deliberacon’ and ful worshipful conduit Bi See And by lond was broght
+    to Warrewik the iiii day of October the yer aboueseide and was leide
+    with ful solemn exequies in a feir chest made of stone in this
+    Chirche afore the west dore of this Chapel according to his last
+    wille and Testament therin to rest til this Chapel by him devised i’
+    his liff were made Al the whuche Chapel founded on the Rooch And alle
+    the membres thereof his Executours dede fully make and Apparaille By
+    the Auctorite of his Seide last Wille and Testament And therafter By
+    the same Auctorite Theydide Translate fful worshipfully the seide
+    Body into the vout abouseide, Honured be god therfore.”
+
+History comes in few places with such vivid reality to the modern person
+as it does here.  Unmoved, because too often without the mental agility
+to perceive the significance of it, we look upon the old royal arms of
+England as they were for centuries, until the time of George the Third,
+and see the quartering of the Lions of England with the Lilies of France;
+that proud boast, an idle pretension long before Calais, the final French
+possession of England, was lost, in the reign of Queen Mary.  But
+standing before the tomb of the great Beauchamp, and reading his sounding
+titles, no mere ornamental designations, but the veritable responsible
+offices of State, as “Lieutenant-General and Governor of the Realm of
+France and the Duchy of Normandy,” we live again in tremendous days.  No
+tomb of King or Emperor impresses me as does that of this puissant
+representative and viceroy of such sovereignty.
+
+Beneath a hooped frame or “hearse” of gilded brass which formed the
+support for a gorgeous pall of crimson velvet lies the effigy of this
+great soldier and statesman, also in brass, once highly gilt.  His bared
+head rests upon his helmet and his feet upon a griffin and a muzzled
+bear, and the Garter is on his left leg.  The arms are raised in the
+usual attitude of prayer, but the hands themselves are not joined, as
+usual.  They are, instead, represented apart, in the priestly pose during
+the celebration of mass.
+
+The rich crimson velvet pall that covered the effigy and was lifted for
+its inspection by every visitor, was at last removed, on the plea of the
+injury it was supposed to be causing the figure, and has now
+unaccountably disappeared.
+
+In niches around the altar-tomb are little figures representing his
+family, and sons- and daughters-in-law: fourteen in all; such great names
+as Henry Beauchamp, his son and successor, with his wife Cicely; Richard
+Neville, Earl of Salisbury and his wife Alice; Richard Neville,
+afterwards Earl of Warwick and his wife Anne; Edmund Beaufort, Duke of
+Somerset, and his wife Eleanor; Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham,
+and his wife Anne; John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife
+Margaret; and George Neville, Lord Latimer, with his wife Elizabeth.
+
+Against the north wall of the Chapel is the costly and ostentatious
+monument of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, rising in lofty stages of
+coloured marbles; a vulgar piece of work.  The effigies of Dudley and his
+wife Lætitia, who survived him forty-six years and died in 1634, are
+gorgeously robed and painted in lifelike fashion.  The mantle of the
+Order of the Garter covers his armour, and the Garter itself is shown on
+his leg.  It is with surpassing interest that one looks upon the chief of
+these figures; that Dudley who came near being King-Consort of Elizabeth,
+and died in 1588, at the comparatively early age of fifty-four; the vain
+and magnificent creature suspected of the murder of his first wife and
+traditionally poisoned by his last, who is said to have given him the
+lethal cup he had intended for herself.  A long Latin epitaph sonorously
+recounts his many titles and honours, with the hardy belief in “a certain
+hope of his resurrection in Christ.”
+
+Against the opposite wall is the altar-tomb of that “noble Impe, Robert
+of Dudley,” infant son of the last, who died in his fourth year, 1584.  A
+circlet round the brow of the little figure bears the Leicester badge,
+the cinquefoil.  Last of the Dudley monuments, is the altar-tomb of
+Ambrose, styled the “good Earl,” in tacit contradistinction from his
+brother Robert, the wicked one.  The good Ambrose was not given length of
+days, for he died the year after his brother.  He also is shown in armour
+and wears a coronet and the Garter.  How he was given the post of
+“Mayster of the Ordinaunce,” made Chief Butler of England, and was
+altogether a personage of many offices, his epitaph tells.  With him and
+the “noble Impe,” his brother’s infant son, the legitimate race of the
+Dudleys died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+                             Warwick Castle.
+
+THE great Castle of Warwick, now the seat of the Earl and Countess of
+Warwick, who formed themselves into a Limited Liability Company some
+fifteen years ago, under the title of the “Warwick Estates Co., Ltd.,”
+has been the seat of the Grevilles since 1605.
+
+The origin of Warwick Castle goes back to Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred
+the Great and wife of the then Earl of Mercia, a strenuous and warlike
+lady, to whom are attributed many ancient works.  She is credited with
+building the first fortress in A.D. 915, on that knoll still known as
+“Ethelfleda’s Mount,” on which a Norman keep was subsequently erected,
+perhaps by that famous personage Turchil.  In the family of Turchil the
+cognisance of the yet more famous Bear and Ragged Staff originated, which
+in all succeeding generations has descended from house to house of the
+distinguished families who have come into possession of Warwick Castle:
+the Houses of Beauchamp, Neville, Dudley, Rich, and Greville: not as
+their personal badge, but as that of the castellan for the time being of
+Warwick.  A fantastic theory has been set afoot that, as Siward, son of
+Turchil, assumed the name “de Arden,” thus founding the numerous knightly
+family of Ardens, Shakespeare, as the son of a Mary Arden, was probably
+the rightful owner of Warwick Castle!  We may safely say that this never
+occurred to Shakespeare himself, and may add him to one of that numerous
+class slyly alluded to by Ingoldsby; people “kept out of their property
+by the rightful owners.”
+
+The great Guy of Warwick, a giant in stature and doughty in deeds, is a
+myth, but that does not prevent his armour being shown in the Great Hall
+of the Castle.  His period seems to be placed between that of Ethelfleda
+and Turchil, for the date of his death is put at A.D. 929.  Mythical
+though he is, the later and very real flesh-and-blood Beauchamps, who
+came into possession of Warwick in the thirteenth century, were often
+named “Guy” in allusion to him.  His armour, like his legendary self, is
+a weird accretion of time, and is no longer displayed with the touching
+belief of less exacting times.  The Age of Belief is dead, they say.  Of
+belief in some things incredible, no doubt.  He wore, according to the
+articles seen here, not only armour of tremendous size and weight, but of
+periods ranging from three hundred, to six hundred and ninety years after
+his death.  A bascinet of the time of Edward the Third covered his head,
+his breastplate, weighing fifty pounds, is of the latter part of the
+fifteenth century, and the backplate belongs to the Stuart period.  His
+shield weighs thirty pounds; his great ponderous sword, five feet six
+inches long, is of the time of Henry the Eighth.  “Guy’s breakfast cup,
+or porridge-pot” is equally wonderful, for it has a capacity of a hundred
+and twenty gallons.  It is really an ancient iron cauldron, once used for
+cooking the rations of the garrison.
+
+The first historical Earl of Warwick was Henry de Newburgh, who died
+1123; and by a succession of changes and failures of heirs the title and
+estates came to William de Beauchamp, husband of the daughter of William
+Mauduit.
+
+In the time of Guy, Earl of Warwick, son of this William, the Castle
+witnessed some stirring scenes.  The discontented nobles, troubled at the
+preference given by Edward the Second to his foreign favourite, Piers
+Gaveston, and at the apparent impossibility of permanently ridding the
+kingdom of him, seized that pestilent foreigner and confined him for a
+short time in a dungeon here.
+
+The favourite was by no means an acceptable person to the English barons,
+who although all directly descended from William the Conqueror’s
+Frenchmen, had already been assimilated by this wonderful country of
+ours, and were as English as—well, let us say as English as any German
+Jew Goldstein or Schlesinger of modern times who, coming to these happy
+shores, suffers a sea-change into something rich and rare, and becomes a
+new and strange “Gordon,” or “Sinclair.”  They regarded this flippant
+Gascon from the south of France as an undesirable of the worst type, and
+could not and would not appreciate his jokes; a natural enough disability
+when you come to consider them, for they were all at their expense.  If
+you study the monumental effigies of those mediæval barons and knights
+which are so plentifully dispersed throughout our country churches, you
+will readily perceive that although they were frequently very magnificent
+personages, their countenances do not often show any trace of
+intellectual qualities.  Edward the Second was as flippant a person as
+his favourite, and when these stupid and indignant barons saw them
+laughing together, they knew very well, or keenly suspected, that they
+themselves were being laughed at.  Did not this Gaveston fellow call the
+Earl of Lancaster “the play-actor,” or “the fiddler,” and the Earl of
+Lincoln “burst belly.”  Every one knew he called his father-in-law “_fils
+à puteyne_,” or “whoreson.”  Guy, Earl of Warwick, was “the black hound
+of Arden.”
+
+“Let him call me hound: one day the hound will bite him,” said the Earl.
+Meanwhile, Gaveston went on finding nicknames for every one, and made
+himself bitterly hated by those dull-minded barons who could not joke
+back at him.  The worst of it was, his lance was as keen, and went as
+straight to the point, as his gibes.  It was little use meeting him in
+single combat, for he unhorsed and vanquished the best.
+
+Hence this seizure of the hateful person.  The story of it is told by
+Adam Murimuth—
+
+    “The King wished Peter de Gavestone to be conveyed to him by Lord
+    Adamar de Valense, Earl of Pembroke, for safety; and, when they were
+    at Danyntone next Bannebury, the same Earl sent him away in the
+    night; and he went near to one place for this reason.  And on the
+    morrow in the morning came Guy, Earl of Warwyk, with a low-born and
+    shouting band, and awakened Peter and brought him to his Castle of
+    Warwyk and, after deliberation with certain elders of the kingdom,
+    and chiefly with Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, finally released him from
+    prison to go where he would.  And when he had set out from the town
+    of Warwyk even to the place called, somewhat prophetically,
+    Gaveressich, he came there with many men making a clamor against him
+    with their voices and horns, as against an enemy of the King and a
+    lawful outlaw of the Kingdom, or an exile; and finally beheaded him
+    as such xix day of the month of June.”
+
+So the “Black Dog” did indeed bite him to some effect.  This tragic spot
+is a place called Blacklow Hill, one mile north of the town.  A monument
+to this misguided humorist, following his natural propensities in a land
+where humour is not appreciated, was erected on the spot by a Mr.
+Greathead, of Guy’s Cliff House, in 1821.  The inscription itself has a
+complete lack of humour—
+
+    “In the hollow of this rock was beheaded, on the first day of July,
+    1312, by barons as lawless as himself, Piers Gaveston, Earl of
+    Cornwall, the minion of a hateful king, in life and death a memorable
+    instance of misrule.”
+
+With this fierce “Black Dog of Arden,” whose teeth were so sharp, the
+architectural history of the Castle becomes clear.  He repaired and
+strengthened it, after the rough handling it had received in the Barons’
+War, in the reign of Henry the Third; but to Thomas de Beauchamp, his
+grandson, is due Cæsar’s Tower, about 1360, and it was his son Thomas,
+who built Guy’s Tower, named after the mythical giant, about 1394.
+
+It costs two shillings to see Warwick Castle.  I believe if you happen to
+be a resident of Warwick or Leamington, there is a reduction of fifty per
+cent.  The entrance is not so old as it looks, and was cut through the
+rock in 1800.  It leads to the gloomy Barbican, whose overhanging walls
+give a truly mediæval approach and form the completest contrast with the
+scene that opens beyond.
+
+The visitor enters a huge courtyard, now one vast lawn, nearly two acres
+in area; with the residential portion of the Castle and its state-rooms
+on the left.  Ahead is Ethelfleda’s Mount, and on the right, guarding the
+curtain-wall at intervals, are Guy’s Tower; the incomplete Bear Tower,
+with its mysterious tunnel, the work of Richard the Third; and the
+companion Clarence Tower, built by George, Duke of Clarence, his
+ill-fated brother, murdered in the Tower of London.  Beside Ethelfleda’s
+Mount is the Hill Tower.
+
+Immediately to the left of the entrance are the brew-house, laundry and
+then Cæsar’s Tower, with its gloomy dungeon, a most undesirable place of
+residence with vaulted stone roof and mouldy smells, meet for repentance
+and vain regrets.  Here the “Black Dog” imprisoned the flippant Gaveston,
+and many later generations of prisoners passed weary times, scratching
+their not very legible records upon the walls for lack of employment.
+Among them is the record of one “Master John Smyth, gunner to the King,”
+who appears to have been a prisoner here for the worse part of four
+years, in the hands of the Cromwellian partisan, Lord Brooke.  We learn
+nothing further of the unfortunate gunner, nor why he was meted such hard
+measure.
+
+    M_a_fTER : I_oh_N : SM_y_TH : GVNER : TO HIS :
+    MAIEST_y_E . HIg_h_NES : WAS : A PRISNER IN THIS
+    PlACE : AND lA_y_ HERE . _f_rOM 1642 TELL _th_
+
+    WILLIAM SI_d_IATE ROT T_his_ SAME
+    AN_d_ _if_ M_y_ PEN HA_d_ B_in_ BETER f_o_R
+    HIS SAKE I Wovl_d_ HAVE MEN_d_E_d_
+    EVERRi leTTER.
+
+    Ma_f_ter               1642 345
+    Io_h_n : SM_y_TH GVNER _to_ H .
+    MAIE_f_T_ys _: Hi_gh_NES WAS
+    A PRI_f_NER IN T_his_ PlACE
+    IN : T_h_E .  _y_EARE _of_ OVR L
+    _ord_ 1642 : 345
+             _miserere_
+             _ihs mary_
+             _ihs mio_
+
+Mr. William Sidiate (or possibly it is “Lidiate”) who thus, in the
+quaintest of lettering inscribed the sorrows of his friend the imprisoned
+gunner, appears to have been fully conscious of the eccentricity of his
+handiwork, but the inferiority of his “pen”—which was probably a rusty
+nail—can have had nothing to do with his weird admixture of “large caps,”
+“upper case,” “lower case” and italic type which I confidently expect
+will make the compositor of this page smile and sigh by turns.
+
+The Great Hall, with its armour and pictures and relics of Guy, is of
+course the chief feature of the long round of sight-seeing that makes
+Warwick Castle second to none as a show-place.  It was greatly injured in
+the fire of December 1871, when many priceless relics were destroyed.
+Facsimile replicas of some have been made, and of the ancient armour
+which survived it has been said that there is no finer in the Kingdom,
+except that in the Tower of London.  It is remarkable that although the
+Castle has passed from family to family, and sometimes to families not
+related to their predecessors, the continuity of things has been
+maintained.  Here is the mace of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, “the
+Kingmaker,” who was slain in 1471 at the Battle of Barnet; here are
+portions of the armour which belonged to Prince Edward, murdered at
+Tewkesbury, after the battle; together with relics of the Dudleys, such
+as the miniature suit of armour made for the “noble Impe”; together with
+a helmet of the great Oliver Cromwell, and the suit worn by Lord Brooke,
+shot at the siege of Lichfield.  His buff leathern jerkin was burnt in
+1871, and that we now see is a facsimile of it.  Here, too, are those
+preposterous relics of Guy, already mentioned, together with a rib of
+that Dun Cow of terrific story which he slew upon Dunsmore.  The visitor
+will see that rib with surprise, and note that the cows of a thousand
+years ago were larger than ever he suspected.  It is the rib of a whale.
+
+He would be a courtly, and perhaps also a tedious, writer who should
+essay to fully describe Warwick Castle, with its many suites of
+state-rooms, its gothic stone-vaulted servants’-hall, and its terraces,
+ponds, and gardens, together with the conservatories and that famous
+Roman antiquity, the so-called “Warwick Vase,” found at Hadrian’s Villa,
+near Rome in 1770, and purchased by the dilettante George, second Earl,
+from Sir William Hamilton.  Great improvements have been made here in the
+last few years at the cost of “a little damming and blasting,” as was
+remarked at the time.
+
+Past the melancholy flymen who linger in the broad roadway opposite the
+entrance to the Castle, and wear jaundiced looks as though it were years
+ago since they had had a fare and expect it to be years yet before they
+will get another, you turn to the right into Mill Lane, narrow street of
+ancient houses, leading down to the river and to the site of that ancient
+mill where the feudal lords had their corn ground.
+
+The magnificence of state-rooms, the lengthy parade of family portraits,
+the beauty of the gardens, and the trimness of well-kept lawns do not
+serve the really cultivated visitor’s turn in Warwick Castle.  He pays
+his two shillings and is herded through with many others, a little
+browbeaten by the stale declamation of the gorgeous lackeys and by a very
+indigestion of sightseeing.  It is not a medieval fortress he has seen,
+but a private residence.  In Mill Lane, however, you come into nearer
+touch with realities.  Here, in this by far the most picturesque and
+unspoiled part of Warwick, where the bowed and time-worn brick or
+timber-framed houses are living out their life naturally, something of
+the ancient contrast between subservient town and feudal fortress may be
+gathered, softened down, it is true, by the hand of time.  Cæsar’s Tower
+is viewed at its best from the lower end of the lane, and looks from this
+point of view the noblest and the sternest tower the forceful military
+architects of the Middle Ages have given us, and well worthy of the great
+name of Cæsar long ago conferred upon it by some unknown admirer of its
+dignity and massive beauty.  It was somewhere about 1360 when Cæsar’s
+Tower first arose upon the rocky bluff in which its foundations go deeply
+down.  It was then called the Poictiers Tower.  The purpose of this
+extremely strong and cunningly-planned work just here is lost to the
+modern casual observer, but if a keen glance is directed to the Avon
+flowing so closely by, it will be observed that although Mill Lane is now
+a lane butting up against the river bank and leading nowhere, the ruins
+of a very substantial stone bridge that once crossed the broad stream at
+this point are seen.  This formerly carried the high road from Warwick to
+Banbury, and when still in use brought the possibility of attack upon the
+Castle at this angle very near, and therefore to be provided against by
+the strongest possible defence.  Hence those boldest of machicolations
+overhead, those arrow-slits in the skilfully-planned battlements above
+them, and that extraordinary double base with the bold slopes, seen in
+the accompanying illustration; a base whose purpose was to fling off with
+a tremendous rebound into the midst of an enemy the stones, the molten
+lead and pitch, and the more nasty, but not so lethal missiles with which
+a besieged garrison defended themselves.  This base is quite solid rock,
+faced with masonry.  In the upper part of it is seen the small barred
+window that admits a feeble light into the dungeon already described.
+To-day the elms have grown up to great heights beside Cæsar’s Tower and
+assuage the grimness of it, and the only sounds are the cawings and
+gobbling noises of the rooks in their branches, or the unlovely cries of
+the Castle peacocks which strut across the lane in all their glory of
+colour.
+
+The tower rises 106 feet above its rocky basement.  Those old military
+architects who designed and built it had not the least idea they were
+installing a picturesque feature.  They had no knowledge at all of the
+picturesque; but they assured themselves, as well as they could, that the
+safety of the Castle should be provided for.  And they did it so well
+that history will be studied in vain for a successful siege.
+
+                 [Picture: Cæsar’s Tower, Warwick Castle]
+
+This must have been a noble and imposing entrance to Warwick town in days
+of old.  Then the road from London to Banbury crossed the ancient bridge
+and came up under this frowning tower and through the south gate of the
+town, along Mill Lane.
+
+The bridge, originally a narrow packhorse bridge of thirteen arches and
+of great antiquity, was widened in 1375 and the number of arches reduced
+to seven; and, thus remodelled, carried the traffic until 1790.  This way
+came of necessity every traveller from London to Warwick, and in this
+manner Queen Elizabeth entered the town and Castle in 1572.
+
+Warwick Castle was in those times less secluded from the streets than it
+now is.  The feudal owners of it were not at all concerned to hide
+themselves away, but when the age of sight-seeing dawned and amateurs of
+the picturesque began to tour the country, they began to consider how
+they could ensure a complete privacy.  It was effected by diverting the
+public highway.  This was done at the instigation of George, second of
+the Greville Earls of Warwick, in or about 1790, when the new road and
+bridge were made, crossing the Avon considerably to the eastward.  From
+that modern bridge, which cost £4000, only in part contributed by the
+Earl, who benefited most by the diversion, is obtained that view of the
+Castle so extravagantly praised by Sir Walter Scott.  It is the only
+possible view, and not a good one: one by no means to be compared with
+that formerly obtained from the old bridge.  Sir Walter Scott therefore
+either did not know what he was talking about, or was too much of a
+courtier to reveal his own convictions.
+
+At this same time when the road was made to take its new course, the
+meadows on the other side of the Avon were enclosed and thrown into the
+park.  To complete and fully round off this story of obliterating ancient
+landmarks, the old bridge was wrecked in the same year by a flood.  Three
+only of its arches remain.
+
+The Grevilles, the present Earls of Warwick, have a motto to their coat
+of arms which is a complete change from the usual swashbuckling braggart
+sentiments.  He was surely a singularly modest man who first adopted it.
+I wish I could identify him.  He must have read well the history of
+Warwick Castle and have pondered on the successive families of cuckoos
+who have nested in the old home of the original owners.  He selected a
+quotation from the _Metamorphoses_ of that amorous dove, P. Ovidius
+Naso—O! quite a proper one, I assure you—_Vix ea nostra voco_, “I can
+scarce call these things our own.”  Whether he meant the heirlooms, the
+mace that belonged to the great Richard Neville “the Kingmaker,” the
+Plantagenet and the Dudley relics, or if he were a contemplative
+philosopher ruminating on the Law of Entail, by which he was not owner,
+to do with as he would, but only tenant-for-life, who shall say?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+ Guy’s Cliff—The legend of Guy—Kenilworth and its watersplash—Kenilworth
+                                 Castle.
+
+LEAMINGTON will scarcely interest the holiday-maker in Shakespeare land.
+From Warwick to Kenilworth is the more natural transition, and it is one
+of much interest.  A mile and a half out of the town is that famous place
+of popular legend, Guy’s Cliff, where the great mansion, standing beside
+the river and built in 1822, looks so ancient, and where, on the opposite
+shore of Avon, stands that mill whose highly picturesque features are a
+standing dish in railway carriage picture-galleries.  The impossible
+armour of the mythical Guy of Warwick we have already seen in Warwick
+Castle, and the improbable legend of his hermit life in the riverside
+cave remains now to be told.
+
+Guy, returning from the Holy Land and successfully engaging as the
+champion of England against Colbrond, the giant Dane, in combat at
+Winchester, retraced his steps towards Warwick.  There, unknown by any,
+he three days appeared among the poor at the Castle gate, as one of the
+thirteen people to whom his wife daily gave alms; and “having rendred
+thanks to her, he repaired to an Heremite that resided among the shady
+woods hard by.”  The legend forgets to tell us why he did this, and does
+not explain how it was that this giant fellow, who apparently was eight
+feet high, was not recognised by his wife and others.  Were they all
+eight feet tall, or thereabouts, at Warwick in those times?
+
+But it would be wasting time to apply the test of intelligent criticism
+to this mass of accumulated legends, to which many generations have added
+something.  Guy is a mythical hero, built upon the exploits of some early
+British champion, whose name and real history are as past recall as the
+facts about King Arthur.  But the great fourteenth-century Richard
+Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who founded the chapel here, seems to have
+believed in him and in the size of him, for Guy’s mutilated effigy placed
+here by that great earl, whose faith must have been as robust as his
+body, is the full eight feet long.
+
+At any rate, here is the cave of the hermit he consulted with, and with
+whom he resided, unknown still to his friends, until that holy and
+rheumatic man died.  Here he himself died, two years later, A.D. 929,
+aged seventy.  Thus the story seeks to bolster up the wild character of
+its details by the specious exactness of its dates.  “He sent to his Lady
+their Wedding Ring by a trusty servant, wishing her to take care of his
+burial; adding also that when she came, she should find him lying dead in
+the Chapel, before the altar, and moreover, that within xv dayes after,
+she herself should depart this life.”
+
+Guy’s Cave, excavated in the rock, appears really to have been a hermit’s
+abode in Saxon times.  His name seems, from the early twelfth-century
+Saxon inscription found here over a hundred years ago, to have been
+“Guhthi.”  It runs “Yd Crist-tu icniecti this i-wihtth, Guhthi”; which
+has been rendered, “Cast out, thou Christ, from Thy servant this burden,
+Guhthi.”  So romance is not altogether unjustified, and although this
+misguided anchorite did not appreciate scenery, we at any rate can thus
+find some historical excuse as well as a scenic one for visiting the
+spot, with the crowd.
+
+It is a pleasant road, on through Leek Wootton, where the church, after
+being rebuilt in an odious style in 1792, has been brought more into
+keeping with later ecclesiastical sentiment.  And so the road runs on, to
+Kenilworth, through the approach called Castle End.  Presently, after
+threading the long street, there in its meadows rises the ruined Castle.
+
+There is no ideal way into Kenilworth nowadays, because the place has
+become more or less of a town, and numerous Coventry business men make it
+their suburban home.  Thus does Romance disappear, in the daily goings
+forth and the returnings on their lawful occasions of the residents, and
+in the spreading of fresh streets and always more cheaply built houses
+for newer colonies of them.  The first jerry-builder at Kenilworth was
+Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose badly bonded additions to the
+Castle still ruinously show how slightly and hastily he set about the
+work.  But of that anon.
+
+Castle End is one of those scattered portions of the town that surprise
+the stranger.  He thinks, time and again, that he has seen all
+Kenilworth, but there is always some more of it.  You bear to the left
+and descend to a broad watersplash that crosses the road beneath densely
+overarching trees.  The people of Kenilworth cling tightly to the
+preservation of their watersplash, and for several reasons: it is highly
+picturesque and keeps them in touch with the last elfin echoes of that
+Romance I have spoken of; the building of a bridge would cost them
+considerably; and finally they would lose the amusement and speculative
+interest which has latterly been added to it in these automobile times,
+when a motor-car may or may not succeed in getting through.  For the
+watersplash is rather a sudden apparition to the motorist strange to the
+place, and it is a very variable thing.  Sometimes it will be a shallow
+trickle across the road, and at others, when rain has fallen, it will be
+broad and deep.  This is when the people of Kenilworth love to gather on
+the narrow footbridge at the side and smoke a quiet cigarette, waiting
+for the coming of the motorist who will presently be in difficulties.  It
+is something of a problem how to pass at such times.  If you rush it, as
+most are tempted to do, you get through at the cost of being swamped with
+the tremendous spray thrown up; and if you go gently you are probably
+brought to an inglorious standstill in mid-stream, with the ignominious
+necessity of wading out and procuring assistance.  In any event, an
+engrossing spectacle is provided.
+
+Once through this ford, you come up to the Castle entrance, on the left.
+It is a pleasant old part that looks on to the scene of so much feudal
+state and bygone warlike doings.  A group of old red brick and timber
+cottages, their red brick of the loveliest geranium redness, looks upon a
+kind of village green.  They lean at all kinds of angles, their roofs
+have skylines like the waves of a troubled sea, in front of each one is a
+little forecourt garden, and they all supply teas and sell
+picture-postcards.  I do not know what the inhabitants of them do in the
+winter.  Perhaps they come up to London and spend their gains in mad
+revelry.
+
+It is a hungry and a thirsty business, “doing” Kenilworth Castle
+conscientiously, and the people of Castle Green and elsewhere in this
+village-town find their account therein.  Even those visitors who do not
+conscientiously “do” it—and they are by far the larger number, both
+because most have not the intellectual equipment necessary, and because
+in the rest the weakness of the flesh prevails over the willingness of
+the spirit—find copious refreshment necessary.  There is in fact, a great
+deal to be seen, and the interest is sustained throughout.  Viewed in a
+commercial way, it is a very good sixpennyworth.  Personally, I consider
+Ludlow Castle to be somewhat the superior of Kenilworth, and to hold the
+premier position for a ruined castle; but Kenilworth is first in the
+estimation of many.  It does not make the effective picture that Ludlow
+forms, crowning its rocky bluff above the river Teme; for Kenilworth
+stands in perhaps the weakest situation that ever was selected for an
+ancient fortress, its ruined walls rising from low-lying meadows, and at
+a distance having the appearance rather of some huge dismantled mansion
+than a castle.
+
+It is quite easy to deduce the existence of some Saxon lord, Chenil or
+Kenelm, whose _weorth_ this was, but he is not an historical personage.
+The first important historic fact that remains to us is the gift of the
+manor by Henry the First to Geoffrey de Clinton in 1122, but what he
+found here in the nature of a castle, or what he may have built is alike
+unknown.  From the grandson of this Geoffrey, King John appears to have
+taken a lease and to have added many outworks to the then existing castle
+keep, which still remains.  That evil figure in English history,
+travelling almost incessantly about his kingdom, watchful and tyrannical,
+seems to have been much at Kenilworth, enlarging the bounds of the Castle
+beyond the original Saxon mound on which the keep and the inner ward are
+placed, inventing strong dungeons for his victims, and constructing those
+outer walls which still look out, beyond the original moat.  Thus the
+Castle grew to four times the area it had at first occupied, and as it
+could not be strengthened by steep approaches, it was safeguarded by
+artificially constructed water defences.  The fortification of Kenilworth
+Castle was indeed a wonderful triumph of mediæval military engineering
+over the disabilities of an unsatisfactory site, and it enabled the
+disaffected nobles and others in the next reign to sustain a six months’
+siege ending only in their surrender through a plague which had broken
+out among the garrison.
+
+We can still see the nature of these defences, for although the water has
+been drained away, the circuit of the outer walls, from the Swan Tower on
+Clinton Green, round to Mortimer’s Tower, the Water Tower, and Lunn’s
+Tower remains perfect, and marks where the defences on two sides of the
+Castle enclosure skirted a great lake formed by damming back two small
+confluent brooks in the hollow meadows in which the Castle stands.  The
+outer walls, now looking upon pastures where cattle graze, then descended
+sheer into the water; a flight of steps leading down from a postern gate
+still remaining to show where a boat could then have been launched.  This
+lake was half a mile long, from 90 to 100 yards broad, and from 10 to 12
+feet deep.
+
+The siege of 1266 tried the strength of this strong place.  The great
+Simon de Montfort, who fell at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, had been
+granted the Castle in 1254.  He died in the popular cause, fighting
+against Henry the Third, and his defeated army hurried to Kenilworth.
+They found no immediate opposition, and garrisoned the place at leisure,
+being joined there by many powerful adherents and heaping up enormous
+stores for a lengthy resistance.  Both sides knew it would be a stubborn
+and difficult affair.  The King tried at first to come to terms with the
+garrison, but he does not appear to have gone about it in the most
+tactful way.  It is true that he was prepared to allow the rebels to
+compound for pardon with a fine, supposing they did so within forty days,
+but to “pardon” those who think they are in the right and who are still
+in arms to assert their rights and redress their grievances, seems an
+unlikely way to end a dispute.  The Church was opposed to the popular
+side, as may always confidently be expected, and helped the King’s cause
+by damning the insurgents and preparing the tremendous document known to
+history as the “Dictum de Kenilworth,” otherwise “the Ban.”  This was
+read and published in the church of St. Mary, Warwick.  It proclaimed the
+supreme will of the King, and, _inter alia_, forbade the people to regard
+the dead hero and popular idol, de Montfort, as the saint and martyr they
+were already declaring him to be.  The garrison received this with
+contempt, and the long siege began.  Robert of Gloucester, who records it
+in eloquent but rugged lines, is too quaint and amusing not to be quoted—
+
+    “The king anon at midsummer, with strength and with gin
+    To Kenilworth y-went, the castle to win;
+    He swore he would not thence until he were within.
+    So long they sped badly that they might as well bliue {272a}
+    None of their gates those within ever close would.
+    Open they stood, night and day, come in whoso would.
+    Out they smite well oft, when men too nigh came,
+    And slew fast on either half and prisoners name; {272b}
+    And then bought they them back with ransom.  Such life long did last:
+    With mangonels and engines each upon the other cast.
+    The Legate and the Archbishop with them also nome; {272c}
+    Two other bishops, and to Kenilworth come,
+    To make accord between the King and the disinherited also,
+    And them of the Castle, if it might be y-do {272d}
+    But the disinherited would not do all after the King {272e}
+    Nor they of the Castle any the more, nor stand to their liking,
+    {272f}
+    The Legate with his red cope amansed tho {272g}
+    Them that in the castle were, and full many mo {272i}
+    All that helped them, or were of their rede, {272j}
+    Or to them consented, in will or in deed.
+    They of the Castle held it in great despite.
+    Copes and other cloathes they let make them of white
+    And Master Philip Porpoise, that was a quaint man,
+    Clerk, and hardy in his deeds, and their chirurgian,
+    They made a mock Legate, in this cope of white,
+    Against the others’ rede, to do the Legate a despite,
+    And he stood as Legate upon the Castle wall,
+    And amansed King and Legate and their men all
+    Such game lasted long among them in such strife,
+    But much good was it not, to soul or to life.”
+
+There was never another siege of Kenilworth.  It passed through many
+hands, and among others to John o’ Gaunt, whose manors are found
+numerously, all over the country.  In his time the great Banqueting Hall,
+the most beautiful feature of the Castle, was added, and it became not
+only a fortress, but a stately palace as well.  But the most stately and
+gorgeous times were yet to be.  Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s
+favourite, who aspired to become King-Consort, received a grant of it in
+1563, and was created Earl of Leicester the following year.  The
+monopolies and rich offices of State showered upon him by the Queen had
+already made him an enormously wealthy man, and he determined to
+entertain his Sovereign here with unparalleled splendour.  To this end he
+established an army of workmen here, who treated the place very much in
+the way adopted by any suddenly enriched millionaire of modern times
+towards the out-of-date mansion he has purchased.  The narrow openings in
+the massive walls of the Norman keep were enlarged and great mullioned
+windows inserted; the vast Gatehouse still standing and now used as a
+private residence was built; and the lofty block of buildings added that
+still bears his name.  Many other works, but of less spectacular nature,
+were undertaken at this time.
+
+Dudley had known many changes of fortune, and had been a prisoner in the
+Tower only ten years earlier, with his father and four brothers, on a
+charge of high treason; narrowly escaping execution.  Now an astonishing
+freak of chance had made him perhaps the most powerful, as well as the
+wealthiest, man in the country.  Sir Walter Scott’s novel, _Kenilworth_,
+details Leicester’s magnificence and the unparalleled grandeur of the
+entertainments given here to Queen Elizabeth in 1575, and introduces his
+wife Amy Robsart, Lady Robert Dudley, as Countess of Leicester into the
+scenes of his story.  But in 1560, four years before he had received his
+earldom, his wife had perished mysteriously at Cumnor Place in Berkshire,
+murdered, it has been supposed, at his instigation, to clear the way for
+that projected marriage with Queen Elizabeth which never took place.
+Leicester, when he entertained the Queen here so royally, had no
+“encumbrances,” to limit his ambitions.
+
+How the Queen was received here and entertained for seventeen days is
+fully, and on the whole tediously, narrated by a remembrancer then
+present, but a short extract will tell us something of the quality of
+these revels.  On her Majesty’s approach she was met by a girl in
+character as “one of the ten sibills, cumly clad in a pall of white
+sylk,” who recited a “proper poezie in English rime and meeter, the which
+her Majestie benignly accepted and passed foorth unto the next gate of
+the Brayz, which for the length, largenes, and use, they call now the
+Tylt-Yard; whear a porter, tall of person, and wrapt also in sylke, with
+a club and keiz of quantitee according, had a rough speech full of
+passions, in meeter aptly made to the purpose.”  Presently when the Queen
+came to the inner gate “a person representing the Lady of the Lake,
+famous in King Arthurz Book, with two Nymphes waiting uppon her, arrayed
+all in sylks, attended her highness comming,” the Lady of the Lake then
+coming ashore from the moat, and reciting a “well-penned meeter.”  After
+this, coming to the Castle gate, a Latin poem was read to her by a poet
+clad in a “long ceruleous Garment, with a Bay Garland on his head, and a
+skrol in his hand.  So, passing into the inner court, her Majesty, (that
+never rides but alone) thear set doun from her palfrey, was conveied up
+to her chamber, when after did follo a great peal of Gunz and lightning
+by Fyr work.”
+
+£1000 a day was spent in the feasting and revelling.  Everything was done
+without stint.  The great clock on the keep was stopped.  “The Clok Bell
+sang not a Note all the while her Highness waz thear: the Clok also stood
+still withall, the handz of both the tablz stood firm and fast, allweys
+pointing at two a Clok.”  The hospitable and symbolical meaning of this
+was that two o’clock was the banqueting hour.
+
+Every time when the Queen went hunting in the park, classic deities, and
+heroes and heroines of mythology would appear from woodland glades and
+recite complimentary poems—greatly to the disadvantage of the sport, it
+may be supposed.  Bear-baiting further enlivened the time, and “nyne
+persons were cured of the peynful and daungerous deseaz called the King’s
+Evil.”
+
+Kenilworth passed on the death of Leicester in 1588, to his brother,
+Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and on his decease, two years later, to
+Robert’s illegitimate son, Sir Robert Dudley, who was long an exile, and
+died in 1649.  It was let to Prince Henry, son of James the First, and on
+his death to his brother, Prince Charles, who purchased it from Sir
+Robert’s deserted wife, whom he, when Charles the First, created Duchess
+Dudley, 1645.  After the King’s execution the property was granted by
+Cromwell to some of his supporters, to whom is due its ruinous condition,
+for they made the best market they could of its building-stone.  On the
+Restoration in 1660, Charles the Second granted it to the Earl of
+Clarendon, in whose descendants’ hands it still remains.
+
+The visitor to the Castle almost always makes at once for the keep and
+the imposing ruins of John o’ Gaunt’s great Banqueting Hall, rising
+boldly from the mound, partly natural and partly artificial, in the
+centre of the Castle precincts.  He thus follows the natural instincts of
+sightseers, but the better way, for the full understanding of the scale
+and ancient strength of the works, is unquestionably to first make the
+inner circuit of the walls.  Standing on Clinton Green before entering
+the Castle, and facing it from the only side not in ancient times
+defended by lakes or marshy ground, we are on the bank whence Henry the
+Third’s soldiers chiefly conducted the siege of 1266.  It was the weakest
+part of the works, because the high natural plateau entirely precluded
+the possibility of continuing the water defences on this side.  All that
+could be done here by the military engineers of Kenilworth was to
+excavate the deep chasm which still remains; and across this the
+besiegers vainly tried to pass, with the aid of bundles of faggots thrown
+into the hollow, while “Master Philip Porpoise,” who, as the chronicler
+truly says, “was a quaint man,” stood on the walls, dressed up like the
+Pope’s Legate, and cursed the King and the real Legate and all the King’s
+men.
+
+Leicester’s great Gatehouse no longer forms the entrance to the Castle,
+and is in private occupation.  It did not even figure in the great
+reception of Queen Elizabeth in 1575, for she came the other way, through
+the Tilt Yard and by Mortimer’s Tower, and across the great Outer Ward: a
+method of approach especially calculated to enhance the stateliness of
+the pageant.  All Warwickshire, I think, must have witnessed those
+doings, from the further bank of the widespreading lake, among them Mr.
+John Shakespeare and his eleven-year-old son, William, whose imagination
+would have been excited by the fantastic creatures that sported on the
+water, and by the fireworks and the heathen gods and goddesses: very real
+to him, because he was not old enough to know how it was all done.
+
+You render your entrance-fee at a narrow gate and are at once free to
+wander at will.  In front is the grassy Outer Ward, and on the right, the
+keep and the state buildings, with Leicester’s Building, lofty, seamed
+with fissures and shored up against its falling.  The eyeless windows
+preach a homily on the transient nature of things.
+
+But, leaving these for a while, we skirt along to the left, coming to the
+ruins of Mortimer’s Tower, which stood on the wall and formed the
+entrance to the Castle in this direction.  It looked out upon the Tilt
+Yard and the massive dam that penned up the waters of the Great Lake.
+Just before this tower is reached the Water Tower on the wall will be
+seen, and may be examined.  Near at hand are the Stables and Lunn’s
+Tower, divided off by a light iron fence and not accessible; being
+included within the grounds belonging to the occupier of the Gatehouse.
+But the Stables are seen, clearly enough, and form the most charming
+colour-scheme within the Castle.  They are of fifteenth-century red
+brick, timber-framed, and of an almost unimaginably delicate and yet
+vivid red.
+
+Next after Mortimer’s Tower comes a small postern gateway, with its steps
+formerly leading to the water.  Continuing from it and following the
+wall, we come under the tottering walls of Leicester’s building, on the
+right, with the massive walls of the state Buildings beyond it.  They
+stand high, upon a mound that formed the limits of the Castle of Saxon
+and early Norman days, and the grassy walk between them and the outer
+wall was in those distant times the moat, long before the magnificent
+scheme of the lake was thought out.  Remains of fireplaces and windows in
+this outer wall show where the wooden buildings that formed barracks for
+the garrison stood.  The walk ends up against an archway leading into the
+garden, or Plaisance, assigned to Henry the Eighth, through which the
+outer wall continues past a water-gate called the “King’s Gate,” and so
+to the Swan Tower, where the circuit is completed, at Clinton Green.
+
+        [Picture: Kenilworth Castle: Ruins of the Banqueting Hall]
+
+But the Plaisance is not open to the public.  The way into the central
+block of State buildings is through a postern doorway on the right, under
+the Banqueting Hall.  The savage treatment of these noble buildings by
+Cromwell’s friends has at first sight obscured the nature of this scene;
+but it is soon perceived that the Hall stood high, upon a basement or
+undercroft, whose vaulted roof has entirely disappeared, together with
+that of the Hall itself.  This postern doorway therefore led through the
+basement.  The Hall was the work of John o’ Gaunt, about 1350, and was a
+grand building in the Perpendicular style, ninety feet long and
+forty-five feet wide.  Lofty and deeply-recessed windows, with rich
+tracery lighted it, and at one end was an exceptionally beautiful oriel
+window.  A portion of this survives, together with two of the others.
+The entrance from the Inner Court was by a fine flight of stone stairs
+and through a wide archway still remaining in greatly weather-worn
+condition, but showing traces of delicately carved work.  Inside is the
+groined porch, with a recess for a porter.
+
+Sir Walter Scott, who here adopts the close account given by Laneham, one
+of the Queen’s retinue during her reception at Kenilworth, and merely
+edits him, describes the appearance of the Hall, “hung with the richest
+tapestry, misty with perfumes, and sounding to strains of soft and
+delicious music.  From the highly carved oaken roof hung a superb
+chandelier of gilt bronze, formed like a spread eagle, whose outstretched
+wings supported three male and three female figures, grasping a pair of
+branches in each hand.  The Hall was thus illuminated by twenty-four
+torches of wax.  At the upper end of this splendid apartment was a State
+canopy, overshadowing a royal throne, and beside it was a door which
+opened to a long suite of apartments, decorated with the utmost
+magnificence for the Queen and her ladies, when it should be her pleasure
+to be private.”
+
+This magnificence curiously contrasts with the primitive nature of the
+sanitary arrangements seen in the adjoining towers and in the keep.  The
+Strong Tower and the Kitchen Tower fill up the space between the
+Banqueting Hall and the keep; the first named, appropriately enough, from
+having been a prison.  The walls of its not unpleasant, though small
+rooms, still bear some rudely-scratched coats of arms of those who were
+detained here.  Their imprisonment cannot have been so hopeless as that
+of King John’s victims, in the dungeons of the keep.
+
+The keep is called “Cæsar’s Tower,” but the Romans had never any
+association with Kenilworth.  It would better be styled “Clinton’s.”
+Like all the buildings, it is of a dull, brownish red stone.  An
+angle-turret shows where the clock was placed: that clock whose hands
+always stood hospitably at the banqueting hour in those seventeen days of
+Elizabethan revel.
+
+Leaving Kenilworth for Coventry, the church is on the right.  Its west
+doorway is a fine but much-decayed work of the Norman period, from the
+ruins of the Augustinian Priory close by.  It is a much-restored church,
+and does not come up to the expectations raised by a sight of its
+octagonal tower and spire.  The only object of interest within is a pig
+of lead built into the tower wall, bearing the mark of one of Henry the
+Eighth’s travelling Commissioners inquiring into the suppression of the
+religious houses.  It would seem to be one of a number cast from the lead
+off the Priory roofs.
+
+Kenilworth at last left behind, a gradual rise brings the traveller to
+the turning to Stoneleigh village.  It is “Gibbet Hill.”  The ill-omened
+name comes from an example of the law’s ancient practice of hanging up
+murderers to the public view, very much in the manner of those
+gamekeepers who nail up the bodies of the jays, the rats, the weasels and
+other “vermin.”  The criminals whose carcases swung and rattled here in
+their chains were three in number; Moses Baker, a weaver of Coventry, and
+Edward Drury and Robert Leslie, two dragoons of Lord Pembroke’s regiment,
+quartered in that city.  They had on March 18th, 1765, murdered a farmer,
+one Thomas Edwards, at a place called Whoberley, just outside Coventry.
+Their bodies hung until their clothes rotted; and then, one by one, their
+bones fell from their chains and enclosing cages.  But the gibbet and the
+terror of it remained until 1820, when the weathered timber, scored with
+thousands of the rusty nails which had been driven into it, so that no
+one should climb the post, was removed to do service in the cow byre of a
+neighbouring farm.
+
+This melancholy history apart, the road is a pleasant one; broad, and
+lined with wide grassy edges and magnificent elms.  It was even more
+pleasant before the motor manufacturing firms of Coventry began the
+practice of testing their new cars along it, and was then the pride of
+the district.  It leads across Stivichall Common into the city of
+Coventry, over that railway bridge referred to by Tennyson in his poem,
+_Godiva_—
+
+    “I waited for the train at Coventry;
+    I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
+    To watch the three tall spires.”
+
+I remember a first reading of that poem, and the difficulty of really
+believing Tennyson meant a railway train.  It seemed incredible that he
+could in such a nineteenth-century fashion introduce an eleventh-century
+subject.  The “train” one imagined at first to be a train in the
+middle-ages sense, a procession or pageant, and the person who waited for
+it to be, not Tennyson himself, but some imaginary person indulging in
+historical speculation.  But no, he was modern, like his own King Arthur.
+
+Here the “three tall spires” first come into view, and the city of
+Coventry is entered, past the Green and up Hertford Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+                                Coventry.
+
+COVENTRY originated, according to tradition, in a convent established
+here as early as the sixth century.  Canute is said to have been the
+founder of another.  Whatever may be the truth of the matter, it is
+certain that the great Saxon Earl Leofric and his wife Godifu in 1043
+founded that Benedictine Monastery whose Priory church afterwards became
+the Cathedral, whose scanty ruins alone remain.  These real and legendary
+religious houses, together with the Monastery of the Carmelites, or White
+Friars, and numerous others originated a curious notion that the name
+“Coventry” was really a corruption of “Conventry,” the place of convents.
+It was an excusable mistake, when we consider that the somewhat similar
+name of “Covent Garden” in London does in point of fact derive from the
+old garden of the Abbots of Westminster, but it was a complete mistake,
+all the same.  The place-name comes from a little stream called by the
+British the Couen, not easily to be found in the city itself, but rising
+to the north and passing through the village of Coundon.  (There is a
+stream of similar name, the “Cound,” at Church Stretton, in Shropshire.)
+It was thus the “place on the Couen.”  The Saxons, who called that stream
+by a name of their own, the “Scir-burn,” that is to say, the “clear
+stream”—which in course of time became the “Sherborne”—did not succeed in
+changing the name of the place, as they did at Sherborne in Dorset; and
+“Coventry” it remained.
+
+The most famous incident in the ancient “history” of Coventry is entirely
+legendary; but although proved to be inherently improbable, if not
+impossible, the story of Godiva and her ride through the streets clad
+only in her own modesty, is one that will never be destroyed by
+criticism.  It is too ancient a myth for that.
+
+About the year 1130 the monkish writer, Roger of Wendover, started it.
+Whence he derived the story no one knows, but he probably heard it as a
+folk-legend unconnected with place or person, and took it upon himself to
+fix the tale on Leofric and his Countess Godifu.  He had courage in doing
+so, for it was only about a hundred years after the time of Leofric and
+his wife that he wrote.
+
+“The Countess Godiva,” he says, “who was a great lover of God’s mother,
+longing to free the town of Coventry from the oppression of a heavy toll,
+often with urgent prayers besought her husband, that from regard to Jesus
+Christ and His mother, he would free the town from that service, and from
+all other heavy burdens; and when the Earl sharply rebuked her for
+foolishly asking what was so much to his damage, and always forbade her
+for evermore to speak to him on the subject; and while she, on the other
+hand, with a woman’s pertinacity, never ceased to exasperate her husband
+on that matter, he at last made her this answer: ‘Mount your horse, and
+ride naked before all the people, through the market of the town from one
+end to the other, and on your return you shall have your request,’ on
+which Godiva replied, ‘But will you give me permission, if I am willing
+to do it?’  ‘I will,’ said he.  Whereupon, the Countess, beloved of God,
+loosed her hair, and let down her tresses, which covered the whole of her
+body, like a veil, and then mounting her horse and attended by two
+knights, she rode through the market-place without being seen, except her
+fair legs; and having completed the journey, she returned with gladness
+to her astonished husband and obtained of him what she had asked, for
+Earl Leofric freed the town of Coventry and its inhabitants from the
+aforesaid service, and confirmed what he had done by a charter.”
+
+The incident of Peeping Tom was never thought of by Roger of Wendover,
+and does not become a part of the story until the seventeenth century.
+Who was the genius who invented him is not known; but from that time
+onwards the peeping tailor who alone of all the people of Coventry spied
+upon Godiva as she rode through the empty streets becomes an essential
+part of the legend.  His fate takes so mediæval a turn that he seems
+really older than he is.  Tennyson adopts him, in his poem, as a
+
+             “low churl, compact of thankless earth,
+    The fatal byword of all years to come,
+    Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
+    Peep’d—but his eyes, before they had their will,
+    Were shrivell’d into darkness in his head,
+    And dropt before him.  So the powers who wait
+    On noble deeds, cancell’d a sense misus’d.”
+
+A half-length effigy purporting to be Peeping Tom occupies a niche in the
+wall of the “King’s Head” in Smithford Street.  He is really a portion of
+a figure of St. George from one of the old Coventry civic pageants; but
+he looks so peculiarly unsaintly and has so lecherous a grin that no one
+can for a moment dispute his entire suitability for the present part.
+
+Coventry became so important a place in the early part of the fourteenth
+century that it was granted a charter of incorporation, and afterwards
+fortified with walls and gates.  Parliaments were held there, in the
+stately buildings of the Priory; Coventry Cross became one of the most
+famous City Crosses in the kingdom; and the trade guilds were among the
+richest and most powerful.  The mayors, too, were important and fearless
+magistrates, as we may judge from the example of John Horneby, who in
+1411 caused the riotous Prince Hal, afterwards Henry the Fifth, to be
+arrested for creating a disturbance, and thus ranks with Judge Gascoyne,
+who on another occasion committed the Prince to prison.
+
+Shakespeare rightly made Falstaff more ashamed to march through this rich
+and populous town with his ragged company of a hundred and fifty
+soldiers, and only a shirt and a half among the lot, than Godiva had been
+to ride through the primitive place of three hundred years before, with
+nothing—
+
+    “If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet . . . you
+    would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately
+    come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks.  A mad fellow
+    met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and
+    pressed the dead bodies.  No eye hath seen such scarecrows.  I’ll not
+    march through Coventry with them that’s flat; nay, and the villains
+    march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for indeed I
+    had the most of them out of prison.  There’s but a shirt and a half
+    in all my company; and the half shirt is two napkins tied together,
+    and thrown over the shoulders, like a herald’s coat without sleeves;
+    and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans,
+    or the red-nosed innkeeper of Daintry.”
+
+Coventry, in right of this importance, became a city in 1451, and went on
+from good to better, until the suppression of the religious houses.  At
+that time its population numbered 15,000, but within a few years it had
+declined to 3000.  Yet in another thirty years the city is found
+receiving Queen Elizabeth not only with enthusiasm and splendid pageants,
+but with the present of a purse of £100; although the depression was
+still acute.
+
+“It is a good gift, an hundred pounds in gold; I have but few such
+gifts,” said her Majesty, who was great but greedy.
+
+“If it please your Grace,” answered that courtly Mayor, “there is a great
+deal more in it.”
+
+“What is that?” she asked.
+
+“The hearts,” he rejoined, “of all your loving subjects.”
+
+“We thank you, Mr. Mayor,” said the Queen, “it is a great deal more,
+indeed.”
+
+But she did not confer the honour of knighthood upon him.
+
+James the First, visiting Coventry in 1617, was given £100 and a silver
+cup; probably in the hope of getting a renewal of the charter; but in the
+next reign we find a very different spirit.  “Ye damnable puritans of
+Coventry,” says a letter-writer of the time, “have thrown up earthworkes
+and rampires against his Maiestie’s forces, and have put themselves in a
+posture of defence.”  It was at this time that the expression arose of
+“sending to Coventry” any objectionable person.  Those thus consigned to
+Coventry were prisoners of war, Royalists captured by the people of
+Birmingham, for whom no prison could be found except in this walled and
+fortified city.
+
+Those walls were promptly destroyed at the Restoration, by order of
+Charles the Second, the citizens of Coventry offering no objection.  They
+had grown weary of the Commonwealth, and when the King came to his own
+again the city was given over to festivity.  The fountains spouted claret
+(not good claret, nor very much of it, we may suppose); bonfires blazed;
+and a deputation waited upon the King in London and gave him £50 and a
+basin and ewer of gold.
+
+Coventry Cross, already mentioned, was built between the years 1541–44,
+at the time of the city’s decay, after the suppression of the
+monasteries, and was the gift of Sir William Holles, Lord Mayor of
+London, who bequeathed £200 for the purpose.  It was described by Dugdale
+as “one of the chief things wherein this city most glories, which for
+workmanship and beauty is inferior to none in England.”  But soon after
+Dugdale wrote this the Cross wherein Coventry so gloried was destroyed,
+and the chief outstanding architectural feature is now formed by the
+spires of St. Michael’s, Holy Trinity, and Christ Church: Coventry indeed
+being known far and wide as the “City of the Three Spires.”  It is rather
+unfortunate that the fine grouping of these three spires, seen best from
+the approach to the city by the Kenilworth road, is spoiled by the most
+distressingly commonplace houses in the foreground; and that from no
+other point of view do they group at all.
+
+St. Michael’s spire, incomparably the finer, rises with the tower to a
+height of 303 feet; that of Holy Trinity to 237 feet; and Christ Church
+to 201 feet.  St. Michael’s church has the reputation of being the
+largest parish church in England, a distinction claimed also by St.
+Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, and St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol.  The honour
+appears to belong to St. Michael’s, which in other ways is a notable
+building.  It is generally said to have a nave and four aisles, the two
+additional “aisles” being really chapels of similar length and
+appearance: the work of the Smiths’ and Girdlers’ Companies and the
+Fellowship of Woollen Cardmakers; two among the great trading guilds of
+the city.  The Cappers, the Dyers, the Mercers, the Drapers and the
+Smiths had also their part in these outer aisles.  The greater part of
+the church is of the Perpendicular period and is due to the local family
+of Botoner, who expended their substance lavishly upon it—
+
+    “William and Adam built the Tower,
+       Anne and Mary built the Spire;
+    William and Adam built the Nave
+       And Mary built the Quire.”
+
+So ran the old rhyme.  The works were in progress between 1373 and 1436.
+
+A narrow road separates St. Michael’s from Holy Trinity, which, although
+in itself a fine Perpendicular building, suffers by comparison with its
+greater neighbour.  Here also the guilds—the Tanners, Marlers, Butchers
+and others—exhibited their wealth and piety in the building of chapels;
+and here was a noble stained-glass fourteenth-century window containing
+the figures of Leofric and Godiva, with the inscription—
+
+               [Picture: Stained-Glass Window Inscription]
+
+Christ Church retains only its ancient spire, the ruined body being
+replaced in 1829 by a work in the most lamentable style.
+
+Besides its churches, Coventry is famed for its ancient “St. Mary’s
+Hall,” originally the hall of St. Mary’s Guild, but afterwards serving as
+that of the Holy Trinity, a religious society which amalgamated and
+swallowed up St. Mary’s and many others.  It became the headquarters of
+the old municipal life of Coventry, and so it still remains; a noble
+centre for the city’s business and hospitalities.
+
+Coventry nowadays is remarkable for its modern manufactures.  In the
+thirteenth century it was soap that supported the city.  Later it was
+prosperous in the making of woollen fabrics, needles and pins, and famed
+for a dye known as “Coventry Blue.”  As time went on, silk-weaving and
+ribbon-making took prominence, and doubtless it was from Coventry that
+the promised “fairing” was to have come that is mentioned in the old
+ballad of that faithless Johnny who was so long at the fair—
+
+    “He promised to buy me a fairing to please me,
+    A bunch of blue ribbons he promised to buy me,
+          To tie up my bonny brown hair.”
+
+But by 1869, when the duty on foreign-made silks had been removed, the
+silk and ribbon trade began to decline, and the enterprising citizens
+turned to the manufacture of sewing-machines.  Then came the velocipede,
+the bicycle, and the motor-car.  In the making of those two last-named
+articles and in that of ordnance, Coventry has found its fortune.  They
+are not Shakespearean manifestations, and so need not be enlarged upon in
+this place.
+
+In spite of its modern growth, Coventry remains a very picturesque city.
+In Butcher Row, and in narrow old alleys little touched by modern
+developments, something of the mediæval place may yet be traced; and in
+those two charming old almshouses, Bablake’s Hospital, founded in 1506,
+and “Ford’s Hospital,” built in 1529, half-timbered work is seen very
+nearly at its best.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+{21}  He should have said _Much Ado About Nothing_.
+
+{213}  As these pages go to press a singularly full confirmation of these
+remarks appears in one of the September 1912 issues of the _Birmingham
+Post_: “Evesham District Council have decided to build sixty cottages at
+Broadway under the Housing of the Working Classes Act, and the Local
+Government Board have sanctioned the borrowing of £10,000.”  Thus, a
+number of brand-new dwellings are to be built, to rehouse those villagers
+whose ancient homes have been taken from them.  It is a curious sidelight
+upon the spread of culture.
+
+{272a}  Draw closer.
+
+{272b}  Took prisoners.
+
+{272c}  They took.
+
+{272d}  If it might be done.
+
+{272e}  They would not agree to the King’s terms.
+
+{272f}  They would not abide by their wishes.
+
+{272g}  Then excommunicated them.
+
+{272i}  More.
+
+{272j}  Counsel.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+ABBOT’S NORTON, 200
+
+— Salford, 199
+
+Alcester, 2, 231
+
+Alderminster, 188
+
+Andoversford, 216
+
+Arden, Family of, 9, 232–235
+
+—, Forest of, 2, 7, 129
+
+—, Mary, 9, 232
+
+—, Robert, 9
+
+Ardens Grafton, 156
+
+Aston Cantlow, 9, 235
+
+Atherstone-upon-Stour, 187
+
+Avon, river, 2, 3, 45–48, 78, 190, 210, 219, 240, 262, 205, 260
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Baddesley Clinton, 7
+
+Balsall, Thomas, 77, 98
+
+Banbury, 2, 18
+
+Barton, 147, 199
+
+Beauchamp Family, the, 247–253, 255, 267
+
+Bicester, 18, 20
+
+Bidford, 58, 137, 147–153, 195
+
+Billesley, 12, 232
+
+Binton, 47, 147, 195
+
+Brailes, 191
+
+Broadway, 212–215
+
+Broom, 163
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Campden Wonder, the, 183–185
+
+Charlecote, 17, 47, 114–126
+
+Charles the Second, 143–146
+
+Chipping Campden, 173–185
+
+Cleeve Common, 218
+
+— Priors, 199
+
+Clifford Chambers, 10, 68, 166–109
+
+Clopton, Family of, 28, 72, 81–83, 230
+
+—, House, 83, 230
+
+—, Lower, 173
+
+—, Sir Hugh, 40, 63, 82
+
+—, Upper, 173
+
+Combe, John, 78, 98
+
+—, William, 134
+
+Compton Wynyates, 191–194
+
+Cotswolds, the, 215
+
+Coventry, 280–290
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Dancing Marston (or Long Marston), 141–146
+
+Dingles, the, 133–135
+
+Dorsington, 147
+
+Dudley, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, 253, 275
+
+—, Robert, Earl of Leicester, 16, 241–243, 252, 273–275
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Ettington, 2, 186, 188–190
+
+Evesham, 137, 200–210
+
+Exhall, 158
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Feldon, the, 2, 164, 191
+
+Frog Mill, 216
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Gastrell, Rev. Francis, 73
+
+Gaveston, Piers, 256–259
+
+Greet, 216, 217
+
+Grendon Underwood, 18–21
+
+Gretton, 216, 217
+
+Grevel, William. 176–178, 180
+
+—, or Greville, Family, the, 178, 245, 250, 254, 264
+
+Guy of Warwick, 255, 266
+
+Guy’s Cliff, 266
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Hall, Dr. John, 48, 72, 93, 97
+
+Harrington, 200
+
+Hartshorn, 216
+
+Hathaway, Family of, 12–15
+
+—, Anne, 7, 12–15, 101–113
+
+Henley-in-Arden, 2, 8, 235, 237
+
+Hicks, Sir Baptist, Viscount Campden, 178, 180
+
+Hillborough, 147, 152–154
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+John of Stratford, 75–77
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Kenilworth, 268–280
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Leek Wootton, 267
+
+Long Marston, 141–146, 169
+
+Lower Clopton, 173
+
+Lucy Family, the, 47, 114–126
+
+—, Sir Thomas (“Justice Shallow”), 17, 114–119, 124
+
+Luddington, 12, 47, 68, 147, 195
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Marlcliff, 199
+
+Marston Sicca (or Long Marston), 141–146
+
+Mickleton, 173
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Newbold-on-Stour, 188, 190
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Oxford, 18
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Pebworth, 139–141
+
+Preston Bagot, 237
+
+Preston-upon-Stour, 187
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Quiney, Richard, 28–30, 33, 58
+
+—, Thomas, 33, 39
+
+Quinton, 169, 173, 234
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Ralph of Stratford, 75, 77
+
+Robert of Stratford, 75
+
+Rowington, 237
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Salford, Abbot’s, 199
+
+—, Prior’s, 199
+
+Shakespeare, Family of, 6–11
+
+—, Edmund, 59
+
+—, Gilbert, 10, 58, 59
+
+—, Hamnet, 22, 26
+
+—, Henry, 240
+
+—, Isabel, 7
+
+—, Joan, 10, 52, 59
+
+—, John, 5, 8–11, 15–17, 22, 26, 51, 59, 166
+
+—, Judith, 33, 39
+
+—, Richard, 7, 10, 59
+
+—, Susanna, 48, 52, 93, 97
+
+—, Thomas, 7, 237
+
+—, William, 5–7; birth, 9; marriage, 11–15; goes to London, 16–21;
+success in London, as actor, dramatist and theatrical manager, 23–26; his
+return to Stratford-on-Avon, 27–30; purchases New Place, 38; he retires,
+31–33; death, 33; scene of his school-days, 67–70; his residence, New
+Place, 70–74; the Bacon fanatics and Shakespeare, 85–91, 94;
+Shakespeare’s grave and monument, 89–95; Shakespeare, poacher and
+deer-stealer, 114–119; Shakespeare the countryman, 127–135
+
+— Farm, Grendon Underwood, 20
+
+— Hall, Rowington, 7, 236, 237
+
+Shipston-on-Stour, 180, 190
+
+Shirley, Evelyn Philip, 188–190
+
+Shottery, 12, 15, 101–113
+
+Snitterfield, 7, 8, 9, 11, 49, 238–240
+
+Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of, 17, 30
+
+Stinchcombe Hill, 217
+
+Stratford-on-Avon, 1–5, 8–11, 26–100
+
+—, American Memorial Fountain, 43
+
+—, Bridge Street, 39
+
+—, Chapel, 63, 75
+
+—, Clopton Bridge, 3, 40, 45, 164
+
+—, Grammar School, 5, 15, 67–70
+
+—, Guild, the, 4, 60–67
+
+—, Harvard House, 37, 41–43
+
+—, Holy Trinity Church, 13, 26, 75–100
+
+—, Mason Croft, 60
+
+—, Memorial Theatre, 44
+
+—, Mop Fair, 37
+
+—, Nash’s House, 39, 72, 73, 74
+
+—, New Place, 28, 31–33, 70–74, 84, 101
+
+—, Old Stratford, 3, 48, 72
+
+—, Red Horse Hotel, 40, 43
+
+—, Rother Street, 3, 43, 101
+
+—, Shakespeare Hotel, 34, 43
+
+—, Shakespeare’s Birth-place, 49–59, 110, 231
+
+Sudeley, 216, 217
+
+Sunrising Hill, 2, 18, 186
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Temple Grafton, 12, 13, 154–156
+
+Tewkesbury, 216, 219–229
+
+Tomes, John, 143–146
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Upper Clopton, 173
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Warwick, 240, 265
+
+—, Beauchamp Chapel, 248, 253
+
+—, Castle, 254–265
+
+—, Earls of, 247, 249–265
+
+—, Leicester’s Hospital, 241–245
+
+—, St. Mary’s Church, 245–253
+
+—, Westgate, 240
+
+Welcombe, 98, 133–135, 235, 238
+
+Welford, 147, 195–197
+
+Weston-on-Avon, 147, 197
+
+Whitchurch, 188
+
+Whittington, 216
+
+Wilmcote, 9, 232–235
+
+Winchcombe, 215
+
+Wincot, 169, 234
+
+Wixford, 160
+
+Woncot, 217
+
+Woodmancote, 217
+
+Wooland, the, 2
+
+Wootton Wawen, 235
+
+Wriothesley, Henry, Earl of Southampton, 17, 30
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER DAYS IN SHAKESPEARE LAND***
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+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>Summer Days in Shakespeare Land, by Charles G. Harper</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Summer Days in Shakespeare Land, by Charles
+G. Harper
+
+
+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: Summer Days in Shakespeare Land
+
+
+Author: Charles G. Harper
+
+
+
+Release Date: April 6, 2014  [eBook #45328]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER DAYS IN SHAKESPEARE LAND***
+</pre>
+<p>This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/cover.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Cover"
+title=
+"Cover"
+src="images/cover.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/fp.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Guild Chapel and Nash&rsquo;s House"
+title=
+"The Guild Chapel and Nash&rsquo;s House"
+src="images/fp.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h1>SUMMER DAYS IN<br />
+SHAKESPEARE LAND</h1>
+<p class="gutindent"><span class="GutSmall">SOME DELIGHTS OF THE
+ANCIENT TOWN OF</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">STRATFORD-UPON-AVON AND THE COUNTRY
+ROUND</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">ABOUT; TOGETHER WITH A SKETCH OF THE
+LIFE</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">OF MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE</span></p>
+<p class="gutindent"><span class="GutSmall">IN WHICH MANY THINGS
+BOTH NEW AND ENTER-</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">TAINING ARE TO BE FOUND, PRETTILY SET
+FORTH</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">FOR THE PLEASURE OF THE GENTLE READER;
+AND</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WHEREIN CERTAIN FANATICS ARE
+HANDSOMELY</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CONFUTED.</span></p>
+<p class="gutindent"><span class="GutSmall">WRITTEN BY</span>
+CHARLES G. HARPER<span class="GutSmall">, AND</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">FOR THE MOST PART ALSO ILLUSTRATED BY
+HIM</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WITH A PEN</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS ARE FROM
+PHOTOGRAPHS</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/logo.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Logo"
+title=
+"Logo"
+src="images/logo.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">New
+York</span><br />
+JAMES POTT &amp; COMPANY<br />
+<span class="smcap">London</span>: CHAPMAN &amp; HALL, <span
+class="smcap">Ltd</span>.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">1913</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageiv"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. iv</span><span class="smcap">Richard
+Clay</span> &amp; <span class="smcap">Sons</span>, <span
+class="smcap">Limited</span>,<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET,
+S.E.,</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.</span></p>
+<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+v</span>PREFACE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">By</span> &ldquo;Shakespeare Land,&rdquo;
+as used in these pages, Stratford-on-Avon and the country within
+a radius of from twelve to twenty miles are meant; comprising
+parts of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, and some portions of
+Worcestershire which are mentioned by Shakespeare, or must have
+been familiar to him.&nbsp; So many thousands annually visit
+Stratford-on-Avon that the town, and in some lesser degree the
+surrounding country, are thought to be hackneyed and spoilt for
+the more intellectual and leisured visitor; but that is very far
+from being the case.&nbsp; Apart from such acknowledged centres
+of Shakespearean interest as the Birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon,
+the parish church, and Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage at Shottery;
+and excepting such great show-places as Kenilworth and Warwick
+castles, Shakespeare Land is by no means overrun, and is in every
+way charming and satisfying.&nbsp; Stratford town itself, the
+very centre of interest, is unspoiled; and the enterprise of the
+majority of Shakespearean pilgrims is of such a poor quality, and
+their intellectual requirements as a rule so soon satisfied, that
+the real beauties of the Warwickshire villages and the towns and
+villages of the Cotswolds are to them a sealed hook.&nbsp; Except
+these byways be explored, such an essential side of Shakespeare
+as that I have touched upon in the chapter &ldquo;Shakespeare the
+Countryman&rdquo; will be little understood.</p>
+<p><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vi</span>It is
+thus entirely a mistaken idea to think the Shakespeare Country
+overdone.&nbsp; On the contrary, it is much less known than it
+ought to be, and would be, were it in any other land than our
+own.&nbsp; And Stratford itself has not done so much as might
+have been expected in exploiting possible Shakespearean
+interest.&nbsp; Ancient house-fronts that the poet must have
+known still await the removal of the plaster which for two
+centuries or more has covered them; and the Corporation archives
+have not yet been thoroughly explored.</p>
+<p>Incidentally these pages may serve to expose some of the
+Baconian heresies.&nbsp; If there be many whose judgment is
+overborne by the tub-thumping of the Baconians, let them turn to
+some of the extravagances of Donnelly and others mentioned here,
+and then note the many local allusions which Shakespeare and none
+other could have written.</p>
+<p>The Bacon controversy, which since 1857 has offered
+considerable employment for speculative minds, and is still in
+progress, is now responsible for some six hundred books and
+pamphlets, monuments of perverted ingenuity and industrious
+research misapplied; of evidence misunderstood, and of judgment
+biased by a clearly proclaimed intention to place Bacon where
+Shakespeare stands.&nbsp; These exceedingly well-read gentlemen,
+profited in strange concealments, have produced a deal of
+skimble-skamble stuff that galls our good humours.&nbsp; The
+veriest antics, they at first amuse us, but in a longer
+acquaintance they are, as Hotspur says of Glendower, &ldquo;as
+tedious as a tired horse, a railing wife; Worse than a smoky
+house.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This is no place to fully enter the discussion, but we may
+here note the opinion of Harvey, the great contemporary man of
+science, on Bacon, the amateur of science.&nbsp; &ldquo;My Lord
+Chancellor,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;writes about <a
+name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vii</span>Science
+like a Lord Chancellor.&rdquo;&nbsp; Any one who reads
+Bacon&rsquo;s poetry will notice that the poets might have
+applied the same taunt to his lines.</p>
+<p>Yet they tell us now, these strange folk, eager for a little
+cheap notoriety, not only that &ldquo;Bacon wrote the Greene,
+Marlowe, and Shakespeare plays,&rdquo; but that his is the pen
+that gives the Authorised Version of the Bible its literary
+grace.&nbsp; Well, well.&nbsp; They say the owl was a
+baker&rsquo;s daughter; a document in madness.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Charles G.
