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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/ruinedabbeyscast00howi_0 
 
UINED ABBEYS and CASTLES 
 
 OF 
 
 rent ill ri tain. 
 
 WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. 
 
 The Photographic Illufirations 
 
 BY 
 
 BEDFORD, SEDGFIELD, WILSON, FENTON, 
 
 AND OTHERS. 
 
 London : 
 
 A. W. BENNETT, 5, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT. 
 
 1862. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BARRETT, PRINTER, 
 MARK LANE. 
 
 THE GETTY GSHT* 
 
 UBMRV 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In this volume the Publifher has availed himfelf of the 
 accuracy of Photography to prefent to the reader the precife 
 afpecSl of the places which, at the fame time, are commended 
 to his notice by the pen. It appears to us a decided advance 
 
 in the department of Topography, thus to unite it to Photo- 
 graphy. The reader is no longer left to fuppofe himfelf at the 
 mercy of the imaginations, the caprices, or the deficiencies of 
 artifts, but to have before him the genuine prefentment of the 
 object under confideration. We truft that this idea of our 
 Publifher will be purfued to the extent of which it is capable ; 
 and that hereafter we Ihall have works of topography and 
 travel, illuftrated by the photographer with all the yet-to-be 
 improvements of the art, fo that we Ihall be able to feel, when 
 reading of new fcenes and lands, that we are not amufed with 
 pleafant fi&ions, but prefented with realities. With this 
 fentiment we fubmit the prefent work to the public, as a Hep 
 in the right direction, and as an evidence on the part of the 
 publifner of a defire to aflift in authenticating literature by the 
 fplendid achievements of modern art. 
 
 21 st Oftober, 1 86 1 . 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Bolton Priory I 
 
 Glaftonbury Abbey 13 
 
 Iona, or Icolmkill 37 
 
 Lanthony Abbey 52 
 
 Chepftow Caftle 61 
 
 Tintern Abbey 74 
 
 Raglan Caftle 87 
 
 Conway and its Caftle 96 
 
 Goodrich Caftle and Court 123 
 
 Fountains Abbey . .... 138 
 
 Roflin Chapel and Caftle . 148 
 
 Elgin Cathedral 1 6 1 
 
 Holyrood Abbey and Palace. 167 
 
 Melrofe Abbey 179 
 
 Carifbrooke Caftle 192 
 
 Rievaux Abbey 203 
 
 Furnefs Abbey 
 
 215 
 
illustrations. 
 
 Bolton Priory 
 
 ; The Strid 
 
 Glafonbury Abbey ; Chantry Chapel 
 
 Iona 
 
 Lanthony Abbey 
 
 Chepjiow Cajile 
 
 ; Marten's Tower 
 
 Tintern ; view from Chapel Hill 
 
 ; Wejl Door and Window 
 
 Raglan Cajile 
 
 ; Grand St air cafe 
 
 Conway Cajile 
 
 Goodrich Cajile 
 
 Fountains Abbey ; from the Abbot's Houfe 
 
 ; Lady Chapel 
 
 Rcjlin Chapel ; Interior 
 
 ; 'Prentice Pillar 
 
 Elgin Cathedral ; South Aijle 
 
 — ; Choir 
 
 Holyroed Abbey ; Interior 
 
 Melrofe Abbey ; from South Wejl 
 
 ; the Nave 
 
 Carijbrookc Cafle ; the Gateway 
 
 ; General View 
 
 Rie-vaux Abbey ; Old Gateway 
 
 Furnefs Abbey 
 
 ; North Franfpt 
 
 TAGE. 
 
 By W. R. Sedgfield 4 
 „ no. 9 
 
 „ do. 25 
 
 ,, G. W. Wilson. 40 
 „ F. Bedford. 53 
 
 „ do 65 
 
 „ do. 71 
 
 „ W. R. Sedgfield 75 
 ., do. 83 
 
 „ F. Bedford. 88 
 
 . „ do. 19 
 
 . „ W. R. Sedgfield 107 
 . „ F. Bedford 125 
 
 . „ W. R. Sedgfield 139 
 • „ do. 145 
 
 . „ G. W. Wilson 149 
 
 „ do. 153 
 
 ,, DO. 162 
 
 „ DO. 165 
 
 „ DO. 169 
 
 „ DO. I 8l 
 
 „ DO. l86 
 
 „ McLean &Melhuish 193 
 
 „ DO. 201 
 
 „ W. H. Sedgfield 21 i 
 „ R. Fenton 217 
 
 „ do. 223 
 
Bolton priori). 
 
 From Bolton’s old monaftic tower, 
 
 The bells ring loud with gladfome power ; 
 
 The fun is bright j the fields are gay 
 With people in their beft array 
 Of ftole and doublet, hood and fcarf, 
 
 Along the banks of cryftal Wharf j 
 Through the vale retired and lowly, 
 
 Trooping to that fummons holy. 
 
 And ah, among the moorlands, fee 
 What fprinklings of blithe company ! 
 
 Of lafies and of fhepherd grooms, 
 
 That down the fteep hills force their way, 
 
 Like cattle through the budded brooms : 
 
 Path, or no path, what care they ? 
 
 And thus in joyous mood they hie 
 To Bolton’s mouldering Priory. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 OLTON, (fays Dugdale, carefully copied 
 by the “ Magna Britannia” of 1731,) a mon- 
 aftery of regular canons of St. Auguftine, 
 founded in 1120 by Robert de Romeli, Lord 
 of Skipton-in-Craven, and Cecilia his wife, 
 daughter and heir of William de Mefchines, 
 Lord of Coupland in Cumberland, at Emefey, and by them 
 fufficiently endowed. It was dedicated to the Blefled Virgin and 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 BOI.TON PRIORY. 
 
 St. Cuthbert the bifhop ; and Cecilia, in her widowhood, gave 
 for the fouls of her hufband, and Ranulph and Matthew, her 
 fons, her whole lordfhip of Childewick, with the mill and foke 
 thereof, as alfo of Siglefden and Harwood, with the fuit thereof. 
 Alice de Romeli, their daughter, wife of William Fitz-Duncan 
 (i Henry II., 1151), tranflated thefe canons from Emefey to 
 Bolton, which Ihe gave the monks in exchange for other lands 
 of theirs ; flic being heirefs to their founders, confirmed to them 
 all their grants, and further granted free chace in her chace in 
 Craven. King Edward II. (reg. 5,) having all their lands given 
 by their feveral benefactors recited before him, confirmed them 
 to them. This priory was a cell in fome refpeCt to that of 
 Huntington, till it was difcharged of that fubjedtion by Pope 
 Celeftine III. The prior and convent granted to John de la 
 Infula, or Lifle, Lord of Rougmont, a liberty to found a chantry 
 of fix chaplains in the church of Harwood, for the maintenance 
 of which he gave one acre of land, and the advowfon of the 
 faid church, for the good of his foul, and thofe of his anceftors. 
 In the reign of king Richard II. (anno. 20), that king granted a 
 licenfe to Richard de Scrope, knight, to found a chantry of fix 
 chaplains, of whom one to be the Cuftos, in his callle of Bolton, 
 and to endow the fame with a yearly rent of ^43. 6 s. 8 d. 
 Other benefadors of this houfe were William Vavafor, who 
 gave to thefe monks a carucate and a half of land, with the 
 appurtenances of Fedon ; Simon Braam, who gave them a 
 bovate of land in Over-Yeden ; and Alice Wentworth, one 
 bovate of land in Wentworth. This priory was furrendered 
 to King Henry VIII. ’s vifitors, in 1 539, by Richard Moon, then 
 prior, when it was found worth ^212. 3 s. 4 d. per annum. 
 
 Here the reader has the whole Ikeleton hiftory of the priory 
 of Bolton, near Skipton-in-Craven, in the ftyle which down to 
 near our own time prevailed amongft topographers ; and which 
 
BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 3 
 
 often prevails amongft them now. This was the genuine 
 Dryafduft fyftem, by which you got the bare bones of the chief 
 fadls, and nothing but the bare bones ; no flefh, no mufcle, no 
 fkin, no beautifying colour and life. Topographers till the time 
 of fuch men as Surtees of Durham, Whitaker the hiftorian of 
 Craven, Baker of Northampton, etc., feemed to imagine that 
 nothing was worthy of record but the dried fadts and gene- 
 alogies. All thofe environments of fcenery which are the 
 life-blood of every place, were left out, and inftead of a living 
 prefence we were prefented with a corpfe. Who would imagine 
 that in Bolton we had one of the molt charming fpots, mingling 
 the lovelieft art with the lovelieft nature that England or any 
 other country can fliow ? Whitaker, with a different fenfe of 
 the unities which conflitute the adfuality of a place, fays that 
 for pidturefque efFedt the fite of this Bolton Priory has no 
 equal amongft northern houfes, and perhaps none in England. 
 
 But let us look a little at the ruins of the priory before taking 
 in the whole pidture. The ruins, furrounded and mingled with 
 magnificent trees, prefent a moft exquifite combination of 
 towers, lofty broken arches and gables, with projedtions and 
 windows of moft varied charadter, draped with ivy, and (landing 
 on its low green fward in a noble monaftic folemnity. The dif- 
 ferent portions of the building difplay every fucceffive ftyle from 
 the Norman down to the decorated, the final order of Anglo- 
 Gothic. It is evident at a glance that it has been the work of 
 fucceffive hands, and fucceffive ages. To comprehend the 
 whole the vifitor muft examine the details for himfelf. We 
 are told that Alice de Romeli, — in 1151, thirty-one years after 
 the period of the foundation, — who had married William Fitz- 
 Duncan, nephew to David king of Scotland, gave this rich and 
 fheltered fpot to the monks in exchange for the more bleak and 
 expofed eftates of Skipton and Embfey : and that it was on a 
 
4 
 
 BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 moft forrowful occafion, of which we {hall more particularly 
 fpeak. The fortunate poffeffors did not ceafe to enlarge im- 
 prove and enrich their houfe till Henry VIII. broke in upon 
 them, {till building, and wrefted the property from Richard 
 Moon, the prior, before he had completed his weftern tower. 
 
 BOLTON PRIORY, WEST END. 
 
 The vifitor will be agreeably furprifed to fee the nave 
 converted into a parifh church, where divine fervice is {till 
 performed. In different parts of the nave {till ftand five lofty 
 cylindric columns, and equally fine tall lancet windows, with 
 fragments of ftained glafs, and beautiful tracery. At the eaft 
 end of the aifle of the nave is the old Chantry Chapel, under 
 
BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 5 
 
 which is the burial vault of the Claphams and Maulevers of 
 Beamfley. This is covered by eight large rough Hones, above 
 feven feet long, laid fide by fide, and rifing nearly two feet above 
 the floor. Thefe old fquires and knights are faid to have been 
 buried upright ; and, if we were to believe Wordfworth, you 
 might Hill fee them through the chinks of the floor Handing 
 grimly in that pofition. But this is at prefent a mere poetical 
 myth, founded, no doubt, on tradition. — 
 
 Pals, pal’s who will yon chantry door, 
 
 And through the chink in the fradtured floor 
 Look down and fee a grifly fight, — 
 
 A vault where the bodies are buried upright ! 
 
 There, face by face, and hand by hand, 
 
 The Claphams and Maulevers (land ; 
 
 And in his place, among fon and fire, 
 
 Is John de Clapham, that fierce efquire, 
 
 A valiant man, and a man of dread 
 
 In the ruthlefs wars of the White and Red ; 
 
 Who dragged Earl Pembroke from Banbury church, 
 
 And fmote off his head on the ftones of the porch. 
 
 The Tudor fcreen feparating the nave from the tranfept 
 remains, and alfo the roof of the nave, painted with broad lines 
 of vermilion, and the beams refling on figures of angels, one of 
 which Hands on a crefcent moon, — an evident allufion to Prior 
 Moon. The choir, in the decorated flyle, retains its fine lofty 
 windows, and fpecimens of tracery of uncommon beauty. On 
 the floor are vifible flabs covering the graves of different noble 
 benefactors and priors. Fragments of four of the fedilia re- 
 main, and of a pifcina of the early-Englifh ffyle, but greatly 
 mutilated. On the fouth fide of the choir are two chapels, 
 which are the refiing-places of the lords of Skipton. In one 
 of them in 1670 was vifible the effigy of the lady Romeli or 
 Romille, the great patronefs of the houfe. It is fo no longer. 
 In the old quadrangle Hands a building appropriated as a fchool : 
 
6 
 
 BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 and the foundations of the chapter-houfe and of the prior’s 
 lodge are yet traceable. The guide-book to the abbey will 
 enable vifitors to notice every particular feature of this fine old 
 pile. In the fields near ftill exifts the priory barn. 
 
 “ The ruins of this celebrated priory,” fays a modern writer, 
 “ Hand upon a beautiful curvature of the Wharf, fufficiently ele- 
 vated to protect it from inundation, and low enough for every 
 purpofe of pidturefque effecft. Its fite is fo ftiut in by hills and 
 embofoming trees, that the ftranger is not aware of it till he is 
 almoft on the fpot.” After palling an ancient, but fnug and 
 comfortable hoftelry, — an agreeable objedl to thofe who contem- 
 plate a fojourn of fome days here, — you crofs a high, bald bridge, 
 very different to the one eredted in 1314 by Eve de Laund. 
 On a beam in a cottage adjoining the bridge may be feen this 
 infcription : — • 
 
 Thow yat pafiys by yes way, 
 
 One ave Maria here now fay. 
 
 On your left hand is a large pafture called the Town-field, 
 bounded by the river, in which field, “ amid corn almoft 
 ready for the fickle, Prince Rupert, it is faid, on his way 
 to Marfton Moor, encamped in the laft week of July, 1644.” 
 The elm under which he dined was remembered in the begin- 
 ning of the prefent century. Again in 1745, the rebels paftured 
 their horfes there, though it was again laden with corn. There 
 is a pleafant footpath from the bridge, acrofs this fertile plain, 
 to the abbey ; but ftrangers generally proceed a few hundred 
 yards further down the road, and enter the abbey-clofe by an 
 opening in the boundary wall, which there remains in good 
 prefervation. There, fome years ago, we entered. We came 
 to a few cottages — to a high ftone wall — to a fmall arched 
 gateway ; and palling through, what a little paradife burft upon 
 us ! There were the ruins of the priory amongft magnificent 
 
BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 7 
 
 trees ; there the river Wharf, fending up a mufical but melan- 
 choly found, a {lender waterfall thrown from a purple heathery 
 height juft beyond, with the pidturefque old parfonage and 
 other houfes lying amongft their trees, and beyond, the wooded 
 valley ftretching away amid rocks and foreft hills, and the old 
 tower of Barden clofing the diftant fcene. What a beau ideal 
 of a rural parfonage was that, with its old ivied porch, and, above 
 it, its ancient efcutcheon on its little tower, its garden and 
 fhrubberies ! There then lived the venerable Mr. Carr, the 
 redtor, who loved the place like a poet, and had done fo much 
 to open up its beauties to the feet and the eyes of ftrangers. 
 He it was who had conftrudted the little chapel in the centre 
 of the trees. — 
 
 In the fluttered fabric’s heart 
 Remaineth one protedted part — ■ 
 
 A rural chapel, neatly dreft, 
 
 In covert like a little neft; 
 
 And thither young and old repair 
 On Sabbath-day, for praife and prayer. 
 
 The White Doe of Ryljlcn. 
 
 What a day was that. Wordfworth and Whitaker had gone 
 before us, and all the valley and the hills and the air were full 
 of the memories of people and events that made the whole 
 facred ground. There ftood the tower of Richard Moon, the 
 laft prior, who was eclipfed by the burly fhadow of bluff Harry, 
 and left his work unfinifhed. There it ftands, with its fine 
 receding arch embelliftied with fhields and ftatues, and its grand 
 perpendicular window ftands like a fcreen at the weftern 
 entrance. Oppofite is feen the fmall ftiooting-lodge of the 
 Duke of Devonftiire, to whom this property has defcended 
 from the Cliffords, and which has been conftrudled out of the 
 ancient gateway of the priory. 
 
 Crofting the river by large folid ftepping-ftones, we made 
 
8 
 
 BOI.TON PRIORY. 
 
 our way up that moft enchanting valley, the charms of which 
 have for years drawn thoufands of vifitors, and fince the day 
 of railroads hundreds of thoufands. Through woodland fhades, 
 through wildernefTes of rock and heather, and ferns and modes, 
 and ever and anon coming to a fine view of the dark rapid 
 ftream below us, or the airy hills around, we made our way to 
 the famous Strid. 
 
 The reader is familiar with the ftory of the young lord of 
 Egremont, who ranging the woods of Bolton, with his grey- 
 hounds and huntfmen, and coming to the narrow pafTage where 
 the river pent up rages through in fury, leaped, but having a 
 greyhound in a leafh, and fhe a puppy at her heels, the dog 
 hung back, and he was plucked backward, fell in and perifhed. 
 Both Rogers and Wordfworth have celebrated this legend : — 
 
 The pair hath reached that fearful chafm — 
 
 How tempting to beftride ! 
 
 For lordly Wharf is there pent in 
 With rocks on either fide. 
 
 This ftriding-place is called the Strid — 
 
 A name it took of yore ; 
 
 A thoufand years it hath borne that name, 
 
 And Ihall a thoufand more. 
 
 And hither is young Romilly come ; 
 
 And what may now forbid, 
 
 That he, perhaps for the hundredth time, 
 
 Shall bound acrofs the Strid. 
 
 He fprung in glee, for what cared he 
 
 That the river was ftrong and the rocks were fteep ? 
 
 But the greyhound in the lea/h hung back, 
 
 And checked him in his leap. 
 
 The boy is in the arms of Wharf, 
 
 And ftrangled by a mercilefs force ; 
 
 For never more was young Romilly feen, 
 
 Till he rofe a lifelefs corfe. 
 
 The Force of Prayer. — Wordsworth. 
 
BOLTON l’RlORV. 
 
 9 
 
 THE STRID. 
 
 When the huntfman ftood before Lady Alice, his mother, 
 he afked her cc What is good for a bootlefs beane ?” (What 
 avails when prayer is ufelefs?) And the mother, inftindtively 
 readinghis woe-ftruck countenance, replied, “ Endlefs forrow !” 
 And on hearing the fatal truth fhe became the fecond foundrefs 
 of Bolton, faying, “ Many a poor man ftiall be my heir.” 
 
 When Lady Aaliza mourned 
 Her fon, and felt in her defpair 
 The pang of unavailing prayer ; 
 
 Her fon in Wharf’s abyfies drowned, 
 
 The noble boy of Egremond $ 
 
 From which affliction when the grace 
 Of God had in her heart found place — 
 
 A pious ftruCture fair to fee, 
 
 Rofe up, this ftately priory ! 
 
 C 
 
10 
 
 BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 There have been attempts to overthrow this beautiful tradi- 
 tion, by fhowing that when Lady Alice gave her manor of 
 Bolton to the canons, her fon William was, according to a 
 pedigree exhibited in parliament in 1315, fet down as her only 
 fon, and as a party with her to the contract. But we prefer to 
 confider this as relating to the firft foundrefs, giving more faith 
 to a tradition which has clung to the fpot for feven centuries, 
 than to a pedigree exhibited nearly two hundred years after. 
 
 Croffing a fine bridge to Barden, we flood before the old 
 tower of the Cliffords. It is a ruin. “ The fhattered remains 
 of Barden Tower,” fays Whitaker, “Hand fhrouded in ancient 
 woods, and backed by the purple diflance of the higheft fells. 
 An antiquarian eye refts with pleafure on a view of thatched 
 houfes and barns, which in the laft two centuries have under- 
 gone as little change as the fimple and paftoral manners of the 
 inhabitants.” So they remained at that moment, yet hence in 
 ages paft iffued, 
 
 The ftout Lord Cliffords that did fight in France — 
 
 that fought in all the wars of England from the Conqueror to 
 Cromwell. Hence defcended the famous Countefs of Derby, 
 granddaughter of Henry Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and the 
 fifter of Henry VIII., Queen Dowager of France. Hence Ann 
 Clifford, the renowned Countefs of Pembroke and Mont- 
 gomery, who lived from the days of Queen Elizabeth to thofe 
 of Charles II., who found fix ruined caflles on her eftates on 
 coming into poffellion of them, and rebuilt them all, including 
 this tower, of which an infcription in front of it bears teflimony. 
 Her reply to the agent of Charles II., who prefumed to dictate 
 a candidate for the borough of Appleby, deferves to live for 
 ever : — 
 
 “I have been bullied by a ufurper; I have been negledted by 
 
BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 I I 
 
 a court ; but I will not be dictated to by a fubjedt. Your man 
 fhan’t ftand. 
 
 “Anne, Dorsett, Pembroke, and Montgomery.” 
 
 But no anceftral fpot bears a more fingular record than that of 
 the Shepherd Lord. This was the foil of Lord John Clifford, 
 called the bloody or black-faced Clifford, who fell at the battle 
 of Towton. His mother was obliged to fly and hide him, a 
 mere child, from the vengeance of Edward IV., and bring him 
 up as a fhepherd in the wildeff receffes of Yorkfhire and Cum- 
 berland. Growing up in this condition to man’s eflate, when 
 the attainder was reverfed by Henry VII., he came and fettled 
 here, to be near the monks of Bolton, by whom his negledted 
 education was repaired. With them he contracted a great 
 friendfhip, and ftudied with them aftronomy, and, no doubt, 
 aflrology as well as alchemy. The people believed ffrange 
 things of him. 
 
 He knew the rocks which angels haunt 
 On the mountains vifitant. 
 
 He hath kenned them taking wing : 
 
 And the caves where fairies fing 
 He hath entered ; and been told 
 By voices how men lived of old. 
 
 Among the heavens his eye can fee 
 Face of thing that is to be ; 
 
 And if men report him right, 
 
 He could whifper words of might. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Writings preferved in the archives of the Cliffords, writings 
 attributed to him, fay as much, and hint at myfteries that can- 
 not be fpoken, fuch as the fecret of gold-making. 
 
 Hie wer accurfyde that foo wolde done 
 How fchold yow have fervans then, 
 
 To tyll your lands, and dryft'e your plughe ? 
 
 Yff ev’ry mane to ryches came, 
 
 Then none for oth’r owght wolde dowghe. 
 
12 
 
 BOLTON PRIORY. 
 
 But it is over Rylfton Fells that falls the deepeft enchantment 
 of poetry. It was over thefe heathery fells that the White Doe 
 ufed to take her way. On them Hands the remains of the old 
 tower of the Nortons, where the flout Richard Norton gave to 
 the winds his llandard, furrounded by his nine fons, in “ The 
 Rifing in the North.” Thence he bore the banner wrought by 
 his only daughter, on which were difplayed the crofs, 
 
 And the five wounds our Lord did bear. 
 
 In this poem Wordfworth has put forth a chivalrous flrength 
 and drawn a pidlure of devotednefs in the father and in his fon 
 Francis, which, though oppofed in its objedl, is equally noble. 
 
 Such are the memories which have call their golden glory 
 over Bolton Priory; the Vale of Wharf; over the Strid; over 
 Barden Tower and Norton Tower on the grim Rylflon 
 Fells, and in veiled them with an interell to all time. 
 
(tetaitburi) <2U»bft). 
 
 LASTONBURY ABBEY, now reduced 
 to a few ruined walls, had the diftinguifhed 
 honour of being the firft church founded in 
 Britain. “Eft enim,” fays John of Glaf- 
 tonbury, “ omnium in Anglia ecclefiarum 
 prima et vetuftifiima, primo ex virgis torquatis fadba, ex 
 qua virtus divinae fandlitatis jam inde a principio redolevit 
 fpiravitque in omnem patriam.” It is the firft and moft 
 ancient of all churches in England, originally conftrudted 
 out of twifted withes, but from which the virtue of divine 
 fandbity has already from this beginning breathed its fra- 
 grance over the whole country. This monkifti hiftorian of 
 the then proud abbey, in the fifteenth century, tells us that 
 it was called by the Englifh Ealdechirche, that is the 
 ancient church, and that the people of that province found 
 nothing by which they might fwear an oath fo facred that they 
 Ihould fear to break it, as the ancient church ; and that it was 
 equally eminent by the reverence of its antiquity and of its 
 magnificently exalted fandbity. “ It was called a fecond 
 Rome.” 
 
 John of Glaftonbury — whofe chronicle was edited by Hearne, 
 the antiquarian, from the MS. in the Alhmolean Library — tells 
 us that he availed himfelf of the labours of William of Malms- 
 bury, who wrote the chronicle of the abbey from its foundation 
 by Jofeph of Arimathea, in the fixty-third year of our Lord’s 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 incarnation, the thirty-firft after his paffion, to the time of the 
 Abbot Henry Bleys, bifhop of Winchefter, in the year 1126 ; 
 of the brother Adam of Domerham, a monk of this houfe, 
 down to the time of John of Tantonia, the lord abbot, in the 
 year 1290 ; interfperfing certain matters from Giraldus Cam- 
 brenfis and Radulph of Chefter ; that he abbreviated the 
 prolixity of the faid Adam, omitting, adding, and reducing 
 fadts to their proper order ; that he had endeavoured to follow 
 the truth, though in a rude ftyle and with uncultivated 
 language — u Rudi quidem ftilo, et fermone inculto,” — rightly 
 thinking that “ melior is veritas in fimplicibus verbis, quam fit 
 mendacium in venuftate fermonis.” 
 
 And truly, if the veracity of our hiftorian is equal to the 
 rudenefs of his Latin, more reliable narrative was never 
 written. He gives us ulcio for ultio, eciam for etiam, way- 
 viatores for viatores ; in fadf, in almoft every place fubftituting 
 c for t, with phrafes oft recurring of tolerable Englilh with 
 Latin terminations ; with michi for mihi, nichil for nihil. 
 And with what a fimple faith our good chronicler relates his 
 carefully-fifted fadls. This is his account of the circumftances 
 which led Jofeph of Arimathea to Glaftonbury : — The Lord 
 being crucified, and all things accomplifhed which were fore- 
 told by the prophets, Jofeph of Arimathea, that noble de- 
 curion (a commander of ten men, about equivalent to a 
 corporal,) went to Pilate and begged the body of Jefus, and 
 wrapped it in fine linen, and laid it in a monument in which 
 no man had yet been buried. Now the Jews hearing of this, 
 fought “ apprehendere eum and with him Nicodemus and 
 others. Thefe all hid themfelves except Jofeph and Nico- 
 demus, who appeared, and demanded why they were angry 
 becaufe they had buried the Lord, and whether they had 
 not yet reflected how much good he had done, and how ill 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 *5 
 
 they had done in crucifying him ? Whereupon they feized 
 Jofeph and Nicodemus and fhut them up in a chamber with- 
 out a window, and gave the key to Annas and Caiaphas, and 
 placed guards at the door. Nicodemus they Toon fet at liberty ; 
 but they determined to put Jofeph to death becaufe he had 
 begged the body of Jefus, and had been the chief inftigator of 
 his burial. Being affembled to determine what death he 
 fhould die, they commanded Annas and Caiaphas to produce 
 him ; but on opening the chamber they found that he was not 
 there. In great confternation they fent meffengers every- 
 where to learn news of him, and he was found quietly refiding 
 in his native city of Arimathea. 
 
 At this wonderful difcovery the chief priefls confulted how 
 they were to induce him to come back ; and “ tollentes 
 thomum cartae,” — which, in Glaftonbury Latin, means taking 
 a fheet of paper, — they wrote to him confeffing their great fins 
 againft him, and imploring him to come to his fathers and to 
 his fons, who were all filled with admiration of his divine 
 affumption ; adding “ Peace be with thee, Jofeph, honoured of 
 all the people.” And they chofe feven men, friends of Jofeph, 
 to carry this epiftle, and honourably to falute the holy man on 
 delivering it. Jofeph kiffed the meffengers, took them into 
 his houfe, and thanked God who had thus changed his enemies 
 and the crucifiers of Christ. “ Alia autem die afcendit fuper 
 afinum fuum, et ambulavit cum illis, et venit Jerufalem.” 
 That is, the next day he got upon his afs, and ambled with them, 
 and came to Jerufalem. The Jews affembling all kiffed 
 Jofeph, and Nicodemus received him into his houfe, and 
 made him a feaft, and Annas and Caiaphas in full Sanhedrim 
 inquired refpedlfully by what means he had been conveyed 
 away from the chamber that was fo well locked and guarded. 
 Whereupon Jofeph informed them that, as he was at his devo- 
 
i6 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 tions in the prifon, at midnight, the houfe was fufpended in the 
 air by four angels, and the Lord Jefus appeared to him in a glory 
 of light, and lifting him from the earth to which he had fallen, 
 took him by the hand, waflhed him with rofe-water, wiped his 
 face, kified him, and faid to him (dixit michi), “Be not 
 afraid Jofeph, I am Jefus.” He then fhowed Jofeph the 
 place where he had buried him, and the linen in which he had 
 wrapped him, and the napkin in which he had folded his 
 head, as a proof that he was the Lord ; and then conducted 
 him home to his houfe in Arimathea, bidding him not to go 
 out for forty days, and so difappeared. 
 
 This account feems to have charmed the Jews ; and as for 
 Jofeph, he betook himfelf to the evangelift Philip, and was 
 baptifed with his fon Jofeph. Afterwards he was delegated by 
 St. John, whilft he was labouring among the Ephefians, to 
 become the Para-nymph or devotee of the blelTed and perpetual 
 Virgin Mary, and of her glorious virgin affumption. And he 
 joined St. Philip and other difciples who had feen and known 
 the Lord Jefus and his mother Mary, and they preached 
 through various regions, converting and baptizing many people, 
 till, in the fifteenth year after the affumption of the bleffed 
 Virgin, he came with his fon Jofeph, whom the Lord Jefus 
 had confecrated as bifhop in the city of Shiraz, to the apoftle 
 Philip in Gaul. Philip, defirous to preach the gofpel, fent 
 twelve of his difciples, including his beloved friend Jofeph and 
 his fon Jofeph, into Britain, Jofeph being put at their head. 
 Five hundred men and women fet forth with Jofeph under vows 
 of chaftity, which however they broke, and only a hundred 
 and fifty were allowed to accompany the faint. Thefe by the 
 command of the Lord fet fail on the night of the Lord’s afcen- 
 fion, on Jofeph’s fhirt, which he fpread for them, and arrived 
 in Britain the next morning. But the finners having repented, 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 at the prayers of Jofeph, the Lord fent a fhip which had been 
 fcientifically built by Solomon, fo that it might laft till the time 
 of Chrift. With them came Mordraius, a king of the Medes, 
 and his general Vacianus, both of whom Jofeph had formerly 
 baptized in the city of Shiraz ; for the Lord appeared to Mor- 
 draius in a vifion, and fhewed him that the perfidious king of 
 North Wales had caff Jofeph into a dungeon for preaching 
 Chriffianity. Mordraius and his general Vacianus marched 
 againft him with an army, flew him, and liberated Jofeph : 
 upon which they all returned great thanks amongff much joy 
 to God. 
 
 After this Jofeph and his fon travelled throughout Britain, 
 where reigned king Arviragus, a barbarian, who with his people 
 forbad them to preach the Chriftian faith. Yet, after a time, 
 beholding the modeffy of their lives, he gave to Jofeph and 
 his eleven religious brethren, including his fon Jofeph, equalling 
 the number of the apoftles, acertain ifland called Ynswitryn, 
 — that is, Infula Vitrea, — fituated amid woods, thickets and 
 marfhes, and thus called on account of a ftream which flowed 
 round it through the marfhes which was of the colour of glafs, 
 — whence the name of the place became Glaftonbury, or the 
 city of glafs. It was alfo called the Ifle of Avalon, from 
 Aval the Britifh name for an apple, being very prolific of that 
 fruit. And this name of Avalon became very famous, not 
 only on account of the monaffery, but alfo that it was the 
 burial-place of king Arthur. The fettling of Jofeph here was 
 celebrated by a monkifh poet in the following lines : — 
 
 Intrat Avalloniam duodena caterva virorum. 
 
 Flos Armathiae Jofeph eft primus eorum. 
 
 Jofephes, ex Jofeph genitus, patrem comitatur. 
 
 His aliifque decern jus Glaftoniae propriatur. 
 
 Here Jofeph was diredled by the archangel Gabriel in a vifion 
 
 D 
 
i8 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 to build a church in honour of the mother of God, the per- 
 petual Virgin Mary; and he pointed out to him the fpot. In 
 obedience to the archangel he conftrudled it in a circular form 
 of plaited twigs, no doubt of willow, which mud have been 
 abundant there, — a fort of bafket-work church. This was in 
 the thirty-firft year after the paffion of our Saviour. 
 
 Here the holy brethren continued for years to ferve God 
 and the holy Virgin in watchings, falls, and facred exercifes, 
 fo that Marius the fon of Arviragus, and Coilus the fon of 
 Marius, granted them twelve hides of land around their humble 
 oratory — a hide each. In courfe of time Jofeph and his com- 
 panions died. The fpot was not chofen with much reference 
 to fanitary principles ; it mull have been very damp and un- 
 wholefome : their lives probably were not long. Jofeph was 
 buried in a bifurcate line from the meridian angle of the 
 oratory, in prepared hurdles, lying upon a figure of the adorable 
 Virgin, “and having interred with him two vefiels of filver 
 filled with the blood and fweat of the prophet Jefus, by virtue 
 of which neither water nor the dew of heaven can ever be 
 wanting to the inhabitants of this moll noble ifle. When his 
 farcophagus fhall be opened, which will be in the valley of 
 Jofaphat fometime before the day of judgment, it will be found 
 to have been untouched, and be fhown to the whole world.” 
 
 After the death of Jofeph and his eleven companions the 
 place continued long deferted, and from the abode of holy 
 men became once more a lair of wild beafts, till it pleafed the 
 holy Virgin to recall her oratory to the memory of the faith- 
 ful. Yet the race of Jofeph of Arimathea was not extindl ; 
 on the contrary, it became the royal line, and the famous 
 king Arthur was the tenth in defcent from him. According to 
 the book called the Sanftum Graal , this was the genealogy: — 
 Helaius, the nephew of Joseph, was the father of Jolhua, Jolhua 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 *9 
 
 of Aminadab, and fo in fucceflion followed Caftellors, 
 Manuel, Lambord, and a fon not named, who was the father 
 of Ygernam, who was the father of Uther Pendragon, the 
 father of the renowned king Arthur. 
 
 A hundred years had palled over, and paganifm ftill covered 
 the kingdom of Britain, when king Lucius fent to Eleu- 
 therius, the thirteenth pope from St. Peter, defiring him to 
 fend Chriftian preachers. Eleutherius accordingly fent two 
 holy men, Phaganus and Diruvianus, who arrived juft one 
 hundred and three years after the coming of Jofeph and his com- 
 panions. Led by God, they entered the wildernefs of Avalon, 
 and difeovered the remains of a crofs and other figns identifying 
 the place which God had chofen to be the firft church of his 
 Son Jefus and of the mother of Jefus in thefe realms. With 
 much joy they rebuilt the oratory, and twelve brethren con- 
 tinued to live there; their places at their death being filled up 
 by fucceftors, till St. Patrick, the apoftle of Ireland, became the 
 firft abbot of Glaftonbury : and thirty years’ indulgence was 
 granted by pope Eleutherius to all Chriftians from other parts 
 of Britain who vifited Glaftonbury ; thus confirming the faith 
 amongft the Britons. Phaganus and Diruvianus had built 
 a new oratory of ftone, which they dedicated to Chrift and the 
 apoftles Peter and Paul ; and, by direction of the Lord, they 
 alfo eredfed an oratory to St. Michael on the top of the hill in 
 the ifland, to the laft of which thofe feeking the grand indul- 
 gence had to make their pilgrimage. 
 
 Such is the ftory of the founding of the mother church of 
 England according to John of Glaftonbury. Such were the 
 legends by which the earlier Roman Catholics fatisfied the 
 fimple faith of the people great and fmall. We are afraid that 
 the narrative will not agree very well with the hiftory of the 
 early Britifh church, which admitted no claims of Rome at 
 
20 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 this period, and denied both its affumptions and many of its 
 doctrines. Quite as little is it to be expected that the Irifh 
 proteftants will concede that the great faint of that ifland, St. 
 Patrick, after his converfion of the Hibernians, came over to 
 Glaftonbury, and lived and died its firft abbot, in full commu- 
 nion with the papal church. Such a verfion we muft refer to 
 the monk Jofcelin of Furnefs Abbey, who wrote the life of 
 St. Patrick in the twelfth century, and firft converted him 
 into a Roman faint. That and the next age was a time when 
 the Roman hierarchy in Britain, as in other places, was bufy 
 deftroying the churches and fchools of the primitive church ; 
 and then, after fome of them had been five hundred years in 
 their graves, made faints of the very men who had ftood the 
 boldeft adverfaries of all Italian corruptions or aftumptions; 
 namely, Patrick, or as originally called Succat ; Columbkille, 
 Kevin, Columbanus, Callus, Claude Clement, Erigena, Albi- 
 nus, Virgilius, and a hoft of others. The truth feems to have 
 been, that at an early day primitive Chriftianity was driven out 
 of England into Ireland, and thence to Iona, and returned 
 thence again to both England and the continent through the 
 apoftles of the Irifh fchool of Bangor, and of the venerable 
 Iona. As for Ireland, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in his life of 
 Malachy, bifhop of Down, fays that he and the monks fent 
 over thither by Bernard himfelf, were “ the firft true monks 
 Ireland ever faw.” And this is fully confirmed by archbifhop 
 Ufher, who fays that Malachy, archbifhop of Armagh, and 
 Laurence of Dublin, both in the twelfth century, were the 
 firft bifhops of Ireland canonized by the pope. 
 
