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diff --git a/45328-0.txt b/45328-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..deabcef --- /dev/null +++ b/45328-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8699 @@ +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*** + + +******* This file should be named 45328-0.txt or 45328-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/5/3/2/45328 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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