+Harper</span>.</p>
+<p><i>Ealing</i>, <i>August</i> 24, 1912.</p>
+<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+ix</span>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> I</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page1">1</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The Beginnings of
+Stratford-on-Avon.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> II</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page6">6</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The Shakespeares&mdash;John
+Shakespeare, Glover, Woolmerchant&mdash;Birth of William
+Shakespeare&mdash;Rise and Decline of John
+Shakespeare&mdash;Early Marriage of William.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> III</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page12">12</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Anne Hathaway,
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s bride&mdash;The hasty
+marriage&mdash;Shakespeare&rsquo;s wild young days&mdash;He
+leaves for London&mdash;Grendon Underwood.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> IV</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page22">22</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Continued decline in the
+affairs of John Shakespeare&mdash;William Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+success in London&mdash;Death of Hamnet, William
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s only son&mdash;Shakespeare buys New
+Place&mdash;He retires to Stratford&mdash;Writes his last play,
+<i>The Tempest</i>&mdash;His death.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> V</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page34">34</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Stratford-on-Avon&mdash;It
+has its own life, quite apart from Shakespearean
+associations&mdash;Its people and its streets&mdash;Shakespeare
+Memorials.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VI</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page49">49</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+Birthplace&mdash;Restoration, of sorts&mdash;The business of the
+Showman&mdash;The Birthplace Museum&mdash;The Shakespearean
+Garden.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. x</span><span
+class="smcap">Chapter</span> VII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page60">60</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Church Street&mdash;The
+&ldquo;Castle&rdquo; Inn&mdash;The Guild Chapel, Guild Hall and
+Grammar School&mdash;New Place.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VIII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page75">75</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The Church of the Holy
+Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> IX</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page85">85</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The Church of the Holy
+Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon (<i>continued</i>)&mdash;The
+Shakespeare grave and monument.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> X</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page92">92</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The Church of the Holy
+Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon (<i>concluded</i>)&mdash;The
+Shakespeare grave and monument&mdash;The Miserere Seats.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XI</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page101">101</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Shottery and Anne
+Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page114">114</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Charlecote.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XIII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page127">127</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Shakespeare the
+countryman.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XIV</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page136">136</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The &lsquo;Eight
+Villages&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Piping&rsquo; Pebworth and
+&lsquo;Dancing&rsquo; Marston.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XV</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The &lsquo;Eight
+Villages&rsquo; (<i>concluded</i>).</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XVI</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page164">164</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">The &lsquo;Swan&rsquo;s
+Nest&rsquo;&mdash;Haunted?&mdash;Clifford
+Chambers&mdash;Wincot&mdash;Quinton, and its club day.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+xi</span><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XVII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page174">174</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Chipping Campden.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XVIII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page186">186</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">A Deserted
+Railway&mdash;Villages of the Stour Valley&mdash;Ettington and
+Squire
+Shirley&mdash;Shipston-on-Stour&mdash;Brailes&mdash;Compton
+Wynyates.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XIX</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page195">195</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p
+class="gutindent">Luddington&mdash;Welford&mdash;Weston-on-Avon&mdash;Cleeve
+Priors&mdash;Salford Priors.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XX</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page201">201</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Evesham.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXI</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page211">211</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p
+class="gutindent">Broadway&mdash;Winchcombe&mdash;Shakespearean
+Associations&mdash;Bishop&rsquo;s Cleeve.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page219">219</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Tewkesbury.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXIII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page230">230</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Clopton
+House&mdash;Billesley&mdash;The Home of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+Mother, Wilmcote&mdash;Aston Cantlow&mdash;Wootton
+Wawen&mdash;Shakespeare Hall, Rowington.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXIV</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page238">238</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p
+class="gutindent">Welcombe&mdash;Snitterfield&mdash;Warwick&mdash;Leicester&rsquo;s
+Hospital&mdash;St. Mary&rsquo;s Church and the Beauchamp
+Chapel.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXV</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page254">254</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Warwick Castle.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><a name="pagexii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+xii</span><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXVI</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page266">266</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Guy&rsquo;s Cliff&mdash;The
+Legend of Guy&mdash;Kenilworth and its
+Watersplash&mdash;Kenilworth Castle.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXVII</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page283">283</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p class="gutindent">Coventry.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Index</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page291">291</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<h2><a name="pagexiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+xiii</span>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Guild Chapel and Nash&rsquo;s House</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Shakespeare&rsquo;s Farm,&rdquo; formerly the
+&ldquo;Ship&rdquo; Inn, Grendon Underwood</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page19">19</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Chapel Street, Stratford-on-Avon</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page37">37</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Harvard
+House&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page42">42</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Harvard House: Panel Room</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page44">44</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page46">46</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Memorial
+Theatre&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page48">48</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page50">50</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Kitchen, Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page54">54</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Room in which Shakespeare was born</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page56">56</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Shakespeare&rsquo;s Signet-ring</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page58">58</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The &ldquo;Windmill&rdquo; Inn</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page61">61</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Guild Chapel, Guild Hall, Grammar School and
+Almshouses</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page65">65</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Schoolmaster&rsquo;s House and Guild Chapel</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page69">69</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Head Master&rsquo;s Desk, Stratford-on-Avon Grammar
+School&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page70">70</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Ancient Knocker, Stratford-on-Avon Church</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page80">80</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+Monument&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page86">86</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Inscription on Shakespeare&rsquo;s Grave</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page89">89</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Chancel, Holy Trinity Church, with Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+
+Monument&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page92">92</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>A Stratford Miserere: The Legend of the Unicorn</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page100">100</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Shottery</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page103">103</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page106">106</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Living-room, Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page109">109</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Bedroom</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page112">112</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Lucy Shield of Arms</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page120">120</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The &ldquo;Tumbledown Stile,&rdquo;
+Charlecote&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>To
+face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page120">120</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Gatehouse, Charlecote</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page123">123</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Charlecote</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page125">125</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Piping Pebworth&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page140">140</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><a name="pagexiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+xiv</span>&ldquo;Dancing Marston&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page142">142</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Dining-Room, formerly the Kitchen, King&rsquo;s Lodge</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page145">145</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Drunken Bidford&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page149">149</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The &ldquo;Falcon,&rdquo; Bidford</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page150">150</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Haunted Hillborough&rdquo; (1)</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page151">151</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Haunted Hillborough&rdquo; (2)</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page153">153</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Hungry Grafton&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page154">154</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Hollow Road, Exhall</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page156">156</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Papist Wixford&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page157">157</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Brass to Thomas de Cruwe and wife, Wixford</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page159">159</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&ldquo;Beggarly Broom&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page162">162</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Clopton Bridge, and the &ldquo;Swan&rsquo;s
+Nest&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page166">166</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Clifford Chambers</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page168">168</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Old Houses, Chipping
+Campden&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page174">174</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Market House, Chipping
+Campden&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+,,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page174">174</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Grevel&rsquo;s House</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page177">177</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Interior of the Market House, Chipping Campden&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page178">178</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Chipping Campden Church</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page182">182</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Brass to William Grevel and wife, Chipping Campden</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page184">184</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Compton Wynyates</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page192">192</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Boat Lane, Welford</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page198">198</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Bell Tower, Evesham</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page204">204</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Almonry, Evesham</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page206">206</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Abbey Gateway, Evesham</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page209">209</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>High Street, Tewkesbury</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page223">223</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The &ldquo;Bear&rdquo; Inn and Bridge, Tewkesbury</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page227">227</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Arden House, Home of Shakespeare&rsquo;s mother,
+Wilmcote</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page233">233</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Wootton Wawen
+Church&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page234">234</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Shakespeare Hall, Rowington</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page236">236</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital, Warwick</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page239">239</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital: the
+Courtyard&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>To face</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page240">240</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital: one of the
+Brethren&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ,,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page244">244</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page246">246</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Crypt of St. Mary&rsquo;s, Warwick</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page248">248</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower, Warwick Castle </p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page263">263</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Kenilworth Castle: Ruins of the Banquetting Hall</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page278">278</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Stained Glass Window Inscription</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page289">289</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>CHAPTER
+I</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">The Beginnings of
+Stratford-on-Avon.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Ninety-five</span> miles from the City of
+London, in the southern part of Warwickshire, and on the left, or
+northern bank of the Avon, stands a famous town.&nbsp; Not a town
+famed in ancient history, nor remarkable in warlike story, nor
+great in affairs of commerce.&nbsp; It was never a strong place,
+with menacing castle or defensive town walls with gates closed at
+night.&nbsp; It stood upon a branch road, in a thinly-peopled
+forest-district, and in every age the wars and tumults and great
+social and political movements which constitute what is called
+&ldquo;history&rdquo; have passed it by.</p>
+<p>Such is, and has been from the beginning, the town of
+Stratford-on-Avon, whose very name, although now charged with a
+special significance as the birthplace of Shakespeare, takes
+little hold upon the imagination when we omit the distinguishing
+&ldquo;on Avon.&rdquo;&nbsp; For there are other Stratfords to be
+found upon the map of England, as necessarily there must be when
+we consider the origin of the name, which means merely the ford
+where the &ldquo;street&rdquo;&mdash;generally a paved Roman
+road&mdash;crossed a river.&nbsp; And as fords of this kind must
+<a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>have been
+very numerous along the ancient roads of this country before
+bridges were built, we can only be astonished that there are not
+more Stratfords than the five or six that are found in the
+gazetteers.</p>
+<p>The Roman road that came this way was a vicinal route from the
+Watling Street where Birmingham now stands, through
+Henley-in-Arden and Alcester, the Roman station of
+<i>Alauna</i>.&nbsp; Passing over the ford of the Avon, it went
+to London by way of Ettington, Sunrising Hill, and Banbury.&nbsp;
+Other Roman roads, the Fosse Way and Ryknield Street, remodelled
+on the lines of ancient British track-ways, passed east and west
+of Stratford at an equal distance of six miles.</p>
+<p>All the surrounding district north of the Avon was woodland,
+the great Forest of Arden; and to the south of the river
+stretched a more low-lying country as far as the foot of the
+Cotswold Hills, much less thickly wooded.&nbsp; In the reign of
+Queen Elizabeth, when the Forest of Arden was greatly diminished,
+these districts owned two distinctive names: the forest being
+called &ldquo;the Wooland,&rdquo; and the southward pasture-lands
+&ldquo;the Feldon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The travellers who came this way in early Saxon times, and
+perhaps even later, came to close grips with the true inwardness
+of things.&nbsp; They looked death often in the face as they went
+the lonely road.&nbsp; The wild things in the forest menaced
+them, floods obscured the fords, lawless men no less fierce than
+the animals which roamed the tangled brakes lurked and
+slew.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now am I in Arden,&rdquo; the wayfarer might
+have said, anticipating Touchstone, &ldquo;the more fool I; when
+I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be
+content.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No town or village then existed upon the banks of Avon, and
+the first mention of Stratford occurs in <span
+class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 691, when a monastery situated here
+is named.&nbsp; <a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+3</span>It was an obscure house, but with extensive and valuable
+lands which Bishops of Worcester hungered for and finally
+obtained.&nbsp; The site of this monastery was scarcely that of
+the existing town of Stratford, but was where the present parish
+church stands, in what is known as &ldquo;Old Stratford,&rdquo;
+which is on the extreme southerly limit of the town.&nbsp; It was
+thus situated at some little distance from the ford, which was of
+course exactly where the Clopton Bridge now crosses the
+river.&nbsp; At that ford there would probably even then have
+been a hermit, as there was later, charged with the due guidance
+of travellers, and in receipt of offerings, but of him we know
+nothing, and next to nothing of the monastery.</p>
+<p>The Bishops of Worcester, having thus early obtained a grant
+of the monastery and its lands, became lords of the manor and so
+remained for centuries, wielding in their spiritual and manorial
+functions a very complete authority over the town which gradually
+arose here.&nbsp; To resist in any way the Church&rsquo;s
+anointed in matters spiritual or temporal would have been to kick
+most foolishly against the pricks, for in his one autocratic
+capacity he could blast your worldly prospects, and in the other
+he could (or it was confidently believed he could) damn you to
+all eternity.&nbsp; Thus it may well be supposed that those Right
+Reverend were more feared than loved.</p>
+<p>It was an agricultural and cattle-raising community that first
+arose here.&nbsp; &ldquo;Rother Street&rdquo; still by its name
+alludes to the olden passage of the cattle, for
+&ldquo;rother&rdquo; is the good Anglo-Saxon word
+&ldquo;hroether,&rdquo; for cattle.&nbsp; The word was known to
+Shakespeare, who wrote, &ldquo;The pasture lards the
+rother&rsquo;s sides.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In 1216 the then Bishop of Worcester obtained a charter for a
+fair, the first of four obtained between that date and
+1271.&nbsp; The fairs attracted business, and about <a
+name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>1290 the first
+market was founded.&nbsp; The town had begun to grow, slowly, it
+is true, but substantially.&nbsp; At this period also that Guild
+arose which was originally a religious and charitable fraternity,
+but eventually developed into surprising issues, founding a
+grammar-school and becoming a tradesmen&rsquo;s society, whence
+the incorporation of the town in 1553, and the establishment of a
+town council derived.&nbsp; Camden, writing about this time, was
+able to describe it as &ldquo;proper little mercat
+towne.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In that era which witnessed the incorporation of the town of
+Stratford-on-Avon and the birth of Shakespeare the population was
+some 2000.&nbsp; It is now about 8300; a very moderate increase
+in three hundred and fifty years, and much below the average rate
+for towns, by which Stratford might now have had a population of
+about 16,000.</p>
+<p>The incorporation of this little town in the reign of Edward
+the Sixth was a great event locally.&nbsp; It included the
+restitution to the people of the place of the buildings and the
+property of the Guild of Holy Cross which had been confiscated in
+1547, when also the inhabitants had been relieved from the yoke
+of the Bishops of Worcester, whose manor had been taken away from
+them.&nbsp; It is true that the manorial rights had not been
+abolished and that the property and its various ancient
+privileges had only been transferred to other owners, but it was
+something to the good that the Church no longer possessed these
+things.&nbsp; These were not arbitrary changes, the whim of this
+monarch or that, Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth did only
+what others in their place would and must have done.&nbsp; They
+were certainly sovereigns with convictions of their own, but
+their attitude of mind was but the <i>Zeitgeist</i>, the spirit
+of the age, and they did not so much originate it as <a
+name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>be swayed by
+it.&nbsp; Those statesmen who have been held meanly subservient
+to them were, after all, men of like convictions.&nbsp; They saw
+the old order to be outworn and existing institutions ripe for
+change.&nbsp; It was the age of the Renascence.&nbsp; Everywhere
+was the new spirit, which was remodelling thought as well as
+material things.&nbsp; It was the age, above all things, of the
+new learning.&nbsp; These feelings led the advisers of the young
+king, Edward the Sixth, to counsel the restitution to the town of
+the property of the Guild dissolved only six years earlier, with
+the important provision that the grammar-school was to be
+re-established and maintained out of its revenues.&nbsp; To this
+provision we distinctly owe the dramatist, William Shakespeare,
+who was born at the very time when the educational advantages
+thus secured to the children of the townsfolk had settled down
+into smoothly working order.&nbsp; Education cannot produce a
+Shakespeare, it cannot create genius, but it can give genius that
+chance in early elementary training without which even the most
+adaptive minds lose their direction.</p>
+<p>The ancient buildings of the Guild, which after its long
+career as a kind of lay brotherhood for what modern people would
+style &ldquo;social service,&rdquo; had attained an unlooked-for
+development as the town authority, thus provided Stratford with
+its Grammar School and its first town-hall.&nbsp; In those
+timbered rooms the scholars received their education, and for
+eighty years, until 1633, when the first hall built especially
+for the corporation was opened, the aldermen and councillors met
+there.&nbsp; Among them was John Shakespeare.</p>
+<h2><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>CHAPTER
+II</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">The Shakespeares&mdash;John Shakespeare,
+Glover, Wool-merchant&mdash;Birth of William
+Shakespeare&mdash;Rise and Decline of John
+Shakespeare&mdash;Early Marriage of William.</p>
+<p>A <span class="GutSmall">MODERN</span> man who now chanced to
+own the name of &ldquo;Shakespeare&rdquo; would feel proud, even
+of that fortuitous and remote association with the greatest
+figure in English literature.&nbsp; He might even try to live up
+to it, although the probabilities are that he would quite early
+forgo the attempt and become a backslider to commonplace.&nbsp;
+But available records tell us no good of the earliest bearers of
+the name.&nbsp; The first Shakespeare of whom we have any notice
+was a John of that name.&nbsp; He was hanged in 1248, for
+robbery.&nbsp; It is a very long time ago since this malefactor
+suffered, and perhaps he was one of those very many unfortunate
+persons who have been in all ages wrongfully convicted.&nbsp; But
+the name was not in olden times a respectable one.&nbsp; It
+signified originally one who wielded a spear; not a chivalric and
+romantic knight warring with the infidel in Palestine, or
+jousting to uphold the claims to beauty of his chosen lady, but a
+common soldier, a rough man-at-arms; one who was in great request
+in his country&rsquo;s wars, but was accounted an undesirable
+when the piping times of peace were come again and every man
+desired nothing better than to sit beneath his own vine and
+fig-tree.&nbsp; We have record of a certain Shakespeare who grew
+so weary of the name that he changed it for
+&ldquo;Saunders.&rdquo;&nbsp; But Time was presently to bring
+revenge, when William <a name="page7"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 7</span>Shakespeare, afterwards to become a
+poet and dramatist of unapproachable excellence, was born, to
+make the choice of that recreant bearer of the name look
+ridiculous.</p>
+<p>One Shakespeare before the dramatist&rsquo;s time had reached
+not only respectability but some kind of local eminence.&nbsp;
+This was Isabel Shakespeare, who became Prioress of the Priory of
+Baddesley Clinton, near Knowle.&nbsp; Baddesley Clinton is in the
+ancient and far-spreading Forest of Arden, and near it is the
+village of Rowington, where there still remains the very
+picturesque fifteenth-century mansion called Shakespeare Hall,
+which is said to have been in the dramatist&rsquo;s time the
+residence of a Thomas Shakespeare, an uncle.&nbsp; But William
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s genealogy has not been convincingly taken
+back beyond his grandfather Richard (whose very Christian name is
+only traditional), who is stated to have been a farmer at
+Snitterfield, three miles from Stratford-on-Avon.</p>
+<p>Warwickshire was, in fact, extremely rich in Shakespeares,
+many of them no relatives of the dramatist&rsquo;s family.&nbsp;
+They grew in every hedgerow, and very many of them owned the
+Christian name of William, but they spelled their patronymic in
+an amazing number of ways.&nbsp; It is said to be capable of four
+thousand variations.&nbsp; We will forbear the most of
+these.&nbsp; &ldquo;Shaxpeare&rdquo; is the commonest form.&nbsp;
+The marriage-bond for William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway
+spells his name &ldquo;Shagspere,&rdquo; and the dramatist
+himself spells it in two different ways in the three signatures
+on his will, which forms to the Baconians conclusive proof of the
+two following contradictory propositions (1) that he did not know
+how to spell his own name, and (2) that, the spelling being
+different, the so-called signatures were written by a
+law-clerk!&nbsp; As a matter of fact, the <a
+name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>spelling of
+one&rsquo;s name was in those times a matter of taste and fancy,
+which constantly varied.&nbsp; Sir Walter Raleigh, contemporary
+with Shakespeare, was a scholar whom no one will declare an
+illiterate, yet he wrote his own name, with a fine disregard of
+consistency and of what future generations might say,
+&ldquo;Rawley,&rdquo; &ldquo;Ralegh,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Rawleighe&rdquo; and &ldquo;Rauleygh.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In any case, the &ldquo;law-clerk&rdquo; theory will hardly
+do.&nbsp; A law-clerk who wrote such a shocking bad hand as the
+six signatures of Shakespeare display could not have earned his
+living with lawyers and conveyancers.&nbsp; They are signatures,
+nearly all of them, which might confidently be taken to a
+chemist, to be &ldquo;made up,&rdquo; but exactly how he would
+read the &ldquo;prescription&rdquo; must be left to the
+imagination.</p>
+<p>Sure and certain foothold upon genealogical fact is only
+reached with William Shakespeare&rsquo;s father, who established
+himself at Stratford-on-Avon about 1551, when he seems to have
+been twenty-one years of age.&nbsp; He was described at various
+times as a fell-monger and glover, a woolstapler, a butcher and a
+dealer in hay and corn.&nbsp; Probably, as a son of the farmer at
+Snitterfield, he was interested in most of these trades.&nbsp;
+His home and place of business in the town was in Henley Street,
+then, as now, one of the meaner streets of the place.&nbsp; Its
+name derives from this forming the way out of Stratford to the
+town of Henley-in-Arden.</p>
+<p>The very first thing we have recorded of John Shakespeare at
+Stratford is his being fined twelve pence for having a muck-heap
+in front of his door.&nbsp; Twelve pence in that day was equal to
+about eight shillings and sixpence of our own times; and thus,
+when we consider the then notoriously dirty and insanitary
+condition of Stratford, endured with fortitude, if not with
+cheerfulness by the burgesses, we are forced to the conclusion <a
+name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>that Mr. John
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s muck-heap must have been a super muck-heap,
+an extremely large and offensive specimen, that made the gorge of
+even the least squeamish of his fellow-townsmen rise.&nbsp; Two
+other tradesmen were fined at the same time, and in 1558 he was,
+in company with four others (among whom was the chief alderman,
+Francis Burbage) fined in the smaller sum of fourpence for not
+keeping his gutter clean.</p>
+<p>By 1556, however, he would seem to have been prospering, for
+in that year he purchased two copyhold tenements, one in Henley
+Street, next the house and shop now known as &ldquo;the
+birthplace&rdquo; which he was already occupying; the other in
+Greenhill Street.&nbsp; Next year he married Mary Arden, of
+Wilmcote, three miles from Stratford, daughter of Robert Arden,
+yeoman farmer of that place, said on insufficient evidence to
+have been kin to the ancient knightly family of Arden.&nbsp; She
+had become, on her father&rsquo;s death in December 1556, owner
+of landed property called Asbies, at Wilmcote, and some like
+interests at Snitterfield, in common with her brothers and
+sisters.&nbsp; She was thus, in a small way, an heiress.&nbsp;
+Wilmcote being then merely a hamlet in the parish of Aston
+Cantlow, they were married at the church of that place.</p>
+<p>John Shakespeare was now a rising tradesman, and in this same
+auspicious year became a member of the town council, a body then
+newly established, upon the granting of a charter of
+incorporation in 1553.</p>
+<p>On September 15th, 1558 his daughter Joan was baptized.&nbsp;
+She died an infant.&nbsp; In 1565, after serving various
+municipal offices, he became an alderman.&nbsp; Meanwhile, at the
+close of November 1562, a daughter, Margaret, was born, who died
+the next year; and in 1564, on April 26th, his son William was
+baptized.&nbsp; The date of the poet&rsquo;s birth is
+traditionally St. George&rsquo;s Day, <a name="page10"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 10</span>April 23rd; now, with the alteration
+in the calendar, identical with May 5th.</p>
+<p>In that year the town was scourged by a terrible visitation of
+the plague, and John Shakespeare is recorded, among others, as a
+contributor to funds for the poor who suffered by it.&nbsp; On
+August 30th he paid twelve pence; on September 6th, sixpence; on
+the 27th of the same month another sixpence; and on October 20th
+eightpence; about twenty-two shillings of our money.&nbsp; It is
+only by tradition&mdash;but that a very old one&mdash;that
+William Shakespeare was born at &ldquo;the birthplace&rdquo; in
+Henley Street; but there is no reasonable excuse for doubting it,
+unless we like to think that he was born at the picturesque old
+house in the village of Clifford Chambers, which afterwards
+became the vicarage and is now a farmhouse.&nbsp; A John
+Shakespeare was at that time living there, two miles only from
+Stratford, and it has been suggested that he is identical with
+the father of William, and that in this plague year he took the
+precaution of removing his wife out of danger.</p>
+<p>In 1566 we find a link between the Shakespeares and the
+Hathaways in John.&nbsp; Shakespeare standing surety for Richard
+Hathaway; and in the same year his son Gilbert was born; another
+Joan being born in 1569.&nbsp; In 1568 and 1571 he attained the
+highest municipal offices, being elected high-bailiff and senior
+alderman, and thus, as chief magistrate, is found described in
+local documents as &ldquo;Mr.&rdquo; Shakespeare.&nbsp; In 1571
+also his daughter Anne, who died in 1579, was born; and in 1573 a
+son, Richard.&nbsp; In 1575 he purchased the freehold of
+&ldquo;the birthplace&rdquo; from one Edmund Hall, for
+&pound;40.</p>
+<p>Early in 1578 the first note of ill-fortune is sounded in the
+career of John Shakespeare.&nbsp; Some financial disaster had
+befallen him.&nbsp; In January, when the town council had decided
+to provide weapons for two billmen, a body <a
+name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>of pikemen,
+and one archer, and assessed the aldermen for six shillings and
+eightpence each and the burgesses at half that amount, two of the
+aldermen were excused the full pay.&nbsp; One, Mr. Plumley, was
+charged five shillings, and Mr. Shakespeare was to pay only three
+and fourpence.&nbsp; The following year he defaulted in an
+assessment for the same amount.&nbsp; Meanwhile, he had been
+obliged to mortgage Asbies, which had come to him with his wife,
+and to sell the interests at Snitterfield.&nbsp; The
+Shakespeares, although they in after years again grew prosperous,
+never recovered Asbies.</p>
+<p>No one knows what caused these straitened circumstances.&nbsp;
+Possibly it was some disastrous speculation in corn.&nbsp; In the
+midst of this trouble, his seven-year-old daughter, Anne, died,
+and another son, Edmund, was horn, 1580.&nbsp; He ceased to
+attend meetings of the town council, and his son William entered
+into an improvident marriage.</p>
+<h2><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+12</span>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+bride&mdash;The hasty marriage&mdash;Shakespeare&rsquo;s wild
+young days&mdash;He leaves for London&mdash;Grendon
+Underwood.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">William Shakespeare</span> was but
+eighteen and a half years of age when he married.&nbsp; Legally,
+he was an &ldquo;infant.&rdquo;&nbsp; His wife was by almost
+eight years his senior, but if we agree with Bacon&rsquo;s
+saying, that a man finds himself ten years older the day after
+his marriage, the disparity became at once more than
+rectified.&nbsp; She was one Anne, or Agnes, Hathaway; her
+father, Richard, being a farmer of Shottery.&nbsp; The Hathaways
+were numerous in this district, there being at that time no fewer
+than three families of the name in Shottery and others in
+Stratford.&nbsp; Anne had no fewer than eight brothers and
+sisters, all of whom, except two, are mentioned in their
+father&rsquo;s will.&nbsp; Richard, who describes himself in his
+will as &ldquo;husbandman,&rdquo; executed that document on
+September 1st, 1581, and died probably in the June following, for
+his will was proved in London on July 9th, 1582.&nbsp; Storms of
+rival theories have raged around the mystery surrounding this
+marriage, of which the register does not exist.&nbsp; It is
+claimed that Shakespeare was married at Temple Grafton,
+Luddington, Billesley, and elsewhere, but no shadow of evidence
+can be adduced for any of these places.&nbsp; All we know is that
+on November 28th, 1582, Fulke Sandells and John Richardson,
+farmers, <a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+13</span>of Stratford, who had been respectively one of the
+&ldquo;supervisors&rdquo; and one of the witnesses of Richard
+Hathaway&rsquo;s will, went to Worcester and there entered into a
+&ldquo;Bond in &pound;40 against Impediments, to defend and save
+harmless the right reverend father in God, John, Lord Bushop of
+Worcester&rdquo; from any complaint or process that might by any
+possibility arise out of his licensing the marriage with only
+once asking the banns.&nbsp; These two bondsmen declared that
+&ldquo;William Shagspere, one thone partie and Anne Hathaway of
+Stratford&rdquo; (Shottery was and is a hamlet in the parish of
+Stratford-on-Avon) &ldquo;in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may
+lawfully solemnize marriage together.&rdquo;&nbsp; This document,
+discovered in the Worcester Registry in 1836, is sufficiently
+clear and explicit; but a complication is introduced by a license
+issued the day before by the Bishop for a marriage &ldquo;inter
+Wm. Shaxpere et Anna Whateley de Temple Grafton.&rdquo;&nbsp; It
+has been suggested that, as there were Whateleys living in the
+neighbourhood, and that as there were numerous Shakespeares also,
+with many Williams among them, this was quite another couple,
+while others contend that &ldquo;Whateley&rdquo; was a mistake of
+one of the clerks employed in the Bishop&rsquo;s registry, and
+that the name of Temple Grafton as &ldquo;place of
+residence&rdquo; of the bride was a further mistake, that being
+the place intended for the ceremony.&nbsp; In any case, the point
+is of minor interest for the registers of Temple Grafton do not
+go back to that date, and the fabric of the church itself is
+quite new.&nbsp; We do not know, therefore, where Shakespeare was
+married, nor when; and can but assume that the wedding took place
+shortly after the bond was signed.</p>
+<p>Six months later, Shakespeare&rsquo;s eldest daughter was
+born, for we see in the register of baptisms in Holy Trinity
+church, Stratford, the entry:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+14</span>&ldquo;1583, May 26th, Susanna, daughter to William
+Shakespere.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The reason for the hurried visit of the two farmers to
+Worcester, to hasten on the marriage with but one
+&ldquo;asking&rdquo; in church now becomes evident.&nbsp; They
+were friends of the late Richard Hathaway, and were determined
+that young Shakespeare should not get out of marrying the girl he
+had&mdash;wronged, shall we say?&nbsp; Well, no.&nbsp; There have
+been many moralists excessively shocked at this pre-nuptial
+intimacy, and they assert that Shakespeare seduced Anne
+Hathaway.</p>
+<p>But young men of just over eighteen years of age do not, I
+think, beguile young women nearly eight years older.&nbsp; Anne
+probably seduced him; for woman is more frequently the huntress
+and the chooser, and man is a very helpless creature before her
+wiles.</p>
+<p>The extravagances of the Baconians may well be illustrated
+here, for although the subject of Shakespeare&rsquo;s marriage
+has no bearing upon the famous cryptogram and the authorship of
+the plays, Donnelly spreads himself generously all over
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s life, and lightheartedly settles for us the
+mystery of the bond <i>re</i> the marriage of Anne Hathaway and
+the license to marry Anne Whateley by suggesting that <i>both</i>
+names are correct and refer to the same persons.&nbsp; He says
+Anne Hathaway married a Whateley and that it was as a widow she
+married William Shakespeare, her maiden name being given in the
+bond by mistake!&nbsp; The sheer absurdity of this is obvious
+when we consider that if Mr. Donnelly is right, then the bondsmen
+made the yet grosser error of describing the widow as a
+&ldquo;maiden.&rdquo;&nbsp; She was actually at that time neither
+wife, maid nor widow.</p>
+<p>Again, Richard Hathaway the father made his will in September
+1581, leaving (<i>inter alia</i>) a bequest to Anne &ldquo;to be
+paide unto her at the daie of her marriage.&rdquo;&nbsp; She <a
+name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>was a single
+young woman then, and yet according to the Donnellian view she
+was already, fifteen months later, a widow, again about to be
+married.</p>
+<p>Apologists for this hasty marriage, jealous for the reputation
+of Shakespeare, are keen to find an excuse in the supposition
+that he was a Roman Catholic and that he was already married
+secretly, probably in the room in the roof of Shottery Manor
+House, which is supposed to have been used at this period as a
+place of secret worship.&nbsp; But there is no basis for forming
+any theory as to Shakespeare&rsquo;s religious convictions.&nbsp;
+A yet more favourite assumption is that Shakespeare and Anne
+Hathaway went through the ceremony of &ldquo;hand-fasting,&rdquo;
+a formal betrothal which, although not a complete marriage and
+not carrying with it the privileges of marriage was a bar to
+either of the parties marrying another.&nbsp; Jack was thus made
+sure of his Jill; and, perhaps even more important, Jill was
+certain of her Jack.&nbsp; But if this ceremony had taken place,
+there would have been no necessity for that hasty journey of
+those two friends of the Hathaways to Worcester.</p>
+<p>Nothing is known of the attitude of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+parents towards the marriage, nor has any one ever suggested how
+he supported himself, his wife and family in the years before he
+left Stratford for London.&nbsp; At the close of January 1585,
+his twin son and daughter, Hamnet and Judith were born, and they
+were baptized at Stratford church on February 2nd.&nbsp; Whether
+he assisted his father in his business of glover, or helped on
+his farm, or whether he became assistant master at the Grammar
+School, as sometimes suggested, is mere matter for
+speculation.&nbsp; John Aubrey, picking up gossip at Stratford,
+writes&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Mr. William Shakespear was borne at
+Stratford upon Avon in the county of Warwick.&nbsp; His father
+was a <a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+16</span>butcher, and I have been told heretofore by some of the
+neighbours, that when he was a boy he exercised his
+father&rsquo;s trade, but when he kill&rsquo;d a calfe he would
+doe it in a high style, and make a speech.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>That may or may not be true, but it looks as though William
+had, about this impressionable age, become stage-struck.&nbsp; He
+had had numerous opportunities of seeing the players, for his
+father had in his more prosperous days been a patron of the
+strolling companies, both as a private individual and as a member
+of the town council.&nbsp; In 1569 two such troupes, who called
+themselves the &ldquo;Queen&rsquo;s servants,&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;servants of the Earl of Warwick,&rdquo; gave performances
+before the corporation and were paid out of the public monies; a
+forecast of the municipal theatre!&nbsp; And no doubt John
+Shakespeare, together with many other Stratford people, went over
+to Kenilworth during the magnificent pageants given there by
+Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1575, in honour of Queen Elizabeth;
+taking with him his little boy, then eleven years of age.&nbsp;
+Thus would the foundations of an ambition be laid.</p>
+<p>At this time, 1585, John Shakespeare&rsquo;s affairs, from
+whatever cause, were under a cloud.&nbsp; They had been declining
+since 1578, when he had been obliged to mortgage some of the
+property that had been his wife&rsquo;s, and now he was deprived
+of his alderman&rsquo;s gown.&nbsp; William about this time,
+whether in 1585 or 1587 is uncertain, left Stratford for London,
+whither some of his boyhood&rsquo;s friends had already preceded
+him, among them Richard Field.</p>
+<p>Stratford at this time was certainly no place for William, if
+he wished to emulate Dr. Samuel Smiles&rsquo; worthies and
+conform to the gospel of getting on in the world, the most
+popular gospel ever preached.&nbsp; In 1587, Nicholas Lane, one
+of his father&rsquo;s creditors, sought to <a
+name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>distrain upon
+John Shakespeare&rsquo;s goods, but the sheriff&rsquo;s officers
+returned the doleful tale of &ldquo;no effects,&rdquo; and so he
+had his trouble for nothing.&nbsp; It is, however, curious that
+even when reduced to his last straits, John Shakespeare never
+sold his property, the house in which he lived and carried on
+business, in Henley Street.</p>
+<p>In addition to the discredit attaching to being thus one of
+the Shakespeares who had come down in the world, William,
+according to the very old, strong and persistent tradition, was
+at this time showing a very rackety disposition.&nbsp; He
+consorted with the wilder young men of the town and went on
+drinking bouts with them.&nbsp; Sometimes, with them, he raided
+the neighbouring parks and killed the deer and poached other
+game; and the old tradition hints that on these occasions the
+others made good their escape and Shakespeare was generally
+caught.&nbsp; Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, who was the chief
+sufferer from the exploits of these youths, is said to have had
+Shakespeare whipped, imprisoned and fined for his part in
+them.</p>
+<p>To London, therefore, William Shakespeare made his way.&nbsp;
+With what credentials, if any, did he go?&nbsp; He had friends in
+London, among them Richard Field, a schoolfellow, who in 1579 had
+gone thither, to become apprentice to a printer, and in 1587,
+about this time when Shakespeare left home, had set up in
+business for himself and become a member of the Stationers&rsquo;
+Company.&nbsp; Shakespeare may quite reasonably have sought his
+help or advice; and certainly Field six years later published
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, dedicated to Henry
+Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the foremost literary and
+dramatic patron of the age, from whose friendship and powerful
+aid all intellectual aspirants hoped much.</p>
+<p>It is quite likely that Shakespeare left Stratford <a
+name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>with a
+company of travelling actors, and reaching town with them,
+gradually drifted into regular employment at one of the only two
+London theatres that then existed, &ldquo;The Theatre&rdquo; and
+the &ldquo;Curtain&rdquo; both in Shoreditch.</p>
+<p>It is of some interest to speculate upon the manner in which
+Shakespeare journeyed to London, and the way he went.&nbsp; Was
+he obliged to walk it, in the traditional manner of the poor
+countryman seeking his fortune in the great metropolis?&nbsp; Or
+did he make the journey by the carrier&rsquo;s cart?&nbsp; There
+are two principal roads by which he may have gone; by
+Newbold-on-Stour, Long Compton, Chapel House, and Woodstock to
+Oxford, Beaconsfield and through High Wycombe and Uxbridge, 95
+miles; or he might have chosen to go by Ettington, Pillerton
+Priors, Sunrising Hill, Wroxton and Banbury, through Aynho,
+Bicester, Aylesbury, Tring and Watford to London, 92&frac34;
+miles.&nbsp; Such an one as he would probably first go to London
+by way of Oxford, for, like Thomas Hardy&rsquo;s &ldquo;Jude the
+Obscure,&rdquo; he would doubtless think it &ldquo;a city of
+light.&rdquo;&nbsp; There are traditions at Oxford of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s staying at the &ldquo;Crown&rdquo; inn in the
+Cornmarket in after years.&nbsp; Sometimes he would doubtless go
+by the Banbury and Bicester route: and along it, at the village
+of Grendon Underwood, to the left of the road between Bicester
+and Aylesbury, as you journey towards London, there still linger
+very precise traditions of Shakespeare having stayed at what was
+formerly the &ldquo;Old Ship&rdquo; inn.</p>
+<p>Grendon Underwood, or &ldquo;under Bernwode&rdquo; as it is
+styled in old records, appears in an old rhyme as&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The dirtiest town that ever
+stood,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>but it was never a town, and, whatever may once have been its
+condition, it is no longer dirty.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page19"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 19</span>
+<a href="images/p19.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Shakespeare Farm,&rdquo; formerly the &ldquo;Ship&rdquo;
+Inn, Grendon Underwood"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Shakespeare Farm,&rdquo; formerly the &ldquo;Ship&rdquo;
+Inn, Grendon Underwood"
+src="images/p19.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>It is
+not at first sight easily to be understood why Shakespeare, or
+any other traveller of that age journeying the long straight
+stretch of the old Roman road, the Akeman Street, between
+Bicester and Aylesbury, should want to go a mile and a quarter
+out of his way for the purpose of visiting this place, but that
+they did so is sufficiently proved by the comparative importance
+of the house that was until about a hundred and twelve years ago
+the &ldquo;Old Ship&rdquo; and is now known as &ldquo;Shakespeare
+Farm.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is clearly too large ever to have been
+built for an ordinary village inn, and is said to have formerly
+been even larger.&nbsp; If, however, we refer to old maps of the
+district, it will he found that, for some unexplained reason, the
+ancient forthright Roman road had gone out of use, and that
+instead of proceeding direct, along the Akeman Street, the
+wayfarers of old went a circuitous course, through Grendon
+Underwood.&nbsp; When this deviation took place does not appear;
+but it was obviously one of long standing.&nbsp; The first
+available map showing the roads of the district is that by
+Emanuel Bowen, 1756, in which the Akeman Street is not shown; the
+only road given being that which winds through Grendon.&nbsp; The
+next map to be issued&mdash;that by Thomas Jeffreys,
+1788&mdash;gives the Akeman Street, running direct, between point
+and point, and avoiding Grendon, as it does now.&nbsp; That was
+the great era of turnpike-acts, providing for the repair and
+restoration of old roads, and the making of new; and this was one
+of the many highways then restored.&nbsp; The &ldquo;Old
+Ship&rdquo; inn, at Grendon Underwood, at which Shakespeare and
+many generations of travellers had halted, at once declined with
+the making of the direct road, and soon retired into private
+life.</p>
+<p>The Shakespeare tradition comes down to us through John
+Aubrey, who, writing in 1680, says&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The humour of the constable, in <a
+name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+21</span><i>Midsomer-night&rsquo;s Dreame</i>, <a
+name="citation21"></a><a href="#footnote21"
+class="citation">[21]</a> he happened to take at Grendon, in
+Bucks&mdash;I thinke it was Midsomer night that he happened to
+lye there&mdash;which is the roade from London to Stratford, and
+there was living that constable about 1642, when I first came to
+Oxon.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The village constable referred to was well known to one Josias
+Howe, son of the rector, born at Grendon, March 29th, 1612, died
+August 28th, 1701, who told Aubrey the story at Oxford, in
+1642.</p>
+<p>The lofty gabled red brick and timber end of Shakespeare Farm,
+illustrated here, is the earlier part of the building, although
+the whole of it is probably as old as Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+time.&nbsp; That earlier wing, the part to which tradition
+points, is not now occupied, and is, in fact, in a very
+dilapidated condition, occasional floorboards, and even some of
+the stairs, being missing.&nbsp; Where the wearied guests of long
+ago rested, broody hens are set by the careful farmer&rsquo;s
+wife on their clutches of eggs.&nbsp; There is little interesting
+in the architectural way in these dark and deserted rooms, but
+the flat, pierced, wooden banisters of the staircase are
+genuinely old and quaint.</p>
+<h2><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+22</span>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">Continued decline in the affairs of John
+Shakespeare&mdash;William Shakespeare&rsquo;s success in
+London&mdash;Death of Hamnet, William Shakespeare&rsquo;s only
+son&mdash;Shakespeare buys New Place&mdash;He retires to
+Stratford&mdash;Writes his last play, <i>The
+Tempest</i>&mdash;His death.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> Shakespeare left his wife and
+family at home at Stratford-on-Avon every one takes for
+granted.&nbsp; He &ldquo;deserted his family,&rdquo; says a rabid
+Baconian, who elsewhere complains of the lack of evidence to
+support believers in the dramatist; forgetting that there is no
+evidence for this &ldquo;desertion&rdquo; story; only one of
+those many blanks in the life of this elusive man, by which it
+would appear that while he was reaching fame and making money in
+London as a playwright and an actor, he held no communication
+with his kith and kin.&nbsp; There remains no local record of
+William Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon between the year 1587,
+when he joined with his father in mortgaging the property at
+Asbies, Wilmcote, which had been his mother&rsquo;s marriage
+portion, until 1596, when the register of the death of Hamnet,
+his only son, occurs at Stratford church, on August 11th.&nbsp;
+But this is sheer negative evidence of his not having visited his
+native town for over ten years, and is on a par with the famous
+Baconian argument that <i>because</i> no scrap of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s handwriting, except six almost illegible
+signatures, has survived, <i>therefore</i> he cannot have written
+the plays still attributed to him.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile, his father&rsquo;s affairs steadily grew worse, <a
+name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>and in 1592
+he was returned as a &ldquo;recusant&rdquo; by the commissioners
+who visited the town for the purpose of fining the statutable
+fine of &pound;20 all those who had not attended church for one
+month.&nbsp; John Shakespeare&rsquo;s recusancy has been
+unwarrantably assumed to be due to Roman Catholic obstinacy; but
+the fine was remitted because it was shown that he was afraid to
+go to church &ldquo;for processe of debt&rdquo;; which, together
+with the infirmities of age, or sickness, was a lawful
+excuse.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare&rsquo;s success in London as an actor, a reviser
+and editor of old and out-of-date plays, as manager,
+theatre-proprietor and playwright, is due to that sprack-witted
+capacity for excelling in almost any chosen field of intellectual
+activity with which a born genius is gifted.&nbsp; The saying
+that &ldquo;genius is a capacity for taking pains&rdquo; is a
+dull, plodding man&rsquo;s definition.&nbsp; Genius will very
+often fling away the rewards of its powers through just this lack
+of staying power, and no plodding pains will supply that
+intuitive knowledge, that instant perception, which is what we
+call genius.</p>
+<p>It was the psychological moment for such an one as Shakespeare
+to come to London.&nbsp; The drama had future before it: the
+intellectual receptivity of the Renascence permeated all classes,
+and the country was prosperous and growing luxurious.&nbsp;
+Playwrights were numerous, but as yet their productions had not
+reached a high level, excepting those of Marlowe, to whose
+inspiration Shakespeare at first owed much.&nbsp; If Shakespeare
+lived in these times he would be called a shameless plagiarist,
+for he went to other authors for his plots&mdash;as Chaucer had
+done with his <i>Canterbury Tales</i>, two hundred years earlier,
+and as all others had done in between.&nbsp; Not a man of them
+would escape the charge; but what Shakespeare took of <a
+name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+24</span>plot-construction and of dialogue he transmuted from the
+dull and soulless lines we could not endure to read to-day, into
+a clear fount of wit, wisdom and literary beauty.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare&rsquo;s career of playwright began as a hack
+writer and cobbler of existing plays.&nbsp; As an actor his
+technical knowledge of the requirements of the stage rendered his
+help invaluable to managers, and the conditions of that time gave
+no remedy to any author whose plays were thus altered.&nbsp; It
+may be supposed from lack of evidence to the contrary, that most
+other dramatic authors submitted to this treatment in silence;
+perhaps because they had all been employed, at some time or other
+in the same way.&nbsp; But one man seems to have bitterly
+resented a mere actor presuming to call himself an author.&nbsp;
+This was Robert Greene, who died Sept. 3rd, 1592, after a long
+career of play-writing and pamphleteering.&nbsp; He died a
+disappointed man, and wrote a farewell tract, published after his
+death, which includes a warning to his fellow-authors and an
+undoubted attack upon Shakespeare, under the thin disguise of
+&ldquo;Shake-scene.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It is to be considered that Shakespeare had by this time been
+five years in London; that he had proved himself singularly
+adaptable, and had finally, on March 3rd, 1592, attained his
+first popular success, in the production at the newly-opened
+&ldquo;Rose Theatre&rdquo; on Bankside, Southwark (third London
+playhouse, opened February 19th, 1592), of <i>Henry the
+Sixth</i>.&nbsp; It was a veritable triumph.&nbsp; The author
+played in his own piece, and the other dramatists looked on in
+dismay.&nbsp; Jealousy does not seem to have followed
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s good fortune, and the numerous references to
+him as poet and playwright by others are kindly and fully
+recognise his superiority.&nbsp; Only Greene&rsquo;s posthumous
+work exists to show how one resented it.&nbsp; The tract <a
+name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>has the
+singular title of &ldquo;A Groats-Worth of Wit bought with a
+Million of Repentance.&rdquo;&nbsp; Incidentally it warns
+brother-dramatists against &ldquo;an upstart Crow, beautified
+with our feathers that with his <i>Tygers heart wrapt in a
+players hide</i> supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a
+blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute
+<i>Johannes factotum</i> is, in his ovine conceite, the only
+Shake-scene in a countrie.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The identification of this crow in borrowed plumage, this
+&ldquo;Shake-scene,&rdquo; is completed by the line, &ldquo;O
+tiger&rsquo;s heart, wrapp&rsquo;d in a woman&rsquo;s
+hide,&rdquo; which is a quotation from the Third Part of <i>Henry
+the Sixth</i>, where the Duke of York addresses Queen Margaret;
+while the term &ldquo;Johannes factotum,&rdquo; <i>i.e.</i>
+&ldquo;Johnny Do-everything,&rdquo; is a sneer at
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s adaptability and many-sided activities.</p>
+<p>The merits of Shakespeare as an actor are uncertain.&nbsp;
+Greene seems to imply that he was of the ranting, bellowing type
+who tore a passion to tatters and split the ears of the
+groundlings.&nbsp; Rowe, who wrote of him in 1709 says:
+&ldquo;The top of his performance (as an actor) was the Ghost in
+his own <i>Hamlet</i>&rdquo;; not an exacting part; other
+traditions say Adam in <i>As You Like It</i>, an even less
+important character, was his favourite; but the suggestion we
+love the better to believe is that his best part was the cynical,
+melancholy, philosophic Jaques.&nbsp; Donnelly, chief of the
+Bacon heretics, has in his <i>Great Cryptogram</i>, a weird story
+of how Bacon wrote the part of Falstaff for Shakespeare, to fit
+his great greasy stomach.&nbsp; He knew Shakespeare could not
+act, and so provided a part in which no acting should be
+required; turning Shakespeare&rsquo;s natural disabilities to
+account, so that, if the audience could not laugh with him in his
+acting, they should laugh at him and dissolve into merriment at
+the clumsy antics of so fat a man!</p>
+<p><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>There
+are actor-managers in our times&mdash;no actor-author-managers
+like Shakespeare&mdash;who deserve the cat-calls and the missiles
+of their audiences.&nbsp; They do not merely &ldquo;lag
+superfluous on the stage,&rdquo; but ought never to be on it;
+like the celebrated actor-manager whose impersonation of Hamlet
+was, according to Sir W. S. Gilbert&rsquo;s caustic remark,
+&ldquo;funny without being vulgar.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is not
+conceivable that Shakespeare himself, who puts such excellent
+advice to actors into the mouth of Hamlet, should himself have
+been incompetent.</p>
+<p>With Shakespeare&rsquo;s leap into fame, in 1592, went a
+simultaneous &ldquo;boom,&rdquo; as it might now be termed, in
+theatres and the drama.&nbsp; Theatres multiplied in London,
+theatrical companies grew prosperous, and such men as
+Shakespeare, Merle and the Burbages amassed wealth.</p>
+<p>In 1596 died William Shakespeare&rsquo;s only son, Hamnet,
+whose burial register in the books of Holy Trinity church,
+Stratford, runs&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;August 11th, Hamnet, filius William
+Shakespeare.&rdquo;&nbsp; His father must surely have been
+present on this occasion.&nbsp; This year is generally said to be
+that in which the dramatist who in his time had played many
+parts, returned to his native town, a made man.&nbsp; He came
+back with his triumphs ringing fresh in his ears, for that season
+witnessed the great success of the production of <i>Romeo and
+Juliet</i>.&nbsp; In July, also, his father had applied to the
+Heralds&rsquo; College for a grant of arms, an application for a
+patent of gentility which would have come absurdly from a
+penniless tradesman.&nbsp; The inference therefore, although we
+have no documentary evidence to that effect, is that William
+Shakespeare had not only kept in touch with his people, but had
+helped his father out of his difficulties and was himself <a
+name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>the
+instigator of this application for a grant of arms.&nbsp; The
+application was eventually successful.&nbsp; The arms thus
+conferred are: &ldquo;Or, on a bend sable, a tilting spear of the
+first, point upwards, steeled proper.&nbsp; Crest, a falcon, his
+wings displayed, argent, standing upon a wreath of his colours
+and supporting a spear in pale, or.&rdquo;&nbsp; The motto chosen
+was &ldquo;Non sanz droiet.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>What was this right to heraldic honours and the implied
+gentility they carried, the Shakespeares claimed?&nbsp; It was
+based upon a quibble that John Shakespeare&rsquo;s &ldquo;parent,
+great-grandfather and late antecessor, for his faithful and
+approved service to the most prudent prince king H. 7 of famous
+memorie, was advanced and rewarded with lands and tenements geven
+to him,&rdquo; etc.&nbsp; The description of the miserly Henry
+the Seventh as &ldquo;prudent&rdquo; is, like &ldquo;mobled
+queen,&rdquo; distinctly &ldquo;good&rdquo;; but we are not
+greatly concerned with that, only with the fact that the martial
+and loyal antecessors claimed for John Shakespeare were really
+those of his wife.&nbsp; He adopted his wife&rsquo;s family, or
+rather, her family&rsquo;s pretensions to call cousins with the
+more famous Ardens.</p>
+<p>William Shakespeare had returned to Stratford a well-to-do
+man, with an income which has been estimated at about &pound;1300
+of our money, but he had not yet completed his work, and his
+reappearance in his native town was not permanent.&nbsp; You
+figure him now, the dramatist and manager, with considerable
+shares in the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres, rather concerned to
+relinquish the trade&mdash;not a profession, really, you
+know&mdash;of actor, but with his company much in request at
+Court and in the mansions of the great.&nbsp; He was, one thinks,
+a little sobered by the passage of time; and by the death, this
+year, of his only son; and quite sensible of the dignity that new
+patent of arms had conferred <a name="page28"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 28</span>upon his father and himself.&nbsp; To
+mark it, he bought in 1597 a residence, the best residence in the
+town, although wofully out of repair.&nbsp; It was known, with
+some awe, to his contemporaries as &ldquo;the great
+house.&rdquo;&nbsp; Sixty pounds sterling was the purchase money:
+we will say &pound;480 of present value.&nbsp; It was bought so
+cheaply probably because of its dilapidated condition, for it
+seems to have been built by Sir Hugh Clopton in 1485, and at this
+time was &ldquo;in great ruyne &amp; decay &amp;
+unrepayred.&rdquo;&nbsp; Shakespeare thoroughly renovated his
+newly-acquired property, and styled it &ldquo;New
+Place.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He did not, apparently, at once take up his residence here,
+for his theatrical company was acting before the Queen at
+Whitehall in the spring and he would doubtless have been present,
+and perhaps accompanied them when they were on tour in Kent and
+Sussex in the summer.&nbsp; But he was at Stratford a part of the
+next year, which was a year of scarcity.&nbsp; He had accumulated
+a large stock of corn, over against the shortage, and in a return
+made of the quantity of grain held in the town he held ten
+quarters.&nbsp; In the January of this year he contemplated
+buying some land at Shottery.&nbsp; &ldquo;Our countriman, Mr.
+Shaksper,&rdquo; wrote Abraham Sturley to Richard Quiney on
+January 24th, &ldquo;is willinge to disburse some monei upon some
+od yarde land or other att Shotterei or neare about
+us.&rdquo;&nbsp; It would seem that Shakespeare did not, after
+all, purchase this land.&nbsp; Perhaps he could not get it a
+bargain, and what we know of his business transactions, small
+though it may be, all goes to show that he was a keen dealer and
+not at all likely to spend his money rashly.</p>
+<p>This year is remarkable for the writing of a letter to
+Shakespeare by Richard Quiney, the only letter addressed to him
+now in existence.&nbsp; It is dated October <a
+name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>25th and
+addressed from Carter Lane, in the City of London.&nbsp;
+Shakespeare was apparently then at Stratford&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">To my Loveinge good
+ffrende and contreymann Mr. Wm. shackespere dlr thees</span>:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Loveinge Contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a
+ffrende, craveinge yowr helpe with xxx <i>li</i> uppon Mr.
+Bushell&rsquo;s &amp; my securytee, or Mr. Myttons with me.&nbsp;
+Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, &amp; I have
+especiall cawse yow shall ffrende me muche in helpeinge me out of
+all the debettes I owe in London, I thancke god, &amp; muche
+quiet my mynde wch wolde nott be indebeted.&nbsp; I am nowe
+towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatche of my
+Buysenes.&nbsp; Yow shall nether loase credytt nor monney by me,
+the Lorde wyllinge; &amp; nowe butt perswade yowrself soe, as I
+hope, &amp; yow shall not need to feare butt with all hartie
+thanckefullenes I wyll holde my tyme &amp; content yowr ffrende,
+&amp; yf we Bargaine farther, yow shalbe the paiem<sup>r</sup>.
+yowrselfe.&nbsp; My tyme biddes me hastene to an ende, &amp; soe
+I commit thys [to] yowr care, &amp; hope of your helpe.&nbsp; I
+feare I shall nott be backe thys night ffrom the Cowrte.&nbsp;
+Haste.&nbsp; The Lorde be with yow and with vs all, amen.&nbsp;
+ffrom the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25th October, 1598.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: right">&ldquo;Yowrs in all kyndnes<br />
+&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Rye. Quyney</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There is nothing to show directly what was Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+reply to this request for the loan of so considerable a sum;
+which, however, was not the personal matter it would seem to
+be.&nbsp; Quiney was a substantial man, mercer and alderman of
+Stratford, and was in London, incurring debts in the interests of
+the town, <a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+30</span>whose law business he was furthering.&nbsp; He wanted
+nothing for himself.</p>
+<p>It is curious that this letter was discovered among the
+town&rsquo;s papers, not among any Shakespeare relics, and it is
+believed was never actually sent after being written; for another
+letter is extant, addressed by one of the town council, Abraham
+Sturley, to Quiney, on November 4th, in which he says: &ldquo;Ur
+letter of the 25 October . . . which imported . . . that our
+countriman Mr. Wm. Shak. would procure us monei. . .
+.&rdquo;&nbsp; It would appear, therefore, that on the very day
+he was writing, Quiney had received assurance from Shakespeare
+that he would lend.</p>
+<p>In 1600 Shakespeare&rsquo;s company played before the Queen at
+Whitehall, and on several occasions in 1602: their last
+performance being at Richmond in Surrey on February 2nd,
+1603.&nbsp; The following month the great Queen died.&nbsp; In
+1602 Shakespeare had been buying land in the neighbourhood of
+Snitterfield and Welcombe from the Combes; no less than 107
+acres, and in succeeding years he considerably added to it;
+further, in July 1605, expending &pound;440 in the purchase of
+tithes.&nbsp; Early in September 1601, his father, John
+Shakespeare, had died.&nbsp; Seven years later, also in
+September, died his mother.&nbsp; In 1607, his eldest daughter,
+Susanna, married Dr. John Hall, and on the last day of the same
+year his brother Edmund, an actor, was buried in St.