 Yet it is amufing with what gravity John of Glaftonbury 
 tells us that he was fent by Pope Cseleftinus in 425 to convert 
 the Irifh — that having refufed to be made pope himfelf, he 
 landed in Cornwall, and went thence to Glaftonbury in 433, 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 21 
 
 having in the meantime converted the Irifh nation with many 
 portents and miracles — that is, in eight years. There he found 
 the twelve brethren, who hailed him abbot. St. Patrick 
 in a charter which he granted, containing an indulgence of 
 one hundred days to all pilgrims thither, is made to tell us 
 that he found in the monaftery, the Adis of the Apoftles and 
 the Adis of Phaganus and Diruvianus. Patrick, fays John of 
 Glaftonbury, lived to the age of one hundred and eleven, 
 having been abbot thirty-nine years. 
 
 There has run a legend that Jofeph of Arimathea on arriving 
 at Glaftonbury ftruck down his walking-ftick, an Aftatic thorn, 
 whilft he prayed, and behold, it fhot out boughs, leaves, and 
 flowers, and continued to flourifti there as the famous Glafton- 
 bury thorn till the deftrudlion of the monaftery by Henry 
 VIII. But it feems that this miracle attended St. Benignus, the 
 adopted fon and immediate fucceffor of St. Patrick. Benignus 
 having been for feven years educated in Rome, defpifing the 
 profpedl of pontifical dignity which it appears — he, like St. 
 Patrick alfo had, and warned by an angel, fet out on a pilgrimage. 
 He was led by God to Glaftonbury, where he found his patron 
 St. Patrick, and to whom he told his divine million. St. 
 Patrick faid, “ Go on, my beloved fon, contented with thy 
 ftaff. And when thou comeft to the lpot where the Lord has 
 predeftined thee to fettle, ftrike thy ftaff into the earth, and it 
 fhall fhoot forth, grow verdurous, and bloffom.” Benignus, 
 therefore, made a long travel through forefts, moors, and 
 marlhes, but the ftick did not fhoot into life till he came again 
 to Glaftonbury, where, our hiftorian tells us, it continued to 
 his own day growing a large and fpreading tree clofe to the 
 oratory of the faint. 
 
 From the time of St. Patrick and of this miracle the fame 
 of Glaftonbury grew rapidly. Many kings, queens, princes, 
 
22 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 and generals defired to be buried there, becaufe the founder, 
 St. Jofeph, had buried the Lord. Continually new grants of 
 eftates and privileges were made to it by kings and great men 
 and women, till in time it became the moft wealthy and mag- 
 nificent monaftery, as well as the moft ancient, in the kingdom. 
 Amongft the principal donors of land were king Arthur, king 
 Domp, king Cenewalch, king Baldred, Wilfrid archbifhop 
 of York, king Kinewulph, king Ina, who built the great 
 church, king Offa, king Egbert, king Athelwulf, king Alfred, 
 queen Elfleda, king Edwin, king Edgar, king Edmund Ironfides, 
 Edward the Elder, and Edward the Younger, king Canute, 
 befides many other kings, queens, dukes, and noble men and 
 ladies. 
 
 Amongft the chief perfons interred in the church and the 
 cemetery were numbers of faints and bifhops, as well as kings ; 
 of courfe, Jofeph of Arimathea and his fon, the biftiop of 
 Shiraz, Phaganus and Diruvianus, the reftorers of the place ; 
 St. Dunftan, one of the moft famous of Glaftonbury abbots, 
 and archbilhop of Canterbury, renowned for his pinching the 
 devil’s nofe with hot tongs, but by his cotemporaries more 
 renowned for his adlive genius. He built a ftnall room near 
 the oratory, where he worked. He wrote, he painted, he 
 carved cups and crofles and other articles, as well as made 
 veftments for the mafs, which our author fays were kept to 
 his time. He was deeply verfed in hiftorical ballads, and the 
 magical fongs of the Saxons, regarded in thofe dark times with 
 peculiar horror. St. Urban the pope and martyr lay there, 
 faints Appollinarius a difcipleof the apoftle Peter, and Ofwald, 
 Patrick, Benignus, Aidan, biftiop of Lindisfarne, the Venerable 
 Bede ; the bones of St. Gildas the hiftorian, of St. Hilda, 
 abbefs of Whitby, and of many other abbeftes and faintefles. 
 
 As for kings and great men, fuch were the numbers brought 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 23 
 
 hither to be buried, that the whole pavement of the church, 
 even about the high altar, above it and below it, and on each 
 fide, and thofe of the two chapels, and the furface of the 
 whole cemetery, were fo crowded by them that it was difficult 
 to find place for any other. And thofe who lived in diftant 
 regions, even to a certain Soldan, fent for its facred earth to be 
 buried with them. Here king Arthur, who was fond of 
 feeking reft and retirement from the cares of government at 
 the abbey, died of a wound received from his nephew, the 
 ufurper Modred, in Cornwall, and was buried in the cemetery 
 about the year of our Lord 542. Nine feet deep was he 
 buried, left the Saxons his enemies, whom he had fo often con- 
 quered, fhould find and infult his remains. On a leaden crofs, 
 however, placed under the ftone which covered him, and with 
 the writing turned next to the ftone for concealment, was 
 infcribed : — “ Hie jacet fepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in infula 
 Avallonia, cum Guennevera uxore fua fecunda.” But Guen- 
 neverwas buried fometime after, and placed over king Arthur, 
 only fix feet deep. Six hundred years afterwards his remains, 
 at the repeated inftigation of Henry II., were fought for and 
 found, as well as thofe of his queen Guennever. The crofs 
 and infeription were entire. The bones of the king were of 
 an enormous fize ; and the hair of the queen ftill looking frefh 
 and enveloping her bones, yet falling to powder on being 
 touched. Thefe were transferred to the church and buried in 
 feparate tombs ; that of the queen being at the foot of that of 
 the king, before the high altar. Here Edward the Firft, and 
 Elinor the queen, coming in 1278, had thefe tombs opened, 
 and found all as before deferibed. The king then wrapped 
 the bones of Arthur in a rich pall, and the queen did the fame 
 by thofe of Guennever, and replaced them in their tombs, 
 fealing them with their feals. But they retained the fcull and 
 
24 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 the legs of each, to place on the tombs for the devotion of the 
 people, with an infcription commemorating thefe fails. Both 
 our great Edwards vifited Glaftonbury. Edward III., with 
 his queen Philippa, in 1331, came with a princely train, and on 
 leaving prefented the abbey ^80, and four filver cups, one very 
 magnificent, and an embofled water jug alfo of filver. 
 
 As for facred relics colleited at Glaftonbury, their mere 
 catalogue would make a little book. They included almoft 
 everything in facred hiftory. — Fragments from the tomb of 
 Rachel ; the altar of Mofes ; the rod of Mofes ; the manna of 
 the children of Ifrael ; the fepulchres of Ifaiah and Daniel ; the 
 remains of the three men in the fiery furnace, of the fwaddling- 
 clothes of our Saviour ; two portions of the very manger in 
 which he lay ; the flone from Jordan on which Chrift flood to 
 be baptized ; one of the flones offered by the devil when he 
 defired Chrift to command the flones to be made bread ; one 
 of the water-jars in which our Lord turned the water into 
 wine ; a piece of the bread with which he fed the five thou- 
 fand ; a piece of the flone on which he flood in the temple, of 
 his garment without a feam, of the robe that Herod put upon 
 him, of the fcourge with which he was fcourged, of the table 
 at which he fupped with his difciples, of the fponge offered to 
 him with vinegar, of the crofs, the fepulchre, of the hole in 
 which the crofs flood ; one of the thorns from his crown ; the 
 flone from which he afcended into heaven, and of every other 
 imaginable thing connected with his hiftory. And the fame of 
 the Virgin Mary, of the apoftles, of John the Baptift and all 
 the martyrs, the faints by hundreds, and holy virgins by 
 dozens. The lift of thefe relics by John of Glaftonbury fills 
 feventeen clofely-printed oilavo pages. 
 
 What a pile of mendacious rubbifh with which to gull the 
 fimple fouls of thofe dark times ! Thefe were the baits with 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 2 5 
 
 which the Romifh Church then fought to draw people to what 
 they called Chriftianity. Can any one wonder that, as foon as 
 light dawned, all thefe fpurious trumperies, all the lying 
 miracles which kept them company, and of which we have 
 moll ludicrous examples in our chronicler John, and all the 
 purgatorial inventions following after them, fhould not only 
 move difguft, but tend to deftroy faith in the real miracles, 
 and the real hereafter of revelation ? T he blow given to a 
 vital faith in Chriftianity by the Church of Rome by thefe 
 bafe and fellifh arts, and of which their own hiftorians are the 
 atteftors, is felt even in the prefent day, in the feeble credence 
 of profefled believers, and in the vaft fpread of a hopelefs 
 materialifm. 
 
 Sailors at fea bait for fifh with a mere bit of red rag, the 
 mockery of a piece of flefh ; but the Romanifts of the middle 
 ages baited for fouls with more empty and faplefs things. Yet 
 for the cupidity of the rich and powerful, God made them un- 
 confcioufly and blindly bait with fubftantial temptations. Their 
 vaft hoarded wealth, their gold and filver veffels, their fhrines 
 garnifhed and loaded with jewels, their pictures by the greateft 
 mafters, and ftill more their magnificent eftates, drew the eyes 
 and hearts of kings and nobles even as they pretended to wor- 
 fhip, and at length they laid rapacious hands on the whole 
 ftupendous prey. The fyftem was built on the delufive 
 fands of impofition, and when the floods and tempefts of 
 fecular power beat upon it, it fell, and great was the fall 
 thereof. What a moral in this worldlinefs ! The very things 
 which they imagined were building up their ftrength were 
 preparing their deftrucftion. 
 
 What a right royal eftate did that of Glaftonbury grow to ! 
 From the wicker church and the ten hides of inarfhy, thicketty 
 land — in the time of the abbot Richard Beere, in the year 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 1507, and the eighteenth of the reign of Henry VII., the 
 abbey had grown into a moft magnificent pile, full of opulence 
 and dead men’s bones, and its lands and lordlhips to an ampli- 
 tude which required a volume merely to enumerate them. 
 Such a volume the abbot Richard Beere had compiled from 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY, CHANTRY CHAPEL. 
 
 a£tual furveys and perambulations, which was duly preferved 
 in the abbey library, of which the mere extracts given by John 
 of Salilbury amount to fixty-fix pages. Thomas Sutton, 
 “ humilimus, quanquam lonnge indignus, hujus facri ccenobii 
 profefius, officium gerens cellerarii forinfici,” who wrote the 
 book called the “Terrarium ccenobii Glaftonienfis,” tells us 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 2 7 
 
 with what labour the work was done: — how the noble abbot 
 called in the afliftance of men not only “ induftrios et dili- 
 gentes, verum eciam magnos, eruditos et fapientes namely, 
 John Fitzjames, armiger and learned in the law, and fenefchal 
 of Glaftonbury; William Lange, auditor and praepofitor; with 
 John Horner, the land-furveyor, a prudent man, and bailiff of 
 Whitftone, with other affifting menfurants ; Thomas Somerfet 
 and William Walton clerks of the treafury. 
 
 The enumeration and defcription of the eftates belonging to 
 the abbey were enough to make the mouth of a much lefs rapa- 
 cious monarch than Harry VIII. water. Such fine old manors, 
 — Glaftonbury, Eftrete, Weft Pennard, Godenye, Mere, 
 Northlode, Eftbrent, Therlefmere, Lymplefhame, Southbrent, 
 Berghes, Wryngton, Hunftert, Merkyfbury, & c. At thefe 
 manors were noble manor-houfes, churches, chapels, vineyards, 
 mills, lakes and pools for fifh, immenfe moors for firewood 
 and game, parks, ftreams, quarries of ftone, orchards for fruit, 
 and every imaginable thing that can make a very princedom. 
 The monarchs of thofe times might well have alked with James 
 of Scotland, “ What want thefe knaves that a king fhould 
 have ?” Within the manor of Glaftonbury proper we are 
 told that there was not only the princely abbey, but all requifite 
 buildings for the adminiftration of juftice, for holding feflions 
 and trying criminals ; for the abbey had all the rights of a lordly 
 jurifdidfion held by charter of Edmund, namely, “ libertatem 
 et poteftatem, jura et confuetidines, et omnes forisfadfuras 
 omnium terrarum fuarum ; id eft, Burgbrice, Hundredfocna, 
 Athas, Ordelas, Infangenetheofas, Frithbrice, Foreftealle, et 
 Toll et Team ; et fint terras fuae fibi liberas, et folutae ab omni 
 calumpnia, ficut meae michi habentur.” Which barbarous 
 terms would require a little volume of legal expofition to fet 
 forth all their fulnefs of power and privileges. But, in fhort, 
 
28 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 they held all thefe lands free of the king or of any feudal lord 
 whatever ; had all the rights of thief-taking and hanging when 
 taken, of holding and letting lands by common foccage, of 
 exercifing all rights of water as well as of land ; rights of fifti 
 and foreft, of levying toll at their mills, and of compelling 
 every one in their vicinity to grind at their mills. On the 
 manor of Glaftonbury alone there were four mills — a water 
 mill, a wind-mill, a horfe-mill, and a fulling-mill. Still more, 
 they had the right of compelling the tenants to do their team- 
 work, to draw their fuel and other neceflaries, and to do their 
 ploughing and fowing and harvefting at a certain price. More- 
 over certain tenants were bound to do what was called lund- 
 mary, or Monday-work, and were called Mondaymen. They 
 were bound every year, fummer and winter, to work forty 
 days for the lord abbot for fix hours a-day, at whatever work 
 and where he chofe, and not when they chofe, at an obolus or 
 halfpenny a-day, amounting each man to twenty-pence the 
 year. “ Opera cuftumariorum tenendum Domini ibidem, 
 vocata Moundayewarkes, fadla et facienda per diverfos tenentes, 
 vocatos Mondaymen ; videlicet quod quilibet eorum, ex antiqua 
 confuetudine, annuatim per quadraginta dies, per miniftros 
 Domini eis affignatos et limitatos, ad placitum Domini, et non 
 ad libitum tenendum, operabitur quadraginta dies yemales et 
 aeftivales, qualibet die inde operando et bene laborando per fex 
 horas integras cujuslibet diei eis affignati, capiendo quilibet 
 eorum, quando fic operatur, obolum, cujus fumma eft xxd. per 
 annum.” 
 
 Some alfo worked eight days during the autumn, having, no 
 doubt during the harveft, a penny a-day. The cuftoms varied 
 in other manors; in fome, all tenants without exception work- 
 ing at the call of the lord abbot, for more or lefs days, 
 and in default paying a fixed fine. Befides thefe, there 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 2 9 
 
 were by ancient cuftom other men who worked on the moors, 
 called Moormen or Chalengelondmen, who cut down, carried, 
 Hacked, and cut up for ufe, wood for the lord’s fires, working 
 at this eleven days each year, at a penny a-day. Thefe moor- 
 men, or Chalengelondmen, had to clear the water-courfes and 
 mend and make walls for fences ; others drefted the vineyards, 
 for they had fuch then, and grew the vegetables on the fame 
 terms, and drew the wine and other provifions to the abbey by 
 wagon or in boats. 
 
 To the abbey belonged vaft parks for deer and other animals. 
 The parks of Wyralle and Sherpehame are particularly men- 
 tioned, as well as the vineyard of Wyralle. This park, it 
 fays, contains three hundred and twenty-two acres ; “ in which 
 park” the lord abbot Richard had newly eredled an exceedingly 
 beautiful manor-houfe, with chapel, eating-rooms, chambers, 
 butteries, kitchen, and adorned with all other neceftary apart- 
 ments ; the front of the manor being enclofed by Hone walls, 
 and the reft by fawn oak pales. To which adjoined an 
 orchard, ftews for fifh, etc. In this park, three hundred deer, 
 and forty larger animals might be maintained, and hawking 
 could annually be purfued in the furrounding meadows of one 
 hundred and fifty-two acres. 
 
 There was alfo in this manor a moor called Hultemoor, of 
 two hundred and feventy-three acres ; another moor, Heth- 
 moor, or the heathery moor, of eight hundred acres ; a third 
 moor, Southmoor or Allermoor, that is Aldermoor, of one 
 thoufand one hundred and forty acres, which was formerly 
 incapable of being hunted, from the thicknefs of the alder- 
 trees, but was then grazed by the tenants, and furnifhed fuel 
 for the monaftery ; and a fourth moor, of four hundred and 
 thirty acres, called Kynnyard Moor. In this one manor, 
 therefore, there were park and moorlands for chafe, grazing, 
 and fuel, to the amount of nearly three thoufand acres. In 
 
3 ° 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 what a lordly and yet Nimrod folitude mull thefe jolly monks 
 have lived ! 
 
 The lakes and pools for fifh and wild-fowl were numerous, 
 and fome of them of vaft extent. That of Mere alone was 
 a mile long and three-quarters of a mile broad. There were 
 “ gurgites,” not as you would fuppofe whirlpools, but weirs 
 where fifheries for eels and other fifh were carried on. Some 
 of thefe, as Lichelake or Cockfmere, were let for as much as 
 one hundred and fix {hillings and eightpence per annum, — a 
 great fum then. There were alfo large woods on the different 
 manors, and copfes ; and on all thefe manors were pleafant 
 manor-houfes, with all appurtenances. That of Elfbrent may 
 ferve as an image of them all. It had chapel, hall, dining- 
 room, chambers high and low, buttery, cellar, bakehoufe, 
 kitchen, larder, a dome on the fouth fide of the kitchen called 
 the wodehoufe, with chambers above, called giffen chambers, 
 and various other chambers nobly built, with a fumptuous 
 portico, bearing the abbatial arms, with a garden of an acre 
 enclofed by hewn oak paling of eight feet high. In the exte- 
 rior court, “unum ffabulum, cum folario (fundial) et hayhoufe, 
 cum penfald.” On the north fide was an orchard of the 
 choicefl apples and pears, and other fine fruits, of three acres 
 one perch, furrounded by elms and oaks of a wonderful 
 height and bulk, where the herons built and reared their 
 young. At Wryngton manor the orchard was eleven acres 
 eleven perches, with barns and granges, and cattle-flails, and 
 dovecotes; and a lodge before the great gate, called Gogge- 
 boure, rented by William Trewbody. Befides all thefe, 
 there were numerous farms and villages bringing in ample 
 rents, and quarries of freeffone — “ Ouarrura pretrarum libe- 
 rarum, vocat freeffone” — with other mills and fulling-houfes, 
 with fines and dues of various kinds. 
 
 What a growth from the wicker church and the ten hides 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 3 1 
 
 of land! That magnificent abbey with its many gables and 
 peaked roofs, grey with age ; its lofty church carved and 
 crocketed, and folemn with heaven-feeking pinnacles, and 
 faint-and-king-peopled niches : with its lofty aides and foaring 
 columns, its gnofped and rofe-centred arches ; its pavements 
 ftoried with the mementos of the great dead ; its organed 
 choir ; its gold-fretted altar ; its gorgeous-hued windows ; its 
 chanters and incenfe ; and all around its lands, and hamlets, 
 and forefts. 
 
 On all this glory came down the rude hand of Henry VIII. 
 What a fhock and aftonifhment was that which went through 
 the realm ! Thefe proud houfes, proud in affirmed humility > 
 thefe lordly mitred abbots and priors, thefe felf-folacing monks 
 and friars, this syftem which feemed bafed on the eternities — 
 fuddenly fhaken, fhattered, hurled down. Thofe fertile lands, 
 thofe chace-haunted moors, thofe folemn woods, thofe 
 pleafant and lordly nefts of devotion lapped in luxury, — all 
 grafped and appropriated by hungry and hard-handed barons 
 and fupple courtiers : and a new and mightier ariftocracy built 
 on the ruins of the church. Not a fragment of them left for 
 the poor : not that third which the church profeffed to dedicate 
 to the poor: but clergy and laity, almoners and alms-recipients 
 at the buttery door, all turned adrift together. It was as if 
 the very pillars of the earth had given way ; and a wide 
 howling and roaring mifery was left behind. That r mifery 
 and the crimes engendered by it outlived the great defpoiler, 
 Harry. In vain he hanged the homelefs vagabonds by thou- 
 fands yearly. They outlived him and his fon, and his eldeft 
 daughter, and compelled, at length, the lion-hearted queen 
 Befs to reftore the portion of the poor by the Poor-law Act 
 of the thirty-fourth year of her reign. 
 
 And now, after the flight of three hundred and more years, 
 
3 2 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 that great revolution is but as a tale that is told. The mofled 
 and ivied walls of abbey and monaftery remain alone to 
 fay that fuch things were ; once facred, now only pi&urefque : 
 and we who now enjoy thofe once facred lands, imagine, like 
 their quondam conventual poffeflbrs, that our flatus is fecure 
 as the earth beneath us, and that we fhall never be moved : 
 dreaming not of the focial revolutions in the bofom of time — 
 of the perpetual elements of change in the heart of fociety ; 
 and that, from period to period, “ Sic tranfit gloria mundi.” 
 
 Amongft the more remarkable hiftorical events and cuftoms 
 of the place we may note the following. The Abbot Herle- 
 winus is fuppofed to have built the exquifite chapel of St. Jofeph. 
 He had been a monk at Caen in Normandy, where he had been 
 converfant with the fineft Norman architecture of his time. He 
 built a noble church, and was of fo hofpitable a difpofltion, that 
 he threatened to deprive the porter of the abbey of his ears, if 
 he drove from its gates pilgrims without relief. William of 
 Malmelbury fays that fo early as feven hundred and nineteen 
 fuch was the magnificence of this abbey, that it had a chapel 
 plated over with two thoufand fix hundred and forty lbs. of 
 fllver ; and had an altar of gold of the weight of two hundred 
 and forty-fix lbs., with many precious gems and coftly robes. 
 
 Such was the power aflumed by the abbots, and their ftriCb 
 aflertion of their rights, that when King Edward I. paid his 
 vifit, the abbot would not admit him till he had appointed his 
 own fheriff of the twelve hides, and his own earl-marfhal, left, 
 by the king exercifing any fovereign rights, the chartered pri- 
 vileges of the abbey fhould be impaired. Neither would he 
 allow him to hold an aflize at Glaftonbury, but the king was 
 obliged to hold it in the village of Street, beyond the boundaries 
 of the abbot’s jurifdiCfion. 
 
 Thefe noble buildings received much damage at different 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 33 
 
 times. In 1 184, much of them was deftroyed by fire, but 
 they were rebuilt under the munificent patronage of Henry II. 
 During the abbacy of Adam de Sodbury, an earthquake, in 
 1276, threw down many of the monaftic buildings, and great 
 part of St. Michael’s church on the fummit of Tor-hill. The 
 abbey itfelf this fpirited abbot rebuilt, adding alfo the beautiful 
 chapel of St. Mary, which terminated the eaft end of the church, 
 adorning it with gorgeoufly painted windows, and many valuable 
 gifts of gold, filver, and precious ftone. The church when com- 
 plete was five hundred and ninety-four feet in length, or two 
 hundred and twenty-three feet longer than the cathedral of 
 Wells. The abbey pofleded a valuable library. We have 
 a catalogue of it as it exifted in the time of John of Glas- 
 tonbury ; and Leland, who faw it about fixteen years before its 
 deftrudion, fays : — “ No fooner had I eroded the threlhold of 
 this library, than the fight alone of fo many ancient works 
 {truck my mind with devout aftonifhment, fo that I even drew 
 back amazed. Then, after faluting the prefiding deity, for 
 many days I remained examining its burdened {helves.” 
 There were fplendid copies of the feriptures of the Fathers, the 
 Cafuifts, the hiftories of Bede and Gildas, mod of the Greek 
 and Roman daffies, Gefta of the Normans, of the popes, of 
 the Fall of Troy, Lives and Miracles of the Saints, Paflionals 
 of the Saints, Libri Prognofticorum, the Enigmata of St. 
 Aldhelm, and the Didafcaligon of Hugo. Befides thefe, there 
 was an extenfive collection of charters conferred on the abbey, 
 and mifials, breviaries, paffionals, antiphonalia, etc., mod: 
 fuperbly written and illuminated by the monks. They had a 
 fine large room, called the Scriptorium, in which they carried 
 on their literary and artiftic labours. The Rev. J. Williams, 
 in his account of Glaftonbury Abbey, fays, “ In goldfiniths’ 
 work and jewellery inftances of their mod: beauteous workman- 
 
 F 
 
34 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 {hip {till remain. Their caligraphy is unrivalled, as exemplified 
 in ancient documents and charters. The illuminations of their 
 miftals are not now to be matched ; nor can modern artifts 
 furpafs their painted glafs in the intenfity and permanence of its 
 gorgeous colouring. An aftronomical clock, made by Lightfoot, 
 monk of Glaftonbury, is {till preferved in Wells cathedral.” 
 
 The monks of Glaftonbury were Benedidtines, and their 
 rules were very fevere ; but there is abundant hiftorical evidence 
 that for a long time they had not been too auftere in the obfer- 
 vance of thefe rules ; which otherwife demanded that they 
 fhould perform their devotions feven times in the twenty-four 
 hours. During Lent they fafted every day until fix in the even- 
 ing, and were then compelled to fhorten the ufual time of 
 fleeping. They flept in the dormitory in feparate rooms, and 
 always in their clothes. During the day they were obliged to 
 go two and two together. They never converfed at their meals, 
 but liftened to the reading of the Scriptures. For finall faults 
 they were expelled for a fliort time from the refedtory ; for 
 greater ones they were debarred from public religious fervices. 
 Incorrigible monks were expelled from the abbey. Every monk 
 had two coats, two cowls, a table-book, a knife, a needle, and 
 a handkerchief, and his bed-furniture confifted of a mat, a 
 blanket, a rug, and a pillow. 
 
 One of the moft remarkable events of Glaftonbury was the 
 introdudlion of a German monk, Savaricus, as abbot. This 
 was one of the ftipulations for the releafe of Richard I. from 
 his captivity in the caftle of Diirrenftein on the Danube. The 
 abbot Henry Swanfea had to be fuperfeded, and a violent oppo- 
 fition was made by the monks ; but Swanfea was made bilhop 
 of Winchefter, and thus the ftorm was fomewhat appeafed, 
 but its effedts continued long. This was a proof that its wealth 
 was fo notorious as to excite the cupidity of even foreign 
 
CLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 35 
 
 monarchs. At the time of its fall the revenues of the abbey 
 amounted to ^200,000 per annum, according to the prefent 
 value of money. The commiflioners of Henry VIII. thus 
 defcribe its domains : — “ The houfe of Glaftonbury is great, 
 goodly, and fo princely that we have not feen the like. It has 
 four parks adjoining : the furthermoft but four miles diftant from 
 the houfe, having a large weir or lake, which is five miles in 
 compafs, that being a mile and a half diftant from the houfe, 
 well replenifhed with great pike, bream, perch, and roach. 
 Alfo four fair manor places belonging to the lord abbot, the 
 furthermoft three miles diftant, being goodly manfions, and alfo 
 one in Dorfetfhire, twenty miles diftant from the monaftery.” 
 Whenever the abbot wifhed to go to one of thefe retreats, or 
 elfewhere, he was accompanied by a retinue truly regal, con- 
 fifting of a bannered hoft of a hundred or more in number, in 
 fplendid military coftume, armed, and preceded by a great 
 crucifix. The people thronged to the highway as he pafled, to 
 receive his blefling and pay him homage on their knees. In 
 this ftyle he went up to parliament, where he fate mitred and 
 croziered, the firft abbot of the realm. 
 
 In the laft abbot, Richard Whiting, Henry VIII. found a 
 fturdy refifter of his fpoliation. He refufed to obey the royal 
 injunction to furrender. He declared that he held the truft 
 from God, for the fervice of religion and of the poor, and he 
 would not concede his functions to mortal command. He was 
 fummoned to Wells, and the Oath of Supremacy put to him. 
 He refufed to take it. The church-reforming king did not 
 paufe at trifles. He had the abbot waylaid ; a confeflor was 
 forced into his carriage, and he was bade to prepare for death. 
 In vain did he fupplicate for a few days to take leave of his 
 brethren and prepare his foul ; he was dragged to the top of 
 Tor-hill on a fledge, where he could not only look down on 
 
3 6 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 Glaftonbury, and all his noble eftate, but over a magnificent 
 expanfe of country one hundred and forty miles in circum- 
 ference. There lay below him the beautiful I fie of Avalonia ; 
 the Wyralle or Weary-all-hill, the Chalice-hill. In the midft 
 of this auguft fcene, enough to make the mod heavenward heart 
 feel a touch of lingering affection, he was barbaroufly hanged, 
 with his treafurer, John Thorn, and his under-treafurer, Roger 
 James, on the 14th of November, 1539. His head was placed 
 on the gate of his abbey, and his four quarters fent to be expofed 
 at Wells, Bath, Ilchefter, and Bridgewater. Such was the fate 
 of the laft of fifty-nine abbots who had held the crozier at that 
 famous fhrine for one thoufand one hundred and fourteen years. 
 
 Rapacious hands very soon not only ftripped its altar, and 
 rifled its coffers and walls, but dafhed in its gorgeous windows, 
 demolifhed its carved monuments, reft from its roof lead and 
 timbers, knocked down its lofty columns, {battered its fculp- 
 tured capitals and niches, and built cottages or made roads with 
 its ftones grey with centuries. In the words of William Lifle 
 Bowles : — 
 
 All is Client now ! Silent the bell, 
 
 That heard from yonder ivied turret high, 
 
 Warned the cowled brother from his midnight cell. 
 
 Silent the vefper chant — the Litany, 
 
 Refponfive to the organ ! Scattered lie 
 The wrecks of the proud pile, mid arches grey : 
 
 While hollow winds through mantling ivy figh j 
 And even the mouldering fhrine is rent away, 
 
 Where in his warrior weeds the Britifh Arthur lay ! 
 
 Amongft the remains at Glaftonbury, which are now pre- 
 ferved with care, are fome fine arches of the nave of the great 
 church, with the chapel of St. Jofeph at the weft end. The 
 chapel is a beautiful objedl, its principal walls remaining, and 
 teftifying by their round arches, and efpecially by the one richly 
 ornamented receding portal, its Norman period. The portion 
 
GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 37 
 
 which connedled it with the portico which led to it is of the 
 later pointed ftyle, or Early Englifh, as is the abbey church 
 itfelf. The abbot’s kitchen remains entire, and the tower of St. 
 Michael’s church on Tor-hill ftands a ftriking objedt far over 
 the country. The church itfelf was overthrown by an earth- 
 quake in 1276. The abbot’s barn on the right of the road 
 leading to Pennard, is another remaining building; and in High- 
 ftreet, Glaftonbury, ftands an old building fuppofed to be the 
 court-houfe, or tribunal. The churches of St. Benedict and 
 St. John were alfo connected with the abbey. Some traces of 
 wall are alfo fhown as having belonged to the old hofpitium of 
 the abbey : and at the foot of Tor-hill on the north fide ftill 
 flows the chalybeate fpring, regarded as holy during the palmy 
 days of the abbey, and long afterwards of great celebrity for its 
 healing quality. 
 
 We may clofe this notice by a curious fad! mentioned by 
 the Rev. J. Williams. — In July, 1859, was fold in London, 
 by audlion, the Conventual Regifter and Cartulary of Glas- 
 tonbury Abbey, in which was inferted a letter of Bifliop 
 Tanner, ftating that he had refcued the volume from deftrudtion 
 at a grocer’s. It realized ^141 15s. 
 
Jonrt, or jtolinhill. 
 
 7' would be difficult to imagine a voyage of 
 more intcreft, — whether we regard natural 
 beauty, poetical imagery, or the intellectual 
 attractions of a facred antiquity, — than to the 
 venerable ruins of Iona, once the Chriftian 
 fchool which diffufed its cheering light over 
 the barbarous tribes, not only of Great Britain, but of the 
 European continent. We there tread the ground hallowed by 
 the footfteps of thofe Britifh apoltles who refilled the haughty 
 fpirit of Rome, and planted the pure doCtrines of the crofs in 
 England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and even Italy. 
 Columb and Columbanus, Gallus and Aidan, and others, who, 
 purfuing the fame work as their countrymen, Virgilius, Albin, 
 Erigena, Clement, Donatus, etc., fpread the independent 
 Chriftian truth far and wide in the face of domineering Rome. 
 
 In proceeding to this ancient Weftern fane, which combines 
 fo many circumltances which ought to be ever dear to Pro- 
 tellantifm, we embark on a voyage of wild beauty, bringing 
 us alfo into immediate communion with poetry as well as 
 religion. As we have faid on a former occafion, the fpirit of 
 Collins and Thomfon, of Offian, of Leyden, and Scott and 
 Campbell, is upon us. We defire to fee the regions which 
 they have inverted with fo many charms — to tread the lands of 
 
IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 39 
 
 fecond-fight and airy fpirits. We would look on the tombs 
 and fhattered images that flood when 
 
 Aodh, famed afar, 
 
 In Iona preached the word with power ; 
 
 And Reullura, beauty’s ftar, 
 
 Was the partner of his bower. 
 
 Thefe words of Campbell’s reveal to us that his Aodh lived 
 when Rome had not afl'erted her dogma to the clergy, “ for- 
 bidding to marry but the lonely Culdee, the miffionary of 
 thefe then femi-favage ifles, had the comfort and fociety of his 
 helpmeet to cheer him in his labours and fympathize in his 
 difcouragements and fuccefles. Befldes failing for the region 
 of thefe primitive labours, we are at the fame time bound for 
 the regions of ghofts and fays, of mermaids and kelpies, of 
 great krakens, and a hundred other marvels and miracles. We 
 fail along the bufy banks of the Clyde, the romantic kyles of 
 Bute, the cloudy heights and hollows of Arran ; fkirting 
 the folitary fhores of Cowal, and cutting through the Mull of 
 Cantire by the Crinan canal, we iflue into the Sound of Jura, 
 and are in the fwell of the wild Atlantic, furrounded by leaping 
 waves and fcreaming fea-fowl, and dark ftorm-beaten crags. 
 Soon we hear the roar, and obferve the foaming waves, of the 
 far-famed eddy of the Corywrekan, tolling and leaping in 
 ftrange commotion. From Oban we fet fail for the Weftern 
 Ifles, and as we traverfe the Sound of Mull, behold, a thoufand 
 mountain-heights and objects whofe names recall fcenes of old 
 romance. The caftle of Duart, Artornilh Hall, the cloudy land 
 of Morven, the region of Offian, and then we are in Mull, 
 failing up the very harbour of Tobermory, where one of the 
 fhips of the Spanifli Armada perifhed. Then we are courfing 
 over the breezy waters, amid diftant profpeSts of the Hebrides, 
 Eig, and Canna and Rum, and the blue tops of the far moun- 
 tains of Skye, gazing on the near fhores of Treflianilh, 
 
40 
 
 IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 Gometra, Colonfa, and Mull ; with StafFa, and its celebrated 
 cave, a huge, ifolated crag, rifing from the waters before you. 
 
 IONA. 
 
 And anon you approach the rocky ifle of Icolmkill, a 
 wild and naked crag-land of about three miles long and one 
 wide. “ It is needlefs,” fays Robert Chambers in his “ Pic- 
 tures of Scotland,” to inform the reader that this is, as Johnfon 
 exprefi'es it, “ the illuftrious ifland, which was once the lumi- 
 nary of the Caledonian regions, whence favage clans and 
 roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the 
 bleffings of religion.” — That it was, in the fixth century, the 
 place where Columbus, an Irifh faint, firft propagated the 
 Chriftian faith amongft a people formerly devoted to the fuper- 
 
IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 41 
 
 ftitions of Druidical paganifm. — That it was for centuries the 
 ordinary burial-place of the Scottifh kings ; and that it after- 
 wards became at once an abbacy and the feat of the bifhopric of 
 the I lies. The relics which ftill exift to atteft its former great- 
 nefs are very numerous. The cathedral is a building ftill pretty 
 entire, one hundred and fixty feet long without, and thirty-four 
 broad. Within the choir, which is itfelf fixty feet in length, are 
 feveral fine pillars, carved in the Gothic way with great variety 
 of fanciful and ludicrous figures, reprefenting parts of fcripture. 
 Amongft the reft is an angel with a pair of fcales weighing 
 fouls, and the devil keeping down that in which the weight 
 lies with his foot. On his face is portrayed a malicious grin. 
 The eaft window is a beautiful fpecimen of Gothic workman- 
 fhip. In the middle of the cathedral rifes a fquare tower of 
 about eighty feet high, fupported by four arches, and orna- 
 mented with bas-reliefs. In the chancel there is a tomb of 
 black marble, with a fine recumbent figure of abbot Mac- 
 fingone, who died in 1580. On the other fide of the chancel 
 is a fimilar monument to the abbot Kenneth. On the floor is 
 the figure of an armed knight, with an animal fprawling at his 
 feet. On the right of the cathedral, and contiguous to it, are 
 the remains of the college, fome of the cloifters of which are 
 ftill vifible. The common hall is entire, with ftone feats for 
 the difputants. A little to the north of the cathedral are the 
 remains of the bilhop’s houfe, and on the fouth is the chapel 
 dedicated to St. Oran, pretty nearly entire, fixty feet long and 
 twenty-two broad, but nearly filled with rubbifh and monu- 
 mental ftones. In the enclofures adjoining to this building, 
 forty-eight Scottifh kings, four kings of Ireland, eight Nor- 
 wegian monarchs, and one of France, are faid to be interred — 
 perhaps the moll extenfive holy alliance or congrefs of Euro- 
 pean fovereigns on the other fide of the grave. Icolmkill, 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 IONA, OR .ICOLMK ILL. 
 
 which is properly termed Hii, and claffically Iona, was the 
 depofitory of a vaft colledbion of valuable papers and books, 
 all of which were difperfed or deftroyed at the Reformation. 
 Other buildings of a monaftic charadter can be traced through- 
 out the ifland. 
 