+Saviour&rsquo;s, Southwark.</p>
+<p>It was in 1609 that Shakespeare retired permanently to
+Stratford.&nbsp; He and his players had been honoured by the new
+sovereign from the very beginning of his reign; but Shakespeare
+now severed his active connection with the stage.&nbsp; In this
+year his famous Sonnets were published, those sugared verses
+addressed to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he
+laments having <a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+31</span>made himself &ldquo;a motley to the view.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Henceforth he would be a country gentleman and dramatic author,
+and let who would seek the applause of the crowd.&nbsp; He now
+wrote the <i>Taming of the Shrew</i>, whose induction is
+permeated with local allusions; he bought more land in the
+neighbourhood of Stratford; he kept some degree of state at New
+Place.&nbsp; In 1611 he sold his shares in the theatres, but in
+1612 bought property at Blackfriars.&nbsp; Thus Shakespeare
+passed his remaining years.&nbsp; As Rowe, his earliest
+biographer says, they were spent &ldquo;as all men of good sense
+will wish theirs to be; in ease, retirement, and the conversation
+of his friends.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His last dramatic work, <i>The Tempest</i>, was written in
+1611, and bears evidences of being consciously and intentionally
+his last.&nbsp; It is easily dated, because of the references in
+it to the &ldquo;still vex&rsquo;d Bermoothes,&rdquo; the Bermuda
+islands, which were discovered by Admiral Sir George
+Somers&rsquo; expedition in 1609.&nbsp; The
+&ldquo;discovery&rdquo; was made by the Admiral&rsquo;s ship, the
+<i>Sea Venture</i>, being driven in a storm on the hitherto
+unknown islands.&nbsp; The disasters, the adventures, and the
+strange sights and sounds of the isles were described by
+Sylvester Jourdain, one of the survivors, in an account published
+October 1610, called &ldquo;A Discovery of the Bermudas,
+otherwise called the Isle of Divels.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Shakespearean students find a purposeful solemnity in the
+treatment of the play, and some perceive in the character of the
+magician, Prospero, a portraiture of himself, his work done, and
+with a foreboding of his end, oppressed with a sense of the brief
+span and the futility of life&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;We
+are such stuff<br />
+As dreams are made of, and our little life<br />
+Is rounded with a sleep.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>Thus he
+brings his labours to an end&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;this
+rough magic<br />
+I here abjure; and, when I have required<br />
+Some heavenly music, (which even now I do,)<br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+. . . I&rsquo;ll break my staff,<br />
+Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,<br />
+And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,<br />
+I&rsquo;ll drown my book.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The retirement of Shakespeare rather curiously synchronises
+with the spread of Puritanism, that slowly accumulating yet
+irresistible force which, before it had expended its vigour and
+its wrath was destined to abolish for many years the theatre and
+the actor&rsquo;s calling, and even to behead a king and work a
+political revolution.&nbsp; The puritan leaven was working even
+in Stratford, and in 1602 the town council solemnly decided that
+stage-plays were no longer to be allowed, and that any one who
+permitted them in the town should be fined ten shillings.&nbsp;
+This edict apparently became a dead letter, but in 1612 it was
+re-enacted and the penalty raised to &pound;10.</p>
+<p>We may perhaps here pertinently inquire: Did Shakespeare
+himself become a Puritan?&nbsp; Probably so moderate and equable
+a man as he seems to have been belonged to no extreme party; but
+it is to be noted that Dr. John Hall, husband of his eldest
+daughter, was a Puritan, and that Susanna herself is described in
+her epitaph as &ldquo;wise to salvation,&rdquo; which means that
+she also had found the like grace.</p>
+<p>In 1614 Shakespeare seems to have entertained a Puritan divine
+at New Place, according to a somewhat ambiguous account in the
+Stratford chamberlain&rsquo;s accounts, in which occurs the odd
+item: &ldquo;One quart of sack and one quart of claret wine given
+to the preacher at New Place.&rdquo;&nbsp; If we may measure his
+preaching by his drinking, he must have delivered poisonously
+long <a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+33</span>sermons.&nbsp; But the town council were connoisseurs in
+sermons, just as the council of forty years earlier had been
+patrons of the drama; and they sought out and welcomed preachers,
+just as their forbears had done with the actors.&nbsp; Only those
+divines do not seem to have been paid for their services, except
+in drink.&nbsp; They were all thirsty men, and the council
+rewarded their orations with the same measure as given to the
+preacher at New Place.</p>
+<p>In January 1616, William Shakespeare instructed his solicitor
+to draft his will.&nbsp; No especial reason for this settlement
+of his worldly affairs appears to be recorded.&nbsp; In February
+his daughter Judith was married to Thomas Quincy, vintner, son of
+that Richard who eighteen years earlier had sought to borrow the
+&pound;30.&nbsp; In March he was taken ill and the draft will was
+amended without being fair-copied, a sign, it may be argued, of
+urgency.&nbsp; It bears date March 25th, and has three of the
+poet&rsquo;s signatures; one on each sheet.&nbsp; But he lingered
+on until April 23rd, dying on the anniversary of his
+birthday.</p>
+<h2><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+34</span>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">Stratford-on-Avon&mdash;It has its own life,
+quite apart from Shakespearean associations&mdash;Its people and
+its streets&mdash;Shakespeare Memorials.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Stratford-on-Avon</span> would be an
+extremely interesting town, both historically and scenically,
+even without its Shakespearean interest.&nbsp; It does not need
+association with its greatest son to stand forth easily among
+other towns of its size and command admiration.&nbsp; It is
+remarkably unlike the mind&rsquo;s eye picture formed of it by
+almost every stranger.&nbsp; You expect to see a town of very
+narrow streets, rather dull perhaps and with little legitimate
+trade, apart from the sale of picture-postcards, fancy china,
+guide-books, miniature reproductions of the inevitable
+Shakespeare bust, and the hundred-and-one small articles that
+tourists buy; but Stratford-on-Avon is not in the least like
+that.&nbsp; It is true that with a singular lack of humour there
+is a &ldquo;Shakespeare Garage,&rdquo; while we all know that
+Shakespeare never owned a motor-car; that the bust is represented
+in mosaic over the entrance to the Old Bank, founded in 1810,
+upon which Shakespeare could never, therefore, have drawn a
+cheque; and that the Shakespeare Hotel not only bears the
+honoured name, but also a very large copy of the bust over its
+porch, and names all its rooms after the plays.&nbsp; Honeymoon
+couples, I believe, have been given the room called
+<i>Love&rsquo;s Labour&rsquo;s Lost</i>, and <i>Cymbeline</i>,
+<i>Midsummer Night&rsquo;s Dream</i> and many another will
+astonish the guest at that really very fine and ancient
+hotel.&nbsp; I forget if there be <a name="page35"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 35</span>a bedroom named after <i>Two
+Gentlemen of Verona</i>.&nbsp; If so, it must obviously be one of
+the double rooms mentioned in the tariff.</p>
+<p>They gave me <i>As you Like It</i>, and it was sufficiently
+comfortable: I liked it much.&nbsp; On the other hand,
+<i>Macbeth</i> makes one fearful of insomnia.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Macbeth does murder sleep.&rdquo;&nbsp; Not poppy nor
+mandragora&mdash;well, let it be.</p>
+<p>It is also true that the old market-house, a quaint isolated
+building of late eighteenth or early nineteenth century standing
+at the junction of Wood and Henley Streets with Bridge Street,
+and now a Bank, has for weather-vane the Shakespeare arms and
+crest of falcon and spear; and it is no less undeniable that the
+presiding genius of the place has his manifestations in many
+other directions; but all these things, together with the several
+antique furniture and curio shops where the unique
+articles&mdash;of which there is but one each in the
+world&mdash;you purchase to-day are infallibly replaced
+to-morrow, are for the benefit of the visitor, the stranger and
+pilgrim.&nbsp; &ldquo;I was a stranger and ye took me in,&rdquo;
+I murmured when the absolute replica of the unmatched article I
+had purchased was unblushingly exposed for sale within a day or
+two.</p>
+<p>The Stratfordian notices none of these things: they are there,
+but they don&rsquo;t concern him.&nbsp; You think they do, and
+that if a suggestion were made that the town should be renamed
+&ldquo;Shakespeare-on-Avon&rdquo; he would adopt it and be
+grateful; but you would be quite wrong; he would not.&nbsp; If
+you caught a hundred Stratford people, <i>flagrante delicto</i>,
+in the pursuit of their daily business and haled them into the
+Guildhall or other convenient room and set them an examination
+paper on Shakespeare, no one would pass with honours.&nbsp; Why
+should any of them?&nbsp; They have grown up with Shakespeare; <a
+name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>they accept
+him as a fact, just as they do the rising and setting of the sun
+and the waxing and waning of the moon; but they are not
+interested in him any more than they are in the courses of those
+luminaries.&nbsp; They talk of anything but Shakespeare, and I
+have met and spoken with many who have never been inside the
+Birthplace, or to Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage, or in the
+Harvard House, or indeed to any of the show-places in and about
+the town.&nbsp; They each save about half a guinea in the
+aggregate, but they don&rsquo;t do so either by way of
+self-denial or economy.&nbsp; They are simply not interested.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p36.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Chapel Street, Stratford-on-Avon"
+title=
+"Chapel Street, Stratford-on-Avon"
+src="images/p36.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Stratford would lose a very great deal if the world in general
+were to become as indifferent to the Swan of Avon; but it would
+still be a prosperous market-town, dependent upon the needs of
+the surrounding agricultural villages.&nbsp; Agriculture has ever
+been the mainstay of Stratford, and as far as we can see, ever
+will be.&nbsp; All around in the Avon valley stretch those rich
+pastures that still &ldquo;lard the rother&rsquo;s sides,&rdquo;
+and on market days there come crawling into the streets, among
+the cattle and the sheep, carriers&rsquo; carts from many an
+obscure village, with curious specimens of countryfolk who have
+not lost the old habit of looking upon Stratford as the centre of
+the universe.&nbsp; So much the better for Stratford.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t much as I waants,&rdquo; said one to
+the present writer, &ldquo;an&rsquo; I rackon I can get it at
+Stratford &lsquo;most as good as anywheer else.&nbsp; Besides, I
+du like to come to town sometimes, an&rsquo; see a bit of
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>One can, in fact, see a good deal of life in the town, but the
+liveliest time&mdash;quite apart from the Shakespeare Festival,
+which is exotic and mostly for visitors&mdash;is the Mop Fair,
+much more familiarly known as &ldquo;Stratford Mop.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+This annual event is held somewhat too late for the average
+visitor&rsquo;s convenience; on October 12th, <a
+name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>when the
+tourists have mostly gone home.&nbsp; It is the great hiring-fair
+for farm servants and others: perhaps we had better say, was, for
+the hiring has almost wholly fallen into disuse, together with
+the so-called &ldquo;Runaway Mop,&rdquo; of a fortnight after, at
+which the servants already hired and not pleased with their
+bargain might re-engage.</p>
+<p>I think the average visitor might not, after all, be pleased
+with Stratford Mop, which is in some ways a very barbarous
+affair; the chief barbarity of course being the roasting of oxen
+whole in the streets; a loathly spectacle, and not one calculated
+to increase respect for our ancestors, whose great idea of fit
+merry-making for very special occasions was this same roasting of
+cattle whole and making the public conduits run wine.&nbsp; The
+last sounds better, but from the accounts preserved of the wine
+dispersed at such times we know that the quantity was meagre and
+the quality exceedingly poor.</p>
+<p>But the vast crowds resorting to Stratford for the Mop see
+nothing gruesome in the spectacle.&nbsp; Special trains run from
+numerous places, and all the showmen in the country seem to have
+hurried up for the event.</p>
+<p>The streets of Stratford are broad and pleasant, with a large
+proportion of ancient houses still left; half-timbered fronts
+side by side with more or less modern brick and plaster, behind
+which often lurks a rich old interior, unknown to the casual
+passer-by.&nbsp; Sometimes a commonplace frontage is removed,
+revealing unexpected beauty in an enriched half-timber framing
+which the odd vagaries in taste of bygone generations have caused
+to be thus hidden.&nbsp; There is in this way a speculative
+interest always attaching to structural alterations in the
+town.&nbsp; In this chance fashion the fine timbering of the
+so-called &ldquo;Tudor House&rdquo; was uncovered in 1903, and
+other instances might be given.&nbsp; <a name="page39"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 39</span>Recently, also, Nash&rsquo;s House
+has been completely refronted, in fifteenth century style, wholly
+in oak.&nbsp; In fact, we might almost declare that Stratford is
+now architecturally, after many years, reverting to the like of
+the town Shakespeare knew.&nbsp; And if the modernised
+house-fronts were systematically stripped, among them that
+occupied by Messrs. W. H. Smith &amp; Son at the corner of High
+Street and Bridge Street, the house occupied for many years by
+Judith Shakespeare and her husband, Thomas Quiney, the vintner,
+Stratford would become greatly transformed.</p>
+<p>But the mention of Bridge Street is a reminder that here at
+any rate a great change has been made.&nbsp; It is the widest of
+all the streets, and is in fact a very wilderness of width.&nbsp;
+All the winds that sport about the neighbourhood seem to have
+their home in Bridge Street.&nbsp; Your hat always blows off when
+you turn the corner into it, and the dust and homeless straws go
+wandering up and down its emptiness, seeking rest in the Avon
+over the Clopton Bridge, but always blown back.&nbsp; Now Bridge
+Street was not always like this.&nbsp; In Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+time, and until 1858, when the last of it was cleared away, a
+kind of island of old houses occupied part of this roadway.&nbsp;
+It was called &ldquo;Middle Row.&rdquo;&nbsp; Such a collection
+of houses was the usual feature of old English towns.&nbsp; There
+was an example in London, in Holborn, with exactly the same name;
+but it disappeared somewhat earlier than its Stratford
+namesake.&nbsp; Pictures survive of this Bridge Street
+landmark.&nbsp; I think a good many Stratford people regret it,
+but regrets will not bring it back.&nbsp; We think of the
+irrevocable, and of Herrick&rsquo;s witch&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Old Widow Prowse, to do her neighbours
+evil,<br />
+Has given, some say, her soul unto ye Devill;<br />
+But when sh&rsquo;as killed that horse, cow, pig, or hen,<br />
+What would she give to get that soul again?&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>But the
+Stratford folk, unlike Widow Prowse, did their spiriting with the
+best intentions.&nbsp; Unfortunately, good intentions notoriously
+pave the way to hot corners.</p>
+<p>It was a very picturesque old row, with the &ldquo;Swan&rdquo;
+inn hanging out its sign; and perhaps, in these times of
+reconstructions, it may even yet be rebuilt, after the evidences
+of it that exist.</p>
+<p>In Bridge Street is another landmark in the way of literary
+associations.&nbsp; The &ldquo;Red Horse&rdquo; hotel has a
+large, dull and uninteresting plaster front, but American
+visitors find the house attractive on account of Washington
+Irving&rsquo;s stay there about a hundred years ago, when he was
+writing of Shakespeare and Shakespeare&rsquo;s country.&nbsp; The
+sitting-room he occupied is kept somewhat as a shrine to his
+memory, and the chair he fancifully called his
+&ldquo;throne&rdquo; is still there, but you may not sit in
+it.&nbsp; It is kept under lock and key, in a cupboard with glass
+doors.&nbsp; The poker he likened to his sceptre is kept
+jealously in the bar.&nbsp; Citizens of the United States ask to
+see it, and it is reverently produced and unfolded from the many
+swathings of &ldquo;Old Glory&rdquo; in which it is enwrapped:
+&ldquo;Old Glory&rdquo; being, it is necessary to explain to
+Britishers, the United States flag, the &ldquo;stars and
+stripes.&rdquo;&nbsp; Gazing upon it, they see that it is
+engraved with a dedicatory inscription by another citizen of the
+U.S.A.</p>
+<p>If you proceed down Bridge Street you come presently to the
+Clopton Bridge that crosses the Avon, and so out of the
+town.&nbsp; The bridge is one of the many works of public utility
+and practical piety executed, instituted, or ordained in his will
+by Sir Hugh Clopton, the greatest benefactor Stratford has
+known.&nbsp; A scion of that numerous family, seated at Clopton
+House a mile out of the town, he went to London and prospered as
+a mercer, becoming Lord Mayor in 1492.&nbsp; Leland, <a
+name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>writing in
+1532, quaintly tells of him and his bridge: &ldquo;Hugh Clopton
+aforesaid made also the great and sumptuous Bridge upon Avon, at
+the East ende of the Towne, which hath 14 great Arches of stone
+and a long Causey made of Stone, lowe walled on each syde, at the
+West Ende of the Bridge.&nbsp; Afor the tyme of Hugh Clopton
+there was but a poore Bridge of Tymbre, and no Causey to come to
+it; whereby many poore Folkes and others refused to come to
+<i>Stratford</i> when Avon was up, or comminge thither, stood in
+jeopardye of Lyfe.&nbsp; The Bridge ther of late tyme,&rdquo; he
+proceeds to say, &ldquo;was very smalle and ille, and at high
+Waters very hard to come by.&nbsp; Whereupon, in tyme of mynde,
+one Clopton a very rich Marchant and Mayr of London, as I
+remember, borne about <i>Strateforde</i>, having neither Wife nor
+Children, converted a great Peace of his Substance in good workes
+at <i>Stratford</i>, first making a sumptuus new Bridge and large
+of Stone when in the midle be a VI great Arches for the main
+Streame of Avon, and at eache Ende certen small Arches to bere
+the Causey, and so to pass commodiously at such tymes as the
+Ryver riseth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The bridge was widened in 1814.&nbsp; I do not think that
+great benefactor of Stratford intended that tolls should be
+charged for passing over his bridge, but in the course of time,
+such charges were made, and the very large and imposing
+toll-house that remains shows us that it is not so very long
+since the bridge has been freed again.</p>
+<p>There are many who consider the Harvard House to be the most
+delightful piece of ancient domestic work in the town, and it is
+indeed a gem.&nbsp; The history of it is absolutely clear.&nbsp;
+It was built in 1596 by one Thomas Rogers, alderman.&nbsp; His
+initials and those of his wife Alice, together with the date are
+still to be seen, carved <a name="page42"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 42</span>on the woodwork beneath the
+first-floor window.&nbsp; The carved brackets supporting the
+first floor represent the Warwick Bear and Ragged Staff and the
+bull of the Nevilles.&nbsp; The bull is easily recognisable, but
+the bear is only to be identified after considerable study, and
+looks a good deal more like a pig.&nbsp; Katharine Rogers,
+daughter of the builders of this house, married Robert Harvard of
+Southwark, butcher, in 1605.&nbsp; Almost everything in Stratford
+pivots upon Shakespeare, or is made to do so, and it is therefore
+not difficult to imagine Rogers&rsquo; beautiful little dwelling
+being erected here at the very time when Shakespeare was
+contemplating purchasing New Place, and the dramatist&rsquo;s
+interest in it.&nbsp; Rogers, being, like John Shakespeare on the
+town council, must have been very closely acquainted with the
+family.&nbsp; The Rev. John Harvard, son of Robert and Katharine,
+emigrated to the New England States of America in 1637 and died
+of consumption the following year, at Charleston, leaving one
+half of his estate, which realised &pound;779 17<i>s.</i>&nbsp;
+2<i>d.</i>, together with his library of over 300 volumes, to a
+college then in contemplation; the present Harvard University at
+Cambridge, Massachusetts, described as the oldest and among the
+richest seats of learning in the United States; although the
+&ldquo;learning&rdquo; displayed there has not yet hatched out
+any world-shaking genius; genius being, as we who visit Stratford
+cannot fail to see, a quality quite independent of the academies,
+and springing, fully-equipped to do battle with the world, in the
+most unpromising places.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p42.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Harvard House"
+title=
+"The Harvard House"
+src="images/p42.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>It is not long since the Harvard House was restored and
+dedicated to the public, and particularly to the use of Harvard
+students; in October 1909, to be precise.&nbsp; It had passed
+through various hands, and finally was offered for sale by
+auction.&nbsp; The biddings failed to <a name="page43"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 43</span>reach the reserve price and the
+property was withdrawn at &pound;950.&nbsp; Chicago, in the
+person of a wealthy native of that place, came to the rescue, and
+it was privately bought for the purpose of converting it into a
+&ldquo;house of call,&rdquo; whatever that may be, for Americans
+touring this district, and especially, as already noted, for
+students of Harvard&mdash;who obtain admission free.&nbsp; Other
+persons pay sixpence.</p>
+<p>It is a place of very great seclusion, for Harvard students
+(who mostly study the more lethal forms of football and baseball
+nowadays) are rare; and I guess if you want to track the
+Americans in Stratford, you must go to the Shakespeare Hotel,
+anyway, or to the &ldquo;Red Horse.&rdquo;&nbsp; The house was in
+the occupation of a firm of auctioneers and land agents until the
+purchase.&nbsp; The &ldquo;restoration&rdquo; of the exterior has
+been very carefully and conservatively done, and the interior
+discloses some particularly beautiful half-timbered rooms.</p>
+<p>From time to time it seems good to amiable and well-meaning
+persons to set up &ldquo;Shakespeare memorials&rdquo; in
+Stratford, and it is equally amiable in the town to accept
+them.&nbsp; Thus we see in Rother Street an ornate gothic
+drinking-fountain and clock-tower, the &ldquo;American Memorial
+Fountain,&rdquo; given in 1887 by that wealthy Shakespearean
+collector, George W. Childs, proprietor of the <i>Philadelphia
+Ledger</i>.&nbsp; It includes also the function of a memorial of
+the first Victorian Jubilee.&nbsp; Shakespearean quotations adorn
+it, including the apposite one from <i>Timon of Athens</i>:
+&ldquo;Honest water, which ne&rsquo;er left man i&rsquo;
+th&rsquo; mire.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Shakespeare serves the turn of every man, and if you like
+your beer, you can set against this the equally Shakespearean
+quotation, &ldquo;A quart of ale is a dish for a king.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Memorial Fountain rather misses being stately, <a
+name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>and it would
+be better if the quarter chimes of its clock did not hurry so
+over their business, as if they wanted life to go quicker, and
+time itself to be done with.&nbsp; Amity is the note of Mr.
+Childs&rsquo; fountain, and the &ldquo;merry songs of
+peace&rdquo; are the subject of one of the carved quotations:
+that is why the British Lion and the American Eagle alternate in
+effigy at the angles, supporting their respective national
+shields of arms.&nbsp; The British Lion looks tame and the
+American Eagle is a weird fowl wearing the chastened
+&ldquo;dearly beloved brethren&rdquo; expression of a preacher at
+a camp meeting.</p>
+<p>The Shakespeare Memorial by the riverside is the partial
+realisation of a project first considered in 1769, at the jubilee
+presided over by Garrick, revived in 1821 and again in
+1864.&nbsp; This was an idea for a national memorial, to include
+a school of acting: possibly with Shakespeare&rsquo;s own very
+excellent advice to actors, which he placed in the mouth of
+Hamlet, set up in gilded words of wisdom in its halls.&nbsp; The
+school for actors has not yet come into being, but at the annual
+festivals, when Shakespearean companies take the boards in the
+theatre which forms a prominent part of the Memorial, you may
+witness quaint new readings of the dramatist&rsquo;s
+intentions.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p44.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Harvard House: Panel Room"
+title=
+"The Harvard House: Panel Room"
+src="images/p44.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The great pile of buildings standing by the beautiful Bancroft
+gardens, in fine grounds of its own beside the river,
+&ldquo;comprises,&rdquo; as auctioneers and house agents might
+say, the theatre aforesaid, a library, and picture gallery.&nbsp;
+It was built 1877&ndash;79 from funds raised by a Memorial
+Association founded by Mr. Charles E. Flower of
+Stratford-on-Avon, and very widely supported.&nbsp; The
+architect, W. F. Unsworth, whose name does not seem to be very
+generally known, has produced a very imposing, and on the whole,
+satisfactory composition, whose shape was largely determined by
+that of the <a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+45</span>original Globe Theatre of Shakespeare&rsquo;s own time
+in Southwark.&nbsp; It is of red brick and stone, and a distinct
+ornament to the town and the riverside, although its gothic
+appears to have here and there a rather Continental
+flavour.&nbsp; A little more pronounced, it might seem almost
+Rhenish.&nbsp; But let us be sufficiently thankful the Memorial
+did not take shape in Garrick&rsquo;s day, when it would
+certainly have assumed some terrible neo-classic form.&nbsp;
+There are some particularly good and charming gargoyles over the
+entrance, notably that of Puck carrying that ass&rsquo;s head
+with which Bottom the Weaver was &ldquo;translated,&rdquo; in
+<i>Midsummer Night&rsquo;s Dream</i>.&nbsp; A sketch of it
+appears on the title-page of this book.&nbsp; I do not think a
+description of the theatre, the library, or the picture gallery
+would serve the object of these pages, and I do not propose to
+describe the monument designed, executed and presented by Lord
+Ronald Gower, because that is done in every guide-book, and
+because I do not like that extremely amateurish and
+flagrantly-overpraised work: may the elements speedily obliterate
+it!</p>
+<p>Quick-growing poplars have reached great heights since the
+buildings were first opened, and the Theatre and Memorial is
+being rapidly obscured by them.&nbsp; It looks its best from the
+Clopton Bridge, and combines with Holy Trinity church to render
+the town, viewed from the other side of the Avon, a place of
+considerable majesty and romance.</p>
+<p>Crossing either that ancient bridge to the &ldquo;Swan&rsquo;s
+Nest&rdquo; inn which has become subdued to the poetry in the
+Stratford air and has abandoned its old name, the &ldquo;Shoulder
+of Mutton,&rdquo; we may roam the meadows opposite the
+town.&nbsp; Or we may equally well cross the river by the long
+and narrow red brick tramway bridge, built in 1826 for the
+purposes of the <a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+46</span>Stratford-on-Avon and Shipston-on-Stour Tramway: an
+ill-fated but heroic project that immediately preceded steam
+railways.&nbsp; The Great Western Railway appears to have some
+ownership in the bridge, and by notice threatens awful
+penalties&mdash;something a little less than eternal
+punishment&mdash;to those who look upon&mdash;or cycle
+upon&mdash;it.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p46.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon"
+title=
+"Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon"
+src="images/p46.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Somehow we reach those free and open meadows over against the
+town where the Avon runs broad and deep down to the mill and the
+ruined lock, just opposite the church.&nbsp; It is from these
+meadows that the <a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+47</span>accompanying drawing of the church was taken.&nbsp; The
+breadth of the river between the Clopton Bridge and the church is
+exceptional, and gives a great nobility to the town.&nbsp; Both
+above and below these points it becomes much narrower, and the
+navigation down stream is a thing of the past.&nbsp; The Avon
+down to Binton and up beyond Charlecote is, in fact, rendered
+impassable by difficulties created by the Lucy family of
+Charlecote, and by the Earl of Warwick.&nbsp; Private ownership
+in navigable or semi-navigable streams is an ancient and
+complicated affair concerned with rights of fishing, of weirs and
+mill-leets, and other abstruse and immemorial manorial
+privileges, and it has furnished the lawyers with many a fat
+brief.&nbsp; It has cost the Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon
+&pound;700 in recent years, in a dispute about this ruined lock
+and the impeded access to the river past the church and the mill,
+to the other decayed lock at Luddington.&nbsp; The Lucys gained
+the day, and that is why we cannot go boating down the river from
+Stratford.</p>
+<p>We may cross the stream just below this point, by a
+footbridge, and come into the town again past the big corn-mill
+whose ancient ownership caused all this trouble.&nbsp; The
+present building is only about a century old, but it is the
+representative of the original mill that stood on this spot over
+a thousand years ago, and belonged then and long afterwards to
+the Bishops of Worcester.&nbsp; The exquisite humour of the
+manorial law ordained not only that the people of Stratford were
+under obligation to have their corn ground here, but that they
+were also made to pay for it.&nbsp; And as competitive millers
+were thus barred, there can be no doubt but that corn-milling was
+an expensive item.&nbsp; The old churchmen loved eels, useful for
+Friday&rsquo;s dish, and the Bishops of Worcester were sometimes
+accustomed to <a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+48</span>take consignments of them in place of money payments for
+use of the mill.</p>
+<p>The possibilities of the Avon in the matter of floods are very
+eloquently set forth on the walls of this mill: the astonishing
+high-water marks of floods for a century past being marked.&nbsp;
+Scanning them, it seems strange that mill and church and a good
+part of the town itself have not been washed away.</p>
+<p>Passing through Old Town into Church Street, the fine
+Elizabethan three-gabled residence seen on the way, on the right
+hand, is Hall&rsquo;s Croft, the home of Dr. John Hall, Susanna
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s husband, before they removed to New Place
+following upon Shakespeare&rsquo;s death.&nbsp; The old
+mulberry-tree in the beautiful garden at the back of the house is
+said to have been planted by her.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p48.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Memorial Theatre"
+title=
+"The Memorial Theatre"
+src="images/p48.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+49</span>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+Birthplace&mdash;Restoration, of sorts&mdash;The business of the
+Showman&mdash;The Birthplace Museum&mdash;The Shakespearean
+garden.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">To</span> Henley Street most visitors to
+Stratford-on-Avon first turn their steps; a little disappointed
+to discover that it is by no means the best street in the town
+and must have been rather a poor outskirt at the time when John
+Shakespeare came in from Snitterfield, to set up business in a
+small way.&nbsp; There is, as the sentimental pilgrim will very
+soon discover for himself, a plentiful lack of sentiment nowadays
+in the business of showing Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace.&nbsp;
+For it is a business, and conducted as it is on extremely
+hard-headed lines, yields a considerable profit; a profit
+disposed of strictly according to the terms on which the
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace Trust is defined in its
+Parliamentary powers.&nbsp; Enough has already been said to show
+the sensitive soul that his sensibilities are apt to be extremely
+tried when he comes this way; but then, to be sure, there can be
+but a small proportion of such among the 40,000 persons who
+annually pay their sixpences (and another to see the Birthplace
+Museum next door).&nbsp; Sometimes, when the dog-star rages and
+tourists most do gad about, a solid phalanx of visitors, each
+provided with his ticket from the office down the street, will be
+found lined up, waiting, like the queues outside the London
+theatres, for earlier arrivals to be quickly disposed of.&nbsp;
+The bloom of sentiment, as delicate as that upon a plum or peach,
+is rudely rubbed off by these things, by rules and regulations
+and the numbered ticket; but the very fame of Shakespeare and the
+increasing number of visitors who have, or think they
+have&mdash;or at the very least of it think they ought to
+have&mdash;an intelligent interest in a great man&rsquo;s
+birthplace brings about this horrid nemesis of the professional
+showman.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page50"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 50</span>
+<a href="images/p50.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace"
+title=
+"Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace"
+src="images/p50.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>If you
+be a little exacting, and would keep the full freshness, the
+sweetest savour of hero-worship, be content not to see the
+Birthplace, and especially not that garden at the back of
+it.&nbsp; It was not, you know it quite well, in the least like
+this when John Shakespeare lived here and had his wool-store next
+door, where the Birthplace Museum is now, and sometimes bought
+and sold corn or carried on the trade of glover.&nbsp; The place
+has had so many changes of fortune, the appearance of the
+exterior itself has been so utterly changed and so conjecturally
+restored, that the thinking man loses a good deal of
+confidence.&nbsp; And the interior: the rooms without furniture
+or sign of habitation are like a body whence the soul has
+fled.</p>
+<p>The building did not, for one thing, stand alone as it does
+now, the houses on either side having been pulled down after it
+was purchased in 1848; with the, of course, entirely admirable
+idea of the better lessening its risk from fire.&nbsp; The
+effect, and that of the hedges with their hairpin railings, is to
+give the place the very superior appearance of a private
+house.&nbsp; If old John Shakespeare could be summoned back and
+taken for a walk along Henley Street, he would be surprised at
+many things, but by none more than by the odd disappearance of
+every man&rsquo;s midden and the altered appearance of his own
+house.&nbsp; He would wonder what had become of his shop, and
+assume no doubt that the occupier had made his fortune and
+retired into private life.&nbsp; He would <a
+name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>not know that
+it is still a place of business, and among the best-paying ones
+in Stratford, too.</p>
+<p>William Shakespeare succeeded to the property of his father,
+and in his turn willed this Henley Street dwelling-house to his
+sister, Joan Hart, for life.&nbsp; She had become a widow a few
+days only before his death, but herself survived until
+1646.&nbsp; The woolshop&mdash;now the Museum part&mdash;he left
+to his daughter Susanna, who on the death of her aunt came into
+possession of all the building.&nbsp; At her decease, being the
+last descendant of her father, she willed it to Thomas Hart, the
+grandson of her aunt, Joan Hart.&nbsp; From him it descended to
+his brother George, who in his own lifetime gave it to his son,
+Shakespeare Hart, whose widow passed it on to another George
+Hart, nephew of her late husband.&nbsp; In 1778 George was
+gathered to his fathers and Thomas, his son, reigned in his
+stead; in 1793 leaving what had been the woolshop to his son John
+and the Birthplace to his son Thomas, who three years later made
+over his share to his brother John.&nbsp; On the death of this
+person in 1800 the property passed to his wife for the remainder
+of her life, and then to his three children, as
+co-partners.&nbsp; Since early in the eighteenth century it had
+been mortgaged up to the hilt, and the three partners were
+practically obliged to sell in 1806.&nbsp; Thus the last remote
+link with Shakespeare&rsquo;s kin was severed.&nbsp; Thomas
+Court, the purchaser, died in 1818, and on the death of his wife
+in 1847 the house was purchased by public subscription, on behalf
+of the nation.&nbsp; This transaction was completed in the
+following year, at a cost of &pound;3000, the purchase being in
+1866 handed over to the Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon, who
+held it in trust until the incorporation of the Shakespeare
+Birthplace Trust in 1891.</p>
+<p>In all this time the structure suffered many changes, the
+former woolshop being opened as an inn, the <a
+name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+53</span>&ldquo;Maidenhead,&rdquo; even in Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+own time, 1603.&nbsp; Later it became the &ldquo;Swan and
+Maidenhead,&rdquo; and had its front new-faced with brick in
+1808.&nbsp; Meanwhile, the Birthplace had in 1784 become a
+butcher&rsquo;s shop, hanging out the sign board &ldquo;The
+immortal Shakespeare was born in this house.&rdquo;&nbsp; In the
+course of these changes the dormer windows had disappeared, about
+1800, and the whole was in a very dilapidated state.&nbsp; The
+restoration work of 1857&ndash;58, renewing the vanished dormers
+in the roof, pulling down the brick front and reinstating a
+timber-framed elevation, and generally placing the building again
+in a weather-proof condition, cost nearly a further
+&pound;3000.</p>
+<p>Photographs scarcely give a correct impression of the exterior
+as thus restored.&nbsp; They reproduce the form, but not the true
+tone and quality of the timber and plaster, and in truth they
+make the house look better than it is.&nbsp; The quality of the
+exterior materials is not convincing and makes the house look
+very unauthentically new.&nbsp; The timbers and the plaster may
+be even better than they were in John Shakespeare&rsquo;s time,
+but we do not wish them to be, and there is a spruceness and a
+kind of parlourmaidenly neatness about the place which we feel
+quite sure the man who was fined for having a muck-heap in front
+of his house, and for not keeping his gutter clean never
+knew.&nbsp; Painted woodwork, mathematically true, and the kind
+of plaster facing we see here were unknown in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries.&nbsp; Roughly split oak formed both interior
+and exterior framing to John Shakespeare&rsquo;s house, and the
+houses of his neighbours, and it was only in Victorian times that
+the neatness and the soullessness expressed here became the
+obsession of craftsmen.&nbsp; In short, they do these things much
+more convincingly to-day at Earl&rsquo;s Court.</p>
+<p>Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who is a very much greater <a
+name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>person than
+Columbus and discovered America in the monetary sense, while
+Columbus only added to his geographical knowledge and not to his
+wealth, has also discovered Stratford-on-Avon, and has generously
+given the town a public library and the Trustees of the
+Birthplace two old cottages, all in Henley Street.&nbsp; At the
+offices you purchase tickets for the Birthplace and the
+Birthplace Museum, and may well, before doing so, look into that
+public library, formed out of one of those ancient timber-framed
+houses Stratford is fortunate enough to possess in
+profusion.&nbsp; It is a charmingly remodelled building, very
+well worth inspection.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p54.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Kitchen, Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace"
+title=
+"The Kitchen, Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace"
+src="images/p54.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But let us to the Birthplace.&nbsp; At the door we are met by
+a caretaker.&nbsp; If it be late in the day he will be a little,
+or possibly very, husky.&nbsp; In any case he is hurried.&nbsp;
+He hastens us into a stone-floored room in <a
+name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>which a
+multitude of people are already waiting.&nbsp; They look as if
+they were attending an inquest, or, at the best of it, a seance,
+and expected every moment to be called upon to view the body, or
+to hear knockings or see ghostly shapes.&nbsp; He shuts the
+door.&nbsp; It is a solemn moment, and in the passing of it we do
+actually hear knockings, loud and impatient&mdash;but they are
+not spirits from the vasty deep: only other and impatient
+visitors who have paid their sixpences.&nbsp; But they must
+wait.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is the house where Shakespeare was born.&nbsp; You
+will be shown presently the actual room where he was born,
+upstairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It became a butcher&rsquo;s shop afterwards,
+didn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; asks some one.&nbsp; The showman looks
+grieved: the interruption throws him out of gear, like a bent
+penny in a slot machine.&nbsp; Besides, it isn&rsquo;t in the
+programme.&nbsp; &ldquo;You must excuse me, sir, and not keep
+people waiting.&nbsp; This was the living room.&nbsp; The chimney
+corner remains exactly as it was when Shakespeare was a
+boy.&nbsp; Have you tickets for the Museum?&nbsp; Those who have
+will go through that door to the right.&nbsp; This room at the
+back is the kitchen.&nbsp; If you will ascend the staircase, you
+will be shown the birth-room.&nbsp; Mind the step.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A dark steep climb, and a narrow passage leads into the former
+front bedroom.&nbsp; It is almost entirely bare, only an old
+chair or two and an old coffer emphasising its nakedness.&nbsp;
+The rough plaster walls and the ceiling are appallingly dirty;
+Mrs. Shakespeare would be thoroughly ashamed of it, if she could
+but revisit her home.&nbsp; A plaster cast of the inevitable
+Shakespeare bust stands in the room, sometimes on the coffer, and
+sometimes on a spindly-legged table, and looks with serene
+amusement upon the proceedings.&nbsp; The old person who used to
+show the birth-room has apparently been superseded.&nbsp; She
+used to patronise the bust, and afforded some people <a
+name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>much secret
+amusement.&nbsp; &ldquo;Plenty room &rsquo;ere for the mighty
+brain,&rdquo; she would say, drawing her hand across that broad
+and lofty brow; &ldquo;there will never be more than one
+Shakespeare, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p56.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Room in which Shakespeare was born"
+title=
+"The Room in which Shakespeare was born"
+src="images/p56.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The present attendants have less time for that kind of thing,
+and hurry on with their mechanical tale.&nbsp; Why don&rsquo;t
+the Trustees economise, and get a gramophone?&nbsp; &ldquo;This
+is the room where Shakespeare was born.&nbsp; The furniture you
+see does not belong to his time.&nbsp; Some of the glass in the
+window is original; you can tell it by the green tint.&nbsp; Them
+laths, sir, in the ceiling?&nbsp; They&rsquo;re iron, and put up
+to preserve the original ceiling.&nbsp; No one is allowed in the
+room above.&nbsp; The ceiling and the walls, as you will observe,
+are covered with names.&nbsp; Before visitors&rsquo; books were
+provided, visitors were invited to write their names here.&nbsp;
+You will see that they have fully availed themselves of the
+privilege, and those who had diamond <a name="page57"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 57</span>rings have scratched theirs on the
+window-panes.&nbsp; Here you will see the signature of General
+Tom Thumb, who visited the Birthplace with his wife.&nbsp; His
+name was Stratton.&nbsp; Its position, not very much higher than
+the skirting-board, shows his height.&nbsp; Helen Faucit&rsquo;s
+name appears on the beam overhead.&nbsp; Sir Walter Scott&rsquo;s
+name, and Thomas Carlyle&rsquo;s will be seen on the
+window.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>We take these and all other signatures on trust, for they are
+nearly every one terrible scrawls, and are all so extremely
+crowded together, and the plaster is so dirty, and the glass so
+nearly opaque that with this and with that they are hardly ever
+legible.</p>
+<p>In a back room hangs an oil portrait of Shakespeare: the
+so-called &ldquo;Stratford&rdquo; portrait, bought in 1860 by
+William Hunt, the town clerk, together with the old house in
+which it then hung.&nbsp; It has been cleaned and restored and
+elaborately framed, and it will be observed that it is further
+guarded by being enclosed in a steel safe: extraordinary
+precautions in behalf of a work which is almost certainly
+spurious.</p>
+<p>And so we descend and sign the visitors&rsquo; book.&nbsp; A
+very bulky volume is filled in less than a year, and still the
+number grows.&nbsp; There were 27,038 visitors in 1896, and
+49,117 in 1910.&nbsp; The extremely fine and lengthy summer of
+1911 did not, as might have been supposed, bring a record
+return.&nbsp; On the contrary, the numbers fell in that year to
+40,300.</p>
+<p>Returning to the kitchen, where in the yawning chimney-place a
+bacon cupboard will be noticed, we leave by the garden at the
+back.&nbsp; But meanwhile the Birthplace Museum has been left
+undescribed.&nbsp; Visitors who have sprung a sixpence for that
+are taken through from the front room, the living-room.&nbsp;
+Here are kept many and various articles more or less associated
+with Shakespeare, and some that have no connection with <a
+name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>him at
+all.&nbsp; The most interesting are the documents relating to
+this house; the original letter written by Richard Quincy to
+Shakespeare in 1598; and a deed with the signature of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s brother Gilbert, who was a draper or
+haberdasher in London, dated 1609.&nbsp; A desk from the Grammar
+School, the chair from the &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; at Bidford, in
+which Shakespeare is supposed to have sat, portraits, prints; a
+perfect copy of the 1623 First Folio edition of the plays,
+purchased at the Ashburnham Sale in 1898, and other rare
+editions, make up the collection, together with a sword said to
+have been Shakespeare&rsquo;s, and an interesting gold
+signet-ring, with the initials &ldquo;W. S.&rdquo; entwined with
+a true-lover&rsquo;s knot, found in a field outside the town,
+near the church, early in the nineteenth century.&nbsp; It is
+said to have been Shakespeare&rsquo;s ring, but scarcely
+sufficient stress seems to be laid upon the undoubted
+authenticity of it.&nbsp; Shakespeare&rsquo;s will, drafted in
+January 1616, originally bore the concluding words: &ldquo;In
+witness whereof I have hereunto put my seale,&rdquo; but this was
+afterwards altered to &ldquo;hand,&rdquo; the assumption being
+that it was the loss of this signet ring which necessitated the
+alteration.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p58.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Shakespeare&rsquo;s Signet-Ring"
+title=
+"Shakespeare&rsquo;s Signet-Ring"
+src="images/p58.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Haydon, the painter, wrote to Keats in 1818, about the
+discovery, &ldquo;My dear Keats, I shall go mad!&nbsp; In a field
+at Stratford-on-Avon, that belonged to Shakespeare, they have
+found a gold ring and seal with the initials &lsquo;W.S.,&rsquo;
+and a true-lover&rsquo;s knot between.&nbsp; If this is not
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s whose is it?&nbsp; I saw an impression
+to-day, and am to have one as soon as possible: as sure as you
+live and breathe, and that he was the first of beings, the seal
+belonged to him, O, Lord!&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>Among
+the exhibits in the Museum are the town weights and measures, the
+sword of state, and altogether some fine miscellaneous feeding
+for the curio-fancier.</p>
+<p>The cellars under the building are not shown, nor is the
+western part of it, where the town archives are stored.</p>
+<p>The garden at the back is laid out in beds planted with the
+flowers mentioned by Shakespeare in his works, and in the middle
+of the well-kept gravelled path is the base of the ancient town
+cross which formerly stood at the intersection of Bridge Street
+and High Street.&nbsp; It is a pleasant place, and its present
+condition is the result of care, the outcome of much pious
+thought.&nbsp; But we may declare with all the emphatic language
+at our command, that when William Shakespeare and his brothers
+Gilbert, Richard and Edmund, and his sister Joan played out here
+in the back yard, it was very little of a garden, and not at all
+tidy unless they were angel-children, which we have no occasion
+to suppose.&nbsp; It seems to have been originally an orchard,
+but no doubt Mr. John Shakespeare put it to some use in
+connection with the several trades he followed.</p>
+<p>The piety is undoubted, but it is a little overdone, and
+everything is in sample.&nbsp; They are not very good specimens
+of marigolds we see here, but still they are obviously marigolds,
+and we do not&mdash;no really we don&rsquo;t&mdash;need the label
+that identifies them and the other flowers.&nbsp; We can quite
+easily recognise the winking Mary-bud, that beautiful flower
+whose golden eyes are among the loveliest blossoms in an
+old-fashioned garden; we know the rose, the jasmine, the
+gillyflower, the sunflower, the stock, the ladysmock, and the
+whole delightful posy, and wonder who and what those folk may be
+who cannot recognise them, and require these cast-iron labels for
+their information.</p>
+<h2><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+60</span>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">Church Street&mdash;The &ldquo;Castle&rdquo;
+inn&mdash;The Guild Chapel, Guild Hall, and Grammar
+School&mdash;New Place.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Church Street</span> is the most likeable
+of all the streets of Stratford.&nbsp; There you do not, in point
+of fact, actually see the church, which is out away beyond the
+end of it.&nbsp; The features of this quiet and yet not dull
+thoroughfare are the few and scattered shops in among private
+houses, and a quaint old inn of unusual design, the
+&ldquo;Windmill.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is illustrated here, and so the
+effective frontage, with its row of singularly bold dormer
+windows need not be more particularly described.&nbsp; The
+interior is almost equally interesting, and has a deep ingle-nook
+with one of those bacon-cupboards that are so numerously found in
+the town and district.&nbsp; It is a house that attracts and
+holds the observant man&rsquo;s attention, and it has been so
+greatly admired by an American visitor that a complete set of
+architectural drawings was made for him and an exact replica
+built in Chicago a few years ago.</p>
+<p>Opposite the &ldquo;Windmill&rdquo; inn is a fine Georgian
+mansion called &ldquo;Mason Croft,&rdquo; obviously once occupied
+by a person of importance, many years since.&nbsp; But the chief
+feature of Church Street is the long range of half-timbered
+buildings with its striking row of massive chimney-stacks, ending
+with the imposing stone tower of the Guild Chapel.&nbsp; It is
+entirely right that these buildings should bulk so largely to the
+eye, for in them is centred the greater part of Stratford&rsquo;s
+history.&nbsp; They are the timeworn and venerable buildings of
+that ancient Guild of <a name="page61"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 61</span>Holy Cross whose beginnings are in
+the dim past and have never been definitely fixed.&nbsp; The
+earliest facts relating to the Guild take the story of it back to
+1269, when its first Chapel was begun, and when the
+semi-religious character of the fraternity was its more important
+half.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p61.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The &ldquo;Windmill&rdquo; Inn"
+title=
+"The &ldquo;Windmill&rdquo; Inn"
+src="images/p61.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The Guild may be likened to a mutual benefit society of modern
+times, with the addition of the religious element.&nbsp; It was
+founded in superstition, but lived that down and became not only
+an institution of the greatest service, but also the originator
+of the Grammar School, and an informal town council and local
+authority, which, strangely enough, in its later and almost
+wholly secularised character, withstood the exactions of the
+Bishops of Worcester, the old-time lords of the manor and their
+stewards, and finally, after being dissolved in <a
+name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>1547, was
+re-constituted as the town council of the newly incorporated
+borough in 1553.</p>
+<p>The original form of the Guild was that of a subscription
+society for men and women.&nbsp; Its benefits, unlike those of
+the Foresters and the Oddfellows of to-day, were chiefly
+spiritual.&nbsp; It employed priests to look after the religious
+needs of its members during life and to pray for the health of
+their souls after death.&nbsp; It secured these then greatly
+desired benefits at a reduced rate, just as the modern benefit
+society employs the club doctor.&nbsp; It also in many ways
+promoted kindliness and good-fellowship, helped the poor, and
+often found husbands for unappropriated spinsters by the simple
+process of endowing them.&nbsp; This was all to the good.&nbsp;
+Somewhat later the Guild espoused the cause of education, and
+certainly had a grammar school at the close of the fourteenth
+century, payments to the schoolmaster being the subject of
+allusion in the Guild&rsquo;s archives in 1402.&nbsp; Once a year
+the entire membership went in stately procession to church, and
+returning to the Guild Hall indulged in one of those gargantuan
+feasts whose records are the amazement of modern readers.&nbsp;
+Of the 103 pullets, and of the geese and the beef recorded to
+have been consumed at one of these feasts in the beginning of the
+fifteenth century we say nothing, but on the same occasion they
+drank &ldquo;34 gallons of good beer,&rdquo; and &ldquo;39
+gallons of small ale,&rdquo; perhaps on the well-known old
+principle that &ldquo;good eating deserveth good
+drinking.&rdquo;&nbsp; The 73 gallons of ale not being enough
+they sent out and had some more in by the cistern, a method which
+seems determined and heroic.&nbsp; The account thus includes
+&ldquo;1 cestern of penyale,&rdquo; for which they paid the
+equivalent of eight shillings, and &ldquo;2 cesterns of good beer
+bought from Agnes Iremonger for 3<i>s.</i>&rdquo;; that is to
+say, about twenty-four shillings&rsquo; worth.&nbsp; They seem <a
+name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>to have had
+enough, &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis merry in hall when beards wag
+all,&rdquo; and there can be no doubt that the company who on
+this occasion drank pottle-deep were merry enough.</p>
+<p>The Guild also added morality plays to its entertainments; but
+all these lively proceedings formed but one side to its
+activities.&nbsp; It fulfilled many of the functions of local
+government, and strictly too, and its aldermen and proctors were
+officials not likely to be disregarded.&nbsp; The authority of
+the Guild was supported by its wealth, contributed by the
+benefactions of the members, which rendered it in course of time,
+after the lord of the manor, the largest landowner in and about
+the town.</p>
+<p>It was not so great a change when the old Guild was
+reconstructed and became the town council.&nbsp; By that time it
+had ceased its early care for the future of its members&rsquo;
+souls, and had become in some of its developments much more like
+a Chamber of Commerce.&nbsp; But it had not forgotten to make
+merry and its love-feasts continued, and its morality plays with
+them, although they had become a little more after the secular
+model.</p>
+<p>These traditions were continued into the town council, as they
+could scarcely fail to be, for the members of that body had been
+also officials of the Guild.&nbsp; John Shakespeare, high Bailiff
+in 1569, was responsible for inviting a company of actors to
+perform in the Guild Hall, and others did the like.</p>
+<p>The Guild Chapel, founded in 1296 and largely rebuilt by the
+generosity of Sir Hugh Clopton in the fifteenth century, is the
+chief of the Guild&rsquo;s old buildings.&nbsp; It is not now of
+much practical use, but of venerable aspect and considerable
+beauty.&nbsp; The tower, porch and nave are Clopton&rsquo;s work,
+the beautiful porch still displaying his shield of arms and that
+of the City of London, although <a name="page64"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 64</span>greatly weathered and defaced.&nbsp;
+He did not touch the chancel, which had already been restored;
+and the exterior still shows by force of contrast the greatness
+of Clopton&rsquo;s gift; his nave entirely overshadowing in its
+comparative bulk the humble proportions of the chancel.&nbsp;
+Frankness is at least as desirable a quality in a book as in the
+affairs of life, and so it may at once be admitted that the
+interior of the Guild Chapel is extremely disappointing.&nbsp; It
+is coldly whitewashed, and the ancient frescoes discovered a
+hundred years ago have faded away.&nbsp; They included a fine, if
+alarming to some minds, representation of the doom, a
+fifteenth-century notion of the Judgment Day.&nbsp; Alarming to
+some minds because of the very high percentage of the damned
+disclosed at this awful balancing of accounts.&nbsp;
+Illustrations of this, among the other frescoes, survive, and
+have a fearful interest.&nbsp; It is pleasing to see the towering
+mansions of the Blest on the left hand, with St. Peter waiting at
+the open door welcoming that, ah! so small band; but on the
+right, where green, pink and blue pig-faced devils with
+asses&rsquo; ears are tormenting their prey, whanging them with
+bludgeons and raking them in with three-pronged prokers, casting
+them into Hell&rsquo;s Mouth, and finally roasting them in a
+furnace, the prospect is vile.&nbsp; Shakespeare must have been
+perfectly familiar with these horrific things, and
+Falstaff&rsquo;s likening of a flea on Bardolph&rsquo;s fiery
+nose to a &ldquo;black soul burning in hell fire,&rdquo; looks
+very like a vivid recollection of them.&nbsp; Some day, perhaps,
+when the Shakespearean cult at Stratford is more advanced (it is
+only in its youth yet) these frescoes will be renewed, from the
+careful records of them that have been kept.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page65"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 65</span>
+<a href="images/p65.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Guild Chapel, Guild Hall, Grammar School and Almshouses"
+title=
+"Guild Chapel, Guild Hall, Grammar School and Almshouses"
+src="images/p65.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>The
+lengthy line of the Guild Hall and the almshouses of the Guild is
+one of the most effective things in the town.&nbsp; It dates from
+1417.&nbsp; For many years, until 1894, the stout timbering was
+hidden away beneath plaster, and few suspected the simple beauty
+of the honest old oak framing hidden beneath.&nbsp; The plaster
+was spread over it <i>to preserve the oak from the
+weather</i>.&nbsp; Let us italicise that choice specimen of
+stupidity, not because it is unique or even rare, for it is found
+all over the country, and elsewhere in this very town of
+Stratford, and here and everywhere else it is at last being found
+out; but because the italics are needed somewhere, to drive home
+the peculiar dunderheadedness of it.&nbsp; I think perhaps, after
+all, plaster was coated over old timbering, not so much for the
+preservation of it as because generations had been born who could
+not endure the uneven lines of the old work.&nbsp; The woodwork
+of those later heirs of time was true to a hair&rsquo;s breadth
+and planed down to an orderly smoothness: not riven anyhow from
+the logs.&nbsp; A conflict of ideals had arisen, and the new era
+was ashamed of the handiwork of the old.</p>
+<p>There have been times when architects were also ashamed of
+their chimneys, and disguised them and hid them away, as though a
+chimney were an unnatural thing for a house and to be abated and
+apologised for.&nbsp; The only time to apologise for a chimney is
+when it smokes inside the house instead of out; and it is
+pleasant to see that whoever designed and built the long and
+lofty range of chimneys that rises, almost like a series of
+towers, from this roof ridge, had not the least idea of excusing
+them.</p>
+<p>The hall of the Guild occupies almost half the length of the
+lower floor.&nbsp; The remainder forms the almshouses formerly
+occupied by the poorer brethren of the Guild and still housing
+the pensioners enjoying their share of the Clopton
+benefactions.&nbsp; They wear on the right arm a silver badge
+displaying the Clopton cross, <a name="page67"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 67</span>a cross heraldically described as a
+&ldquo;cross patt&eacute;e fitch&eacute;e at foot.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The interior of the Guild Hall displays firstly that long
+ground-floor hall in which the Guild members met and feasted or
+transacted business, and where their morality plays and the
+entertainments given by their successors, the earlier town
+councils, were acted.&nbsp; Here such travelling companies as
+those who called themselves &ldquo;the Earl of Leicester&rsquo;s
+servants,&rdquo; and other troupes of actors, occasionally
+performed.&nbsp; Shakespeare as a boy must have seen them, and
+thus probably had his attention first directed to the stage as a
+career.</p>
+<p>From this long hall the room variously styled the
+&ldquo;Armoury,&rdquo; or the small Council Chamber or
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Greeing Room,&rdquo; is entered.&nbsp; This
+Agreeing Room, perhaps for the inner councils of the Guild, was
+re-panelled about 1619, when the door leading from the hall was
+built; and as a sign of rejoicing, the royal arms were painted
+over the fireplace at the time of the Restoration of Charles the
+Second, in 1660.&nbsp; Here also at one time the arms of the town
+guard were kept.</p>
+<p>The present School Library, overhead, occupies the room under
+the roof, formerly the large Council Chamber of the Guild.&nbsp;
+The heraldic white and red roses painted on the west wall, the
+red countercharged with a white centre and the white with red,
+were placed there in 1485, marking the satisfaction of the
+townsfolk at the marriage of Henry the Seventh with Elizabeth of
+York, and the union of the rival Houses of York and
+Lancaster.</p>
+<p>Out of this room opens the Latin Schoolroom of the Grammar
+School.&nbsp; The first portion of it was once separate, and
+known as the Mathematical Room.&nbsp; Here we are on the scene of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s schooldays, the schoolroom where he learnt
+that &ldquo;small Latin and less Greek,&rdquo; with which Ben
+Jonson credited him; a room <a name="page68"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 68</span>still used in the education of
+Stratford boys.&nbsp; He pictured the schoolboy of his own and
+every other time in the lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;The
+whining schoolboy, with his satchel<br />
+And shining morning face, creeping like a snail<br />
+Unwillingly to school.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>How unwillingly we do not fully comprehend until we look more
+closely into the schooling of those days.&nbsp; It was a
+twelve-hour day, begun extremely early in the morning, and
+continued through the weary hours with some exercise of the
+rod.</p>
+<p>We know exactly who were the masters of the Grammar School in
+the years 1571 to 1580, when Shakespeare received his education
+here, in common with the other children of the town.&nbsp; They
+were Walter Roche, who was a Fellow of Corpus Christi College,
+Oxford, and afterwards rector of Clifford Chambers; succeeded in
+1572 by Thomas Hunt, afterwards curate-in-charge at Luddington;
+and in 1577 by Thomas Jenkins, of St. John&rsquo;s College,
+Oxford.&nbsp; These may have been pedants, but they were
+scholars, and qualified to impart an excellent education.&nbsp;
+They were in fact men distinctly above the average of the
+schoolmasters of that age, and live for all time in the
+characters of Holofernes in <i>Love&rsquo;s Labour&rsquo;s
+Lost</i> and Sir Hugh Evans in the <i>Merry Wives of Windsor</i>;
+the title &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; being one, not of knighthood, but of
+courtesy, given to a clergyman.&nbsp; Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+allusions to schools, masters and scholars, and his Latin
+conversations in the plays, modelled on the school methods then
+in vogue, are much more numerous and illuminative than generally
+supposed.&nbsp; We find, indeed, an especially intimate touch
+with Shakespeare&rsquo;s schooldays in the description of
+Malvolio in <i>Twelfth Night</i> as &ldquo;like a pedant that
+keeps school i&rsquo; the church&rdquo;; a remark whose
+significance is not evident until we read that during
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s own schooldays the buildings were extensively
+repaired and that for a time the master and pupils were housed in
+the Guild Chapel.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page69"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 69</span>
+<a href="images/p69.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Schoolmaster&rsquo;s House and Guild Chapel"
+title=
+"The Schoolmaster&rsquo;s House and Guild Chapel"
+src="images/p69.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>The
+Latin Schoolroom has an outside staircase built in recent years
+to replace the original, abolished in 1841.&nbsp; The
+half-timbered house standing in the courtyard was formerly the
+schoolmaster&rsquo;s residence; it is now, with the need for
+accommodating the natural increase of scholars, used for
+additional class-rooms.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare, retiring early from his interests in London and
+the playhouses, and coming home to Stratford a wealthy man,
+hoping to live many years in the enjoyment of his fortune,
+settled in the old mansion he had bought, adjoining the scene of
+his own schooldays.&nbsp; He must have looked with a kindly eye
+and with much satisfaction from the windows of New Place, upon
+the schoolboys coming and going along the street, as he himself
+had done.&nbsp; Not every one can be so fortunate.&nbsp; Perhaps
+the reigning schoolmaster of the time even held up the shining
+example of Mr. William Shakespeare, &ldquo;who was a schoolboy
+here, like you, my boys,&rdquo; to his classes, and carefully
+omitting the factors of chance and opportunity, promised them as
+great success if they did but mind their books.&nbsp; Perhaps, on
+the other hand&mdash;for these were already puritan
+times&mdash;their distinguished neighbour was an awful example:
+author of those shocking exhibitions called stage-plays, at this
+time forbidden in the town, under penalties, and an actor,
+&ldquo;such as those rogues whom we but the other day sent
+packing from our streets.&nbsp; Beware, my lads, lest you become
+wealthy after the fashion of Mr. Shakespeare.&nbsp; &lsquo;What
+profiteth it a man, if he should gain the whole world and lose
+his own soul?&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p70.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Headmaster&rsquo;s Desk, Stratford-on-Avon Grammar School"
+title=
+"The Headmaster&rsquo;s Desk, Stratford-on-Avon Grammar School"
+src="images/p70.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+71</span>Shakespeare, although he had become a personage of great
+consideration, with a fine residence, many times removed from his
+father&rsquo;s humble house in Henley Street, had not changed
+into a more salubrious neighbourhood.&nbsp; The Stratford of his
+day and for long after was a dirty and insanitary place,
+according to our notions, but the townsfolk did not seem to be
+troubled by these conditions, and it never occurred to them that
+the plagues and fevers that carried off many of their fellows to
+Heaven&mdash;or whatever their destination&mdash;untimely were
+caused by the dirt and the vile odours of the place.&nbsp;
+Stratford of course, was not singular in this, and had its
+counterpart in most other towns and villages of that age.&nbsp;
+The town council, however, drew the line at the burgesses keeping
+pigs in part of the houses, or allowing them to wander in the
+streets; and enacted a fine of fourpence for every strayed
+porker.&nbsp; But the townsfolk regarded the authority&rsquo;s
+dislike of pigs as a curious eccentricity, and the swine had
+their styes and roamed the streets exactly as before.&nbsp; The
+biggest of the six municipal muckhills that raised their majestic
+crests in the streets all the year round was situated in Chapel
+Lane, opposite Shakespeare&rsquo;s door, but there is no record
+of his having objected to it.&nbsp; It was this, however, and the
+deplorable condition of Chapel Lane in general, then notoriously
+the dirtiest thoroughfare in the town, which probably caused the
+poet&rsquo;s death; for the opinion now generally held is that he
+died of typhoid fever.</p>
+<p>Down Chapel Lane then ran an open gutter: a wide and dirty
+ditch some four or five feet across, choked with mud.&nbsp; All
+the filth of this part of the town ran into it and discharged
+into the river.</p>
+<p>There is no pictorial record of New Place, as it was when
+Shakespeare resided in it.&nbsp; He was unfortunate <a
+name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>in living
+long before the age of picture-postcards, and never knew the joy
+of seeing illustrations of his house, &ldquo;New Place; residence
+of Mr. William Shakespeare&rdquo; (with the tell-tale legend
+&ldquo;<span class="GutSmall">Printed in Germany.</span>&rdquo;
+in ruby type on the back), for sale in all the shop
+windows.&nbsp; Poor devil!</p>
+<p>New Place passed by Shakespeare&rsquo;s will to his daughter
+Susanna and her husband Dr. Hall.&nbsp; They removed from their
+house &ldquo;Hall&rsquo;s Croft,&rdquo; Old Stratford, shortly
+afterwards, Shakespeare&rsquo;s widow probably living with them
+until her death in 1623.&nbsp; Dr. Hall died in 1635.&nbsp; In
+1643, Mrs. Hall here entertained Queen Henrietta Maria for three
+weeks, at the beginning of the royalist troubles, when the Queen
+came to the town with 5000 men.&nbsp; In 1649 she died, two years
+after her son-in-law, Thomas Nash, whose house is next
+door.&nbsp; Somewhere about this time all the Shakespeare books
+and manuscripts would seem to have disappeared.&nbsp; The puritan
+Dr. Hall disapproved of stage-plays, and his wife,
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s daughter Susanna, could neither write nor
+read; and thus the complete destruction of the dramatist&rsquo;s
+records is easily accounted for.</p>
+<p>Nash&rsquo;s widow, Shakespeare&rsquo;s granddaughter, married
+again, a John Barnard who was afterwards knighted.&nbsp; Lady
+Barnard died childless at her husband&rsquo;s place at Abington,
+Northamptonshire, and was buried there, leaving New Place to her
+husband, who died four years later, in 1674.&nbsp; By a strange
+chance, the house that had been sold out of the Clopton family
+now came back to it by marriage, Sir Edward Walker who bought the
+property in 1675, leaving Barbara, an only child, who married Sir
+John Clopton.&nbsp; His son, Sir Hugh, came into possession of an
+entirely new-fronted house, for his father, careless of its
+associations, in 1703 had made great alterations here.&nbsp;
+Illustrations of this frontage <a name="page73"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 73</span>which survived until 1759, show that
+it was not at all Shakespearean; being instead most distinctly
+and flagrantly Queen Annean, in the semi-classic taste of that
+day, with a pediment and other architectural details which we are
+convinced Shakespeare&rsquo;s New Place never included.</p>
+<p>The ill-tempered Rev. Francis Gastrell who bought New Place in
+1753 completed the obliteration of the illustrious owner&rsquo;s
+residence.&nbsp; There cannot, happily, be many people so
+black-tempered as this wealthy absentee vicar of Frodsham, in
+Cheshire, who, resident for the greater part of the year in
+Lichfield, yet found Stratford desirable at some time in the
+twelve months.&nbsp; His acrid humours were early stirred.&nbsp;
+He had no sooner moved in than he found numbers of people coming
+every day to see Shakespeare&rsquo;s mulberry-tree in the garden,
+so he promptly had it cut down, to save himself annoyance.&nbsp;
+Then he objected to the house being assessed for taxes all the
+year round, although he occupied it only a month or two in the
+twelve; and when the authorities refused to accept his view, he
+had the place entirely demolished.&nbsp; Thus perished New
+Place.&nbsp; The site of it, after passing through several hands,
+was finally purchased, together with the adjoining Thomas
+Nash&rsquo;s house, by public subscription in 1861; and both are
+now the property of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.</p>
+<p>The site of New Place is open to the view of all who pass
+along Church Street and Chapel Lane, a dwarf wall with ornamental
+railing alone dividing it and its gardens from the
+pavement.&nbsp; Sixpence, which is the key that unlocks many
+doors in Shakespeare land, admits to the foundations, all that
+remain of the house, and also to the &ldquo;New Place
+Museum,&rdquo; in the house of Thomas Nash.&nbsp; Strange to say,
+the Trustees do not charge for <a name="page74"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 74</span>admission to the gardens.&nbsp; Is
+this an oversight, or a kindly wish to leave the stranger an odd
+sixpence to get home with?&nbsp; Nash&rsquo;s house, odiously
+re-fronted about the beginning of the nineteenth century, showed
+a stuccoed front with pillared portico to the street until
+recently.&nbsp; This year (1912) the alterations have been
+completed by which the frontage is restored by the evidence of
+old prints to its appearance in Nash&rsquo;s time.&nbsp; The
+interior remains as of old.&nbsp; Among the relics in the Museum
+are chairs, tables, a writing-desk, and other articles rather
+doubtfully said to have belonged to Shakespeare; a trinket-box
+supposed to have been Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s, and an old
+shuffle-board from the &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; inn opposite, on
+which Shakespeare is said to have played a game with friends at
+nights, when he felt bored at home.&nbsp; Unfortunately for
+tradition and the authenticity of this &ldquo;Shakespearean
+relic,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; was a private house in
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s lifetime, and for long after.&nbsp; It is
+known to have become an inn only at some time between 1645 and
+1668.&nbsp; The sign was chosen probably in allusion to the
+Shakespeare crest.&nbsp; Reproductions of portraits of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s friends complete the collections in
+Nash&rsquo;s House.</p>
+<h2><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+75</span>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">The Church of the
+Holy Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> parish church of
+Stratford-on-Avon is a building larger, more lofty, and far more
+stately than most towns of this size can boast.&nbsp; There is
+reason for this exceptional importance, first in the patronage of
+the Bishops of Worcester, on whose manor it was situated, but
+chiefly in the benefactions of John of Stratford, one of three
+remarkable persons born here in the thirteenth or fourteenth
+centuries.&nbsp; John, Robert, and Ralph, who took their
+distinguishing name from the town of their birth, were all of one
+family; the first two were brothers, the third was their
+nephew.&nbsp; John, born in the closing years of the thirteenth
+century, became successively Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop
+of Canterbury, and was, like most of the great prelates of the
+age, a statesman as well, filling the State offices of ambassador
+to foreign powers and Lord Chancellor of the realm.&nbsp; He died
+in 1348.&nbsp; His brother Robert early became rector of
+Stratford-on-Avon, in 1319.&nbsp; He it was who first caused the
+town to be paved; not, of course, with pavements that would meet
+the approval of a modern town council or the inhabitants, but
+probably with something in the nature of cobbles roughly laid
+down in the deep mud in which, up to that time, the rude carts of
+the age had foundered.&nbsp; It was this mud that set a deep gulf
+between neighbours, and had led indirectly to the establishment
+in 1296 of the original Guild Chapel, a small building which
+stood on the site of the <a name="page76"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 76</span>existing larger structure.&nbsp; It
+was founded by Robert, the father of John and Robert, largely for
+the spiritual welfare of those old or infirm persons who were not
+able to attend service at the parish church, by reason of the
+distance!&nbsp; Not, we may be sure, the distance of actual
+measurement, for the church is at the end of the not very long
+street, and a leisurely walk brings you to it in two minutes; but
+a distance of miles reckoned in the hindrances and disabilities
+provided by the roads of that age.&nbsp; Nothing in the story of
+Stratford could more eloquently describe to us the condition of
+its streets and the then remoteness of the Old Town district.</p>
+<p>But to return to Robert of Stratford, who eventually became
+Bishop of Chichester and died in 1362.&nbsp; He it was who
+supervised his brother John&rsquo;s gifts to the church, which
+was then an incomplete building, languishing for want of means to
+complete it.&nbsp; Apparently it had long before been decided to
+replace the small original Norman church with a larger and much
+more ambitious building, in the Early English style, judging from
+traces of both those architectural periods discernable in the
+tower; but the Bishops of Worcester would not loosen their
+purse-strings sufficiently, and awaited the coming of that
+benefactor who, they were morally certain, was sure to appear
+sooner or later and compound with Heaven for his evil courses on
+earth by completing it.&nbsp; They did not, however, reckon on
+any of their own cloth doing so, for sheer joy of the work.</p>
+<p>John of Stratford&rsquo;s works included the widening of the
+north aisle and the rebuilding of the south; the remodelling of
+the central tower and the addition of a timber spire, which
+remained until the eighteenth century, when it was replaced
+(1764) by the present loftier stone spire, which rises
+eighty-three feet above the roof of the tower.&nbsp; In 1332 he
+founded the chantry chapel of <a name="page77"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 77</span>St. Thomas the Martyr in the
+church.&nbsp; There five priests were appointed to sing masses
+&ldquo;for ever,&rdquo; for the good of the souls of founder and
+friends.&nbsp; John of Stratford was a great and wise man, but he
+did not know that &ldquo;where the tree falls, there shall it
+lie&rdquo;; nor could he foresee that his &ldquo;for ever&rdquo;
+would be commuted by the Reformation into a period of two hundred
+years.</p>
+<p>He endowed his chantry chapel with liberality; almost
+extravagance, and even purchased the advowson of the church from
+the Bishop.&nbsp; This extremely liberal endowment was perhaps
+necessary, for he had considered the eternal welfare of a good
+many people besides himself and his relations, and included even
+the sovereigns of England, present and to be, and all future
+Bishops of Worcester.&nbsp; The priests, therefore, had their
+hands full, and shouldered some heavy responsibilities;
+for&mdash;not to go into individual cases, or specify some of the
+shocking examples&mdash;it does not need much imagination to
+perceive that a tremendous deal of intercession would be
+necessary for so unlimited a company as this.&nbsp; Perhaps, in
+the circumstances, he could not possibly endow his chantry too
+richly.</p>
+<p>I do not know how his priests fared for lodgings.&nbsp; He
+seems to have omitted that important detail.&nbsp; But his nephew
+Ralph supplied the omission, and, in 1351, three years after his
+uncle&rsquo;s death, built a house for them adjoining the
+churchyard.&nbsp; It was styled then and for centuries afterwards
+&ldquo;the College.&rdquo;&nbsp; Thus the church of
+Stratford-on-Avon became more richly endowed than the usual
+parish church, and was known as &ldquo;collegiate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Many worthy folk followed the precedent set by the founder,
+and added to the beauties of the church; chief among them Thomas
+Balsall, Warden of the College in the second half of the
+fifteenth century, who built the present choir or chancel between
+the years 1465&ndash;1490.&nbsp; <a name="page78"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 78</span>The last beautifier and benefactor
+was Dean Balsall&rsquo;s successor, Ralph Collingwood.&nbsp; His
+is the north porch of the church, and he undertook and completed
+an important alteration in the nave; unroofing it, removing the
+low Decorated clerestory, probably of circular windows, and
+taking down the walls to the crown of the nave-arcades; then
+building upon them the light and lofty clerestory we see at this
+day.&nbsp; He added choir-boys to the establishment, and further
+endowed the College, for their maintenance.&nbsp; These were the
+last works in the long history of the church.&nbsp; In 1547 the
+Reformation came and swept away John of Stratford&rsquo;s chantry
+and confiscated the endowments.&nbsp; The priests were scattered,
+and four years later their College was given by the king to John
+Dudley, the newly-created Earl of Warwick and lord of the manor
+in succession to the Bishops of Worcester.&nbsp; The College
+reverted to the Crown, and in 1576 it was let by Queen Elizabeth
+to one Richard Coningsby, who in turn let it to John Combe.&nbsp;
+It was a fine and picturesque residence, familiar enough to
+Shakespeare, who was on intimate terms with Combe, and received
+from him a bequest of &pound;5 on his death in 1614.&nbsp; It was
+demolished in 1799.</p>
+<p>The church is approached through the churchyard by a fine
+avenue of lime-trees leading up to the north porch, where a
+verger, or some such creature, habited in a hermaphrodite kind of
+garment, which is neither exactly clerical nor lay, waits for the
+visitor&rsquo;s sixpences; for you may not enter for nothing,
+unless perhaps at times of divine service, and even then are
+allowed but grudgingly by these clerical entrepreneurs, who
+suspect you have come not so much for worship as with the idea of
+depriving them of a sixpence.&nbsp; I think, however, you would
+find it difficult to glimpse the chancel and the Shakespeare
+monument before the intention would be <a name="page79"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 79</span>suspected and the enterprising person
+successfully headed off.</p>
+<p>We will first encircle the exterior, where the many
+gravestones of departed Stratford worthies lean at every
+imaginable angle, the oldest of them, almost, or perhaps
+absolutely, contemporary with Shakespeare, grown or growing
+undecipherable.&nbsp; Some day Stratford will be sorry for
+neglecting them and their possible interest in the comparative
+study of Shakespeare and his fellow-townsmen.&nbsp; But
+everything connected, either intimately or remotely, with him has
+always been neglected until the record has almost perished.&nbsp;
+It is the singular fate of Shakespearean associations.</p>
+<p>The exterior of the fabric, it will soon be noticed, is
+greatly weathered; more particularly the Perpendicular chancel,
+which must at no distant date be restored.&nbsp; It is
+surprising, and an excellent tribute to the security of the
+foundations of this work, built on the banks of the river over
+four hundred years ago, that its walls have not fallen seriously
+out of plumb, like that of the north nave-arcade; especially when
+the rather daring slightness of the design is considered,
+consisting of vast mullioned and transomed windows with but
+little wall-space between.&nbsp; The gargoyles leering down from
+the dripstones are a weird series of bat-winged creatures of
+nightmare-land.&nbsp; On the south side, however, is a very good
+Bear and Ragged Staff gargoyle, and next it, going westward, a
+nondescript Falstaffian monster, his legs amputated by time and
+weather.</p>
+<p>The churchyard wall goes sheer down into the water of the
+Avon.&nbsp; The elms look down upon the stream, the rooks hold
+noisy parliaments in their boughs, and the swans float stately
+by.</p>
+<p>Entering by the roomy north porch, where the person with the
+bisexual garments will take your sixpence and <a
+name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>sell you
+picture-postcards, it is noticed that the good Late Perpendicular
+stone panelling is obscured, and the effect destroyed, by the
+extreme licence given in the placing of monumental tablets on the
+walls; a practice, judging from the dates upon them, still in
+existence.&nbsp; It is quite clear from this that the building
+might well be in better hands.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p80.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Ancient Knocker, Stratford-on-Avon Church"
+title=
+"Ancient Knocker, Stratford-on-Avon Church"
+src="images/p80.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>A very fine brazen knocker with grotesque head holding the
+ring in its mouth is a feature of the doorway.&nbsp; Although
+affixed to late fifteenth-century wood-work, the knocker would
+seem really to be nearly two hundred years earlier.&nbsp; It
+appears on picture-cards without number as the &ldquo;Sanctuary
+Knocker,&rdquo; and metal reproductions of it are to be had in
+the town; but there is nothing to show that this church was ever
+one of those that owned the privilege of sanctuary.&nbsp; In the
+inexact modern way, every curious old knocker on church doors is
+&ldquo;sanctuary&rdquo;; but in reality the ancient privilege was
+too valuable to be <a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+81</span>granted with the indiscriminate freedom this would
+argue.</p>
+<p>Immediately within the church is seen the old register-book in
+a glass case, containing the entries recording the baptism and
+burial of Shakespeare, with the broken bow of the old font at
+which he was baptised.&nbsp; Many years ago it was removed from
+the church, to make room for a new, and lay neglected in a garden
+in the town.&nbsp; It has been re-lined with lead, and is used
+for baptisms, on request.</p>
+<p>From the west end of the nave, where these relics are placed,
+the long view eastward shows this to be a very striking example
+of those churches whose chancels are not on the same axis with
+the rest of the building.&nbsp; The chancel in this instance
+inclines very markedly to the north.&nbsp; The symbolism of this
+feature in ancient churches is still matter for dispute; and it
+is really doubtful if it is symbolical and not the product of
+inexact planning, or caused by some old local conditions of the
+site which do not now appear; or whether it was thought to
+produce some acoustical advantages.&nbsp; It is thought that no
+example can be adduced of an inclination southwards, and that,
+therefore, the feature is a designed one.&nbsp; The favourite
+interpretation is that it repeats the inclination of the
+Saviour&rsquo;s head upon the Cross.</p>
+<p>Advancing up the nave, it will soon be noticed that the north
+nave-arcade is greatly out of plumb, and leans outwards; a
+result, no doubt, of Collingwood&rsquo;s alterations and
+additions placing too heavy a weight upon it.</p>
+<p>At the east end of the north aisle is the former Lady Chapel,
+now and for long past known as the Clopton Chapel, from the tombs
+of that family placed there.&nbsp; No structural difference, no
+variation in the plan of the church, marks the chapel from the
+rest of the building, from which it is screened very slightly by
+a low pierced <a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+82</span>railing on one side, and on the south, looking into the
+nave, by the ornate stone screen erected by Sir Hugh Clopton, the
+founder of the family chapel and architect of his own
+fortunes.&nbsp; It is a part of the tomb intended for himself,
+and there can be no doubt but that he saw it rising to completion
+with the satisfaction of a man assured of being not only wealthy,
+but hoping to live in fame as the benefactor of his native town,
+for which he did so much.</p>
+<p>The screen is crested with elaborate pierced conventional
+Tudor foliage, and fronted with his arms, and with those of the
+City of London, the Grocers&rsquo; Company, and the Merchants of
+the Staple.&nbsp; The brass inscribed plates have long since been
+torn away, and the tomb is entirely without inscription or
+effigy; as perhaps it is well it should be, for, in spite of all
+these elaborate preparations, and although directing that he
+should lie here, Sir Hugh Clopton was, after all, buried in the
+City of London, where he had made his fortune, and of which he
+was Lord Mayor in 1492, and in which he died in 1496.&nbsp; The
+church of St. Margaret, Lothbury, where he was buried, perished
+in the Great Fire of London, one hundred and seventy years
+later.</p>
+<p>Sir Hugh Clopton died a bachelor, and the other tombs are
+those of his brother&rsquo;s descendants.&nbsp; That of William
+Clopton, who died in 1592 and is described simply as
+&ldquo;Esquire,&rdquo; stands against the north wall of the
+Chapel.&nbsp; He was great-nephew of Sir Hugh.&nbsp; He is
+represented in armour, and his wife, who followed him four years
+later, lies beside him in effigy, both figures with prayerfully
+raised hands.&nbsp; Above them, on the wall, quite by themselves,
+are represented the interesting family of this worthy pair, seven
+in all, sculptured and painted in miniature, in the likeness of
+so many big-headed Dutch dolls, with the name of each <a
+name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>duly
+inscribed; Elizabeth, Lodowicke, Joyce, Margaret, William, Anne,
+and again William, the first of that name having died an infant,
+as did also Elizabeth and Lodowicke.&nbsp; These three are
+represented as little mummy-like creatures, swathed tightly in
+linen folds.</p>
+<p>But the most gorgeous of all the Clopton tombs is the next in
+order of date.&nbsp; This is the lofty and extremely elaborate
+and costly monument of George Carew, Earl of Totnes and Baron
+Clopton, who married Joyce, eldest daughter of the already
+mentioned William Clopton.&nbsp; He died in 1629, and his wife in
+1636.&nbsp; This costly memorial, together with that to her
+father and mother, was her handiwork, and she seems to have
+completely enjoyed herself in the progress of the
+commission.&nbsp; The Countess of Totnes and her husband are
+represented in full-length, recumbent effigies, sculptured in
+alabaster.&nbsp; The Earl is shown in armour and his wife is seen
+habited in a white fur robe, coloured red outside.&nbsp; A deep
+ruff is round her neck, and she wears a coronet.&nbsp; The Earl
+of Totnes was Master of the Ordnance to James the First; hence
+the symbolical sculptured implements of war in front of the
+monument; including two cannon, two kegs of powder and a pile of
+shot; one mortar, a gun, some halberds and a flag.</p>
+<p>A later inscription records that Sir John Clopton caused these
+tombs to be repaired and beautified in 1714.&nbsp; In 1719 he
+died, aged 80; and in course of time his own tomb became a
+candidate for repair.&nbsp; No Cloptons then survived to perform
+that pious office, which was observed by Sir Arthur Hodgson, the
+owner of Clopton House, in 1892.</p>
+<p>The monument of Sir Edward Walker, who died in 1676, is the
+memorial of a man who held some important positions.&nbsp; He was
+Charles the First&rsquo;s Secretary of War, and afterwards Garter
+King-of-Arms and military <a name="page84"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 84</span>editor of Clarendon&rsquo;s
+<i>History of the Rebellion</i>.&nbsp; He has some interest for
+the students of Shakespeare&rsquo;s life, for it was he who
+bought New Place in 1675.</p>
+<p>There are some smaller tablets on the walls, including one
+with a little effigy of a certain Amy Smith, who was for forty
+years &ldquo;waiting-gentlewoman&rdquo; to the Countess of
+Totnes.&nbsp; She is seen devoutly kneeling at a <i>prie-Dieu</i>
+chair.</p>
+<h2><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+85</span>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">The Church of the Holy Trinity,
+Stratford-on-Avon (<i>continued</i>)&mdash;The Shakespeare grave
+and monument.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> now pass beneath the arches of
+the central tower, under the organ and past the transepts, into
+the chancel.&nbsp; The chief interest is, quite frankly, the
+Shakespeare monument and the graves of his family; although even
+were it not for them, the building itself and the curious
+carvings of the miserere seats would attract many a visitor.</p>
+<p>It is with feelings of something at last accomplished, some
+necessary pilgrimage made, that the cultured traveller stands
+before the monument on the north wall and looks upon it and on
+the row of ledger-stones on the floor.&nbsp; But the sentiments
+of Baconian mono-maniacs are not at all reverent and
+respectful.&nbsp; They come also, but with hostile
+criticism.&nbsp; I think they would like to tear down that
+monument, and I am quite sure they would desire nothing better
+than permission to open that grave and howk up whatever they
+found there.&nbsp; For to them Shakespeare is &ldquo;the
+illiterate clown of Stratford&rdquo;; a very disreputable person;
+an impostor who could neither write nor act, and yet assumed the
+authorship of works by the greatest genius of the age, Francis
+Bacon.&nbsp; Twenty-four years ago in his Great Cryptogram,
+Ignatius Donnelly exposed the fraud and unmasked
+Shakespeare.&nbsp; Some one at that time referred in conversation
+with one of Mr. Donnelly&rsquo;s ingenious countrymen to
+&ldquo;Shakespeare&rsquo;s Bust.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes, <a
+name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>he is,&rdquo;
+rejoined that free and enlightened citizen: &ldquo;he is bust and
+you won&rsquo;t mend him again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He referred to the alleged cryptogram said to be by Bacon, and
+purporting to be discovered in the First Folio edition of the
+play, <i>Henry the Fourth</i>.&nbsp; It is amusing reading, this
+deciphered cipher, and if we were to believe it and Bacon to be
+its author, we should have no need to revise the old estimate of
+Bacon, &ldquo;The wisest, wittiest, meanest of
+mankind.&rdquo;&nbsp; We should, however, find it necessary to
+emphasise &ldquo;meanest,&rdquo; because he is made to reveal
+himself as one who wrote treasonable plays, and, being afraid to
+admit their authorship, bribed Shakespeare in a heavy sum to take
+the risk and retire out of danger to Stratford-on-Avon.&nbsp; It
+is not a convincing tale; but it is printed with much
+elaboration; and Bacon is made to show an astonishingly intimate
+knowledge of Shakespeare&rsquo;s family and affairs.&nbsp; He
+uses very ungentlemanly, not to say unphilosophical, language,
+and leaves Shakespeare without a shred of character.&nbsp; He
+shows how suddenly this misbegotten rogue, this whoreson knave,
+this gorbellied rascal with the wagging paunch and the many
+loathsome diseases which have made him old before his time leaves
+London, where he is in the midst of his fame as a dramatist, and
+retires to live upon his ill-gotten wealth as a country gentleman
+in his native town of Stratford-on-Avon.&nbsp; He was never an
+actor, and only succeeded in one part, that of Falstaff, for
+which he was peculiarly suited because of his great greasy
+stomach, at which, and not at the excellence of his acting,
+people came to laugh.&nbsp; Thus says Bacon; always according to
+Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, in the bi-literal cipher he persuaded
+himself he found.&nbsp; Here we see Bacon the philosopher, in
+very angry, unphilosophic mood, as abusive as any fish-fag or
+Sally Slapcabbage.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p86.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Shakespeare&rsquo;s Monument"
+title=
+"Shakespeare&rsquo;s Monument"
+src="images/p86.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>And
+then this cuckoo, this strutting jay, who sets up to be a
+gentleman with a brand-new coat of arms presently dies, untimely,
+at fifty-two years of age, just like your Shakespeares!&nbsp; He
+must have had some good reason of his own for it; probably the
+better to do Bacon out of his due fame with posterity.&nbsp; But
+Bacon was not to be outwitted.&nbsp; He heard early in 1616 that
+Shakespeare was in failing health, and sent down on that three
+days&rsquo; journey from London to Stratford-on-Avon two of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s friends, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson, who
+were in the secret of the authorship.&nbsp; They were instructed
+to see that if Shakespeare really insisted upon dying, the secret
+should not be divulged at the time.&nbsp; And Shakespeare, like
+the ungrateful wretch he was, did die.&nbsp; The diary of the
+Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, contains an entry in
+1662, referring reminiscently to Shakespeare&rsquo;s last
+days&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Jonson had a
+merrie meeting, and it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare
+died of a feavour there contracted.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Donnelly suggests that Drayton and Jonson in Bacon&rsquo;s
+interest duly saw Shakespeare buried, and so deeply that it would
+be for ever unlikely he should be exhumed, and Bacon&rsquo;s
+secret revealed.&nbsp; He founds this upon a letter discovered in
+1884 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, written in 1694 by one
+William Hall, of Queen&rsquo;s College, to a friend, Edward
+Thwaites; in which, in the course of describing a visit to
+Stratford-on-Avon, he states that Shakespeare was buried
+&ldquo;full seventeen feet deep&mdash;deep enough to secure
+him!&rdquo;&nbsp; This recalls at once the reply of one of Mr.