 Martin in his account of the Weftern Ifles, fays that 
 Columba built two churches and two monafteries, one for 
 men and one for women. — That in an empty piece of ground 
 betwixt the church and the gardens, murderers and children 
 who had not received baptifm were buried. — That near the 
 weft end of the church, in a little cell, but without any 
 infcription, is the tomb of Columba. — That a little further to 
 the weft lie the black ftones on which Macdonald, king of 
 the Ifles, delivered the rights of their lands to his vaflals in the 
 ifles and continent, with uplifted hands and bended knees ; 
 and in this pofture, before many witnefles, he folemnly fwore 
 never to recall thofe rights ; and this was inftead of his great 
 feal. Hence it was that when any one was certain of what he 
 affirmed, he faid pofitively “ I have freedom to fwear this 
 matter upon the black ftones.” At fome diftance from the 
 cathedral is St. Oran’s Church, commonly called Reliqui 
 Ouran, becaufe the faint of that name is buried in it. About 
 a quarter of a mile further is the church of Ronad, in which the 
 priorefles were buried. 
 
 Much deftruiftion of thefe remains has taken place fince 
 Martin vifited the place, and much had been perpetrated 
 before. It is faid that there were formerly three hundred and 
 fixty ftone crofles in the Ifland of Iona, which fince the 
 reformation have been reduced to two, and the fragments of 
 two others. The fynod of Argyle is reported to have caufed 
 no lefs than fixty of them to be thrown into the fea at one 
 time ; and fragments of others, which were knocked to pieces, 
 
IONA, OR ICOLMK.ILL. 
 
 43 
 
 are to be feen here and there, fome of them now converted 
 into grave-ftones. Amongft the moil curious fculptures re- 
 maining, are Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit under 
 the tree, on St. Martin’s crofs, which is eight feet high, com- 
 pofed of the red granite of the illand, as are alfo the carved 
 pavement of St. Oran’s chapel, efpecially that of fome fingular 
 bells, and the grotefque fcenes carved on the capitals of the 
 pillars in the cathedral. 
 
 The deflruCfion here, in which the original erections of the 
 Primitive Britifh church have fuffered for being found in 
 connection with the additions of their Romifh fuccelTors, are 
 greatly to be regretted, efpecially when we obferve the mas- 
 terly ftyle of the fculpture, the fingular ftories indicated in 
 fome of the carving on the walls, and the unique and beau- 
 tiful foliage and flowers with which the tombs are adorned 
 by the chifel, which cannot be feen without a lively admiration. 
 No time of itfelf could have deftroyed them ; for they are 
 moffly of the red granite, or fyenite, of which the rocks and 
 iflets around confift; and are enclofed by low walls of the fame 
 Hone, rounded into great pebbles by the fea. 
 
 The wild and defolate afpeCt of the place ffrongly imprefs 
 on the vifitor the perils and perfecutions of thofe favage times, 
 which drove the profeflors of the Chriftian faith to fuch a 
 ffony wildernefs, amid the howlings of thefe northern feas. 
 The prefent inhabitants of the ifland are exceedingly poor and 
 ignorant. As you draw near the coaft, you behold a low 
 bleak fhore, backed by naked hills, and at their feet a row of 
 miferable Highland huts : and at feparate intervals the ruins of 
 the monaftery and church of Ronad, the church of St. Oran 
 and its burying-ground, and laffly, the cathedral raifes its fquare, 
 red, folemn bulk. You are immediately on landing furrounded 
 by little children offering pebbles of green ferpentine, which 
 
44 
 
 IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 they colledi on the fhore, in little difhes : and by the guide 
 offering his little books defcriptive of the place and its anti- 
 quities. Every few days through the fummer the fteamer lands 
 its paffengers to view the ruins ; but thefe bring no advantage 
 to the place, for they make their furvey, and then proceed 
 on their voyage. 
 
 But from the prefent defolation the mind afcends back with 
 an affectionate intereft to that time when, from the fixth to 
 the tenth centuries, the profeffors of the ancient Chriftian 
 church of Britain and Ireland flourifhed here, guarded by the 
 elements and the ftern fterility of thefe then remote regions — 
 “ far off amid the melancholy main,” and fent forth their 
 devoted difciples to preach Chrift, not only over the Britifh 
 ides, but on the continent. To thofe who would inform them- 
 felves of this noble race of preachers of a pure and primitive 
 faith, we would recommend the perufal of a mod interefting 
 little volume entitled, — “ Annotations on Dr. D’Aubigne’s 
 Sketch of the Early Britifh Church,” by Mrs. Webb of Dublin.* 
 In this ably and earneftly written little volume Mrs. Webb has 
 mod completely demonftrated the error of Dr. D’Aubigne, 
 in attributing the labours of this church to the Scotch inftead 
 of the Irifh. To none but a foreigner could the name of Scots 
 at that period have been fuppofed to refer to natives of Scotland. 
 The Scots were natives of Ireland, who carried their name to 
 Scotland, by migrating to the Highlands, the inhabitants of 
 which are their defendants. Up to the eleventh century, 
 Scotland bore the name of Albin, or Alba, latinized to Albania. 
 “Irifh and Ireland,” juftly remarks Mrs. Webb, “Scotch and 
 Scotland, as at prefent applied, were introduced by the Normans 
 in the eleventh century. Hibernia and Scotia, prior to that 
 
 * Published by Wertheim and Macintofh, Paternofter-row ; A. W. Bennett, 
 Bilhopfgate-ftreet ; Robertfon, Dublin; and Paton and Ritchie, Edinburgh. 
 
IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 45 
 
 date, were exclufively applied to the prefent Ireland, and fhould 
 have been fo tranllated from the original of Bede’s hiftory.” 
 Bede ufed the term Scot and Scotia as they were ufed in his 
 day, Irifh and Ireland being names unknown. 
 
 We fhall not quote further proofs of the corredtnefs of our 
 authorefs’s ftatement ; they are too obvious to be denied. 
 We fhall rather avail ourfelves of her fa£ls, to fhow how 
 noble a place was once Iona. 
 
 After the firft preaching of Chriflianity in Britain, and during 
 thofe centuries in which Rome was overrun by the northern 
 barbarians, the pagan Saxons perfecuted and expelled the 
 Chriftian teachers from England. Charlemagne converted the 
 Saxons on the Elbe by the perfuafive arguments of fire and 
 fword to a nominal Chriflianity : but the pagan Saxons, who 
 made themfelves maflers of England, murdered the Chriftian 
 natives, and gave them no alternative but apoftacy or death. 
 Numbers of thefe efcaped into Ireland. Mrs. Webb claims 
 for the Irifh the enjoyment of letters from a period much an- 
 terior, and that they accepted thefe fugitive apoftles of Chrift’s 
 faith, “ which was pure from any admixture of Roman ele- 
 ments, either of fophiftry or luxury, with open arms. And 
 foon they fent forth a purer development of unfophifticated, 
 practical Chriflianity, than had iftued from any of the old regions 
 of Roman dominion. Hibernia’s induftrious, felf-fupporting 
 fchools, produced the principal Chriftian luminaries that irra- 
 diated the gloom of the continental nations between the fifth 
 and eleventh centuries. During that period her indefatigable 
 miftionaries, with their fimple habits and fingle-hearted devotion, 
 fpread a knowledge of the gofpel and a tafte for letters among 
 the Englifh Saxons, the Pi£ts of North Britain, the Franks of 
 Gaul, the inhabitants of Switzerland, and the Scandinavians of 
 Iceland. Flanders, Germany, and even Italy herfelf, in thofe 
 
46 
 
 IONA, OR ICOLMICILL. 
 
 ages, were indebted to Hibernia for their moft accomplifhed 
 teachers. And finally, ere the ecclefiaftical ambition of Rome, 
 leagued with Norman love of power and plunder, had crufhed 
 the independence of the Hibernian church, {he had imprelTed 
 the phafe of gofpel principles on the dwellers in the mountains 
 of the Vofges, the Alps, and the Apennines, where they ftill 
 live amid much poverty and godly fincerity.” 
 
 In aflerting the general juftice of Mrs. Webb’s ftatements, 
 we muft at the fame time remark, that, like all zealous advo- 
 cates, fhe has gone a little into the extreme. In defending the 
 church of Ireland fhe has overlooked the primitive church of 
 Wales, etc. : in maintaining the Bangor of Ireland fhe has 
 ignored the Welfh Bangor. But the truth is, that when the 
 Chriftians of England were perfecuted by the invading Saxons 
 and Danes, they fled to Wales, Cornwall, and Armorica, as well 
 as to Ireland ; and great numbers remained there till finally 
 crufhed by the church of Rome. Bangor in Wales, as well 
 as Bangor in Ireland, was a great fchool of that church. We 
 know that after the arrival of St. Auguftine from Rome in 597, 
 with the forty monks fent by Gregory I., the fyftem of aggres- 
 fion on the Britifh church was perfiftently carried on till it was 
 finally overpowered. We know that Ethelfrid, the king of 
 Northumberland, the obedient inffrument of Auguftine, killed 
 two thoufand of the Britifh clergy in cold blood at Caerleon, or 
 Chefter. Neither muft we admit, what Mrs. Webb feems to 
 infer, that the apoftles of Ireland firft planted the truth amongft 
 the Waldenfes, Vaudois, etc. That truth exifted there from 
 the apoftolic times, and would make them welcome fuch men 
 as Columba, Gall, and Clement, who there ftrengthened but did 
 not originate thofe churches. 
 
 But too much praife cannot be beftowed on thefe Irifh and 
 Iona miflionaries for what they did. St. Patrick appears to 
 
IONA, OR ICOJLMKILL. 
 
 47 
 
 have been the Ton of one of thofe Britifh Chriftians who had 
 taken refuge in Brittany, and who being, as a youth, carried off 
 by Irifh pirates to Ireland, became there the great means of 
 fpreading Chriftianity amongft the wild tribes of that illand. A 
 great fchool of Chriftianity was eftablifhed at Bangor in the 
 county Down, which fent out many famous and indefatigable 
 men. One of thefe was St. Columb, who went over and fettled 
 on the barren ifland of Iona in the year 565, thirty-two years 
 before the arrival of St. Auguftine in England. There, with fome 
 of his Chriftian companions, he built an humble abode and an 
 humble church. Columb was a member of the Royal family 
 of Ireland, a grandfon of Fergus, and his original name was 
 Crimthan ; but the name of Columba, or the Dove, was given 
 him on account of his meeknefs. Amid this ftormy ocean they 
 eftablifhed a feminary of Chriftian education, Columba main- 
 taining the moft fimple life, and having a ftone for his pillow. 
 “ The fages of Iona,” fays D’Aubigne, “ knew nothing of 
 tranfubftantiation, or the withdrawal of the cup in the Lord’s 
 Supper, or of auricular confeffion, or of the prayers to the dead, 
 or tapers, or incenfe ; they celebrated Eafter on a different day 
 from Rome. Synodal aflemblies regulated the affairs of the 
 church, and the Papal fupremacy was unknown. The fun of 
 the gofpel fhone upon thefe wild and diftant fhores. In after 
 years, it was the privilege of Great Britain to recover with 
 purer luftre the fame fun and the fame gofpel.” St. Columb 
 and his companions and followers at Iona were the great mis- 
 ffonaries of the Chriftian faith amongft the Pidts of Scotland. 
 
 From the fame primitive fchool, bearing their independence 
 boldly againft Rome, went forth from Iona and Bangor a noble 
 hoft. Columbanus, a younger and different man from Columb, 
 went forth with his friend Gall into Switzerland and France. 
 They eftablifhed Chriftian fchools in the Vofges, and founded 
 
4 » 
 
 IONA, OR ICOLMICILL. 
 
 the abbey of Luxeuil. There they had numbers of zealous 
 ftudents. Twenty years afterwards, Columbanus being ex- 
 pelled from the Vofges, Gall fettled in Switzerland; but 
 Columbanus proceeded to Lombardy, and there, under the 
 patronage of the king, Agilulf, founded the convent of 
 Bobbio in the Apennines. The fchools in the Vofges remained, 
 and Columbanus was invited to return to them ; but he de- 
 clined, and continued to live at Bobbio with his friend Jonas 
 the abbot. St. Gall founded the monaftery called after him, 
 and of which the town ftill retains the name, on the river 
 Steinach, and died at the age of ninety-five. 
 
 Aidan, an apoftle from the ifland of Hii, or Iona, was invited 
 by Ofwald, king of Northumberland, to Chriftianize his people, 
 amongft whom he laboured affiduoufiy, travelling everywhere 
 on foot, and giving everything that he had to the poor amongft 
 whom he preached. He became firft bifhop of Lindisfarne, 
 where he died in 651, twenty-two years before the birth of 
 Bede, venerated to enthufiafm by the people. His fucceflors, 
 Finan and Colman, had to ftand ftrong contefts with the 
 abbot Wilfrid, and the reft of the Roman clergy, and were 
 finally compelled to return to Iona. But from the Hibernian 
 fchool went forth other miffionaries, extending their field of 
 labour to the continent. Clement fpread the gofpel in Bavaria, 
 where, proteftir.g againft the errors of Rome, he was denounced 
 and fent prifoner to the Pope. The Catholic clergy were 
 efpecially fcandalized at his being a married man. Fellow- 
 labourers of his were Sampfon and V irgilius. The latter 
 carried the gofpel into Carinthia, and became bifhop of Saltz- 
 burg, but not without encountering the hoftility of the papal 
 clergy whofe errors he oppofed. So far was Virgilius before 
 his age, that he anticipated Galileo, and declared that there were 
 antipodes, — a theory much difcufled even in the third century, 
 
IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 49 
 
 and ridiculed by Ladtantius. For this Virgilius was denounced as 
 a heretic by Boniface, the archbifhop of the German churches. 
 
 Another of thefelrifh miflionaries in the ninth century, John 
 Scotus Erigena, fettled at the court of Charles the Bald, trans- 
 lated the works of Dionyfius the Areopagite, and, what was 
 ftill more extraordinary, in his work, “Margarita Philofophiae,” 
 firft broached the fyftem of phrenology, revived by Gall a 
 thoufand years afterwards, either with or without the knowledge 
 of Erigena’s theory. In a copy of this work depofited in the 
 libraries of Oxford or Cambridge, it is faid that the human fkull 
 is mapped out into different organs, fimilar to thofe of Gall. 
 
 Another of thefe extraordinary men, Claude Clement, more 
 commonly called Claude or Claudius of Turin, in the ninth 
 century founded the Univerfity of Paris ; and his friend John 
 Scott, called Albinus, founded that of Pavia. Claude became 
 bifhop of Turin, where he lived till the year 839, forty-feven 
 years after he quitted Ireland, having had to maintain an 
 arduous conflict with Rome again ft its errors, the worfhip of 
 images, the interceffion of faints, etc. “ If thofe,” he faid, 
 “who have forfaken idols, worfhip the images of the faints, 
 then they have not forfaken idols, but changed their names. 
 Whether thou painteft thy walls with figures of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, or of Jupiter and Saturn, neither are the latter gods, 
 nor the former apoftles.” Claude’s countrymen, Sedulius, 
 became bifhop of Oreta, and Donatus of Fiefole ; and modern 
 travellers have been aftonifhed amid the valleys of the Vaud 
 to hear airs of Scottifh pfalmody, which had no doubt been 
 planted there by thefe early apoftles of Britain. 
 
 Calling to mind the memory of this early race of devoted 
 men, members of the ifland church of Iona, or of the mother of 
 Iona, Bangor, we tread the defolate ftones of thefe ruined fhrines 
 with an exalted pleafure. From this wafte fea-wildernefs what 
 
 H 
 
5 ° 
 
 IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 feeds of the great truth have been fown wide over the earth, 
 now producing a hundred and a thoufand-fold in the reftored 
 church, under its modern name of Proteftantifm. 
 
 Poetry has delighted to hang its wreaths on the fhattered 
 columns of Iona. Collins fays : — 
 
 Where beneath the (howery weft, 
 
 The mighty kings of three fair realms were laid : 
 
 Once foes, perhaps, together now they reft ; 
 
 No (laves revere them, and no woes invade. 
 
 Yet frequent now, at midnight’s folemn hour, 
 
 The rifled mounds their yawning cells unfold, 
 
 And forth the monarchs (talk with fovereign power, 
 
 In pageant robes and wreathed in (hining gold, 
 
 And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold. 
 
 But Campbell has fung a nobler ftrain in honour of “ the 
 dark-attired Culdee,” for fo were the clergy of Iona called. 
 He reprefents an invafion of Iona by a band of favage Danes, 
 who ravage the place, but are furprifed by the apparition of 
 St. Columbkille, who deftroys their leader by caufing the fall 
 of his ftatue upon him, and fends them aftonifhed away. All 
 this Reullura, the wife of the Culdee Aodh, had foretold ; but 
 fhe herfelf has, during the onfet of the Danes, plunged into the 
 fea and perifhed. 
 
 Star of the morn and eve 
 Reullura (hone like thee, 
 
 And well for her might Aodh grieve, 
 
 The dark-attired Culdee. 
 
 Peace to their (hades ! the pure Culdees 
 Were Albyn’s earliest priefts of God, 
 
 Ere yet an ifland of her feas 
 
 By foot of Saxon monk was trade ; 
 
 Long ere her churchmen by bigotry 
 Were barred from holy wedlock’s tie. 
 
 ’Twas then that Aodh, famed afar, 
 
 In Iona preached the word with power; 
 
 And Reullura, beauty’s ftar, 
 
 Was the partner of his bower. 
 
IONA, OR ICOLMKILL. 
 
 5 1 
 
 But, Aodh, the roof lies low, 
 
 And the thiftle-down waves bleaching, 
 
 And the bat flits to and fro, 
 
 Where the Gael once heard thy preaching : 
 
 And fallen is each columned aide 
 
 Where the chiefs and the people knelt. 
 
 ’Twas near that temple’s goodly pile 
 That honoured of men they dwelt. 
 
 For Aodh was wife in the facred law, 
 
 And bright Reullura’s eyes oft faw 
 The veil of fate uplifted. 
 
 Alas, with what vifions of awe 
 Her soul in that hour was gifted ! 
 
 When the faint had confounded the marauders by his prefence, 
 and deftroyed their chief — 
 
 A remnant was called together, 
 
 A doleful remnant of the Gael, 
 
 And the Saint in the /hip that had brought him hither 
 Took the mourners to Innisfail.* 
 
 Unfcathed they left Iona’s ftrand, 
 
 When the opal morn firft flulhed the Iky, 
 
 For the Norfe dropped fpear, and bow, and brand, 
 
 And looked on them filently. 
 
 Safe from their hiding-places came 
 Orphans and mothers, child and dame : 
 
 But alas ! when the fearch for Reullura fpread 
 No anfwering voice was given, 
 
 For the fea had gone over her lovely head, 
 
 And her fpirit was in heaven. 
 
 And fo the cataftrophe of the venerable Iona was complete ; 
 the mourners returned to Innisfail, and the church and the 
 fchools of the Culdees remained defolate till made the feat of a 
 papal abbacy. 
 
 * Ireland. 
 

 ANTHONY ABBEY, in the retired vale 
 of Ewias, in Monmouthfhire, prefents in its 
 remaining ruins one of the fineft fpecimens 
 of the Norman-Gothic. It was built in 
 the year 1108, in the reign of Henry I., 
 when the Norman rule, and the Norman tafte in everything, 
 prevailed. All who have feen the Abbaye aux Homines 
 and Abbaye aux Dames at Caen, in Normandy, built by 
 William the Conqueror and by Matilda his queen, will be 
 at once {truck by the refemblance, efpecially in the fquare- 
 nefs and mallivenefs of the outlines, and of the ample and 
 fquare towers. In thefe fine old remains we have that ming- 
 ling of the round arches of the palf Saxon and the pointed 
 ones then firft introduced. The pointed arches, too, are of 
 differing characters ; fome are acutely lancet, others of a more 
 obtufe fafhion. The building is divided at every feparate 
 height of window by bands running along the whole facade ; 
 and the welt front in particular exhibits thofe unions of 
 arches, and alfo blank arches, which marked the progrefs of 
 Anglo-Gothic from the fingle round arches of the old Saxon, 
 into a greater freedom, airinefs and ornament. The northern 
 fide has the leaft mixture of the Norman pointed arch, and in 
 the eaft are immenfe entrance arches of both kinds. 
 
LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 53 
 
 LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 Lanthony, like Glaftonbury and many other monafteries, 
 had its literary monk, who became its hiftorian ; and from the 
 monk of Lanthony we learn the following particulars, as pre- 
 ferved by Dugdale in his “ Monafticon — St. David, uncle of 
 king Arthur, finding a folitary place among!!: woods, rocks, 
 and valleys, built a fmall chapel on the banks of the Honddy, or 
 Black Water; pronounced Honthy. He pafTed many years in 
 this hermitage, but after his death it was deferted for feveral 
 centuries. It ftill, however, retained the name of Lan Dewi 
 Nant Honddu, or the church of St. David on the Honddy, 
 fince corrupted into Lanthony. But its refloration was by one 
 William, a military retainer of Hugh de Laci, a great Norman 
 
54 
 
 LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 baron of the reign of William Rufus, who, whilft hunting, 
 fuddenly difcovered the mouldering hermitage of St. David, 
 and was ftruck by a defire to abandon the world, and finifh his 
 days there. “He difmified his companions,” fays the monk of 
 Lanthony, “ and devoted himfelf to God. He laid afide his 
 belt, and girded himfelf with a rope ; inftead of fine linen he 
 covered himfelf with hair-cloth, and inftead of his foldier’s 
 robe he loaded himfelf with weighty irons. The fuit of 
 armour, which before defended him from the darts of his 
 enemies, he ftill wore as a garment to harden him againft the 
 foft temptations of his old enemy, Satan, that, as the outward 
 man was afflidfed by aufterity, the inner man might be fecured 
 to the fervice of God. That his zeal might not cool, he thus 
 crucified himfelf, and continued his hard armour on his body 
 until it was worn out with ruft and age.” 
 
 He was afterwards joined by Ernefti, the chaplain of Maud, 
 the queen of Henry I., and they built a fmall chapel in 1108. 
 This was foon afterwards augmented by Hugh de Laci, earl 
 of Hereford, the patron of William, into a priory of canons 
 regular of the order of St. Auguftine. Large gifts of money 
 and land were foon offered, but the two brethren declined 
 them, defiring to “dwell poor in the houfe of God 5” and they 
 were fo earneft in defence of their poverty, that they put up 
 conftant public prayers againft wealth, and deprecated its 
 acquifition as a dreadful misfortune. But their pious refolution, 
 like that of all other monks, was fpeedily overcome by the arts 
 of a woman. “ Queen Maud,” fays the monk of Lanthony, 
 “ not fufficiently acquainted with the fandfity and difinterefted- 
 nefs of William, once defired permiffion to put her hand into 
 his bofom, and when he, with great modefty, fubmitted to her 
 importunity, fhe conveyed a large purfe of gold between his 
 coarfe ftiirt and iron boddice, and thus, by a pleafant and 
 
LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 55 
 
 innocent fubtlety, adminiftered fome comfortable relief to him. 
 But oh ! the wonderful contempt of the world ! He difplayed 
 a rare example that the trueft happinefs confifts in little or 
 nothing ! He complied, indeed, but unwillingly, and only 
 with a view that the queen might employ her devout liberality 
 in adorning the church.” 
 
 But the charm was broken ; gold had found its way into the 
 priory, and by its inevitable attraction abundance more flowed 
 after it. Splendid buildings fpeedily arofe, and in the midft of 
 them a magnificent church. For a while fomething of the 
 priftinedifcipline continued, however, and the monk of Lanthony 
 defcribes the place and eftablifhment in thefe terms : — “ There 
 {lands in a deep valley a conventual church, fituated to pro- 
 mote true religion, beyond almoft all the churches in England : 
 quiet for contemplation, and retired for converfation with the 
 Almighty. Here the forrowful complaints of the opprefled do 
 not difquiet ; the mad contentions of the froward do not dis- 
 turb : but a calm peace and perfedl charity invite to holy 
 religion, and banifh difcord. But why do I defcribe the 
 fituation of the place, when all things are fo much changed 
 fince its priftine eftablifhment ? The broken rocks were 
 traverfed by herds of wild and fwift- footed animals ; thefe 
 rocks furrounded and darkened the valley, for they were 
 crowned by tall towering trees, which yielded a delightful 
 profpedl at a great diftance to all beholders, both by fea and 
 land. The middle of the valley, although clothed with wood, 
 and funk in a narrow and deep abyfs, was fometimes difturbed 
 by a ftrong blighting wind ; at other times obfcured with dark 
 clouds and violent rains, incommoded with fevere frofts, or 
 heaped up with fnow ; whilft in other places, there was a mild 
 and gentle air. The large and plentiful fprings from the 
 neighbouring mountains fell with a pleafant murmur into a 
 river in the midft of the valley, abounding with fifti. Some- 
 
56 
 
 LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 times, after great rains, which were extremely frequent, the 
 floods, impatient of conftraint, inundated the neighbouring 
 places, overturning rocks, and tearing up trees by the roots. 
 Thefe fpacious mountains, however, contained fruitful paftures, 
 and rich meadows for feeding cattle, which compenfated for 
 the barrennefs of other parts, and made amends for the want 
 of corn. The air, though thick, was healthful, and preferved 
 the inhabitants to an extreme old age ; but the people were 
 favage, without religion, vagabonds, and addicted to ftealth. 
 They had no fettled abode, and removed as wind and weather 
 inclined them.” 
 
 This is a fufficiently lively defcription of a location amid 
 Welfh mountains at that period. The monks were doomed to 
 feel the effects of the civil ftrife betwixt Maud and Stephen. 
 The Welfh took refuge in the convent, and, in faCt, feem to 
 have taken free pofleflion of it. They came with their wives 
 and children, and quartered themfelves in every part of it. 
 T he women took pofleflion of the refectory. They fang pro- 
 fane fongs, and fcandalized the holy brethren “ by their light 
 and effeminate behaviour.” Complaining of this rude invafion 
 to Robert de Betun, bifhop of Hereford, he invited the 
 monks to Hereford, and then prevailed on Milo de Laci to 
 grant them ground at Hyde, near Gloucefter, where they built 
 a church in 1136. But this proved the ruin of Lanthony. 
 The monks were too much attached to the populous and more 
 civilized city, and refufed to return to the old Lanthony when 
 the troubles were over. The new Lanthony, as the Gloucefter 
 eftablifhment was called, received ample endowments from 
 King John and other benefactors. The monks were courted 
 by the great, and foon revelled in every fpecies of luxury and 
 worldly pride. They claimed the pre-eminence of the new 
 over the old monaftery. 
 
 “ When the ftorm fubfided,” fays the monk of Lanthony, 
 
LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 57 
 
 “ then did the Ions of Lanthony tear up the bounds of their 
 mother church, and refufe to ferve God as their duty required : 
 for they laid there was much difference between the city of 
 Gloucefter and the wild rocks of Hatyrel ; between the river 
 Severn and the brook of Hodani ; between the wealthy Eng- 
 lifh and the beggarly Welfh — there fertile meadows, here barren 
 heaths. Wherefore, elated with the luxuries of their new 
 fituation, and weary of this, they ftigmatifed it as a place unfit 
 for a reafonable creature, much lefs for religious perfons. I 
 have heard it affirmed, and I partly believe it, that fome of 
 them declared in their light difcourfe, — I hope it did not pro- 
 ceed from the rancour of their hearts, — that they wiihed every 
 ftone of this ancient foundation a flout hare. Others have 
 facrilegioufly faid, — and with their permiffion I will proclaim 
 it, — they wifhed the church and all its offices funk to the 
 bottom of the fea. They have ufurped and lavifhed all the 
 revenues of the church ; there they have built lofty and ftately 
 offices ; here they have fuffered our venerable buildings to fall 
 to ruin. And to avoid the fcandal of deferting an ancient 
 monaftery, long accuftomed to religious worftiip, and endowed 
 with large poffeffions, they fend hither their old and ufelefs 
 members, who can be neither profitable to themfelves nor 
 others, who might fay with the apoftle, We are made the fcum 
 and outcaft of the brethren. They permitted the monaftery 
 to be reduced to fuch poverty, that the friars were without 
 furplices, and compelled to perform the duties of the church, 
 againft the cuftom and rules of the order. Sometimes they 
 had no breeches, and could not attend divine fervice ; fome- 
 times one day’s bread muft ferve for two, whilft the monks 
 of Gloucefter enjoyed fuperfluities. Our remonftrances 
 either excited their anger or ridicule, but produced no altera- 
 tion : if thefe complaints were repeated, they replied — 1 Who 
 
 i 
 

 LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 would go and fing to the wolves ? Do the whelps of wolves 
 delight in loud mufic ?’ They even made fport, and when any 
 perfon was fent hither, would afk, 1 What fault has he com- 
 mitted ? Why is he fent to prifon ?’ Thus was the miftrefs 
 and mother-houfe called a dungeon and a place of banifh- 
 ment for criminals.” 
 
 The old Lanthony never furmounted thefe ufurpations of 
 the new. Its library was defpoiled of its books ; its ftorehoufe 
 of its deeds and charters ; of its filk veftments and relics, 
 embroidered with gold and filver ; and the treafury of its 
 precious goods. Whatever was valuable or ornamental in the 
 church of St. John was conveyed to Gloucefter, without the 
 fmalleft oppofition, and at laft the Gloucefter monks carried 
 thither its very bells, notwithftanding their great weight. 
 Edward IV. made the Gloucefter Lanthony the principal, but 
 compelled the monks to maintain a prior and four canons at 
 the original abbey. At the diflolution in 1539 the old Lanthony 
 was valued at ^71 3*. 2 d. y and the Gloucefter monaftery at 
 ^648 19 s. lid. At that period Richard Hempfted was the 
 prior of Lanthony, and on his furrender he obtained a penfion 
 of ^100 a-year. Anthony a Wood fays that he carried away 
 many ancient manufcripts from the abbey, and gave them to 
 his brother-in-law. The abbey was fold to one Richard 
 Arnold, and was purchafed of Arnold’s defcendant, Captain 
 Arnold of Lanvihavel, by Harley the minifter of Queen Anne, 
 and fo became the property of the Earls of Oxford. 
 
 In 1806 Lanthony was purchafed by Walter Savage Landor, 
 the celebrated poet and profe writer. For the eftates of Lan- 
 thony and Comjoy he paid in purchafe-money and improve- 
 ments ,£70,000. His improvements were extenfive. He for 
 many years employed between twenty and thirty labourers in 
 building and planting. He made a road at his own expenfe 
 
I, ANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 59 
 
 eight miles long, and planted and fenced half a million of 
 trees, and had a million more trees ready to plant. But Lan- 
 thony was not deftined to become more agreeable to him than 
 it had been to the monks. According to his own ftatement 
 to us, he received fuch infamous treatment from both his 
 fteward and his principal farmers, during his fojourn on the 
 continent, that he determined to abandon the place as a refi- 
 dence. He had built a houfe at a coft of ^8,000, but he 
 pulled it down flick and ftone, that his fon might not be ex- 
 pofed to fimilar vexations by living there. Two farmers efpe- 
 cially, brothers, whofe united rents amounted to ^1,500 per 
 annum, refufed all payment till compelled by law, and then 
 fled to America. From thefe tenants the fteward received 
 £1000 ; but Landor fays he never faw a farthing of the money, 
 and he was afterwards obliged to difmifs the fteward too. 
 He ftates that he had twelve thoufand acres of land at 
 Lanthony, much of it, of courfe, mountain ; and that he had 
 twenty watchers of game on the hills night and day, but that he 
 never faw a groufe upon his table, though the game coft him 
 more annually than he lived at after leaving Lanthony. 
 
 Such is the hiftory of one of the fineft monaftic ruins in 
 one of the moft monaftic feclufions of the United Kingdom. 
 Thofe who now vifit it will find part of the priory buildings 
 converted into a fmall romantic inn : and, whilft they contem- 
 plate the profound repofe of its fituation, will little fufpedf the 
 paflions and difcontent which have agitated and embittered its 
 hiftory from the days of William and Ernefti to thofe of the 
 impulfive author of “ Ghebir” and “ Imaginary Conventions.” 
 
 Near the ruins of the abbey there is a fubterranean paflage, 
 faced with hewn ftone, about four feet fix inches high. The 
 people fay that, according to tradition, it pafles under the 
 
6o 
 
 LANTHONY ABBEY. 
 
 mountains to Oldcaftie, which, if it were true, would connect 
 it with another place of great intereft — the houfe of Sir John 
 Oldcaftie, Lord Cobham, the leader of the Lollards in the 
 reign of Henry V., who concealed himfelf at this Oldcaftie 
 for fome time, but was taken and burned in St. Giles’s Fields 
 in 1417 ; being, fays Horace Walpole, “ the firft author, as well 
 as the firft martyr, amongft our nobility.” 
 
 LANTHONY. 
 
 There may be mightier ruins ; — Conway’s flood 
 Mirrors a mafs more noble far than thine, 
 
 And Aberyftwith’s gaunt remains have flood 
 
 The ceafelefs fhock where wind and wave combine ; 
 
 Lone is Dolbadarn, and the lovely Ihrine 
 Of Valle-Crucis is a fpell of power, 
 
 That ftills each meaner thought and keeps enchained ; 
 
 Proud of that long array of arch and tower, 
 
 Raglan may claim a rude pre-eminence j 
 Tintem is peerlefs at the moonlit hour, 
 
 Neath, Chepftow, Goodriche, each hath its pretence ; — 
 
 But mid thy folitary mountains, gained 
 By no plain beaten path, my fpirit turns 
 To thee, Lanthony ! and, as yet untrained, 
 
 Freely to worlhip in thy precindt yearns, — 
 
 Now, left to nature’s Pilgrims unprofaned ! 
 
Cljfpstoui (Mlc. 
 
 EARS ago, as I iflued from the Briftol 
 fteamer, and was afcending the fteep High- 
 ftreet of Chepftow, on a fine autumn morn- 
 ing, I became aware of a tall, ftout, florid- 
 looking man in middle life, alfo labouring up 
 behind me. There was a crowd of other pas- 
 fengers who had defcended from the fame fteam-boat, and were 
 afcending the fame ftreet, — fome before me, fome behind me, — 
 but I became, fomehow, particularly confcious of the following 
 of the large, ftout man. There was his heavy, meafured tread, 
 always at a certain diftance in my rear, which I neither left 
 farther aftern by quickening my pace, nor puta-head by flacken- 
 ing it, and this it was that, no doubt, foon made me efpecially 
 fenfitive to this ponderous fequitur. If I have a fidgetty averfion 
 to one thing more than another, it is to have fomething pad, 
 padding at my heels, like the Fakenham ghoft. I often flop 
 fhort to let a cart, or a carriage of any kind, that is going 
 on grinding and jarring befide me, or a perfon who comes 
 tramp, tramp, with an inceflant, unvarying ftep, clofe behind 
 me, go its, his, or her way. But this coloflal humanity was 
 not thus to be got rid of. To accelerate or leflen my fpeed 
 only produced the fame effect on my follower : there might 
 have been a rod or bar of fome kind fufpended betwixt us, 
 and regulating our diftance. As no graduation of progreflion 
 availed to remove the incubus, I fuddenly flopped and diredfed 
 
62 
 
 CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 my attention into a fhop window ; the huge man as fuddenly 
 did the fame. I gave a fide-glance at him, but he appeared to 
 be profoundly contemplating a pair of bellows of no particular 
 novelty of fafhion. I fprang forward as abruptly as I had 
 flopped, hoping that my great fhadow was fufficiently attracted 
 by the bellows to adhere, and thereby, like the fhadow of Peter 
 Schlemyhl, fall away from me. Nothing of the kind. As if 
 my removal was the inevitable caufe of his, he turned gravely 
 and renewed — his chafe ? — no ; his purfuit ? — no, it could not 
 be faid to be either, but his mechanical following. But he is 
 fat, I thought; and thereupon I put, to ufe a Derbyfhire phrafe, 
 my beft leg foremoP, and went up the PeepeP part of the 
 Preet at a rate of at leap five miles an hour. It was ufelefs. The 
 Pupendous man, if he were not the adfual grey man of Peter 
 Schlemyhl, had on, it feemed, his feven-league boots. With 
 enormous Prides and the equally great accompanying Pretches 
 of a Pout Pick, he cleared the pavement wonderfully, and was 
 Pill juP two yards behind me. 
 