+Donnelly&rsquo;s irreverent countrymen before the tomb of Nelson
+in St. Paul&rsquo;s Cathedral.&nbsp; The verger had pointed out
+that the Admiral&rsquo;s body was enclosed in a leaden coffin and
+a <a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>wooden
+outer covering, and then placed in a marble sarcophagus weighing
+90 tons.&nbsp; &ldquo;I guess you&rsquo;ve got him!&rdquo;
+exclaimed the contemplative stranger; &ldquo;if ever he gets out
+of that, cable me, at my expense!&rdquo;&nbsp; No doubt Ben
+Jonson and Drayton guessed they had got Shakespeare safe enough,
+but to make doubly sure (says Donnelly) they invented and had
+engraved the famous verse which appears on the gravestone,
+involving blessings upon the man who &ldquo;spares these
+stones&rdquo; and curses upon he who moves the poet&rsquo;s
+bones.&nbsp; The world has always thought Shakespeare himself was
+the author of these lines.&nbsp; The reason for them is found in
+the horror felt by Shakespeare&mdash;and reflected in
+<i>Hamlet</i>&mdash;at the disturbance of the remains of the
+dead.&nbsp; In his time it was the custom to rifle the older
+graves, in order to provide room for fresh burials, and then to
+throw the bones from them into the vaulted charnel-house beneath
+the chancel.&nbsp; This revolting irreverence, which, as a
+long-established custom at that time, seemed a natural enough
+thing to the average person, was horrific to one of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s exceptional sensibilities; and he adopted not
+only this deep burial but also the curse upon the sacrilegious
+hand that should dare disturb his rest.&nbsp; There is not the
+least room for objection to this story; but the Baconians know
+better.&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>There must have been some
+reason</i>,&rdquo; objects Donnelly, in italics.&nbsp; There was;
+the reason already shown.&nbsp; But in dealing with a fellow like
+Shakespeare you&mdash;if you are a Baconian&mdash;have to go
+behind the obvious and the palpable and seek the absurd and
+improbable.&nbsp; It does not appear what Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+widow, his daughters, his sons-in-law and his executors were
+doing while Drayton and Ben Jonson were thus having their own
+Baconian way with Shakespeare&rsquo;s body.&nbsp; They, according
+to this theory, simply looked on; which we <a
+name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>might think
+an absurd thing to suppose, except that nothing is too absurd for
+a Baconian, as we shall now see.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p89.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Inscription on Shakespeare&rsquo;s Grave"
+title=
+"Inscription on Shakespeare&rsquo;s Grave"
+src="images/p89.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Not only did Drayton and Jonson invent and get these verses
+engraved, they also&mdash;more amazing still&mdash;inserted
+Bacon&rsquo;s bi-literal cipher into them.&nbsp; Now it is to be
+remarked here that the deeply-engraven lines upon which so many
+thousands of pilgrims gaze reverently are not, in their present
+form, so old as they appear to be, but were recut, and the
+lettering greatly modified, about 1831.&nbsp; Not one person in
+ten thousand of those who come to this spot is aware of the fact,
+and no illustration of the original lettering exists; but George
+Steevens, the Shakespearean scholar, wrote of it, about 1770, as
+an &ldquo;uncouth mixture of small and capital
+letters.&rdquo;&nbsp; He transcribed it, and so also in their
+turn did Knight and Malone.&nbsp; Some slight discrepancies exist
+between these transcriptions, in the exact dispositions of the
+letters, but the actual inscription appears to have been as
+under&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Good Frend for Iesvs SAKE forbeare<br />
+To diGG T-E Dvst Enclo-Ased HE.Re.<br />
+Bleste be T-E Man Y<sup>t</sup> spares T-Es Stones<br />
+And cvrst be He Y<sup>t</sup> moves my bones.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The hyphens between the words &ldquo;the&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;thes&rdquo; represent the old-time habit of engraving some
+of the <a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+90</span>letters conjoined, as seen repeated in the existing
+inscription illustrated here, in which the word
+&ldquo;bleste&rdquo; forms a prominent example.&nbsp; In that
+word the letters &ldquo;ste&rdquo; are in like manner conjoined,
+leading very many of the not fully-informed among the copyists of
+inscriptions to read it &ldquo;blese.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Halliwell-Phillipps, the foremost Shakespearean authority of
+his age (whom his arch-enemy, the emphatic F. J. Furnivall
+delighted, by the way, to style &ldquo;Hell-P&rdquo;) thus refers
+to the re-cut inscription in his <i>Outlines of the Life of
+Shakespeare</i>, 1881&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The honours of repose, which have thus far
+been conceded to the poet&rsquo;s remains, have not been extended
+to the tombstone.&nbsp; The latter had by the middle of the last
+century (<i>i.e.</i> about 1750) sunk below the level of the
+floor, and about fifty years ago (<i>c.</i> 1831) had become so
+much decayed as to suggest a vandalic order for its removal, and
+in its stead <i>to place a new slab</i>, one which marks
+certainly the locality of Shakespeare&rsquo;s grave, and
+continues the record of the farewell lines, but indicates nothing
+more.&nbsp; The original memorial has wandered from its allotted
+station no man can tell whither&mdash;a sacrifice to the insane
+worship of prosaic neatness, that mischievous demon whose
+votaries have practically destroyed so many of the priceless
+relics of ancient England and her gifted sons.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The cipher which Donnelly, the resourceful sleuthhound,
+pretends he has found in the older inscription, is destroyed by
+the re-arrangement in the new.&nbsp; It was not, he says, the
+sheer illiteracy of the local mason who cut the original letters
+that accounts for the eccentric appearance of capitals where they
+have no business to be; for the hyphen which so oddly divides the
+word &ldquo;Enclo-Ased&rdquo;; for the full-stops in
+&ldquo;HE.Re.&rdquo; or for the curious choice that writes
+&ldquo;Iesvs&rdquo; in small letters and &ldquo;SAKE&rdquo; in
+large capitals.&nbsp; No; it was the necessities of the cipher
+which accounted for this weird &ldquo;derangement of
+epitaphs&rdquo;; and Donnelly proceeds to emulate the conjurer
+who produces unexpected things from empty hats, and he finally
+arrives at this startling revelation&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+91</span>&ldquo;Francis Bacon wrote the Greene, Marlowe, and
+Shakespeare plays.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>As Mark Twain&mdash;another Baconian&mdash;says, &ldquo;Bacon
+was a born worker.&rdquo;&nbsp; Yes, indeed; but he understates
+it, if we were to believe this revelation.&nbsp; To have done all
+this he would need to have been a syndicate.</p>
+<h2><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+92</span>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">The Church of the Holy Trinity,
+Stratford-on-Avon (<i>concluded</i>)&mdash;The Shakespeare grave
+and monument&mdash;The Miserere Seats.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Baconians are so extravagant
+that it becomes scarce worth while to refute their wild
+statements; but when they are carried to these extremities we may
+well note them, for the enjoyment of a laugh.&nbsp; But perhaps
+Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence gives us the better entertainment when
+he tells us that Bacon wrote the preface to the Authorised
+Version of the Bible, and was in fact the literary editor of that
+translation and responsible for its style!</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p92.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Chancel, Holy Trinity Church, with Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+Monument"
+title=
+"The Chancel, Holy Trinity Church, with Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+Monument"
+src="images/p92.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>With an ineffable serenity the portrait-figure of Shakespeare
+(generally called a &ldquo;bust,&rdquo; but it is a half-length)
+in the monument looks down from the north wall of the spacious
+chancel upon the graves of himself and his family.&nbsp; The
+monument itself is thoroughly characteristic of the Renascence
+taste of the period: in the church of St. Andrew Undershaft, in
+the city of London, you may see a not dissimilar example to John
+Stow, the historian, who died eleven years before
+Shakespeare.&nbsp; He also, like Shakespeare&rsquo;s effigy,
+holds a quill pen in his hand.&nbsp; The accompanying
+illustration renders description scarce necessary, and it is only
+to the portrait that we need especially direct attention.&nbsp;
+In common with everything relating to Shakespeare, it has been
+the subject of great controversy: not altogether warranted, for
+it is certain that it was executed before 1623, seven years after
+the poet&rsquo;s death, when his widow, daughters <a
+name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>and
+sons-in-law were yet living, and it seems beyond all reasonable
+argument to deny that a monument erected under their supervision
+should, and does, in fact, present as good a likeness of him as
+they could procure.&nbsp; The effigy was sculptured by one Gerard
+Johnson (or Janssen), son of a Dutch craftsman in this mortuary
+art, whose workshop being in Southwark near the
+&ldquo;Globe&rdquo; theatre, must have rendered
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s personal appearance familiar to him, while
+the features are considered to be copied from a death-mask which
+was probably taken by Dr. John Hall, husband of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s elder daughter, Susanna.</p>
+<p>The inscription runs&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Ivdicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte
+Maronem,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Terra tegit, popvlvs m&aelig;ret, Olympus
+habet.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>which is translated thus&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;He was in judgment a Nestor, in genius a
+Socrates, and in art a Virgil; the earth covers, the people
+mourn, and heaven holds him.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>There then follow the English lines&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Stay, Passenger, why goest thov by so
+fast?<br />
+Read if thov canst, when enviovs Death hath plast<br />
+Within this monvment, Shakespeare, with whome<br />
+Qvick Natvre dide; whose name doth deck y<sup>e</sup> Tombe<br />
+Far more then coste, sith all y<sup>t</sup> He hath writt<br />
+Leaves living art but page to serve his witt,</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">&ldquo;Obiit ano doi 1616,<br />
+&AElig;tatis 53, Die 23 Ap.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The author of Shakespeare&rsquo;s epitaph is unknown.&nbsp; It
+would seem to have been some one who had not seen the monument,
+and knew nothing of its character; for he imagines his lines are
+to be inscribed upon a tomb within which the poet&rsquo;s body is
+placed.&nbsp; But however little he knew of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+monument, he knew the worth of his plays and poems:
+&ldquo;Shakespeare, with whom quick nature died.&rdquo;&nbsp; It
+is the very summary, the quintessence, of Shakespearean
+appreciation.</p>
+<p><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>Like
+everything else associated with Shakespeare, the monument has had
+its vicissitudes.&nbsp; The effigy, originally painted to
+resemble life, showed the poet to have had auburn hair and light
+hazel eyes.&nbsp; In 1748 a well-meaning Mr. John Ward repaired
+the monument and retouched the effigy with colour, and in 1793
+Malone persuaded the vicar to have it painted white; an outrage
+satirised by the lines written in the church visitors&rsquo;-book
+in 1810&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Stranger, to whom this Monument is
+shewn,<br />
+Invoke the Poet&rsquo;s curse upon Malone<br />
+Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste betrays,<br />
+And smears his tombstone as he marr&rsquo;d his plays.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It was not until 1861 that the white paint was scraped off and
+the original colour restored, by the light of what traces
+remained.</p>
+<p>Opinions have greatly varied as to the merits of the portrait,
+and many observers have been disappointed with it.&nbsp; Dr.
+Ingleby, for one, was distressed by its &ldquo;painful stare,
+with goggle eyes and gaping mouth.&rdquo;&nbsp; But the measure
+of this disappointment is exactly in proportion to the perhaps
+exaggerated expectations held.&nbsp; We must bear in mind that
+the sculptor worked from a death-mask, and that the expression
+was thus a conventional restoration.</p>
+<p>Mark Twain, who, like the egregious Ignatius Donnelly, did not
+believe that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, founded a good deal
+of his disbelief on the unvexed serenity of this monumental
+bust.&nbsp; It troubled him greatly that it should be there, so
+serene and emotionless.&nbsp; &ldquo;The bust, too, there in the
+Stratford church.&nbsp; The precious bust, the priceless bust,
+the calm bust with the dandy moustache and the putty face,
+unseamed of care&mdash;that face which has looked passionlessly
+down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years, and
+will <a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>still
+down look upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with the
+deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of a
+bladder.&rdquo;&nbsp; What, then, did he expect?&nbsp; A tragic
+mask, a laughing face of comedy?&nbsp; But Mark Twain hardly
+counts as a Shakespeare critic.</p>
+<p>It is forgotten by most people that the painting and scraping
+have wrought some changes, not for the better, in the expression
+of the face, tending towards making it what Halliwell-Phillipps
+too extravagantly calls a &ldquo;miserable travesty of an
+intellectual human being.&rdquo;&nbsp; However lifeless the
+expression, we see the features are those of a man of
+affairs.&nbsp; They are good and in no way abnormal.&nbsp; The
+brow is broad and lofty; the jaw and chin, while not massive,
+perhaps more than a thought heavier than usual.&nbsp; This was a
+man, one thinks, who would have succeeded in whatever walk of
+life he chose, and that is exactly the impression derived from
+the known facts and the traditions of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+life.</p>
+<p>There have been numerous arguments in recent times in favour
+of digging that dust which the poet&rsquo;s curse has thus far
+kept inviolate, but the courage has been lacking to it; whether
+in view of the curse or in fear of public opinion seems to be
+uncertain.</p>
+<p>The late J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps wrote, about 1885:
+&ldquo;It is not many years since a phalanx of trouble-tombs,
+lanterns and spades in hand, assembled in the chancel at dead of
+night, intent on disobeying the solemn injunction that the bones
+of Shakespeare were not to be disturbed.&nbsp; But the
+supplicatory lines prevailed.&nbsp; There were some amongst the
+number who, at the last moment, refused to incur the warning
+condemnation and so the design was happily abandoned.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nor would it appear that the graves of his family have been
+disturbed.&nbsp; They lie in a row, with his own, before the
+altar, a position they occupy by right of <a
+name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>Shakespeare
+having purchased the rectorial tithes, and thus becoming that
+curious anomaly, a &ldquo;lay rector.&rdquo;&nbsp; It matters
+little or nothing where one&rsquo;s bones are laid, but the doing
+this, and thus acquiring the right of sepulture in the most
+honoured place in the church, seems to imply that Shakespeare
+expected to found a family, and to see that his name was honoured
+to future generations in his native town.</p>
+<p>We are not to suppose that the clergy of that time welcomed
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s burial in this honoured place, but they could
+not help themselves.&nbsp; He had acquired the right, and
+although he had lived well into a time when puritanism had
+banished plays and players from Stratford, and although as a
+playwright he must have been regarded by many as a lost
+soul&mdash;unless, indeed, he became a converted man in his last
+year or so&mdash;his rights had to be observed.</p>
+<p>Immediately next the wall is the flat stone that marks the
+grave of Anne Shakespeare, who survived her husband, and died
+August 6th, 1623, aged sixty-seven.&nbsp; An eight-line Latin
+verse, probably by her son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, and couched in
+the most affectionate terms, is inscribed upon a small brass
+plate; it is thus rendered&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Milk, life thou gavest.&nbsp; For a boon so
+great,<br />
+Mother, alas! I give thee but a stone;<br />
+O! might some angel blest remove its weight,<br />
+Thy form should issue like thy Saviour&rsquo;s own.<br />
+But vain my prayers; O Christ, come quickly, come!<br />
+And thou, my Mother, shalt from hence arise,<br />
+Though closed as yet within this narrow tomb,<br />
+To meet thy Saviour in the starry skies.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Next in order comes the slab covering the grave of Shakespeare
+himself, and following it that of Thomas Nash, husband of
+Elizabeth Hall, grand-daughter of the poet.&nbsp; He died in
+1647, aged fifty-three, and is honoured in a four-line Latin
+verse.&nbsp; Fourthly comes <a name="page97"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 97</span>the grave of Dr. Hall, who died in
+1635, aged sixty, with a six-line Latin verse, and next is that
+of Susanna, Shakespeare&rsquo;s elder daughter, wife of Dr.
+Hall.&nbsp; She died in 1649, aged sixty-six, and has this poetic
+appreciation for epitaph&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Witty above her sexe, but that&rsquo;s not
+all,<br />
+Wise to Salvation was good Mistris Hall,<br />
+Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this<br />
+Wholy of him with whom she&rsquo;s now in blisse,<br />
+Then, Passenger, ha&rsquo;st ne&rsquo;re a teare<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; To weepe with her that wept with all?<br />
+That wept, yet set herselfe to chere<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Them up with comforts cordiall.<br />
+Her Love shall live, her mercy spread,<br />
+When thou hast ne&rsquo;re a teare to shed.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>This touching tribute was nearly lost in the gross outrage
+perpetrated in or about 1707, when it was erased for the purpose
+of providing room for an inscription to one Richard Watts.&nbsp;
+Happily Dugdale, in his monumental history of Warwickshire, had
+recorded it, and it was re-cut from that evidence in 1836.</p>
+<p>It is gratifying to note that no monuments to self-advertising
+members of the theatrical profession, or others keen to obtain a
+reflected glory from association with Shakespeare, have been
+allowed here, although we have to thank an aroused public
+opinion, and not the clergy, the natural guardians of the spot,
+for that.&nbsp; It was proposed, a few years ago, to place a
+memorial to that entirely blameless actress, well versed in
+Shakespearean parts, Helen Faucit, Lady Martin, on the wall
+opposite Shakespeare&rsquo;s monument, and it was nearly
+accomplished.&nbsp; The clergy blessed the project, the public
+were allowed to hear little or nothing about it, and the thing
+would have been done, except for protests raised at the eleventh
+hour.&nbsp; The monument eventually found its way to the
+Shakespeare Memorial, where it may now be found, but those
+responsible for the proposal <a name="page98"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 98</span>were not wholly to be baulked, and
+the evidence of their persistence is to be seen in the nave,
+where a very elaborate dark-green marble pulpit, in memory of
+Helen Faucit, and given by her husband, Sir Theodore Martin,
+attracts attention.</p>
+<p>There has been a good deal of praise and admiration of the
+modern stained glass in the noble windows of the chancel and the
+windows of the church in general, including those given by
+American admirers of Shakespeare, but the truth is that there is
+no stained glass in Stratford church above the commercial level
+of the ordinary ecclesiastical furnisher, and the sooner the fact
+is recognised, the better for all concerned.&nbsp; The guidebooks
+will tell you nothing of this, but we have to see things for
+ourselves, and use our own judgment.</p>
+<p>The tomb of the rebuilder of the chancel, Thomas Balsall, is
+little noticed.&nbsp; It is seen under the east window, on the
+north side, and is a greatly mutilated, but still beautiful,
+altar-tomb.&nbsp; Above it, on the wall, is the monument with
+fine portrait-busts of Richard Combe and his intended wife,
+Judith, who died 1649.&nbsp; The altar-tomb, with effigy, of John
+Combe, 1614, of the College, and of Welcombe, a friend of
+Shakespeare, is against the east wall.&nbsp; Combe was a man of
+wealth, who did not disdain the part of money-lender.&nbsp; He
+had the reputation of an usurer, although ten per cent. was his
+moderate rate, and, according to the tradition, hearing it said
+that Shakespeare had an epitaph waiting for him, begged to hear
+it.&nbsp; This, then, was what he heard&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Ten in a hundred lies here engraved,<br />
+&rsquo;Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved.<br />
+If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb?<br />
+Ho! ho! says the Devil, &rsquo;tis my John-a-Combe.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It is an idle story, and the verse is adapted from an epigram
+in the jest-books of the age.</p>
+<p><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>A
+prominent feature of a collegiate church was the stalls, with
+their miserere seats, for the priests, and we have here stalls
+for twenty-six, still retaining their beautifully carved seats,
+little injured by time or violence.&nbsp; We do, in fact,
+frequently find the miserere carvings uninjured in cathedrals,
+abbeys and collegiate churches; largely because they are always
+on the underside of the seats and thus apt to be
+overlooked.&nbsp; Those at Stratford are well up to the general
+level of interest and amusement.</p>
+<p>Amusement?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; The very broadest fun, sometimes
+particularly coarse, lurks in these often unsuspected places; and
+the greatest artistry of the wood-carver too, who will turn at
+random from the loving rendering of flower or foliage, to sacred
+symbols; then to the representation of birds and beasts and
+extraordinary chimeras that never existed outside the frontiers
+of Nightmare Land; and to queer domestic or social scenes.&nbsp;
+Here we find prime examples of such things.&nbsp; Under one seat
+a Crown of Thorns and the I.H.S. occur, on either side of a scene
+showing a man and wife fighting.&nbsp; He has a long beard which
+she is pulling with one hand, while with the other she bastes him
+with a ladle.&nbsp; She employs her feet, too, in kicking
+him.</p>
+<p>Under the next seat we see this domestic strife resumed, but
+it is shown in two scenes, over which a central woman-headed
+beast presides.&nbsp; Here the termagant pulls her
+husband&rsquo;s beard and tears his mouth open, while he
+retaliates by pulling her hair.&nbsp; The other scene represents
+the taming of the shrew.&nbsp; A naked woman is being thrashed by
+a man, and a dog completes the retribution by biting her leg.</p>
+<p>Among the other carvings we note the favourite Bear and Ragged
+Staff of this district; a beggar&rsquo;s monkey, with chained tin
+pot, or drinking-vessel, and a variety <a
+name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>of minor
+subjects.&nbsp; Among the most interesting is that example
+illustrated here.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p100.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"A Stratford Miserere: The Legend of the Unicorn"
+title=
+"A Stratford Miserere: The Legend of the Unicorn"
+src="images/p100.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The subject is that of the once-popular legend of the unicorn,
+which was, according to medi&aelig;val story, an animal of the
+fiercest and most untamable kind, and only to be captured in one
+way.&nbsp; This way was to find a virgin, at once of great beauty
+and unquestioned virtue, and to conduct her to the
+unicorn&rsquo;s haunts in the greenwood.&nbsp; Immediately the
+animal, tame only in the presence of a pure virgin, would come
+and lay its head gently and fearlessly in her lap; whereupon the
+hunter would steal forth and slay the confiding beast.</p>
+<p>It is to be remarked here that the person who could invent
+such a story, whatever else he was, and however fearless his
+imagination, was, clearly enough, no sportsman.&nbsp; It is quite
+easy to imagine such an one shooting a sitting pheasant, or
+poisoning a fox.</p>
+<p>Here, in the illustration, we perceive the maiden, not so
+beautiful as the carver intended her to be, caressing the
+confiding unicorn and apparently scratching him behind the ear,
+while an unsportsmanlike person digs him in the rump at leisure,
+with a spear-headed weapon.</p>
+<h2><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+101</span>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Shottery and Anne
+Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> hamlet of Shottery, now growing
+a considerable village, is but one mile from the centre of
+Stratford.&nbsp; You come to it most easily by way of Rother
+Street, and at the end of that thoroughfare will observe a
+signpost marked &ldquo;Footpath to Shottery.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+spot is not inspiring, and one could well wish Shottery, the home
+of Anne Hathaway and the scene of Shakespeare&rsquo;s wooing, had
+not been so near the town.&nbsp; Stratford is a pleasant place,
+and as little bedevilled with modern unhistorical suburbs as any
+town of its size; but there is a red rash of new and quite
+typically suburban villas on these outskirts.&nbsp; I feel quite
+sure the sanitation is perfect and that there are baths and hot
+and cold water laid on to every one of these &ldquo;desirable
+residences&rdquo;; and no one would breathe upon the obvious
+respectability of the people who live in them.&nbsp;
+Respectable?&nbsp; Most certainly; why, by the evidence of
+one&rsquo;s ears in passing, every house appears to have a piano;
+and the possession of one would seem in these times to be by far
+a better-accepted criterion of respectability than the ownership
+of a gig; which Carlyle in his day noted as the ideal.&nbsp; Now,
+it is quite certain that none of the houses Shakespeare ever
+dwelt in had any sanitation at all; if he ever took a bath, he
+was as exceptional in that matter as in most other things, and
+quite unlike his generation.&nbsp; New Place had neither hot nor
+cold water laid on, and never had a piano.&nbsp; Judged <a
+name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>by modern
+standards Shakespeare could scarcely have been respectable: his
+era did not even know the word in its present meaning, which is a
+terrible thought; let us pause to contemplate the deficiencies of
+our ancestors.</p>
+<p>Well, we will not, at any rate, stay to look longer at these
+developments, but, like that rogue, Autolycus, &ldquo;jog on the
+footpath way,&rdquo; a little disillusioned perhaps, because it
+presently leads to a level railway-crossing which was not here
+when Shakespeare went across the fields in the summer evenings to
+see Anne Hathaway.&nbsp; Thence coming upon allotment gardens,
+where we more or less &ldquo;merrily hent the stile-a,&rdquo; we
+arrive at Shottery by way of some tapestry works and a
+book-bindery.</p>
+<p>Shottery, it is at once seen, has been spoiled, utterly and
+irredeemably, unless the recent doings are levelled with the
+ground and wholly abolished&mdash;which we need not expect to be
+done.&nbsp; Deplorable activity has lately been manifested here,
+in the building of rows of small, cheap cottages.&nbsp; The bloom
+has been rudely rubbed off the peach, and the idyllic place which
+the hero-worshipper fondly expected has ceased to be.&nbsp; Yet
+parts of it are good.&nbsp; You may turn your back upon these
+things and see a very charming double row of old cottages, the
+Post Office among them, as ancient and rustic and half-timbered
+as the rest, with a very noble group of trees for background, and
+by way of foreground a red brick and timber barn belonging to
+Shottery manor-house, whose old stone dovecote stands yet in the
+garden.&nbsp; I have sketched these old cottages, in an attempt
+to show you how charming the scene really is.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page103"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 103</span>
+<a href="images/p103.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Shottery"
+title=
+"Shottery"
+src="images/p103.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>It
+has been suggested that the roomy loft beneath the roof of the
+manor-house was used as a secret Roman Catholic place of worship
+when that religion was proscribed, and that the mystery of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s marriage is to be explained by the ceremony
+having taken place here.&nbsp; But, ingenious although the
+suggestion may be, it has no shred of evidence to support it, nor
+would it appear from anything we know of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+religious beliefs, that he was a Roman Catholic at all, much less
+a fanatical one, as such a proceeding would argue.</p>
+<p>Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s cottage should certainly stand in this,
+the better part of the village, but it is situated at the extreme
+further end; and the hapless artist who seeks to sketch the scene
+already described will find himself acting as a kind of honorary
+signpost to it.&nbsp; The tragedy of his fate is that the best
+point of view happens to be from the middle of the road, and that
+the interruptions from motor-cars, largely carrying Americans,
+who invariably ask, &ldquo;Saay, is this the waay to Anne
+Hathawaay&rsquo;s cottuj?&rdquo; are incessant.</p>
+<p>The famous cottage, which is really more than a cottage and
+part of a farmhouse, comes into view as you round a corner and
+cross a small brick bridge over Shottery Brook.&nbsp; The bridge
+is so overhung and shut in by trees that you scarcely notice it
+to be a bridge at all; but if these be early summer days and the
+season not exceptionally dry, the brook can be heard hoarsely
+plunging beneath, over a quite respectably large weir.&nbsp; When
+Mistress Anne Hathaway lived at the farmhouse now called her
+cottage&mdash;which is an entirely wrong use of the possessive
+case, for it never belonged to her&mdash;Shottery Brook was to be
+crossed only by a watersplash for vehicles, and a plank
+footbridge for pedestrians; but progress and the prosperity of
+the county funds have changed all that.&nbsp; I wish they had
+not: it would be all the better if one came to the place just in
+the way Shakespeare used.</p>
+<p>The rustic cottage, still heavily thatched, comes before
+one&rsquo;s gaze with that complete familiarity which is the
+result of numberless illustrations.&nbsp; It stands at <a
+name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+105</span>right-angles to the road, with a large garden in front
+of it.&nbsp; I would be enthusiastic about that garden if I
+honestly might, but truth forbids me to compete with the
+exaggerated praise of it commonly lavished by writers upon this
+scene.&nbsp; It is just a pleasant rustic garden, partly used for
+growing beans, cabbages, potatoes and the usual cottager&rsquo;s
+produce; with the customary borders and beds of old-fashioned
+flowers.&nbsp; A stone-paved path leads up to the door.&nbsp;
+Hundreds of such gardens beautify the old cottages of the
+Warwickshire villages and hamlets; and many of them, I declare
+it, are very much better.&nbsp; The house itself is built in the
+customary local manner, on a rough blue lias foundation, with
+thick walls partly of the same material, here and there varied by
+red brick, and framed with ancient timbering.&nbsp; Latticed
+windows light the various rooms.&nbsp; It is a building of rather
+late in the fifteenth century, and appears to have been first
+tenanted by the Hathaways in 1556, when one John of that name,
+described as an archer, was living here.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Hewlands&rdquo; was then the name of the farm.&nbsp; The
+Hathaway family did not actually possess it until 1610, when
+Bartholomew, Anne&rsquo;s eldest brother, purchased the
+property.</p>
+<p>Anne Hathaway was the eldest of the three daughters of
+Richard, who died in June 1582.&nbsp; His four sons, Bartholomew,
+Thomas, John, and William, were provided for, and the daughters
+were left &pound;6 13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> each.&nbsp; Anne, or
+&ldquo;Agnes,&rdquo; as she is described in the will, the names
+being in those times interchangeable, was to receive hers on the
+day of her marriage; her sister Catherine on the like occasion;
+and Margaret was to receive her share at the age of
+seventeen.&nbsp; Anne was married in a hurry to William
+Shakespeare at the close of November in the same year.&nbsp; The
+Shakespearean connection with the cottage at Shottery is thus not
+altogether so intimate or so continuous as would at first be
+supposed.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page106"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 106</span>
+<a href="images/p106.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage"
+title=
+"Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage"
+src="images/p106.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>The
+Hathaways would appear to have executed numerous repairs to the
+farmhouse which Bartholomew had acquired, and to this day we may
+see a stone tablet let into one of the chimneys, bearing the
+initials &ldquo;I H&rdquo; (for John Hathaway) and the date 1697;
+while the same initials and date, together with those of &ldquo;E
+H&rdquo; which doubtless stand for Elizabeth Hathaway, his wife,
+occur on the bacon-cupboard in the ingle-nook of the
+living-room.&nbsp; The last of the Hathaways was another John,
+who died in 1746, but the house remained in the hands of
+descendants until 1838.&nbsp; At last it came into possession of
+one Alderman Thompson, of Stratford-on-Avon, who in 1892 sold it
+to the Trustees of Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace, for
+&pound;3000.&nbsp; The furniture was bought for a further
+&pound;500.&nbsp; The Alderman is said to have made a very good
+thing out of it, but he would probably have done still better if
+he had waited a few years longer.&nbsp; The average number of
+visitors, who pay sixpence each to view the cottage, is 40,000 a
+year.&nbsp; The simplest calculation shows that to mean an income
+of &pound;1000, and the upkeep cannot be very expensive.&nbsp;
+But the heavy thatch will soon again have to be renewed.&nbsp;
+The plentiful lack of understanding among many of the visitors is
+such that they frequently appear to think the thatch as old as
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s day.&nbsp; It must, of course, have been many
+times re-covered, and at the present time it is again in a
+dilapidated condition, sodden through with the weather of many
+years, and precariously held together by wire netting stretched
+over it.&nbsp; A very garden of weeds grows there:
+shepherds&rsquo; purse, groundsel, candy-tuft and dandelion; and
+poppies wave their red banners on the roof-ridge.</p>
+<p>There are twelve rooms in the house, and of these <a
+name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>seven are
+shown.&nbsp; The showing is a very business-like proceeding
+nowadays.&nbsp; At the garden gate you read the strict rules of
+the Trust, and then, having paid your sixpence, receive a printed
+and numbered ticket.&nbsp; A party of four hundred and fifty
+persons from Sheffield was expected on the last occasion the
+present writer visited the place, and exactly how much mental
+sustenance or what clear impression that half-battalion of
+excursionists could have received, it would be difficult to
+say.&nbsp; &ldquo;We have to put &rsquo;em through quick,&rdquo;
+said one in charge.&nbsp; Obviously it must needs be so, else how
+would all see the house before day was done?</p>
+<p>Entering by a low-browed doorway, a stone-paved passage opens
+into rooms right and left.&nbsp; On the left, down two steps, is
+the living-room, also, like all these ground-floor rooms,
+stone-floored.&nbsp; Overhead are old oaken beams and joists, and
+the rough walls are partly panelled.&nbsp; There are pictures
+without number of this old-world interior, the most
+characteristic of them that showing Mrs. Baker, who for many
+years received visitors, sitting by the fireside, in company with
+her old family Bible, in which the births, marriages and deaths
+of many Hathaways are recorded.&nbsp; She proved her descent from
+them by way of a niece of Anne Hathaway; whom, it is rather
+curious to reflect, no one ever thinks of styling by her married
+name, &ldquo;Mrs. Shakespeare.&rdquo;&nbsp; I cannot help
+thinking she would have resented it, if addressed by her maiden
+name.</p>
+<p>But Mrs. Baker, who lived in the cottage for seventy years and
+appeared to be almost as permanent a feature of it as the very
+walls and roof-tree, died in September 1899, at the age of
+eighty-seven.&nbsp; Still, however, the photographic view of the
+old lady sitting there is easily first favourite among all the
+interior views of the cottage; and many are those visitors who,
+coming here and not seeing the familiar figure, miss it as keenly
+as they would any intimate article of furniture.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page109"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 109</span>
+<a href="images/p109.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Living-Room, Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage"
+title=
+"The Living-Room, Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Cottage"
+src="images/p109.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>An
+old and time-worn wooden settle stands beside the
+ingle-nook.&nbsp; One may still sit in the corner seats, but a
+modern grate occupies the hearth on which the logs were burnt in
+the Hathaways&rsquo; time.&nbsp; Little square recesses in the
+wall show where the tinder-box was kept, and where those who sat
+here in olden times set down their jug and glass.&nbsp; The
+brightly-burnished copper warming-pan that hangs here, together
+with the bellows, is not, I think, credited with a Hathaway
+lineage.&nbsp; These once necessary, but now obsolete, household
+articles are simply placed here for the purpose of giving a more
+convincing air to this old home; but one suspects that some day,
+when the critical attitude relaxes, they will acquire a kind of
+brevet rank, and perhaps eventually even fully qualify as genuine
+heirlooms.</p>
+<p>The spacious bacon-cupboard, where the flour was also stored,
+in the thickness of the wall on the left-hand side of the
+ingle-nook, is a very fine specimen.&nbsp; The neighbourhood of
+Stratford is particularly rich in these old bacon-cupboards,
+which indeed seem to be almost a peculiar feature of the
+district.&nbsp; There is one at Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birthplace,
+in the town, and another at the &ldquo;Windmill&rdquo; inn, in
+Church Street, and numerous other examples exist in private
+houses; but this is the best specimen I have yet seen, and the
+better kept; the open lattice-work oaken door, bearing the
+initials &ldquo;I. H., E. H, I. B., 1697,&rdquo; being well
+polished.&nbsp; A further storage place for bacon is the cratch
+(otherwise the &ldquo;rack&rdquo;) in the roof-joists.&nbsp; You
+see it in the accompanying illustration.</p>
+<p>The long, broad mantel-shelf bears the usual collection of
+candlesticks and &ldquo;chimney ornaments.&rdquo;&nbsp; Under a
+window is an old table, with the visitors&rsquo;-book, and on <a
+name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>the
+opposite side of the room stands an equally old dresser, with a
+display of blue and white plates and dishes: a
+grandfather&rsquo;s clock between it and the door.&nbsp; Gaping
+visitors are usually shown, by partial demonstration, with
+flint-and-steel, how our long-suffering and patient ancestors
+struck a light, but the process is not demonstrated in its
+entirety.&nbsp; To strike a spark off a flint with a piece of
+steel is an easy matter, but if the whole process of directing
+the sparks upon the tinder in the tinder-box and then blowing the
+tinder into a flame were gone through, visitors would be very
+much more astonished at the inconveniences endured by our
+forbears before the invention of matches.&nbsp; To get a light in
+this way was the most chancy thing in the world.&nbsp; The tinder
+might possibly catch with the first spark, or again it might take
+a quarter of an hour.&nbsp; I think Job must have taken his first
+lessons in patience with flint-and-steel and tinder on a cold
+winter&rsquo;s morning.&nbsp; We see, from these fire-raising
+difficulties, a reason why our ancestors very rarely allowed the
+fires on their hearthstones to go out.&nbsp; Fuel was cheap in
+the country, and commonly to be had for the mere gathering of it,
+while if you let your fire burn out, it could only be lighted
+again at considerable pains.&nbsp; These seem altogether tales of
+an olden time, and they do actually strike the visitors to
+Shottery as very remote indeed; but there are yet many persons
+living to whom flint-and-steel and the tinder-box were as
+matter-of-course and necessary articles as the match-box is
+now.</p>
+<p>The room to the right of the entrance-passage is the
+kitchen.&nbsp; Here again is an ingle-nook, and heavy beams
+support the floor above.&nbsp; A very tall man could not walk
+upright in this room, for these timbers are only about 5 ft. 11
+inches from the floor.&nbsp; The ancient hearth remains here, and
+the oven runs deep into the masonry: <a name="page112"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 112</span>a considerable space&mdash;almost
+large enough to be called a room&mdash;running round to the back
+of it.&nbsp; The little window seen rather high up in the wall of
+the house as you enter by the garden-gate lights this space.</p>
+<p>Returning across the passage and through the living-room, the
+dairy, a little stone-flagged room is seen at the back.&nbsp; The
+door here, like most of the others, has the old English wooden
+latch known as the &ldquo;Drunkard&rsquo;s latch&rdquo; because
+its cumbrous woodwork affords so good a hold for fumbling
+fingers.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p112.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Bedroom"
+title=
+"Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s Bedroom"
+src="images/p112.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Upstairs, on the left, is &ldquo;Anne Hathaway&rsquo;s
+bedroom,&rdquo; where the chief object is a beautiful, but
+decrepit as to its lower legs, four-post sixteenth-century
+bedstead.&nbsp; The legs have assumed a permanently knock-kneed
+position, which humorous visitors affect to believe was caused by
+the bed having been used, something after the fashion of the
+Great Bed of Ware, not only for one <a name="page113"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 113</span>person, but in common.&nbsp; It is
+indeed a very large bedstead.&nbsp; Apart from its size, it is
+certainly the finest article of furniture in the house, the
+headboard being beautifully carved with grotesque figures in the
+Renascence style then in vogue.&nbsp; The sheets are of old
+hand-spun flax, and a glass-covered case displayed on the bed
+contains a pillow-case of fine linen and beautiful needlework,
+traditionally the work of Anne.&nbsp; The mattresses of this
+bedstead and of the plainer one in the next bedroom are of
+plaited rushes.&nbsp; Here rough bed-curtains, dyed a dull yellow
+by a vegetable dye, are obviously of great age.&nbsp; A small
+slip room of no interest is shown, opening out of this second
+bedroom, and with that the exploration of the house is
+concluded.</p>
+<h2><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+114</span>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Charlecote.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">To</span> Charlecote, four miles east of
+Stratford, is an expedition rarely ever omitted by the
+Shakespearean tourist, for it is associated with one of the most
+romantic traditions of the poet&rsquo;s life; that of the famous
+poaching incident, which may well have been the disposing cause
+of his leaving his native town and seeking fortune in
+London.&nbsp; The balance of opinion is strongly in favour of
+accepting the story, which comes down to us by way of Archdeacon
+Davis, Vicar of the Gloucestershire village of Sapperton, who
+died in 1708.&nbsp; He says the youth &ldquo;was much given to
+all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly
+from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him oft whipped and sometimes
+imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native county, to his
+great advancement.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This does not at first sight present a flattering picture of
+William Shakespeare, but we have to consider that the deer- and
+game-raiders of that era were not on the blackguardly level of
+the modern poacher.&nbsp; They were commonly sportive and
+high-spirited youths, who went about the business of it in
+company.&nbsp; At the same time, he ought at this juncture to
+have given up this hazardous sport.&nbsp; The probable date of
+his leaving for London, fleeing before the anger of Sir Thomas
+Lucy, is either the summer of 1585 or 1587.&nbsp; He was in the
+former year twenty-one years of age, had already been two years
+and a half a married man, and was the father of <a
+name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>three
+children.&nbsp; In imagination we can hear John
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s friends prophesying that his son Will would
+&ldquo;come to no good.&rdquo;&nbsp; The same ungenerous thing
+has no doubt been prophesied of every high-couraged lad from time
+immemorial.</p>
+<p>In revenge for Sir Thomas Lucy&rsquo;s reprisals Shakespeare
+is said to have written some satirical verses and fastened them
+on the park gates of Charlecote.&nbsp; Some of the lines have, in
+tradition, survived&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;A Parliament member, a Justice of Peace,<br
+/>
+At home a poor scarecrow, in London an Ass,<br />
+If lousy is Lucy, as some folk miscall it,<br />
+Then Lucy is lousy, whatever befall it.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; He thinks himself great,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Yet an ass in his state<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; We allow by his ears with but asses to
+mate.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>This has been styled a &ldquo;worthless effusion,&rdquo; and
+attempts have been made to pooh-pooh it; but whatever its worth
+or otherwise, it distinctly shows that <i>s&aelig;va
+indignatio</i>&mdash;that unmeasured fury which is one of the
+stigmata of the literary temperament.&nbsp; Its extravagance is
+no point against it, and to show that Sir Thomas Lucy was neither
+a scarecrow nor an ass is altogether beside the mark.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare, rubbing his hurts, put all the hatred he could
+into his rhythmic abuse, and did not stop to consider how closely
+it tallied with actualities.&nbsp; Now let us reconstruct the
+actual man.&nbsp; The real Sir Thomas was a personage of wealth
+inherited unimpaired, and of undoubted culture and esteem: in the
+words of his contemporaries a &ldquo;right worshipful
+knight.&rdquo;&nbsp; He reigned long in the home of his ancestors
+at Charlecote, to which he succeeded in 1552, upon the death of
+his father.&nbsp; He was then only twenty years of age, and he
+lived until 1602.&nbsp; He had for tutor none other than John
+Foxe, the martyrologist, to whom his father, Sir <a
+name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>Thomas, had
+given shelter.&nbsp; &ldquo;Foxe, forsaken by his friends, and
+accused of heresy for professing the reformed religion, was left
+naked of all human assistance; when God&rsquo;s providence began
+to show itself, procuring for him a safe refuge in the house of
+the Worshipful Knight, Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote in
+Warwickshire, who received him into his family as tutor, and he
+remained there till his pupils no longer needed
+instruction.&rdquo;&nbsp; Foxe was married here, at Charlecote,
+in 1547.</p>
+<p>In common with the rich landowners of his time, Sir Thomas
+Lucy was a patron of architecture and the arts, and in no way the
+inferior of his contemporaries, as the beautiful hall of
+Charlecote, built by him, sufficiently proves.&nbsp; Six years
+after coming into his inheritance he demolished the old mansion
+and erected that we now see.&nbsp; The house of Lucy had never
+before lived in such state as that he enjoyed.&nbsp; In 1565 he
+received the honour of knighthood, and first sat in Parliament in
+1571: in all these and succeeding years filling the usual local
+magisterial offices of a personage of his station.&nbsp; He is
+said to have entertained Queen Elizabeth on her progress to
+Kenilworth, in 1572, and the entrance porch to the front of the
+house is said to have been added for the occasion; a tradition
+that may well be true, for it is a more elaborate structure than
+the surrounding composition.&nbsp; It is two storeys in height,
+and in stone: the frontage in general being chiefly of
+brick.&nbsp; It is also obviously an addition, and is not exactly
+central.&nbsp; The building of it converted the ground plan into
+the semblance of a capital E, which was the courtly way among
+architects and their patrons of paying a compliment to Queen
+Elizabeth.&nbsp; Is it not thus sufficiently clear that in the
+building of his new mansion Sir Thomas had overlooked this
+customary compliment and that he hurriedly added it, over against
+the Queen&rsquo;s coming?&nbsp; <a name="page117"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 117</span>The prominence of the sculptured
+royal arms over the doorway, with the initials
+&ldquo;E.R.,&rdquo; lend support to this view.</p>
+<p>This very magnificent person might well &ldquo;think himself
+great,&rdquo; for he was the most considerable landowner in the
+district, and everywhere deferred to.&nbsp; Besides providing
+himself with a stately new residence he paid great attention to
+preserving game on his various estates, and is found in March
+1585, about the time of Shakespeare&rsquo;s alleged poaching
+exploit, in charge of a Bill in Parliament for its better
+preservation in the parks of England, which he would appear to
+have considered not sufficiently protected by the law of some
+twenty-three years earlier, prescribing three months&rsquo;
+imprisonment for deer-stealing and a fine of three times the
+damage done.</p>
+<p>Here, then, you have a portraiture of that personage whom
+Shakespeare so grossly travestied.&nbsp; Nor did that impudent
+ballad suffice to clear the score, for he returned to him in
+later years, and in the Second Part of <i>Henry the Fourth</i> we
+find &ldquo;Justice Shallow&rdquo; at his country house in
+Gloucestershire, entertaining Sir John Falstaff, and bragging of
+what a gay dog and a wild fellow he was in his young days in
+London; &ldquo;every third word a lie.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+&ldquo;old pike&rdquo; was, says Falstaff, &ldquo;like a man made
+after supper with a cheese-paring,&rdquo; a figure of fun.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Old pike&rdquo; gives the key to Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+meaning, and must at the time have been well understood locally
+to refer to the luces, or pike, in the Lucy arms; but, growing
+bolder, he much more fully, offensively, and unmistakably
+caricatures Sir Thomas Lucy under the same name of &ldquo;Justice
+Shallow&rdquo; in the <i>Merry Wives of Windsor</i>.&nbsp; The
+play indeed most prominently opens with him represented as having
+come up to Windsor <a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+118</span>from Gloucestershire for the purpose of laying an
+information before the Star Chamber against Sir John Falstaff for
+having killed his deer&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><i>Shallow</i>.&nbsp; Sir Hugh, persuade me
+not.&nbsp; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it&mdash;if he
+were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert
+Shallow, esquire.</p>
+<p><i>Slender</i>.&nbsp; In the county of Gloster, justice of
+peace, and <i>coram</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Shallow</i>.&nbsp; Ay, Cousin Slender, and
+<i>cust-alorum</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Slender</i>.&nbsp; Ay and <i>ratalorum</i>, too; and a
+gentleman born, master parson, who writes himself,
+<i>armigero</i>, in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation,
+<i>armigero</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Shallow</i>.&nbsp; Ay, that we do, and have done any time
+these three hundred years.</p>
+<p><i>Slender</i>.&nbsp; All his successors, gone before him,
+have done&rsquo;t; and all his ancestors, that come after him,
+may; they may give the dozen white laces in their coat.</p>
+<p><i>Shallow</i>.&nbsp; It is an old coat.</p>
+<p><i>Evans</i>. The dozen white louses do become an old coat
+well; it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and
+signifies love.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Another passage a little later contains an allusion which we
+try in vain to interpret.&nbsp; What was the story of the
+keeper&rsquo;s daughter?&nbsp; There is more in this, we may say,
+than meets the eye.&nbsp; Who knows how the deer-stalking may
+have been complicated by some incident of a more tender and
+romantic nature?&nbsp; Keeper&rsquo;s daughters are notoriously
+comely and buxom, and imagination may frame a pretty story out of
+this quaint disclaimer of Falstaff&rsquo;s&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><i>Falstaff</i>.&nbsp; How, Master Shallow,
+you&rsquo;ll complain of me to the king?</p>
+<p><i>Shallow</i>.&nbsp; Knight, you have beaten my men, killed
+my deer, and broke open my lodge.</p>
+<p><i>Falstaff</i>.&nbsp; But not kissed your keeper&rsquo;s
+daughter?</p>
+<p><i>Shallow</i>.&nbsp; Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.</p>
+<p><i>Falstaff</i>.&nbsp; I will answer it straight.&mdash;I have
+done all this.&mdash;That is now answered.</p>
+<p><i>Shallow</i>.&nbsp; The Council shall know this.</p>
+<p><i>Falstaff</i>.&nbsp; &rsquo;Twere better for you, if it were
+known in counsel: you&rsquo;ll he laughed at.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Falstaff&rsquo;s last remark is a play upon the words
+&ldquo;Council,&rdquo; a more or less public body, and
+&ldquo;counsel,&rdquo; private talk.&nbsp; <a
+name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>That is to
+say Shallow will be a fool, and laughed at if he takes so trivial
+an affair before so weighty a tribunal as the Star Chamber, and
+would be better advised to seek his friends&rsquo; counsel about
+the affair.</p>
+<p>Perhaps the &ldquo;keeper&rsquo;s daughter&rdquo; who was not
+kissed, was, after all, not kissable, or perhaps the allusion
+really was an insinuation that Sir Thomas Lucy himself kissed his
+keeper&rsquo;s daughter.&nbsp; It was in any event obviously a
+gibe perfectly easy of comprehension at the time in Stratford and
+round about, and enshrines some forgotten scandalous gossip.</p>
+<p>These are passages that the Baconians boggle at.&nbsp; They
+cannot be explained away by any ingenuity, and thus form a
+convincing stand-by for those hardened and unrepentant folk who
+still believe that Shakespeare wrote his own plays.&nbsp; The
+play upon the name of Lucy and the luces in the family arms is
+too direct to be mistaken.&nbsp; Master Shallow is a Justice of
+the Peace in Gloucestershire, and Sir Thomas Lucy was an ornament
+of the Bench both in that shire and in Warwickshire.&nbsp; The
+&ldquo;dozen white louses,&rdquo; instead of the three which
+would match with the number of luces in the Lucy arms, were no
+doubt a variant introduced by the dramatist in order to keep
+himself clear of those very Star Chamber proceedings with which
+Sir John Falstaff was threatened.&nbsp; One might not in those
+times defame with impunity a man&rsquo;s coat of arms.</p>
+<p>A further objection to the Baconian authorship, if necessary,
+is to be found in the extreme unlikeliness of Bacon, who himself
+was armigerous, casting such patent ridicule upon the heraldic
+achievement of one with whom he had no quarrel.&nbsp; In the case
+of Shakespeare, the animus is abundantly evident.</p>
+<p>The way to Charlecote is over the Clopton Bridge and to the
+left.&nbsp; It is the Kineton road.&nbsp; Past Tiddington <a
+name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>the way
+goes level, along the beautiful roads shaded by the luxuriant
+hedgerow timber we expect in these parts; and presently, when we
+have begun impatiently to wonder when Charlecote will come into
+view, a lodge and entrance are seen on the left side of the
+highway.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p120.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Lucy Shield of Arms"
+title=
+"Lucy Shield of Arms"
+src="images/p120.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>We hear much of the passing shows of this world, but we have
+often to marvel at their permanence.&nbsp; The kith and kin of
+Shakespeare are all gone long ago, but here at Charlecote are
+still Lucys.&nbsp; There have been Lucys of Charlecote since
+1216, and their &ldquo;old coat&rdquo; is still displayed over
+this entrance to the park.&nbsp; They are not, it is true, of the
+old unmixed blood, and the present family own the name only by
+adoption, the direct line having been broken in 1786, when a
+second cousin, the Rev. John Hammond, inherited the property and
+assumed the name of Lucy.&nbsp; The present owner also, Mr.
+Fairfax-Lucy, assumed the name on marrying one of the two
+daughters of Mr. Henry Spenser Lucy, who died in 1890.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p120a.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The &ldquo;Tumble-Down Stile,&rdquo; Charlecote"
+title=
+"The &ldquo;Tumble-Down Stile,&rdquo; Charlecote"
+src="images/p120a.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>There
+are but three luces, or pikes, in the old coat of the Charlecote
+Lucys.&nbsp; They are displayed, in herald&rsquo;s language,
+thus: &ldquo;gules, sem&eacute;e of crosses crosslet, three luces
+hauriant argent;&rdquo; that is to say, on a red ground sown with
+silver crosses-crosslet, three silver pike in an upright
+position, rising to take breath.&nbsp; The family motto is
+&ldquo;By truth and diligence.&rdquo;&nbsp; On old deeds sealed
+with the Lucy seal the three pike are shown intertwined.</p>
+<p>The park, well-wooded, but only about 250 acres in extent,
+presents a fine picture viewed from these gates, but the mansion
+is not seen; the chief approach being a considerable distance
+along the main road, and thence along a public by-road to the
+village of Charlecote.&nbsp; Crossing a bridge over the
+Wellesbourne stream which joins the Avon in the park, the locally
+celebrated &ldquo;Tumble-down Stile&rdquo; is immediately on the
+right hand.&nbsp; This is a wooden fence not by its appearance to
+be distinguished above any other fence of wood, but so contrived
+that the stranger unversed in its trick, and seeking to climb
+over it to the footpath beyond, suddenly finds one end collapsing
+and himself most likely on the ground.&nbsp; This contrivance,
+generally understood to have been a freak of the late Mr. Henry
+Spenser Lucy, keeps the village of Charlecote supplied with a
+stock of elementary humour all the year round, and is invariably
+pointed out by fly-men driving visitors from Stratford.&nbsp; Not
+every one who comes to Shakespeare Land comes with the capacity
+for fully understanding and being interested in its literary and
+historic features, but all have the comprehension of this within
+their reach.</p>
+<p>There, on the left, stretches the woodland park, entered
+either by a rough five-barred rustic gate, or by the imposing
+modern ornamental gates flanked by clumsy sculptured effigies of
+boars squatting on their <a name="page122"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 122</span>rumps.&nbsp; Entering by the
+unpretending gate first named, one comes beneath the trees of a
+noble avenue to the beautiful gatehouse standing in advance of
+the hall and giving admission to a courtyard filled with the
+geometrical patterns of a formal garden.&nbsp; The wild verdure
+of the park reigns here, outside that enclosure, and trim
+neatness forms the note within; a contrast greatly loved in those
+times when Charlecote was planned.&nbsp; It was to the planning
+of country mansions exactly what the antithetic manner is to
+literature: both give the spice of sharp contrast.</p>
+<p>There are to this day deer couching in the bracken of the
+park, and they come picturesquely up to the gatehouse and peer
+within.&nbsp; There are also strange piebald sheep, with long fat
+tails, very curious to look upon.&nbsp; I do not know what breed
+they are, or whence they come, for the reply received to an
+inquiry elicited this strange answer from a typical Warwickshire
+boy: &ldquo;Thaay be Spanish sheep from Scotland.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Possibly some of those who read these pages may recognise the
+kind; but if they came from Spain to Charlecote by way of
+Scotland they must have been brought somewhat out of their
+way.</p>
+<p>The gatehouse, so strikingly set in advance of the mansion, is
+the most truly picturesque feature.&nbsp; Its red brick and stone
+have not been restored, and wear all those signs of age which
+have been largely smoothed out and obliterated from the
+residence.&nbsp; Charlecote is not what is known as a &ldquo;show
+house.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is not one of those stately mansions which
+are open to be viewed at stated times; and strangers are admitted
+only occasionally and by special grace.&nbsp; Long bygone
+generations of Lucys hang in portraitures by famous masters upon
+the walls of the great hall, the library, and the drawing-room;
+and the library contains a copy <a name="page123"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 123</span>of the <i>Merry Wives of
+Windsor</i>, published in 1619; an edition which does not contain
+the opening scene with Mr. Justice Shallow.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p123.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Gatehouse, Charlecote"
+title=
+"The Gatehouse, Charlecote"
+src="images/p123.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Charlecote church was entirely rebuilt in 1852.&nbsp;
+Surviving views of the former church prove it to have been a
+small, mean building, unworthy of housing the fine tombs of the
+Lucys; and so we need not regret the rebuilding, except to be
+sorry it was not deferred a few years longer, until the
+efflorescent would-be Gothic of that period had abated.&nbsp; You
+who gaze upon the exterior of Charlecote can have not the least
+doubt about the enthusiasm of the designer, who seems to have
+been even more Gothic than the architects of the Middle
+Ages.&nbsp; It is a small church he has designed, but the
+exterior is overloaded with ornament; and if the building be
+indeed <a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+124</span>small, the gargoyles are big enough for a cathedral,
+while the interior has a much-more-than Middle Ages
+obscurity.&nbsp; It is a church of nave without aisles, and the
+nave has the unusual feature of being vaulted in stone.&nbsp; It
+is dark even on a summer day.&nbsp; The architect was also the
+designer of Bodelwyddan church, in North Wales.</p>
+<p>North of the chancel, in a very twilight chapel, are the three
+ornate tombs of the Lucys.&nbsp; The first of these is of that
+Sir Thomas who was Shakespeare&rsquo;s &ldquo;Justice
+Shallow.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is on the right hand.&nbsp; He lies
+there, in armoured effigy, beside his wife Joyce, who
+pre-deceased him in 1595.&nbsp; He survived until 1600.&nbsp; His
+bearded face has good features, and he certainly does not in any
+way look the part of Shallow.&nbsp; Nor does the noble tribute to
+his wife, inscribed above the monument, proclaim him other than a
+noble and modest knight&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>Here entombed lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy, wife of
+Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, in the county of Warwick, knight,
+daughter and heir of Thomas Acton, of Sutton, in the county of
+Worcester, Esquire, who departed out of this wretched world to
+her Heavenly Kingdom the 10th day of February, in the year of our
+Lord God, 1595, of her age lx. and iii.&nbsp; All the time of her
+lyfe, a true and faithful servant of her good God; never detected
+in any crime or vice; in religion most sound; in love to her
+husband most faithful and true; in friendship most
+constant.&nbsp; To what was in trust committed to her most
+secret.&nbsp; In wisdom excelling; in governing of her house, and
+bringing up of youth in the fear of God, that did converse with
+her most rare and singular; greatly esteemed of her betters;
+misliked of none unless the envious.&nbsp; When all is spoken
+that can be said; a woman so furnished and garnished with Virtue
+as not to be bettered, and hardly to be equalled by any; as she
+lived most virtuously, so she dyed most godly.&nbsp; Set down by
+him that best did know what hath been written to be true.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Thomas
+Lucy</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>In front of the monument are little kneeling effigies of
+Thomas and Anne, the only son and daughter of this pair.&nbsp; On
+the left is the much more elaborate monument of Sir Thomas the
+Second, who died, aged fifty-four, in 1605, only five years later
+than his father.&nbsp; It is a gorgeous Renaissance affair of
+coloured marbles.&nbsp; This <a name="page125"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 125</span>Sir Thomas lies in effigy alone, his
+first wife having no part or lot in the monument; the
+black-vestured and black-hooded kneeling effigy of Constance, his
+second, mounting guard in front in a very determined
+fashion.&nbsp; Her back is towards you in entering the chapel,
+and a very startling creature she is.&nbsp; An amazing line of
+little effigies of their children, each represented kneeling on
+his or her little hassock, decorates the front of the
+monument.&nbsp; There are six sons and eight daughters, earnestly
+praying.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p125.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Charlecote"
+title=
+"Charlecote"
+src="images/p125.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The third and last tomb is that of yet another Sir Thomas,
+third son and successor of the last named.&nbsp; He was killed by
+a fall from his horse in 1640.&nbsp; He is sculptured beautifully
+in white marble, and is represented reclining on his elbow.&nbsp;
+He bears a strong resemblance <a name="page126"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 126</span>to Charles the First.&nbsp; Beneath
+is the equally fine effigy of his wife Alice&mdash;a lovely
+work.&nbsp; She is wearing a chain like that of an Order, with a
+very large and prominent locket, or badge, about the size of an
+egg, which is, however, quite plain.&nbsp; The significance of it
+has been wholly lost.&nbsp; On either side of Sir Thomas are
+panels sculptured in relief: on the left a representation of him
+galloping on horseback, and on the right shelves of classic
+authors, possibly to indicate that he was a man of culture and
+refinement.&nbsp; This beautiful monument was executed in Rome,
+by Bernini, to the order of Lady Lucy, at a cost of 1500
+guineas.</p>
+<p>The exterior of this modern church is rapidly weathering, and
+the over-rich carving of it is being rigorously searched by
+rains, frosts and thaws.&nbsp; It will be better for sloughing
+off these florid adornments.</p>
+<h2><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+127</span>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Shakespeare the
+countryman.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have abundant evidence of
+Shakespeare the countryman in his works, and of the Warwickshire
+man some evidences, too.&nbsp; In the splendid speech of the Duke
+of Burgundy, in <i>Henry the Fifth</i>, he makes the Frenchman
+talk with an appreciation of agricultural disaster which only an
+English farmer, and a Warwickshire or Gloucestershire farmer,
+too, could show.&nbsp; In the miseries of France, worsted by war,
+the Duke speaks thus&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Her vine, the merry cheerer of the
+heart,<br />
+Unprun&egrave;d dies: her hedges even-pleach&rsquo;d,<br />
+Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,<br />
+Put forth disorder&rsquo;d twigs: her fallow leas<br />
+The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,<br />
+Doth root upon; while that the coulter rusts<br />
+That should deracinate such savagery:<br />
+The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth<br />
+The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,<br />
+Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,<br />
+Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems<br />
+But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,<br />
+Losing both beauty and utility.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Bacon would not have made a Frenchman speak with so English a
+tongue, in the way of the Midlands, nor could he if he would, for
+he knew no more than the real Burgundy could have known, those
+details of agricultural life; and he certainly could not have
+identified a &ldquo;kecksie,&rdquo; or a &ldquo;keck,&rdquo; as
+the Warwickshire children still call the hemlock, of whose dried
+stems they make whistles.</p>
+<p><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+128</span>&ldquo;Easy it is of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we
+know,&rdquo; says Demetrius, in <i>Titus Andronicus</i>.&nbsp;
+That ancient Roman is made to talk like any Warwickshire
+agricultural labourer who takes his lunch in the hedgerow, off a
+&ldquo;shive o&rsquo; bread, a bit o&rsquo; cheese or baacon and
+a drap o&rsquo; summit; maybe a tot o&rsquo; cider or maybe a mug
+of ale.&rdquo;&nbsp; After which he will &ldquo;shog off&rdquo;
+to work again; using in that local word &ldquo;shog&rdquo; the
+expression Shakespeare places in the mouth of Nym, in <i>Henry
+the Fifth</i>.&nbsp; At the close of the day he will be
+&ldquo;forewearied,&rdquo; as King John describes himself.</p>
+<p>In his plays Shakespeare follows the year all round the
+calendar and touches every season with magic.&nbsp; You feel
+convinced, from the sympathy, the joyousness, and the intimate
+touches, of his country scenes that he was a rustic at heart, and
+that he must have longed, during those many years when he was
+winning success in London, to return not only to his native
+place&mdash;to which the heart of every one turns
+fondly&mdash;but to the meadows, the cornfields, the hills and
+dales and the wild flowers around the town of
+Stratford-on-Avon.&nbsp; There again, when spring was come, to
+hear &ldquo;the sweet bird&rsquo;s note,&rdquo; whether it were
+&ldquo;the throstle with his note so true,&rdquo; &ldquo;the
+ousel cock so black of hue, with orange tawny bill,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;the wren with little quill;&rdquo;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,<br />
+The plain-song cuckoo gray,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>or better still the mad joyous outbursts of the
+skylarks&rsquo; songs (&ldquo;And merry larks are
+ploughmen&rsquo;s clocks&rdquo;) in those wide horizons in May:
+these, you are certain, were Shakespeare&rsquo;s ideals.</p>
+<p>Of all the seasons, although he writes sympathetically of
+every one, Shakespeare best loved the spring.&nbsp; He is not
+exceptional in that, for it is the season of hope <a
+name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>and
+promise, when the risen sap in the trees makes the leaves unfold
+and the buds unsheath their beauties, when beasts and birds
+respond to the climatic change and hibernating small creatures
+and insects awake from their long sleep; and no less than the
+trees and plants, the animals and insects, all mankind finds a
+renewal of life.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;It was a lover and his lass,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With a hey and a ho, and a hey
+nonino,<br />
+That o&rsquo;er the green cornfield did pass<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the spring-time, the only merry
+ring-time,<br />
+When birds do sing, hey ding-a-ding<br />
+Sweet lovers love the spring.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Thus the pages sung in the Forest of Arden; and Shakespeare,
+be sure, put something of himself into the character of Autolycus
+the pedlar, who after all was a man of better observation,
+judging by his song, than rogues of his sort commonly
+be&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;When daffodils begin to peer,&mdash;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; With hey! the doxy over the dale,&mdash;<br />
+Why, then comes in the sweet o&rsquo; the year;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; For the red blood reigns in the winter&rsquo;s
+pale.</p>
+<p>The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,&mdash;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; With hey! the sweet birds, O how they
+sing!&mdash;<br />
+Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.</p>
+<p>The lark that tirra-lirra chants,&mdash;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; With hey! with hey! the thrush and the
+jay:&mdash;<br />
+Are summer songs for me and my aunts,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; While we lie tumbling in the hay.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Shakespeare, we like to think, had the tenderest feeling for
+those same daffodils with which Autolycus begins his song; for in
+lines that are among the most beautiful he ever wrote, he makes
+Perdita speak of&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Daffodils,<br
+/>
+That come before the swallow dares, and take<br />
+The winds of March with beauty.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>Here
+we find, not for once only, Shakespeare and that other sweet
+singer, Herrick, curiously in sympathy&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Sweet daffodils, we weep to see<br />
+You haste away so soon.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>He does not care so ardently for the rose, although he seems,
+rather indifferently it is true, to admit that it is the queen of
+flowers.&nbsp; But it delays until summer is upon us.&nbsp; It
+does not dare with the daffodil.</p>
+<p>He returns again and again to the more idyllic simple flowers
+of nature that the gardener takes no account of.&nbsp; He paints
+the cowslips in a few words of close observation.&nbsp; They are
+Queen Mab&rsquo;s pensioners&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The cowslips tall her pensioners be;<br />
+In their gold coats spots you see;<br />
+Those be rubies, fairy favours,<br />
+In those freckles live their savours.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And in every cowslip&rsquo;s ear the fairy hangs a pearl, from
+her harvest of dew-drops.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare&rsquo;s Warwickshire was rich&mdash;and it is so
+still, although it is a very much more enclosed countryside than
+in his day&mdash;in wild-flowers; the gillyflower, the wallflower
+that loves the nooks and crannies of ruined walls as much as does
+the jackdaw; the candy-tuft, the foxglove that still stands like
+a tall floral sentinel in many a hedgerow around Snitterfield;
+with many another.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s
+flowers for you;<br />
+Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,<br />
+The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The &ldquo;flowers,&rdquo; however, mentioned in that
+quotation are, with one exception, herbs.&nbsp; Such as they
+grace and make fragrant the old gardens of many a cottage the
+casual tourist never sees.&nbsp; There they have grown for
+generations, in great clumps and beds; not in meagre and formal
+patches, as in some &ldquo;Shakespearean gardens&rdquo; <a
+name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>that could
+be named.&nbsp; In the byways, in short, where things are not
+consciously on show, everything is, paradoxically enough, better
+worth seeing.&nbsp; There the homely virtues of the people are
+better displayed; the flowers are brighter and their scent
+sweeter; and there the sun is more mellow.&nbsp; In the byways
+old mossy walls still stand, russet brown and sere in drought, as
+though the moss were a dead thing, but green again so soon as
+ever the rain comes; and old roofs bear the fleshy house-leek in
+great patches, as though they had burst into some strange
+vegetable elephantiasis.&nbsp; That is Warwickshire as it is off
+the beaten track, yonder, at the horizon, where the sky meets the
+earth: a vague direction, I fancy, but sufficient.&nbsp; We must
+not divulge all things.</p>
+<p>The ragged-robin that blooms later in every hedge; the
+&ldquo;crow-flower&rdquo; as Shakespeare names it; the
+&ldquo;long purple,&rdquo; otherwise the wild arum;
+pansies&mdash;&ldquo;that&rsquo;s for thoughts&rdquo;&mdash;some
+call them &ldquo;love-in-idleness&rdquo;; all figure in
+<i>Hamlet</i>, where you find a good deal of old country folklore
+in Ophelia&rsquo;s talk.&nbsp; &ldquo;Rosemary, that&rsquo;s for
+remembrance&rdquo;; fennel and columbines: &ldquo;there&rsquo;s
+rue for you; and here&rsquo;s some for me; we may call it herb of
+grace o&rsquo; Sundays;&mdash;you may wear your rue with a
+difference.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There is sometimes an almost farmer-like practical philosophy
+underlying his observation, as where Biron says, in
+<i>Love&rsquo;s Labour&rsquo;s Lost</i>: &ldquo;Allons allons!
+sow&rsquo;d cockle reap&rsquo;d no corn&rdquo;; and in <i>King
+Lear</i>, in the reference to&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow<br
+/>
+In our sustaining corn.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The corn-cockle is of course better known as the
+&ldquo;cornflower,&rdquo; whose beautiful blue is so contrasting
+a colour <a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+132</span>with the scarlet of the poppies, that equally fail to
+win the farmer&rsquo;s admiration.</p>
+<p>But the greater the study we give to Shakespeare and his
+treatment of flowers, the more evident it becomes that his
+sympathies were all with the earlier, springtime blossoms that
+dare, not quite with the daffodils, but soon after the roaring
+ides of March are overpast.&nbsp; Thus, he makes Perdita resume,
+with&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Violets
+dim,<br />
+But sweeter than the lids of Juno&rsquo;s eyes<br />
+Or Cytherea&rsquo;s breath; pale primroses<br />
+That die unmarried ere they can behold<br />
+Bright Ph&oelig;bus in his strength.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The &ldquo;daisies pied,&rdquo; the &ldquo;lady-smocks all
+silver-white,&rdquo; that is to say, the white arabis which the
+Warwickshire children of to-day call &ldquo;smell-smocks,&rdquo;
+and the &ldquo;cuckoo buds of yellow hue,&rdquo; otherwise the
+buttercups, out of which the cuckoo is in old folklore supposed
+to drink, he tells us, all &ldquo;paint the meadows with
+delight.&rdquo;&nbsp; He could never have written those lines
+with care and thought and in cold blood: he must have seen those
+meadows with all the delight he expresses, and the words
+themselves must needs have been penned with enthusiasm.&nbsp;
+This is a thesis easily susceptible of proof.&nbsp; The lovely
+cuckoo-song at the close of <i>Love&rsquo;s Labour&rsquo;s
+Lost</i>, which with a charm unmatched tells us of those
+flower-spangled meads, has no bearing upon the action of the
+play: it is written in sheer enjoyment, and it is in the same
+spirit that his other allusions to the fields and hedgerows and
+woodlands, the &ldquo;bosky acres&rdquo; and the
+&ldquo;unshrubbed down,&rdquo; are conceived.&nbsp; Ariel, that
+tricksy sprite of <i>The Tempest</i>, is a true
+countryman&rsquo;s fancy, as clearly to be seen in the
+lines&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Where the bee sucks, there suck I,<br />
+In a cowslip&rsquo;s bell I lie;<br />
+There I couch when owls do cry,<br />
+On the bat&rsquo;s back I do fly.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>Here,
+as often elsewhere, the dramatist and the poet are at odds.&nbsp;
+Shakespeare the actor-playwright, with every necessity of the
+stage&mdash;its entrances and exits, and the imperative need for
+the action of the play to be maintained&mdash;halts the story so
+that the other Shakespeare, the idyllic poet, the lover of
+nature, shall picture some scene for which he cares everything,
+but which to the Greeks&mdash;for Greeks here read the London
+playgoers of his time&mdash;must have meant foolishness.</p>
+<p>Such an instance, among many, is Oberon&rsquo;s speech to
+Puck, in <i>Midsummer Night&rsquo;s Dream</i>&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;I know a bank whereon the wild thyme
+blows,<br />
+Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;<br />
+Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,<br />
+With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:<br />
+There sleeps Titania.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For these lines and such as these Shakespeare risked the
+brickbats, the cat-calls and the obloquy that awaited the
+dramatist whose action dragged.&nbsp; There is no excuse for
+them&mdash;except that of their beauty, and that to the
+groundlings was less than nothing.</p>
+<p>That bank whereon the wild-thyme grew must have been, I like
+to think, somewhere in The Dingles, a curious spot just
+north-east of Stratford, to the left of the Warwick road, as you
+go up to Welcombe.&nbsp; I think there are no
+&ldquo;dingles&rdquo; anywhere nearer London than the midlands;
+none in name, although there may be many in fact.&nbsp; By a
+&ldquo;dingle&rdquo; in the midlands a deep narrow vale, or
+natural gully is meant.&nbsp; The word is especially well known
+in Shropshire and the Welsh borders, where such features, between
+the enfolding hills, are plentiful.&nbsp; Here The Dingles are
+abrupt and deeply winding gullies, breaking away from the red
+earth of the Welcombe uplands: a very tumbled and unspoiled
+spot.&nbsp; Elms look down from the crest of <a
+name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>them, and
+ancient thorn-trees line their sides.&nbsp; It seems quite a sure
+and certain thing that Shakespeare when a boy knew this spot well
+and frequented it with the other Stratford boys of his age;
+catching, perhaps the &ldquo;earth-delving conies,&rdquo; and I
+am afraid&mdash;for all boys are cruel except those in the
+Sunday-school books, and they are creatures in the nature of
+sucking Galahads imagined by maiden aunts&mdash;I am afraid, I
+say, also birds&rsquo;-nesting.</p>
+<p>The Dingles, doubtless, formed in Shakespeare&rsquo;s mind the
+site of Titania&rsquo;s bower.&nbsp; Perhaps you may find it
+yourself, if you seek there, somewhere about midsummer midnight,
+in the full of the moon, when possibly her obedient fairies will
+be as kind and courteous as of old to that gentleman who has the
+good fortune to discover the magic spot, and may&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Hop in his walks, and gambol in his
+eyes;<br />
+Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,<br />
+With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>If these adventures do befall you, tell no one; for you will
+not find belief, even in this same Shakespeare land.</p>
+<p>It is, however, much more likely that your walk will be
+solitary, and that for the apricots and grapes you will have to
+wait until you have returned to your hotel in the town.</p>
+<p>The last two years of Shakespeare&rsquo;s life were concerned
+with a heated local question: none other than that of the
+proposed enclosure of the Welcombe common fields, including The
+Dingles, by William Combe who had by the death of his father
+become squire of Welcombe and had at once entered into an
+agreement with the lord of the manor and other landholders to
+enclose the land.&nbsp; The corporation and townsfolk of
+Stratford were bitterly opposed to this encroachment.&nbsp;
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s interest in the matter appears to have been
+only that <a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+135</span>of an owner of tithes in these fields, and his
+sympathies were clearly against any such extension of private
+rights.&nbsp; An entry under date of September 1615 among others
+in the still-existing manuscript diary of Thomas Greene, then
+clerk to the corporation, who calls Shakespeare his cousin, is to
+the effect that Shakespeare told J. Greene (brother of the town
+clerk) that he&mdash;Shakespeare&mdash;&ldquo;was not able to
+bear the enclosing of Welcombe.&rdquo;&nbsp; The ambiguous and
+ungrammatical wording of Greene&rsquo;s diary often renders his
+meaning obscure and has caused a great conflict of opinion about
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s attitude in this affair, some reading it as
+in favour of the enclosure.&nbsp; It really appears to have been
+one of benevolent neutrality, and could scarcely have been
+otherwise.&nbsp; He himself was a neighbouring landowner, and
+friendly with others, but sentimentally, he looked with aversion
+upon those proposed doings.&nbsp; He &ldquo;was not able to
+bear&rdquo; the enclosure of the place he had roamed when a boy,
+but that did not give him the right to intervene at law.&nbsp;
+The corporation went to law with Combe and his fellows and won
+their case, but by that time Shakespeare had passed from these
+transient scenes.&nbsp; To this day The Dingles is common
+land.</p>
+<h2><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+136</span>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">The &lsquo;Eight
+Villages&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Piping&rsquo; Pebworth and
+&lsquo;Dancing&rsquo; Marston.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">No</span> one who has ever sojourned in
+Shakespeare land can remain in ignorance of what are the
+&ldquo;Eight Villages.&rdquo;&nbsp; The older rhymes upon them
+are printed upon picture-postcards, and on fancy chinaware, and
+reprinted in every local guide-book; and now I propose to repeat
+them, not only for their own sake and for the alleged
+Shakespearean authorship, but because the pilgrimage of those
+villages offers many points of interest.&nbsp; One need offer no
+excuse for this descriptive chapter, because although the rhymes
+themselves are trite, the places are by no means so well known;
+your average Shakespeare Country tourist being rarely so
+enterprising as he is commonly&mdash;and quite
+erroneously&mdash;supposed to be.&nbsp; Stratford-on-Avon,
+Evesham, Warwick, Kenilworth and Coventry, with their comfortable
+hotels, furnish forth the average pilgrim.&nbsp; But if you are
+to know Shakespeare land intimately, and if you would come into
+near touch with the poet and know him at closest quarters, you
+must linger in the villages that in every circumstance of
+picturesqueness are dotted about the valley of the Avon.&nbsp;
+There, as freshly as ever, when spring has not waned too far into
+summer, the</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Daisies pied and violets blue,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And ladysmocks all silver-white,<br />
+And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Do paint the meadows with delight.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;Shakespeare is Bacon,&rdquo; dogmatically asserts the
+<a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>ancient
+hyphenated baronet who in these latter days posts pamphlets
+broadcast (incidentally favouring me with one, uninvited) seeking
+to dethrone our sovereign bard.&nbsp; Well, let who will cherish
+the impious opinion; but all the countryside around Stratford
+disproves it; the trees, the fields, the wild flowers, the rustic
+talk, which Bacon could never have known, that are all faithfully
+mirrored in the plays.</p>
+<p>But let us to the Eight Villages, whose fame rests upon a
+legend of olden drinking-bouts and of competitions between
+different towns and villages, to decide whose men could drink the
+most liquor.&nbsp; In Shakespeare&rsquo;s time, it seems, Bidford
+held the championship of all this countryside, and had two
+valiant coteries of tipplers who drank not only for their own
+personal gratification, but went beyond that and inconvenienced
+themselves for the honour and glory of their native place.&nbsp;
+Further than this, local patriotism cannot go.&nbsp; So famous
+were the doings of the Topers and the Sippers of this spot that
+it became familiarly known as &ldquo;Drunken&rdquo; Bidford; an
+unfortunate adjective, for it was bestowed not by any means
+because those convivial clubmen could not carry their liquor like
+men, but was intended as a direct tribute of admiration to their
+capacity for it.&nbsp; In short, such was their prowess that they
+went forth, conquering and to conquer, in all the surrounding
+villages.&nbsp; On an historic occasion the daring fellows of
+Stratford went forth and challenged the Bidford men on their own
+ground, Shakespeare traditionally among them.&nbsp; The Topers
+were not at home; they had gone to drink Evesham dry; but the
+Sippers held the fort and duly maintained the honour of
+Bidford.&nbsp; At the &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; inn the contest was
+waged, and the Stratford men were ignominiously worsted, drawing
+off from the stricken field while yet there remained some <a
+name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>with full
+command of their legs, and ability to carry away those of their
+number who had wholly succumbed.&nbsp; In this sort they went the
+homeward way towards Stratford, which is more than six miles
+distant, but they had proceeded no further than three-quarters of
+a mile when they sank down by the roadside and slept there the
+night, under a large crab-apple tree.&nbsp; When morning
+dawned&mdash;when night&rsquo;s candles were burned out and
+jocund day stood tiptoe on the meadows&mdash;they arose
+refreshed, the majority eager to return to Bidford and try
+another bout; but Shakespeare refused.&nbsp; He had had enough of
+it.&nbsp; He had drunk with&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,<br />
+Haunted Hillborough, Hungry Grafton,<br />
+Dodging Exhall, Papist Wixford,<br />
+Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Such is the legend.&nbsp; There are those who believe it, and
+there are again those who do not.&nbsp; The quatrain does not
+seem to fit in with the story, and indeed bears evidence of being
+one of those injurious rhymes respecting neighbouring and rival
+villages fairly common throughout England, often reflecting
+severely, not only upon the characteristics of those places, but
+also upon the moral character of their inhabitants.&nbsp; Indeed,
+the present rhymes are mildness itself compared with some, with
+which these pure pages shall not be sullied.&nbsp; But although
+we may not place much faith in the Shakespearean ascription,
+those go, surely, too far who refuse to believe Shakespeare
+capable of taking part in one of these old-time
+drinking-bouts.&nbsp; Shakespeare, we are nowadays told, could
+not have descended to such conduct; but in holding such a view we
+judge the poet and the times in which he lived by the standards
+of our own age; a very gross fallacy indeed.&nbsp; It is not,
+nowadays, &ldquo;respectable&rdquo; for any one, no matter the
+height <a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+139</span>or the obscurity of his status, to drink more than
+enough; but he who in those times shirked his drink was accounted
+a very sorry fellow.&nbsp; What says Sir Toby Belch, in
+<i>Twelfth Night</i>?&nbsp; &ldquo;He is a coward and a coystril
+that will not drink till his brains turn o&rsquo; the toe like a
+parish top.&rdquo;&nbsp; To this day, in the banqueting-room of
+Haddon Hall, we may see what the jovial souls who were
+contemporary with Shakespeare did to the man who could not or
+would not finish his tankard.&nbsp; There is an ingenious
+handcuff in the panelling of that apartment in which the wrist of
+such an one was secured, and down his sleeve the drink he had
+declined was poured.&nbsp; Nay, only a hundred and fifty years
+ago, the hospitable hosts and the best of good fellows were those
+to whom it was a point of honour to see that their guests were
+made, in the modern police phrase, &ldquo;drunk and
+incapable,&rdquo; so that they had to be carried up to bed.&nbsp;
+Mr. Pitt did not commonly get much &ldquo;forrarder&rdquo; on
+three bottles of port, and generally made his best speeches in
+the House when, having generously exceeded that allowance, he was
+quite drunk.&nbsp; Mr. Fox was a worthy fellow to him.&nbsp;
+Nobody thought the worse of them&mdash;in fact, rather the
+better&mdash;for it.&nbsp; To be drunk was the mark of a
+gentleman; to be excessively drunk&mdash;the very apogee of
+inebriety&mdash;was to be &ldquo;as drunk as a lord&rdquo;; no
+man could do more.</p>
+<p>The villages whose bygone outstanding features are thus
+rhythmically celebrated are scattered to the west and south-west
+of Stratford-on-Avon, between six and eight miles distant; the
+two first-named in that widespreading level which stretches
+almost uninterruptedly between that town and Evesham.&nbsp;
+Pebworth, whose name would seem to enshrine the personal name of
+some Saxon landowner&mdash;&ldquo;Pebba&rsquo;s
+weorth&rdquo;&mdash;is quite exceptionally placed on a steep and
+sudden hill that rises rather <a name="page140"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 140</span>dramatically from the level
+champaign.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p140.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Piping Pebworth"
+title=
+"Piping Pebworth"
+src="images/p140.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>There is more than a thought too much of new building and of
+corrugated tin roofing about the Pebworth of to-day, and when I
+came up along the village street a steam-roller was engaged in
+compacting the macadam of the roadway.&nbsp; I thought sadly that
+it was not at all Shakespearean; yet, you know, had the roads
+been of your true Shakespearean early seventeenth-century sort,
+one would not have penetrated to these scenes with a bicycle at
+all.&nbsp; No one pipes nowadays at Pebworth; there is not even a
+performer on the penny whistle to sound a note, in evidence of
+good faith.&nbsp; It is a pretty enough village, but not
+remarkably so, and offers the illustrator the smallest of
+chances, for the church which crowns the hill-top is so encircled
+with trees that only the upper part of its tower is
+visible.&nbsp; The church, in common with nearly all the village
+churches within the Shakespeare <a name="page141"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 141</span>radius, is locked, doubtless with a
+view to extracting a sixpence from the amiable tourist.&nbsp; Old
+tombstones to a Shackel, Shekel or Shackle family&mdash;the name
+is spelled in many ways&mdash;abound here.</p>
+<p>Long Marston lies in the midst of this pleasant, level
+country, six miles south-west of Stratford-on-Avon, and on a yet
+somewhat secluded road; its old-time retirement that recommended
+it to the advisers of the fugitive Charles the Second, when
+seeking a way for him to escape from the country after the defeat
+of his hopes at the Battle of Worcester, September 3rd, 1651,
+being little changed.&nbsp; Marston is the only village I have
+ever known which owns three adjectives to its name.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Long&rdquo; Marston is the better known of them;
+&ldquo;Dancing&rdquo; Marston is another, and &ldquo;Dry&rdquo;
+Marston&mdash;or &ldquo;Marston Sicca,&rdquo; as the pedantic old
+topographers of some two centuries ago styled it forms the
+third.&nbsp; Whatever fitness may once have attached to the
+sobriquet of &ldquo;Dancing&rdquo; has long since disappeared,
+nor are the traditions of its olden morris-dancers one whit more
+marked than those of any other village.&nbsp; In the days when
+Marston danced, the neighbouring villages footed it with equally
+light heart and light heels, so far as we can tell.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Dry&rdquo; Marston, too, forms something of a puzzle to
+the observer, who notes not only that it is low-lying and that
+the little Dorsington Brook meanders close at hand on the map, in
+company with other rills, but also observes that a stone-paved
+causeway extends for a considerable distance along the road at
+the northern end of the village; evidently provided against
+flooded and muddy ways.&nbsp; Finally, if &ldquo;Marston&rdquo;
+does not derive from &ldquo;marshtown,&rdquo; then there is
+nothing at all in derivatives.&nbsp; We are thus reduced to the
+better-known name, &ldquo;Long&rdquo; Marston.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page142"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 142</span>
+<a href="images/p142.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Dancing Marston&rdquo;"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Dancing Marston&rdquo;"
+src="images/p142.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+143</span>Doubtless the stranger expects to find a considerable
+village, with a long-drawn street of cottages; but Marston is not
+in the least like that.&nbsp; Instead, you find ancient
+half-timbered and thatched cottages, scattered singly, or in
+groups of two or three, fronting upon the level road, each
+situated in its large garden, where it seems as much a product of
+the soil as the apples and pears, or the more homely cabbages,
+beans, and potatoes, and appears almost to have grown there,
+equally with them.&nbsp; A branch line of the Great Western
+Railway, it is true, runs by, with a station, but at Long Marston
+station the world goes easily and leisurely; sparrows chirp in
+the waiting-room and rabbits sport along the line; while such
+work as goes on in the goods-yard is punctuated by yawns and
+illuminative anecdotes.&nbsp; All this by way of praising these
+old-world surroundings.</p>
+<p>Among the cottages is an older whitewashed group, set back
+from the road.&nbsp; In pre-Reformation times this was the
+Priest&rsquo;s House.&nbsp; Across the way stands the pretty
+little fourteenth-century church, with little of interest within,
+but possessing a fine timbered north porch of the same period,
+the timbering at this present time of writing being again exposed
+to view after having been covered up with plaster for more than a
+century.</p>
+<p>It was on the evening of September 10th, the seventh day after
+the disastrous Battle of Worcester, that King Charles and his two
+companions, Mr. Lassels and Jane Lane, came to Long Marston and
+found shelter at the house of Mr. John Tomes.&nbsp; The King was
+in the character of &ldquo;Will Jackson,&rdquo; servant of
+Mistress Jane Lane; in that capacity riding horseback in front of
+her, while she rode pillion behind him.&nbsp; We may readily
+picture the King, in his servant&rsquo;s disguise, kept in his
+proper place in the kitchen, while Lassels and Jane Lane were
+entertained by the master of the house in the best parlour.&nbsp;
+Blount, in his <i>Boscobel</i>, published in 1660, the <a
+name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>year of the
+Restoration, illuminates this historic incident with an anecdote
+that gives the brief sojourn at Long Marston as piquant and
+homely a savour as that of King Alfred&rsquo;s burning the cakes
+in the cottage where he was in hiding, away down in the
+Somersetshire Isle of Athelney, nearly eight hundred years before
+the troubles of the Stuarts were heard of.&nbsp; Supper was being
+prepared for Mr. Tomes&rsquo; guests, and the cook asked
+&ldquo;Will Jackson&rdquo; to wind up the roasting-jack.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Will Jackson,&rdquo; says Blount, &ldquo;was obedient, and
+attempted it, but hit not the right way, which made the maid in
+some passion ask, &lsquo;What countryman are you, that you know
+not how to wind up a jack?&rsquo;&nbsp; To which Charles, who was
+ever blessed with that happy quality the French call
+<i>esprit</i>, for which we have no exactly corresponding word,
+replied, &lsquo;I am a poor tenant&rsquo;s son of Colonel Lane,
+in Staffordshire; we seldom have roast meat, and when we have, we
+don&rsquo;t make use of a jack.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Every one in Long Marston can point out &ldquo;King&rsquo;s
+Lodge,&rdquo; as this historic house is now known.&nbsp; Somewhat
+altered, externally and internally, but still in possession of
+descendants of the John Tomes who sheltered the King after
+Worcester Fight, it still retains the famous roasting-jack, now
+carefully preserved in a glass-case, in the room that was in
+those times a kitchen, and later became a cider cellar, and is
+now the dining-room.</p>
+<p>The Tomes family&mdash;who pronounce their name
+&ldquo;Tombs,&rdquo; and have many kinsfolk who also spell it in
+that fashion&mdash;have a curious and dismal pictorial pun upon
+their ancient patronymic, by way of coat of arms.&nbsp; It
+represents three white altar-tombs on a green ground; to speak in
+the language of heraldry: Vert, three tombstones argent.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page145"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 145</span>
+<a href="images/p145.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Dining Room, Formerly the Kitchen, King&rsquo;s Lodge"
+title=
+"Dining Room, Formerly the Kitchen, King&rsquo;s Lodge"
+src="images/p145.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>John
+Tomes suffered for his loyalty.&nbsp; Some of his lands were
+sequestrated and he was obliged to leave the country; nor did the
+Royal favour subsequently shown his family advantage them very
+greatly; the liberty granted them of hunting, hawking and fishing
+from Long Marston to Crab&rsquo;s Cross, in the neighbourhood of
+Redditch, being, it may well be supposed, of little value.</p>
+<p>Although, as already noted, changes have been made at
+&ldquo;King&rsquo;s Lodge,&rdquo; one may yet, in the quaint
+dining-room which was then the kitchen, sit in the Ingle-nook of
+the great fireplace, in which it may be supposed &ldquo;Will
+Jackson,&rdquo; having doubtless kissed the cook&mdash;if indeed,
+she were a kissable cook&mdash;and thus made amends for his
+unhandiness with the roasting-jack, was afterwards allowed a
+seat.</p>
+<h2><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+147</span>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">The &lsquo;Eight
+Villages&rsquo; (<i>concluded</i>).</p>
+<p class="gutsumm">&lsquo;Haunted&rsquo; Hillborough,
+&lsquo;Hungry&rsquo; Grafton,</p>
+<p class="gutsumm">&lsquo;Dodging&rsquo; Exhall,
+&lsquo;Papist&rsquo; Wixford,</p>
+<p class="gutsumm">&lsquo;Beggarly&rsquo; Broom, and
+&lsquo;Drunken&rsquo; Bidford.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Haunted</span> Hillborough,&rdquo;
+which comes next in order in this rhymed survey, is
+geographically remote from Long Marston, not so much in mere
+mileage, for it is not quite three miles distant, measured in a
+straight line, but it is situated on the other, and Warwickshire,
+side of the Avon, at a point where the river is not
+bridged.&nbsp; In short, the traveller from Long Marston to
+Hillborough will scarcely perform the journey under six miles,
+going by way of Dorsington and Barton, always along crooked
+roads, and thence through Bidford.&nbsp; Dorsington is an
+entirely pretty and extremely small village with a church
+noticeable only for the whimsical smallness of its red-brick
+Georgian tower.&nbsp; Why, in a lesser-known local rhyme, which
+does not find celebrity upon postcards and fancy articles at
+Stratford-on-Avon, Dorsington should be known as
+&ldquo;Daft&rdquo; is more than I can say; unless it be that the
+facile alliteration is irresistible.&nbsp; There are reasons
+sufficient for this lack of popularity, in the lines in which
+Dorsington&rsquo;s name occurs&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Daft Dorsington, Lousy Luddington,<br />
+Welford for witches, Hinton for bitches,<br />
+An&rsquo; Weston at th&rsquo; end of th&rsquo;
+&rsquo;orld.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Barton, through which we come into Bidford, is, as might
+perhaps be suspected from its name, merely a <a
+name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>rustic
+hamlet, for &ldquo;barton&rdquo; is but the old English word for
+a cow-byre or a barn.&nbsp; It is that &ldquo;Burton Heath&rdquo;
+mentioned in the <i>Taming of the Shrew</i>, of which Christopher
+Sly, &ldquo;old Sly&rsquo;s son,&rdquo; &ldquo;by birth a pedlar,
+by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now
+by present profession a tinker,&rdquo; was a native.</p>
+<p>From Barton we cross the Avon into Bidford over an ancient
+bridge of eight arches built in 1482 by the brethren of Alcester
+priory to replace the ford by which travellers along the Ryknield
+Street had up to that time crossed the river.&nbsp; The eight
+arches of Bidford achieve the rather difficult feat of being each
+of a different shape and size, and the heavy stonework itself has
+been extensively patched with brick.&nbsp; Here the Avon is
+encumbered with eyots and rushes, very destructive to the
+navigation, but affording very useful foregrounds for the
+illustrator.</p>
+<p>Bidford is wholly on the further, or Warwickshire, side of the
+river, and is a rather urban-looking place of one very long and
+narrow street.&nbsp; It has a population of over a thousand, and
+thus, I believe, comes under the official definition of a
+&ldquo;populous place,&rdquo; whose inns and public-houses are
+permitted to remain open until 11 p.m., which may or may not be a
+consideration here.&nbsp; The inns of Bidford are numerous, but
+they do not appear to enjoy their former prosperity.&nbsp; I
+adventured into one of them one thirsty summer day, for the
+purpose of sampling some of the &ldquo;perry&rdquo; advertised
+for sale within.&nbsp; There was no joy in the sour sorry stuff
+it proved to be.&nbsp; You get quite a quantity of it for
+three-halfpence; but it is odds against your drinking half of
+it.&nbsp; The landlady dolefully spoke of the state of
+trade.&nbsp; She had not taken half-a-crown that day.&nbsp;
+Truly, the glories of Bidford have departed!</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page149"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 149</span>
+<a href="images/p149.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Drunken Bidford&rdquo;"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Drunken Bidford&rdquo;"
+src="images/p149.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>The
+old &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; inn, an inn no longer, nor for many
+years past, stands in the midst of this very considerable
+village, close by the parish church, whose odd and not beautiful
+tower forms a prominent object in the view from the bridge.&nbsp;
+It is not in the least worth while to enter that church, for it
+has been almost wholly rebuilt.&nbsp; The nave has a ceiling, and
+there are deal doors, painted and grained to resemble oak.&nbsp;
+The chancel, reconstructed in the more florid and unrestrained
+period of the Gothic revival, is a lamentable specimen of
+architectural zeal not according to discretion.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p150.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The &ldquo;Falcon,&rdquo; Bidford"
+title=
+"The &ldquo;Falcon,&rdquo; Bidford"
+src="images/p150.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>It is nearly a century since the &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; ceased
+to be an inn.&nbsp; It then became a workhouse, and thus many a
+boozy old reprobate whose courses at the &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; had
+brought him to poverty ended his days under the same roof.&nbsp;
+Cynic Fortune, turned moralist and temperance lecturer, surely
+was never in a more saturnine humour!</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page151"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 151</span>
+<a href="images/p151.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Haunted Hillborough&rdquo;"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Haunted Hillborough&rdquo;"
+src="images/p151.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 152</span>The
+old sign of the inn eventually found its way to
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s birthplace.&nbsp; It pictured a golden falcon
+on a red ground, and bore additionally the arms of the Skipwith
+family, the chief landowners in Bidford.&nbsp; With the sign went
+an old chair in which Shakespeare is traditionally said to have
+sat.&nbsp; To-day the &ldquo;Falcon&rdquo; is let in tenements,
+and also houses the village reading-room and library.&nbsp; The
+building deserves a better fate, for, as will be noted from the
+accompanying illustration, it has that quality, as admirable in
+architecture as in men, character.&nbsp; It is of two distinct
+styles: the half-timbered gable noted along the street being
+doubtless the oldest portion, apparently of the mid-fifteenth
+century.&nbsp; This would seem to be the original inn.&nbsp; The
+main block seems to be about a century later, and would thus have
+been a recent building in Shakespeare&rsquo;s youth.&nbsp; It was
+added apparently at a period of unbounded prosperity and is
+wholly of stone.&nbsp; The stone is of that very markedly
+striated blue lias much used in this district, and is set in a
+traditional fashion once greatly followed, that is to say, in
+alternate narrow and broad hands or courses.</p>
+<p>Proceeding from Bidford along the Stratford road for
+Hillborough the haunted, the site of the ancient crab-apple tree
+is found, where the defeated Stratfordians slept off the effects
+of their carouse.&nbsp; The road is hedged now and the fields
+enclosed and cultivated, but in Shakespeare&rsquo;s time the way
+was open.&nbsp; The spot is marked on Ordnance maps as
+&ldquo;Shakespeare&rsquo;s Crab,&rdquo; and although the ancient
+tree finally disappeared in a venerable age on December 4th,
+1824, when its remains, shattered in storms and hacked by
+relic-hunters, were carted off to Bidford Grange, a younger tree
+of the same genus has been planted on the identical site.&nbsp;
+We may note the spot, interested and unashamed, because although
+the rhymes upon the eight villages are almost certainly not
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s&mdash;though probably quite as old as his
+period&mdash;that is no reason for doubting the <a
+name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+153</span>poet&rsquo;s taking part in the drinking contest.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Because thou art virtuous, shall there be no cakes and
+ale?&rdquo; and because we do not follow the customs of our
+ancestors shall we think them in their generation&mdash;and
+Shakespeare with them&mdash;disreputable?&nbsp; I think not,
+although, with these things in mind, I live in daily expectation
+of an article in some popular journal, asking, &ldquo;Was
+Shakespeare Respectable?&rdquo;&nbsp; I think the poet was, apart
+from his literary genius, an average man, with the weaknesses of
+such; and all the more lovable for it.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p153.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Haunted Hillborough&rdquo;"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Haunted Hillborough&rdquo;"
+src="images/p153.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Hillborough is reached by turning in a further mile to the
+right, off the high road, at a point where a meadow is situated
+locally known as &ldquo;Palmer&rsquo;s Piece.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Palmer, it appears, was a farmer who drowned his wife in the
+Avon, and was gibbeted on this spot for the crime.</p>
+<p>A mile&rsquo;s journey along narrow roads, down towards the
+river, brings the pilgrim to Hillborough.&nbsp; Now Hillborough
+is not a village: it is not even a hamlet, <a
+name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>and is
+indeed nothing but the remaining wing of an old manor-house, now
+a farm, and in a very solitary situation.&nbsp; It will thunder
+and lighten, and rain heavily when you go to Hillborough&mdash;it
+always does when you seek interesting places in remote
+spots&mdash;but these conditions seem only the more appropriate
+to the haunted reputation of the scene; although what was the
+nature of the hauntings has eluded every possible inquiry.&nbsp;
+It is thus curiously and wholly in keeping that the old
+manor-house and its surroundings should look so eerie.&nbsp;
+Noble trees romantically overhang the house; remains of old
+buildings whose disappearance mournful ghosts might grieve over,
+lend a dilapidated air of the Has Been to the place; and an
+ancient circular stone pigeon-house, a relic of the former manor,
+stands beside a dismal pond.&nbsp; But the ghosts have ceased to
+walk.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p154.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Hungry Grafton&rdquo;"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Hungry Grafton&rdquo;"
+src="images/p154.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>A mile and a half across the Stratford road, is situated the
+fourth of these eight villages, &ldquo;Hungry&rdquo;
+Grafton.&nbsp; The real name of the place is Temple
+Grafton.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hungry&rdquo; <a name="page155"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 155</span>is said to be an allusion to a
+supposed poverty of the soil, but farmers of this neighbourhood,
+although fully as dissatisfied as you expect a farmer to be, do
+not lend much help to the stranger seeking information.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve varmed wuss land an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ve varmed
+better,&rdquo; was the eminently non-committal reply of one;
+while another was of the opinion that &ldquo;it &rsquo;on&rsquo;t
+break us, nor yet it &rsquo;on&rsquo;t make us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Shakespearean tourist will not be pleased with Grafton,
+for the squire of the adjoining Grafton Court practically rebuilt
+the whole village some forty years ago.&nbsp; It is true that was
+not a heroic undertaking, for it is a small village, but the
+doing of it very effectually quenches the traveller&rsquo;s
+enthusiasm.&nbsp; Even the church was rebuilt in 1875: a
+peculiarly unfortunate thing, because the old building was one of
+those for which claim was made for having been the scene of
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s marriage, that elusive ceremony of which no
+register survives to bear witness.&nbsp; It is only in practical,
+unsentimental England that these things are at all
+possible.&nbsp; A furious desire to obliterate every possible
+Shakespearean landmark would almost seem to have possessed the
+people of the locality, until quite recent years.&nbsp; Grafton,
+whose &ldquo;Temple&rdquo; prefix derives from the manor having
+anciently been one of the possessions of the Knights Templar,
+stands on a hill.&nbsp; The site is thought to have been covered
+in olden times with scrub-woods, &ldquo;Grafton&rdquo; or
+&ldquo;Greveton,&rdquo; taking its name from
+&ldquo;greves&rdquo;; a word signifying underwoods.&nbsp; Similar
+place-names are found in Northamptonshire, in Grafton Regis and
+Grafton Underwood, situated in Whittlebury Forest.</p>
+<p>The only possible picture in &ldquo;Hungry&rdquo; Grafton is
+that sketched here, from below the ridge, where a brook runs
+beneath the road, beside a group of red-brick <a
+name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+156</span>cottages.&nbsp; If you ascend the road indicated here
+and pass the highly uninteresting church and schools, you come to
+the hamlet of Ardens Grafton, a very much more gracious and
+picturesque place, although in extremely tumbledown and
+dilapidated circumstances.&nbsp; It is very much of a woodland
+hamlet, and appears to owe the first part of its name rather to
+that circumstance than to ownership at any time by the Arden
+family: Ardens in this case signifying a height overlooking a
+wooded Vale.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p156.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Hollow Road, Exhall"
+title=
+"The Hollow Road, Exhall"
+src="images/p156.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The situation of the place does in fact most aptly illustrate
+the derivation, for it stands upon a very remarkable ridge, which
+must needs be descended by a steep and sudden hill if we want to
+reach Exhall.&nbsp; Descending the almost precipitous and narrow
+road with surprise, the nearly cliff-like escarpment is seen
+trending away most strikingly to the north.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page157"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 157</span>
+<a href="images/p157.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Papist Wixford&rdquo;"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Papist Wixford&rdquo;"
+src="images/p157.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>We
+are now in the valley of the river Arrow.&nbsp; On the way to
+Exhall we come&mdash;not led by Caliban&mdash;to &ldquo;where
+crabs grow,&rdquo; for the hedgerows here are remarkable for the
+number of crab-apple trees.&nbsp; Shakespeare must have had them
+in mind when he wrote <i>The Tempest</i>.&nbsp; Exhall lies in a
+beautiful country, on somewhat obscure byways that may have given
+the place that elusive character with strangers to which it owes
+its nickname of &ldquo;Dodging&rdquo;: although, to be sure there
+are the other readings of &ldquo;Dadging,&rdquo; whose meaning no
+one seems to comprehend; and &ldquo;Drudging,&rdquo; which it is
+held is the true epithet, given in allusion to the heavy
+ploughlands of the vale.&nbsp; Yet another choice has been found,
+in &ldquo;Dudging,&rdquo; supposed to mean &ldquo;sulky&rdquo;;
+but the ingenuity of commentators in these things is
+endless.&nbsp; There is, at any rate, in coming from Ardens
+Grafton, no modern difficulty in finding Exhall.&nbsp; It is a
+little village of large farms, with a small aisle-less Early
+English and Decorated church whose interest has been almost
+wholly destroyed by the so-called &ldquo;restoration&rdquo; of
+1863.&nbsp; A window with the ball-flower moulding characteristic
+of the Decorated period remains in the south wall, and there are
+brasses to John Walsingham, 1566, and his wife; but for the rest,
+the stranger within these gates need not regret the church being
+locked, in common with most others in Shakespeare land.&nbsp; The
+hollow road at Exhall, with high, grassy banks and the group of
+charming old half-timbered cottages illustrated here is a
+delight.&nbsp; The builder who built them&mdash;they are
+certainly at least a century older than Shakespeare&mdash;built
+more picturesquely than he knew, with those sturdy chimney-stacks
+and the long flight of stairs ascending from the road.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page159"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 159</span>
+<a href="images/p159.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Brass to Thomas de Cruwe and Wife, Wixford"
+title=
+"Brass to Thomas de Cruwe and Wife, Wixford"
+src="images/p159.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>There
+are orchards at Exhall where I think the
+&ldquo;leather-coats&rdquo; such as Davy put before
+Shallow&rsquo;s guests yet grow: they are a russet apple, and,
+like the &ldquo;bitter-sweeting,&rdquo; own a local name which
+Shakespeare, the Warwickshire countryman, knew well enough, but
+of whose existence Bacon could have known nothing.&nbsp; What
+says Mercutio to Romeo?&nbsp; &ldquo;Thy wit is a very bitter
+sweeting: it is a most sharp sauce.&rdquo;&nbsp; And if you,
+tempted by the beautiful yellow of that apple, pick one and taste
+it, you will find the bitterness of it bite to the very bone.</p>
+<p>Exhall takes the first part of its name, &ldquo;ex,&rdquo;
+from the Celtic word <i>uisg</i>, for water: a word which has
+given the river Exe its name, and masquerades elsewhere as Ouse,
+Exe, Usk, Esk, and so forth.&nbsp; But the river Arrow is a mile
+distant, and Wixford, which comes next, whose boundaries extend
+to that stream, is much better entitled to its name, which was
+originally &ldquo;uisg-ford,&rdquo; meaning
+&ldquo;water-ford.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Papist&rdquo; Wixford is said to have derived its
+nickname from the Throckmortons, staunch Roman Catholics, who
+once owned property here.&nbsp; The Arrow runs close by the
+scattered cottages of this tiny place, which might be styled
+merely a hamlet, except that it has a parish church of its
+own.&nbsp; A delightful little church it is, too, placed on a
+ridge and neighboured only by some timber-framed cottages.&nbsp;
+Luxuriant elms group nobly with it, and in the churchyard is a
+very large and handsome yew-tree, whose spreading branches,
+perhaps more symmetrical than those of any other yew of its size
+in this country, are supported at regular intervals by timber
+struts, forming a curious and notable sight.&nbsp; There are
+monumental brasses in the little church; by far the best of them,
+however, is the noble brass to Thomas de Cruwe and his wife
+Juliana, appropriately placed in the south chapel that was
+founded by him.&nbsp; Thomas de Cruwe&mdash;whose name was really
+&ldquo;Crewe,&rdquo; only our ancestors were used to spell
+phonetically&mdash;was scarcely <a name="page162"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 162</span>the warlike knight he would, from
+his plate-armour and mighty sword, appear to be.&nbsp; He was, in
+fact, chief steward to Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and
+attorney to the Countess Margaret, widow of his
+predecessor.&nbsp; He was, further, a &ldquo;Knight of the
+Shire,&rdquo; or member of Parliament, in 1404, and Justice of
+the Peace; and having filled these various professional and
+official positions, let us hope with as much satisfaction to his
+employers and others as obviously to his own advantage, he died
+at last in his bed, as all good lawyers, even of his date, the
+beginning of the fifteenth century, ought to do, in the year
+1418.&nbsp; The date of his death is, however, not mentioned on
+the brass, the blanks in the inscription, left for the purpose,
+having never been filled.&nbsp; His wife Juliana, who had been
+the widow of one of the Cloptons, predeceased him, in 1411, and
+Thomas de Cruwe caused this beautiful and costly brass to be
+engraved in his own lifetime.&nbsp; The incomplete inscription is
+by no means unusual, numerous brasses throughout the country
+displaying similar unfilled spaces; pointing to the indifference
+with which the date of departure of the dear departed was all too
+often regarded by their more or less sorrowing heirs, executors,
+and assigns.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p161.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"&ldquo;Beggarly Broom&rdquo;"
+title=
+"&ldquo;Beggarly Broom&rdquo;"
+src="images/p161.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>This splendidly-engraved brass, which ranks among the largest
+and finest in England, is mounted on a raised slab measuring nine
+by four feet; the effigies five feet in height.&nbsp; A curious
+error of the engraver of this monument is to be noted, in the
+omission of Thomas de Cruwe&rsquo;s sword-belt or baldrick, by
+which the sword hanging from his waist has no visible means of
+support.&nbsp; The odd badge&mdash;apparently unique in
+heraldry&mdash;of a naked human left foot is seen many times
+repeated on the brass.&nbsp; No explanation of it seems ever to
+have been offered.&nbsp; We might have expected a cock in the <a
+name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>act of
+crowing, for &ldquo;Crewe,&rdquo; for our ancestors dearly loved
+puns upon family names and were never daunted by the vapidity or
+appalling stupidity of them; but in this case they forbore.</p>
+<p>The penultimate village of these rhymes,
+&ldquo;Beggarly&rdquo; Broom, also stands upon the Arrow.&nbsp;
+Marston, as we have seen, dances no more, nor does Pebworth pipe;
+the supernatural no longer vexes Hillborough, and Grafton is not
+so hungry as you might suppose.&nbsp; Exhall is not difficult to
+find, and there are not any Roman Catholics at Wixford; while
+Bidford is not obviously drunken.&nbsp; But Broom is just as
+beggarly as ever.</p>
+<p>Broom was originally a hamlet of squatters on a gorsy, or
+broom-covered heath, and a hamlet it yet remains.&nbsp; Modern
+times have brought Broom a railway junction and a bridge across
+the Arrow, where was until recently only a ford; but Broom is not
+to be moved into activity by these things, or anything.&nbsp;
+Anglers come by cheap tickets from Birmingham and fish in the
+Arrow, and swap lies at the &ldquo;Hollybush&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Broom&rdquo; inns about what they have caught, but there
+still is that poverty-stricken air about the place which
+originally attracted the notice of the rhymester, centuries
+ago.&nbsp; A flour-mill, still actively at work by the river, and
+a new house being built, do little to qualify this ancient aspect
+of squalid decay, which seems to extend even to the inhabitants,
+who may be observed sitting stolidly and abstractedly, as though
+contemplating the immensities.&nbsp; They are probably only
+wondering whence to-morrow&rsquo;s dinner is coming, a branch of
+philosophical inquiry of poignant interest.</p>
+<h2><a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+164</span>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">The
+&lsquo;Swan&rsquo;s Nest&rsquo;&mdash;Haunted?&mdash;Clifford
+Chambers&mdash;Wincot&mdash;Quinton, and its club day.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Twelve</span> miles south of Stratford,
+across the level lands of the Feldon, you come to Chipping
+Campden, perched upon the outlying hills of the Cotswold
+country.&nbsp; The inevitable way southward out of Stratford town
+lies over the Clopton Bridge, and then, having crossed the Avon,
+the roads diverge.&nbsp; To the left you proceed for Charlecote
+and Kineton; straight ahead for Banbury and London; and to the
+right for Chipping Campden or for Shipston-on-Stour.&nbsp; The
+point where these roads branch and go their several ways was
+until recently a very charming exit from or entrance to the
+town.&nbsp; Here stands the old inn, the &ldquo;Swan&rsquo;s
+Nest,&rdquo; <i>ex</i> &ldquo;Shoulder of Mutton,&rdquo; by the
+waterside, and opposite are the grounds of the old manor-house,
+enclosed behind lofty and massive brick walls.</p>
+<p>The &ldquo;Swan&rsquo;s Nest&rdquo; is a red-brick house of
+good design, built in 1677, when an excellent taste in
+architecture prevailed.&nbsp; The sign was then the
+&ldquo;Bear,&rdquo; a very usual name in these marches of the
+Warwick influence.&nbsp; It arose upon the site of a hermitage
+and Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene that had long subsisted upon the
+alms of travellers this way, generations before Sir William
+Clopton built his bridge, and remained for some time afterwards,
+until the Reformation swept all such things away.</p>
+<p>The manor-house opposite is now to let, and long has <a
+name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 165</span>been.&nbsp;
+They say it is haunted&mdash;but &ldquo;they&rdquo;?&nbsp; Who
+then are they?&nbsp; No very reliable folk, be sure: only those
+irresponsible gossips who scent mysteries behind every board
+announcing &ldquo;This Desirable Mansion to Let.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+more desirable the mansion, the more inexplicable that it should
+not be desired of some one and become let.&nbsp; As the months go
+by and lengthen into years and the house-agents&rsquo; boards
+begin themselves to show some evidences of antiquity, the mystery
+deepens and the ghost is born.&nbsp; I think this especial ghost
+was born in the bar-parlour of the &ldquo;Swan&rsquo;s
+Nest.&rdquo;&nbsp; But it is difficult to get any exact
+information about this spirit.&nbsp; It would be: it invariably
+is.&nbsp; Whether the midnight spook be some mournful White Lady
+who looks from the dust-grimed windows of yonder gazebo upon the
+road, or some horrific spectre who like the ghost of
+Hamlet&rsquo;s father &ldquo;could a tale unfold, whose lightest
+word Would harrow up thy soul&rdquo; and make</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Each particular hair to stand on end,<br />
+Like quills upon the fretful porcupine,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>I cannot say.&nbsp; But the local gossip will not lessen as
+time goes on and the place remains unlet.&nbsp; There could <a
+name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>not, for
+one thing, be a much better setting for ghostly
+manifestations.&nbsp; It is true that the road is one much used
+by traffic, and by motorists in especial, whose dust and horrid
+odours might well disgust any but the hardiest of wraiths; but
+here is the old garden-pavilion or gazebo on the wall at the fork
+of roads, with its quaint roof and the windows from which the
+people of the manor would look out upon the traffic when it was
+not so dusty and did not stink so much, and here are still the
+trunks of the magnificent elms that until recently cast a
+grateful shade upon the road and made the bridge-end so beautiful
+a scene.&nbsp; But the elms have been lopped and show cruelly
+amputated limbs, and no one looks any more from the gazebo: it is
+an eloquent picture of the Past.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p165.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Clopton Bridge, and the &ldquo;Swan&rsquo;s Nest&rdquo;"
+title=
+"Clopton Bridge, and the &ldquo;Swan&rsquo;s Nest&rdquo;"
+src="images/p165.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Beyond this spot we leave the Shipston road and turn to the
+right, coming in two miles to Clifford Chambers, which is not the
+block of offices or residential flats its name would seem to the
+Londoner to imply, but a picturesque village, taking the first
+part of its name from an olden ford on the Stour, and the second
+part from the manor having formerly been the property of the
+house-stewards, or &ldquo;Chamberers,&rdquo; of the great Abbey
+of Gloucester.</p>
+<p>The village street of Clifford Chambers stands at an angle
+from the road, and so keeps its ancient character the better, for
+the way through it down to the Stour is only a rustic
+track.&nbsp; Clifford Chambers is therefore entirely
+unspoiled.&nbsp; Here is the church, grouping beautifully with
+the ancient parsonage, now a farmhouse again, as it was during
+the time of the plague at Stratford, in the year when William
+Shakespeare was born, and when a mysterious John Shakespeare was
+living here.&nbsp; &ldquo;Mysterious&rdquo; because nothing more
+is known of him, and because the question arises in some minds,
+&ldquo;Was the John Shakespeare then living at <a
+name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span>Clifford
+Chambers identical with the John Shakespeare of
+Stratford-on-Avon, father of William?&nbsp; Was William
+Shakespeare, in fact, born here, instead of at &lsquo;the
+Birthplace&rsquo; in Henley Street, or did John Shakespeare
+remove his wife and infant son hither when the plague broke out
+in the summer of 1564?&rdquo;&nbsp; Any question of this being
+the birthplace would seem to be at once disposed of by the
+undoubted baptism of William Shakespeare at the parish church of
+Stratford-on-Avon; but the summer retreat of the Shakespeares to
+this place may yet be a field for interesting speculation.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p167.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Clifford Chambers"
+title=
+"Clifford Chambers"
+src="images/p167.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>There is not a more charming old black-and-white house in the
+neighbourhood than this, with its long range of perpendicular
+timbers, roughly-split in the old English fashion, which might
+well show some &ldquo;restorers&rdquo; how to do it; and the odd
+outside stairway at the gable-end, roofed over with its little
+penthouse roof.&nbsp; It comes well enough in black and white,
+but forms a feast of mellow colour, in the rich but subdued tints
+that the lichens and the stains of time and weather have
+given.</p>
+<p>Facing up the rustic street, more like a village green than
+street, is another and a statelier house: the manor-house,
+enclosed within its garden-walls.&nbsp; It is of stone, in the
+early years of the eighteenth century, when Queen Anne
+reigned.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Anna, whom three realms obey,<br />
+Who sometimes counsel takes, and sometimes tay.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The view through the gates, flanked with imposing masonry
+piers crested with what the country folk call &ldquo;gentility
+balls,&rdquo; shows a delightful picture of old-world
+stateliness.&nbsp; Time within this enclosure seems to have stood
+still.&nbsp; You can imagine people living here who still take
+&ldquo;a dish of tay,&rdquo; who are &ldquo;vastly
+obleeged&rdquo; when you ask them how they do, and protest they
+<a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>are
+&ldquo;mighty well,&rdquo; or have &ldquo;the vapours,&rdquo; as
+the case may be, instead of being, as they would be in other
+surroundings and in the vile phrases of to-day, &ldquo;awfully
+fit,&rdquo; or &ldquo;feeling rotten.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>You can imagine, I say, the owners of this fine old
+manor-house drinking their dish of tay out of fine old
+&ldquo;chancy,&rdquo; as they used to call it; still speaking in
+the fashion that went out of date with the death of the great
+Duke of Wellington, who was among the last, I believe, to say
+&ldquo;obleeged&rdquo; and to call a chair a
+&ldquo;cheer.&rdquo;&nbsp; Now only the most rustic of rustics
+talk in this manner, and when they say &ldquo;cowcumber,&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;laylock,&rdquo; and speak of &ldquo;going fust&rdquo;
+they are thought vulgar and reproved by their children.&nbsp; But
+such was the pronunciation used by the best in the land in years
+gone by.</p>
+<p>There are the loveliest gardens in the rear of this old
+manor-house, with orchards of apples and pears and wall-fruit
+beyond, and an older wing by a century or so.</p>
+<p>The main road goes straight ahead for some miles, with Long
+Marston rather more than a mile on the right.&nbsp; It is fully
+described in these pages, in the first of the two chapters on the
+&ldquo;Eight Villages.&rdquo;&nbsp; On the left is the old
+farm-house which is all that is left of the hamlet of Wincot, the
+place where &ldquo;Marian Hacket, the fat alewife,&rdquo;
+mentioned by Christopher Sly in the induction to the <i>Taming of
+the Shrew</i>, had her alehouse, at which that drunken tinker had
+run up a score.&nbsp; Many of the hamlets round about are
+&ldquo;cotts,&rdquo; &ldquo;cotes,&rdquo; or &ldquo;cots&rdquo;;
+Grimscote, Foxcote, Hidcote, Idlicote, Darlingscott, and
+others.&nbsp; Wincot as a hamlet of Quinton finds mention in the
+registers of that church, and in them, November 21st, 1591, is
+still to be found the entry recording the baptism of Sara Hacket,
+daughter of Robert Hacket.&nbsp; The fat Marian, therefore, who
+allowed <a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+170</span>drunken undesirables to run up scores, was probably a
+real person.</p>
+<p>As we make for Quinton the tree-crowned height of Meon Hill,
+an outpost of the Cotswolds, forms a striking landmark in this
+vale.&nbsp; It is, according to the Ordnance Survey, 637 feet
+high, and its position gives it an appearance of even greater
+eminence.&nbsp; At its foothills lies the village of Quinton, in
+a district very little disturbed by strangers, and in summer days
+one of quiet delights.&nbsp; Coming over to Quinton one
+afternoon, from a day of hospitable entertainment at King&rsquo;s
+Lodge, Long Marston, I cycled along the quiet sunlit road, past
+the old tollhouse with its little strip of wayside garden, and
+silently came upon a black cat, appreciatively and with much
+evident enjoyment smelling the wall-flowers growing there.&nbsp;
+One never before credited cats with a liking for sweet
+scents.</p>
+<p>Only one event during the year disturbs the serenity of
+Quinton.&nbsp; At other times it drowses, like all its fellow
+villages of the vale; but this one occasion is like that in
+Tennyson&rsquo;s <i>May Queen</i>, the &ldquo;maddest, merriest
+day.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is the day when Quinton Club holds high
+revel.&nbsp; I do not know what is the purpose of Quinton Club,
+but the occasion of its merry-making is like that of a village
+fair, and all those travelling proprietors of steam roundabouts,
+cocoa-nut shies, shooting-galleries and popular entertainments of
+that kind who attend fairs make a point of visiting this
+celebration.&nbsp; And indeed I do not know what Quinton would do
+without them and the many stall-keepers who come in their
+train.</p>
+<p>To say merely that Quinton is not a large place would be to
+leave some sort of impression that, if not a little town, it was
+at least a considerable village.&nbsp; It is, as a matter of
+fact, a very small one, but to it on this day of days resort the
+people of those neighbouring places <a name="page171"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 171</span>unfortunate enough to have neither
+club nor fair of their own, and you may see them trudging from
+all directions; driving in on farm-wagons seated with
+kitchen-chairs for this purpose, or cycling.&nbsp; Towards
+evening, when most of the countryside has arrived, the strident
+tones of the steam organ that forms not the least important part
+of the roundabout, the thuds of the heavy mallets on the
+&ldquo;try-your-strength&rdquo; machines, the shouting of the
+cocoa-nut shy proprietors, and the general hum and buzz of the
+fair astonish the stranger afar off.&nbsp; Near at hand, the
+scent of fried fish is heavy on the air and gingerbread is hot
+i&rsquo; the mouth, and in the centre of the hurly-burly the
+steam roundabout blares and glares, presided over by a very
+highly-coloured full-length portrait of no less a person than
+Lord Roberts, in the full equipment of Field Marshal; the surest
+test of a soldier&rsquo;s popularity.&nbsp; Lord Kitchener has
+never yet become the presiding hero over the galloping horses of
+the steam roundabout: he is perhaps something too grim for these
+occasions.</p>
+<p>I think, beneath the pictured face of Lord Roberts there lurks
+the countenance of he who was the popular favourite immediately
+before him; Lord Wolseley, who for twenty years or more was in
+the shrewd opinion of the showmen, the most attractive
+personality to preside over the steam-trumpets, the odious
+&ldquo;kist o&rsquo; whustles,&rdquo; the mirrors and the
+circulating wooden horses.&nbsp; The showmen know best, they are
+in touch with popular sentiment; and be sure that if you scraped
+off Lord Roberts, you would find the face of Lord Wolseley
+there.&nbsp; Indeed, the possibility of a real stratum of
+military heroes is only limited by the age of the machine itself;
+and if it were only old enough one might penetrate beyond Lord
+Wolseley to Lord Raglan, and even back to that ancient hero of
+the inn signs, the Marquis of Granby.</p>
+<p><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 172</span>The
+fine church of Quinton looks across the road to the village inn,
+the &ldquo;College Arms.&rdquo;&nbsp; The arms are those of
+Magdalen College, Oxford, owner of the manor.</p>
+<p>The church is a Decorated building, with fine spire, and
+contains some interesting monuments; chief among them an
+altar-tomb with a very fine brass to Joan Clopton, widow of Sir
+William Clopton, who died in 1419.&nbsp; An effigy, on another
+altar-tomb, seen in the church, is said by some to be that of her
+husband; others declare it to be that of one Thomas le
+Roos.&nbsp; She survived her husband several years, dying about
+1430, in the habit of a religious recluse, or
+&ldquo;vowess.&rdquo;&nbsp; She lived probably in a cell or
+anchoress&rsquo;s hold built on to the church and commanding a
+view of the altar, and must have had a singularly poor time of it
+in all those eleven years.&nbsp; No trace remains of her
+uncomfortable and singularly dull habitation.&nbsp; This
+misguided lady was by birth a Besford of Besford in
+Worcestershire, and her coat of arms, displayed separately and
+also impaled with that of her husband, has six golden pears on a
+red ground, by way of a painfully farfetched pun on
+&ldquo;Besford.&rdquo;&nbsp; Not even the most desolating punster
+of our own time could or would torture &ldquo;Besford&rdquo; into
+&ldquo;Pearsford,&rdquo; but our remote ancestors were capable of
+the greatest enormities in this way.</p>
+<p>Some of the red enamel still remains in the heraldic shields
+on this fine brass, which, including its canopy, is six feet four
+inches long.&nbsp; The figure of Joan Clopton, and the brass in
+general, is in excellent condition, perhaps because the
+descendants of the family took care of it.&nbsp; One of them, a
+certain &ldquo;T. Lingen,&rdquo; whose name appears upon the
+tomb, repaired it in 1739.&nbsp; A Latin verse occupies the
+margin of the brass, with little figures of pears repeated at
+intervals.&nbsp; The verse has been translated as
+follows&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+173</span>&ldquo;Vowed to a holy life when ceased her knightly
+husband&rsquo;s breath,<br />
+Joan Clopton here, Anne&rsquo;s grandchild dear, implores Thy
+grace in death;<br />
+O! Christ, for Thee, O! Jesu blest, how largely hath she shed<br
+/>
+Her bounteous gifts on poor and sick&mdash;how hath she
+garnished<br />
+Thy stately shrines with splendour meet&mdash;how hath she sent
+before<br />
+Her earthly wealth to Thee above, to swell her heavenly store,<br
+/>
+For such blest fruits of faith, O grant, in Thine own house her
+home:<br />
+Soft lies an earthly tomb on those to whom these heavenly
+blessings come.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>A scroll above her head is inscribed with the words&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Complaceat tibi due eripias me<br />
+Due ad adiuuand&rsquo; me respice&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>an appeal that may be rendered, &ldquo;Be good and loving to
+me, O Lord.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A striking instance of the affection inspired by Queen
+Elizabeth is to be noticed in the Royal arms of her period over
+the chancel arch, bearing, in addition to &ldquo;that glorious
+&lsquo;Semper Eadem&rsquo;&rdquo; alluded to by Macaulay in his
+ballad on the Armada, the inscription &ldquo;God love our noble
+Queen.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Resuming the way to Chipping Campden, the road passes the spot
+marked on the maps &ldquo;Lower Clopton.&rdquo;&nbsp; This, or
+the other tiny hamlet away on the left, called &ldquo;Upper
+Clopton,&rdquo; was the home of that first Shakespeare recorded
+in history, who was hanged in 1248 for robbery.&nbsp; Through
+Mickleton, a more considerable village than its neighbours, and
+deriving its original name of &ldquo;Mycclantune,&rdquo; the
+&ldquo;larger town,&rdquo; from that fact, up climbs the highway
+to Campden.</p>
+<p>It is in some ways difficult to imagine Campden the busy and
+prosperous place it once unquestionably was; but the quiet old
+streets, lined with houses almost every one of good architectural
+character; and the old market-house, and the fine church give
+full assurance of the commercial activity and the wealth that
+have departed.</p>
+<h2><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+174</span>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Chipping
+Campden.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Campden&rsquo;s</span> position as a
+market town dates back to Saxon times, when the verb
+&ldquo;ceapan,&rdquo; to buy, gave the prefix
+&ldquo;Chipping&rdquo; to it.&nbsp; The town rose to greater
+prosperity when the ancient wool-growing wealth of the Cotswolds
+was doubled by the manufacture in these same districts of the
+cloth from those wealth-bringing fleeces; and great fortunes were
+amassed by both wool-merchants and clothiers.&nbsp; The rise of
+England from an agricultural and a wool-growing country, such as
+Australia now is, to a manufacturing community directly concerned
+such towns as Stroud, Northleach, Burford and Chipping Campden,
+which, with the introduction of weaving, earned two profits
+instead of one.&nbsp; There are perhaps a dozen little Cotswold
+towns whose great churches were rebuilt in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, in a magnificent style by the wealthy
+merchants of the time, whose monumental brasses still in many
+cases remain, representing them standing upon sheep, or
+woolsacks, or with the tailor&rsquo;s shears between their legs;
+the origins of their wealth.&nbsp; When the cloth manufacture
+largely migrated to the Midlands and the north, such towns as
+Campden, Burford, and Northleach began to decay, and now that
+Australia is the chief source of the wool supply it is difficult
+to see how they are ever to recover.&nbsp; They are not on the
+great routes of traffic, and railways do not come near them.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p174a.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Old Houses, Chipping Campden"
+title=
+"Old Houses, Chipping Campden"
+src="images/p174a.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p174b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Market House, Chipping Campden"
+title=
+"The Market House, Chipping Campden"
+src="images/p174b.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+175</span>Campden is situated on a kind of shelf or narrow
+plateau upon the Cotswolds.&nbsp; You come steeply up to it, and,
+leaving it, rise as steeply as before.&nbsp; Like most of its
+neighbours on Cotswold, it is a stone-built town, grown grey with
+age and weathering.&nbsp; When some new mason-work is
+undertaken&mdash;which is not often&mdash;the stone is seen to be
+of a pale biscuit colour; but it soon loses that new tint and
+rapidly acquires the rather sad hue of the older work.</p>
+<p>The traveller fresh from Stratford, where brick, and
+timber-framed and plastered houses abound, feels astonishment in
+the sudden transition to a place like Campden, in which I believe
+there is not a single example of timber-framing.</p>
+<p>The old town of Campden is extraordinarily full of
+architectural interest; with domestic work ranging from the
+mid-fourteenth century house of the Grevels to the beginning of
+the eighteenth century, when the town began to decline and
+building ceased.&nbsp; No modern suburbs are found on the
+outskirts of Campden.&nbsp; I do not know how the town manages to
+exist.&nbsp; There is a railway station, but it is a mile away
+and it is only incidental and placed on the line to Evesham and
+Worcester.&nbsp; No great genius was ever born at Campden, or if
+he was, he missed fire and perished unknown.&nbsp; Therefore it
+is not a place of pilgrimage, and only parties of architectural
+students, measuring up or sketching some of the charming bits
+with which it abounds; or artists, or contemplative ruminative
+folk who want to escape from the eternal hustle of this age and
+its devilish gospel of &ldquo;get on or get out&rdquo; ever go
+there.&nbsp; &ldquo;Past&rdquo; is traced over its every
+building.&nbsp; &ldquo;There was a time&rdquo; might be inscribed
+over the open-sided and quaintly-colonnaded market-house; and
+&ldquo;Yesterday&rdquo; should be the town motto.&nbsp; There are
+little courts off the main street where the leisured explorer in
+Campden will <a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+176</span>find remains of the old wool warehouses, with here and
+there a traceried Gothic window.&nbsp; Many old sundials still
+exist on the walls; in particular a charming example near the
+market-house with the initials W. S. T. and date 1690; and dated
+house-tablets show with what pride the old inhabitants looked
+upon their homes.</p>
+<p>But the pride of all the ancient houses of Campden is that
+house where William Grevel lived in the fourteenth century.&nbsp;
+It is not a very large house, one thinks, for so wealthy a man as
+he was, described as he is on the brass in the church as
+&ldquo;the flower of the wool-merchants of all England,&rdquo;
+but it presents a charming frontage to the street and has an
+oriel window of peculiar beauty, presided over by two huge and
+hideous gargoyles, the one representing a winged, bat-like
+monster with gaping mouth and a ferocious expression; the other a
+kind of demon dog with glaring eyes of intense
+malignity&mdash;the late Mr. William Grevel&rsquo;s familiar
+spirits, perhaps.</p>
+<p>Every one well-read in the history of his country knows that
+the ranks of its aristocracy and its peerage have constantly been
+reinforced from the trading classes.&nbsp; It is a matter of
+money.&nbsp; When a man has great possessions he finds the House
+of Lords waiting to receive him.&nbsp; It has been so for
+centuries, and not only so, but the ennobled have in their own
+later generations given younger sons to trade.&nbsp; The
+different processes are still seen working; and why not?&nbsp;
+Wealth will secure consideration, and younger sons who cannot
+always marry money must in their turn go into trade and make
+it.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page177"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 177</span>
+<a href="images/p177.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Grevel&rsquo;s House"
+title=
+"Grevel&rsquo;s House"
+src="images/p177.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>The
+old wool-merchants and clothiers often rose to the peerage on
+their own account, or married their sons and daughters into its
+ranks.&nbsp; William Grevel, who was a descendant of other
+mercantile Grevels, never became more than a wealthy
+trader.&nbsp; As such he died in 1401, and it was not until just
+over two centuries had passed that his descendant, Fulke
+Greville, entered the lists of the coroneted as Baron Brooke; the
+eighth Baron Brooke not becoming Earl of Warwick until
+1759.&nbsp; The Grevels&mdash;or &ldquo;Grevilles,&rdquo; as they
+afterwards spelt their name&mdash;therefore only belatedly won to
+that haven where they would be; but most others were more
+fortunate.&nbsp; Baptist Hicks, for example, is an extraordinary
+instance of swift accumulation of wealth.&nbsp; He, however, made
+it in London, as a mercer and perhaps a good deal more as a
+moneylender.&nbsp; He lent money to James the First among others,
+and became so warm a man that he returned in 1609 to his native
+Gloucestershire and purchased the manor of Campden, building a
+magnificent country seat next the church.&nbsp; The cost of this
+was &pound;29,000: over &pound;200,000 according to present
+value.&nbsp; He had so much money and so fine a house that he,
+being already a Knight, was in 1628 created a Viscount.&nbsp; He
+died the following year, not like Tennyson&rsquo;s Countess of
+Burleigh, because of the weight of an honour to which he had not
+been born, but by reason of age and possibly chagrin that he had
+not been created an Earl.</p>
+<p>He was a benefactor to Campden, and built the charming group
+of almshouses that stand on the left-hand on the way to the
+church.</p>
+<p>Past these almshouses, the way goes directly to the church, a
+noble building of date somewhere about 1530.&nbsp; It owes its
+present stately proportions and Perpendicular style largely to
+the benefactions of Grevel and others.&nbsp; The tower is
+remarkable for a buttress which is in some ways a kind of
+highly-developed mullion running through the centre of the window
+of the lower stage.&nbsp; It is perhaps rather more curious than
+beautiful, and as it cannot be of any constructional value and
+adds little if anything to the stability of the tower, we can
+only regard it as one of those freaks of the last phase of Gothic
+architecture which tell us, if we have but the wit to understand,
+that, Reformation or no Reformation, with Henry the Eighth or
+without, the Gothic spirit was dying.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p178.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Interior of the Market House, Chipping Campden"
+title=
+"Interior of the Market House, Chipping Campden"
+src="images/p178.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>The
+curious ogee-shaped roof of a building seen in the foreground of
+the accompanying view of the church is that of a garden-pavilion,
+or gazebo, of Campden House, the lordly mansion built in 1613 by
+Sir Baptist Hicks, first Viscount Campden.&nbsp; I have seen
+curious old illustrations of this fine house, by which it would
+seem to have been a place of extraordinary grandeur.&nbsp; It is
+said to have been the largest house ever built in England, and
+stood upon eight acres of ground.&nbsp; This truly extensive
+mansion existed no longer than thirty-two years, for it was burnt
+by order of Prince Rupert in 1645.&nbsp; During that time of
+civil war Campden House had been a notable rallying-place for the
+Royalists, who under a rough soldier, Sir Henry Bard, had made
+themselves a pestilent nuisance, not only to their natural
+enemies, but even to sympathisers.&nbsp; If they needed anything
+in the way of food, forage, or apparel, they took it where it was
+to be found, whether from Roundhead or Royalist.&nbsp; They raped
+the very clothes off the country people&rsquo;s backs.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;A man,&rdquo; says one of these lamenting rustics,
+&ldquo;need keep a tight hold of his very breeches, or &rsquo;tis
+odds but what these Sabines will have them, and if he is let keep
+his shirt, it is thought a matter of grace.&rdquo;&nbsp; So it
+was not altogether regretfully that they saw Bard and his
+brigands depart while there remained one of those indispensable
+articles, or a hat, or pair of shoes in the neighbourhood.&nbsp;
+When the garrison left, they fired the mansion.&nbsp; It was
+never rebuilt, and to this day its ruins stand to keep the tale
+in mind.</p>
+<p><a name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>That
+the church was rebuilt in the very last years of the Late
+Perpendicular style is more and more evident as you approach and
+examine it.&nbsp; William Grevel in 1401 left a hundred marks
+towards the work, and you will be told locally that the present
+building is the result of that gift.&nbsp; But not very much
+could have been done with such a sum, and in any event, the
+fabric is distinctly and unmistakably over a hundred years later
+in date.&nbsp; The ogee pinnacles and mouldings, and especially
+the flattened arches of the nave-arcade tell their architectural
+tale in a way that cannot be gainsaid.</p>
+<p>On the floor of the chancel is the fine brass to William
+Grevel, 1401, and Marion, his wife, 1386.&nbsp; It is, with its
+canopied work, eight feet nine inches high; the figure of Grevel
+himself being five feet four inches.&nbsp; We see him habited in
+the merchant&rsquo;s dress of his period, and with the forked
+beard that was then the usual wear of the elderly among his
+class, as Chaucer says, in his <i>Canterbury Tales</i>: &ldquo;A
+marchant was there with a forked beard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Other brasses are to William Welley, merchant, 1450, and wife
+Alice; John Lethenard, merchant, 1467, and his wife Joan; and
+William Gybbys, 1484, with his three wives, Alice, Margaret and
+Marion, and seven sons and six daughters.</p>
+<p>The stately monument of Baptist Hicks, first Viscount Campden,
+and his wife occupies the south chancel chapel.&nbsp; It is one
+of the works of Nicholas Stone and his sons, whose
+extraordinarily fine craftsmanship as sculptors and designers of
+monuments in the seventeenth century redeemed to a great extent
+the rather vulgar ostentation which marked in general the
+neo-classic style of the age.&nbsp; The monument takes up nearly
+all the floor space and rises to a great height.&nbsp; Beneath a
+canopy formed by it rest the recumbent marble effigies of that
+ennobled wool-merchant and sometime Lord Mayor of London, <a
+name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>and his
+wife, habited in the robes of their rank, and with coronets on
+their heads.&nbsp; They are impressive in a very high
+degree.&nbsp; A long Latin inscription narrates his good deeds
+and expatiates upon the good fortune of Campden which benefited
+by them.</p>
+<p>It is not easy to excuse the deplorable taste which produced
+the large monument against the wall to Edward Noel, 2nd Viscount
+Campden, who died 1642, and his widow, Juliana, 1680.&nbsp; We
+would like to believe that the idea of it was none of Nicholas
+Stone&rsquo;s, but was dictated by the mortuary grief of that
+thirty-eight years&rsquo; long widow, who no doubt found great
+satisfaction and consolation in coming every now and then to open
+its doors and look at the gruesome white marble figures, larger
+than life, of herself and her husband, representing them standing
+hand in hand, in their shrouds.&nbsp; They remind one very
+vividly of the lines in <i>Ruddigore</i>&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;And then the ghost and his lady toast<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; To their churchyard beds take flight,<br />
+With a kiss perhaps on her lantern chaps<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And a grisly, grim
+&lsquo;Good-night!&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The visitor to Campden church is told that the black marble
+doors disclosing these figures and now fixed permanently open,
+against the wall, were generally closed during the lifetime of
+the widow, and were opened at her decease.&nbsp; The long
+epitaphs tell us in detail about her, her husband, and her
+family.&nbsp; On the left-hand is that to the husband&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This monument is erected to preserve the memory and
+pourtrait of the Right Honourable Sr. Edward Noel, Viscount
+Campden, Baron Noel of Ridlington and Hicks of Ilmington.&nbsp;
+He was Knight Banneret in the warrs of Ireland, being young, and
+then created Baronet anno 1611.&nbsp; He was afterwards made
+Baron of Ridlington.&nbsp; The other titles came unto him by
+right of Dame Juliana, <a name="page182"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 182</span>his wife, who stands collaterall to
+him in this monument, a lady of extraordinary great endowments,
+both of vertue and fortune.&nbsp; This goodly lord died at Oxford
+at ye beginning of the late fatall civil warrs, whither he went
+to serve and assist his sovverain Prince Charles the First, and
+so was exalted to the Kingdom of Glory, 8&deg; Martii
+1642.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The right hand door is inscribed with the lady&rsquo;s own
+description, and of her children&rsquo;s fortunes&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The Lady Juliana, eldest daughter and
+co-heire (of that mirror of his time) Sr. Baptist Hicks, Viscount
+Campden.&nbsp; She was married to that noble Lord who is here
+engraven by her, by whom she had Baptist, Lord Viscount Campden,
+now living (who is blessed with a numerous and gallant
+issue).&nbsp; Henry, her second son, died a prisoner for his
+loyalty to his Prince.&nbsp; Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was
+married to John Viscount Chaworth: Mary, her second daughter, to
+the very noble Knight, Sr Erasmus de la Fontaine.&nbsp; Penelope,
+her youngest daughter, died a mayd.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This excellent lady, for the pious and
+unparallel&rsquo;d affections she retained to the memory of her
+deceased lord, caused this stately monument to be erected in her
+lifetime, in September Anno Dom. 1664.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>A very charming mural monument to the Lady Penelope shows a
+delicately-sculptured bust.&nbsp; She is seen wearing a dress
+with deep Vandyck lace collar.&nbsp; As with the other monuments,
+it is clearly from the hands of the Stone family.&nbsp; The Lady
+Penelope, who died young in 1633, is traditionally said to have
+died from the effects of pricking her finger when working in
+coloured silks.&nbsp; The position of the hand is said to be in
+allusion to the accident.&nbsp; A companion figure is that to the
+Lady Anne Noel, wife of the Lady Penelope&rsquo;s brother,
+Baptist.&nbsp; She died 1636.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p182.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Chipping Campden Church"
+title=
+"Chipping Campden Church"
+src="images/p182.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 183</span>The
+&ldquo;Campden Wonder,&rdquo; at which people in 1662 marvelled,
+is still an unsolved mystery, and ever likely to remain so.&nbsp;
+The story of it began in 1660, on August 16th, when William
+Harrison, a staid elderly man of about sixty years, who had been
+trusted for many years as the steward of the widowed Juliana,
+Viscountess Campden, went to Charingworth, three miles away, to
+collect some rents.&nbsp; When night had come and he had not
+returned, his wife sent a servant, John Perry, in search.&nbsp;
+By morning, when he too had not come back, Mrs. Harrison grew
+more alarmed and sent her son, Edward, who met Perry returning,
+without having seen anything of his master.&nbsp; Young Harrison
+persuaded the man to go to Ebrington with him and to raise
+further inquiries.&nbsp; There they heard that William Harrison
+had called the evening before and rested, and that he had then
+left.&nbsp; He had then about &pound;23 on him.</p>
+<p>On their way back to Campden, young Harrison and Perry met a
+woman who handed them a bloodstained comb and band which that
+morning she had found in the furze on the road between Ebrington
+and Charingworth.&nbsp; They were those of the missing man, but
+of him no trace could be found.&nbsp; It did not take long to
+come to the conclusion that Perry must have had a hand in his
+master&rsquo;s disappearance, and he was arrested on suspicion of
+murder.&nbsp; He had told so many contradictory tales that he was
+rightly suspected, and after a week&rsquo;s imprisonment he had
+yet another story.&nbsp; He now &ldquo;confessed&rdquo; that his
+mother, Joan Perry, and his brother Richard had long urged him to
+rob his master, and that at last they had on this occasion
+waylaid and robbed him, afterwards strangling him and throwing
+the body into the great mill-sink of the neighbouring
+Wallington&rsquo;s Mill.&nbsp; The comb and band had been put on
+the road by himself.</p>
+<p>John Perry&rsquo;s mother and brother were accordingly <a
+name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>arrested
+and the three were tried at Gloucester and convicted,
+notwithstanding the fact that no body had been found, and in
+spite of the piteous protestations of innocence by Joan Perry and
+Richard, and in face of the avowal by John that he must have been
+mad when he &ldquo;confessed.&rdquo;&nbsp; He now declared he
+knew nothing of Harrison&rsquo;s death; but in spite of all these
+doubts, the three were executed, on Broadway Hill.&nbsp; Joan was
+hanged first, and Robert next.&nbsp; John calmly saw them die and
+listened to their last appeals to him to confess and to exonerate
+them.&nbsp; He was hanged last, protesting that he had never
+known anything of his master&rsquo;s death, or even if he were
+dead.&nbsp; But, he added, they might hereafter possibly
+hear.</p>
+<p>The countryside congratulated itself upon being rid of three
+undesirables.&nbsp; The old woman had always been reputed a
+witch.&nbsp; And when the affair was becoming a stale and
+exhausted topic, one autumn evening at dusk, two years later, Mr.