 “ This is intolerable ! ” I faid to myfelf, and, wheeling fud- 
 denly round, I Pood and gazed down over the town, and over the 
 Wye circling round its bafe, and over the GloucePerfhire fields 
 and woods beyond. The man wheeled round too, blew a 
 large hot breath from his puffed cheeks — I had tired him a 
 little then ! — took off a capacious broad-brimmed hat, and, 
 wiping a capacious forehead with a brilliant red and yellow filk 
 handkerchief, revealed a gigantic head — what a head he had ! 
 — covered with a profufion of brown and curly hair. 
 
 “ A very fine view,” he obferved, Pill gazing round on the 
 extenfive fcene of town and fhips, and Wye and diPant 
 Severn. “Very!” I faid, fomewhat fhort. “ Very, indeed,” 
 he replied with a much more amiable complacency. I went 
 on, and fo did the imperturbable, inevitable Pranger. Then 
 
CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 63 
 
 thought I, if he will flick to me, here he fhall fland fome time 
 and cool his heels. I flood ftill and flared him full in the face. 
 He looked with a broad, frank look, — I could not call it a flare 
 — alfo at me, and obferved, “I take it you are for the Beaufort 
 Arms ?” “ I am,” I refponded. “ Then I am for the Beau- 
 
 fort Arms, too.” It was too much : I went on again, and as 
 the great flranger entered the lobby of the houfe at the fame 
 moment, he obferved, “ I take it that you propofe to breakfall 
 here?” “Juft fo,” I replied. “Then I am for breakfaft, too,” 
 he added ; “and fo we may as well breakfaft together.” 
 
 The adhefive tendency of the flranger was fingular, but he 
 had nothing fmifler or unpleafant in his appearance ; I was 
 under no apprehenfion of bailiffs or fpies, nor did he look like 
 either; on the contrary, he had an ample, open, good-natured 
 and intelligent afpedl. There was nothing to be faid againfl 
 his propofition. I fate down to a table ready fpread, and 
 ordered coffee and beeffleak. “ The fame for me,” faid the 
 incomprehenfible, and feated himfelf oppofite to me. We 
 breakfafled for fome time in filence, then the great prefence 
 began to drop fententious remarks : the air in the early morn- 
 ing in the boat was chilly — the fun now was very cheering — 
 this town flood on a very fleep hill-fide — a good inn this 
 Beaufort Arms — and fo on ; to all which I affented, for there 
 was no denying the affertions. 
 
 We paid our bills, and rofe fimultaneoufly. ‘‘And now, I 
 take it,” faid my chofen companion, — the choice being all on 
 his infcrutable fide, — “that you are for Tintern.” “Exactly 
 so,” I faid. “ Then I am for Tintern, too,” he remarked, “ and 
 fo let us join at a chaife, or a boat. I don’t mind which.” 
 
 “But firfl,” I faid, “7 fliall vifit the caflle here.” “By all 
 means,” he replied; “I am at your fervice for that.” 
 
6 4 
 
 CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 “ And fo,” I thought, as we began to defcend again to the 
 left towards the caftle ruins, “ my jolly Great Unknown, you 
 are for Tintern, — fix miles, and a good fpell up-hill; and you 
 dream of a boat up the Wye, or a chaife up the fteep here — 
 ha ! ha ! we fhall fee ! I now perceive a coming divorce 
 from my zealoufly attached one. If he will do as I do on the 
 way to Tintern, I warrant him he never did fuch a penance 
 yet ; fo, whatever the upfhot, let us at all events be agreeable. 
 A chaife indeed ! A boat !” 
 
 I muft in my internal amufement have faid the laft words 
 audibly, for my great rofy friend remarked, “ Ay, it will be a 
 boat, I think, for we are defcending.” At the next moment 
 we flood before that great extent of ancient towers and walls, 
 enclofed in their grafs-grown ditch, and beautifully draped with 
 ivy. I pulled out my guide-book ; my great double, or rather 
 quadruple, drew out one exactly the fame. “ What an exten- 
 five place,” I obferved, and began to read ; my friend — for I 
 think I may call him fo, for he fhowed a remarkable preference 
 for my company — alfo reading in filence. “ The caftle was 
 founded in the eleventh century by William Fitzofborn, 
 Earl of Hereford, a relative of William the Conqueror. In 
 the thirteenth century the greater part of the original ftrudlure 
 was taken down, and one, larger and of great ftrength, was 
 erected. It is Hill a magnificent pile, towering upon the fummit 
 of a cliff whofe bafe is wafhed by the claflic Wye. The fite 
 occupies three acres of ground, and is divided into four courts.” 
 “ That is probable,” I obferved, — “I mean, that it arofe in the 
 eleventh and thirteenth centuries, for it bears a wonderful 
 refemblance to the old caftle and town-walls of Conway, which 
 were built in the eleventh. You obferve thefe great round 
 battlemented towers, with their ftraight battlemented walls, 
 
CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 65 
 
 ftretching from one tower to the other.” “ I never faw 
 Conway,” replied my friend ; “ that is interefting.” 
 
 But we need not repeat all our remarks. I will now awhile 
 draw from more extenfive fources than the guide-book the 
 chief particulars of the hiftory of this caftle. There have 
 not been wanting thofe who have attributed the original 
 
 CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 ftrudture to the Romans, fimply becaufe a few Roman bricks 
 are vifible in the walls of what is called the chapel. It may 
 have been fo ; but the Britons at leaf! had a caftle here, which 
 they called Caftell Gwent, or Cafgwent, as the town was called 
 by the Saxons Chepeftowe, or place of trade. But the 
 
 K 
 
66 
 
 CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 Normans, who raifed what remains now, termed it Striguil,and 
 it appears in Doomfday-Book as Caftellum de Eftrighoiel, and 
 in ancient charters is named Striogul, Striguil, etc. It is 
 divided into four courts, two of which are now ufed as gardens. 
 As you enter the great eaftern portal you behold on your right 
 hand a number of dilapidated offices, befides the lodge of the 
 keeper, and on your left hand the fouth-eaftern ancient tower 
 or citadel, now called Marten’s Tower. On your left hand in the 
 third court Hand the walls of a fine old gothic building, ninety 
 feet in length, and thirty in breadth, which is called the chapel, 
 but was probably the baronial hall. The ftyle of the arches 
 and niches which remain are more modern than the reft of the 
 caftle, and poflefs much elegance. The fourth court was 
 approached formerly by a drawbridge, long ago deftroyed ; and 
 the entrance at the weftern extremity of the caftle was alfo 
 defended by a portcullis, and another drawbridge over the 
 ditch. 
 
 The William Fitzofborn who built Striguil or Chepftow 
 caftle, fought, it feems, at Haftings, and in reward for his fervices 
 was made jufticiary of England, and received this property, as 
 well as others. But it did not remain in his family beyond the 
 next generation. His eldeft fon, like nearly all the Normans 
 who came with the Conqueror who had eftates at home, 
 returned to them, and left landlefs adventurers to get eftates in 
 England. His fecond fon was a monk ; and his third fon, 
 Roger, rebelled againft the king, and was put in prifon. Whilft 
 there the king fent him a fuit of royal robes, — that is, a fuit of 
 his caft-oft clothes, — which fo offended him that he threw them 
 into the fire. This, again, fo incenfed the king that he vowed, 
 “ by the brightnefs of God,” that the proud Roger fhould never 
 come out of prifon ; and there Roger died. The king then 
 gave his eftate to Gilbert, furnamed Strongbow, brother of 
 
CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 6 7 
 
 Richard, Earl of Clare. The original name of this Strongbow 
 was Tonnebruge, a name which fhows his Danifti origin, 
 Dannebrog being the great Danifh ftandard. T his Richard 
 Tonnebruge, therefore, was doubtlefs defcended from a flout 
 northman, the ftandard-bearer of the Dannebrog, when the 
 northmen feized Normandy. In the Norman tranfmigration 
 the name had been corrupted into Tonnebruge, and in Eng- 
 land foon became further corrupted into Strongbow. Thefe 
 Strongbows were fine fellows. Richard, the grandfon of the 
 original Richard, conquered Ireland, and married the daughter 
 of Dermot, king of Leinfter, and held Dublin, making over, 
 however, his conquefts to king Henry II. of England. His 
 daughter Ifabella married William, Marfhal of England, and 
 founded the illuftrious family of the Earls of Pembroke. The 
 hufband of Ifabel Strongbow, the firft Earl of Pembroke, was 
 one of the greateft men that England has produced. Dugdale 
 fays of him, — “ This illuftrious peer was the greateft warrior 
 in a period of warfare, and the mod loyal fubjeiSt in an age of 
 rebellion : by the united influence of wifdom and valour he 
 fupported the tottering crown of king John, broke the con- 
 federacy of the barons, who had fworn allegiance to Louis, 
 dauphin of France, drove away the foreign ufurper, fixed 
 Henry III. on the throne of his anceftors, and gave peace to 
 his diftradled country.” 
 
 And all this is moft true. For though it has fuited our his- 
 torians to go on affirming and re-affirming the tale that the 
 barons won the Magna Charta from king John at Runnymede ; 
 and though, like parrots, we go on talking of “ the barons of 
 Runnymede,” and of their winning Magna Charta ; the 
 truth is that they never did win Magna Charta, and that the 
 charter of king John never was our Magna Charta, but the 
 charter of Henry III. True, the barons forced John to fign a 
 
68 
 
 CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 charter at Runnymede, but John well knew that, by all the 
 laws of nations, a thing obtained by force is not a valid thing : 
 therefore, no fooner was the charter figned than he repudiated 
 it : and the barons, knowing quite as well that a forced contra# 
 thus repudiated was no contra# at all, took up arms to 
 compel him again to acknowledge their charter. But, fo far 
 from this, John, backed by the brave Earl of Pembroke, 
 refifted, and beat the barons at every point. What then did 
 thefe fame much-lauded barons ? They did a mod fhameful 
 and unpatriotic deed. They offered the crown of England to 
 Louis, dauphin of France, which, had he obtained it, would 
 have reduced this country for ever to a mere province of 
 France. But John beat both the barons and their king Louis 
 of France : and when John died, there was found in his 
 pocket, fays Carte the hiftorian, a letter figned by forty of 
 thefe barons, offering to refign all queffion of the charter, if 
 he would reftore them again to their titles and eftates. 
 Neither living nor dying, however, did John do this, but 
 treated the barons as traitors. 
 
 When he was dead, the brave feamen of Dover, putting 
 Hugh de Burgh at their head, and the brave archers of Eng- 
 land, putting William de Collingham at their head, determined 
 to fettle the matter with the barons, and drive away their 
 French king. At this time Louis and the barons held London 
 and the fouth of England, and were powerfully fupported by 
 the King of Scots in the north, and the Prince of Wales in 
 the weft ; but the freemen of England, the failors and archers, 
 beat them all, and compelled the Dauphin to flee into his fliips 
 at the mouth of the Thames. They deftroyed all his fliips 
 except fifteen, with which he got him away. And then, thefe 
 freemen of England having faved England from a French as 
 well as a Norman invafion, marched up to London, and com- 
 
CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 69 
 
 pelled the king to grant them a new and better charter than 
 that of John. The king, Henry III., was but a boy of ten 
 years old, but this brave Earl of Pembroke was his guar- 
 dian and regent of the kingdom, and by his advice Henry 
 granted a new charter, containing a new claufe, ordering the 
 demolition of every callle built or rebuilt during the wars of 
 the barons. This charter was not now figned in the prefence 
 of the king and the barons only, but in that of the king and 
 the united parliament ; for the reprefentatives of the burghs 
 are expreffly mentioned as fitting in the parliament of 1265. 
 Befides the Great Charter, the people now demanded and 
 obtained the Charter of the Foreft — a mighty boon, by which 
 all the forefts enclofed fince the days of Henry II. were 
 thrown open, and the deadly foreft laws were deprived of 
 their bloody and capital power. This is the true ftory of the 
 Great Charter of England, as related by Matthew Paris, 
 Rhymer, Carte, and other hiftorians, not won by rebellious and 
 traitorous barons, who would have fold us for ever to France, 
 but by the people of England themfelves, who fhould not allow 
 themfelves to be lightly defrauded of their glory. This is what 
 Dugdale means by faying that the brave Pembroke “ broke 
 the confederacy of the barons, who had fworn allegiance to 
 Louis, dauphin of France, and drove away the foreign 
 ufurper.” The great men of Dugdale’s time knew what was 
 our true hiftory, and would not allow it to be falfified : and 
 Blackftone in his “ Commentaries,” and in his “ Effay on 
 Magna Charta ” fully fubftantiates thefe great fails, and fays 
 that the charter of John never was our charter, but the far 
 better charter of Henry III. ; — that we had other and better 
 charters than John’s, both before and after his time, and that his 
 charter, which never became the charter of the realm, would 
 never have been heard of but for his war againft the barons. 
 
70 
 
 CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 My flout and infeparable friend was greatly amazed at this 
 revelation that the charter of Runnymede was of no more 
 value than a bill drawn on a party who difhonours it ; but I 
 faid, “ Think of that and talk of that at home, but now call to 
 mind that extraordinary men have been prifoners within thefe 
 walls. Here the good and learned bifhop, Jeremy Taylor, was 
 incarcerated in 1656, on a charge of being privy to an infurrec- 
 tion of the royalifls. And here,” I faid, “ in the fouth-eaflern 
 extremity of the firfl court, you fee the tower Hill called Henry 
 Marten’s Tower, where Marten, one of the regicides, was 
 confined. This was one of the mofl determined republicans 
 of his time. He was the friend of Harrington, Sydney, 
 Wild man, Neville, and other men who had imbibed all the 
 republican ideas of ancient Greece and Rome. He it was 
 who, walking between the Parliament Houfe and Weflminfler 
 with Mr. Hyde, afterwards the famous Lord Chancellor 
 Clarendon, long before the civil war, flartled him by faying, “/ 
 do not think one man wife enough to govern us all /” He was 
 the right-hand man of Cromwell, till Cromwell himfelf aimed 
 at fovereign power. He it was who, when the high court of 
 juflice appointed to try Charles I. were puzzled on what 
 authority they fhould try him, rofe and faid, “ In the names 
 of the commons and parliament afTembled, and of all the good 
 people of England.” And when Charles himfelf demanded 
 on what authority they prefumed to try him, he was anfwered 
 in thofe words. He would have been executed with the reft 
 of the regicides, but for his latter oppofition to Cromwell. On 
 that account his punifhment was commuted to perpetual im- 
 prifonment. 
 
 Marten was a prifoner in this tower twenty years, but his 
 imprifonment was by no means rigorous. His wife was per- 
 mitted to refide with him ; he had the full enjoyment of his 
 
CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 7 1 
 
 property, which was large, and was allowed to receive vifits, 
 and to pay vifits, in company with a guard, to the neighbour- 
 ing gentry, efpecially to a Mr. H. Pierre, at whofe houfe a fine 
 portrait of him was preferved. 
 
 CHEPSTOW, MARTEN’S TOWER. 
 
 Southey in his early and democratic poems drew a molt 
 gloomy and exaggerated picture of Marten’s imprifonment 
 here : — 
 
 For thirty years fecluded from mankind, 
 
 Here Marten lingered. Often have thefe walls 
 Echoed his footfteps, as with even tread 
 He paced around his prifon. Not to him 
 Did Nature’s fair varieties exift — 
 
 He never faw the fun’s delightful beams ; 
 
 Save -when through yon high bars he poured a fad 
 And broken fplendour. 
 
72 
 
 CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Coxe vifiting this caflle in 1800, and having 
 in his mind this doleful defcription, was, he fays, greatly “ fur- 
 prifed to find a comfortable fuite of rooms. The firft ftory 
 contained an apartment which was occupied in his time by 
 Marten and his wife ; and above were the lodgings of his 
 domeftics. The chamber in which he ufually lived was not 
 lefs than thirty-fix feet in length and twenty-three in breadth, 
 and of proportionate height. It was provided with two fire- 
 places and three windows, two of which appeared to be the 
 original apertures, and the third was probably enlarged for 
 Marten’s convenience !” 
 
 A circumflance at which the public was greatly fcandalized 
 at the time, was, that when the judges who had tried Charles I. 
 figned the warrant for his execution, Cromwell, taking up the 
 pen to fign, daubed the face of Henry Marten, who fat next 
 him, with the ink ; and Marten, when the pen was handed to 
 him, returned the fame compliment to Cromwell. Something 
 of this levity continued to fhow itfelf in Marten, who lived to 
 the age of eighty-feven. His epitaph, written by himfelf, may 
 yet be feen in Chepftow church, and is curious, forming an 
 anagram on his name. 
 
 HERE, 
 
 September 9, in the year of our Lord, 1680, 
 Was buried a true Englilhman 
 Who in Berkfhire was well known 
 To love his country’s freedom ’bove his own : 
 But living immured full twenty year 
 Had time to write, as doth appear, 
 
 HIS EPITAPH. 
 
 H ere or elfewhere, (all’s one to you, to me,) 
 
 E arth, air, or water gripes my ghoftlefs duft, 
 
 N o one knows how soon to be by fire fet free. 
 R eader, if you an oft-tried rule will truft, 
 
 Y ou’ll gladly do and fuffer what you mud. 
 
CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 
 
 73 
 
 M y life was fpent with fervingyou, and you, 
 
 A nd death’s my pay (it feems,) and welcome too : 
 
 R evenge deftroying but itfelf, while I 
 T o birds of prey leave my old cage and fly. 
 
 E xamples preach to the eye ; care then — mine fays — 
 
 N ot how you end, but how you fpend your days. 
 
 Having taken a view over the walls of the caftle court, and 
 at the Wye rufhing far below at the bafe of the cliffs on which 
 the caftle {lands, we fet out for Tintern. 
 
 I 
 
Cintcrn jllibci). 
 
 ND now for Tintern !” I faid to my 
 ftout friend. “ Ay, ay ! for Tintern !” he 
 replied gaily : “but firft, my dear fir, for a 
 boat.” “For a boat! why we are a full 
 mile from the bridge. It would be a lofs 
 of time to go all the way down for a boat.” 
 “ Well, then, let it be a chaife.” “ Firft,” I faid, “let us have 
 a peep in at the gates of Piercefield. It is juft above here, 
 and we can fee it better and with more time than with a 
 chaife waiting for us.” So, though with a dubious and mis- 
 giving air, my friend moved on with me. The afcent of the 
 Monmouth road was pretty fteep, but I endeavoured to 
 beguile his attention by talking of Piercefield. “ This Pierce- 
 field,” I obferved, “ is one of the paradifes of England. Here 
 we are : we will take the liberty of juft walking infide the 
 lodge-gate — it is a Ihow-place ; they won’t object. There ! 
 fee what a charming fpot ! What a delightful ftretch of woods 
 and lawns, and park-like fields ! What views out beyond ! If 
 we had time to traverfe thefe celebrated fcenes — to view the 
 majeftic Wynd Cliff" and the Bannagor Rocks oppofite, and the 
 bold peninfular of Lancaut, all towering magnificently above the 
 Wye — to vifit the Lover’s Leap, and traverfe the woods that 
 fkirt the river deep below, and take in all the varying views of 
 dizzy heights and l'ylvan dells — you would wonder that any one 
 
TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 75 
 
 ever left this place. Yet it has in not very many years pafTed 
 through many hands. One of its various pofteffors was the 
 generous Valentine Morris, governor of St. Vincent, in the 
 Weft Indies, who firft comprehended the beauty of the fpot, 
 and opened it up, by walks and drives, to the feet and the eye 
 
 VIEW FROM CHAPEL HILL. 
 
 of the lover of nature. Poor Morris ! — imprudent as benevolent, 
 and treated with the grofleft difhonefty by a bafe government, 
 he was as unfortunate as he was philanthropic ; yet you will 
 find his memory retained lovingly in Chepftow. 
 
 “And here, too, it is pleafant to think that that good and 
 gifted young woman, Elizabeth Smith, whom the laft genera- 
 
7 6 
 
 TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 tion knew and admired, parted the chief part of her fhort life. 
 Her father bought this place when fhe was eight years old, 
 and, as fhe died about twenty years after, here fhe mud have 
 gathered up all that flore of languages which fhe chiefly taught 
 herfelf, with the exception of the two firfl: : — French, Italian, 
 Spanifh, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and 
 Perfian. Elizabeth was one of the firfl to make England 
 acquainted with the wealth of German literature, particularly 
 with 1 Klopftock.’ Little is known of her now ; but fhe 
 deferves to be remembered, were it only for one fentence 
 occurring in her letters : — ‘ To be good and difagreeable is high 
 treafon againfl virtue.’” 
 
 As I was talking of thefe things, I had quietly quitted the 
 park of Piercefield, and we were again mounting the fleep 
 road. Suddenly my companion exclaimed, “ But where are we 
 going? This is not the way for the chaife !” “'Nonfenfe 
 about chaifes,” I faid ; “ Don’t you fee that we are now far on 
 the way to Tintern? We fhall be prefently at the Wynd Cliff, 
 one of the finefl views you ever faw ; we are better without a 
 chaife, or any other bother.” “ Ha !” — faid the large man, 
 “ You are drawing me on ! I fee it — I fee it. But no ! it 
 won’t do. Why, to walk all the way to Tintern would kill me !” 
 “ All the way to Tintern I fuppofe is now about four miles,” 
 I replied ; “ and that can do you no harm, furely.” “ No 
 harm ! Why, fir, I have never for thefe twenty years walked 
 four miles at a flretch. With my weight, my good flout horfe, 
 or my carriage and pair of greys, are much pleafanter. I never 
 walk further than round my grounds, or to my faflory and 
 back.” “So, you are a manufacturer ?” and he then informed 
 me that he was a cotton-fpinner of Derbyfhire. “ Of Derby- 
 fhire ! why then we are countymen. And now look here. 
 By not walking you make yourfelf heavy, and lofe one of the 
 
TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 77 
 
 fineft enjoyments of life. Here am I, older than you are, and 
 I have juft walked from Falmouth to the Land’s End, and 
 from the Land’s End to Barnftaple, with many a goodly zigzag 
 befides, here and there, in Cornwall ; and as for a chaife, I 
 fhould be afhamed to put my foot in one for fuch a mere 
 ftride. To be candid, I won’t have anything to do with a 
 chaife, and fo I fuppofe here we muft part.” 
 
 “ Aftounding !” faid the great man, for he was evidently 
 given to wonder — “ and you’ve really done that, and are all 
 the better for it. But no ; it may do for you, but it would not 
 do for me. I could not think of it !” “ Then good-bye,” 
 
 faid I, extending my hand: “ I thought we were juft going 
 to make a pleafant county acquaintance.” He flood as taken 
 quite aback. “ Well, I had fet my mind on going to Tintern 
 with you, I don’t know why — but four miles yet !” “Four 
 fiddlefticks !” I faid: “Come along, it will do you good, 
 and we might have been half-way there now.” He fhook his 
 head ; but fuddenly he faid, “ And you really think it will do 
 me good?” “ I do.” “Then here goes,” he faid ; and on 
 we marched, with a good hearty “ Bravo !” on my part. 
 
 It was a flout climb to the Wynd Cliff, and my worthy and 
 robuft cotton-fpinner perfpired freely, and wiped his ample 
 brow induftrioully, and exclaimed, “ This is very fevere ; 
 but it may do me good.” Anon we flood on that fplendid 
 height the fummit of the Wynd Cliff : and as my neophyte 
 in peripatetics gazed down on the Wye far below, rufhing 
 with the inflowing tide between its lofty rocks, and then 
 glanced on the fcenes around, he burft forth with an emphatic 
 “ Glorious !” 
 
 “ You are right,” I faid ; “ but button up your waiftcoat 
 and your coat, for the wind is cool here, and I will read you 
 from the guide-book all the objects you can fee from this fpot.” 
 
78 
 
 TINTEH.N ABBEY. 
 
 “ The extenfive profpeft: commanded from this fummit is gene- 
 rally extolled as one of the moft beautiful in the ifland. The 
 objects included are, — the new line of road from Chepftow 
 to Tintern ; the W ye winding in its circuitous courfe between 
 its rocky and wooded banks ; the pretty hamlet of Lancaut, 
 with the perpendicular cliffs of Bannagor, and the whole 
 domain of Piercefield ; a little to the left Berkeley Caftle and 
 Thornbury Church. On the right fuccelfively the caftle and 
 town of Chepftow ; the majeftic Severn, and the confluences 
 of the rivers Wye and Severn ; the Old and New Paffages ; 
 Durdham Down, and Dundry Tower, near Briftol ; the mouth 
 of the Avon and Portifhead Point : to the fouth-weft, the 
 Holmes and Penarth Point, near Cardiff : and far away in the 
 north-weft the Black Mountains, forming a fublime back- 
 ground to the whole : thus embracing parts of nine counties, 
 namely, Monmouth, Gloucefter, Wilts, Somerfet, Devon, 
 Glamorgan, Brecon, Hereford, and Worcefter. In the words 
 of Mr. Rofcoe — ‘ The grouping of the landfcape is perfect : 
 I know of no picture more beautiful.’ ” 
 
 My great friend refted in full enjoyment of this magnificent 
 fcene — rejled , that made no fmall part of the charm, for he 
 had found a feat. He would have dwelt on each point, and 
 endeavoured by queftions to identify every one of them ; but I 
 reminded him that he might take cold, and we proceeded on 
 our way. But the great difficulty was now paffed — the reft of 
 the road was pretty level, and I endeavoured to keep Up his 
 attention by pointing out the beauties of the ftrangely-circling 
 Wye to our right. I told him of the advantages people drew 
 from walking ; of the acquaintance it gave them with the 
 people palling the fame way, or as you fat awhile with them 
 in their cottages. “ Ay,” faid he, eagerly looking round, 
 “ that fitting in a cottage muft be pleafant j” but there was no 
 
TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 79 
 
 cottage vifible. And I went on telling him of the many poems 
 Wordfworth wrote from materials picked up in walking, or on 
 the top of coaches — (“ I prefer the top of coaches, myfelf,” 
 faid he.) — that Wordfworth at Goodrich Caftle thus met with 
 the little girl who gave him the idea of “ We are Seven and 
 alfo walking along the Wye from Builth to Hay, he fell in with 
 “ Peter Bell.” The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter, he 
 tells us, were taken from a wild rover with whom he walked 
 from Builth, and who told him ftrange ftories. I then drew 
 from my pocket the fmall Paris edition of Wordfworth’s Poems. 
 “ This book,” I faid, cc gave great vexation to Wordfworth ; for 
 when he had not made fifty pounds in his whole life by the fale 
 of his Englifh edition, this pirated one had fold one hundred 
 and twenty thoufand copies in Paris. It annoyed him, but it 
 will pleafe us.” And I began to read his 
 
 “ LINES WRITTEN ON REVISITING TINTERN.” 
 
 Five years have paft ; five fummers, with the length 
 Of five long winters ! And again I hear 
 Thefe waters, rolling from their mountain-fprings 
 With a fweet inland murmur. — Once again 
 Do I behold thefe fteep and lofty cliffs, 
 
 That on a wild fecluded fcene imprefs 
 Thoughts of more deep feclufion ; and connedt 
 The landfcape with the quiet of the fky. 
 
 The day is come when I again repofe 
 
 Here, under this dark fycamore, and view 
 
 Thefe plots of cottage ground, thefe orchard tufts, 
 
 Which at this feafon, with their unripe fruit. 
 
 Are clad in one green hue, and lofe themfelves 
 Among the woods and copfes, nor difturb 
 The wild green landfcape. Once again I fee 
 Thefe hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 
 Of fportive wood run wild ; thefe paftoral farms 
 Green to the very door ; and wreaths of fmoke 
 Sent up, in filence, from among the trees ! 
 
 With fome uncertain notice, as might feem, 
 
 Of vagrant dwellers in the houfelefs woods, 
 
8o 
 
 TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 Or of fome hermit’s cave, where by his fire 
 The hermit fits alone. 
 
 Thefe beauteous forms, 
 Through a long abfence, have not been to me 
 As is a landfcape to a blind man’s eye : 
 
 But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din 
 Of towns and cities, have I owed to them, 
 
 In hours of wearinefs, fenfations fweet, 
 
 Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart ; 
 
 And palling even into my purer mind 
 With tranquil reftoration : — feelings too 
 Of unremembered pleafure : fuch, perhaps, 
 
 As have no flight or trivial influence 
 On that bed portion of a good man’s life, 
 
 His little namelefs, unremembered, arts 
 Of kindnefs and of love. Nor lefs, I truft, 
 
 To them I may have owed another gift, 
 
 Of afpedl more fublime ; that blefied mood, 
 
 In which the burthen of the myftery, 
 
 In which the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world 
 Is lightened: — that ferene and blefied mood, 
 
 In which the affeftions gently lead us on, — 
 
 Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 
 And even the motion of our human blood 
 Almoft fufpended, we are laid afleep 
 In body, and become a living foul : 
 
 While with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 
 We fee into the life of things. 
 
 If this 
 
 Be but a vain belief, yet, oh ! how oft, 
 
 In darknefs, and amid the many fhapes 
 Of joylefs daylight ; when the fretful ftir 
 Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 
 
 Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, 
 
 How oft, in fpirit, have I turned to thee, 
 
 O (ylvan Wye ! Thou wanderer thro’ the woods, 
 How often has my fpirit turned to thee ! 
 
 And now, with gleams of half-extinguilhed thought, 
 With many recognitions dim and faint, 
 
 And fomewhat of a fad perplexity, 
 
 The piflure of the mind revives again : 
 
 While here 1 (land, not only with the fenfe 
 
TIN'TERN ABBEY. 
 
 8l 
 
 Of prefent pleafure, but with pleafing thoughts 
 That in this moment there is life and food 
 For future years. And fo I dare to hope, 
 
 Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when fird 
 I came among thefe hills ; when like a roe 
 I bounded o’er the mountains, by the fides 
 Of the deep rivers, and the lonely dreams, 
 
 Wherever nature led : more like a man 
 Flying from fomething that he dreads, than one 
 Who fought the thing he loved. For nature then 
 (The coarfer pleafures of my boyilh days, 
 
 And their glad animal movements all gone by,) 
 
 To me was all in all. — I cannot paint 
 What then I was. The founding cataradl 
 Flaunted me like a paffion : the tall rock, 
 
 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
 
 Their colours and their forms, were then to me 
 An appetite : a feeling and a love, 
 
 That had no need of a remoter charm, 
 
 By thought fupplied, or any intereft 
 Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is pad, 
 
 And all its aching joys are now no more, 
 
 And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 
 Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts 
 Have followed, for fuch Iofs I would believe 
 Abundant recompenfe. For I have learned 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtlefs youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
 The dill, fad mufic of humanity, 
 
 Nor harlh nor grating, though of ample power 
 To chaden and fubdue. And I have felt 
 A prefence that didurbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a fenfe fublime 
 Of fomething far more deeply interfufed, 
 
 Whofe dwelling is the light of fetting funs, 
 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 
 And the blue Iky, and in the mind of man : 
 
 A motion and a fpirit, that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objefts of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I dill 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 And mountains : and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
 Of eye and ear, both what they half create 
 
 M 
 
82 
 
 TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 And what perceive ; well pleafed to recognize, 
 
 In nature and the language of the fenfe, 
 
 The anchor of my pureft thoughts, the nurfe, 
 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart and foul, 
 
 Of all my moral being. 
 
 I read the whole, though we mud not quote the whole here. 
 “ And thefe,” I faid, “ are the pleafures that men, and women 
 too, for the poet’s filler was with him, feize upon by quitting 
 their lazy carriages, and entering on the fineft eftate which 
 God and nature have given them, a vigorous pair of legs. 
 Thefe are the fine free thoughts ranging through woods and 
 mountains, and by pleafant rivers, when age or ficknefs or 
 other neceflity fhall have cut off all travelling, fave in the 
 enchanted regions of memory.” 
 
 “ It is very fine, very,” faid the great manufacturer, “ and 
 I am fure it will do me a world of good ; but it is very fevere” 
 — and he wiped again his reeking brows, and flung open his 
 ample waiftcoat. “ But here we are ! See, there are the 
 gables of Tintern, its broken walls and arched windows rifing 
 out of its wood of trees !” It was a fcene of quiet, truly 
 monaftic beauty. The fmoke afcended in the clear autumnal 
 air from the hamlet cottages near, and the Wye, now brim full 
 from the height of the tide, gave a perfecting charm to the 
 landfcape. We entered the interior of the beautiful ruin in 
 filence. No one ever enters the place without being deeply 
 imprefled by its noble proportions, and the claflical grace and 
 chaftity of its architecture. This abbey church was built in 
 1 131, and prefents a fine fpecimen of the early-Englifh llyle, 
 blending into a more ornamented character, as later additions 
 were made or changes introduced. T he roof is gone, but the 
 walls are entire ; all the pillars, except thofe which divide the 
 nave from the northern aifle, and the four lofty arches which 
 fupporting the tower fpring high into the air, though reduced 
 
T1NTERN ABBEY. 
 
 «3 
 
 to narrow rims of {tone, {till preferve their original form. 
 The weftern window, with its rich tracery, is extremely 
 beautiful. “From the length of the nave,” fays Coxe, “the 
 height of the walls, the afpiring form of the pointed arches, 
 and the fize of the eaft window which clofes the perfpeCtive, 
 the firft impreffions are thofe of grandeur and fublimity. But 
 as thefe emotions fubfide, and we defcend from the contempla- 
 
 WEST DOOR AND WINDOW. 
 
 tion of the whole to the examination of the parts, we are no 
 lefs {truck with the regularity of the plan, the lightnefs of the 
 architecture, and the delicacy of the ornaments. We feel 
 that elegance is its charaCteriftic no lefs than grandeur, and 
 
8 4 
 
 TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 that the whole is a combination of the beautiful and the 
 fublime.” 
 
 What Coxe alfo adds is true, and gives a peculiar beauty 
 to the place. “ Inftead of dilapidated fragments overfpread 
 with weeds and choked with brambles, the floor is covered 
 with a fmooth turf, which by keeping the original level of the 
 church, exhibits the beauty of its proportions, and heightens 
 the effedt of the grey Hone. Ornamented fragments of the 
 roof, remains of cornices and columns, rich pieces of fculp- 
 ture, fepulchral Hones and mutilated figures of monks and 
 heroes, whofe alhes repofe within thefe walls, are fcattered 
 on the greenfward, and contrail prefent defolation with former 
 fplendour.” 
 
 My weighty friend feated himfelf on a tomb ; but I, obferv- 
 ing an iron railing furrounding the top of the walls, looked for 
 the afcent thither, and found that the walls were double, and 
 that Hairs afcended between them. I foon, therefore, Hood 
 aloft over my friend’s head, and eagerly invited him to come 
 up, and fee the charming view all around, and the admirable 
 perlpedlive of the church below. “ Not for the world !” he 
 exclaimed — “Not for the world ! My legs have done wonders 
 to-day, but my head would never Hand that.” “Good,” faid 
 I. He had done wonders, and I had done one too ; for I had 
 wiled him on to Tintern, fix good miles, and up a long, lleep 
 hill, and now he mujl walk back. It was more than he had 
 done for the lafl twenty years. 
 
 The hiftory of Tintern contains nothing very remarkable. 
 It was founded by the Strongbows, and became rich and 
 hofpitable. Edward II. fought refuge there for fome time 
 from the purfuit of his queen Ifabella. At the diflolution it 
 contained only thirteen monks, and was valued with its 
 
T1NTERN ABBEY. 
 
 85 
 
 eftates, according to Dugdale, at ^132, but according to 
 Speed at ^256, per annum. It was granted by Henry VIII. 
 to the fecond Earl of Worcefter, and is now the property of 
 the Duke of Beaufort. 
 
 When we fet out to return, my companion, inftead of 
 exhibiting fatigue, fprang up from his fepulchral feat, as he 
 remarked, “ like a giant refrefhed.” He feemed infpired by a 
 vivid fenfe of the feat that he had accomplifhed. “ What 
 would they fay at Chapel-en-Frith if they could fee me to-day ! 
 When I tell them that I walked to Tintern and back, eh ? 
 But I tell you what, my friend, I have been thinking of what 
 you have faid as I fate on the tombftone there, and I think 
 you are right. One grows fluggifh and ftupid by riding and 
 lolling in carriages. I will walk ! I feel lighter already : and 
 I will be lighter ftill. Why Ihould not I be as agile as you ? 
 You walked up Cornwall. I am going to Devonfhire, and 
 I’ll tramp it there as I’rn alive!” And infpired by his new 
 idea, the colofTal man really became a ColofTus of roads, for he 
 Erode along with a vigour, and with ftrides that required all 
 my recent training on the moors and rocks of Cornwall to 
 compete with him. He had found a new pleafure, a new 
 power, and I had to warn him not to abufe it. “Ah !” faid 
 he, “ now I am putting you to your paces,” and he flalked on 
 with a prodigious activity that aftonifhed me. Luckily it 
 was downhill from the Wynd Cliff to the bridge at the 
 bottom of Chepftow, where the fteamer lay, or I might have 
 found myfelf worfted in the rapid walk with my elated com- 
 panion. But it was all very well, for the bell was already 
 ringing on the fteamer, and we had only time to rufh on 
 board ere the plank was pulled back, and we were afloat. My 
 flout friend fat down with a laugh, but I rather think, never- 
 
86 
 
 TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 thelefs, that he was glad the feat was ended, for he fat very 
 perfiftently during the voyage. How little, when he had 
 fingled me out for his companion to Tintern, did he know 
 what a day might bring forth ! 
 