+William Harrison, for whose murder three persons had been
+convicted and hanged, returned and walked into his own house.</p>
+<p>He gave forth an ingenious but preposterous story to account
+for his two years&rsquo; absence.&nbsp; As he was returning home,
+he said, on the evening of his disappearance, he was intercepted
+by three horsemen who attacked, wounded and robbed him, and
+carrying him to a neighbouring cottage on the heath, nursed him
+there until it was possible to carry him across country to Dover,
+where they put him aboard a vessel and sold him to the captain,
+who had several others in like case with himself on his
+ship.&nbsp; They voyaged from Deal and after about six
+weeks&rsquo; sail they were seized by Turkish pirates and he and
+the others were put aboard the Turkish ship and sold as slaves in
+Turkey.&nbsp; His master lived near Smyrna.&nbsp; After serving
+him as a slave for nearly two years, the elderly Turk died and
+the slave escaped to the coast, where he persuaded some Hamburg
+sailors to take him as a stowaway to Lisbon.&nbsp; There he met
+an Englishman who took compassion upon him and found him a
+passage to England.&nbsp; Landing at Dover, he made his way
+directly home.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p184.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Brass to William Grevel and Wife, Chipping Campden"
+title=
+"Brass to William Grevel and Wife, Chipping Campden"
+src="images/p184.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>This
+cock-and-bull story was all that the country ever had in the way
+of satisfaction.&nbsp; Harrison went about his steward&rsquo;s
+business as before, trusted and respected, and died ten years
+later.&nbsp; In after years some suspicion seems to have fallen
+upon the son, but for what reason does not appear.&nbsp; That
+industrious Oxford diarist, Anthony Wood, who took a keen
+interest in the affair, as did all the country, says,
+&ldquo;After Harrison&rsquo;s returne, John was taken down [from
+his gibbet] and Harrison&rsquo;s wife soon after (being a snotty
+covetous presbyterian) hung herself in her owne house.&nbsp; Why,
+the reader is to judge.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In leaving Campden and its memories, I must not let it be
+supposed that in speaking of the town as decayed and belonging to
+the past I either intend to slight it or forget the Guild of
+Handicraft established here in 1892.&nbsp; Removed from London in
+that year, it has sought to bring back in these more and more
+commercial and factory times the craftsman&rsquo;s old traditions
+of artistic and individual work, no matter in what trade.&nbsp;
+In printing, bookbinding, enamel-work, jewellery and
+cabinet-making it has sought by precept and example to further
+the teachings of Ruskin and Morris, and has created a new feeling
+here and elsewhere which has effects in places little
+suspected.</p>
+<h2><a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+186</span>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">A Deserted
+Railway&mdash;Villages of the Stour Valley&mdash;Ettington and
+Squire
+Shirley&mdash;Shipston-on-Stour&mdash;Brailes&mdash;Compton
+Wynyates.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is not an uninteresting road
+among the eight that lead out of Stratford, and all are
+beautiful.&nbsp; But none has more beauty than that which runs
+southward to Shipston-on-Stour.&nbsp; This way, or by the route
+leading through Ettington and Sunrising Hill, you go to Compton
+Wynyates, that wonderfully picturesque old mansion of the
+Comptons, Marquises of Northampton, which has remained unaltered
+for centuries in its remoteness, and is still not easily
+accessible.&nbsp; The Shipston road then, for choice, to Compton
+Wynyates.&nbsp; It follows, more or less closely the valley of
+the Stour, and here and there touches the river; while
+companionably, all the way run the grass-grown cuttings and
+embankments of that long-abandoned Stratford and Shipston Tramway
+whose red brick bridge is a feature of the Avon at Stratford
+town.</p>
+<p>The deserted earthworks and ivy-grown bridges of this
+forgotten undertaking, now this side of the road and then the
+other, excite the curiosity of the stranger, but he will rarely
+find anyone to tell him the meaning of them, and at the best only
+vaguely.&nbsp; Their story is one of unfulfilled hopes and money
+flung ruinously away; for they are the only traces of the Central
+Junction Railway projected in 1820, to run through to Oxford and
+London.&nbsp; It was a horsed tramway, and was opened through
+Shipston to Moreton-in-the-Marsh in 1826.&nbsp; A <a
+name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+187</span>remunerative traffic in general agricultural produce
+and goods was expected, but the enterprise seems to have been
+weighted from the beginning with the heavy expenses of
+construction.&nbsp; Estimated by Telford at &pound;35,000 for the
+Stratford-on-Avon to Moreton section, they soon reached
+&pound;80,000.&nbsp; But the doom of the project was sounded by
+the introduction of the locomotive engine, almost simultaneously
+with the opening.&nbsp; In 1845 it was leased to the Oxford,
+Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, a scandalously inefficient
+line whose initials, &ldquo;O. W. W.&rdquo; suggested to
+saturnine wags the appropriate name of &ldquo;Old Worse and
+Worse.&rdquo;&nbsp; This ill-managed affair was eventually
+absorbed into the Great Western Railway, which now owns these
+relics.</p>
+<p>Little villages are thickly set along the course of the Stour,
+to the right of the road; ancient settlements, each but a
+slightly larger or smaller collection of farmhouses, barns and
+thatched cottages, with a church in their midst.&nbsp; Here the
+Saxon farmers came and early cultivated the rich meadow-lands,
+leaving the poorer uplands long unenclosed and untitled; and to
+every little community came the clergy and set up a church and
+tithed those farmers who earned their livelihood by the sweat of
+their brows.&nbsp; Such a village is Atherstone-upon-Stour, where
+a majestic red brick farmhouse, dating from the seventeenth
+century, neighbours a debased little church.&nbsp; There is
+little of interest in that church, and the loathly epitaph to
+William Thomas, a son of the rector, who died in 1710, aged nine,
+of smallpox, decently veils in the obscurity of eighteenth
+century pedagogic Latin the full particulars given of his
+disease.</p>
+<p>A rather larger village is Preston-upon-Stour, reached from
+the highway after passing the lovely elm avenues of <a
+name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>Alscot
+Park.&nbsp; Thatched cottages looking upon an upland green, with
+village church presiding over it, are the note of Preston.&nbsp;
+Tall stone gate-piers of the eighteenth century, with fine
+wrought-iron gates, give entrance to the churchyard.&nbsp; The
+interior of the church is, however, a very shocking example of
+the eighteenth-century way with Gothic buildings.</p>
+<p>Smaller than any of these places by the lovely little Stour is
+Whitchurch, just before the larger village of Alderminster.&nbsp;
+It lies off to the right, not often troubled by the
+stranger.&nbsp; The place-name is thought to derive from a
+supposed former dedication of the church to St. Candida, or
+Wita.&nbsp; &ldquo;Alderminster&rdquo; means probably &ldquo;the
+alderman&rsquo;s town,&rdquo; the property in Saxon times of some
+wealthy landowner, and has no ecclesiastical associations or
+monastic history that would account for the &ldquo;minster&rdquo;
+in the place-name.</p>
+<p>The road grows extremely beautiful at the crossing of the
+Stour by Ettington Park and the approach to Newbold.&nbsp; Here,
+where a by-road to Grimscote goes off on the right, an ornate
+pillar standing on the grass serves the purpose of a milestone
+and bears the sculptured arms&mdash;the gold and black pales
+(heraldically paly of six, or and sable)&mdash;of a former owner
+of Ettington Park, generally spoken of in the neighbourhood as
+&ldquo;wold Squire Shirley, what lived yur tharty yur
+agoo.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was in 1871 that he erected this elaborate
+stone which I think must be the only poetical milestone in
+England.&nbsp; It is not great poetry, and there is not much of
+it; but it shows the immense possibilities of wayside
+entertainment, if all its fellows were made to burst into
+song&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;6
+miles<br />
+To Shakespeare&rsquo;s Town, whose name<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Is known throughout the earth;<br />
+To Shipston 4, whose lesser fame<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Boasts no such poet&rsquo;s birth.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>You
+will see here that my own notion, earlier in these chaste pages,
+of re-naming the town &ldquo;Shakespeare-on-Avon&rdquo;
+germinated, however unconsciously, in &ldquo;wold Squire
+Shirley&rsquo;s&rdquo; brain, over forty years since.</p>
+<p>But this is not all.&nbsp; Two Latin and English verses are
+added to the tale of it&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Crux mea lux,<br />
+After darkness light.<br />
+From light hope flows.<br />
+And peace in death,<br />
+In Christ is sure repose.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Spes 1871.<br />
+Post obitum Salus.<br />
+In obitu Pax<br />
+In hue Spes<br />
+Post tenebras lux.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The shields of arms include the nine roundels of the see of
+Worcester, and a further shield of the Shirley arms, with a
+canton ermine.</p>
+<p>This poetical squire was Mr. Evelyn Philip Shirley, kinsman of
+Earl Ferrers.&nbsp; He refronted his house at Ettington Park, and
+indulged himself fully in that elaborate mansion in the verse he
+loved so well and composed so ill.&nbsp; In the hall still
+remains the shield of arms he set up there, displaying these same
+alternate black and gold stripes which come down from the times
+of Sewallis, and beneath it another of his
+compositions&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;These be the pales of black and gold<br />
+The which Sewallis bore of old;<br />
+And this the coat which his true heirs<br />
+The ancient house of Shirley bears.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Ettington Park is now without a tenant and is, I believe, to
+be sold.&nbsp; Thus passes the pride of this branch of the
+Shirleys.</p>
+<p>It is a lovely park and a stately house, with the ivied ruins
+of the ancient church adjoining, including the tombs and effigies
+of older Shirleys and others who would <a
+name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>make
+excellent ancestors for any enterprising purchaser.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whose ancestors they were,&rdquo; says
+the Major-General in the <i>Pirates of Penzance</i>, of the
+monuments in the ruined chapel on the estate he has bought,
+&ldquo;but I know whose they are.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Squire, besides his activities in the way of bad rhymes,
+stumbling metres, and obvious moral sentiments, was an antiquary,
+and keen to alter the spelling of the place-name
+&ldquo;Eatington&rdquo; to &ldquo;Ettington,&rdquo; on the coming
+of the railway in 1873.&nbsp; He showed that it is
+&ldquo;Etendone&rdquo; in Domesday Book, and that Dugdale, the
+historian of Warwickshire, was the first to spell it Eatington in
+1656.&nbsp; But Dugdale, who knew the name derived from the
+watery situation of the place, was right, and Domesday wrong, as
+it very often is in these matters, the Norman-French compilers of
+it not being at all well-equipped for rendering the, to them,
+alien names correctly.</p>
+<p>Passing pretty scenes at Newbold-on-Stour, the road bears away
+from the river and touches it again at the equally pretty village
+of Tredington.&nbsp; The spire of Honington is then seen on the
+left, and Shipston-on-Stour is entered.&nbsp; There is a railway
+station at Shipston, the terminus of a little branch line from
+Moreton-in-the-Marsh.&nbsp; When the railway reached so far it
+exhausted all its energies and could do no more.&nbsp; It might
+be supposed, from the efforts to reach Shipston by rail, that it
+was an important place, whose traffic was well worth
+securing&mdash;perhaps even, from its name, a port; but it is
+long since this old market-town was a place of any commercial
+value, and no ships ever sailed the little Stour.&nbsp; They were
+sheep, not ships, that gave Shipston its name, and it first
+appears in history, nine hundred and fifty years ago, as
+&ldquo;Scepewasce&rdquo;; that is to say, the place where the
+sheep were washed in those Saxon <a name="page191"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 191</span>times.&nbsp; It was written
+&ldquo;Scepwaesctun&rdquo; in 1006, and is
+&ldquo;Scepwestun&rdquo; in Domesday; <i>i.e.</i> the Sheepwash
+Town.</p>
+<p>To Brailes, over two miles from Shipston, the road rises,
+commanding views down upon the left over &ldquo;the
+Feldon,&rdquo; as the district between this and Stratford-on-Avon
+is known; that clearing in the ancient Forest of Arden which is
+by no means so bare of timber as might be supposed, and itself
+indeed looks from this height very like a forest.&nbsp; At
+Brailes is the parish church, proudly styled the &ldquo;Cathedral
+of the Feldon.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is large, its tower is lofty,
+rising to a hundred and twenty feet, and it stands in a prominent
+position.&nbsp; Its Perpendicular architecture is good, too, but
+there is nothing, internally, of a cathedral about it.</p>
+<p>At the &ldquo;George&rdquo; inn, Brailes, the traveller to
+Compton Wynyates will do well to refresh himself before he
+proceeds further, for not only has he come far, but when he has
+threaded the steep and winding lanes beyond which that romantic
+manor-house of the Comptons lies in its deep, cup-like hollow, he
+will need something wherewith to fortify his energies, especially
+as it is extremely likely he will lose himself on the way, and as
+there is no likelihood of his being able to refresh himself when
+there.&nbsp; Romance, lovely scenery, and picturesque
+architectural grouping are not well seen when fasting.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wynyates&rdquo; is a puzzling word, which may mean
+&ldquo;Vineyards&rdquo; or &ldquo;Windgates&rdquo;: the first for
+choice.&nbsp; The place, let it be impressed upon the stranger,
+is a house, not a village; although, looking sheerly down upon
+the hollow where its crowded gables and many clustered chimneys
+are seen, with its adjoining church, a village it might appear to
+be.&nbsp; There was once, indeed, such a place, but it
+disappeared so long ago that no one can tell us anything about
+it, and its church, which stood upon <a name="page192"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 192</span>the site of the present building,
+was battered to pieces and &ldquo;totally reduced to
+rubbish,&rdquo; as Dugdale tells us, during the siege of the
+mansion in 1644.</p>
+<p>Thus the Comptons, Marquises of Northampton, have the place
+all to themselves.&nbsp; And it is very likely that the explorer
+also will have Compton Wynyates to himself, for this is but one
+of the residences of that noble family, whose chief seat is at
+Castle Ashby, away in Northamptonshire, and it is occupied for
+only a short interval in every year.&nbsp; By an admirable
+generosity and courtesy the stranger may generally be assured of
+permission to see the interior of the mansion, a privilege very
+well worth exercising.</p>
+<p>Sir William Compton, the builder of Compton Wynyates, was the
+descendant of a long line of obscure squires who had been settled
+here for centuries.&nbsp; He owed his advancement in life to
+being brought up with Henry the Eighth, who cherished an
+affection for him and gave his friend the Castle of Fulbrook,
+which was situated between Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick.&nbsp;
+Sir William Compton did a singular thing with the gift.&nbsp; He
+pulled it down and transported the materials by packhorse or
+mule-train the dozen miles or so across country to this secluded
+hollow, and with them built the charming house we now see.&nbsp;
+Fulbrook Castle, it would thus appear, was less of a castle than
+a slightly embattled manor-house, built of red brick, with tall
+moulded chimney stacks, in the reign of Henry the Sixth.&nbsp; It
+had been in existence only some eighty years.&nbsp; Its chimneys,
+according to tradition, were taken whole, the mortar being so
+strong that the bricks could not be separated.&nbsp; Thus the
+singularity of a brick house in a stone district is
+explained.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p192.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Compton Wynyates"
+title=
+"Compton Wynyates"
+src="images/p192.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>It is
+red brick such as that of Hampton Court: a lovely mellow red,
+further toned by more than four hundred and fifty years.&nbsp;
+The remains of a moat, and some beautiful gardens, form an
+exquisite setting.&nbsp; Little has ever been done to alter the
+mansion.&nbsp; It is built around a quadrangle, and is entered by
+the original brick porch with the Royal arms of the Tudor period
+above.&nbsp; Within is the Great Hall, panelled in oak, with
+timbered roof and minstrel-gallery.&nbsp; The adjoining
+dining-room, oak-panelled and with richly-decorated plaster
+ceiling, displaying the heraldic devices of the Comptons, is next
+the domestic chapel.&nbsp; On the door above are the
+withdrawing-rooms communicating with the chapel-gallery.&nbsp;
+Here is &ldquo;Henry the Eighth&rsquo;s Bedchamber,&rdquo;
+afterwards used by Queen Elizabeth when she visited Henry
+Compton, grandson of Sir William, in 1572, shortly after creating
+him Baron Compton.&nbsp; His son William is the hero of that
+Compton romance which brought the family great wealth.&nbsp; He
+fell in love with the daughter and heiress of the enormously rich
+Sir John Spencer, alderman of London, but the father did not
+approve of it and refused to allow his daughter to hold any
+converse with her lover, who then had recourse to an ingenious
+stratagem.&nbsp; He enlisted the Spencer&rsquo;s family baker
+upon his side, bribing him to be allowed to carry the domestic
+bread to the house, and duly disguised appeared one morning with
+his load.&nbsp; He was so early that the alderman gave him
+sixpence and a homily on the virtues of diligence and
+punctuality.&nbsp; But when the loaves had been delivered, the
+lady herself took her place in the basket and was carried away in
+it and promptly married.&nbsp; Her father, cheated of the better
+match he had looked for, disinherited her, and the Spencer wealth
+would have gone other ways but for Queen Elizabeth, who when the
+first child of these enterprising lovers was born asked Sir John
+Spencer to be sponsor with her at the baptism of a child she was
+<a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+194</span>interested in, and to adopt it.&nbsp; He unsuspectingly
+agreed and thus became godfather and guardian of his grandson,
+who inherited the riches so nearly lost.&nbsp; The resourceful
+lover and husband, father of this fortunate boy, Spencer Compton,
+was created Earl of Northampton by James the First.&nbsp;
+Spencer, the second Earl, fought for King Charles at Edge Hill,
+October 23rd, 1642, and was slain at Hopton Heath the following
+March.&nbsp; In June 1644, the Royalist garrison of Compton
+Wynyates was besieged, and the house was captured in two days,
+and held throughout the war by the Roundheads, in spite of the
+bold moonlight attack in December, when the two brothers, Sir
+Charles and Sir William Compton, at the head of a daring party
+from Banbury, surprised the outposts, rushed the drawbridge which
+then crossed the moat, and fought a long hand to hand fight in
+the stables, before they were driven back.</p>
+<p>The long wooden gallery under the roof on one side of the
+house is known as &ldquo;the Barracks.&rdquo;&nbsp; Here the
+garrison lay during those times.&nbsp; A panelled room in the
+tower is known as the &ldquo;Council Chamber.&rdquo;&nbsp; Above
+it is the &ldquo;Priest&rsquo;s Room,&rdquo; apparently at some
+time used as a secret chapel, for on the wooden window-shelf may
+be seen the five rudely-cut crosses for an altar.</p>
+<p>The church destroyed in the troubles of the civil war was
+rebuilt in 1663 by the third Earl of Northampton, and contains
+the battered monuments of Sir William Compton, builder of the
+mansion, and his wife; and of Henry, first Baron Compton;
+retrieved from the moat, into which, after being broken up, they
+had been thrown.</p>
+<h2><a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+195</span>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center"
+class="gutsumm">Luddington&mdash;Welford&mdash;Weston-on-Avon&mdash;Cleeve
+Priors&mdash;Salford Priors.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> way from Stratford to Evesham
+is a main road, the road through Bidford, that already described
+in the chapters on the &ldquo;Eight Villages,&rdquo; and hardly
+to be mentioned again except that by making some variations here
+and there, two or three villages not otherwise to be visited may
+be included.&nbsp; The first is Luddington, two and a half miles
+from the town, on a duly sign-posted road to the left, an
+excellent road, although not marked so on the maps.&nbsp;
+Luddington, besides being a village of one long row of old
+thatched cottages close to the Avon, is of some mild interest as
+being the place of which Thomas Hunt, one of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+schoolmasters, became curate-in-charge, and where, some say,
+Shakespeare was married.&nbsp; But the old church was burnt down
+many years ago and rebuilt in 1872, and the register, supposed to
+have been destroyed at the same time, was long kept in private
+hands, finally disappearing altogether.&nbsp; The late Mr. C. E.
+Flower, of Stratford-on-Avon, stated that, in his younger days,
+&ldquo;no one dreamed of disputing the assertion that Shakespeare
+was married at Luddington old church&rdquo;; and many others
+declared that they had seen the entry in the book.</p>
+<p>The way through Luddington crosses over the railway and
+rejoins the main road half a mile short of Binton station.&nbsp;
+Welford lies away to the left.</p>
+<p>Welford is a kind of show place in the Stratford <a
+name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+196</span>district.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah! if you want to see a pretty
+place, you should go to Welford.&rdquo;&nbsp; The experienced
+traveller and amateur of rural beauty hears this with a certain
+amount of misgiving, for the popular suffrages might mean
+tea-gardens and all the materials towards making a happy day for
+those very many people who think nature unadorned to be a dull
+affair at the best.&nbsp; But Welford is quite as good as it is
+represented to be.&nbsp; One might almost style it the most
+picturesque village in the neighbourhood.</p>
+<p>There is a good deal of Welford in the aggregate, but it is so
+scattered that it has the appearance of half a dozen
+hamlets.&nbsp; It is best reached by turning off the road to
+Bidford just short of Binton railway station.&nbsp; A few yards
+bring you to what are called &ldquo;Binton bridges,&rdquo; across
+the Avon, here running in overgrown channels, thick with
+&ldquo;the vagabond flag,&rdquo; and shaded by willows that
+recall the lines in <i>Hamlet</i>&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;There is a willow grows askant the brook<br
+/>
+That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>You may notice, when the wind ruffles the leaves of the
+willow, that the description is exact; the underside of a
+willow-leaf being different from the upper, and of a hoary,
+grey-white tint.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Binton bridges&rdquo; are not, as might perhaps be
+assumed, bridges side by side, but are continuations, across the
+two channels of the river.&nbsp; Immediately across them the sign
+of the &ldquo;Four Alls&rdquo; inn attracts notice.&nbsp; It is a
+picture-sign showing the King, &ldquo;I rule all&rdquo;; a
+bishop, &ldquo;I pray for all&rdquo;; a guardsman, &ldquo;I fight
+for all&rdquo;; and a mournful-looking person, seated, wearing a
+suit of black clothes and a thoughtful expression of countenance:
+&ldquo;I pay for all.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is a sign to be matched in
+other parts of the country, and was <a name="page197"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 197</span>invented long ago by some sardonic
+person who had pondered deeply upon the functions of the
+Monarchy, the Church, the Army, and the tax-payer.&nbsp; But he
+lacked the savage, saturnine humour of the person who thought of
+the &ldquo;Five Alls,&rdquo; another sign not unknown in the
+length and breadth of the land.&nbsp; The Fifth All being the
+Devil: &ldquo;I take all!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The first part of Welford soon appears, on the right.&nbsp; It
+might be styled the chief part, because here, among the scattered
+groups of cottages, the church is found.&nbsp; The church itself
+is only mildly interesting, but the old lych-gate is a quaint
+survival, as weather-worn and rustic and untouched as Welford
+itself; its rude timbers seamed and bleached with the weather of
+over four centuries.&nbsp; Past the church you come down Boat
+Lane to the river, where the weir can be heard roaring.&nbsp;
+There are some particularly sketchable cottages in this lane, as
+will be seen by the illustration over-leaf.</p>
+<p>Returning, and proceeding southwards, other ancient thatched
+cottages are passed, and then we come to the maypole, doubtless
+regarded as the centre of the village.&nbsp; It is still dressed
+on May Day every year, and stands here all the year on its mound,
+a thing for the stranger to wonder at, gaily painted in bands of
+red, white and blue.&nbsp; It is not, of course, the only
+existing maypole in England.&nbsp; I myself, <i>moi que vous
+parle</i>, know about a dozen; but they are sufficiently unusual
+to attract attention.</p>
+<p>The rest of Welford straggles along a broad street to the
+left, and presently ends obscurely in meadows leading to the
+river.&nbsp; Across field-paths one comes in this direction to
+the very out-of-the-world little village of Weston-on-Avon.&nbsp;
+The explorer who finds Weston feels like some member of the
+Geographical Society who has wandered in strange, outlandish
+parts and comes <a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+198</span>back to read a paper on the subject; but I dare say it
+is similarly discovered very frequently.&nbsp; Meanwhile, I have
+no travellers&rsquo; tales to tell of the manners and customs of
+the people, who are, as commonly elsewhere, of two sexes and walk
+upright on their hind legs, and some are old and some young, and
+others yet middle-aged.&nbsp; And there is the railway station of
+Milcote, only a mile away, situated in a field.&nbsp; No one
+seems ever to go to it, or come from it; &ldquo;Milcote&rdquo;
+being a species of dream place represented only by two remote
+houses.&nbsp; I believe the station must have been set down there
+by some railway manager suffering from strong delusions.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p198.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Boat Lane, Welford"
+title=
+"Boat Lane, Welford"
+src="images/p198.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Weston-on-Avon is really a very charming little place, with a
+small aisle-less Late Perpendicular church, remarkable for the
+continuous range of windows high up in the north wall, giving the
+interior an unusual brightness and grace.&nbsp; The tower is
+furnished at its angles with gargoyles of an unusual size and
+imaginative quality.</p>
+<p><a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+199</span>Returning to Welford, a by-road leads by the meadows
+called &ldquo;Welford Pastures&rdquo; to Barton, and across the
+Roman road, the Ryknield Street, to the hamlet of Marlcliff,
+below Bidford, where the Avon becomes broader and navigable and
+lined with beautifully wooded cliffs, densely covered with
+foliage to the water&rsquo;s edge.&nbsp; A mile further is the
+village of Cleeve Priors, where the picturesque old
+&ldquo;King&rsquo;s Arms&rdquo; inn, with its horseman&rsquo;s
+upping-block in front, dates from 1691.&nbsp; Here, too, is a
+small seventeenth-century manor-house, with heavily-barred and
+grated door, breathing old-time distrust and suspicion.</p>
+<p>Returning through the village to the waterside, the river may
+be crossed here, by the long plank footbridge, only one plank
+wide, at Cleeve Mill and lock; and Abbot&rsquo;s Salford reached,
+on the Evesham main road, just missing Salford Priors, where, if
+we wish to see it, there is a fine old church.&nbsp; Salford
+Priors was anciently the property of the Priory of Kenilworth,
+and Salford Abbots that of Evesham Abbey.&nbsp; Here, enclosed
+within a jealous high wall, is the old Hall, generally called
+&ldquo;the Nunnery,&rdquo; because of a Roman Catholic sisterhood
+having been established here in modern times.&nbsp; It is a small
+Jacobean mansion, very tall in proportion to its size, and
+curiously huddled together.&nbsp; Quaint curved and re-curved
+gables of a bygone fashion, deeply set windows, and lofty stone
+chimney-stacks, give the place a reticent look; the look of a
+house with a history and secrets of its own.&nbsp; There are so
+many amateurs of the quaint and historic nowadays that the
+occupiers of Salford Hall have grown a little tired of showing
+strangers the genuine old hiding-hole in the garret; behind a
+quite innocent-looking cupboard.&nbsp; You open the cupboard and
+see a commonplace row of shelves.&nbsp; No one would suspect a
+secret there.&nbsp; But when a wooden peg is removed, the
+shelves, <a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+200</span>together with the back of the cupboard, push back on
+hinges, admitting to a hiding-hole for priest or cavalier, or any
+whose necessities led him to store himself uncomfortably away
+here.&nbsp; Once inside, the fugitive could fix the door with a
+peg, so that it could not be moved from without.</p>
+<p>Harvington, which comes next on our way to Evesham, is a
+delightful cluster of old timbered houses, with a church whose
+Norman tower has been given a modern spire.&nbsp; The village is
+at least half a mile from the river, but it takes its name,
+originally &ldquo;Herefordtun,&rdquo; from an ancient paved ford
+still there, a most charming and interesting scene.&nbsp; The
+ford is practically a submerged paved road, such as those by
+which the Romans crossed rivers, and is broad enough for wagons
+to pass.&nbsp; The roads on either side are, however, only
+byways, leading to the Littleton villages and the Lenches.</p>
+<p>Norton, whose full name is Abbot&rsquo;s Norton, comes
+next.&nbsp; It was for some years, until the beginning of 1912,
+the property of the Orleans family, one of the exiled Royal
+houses of France; but the Duc d&rsquo;Orl&eacute;ans has now sold
+his estates and his residence at Wood Norton, close by, to Mr.
+Justice Swinfen Eady.&nbsp; Norton has yet more, and very fine
+timbered houses, and in its church lie a number of the Rigg
+family, in effigy on altar-tombs emblazoned to wonderment with
+their heraldic honours and those of their wives.&nbsp; The marble
+lectern is a relic from Evesham Abbey.</p>
+<p>From Norton the road enters Evesham along Greenhill, where the
+battle was fought in 1265, and where the suburbs now chiefly
+extend.</p>
+<h2><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+201</span>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Evesham.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> legendary story of
+Evesham&rsquo;s origin takes us back to the year 701, when one of
+the Bishop of Worcester&rsquo;s swineherds, seeking a strayed
+sow, penetrated the forest that then covered this site, and here
+found his sow and also a ruined chapel, relic of an ancient and
+forgotten church.&nbsp; A modern discoverer of ruins would find
+shattered walls and nothing else, but Eof, the swineherd, beheld
+a vision of the Virgin and attendant saints singing there.&nbsp;
+Instead of worshipping, he ran, almost scared out his life, and
+only ventured back under the protection of Bishop Ecgwin himself,
+who saw the same wonderful sight and heard the singing.&nbsp;
+There could be but one outcome of this: the founding of a
+religious house upon the spot; and thus arose the great
+Benedictine monastery of Eof&rsquo;s-hamme.&nbsp; Even in those
+times there would seem to have been people who could not digest
+this story, as the Bishop soon found, and he seems to have been
+so stricken by the tales told of him that he considered nothing
+less than a pilgrimage to Rome would avail him much.&nbsp; His
+preparations for departing were peculiar.&nbsp; He chained his
+legs together and having locked the chain, threw the key into the
+river.&nbsp; Arrived at Rome in spite of this amazing difficulty
+(we are not told how he got there!), a salmon bought for him
+proved to contain, when cut open, the key to unlock his
+fetters.&nbsp; The salmon had swallowed it in the Avon and had
+swum across seas!&nbsp; This cumulative outrage upon <a
+name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>common
+sense then proceeds to tell us how the bells of Rome rang of
+themselves, and how impressed was the Pope.&nbsp; Nothing
+afterwards ever astonished him: his capacity for wonder was
+filled to the brim.&nbsp; These unparalleled occurrences seemed
+to this credulous and doddering old pontiff so strong a proof of
+Ecgwin&rsquo;s honesty that he forthwith conferred upon his
+monastery not only many valuable privileges, but freed it from
+the authority of Worcester.&nbsp; And Ecgwin, third Bishop of
+Worcester, resigned the greater post for the lesser, and became
+first Abbot of Evesham.&nbsp; There appears to have been an early
+doubt as to what the name was to be, for it is once referred to
+as &ldquo;Ecguineshamme&rdquo;; but the legendary herdsman Eof
+easily won the honour, and although Ecgwin was created a saint
+after his death, the place never acquired his name and thus we
+have &ldquo;Evesham&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;Exham,&rdquo; as the
+place would probably otherwise have been called.</p>
+<p>On this foundation of incredible story the future wealth and
+power of the great Abbey of Evesham was laid.&nbsp; Its Abbots
+never grew ashamed of the stupid lies, and to the last sealed
+their deeds and documents with seals bearing representations of
+Ecgwin&rsquo;s unlocked fetters and other incidents of his
+fantastic invention.&nbsp; In spite of fire, invasion and even
+early confiscation of some of its property, Evesham Abbey grew
+wealthier and more influential.&nbsp; Its Abbots were of those
+great mitred Abbots who sat in Parliament, prone to anger and
+violence on occasion; and not infrequently they were of the type
+of Abbot Roger, who in the thirteenth century expended the
+substance of the monastery on riotous living and kept his seventy
+monks and sixty servants so ill-clothed and fed that they went in
+rags and even starved.&nbsp; No bite nor sup for them; and when
+they crawled into the Abbey, the leaky roof poured water <a
+name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 203</span>on
+them.&nbsp; Some died of starvation.&nbsp; It would take long to
+tell in full the story of the many years in which this strange
+Abbot ruled.</p>
+<p>But the monastery and its great Abbey church easily survived
+this miserable time, and fresh architectural glories were
+added.&nbsp; Even at the last, when the suppression of the great
+religious houses under Henry the Eighth was impending, more
+building was in progress.&nbsp; Abbot Lichfield, the last of the
+long line, then ruled, and was building the Bell Tower, which
+almost alone remains of the Abbey church.&nbsp; That church, 350
+feet in length, and its many chapels and chantries, filled with
+the tombs of generations of benefactors who had hoped by their
+gifts to be prayed for &ldquo;for ever,&rdquo; was destroyed in
+almost the completest manner.&nbsp; Even Thomas Cromwell, the
+most zealous of Henry the Eighth&rsquo;s coadjutors, was
+impressed with the beauty of this great mass of buildings; but
+all efforts to avert the destruction, and to put them to some
+collegiate use, failed.&nbsp; Not even the great Abbey of Bury
+St. Edmunds disappeared quite so completely as this of
+Evesham.&nbsp; Leland, writing in 1540, six years later,
+remarked, with astonishment: &ldquo;Gone, a mere heap of
+ruins.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The position of the town upon the meadow-lands by the Avon is
+enshrined in the second half of the place-name, which in this
+case is not the more common &ldquo;ham,&rdquo; indicating a
+&ldquo;home,&rdquo; or settlement, but &ldquo;hamme,&rdquo; a
+waterside meadow.&nbsp; You do not see the justness of this until
+the river has been crossed by the fine modern bridge, and the
+town viewed from Bengeworth, on the other side of Avon.&nbsp;
+Thence those meadows are seen, with the Abbey Bell Tower, and the
+towers and spires of the churches of St. Lawrence and All Saints,
+making an unusual grouping, with a certain grandeur in their
+contrasting dispositions.&nbsp; We may readily admit that <a
+name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 204</span>the famous
+Bell Tower is the finest architectural work in Evesham, because
+the admission will make it the easier to criticise its great
+defect, its comparative dwarfness.&nbsp; Built in 1533 by Abbot
+Lichfield, it was the last work of the Gothic era at Evesham, and
+is perhaps one of the most striking examples of the Perpendicular
+period:</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p204.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Bell Tower, Evesham"
+title=
+"Bell Tower, Evesham"
+src="images/p204.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>embodying the features of the style in the highest degree, in
+the long lateral panellings wholly covering its surface.&nbsp; It
+is the more noticeable because of its solitary position.&nbsp;
+But to lavish upon it the unqualified praise that is commonly
+given is alike uncritical of its own defect of insufficient
+height, and shows an ignorance or forgetfulness of the grander
+proportions of the central tower of Gloucester Cathedral, very
+closely resembling it in style, or of the unmatched <a
+name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>towers of
+the Somersetshire churches, many of which are not only loftier,
+and with far better and varied details, but have also that sense
+of height which is rather painfully lacking here.</p>
+<p>The entrance from the Market Place to what were once the Abbey
+precincts, where the churches of St. Lawrence and All Saints
+stand closely neighbouring one another, in one churchyard, is by
+the so-called Norman Gateway.&nbsp; There is not much left of the
+Norman work, the upper part being a half-timber building,
+apparently of the fifteenth century.&nbsp; The view into this
+corner from the Market Place is very picturesque, but it was
+better before the adjoining public library was built, a few years
+ago.&nbsp; Not only were some charmingly old-world houses
+destroyed to make way for it, but it is itself a building
+lamentably out of character with its surroundings.&nbsp; The
+church of St. Lawrence, very late in style and remarkable for the
+originality of its tower and spire, has some delicate and
+elaborate work; and in that of All Saints is the richly-panelled
+and fan-vaulted chantry built by Clement Lichfield, the last
+Abbot of Evesham, who lies here.</p>
+<p>A relic of the Abbey of a more domestic character is seen in
+the lovely little building on Abbey Green called the
+Almonry.&nbsp; It was formerly the place where the almoners
+distributed their doles, and is of all periods from Early English
+to Perpendicular, its materials ranging from stone to timber,
+brick and plaster.&nbsp; Many generations have had something to
+say in the building of it, and the present has at the moment of
+writing these lines said yet another word, stripping off the
+plaster with which the front had been covered for some two
+centuries.&nbsp; The sturdy oak timbering is now uncovered, and
+is a revelation to many of unsuspected beauty.&nbsp; An ancient
+stone lantern is inside the building, which <a
+name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span>is now
+occupied as the &ldquo;Rudge Estate Office.&rdquo;&nbsp; Perhaps,
+now that these new and better ways with old buildings are
+revealing long-forgotten craftsmanship, attention will be turned
+to the ancient Booth Hall, or market-house, still standing in the
+Market Place, covered in like manner with plaster.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p206.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Almonry, Evesham"
+title=
+"The Almonry, Evesham"
+src="images/p206.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>It would not be well to leave Evesham without referring to the
+greatest event in its history, the fierce battle fought here
+August 4th, 1265, at Greenhill, on the road to Worcester.&nbsp;
+Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in arms against Henry the
+Third, and with the King himself a prisoner in his hands, lay at
+Evesham the night before with his army.&nbsp; De Montfort and his
+men were at mass early the next morning and then marched out to
+meet an enemy who outnumbered them and had cut off every avenue
+of escape.&nbsp; They were fighting for the popular cause, and De
+Montfort, Frenchman though he might be, was the chosen champion
+of English liberties.&nbsp; Privilege and the reactionaries had
+<a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>their
+way that day, for Prince Edward and his numerically superior and
+encircling army cut down De Montfort and his men in
+swathes.&nbsp; None asked or gave quarter on that fatal
+day.&nbsp; A large number hewed their way through and fled to the
+Castle of Kenilworth, but the old Simon and his son Henry were
+slain.&nbsp; The King himself was almost slain by mistake.&nbsp;
+The sculptured base of an obelisk on the site of the battle at
+Abbey Manor, Greenhill, portrays this incident, with the
+King&rsquo;s words, &ldquo;I am Henry of Winchester, your
+King.&nbsp; Do not kill me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is God&rsquo;s grace!&rdquo; exclaimed the dying De
+Montfort.&nbsp; The exultant enemy did not scruple to mutilate
+his body and to send portions of it about the country.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Such,&rdquo; says Robert of Gloucester,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;was the murder of Evesham, for battle none
+it was,<br />
+And therewith Jesus Christ ill pleased was,<br />
+As he showed by tokens grisly and good.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>In spite of the Ban of Kenilworth, which forbade the people to
+regard Simon de Montfort as a saint, and forbade them to pay
+reverence to his memory, the resting-place of what remains of him
+could be collected was before the High Altar of the Abbey Church,
+and there thousands prayed and miracles were performed.&nbsp; For
+generations his shrine was the best asset of the church and
+contributed largely to its rebuilding.</p>
+<p>The next important warlike incident at Evesham was also the
+last; the assault and capture of the town in May 1645 by Massey,
+the Parliamentary Governor of Gloucester, in spite of a gallant
+defence by Colonel Legge and his small garrison of 700 men.&nbsp;
+It was a three-to-one business, for Massey had 2000 men at his
+disposal.&nbsp; Since then the town has had peace to follow that
+fruit-farming and market-gardening career which it has pursued
+with ever-increasing success for two <a name="page208"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 208</span>centuries.&nbsp; There are not many
+tree- and bush-fruits uncultivated in the Vale of Evesham, whose
+deep rich soil yields abundantly to the growers&rsquo; efforts,
+but the plum is the speciality of this Vale.&nbsp; It is not like
+the fabled Arthurian Vale of Avalon, &ldquo;where comes not hail
+nor frost&rdquo;; for indeed the belated frosts of spring are the
+bugbear of the Evesham fruit-farmer, and he has been driven in
+self-defence of late years, to combat those nipping temperatures
+by burning nightly &ldquo;smudges&rdquo; of heavy oil, to take
+the sting out of the airs that would otherwise congeal his
+fruit-buds at the time of their setting, and thus ruin his
+prospect of a crop.&nbsp; The plum&mdash;and especially the
+yellow &ldquo;egg plum&rdquo;&mdash;is the Evesham speciality,
+and in April its blossom fills the Vale like snow.&nbsp; But
+there are comparatively few strangers who see that wonderful
+spectacle.&nbsp; If the close of April be kind, you may see it
+and rejoice, but if the month be going out in rain and wind, then
+it is better to be at home than on Cotswold or in this sink of
+alluvial earth below those hills.&nbsp; I was caught in April
+showers at Evesham, on a day that was &ldquo;arl a-collied
+like,&rdquo; as they say in these parts, meaning gloomy and
+overcast; and then &ldquo;the dag came arn, an&rsquo; then et
+mizzled, an&rsquo; grew worser &rsquo;n worser, until et poured
+suthin tar&rsquo;ble.&rdquo;&nbsp; And there I stood long in one
+entry off the High Street until I was tired of it, and then in
+another, and thus having done Evesham by double entry, ended the
+unprofitable day by staying the night, while the wind raged, and
+it hailed and rained and snowed by turns and
+simultaneously.&nbsp; But the next morning was a glorious one,
+although the roads were full of puddles and strewn with
+plum-blossom ravaged from the orchards by those nocturnal
+blasts.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page209"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 209</span>
+<a href="images/p209.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Abbey Gateway, Evesham"
+title=
+"Abbey Gateway, Evesham"
+src="images/p209.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>One
+need not be long at Evesham to note the extraordinary number of
+fruit-growers and market-gardeners hereabouts, as shown by the
+many wagons, or floats, on their way to or from the railway
+station with baskets and hampers of apples, pears, plums,
+gooseberries, currants, tomatoes, or asparagus; while to travel
+south of the town, through the favoured Vale, by any road you
+please, is to see that these are highly specialised cultivations
+that give as distinct a character to this landscape as do the
+hop-gardens or the cherry-orchards of Kent.</p>
+<p>Leaving Evesham, it will be noticed how very much after the
+style at Stratford the Avon has been artificially widened and
+made to wear an almost lakelike effect, with a kind of everyday
+gala appearance.&nbsp; Here are trim grassy edges and public
+gardens; and boats and punts to be had for the hiring: a tamed
+and curbed Avon, like the Round Pond or the Serpentine in
+Kensington Gardens.</p>
+<h2><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+211</span>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center"
+class="gutsumm">Broadway&mdash;Winchcombe&mdash;Shakespearean
+Associations&mdash;Bishop&rsquo;s Cleeve.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">An</span> Eden of fertility,&rdquo;
+says an old writer, dwelling with satisfaction upon the Vale of
+Evesham.&nbsp; The neat orchards of to-day, with their long
+perspectives, and with bush-fruit planted in between the lines of
+plum and apple-trees, to economise every inch of this wonderful
+soil, would seem to him even more of an Eden, neater and more
+extended than in his day.&nbsp; It is not, you will say, the most
+picturesque form of cultivation, but it has that best of
+picturesque beauty to some minds, the picturesqueness of
+profit.&nbsp; I never yet knew a farmer who could see a cornfield
+with an artist&rsquo;s eye, and was the better pleased the more
+the poppies, corn-cockles, and herb-daisies grew in it.&nbsp; For
+generations past, you will be told, the fruit-growing of the Vale
+of Evesham has been steadily giving less profit, and scarce a man
+among the growers but will declare the times are ruining the
+trade.&nbsp; But the pastures continue to be planted as
+extensions of the orchards, and the railway traffic in fruit is
+an increasing branch of business.&nbsp; The only possible
+inferences, therefore, are that these jolly-looking
+market-gardeners, who live so well and look so prosperous, thrive
+on ruination and really cultivate the plum for the &aelig;sthetic
+but fleeting pleasure of seeing every spring that wondrous vale
+of snow-white blossom that spreads out below Cotswold.</p>
+<p>Five miles or so south-eastwards across the vale brings <a
+name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 212</span>you into
+Broadway, a village exploited some thirty years ago, and now,
+converted from the rustic place it was, into a residential
+district.&nbsp; The old houses and cottages remain, but the
+simple rustic folk who lived in them are dispersed, and in their
+old homes live that new class of appreciative and cultivated
+people with anything at command, from great wealth down to a
+sufficient independence.&nbsp; A generation ago people of this
+class would have thought life out of London or such great centres
+unendurable.&nbsp; They would have missed their town life and the
+shopping and all the thousand-and-one distractions, and if you
+had suggested Broadway or any such place, they would indignantly
+have asked if you wanted them to &ldquo;bury themselves
+alive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And now ideals have changed, or perhaps more exactly, a new
+class of persons has been born.&nbsp; The wealthy who cannot live
+away from the centres of life still numerously exist, but there
+are great numbers of the leisured who have culture and resources
+within themselves and are not dependent for their amusement upon
+extraneous things.&nbsp; Also we have in these days of swift
+travel by road and rail to reckon not only with the
+&ldquo;week-ender&rdquo; (who does not trouble Broadway much),
+but upon that class who will have it both ways, will take the
+best of town, and when the country is most desirable will leave
+town to others and retire to such places as this.</p>
+<p>These things have made Broadway a very different place from
+what it was a generation ago.&nbsp; The old people, sons of the
+soil, have been disinherited, and strangers&mdash;not only the
+&ldquo;foreigners,&rdquo; of whom the rustics speak, meaning
+merely people not of the same shire, but foreigners from
+overseas&mdash;are living in their homes, and they still resent
+it, even though they may earn more in wages and in
+&ldquo;tips&rdquo; from the tipping classes.&nbsp; The sense of
+place and of justice too, is strong in the <a
+name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>blood of
+the countryman, and he feels it to be a shame that strangers
+should come from remote countries and covet the house where he
+and his fathers lived, and turn him out.&nbsp; It is an outcome
+of the recent appreciation of country life which is creating
+bitterness and resentment, not at Broadway alone, but all over
+the country. <a name="citation213"></a><a href="#footnote213"
+class="citation">[213]</a></p>
+<p>The broad street, with its grey stone houses, is to outward
+seeming very much the same, but there is a neatness, an
+unmistakable sense of money about the place.&nbsp; Every little
+plot of grass in front of the houses at the upper end, that never
+used to know the attentions of the mower, has become a lawn;
+small cottages have been enlarged and thrown into one another,
+and farmhouses, whose ancient features have been ingeniously
+adapted by resourceful architects, have become residences of the
+most delightful type.&nbsp; A little golfing, some motoring, half
+a dozen other interests and the modern craze for collecting, fill
+the lives of the people who live here.&nbsp; A retired actress
+collects pewter, and others scan the neighbourhood with the
+amiable object of snapping up rare and valuable pieces of china
+or furniture at much less than their worth from country-folk who
+are ignorant of their value.&nbsp; There is a curiosity shop in
+the village, too, where the stranger may find bargains, or may
+not; and I am told&mdash;although I have never seen
+him&mdash;that an innocent-looking old person carrying a rare
+specimen of a grandfather&rsquo;s clock under his arm may
+generally be seen crossing the road by the &ldquo;Lygon
+Arms,&rdquo; at times when obviously wealthy, and <a
+name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 214</span>possibly
+American and appreciative, occupants of motorcars drive up.&nbsp;
+The suggestion is that very often this ingenious person sells his
+rare, and possibly &ldquo;unique,&rdquo; clock at a stunning
+price and will be seen in another day or two with the fellow of
+it.&nbsp; This has been indignantly denied by the outraged people
+of Broadway, but reaffirmed in print, and I will leave it at
+that.</p>
+<p>My amiable friend, Mr. S. B. Russell of the &ldquo;Lygon
+Arms,&rdquo; is of those who deny this quaint tale.&nbsp; The
+&ldquo;Lygon Arms&rdquo; itself has become a stately house, both
+without and within.&nbsp; As the &ldquo;White Hart,&rdquo; of
+olden days it dates back to 1540.&nbsp; Traditionally Cromwell
+lay here, the night before the Battle of Worcester, and there are
+even traditions of Charles the First staying here, ten years
+earlier.&nbsp; I am not concerned to deny or to affirm these
+legends.&nbsp; In any case, it would be sheer futility to do so,
+for no evidence survives.&nbsp; But it is likely enough, for the
+&ldquo;White Hart,&rdquo; as it then was, ranked with the
+best&mdash;as it does now, if I may say it.&nbsp; We may readily
+judge of its then standing, by the fine Jacobean stone entrance
+doorway, built by John Trevis in 1620, and still admitting to the
+house.&nbsp; It bears his name and that of Ursula his wife, with
+the date, and seems to mark a general restoration of the already
+old hostelry undertaken at that time.&nbsp; John Trevis&mdash;or
+&ldquo;Treavis&rdquo;&mdash;himself lies in Broadway old church,
+an interesting old building a mile or more distant from the
+village, and situated along a lonely wooded road, adjoining an
+ancient manor-house lately restored with much taste and
+discrimination.&nbsp; Trevis died in 1641, and has a brass to his
+memory.&nbsp; This old church is in a solitary situation, and is
+largely superseded by a modern building near the village.&nbsp;
+There is a palimpsest brass in the chancel, and hard by is an
+enriched wooden pulpit, bearing this distinctly apposite and
+characteristically <a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+215</span>Reformation-period inscription: &ldquo;Prov. 19.&nbsp;
+Wher the word of God is not preached, the people
+perish.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But to return to Broadway and the &ldquo;Lygon
+Arms.&rdquo;&nbsp; Thirty years ago the house had fallen into a
+very poor condition, and the great stone building with its fine
+rooms and its air of being really a private mansion, had declined
+to the likeness of a village alehouse.&nbsp; It was all the doing
+of the railways, which had disestablished the coaches, and
+brought desolation upon this road, in common with most
+others.&nbsp; But in the dawn of the new era of road travel the
+present proprietor bought the house, and has by degrees
+reinstated those stone mullions which had been torn from the
+windows and replaced at some extraordinarily inappreciative
+period by modern sashes; and has wrought altogether, a wonderful
+transformation.&nbsp; The &ldquo;Lygon Arms,&rdquo; is now as
+stately a hostelry as ever it was.</p>
+<p>I reach the old town of Chipping Campden by another route, and
+so will not climb on this occasion the steep, mile-long Broadway
+Hill by which you come this way to it.&nbsp; I will turn instead
+further south, to Winchcombe.</p>
+<p>Winchcombe, it may be thought, is a far cry from
+Stratford-on-Avon.&nbsp; It is twenty-four miles distant, but
+though twenty-four miles formed in olden days a very much more
+considerable journey than now, the place and its surroundings
+were familiar to Shakespeare.&nbsp; If you would seek here local
+allusions in the plays, wherewith to belabour the Bacon fanatics,
+there is no lack in this district of &ldquo;Cotsall,&rdquo; those
+Cotswolds on which Page&rsquo;s fallow greyhound was outrun: a
+portion of those &ldquo;wilds in Gloucestershire,&rdquo; whose
+&ldquo;high wild hills and rough uneven ways, Draw out our miles
+and make them wearisome,&rdquo; as Northumberland complains in
+<i>King Richard the Second</i>.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare knew most that was to be known about <a
+name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 216</span>the
+Cotswold Hills, and when he makes Shallow bid Davy &ldquo;sow the
+headland with red wheat,&rdquo; he alludes to an olden local
+custom of sowing &ldquo;red lammas&rdquo; wheat early in the
+season.</p>
+<p>He was familiar with the consistency of Tewkesbury mustard,
+with which, doubtless, the Stratford folk of his day relished
+their meat, and he finds in it an apt illustration of a dull
+man&rsquo;s attempted sprightliness: as where he makes Falstaff
+say, &ldquo;He a good wit, hang him baboon! his wit is as thick
+as Tewkesbury mustard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here, in the neighbourhood of Winchcombe, familiar rhymes,
+generally uncomplimentary, upon surrounding places are attributed
+to him almost as freely as are those upon the &ldquo;Eight
+Villages.&rdquo;&nbsp; They tell of&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Dirty Gretton, Dingy Greet,<br />
+Beggarly Winchcombe, Sudeley sweet;<br />
+Hanging Hartshorn, Whittington Bell,<br />
+Dull Andoversford, and Merry Frog Mill.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The epithets vary with the different narrators of the
+lines.&nbsp; Those quoted above do not in general fit the places,
+except beautiful Sudeley and perhaps &ldquo;once upon a
+time&rdquo; Frog Mill, which, in spite of its name was probably
+of old a sufficiently merry place, for it is the name of an
+ancient and once renowned inn adjoining Andoversford: an inn
+where men made merry until the railway came hard by and
+disestablished its custom.</p>
+<p>Winchcombe it is difficult to believe ever
+&ldquo;beggarly.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is an old and picturesque market
+town in the Cotswolds, with a noble and particularly striking
+Perpendicular church, with clerestoried nave and central tower,
+and an array of monstrously gibbering gargoyles.&nbsp; Next it is
+a curious old inn, oddly named the &ldquo;Corner
+Cupboard.&rdquo;&nbsp; Here, too, at the &ldquo;George&rdquo;
+inn, are some traces of the hostelry formerly maintained by the
+Abbots <a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+217</span>of Winchcombe for pilgrims to their altars.&nbsp;
+Sudeley Castle, in its park a mile away, is a place of great
+interest, now restored, with a modern altar-tomb and effigy to
+Catherine Parr, sixth and last wife of Henry the Eighth, who
+resided here.</p>
+<p>Gretton is a village two miles from Winchcombe, on the
+Tewkesbury road, and Greet is a wayside hamlet in between.&nbsp;
+We have no authority for the Shakespearean authorship of the
+rhymes, but &ldquo;old John Naps of Greece,&rdquo; who is
+mentioned with &ldquo;Peter Turf and Henry Pimpernell&rdquo; as
+cronies of Christopher Sly, was not &ldquo;of Greece&rdquo; but
+of this place.&nbsp; &ldquo;Greece&rdquo; is one of those many
+misprints that in the early folios and quartos continue to puzzle
+critics.&nbsp; In one of them Hamlet declares he can tell the
+difference between &ldquo;a hawk and a handsaw,&rdquo; and it was
+long before &ldquo;handsaw&rdquo; was seen to be a
+printer&rsquo;s error for &ldquo;heronshaw,&rdquo; a young
+heron.&nbsp; To emigrate John Naps from Greet to Greece was a
+comparatively easy matter, in type, if not in actual
+travel.&nbsp; We will allow, for argument&rsquo;s sake, that this
+by itself might not be convincing evidence that Shakespeare knew
+Greet and intended to refer to it; but we have Davy,
+Shallow&rsquo;s servant in the Second Part of <i>Henry the
+Fourth</i>, referring to &ldquo;William Visor of Woncot,&rdquo;
+who has an action at law against &ldquo;Clement Perkes of the
+hill.&rdquo;&nbsp; By &ldquo;Woncot,&rdquo; is meant the hamlet
+of Woodmancote, three miles west of Winchcombe, a place then and
+now called &ldquo;Woncot,&rdquo; locally.&nbsp; The name,
+correctly spelt in the original edition of 1600, has been
+mistakenly altered to &ldquo;Wincot,&rdquo; in later
+issues.&nbsp; At Woodmancote the family of Visor, sometimes
+spelled &ldquo;Vizard&rdquo; was in Shakespeare&rsquo;s time and
+until recent years living.&nbsp; It lies beneath Stinchcombe
+Hill, locally &ldquo;the Hill,&rdquo; which rises to the imposing
+height of 915 feet.&nbsp; There, it has <a
+name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 218</span>been
+ascertained, the Perkes family then had their home.&nbsp; The
+name of Perkes was variously spelled &ldquo;Purkis&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Purchas.&rdquo;&nbsp; The last representative appears to
+have been one &ldquo;J. Purchas, Esq., of Stinchcombe Hill, near
+Dursley, Glos.,&rdquo; who is mentioned in the
+<i>Gentleman&rsquo;s Magazine</i>, 1812, as having died at
+Margate, in his seventy-fifth year.</p>
+<p>It is a tremendous and a beautiful view from the lofty plateau
+of Cleeve Common as you go from Winchcombe to Woodmancote and
+Bishop&rsquo;s Cleeve, on the way to Tewkesbury.&nbsp; I shall
+never forget the glory of that evening of early summer when,
+romping out of Cheltenham, our car breasted the long rise to this
+view-point and we halted here as the westering sun sank across
+the golden-blue distance of the Vale of Avon, with the Malvern
+Hills, grey and indistinct, beyond.&nbsp; Distant views of the
+Promised Land could have made no better promise of beauty and
+plenty.</p>
+<p>From this Pisgah height you come &ldquo;down-a-down-a,&rdquo;
+as Ophelia says, to Bishop&rsquo;s Cleeve, thinking upon the
+sheer appropriateness of the place-name; not the
+&ldquo;Bishop&rdquo; part of it, but the &ldquo;Cleeve&rdquo;;
+which stands of course for &ldquo;cleft,&rdquo; or
+&ldquo;cliff.&rdquo;&nbsp; Thenceforward, the way lies along the
+levels into Tewkesbury, through Stoke Orchard and
+Treddington.</p>
+<h2><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+219</span>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Tewkesbury.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> little town of Tewkesbury,
+which numbers about 5500 inhabitants, and is one of the most
+cheerful and bustling, and withal one of the most picturesque
+towns in England, occupies a remarkable situation.&nbsp; Not
+remarkable in the scenic way, for a more nearly level stretch of
+very often flooded meadow lands you will not see for miles.&nbsp;
+The site of Tewkesbury is close upon, but not actually on, the
+confluence of England&rsquo;s greatest river, the broad and
+turbid and rather grim Severn, with the Avon.&nbsp; All around,
+but in grey and blue distances, are hills: the Cotswolds, the
+Bredon Hills, the greater Malverns, and the yet greater, but more
+distant Welsh mountains; but the Severn and the Avon flow through
+levels that extend considerable distances.&nbsp; When those two
+rivers&mdash;so different in every respect; in size, in
+character, and in the very colour of their waters, the Avon being
+clear and bright, and the Severn a sullen, dun-coloured
+waterway&mdash;unite to flood these low-lying lands the only way
+to travel comfortably about the neighbourhood is by boat.&nbsp;
+Tewkesbury is at all times particularly old-world and quaint, and
+it makes on these occasions an excellent substitute for
+Venice.&nbsp; This peculiarity, or rather this contingency, let
+us say, perhaps explains the at first sight rather singular fact
+that the town should have been built on the Avon, half a mile
+from its junction with the Severn, and not upon the larger river
+at all.&nbsp; It looks like a wanton disregard <a
+name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 220</span>of the
+advantages that the Severn navigation would bring to the town,
+with riverside wharves and quays; but those who selected the site
+probably considered the Severn to be too dangerous a river, and
+so set their town back half a mile or so from its banks.&nbsp; A
+consequence is that the external trade of Tewkesbury has always
+been negligible, and to-day, although the text-books tell you of
+its industry of making shirt-fronts&mdash;&ldquo;particularly
+stiff shirt-fronts&rdquo;&mdash;and the olden one of
+flour-milling, which is carried on by Avonside, the scale of
+their activities has never become large.</p>
+<p>The founding of Tewkesbury is said to have been the work of a
+seventh-century religious Saxon named Theoc, who established a
+church here; but the Roman station, <i>Etocessa</i>, was here
+first, and although the place-name is supposed to derive from
+Theoc, by way of &ldquo;Theocsbyrig,&rdquo; and the Domesday
+version, &ldquo;Teodechesberie,&rdquo; too little is known of him
+for us to take much interest in it.&nbsp; It is rather
+interesting, however, to consider that, the site being among
+water-meadows, and that the land at the confluence of Severn and
+Wye is called &ldquo;the Ham,&rdquo; how very near Tewkesbury was
+to being called &ldquo;Tewkesham.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The monastery that was thus seated by the two rivers became a
+flourishing Benedictine house, and after its full share of the
+early adversities of fire and sword, famine and flood, it
+resulted in the building of the grand Abbey church, which is
+still the greatest architectural glory of the town.&nbsp; The
+re-founder of the monastery and builder of this noble and solemn
+example of Norman architecture was Robert Fitz Hamon, Earl of
+Gloucester, the greatest of the early Lords Marchers of Wales,
+and overlord of Glamorgan, who died in 1197, fighting in foreign
+wars.&nbsp; He had seen so many post-mortem bequests go wrong and
+never reach their intended <a name="page221"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 221</span>destination that he determined to
+perform his re-founding of monastery and church in his own
+lifetime.&nbsp; Both were well advanced when he died, and the
+Abbey was finally consecrated in 1223; a remarkable example of
+expedition for those times.&nbsp; I do not propose to narrate the
+story of the Abbey, which has no such picturesque and fantastic
+falsehoods as that of Evesham.&nbsp; The monastery ran its course
+and was suppressed with others by Henry the Eighth, and the Abbey
+church was saved by the townsfolk, who paid the King the
+equivalent of &pound;5000 for the site and fabric.&nbsp; And so
+it remains to us to this day, more venerable by lapse of time,
+minus its Lady Chapel, and with evidences of the puritan zeal of
+rather more than a hundred years later than Henry&rsquo;s great
+reform; but it is yet the veritable building of Fitz
+Hamon&rsquo;s and of the generations that succeeded him.</p>
+<p>You cannot see this great Abbey church to advantage from the
+town.&nbsp; It is only from the open meadows by the Severn, and
+its tributary brooks, where the little town is to be guessed at
+by the evidence of a few roofs and chimneys, that its great scale
+and solemn majesty are fully apparent.&nbsp; There the great
+central Norman tower and the magnificent and unique West Front of
+the same period are seen in their proper relation with the
+surroundings.&nbsp; The long outline is very like that of St.