Haohitt Castle. 
 
 Not farre from thence, a famous caftle fine, 
 
 That Raggland hight, (bands moated almoft round ; 
 
 Made of freeftone, upright and ftraight as line, 
 
 Whofe workmanlhip in beauty doth abound, 
 
 The curious knots, wrought alle with edged toole, 
 
 The Ibately tower, that looks o’er pond and poole, 
 
 The fountain trim, that runs both day and night, 
 
 Doth yield in Ihowe, a rare and noble fight. — 
 
 Churchyard’s PFort hints of Wale%. 
 
 AGLAN CASTLE, as in its greater 
 part it is one of the moil recent caftles in 
 Monmouthfhire, fo it mud have been one 
 of the moil fplendid as well as extenfive. 
 The ruins, including the citadel, occupy a 
 trail of ground one-third of a mile in cir- 
 cumference. As Churchyard ftates, who deferibes the ftately 
 fabric as it flood in all its glory in the reign of Elizabeth ; it 
 is built of a fine light-coloured freeftone which was fmoothly 
 dreffed, and is beautifully grained. The ftone has received 
 little injury from time ; mod of the elaborately carved mafonry 
 remains as fharp and diftindl as when firft executed ; and 
 from the parts which, except the roofs, remain entire, you 
 receive a lively idea of its elegance and fplendour before it 
 was difmantled by command of the parliament after furren- 
 dering to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and before its materials 
 were plundered by the tenants to build houfes for them- 
 felves. The foundations and remaining walls fhow it to have 
 
88 
 
 RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 occupied an irregular fquare, enclofing two courts ; the main 
 refidence, including the great hall and chapel, and other fplen- 
 did apartments, running between thefe courts entirely from 
 north to fouth. This interior portion of the caftle appears to 
 have been built in the reign of Oueen Elizabeth, for it has all 
 the chara&eriftics of the architecture of her time, partaking 
 more of the hall than the caftle ; its windows being chiefly 
 fquare and mullioned, and each fucceflive ftory divided by a 
 running band. In the hall, or banqueting room, which is fixty 
 feet long, and twenty-feven broad, you are ftruck with the 
 gigantic fize of the fire-place, and the Angular ftruCture of the 
 
 KAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 89 
 
 chimney. At the upper end are the arms of the firft marquis 
 of Worcefter, fculptured in ftone, and furrounded with the 
 garter, underneath which is the family motto : — “ Mutare vel 
 timere fperno.” — “ I fcorn to change or fear.” The towers 
 of the external buildings are generally fquare, and not battle- 
 mented, but machicolated, fo that their heads expand, and give 
 them an air of firmnefs and grandeur. In the walls you can 
 trace the changes of different periods, but the earliefl: ftyle is 
 not anterior to the reign of Henry V., and the lateft comes 
 down to that of Charles I. The main part of the caftle pro- 
 bably was built by Sir William ap Thomas in the reigns of 
 Henry V. and VI., and his fon William Herbert, created by 
 Edward IV. Earl of Pembroke, and Lord of Raglan, Chepftow, 
 and Gower, in 1469. From Dugdale’s account it is fcarcely 
 poffible to conceive in the prefent time the magnificence of 
 the caftle, and the greatnefs of the eftablifhment maintained 
 in it by this Earl of Pembroke. Yet the vaft extent of the 
 ruins, the evident grandeur and number of the apartments, 
 the fize of the offices and the cellars, give proofs of baronial 
 magnificence and fplendid hofpitality. In a curious account 
 of the caftle drawn up fhortly before the parliamentary fiege, 
 and partly printed in Heath’s account of Raglan Caftle, the 
 eftablifhment of its then proprietor, the firft marquis of 
 Worcefter, the numerous officers of his houfehold, retainers, 
 attendants, and fervants, appear like the retinue of a fovereign 
 rather than a fubjedl. He fupported for a confiderable time a 
 garrifon of eight hundred men ; and, on the furrender of the 
 caftle, befides his own family and friends, the officers alone 
 were no lefs than four colonels, eighty-two captains, fixteen 
 lieutenants, fix cornets, four enfigns, four quarter-mafters, and 
 fifty-two efquires and gentlemen. The demefnes of the caftle 
 were of proportionate greatnefs : there were extenfive gardens 
 
 N 
 
9 ° 
 
 RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 and pleafure-grounds, extenfive parks well flocked with deer, 
 and numerous goodly farms. The two courts of the caflle 
 were furrounded by offices of all kinds, and the eaflern court 
 contained extenfive barracks. This court was called the 
 Fountain Court, from a marble fountain in the centre furmounted 
 with the flatue of a white horfe ; but of fountain or horfe no 
 traces now remain. On the fouth fide of the caflle flood the 
 citadel, a large hexagonal fortrefs defended by baflions, and fur- 
 rounded by a moat, over which paffed a drawbridge from the 
 caflle. It was called Melyn y Gwent, or the yellow tower 
 of Gwent, and when entire mull have been a magnificent 
 objedl, for it was five flories high. From this tower a vafl 
 profpedl was enjoyed of the furrounding country, bounded by 
 the diflant mountains in the neighbourhood of Abergavenny. 
 The citadel was furrounded by raifed walks, in which Charles I., 
 when flaying here during his wars, took great delight. Great 
 care has been taken fince the refloration of the monarchy, by its 
 owners, now the ducal family of Beaufort, to preferve the ruins ; 
 and the whole may yet be feen from fome of the towers. The 
 grand entrance is, perhaps, the mofl magnificent portion of 
 thefe noble ruins. It is formed by a gothic portal, flanked by 
 two maffive towers, now beautifully hung with ivy. In the 
 porch are flill vifible the grooves for two portculliffes ; and the 
 fpedlator on entering is greatly impreffed by the fcene. A guide 
 lives in one of the towers, and the Duke of Beaufort has pro- 
 moted the accommodation of vifitors by keeping the paths and 
 flairs in good order, and by placing feats for neceflary reft. 
 
 The great point in the hiftory of Raglan Caflle is the 
 defence it made againft the parliament in favour of Charles I. 
 By its ftrength and the fpirit of its poflefTor, Henry Somerfet, 
 fifth earl and firft marquis of Worcefter, the power of Charles 
 was fo long maintained in South Wales. It was nearly the 
 
RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 9 1 
 
 RAGLAN CASTLE, GRAND STAIRCASE. 
 
 laft fortrefs in the kingdom that furrendered to the republican 
 army. The traces of the outworks ca ft up in front of the 
 caftle and citadel, are yet vifible in the remains of baftions, 
 hornworks, trenches, and ramparts. The marquis who made 
 this ftout defence, — after the army which he kept up of 
 fifteen hundred foot and five hundred horfe under the com- 
 mand of his fon, afterwards Earl of Glamorgan, was dis- 
 perfed by the parliamentary generals, — was a great wit, and his 
 fmart fayings are preferved in a work called “ Witty Apothems 
 of King James, Charles I., and the Marquis of Worcefter.” 
 Charles I. made feveral vifits here during his campaign againfl: 
 his fubjedts ; but when he was compelled at length to retreat 
 
92 
 
 RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 from Monmouthfhire, the caftle was inverted by Trevor 
 Williams and Colonel Morgan, and finally compelled to 
 furrender by Fairfax himfelf. The marquis, and his foil 
 Glamorgan, are faid to have lent to Charles I. at different times 
 ^300,000; and befides this they loft all their eftates, valued 
 at ^20,000 a-year, which were confifcated ; but reftored on 
 the return of Charles II. 
 
 The Strongbows feem to have been amongft the earlieft 
 poffeffors of Raglan. Richard Strongbow, the laft male of the 
 great family of Clare, according to Dugdale, conferred this 
 property on Walter Bloet, or Blewitt, from whom by mar- 
 riage it went into the Berkeley family, and fo continued till it 
 came into the poffeflion of Sir John Morley, and, by Maud his 
 daughter and foie heirefs, into the family of the Ap Jenkins, alias 
 Herberts, in 1438. Edward IV. commanded William, whom 
 he created Lord of Raglan, Chepftow and Gower, to continue 
 the family name as Herbert, and not to change the furname at 
 every defcent in the Welfli falhion. To the cuftody of this 
 Lord Herbert he entrufted Henry, Earl of Richmond, after- 
 wards Henry VII., and he kept him in this his caftle of 
 Raglan till Jafper, then Earl of Pembroke, the uncle of this 
 Lord Herbert, in his abfence enabled Henry to efcape, and 
 fled with him to Britany. Edward IV. then attainted Jafper, 
 and conferred the earldom on Lord Herbert. This is the fame 
 Earl of Pembroke that Wordfworth mentions in the “ White 
 Doe of Rylfton,” as having his head ftruck off in the 
 porch of Banbury church, by one of the Cliffords. This Earl 
 of Pembroke, being a ftaunch Yorkift, was defeated and taken 
 prifoner at the battle of Dane’s Moor, where he headed a band 
 of his Welfhmen. His foie heirefs married Sir Charles 
 Somerfet, a natural fon of Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerfet, 
 but in high favour with Henry VII., and from him his eftate 
 and titles have defcended to the prefent Duke of Beaufort. 
 
RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 93 
 
 The family produced fome remarkable men. This Sir 
 Charles Somerfet, who, though illegitimate, defcended from 
 John of Gaunt, was a man of great perfonal attractions, and 
 equal prudence and ability. Prudence and ability were pre- 
 cifely the qualities to recommend him to Henry VII., by whom 
 he was employed in various foreign embaffies. He was equally 
 in favour with Henry VIII., and had a high command in the 
 wars againft France. He negotiated the peace with France 
 in 1518, and the peace betwixt Francis I. and Charles V. in 
 1521. He reprefented Henry VIII. at the coronation of the 
 king’s filler Mary, the queen of Louis XII. of France; and 
 betrothed Henry’s infant daughter Mary to the Dauphin. We 
 have already mentioned Henry the fifth earl and firfl marquis 
 ofWorceller — his determined partizanlhip of Charles I. — his 
 defence of Raglan, and his u Apothems one of which was 
 uttered when Charles Ihowed, as he thought, too much lenity to 
 his enemies: — “Well, fir, you may chance to gain you the king- 
 dom of heaven by fuch doings as thefe, but if ever you get the 
 kingdom of England by fuch wayes I will be your bondman.” 
 The old man was a flout Catholic ; his eftates were confifcated, 
 and, contrary to the conditions of his furrender, he was com- 
 mitted to the cullody of the Black Rod. When told, however, 
 that he would be allowed burial in his family vault at Windfor, 
 he exclaimed : — “ Why, God blefs us all, then I fhall have a 
 better callle when I am dead, than they took from me when I 
 was alive !” He died at the age of eighty-five. 
 
 The fon of this Henry was Edward, the fixth earl and fecond 
 marquis ofWorceller, who was created by Charles I. Earl of 
 Glamorgan. Like his father, he was a firm Catholic. This 
 was the Glamorgan who was engaged by Charles I. to bring over 
 ten thoufand Irilh to enable him to crulh the liberties of Eng- 
 land. The fcheme failed ; he was arrelled, by the Marquis 
 
94 
 
 RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 of Ormond and Lord Digby ; and Charles haftened to difavow 
 the condudt of Glamorgan, though nothing is better afcertained 
 than that he adled wholly in concert with the king. The 
 tranfadtion gave immenfe difguft in England, and did the greateft 
 mifchief to Charles 5 even his ftaunch adherent, Clarendon, 
 denouncing it in ftrong terms. Glamorgan followed the for- 
 tunes of Charles II., and being fent to England on his concerns 
 in 1652, he was difcovered and imprifoned. To obtain his 
 liberation he offered to make important difcoveries to Cromwell : 
 and thefe after fome hefitation were accepted. His fon, who 
 had hitherto lived in France, was permitted to return, enjoyed 
 the confidence of Cromwell, and a penfion of ^2,000 per 
 annum. 
 
 This was the famous Marquis of Worcefter who wrote 
 and publifhed, in 1663, “A Century of the Names and Scant- 
 lings of fuch Inventions as I can at prefent call to mind to have 
 tried and perfected.” Horace Walpole fneers at this book, 
 little dreaming what was to come out of it, and dubbed it “ A 
 lift of a hundred projedls, moft of them impoflibilities.” 
 One which the clever biographer of “ Noble Authors” would 
 doubtlefs have confidered the moft impoffible of all was the 
 fteam-engine, and in its train all our prefent great fteam and 
 railway fyftems. But in this work of the marquis was the 
 following defcription of a fire-engine, in the fixty-eighth article 
 of the “ Century of Scantlings — “An admirable and forcible 
 way to drive up water by fire, not by drawing or fucking it up, 
 for that muft be, as the philofopher calleth it, intra fpharam 
 activitatis , which is loft at fuch a diftance. But this way hath 
 no boundary if the veflels be ftrong enough,” etc. He then 
 goes on to defcribe how he has forced water up a ftrong cylin- 
 der forty feet high, and how he could keep up the action by 
 admitting cold water by a couple of cocks, fo that as the water 
 
RAGLAN CASTLE. 
 
 95 
 
 in one was being confumed, it could be fupplied firft by one 
 cock, and then by the other, etc. 
 
 This certainly was not the firft time the idea of exercifing 
 force by fteam had occurred ; for Gibbon, in his “ Decline and 
 Fall,” relates how the architect of St. Sophia in Conftantinople 
 avenged himfelf of the annoyances of his next neighbour, a 
 lawyer, by running pipes up his houfe-fide, and introducing 
 them under his roof, and continually fhaking the houfe over 
 his head by explofions of fteam. Neither does it appear that 
 the idea was an original fuggeftion of the marquis’s own mind 
 or experiments, but that in Paris he had feen the unfortunate 
 Solomon de Caus, who was confined in the Bicetre as a lunatic, 
 for aflerting the wonders that might be done with fteam. We 
 are afraid that the marquis, being of an experimental turn, 
 liftened to the poor man’s fuppofed lunacy, and on his return 
 to England made a number of experiments at his houfe at 
 Lambeth, and boafted much of the wondrous power of his 
 fire-engine. But if the marquis did not do proper honour to 
 De Caus, he was deftined to receive the fame treatment. 
 According to the “ Experimental Philofophy” of Defaguliers, 
 a Captain Savary bought up all the books of the marquis that 
 he could lay his hands on, burnt them, and ftarted the idea as 
 his own. In confequence of the number of the marquis’s 
 “ Century of Scantlings” deftroyed by Savary, the book is very 
 rare, but the contents of it may be found in the eighteenth 
 volume of the “ Gentleman’s Magazine.” Thus from Raglan 
 iflued, if not the origination of the marvellous agency of fteam, 
 the great revolutionizer of the world, at leaft the revival of it. 
 
(Hommtij anil its Castle. 
 
 HE ancient walled town of Conway, with 
 its pi&urefque caftle, Hands as the portal to 
 the mountain fcenery of North Wales. Its 
 fituation is beautiful, on high ground, com- 
 manding the eftuary of the Conway, whence 
 its Welfh name of Aber-Conway ; and its 
 form triangular, or rather that of a Welfh harp. It was 
 ftrongly fortified with walls and battlemented towers, ac- 
 cording to the ftyle introduced by the Crufaders ; and indeed 
 Conway, with its walls, as feen at the prelent day from fome of 
 its neighbouring heights, is faid greatly to relemble Jerufalem. 
 The caftle, one of the moft pidlurefque ruins in England, was 
 eredfed by Edward I. to keep the infubordinate Welfh in fub- 
 je<ftion, and was completed under his own inlpe£lion in 1284. 
 It was at the abbey of Conway that the head of the unfor- 
 tunate but brave Prince Llewellyn was prefented to the Englifh 
 conqueror. It is feldom that the name of the architect of any 
 of our fine old buildings remains connected with them to 
 pofterity ; however, in the cafe of Conway, we find it to 
 be Henry de Elreton, the builder likewife of the caftle of 
 Carnarvon. 
 
 In its perfect ftate Conway Caftle was a magnificent ftruc- 
 ture, oblong in form, and Handing on a precipitous rock at one 
 corner of the triangular town-walls. On one fide it was 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 97 
 
 bounded by the river, on another by a creek filled with each 
 returning tide, and the other two faced the town. It was 
 moated on the land fide and reached by a drawbridge, whilft a 
 fmall fortified entrance communicated with the river by a 
 narrow flight of Heps. The walls, which were of great thick- 
 nefs, were flanked by eight circular embattled towers, each 
 furmounted by a flender watch-tower, which add great beauty 
 of detail even to the outline of the ruins. On each fide of the 
 grand entrance was a tower, the King’s and the Queen’s 
 Towers, as they were called, and in each a beautiful oriel 
 window. Two large courts occupied the interior. The great 
 hall was one hundred and thirty feet long, by thirty-two wide, 
 and was thirty feet high, lighted by nine fine lancet-formed 
 windows, fix facing the country, and three looking into 
 the court. The roof was fupported by eight maflive arches, 
 four of which ftill remain, now garlanded with ivy. This 
 fplendid apartment was warmed by three fire-places, and 
 the eaftern end was partitioned off" as a chapel, lighted by a 
 large window. Beneath this hall were the vaults for ammu- 
 nition and ftores. 
 
 Conway was a military ftation and free borough, its inhabi- 
 tants being Englifh, and enjoying “ many privileges j” one of 
 which was that “ the Jews dwell not at any time in the faid 
 borough.” In 1290, the Welfh having rifen in rebellion, 
 hanged the royal collector of taxes, and routed the Englifh 
 troops, whereupon the king marched into North Wales, and, 
 crofling the eftuary with his guards, took up his quarters in the 
 caftle, but not without great lofs of baggage and {lore wagons, 
 which were intercepted by the mountaineers, who came down 
 in great numbers and inverted the caftle. The rifing of the 
 river at the fame time prevented the troops from crofling, fo 
 that the king was reduced to great ftraits, and, like his garrifon, 
 
 o 
 
9 8 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 was obliged to content himfelf with fait meat and coarfe bread, 
 and to drink water fweetened with honey. At length the 
 waters fubfiding, ihe troops eroded, and the Welfh difperfed 
 to their mountains. The Chriftmas of that fame year was 
 fpent by Edward and his queen with great feftivity at the new 
 caftle of Conway. 
 
 Eleven years afterwards, Edward of Carnarvon, the firft 
 Prince of Wales, held a court at Conway, when Einion, Bifhop 
 of Bangor, and David, Abbot of Maenon, near Llanrwft, did 
 homage ; and, on afeending the throne, this Edward ftill 
 further increafed the privileges of the burgefles. 
 
 In 1399, Conway was the feene of one of thelaft a£ts in the 
 tragedy of the unfortunate Richard II. An account of this 
 event has been preferved in a narrative, in rude verfe, pre- 
 ferved in the library of the Britifh Mufeum, entitled “ An 
 Account of the Treachery of the Earl of Northumberland, 
 and the taking of his Majefty Richard II., his progrefs from 
 Conway to Rhuddlan, Flint, and Chefter. By an Eye-witnefs.” 
 This curious and interefting old document, which formerly 
 belonged to Charles of Anjou, Earl of Maine and Mortaine, 
 was tranflated into Englifh profe, in 1824, by the Rev. John 
 Webb, and publifhed in the twentieth volume of the 
 Archaeologia. Charles Knight has alfo included portions of it 
 in his “ Half-Hours with the Bell Authors,” from which 
 work we give the following extracts. 
 
 The author, however, it muft be firft premifed, was a 
 French knight, who came over to London in the fpring of 
 1399, accompanied the unfortunate Richard in his expe- 
 dition to Ireland, and remained in perfonal attendance upon him 
 until he was brought prifoner to London. “ I loved him 
 fincerely,” he (ays, “ becaufe he heartily loved the French. 
 He gave mod largely, and his gifts were profitable. Bold he 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 99 
 
 was, and courageous as a lion. Right well and beautifully did 
 he make ballads, fongs, roundels and lays. Though he was but 
 a layman, fo gracious were all his deeds, that never I think 
 fhall that man iffue from his country in whom God hath im- 
 planted fo much worth as was in him.” 
 
 After relating, therefore, in what manner the king, then at 
 Dublin, received the fad news of the Englifh revolt, at which 
 he turned pale, he defcribes his hurried journey, in forrow 
 and diftrefs, to Milford Haven. u But before he landed,” 
 fays he, “a great army which had gathered in Wales for his 
 fervice was either difbanded or won over to Bolingbroke. In 
 this great fear he difguifed himfelf like a poor Francifcan friar, 
 and fet out at midnight from his hoft, attended by only a few 
 perfons, of whom this French knight was one. He travelled 
 hard all night, and reached Conway by break of day. There 
 he learned that his enemies reported him to be dead, and that 
 well nigh all was already loft.” 
 
 In Shakfpeare’s Richard II. we alfo find the following 
 paflage with reference to the report of his death : — 
 
 Captain . — My lord of Salifbury, we have (laid ten days, 
 
 And hardly kept our countrymen together, 
 
 And yet we hear no tidings from the king ; 
 
 Therefore we will difperfe ourfelves ; farewell. 
 
 Salifbury. — Stay yet another day, thou trufty Wcllhman ; 
 
 The king repofeth all his confidence 
 In thee. 
 
 Captain . — ’Tis thought the king is dead ; we will not ftay. 
 
 The bay trees in our country all are withered, 
 
 And meteors fright the fixed ftars of heaven ; 
 
 The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, 
 
 And lean-looked prophets whifper fearful change ; 
 
 Rich men look fad, and ruffians dance and leap, 
 
 The one in fear to lofe what they enjoy, 
 
 The other to enjoy by rage and war : 
 
 Thefe figns forerun the death or fall of kings. 
 
 Farewell : our countrymen are gone and fled, 
 
 As well affined, Richard their king is dead. 
 
100 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 The unhappy king, on learning this report of himfelf, 
 “ uttered,” fays his chronicler, “ many pious ejaculations ; but 
 he knew not what courfe to take. At length he refolved to 
 fend the Duke of Exeter and the Earl of Surrey to tell Henry 
 of Bolingbroke that he was doing much amifs, but that he, the 
 rightful king of England, would pardon him, and reinftate him 
 in all his honours and lands, if he would but defift. Henry, 
 who was at Chefter, made Exeter and Surrey his prifoners. 
 Upon receiving this intelligence, the king, who had continued 
 all-forrowful at Conway, with his intimate friends, all fad and 
 diftrefied, went ftraight to Beaumaris. There was a ftrong caftle 
 there that could not have been taken in ten years, if it had only 
 been victualled and furnifhed with a fufficient and faithful 
 garrifon. But there were provifions in none of the king’s 
 caftles in these parts ; and there was fidelity and affe&ion to 
 him in no place whatfoever. Not being able to flay at 
 Beaumaris, he went to Carnarvon Caftle, which he found 
 totally unfurnifhed. In all his caftles to which he retired, there 
 was no furniture, nor had he anything to lie upon but ftraw. 
 Really he lay in this manner for four or fix nights, as, in truth, 
 not a farthing’s worth of victuals or of anything elfe was to be 
 found in them. Certes, I dare not tell the great mifery of 
 the king.” 
 
 Richard returned to Conway, he greatly bewailing his young 
 wife, who was by this time in the hands of Bolingbroke’s 
 party. He alfo bewailed that he himfelf was in danger, both 
 by night and day, of a cruel and certain death. While he was 
 lying at Conway doing nothing but lamenting his hard fate, the 
 Earl of Northumberland waited upon him from Duke Henry 
 who prevailed upon him to put himfelf in his hands, and truft 
 to the decifion of the Englifh Parliament ; the Earl, it is faid^ 
 fwearing upon the facrament that no harm fhould befall him. 
 Richard quitted Conway, and foon found himfelf a prifoner, for 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 IOI 
 
 the Earl of Northumberland had placed a numerous body of 
 troops in ambufcade at one of the mountain-pafles through 
 which their journey lay. “ When the king beheld them he 
 was greatly aftonifhed, faying, ‘ I am betrayed ! What can 
 this be, Lord of heaven help me ! ’ Who they were was 
 revealed by their banners. Bitter dread prevailed ; and the 
 king demeaned himfelf fo very forrowfully that it was pity to 
 behold.” 
 
 The journey of the unfortunate Richard to Flint was a very 
 melancholy one, and of his fufferings when there, his chronicler 
 fays, “ no creature in this mortal world, let him be who he 
 would, Jew or Saracen, could have beheld the king and his 
 good friends, the Earl of Salifbury, the Bilhop of Carlifle, Sir 
 Stephen Scroope, and another knight named Ferriby, without 
 being heartily forry for them.” Nor mull: we omit one re- 
 markable feature of this melancholy journey which would 
 certainly make it much more hopelefs. 
 
 “ The Earl of Salifbury told me,” fays the good French 
 knight, “ as we rode to Chefter, that Merlin and Bede had 
 from the time in which they lived, prophecied of the taking 
 and ruin of the king ; adding that if I were in his caftle, he 
 fhould fhow it me in form and manner as I had feen it come 
 to pafs, faying thus — 
 
 “ ‘ There fhall be a king in Albion, who fhall reign for the 
 fpace of two and twenty years in great honour and in great 
 power, and fhall be allied and united with thofe of Gaul ; 
 which king fhall be undone in the parts of the north, in a 
 triangular place.’ Thus, the Earl told me, it was written in 
 a book belonging to him. The triangular place he applied to 
 the town of Conway, and for this he had a very good reafon, 
 for I can allure you it is in a triangle, as though it had been fo 
 laid down by a true and exadt meafurement. In the faid town 
 
102 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 of Conway was the king fufficiently undone ; for the Earl of 
 Northumberland drew him forth, as you have already heard, 
 by the treaty which he made with him, and from that time he 
 had no power. Thus the knight held this prophecy to be 
 true, and attached thereto great faith and credit ; for fuch is 
 the nature of them in their country, that they very thoroughly 
 believe in prophecies, phantoms, and witchcraft, and have 
 recourfe to them right willingly. Yet,” adds he, “ in my 
 opinion this is not right, but is a great want of faith.” 
 
 Still more melancholy was the unhappy king’s journey from 
 Flint to Chefter. 
 
 “ Thus as you heard came Duke Henry to the caftle, and 
 lpake unto the king, to the Bifhop of Carlille, and the two 
 knights, Sir Stephen Scroope, and Ferriby ; howbeit unto the 
 Earl of Salifbury he fpake not at all, but fent word to him by 
 a knight in this manner : 4 Earl of Salifbury, be allured, that 
 no more than you deigned to fpeak to my lord, the Duke of 
 Lancafter, when he and you were in Paris at Chriftmas laft 
 palTed, will he fpeak unto you.’ Then was the Earl much 
 abafhed, and had great fear and dread at heart, for he faw 
 plainly that the Duke mortally hated him. The faid Duke 
 Henry called aloud with a ftern and favage voice, 1 Bring out 
 the king’s horfes ;’ and then they brought him out two little 
 horfes that were not worth forty francs ; the king mounted 
 one, and the Earl of Salifbury the other. Every one got on 
 horfeback, and we fet out from the faid caftle of Flint about 
 two hours after mid-day. In form and manner as you have 
 heard, did Duke Henry take king Richard, his lord, and 
 brought him with great joy and latisfa£tion to Chefter, which 
 he had quitted in the morning. And know, that fcarcely could 
 the thunder of heaven have been heard for the loud bruit and 
 found of their inftruments, horns, buifines, and trumpets, info- 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. IO3 
 
 much that they made all the fea-Ihore refound with them. Thus 
 the Duke entered the city of Chefter, to whom the common 
 people paid great reverence, praifing our lord, and Ihouting after 
 their king, as if in mockery.” 
 
 At the time of the Welfh infurre&ion headed by the famous 
 Owen Glyndwr, John de Mafley was conftable of Conway 
 Caftle, which it muft be fuppofed was confidered pretty ftrong 
 in itfelf, as fifteen men-at-arms and fix archers only formed its 
 garrifon, 39*. 2 d. per day being allowed for the maintenance of 
 the fortrefs. During the civil wars of York and Lancafter, 
 Conway was the fcene of much warfare and bloodfhed, the 
 powerful families of the Welfh in the neighbourhood taking 
 oppofite fides, and fuffering accordingly. Hence Rhys, the 
 fon of Griffydd Goch, when furveying the caftle from the 
 oppofite fide of the river, was fhot with an arrow difcharged 
 from the caftle-wall by Llewellyn of Nannau, in return for 
 which a few nights afterwards, Robin ap Griffydd Goch 
 o’r Graianllyn, and his brother, with their followers, crofted the 
 river, took the caftle by efcalade, and beheaded the captain. 
 The whole country round was overrun by the adherents 
 of thefe two factions, and utterly laid wafte by the Earl of 
 Pembroke. In 1466, Thomas ap Robin of Cochwillan was 
 beheaded near the caftle, by the Earl’s orders, on account of 
 his ftaunch adherence to the Lancaftrian party ; and his wife, 
 it is faid, carried away his head in her apron. 
 
 During the wars of the Commonwealth, Conway Caftle was 
 held as a military ftation of fome importance, and was for fome 
 time under the command of Archbifhop Williams, who was a 
 native of the town. According to his epitaph in Llandegai 
 Church, near Penrhyn Caftle, — he being defcended on his 
 father’s fide from the Williams of Cochwillan, and on his 
 mother’s from the Griffiths of Penrhyn — “ his great parts and 
 
104 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 eminence in all kinds of learning raifed him by the favour of 
 King James, firft to the Deanery of Sarum, and then to that of 
 Weftminfter.” “At one and the fame time,” fays the epitaph, 
 “ he was the mod intimate favourite of and privy counfellor to 
 that great king, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and 
 Bifhop of the fee of Lincoln, whom Charles I. honoured with 
 the archiepifcopal mitre of York. He was thoroughly verfed 
 in all fciences — a treafury of nine languages — the very foul of 
 pure and undefiled theology — an oracle of political ta£l — the 
 
 very acme and ornament of wifdom His converfation 
 
 was fweetly engaging — his memory more tenacious than 
 
 human He expended in magnificent edifices the fum 
 
 of ^20,000 In thofe lamentable times which followed, 
 
 being worn out with the things which he faw and heard, when 
 by fury of the rebels he could no longer ferve his king nor 
 his country, having lived fixty-eight years, on the 25th of 
 March, which was his birthday, with ftrong faith in Chrift and 
 ftedfaft allegiance to the king, he moil devotedly refigned his 
 foul to God, dying of a quinfy .... A.D. 1650.” 
 
 The town of Conway was taken by Cromwell’s army in 
 Auguft, 1646, their vidlory being fignalifed by the murder of 
 the Irifh inhabitants, who were barbaroufiy tied back to back 
 and thrown into the river. The warlike archbifiiop, however, 
 met with better treatment when, on the furrender of the caftle 
 in the following November, he received a pardon from the 
 parliament, and, having been wounded at Chefter, retired from 
 military life. 
 
 At the reftoration, the caftle was granted by King Charles II. 
 to the Earl of Conway, who as if to render it henceforth in- 
 capable of fervice either to royalift or republican, ordered it 
 to be difmantled, and the timber, iron, and lead, of which it 
 was deprived, were (hipped to Ireland for the repair of the 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 105 
 
 Earl’s houfes in that country. The leading men of the 
 neighbourhood, and deputy lieutenants of the county, natu- 
 rally interfered to put a flop to this fhameful fpoliation, but in 
 vain ; the following plain-fpoken letter being his reply : — 
 
 “Honourable Friends, — 
 
 “ I have had the honour to receive your letter of the 20th 
 September, in which you are pleafed to inquire of me whether 
 my fervant Milward doth add by my order for talcing down of 
 the lead, timber, and iron of Conway Caftle : in anfwer to 
 which queftion I do by this acknowledge it to be my aCt and 
 deed ; and that the faid Milward is employed by me to difpofe 
 of the timber and iron, according to fuch directions as I gave 
 him, and to tranfport the lead into Ireland, where I hope it 
 will be more ferviceable to his ma’ tIe than in this country. 
 And having this opportunity of addreffing myfelfe to you, 
 I humbly befeech you to take off the reftraint which you have 
 put upon his proceedings, and to affoord him yor favour in it ; 
 for I am already prejudiced by the Ioffe of fhipping and an 
 opportune feafon for the tranfportation of the lead ; yet I fhall 
 efteeme this as a particular obligation vpon mee, and be ready 
 to expreffe it by all the fervice in my power to every one of 
 you, that you are pleafed to grant this att my requeft ; which 
 otherwife may put me to fome trouble and delay. And I doubt 
 not of meeting occafions to teftifie my being, 
 
 “ Honoble Sirs, 
 
 “ Your affectionate and obedient Servt- 
 
 “ Conway and Kilulta. 
 
 “ Ragley in IVarwickJhire , 6 th October, 1665. 
 
 “ To the Honoble Thomas Bulkley, Efq., Colonell Wynn, 
 Hugh Wynn, Efq., Thomas Vaughan, Efq., his Ma’ ties 
 Deputy-Livetenants in North Wales.” 
 
 p 
 
io6 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 Thus was the fpoliation of this beautiful edifice figned and 
 fealed ; but no advantage accrued either to the earl or to his 
 mafter by this adl of Vandalifm, for the fhips which conveyed 
 away the materials to Ireland were wrecked on their paftage — 
 and Conway Caftle from that day was left to be beautified by 
 nature. 
 
 This romantic caftle has been made the fcene of various 
 literary productions — of Monk Lewis’s Caftle Spectre, for 
 inftance, and Gray’s Ode of the Bard, “founded,” as he fays, 
 “ on the tradition current in Wales, that Edward I., when he 
 completed the conqueft of that country, ordered all the bards that 
 fell into his hands to be put to death.” This bard, however, 
 whofe effufion is too Pindaric for the outpouring of a Welfh 
 bard, took his fate into his own hands. The army of Edward, 
 according to the poet, as they marched through a deep valley, 
 beheld a venerable figure feated on an inacceffible rock, who 
 with a voice more than human reproached the king with 
 all the mifery and defolation which he had brought on his 
 country; after which, in a fpirit of prophecy — the true bardic 
 endowment — he foretold the misfortunes of the Norman race, 
 and the future greatnefs and virtue of this illand ; after which 
 
 Headlong from the mountain height. 
 
 Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endlefs night. 
 
 It is a fine fcholaftic ode, nobly conceived ; but the age in 
 which Gray wrote, rather than the poet himfelf, knew nothing 
 of the true bardic mode, even if there had been the infpiration. 
 
 So much for the caftle and old times : let us now take a 
 walk into the town and fee a little of the life that is going on 
 there. It is a bright morning in Auguft. We have been 
 making purchafe3 at various fhops, and, having placed our 
 feveral packages under the care of good Mrs. Griffiths Owen 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTI.E. 
 
 107 
 
 — a flout, merry-faced old Welfh fhopkeeper, who deals in 
 bacon and butter, and fpeaks Englifh — we go forth on our 
 vifit to Plas Mawr, and the other remarkable buildings of 
 the town, the church included. Scarcely, however, have we 
 left Mrs. Owen’s, than we hear the found of a bell rung in the 
 ftreets ; a bell as of a town-crier; and the next moment fee 
 the man himfelf proceeding along, ringing his bell loudly at 
 intervals, but without uttering a word. 
 
 “What is the meaning of this bell being thus rung?” we 
 inquire from a pleafant-looking young man at a fhop-door. 
 
 From him we learn that it is the announcement of a funeral, 
 
 CONWAY CASTLE. 
 
io8 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 which will take place in about three hours, and that this mode 
 of invitation to the townfpeople to attend funerals is peculiar to 
 Conway. 
 
 As this invitation might he confidered general, we determine 
 to rank ourfelves amongft the invited, and hold ourfelves in 
 readinefs at three o’clock for the funeral ; being told, moreover, 
 that we {ball know when to be at the church by the tolling 
 of the church-bell. 
 
 About three o’clock accordingly, — having vifited in the mean- 
 time the fine old houfe, Plas Mawr, the ancient manfion of 
 the Wynns, where Oueen Elizabeth is faid to have flayed, 
 and where the initials of herfelf and her favourite, Robert 
 Dudley, Earl of Leicefler, are frequently coupled in the 
 carving, and feen with great fatisfadlion that two of its fpacious 
 rooms are now ufed as an infant fchool, — the church-bell began 
 to toll, and we having added to our purchafes, fet off for the 
 church, taking our old friend’s Mrs. Griffiths Owen’s on the 
 way, to leave in her charge yet other packages. But Mrs. 
 Owen is not in — not a foul is in. We knock on the counter 
 again and again, and are juft about to retreat difcomfited, 
 when a fharp-looking little lad appears from the back-fettle- 
 ments, who, though he cannot fpeak Englifh, inftantly under- 
 ftands our wants, and depofits our new parcels with the others 
 under the counter. But fcarcely is this done when a voice 
 above gabbles downftairs fomething in Welfh to the boy below, 
 and back the boy gabbles his anfwer. Venturing on this 
 colloquy to glance up the ftaircafe, whence the upper voice 
 proceeds, we beheld our buxom Mrs. Owen, without her 
 gown, a towel being about her flout bare arms, and her 
 face rofier than ever, from frefhly-applied foap and water. 
 She informs us that fhe too is getting ready for the funeral ; and 
 we, being rather inquifitive regarding the dead at whofe obfe- 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. IOg 
 
 quies we are intending to be prefent, fhe invites us to join her 
 upftairs, and we follow her into her large old-fafhioned bed- 
 room. Here, fpread out upon the large bed, lie her decent 
 mourning bonnet, Ihawl, and gown, and whilft fhe is affirming 
 the latter, we afk if the deceafed be a relative of hers. 
 
 “No, indeed,” replies fhe; “ but it is right for neighbours 
 to go to each other’s funerals.” 
 
 “ And who, then, is going to be buried ?” 
 
 Mrs. Owen’s bright countenance becomes very folemn, 
 and fhe replies : — 
 
 “ A bachelor of forty ; an orphan, without father or mother, 
 and nobody left behind but a filler, poor thing ! So it is quite 
 right to go to the funeral ! And there will be many there,” 
 added Ihe in an emphatic tone. 
 
 This is a convincing argument ; and therefore, leaving Mrs. 
 Owen to complete her toilet, we wend our way to the quiet 
 old church, which Hands in the middle of the churchyard, and 
 in the very centre of the town ; gates from the various flreets 
 opening into the churchyard ; this churchyard being, of courfe, 
 interefting to us from Wordfworth’s poem of “ We are Seven.” 
 Reaching the church, we find the large door unlocked, and 
 enter. We are the firfl of the funeral attendants; but two 
 grey-coated tourifts, evidently father and fon, are infpedting the 
 church ; whilll a refpedtable woman, in black, who is arranging 
 and dulling the pews, anfwers any queftions which may be put 
 to her : We too wander round, admire the fine carving on 
 
 the ancient oak fcreen as we pafs into the chancel, and read the 
 infcription on the flat grey Hone placed over the remains of 
 “ Nicholas Hookes, gentleman, who was the forty-firll child 
 of his parents,” which the younger tourill carefully copies 
 into his note-book ; and, leaving him to add that “ the faid 
 Nicholas himfelf died the father of twenty-feven children, on 
 
I IO 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 the 20th of March, 1637,” we faunter down the aides 
 reading the Welfh names and titles of various noble families 
 on the fmall brafs plates affixed to the pew-doors, and admire 
 the ancient carving which had been brought thither from Plas 
 Mawr ; then out at the other door to fee if yet there be figns 
 of the approaching funeral. There are none, excepting the 
 newly-made grave clofe by, which has juft been dug by that 
 young man with the funburnt face, who ftands leaning on his 
 fpade to contemplate his work. He has fcattered fawduft in 
 the grave and piled befide it a heap of newly-cut rufhes. An 
 elderly man, clad in Sunday attire, now approaches, and fhakes 
 hand with the young gravedigger, who at this token of fym- 
 pathy burfts into tears. What the departed was to him we 
 know not, but with a feeling of refpecft for his grief we retire 
 again into the church. 
 
 The grey-coated tourifts are gone, and the decent woman 
 in black ftands with her dufter ftill in her hand, waiting. We 
 remark to each other that were this fine old church near 
 London, it would be carefully reftored. At the name of 
 London, the woman looks fuddenly round, and exclaims ; — 
 
 “ Ah ! our clock came from London \ it is a bad one ; 
 more’s the pity ; the wind blows its fingers off ! It was a 
 prefent, and from a gentleman who did not mean it to be a bad 
 one.” 
 
 We deplore the lamentable cafe of the clock, and then 
 inquire if fhe ever heard of the poem, “We are Seven?” 
 
 “To be fure I have!” fhe anfwers. “A gentleman came 
 once and afked me about it ; but then I had never heard of it. 
 He faid, therefore, he would fend it me from London ; and fo 
 he did, all beautifully written out. I keep it at home ; but I 
 have ftiown it to a great many people ; it is a very pretty 
 rhyme. But for all that I’ve hunted the churchyard all over, 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 I I I 
 
 and looked at every grave, but never can I find thofe of John 
 and little Jane. I cannot make it out ; certainly there mull 
 have been fome alteration fince thofe days, for there is no cottage 
 now by the churchyard. May-be it was pulled down years 
 ago when a wall was built on one fide. I’ve often wondered 
 how it was. But you would like to fee the verfes, wouldn’t 
 you ? They are fo beautifully written out ! I can run for them 
 in a minute,” added fhe eagerly. Without waiting for a reply, 
 however, fhe fuddenly ftarted, and held up her hand liftening 
 to the church-bell, which was ftill folemnly tolling. 
 
 “Hark!” fhe faid in an aweftricken tone, whilft a look of 
 difmay overfpread her countenance. “ Only hark how 
 heavily the bell rings ! My mother ufed to fay when it founded 
 fo dull that it was a fure fign of another death. I have thought 
 of it fince, and believe it to be true, though Conway is a healthy 
 place. There is a deal of difference,” fhe continued, “ in 
 the founding of the bell. My parents had the church before 
 me ; fo I know all about thefe things. I had the place after 
 my mother.” 
 
 Willing to turn her thoughts from anticipated deaths, we 
 now inquire after the dead man, whofe funeral bell is fuch a 
 melancholy prognoftic. 
 
 “ He was Morris Evans, one of the fingers here. I knew 
 him well,” fhe replied. “ When he was ftrong and came to 
 church, his place was near the organ, amongft the fingers. 
 Come, I will fhow it you. There,” fhe faid, “ this was his 
 feat, clofe by the wall, you fee, under the carved ftone with 
 the little figures upon it. He was ill a long time, and died of a 
 decline, like his father and mother. There is nobody left now 
 but his fifter and an old uncle.” 
 
 At this point fome one entered to fay that the clerk was gone 
 for the clergyman, and the funeral was moving off. We there- 
 
I 12 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 fore took the feats which the melancholy woman affigned to us, 
 whilft fhe flood afide near the open door and wiped away her 
 tears with the duller. 
 
 The funeral is evidently on its way ; a number of women 
 and children quietly appear upon the fcene, filently filling the 
 pews lower down the middle aifle. They are all neatly 
 drefled in black, many with apparently new crape on their 
 bonnets. Here and there the bonnets or the fhawls are 
 not black, but in fuch cafes the wearer has placed con- 
 fpicuoufly fome feature of mourning about her attire. There 
 is a great preponderance of black filks, with flrongly-marked 
 folds, telling of chefls and prefles out of which many have 
 been brought from amongfl other befl things. Men, too, are 
 now in church in confiderable numbers, in dark blue cloth 
 coats and carefully-brufhed hats, but they moflly occupy feats 
 in the chancel and round the pulpit, having followed the bier, 
 which half a dozen men have carried up the centre aifle, headed 
 by the elderly clergyman in his white furplice, who as they 
 flowly advanced, repeated by heart a pfalm in Welfh. The 
 bearers having reverently placed the bier in the chancel, the 
 clergyman reads from the defk part of the fifteenth chapter of 
 the firfl Epiflle to the Corinthians. To our uninitiated ears the 
 words of the fine old language convey no confolation, but they 
 roll on in a grand and melancholy cadence, like the notes of 
 fome deep pathetic mufic. 
 
 The exhortation ends, and pallor and people now Hand 
 round the open grave, whilft the burial fervice is continued in 
 Welfh. When the benediction has been uttered, the fexton 
 fcatters the green rufhes on the coffin ; the earth is fhovelled 
 in, and the rite is over. 
 
 The company quietly and fedately begins to difperfe ; the 
 women move off by twos and threes to other graves ; little 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 IJ 3 
 
 knots of men turn off in the fame way. They ftand and talk 
 folemnly, as if of the departed whofe remains lie underneath, 
 recalling with tender memories, perhaps, their words and 
 deeds. Then one after another, with an undefined look of 
 folemnity hanging about them, the townsfolk, men and women 
 and children, move off to their refpedlive homes, to put afide 
 their mourning and turn again to their different occupations. 
 
 In the meantime we ftill linger, feated upon a graveftone, 
 and watch the laft little group which pafTes out at the diftant 
 gate. It confifts of the poor folitary filler, overcome with 
 grief and weeping bitterly. When buxom Mrs. Griffiths 
 Owen fpoke of her to us, fhe had fhaken her head, faying, 
 “fhe took it to heart, and was very low.” Here then fhe was, 
 very low and heart-broken, leaning upon the arm of a kind- 
 looking, elderly woman, with a carefully-plaited and ftiffly- 
 ftarched frilled cap infide her black bonnet, who feemed a 
 very efficient prop for the bereaved mourner ; after them came 
 two other female mourners, and laftly the white-headed very 
 old uncle, leading a fmall child by the hand. It was a mourn- 
 ful little group. 
 
 So ended this Welfh funeral. There was not much in it; 
 but it impreffed us with the lovelinefs of human fympathy — 
 the neighbourlinefs of weeping with thofe who wept. 
 
 A fcene of a different character occurred alfo juft now in 
 Conway, which, linking to the memory and ufages of ancient 
 times the enlarged interefts and broader views of the prefent 
 day, brought fome hundreds of fpedlators to the town, and 
 filled the old caftle with life and gaiety. 
 
 An Eifteddfod was held here, which lafted three days, and 
 
 T 
 
I 14 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 which, being marked by fome features of national life and many 
 piCturefque details, was attractive to the tourid tribe which 
 frequent North Wales at this feafon. 
 
 We are indebted to our friend the Rev. Richard Parry, of 
 Llandudno, for mod: of the following information refpeCting 
 Eifteddfods. He himfelf is a bard of the higheft order, in 
 tedimony of which he is podeded of a cafket of medals, gold 
 and diver, of large dze and great weight, and which, difplayed 
 upon his bread at the Conway Eideddfod, made him a con- 
 fpicuous and honoured objeCt of attention. 
 
 The original Eideddfod was the Parliament of the nation. 
 The laws were founded by Dyfnwal Moelmud, four hundred 
 years before the Chridian era, and revifed by Howel Dda, a 
 thoufand years ago. According to the datutes of Rhuddlan, the 
 condruCtion of the law was committed to the Commons, the 
 executive to the Lords. The educational remains part and 
 parcel of the law of the land to the prefent day. 
 
 An Eideddfod was held at Conway Cadle in the year 1461, 
 in the reign of Henry VI., exactly four hundred years ago; 
 and another during the fame reign at Carmarthen, under the 
 preddency of Gryfydd, grandfather to Sir Rhys ap Thomas, 
 by whofe aid Henry VII. was placed on the throne. On this 
 occadon two fdver badges were provided, a diver chair and 
 a diver harp, both of which were triumphantly won by a 
 bard and mindrel of Flintfhire. Henry VIII. himfelf fum- 
 moned an Eideddfod at Caerwys, which was held in 1525. 
 Queen Elizabeth did the fame in 1568, the tranfaClions of 
 which were carefully recorded by Dr. John David Rees of 
 Anglefey. Of later Eideddfods, the mod remarkable are one 
 held at Denbigh in 1828, at which the Duke of Sudex pre- 
 dded ; and one alfo at the fame place in 1832, when her 
 prefent Majedy, then Princefs Victoria, didributed the prizes, 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 ”5 
 
 and when a poem by Mrs. Hemans was read, a contribution 
 by her to the poetical department. 
 
 After her death, an elegy to her memory being propofed as 
 one of the fubje&s of bardic compofition, the prize was won 
 by Thomas Parry, a brother of the Rev. Richard Parry, him- 
 felf alfo a bard of great repute, and whofe medals equal, if not 
 exceed in number, thofe of his brother. 
 
 Befides the more ferious bufinefs of the old Eifteddfods there 
 were triennial meetings of the Bards, at which the monarch 
 prefided and awarded the prizes. 
 
 The compofitions produced on fuch occafions, at a time 
 when the rnoft momentous events of the country were never 
 committed to writing, alTumed an important character, being 
 the hiftorical records of the time, the expreffion of public 
 opinion, and the aflertion and maintenance of whatever great 
 truth was agitating the beft minds of the nation. A chief bard, 
 — the Bardd Cadelriog , or chaired bard, — prefided over the 
 order, and by virtue of his rank was placed on a feat or chair 
 of dignity, and wore on his breaft a little filver or gold chair 
 as a badge. 
 
 Both bards and minftrels were originally a branch of the 
 Druidical hierarchy : the bard being the compofer of fong, 
 the poet in fa£t ; the minftrel, the mufician who played on the 
 harp, or who alfo fang with it. The pennillion Tinging of 
 Wales is very ancient and remarkable ; it is improvifed Tinging 
 to the equally improviTed mufic of the harper. 
 
 All knowledge, civil or religious, was anciently preferved 
 orally, and in a metrical form for the "more eafy committal to 
 memory. The metre of their verfe was a triad or ftanza of 
 three lines, each line compofed of feven fyllables ; the firfb and 
 fecond containing only the fubje£t of the poem, and the third 
 conveying fome divine or moral precept. The bards ftill 
 
I l6 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 remained even after the Druids were expelled or flaughtered 
 by the Romans ; and in the fixth century, great men being 
 amongft them, fuch as Aneurin Gwawdrydd, Taliefin, Llyarch 
 H en, and Merddyn ap Morfryn, they ufed their power in en- 
 deavouring to aroufe their countrymen to a laft great effort 
 againft the Saxons. With the conqueft of Wales and the 
 death of the laft Prince Llewellyn, however, the bardic fpirit 
 was completely broken ; nor did it again revive in anything 
 like its priftine force, although it (hewed figns of life in the 
 infurredtion of Owen Glyndwr. In vain the monarchs of the 
 Tudor line, though Gray’s bard beheld them as “ vifions of 
 glory,” endeavoured to reanimate it by royal patronage ; it could 
 not be done. In the reign of George II., however, Powell, a 
 WeKh harper, played before the monarch, and fo delighted 
 Handel, that that great mafter of mufic compofed for him 
 feveral pieces, which are given in the firft fet of Handel’s 
 concerts. But although the old bardic fpirit, in its original 
 form, may be dead, and every effort to revive it in that form 
 may be fruitlefs, becaufe it does not belong to the character of 
 the age, it yet exifts nationally in a far wider and nobler field, 
 throughout the WeKh people, amongft the lower orders of 
 whom poetry is loved and cultivated, whilft their tafte and 
 feeling for mufic proclaims itfelf everywhere — in every wayfide 
 chapel and village choir. 
 
 It is judicious, therefore, in the promoters of the prefent 
 Eifteddfods, to make them rather means of general enlighten- 
 ment, and moral and focial improvement, than attempts to 
 revive that which is dead and belonged only to a bye-gone and 
 femi-barbarous age. The Eifteddfod of the nineteenth century 
 has fomewhat the character of a literary inftitution and a focial- 
 fcience meeting combined. Hence, at Conway, not only were 
 poetry and mufic reprefented, but the arts and the knowledge 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 1 1 7 
 
 which embellifh and add to the comfort and advancement of 
 domeftic and focial life. Prizes were awarded as well for 
 treatifes on the beft management of cattle, on improvements 
 in agricultural implements, on the beft models for veffels 
 employed in the coafting trade, on the advantages of life- 
 infurances, & c., on the more homely and humble female 
 achievements of knitting and needlework, as well as for 
 literature, poetry, and mufic. 
 
 But enough of introduction. Again we are within the 
 walls of the old town. The morning is fine, and hundreds of 
 people make the ftreets aftir, haftening towards the caftle to be 
 prefent at the opening of the Eifteddfod. Flags of all colours 
 and devices are floating from roofs and windows, and foon 
 after leaving the railway-ftation we are aware of a band of 
 mufic preceding a long proceflion of men, each wearing in the 
 left-hand button-hole of his coat three golden ears of corn, 
 with a bow of different coloured ribbon. Thefe are the com- 
 mittee, the bards, and the minftrels, and other fupporters of 
 the Eifteddfod, on their way to the caftle, which they enter 
 under a triumphal arch of laurels, flags, flowers, and various 
 devices ; a raifed pathway, formed for the occafion, leading 
 thence into the caftle. The proceflion and mufic, however, 
 halt in the caftle-yard, and here, with a good deal of ceremony, 
 the Eifteddfod is proclaimed and opened with a fomewhat quaint 
 formula of words ; thus : — 
 
 “ The Truth again ft the World. — In the year one thoufand eight hundred and fixty- 
 one, the fun approaching the autumnal equinox, in the forenoon of the fourteenth day 
 of Auguft, after due proclamation, this Gorfedd is opened within the Royal Caftle of 
 Conway, in Gwynedd, with invitation to all who would repair hither, where no weapon 
 is unlheathed againft them, and judgment will be pronounced upon all works of genius 
 fubmitted for adjudication, in the face of the fun and the eye of light.” — The Truth 
 againfl the World. 
 
 Then with ftill further ceremony, in which a large ftone 
 
I 1 8 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 and a large fword figure confpicuoufly, various candidates, 
 women as well as men, are admitted to the enjoyment of the 
 bardic and other honours and dignities. 
 
 As regards the ftone and the fword of this ceremony, Mr. 
 Parry fays, — “ In the opening proclamation it is always ex- 
 prefled ‘ where there is no naked fword againfl: them,’ or 
 ‘ where there is no weapon unfheathed againfl: them,’ a fymbol 
 intended to fignify that the bard is a teacher of peace. The 
 prefiding bard never takes the fword in hand by the hilt, but by 
 the fcabbard, half unfheathed, which the bards then graduated 
 pufh up to be finally fheathed, not touching the blade. One 
 of the queftions put to the candidate for bardic orders at the 
 gorfecld is, ‘ Wilt thou, on word and confcience, declare that 
 thou wilt exert all thy influence to maintain peace ?’ 
 
 “The ftone Chriftianity was introduced to Wales in the 
 apoftolic age ; but, in fadd, it was Chriftianity engrafted on 
 Druidifm ; a mixture of both. Druidifm had its efl'ence, by 
 tradition, from the Patriarchal religion of the land of Canaan. 
 The ftone, or the cromlech, reprefented Druidifm : hence the 
 ancient motto ‘ Da'r maen gyda'r efengylj or c The ftone is 
 good with the gofpel.’ ” 
 
 Nor, as may be fuppofed, is colour without its fymbolifm in 
 thefe ancient rites. The bard wears blue ribbon ; the Ovate, a 
 branch of the Druidic order reprefenting the philofophers, 
 phyficians, mechanics, &c., green ; and the Druids white. 
 
 Here alfo we may mention, though fomewhat out of place, 
 the pretty piddurefque ancient Welfti coftume worn by two 
 young girls for the occafion, and which is always worn by a 
 certain Mary Salfbri of Conway, who received a reward of five 
 pounds from Lady Llanover in confequence. 
 
 In the meantime we enter the caftle, the interior court of 
 which has been transformed for the occafion into a magnificent 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 n 9 
 
 hall, roofed in by fail-cloth fupported down the centre by marts 
 wreathed with evergreens. The walls, tapeftried with luxu- 
 riant ivy, are decorated with ornamental Welfh mottoes and 
 devices, whilft a great variety of banners droop from above, 
 confpicuous amongft which are the Prince’s feathers, with the 
 motto Eich dyn (your man), which the Welfh antiquarian 
 afTerts has been corrupted into Ich dien (I ferve). 
 
 This beautiful hall, fo appropriate for the occafion, which 
 opened out into the old banquetting and other apartments of 
 the caflle, was filled with feats and a raifed platform for the 
 tranfadlion of the bufinefs of the day, confpicuous on which 
 flood the carved chair of the chief bard, and an array of harps 
 and other mufical inftruments. The true primitive Welfh 
 harps, with their fimple unadorned frames of ftained wood, 
 tall, thin, high-fhouldered inftruments, of which there were 
 five, were naturally the moft interefting. The hall foon filled, and 
 the leaders of the Eifteddfod, ladies as well as gentlemen, and 
 the various muficians and fingers, took their places. The 
 bufinefs began, and the periods of the old Welfh tongue in profe 
 and poetry rolled grandly through the hall. But juft when the 
 enthufiafm was growing ever warmer an unfortunate difafter 
 occurred. It began to rain, and ere long torrents were 
 pouring through the infecure roofing down upon the aflembly. 
 A general movement took place ; mufical inftruments, and harps 
 efpecially, were anxioufly covered by their refpedlive owners ; 
 umbrellas were hoifted, and people crowded together under the 
 dry fpaces of the tent-like roof. In the meantime the bufinefs 
 went flowly on ; a fhort Welfh poem was read, but, like the 
 rich lower notes of the Purging of the Welfh nightingale, as 
 fhe was called, was partially loft in the conftant drip, drip, of the 
 rain, and the anxiety of everybody not to be wet through. 
 
 A difafter of this kind, however, is not without its advan- 
 
120 
 
 CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 tages — it breaks down the barriers of filence and diftance which 
 ftranger feels with ftranger; and, huddled under the broad green 
 tapeftry of an ivied buttrefs, above which the rain had not yet 
 penetrated, we flood befide an intelligent Welfh gentleman, 
 whofe enthufiafm no rain could damp, and from him learned 
 various details of the gathering which otherwife we might not 
 have known. cc See, yonder intelligent-looking middle-aged 
 Welfhwoman, in the handfome gold-coloured fhawl, and the 
 black draw hat worn above the lace, pink-trimmed cap, — fhe is 
 a Welfh bardefs from South Wales, who has carried off already 
 feveral prizes at former Eifleddfods, and is here perhaps for 
 new honours.” And what a fmgularly acute countenance hers 
 was, with the clear brown eyes and well-cut Roman nofe ! 
 “ And yonder young peafant man, with the fenfitive and almofl 
 refined features, and the thin yellow beard, — he alfo is a bard, 
 Llewelyn Twrog by name — who has juft read a very clever 
 poem addreffed to the Eifteddfod by another bard, quite a 
 patriarch, Abfolom Vardd, upwards of eighty years of age.” 
 We turn now to the platform. The great harp conteft was that 
 morning to have taken place, and as more than the ufual prizes 
 had been offered for the occafion, the excitement and expecta- 
 tion were proportionately great. The time was almoft at hand, 
 but the pitilefs rain came down fafter than ever. “ Look now 
 at yonder pale, thin boy,” faid our friend ; u he is not fo tall as 
 his harp, but he is a marvellous performer, and probably will 
 carry off' the chief prize.” We had already noticed him, and 
 efpecially becaufe fome defeCl of fight, apparently almoft blind- 
 nefs, had awakened our fympathy. It was a grave, melancholy 
 face, though fo young, with little of a boy’s joyoufnefs, and 
 nothing of his reckleftnefs about it ; the young foul of which it 
 was the outward index dwelt in an inner world brighter than 
 this — a world of harmony and higher vifion. A fimple peafant- 
 
CONWAY AND ITS CASTLE. 
 
 121 
 
 woman, his mother as we fuppofed, was with him ; but this, as 
 we learned afterwards, was not the cafe ; neverthelefs, fhe was 
 his friend, and helped him when the rain began, to cover his harp, 
 as the other harpers had done theirs, that the firings might be 
 kept dry. But now that the harp conteft is expected to take 
 place, every harper is bufy with his inflrument, and you hear a 
 tuning of firings in preparation. Behind the boy is a fomewhat 
 grand, peafant-like man, whofe breafl is covered with medals, 
 and he too is almofl blind. He is a celebrated harper from 
 South Wales, the fuccefsful candidate in many former contefls, 
 and now, he or the boy, our friend tells us, will in all probability 
 carry away the increafed prize. The woman lifts the covering 
 from the boy’s harp, whilft his thin, fmall, nervous fingers try the 
 firings, firfl one and then another. Very jealoufly the woman 
 lifts it, juft far enough to admit the little hand and no farther. 
 
 But the rain forbade this mofl interefling conteft, which 
 indeed only took place on the laft day, when, as our friend 
 had predicted, the many-medalled harper and the boy were 
 the vidlors. They, however, in the firfl place, contefted fo 
 equally, that a fecond trial was called for, when the boy carried 
 off the firfl, and the man the fecond prize. 
 
 One feature of thefe national gatherings fhould not be over- 
 looked, namely, the enlarged knowledge of the language to 
 which they lead. Half a century ago, when the Welfh tongue 
 was fpoken even more univerfally than now, it was difregarded 
 by the higher and educated dalles, and there was fcarcely a 
 fingle Welfh clergyman of the Church of England in a Welfh 
 pulpit — hence one caufe of the immenfe growth of diflent in 
 Wales, and of the number of little chapels which you find 
 everywhere. Now however, on the contrary, when the Englifh 
 mingle more than ever with the Welfh, and the Englifh lan- 
 guage is taught in their eftablifhed village fchools, every church, 
 
 R 
 
122 
 
 CONWAV AND ITS CASTLK. 
 
 however infignificant, has its univerfity-educated native clergy- 
 man, who preaches in eloquent Welfh, and many of whom, as 
 well as the native nobility and gentry, pay great attention to 
 the language as a rich philological ftudy, and difcover in it 
 traces of the higheft antiquity, clofe kinfhip even to the oldeft 
 and nobleft languages of the earth. In this refpeft alfo the 
 Eifteddfod may be called a national college. Neverthelefs, it 
 is to be wifhed that whilft all means fhould be ufed to preferve 
 this fine old language as a fpoken tongue, Englifh were more 
 generally underftood by the people ; pious, intelligent people 
 as they are ; but whofe dim Sajfenach makes them as fealed 
 books to the friendly Englifh tourift or refident. But ftill, 
 the power, deep fentiment, and mufical cadence of this remark- 
 able language, are often exhibited even to thefe in the little 
 prayer meetings of the wayfide or village chapel, where the 
 impaflioned and eloquent utterances of the foul are poured 
 forth in the minor key, with an eloquence and pathos which 
 even a Beethoven could not furpafs. 
 
 Before clofing this long article on Conway, we mud mention 
 with approbation the good tafte and judgment with which the 
 great works of modern improvement and civilization — the fus- 
 penfion bridge, and the railway-works — are made, not only to 
 harmonize with the caftle, but even to add to it new features 
 of beauty and dignity. 
 
 The caftle is the property of the Crown, but is now held 
 by Lady Erfkine. 
 
©uobrifl) Castle an& Court. 
 
 Through fluttered galleries, ’mid rooflefs halls, 
 
 Wandering with timid footftep oft betrayed, 
 
 The ftranger fighs, nor fcruples to upbraid 
 Old Time ; though He, gentleft among the thralls 
 Of Deftiny, upon these wounds hath laid 
 His lenient touches, foft as light that falls 
 From the wan moon, upon the towers and walls, 
 
 Light deepening the profoundeft fleep of lhade. 
 
 Relic of kings I wreck of forgotten wars, 
 
 To winds abandoned, and the prying ftars, 
 
 Time loves thee ! At his call the feafons twine 
 Luxuriant wreaths around thy forehead hoar ; 
 
 And, though part pomp no changes can reftore, 
 
 A foothing recompenfe, his gifts, are thine ! 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 NE of the moll ftr iking beauties of the 
 river Wye, is the tendency which it has to 
 ftrike out fine circles in its courfe, fome- 
 times almoft as true as if ftruck by com- 
 pafles. Thefe, amid alternating rocks and 
 woods, and verdant meadows, are not only 
 delightful to the eye themfelves, but give to the advancing 
 traveller all the charms of rural beauty. One of thefe fine 
 fweeps occurs at Goodrich, about four miles from Rofs, in 
 Herefordfhire, and on a bold promontory encircled thus by 
 the beautiful ftream, Hand the remains of Goodrich Caftle, till 
 the time of the wars of the Commonwealth one of the 
 ftrongeft fortrefles of England. 
 
124 
 
 GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 This caftle was granted in the fifth year of King John to 
 William Marfhall, Earl of Pembroke, who married Ifabel, the 
 foie heirefs of the famous Strongbow, conqueror of Ireland, 
 and fucceeded to his vaft eftates. He was the fame Earl of 
 Pembroke who advifed Henry III. to grant the Great Charter. 
 It afterwards went into the family of the De Valences, from 
 whom it palled by marriage to the Talbots, Earls of Shrews- 
 bury, and remained theirs till 1616, when Gilbert, the feventh 
 Earl, left three daughters his coheirefles. To one of thefe, 
 Elizabeth, fell Goodrich, and Ihe carried it by marriage to her 
 hulband, Elenry Grey, Earl of Kent, who died in 1639 with- 
 out iflue. The caftle and eftate then palled to his next 
 relatives, who became Earls and afterwards Dukes of Kent. 
 At the demife of Henry, the laft Duke of Kent of that family, 
 it palled by purchafe in 1740 to the Griffins of Hadnock : and 
 a few years ago it was bought by Sir Samuel Rulh Meyrick, 
 of Goodrich Court. 
 
 The caftle is moft famous for the ftout refiftance that it 
 made in 1646, when it was held for the king by Sir Richard 
 Lingen, againft the Parliament force under Colonel Birch, to 
 whom, however, it was eventually compelled to furrender. 
 
 It appears that Colonel Birch marched out of Hereford on 
 the morning of March the 10th, with a party of horfe and 
 foot, and was joined at Goodrich by the horfe of Colonel 
 Kirle from Monmouth, and the firelocks of Rumfey. They 
 fell on the ftables and took fixty-four horfes, with hay and 
 other provifions. They burnt down the ftables, and then 
 went into the paftage-houfe, feized the officers and foldiers in 
 it, and inverted the caftle. The fiege continued till the 31ft 
 of July, nearly four months. The caftle was exceedingly 
 ftrong, being built on a rock, and of the ftone dug out of the 
 ditch, fo that the ditch was very deep, and the walls and 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 125 
 
 this fortrefs down to the time of Henry VI. begin with 
 the very ftrongly fortified entrance, which, commencing 
 between two femicircular towers of unequal dimenfions, near 
 the eaft angle, was continued under a dark vaulted paflage to 
 an extent of fifty feet. Immediately before this entrance, and 
 
 towers were raifed on maffive pyramidal baftions, like fome 
 of the towers at Chepftow. The nearer approach to the 
 callle was defended by a fucceffion of gates and deep fofies 
 and drawbridges. What thefe defences were may be imagined 
 from this recent defcription : — “ The body of the keep is 
 an exadl fquare of twenty feet. The additions made to 
 
126 
 
 GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 within the fpace enclofed by the fofle, was a very deep pit, 
 hewn out of the folid rock, formerly eroded by a drawbridge, 
 which is now gone. About eleven feet within this paflage 
 was a mafly gate. This gate and the drawbridge were de- 
 fended on each fide by loopholes, and overhead by rows of 
 machicolations for pouring down melted lead, etc., on the 
 heads of aflailants. Six feet and a half beyond this was a 
 portcullis, and about feven further a fecond portcullis ; and the 
 fpace between thefe was again protected by loopholes and 
 machicolations. About two feet more inward was another 
 ftrong gate, and five feet and a half beyond this on the right 
 a fmall door leading to a long, narrow gallery, only three feet 
 high, formed in the thicknefs of the wall, and which was the 
 means of accefs to the loopholes in the eaftern tower, as well 
 as to fome others that commanded the brow of the fteep pre- 
 cipice towards the North-eaft. Thefe works appear to have 
 been thought fufficient for general defence ; but a refource was 
 ingenioufly contrived for greater fecurity in cafe they had been 
 forced, for a little further on are mafly ftone projections in the 
 wall on each fide, like pilafters, manifeftly defigned for inferting 
 great beams of timber within them, like bars from one fide of 
 the paflage to the other, fo as to form a ftrong barricade, with 
 earth or ftones between the rows of timber, which would in a 
 fhort time form a ftrong, mafly wall.” 
 
 In the days of mere bows and battle-axes this would have 
 been found an unaflailable ftronghold, and even Colonel Birch, 
 with fuch cannon and mortars as they had in thofe days, feems 
 to have been rather ftaggered by the fturdy ftrength of the 
 place ; for when he had lain before it till the beginning of June, 
 he wrote to the Committee of Parliament begging for battering 
 cannon ; “ or elfe,” he faid, “ I may fit long enough before it.” 
 He had, up to that time, it appears, only two mortar-pieces, 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 127 
 
 but the great iron culverin was going from Gloucefter, and two 
 guns from Ludlow. He reported the enemy very refolute 
 within, and very careful of their ammunition, trufting to their 
 ftrong walls. On the ift of June he began to make regular 
 approaches “ within piftol-fhot of the enormous rampiers, in- 
 tending when they were finiftied to fhoot granadoes in the 
 mortar-pieces.” The prifoners they had taken informed them 
 that the befieged were well fupplied with provifions, and de- 
 pended much on the ftrength of the caftle. On the 13th of 
 June, Birch fummoned them to furrender, offering them flat- 
 tering terms, but they only laughed at them. Whereupon they 
 began to {form with their granadoes, and tore down a piece of 
 a tower. Still the befieged only laughed at them ; and when 
 they faw fappers at work preparing mines at the bafe of the 
 caftle, one of the Cavaliers called out, faying, “ they cared 
 not for being blown up, they could from the fky laugh at the 
 flourifhing Roundheads.” On the 15th of June Colonel 
 Birch complained that his ordnance was fmall, and had done 
 but little execution. He had, therefore, fent for two great guns : 
 all that had yet been done having been performed by the two 
 mortar-pieces. But he reported that the mines were going on 
 well. Another letter on the 1 8th of July, reported that they 
 had made a breach in an upper wall, and that the granadoes 
 had done much damage, but “ yet they take no more notice of 
 it than if no enemy were before it.” Yet the writer flatters 
 himfelf that the great mortar-piece and the mine would make 
 them foon cry for mercy,” and he trufts that the eftate of Sir 
 Richard Lingen would make amends both to the ftate and the 
 befiegers. We muft fuppofe that the great mortar-piece and 
 the mine had all the effect that the writer anticipated, for on 
 the 31ft of July the befieged had furrendered on promife of 
 their lives. T his was the laft caftle which held out for the 
 
128 
 
 GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 king, except that of Pendennis. The caftle was difmantled by 
 order of Parliament. 
 
 On the North fide, where are windows for reconnoitering 
 the Wye, there is a charming profpedt over the adjacent 
 country. On the Weft are the remains of the banquetting- 
 hall : and on the Eaft thofe of the chapel, with an ornamented 
 Gothic window. Near the hall is a curious otftagonal column, 
 evidently the centre round which the grand ftaircafe was carried, 
 but that and the tower enclofing it are deftroyed. 
 
 In the Memoirs of Wordfworth, we learn that the little 
 girl who is the heroine of his poem, “We are Seven,” the 
 poet met with, not at Conway, where by poetic licenfe he 
 has laid the fcene, but within the area of Goodrich Caftle, in 
 the fpring of 1793 : and thus the myftery is folved of the little 
 girl fpeaking Englifh,or the poet fo fully underftanding Welfh. 
 Hence in vain, though “ the grave is green, it may be feen,” 
 has the good woman of Conway, and no doubt many another 
 perfon, hunted for it in Conway churchyard. 
 
 A fimple child, 
 
 That lightly draws its breath, 
 
 And feels its life in every limb, 
 
 What Ihould it know of death ? 
 
 I met a little cottage girl, 
 
 She was eight years old, /he faid j 
 Her hair was thick with many a curl 
 That cluftered round her head. 
 
 She had a ruftic, woodland air, 
 
 And /he was wildly clad : 
 
 Her eyes were fair, and very fair ; 
 
 — Her beauty made me glad. 
 
 “ Sifters and brothers, little maid, 
 
 How many may you be ?” 
 
 “ How many ? Seven in all,” /he faid, 
 
 And wondering looked at me. 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 I 29 
 
 “ And where are they ? I pray you tell.” 
 
 She anfwered, “ Seven are we j 
 
 And two of us at Conway dwell, 
 
 And two are gone to fea. 
 
 “Two of us in the churchyard lie, 
 
 My filler and my brother ; 
 
 And, in the churchyard cottage, I 
 Dwell near them with my mother.” 
 
 “ You fay that two at Conway dwell, 
 
 And two are gone to fea ; 
 
 Yet ye are feven ! — I pray you tell, 
 
 Sweet maid, how this may be.” 
 
 Then did the little maid reply, 
 
 “ Seven boys and girls are we ; 
 
 Two of us in the churchyard lie, 
 
 Beneath the churchyard tree.” 
 
 “ You run about, my little maid, 
 
 Your limbs they are alive ; 
 
 If two are in the churchyard laid, 
 
 Then ye are only five.” 
 
 “ Their graves are green, they may be feen,” 
 The little maid replied ; 
 
 “ Twelve Heps or more from my mother’s door, 
 And they are fide by fide. 
 
 “ My ftockings there I often knit, 
 
 My kerchief there I hem ; 
 
 And there upon the ground 1 fit — 
 
 I fit and fing to them. 
 
 “ And often after funfet, Sir, 
 
 When it is light and fair ; 
 
 I take my little porringer, 
 
 And eat my fupper there. 
 
 “ The firft that died was little Jane ; 
 
 In bed /he moaning lay ; 
 
 Till GOD releafed her of her pain, 
 
 And then Ihe went away. 
 
 S 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 130 
 
 “ So in the churchyard Ihe was laid, 
 
 And when the grafs was dry, 
 
 Together round her grave we played, 
 
 My brother John, and I. 
 
 “ And when the ground was white with fnow, 
 
 And I could run and Aide ; 
 
 My brother John was forced to go, 
 
 And he lies by her fide.” 
 
 “ How many are you then,” faid I, 
 
 “ If they two are in Heaven ?” 
 
 The little maiden did reply, 
 
 “ O Mailer ! we are feven.” 
 
 “ But they are dead 5 thofe two are dead ! 
 
 Their fpirits are in Heaven !” 
 
 ’Twas throwing words away : for Hill 
 The little maid would have her will, 
 
 And faid, “ Nay, we are feven !” 
 