+Albans, but 237 feet less; St. Albans Abbey being 550 feet long,
+and Tewkesbury 313 feet.</p>
+<p>The near view of the West Front and its great and
+deeply-embayed Norman window, filled not unsuitably with the
+Perpendicular tracery of three hundred years later, is no
+disillusionment; it is, after the glorious West Front of
+Peterborough, one of the most striking compositions of the kind
+in England, and the flanking Norman tourelles and spirelets have
+by contrast the most delicate appearance.</p>
+<p><a name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+222</span>Entering the building, a massive Norman nave is seen,
+singularly like that of Gloucester cathedral, and no doubt
+designed by the same hand.&nbsp; The same massive but
+disproportionately lofty columns, with dwarfed triforium and
+clerestory, proclaim a similar origin.&nbsp; The columns are Fitz
+Hamon&rsquo;s work, and the clerestory above, and the
+stone-vaulted roof are the additions of over two centuries later,
+when the builders had grown more daring and risked a heavy stone
+roof in place of the former flat wooden one.&nbsp; Fitz
+Hamon&rsquo;s transepts also remain and his choir, in its
+essentials; although in the same Decorated period which witnessed
+the addition of the clerestory and stone vaulting to the nave the
+Norman choir was remodelled.&nbsp; To this period belong the
+seven windows filled with splendid old stained glass,
+representing all good benefactors, from Fitz Hamon onwards,
+praying for heavenly grace, but clinging to their ancient
+heraldic cognisances of long descent as tenaciously as though the
+authority of Garter King-at-Arms and all his fellow-kings and
+pursuivants extended to Heaven, and St. Peter was authorised to
+admit to the best places only those who could display these
+patents of gentility.&nbsp; It is glorious old glass, more than
+much damaged and time-worn, but still splendid in design and
+colour.</p>
+<p>Behind the choir still runs the semi-circular ambulatory, as
+on the old Norman plan, but the Lady Chapel has
+disappeared.&nbsp; Here too are some of the ancient chapels
+formerly clustered about the east end.&nbsp; Here are some
+mouldering swords, deeply bitten into by Time&rsquo;s teeth, from
+the battlefield of Tewkesbury.&nbsp; Fitz Hamon&rsquo;s chantry
+is not of his period: it was rebuilt more than three hundred
+years later; proof that he, and the health of his immortal part
+were kept in mind, and incidentally showing us that not all
+gratitude is, as cynics would declare, &ldquo;a lively sense of
+favours to come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page223"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 223</span>
+<a href="images/p223.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"High Street, Tewkesbury"
+title=
+"High Street, Tewkesbury"
+src="images/p223.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>The
+so-called &ldquo;Warwick&rdquo; chantry, built 1422 by Isabel le
+Despencer in memory of her first husband, Richard Beauchamp, Earl
+of Abergavenny, is in the last, and most elaborated style of
+Gothic architecture and decoration.&nbsp; There are many other
+monuments: including the beautiful one of Hugh le Despencer and
+his wife Elizabeth.&nbsp; Their splendidly sculptured alabaster
+figures lie there with a calm indifference contrasting with his
+violent end, for he was executed in 1349, at Hereford.&nbsp; So
+often did the great nobles of those centuries suffer from the
+headsman&rsquo;s axe and with such frequency did they die on the
+battlefield that it became a matter of pride to declare how
+rarely they ended peacefully and of old age, in their beds.&nbsp;
+It was almost a slur upon one&rsquo;s personal character to pass
+in this way, when one might in the last resource join some
+desperate rebellion and be handsomely slain; or at the very least
+of it, be taken and properly beheaded.</p>
+<p>These philosophical and historical considerations bring one,
+by a natural transition, to the Battle of Tewkesbury, fought in
+the meadows to the south of the town on May Day 1471.&nbsp; The
+place where the fight raged fiercest was close by the Gloucester
+road, in the field still called &ldquo;Bloody Meadow,&rdquo;
+whose name it is understood the town council, in the interests of
+the rising generation, are keenly desirous of seeing changed to
+something more respectable.</p>
+<p>If you have never been to Tewkesbury, the battle will be a
+little unreal to you.&nbsp; You may know perfectly well
+&ldquo;all about the war, and what they killed each other
+for,&rdquo; and you may even be a partisan of either White Rose
+or Red, and may throw up your cap for those rival <a
+name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span>Houses of
+York or Lancaster; but if you have never visited the scene where
+this great fight raged, it will remain shadowy.&nbsp; But in
+Tewkesbury town, whose streets are still astonishingly rich in
+old timbered houses that stood on the morning of that great clash
+of arms where they do now, it is a vital thing.</p>
+<p>It was the last desperate venture of the Lancastrians,
+stricken to the ground on many an earlier occasion, but always
+hitherto recovering, to try conclusions again, for sake of
+right.&nbsp; At Towton, Blore Heath, Hexham, and other places
+they had been slaughtered, and such victories as Wakefield, in
+which the Yorkists were decimated, were of no permanent
+value.&nbsp; Only a month before Tewkesbury they had been
+signally defeated at Barnet, and their cause apparently broken;
+but here again the party was re-formed.&nbsp; Queen Margaret,
+whose devotion and sorrows are among the most pitiful records of
+history, had come from France with her son, Prince Edward, the
+young hope of the Red Rose.&nbsp; Gathering a force at Exeter,
+they advanced towards the midlands, hoping to join hands with
+Welsh sympathisers.&nbsp; But the treacherous Severn, coming down
+from those Mortimer borderlands where the White Rose had ever
+been strongest, proved itself on this occasion the most useful
+ally of the Yorkists.&nbsp; It was in flood and prevented that
+junction of the two Lancastrian armies whose combined force might
+have given them the day and changed the course of the
+nation&rsquo;s story.</p>
+<p>The Yorkists, commanded by Edward the Sixth, came up from the
+direction of Cheltenham and found their opponents drawn up on the
+&ldquo;plains near Tewkesbury,&rdquo; as Shakespeare has it, in
+the Third Part of <i>Henry the Sixth</i>.&nbsp; The battle was
+lost to the Lancastrians partly through their being deceived by a
+pretended flight of the troops commanded by Richard, Duke of
+Gloucester, <a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+226</span>and in a great measure by quarrels among
+themselves.&nbsp; Their ranks were broken and the battle was
+continued and ended by fighting and heavy slaughter in the
+streets of the town.&nbsp; Finally the defeated Lancastrians took
+refuge in the Abbey church, from which they would have been
+dragged had not the monks in solemn procession prevented
+it.&nbsp; Shakespeare adopts Holinshed&rsquo;s account of the
+death of Prince Edward.</p>
+<p>Holinshed tells us that proclamation being made that a
+life-annuity of &pound;100 should be paid to whoever brought the
+Prince, dead or alive, and that, if living, his life should be
+spared, Sir Richard Crofts brought him forth, &ldquo;a fair and
+well-proportioned young gentleman, whom, when King Edward had
+well-advised, he asked him how he durst so presumptuously enter
+his realm with banner displayed, whereupon the prince boldly
+answered, saying, &lsquo;To recover my father&rsquo;s kingdom and
+heritage from his grandfather to him, and from him after him to
+me lineally descended&rsquo;; at which words King Edward thrust
+him from him, or (as some say) stroke him with his gauntlet, whom
+directly George, Duke of Clarence; Richard, Duke of Gloucester;
+Thomas Grey, and William, Lord Hastings, that stood by, cruelly
+murdered; for the which cruel act the more part of the doers in
+their latter days drank the like cup by the righteous justice and
+due punishment of God.&nbsp; His body was homely interred in the
+church of the monastery of the black monks of
+Tewkesbury.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The thanksgiving of the next day, Sunday, held by the Yorkists
+in the Abbey was one of those services in which the victors in a
+battle have always adopted the Almighty as a partisan.&nbsp; In
+the same time-honoured fashion the King of Prussia, delighting in
+the defeats of the French in the war of 1870&ndash;71, was in the
+habit of exclaiming &ldquo;Gott mitt uns,&rdquo; and sending
+pious <a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+227</span>telegrams to the Queen, caricatured by the humorist of
+the time&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Rejoice with me, my dear Augusta,<br />
+We&rsquo;ve had another awful buster;<br />
+Ten thousand Frenchmen sent below&mdash;<br />
+Praise God from whom all blessings flow!&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p227.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The &ldquo;Bear&rdquo; Inn and Bridge, Tewkesbury"
+title=
+"The &ldquo;Bear&rdquo; Inn and Bridge, Tewkesbury"
+src="images/p227.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 228</span>The
+thanksgiving was followed next day by a ruthless, cold-blooded
+massacre of those who had been hiding in the town.&nbsp; On the
+Tuesday the great nobles, leaders in the fight, were executed,
+and the Yorkist vengeance was complete.</p>
+<p>The nodding old gabled houses of Tewkesbury&mdash;many of them
+nodding so amazingly that it is surprising they do not
+fall&mdash;include a number of ancient inns: the
+&ldquo;Wheatsheaf&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Bell&rdquo; prominent
+among them.&nbsp; The &ldquo;Bell,&rdquo; hard by the Abbey and
+the old flour-mills, has a bowling-green and owns associations
+with Mrs. Craik&rsquo;s once-popular story, <i>John Halifax,
+Gentleman</i>: which, I believe, was considered eminently a tale
+for the young person.&nbsp; &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said a bookseller
+long since, in my own hearing, to a hesitating prospective
+purchaser, &ldquo;it is not a novel: it is an improving story,
+and may be read on Sundays.&rdquo;&nbsp; I do not know what is
+read by the young person nowadays, either on Sundays or
+week-days, but I am quite sure it is not <i>John Halifax</i>,
+<i>Gentleman</i>, and I am equally sure that the young person
+will in these times resent any choice made for him or her, and
+read or not read what he or she chooses.&nbsp; But the monument
+to Mrs. Craik in the Abbey is inscribed to the author of the
+book, and as it is evidently a great source of interest to
+visitors, <i>John Halifax</i> is perhaps not quite so out-of-date
+as we suppose him to be.</p>
+<p>The &ldquo;Hop Pole&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Swan,&rdquo; in
+their present form, belong to a later age; the first being the
+house <a name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+229</span>where Mr. Pickwick and his friends made merry and drank
+so astonishingly.&nbsp; But the &ldquo;Old Black Bear,&rdquo; as
+you leave the town for Worcester, is easily the most picturesque
+of all; in itself and in its situation by the rugged old Avon
+bridge.&nbsp; The sign was, of course, originally that of the
+&ldquo;Bear and Ragged Staff.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+230</span>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm">Clopton House&mdash;Billesley&mdash;The Home
+of Shakespeare&rsquo;s Mother, Wilmcote&mdash;Aston
+Cantlow&mdash;Wootton Wawen&mdash;Shakespeare Hall,
+Rowington.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a mansion of much local
+fame rather more than a mile out of Stratford, off the Henley
+road: the manor-house of Clopton, for long past the seat of the
+Hodgson family, but formerly that of one of the ancient families
+of Clopton, who are found not only in Warwickshire and
+Gloucestershire, but in Suffolk as well.&nbsp; Widespread as they
+once were, I believe that the very name is now extinct.</p>
+<p>There is necessarily much mention of the Clopton name in these
+pages, for Sir Hugh Clopton was the great fifteenth-century
+benefactor of Stratford.&nbsp; He was a younger son of the owner
+of this manor.&nbsp; The house has been time and again altered
+and partly rebuilt, but it still contains portraits of the
+Cloptons on the great Jacobean staircase, and painted on the
+walls of an attic, once used as a secret chapel by Roman
+Catholics, are to this day the black-letter texts upon which
+Ambrose Rookwood, prominent in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, must
+have looked.&nbsp; He had rented Clopton House for a time, in
+order to be conveniently near his friends, and to the
+meeting-place on Dunsmore, which the conspirators had appointed
+the scene of their rebellion when King and Parliament should have
+been blown sky-high by Guy Fawkes&rsquo; thirty-two barrels of
+gunpowder. After the failure of the plot and the arrest of the <a
+name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+231</span>conspirators, the High Bailiff of Stratford was
+instructed to seize Ambrose Rookwood&rsquo;s effects at Clopton
+House.&nbsp; An inventory of them is preserved in the Birthplace
+Museum at Stratford, and affords some quaint reading.&nbsp;
+Chalices, crosses, crucifixes, and a variety of obviously Papist
+articles, are in company with &ldquo;an oulde cloake
+bagge,&rdquo; whose value was sixpence, and &ldquo;a white
+nagge,&rdquo; twenty shillings.&nbsp; The High Bailiff evidently
+cleared the house, taking all he could find, for mention is made
+of &ldquo;one pair of old boots, 2<i>d.</i> these being the goods
+of Ambrose Fuller.&rdquo;&nbsp; There is a further note that
+Ambrose Fuller had his old boots restored to him; the High
+Bailiff being presumably unable to find anything treasonable in
+them.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare is said to have taken his idea of Ophelia from
+Margaret Clopton, who in the misery of disappointed love is
+supposed to have drowned herself in a well in the gardens in
+1592.&nbsp; A Charlotte Clopton, too, is supposed to have been
+buried alive in the Clopton vault in Stratford church in 1564,
+when the plague visited the neighbourhood, and thus to have given
+Shakespeare a scene in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.&nbsp; But it is
+only fair to say that the stories are legendary and not sustained
+by any known facts in the Clopton family history.</p>
+<p>From Clopton we will retrace our steps to Stratford, and
+thence set out anew, to visit some outlying villages of interest,
+better reached from the road to Alcester.</p>
+<p>The Alcester road is the least interesting road out of
+Stratford.&nbsp; It leads past the Great Western Railway station,
+and thence up Red Hill, reaching Alcester, the Roman
+<i>Alauna</i>, in seven and a half miles.&nbsp; There is little
+joy or interest to be got out of Alcester, which is a pleasant
+enough little town of 3500 inhabitants and a manufacture of
+needles, but not thrilling.&nbsp; There is <a
+name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 232</span>still some
+unenclosed land along this road, on the left, a rather wild
+upland common&mdash;the &ldquo;unshrubb&rsquo;d down&rdquo;; and
+it is a tumbled up and down country on the right, where Billesley
+stands.&nbsp; Billesley is a parish, with a parish church and an
+ancient manor-house, but no village.&nbsp; I can imagine the
+tourist&mdash;the cyclist, of course, who is a more enterprising
+person than most&mdash;saying, as he sees Billesley on the map,
+&ldquo;I will put up there,&rdquo; and I can imagine him,
+further, getting there under circumstances of night and rain and
+wind, and finding it to be the most impossible of places to stay
+at.&nbsp; For there is no inn, and not the slightest chance of
+hospitality.&nbsp; But it is well enough if you come to it in
+daytime, for it has the charm of singularity: the strangeness of
+the old manor-house behind its lofty enclosing garden-walls and
+the weirdly rebuilt eighteenth-century church at the end of a
+farm-road which you dispute with porkers and cluttering
+fowls.&nbsp; Billesley church is one of the claimants for the
+honour of witnessing Shakespeare&rsquo;s marriage, but on what
+evidence the claim rests no one can tell, and, in any case, it
+was entirely rebuilt afterwards.&nbsp; The tradition is probably
+only a hazy association with the marriage of his grand-daughter,
+Elizabeth Hall, whose wedding took place in the former building
+in 1639.&nbsp; Little belief, either, can be given to the
+panelled room in Billesley Hall, said to have been a library in
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s youth, in which he was allowed to study.</p>
+<p>Downhill and to the right, and you come to Wilmcote, the home
+of Shakespeare&rsquo;s mother, Mary Arden.&nbsp; It was in her
+time merely a hamlet of Aston Cantlow, but is now a separate
+ecclesiastical parish, with an uninteresting church.&nbsp;
+Wilmcote is not a particularly inviting place, and not one of a
+number of boys playing cricket could tell me where was the home
+of <a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+233</span>Shakespeare&rsquo;s mother.&nbsp; However, in a place
+like Wilmcote it does not take long to solve such a point, even
+if it were to come to a house-to-house inquiry.&nbsp; The home of
+the Ardens, yeomen-farmers, seems to modern ideas quite a humble
+house.&nbsp; It is one of a row of ancient timber-framed and
+plastered cottage-like houses, with a large farmyard at the
+back.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p233.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Arden House, Home of Shakespeare&rsquo;s Mother, Wilmcote"
+title=
+"The Arden House, Home of Shakespeare&rsquo;s Mother, Wilmcote"
+src="images/p233.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Rambling, low-ceilinged rooms with ingle-nooks in the
+fireplaces form the interior.&nbsp; Some day, I suppose, when the
+Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has ceased to expend much money in
+the collection of rare editions and in paying fat pensions to its
+super-annuated servants, it will seek to purchase the Arden home,
+and show to Shakespearean travellers the house in which Robert
+Arden, a sixteenth-century yeoman of some standing and some
+pretensions to gentility, yet sat at table with his farm-servants
+in the old way, just as in the remoter parts of the West of
+England is still done.</p>
+<p><a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 234</span>It is
+generally supposed that Wilmcote is the place referred to by
+Shakespeare in the induction to the <i>Taming of the Shrew</i> as
+&ldquo;Wincot.&rdquo;&nbsp; The name is locally pronounced in
+that way, as it would be when we consider the difficulty in
+ordinary rustic speech of twisting the tongue round
+&ldquo;Wilmcote.&rdquo;&nbsp; But reasons are given on p. 169 for
+identifying it with Wincot in Quinton.&nbsp; There is, however,
+another place which claims the honour; the unlovely Wilnecote, a
+brick and tile-manufacturing settlement on the Watling Street,
+over twenty-five miles distant.&nbsp; It also is locally
+&ldquo;Wincot,&rdquo; and in Shakespeare&rsquo;s time brewed a
+famous tipple.&nbsp; Sir Aston Cokain, whose verses were
+published as near Shakespeare&rsquo;s own day as 1658, had no
+difficulty in identifying it.&nbsp; Writing to his friend, Mr.
+Clement Fisher, who resided at Wilnecote, whom he addresses
+&ldquo;of Wincott,&rdquo; he says</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Shakespeare your Wincot ale hath much
+renown&rsquo;d<br />
+That fox&rsquo;d a beggar so by chance was found<br />
+Sleeping that there needed not many a word<br />
+To make him to believe he was a lord.<br />
+But you affirm (and in it seem most eager)<br />
+&rsquo;Twill make a Lord as drunk as any beggar,<br />
+Bid Norton brew such ale as Shakespeare fancies,<br />
+Did put Kit Sly into such lordly trances;<br />
+And let us meet there for a fit of gladness,<br />
+And drink ourselves merry in sober sadness.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It is quite evident, among other things, that Sir Aston Cokain
+wrote pretty bad verse, but the point to be emphasised is that
+there were certainly in Shakespeare&rsquo;s time three
+&ldquo;Wincots,&rdquo; any one of which might have served his
+turn.&nbsp; But the vanished ale-house of Wincot in Quinton is
+the place more particularly meant by him.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p234.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Wootton Wawen Church"
+title=
+"Wootton Wawen Church"
+src="images/p234.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+235</span>&ldquo;Stephen Sly&rdquo; alluded to in the play, was a
+real person who seems to have been what people call &ldquo;a
+character.&rdquo;&nbsp; He was probably a half-witted creature,
+the butt of Stratford, and occasionally appears in the
+unimpeachable records of the town as a servant of the Combes of
+Welcombe, or as a labourer.&nbsp; There also appears in those
+same chronicles in later years a Joan Sly, who was fined in 1630
+for travelling on the Sabbath: an offence not so great in itself,
+but very reprehensible in the eyes of the Puritan magistrates of
+that time.</p>
+<p>The parent village of Aston Cantlow is two miles from
+Wilmcote.&nbsp; The site only of the ancient castle of the
+Cantilupes remains, behind the church, in a tangled moat still
+sometimes flooded by the little river Alne.&nbsp; The old Court
+House, a long half-timbered building now divided into three or
+four cottages, is the chief feature of the village street.</p>
+<p>Wootton Wawen, in something less than another three miles,
+owes the first part of its singular name to its olden situation
+in the Forest of Arden, and the second part to the Saxon lord of
+the place, a landowner named Wagen, whose name appears as witness
+to the foundation charter of the monastery at Coventry founded by
+Leofric, the husband of Godiva, in 1043.&nbsp; It stands at a
+junction of roads, where the highway from Stratford through
+Bearley comes swinging up round a corner from the channels of the
+Alne, and runs, broad and imposing, on to Henley-in-Arden and
+Birmingham.&nbsp; The church, occupying a knoll, is a strange but
+beautiful group, with central tower in the Decorated style, a
+rather plain south chapel of the same period, and a beautiful
+nave clerestory of the fifteenth century.&nbsp; A very large
+Decorated chancel east window has its moulding set with elaborate
+crockets.</p>
+<p>The stranger, attracted by this noble church, tries the
+door.&nbsp; It is locked, but before he can turn away it will be
+opened by a girl, who says, &ldquo;There is a fee of
+sixpence.&rdquo;&nbsp; There always is!</p>
+<p><a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 236</span>You
+render tribute for sake of seeing the interior, uneasily
+suspecting that it is another sixpence gone towards some scheme
+of alteration which would not have your approval; but these
+things cannot be helped.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p236.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Shakespeare Hall, Rowington"
+title=
+"Shakespeare Hall, Rowington"
+src="images/p236.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The interior discloses some unexpected features, the lower
+part of the tower being unmistakably Saxon work, with very narrow
+arches to nave and chancel.&nbsp; Here are two curious enclosed
+carved oak pews that were perhaps originally chantries, and a
+fine fifteenth-century oak pulpit.&nbsp; A desk with eight
+chained books, and an ancient chest with ironwork in the shape of
+fleurs-de-lis, together with effigies and brasses to the Harewell
+family, complete an interesting series of antiquities.&nbsp; Here
+is buried William Somerville, author of <i>The Chase</i>, who
+died in 1742.</p>
+<p><a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>The
+town of Henley-in-Arden, with its broad and picturesque street
+and the &ldquo;White Swan&rdquo; inn, is much afflicted in these
+latter days by excessive motor traffic from Birmingham.&nbsp;
+Beaudesert, a seat of the Marquis of Anglesey, adjoins it, and
+Preston Bagot, on the east, lies in a once-remote district.&nbsp;
+The sign of the &ldquo;Crab Mill&rdquo; inn, on the way, alludes
+to a former manufacture of cider here.&nbsp; The old manor-house
+of Preston Bagot, beside the road, is locally said to have been
+the first house built in the Forest of Arden, but of that we
+cannot, obviously, be at all sure.&nbsp; There is a house about
+four miles onward, at Rowington Green, on the other side of
+Rowington, which looks, in parts, older.&nbsp; It is the
+romantic-looking house known as &ldquo;Shakespeare Hall,&rdquo;
+for many years a farmhouse, but now the residence of Mr. J. W.
+Ryland, F.S.A.&nbsp; It dates back to the early part of the
+fifteenth century, and had until recently a moat.&nbsp;
+Traditionally, it was the home of one Thomas Shakespeare, a
+brother of William Shakespeare&rsquo;s father; and Shakespeare is
+further said to have composed <i>As You Like It</i> in the room
+over the porch.&nbsp; We need not believe that tradition, which
+has no evidence to warrant it, although the house was once the
+home of one of the very numerous Shakespeare families in Arden,
+the poet&rsquo;s family were relations.&nbsp; The massive
+horseman&rsquo;s &ldquo;upping-block&rdquo; has been allowed to
+remain, beside the front-door.</p>
+<h2><a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+238</span>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center"
+class="gutsumm">Welcombe&mdash;Snitterfield&mdash;Warwick&mdash;Leicester&rsquo;s
+Hospital&mdash;St. Mary&rsquo;s Church and the Beauchamp
+Chapel.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> distance between Stratford and
+Warwick is eight miles, and the road, the broad highway, runs
+direct.&nbsp; It is an excellent road, but for those who do not
+care overmuch for main routes, however beautiful, in these times,
+a more excellent way, for a portion of the journey at any rate,
+is by Snitterfield.&nbsp; You turn off to the left from the
+tree-bordered main road at a point a mile and a half from
+Stratford, well in view of the lofty obelisk on the hillside at
+Welcombe which was built in 1873 to perpetuate the memory of the
+obscure person, a certain Mark Phillips, who had erected the
+mansion of Welcombe Lodge in 1869.&nbsp; Without the aid of this
+monument he would by now have been completely forgotten; but it
+is 120 feet in height and prominently visible from amazing
+distances, and so its object is attained.&nbsp; Not perhaps
+exactly in the way originally intended, for being in a district
+where most things are associated in some way with Shakespeare, it
+is generally supposed to be one of them, and when the
+disappointed stranger finds himself thus deluded, he usually
+reflects upon Mark Phillips in the most scathing terms.</p>
+<p>Up at Welcombe are those Dingles already referred to.&nbsp;
+The way to Snitterfield takes you uphill, past lands that once
+belonged to Shakespeare, and by a pond which is all that is left
+of the lake of Snitterfield Hall, a mansion demolished in
+1820.&nbsp; Here the road has reached a considerable height,
+commanding beautiful views down over the valley of the Avon at
+Hampton Lucy and Charlecote.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page239"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 239</span>
+<a href="images/p239.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital, Warwick"
+title=
+"Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital, Warwick"
+src="images/p239.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+240</span>Snitterfield village is embowered amid elms.&nbsp; The
+church is a rustic building in the Decorated style, with
+seventeenth-century pulpit and enriched woodwork of the same
+period furnishing the altar-rails.&nbsp; Here the Rev. Richard
+Jago was vicar for twenty years, dying in 1781.&nbsp; His duties
+did not bear heavily upon him, and he occupied most of his time
+in writing a long poem, &ldquo;Edgehill, or the Rural Prospect
+Delineated and Moralised,&rdquo; a published work which no one
+ever reads, the prospect of moralising held forth on the
+title-page scaring the timid.&nbsp; His vicarage remains, and on
+its lawn are still the three silver birches planted by his three
+daughters.&nbsp; There are some beautiful lime-trees and an
+ancient yew in the churchyard.&nbsp; No relic of Henry
+Shakespeare, William Shakespeare&rsquo;s uncle, or of his father
+or grandfather, who lived at Snitterfield, now remains.</p>
+<p>The road now trends to the right, and, steeply descending,
+regains the main route into Warwick.&nbsp; The town of Warwick
+looms nobly before the traveller approaching from the west.&nbsp;
+The broad level highway makes direct for it, and over the trees
+that border the road you see, as a first glimpse of the historic
+place, the lofty tower of St. Mary&rsquo;s church, rising
+apparently an enormous height, and looking a most worshipful
+specimen of architecture.&nbsp; On a nearer approach it sinks
+into less prominence, and, passing through an old suburb, with a
+porch-house on the right, formerly the &ldquo;Malt-Shovel&rdquo;
+inn, the West Gate of the town, with its chapel above it, takes
+prominence.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p240.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital: The Courtyard"
+title=
+"Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital: The Courtyard"
+src="images/p240.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>The
+West Gate is one of the two surviving ancient gateways of Warwick
+and leads steeply up into the town beneath a rude-ribbed arch of
+great massiveness, based sturdily upon the dull red sandstone
+rock.&nbsp; It is a very picturesque and in every way striking
+composition, and if it were not for the even more picturesque
+scene provided by Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital, just within the
+gate, would be often illustrated.&nbsp; But the nodding black and
+white gables of that almshouse effectually attract the greater
+notice.&nbsp; The West Gate, with the chapel above, dates from
+about 1360.&nbsp; Nowadays it is almost only the curious visitor
+who passes through the long, tunnel-like arch, gazing with
+astonishment at the sudden outcrop of rock on which the building
+stands, and at the ribbed stone roof supporting the chapel.&nbsp;
+A roadway has been made to the right of the gate, through the
+town walls, and the traffic goes that way by choice, obscuring
+the ancient defensive function and importance of this entrance to
+the town.&nbsp; A chapel also occupies the like position over the
+East Gate, and shows that the people of Warwick prayed as well as
+watched.</p>
+<p>The Leicester Hospital, so-called because founded by Robert
+Dudley, Earl of Leicester, looks down with admirable effect from
+its elevated position on the left hand, as you come up into the
+town; but it would look even better if it were properly
+kept.&nbsp; It very urgently needs a thorough overhauling, not in
+the necessity for any structural repairs, but with the object of
+treating the buildings in a sympathetic and cultured way.&nbsp;
+There is a vast difference between photographic views of what is
+called, in the Wardour Street way,
+&ldquo;Leycester&rsquo;s&rdquo; Hospital, and the actual effect
+of looking upon the place with one&rsquo;s own eyes.&nbsp; The
+Hospital, in fact, looks very much better in photographs than it
+reveals itself to the disappointed gaze: simply because those
+responsible for the upkeep of it do not understand <a
+name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 242</span>how to
+treat the old timbers, and have smeared them over with black
+paint.</p>
+<p>This Hospital or Almshouse occupies the site of the ancient
+united religious and charitable guilds of Holy Trinity and St.
+George-the-Martyr, with some of their surviving buildings.&nbsp;
+These united fraternities had numerous activities.&nbsp; They
+supported the priests who served in the chapels over East and
+West gates, and contributed towards the keep of others in the
+parish church; being also largely responsible for the maintenance
+of the great bridge, now and for long past in ruins, which
+carried the Banbury road across the Avon, in front of Warwick
+Castle.&nbsp; They also supported eight poor persons of the
+Guild.&nbsp; In common with all other religious, or
+semi-religious institutions, the Guild was dissolved in the time
+of Henry the Eighth, and its buildings were granted by Edward the
+Sixth to Sir Nicholas le Strange, from whom Dudley acquired them;
+or, according to another version of these transactions, Dudley
+had a gift of them direct from the town of Warwick, to which the
+Guild had voluntarily transferred its property.&nbsp; This gift
+to the magnificent Dudley, the newly-created Earl of Leicester
+and possessor of vast wealth and power, was not for his own
+personal advantage, but for the purpose of helping him to
+establish an almshouse, which he at once proceeded to do, in the
+interest of &ldquo;twelve impotent persons, not having above
+&pound;5 per annum of their own, and such as either had been, or
+should be maimed in the warrs of the Queen, her service, her
+heirs and successors, especially under the conduct of the said
+Earl or his heirs, or had been tenants to him and his heirs, and
+born in the Counties of Warwick or Gloucester, or having their
+dwelling there for five years before; and in case there happen to
+be none such hurt in the Warrs, then other poor of Kenilworth, <a
+name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 243</span>Warwick,
+Stratford super Avon in this county, or of Wootton under Edge or
+Erlingham in Gloucestershire, to be recommended by the Minister
+and Churchwardens where they last had their aboad; which poor men
+are to have Liveries (viz. Gowns of blew cloth, with a Ragged
+Staff embroydered on the left sleeve) and not to go into the Town
+without them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Leicester and his magnificence, and all the direct lineage of
+the Dudleys have disappeared long ago.&nbsp; Leicester himself,
+and after him his brother Ambrose, died childless, and the
+patronage of the Hospital passed to their sister Mary, who
+married Sir Henry Sidney of Penshurst.&nbsp; Thence it has
+descended to Lord de L&rsquo;isle and Dudley, the present
+representative of the Dudleys and the Sidneys.</p>
+<p>The entrance is by a stone gateway bearing the inscription
+&ldquo;Hospitivm Collegiatvm Roberti Dvdlei Comitis
+Leycestri&aelig; 1571.&rdquo;&nbsp; The great Dudley&rsquo;s
+picturesque buildings deserve to be better kept, for they are
+among the daintiest examples of highly enriched half-timbering in
+England.&nbsp; Passing beneath an archway with a sundial
+overhead, you enter a small quadrangle with a quaint staircase on
+one side, and gables with elaborate pierced verge-boards looking
+down upon the scene.&nbsp; The famous Warwick badge of the Bear
+and Ragged Staff surmounts the finials and lurks under the eaves,
+in frequent repetition, together with the Porcupine, that of the
+Sidneys.&nbsp; On the further side, over the windows of the
+Master&rsquo;s Lodge, is the painted inscription, &ldquo;Honour
+all men; love the brotherhood; fear God; and honour the
+King,&rdquo; a quadripartite injunction which we may confidently
+affirm, no man ever yet observed.&nbsp; Our own&mdash;but much
+more other people&rsquo;s&mdash;natures will have to be very
+greatly amended before we are prepared to &ldquo;honour all
+men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 244</span>You
+pay sixpence to be shown over the Hospital, and one of the twelve
+bedesmen acts as guide to the buildings and the very
+miscellaneous collections accumulated in them.&nbsp; Nowadays the
+&ldquo;blue gown&rdquo; has become black, and the Bear and Ragged
+Staff badge is in silver, instead of embroidery.&nbsp; A welcome
+change has come over their headgear.&nbsp; Instead of the more or
+less rusty silk hats they wore during the greater part of the
+nineteenth century, they have now a &ldquo;beefeater&rdquo; hat
+similar to those worn by the Tower warders in London, but wholly
+in black.&nbsp; The bedesmen no longer dine together as once they
+did, but each separately in his own quarters, because they could
+not always obey the injunction to &ldquo;love the
+brotherhood,&rdquo; and grew cantankerous in company, and
+quarrelled; but here is still the kitchen they have in common,
+containing many other things one does not expect to find in
+kitchens; an odd assortment, a Malay kris, a Russian helmet from
+the stricken fields of the Crimea, an oak cabinet from Kenilworth
+Castle, and a framed piece of needlework said to have been
+executed by Lady Robert Dudley, whom &ldquo;historians&rdquo;
+will persist in styling either by her maiden name, Amy Robsart,
+or else by the title of Countess of Leicester, she having died or
+been murdered many years before her husband became an Earl.&nbsp;
+Perhaps we had better emphasise the word <i>said</i>.&nbsp;
+Beneath that framed piece of needlework is a Saxon&mdash;more or
+less Saxon&mdash;chair.&nbsp; A piece of Gibraltar rock,
+polished, is a further item displaying the catholicity of taste
+displayed here, together with the muskets with which the inmates
+of the Hospital were armed when the Chartist rising was supposed
+to threaten the security of Warwick.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p244.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital: One of the Brethren"
+title=
+"Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital: One of the Brethren"
+src="images/p244.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>The
+banqueting hall, a surviving portion of the old Guild buildings,
+very greatly needs restoration.&nbsp; It has been grossly used
+and subdivided, the Minstrel Gallery having been taken out of it
+in order to provide a fine additional room for the Master&rsquo;s
+residence; the Master being, of course, a clergyman with a fine
+fat stipend: the person who has the very best of it at
+Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital.&nbsp; In this once-beautiful
+banqueting hall, with its noble roof of Spanish chestnut,
+whitened with age, James the First was entertained by Fulke
+Greville in 1617.&nbsp; Coal-bins and wash-houses now subdivide
+it.</p>
+<p>Flights of stone stairs lead up from the Hospital over the
+West Gate and into the chapel, a fine spacious building where the
+twelve old men have to attend every week-day morning at ten
+o&rsquo;clock and listen to the perfunctory service read by the
+Master.&nbsp; In addition to this spiritual treat, they attend
+service at the parish church on Sundays.&nbsp; There is nothing
+to say about the interior of the chapel; it was
+&ldquo;restored&rdquo; by Sir Gilbert Scott, and so there would
+not be.</p>
+<p>For dulness and pretentious ugliness combined, the town of
+Warwick would be difficult to match; and the ugliest and dullest
+part of it is that main street called Jury Street, stretching
+between the West Gate and the East.&nbsp; The ugliness is due to
+the great fire of 1694, which destroyed a great part of the town
+and necessitated a rebuilding at a period when architects were
+obsessed with the idea of designing &ldquo;stately&rdquo;
+buildings.&nbsp; What they considered stately we nowadays look
+upon with a shudder and style heavy and unimaginative.</p>
+<p>But the weirdest building in the town is that parish church of
+St. Mary whose tower looks in the distance so stately.&nbsp;
+There were once ten churches in Warwick and there are now but
+two.&nbsp; St. Mary&rsquo;s was almost entirely destroyed in the
+great fire, in consequence of the frightened townsfolk storing
+their furniture in it, for safety.&nbsp; The church itself was
+not threatened, <a name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+246</span>but some of the articles hurriedly placed in it were
+alight, and thus it shared the fate of much else.</p>
+<p>The rebuilding of St. Mary&rsquo;s was completed in 1704, as
+an inscription on the tower informs us.&nbsp; I think those who
+placed that inscription here intended a Latin pun, a play upon
+the name of Queen Anne and the word anno, for &ldquo;year&rdquo;;
+for thus it runs: &ldquo;Annaeauspiciis A&deg; memorabili
+1704.&rdquo;&nbsp; One scarcely knows which is the more
+deplorable, the building or the pun; the first, probably, because
+not every one can see the play upon words, but the tower is an
+outrage impossible to escape.</p>
+<p>The bulk and loftiness of it are majestic, but its classic
+details in a Gothic framework have a curious effect on the
+beholder.&nbsp; They seem, those unhallowed pagan alcoves,
+mounting stage by stage toward the skies, like some blasphemous
+insinuation.&nbsp; The nave and transepts, rebuilt at the same
+time, are, oddly enough, not nearly so offensive, and it is
+rather a handsome as well as imposing interior that meets the
+stranger&rsquo;s gaze.&nbsp; It may be that it seems so much
+better because, warned by the outside, one expects so much
+worse.&nbsp; That familiar ornament in classic architecture, the
+&ldquo;egg and dart,&rdquo; is an incongruous detail when worked
+into the capitals of columns in which the Gothic feeling
+predominates, and it sounds quite shocking when described; but
+here it comes with a pleasing, if scarcely ecclesiastical effect
+in this fine and well-proportioned interior.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p246.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick"
+title=
+"The Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick"
+src="images/p246.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The chancel of St. Mary&rsquo;s, together with the
+chapter-house on the north side of it and the Beauchamp Chapel on
+the south, escaped the fire, and remain uninjured to this
+day.&nbsp; It is possible to peer through the locked iron gates
+of the chancel from the nave, which is the only portion of the
+church that is to be seen without payment, but to see the
+chapter-house, and the <a name="page247"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 247</span>Beauchamp Chapel, to descend to the
+crypt and to mount the tower, you must pay and pay and pay
+again.&nbsp; The clergy in all the wide radius of the Shakespeare
+Country have the keenest scent for sixpences, and would make
+excellent business men.&nbsp; Better business men than clergymen,
+for all I know.&nbsp; They have long since learnt to charge and
+to keep their doors locked until their charges are satisfied; and
+none understand the business better than those who have the
+keeping of St. Mary&rsquo;s at Warwick.&nbsp; But, when you have
+paid for this and for that and for t&rsquo;other, and are resting
+and reading, and possibly making notes in the nave, it is gross,
+I say, and offensive and blackguardly to be followed up and spied
+upon and to be asked if you are sketching!&nbsp; &ldquo;Because
+if you are it will be half-a-crown.&rdquo;&nbsp; I will now leave
+this unsavoury subject, wishing the clergy and churchwardens of
+St. Mary&rsquo;s more enlightenment and the people they employ
+better discretion.</p>
+<p>The chancel, or choir, founded by Thomas Beauchamp, twelfth
+Earl of Warwick, who died 1369, is a stately Perpendicular work,
+with the altar-tomb of the founder and his wife Katharine, who
+died the same year, in the middle.&nbsp; His armoured effigy,
+with crosses crosslet displayed on the breastplate, rests its
+feet upon a bear, and at the feet of his wife is a lamb.&nbsp; He
+holds his wife&rsquo;s hand.</p>
+<p>Around the tomb, in niches, are small figures representing
+members of the family, thirty-six in all.&nbsp; In a grave near
+by, unmarked by any monument or inscription, lies William Parr,
+brother of Katharine Parr, last and surviving wife of Henry the
+Eighth.&nbsp; He was created Marquis of Northampton, and died in
+1571, sunk to such poverty that no money was forthcoming to bury
+him.&nbsp; A few years later, Queen Elizabeth found <a
+name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 248</span>a trifle,
+and he was decently interred, but no one ever thought it worth
+while to mark his resting-place.</p>
+<p>Passing the greatly-enriched Easter Sepulchre in the north
+wall, the Chapter House is entered by a corridor.&nbsp; In the
+centre of this building stands the enormous monument to Fulke
+Greville, Lord Brooke, who was murdered by his man-servant in
+1628.&nbsp; &ldquo;Delaying to reward one Hayward, an antient
+servant that had spent the most of his time in attendance upon
+him,&rdquo; says Dugdale, &ldquo;he received a mortall stab in
+the back by the same man, then private with him in his
+bed-chamber at Brooke House in London, 30th Sept. ann. 1628, who,
+to consummate the tragedy, went into another room, and, having
+lockit the dore, pierced his own bowells with a sword.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The crypt is the oldest part of St. Mary&rsquo;s, with Norman
+pillars.&nbsp; It contains the old ducking-stool for scolding
+women.</p>
+<p>The entrance to that most gorgeous relic of old St.
+Mary&rsquo;s, the Beauchamp Chapel, which is the principal item
+in the list of these ecclesiastical showmen, is on the east side
+of the south transept.&nbsp; The mortuary magnificence of the
+Beauchamps obscures the dedication of the Chapel to Our Lady, and
+the generations that have passed since the building of it between
+the years 1443 and 1464, and its final consecration in 1475, have
+rightly agreed to style it by the name by which it now, and
+always has been, popularly known.&nbsp; It reminds one very
+keenly of the insincere modern cant phrase which forms the
+dedication of memorial stained-glass windows.&nbsp; &ldquo;To the
+Glory of God and to the memory of &mdash;,&rdquo; a shabby sop to
+the Almighty at which the soul revolts.&nbsp; The very entrance
+is obviously proprietary, and shows us that this is really the
+Beauchamp mausoleum.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p248.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Crypt of St. Mary&rsquo;s, Warwick"
+title=
+"The Crypt of St. Mary&rsquo;s, Warwick"
+src="images/p248.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>It is a magnificent entrance, a very highly-enriched work in
+<a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>panelled
+and sculptured stone, with the Warwick Bear and Ragged Staff on
+either side, facing the Beauchamp shield of crosses
+crosslet.&nbsp; Near it, on the wall, and green with neglect, is
+the fine brass to Thomas Beauchamp, thirteenth Earl of Warwick,
+who died in 1401, and of his wife Margaret, who died 1406.&nbsp;
+It seems strange that out of all the money contributed by
+visitors, and chiefly on account of the Beauchamp monuments,
+there cannot be some small surplus set aside for a restoration of
+the altar-tomb on which these figures were placed up to that time
+when the great fire destroyed it and much of the church.&nbsp; It
+is not well that so fine an example should remain on a wall; the
+most unsuitable position for a monumental brass.&nbsp; The Earl,
+who is given the old original name of the Norman Beauchamps who
+came over with the Conqueror&mdash;&ldquo;Bellocampo,&rdquo;
+meaning &ldquo;fair field&rdquo;&mdash;is in complete armour,
+which has, besides the crosses crosslet of the family arms, a
+decorative border of ragged staves around his helmet.&nbsp; The
+Countess is habited in an heraldic mantle of crosses
+crosslet.</p>
+<p>This Thomas Beauchamp was not so great or distinguished a man
+as his son, in whose honour the Beauchamp Chapel was erected.</p>
+<p>The Beauchamp Chapel is slightly below the level of the south
+transept and is entered down a flight of steps.&nbsp; Photographs
+give an exaggerated idea of its size, but scarcely do justice to
+its beauty and the extreme richness of its details, still
+remarkable, although the ancient coloured glass has been mostly
+destroyed and the golden images of the altar have
+disappeared.&nbsp; It is indeed due to the second Lord Brooke,
+who although a partisan of the Cromwellian side during the Civil
+War, was naturally keen to preserve the glories of Warwick, that
+the Chapel was not wholly destroyed in that age of tumults.&nbsp;
+Lord Brooke was the son of that Sir Fulke <a
+name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 250</span>Greville,
+first Baron Brooke, to whom James the First had granted Warwick
+Castle in 1605, and he no doubt looked upon the Beauchamps as
+ancestors, although there was never the remotest connection
+between that ancient martial family and his own, the Grevels, or
+Grevilles, who descend from the old wool-merchants of the name at
+Chipping Campden and elsewhere in the Cotswolds.&nbsp; He adopted
+them, and took them over, so to speak, with the Castle; and a
+good thing too, for these old monuments, that they had so
+fortunate an adoption.</p>
+<p>The building is in the middle period of the Perpendicular
+style, that last manifestation of the Gothic spirit and the
+feudal ages, and is elaborately groined in stone.&nbsp; The great
+Richard Beauchamp, who lies here in these gorgeous surroundings,
+directed by will the building of the Chapel and the erection of
+his monument.&nbsp; He was the greatest as yet of his name, and
+appears to have been perfectly conscious of it, if we may judge
+by the state in which he ordained to lie.&nbsp; He was also to
+prove the greatest to all time, for although his son Henry who
+succeeded him at his death in 1439 was created Duke of Warwick,
+his career was undistinguished and soon ended, for he died in
+1445.&nbsp; With him ended the long line of his race.</p>
+<p>Richard Beauchamp, fourteenth Earl of Warwick, whose effigy
+lies here in lonely magnificence on the altar-tomb he directed to
+be made, as though he were too great a personage to have his wife
+beside him, was holder of the greatest offices of State of his
+period.&nbsp; The long inscription round his tomb tells us of
+some of these responsible posts&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Preieth devoutly for the Sowel whom god
+assoille of one of the moost worshipful Knights in his dayes of
+monhode and conning Richard Beauchamp, late Earl <a
+name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 251</span>of
+Warrewik, lord Despenser of Bergevenny and of mony other grete
+lordships whos body resteth here vnder this tumbe in a fulfeire
+vout of stone set on the bare rooch the whuch visited with longe
+siknes in the Castel of Roan therinne decessed ful cristenly the
+last day of April the yer of oure lord god A mccccxxix, he being
+at that tyme Lieutenant gen&rsquo;al and governer of the Roialme
+of ffraunce and of the Duchie of Normandie by sufficient Autorite
+of oure Sou&rsquo;aigne lord the King Harry the vi., the whuch
+body with grete deliberacon&rsquo; and ful worshipful conduit Bi
+See And by lond was broght to Warrewik the iiii day of October
+the yer aboueseide and was leide with ful solemn exequies in a
+feir chest made of stone in this Chirche afore the west dore of
+this Chapel according to his last wille and Testament therin to
+rest til this Chapel by him devised i&rsquo; his liff were made
+Al the whuche Chapel founded on the Rooch And alle the membres
+thereof his Executours dede fully make and Apparaille By the
+Auctorite of his Seide last Wille and Testament And therafter By
+the same Auctorite Theydide Translate fful worshipfully the seide
+Body into the vout abouseide, Honured be god therfore.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>History comes in few places with such vivid reality to the
+modern person as it does here.&nbsp; Unmoved, because too often
+without the mental agility to perceive the significance of it, we
+look upon the old royal arms of England as they were for
+centuries, until the time of George the Third, and see the
+quartering of the Lions of England with the Lilies of France;
+that proud boast, an idle pretension long before Calais, the
+final French possession of England, was lost, in the reign of
+Queen Mary.&nbsp; But standing before the tomb of the great
+Beauchamp, and reading his sounding titles, no mere ornamental
+designations, but the veritable responsible offices of State, as
+&ldquo;Lieutenant-General and Governor <a
+name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 252</span>of the
+Realm of France and the Duchy of Normandy,&rdquo; we live again
+in tremendous days.&nbsp; No tomb of King or Emperor impresses me
+as does that of this puissant representative and viceroy of such
+sovereignty.</p>
+<p>Beneath a hooped frame or &ldquo;hearse&rdquo; of gilded brass
+which formed the support for a gorgeous pall of crimson velvet
+lies the effigy of this great soldier and statesman, also in
+brass, once highly gilt.&nbsp; His bared head rests upon his
+helmet and his feet upon a griffin and a muzzled bear, and the
+Garter is on his left leg.&nbsp; The arms are raised in the usual
+attitude of prayer, but the hands themselves are not joined, as
+usual.&nbsp; They are, instead, represented apart, in the
+priestly pose during the celebration of mass.</p>
+<p>The rich crimson velvet pall that covered the effigy and was
+lifted for its inspection by every visitor, was at last removed,
+on the plea of the injury it was supposed to be causing the
+figure, and has now unaccountably disappeared.</p>
+<p>In niches around the altar-tomb are little figures
+representing his family, and sons- and daughters-in-law: fourteen
+in all; such great names as Henry Beauchamp, his son and
+successor, with his wife Cicely; Richard Neville, Earl of
+Salisbury and his wife Alice; Richard Neville, afterwards Earl of
+Warwick and his wife Anne; Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and
+his wife Eleanor; Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and his
+wife Anne; John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife
+Margaret; and George Neville, Lord Latimer, with his wife
+Elizabeth.</p>
+<p>Against the north wall of the Chapel is the costly and
+ostentatious monument of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, rising
+in lofty stages of coloured marbles; a vulgar piece of
+work.&nbsp; The effigies of Dudley and his wife L&aelig;titia,
+who survived him forty-six years and <a name="page253"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 253</span>died in 1634, are gorgeously robed
+and painted in lifelike fashion.&nbsp; The mantle of the Order of
+the Garter covers his armour, and the Garter itself is shown on
+his leg.&nbsp; It is with surpassing interest that one looks upon
+the chief of these figures; that Dudley who came near being
+King-Consort of Elizabeth, and died in 1588, at the comparatively
+early age of fifty-four; the vain and magnificent creature
+suspected of the murder of his first wife and traditionally
+poisoned by his last, who is said to have given him the lethal
+cup he had intended for herself.&nbsp; A long Latin epitaph
+sonorously recounts his many titles and honours, with the hardy
+belief in &ldquo;a certain hope of his resurrection in
+Christ.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Against the opposite wall is the altar-tomb of that
+&ldquo;noble Impe, Robert of Dudley,&rdquo; infant son of the
+last, who died in his fourth year, 1584.&nbsp; A circlet round
+the brow of the little figure bears the Leicester badge, the
+cinquefoil.&nbsp; Last of the Dudley monuments, is the altar-tomb
+of Ambrose, styled the &ldquo;good Earl,&rdquo; in tacit
+contradistinction from his brother Robert, the wicked one.&nbsp;
+The good Ambrose was not given length of days, for he died the
+year after his brother.&nbsp; He also is shown in armour and
+wears a coronet and the Garter.&nbsp; How he was given the post
+of &ldquo;Mayster of the Ordinaunce,&rdquo; made Chief Butler of
+England, and was altogether a personage of many offices, his
+epitaph tells.&nbsp; With him and the &ldquo;noble Impe,&rdquo;
+his brother&rsquo;s infant son, the legitimate race of the
+Dudleys died.</p>
+<h2><a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+254</span>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Warwick Castle.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> great Castle of Warwick, now
+the seat of the Earl and Countess of Warwick, who formed
+themselves into a Limited Liability Company some fifteen years
+ago, under the title of the &ldquo;Warwick Estates Co.,
+Ltd.,&rdquo; has been the seat of the Grevilles since 1605.</p>
+<p>The origin of Warwick Castle goes back to Ethelfleda, daughter
+of Alfred the Great and wife of the then Earl of Mercia, a
+strenuous and warlike lady, to whom are attributed many ancient
+works.&nbsp; She is credited with building the first fortress in
+<span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 915, on that knoll still known
+as &ldquo;Ethelfleda&rsquo;s Mount,&rdquo; on which a Norman keep
+was subsequently erected, perhaps by that famous personage
+Turchil.&nbsp; In the family of Turchil the cognisance of the yet
+more famous Bear and Ragged Staff originated, which in all
+succeeding generations has descended from house to house of the
+distinguished families who have come into possession of Warwick
+Castle: the Houses of Beauchamp, Neville, Dudley, Rich, and
+Greville: not as their personal badge, but as that of the
+castellan for the time being of Warwick.&nbsp; A fantastic theory
+has been set afoot that, as Siward, son of Turchil, assumed the
+name &ldquo;de Arden,&rdquo; thus founding the numerous knightly
+family of Ardens, Shakespeare, as the son of a Mary Arden, was
+probably the rightful owner of Warwick Castle!&nbsp; We may
+safely say that this never occurred to Shakespeare himself, and
+may add him to one of that numerous class slyly alluded to <a
+name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>by
+Ingoldsby; people &ldquo;kept out of their property by the
+rightful owners.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The great Guy of Warwick, a giant in stature and doughty in
+deeds, is a myth, but that does not prevent his armour being
+shown in the Great Hall of the Castle.&nbsp; His period seems to
+be placed between that of Ethelfleda and Turchil, for the date of
+his death is put at <span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 929.&nbsp;
+Mythical though he is, the later and very real flesh-and-blood
+Beauchamps, who came into possession of Warwick in the thirteenth
+century, were often named &ldquo;Guy&rdquo; in allusion to
+him.&nbsp; His armour, like his legendary self, is a weird
+accretion of time, and is no longer displayed with the touching
+belief of less exacting times.&nbsp; The Age of Belief is dead,
+they say.&nbsp; Of belief in some things incredible, no
+doubt.&nbsp; He wore, according to the articles seen here, not
+only armour of tremendous size and weight, but of periods ranging
+from three hundred, to six hundred and ninety years after his
+death.&nbsp; A bascinet of the time of Edward the Third covered
+his head, his breastplate, weighing fifty pounds, is of the
+latter part of the fifteenth century, and the backplate belongs
+to the Stuart period.&nbsp; His shield weighs thirty pounds; his
+great ponderous sword, five feet six inches long, is of the time
+of Henry the Eighth.&nbsp; &ldquo;Guy&rsquo;s breakfast cup, or
+porridge-pot&rdquo; is equally wonderful, for it has a capacity
+of a hundred and twenty gallons.&nbsp; It is really an ancient
+iron cauldron, once used for cooking the rations of the
+garrison.</p>
+<p>The first historical Earl of Warwick was Henry de Newburgh,
+who died 1123; and by a succession of changes and failures of
+heirs the title and estates came to William de Beauchamp, husband
+of the daughter of William Mauduit.</p>
+<p>In the time of Guy, Earl of Warwick, son of this William, the
+Castle witnessed some stirring scenes.&nbsp; <a
+name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 256</span>The
+discontented nobles, troubled at the preference given by Edward
+the Second to his foreign favourite, Piers Gaveston, and at the
+apparent impossibility of permanently ridding the kingdom of him,
+seized that pestilent foreigner and confined him for a short time
+in a dungeon here.</p>
+<p>The favourite was by no means an acceptable person to the
+English barons, who although all directly descended from William
+the Conqueror&rsquo;s Frenchmen, had already been assimilated by
+this wonderful country of ours, and were as English
+as&mdash;well, let us say as English as any German Jew Goldstein
+or Schlesinger of modern times who, coming to these happy shores,
+suffers a sea-change into something rich and rare, and becomes a
+new and strange &ldquo;Gordon,&rdquo; or
+&ldquo;Sinclair.&rdquo;&nbsp; They regarded this flippant Gascon
+from the south of France as an undesirable of the worst type, and
+could not and would not appreciate his jokes; a natural enough
+disability when you come to consider them, for they were all at
+their expense.&nbsp; If you study the monumental effigies of
+those medi&aelig;val barons and knights which are so plentifully
+dispersed throughout our country churches, you will readily
+perceive that although they were frequently very magnificent
+personages, their countenances do not often show any trace of
+intellectual qualities.&nbsp; Edward the Second was as flippant a
+person as his favourite, and when these stupid and indignant
+barons saw them laughing together, they knew very well, or keenly
+suspected, that they themselves were being laughed at.&nbsp; Did
+not this Gaveston fellow call the Earl of Lancaster &ldquo;the
+play-actor,&rdquo; or &ldquo;the fiddler,&rdquo; and the Earl of
+Lincoln &ldquo;burst belly.&rdquo;&nbsp; Every one knew he called
+his father-in-law &ldquo;<i>fils &agrave; puteyne</i>,&rdquo; or
+&ldquo;whoreson.&rdquo;&nbsp; Guy, Earl of Warwick, was
+&ldquo;the black hound of Arden.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+257</span>&ldquo;Let him call me hound: one day the hound will
+bite him,&rdquo; said the Earl.&nbsp; Meanwhile, Gaveston went on
+finding nicknames for every one, and made himself bitterly hated
+by those dull-minded barons who could not joke back at him.&nbsp;
+The worst of it was, his lance was as keen, and went as straight
+to the point, as his gibes.&nbsp; It was little use meeting him
+in single combat, for he unhorsed and vanquished the best.</p>
+<p>Hence this seizure of the hateful person.&nbsp; The story of
+it is told by Adam Murimuth&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The King wished Peter de Gavestone to be
+conveyed to him by Lord Adamar de Valense, Earl of Pembroke, for
+safety; and, when they were at Danyntone next Bannebury, the same
+Earl sent him away in the night; and he went near to one place
+for this reason.&nbsp; And on the morrow in the morning came Guy,
+Earl of Warwyk, with a low-born and shouting band, and awakened
+Peter and brought him to his Castle of Warwyk and, after
+deliberation with certain elders of the kingdom, and chiefly with
+Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, finally released him from prison to go
+where he would.&nbsp; And when he had set out from the town of
+Warwyk even to the place called, somewhat prophetically,
+Gaveressich, he came there with many men making a clamor against
+him with their voices and horns, as against an enemy of the King
+and a lawful outlaw of the Kingdom, or an exile; and finally
+beheaded him as such xix day of the month of June.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So the &ldquo;Black Dog&rdquo; did indeed bite him to some
+effect.&nbsp; This tragic spot is a place called Blacklow Hill,
+one mile north of the town.&nbsp; A monument to this misguided
+humorist, following his natural propensities in a land where
+humour is not appreciated, was erected on the spot by a Mr.