 In the memoirs of Wordfworth we alfo find this entry: — 
 “In the fpring of 1841 I revifited Goodrich Cattle ; the river 
 from its pofition and features is a moft impreffive object. I 
 could not but deeply regret that its folemnity was impaired by 
 a fantaftic new callle (Goodrich Court), fet up on a projection 
 of the fame ridge, as if to fhow how far modern art can go in 
 furpaffing all that could be done by antiquity and nature, with 
 their united graces, remembrances, and aflociations.” 
 
 We may imagine with what aftonifhment our late friend, Sir 
 Samuel Meyrick, would have read this paragraph had it been 
 publithed in his life-time. Sir Samuel, fo far from endeavour- 
 ing to call into the fhade ancient art by modern, was the 
 zealous admirer of all antiquity. This building was defigned 
 and executed as an expofition of the principles of feudal 
 architecture, and intended to contain thofe collections of 
 ancient armour and other feudalities which he had accumulated 
 at fo much expenfe. It was projected to exemplify the llyle 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 1 3 1 
 
 of architecture prevailing during the reigns of Edwards I., II., 
 and III. It was defigned by Blore, and the firft ftone was 
 laid on the 23rd of April, 1828, by Llewellyn Meyrick, Sir 
 Samuel’s only fon, who was not deftined to live to inherit this 
 charming place. Sir Samuel himfelf died in 1848, and the 
 property palled to his nephew, Colonel Meyrick, of the Scots 
 Fufilier Guards. Goodrich Court Hands firmly on a bold 
 promontory of the Wye, with a wood running down the fteep 
 bank to the river. It is backed by Coppet Wood and hills at 
 fome diftance, giving it a pofition of peculiar beauty. Sir 
 Samuel Meyrick, the author of the fplendid work on “ Ancient 
 Armour,” had filled this manfion with a collection of obje&s, 
 which, if they had not won over the poetic mind of Words- 
 worth from cenfure to praife, would have enchanted the feudal 
 taftes of Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 Goodrich Court is approached from the highway from Rofs 
 to Monmouih by an arched gateway, called the Monmouth 
 Gateway, at about the diftance of half a mile from the houfe 
 itfelf. Arriving, you pafs over the moat by a drawbridge 
 leading to a gateway, furnilhed duly with its portcullis, and 
 flanked by two round towers. You then find yourfelves on a 
 fine airy terrace overlooking the Wye far below, and in front 
 of the building, prefenting a variety of round towers, gables, 
 and turrets, full of detail, but fomewhat wanting in elevation to 
 confer on it the full dignity of a feudal fortrefs. In fad, with 
 all its intended ftyle of antiquity, there is a modern afpeCt 
 about it, not merely refulting from its frefhnefs, but from the 
 mixture of gothic facades, more appropriate to a monaftery 
 than a caftle. The chief tower is flanked with a ftrong 
 baftion, is machicolated, and furnilhed with lantern, turrets 
 and fpire. 
 
 The building inclofes a fpacious court, which is divided 
 
I 3 2 
 
 GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 into two by the grand armoury. A porch on the left fide of 
 the inner court leads you to the entrance-hall. In a cavetto 
 moulding over the archway in chara&ers of the time of 
 Edward II., is the following infcription : — 
 
 Auspice Edv. Blore. 
 
 Sumptibus S. R. Meyrick. 
 
 A.D. MDCCCXXVIII. 
 
 In the fpandrels of the arch, on each fide, is a ftone fhield, 
 fculptured with armorial bearings of the family. On the door 
 is a bronze knocker, defigned by Giovanni di Bologna, repre- 
 fenting the deftrucftion of the Philiftines by Samfon. The 
 entrance-hall is divided by an archway, and is adorned with 
 arms, hunting weapons, stags’-horns, etc., difplayed with great 
 tafte. The fire-place, of Painfwick ftone, is finely defigned by 
 Mr. Blore, the architect ; but the great curiofity of the hall is 
 a Bohemian pavoise, of the middle of the fifteenth century. 
 The hall at night is lighted by a Greek lamp found in Hercu- 
 laneum, rich in ornaments of female mafks and horfes’ heads ; 
 a head of Janus forming the lid of the receptacle for the oil. On 
 the principal door is a curious carving of George and the 
 Dragon, of the time of Henry VII., in which the dragon 
 holds his meat-difh in his paws, containing the king’s daughter 
 ready to be devoured. In the part leading to the ftaircafe 
 is a fine oriel window, richly emblazoned with painted glafs, 
 reprefenting Sir Samuel’s anceftor, Meuric or Meyrick ab 
 Llewellyn, of Bodorgan, in the ifland of Anglefey, efquire of 
 the body to King Henry VII., with the family arms, creft and 
 motto. From the hall a fallyport with drawbridge leads to 
 the Ladies’ Terrace; thence by another drawbridge you crofs 
 the moat to the flower-garden, and thence you can defcend 
 through the wood to the river. 
 
 To the left of the entrance-hall you pafs into the gallery of 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 133 
 
 Henry VI., the length of which is one hundred and fix feet. 
 The window is an admirable fpecimen of German painted 
 glafs, reprefenting St. George in fluted armour, with the date 
 1517. On the right hand, in a niche, Hands a figure accoutred 
 in probably the moil magnificent fuit of armour in exiftence : 
 beautifully embofled with bas-reliefs, and inlaid with gold. It 
 belonged to the Duke of Ferrara, the patron of Taflo. It is 
 one of thofe gleanings of the world with which Buonaparte 
 intended to enrich Paris, and was defigned for Malmaifon, but 
 did not reach France before Buonaparte was dethroned in 
 1814, and was purchafed at Modena by Sir Samuel. 
 
 Quitting the entrance-hall on the right, you are introduced 
 to the Asiatic Gallery, in which are arranged a great 
 number of articles of coftume, arms, armour, etc., from India, 
 China, and other parts of Afia. The room is papered to 
 imitate the walls of the Alhambra in Spain, and there is a 
 figure in Moorilh armour brought from Spain, made of pieces 
 of hide cut into fcales, and refembling the lorica of the 
 Romans. In the centre is a Pindaree warrior on horfeback. 
 The chain-armour of the warrior and the trappings of the 
 horfe were brought by Captain Grindley from India, the head- 
 gear being of folid filver. The whole group was prepared 
 from a drawing by Captain Grindley. There are two glafs 
 cafes filled with arms and armour from various countries of 
 Afia, including China. Behind this, feparated from the ante- 
 room by a row of arches, is the Asiatic Armoury, in which 
 is a grand group of Indian figures on horfeback, to exhibit 
 varieties of Indian and Perfian armour and coftume. There 
 is another glafs-cafe containing arms and other articles ; and 
 two others, one on each fide of the window, containing a 
 variety of Hindoo deities and Chinefe curiofities. Then 
 comes the South Sea Room, fimilarly furnilhed with the 
 
134 GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 weapons from the iflands of the Pacific, including a grand 
 war-cloak of feathers, brought from the Sandwich Ifles by 
 Captain Cook. Thefe rooms are curious and inftrudtive, 
 but they are the leaft of all like what you are looking for in a 
 Britifh baronial hall : you enter with a more fatisfied feeling the 
 oppofite fuite of rooms. 
 
 The Banquetting Hall ftrikes you as perfect. It is fifty 
 feet long. Over the entrance is the Minftrels’ Gallery, and 
 on the dais or raifed floor at the upper end is a billiard table, 
 on one fide of which folding doors conduit to a covered way 
 leading to the {tables ; on the other fide other folding-doors 
 lead to the Hastilude Chamber. The roof is of oak, high 
 pitched, refting on {tone corbels ; the floor and panelling are 
 alfo of oak, and the chimney-piece is elaborately carved in 
 Painfwick ftone, bearing on its pediment an alto-relievo of 
 Aylmer de Valence, the owner of the cattle in the time of 
 Edward II., copied from his monument in Weftminfter 
 Abbey. From this window there are fine views of Goodrich 
 Cattle, and of the valleys of the Wye and of Lea Bailey. 
 Amongft the paintings in this room are Phillip II. of Spain, 
 by Coello, the Spanifti Court painter ; his daughter Ifabella and 
 her hufband Ferdinand; Lord Howard of Effingham; the 
 Queen of James II., and Henry, Prince of Wales ; Villiers, 
 Duke of Buckingham, in armour, by Cornelius de Neve; a 
 trooper of the Commonwealth, faid to be Cornet Joyce, and 
 portraits of Sir Samuel and his fon. 
 
 In the Hastilude Chameer you find yourfelves in the 
 midlt of a tournament, — men, {feeds, fpedlators, lifts, heralds, 
 the royal box, and the whole coftume and appurtenances of the 
 fame. You have alfo, in the fame room, if our memory ferve 
 us right, the proceffion of Sir Samuel himfelf when high 
 ftierifF, with all his javelin-men in his livery. Near this is a 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 r 35 
 
 Chapel, fitted as all chapels were at the fuppofed date, the 
 time of our Edwards, in the Roman Catholic ftyle. The 
 carvings and figures are many of them of thofe times, others 
 of Henry VI. The rich altar-cloth, the large candlefticks, the 
 croziers, the reading defks, and other fittings, are all ancient 
 and curious from their hiftories. But the efpecial room of the 
 houfe is The Grand Armoury. It is eighty feet in length, 
 and you have the hiftory of ancient armour before your eyes on 
 the backs of figures reprefenting known warriors, ten of thefe 
 figures on horfeback. You have alfo ten glafs-cafes, containing 
 a feries of arms and armour, down from the Greek and 
 Roman and the Ancient Briton, to the time when armour was 
 exploded by that terrible explofive, gunpowder. Above thefe 
 are ranged banners of many famous men ; and in the intervening 
 fpaces are eighty-four halberds, arranged in groups according to 
 their refpe&ive periods. The oaken columns fupporting the 
 gallery are covered with weapons of all known kinds, including 
 the moft complete collection of the kind in the world. It was 
 the pofleffion of this unrivalled aflemblage of arms and armour 
 which enabled Sir Samuel to write and illuftrate his fuperb 
 work on the fubjeCI. We believe that it was from this 
 armoury that the Auftrians adopted the fame arrangement in 
 the great armoury in one of the palaces in Vienna. 
 
 It is an odd feeling that haunts you when walking among!! 
 this extenfive collection of inftruments of death. You 
 feem to have Hepped out of the Chriftian world altogether, 
 and entered one of animals, bent above all things on mutual 
 deftruCtion. What a wonderful exertion of the faculties, from 
 age to age, to devife fome newer and more efficient means of 
 fending people out of the world ! What an inveterate race of 
 Heel porcupines in the fhape of men ! If any one ever 
 doubted of the fall, and that u the heart of man is deceitful 
 
1 36 
 
 GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 above all things, and defperately wicked,” it would not, it 
 Teems to us, be polTible to doubt it for half-an-hour in fuch 
 a gallery as this. The ingenious inventions, and the coftly 
 productions, of many races and generations of people priding 
 themfelves at once on being Chriftians and exterminators of 
 Chriftians : Tons of the Prince of Peace inveterately given to 
 fighting. Such a difplay of the weapons of death feems, 
 indeed, to fubftantiate the dodtrine of the late actuary Finlayfon, 
 that “ war is the natural condition of man, and peace is but 
 the feafon of exhauftion, and of recruiting himfelf for frefh 
 encounters of reciprocal murders. What a fingular idea this 
 gives us of the human race ! — what a difmal illuftration of 
 univerfal hiftory ! That unhappy thing so happily called — ‘ the 
 great river of mingled blood and tears.’ ” 
 
 Goodrich Court is for the mod part thrown open to public 
 infpedtion, and is reforted to by throngs of deeply interefted 
 vifitors : but it is only by thofe who, like ourfelves, have fpent 
 fome time in the houfe, that the vaft extent of its treafures of 
 art and antiquity can be known. There is a fuite of apart- 
 ments referved for the family, and not opened to the public. 
 There are the library, the dining, breakfaft, and drawing 
 rooms, the Doucean Mufeum, the Sir Geliy Chamber, the 
 chambers fitted up in the fafhion of and named after James I.; 
 Charles I. and Charles II. ’s Galleries ; William III.’s Chamber, 
 with the Prince’s, the Herald’s, the Page’s, and the Leech’s 
 chambers, and the Greek Room. In thefe rooms are contained 
 a wealth of articles of ancient art and vertu, of paintings and 
 fculptures and gems, that fill a large catalogue. We may, 
 however, mention one or two particulars. Mifs Strickland in 
 the “ Hiftory of the Queens of England,” wonders what has 
 become of a certain ivory box, carved in the fhape of a rofe, 
 mentioned by Horace Walpole to have contained the miniature 
 
GOODRICH CASTLE AND COURT. 
 
 x 37 
 
 portraits of Henry VIII. and Anne of Cleves, painted by 
 Holbein, and which, by the over-flattering likenefs of Anne, 
 occafloned fo much mifchief. This is fecurely depofited in a 
 drawer of the library, and we mull fay that if Anne had been as 
 comely-looking as there reprefented, even Henry could not have 
 complained of her plainnefs. The library table is of the time 
 of Henry III., and amongfl the valuable collection of books 
 is the original edition of 1521, of Henry VIII. ’s AJfertio 
 Septem Sacramenta , contra M. Luther , which obtained for 
 Henry the title of Defender of the Faith, from the Pope ; with 
 a curious frontifpiece by Hans Holbein. There are alfo other 
 relics of Henry VIII., and portraits of Luther and his wife, 
 Catherine a Boria. On the table of the drawing-room is a 
 pair of enamelled copper candlefticks, feven hundred years old, 
 with an inkftand and other articles of nearly the fame age. 
 The Doucean Mufeum contains the rich collection of works 
 of art and antiquity, collected by Mr. Francis Douce, and 
 bequeathed by him to Sir Samuel Meyrick, confifting of 
 paintings of the Byzantine and Italian fchools, tapeftry, draw- 
 ings, engravings, carvings in wood and ivory, enamels, cinque- 
 cent bronzes, coins and medals, crefts, antiquities of Greece, 
 Egypt, Rome, Mexico, Perfia, China, and India. Befides 
 this every room has its appropriate fittings and objeCts of 
 hiftoric and artiftic intereft. During our vifit at Goodrich 
 Court we were lodged in the chamber of William and Mary. 
 
 T 
 
/omttains Jlbbn). 
 
 O part of England in the palmy days of 
 Romanifm could boaft more fplendid 
 monaftic buildings, or can now {how 
 more magnificent remains of them, than 
 Yorkfhire. Greatly varied in its fcenery, 
 this extenfive county is traverfed by 
 dales and glens, prefenting every attraction to that love of 
 feclufion, and yet of ftately half religious, half baronial life, 
 which diftinguifhed the facred orders of the Roman church. 
 Woods and rivers, and fair uplands, and wild foreft tracks, gave 
 every fcope for the love of folitude, of the pomp and harmony of 
 worfhip, or for the more worldly taftes for the chace, and the 
 tributes of fifh and ferce nature, and bovine and pecudine 
 fubftantials for the refectory. Fountains and Rievaux, Jervaux 
 and Byland, and many another name, raife vifions of the now 
 {hattered grandeur of the monaftic ages, that had nothing to 
 outvie it in any country of Europe. Of all thefe, and of all 
 fuch fuperb feats of conventual power and fplendour in 
 England, none can equal in extent of ruin, as once in ampli- 
 tude of eftate, the noble pile of Fountains. We are told that 
 after its original period of poverty and diftrefs, a great pros- 
 perity flowed in upon the eftabliftiment. Many perfons of power 
 and opulence purchafed, by large donations, a fepulture within 
 the walls of the abbey. Favoured by popes, kings, and pre- 
 
FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 139 
 
 FOUNTAINS ABBEY } FROM THE ABBOT’S HOUSE. 
 
 lates, with various immunities and privileges, and enriched by 
 a fucceffion of princely gifts, Fountains Abbey became one of 
 the wealthieft monafteries of the kingdom. The church ranked 
 amongft the faireft ftrudlures of the land, and the polTelfions 
 attached to it comprehended a vaft extent, embracing the 
 country from the foot of Pennigent to the boundaries of St. 
 Wilfrid of Ripon, an uninterrupted fpace of more than thirty 
 miles. Befides many other wide domains, the lands in Craven 
 contained, in a ring fence, a hundred fquare miles, or fixty 
 thoufand acres, on a moderate computation. 
 
 We learn from the u Monafticon,” on the authority of 
 
140 
 
 FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 Hugh, a monk of Kirkftall, that the fite of this monaftery 
 was granted in 1132, by Thurfton, Archbifhop of York, out 
 of his liberty of Ripon, which town, containing the venerable 
 cathedral of St. Wilfrid, is not four miles off. He conferred 
 it on certain monks, who feparated themfelves from what they 
 deemed the lax difcipline of the Benedidtine abbey of St. Mary 
 of York, and refolved to adopt the Ciftercian rule, which was 
 then becoming famous from the reputed fandfity and daring 
 enthufiafm of St. Bernard. Richard, the prior, with the fub- 
 prior, ten monks of St. Mary’s, and Robert, a monk of 
 Whitby, retired in the depth of winter to this fecluded, and, at 
 that period, wild and uncultivated dell, where they commenced 
 a church in honour of the Blefted Virgin. They found fhelter, 
 according to tradition, under a gigantic elm, which is faid to 
 have lived on for four hundred years ; and, if fo, probably only 
 fell with the abbey itfelf, for the royal commiflioners of Henry 
 VIII. arrived to pronounce its doom in 1535. There are alfo 
 remaining old yews ftill Handing near the abbey mill, and pro- 
 bably planted by the firft fathers of the place. Like the 
 founders of many other monafteries, the monks were at firft 
 nearly driven away by ftarvation. They determined to accept 
 the invitation of St. Bernard to go over and take refuge in his 
 monaftery of Clairvaux, in Champagne, but juft at this junc- 
 ture good fortune began to fmile on them ; they remained, 
 and the monaftery grew into the fplendour and the wealth 
 which we have mentioned. 
 
 The hiftory of Fountains Abbey is like hundreds of other 
 fuch houfes. In fome contentions in its earlier days between 
 Murdoc, its abbot, and one William, for election to the arch- 
 bilhopric of York, the partizans of William fet fire to it, and 
 burnt it down, hoping to have burnt Murdoc in it. It was 
 foon rebuilt, for the ftyle of the main body of the abbey is 
 
FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 141 
 
 Early Englifh, and though many additions were made to it, 
 they mult have been either very early, or only towards the con- 
 clufion of the papal afcendancy in England ; for the main body 
 of the building is in the Early Englilh ftyle, and the tower in 
 the Perpendicular. We are told that in 1203, Ralph, the ninth 
 abbot, commenced the building of the choir, and that fucceffive 
 abbots built the Lady Chapel, or chapel of the Nine Altars, 
 and that these, with the great cloifter, the Infirmary, and the 
 Xenodochium, or houfe of entertainment for the poor, were 
 not completed till 1247. The great tower appears to have 
 been built by the abbots Huby and Darnton at the end of the 
 fifteenth century, and is of the ftyle of that period, the Perpen- 
 dicular ; fo that it muft have been in the glory of its frefhnefs 
 when the commiffioners of Henry VIII. arrived in 1535 to 
 terminate its ecclefiaftical exiftence. It was finally furrendered 
 in 1539 by Marmaduke Bradley, thirty-eighth abbot. According 
 to the certificates delivered to the commiffioners, its income, 
 including the tythes, was ^998 6 s. J%d., but it appears by 
 another account to have realized annually £1,173 or. jd. 
 
 The abbey and part of the eftates were fold by Henry VIII. 
 to Sir Richard Grefham, the father of Sir Thomas Grefham, 
 the founder of the Royal Exchange in London. In the 
 eighteenth century, the property was purchafed by William 
 Aiflabie, the fon of Mr. Chancellor Aiflabie, the proprietor of 
 the adjoining property of Studley Royal, alfo an original do- 
 main of the Abbey of Fountains, which had palled through 
 the hands of the families of Aleman, Le Gros, Tempeft, and 
 Mallory ; John Aiflabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century, having inherited it 
 from Mary Mallory, his mother. The two properties were 
 thrown together by the fon of the Chancellor, the purchafer of 
 Fountains, and now conftitute a property having few rivals 
 
142 
 
 FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 for piiturefque beauty. From William Aiflabie it defcended 
 to the late Mrs. Lawrence, famous for her political fpirit, and 
 for triumphing over the very Reform Bill, and continuing, by 
 the creation of what were called cowfhed votes, to fend her 
 nominees for the adjoining borough of Ripon to parliament. 
 By her it was bequeathed to the Earl de Grey, a collateral 
 defcendant from the Aiflabies, who is now the fortunate pro- 
 prietor. 
 
 To reach the abbey, you mud prefent yourfelf at the gates 
 of Studley Park, where guides are in attendance to conduit 
 you over the whole fcene. With one of thefe you afcend the 
 vale of the Skell, amid a fucceffion of fcenes of the moft 
 woodland and truly Englifh beauty. As you advance, you 
 behold unfolding before you, woods, grand old avenues, lakes, 
 ftreams, fountains, and lawns and terraces of the moft fmoothly- 
 fhaven neatnefs. It is the perfection of art employed on a 
 wildly fecluded nature. The exquifite keeping and finifh of 
 the whole makes you feel as if you had entered the very 
 gardens of Armida, if even they in their fabled beauty can be 
 conceived fo highly adorned and exquifitely tended. 
 
 In lhadier bowers, 
 
 More facred and fequeftered, though but feigned, 
 
 Pan or Sylvanus never Dept, nor nymph 
 Nor faunus haunted. 
 
 Milton. 
 
 In fait, the artiftic finifh appears almoft too perfeit, and as if 
 not a leaf even could fall without offending that confummate 
 polifh of velvet lawn, winding walk, fmooth as polifhed ftone, 
 and bower, and temple, grotto, and ftatue of Grecian god or 
 goddefs, or contending gladiators, the hum of nicely-ftudied 
 waterfall, or the funlit furface of lakes, moved only by the 
 wings and oaring feet of wild fowl. But, as thefe elyfian 
 
FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 H3 
 
 fcenes are but the introduction to the abbey itfelf, we {hall 
 only fay that we pafs the Moon and Crefcent ponds, the 
 OCtagon Tower, leaving Studley Hall itfelf on the right, and 
 through groups of immenfe fpruce firs, fome of them of one 
 hundred and thirty feet in height, and of upwards of twelve 
 feet in circumference at the bafe. Suddenly a door opens, 
 and we find ourfelves in a noble Gothic alcove, called Anne 
 Boleyn’s Seat, and before us a moft ftriking view of the abbey, 
 with its tall and {lately tower, amid the opening woods, and 
 on the banks of the meandering Skell. 
 
 As we advance along this narrow dale amid towering rocks 
 and throuding woods, we are reminded that we are now in 
 Fountain Dale, famous for the conteft of Robin Hood and the 
 Curtal friar. Paffing this fpot, we prefently emerge into the full 
 view of the noble abbey, with the fine pointed windows of the 
 body of the church wreathed with mafles of ivy ; but its grand 
 tower {landing clear and majeftic, and nearly as unimpaired as 
 at the hour of its defertion. To defcribe the whole of the 
 remains of this admirable ruin would require a volume. There 
 are the chapel of Nine Altars, the glorious choir, the tranfept 
 and fide chapels, the tower, the nave, the cloifter-court, the 
 cloifters, and chapter-houfe — all demanding particular attention 
 for their noble proportions, and the grace and beauty of their 
 remaining arches, columns, and windows. The chapel of 
 Nine Altars is wonderfully impreffive from the loftinefs and 
 lightnefs of its arches, which crofs it in prolongation of the 
 clereftory of the choir, the central pillars of which are oCta- 
 gonal, but are now {tripped of the cylindric {hafts, with which 
 they were formerly cluttered. Thefe are faid to have been 
 the work of a ruftic genius of the village of Sawley, called in 
 the charters of the abbey “ Thomas Marmorarius de Sawley.” 
 Over one of the windows is a fcroll infcribed in abbreviation 
 
144 
 
 FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 with a motto which reveals the origin of the abbey’s name. — 
 JSeiutfiritt fontes tJomtno. 
 
 In the choir only the external walls remain ; but on the two 
 upper greces of the High Altar have been relaid a portion of 
 that “ painted floor” recorded to have been bellowed on the 
 choir by the abbot, John de Cantia, in the thirteenth century, 
 confifting of teflerae of red, black, yellow, and grey. There 
 is alfo a Hone coffin, faid to be that of Lord Percy of Alnwick, 
 who was buried before the high altar in 1315 ; and a huge 
 black marble graveftone of the abbot, John de Ripon. In the 
 fide chapels of the tranfept are other remains, particularly of 
 the tomb of Abbot Burley : and on each fide of the great 
 tower, above and below the belfry windows, are infcriptions 
 in Tudor black letter boldly relieved. The infcriptions above 
 the windows are all different, but the fame individual motto 
 ferves for the lower infcription on all four fides. — “ Soli deo 
 honor et gloria in fecula feculorum. Amen.” The Cloifter 
 Court remains furrounded by the church and its accompanying 
 buildings. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet fquare. On 
 the weft of it are the cloifters themfelves, Hill perfecff, and 
 prefenting a double arcade of arches. It is lighted by windows 
 looking into the court, but prefents a folemn and fombre 
 twilight fcene ; and when the imagination raifes the figures of 
 the ancient monks, in cowls and frocks, taking their exercife 
 here in winter, the impreffions of their life and times come 
 vividly before us. So narrow is the valley here that a great 
 part of thefe cloifters are built over the river, the floor being 
 laid on arches. Over the cloifters was the dormitory of the 
 monks, divided into about forty cells. 
 
 In November, 1848, a great difcovery was made of the 
 foundations of the Abbot’s houfe, which was fituated to the 
 fouth-eaft of the Lady Chapel, and alfo built on arches over 
 
FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 H5 
 
 the ruin. The falling in of part of thefe arches led to the 
 difcovery, and the foundations have fince been laid bare, and 
 prefent very interefting details of the goodly manfion of the 
 abbots, containing a fine pillared hall, one hundred and 
 feventy-one feet long by feventy feet wide, ample kitchens, 
 chapel, refectory, and aftable for the fix white horfes which drew 
 
 FOUNTAINS : LADY CHAPEL. 
 
 the chariot of the laft abbot. tc Sex equi ad bigam Amongft 
 the rubbifh which covered the foundations, were found many 
 ornamental encauftic tiles, and amongft the afhes of the 
 kitchen curious fragments of filver plate, pottery, etc., and 
 
 u 
 
146 
 
 FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 abundance of oyfter, muflel, and cockle fhells, Ihowing the 
 liberal ufe of fifli by the holy brotherhood. 
 
 It appears that Sir Stephen Protftor, of Warfill, in 1611, 
 pulled down this fine old abbot’s houfe, to build himfelf a man- 
 fion, which ftill ftands on a fteep and wooded Hope, at a fhort 
 diftance from the weftern gate of the abbey. The old houfe, 
 with its large mullioned windows, its pi&urefque gables, its 
 oddly out of keeping Ionic porch with fundial over it, its 
 balcony, its ftatues, purloined from the abbey, and its clipped 
 yew hedges, is an objed well becoming the fcene, though we 
 fhould have preferred that Sir Stephen had found fome other 
 quarry for his ftones than the abbot’s dwelling. 
 
 The view of the buildings is beautiful as you ftand at the 
 fouth end of the Lady Chapel and take in the extent of the 
 lofty walls and windows, one above another, with the trees 
 beyond equalling them in height. The old rocks alfo, Ihowing 
 themfelves along the north fide of the abbey, overhung with 
 trees which have grown fince the abbev itfelf was hewn out 
 of thofe rocks, are remarkably pidurefque. 
 
 Near the abbey, on the other fide of the river, which we 
 crofs by an old bridge, ftill ftands the abbey mill, looking 
 ancient and in excellent keeping with the fcene. It ftill 
 grinds for the people of the neighbourhood as it ground for 
 the monks, and looks out duftily from amongft ancient trees. 
 There is alfo a faw-mill hiffing luftily as in modern contempt 
 of all this antiquity. Near the old mill ftands one of the 
 moft antiquated groups of yew-trees that eye ever beheld. 
 There were probably feven of them, for they are ftill called 
 the “ Seven Sifters,” though there are only three or four 
 remaining, huge and hollow, but ftill moft of them vigorous 
 in foliage. One of them is twenty-five feet in circumference, 
 and they are calculated to have ftood here twelve centuries. 
 
FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 H7 
 
 They have long outlived, not only the magnificent abbey, 
 but the fyftem out of which it rofe. Long may they continue 
 calling the fpirit of long-paft ages over a fcene which com- 
 bines the ever-living forms of nature fo lovingly with the 
 fhattered remains of mediaeval art, that together they feem 
 rather a vifion of poetry than a reality of this matter-of-fa£l 
 era. It is difficult, even while thefe graceful piles ftand before 
 us amid the folemnity of ancient meadow, hill and wood, to 
 conceive that they once were enfouled by a life fo oppofed 
 to everything now moving around us. The world of monks 
 walking in dim cloifters, and fending up their daily anthems 
 amid fuch incenfed fhrines and arcades of foaring columns, 
 and the world of railroads and bufy forges and populous 
 fa&ories, appear impoffible, as the growth of the fame ground 
 and the fame minds. We can fcarcely do more than regard 
 them as raifed to embody the dreams of poets, and to give 
 a new charm to the fummer day’s ramble, by fuch lapfing 
 ftreams and through fuch fhadowy woodlands as thofe of 
 Fountain dale. 
 
teliit (Hljajjci atii) Castle. 
 
 HERE is no place in Scotland which fame 
 for beauty and poetry has excited fo lively 
 a defire in the tourift to fee, as Rodin and 
 its neighbour Hawthornden ; and the wifh 
 is eafily gratified on the arrival at Edin- 
 burgh, for thefe celebrated fpots are only 
 about feven miles to the fouth of that city. But great is the 
 wonder of the traveller as he advances in that dire&ion. 
 He has not long quitted the romantic environs of the Scottifh 
 capital, and begins with eagernefs to look a-head for this 
 promifed fairyland, when he beholds only a plain, bald trait 
 of country, over which are rolling the fmoke of coal-pit fires. 
 The farther he goes the ftronger becomes his amazement. 
 The black hills of coal-refufe ; carts and wagons laden with 
 that black but ufeful mineral pafs him, and he beholds a very 
 ordinary country interfered by ftone walls, fcarred and dis- 
 figured by all the features of a coal-mining region ; and with 
 hundreds of engine-chimneys vomiting fmoke. 
 
 But anon he comes to the edge of a deep and narrow valley, 
 at the bottom of which runs a rapid ftream, and the fteep 
 banks of this glade are varied by every charm of rocks and 
 woods, and dwellings of paft or prefent generations. Here 
 ftands the far-famed chapel, worthy of all its reputation, 
 there perched at the brink of the deep and fteep glen, the 
 ruins of the ancient caftle, with a modern houfe eredled amongft 
 
ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 149 
 
 them ; and there a little farther is the claffic abode of the poet 
 Drummond ; but far mod interefting of the whole, from its 
 unique architecture, is the chapel. This was founded in 
 1446, a period of exuberant ornament in church architecture, 
 and this has a character of its own, one in which the genius of 
 building and carving feems to have revelled in its mod original 
 mood. 
 
 The founder of Roflin Chapel was William de St. Clair, 
 Earl of Orkney and Lord of Roflin, in the cattle of which he 
 refided. He was a great man in his day, and fo far as we can 
 judge from his aCts, was a man not only held in high eftimation 
 
 ROSLIN CHAPEL, INTERIOR. 
 
150 
 
 ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 by his monarch, but one who had a mind far more liberal and 
 judicious than his order and his rank were calculated to infpire. 
 This is the account we find of him in Robertfon’s Index : — 
 “ As admiral of the fleet, he conveyed the Princefs Margaret 
 to France in 1436; he was Chancellor of Scotland from 
 1454 to 1458 ; he was made Earl of Caithnefs in 1455. In 
 1470 he refigned the earldom of Orkney to the king, and 
 obtained in return various lands in Fife. Having, in 1459, 
 fettled the barony of Newburgh, in Aberdeenfhire, on William, 
 his only fon by his firft wife, Lady Margaret Douglas, he, in 
 1476, fettled the barony of Roflin, and his other eftates in 
 Lothian, on Oliver St. Clair, his eldeft fon by his fecond 
 marriage ; and he transferred the earldom of Caithnefs to 
 William, the fecond fon of his fecond marriage. The eminent 
 founder of Roflin Chapel died foon after this fettlement, which 
 deranged his ejiates , and degraded his family .” 
 
 What a Angular derangement of his eftates in this great 
 Earl St. Clair, by dividing them amongft his fons, inftead of 
 heaping them, contrary to all the laws of nature and equity, on 
 one ! What a ftrange degradation of his family, by making 
 them equal participants of his property ! So pitiably do feudal 
 inftitutions pervert the minds not only of pofteftors but of 
 hiftorians. 
 
 In eredling this chapel, Earl William feems to have exercifed 
 the fame breadth and originality of mind ; for he chofe an 
 architect of a brave and unique genius. Mr. Britton, in his 
 u Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain,” thus expreftes 
 his perception of the fine and peculiar character of the ftyle : — 
 “This building, I believe, may be pronounced unique, and I 
 am confident it will be found curious, elaborate, and Angularly 
 interefting. The chapels of King’s College, St. George, 
 and Henry VIII., are all conformable to the ftyles of the 
 
ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 l 5i 
 
 refpedlive ages when they were eredted ; and thefe ftyles 
 difplay a gradual advancement in lightnefs and profufion of 
 ornament ; but the chapel of Roll in combines the folidity of 
 the Norman with the minute decoration of the Tudor age. It 
 is impoftible to defignate the architecture of this building by 
 any given or familiar term ; for the variety and eccentricity of 
 its parts are not defined by any of common acceptation. I afk 
 fome of our obftinate antiquaries, how they could apply 
 either the term Roman, Saxon, Norman, Gothic, Saracenic, 
 Englifh, or Grecian, to this building.” 
 
 The founder intended to have ereCted it into a regular 
 collegiate church, having a provoft, fix prebendaries, and two 
 chorifters, or Tinging boys, and he endowed it with lands and 
 revenues befitting ; but he died when he had only completed 
 the nave, which is the prefent chapel, and it was ufed as the 
 chapel to the caftle. The hill on which he built it was called 
 College Hill, and the people of the neighbourhood ftill call it the 
 College. It Hands on the northern bank of the Elk. “ Some 
 additions,” fays Chalmers in his “Account of North Britain,” 
 “ were made to the endowment by fucceeding Barons of 
 Roflin. In 1523, Sir William St. Clair granted fome lands 
 in the vicinity of the chapel, for dwelling-houfes and gardens, 
 and other accommodations to the provoft and prebendaries. 
 In his charter, he mentions four altars in this chapel; one 
 dedicated to St. Matthew, another to the Virgin, a third to St. 
 Andrew, and a fourth to St. Peter. The commencement of 
 the reformation by tumult, was the fignal for violence and 
 fpoliation. The provoft and prebendaries of Rofiin felt the 
 effects of this fpirit. They were defpoiled of their revenues ; 
 and in 1572, they were compelled to relinquifh their whole 
 property, which, indeed, had been withheld from them during 
 many revolutionary years.” 
 
X 5 2 
 
 ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 Beneath this chapel was the burial-place of the barons of 
 Rodin; “fo dry,” fays Slezer in 1693, “that the bodies at the 
 end of eighty years were found in it entire.” Ten barons had 
 been buried there before the revolution ; and of old, fays Hay, 
 “ they were buried in their armour without any coffin. The firft 
 baron who was buried in a coffin was when the Duke of York, 
 afterwards James II., was in Scotland. He and feveral 
 antiquaries were oppofed to his having a coffin, but the 
 widow infilled on it, declaring it to be beggarly to be buried 
 without. The chapel,” continues Hay, “ of which any nation 
 may be proud, was defaced by the fame ungoverned mob 
 which pillaged the callle of Rodin, on the night of the nth of 
 December, 1688.” The callle, after Handing the Ihocks of 
 the reformation and the revolution, was at length refigned to 
 time and chance. The chapel was repaired in the lall century 
 by General St. Clair ; and has fince been renovated by his 
 fuccelfors. 
 