+Greathead, of Guy&rsquo;s Cliff House, in 1821.&nbsp; The
+inscription itself has a complete lack of humour&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+258</span>&ldquo;In the hollow of this rock was beheaded, on the
+first day of July, 1312, by barons as lawless as himself, Piers
+Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, the minion of a hateful king, in life
+and death a memorable instance of misrule.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>With this fierce &ldquo;Black Dog of Arden,&rdquo; whose teeth
+were so sharp, the architectural history of the Castle becomes
+clear.&nbsp; He repaired and strengthened it, after the rough
+handling it had received in the Barons&rsquo; War, in the reign
+of Henry the Third; but to Thomas de Beauchamp, his grandson, is
+due C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower, about 1360, and it was his son
+Thomas, who built Guy&rsquo;s Tower, named after the mythical
+giant, about 1394.</p>
+<p>It costs two shillings to see Warwick Castle.&nbsp; I believe
+if you happen to be a resident of Warwick or Leamington, there is
+a reduction of fifty per cent.&nbsp; The entrance is not so old
+as it looks, and was cut through the rock in 1800.&nbsp; It leads
+to the gloomy Barbican, whose overhanging walls give a truly
+medi&aelig;val approach and form the completest contrast with the
+scene that opens beyond.</p>
+<p>The visitor enters a huge courtyard, now one vast lawn, nearly
+two acres in area; with the residential portion of the Castle and
+its state-rooms on the left.&nbsp; Ahead is Ethelfleda&rsquo;s
+Mount, and on the right, guarding the curtain-wall at intervals,
+are Guy&rsquo;s Tower; the incomplete Bear Tower, with its
+mysterious tunnel, the work of Richard the Third; and the
+companion Clarence Tower, built by George, Duke of Clarence, his
+ill-fated brother, murdered in the Tower of London.&nbsp; Beside
+Ethelfleda&rsquo;s Mount is the Hill Tower.</p>
+<p>Immediately to the left of the entrance are the brew-house,
+laundry and then C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower, with its gloomy
+dungeon, a most undesirable place of residence with vaulted stone
+roof and mouldy smells, meet for repentance and vain
+regrets.&nbsp; Here the &ldquo;Black Dog&rdquo; <a
+name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 259</span>imprisoned
+the flippant Gaveston, and many later generations of prisoners
+passed weary times, scratching their not very legible records
+upon the walls for lack of employment.&nbsp; Among them is the
+record of one &ldquo;Master John Smyth, gunner to the
+King,&rdquo; who appears to have been a prisoner here for the
+worse part of four years, in the hands of the Cromwellian
+partisan, Lord Brooke.&nbsp; We learn nothing further of the
+unfortunate gunner, nor why he was meted such hard measure.</p>
+<blockquote><p>M<i>a</i>f<span class="GutSmall">TER</span> :
+I<i>oh</i><span class="GutSmall">N</span> : S<span
+class="GutSmall">M</span><i>y</i><span class="GutSmall">TH</span>
+: G<span class="GutSmall">VNER</span> : <span class="GutSmall">TO
+HIS</span> :<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">MAIEST</span><i>y</i><span
+class="GutSmall">E</span> . <span
+class="GutSmall">HI</span>g<i>h</i><span
+class="GutSmall">NES</span> : <span class="GutSmall">WAS</span> :
+<span class="GutSmall">A</span> P<span class="GutSmall">RISNER IN
+THIS</span><br />
+Pl<span class="GutSmall">ACE</span> : <span
+class="GutSmall">AND</span> l<span
+class="GutSmall">A</span><i>y</i> <span
+class="GutSmall">HERE</span> . <i>f</i>r<span
+class="GutSmall">OM</span> 1642 <span
+class="GutSmall">TELL</span> <i>th</i></p>
+<p>W<span class="GutSmall">ILLIAM</span> S<span
+class="GutSmall">I</span><i>d</i><span class="GutSmall">IATE ROT
+T</span><i>his</i> <span class="GutSmall">SAME</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AN</span><i>d</i> <i>if</i> <span
+class="GutSmall">M</span><i>y</i> P<span
+class="GutSmall">EN</span> <span
+class="GutSmall">HA</span><i>d</i> B<i>in</i> <span
+class="GutSmall">BETER</span> f<i>o</i><span
+class="GutSmall">R</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">HIS SAKE I W</span>ovl<i>d</i> <span
+class="GutSmall">HAVE MEN</span><i>d</i><span
+class="GutSmall">E</span><i>d</i><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">EVERR</span>i le<span
+class="GutSmall">TTER</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Ma<i>f</i>ter&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+1642 345<br />
+Io<i>h</i>n : S<span class="GutSmall">M</span><i>y</i><span
+class="GutSmall">TH</span> <span class="GutSmall">GVNER</span>
+<i>to</i> H .<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">MAIE</span><i>f</i><span
+class="GutSmall">T</span><i>ys </i>: Hi<i>gh</i><span
+class="GutSmall">NES WAS</span><br />
+A <span class="GutSmall">PRI</span><i>f</i><span
+class="GutSmall">NER IN T</span><i>his</i> Pl<span
+class="GutSmall">ACE</span><br />
+I<span class="GutSmall">N</span> : <span
+class="GutSmall">T</span><i>h</i>E .&nbsp; <i>y</i><span
+class="GutSmall">EARE</span> <i>of</i> <span
+class="GutSmall">OVR</span> <span class="GutSmall">L</span><br />
+<i>ord</i> 1642 : 345<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>miserere</i><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>ihs
+mary</i><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>ihs
+mio</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Mr. William Sidiate (or possibly it is &ldquo;Lidiate&rdquo;)
+who thus, in the quaintest of lettering inscribed the sorrows of
+his friend the imprisoned gunner, appears to have been fully
+conscious of the eccentricity of his handiwork, but the
+inferiority of his &ldquo;pen&rdquo;&mdash;which was probably a
+rusty nail&mdash;can have had nothing to do with his weird
+admixture of &ldquo;large caps,&rdquo; &ldquo;upper case,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;lower case&rdquo; and italic type which I confidently
+expect will make the compositor of this page smile and sigh by
+turns.</p>
+<p>The Great Hall, with its armour and pictures and relics of
+Guy, is of course the chief feature of the long <a
+name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 260</span>round of
+sight-seeing that makes Warwick Castle second to none as a
+show-place.&nbsp; It was greatly injured in the fire of December
+1871, when many priceless relics were destroyed.&nbsp; Facsimile
+replicas of some have been made, and of the ancient armour which
+survived it has been said that there is no finer in the Kingdom,
+except that in the Tower of London.&nbsp; It is remarkable that
+although the Castle has passed from family to family, and
+sometimes to families not related to their predecessors, the
+continuity of things has been maintained.&nbsp; Here is the mace
+of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, &ldquo;the Kingmaker,&rdquo;
+who was slain in 1471 at the Battle of Barnet; here are portions
+of the armour which belonged to Prince Edward, murdered at
+Tewkesbury, after the battle; together with relics of the
+Dudleys, such as the miniature suit of armour made for the
+&ldquo;noble Impe&rdquo;; together with a helmet of the great
+Oliver Cromwell, and the suit worn by Lord Brooke, shot at the
+siege of Lichfield.&nbsp; His buff leathern jerkin was burnt in
+1871, and that we now see is a facsimile of it.&nbsp; Here, too,
+are those preposterous relics of Guy, already mentioned, together
+with a rib of that Dun Cow of terrific story which he slew upon
+Dunsmore.&nbsp; The visitor will see that rib with surprise, and
+note that the cows of a thousand years ago were larger than ever
+he suspected.&nbsp; It is the rib of a whale.</p>
+<p>He would be a courtly, and perhaps also a tedious, writer who
+should essay to fully describe Warwick Castle, with its many
+suites of state-rooms, its gothic stone-vaulted
+servants&rsquo;-hall, and its terraces, ponds, and gardens,
+together with the conservatories and that famous Roman antiquity,
+the so-called &ldquo;Warwick Vase,&rdquo; found at
+Hadrian&rsquo;s Villa, near Rome in 1770, and purchased by the
+dilettante George, second Earl, from Sir William Hamilton.&nbsp;
+Great improvements have been <a name="page261"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 261</span>made here in the last few years at
+the cost of &ldquo;a little damming and blasting,&rdquo; as was
+remarked at the time.</p>
+<p>Past the melancholy flymen who linger in the broad roadway
+opposite the entrance to the Castle, and wear jaundiced looks as
+though it were years ago since they had had a fare and expect it
+to be years yet before they will get another, you turn to the
+right into Mill Lane, narrow street of ancient houses, leading
+down to the river and to the site of that ancient mill where the
+feudal lords had their corn ground.</p>
+<p>The magnificence of state-rooms, the lengthy parade of family
+portraits, the beauty of the gardens, and the trimness of
+well-kept lawns do not serve the really cultivated
+visitor&rsquo;s turn in Warwick Castle.&nbsp; He pays his two
+shillings and is herded through with many others, a little
+browbeaten by the stale declamation of the gorgeous lackeys and
+by a very indigestion of sightseeing.&nbsp; It is not a medieval
+fortress he has seen, but a private residence.&nbsp; In Mill
+Lane, however, you come into nearer touch with realities.&nbsp;
+Here, in this by far the most picturesque and unspoiled part of
+Warwick, where the bowed and time-worn brick or timber-framed
+houses are living out their life naturally, something of the
+ancient contrast between subservient town and feudal fortress may
+be gathered, softened down, it is true, by the hand of
+time.&nbsp; C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower is viewed at its best from
+the lower end of the lane, and looks from this point of view the
+noblest and the sternest tower the forceful military architects
+of the Middle Ages have given us, and well worthy of the great
+name of C&aelig;sar long ago conferred upon it by some unknown
+admirer of its dignity and massive beauty.&nbsp; It was somewhere
+about 1360 when C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower first arose upon the
+rocky bluff in which its foundations go deeply down.&nbsp; It was
+then called the <a name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+262</span>Poictiers Tower.&nbsp; The purpose of this extremely
+strong and cunningly-planned work just here is lost to the modern
+casual observer, but if a keen glance is directed to the Avon
+flowing so closely by, it will be observed that although Mill
+Lane is now a lane butting up against the river bank and leading
+nowhere, the ruins of a very substantial stone bridge that once
+crossed the broad stream at this point are seen.&nbsp; This
+formerly carried the high road from Warwick to Banbury, and when
+still in use brought the possibility of attack upon the Castle at
+this angle very near, and therefore to be provided against by the
+strongest possible defence.&nbsp; Hence those boldest of
+machicolations overhead, those arrow-slits in the
+skilfully-planned battlements above them, and that extraordinary
+double base with the bold slopes, seen in the accompanying
+illustration; a base whose purpose was to fling off with a
+tremendous rebound into the midst of an enemy the stones, the
+molten lead and pitch, and the more nasty, but not so lethal
+missiles with which a besieged garrison defended
+themselves.&nbsp; This base is quite solid rock, faced with
+masonry.&nbsp; In the upper part of it is seen the small barred
+window that admits a feeble light into the dungeon already
+described.&nbsp; To-day the elms have grown up to great heights
+beside C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower and assuage the grimness of it,
+and the only sounds are the cawings and gobbling noises of the
+rooks in their branches, or the unlovely cries of the Castle
+peacocks which strut across the lane in all their glory of
+colour.</p>
+<p>The tower rises 106 feet above its rocky basement.&nbsp; Those
+old military architects who designed and built it had not the
+least idea they were installing a picturesque feature.&nbsp; They
+had no knowledge at all of the picturesque; but they assured
+themselves, as well as they could, that the safety of the Castle
+should be provided for.&nbsp; And they did it so well that
+history will be studied in vain for a successful siege.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page263"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 263</span>
+<a href="images/p263.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower, Warwick Castle"
+title=
+"C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower, Warwick Castle"
+src="images/p263.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 264</span>This
+must have been a noble and imposing entrance to Warwick town in
+days of old.&nbsp; Then the road from London to Banbury crossed
+the ancient bridge and came up under this frowning tower and
+through the south gate of the town, along Mill Lane.</p>
+<p>The bridge, originally a narrow packhorse bridge of thirteen
+arches and of great antiquity, was widened in 1375 and the number
+of arches reduced to seven; and, thus remodelled, carried the
+traffic until 1790.&nbsp; This way came of necessity every
+traveller from London to Warwick, and in this manner Queen
+Elizabeth entered the town and Castle in 1572.</p>
+<p>Warwick Castle was in those times less secluded from the
+streets than it now is.&nbsp; The feudal owners of it were not at
+all concerned to hide themselves away, but when the age of
+sight-seeing dawned and amateurs of the picturesque began to tour
+the country, they began to consider how they could ensure a
+complete privacy.&nbsp; It was effected by diverting the public
+highway.&nbsp; This was done at the instigation of George, second
+of the Greville Earls of Warwick, in or about 1790, when the new
+road and bridge were made, crossing the Avon considerably to the
+eastward.&nbsp; From that modern bridge, which cost &pound;4000,
+only in part contributed by the Earl, who benefited most by the
+diversion, is obtained that view of the Castle so extravagantly
+praised by Sir Walter Scott.&nbsp; It is the only possible view,
+and not a good one: one by no means to be compared with that
+formerly obtained from the old bridge.&nbsp; Sir Walter Scott
+therefore either did not know what he was talking about, or was
+too much of a courtier to reveal his own convictions.</p>
+<p>At this same time when the road was made to take its new
+course, the meadows on the other side of the <a
+name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 265</span>Avon were
+enclosed and thrown into the park.&nbsp; To complete and fully
+round off this story of obliterating ancient landmarks, the old
+bridge was wrecked in the same year by a flood.&nbsp; Three only
+of its arches remain.</p>
+<p>The Grevilles, the present Earls of Warwick, have a motto to
+their coat of arms which is a complete change from the usual
+swashbuckling braggart sentiments.&nbsp; He was surely a
+singularly modest man who first adopted it.&nbsp; I wish I could
+identify him.&nbsp; He must have read well the history of Warwick
+Castle and have pondered on the successive families of cuckoos
+who have nested in the old home of the original owners.&nbsp; He
+selected a quotation from the <i>Metamorphoses</i> of that
+amorous dove, P. Ovidius Naso&mdash;O! quite a proper one, I
+assure you&mdash;<i>Vix ea nostra voco</i>, &ldquo;I can scarce
+call these things our own.&rdquo;&nbsp; Whether he meant the
+heirlooms, the mace that belonged to the great Richard Neville
+&ldquo;the Kingmaker,&rdquo; the Plantagenet and the Dudley
+relics, or if he were a contemplative philosopher ruminating on
+the Law of Entail, by which he was not owner, to do with as he
+would, but only tenant-for-life, who shall say?</p>
+<h2><a name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+266</span>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Guy&rsquo;s
+Cliff&mdash;The legend of Guy&mdash;Kenilworth and its
+watersplash&mdash;Kenilworth Castle.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Leamington</span> will scarcely interest
+the holiday-maker in Shakespeare land.&nbsp; From Warwick to
+Kenilworth is the more natural transition, and it is one of much
+interest.&nbsp; A mile and a half out of the town is that famous
+place of popular legend, Guy&rsquo;s Cliff, where the great
+mansion, standing beside the river and built in 1822, looks so
+ancient, and where, on the opposite shore of Avon, stands that
+mill whose highly picturesque features are a standing dish in
+railway carriage picture-galleries.&nbsp; The impossible armour
+of the mythical Guy of Warwick we have already seen in Warwick
+Castle, and the improbable legend of his hermit life in the
+riverside cave remains now to be told.</p>
+<p>Guy, returning from the Holy Land and successfully engaging as
+the champion of England against Colbrond, the giant Dane, in
+combat at Winchester, retraced his steps towards Warwick.&nbsp;
+There, unknown by any, he three days appeared among the poor at
+the Castle gate, as one of the thirteen people to whom his wife
+daily gave alms; and &ldquo;having rendred thanks to her, he
+repaired to an Heremite that resided among the shady woods hard
+by.&rdquo;&nbsp; The legend forgets to tell us why he did this,
+and does not explain how it was that this giant fellow, who
+apparently was eight feet high, was not recognised by his wife
+and others.&nbsp; Were they all eight feet tall, or thereabouts,
+at Warwick in those times?</p>
+<p><a name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 267</span>But
+it would be wasting time to apply the test of intelligent
+criticism to this mass of accumulated legends, to which many
+generations have added something.&nbsp; Guy is a mythical hero,
+built upon the exploits of some early British champion, whose
+name and real history are as past recall as the facts about King
+Arthur.&nbsp; But the great fourteenth-century Richard Beauchamp,
+Earl of Warwick, who founded the chapel here, seems to have
+believed in him and in the size of him, for Guy&rsquo;s mutilated
+effigy placed here by that great earl, whose faith must have been
+as robust as his body, is the full eight feet long.</p>
+<p>At any rate, here is the cave of the hermit he consulted with,
+and with whom he resided, unknown still to his friends, until
+that holy and rheumatic man died.&nbsp; Here he himself died, two
+years later, <span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 929, aged
+seventy.&nbsp; Thus the story seeks to bolster up the wild
+character of its details by the specious exactness of its
+dates.&nbsp; &ldquo;He sent to his Lady their Wedding Ring by a
+trusty servant, wishing her to take care of his burial; adding
+also that when she came, she should find him lying dead in the
+Chapel, before the altar, and moreover, that within xv dayes
+after, she herself should depart this life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Guy&rsquo;s Cave, excavated in the rock, appears really to
+have been a hermit&rsquo;s abode in Saxon times.&nbsp; His name
+seems, from the early twelfth-century Saxon inscription found
+here over a hundred years ago, to have been
+&ldquo;Guhthi.&rdquo;&nbsp; It runs &ldquo;Yd Crist-tu icniecti
+this i-wihtth, Guhthi&rdquo;; which has been rendered,
+&ldquo;Cast out, thou Christ, from Thy servant this burden,
+Guhthi.&rdquo;&nbsp; So romance is not altogether unjustified,
+and although this misguided anchorite did not appreciate scenery,
+we at any rate can thus find some historical excuse as well as a
+scenic one for visiting the spot, with the crowd.</p>
+<p>It is a pleasant road, on through Leek Wootton, <a
+name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 268</span>where the
+church, after being rebuilt in an odious style in 1792, has been
+brought more into keeping with later ecclesiastical
+sentiment.&nbsp; And so the road runs on, to Kenilworth, through
+the approach called Castle End.&nbsp; Presently, after threading
+the long street, there in its meadows rises the ruined
+Castle.</p>
+<p>There is no ideal way into Kenilworth nowadays, because the
+place has become more or less of a town, and numerous Coventry
+business men make it their suburban home.&nbsp; Thus does Romance
+disappear, in the daily goings forth and the returnings on their
+lawful occasions of the residents, and in the spreading of fresh
+streets and always more cheaply built houses for newer colonies
+of them.&nbsp; The first jerry-builder at Kenilworth was Robert
+Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose badly bonded additions to the
+Castle still ruinously show how slightly and hastily he set about
+the work.&nbsp; But of that anon.</p>
+<p>Castle End is one of those scattered portions of the town that
+surprise the stranger.&nbsp; He thinks, time and again, that he
+has seen all Kenilworth, but there is always some more of
+it.&nbsp; You bear to the left and descend to a broad watersplash
+that crosses the road beneath densely overarching trees.&nbsp;
+The people of Kenilworth cling tightly to the preservation of
+their watersplash, and for several reasons: it is highly
+picturesque and keeps them in touch with the last elfin echoes of
+that Romance I have spoken of; the building of a bridge would
+cost them considerably; and finally they would lose the amusement
+and speculative interest which has latterly been added to it in
+these automobile times, when a motor-car may or may not succeed
+in getting through.&nbsp; For the watersplash is rather a sudden
+apparition to the motorist strange to the place, and it is a very
+variable thing.&nbsp; Sometimes it will be a shallow trickle
+across the road, and at others, when rain has fallen, it will be
+broad and <a name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+269</span>deep.&nbsp; This is when the people of Kenilworth love
+to gather on the narrow footbridge at the side and smoke a quiet
+cigarette, waiting for the coming of the motorist who will
+presently be in difficulties.&nbsp; It is something of a problem
+how to pass at such times.&nbsp; If you rush it, as most are
+tempted to do, you get through at the cost of being swamped with
+the tremendous spray thrown up; and if you go gently you are
+probably brought to an inglorious standstill in mid-stream, with
+the ignominious necessity of wading out and procuring
+assistance.&nbsp; In any event, an engrossing spectacle is
+provided.</p>
+<p>Once through this ford, you come up to the Castle entrance, on
+the left.&nbsp; It is a pleasant old part that looks on to the
+scene of so much feudal state and bygone warlike doings.&nbsp; A
+group of old red brick and timber cottages, their red brick of
+the loveliest geranium redness, looks upon a kind of village
+green.&nbsp; They lean at all kinds of angles, their roofs have
+skylines like the waves of a troubled sea, in front of each one
+is a little forecourt garden, and they all supply teas and sell
+picture-postcards.&nbsp; I do not know what the inhabitants of
+them do in the winter.&nbsp; Perhaps they come up to London and
+spend their gains in mad revelry.</p>
+<p>It is a hungry and a thirsty business, &ldquo;doing&rdquo;
+Kenilworth Castle conscientiously, and the people of Castle Green
+and elsewhere in this village-town find their account
+therein.&nbsp; Even those visitors who do not conscientiously
+&ldquo;do&rdquo; it&mdash;and they are by far the larger number,
+both because most have not the intellectual equipment necessary,
+and because in the rest the weakness of the flesh prevails over
+the willingness of the spirit&mdash;find copious refreshment
+necessary.&nbsp; There is in fact, a great deal to be seen, and
+the interest is sustained throughout.&nbsp; Viewed in a
+commercial way, it is a very good sixpennyworth.&nbsp;
+Personally, I consider <a name="page270"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 270</span>Ludlow Castle to be somewhat the
+superior of Kenilworth, and to hold the premier position for a
+ruined castle; but Kenilworth is first in the estimation of
+many.&nbsp; It does not make the effective picture that Ludlow
+forms, crowning its rocky bluff above the river Teme; for
+Kenilworth stands in perhaps the weakest situation that ever was
+selected for an ancient fortress, its ruined walls rising from
+low-lying meadows, and at a distance having the appearance rather
+of some huge dismantled mansion than a castle.</p>
+<p>It is quite easy to deduce the existence of some Saxon lord,
+Chenil or Kenelm, whose <i>weorth</i> this was, but he is not an
+historical personage.&nbsp; The first important historic fact
+that remains to us is the gift of the manor by Henry the First to
+Geoffrey de Clinton in 1122, but what he found here in the nature
+of a castle, or what he may have built is alike unknown.&nbsp;
+From the grandson of this Geoffrey, King John appears to have
+taken a lease and to have added many outworks to the then
+existing castle keep, which still remains.&nbsp; That evil figure
+in English history, travelling almost incessantly about his
+kingdom, watchful and tyrannical, seems to have been much at
+Kenilworth, enlarging the bounds of the Castle beyond the
+original Saxon mound on which the keep and the inner ward are
+placed, inventing strong dungeons for his victims, and
+constructing those outer walls which still look out, beyond the
+original moat.&nbsp; Thus the Castle grew to four times the area
+it had at first occupied, and as it could not be strengthened by
+steep approaches, it was safeguarded by artificially constructed
+water defences.&nbsp; The fortification of Kenilworth Castle was
+indeed a wonderful triumph of medi&aelig;val military engineering
+over the disabilities of an unsatisfactory site, and it enabled
+the disaffected nobles and others in the next reign to sustain a
+six months&rsquo; siege ending only in <a
+name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 271</span>their
+surrender through a plague which had broken out among the
+garrison.</p>
+<p>We can still see the nature of these defences, for although
+the water has been drained away, the circuit of the outer walls,
+from the Swan Tower on Clinton Green, round to Mortimer&rsquo;s
+Tower, the Water Tower, and Lunn&rsquo;s Tower remains perfect,
+and marks where the defences on two sides of the Castle enclosure
+skirted a great lake formed by damming back two small confluent
+brooks in the hollow meadows in which the Castle stands.&nbsp;
+The outer walls, now looking upon pastures where cattle graze,
+then descended sheer into the water; a flight of steps leading
+down from a postern gate still remaining to show where a boat
+could then have been launched.&nbsp; This lake was half a mile
+long, from 90 to 100 yards broad, and from 10 to 12 feet
+deep.</p>
+<p>The siege of 1266 tried the strength of this strong
+place.&nbsp; The great Simon de Montfort, who fell at the Battle
+of Evesham in 1265, had been granted the Castle in 1254.&nbsp; He
+died in the popular cause, fighting against Henry the Third, and
+his defeated army hurried to Kenilworth.&nbsp; They found no
+immediate opposition, and garrisoned the place at leisure, being
+joined there by many powerful adherents and heaping up enormous
+stores for a lengthy resistance.&nbsp; Both sides knew it would
+be a stubborn and difficult affair.&nbsp; The King tried at first
+to come to terms with the garrison, but he does not appear to
+have gone about it in the most tactful way.&nbsp; It is true that
+he was prepared to allow the rebels to compound for pardon with a
+fine, supposing they did so within forty days, but to
+&ldquo;pardon&rdquo; those who think they are in the right and
+who are still in arms to assert their rights and redress their
+grievances, seems an unlikely way to end a dispute.&nbsp; The
+Church was opposed to the popular side, as may always <a
+name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 272</span>confidently
+be expected, and helped the King&rsquo;s cause by damning the
+insurgents and preparing the tremendous document known to history
+as the &ldquo;Dictum de Kenilworth,&rdquo; otherwise &ldquo;the
+Ban.&rdquo;&nbsp; This was read and published in the church of
+St. Mary, Warwick.&nbsp; It proclaimed the supreme will of the
+King, and, <i>inter alia</i>, forbade the people to regard the
+dead hero and popular idol, de Montfort, as the saint and martyr
+they were already declaring him to be.&nbsp; The garrison
+received this with contempt, and the long siege began.&nbsp;
+Robert of Gloucester, who records it in eloquent but rugged
+lines, is too quaint and amusing not to be quoted&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The king anon at midsummer, with strength
+and with gin<br />
+To Kenilworth y-went, the castle to win;<br />
+He swore he would not thence until he were within.<br />
+So long they sped badly that they might as well bliue <a
+name="citation272a"></a><a href="#footnote272a"
+class="citation">[272a]</a><br />
+None of their gates those within ever close would.<br />
+Open they stood, night and day, come in whoso would.<br />
+Out they smite well oft, when men too nigh came,<br />
+And slew fast on either half and prisoners name; <a
+name="citation272b"></a><a href="#footnote272b"
+class="citation">[272b]</a><br />
+And then bought they them back with ransom.&nbsp; Such life long
+did last:<br />
+With mangonels and engines each upon the other cast.<br />
+The Legate and the Archbishop with them also nome; <a
+name="citation272c"></a><a href="#footnote272c"
+class="citation">[272c]</a><br />
+Two other bishops, and to Kenilworth come,<br />
+To make accord between the King and the disinherited also,<br />
+And them of the Castle, if it might be y-do <a
+name="citation272d"></a><a href="#footnote272d"
+class="citation">[272d]</a><br />
+But the disinherited would not do all after the King <a
+name="citation272e"></a><a href="#footnote272e"
+class="citation">[272e]</a><br />
+Nor they of the Castle any the more, nor stand to their liking,
+<a name="citation272f"></a><a href="#footnote272f"
+class="citation">[272f]</a><br />
+The Legate with his red cope amansed tho <a
+name="citation272g"></a><a href="#footnote272g"
+class="citation">[272g]</a><br />
+Them that in the castle were, and full many mo <a
+name="citation272i"></a><a href="#footnote272i"
+class="citation">[272i]</a><br />
+All that helped them, or were of their rede, <a
+name="citation272j"></a><a href="#footnote272j"
+class="citation">[272j]</a><br />
+Or to them consented, in will or in deed.<br />
+<a name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 273</span>They of
+the Castle held it in great despite.<br />
+Copes and other cloathes they let make them of white<br />
+And Master Philip Porpoise, that was a quaint man,<br />
+Clerk, and hardy in his deeds, and their chirurgian,<br />
+They made a mock Legate, in this cope of white,<br />
+Against the others&rsquo; rede, to do the Legate a despite,<br />
+And he stood as Legate upon the Castle wall,<br />
+And amansed King and Legate and their men all<br />
+Such game lasted long among them in such strife,<br />
+But much good was it not, to soul or to life.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>There was never another siege of Kenilworth.&nbsp; It passed
+through many hands, and among others to John o&rsquo; Gaunt,
+whose manors are found numerously, all over the country.&nbsp; In
+his time the great Banqueting Hall, the most beautiful feature of
+the Castle, was added, and it became not only a fortress, but a
+stately palace as well.&nbsp; But the most stately and gorgeous
+times were yet to be.&nbsp; Robert Dudley, Queen
+Elizabeth&rsquo;s favourite, who aspired to become King-Consort,
+received a grant of it in 1563, and was created Earl of Leicester
+the following year.&nbsp; The monopolies and rich offices of
+State showered upon him by the Queen had already made him an
+enormously wealthy man, and he determined to entertain his
+Sovereign here with unparalleled splendour.&nbsp; To this end he
+established an army of workmen here, who treated the place very
+much in the way adopted by any suddenly enriched millionaire of
+modern times towards the out-of-date mansion he has
+purchased.&nbsp; The narrow openings in the massive walls of the
+Norman keep were enlarged and great mullioned windows inserted;
+the vast Gatehouse still standing and now used as a private
+residence was built; and the lofty block of buildings added that
+still bears his name.&nbsp; Many other works, but of less
+spectacular nature, were undertaken at this time.</p>
+<p>Dudley had known many changes of fortune, and had been a
+prisoner in the Tower only ten years earlier, <a
+name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 274</span>with his
+father and four brothers, on a charge of high treason; narrowly
+escaping execution.&nbsp; Now an astonishing freak of chance had
+made him perhaps the most powerful, as well as the wealthiest,
+man in the country.&nbsp; Sir Walter Scott&rsquo;s novel,
+<i>Kenilworth</i>, details Leicester&rsquo;s magnificence and the
+unparalleled grandeur of the entertainments given here to Queen
+Elizabeth in 1575, and introduces his wife Amy Robsart, Lady
+Robert Dudley, as Countess of Leicester into the scenes of his
+story.&nbsp; But in 1560, four years before he had received his
+earldom, his wife had perished mysteriously at Cumnor Place in
+Berkshire, murdered, it has been supposed, at his instigation, to
+clear the way for that projected marriage with Queen Elizabeth
+which never took place.&nbsp; Leicester, when he entertained the
+Queen here so royally, had no &ldquo;encumbrances,&rdquo; to
+limit his ambitions.</p>
+<p>How the Queen was received here and entertained for seventeen
+days is fully, and on the whole tediously, narrated by a
+remembrancer then present, but a short extract will tell us
+something of the quality of these revels.&nbsp; On her
+Majesty&rsquo;s approach she was met by a girl in character as
+&ldquo;one of the ten sibills, cumly clad in a pall of white
+sylk,&rdquo; who recited a &ldquo;proper poezie in English rime
+and meeter, the which her Majestie benignly accepted and passed
+foorth unto the next gate of the Brayz, which for the length,
+largenes, and use, they call now the Tylt-Yard; whear a porter,
+tall of person, and wrapt also in sylke, with a club and keiz of
+quantitee according, had a rough speech full of passions, in
+meeter aptly made to the purpose.&rdquo;&nbsp; Presently when the
+Queen came to the inner gate &ldquo;a person representing the
+Lady of the Lake, famous in King Arthurz Book, with two Nymphes
+waiting uppon her, arrayed all in sylks, attended her highness
+comming,&rdquo; the Lady of the Lake then coming ashore from the
+<a name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>moat,
+and reciting a &ldquo;well-penned meeter.&rdquo;&nbsp; After
+this, coming to the Castle gate, a Latin poem was read to her by
+a poet clad in a &ldquo;long ceruleous Garment, with a Bay
+Garland on his head, and a skrol in his hand.&nbsp; So, passing
+into the inner court, her Majesty, (that never rides but alone)
+thear set doun from her palfrey, was conveied up to her chamber,
+when after did follo a great peal of Gunz and lightning by Fyr
+work.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&pound;1000 a day was spent in the feasting and
+revelling.&nbsp; Everything was done without stint.&nbsp; The
+great clock on the keep was stopped.&nbsp; &ldquo;The Clok Bell
+sang not a Note all the while her Highness waz thear: the Clok
+also stood still withall, the handz of both the tablz stood firm
+and fast, allweys pointing at two a Clok.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+hospitable and symbolical meaning of this was that two
+o&rsquo;clock was the banqueting hour.</p>
+<p>Every time when the Queen went hunting in the park, classic
+deities, and heroes and heroines of mythology would appear from
+woodland glades and recite complimentary poems&mdash;greatly to
+the disadvantage of the sport, it may be supposed.&nbsp;
+Bear-baiting further enlivened the time, and &ldquo;nyne persons
+were cured of the peynful and daungerous deseaz called the
+King&rsquo;s Evil.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Kenilworth passed on the death of Leicester in 1588, to his
+brother, Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and on his decease, two
+years later, to Robert&rsquo;s illegitimate son, Sir Robert
+Dudley, who was long an exile, and died in 1649.&nbsp; It was let
+to Prince Henry, son of James the First, and on his death to his
+brother, Prince Charles, who purchased it from Sir Robert&rsquo;s
+deserted wife, whom he, when Charles the First, created Duchess
+Dudley, 1645.&nbsp; After the King&rsquo;s execution the property
+was granted by Cromwell to some of his supporters, to whom is due
+its ruinous condition, for they made the best market they could
+of its building-stone.&nbsp; On the <a name="page276"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 276</span>Restoration in 1660, Charles the
+Second granted it to the Earl of Clarendon, in whose
+descendants&rsquo; hands it still remains.</p>
+<p>The visitor to the Castle almost always makes at once for the
+keep and the imposing ruins of John o&rsquo; Gaunt&rsquo;s great
+Banqueting Hall, rising boldly from the mound, partly natural and
+partly artificial, in the centre of the Castle precincts.&nbsp;
+He thus follows the natural instincts of sightseers, but the
+better way, for the full understanding of the scale and ancient
+strength of the works, is unquestionably to first make the inner
+circuit of the walls.&nbsp; Standing on Clinton Green before
+entering the Castle, and facing it from the only side not in
+ancient times defended by lakes or marshy ground, we are on the
+bank whence Henry the Third&rsquo;s soldiers chiefly conducted
+the siege of 1266.&nbsp; It was the weakest part of the works,
+because the high natural plateau entirely precluded the
+possibility of continuing the water defences on this side.&nbsp;
+All that could be done here by the military engineers of
+Kenilworth was to excavate the deep chasm which still remains;
+and across this the besiegers vainly tried to pass, with the aid
+of bundles of faggots thrown into the hollow, while &ldquo;Master
+Philip Porpoise,&rdquo; who, as the chronicler truly says,
+&ldquo;was a quaint man,&rdquo; stood on the walls, dressed up
+like the Pope&rsquo;s Legate, and cursed the King and the real
+Legate and all the King&rsquo;s men.</p>
+<p>Leicester&rsquo;s great Gatehouse no longer forms the entrance
+to the Castle, and is in private occupation.&nbsp; It did not
+even figure in the great reception of Queen Elizabeth in 1575,
+for she came the other way, through the Tilt Yard and by
+Mortimer&rsquo;s Tower, and across the great Outer Ward: a method
+of approach especially calculated to enhance the stateliness of
+the pageant.&nbsp; All Warwickshire, I think, must have witnessed
+those <a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+277</span>doings, from the further bank of the widespreading
+lake, among them Mr. John Shakespeare and his eleven-year-old
+son, William, whose imagination would have been excited by the
+fantastic creatures that sported on the water, and by the
+fireworks and the heathen gods and goddesses: very real to him,
+because he was not old enough to know how it was all done.</p>
+<p>You render your entrance-fee at a narrow gate and are at once
+free to wander at will.&nbsp; In front is the grassy Outer Ward,
+and on the right, the keep and the state buildings, with
+Leicester&rsquo;s Building, lofty, seamed with fissures and
+shored up against its falling.&nbsp; The eyeless windows preach a
+homily on the transient nature of things.</p>
+<p>But, leaving these for a while, we skirt along to the left,
+coming to the ruins of Mortimer&rsquo;s Tower, which stood on the
+wall and formed the entrance to the Castle in this
+direction.&nbsp; It looked out upon the Tilt Yard and the massive
+dam that penned up the waters of the Great Lake.&nbsp; Just
+before this tower is reached the Water Tower on the wall will be
+seen, and may be examined.&nbsp; Near at hand are the Stables and
+Lunn&rsquo;s Tower, divided off by a light iron fence and not
+accessible; being included within the grounds belonging to the
+occupier of the Gatehouse.&nbsp; But the Stables are seen,
+clearly enough, and form the most charming colour-scheme within
+the Castle.&nbsp; They are of fifteenth-century red brick,
+timber-framed, and of an almost unimaginably delicate and yet
+vivid red.</p>
+<p>Next after Mortimer&rsquo;s Tower comes a small postern
+gateway, with its steps formerly leading to the water.&nbsp;
+Continuing from it and following the wall, we come under the
+tottering walls of Leicester&rsquo;s building, on the right, with
+the massive walls of the state Buildings beyond it.&nbsp; They
+stand high, upon a mound that formed the limits <a
+name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 278</span>of the
+Castle of Saxon and early Norman days, and the grassy walk
+between them and the outer wall was in those distant times the
+moat, long before the magnificent scheme of the lake was thought
+out.&nbsp; Remains of fireplaces and windows in this outer wall
+show where the wooden buildings that formed barracks for the
+garrison stood.&nbsp; The walk ends up against an archway leading
+into the garden, or Plaisance, assigned to Henry the Eighth,
+through which the outer wall continues past a water-gate called
+the &ldquo;King&rsquo;s Gate,&rdquo; and so to the Swan Tower,
+where the circuit is completed, at Clinton Green.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p278.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Kenilworth Castle: Ruins of the Banqueting Hall"
+title=
+"Kenilworth Castle: Ruins of the Banqueting Hall"
+src="images/p278.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But the Plaisance is not open to the public.&nbsp; The way
+into the central block of State buildings is through a postern
+doorway on the right, under the Banqueting <a
+name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 279</span>Hall.&nbsp;
+The savage treatment of these noble buildings by Cromwell&rsquo;s
+friends has at first sight obscured the nature of this scene; but
+it is soon perceived that the Hall stood high, upon a basement or
+undercroft, whose vaulted roof has entirely disappeared, together
+with that of the Hall itself.&nbsp; This postern doorway
+therefore led through the basement.&nbsp; The Hall was the work
+of John o&rsquo; Gaunt, about 1350, and was a grand building in
+the Perpendicular style, ninety feet long and forty-five feet
+wide.&nbsp; Lofty and deeply-recessed windows, with rich tracery
+lighted it, and at one end was an exceptionally beautiful oriel
+window.&nbsp; A portion of this survives, together with two of
+the others.&nbsp; The entrance from the Inner Court was by a fine
+flight of stone stairs and through a wide archway still remaining
+in greatly weather-worn condition, but showing traces of
+delicately carved work.&nbsp; Inside is the groined porch, with a
+recess for a porter.</p>
+<p>Sir Walter Scott, who here adopts the close account given by
+Laneham, one of the Queen&rsquo;s retinue during her reception at
+Kenilworth, and merely edits him, describes the appearance of the
+Hall, &ldquo;hung with the richest tapestry, misty with perfumes,
+and sounding to strains of soft and delicious music.&nbsp; From
+the highly carved oaken roof hung a superb chandelier of gilt
+bronze, formed like a spread eagle, whose outstretched wings
+supported three male and three female figures, grasping a pair of
+branches in each hand.&nbsp; The Hall was thus illuminated by
+twenty-four torches of wax.&nbsp; At the upper end of this
+splendid apartment was a State canopy, overshadowing a royal
+throne, and beside it was a door which opened to a long suite of
+apartments, decorated with the utmost magnificence for the Queen
+and her ladies, when it should be her pleasure to be
+private.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 280</span>This
+magnificence curiously contrasts with the primitive nature of the
+sanitary arrangements seen in the adjoining towers and in the
+keep.&nbsp; The Strong Tower and the Kitchen Tower fill up the
+space between the Banqueting Hall and the keep; the first named,
+appropriately enough, from having been a prison.&nbsp; The walls
+of its not unpleasant, though small rooms, still bear some
+rudely-scratched coats of arms of those who were detained
+here.&nbsp; Their imprisonment cannot have been so hopeless as
+that of King John&rsquo;s victims, in the dungeons of the
+keep.</p>
+<p>The keep is called &ldquo;C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Tower,&rdquo;
+but the Romans had never any association with Kenilworth.&nbsp;
+It would better be styled &ldquo;Clinton&rsquo;s.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Like all the buildings, it is of a dull, brownish red
+stone.&nbsp; An angle-turret shows where the clock was placed:
+that clock whose hands always stood hospitably at the banqueting
+hour in those seventeen days of Elizabethan revel.</p>
+<p>Leaving Kenilworth for Coventry, the church is on the
+right.&nbsp; Its west doorway is a fine but much-decayed work of
+the Norman period, from the ruins of the Augustinian Priory close
+by.&nbsp; It is a much-restored church, and does not come up to
+the expectations raised by a sight of its octagonal tower and
+spire.&nbsp; The only object of interest within is a pig of lead
+built into the tower wall, bearing the mark of one of Henry the
+Eighth&rsquo;s travelling Commissioners inquiring into the
+suppression of the religious houses.&nbsp; It would seem to be
+one of a number cast from the lead off the Priory roofs.</p>
+<p>Kenilworth at last left behind, a gradual rise brings the
+traveller to the turning to Stoneleigh village.&nbsp; It is
+&ldquo;Gibbet Hill.&rdquo;&nbsp; The ill-omened name comes from
+an example of the law&rsquo;s ancient practice of hanging up
+murderers to the public view, very much in the manner of those
+gamekeepers who nail up the bodies of the <a
+name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 281</span>jays, the
+rats, the weasels and other &ldquo;vermin.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+criminals whose carcases swung and rattled here in their chains
+were three in number; Moses Baker, a weaver of Coventry, and
+Edward Drury and Robert Leslie, two dragoons of Lord
+Pembroke&rsquo;s regiment, quartered in that city.&nbsp; They had
+on March 18th, 1765, murdered a farmer, one Thomas Edwards, at a
+place called Whoberley, just outside Coventry.&nbsp; Their bodies
+hung until their clothes rotted; and then, one by one, their
+bones fell from their chains and enclosing cages.&nbsp; But the
+gibbet and the terror of it remained until 1820, when the
+weathered timber, scored with thousands of the rusty nails which
+had been driven into it, so that no one should climb the post,
+was removed to do service in the cow byre of a neighbouring
+farm.</p>
+<p>This melancholy history apart, the road is a pleasant one;
+broad, and lined with wide grassy edges and magnificent
+elms.&nbsp; It was even more pleasant before the motor
+manufacturing firms of Coventry began the practice of testing
+their new cars along it, and was then the pride of the
+district.&nbsp; It leads across Stivichall Common into the city
+of Coventry, over that railway bridge referred to by Tennyson in
+his poem, <i>Godiva</i>&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;I waited for the train at Coventry;<br />
+I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,<br />
+To watch the three tall spires.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>I remember a first reading of that poem, and the difficulty of
+really believing Tennyson meant a railway train.&nbsp; It seemed
+incredible that he could in such a nineteenth-century fashion
+introduce an eleventh-century subject.&nbsp; The
+&ldquo;train&rdquo; one imagined at first to be a train in the
+middle-ages sense, a procession or pageant, and the person who
+waited for it to be, not Tennyson himself, but some imaginary
+person indulging <a name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+282</span>in historical speculation.&nbsp; But no, he was modern,
+like his own King Arthur.</p>
+<p>Here the &ldquo;three tall spires&rdquo; first come into view,
+and the city of Coventry is entered, past the Green and up
+Hertford Street.</p>
+<h2><a name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+283</span>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm">Coventry.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Coventry</span> originated, according to
+tradition, in a convent established here as early as the sixth
+century.&nbsp; Canute is said to have been the founder of
+another.&nbsp; Whatever may be the truth of the matter, it is
+certain that the great Saxon Earl Leofric and his wife Godifu in
+1043 founded that Benedictine Monastery whose Priory church
+afterwards became the Cathedral, whose scanty ruins alone
+remain.&nbsp; These real and legendary religious houses, together
+with the Monastery of the Carmelites, or White Friars, and
+numerous others originated a curious notion that the name
+&ldquo;Coventry&rdquo; was really a corruption of
+&ldquo;Conventry,&rdquo; the place of convents.&nbsp; It was an
+excusable mistake, when we consider that the somewhat similar
+name of &ldquo;Covent Garden&rdquo; in London does in point of
+fact derive from the old garden of the Abbots of Westminster, but
+it was a complete mistake, all the same.&nbsp; The place-name
+comes from a little stream called by the British the Couen, not
+easily to be found in the city itself, but rising to the north
+and passing through the village of Coundon.&nbsp; (There is a
+stream of similar name, the &ldquo;Cound,&rdquo; at Church
+Stretton, in Shropshire.)&nbsp; It was thus the &ldquo;place on
+the Couen.&rdquo;&nbsp; The Saxons, who called that stream by a
+name of their own, the &ldquo;Scir-burn,&rdquo; that is to say,
+the &ldquo;clear stream&rdquo;&mdash;which in course of time
+became the &ldquo;Sherborne&rdquo;&mdash;did not <a
+name="page284"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 284</span>succeed in
+changing the name of the place, as they did at Sherborne in
+Dorset; and &ldquo;Coventry&rdquo; it remained.</p>
+<p>The most famous incident in the ancient &ldquo;history&rdquo;
+of Coventry is entirely legendary; but although proved to be
+inherently improbable, if not impossible, the story of Godiva and
+her ride through the streets clad only in her own modesty, is one
+that will never be destroyed by criticism.&nbsp; It is too
+ancient a myth for that.</p>
+<p>About the year 1130 the monkish writer, Roger of Wendover,
+started it.&nbsp; Whence he derived the story no one knows, but
+he probably heard it as a folk-legend unconnected with place or
+person, and took it upon himself to fix the tale on Leofric and
+his Countess Godifu.&nbsp; He had courage in doing so, for it was
+only about a hundred years after the time of Leofric and his wife
+that he wrote.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Countess Godiva,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;who was a
+great lover of God&rsquo;s mother, longing to free the town of
+Coventry from the oppression of a heavy toll, often with urgent
+prayers besought her husband, that from regard to Jesus Christ
+and His mother, he would free the town from that service, and
+from all other heavy burdens; and when the Earl sharply rebuked
+her for foolishly asking what was so much to his damage, and
+always forbade her for evermore to speak to him on the subject;
+and while she, on the other hand, with a woman&rsquo;s
+pertinacity, never ceased to exasperate her husband on that
+matter, he at last made her this answer: &lsquo;Mount your horse,
+and ride naked before all the people, through the market of the
+town from one end to the other, and on your return you shall have
+your request,&rsquo; on which Godiva replied, &lsquo;But will you
+give me permission, if I am willing to do it?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;I will,&rsquo; said he.&nbsp; Whereupon, the Countess,
+beloved of God, loosed her hair, and let down her tresses, which
+covered the whole of her body, <a name="page285"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 285</span>like a veil, and then mounting her
+horse and attended by two knights, she rode through the
+market-place without being seen, except her fair legs; and having
+completed the journey, she returned with gladness to her
+astonished husband and obtained of him what she had asked, for
+Earl Leofric freed the town of Coventry and its inhabitants from
+the aforesaid service, and confirmed what he had done by a
+charter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The incident of Peeping Tom was never thought of by Roger of
+Wendover, and does not become a part of the story until the
+seventeenth century.&nbsp; Who was the genius who invented him is
+not known; but from that time onwards the peeping tailor who
+alone of all the people of Coventry spied upon Godiva as she rode
+through the empty streets becomes an essential part of the
+legend.&nbsp; His fate takes so medi&aelig;val a turn that he
+seems really older than he is.&nbsp; Tennyson adopts him, in his
+poem, as a</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;low
+churl, compact of thankless earth,<br />
+The fatal byword of all years to come,<br />
+Boring a little auger-hole in fear,<br />
+Peep&rsquo;d&mdash;but his eyes, before they had their will,<br
+/>
+Were shrivell&rsquo;d into darkness in his head,<br />
+And dropt before him.&nbsp; So the powers who wait<br />
+On noble deeds, cancell&rsquo;d a sense misus&rsquo;d.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>A half-length effigy purporting to be Peeping Tom occupies a
+niche in the wall of the &ldquo;King&rsquo;s Head&rdquo; in
+Smithford Street.&nbsp; He is really a portion of a figure of St.
+George from one of the old Coventry civic pageants; but he looks
+so peculiarly unsaintly and has so lecherous a grin that no one
+can for a moment dispute his entire suitability for the present
+part.</p>
+<p>Coventry became so important a place in the early part of the
+fourteenth century that it was granted a charter of
+incorporation, and afterwards fortified with walls and
+gates.&nbsp; Parliaments were held there, in the <a
+name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 286</span>stately
+buildings of the Priory; Coventry Cross became one of the most
+famous City Crosses in the kingdom; and the trade guilds were
+among the richest and most powerful.&nbsp; The mayors, too, were
+important and fearless magistrates, as we may judge from the
+example of John Horneby, who in 1411 caused the riotous Prince
+Hal, afterwards Henry the Fifth, to be arrested for creating a
+disturbance, and thus ranks with Judge Gascoyne, who on another
+occasion committed the Prince to prison.</p>
+<p>Shakespeare rightly made Falstaff more ashamed to march
+through this rich and populous town with his ragged company of a
+hundred and fifty soldiers, and only a shirt and a half among the
+lot, than Godiva had been to ride through the primitive place of
+three hundred years before, with nothing&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a
+soused gurnet . . . you would think that I had a hundred and
+fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from
+eating draff and husks.&nbsp; A mad fellow met me on the way and
+told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead
+bodies.&nbsp; No eye hath seen such scarecrows.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll
+not march through Coventry with them that&rsquo;s flat; nay, and
+the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves
+on; for indeed I had the most of them out of prison.&nbsp;
+There&rsquo;s but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the
+half shirt is two napkins tied together, and thrown over the
+shoulders, like a herald&rsquo;s coat without sleeves; and the
+shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans, or
+the red-nosed innkeeper of Daintry.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Coventry, in right of this importance, became a city in 1451,
+and went on from good to better, until the suppression of the
+religious houses.&nbsp; At that time its population numbered
+15,000, but within a few years <a name="page287"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 287</span>it had declined to 3000.&nbsp; Yet
+in another thirty years the city is found receiving Queen
+Elizabeth not only with enthusiasm and splendid pageants, but
+with the present of a purse of &pound;100; although the
+depression was still acute.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is a good gift, an hundred pounds in gold; I have
+but few such gifts,&rdquo; said her Majesty, who was great but
+greedy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it please your Grace,&rdquo; answered that courtly
+Mayor, &ldquo;there is a great deal more in it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The hearts,&rdquo; he rejoined, &ldquo;of all your
+loving subjects.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We thank you, Mr. Mayor,&rdquo; said the Queen,
+&ldquo;it is a great deal more, indeed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But she did not confer the honour of knighthood upon him.</p>
+<p>James the First, visiting Coventry in 1617, was given
+&pound;100 and a silver cup; probably in the hope of getting a
+renewal of the charter; but in the next reign we find a very
+different spirit.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye damnable puritans of
+Coventry,&rdquo; says a letter-writer of the time, &ldquo;have
+thrown up earthworkes and rampires against his Maiestie&rsquo;s
+forces, and have put themselves in a posture of
+defence.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was at this time that the expression
+arose of &ldquo;sending to Coventry&rdquo; any objectionable
+person.&nbsp; Those thus consigned to Coventry were prisoners of
+war, Royalists captured by the people of Birmingham, for whom no
+prison could be found except in this walled and fortified
+city.</p>
+<p>Those walls were promptly destroyed at the Restoration, by
+order of Charles the Second, the citizens of Coventry offering no
+objection.&nbsp; They had grown weary of the Commonwealth, and
+when the King came to his own again the city was given over to
+festivity.&nbsp; The <a name="page288"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 288</span>fountains spouted claret (not good
+claret, nor very much of it, we may suppose); bonfires blazed;
+and a deputation waited upon the King in London and gave him
+&pound;50 and a basin and ewer of gold.</p>
+<p>Coventry Cross, already mentioned, was built between the years
+1541&ndash;44, at the time of the city&rsquo;s decay, after the
+suppression of the monasteries, and was the gift of Sir William
+Holles, Lord Mayor of London, who bequeathed &pound;200 for the
+purpose.&nbsp; It was described by Dugdale as &ldquo;one of the
+chief things wherein this city most glories, which for
+workmanship and beauty is inferior to none in
+England.&rdquo;&nbsp; But soon after Dugdale wrote this the Cross
+wherein Coventry so gloried was destroyed, and the chief
+outstanding architectural feature is now formed by the spires of
+St. Michael&rsquo;s, Holy Trinity, and Christ Church: Coventry
+indeed being known far and wide as the &ldquo;City of the Three
+Spires.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is rather unfortunate that the fine
+grouping of these three spires, seen best from the approach to
+the city by the Kenilworth road, is spoiled by the most
+distressingly commonplace houses in the foreground; and that from
+no other point of view do they group at all.</p>
+<p>St. Michael&rsquo;s spire, incomparably the finer, rises with
+the tower to a height of 303 feet; that of Holy Trinity to 237
+feet; and Christ Church to 201 feet.&nbsp; St. Michael&rsquo;s
+church has the reputation of being the largest parish church in
+England, a distinction claimed also by St. Nicholas, Great
+Yarmouth, and St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol.&nbsp; The honour
+appears to belong to St. Michael&rsquo;s, which in other ways is
+a notable building.&nbsp; It is generally said to have a nave and
+four aisles, the two additional &ldquo;aisles&rdquo; being really
+chapels of similar length and appearance: the work of the
+Smiths&rsquo; and Girdlers&rsquo; Companies and the Fellowship of
+Woollen Cardmakers; two among the great trading guilds of the
+city.&nbsp; The <a name="page289"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+289</span>Cappers, the Dyers, the Mercers, the Drapers and the
+Smiths had also their part in these outer aisles.&nbsp; The
+greater part of the church is of the Perpendicular period and is
+due to the local family of Botoner, who expended their substance
+lavishly upon it&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;William and Adam built the Tower,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Anne and Mary built the Spire;<br />
+William and Adam built the Nave<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And Mary built the Quire.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So ran the old rhyme.&nbsp; The works were in progress between
+1373 and 1436.</p>
+<p>A narrow road separates St. Michael&rsquo;s from Holy Trinity,
+which, although in itself a fine Perpendicular building, suffers
+by comparison with its greater neighbour.&nbsp; Here also the
+guilds&mdash;the Tanners, Marlers, Butchers and
+others&mdash;exhibited their wealth and piety in the building of
+chapels; and here was a noble stained-glass fourteenth-century
+window containing the figures of Leofric and Godiva, with the
+inscription&mdash;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p289.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Stained-Glass Window Inscription"
+title=
+"Stained-Glass Window Inscription"
+src="images/p289.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Christ Church retains only its ancient spire, the ruined body
+being replaced in 1829 by a work in the most lamentable
+style.</p>
+<p>Besides its churches, Coventry is famed for its ancient
+&ldquo;St. Mary&rsquo;s Hall,&rdquo; originally the hall of St.
+Mary&rsquo;s Guild, but afterwards serving as that of the Holy
+Trinity, a religious society which amalgamated and swallowed up
+St. Mary&rsquo;s and many others.&nbsp; It became the
+headquarters of the old municipal life of Coventry, and so it
+still remains; a noble centre for the city&rsquo;s business and
+hospitalities.</p>
+<p>Coventry nowadays is remarkable for its modern
+manufactures.&nbsp; In the thirteenth century it was soap that
+supported the city.&nbsp; Later it was prosperous in <a
+name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 290</span>the making
+of woollen fabrics, needles and pins, and famed for a dye known
+as &ldquo;Coventry Blue.&rdquo;&nbsp; As time went on,
+silk-weaving and ribbon-making took prominence, and doubtless it
+was from Coventry that the promised &ldquo;fairing&rdquo; was to
+have come that is mentioned in the old ballad of that faithless
+Johnny who was so long at the fair&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;He promised to buy me a fairing to please
+me,<br />
+A bunch of blue ribbons he promised to buy me,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To tie up my bonny brown
+hair.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But by 1869, when the duty on foreign-made silks had been
+removed, the silk and ribbon trade began to decline, and the
+enterprising citizens turned to the manufacture of
+sewing-machines.&nbsp; Then came the velocipede, the bicycle, and
+the motor-car.&nbsp; In the making of those two last-named
+articles and in that of ordnance, Coventry has found its
+fortune.&nbsp; They are not Shakespearean manifestations, and so
+need not be enlarged upon in this place.</p>
+<p>In spite of its modern growth, Coventry remains a very
+picturesque city.&nbsp; In Butcher Row, and in narrow old alleys
+little touched by modern developments, something of the
+medi&aelig;val place may yet be traced; and in those two charming
+old almshouses, Bablake&rsquo;s Hospital, founded in 1506, and
+&ldquo;Ford&rsquo;s Hospital,&rdquo; built in 1529, half-timbered
+work is seen very nearly at its best.</p>
+<h2>NOTES.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21"
+class="footnote">[21]</a>&nbsp; He should have said <i>Much Ado
+About Nothing</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote213"></a><a href="#citation213"
+class="footnote">[213]</a>&nbsp; As these pages go to press a
+singularly full confirmation of these remarks appears in one of
+the September 1912 issues of the <i>Birmingham Post</i>:
+&ldquo;Evesham District Council have decided to build sixty
+cottages at Broadway under the Housing of the Working Classes
+Act, and the Local Government Board have sanctioned the borrowing
+of &pound;10,000.&rdquo;&nbsp; Thus, a number of brand-new
+dwellings are to be built, to rehouse those villagers whose
+ancient homes have been taken from them.&nbsp; It is a curious
+sidelight upon the spread of culture.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272a"></a><a href="#citation272a"
+class="footnote">[272a]</a>&nbsp; Draw closer.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272b"></a><a href="#citation272b"
+class="footnote">[272b]</a>&nbsp; Took prisoners.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272c"></a><a href="#citation272c"
+class="footnote">[272c]</a>&nbsp; They took.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272d"></a><a href="#citation272d"
+class="footnote">[272d]</a>&nbsp; If it might be done.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272e"></a><a href="#citation272e"
+class="footnote">[272e]</a>&nbsp; They would not agree to the
+King&rsquo;s terms.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272f"></a><a href="#citation272f"
+class="footnote">[272f]</a>&nbsp; They would not abide by their
+wishes.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272g"></a><a href="#citation272g"
+class="footnote">[272g]</a>&nbsp; Then excommunicated them.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272i"></a><a href="#citation272i"
+class="footnote">[272i]</a>&nbsp; More.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote272j"></a><a href="#citation272j"
+class="footnote">[272j]</a>&nbsp; Counsel.</p>
+<h2><a name="page291"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+291</span>INDEX</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Abbot&rsquo;s Norton</span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page200">200</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash; Salford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page199">199</a></span></p>
+<p>Alcester, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page231">231</a></span></p>
+<p>Alderminster, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page188">188</a></span></p>
+<p>Andoversford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span></p>
+<p>Arden, Family of, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page232">232</a></span>&ndash;235</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Forest of, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page129">129</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Mary, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page232">232</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Robert, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page9">9</a></span></p>
+<p>Ardens Grafton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page156">156</a></span></p>
+<p>Aston Cantlow, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page235">235</a></span></p>
+<p>Atherstone-upon-Stour, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page187">187</a></span></p>
+<p>Avon, river, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page45">45</a></span>&ndash;48, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page78">78</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page190">190</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page210">210</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page219">219</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page240">240</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page262">262</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page205">205</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page260">260</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Baddesley Clinton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span></p>
+<p>Balsall, Thomas, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page77">77</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page98">98</a></span></p>
+<p>Banbury, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page18">18</a></span></p>
+<p>Barton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page199">199</a></span></p>
+<p>Beauchamp Family, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page247">247</a></span>&ndash;253, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page255">255</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page267">267</a></span></p>
+<p>Bicester, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page18">18</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page20">20</a></span></p>
+<p>Bidford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page58">58</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page137">137</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span>&ndash;153, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page195">195</a></span></p>
+<p>Billesley, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page232">232</a></span></p>
+<p>Binton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page195">195</a></span></p>
+<p>Brailes, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page191">191</a></span></p>
+<p>Broadway, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page212">212</a></span>&ndash;215</p>
+<p>Broom, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page163">163</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Campden Wonder, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page183">183</a></span>&ndash;185</p>
+<p>Charlecote, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page114">114</a></span>&ndash;126</p>
+<p>Charles the Second, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page143">143</a></span>&ndash;146</p>
+<p>Chipping Campden, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page173">173</a></span>&ndash;185</p>
+<p>Cleeve Common, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page218">218</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash; Priors, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page199">199</a></span></p>
+<p>Clifford Chambers, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page68">68</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page166">166</a></span>&ndash;109</p>
+<p>Clopton, Family of, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page28">28</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page72">72</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page81">81</a></span>&ndash;83, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page230">230</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, House, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page83">83</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page230">230</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Lower, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page173">173</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Sir Hugh, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page40">40</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page63">63</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page82">82</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Upper, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page173">173</a></span></p>
+<p>Combe, John, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page78">78</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page98">98</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, William, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page134">134</a></span></p>
+<p>Compton Wynyates, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page191">191</a></span>&ndash;194</p>
+<p>Cotswolds, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page215">215</a></span></p>
+<p>Coventry, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page280">280</a></span>&ndash;290</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Dancing Marston (or Long Marston), <span
+class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page141">141</a></span>&ndash;146</p>
+<p>Dingles, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page133">133</a></span>&ndash;135</p>
+<p>Dorsington, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span></p>
+<p>Dudley, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page253">253</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page275">275</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Robert, Earl of Leicester, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page16">16</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page241">241</a></span>&ndash;243,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page252">252</a></span>,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page273">273</a></span>&ndash;275</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Ettington, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page186">186</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page188">188</a></span>&ndash;190</p>
+<p>Evesham, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page137">137</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page200">200</a></span>&ndash;210</p>
+<p>Exhall, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page158">158</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Feldon, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page164">164</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page191">191</a></span></p>
+<p>Frog Mill, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Gastrell, Rev. Francis, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page73">73</a></span></p>
+<p>Gaveston, Piers, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page256">256</a></span>&ndash;259</p>
+<p>Greet, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
+<p>Grendon Underwood, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page18">18</a></span>&ndash;21</p>
+<p>Gretton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
+<p>Grevel, William. <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page176">176</a></span>&ndash;178, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page180">180</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, or Greville, Family, the, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page178">178</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page245">245</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page250">250</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page254">254</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page264">264</a></span></p>
+<p>Guy of Warwick, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page255">255</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page266">266</a></span></p>
+<p>Guy&rsquo;s Cliff, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page266">266</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><a name="page292"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 292</span>Hall,
+Dr. John, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page48">48</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page72">72</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page93">93</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page97">97</a></span></p>
+<p>Harrington, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page200">200</a></span></p>
+<p>Hartshorn, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span></p>
+<p>Hathaway, Family of, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page12">12</a></span>&ndash;15</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Anne, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page12">12</a></span>&ndash;15, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page101">101</a></span>&ndash;113</p>
+<p>Henley-in-Arden, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page8">8</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page235">235</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page237">237</a></span></p>
+<p>Hicks, Sir Baptist, Viscount Campden, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page178">178</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page180">180</a></span></p>
+<p>Hillborough, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page152">152</a></span>&ndash;154</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>John of Stratford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page75">75</a></span>&ndash;77</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Kenilworth, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page268">268</a></span>&ndash;280</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Leek Wootton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page267">267</a></span></p>
+<p>Long Marston, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page141">141</a></span>&ndash;146, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page169">169</a></span></p>
+<p>Lower Clopton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page173">173</a></span></p>
+<p>Lucy Family, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page114">114</a></span>&ndash;126</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Sir Thomas (&ldquo;Justice Shallow&rdquo;), <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page114">114</a></span>&ndash;119,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page124">124</a></span></p>
+<p>Luddington, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page68">68</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page195">195</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Marlcliff, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page199">199</a></span></p>
+<p>Marston Sicca (or Long Marston), <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page141">141</a></span>&ndash;146</p>
+<p>Mickleton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page173">173</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Newbold-on-Stour, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page188">188</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page190">190</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Oxford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page18">18</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Pebworth, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page139">139</a></span>&ndash;141</p>
+<p>Preston Bagot, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page237">237</a></span></p>
+<p>Preston-upon-Stour, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page187">187</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Quiney, Richard, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page28">28</a></span>&ndash;30, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page33">33</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page58">58</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Thomas, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page33">33</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page39">39</a></span></p>
+<p>Quinton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page169">169</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page173">173</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page234">234</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Ralph of Stratford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page75">75</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page77">77</a></span></p>
+<p>Robert of Stratford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page75">75</a></span></p>
+<p>Rowington, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page237">237</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Salford, Abbot&rsquo;s, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page199">199</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Prior&rsquo;s, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page199">199</a></span></p>
+<p>Shakespeare, Family of, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page6">6</a></span>&ndash;11</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Edmund, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page59">59</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Gilbert, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page58">58</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page59">59</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Hamnet, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page22">22</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page26">26</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Henry, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page240">240</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Isabel, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Joan, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page52">52</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page59">59</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, John, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page5">5</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page8">8</a></span>&ndash;11, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page15">15</a></span>&ndash;17, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page22">22</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page26">26</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page51">51</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page59">59</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page166">166</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Judith, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page33">33</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page39">39</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Richard, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page59">59</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Susanna, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page48">48</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page52">52</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page93">93</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page97">97</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Thomas, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page237">237</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, William, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page5">5</a></span>&ndash;7; birth, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page9">9</a></span>; marriage,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page11">11</a></span>&ndash;15; goes to London, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page16">16</a></span>&ndash;21;
+success in London, as actor, dramatist and theatrical manager,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page23">23</a></span>&ndash;26; his return to
+Stratford-on-Avon, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page27">27</a></span>&ndash;30; purchases New Place, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page38">38</a></span>; he retires,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page31">31</a></span>&ndash;33; death, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page33">33</a></span>; scene of his
+school-days, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page67">67</a></span>&ndash;70; his residence, New Place,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page70">70</a></span>&ndash;74; the Bacon fanatics and
+Shakespeare, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page85">85</a></span>&ndash;91, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page94">94</a></span>;
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s grave and monument, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page89">89</a></span>&ndash;95;
+Shakespeare, poacher and deer-stealer, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page114">114</a></span>&ndash;119;
+Shakespeare the countryman, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page127">127</a></span>&ndash;135</p>
+<p>&mdash; Farm, Grendon Underwood, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page20">20</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash; Hall, Rowington, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page236">236</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page237">237</a></span></p>
+<p>Shipston-on-Stour, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page180">180</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page190">190</a></span></p>
+<p>Shirley, Evelyn Philip, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page188">188</a></span>&ndash;190</p>
+<p>Shottery, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page101">101</a></span>&ndash;113</p>
+<p>Snitterfield, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page8">8</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page11">11</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page49">49</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page238">238</a></span>&ndash;240</p>
+<p>Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page30">30</a></span></p>
+<p>Stinchcombe Hill, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
+<p>Stratford-on-Avon, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page1">1</a></span>&ndash;5, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page8">8</a></span>&ndash;11, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page26">26</a></span>&ndash;100</p>
+<p>&mdash;, American Memorial Fountain, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page43">43</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Bridge Street, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page39">39</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Chapel, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page63">63</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page75">75</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Clopton Bridge, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page40">40</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page45">45</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page164">164</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Grammar School, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page5">5</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page67">67</a></span>&ndash;70</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Guild, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page4">4</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page60">60</a></span>&ndash;67</p>
+<p><a name="page293"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+293</span>&mdash;, Harvard House, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page37">37</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page41">41</a></span>&ndash;43</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Holy Trinity Church, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page13">13</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page26">26</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page75">75</a></span>&ndash;100</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Mason Croft, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page60">60</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Memorial Theatre, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page44">44</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Mop Fair, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page37">37</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Nash&rsquo;s House, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page39">39</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page72">72</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page73">73</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page74">74</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, New Place, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page28">28</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page31">31</a></span>&ndash;33, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page70">70</a></span>&ndash;74,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page84">84</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page101">101</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Old Stratford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page48">48</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page72">72</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Red Horse Hotel, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page40">40</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page43">43</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Rother Street, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page43">43</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page101">101</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Shakespeare Hotel, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page34">34</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page43">43</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Shakespeare&rsquo;s Birth-place, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page49">49</a></span>&ndash;59,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page110">110</a></span>,
+<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page231">231</a></span></p>
+<p>Sudeley, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
+<p>Sunrising Hill, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page18">18</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page186">186</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Temple Grafton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page13">13</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page154">154</a></span>&ndash;156</p>
+<p>Tewkesbury, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page219">219</a></span>&ndash;229</p>
+<p>Tomes, John, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page143">143</a></span>&ndash;146</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Upper Clopton, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page173">173</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Warwick, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page240">240</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page265">265</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Beauchamp Chapel, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page248">248</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page253">253</a></span></p>
+<p>&mdash;, Castle, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page254">254</a></span>&ndash;265</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Earls of, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page247">247</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page249">249</a></span>&ndash;265</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Leicester&rsquo;s Hospital, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page241">241</a></span>&ndash;245</p>
+<p>&mdash;, St. Mary&rsquo;s Church, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page245">245</a></span>&ndash;253</p>
+<p>&mdash;, Westgate, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page240">240</a></span></p>
+<p>Welcombe, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page98">98</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page133">133</a></span>&ndash;135, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page235">235</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page238">238</a></span></p>
+<p>Welford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page195">195</a></span>&ndash;197</p>
+<p>Weston-on-Avon, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page197">197</a></span></p>
+<p>Whitchurch, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page188">188</a></span></p>
+<p>Whittington, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page216">216</a></span></p>
+<p>Wilmcote, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page232">232</a></span>&ndash;235</p>
+<p>Winchcombe, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page215">215</a></span></p>
+<p>Wincot, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page169">169</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page234">234</a></span></p>
+<p>Wixford, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page160">160</a></span></p>
+<p>Woncot, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
+<p>Woodmancote, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
+<p>Wooland, the, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page2">2</a></span></p>
+<p>Wootton Wawen, <span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page235">235</a></span></p>
+<p>Wriothesley, Henry, Earl of Southampton, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span
+class="indexpageno"><a href="#page30">30</a></span></p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER DAYS IN SHAKESPEARE LAND***</p>
+<pre>
+
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #45328 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45328)