 We may rejoice that, notwithllanding the alfaults and perils 
 through which this beautiful chapel has palfed, in common 
 with almoll every ecclefiallical building in Scotland, it remains 
 fo entire as it does. It is a fpecimen of the ecclefiallical 
 architecture of Scotland that is without peer. Outfide and 
 infide it is a truly beautiful objeCl. Its aides on each fide are 
 lupported by rows of pointed arches, of which the pillars are 
 not more than eight feet high, with clullered lhafts of a 
 maffivenefs equalling the Saxon ; and the arches themfelves 
 richly ornamented in fucceffive corded bands, or fpandrels. 
 The capitals of the pillars are alfo elaborately carved in foliage 
 intermingled with figures. One pillar has a renown of its own. 
 It is called the ’ prentice pillar , the legend being that the 
 apprentice of the architect executed this in his mailer’s 
 abfence, and when he returned and faw its furpaffing beauty, 
 
ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 153 
 
 he knocked out the lad’s brains with his hammer. The figure 
 of the ’prentice is pointed out on the top of another pillar, 
 and not far off is a buff, faid to be that of his mother, who is 
 looking at his dead body and weeping. The pillar is of 
 exquifite workmanfhip, being covered with the mod delicate 
 tracery, which runs fpirally round it. Such a legend is not con- 
 
 ROSLIN : ’prentice pillar. 
 
 fined to Roflin ; there is a ’prentice pillar in one of the churches 
 at Rouen, and of a fimilar nature is the legend of the celebrated 
 aftronomical clock in Strafburg Cathedral, that the inventor 
 had no fooner completed it than the corporation had his eyes 
 put out, that he might not make another like it. 
 
 x 
 
i54 
 
 ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 On the pavement of the chapel is the outline of one of the 
 barons, lying in effigy, with a greyhound at his feet. Nothing 
 is more common than for fome animal, the chief cognizance 
 of the family, to be thus placed at the feet of knight or 
 baron. “But in this cafe,” fays Robert Chambers, “ it has 
 given rife to a peculiar ftory, which is thus related to all 
 vifitors by the perfon who now {hows the chapel. The perfon 
 here delineated,” he fays, “ is Sir William de St. Clair. He 
 was one day hunting over Roflin Moor along with King Robert 
 Bruce, when a white deer was ftarted. Roflin wagered his 
 head that his excellent hounds Hold and Help would feize the 
 deer before it could crofs the March Burn. It was juft about 
 to do fo, without being feized, when Roflin’s emergency made 
 him at once pious and poetical. He vowed a chapel to St. 
 Katherine, provided fhe would take his cafe in hand, and 
 fhouted out to the foremoft of his dogs : — 
 
 ‘ Help, haud, an’ ye may, 
 
 Or Roflin will lose his head this day.’ 
 
 Help, affifted by the faint, and encouraged by her mafter, 
 made a defperate leap forward, and pulled down the deer juft 
 as it was about to leap upon land. The baron, too much 
 terrified by the rifle to enjoy the efcape, immediately put his 
 foot upon the dog’s neck, and killed it, faying it fhould never 
 again lead him into fuch temptation.” It ufed to be a belief in 
 the neighbourhood that, on the night before any of the barons 
 died, the whole of the chapel appeared in flames. In 1805, the 
 Marchionefs of Stafford took fome lketches of Roflin Chapel, 
 which were etched in 1807, and circulated in a fmall volume 
 amongft her friends. 
 
 Roflin Caftle, overhanging the pidlurefque glen of the Elk, 
 is, as we have faid, a ruin, with a modern houfe built in the 
 midft of it ; but the three lower ftories, being below the 
 
ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 1 55 
 
 level of the fummit of the bank, are yet entire. A beauti- 
 ful Scottifh fong, bearing its name, has connected its memory 
 with the public mind, far and wide. 
 
 ROSLIN CASTLE. 
 
 [By Richard Hewitt, a native of Cumberland, who affed as conduftor to Dr. 
 Blacklock, the blind Scottifh poet, and died in 1764. It is always included among 
 the Scottifh fongs. The air is Scotch, and very beautiful.] 
 
 ’Twas in that feafon of the year, 
 
 When all things gay and fweet appear, 
 
 That Colin, with the morning ray, 
 
 Arofe and fung his rural lay. 
 
 Of Nancy’s charms the fhepherd fung, 
 
 The hills and dales with Nancy rung, 
 
 While Roflin Caftle heard the Twain, 
 
 And echoed back the cheerful ftrain. 
 
 Awake, fweet Mufe 1 the breathing fpring 
 With rapture warms ; awake and fing ! 
 
 Awake and join the rural throng, 
 
 Who hail the morning with a fong : 
 
 To Nancy raife the cheerful lay, 
 
 O ! bid her hafte and Come away j 
 In fweeteft fmiles herfelf adorn, 
 
 And add new graces to the morn. 
 
 O ! hark, my love, on every fpray 
 Each feathered warbler tunes his lay, 
 
 ’Tis beauty fires the ravifhed throng, 
 
 And love infpires the melting fong ; 
 
 Then let my raptured notes arife, 
 
 For beauty darts from Nancy’s eyes, 
 
 And love my rifing bofom warms, 
 
 And fills my foul with fweet alarms. 
 
 O ! come, my love j thy Colin’s lay 
 With rapture calls — O ! come away! 
 
 Come while the mufe this wreath fhall twine 
 Around that modeft brow of thine : 
 
 O ! hither hafte, and with thee bring 
 That beauty blooming like the fpring, 
 
 Thofe graces that divinely fhine, 
 
 And charm this ravifhed breaft of mine ! 
 
i 5 6 
 
 ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 It would leave but a very imperfedl idea of Roflin and its 
 locality, did we omit to mention that near it Hands Hawthorn- 
 den, the houfe of the poet Drummond, the friend of Shak- 
 speare and Ben Jonfon. We believe the place is ftill in the 
 pofleflion of a defcendant of the family. It Hands on a pre- 
 cipitous rock overhanging the fouth bank of the river. We 
 cannot do better than tranfcribe the account of it given by 
 Robert Chambers, in his “ Pidlure of Scotland.” 
 
 “ Hawthornden may be defcribed as a manor-houfe of the 
 reign of Charles I., engrafted on the ruins of an ancient 
 baronial caflle. On one fide its walls rife diredlly from the 
 brink of a deep precipice ; on the other, they adjoin to a level 
 and well-cultivated domain. The walks around the houfe are 
 peculiarly fine, being chiefly laid throughout the beautiful vale 
 of the Efk. Admiflion to them can only be obtained by an 
 order from the proprietor. 
 
 “ What mud add greatly to the charm of Hawthornden, is, 
 that the prefent houfe was built by the poet : as is teftified by 
 an infcription on the front. Many of the minor localities 
 around the houfe are aflociated with his name ; as an arbour 
 where he ufed to fit at his long daily mufings, and a fummer- 
 houfe where he is faid to have often taken his food. But 
 perhaps the mod interefting of all the neighbouring objects, 
 is a large tree near the place where the external gate of the 
 court-yard formerly flood — a tree which feems to have adled 
 the part of the Covin tree. This Covin or Coglin tree 
 flood in front of old manfion-houfes in Scotland, and to it the 
 hofl attended his guefls bare-headed on their departure. 
 
 “ Ben Jonfon, it is generally known, walked all the way 
 from London on foot to fee Drummond at this his paternal 
 refidence. Regarding this vifit, tradition records a circumflance 
 fo charadleriflic and fo probable, that I can not but believe it 
 
ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 *57 
 
 true. Drummond, it is faid, on feeing Ben approaching the 
 houfe, went out, like a good landlord, to the outfide of his 
 gate, in order to bid him welcome, according to form, under 
 the fhade of this tree. As he Ihook the dramatift by the 
 hand, he exclaimed in mock-heroic ftyle : — 
 
 “ Welcome, welcome, royal Ben.” 
 
 To which Jonfon immediately anfwered in fuch a way as to 
 make up a Hudibraftic couplet: — 
 
 “ Thank ye, thank ye, Hawthornden !” 
 
 “ The two poets enjoyed the pleafure of each other’s conver- 
 fation for a confiderable time ; and the Arranger will fcarcely 
 vifit without confiderable emotion the place where, in the 
 words of Collins — 
 
 “Jonfon fat in Drummond’s claflic lhade.” 
 
 “ It is melancholy to add, that the vifit of Jonfon to Drum- 
 mond refulted in a violent quarrel and eftrangement. Jonfon 
 during his fojourn at Hawthornden, opened his heart to the 
 poet, and talked freely of his contemporaries in London. All 
 this was in the confidence of friendfhip, but it was greedily 
 drunk in by Drummond, and daily or nightly carefully written 
 down. Some time after, Jonfon, to his great aftonilhment 
 and indignation, found the whole given to the world by his 
 treacherous hoft in his notorious ‘ Conventions.’ The 
 anger and reproaches of Ben were as pungent and unfparing as 
 they were juftly merited by the falfe country poet. We wifh 
 we could fay that this habit of noting down confidential con- 
 verfations, and confiding them to the whole world through the 
 prefs, were confined to the time of Jonfon and the laird of 
 Hawthornden ; and that fome ready penmen of the prefent 
 day would be able to call a Hone at Drummond with a clear 
 confcience. 
 
158 
 
 ROSL1N CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 “ Several detached curiofities are fhown to ftrangers in the 
 infide of Hawthornden Houfe : as, for inftance, the walkino-- 
 cane of the celebrated Duchefs of Lauderdale, a ftately old 
 piece of timber with a pike at one end and a crook at the 
 other, communicating — unlefs fancy has ftrangely deceived the 
 prefent writer — a ftriking idea of the perfonal bearing of that 
 mod fingular lady. There are alfo a number of family portraits, 
 including a fine queen Mary. 
 
 “ In the face of the precipice upon which Hawthornden is 
 reared, the ftranger, in traverfing the glen, fees a number of 
 holes. Thefe are the orifices of a fingular fuite of caverns 
 which penetrate the rock beneath the houfe. No ftranger 
 omits feeing this fingular curiofity. In the court-yard he is 
 firft fhown a well of prodigious depth, which communicates 
 with the caves. He then defcends a narrow flair to a long 
 fubterranean pafiage, on each fide of which there are fmall 
 apartments, much after the fafhion of a fuite of bed-rooms in 
 an old houfe. Below this there is what may be called a lower 
 ftory, which alfo contains rooms, and, the pafiage of which 
 looks out upon the glen at one of the holes mentioned. The 
 fhaft of the well communicates with another end of this 
 pafiage ; fo that the inmates of thefe caves could not only draw 
 up their own water when they pleafed, but alfo be fupplied with 
 food by their friends above, by means of a bucket. 
 
 “ Without adverting to the circumftance that thefe caverns 
 muft have been originally formed by the early Britons, whofe 
 molelike preference of darknefs to light in their fortified refi- 
 dences is a fa£l very well known to antiquaries ; it may be 
 mentioned that, by the invariable tradition of the country, they 
 afforded fhelter to the diftrefied friends of Bruce, if not to that 
 hero himfelf, at a time when they dared not fhow their faces 
 above-ground. In one of the apartments a recefs is fhown, 
 which is faid to have contained the bed ufed by the heroic 
 
ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 159 
 
 Edward Bruce, brother to the king, during his refidence here. 
 In the fucceeding age they are faid to have been ufed for the 
 fame purpofe by Sir Alexander Ramfay, the knight who flew 
 man and horfe, and broke the pavement-ftone in Candle-maker 
 Row, — and by his hardy band of compatriots, who nightly 
 fallied forth from this hiding-place to annoy their enemies, and 
 who thus invariably efcaped detection.” 
 
 The poetry of Drummond, though much praifed in his time, 
 is not of a character to pleafe ours. Much of it confifts of 
 occafional verfes “On a Parrot,” or “To his Miftrefs’s 
 Eyebrow,” or, at leaft, verfes of that {lamp. Others are well 
 worded, but deftitute of living fentinrent ; while fome are ex- 
 tremely obfcene. In fa£l, the bulk of his compofitions refemble 
 a vaft mafs of others flored in our libraries, which would be 
 better in bonfires to make room for better things. His poems 
 of devotion, the bell part of his writings, do not warm us : they 
 will not do after Herbert, Cowper, Keble, and Montgomery. 
 This fonnet is the only thing bearing any reference to Haw- 
 thornden, where he fpent fo much of his life, and wrote moll of 
 his verfe : — 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 “ Dear wood, and you, fweet folitary place, 
 Where from the vulgar I eftranged live, 
 Contented more with what your lhades me give, 
 Than if I had what Thetis doth embrace ; 
 
 What fnaky eye, grown jealous of my peace, 
 Now from your filent horrors would me drive, 
 When fun, progrefling in his glorious race 
 Beyond the Twins, doth near our pole arrive ? 
 What fweet delight a quiet life affords, 
 
 And what it is to be of bondage free, 
 
 Far from the madding worldling’s hoarfe difcords, 
 Sweet flowery place, I firft did learn of thee : 
 
 Ah ! if I were mine own, your dear reforts 
 1 would not change with princes’ ftately courts.” 
 
i6o 
 
 ROSLIN CHAPEL AND CASTLE. 
 
 We are forry to hear that there is a procefs of fo-called 
 renovating going on in this beautiful chapel, by lharpening up 
 its fculptures. W e muft fay that we prefer the original cutting, 
 though it may be fomewhat worn by time, and have a natural 
 fhrinking at the idea of touching up what we prefer feeing to 
 be old, rather than to be vainly perfuaded by modern chifels 
 that it is new. 
 
(Oljjin (Enthral. 
 
 Time hath not wronged her, nor hath ruin fought 
 Rudely her fplendid ftrudlures to deftroy, 
 
 Save in thofe recent days, with evil fraught, 
 
 When mutability, in drunken joy 
 Triumphant, and from all reftraint releafed, 
 
 Let loofe her fierce and many-headed heart. 
 
 Southey. 
 
 HE ancient capital of Morayfhire ftretches 
 along its level fite a few miles from where 
 the Spey falls into the ocean, in a grey 
 and ftately antiquity that fpeaks of better 
 days. Changes of life and manners have 
 led away the landed gentry to fouthern 
 cities, and their old abodes Hand, bearing on their venerable 
 fronts their names, and the dates of their erection, but now 
 devolved to more plebeian occupation. Changes of faith have 
 alfo rent down that noble fane, once the nobleft of all Scotland. 
 The cathedral was originally built in the early part of the 
 thirteenth century, a period at which arofe fo many of the 
 ecclefiaftical fabrics of both England and Scotland. But this 
 firft church was deftroyed by fire in 1390, by one of the moft 
 rude and fierce of Scotland’s old ariftocracy. Alexander 
 Stuart, the fon of Robert II., king of Scotland, a man properly 
 
i 62 
 
 ELGIN CATHEDRAL. 
 
 called the Wolf of Badenoch, having a feud with Bifhop 
 Barr, burnt down the cathedral, the parifh church, a religious 
 houfe called Maifon Dieu, eighteen houfes of the canons, and 
 the greatefl part of the city. He was compelled for this 
 offence to do penance before the high altar of Blackfriars’ 
 Church at Perth : a very flight punifhment for fuch an offence. 
 The city did not recover its previous condition for a long time ; 
 and it was many years before the new cathedral was completed. 
 The bifhops devoted a third of their incomes to this obje£l, 
 and at length it flood a church of rare beauty and fplendour. 
 Its central tower was one hundred and ninety-eight feet high, 
 
 ELGIN CATHEDRAL j SOUTH AISLE. 
 
ELGIN CATHEDRAL. 
 
 163 
 
 and the prefent remains juftify the character which it attained 
 of being the fineft fpecimen of ecclefiaftical architecture in the 
 kingdom, Melrofe not excepted. It exceeds that admired 
 fabric in extent, in altitude, in general magnificence, and in 
 richnefs of decoration. The remains of it at the prefent day 
 are beheld by ftrangers with equal wonder and pleafure. 
 
 This fine cathedral, like nearly all in Scotland, fell, not by 
 time, but by the fierce and bigoted fpirit in which the refor- 
 mation was introduced. In 1568, the privy council authorifed 
 the Earl of Huntley, the Iheriff of Aberdeen, to flrip the 
 cathedral churches of Aberdeen and Elgin of their lead, and 
 to fell it for the maintenance of the troops of the regent 
 Murray. It is a curious fail that this plunder, like the lead 
 {tripped from the caftle of Conway in Wales, was not deftined 
 to benefit the fpoilers. As that was loft with the {hip which 
 was conveying it to Ireland, fo this had fcarcely left the harbour 
 of Aberdeen for Holland, where it was to be fold, when the 
 lhip went down with it. The cathedral of Elgin, thus expofed 
 to the elements, went gradually to decay, and in 17 1 1 the great 
 central tower fell. 
 
 Wordfworth fpeaking of luch rude and felfifh deftrudtion of 
 ancient churches from a probably juft refentment againft the 
 evils and oppreffions of a corrupted faith, fays : — 
 
 “ As when a ftorm hath ceafed, the birds regain 
 Their checrfulnefs, and bufily retrim 
 Their nefts, or chant a gratulating hymn, 
 
 To the blue ether and befpangled plain ; 
 
 Even fo, in many a reconftrudted fane, 
 
 Have the furvivors of this ftorm renewed 
 Their holy rites with vocal gratitude : 
 
 And folemn ceremonials they ordain 
 To celebrate their great deliverance ; 
 
 Moll feelingly inftrufted ’mid their fear, 
 
164 
 
 ELGIN CATHEDRAL. 
 
 That perfecution, blind with rage extreme, 
 
 May not the lefs, through heaven’s mild countenance 
 Even in her own defpite, both feed and cheer ; 
 
 For all things are lefs dreadful than they feem.” 
 
 But no fuch fecond refurredtion awaited this fuperb old 
 temple. The fpiritof Genevan aufterity, which came over with 
 John Knox, allowed no revival of papal grandeur, but inaugu- 
 rated a clafs of houfes of devotion of a more rigid fimplicity. 
 
 The parts of the dilapidated cathedral remaining mod entire 
 are, the eaft end, parts of the tranfepts, the chapter-houfe, 
 and the weftern entrance, flanked by two ftupendous towers. 
 The workmanftiip of all thefe is of extraordinary richnefs and 
 elaboratenefs. The weftern door is particularly fine, and 
 the chapter-houfe will bear comparifon with moft of thofe 
 generally elegant buildings. Many monuments remain and 
 are now guarded with care. Some of the figures reprefent 
 knights and barons lying in complete armour, and others are 
 of biftiops, of a coloflal fize. The furrounding area is the 
 parifh burial-ground, which is enclofed by a high wall, and 
 kept (hut up with the care fo charadleriftic of the Scotch 
 in their cemeteries. 
 
 Connedted with the ruins of this cathedral is a hiftory which 
 is curious. The free fchool of the town, which provides 
 clothing and maintenance for fuch children as cannot be fup- 
 ported by their parents, is a modern foundation. “ It owes its 
 origin,” fays Robert Chambers, in his cc Pidture of Scotland,” 
 “ to a native of Elgin, who, having made a fortune abroad, 
 devoted his honourable earnings to this honourable purpofe. 
 His name was Andrew Anderfon, a major-general in the fer- 
 vice of the Eaft India Company ; and there is fomething 
 fingular in his hiftory. He contrived to raife himfelf from the 
 
ELGIN CATHEDRAL. 
 
 165 
 
 condition of a private foldier to that honourable rank, entirely by 
 his own merits. He had no patrimony but genius and ambi- 
 tion ; there was fomething even below poverty in his origin. A 
 fmall apartment is fhown amid the ruins of the cathedral, where 
 his mother, an indigent and infirm old widow, who could 
 afford no better lodging, lived for many years while he was a 
 
 ELGIN CATHEDRAL I CHOIR. 
 
 boy ; and this I humbly conceive to be, in one fenfe, the 
 greateft curiofity about Elgin. In a crib, not more than five 
 feet fquare, furroundea by melancholy ruins, and the dread- 
 infpiring precindls of a churchyard, Anderfon fpent all his 
 early years ; the boy, who was on this account, perhaps, the 
 
1 66 
 
 ELGIN CATHEDRAL. 
 
 moft wretched and defpifed of all the boys in the town, being 
 all the time deftined to reach fuperior honours, and make 
 provifion for numbers of fuch outcafts as himfelf. Let the 
 ftranger inquire for, enter, and ponder upon, this humble cradle 
 of genius and greatnefs.” 
 
golijraoir JMbei) nnb $)alarf. 
 
 HE abbey and palace of Holyrood, though 
 connected and long alike ufed for royal 
 purpofes, are of very different dates and in 
 very different conditions. The abbey is 
 ancient, and is now reduced to the mere 
 ruins of the nave of the church, which, as 
 
 you face the palace, is joined to the pofterior angle of that 
 
 building on the left hand. The palace is ftill complete, yet it 
 is of two very diftinCt dates. It is built round a quadrangle, 
 the back and fides of which are comparatively modern, for in 
 1544 the palace was burnt down by the Englifh. The front 
 alone would feem to have efcaped ; or, rather, only the double 
 towers at each corner of the front. Thefe have an antique 
 look, being round, projecting, machicolated, battlemented, and 
 furmounted by fmaller lantern towers. The facade betwixt 
 thefe is a plain Grecian fcreen of one ftory, having a central 
 gateway furmounted by a dome. The other three Tides of the 
 quadrangle are of plain building, of two ftories, and an attic, 
 fhown by its dormer-windows, all round. 
 
 Thefe royal buildings are fftuated at the fouth-eaft of Edin- 
 burgh, and therefore, contrary to London, do not conftitute a 
 Weft-End. In fad, they are very much crowded upon by the 
 worft part of the city, though furrounded by fine hills ; as 
 Calton Hill on one fide and Arthur’s Seat in the old park on 
 
i68 
 
 HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 the other. The abbey having been anciently a fanfluary, the 
 vicinity of the palace has continued to this time a fanfluary 
 for debtors, who are fecure from the law within a certain circuit. 
 
 The abbey was founded by David I., who was famous for 
 his piety, and, having been a refident at the court of Henry I. 
 of England, had feen how much was there doing for the church 
 by fuch foundations. It was built early in the twelfth century, 
 and David fent to St. Andrew’s for a number of canons regular 
 to inhabit it. It foon became rich by fucceffive endowments 
 of lands and churches in different counties. In the ancient 
 Taxatio the lands of this abbey, which was called Holycrofs or 
 Holyrood, were valued at j£88. The abbot and canons pos- 
 feffed equal privileges with the bilhop of St. Andrews, or the 
 abbots of Dunfermline or Kelfo. They were authorized to 
 build a fuburb adjoining Edinburgh, and hence arofe the ancient 
 Canongate, and the Girth-Crofs at the foot of the Canongate 
 marked the limits of the fanfluary. 
 
 The following are the leading events connefled with this 
 religious houfe. It was plundered by Edward II.’s army when 
 it retired from Lothian in Auguft, 1332. Edward Baliol held 
 his parliament in the abbey in February, 1333-4. The Duke 
 of Lancafter in 1381 was hofpitably entertained in the abbey 
 while feeking refuge in Scotland. Richard II. in his furious 
 inroad in Scotland in 1385, burnt it down. Henry IV. fpared 
 the abbey during his invafion in 1400, becaufe his father had 
 found refuge in it. The different Scottilh kings, though re- 
 fiding chiefly in the caftle perched on its noble rock at the 
 other extremity of Edinburgh, frequently paffed much time in 
 the abbey. The queen of James I. of Scotland was delivered 
 of twins in the abbey ; and James II., one of thefe twins, was 
 crowned in it in 1427. He was married in it in 1449 to Mary 
 of Guelder, and he was buried in it in 1460. 1 'hus James II. 
 
HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 169 
 
 was born, crowned, married, and buried in the abbey of Holy- 
 rood. James III., whenever he refided in Edinburgh, took up 
 his quarters in the abbey. Janies IV. was the builder of the 
 palace, for the Scottifh monarchs feem greatly to have preferred 
 its fheltered fituation to the expofed one of the caftle. This muft 
 have been not later than 1500, for here in 1503, he received 
 
 HOLYROOD ABBEY $ INTERIOR. 
 
 Margaret of England, and here they were married. In 
 1544, the abbey and palace were burnt by the Englifh army : 
 this, however, muft have been with exception of the towers 
 in front. From this time the abbey church feems to have 
 become the chapel of the palace — a chaplain being maintained 
 
 z 
 
170 
 
 HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 by the king to officiate for the royal family. After the battle 
 of Pinkie, September, 1547, Prote&or Somerfet fent two com- 
 miffioners, Boham and Chamberlayne, to fupprefs the monas- 
 tery of Holyrood. They found the monks already fled, but 
 they ftripped the abbey of the lead, and carried off the two 
 bells; one of which was afterwards hung in the chapel of the 
 Cowgate, built for the Englifh communion in 1771. The 
 reformers in June 1559 further fpoiled the abbey, and damaged 
 the palace alfo. The unfortunate Oueen Mary was married 
 in the abbey church to Lord Darnley on the 29th of July, 
 1566 ; and on the 15th of May, 1567, fhe was again married 
 to the Earl of Bothwell in the hall of the palace. Again, on 
 the imprifonment of Mary in 1567, that is, in the fame year as 
 her fecond marriage, the Earl of Glencairn ranfacked the 
 chapel of Holyrood Houfe. At the fuppreffion of the abbey 
 it enjoyed a greater revenue than any other religious houfe of 
 the fouthern {hires of Scotland. This revenue was in money 
 ^2,926 8r. 6 d., befides one paid annually in kind, of thirty- 
 fix chalders ten bolls of wheat, forty chalders nine bolls of 
 barley, thirty-four chalders fixteen bolls of oats, four chalders 
 of meal, five hundred and one capons, twenty-four hens, 
 twenty-four falmon, three fwine, and ten loads of fait : a 
 mod magnificent revenue in Scotland at that period. 
 
 After the fuppreffion of the monaftery, the abbey church was 
 ufed as the parifh church of the Cowgate; but James the Sixth 
 of Scotland and Firft of England, — the Britifh Solomon, — fent 
 workmen from London to repair and beautify it, but unfortunately 
 he ordered the portraits of the apoftles to be painted on the 
 walls. At this the Genevan fpirit of the Scotch reformers took 
 fire ; they declared that no “ graven images ” ftiould be fet up 
 there, and James was advifed by the dean of the chapel, the 
 Bifliop of Galloway, as he valued his peace to defift, which he 
 
HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PAI.ACE. 1 7 1 
 
 did, only lamenting that prejudice could not diftinguifh betwixt 
 ornament and image. Charles II., after his reftoration, 
 appropriated the church of the abbey as the chapel royal ; and 
 had it handfomely fitted up for the fovereign and the knights of 
 the Order of the Thiftle, to whom the key of the church was 
 configned. He alfo eredled an organ in it. The chapel was 
 finally ruined at the revolution, by attempting to put a Hone 
 roof on it, which proved too heavy for the walls, and it fell, 
 demoliftiing the whole interior. Since then it has remained a 
 ruin. Charles II. alfo had the palace rebuilt by Sir William 
 Bruce, and this is the date of the main portion of the 
 building. 
 
 The chief events connected with the palace, befides thofe 
 enumerated, belong to the reign of the unfortunate Mary. In 
 her time the building of the palace was modern, and fhe 
 occupied it during her Ihort and troubled reign with much 
 fplendour. In it fhe witnefled fome moll dreadful and mod 
 miferable tranfadlions, and the intereft and romance of her 
 forrowful life are thofe which flill more than all others 
 envelope it. 
 
 For many ages the monarchs of England had been deter- 
 mined on the annexation of Scotland by arms, as they had 
 annexed Wales and Ireland. But, difappointed in this, no 
 fooner was James V. dead, leaving only a daughter, a week 
 old, to fucceed him, than Henry VIII. determined on fecuring 
 the union of this kingdom by the marriage of this daughter 
 with his fon Edward. Events defeated his defign ; Mary 
 was married to the French dauphin, and became Queen of 
 France by her hufband’s acceffion to the crown as Francis II. 
 During her abode in France, Scotland was governed by her 
 mother, Mary of Guife, as queen-regent. But fhe had a 
 terrible time of it ; Scotland being repeatedly invaded by the 
 
172 
 
 HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 armies of Elizabeth of England ; and, ftill worfe, the whole of 
 the Scotch nobles being bought up by her money. Henry 
 VIII. had commenced this fyftem when he had failed, by his 
 arbitrary impatience, to fecure the young queen for his fon. He 
 had invaded and ravaged the country to feize her, and afterwards 
 to avenge himfelf for his failure. He then fent commiffioners 
 to Berwick to bribe the nobles, and inftigated them to murder 
 the cardinal Beaton, in order to put down the Catholic party, 
 who were vehemently oppofed to him as the great enemy of 
 their church. The documents of his reign and of the fucceed- 
 ing reigns of his fon and two daughters, which have been 
 printed in our time by order of Parliament, have laid open to 
 the world the whole of this fyftem of murder and bribery by 
 the Tudors; and furely there is in hiftory fcarcely any other 
 fuch revelation of horror and wickednefs recorded by the 
 hands of the aftors themfelves. We have the correfpondence 
 for the murder of Beaton with the nobles, who refufed to do 
 that deteftable aft, but only becaufe they could not obtain a 
 written order from the King for the commiffion of it ; Sir 
 Ralph Saddler, Henry’s commiffioner of murder at Berwick, 
 informing them that the king’s honour mull be faved. He 
 then employed Norman Leflie, who executed it, and we have 
 his letter informing Saddler that it was done, and afking what 
 he fhould do next. Elizabeth maintained this fyftem, and the 
 whole of her dark tranfaflions remain under the hands of her 
 minifters Walfingham, Cecil, Randolph, Saddler, and others. 
 Never furely had fo wicked a queen a knot of fuch cold- 
 blooded and defperately wicked minifters ! And yet how little 
 could they be aware of the intenfe infamy of their conduit ; or 
 they would have deftroyed thofe proofs of it which have been 
 brought forth from our national archives, and publilhed by 
 authority of government in our day. 
 
HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 J 73 
 
 By the fyftem there revealed in incontrovertible and im- 
 perifhable characters, Mary of Scotland, from the hour of her 
 birth, was enveloped in a web of Englifh policy and of Scotch 
 treafon, fine as a cobweb, but infrangible as a net of fteel ! 
 When fhe returned, a young and beautiful widow of feventeen, 
 full of wit and knowledge and accomplifhment, fhe came 
 home into the midfl: of a nobility, not only rude and ferocious 
 beyond any other in Europe, but all in the pay of Elizabeth of 
 England. She came amongft a defperate fet of traitors fee’d for 
 her deftruCtion, and the more prompt to it from being the 
 greater part of them profelytes of Knox and of the Genevan 
 faith, — a faith which had more of the old leaven of the ven- 
 geance of Judaifm than of the love and mercy of Chrift. 
 It was in this palace of Holyrood that Mary was hunted down, 
 bearded and infulted, by Knox, and her own bafe brother, the 
 Earl of Murray ; by the fteel-clad and fteel-hearted nobles, 
 Morton, Lethington, Ruthven, and the reft of them. Here it 
 was that they incited her hufband Darnley with jealous rage to 
 affift them in murdering her fecretary and mufician, Rizzio, in 
 her prefence, in 1556. By them Bothwell was inftigated to 
 murder her hufband, Earl Darnley, in February, 1567; and 
 by their machinations Mary was carried off by Bothwell, and 
 compelled to marry him in May of the fame year. By thefe 
 means the fame of Mary was irrevocably ruined with her 
 people, and the ends of Elizabeth fo far gained. The moft 
 audacious forgeries were committed by the Englifh minifter 
 Cecil and his agents, both of ftate documents and of pretended 
 love-letters of Mary to Bothwell. The details and proofs of 
 thefe matters are too voluminous for thefe pages, but they 
 ftand broadly difplayed in the official publication referred to. 
 George Chalmers alfo, in his “Caledonia,” (vol. ii., quarto,) 
 fays, “ When the heart and hand of forgery are bufy in any age, 
 
*74 
 
 HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 it is not eafy to afcertain falfehood from truth. We fee in 
 Haynes the fuccellive intimations of Cecil, while his artful 
 mind was bufily employed at Edinburgh, in carrying on a 
 double negotiation, with whatever view of gratifying his 
 paffion for intrigue, or benefiting his faftidious miftrefs. 
 What was given by the infurgent chiefs to Cecil, and by him 
 after a while, or by his direction, was depofited in the Cotton 
 Library, has long been publiftied ; and what has thus been 
 obtruded on the world as genuine, and has been repro- 
 bated as fpurious, need not be elaborately inveftigated, as 
 the envoys had no power to negotiate with the infurgents.” 
 He adds, “ The memory of Cecil alfo is chargeable with an 
 additional offence of aggravated bafenefs : — by filling the 
 archives of England with forgeries, he has contaminated the 
 fountain-head of hiftory.” (P. 637.) 
 
 Whitaker, Tyler, and others, have expofed at large tliefe 
 dark tranfadlions. By them Mary, hunted down into the toils 
 of Elizabeth, and trufting to her honour and hofpitality, 
 entered her kingdom, only to be made the tenant of a dungeon 
 for eighteen years, and then put to death. No time can wafti 
 away the fable ftains of thefe crimes from the memory of 
 Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth, nor from the honour of Eng- 
 land. No Froude can by any arts of fophiftry wafh thefe royal 
 blackamoors white. It is worthy of remark that, according 
 to the parliamentary hifiory of Scotland, Mary, {launch 
 Catholic as {he was, has the honour of having, in the parlia- 
 ment of 1567, palled the very firft add of religious toleration 
 known in the Chriftian world. In the Parliamentary Record 
 (p. 752,) we find that in April, 1567, “the queen, with the 
 advice of the three Eftates, repealed all former adts which 
 impofed any penalty on the religion thus exifting within her 
 realm. And, with the advice of the three Eftates, the queen 
 
HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 *75 
 
 declared herfelf the head and protedlor of the church, in 
 oppofition to all foreign authority , power and jurifdidlion, 
 whether ecclefiaftical or temporal.” 
 
 “In this manner then,” fays Chalmers, (vol. ii., p. 657,) 
 “ do the Roman Catholic Mary Stuart, and the Parliament of 
 April, 1567, enjoy the unrivalled honour of being the earlieft 
 legiflators, within the Britifh illands, who paffed an aft of 
 toleration , upon the pureft principles of indulgence to con- 
 fcience, and regard to freedom.” Keith (p. 379,) declares this 
 a£t to be full and explicit, for the fettlement of the new 
 religion; and Robertfon (vol. i. , p. 382,) concurs with Keith. 
 It is true that this a£l was as repugnant to the feelings of Hern 
 and bigoted reformers of the time, who detefted toleration, as 
 it could be to the moft bigoted Catholics. What a contrail to 
 the intolerance of Henry VIII. and of Queen Elizabeth, who 
 would allow no one to avow opinions different to their own ! 
 However much Mary Stuart may have finned in her conduct, 
 there is no queltion that Ihe was infinitely more finned againft, 
 and that her liberality in point of toleration of oppofing faiths 
 Hands in noble contrail with the fpirit of her perfecutors. 
 It is thefe fa£ls, looking forth from beneath the accumulated 
 calumnies heaped upon her memory by the powerful court 
 of England, and by the tongues and pens of the able but 
 unprincipled men who furrounded the Britilh queen, which 
 give fuch a deathlefs frelhnefs to the memory of the Queen of 
 Scots, and caufe fuch numbers to walk the chambers of the 
 venerable Holyrood with fadly fympathizing fouls. 
 
 The following poem, by Wordfworth, fuppofed to be 
 uttered by Queen Mary in her captivity, is a fair exponent of 
 the popular fentiment towards her:— 
 
HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 I 76 
 
 Lament of 
 
 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 
 
 ON THE EVE OF A NEW YEAR. 
 
 “ Smile of the moon ! for fo I name 
 That filent greeting from above ; 
 
 A gentle flaih of light that came 
 
 From her whom drooping captives love ; 
 Or art thou of ftill higher birth ? 
 
 Thou that didft part the clouds of earth 
 My torpor to reprove ! 
 
 “ Bright boon of pitying heaven — alas! 
 
 I may not truft thy placid cheer ! 
 Pondering that Time to-night will pafs 
 The threlhold of another year ; 
 
 For years to me are fad and dull ; 
 
 My very moments are too full 
 Of hopeleflhefs and fear. 
 
 “ And yet, the foul-awakening gleam, 
 
 That ftruck perchance the fartheft cone 
 Of Scotland’s rocky wilds, did feem 
 To vifit me, and me alone; 
 
 Me, unapproached by any friend, 
 
 Save thofe who to my forrow lend 
 Tears due unto their own. 
 
 “ To-night, the church-tower bells will ring 
 Through thefe wide realms a feftive peal ; 
 To the new year a welcoming ; 
 
 A tuneful offering for the weal 
 Of happy millions lulled in ffeep ; 
 
 While I am forced to watch and weep, 
 
 By wounds that may not heal. 
 
 “ Born all too high, by wedlock raifed 
 Still higher — to be caff: thus low ! 
 
 Would that mine eyes had never gazed 
 On aught of more ambitious show, 
 
 Than the fweet flowerets of the fields ! 
 
 — It is my royal ftate that yields 
 This bitternefs of woe. 
 
HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 177 
 
 “ Yet how ? — for 1, if there be truth 
 
 In the world’s voice, was palling fair; 
 
 And beauty for confiding youth 
 
 Thofe (hocks of paflion can prepare, 
 
 That kill the bloom before its time, 
 
 And blanch without the owner’s crime 
 The mod refplendent hair. 
 
 “ Unbleft diftinflion! Ihowered on me, 
 
 To bind a lingering life in chains ; 
 
 All that could quit my grafp, or flee, 
 
 Is gone ; but not the fubtle llains 
 Fixed in the fpirit ; for even here 
 Can I be proud that jealous fear 
 Of what I was remains. 
 
 “ A woman rules my prifon’s key ; 
 
 A filler queen, againft the bent 
 Of law and holieft lympathy, 
 
 Detains me — doubtful of th’ event ; 
 
 Great God, who feel’ll for my diltrefs, 
 
 My thoughts are all that I poflefs, 
 
 O keep them innocent 1 
 
 “ Farewell defire of human aid, 
 
 Which abjedl mortals vainly court, 
 
 By friends deceived, by foes betrayed, 
 
 Of fears the prey, of hopes the fport ; 
 
 Nought but the world-redeeming Crofs 
 Is able to fupply my lofs, 
 
 My burthen to support.” 
 
 Hark ! the death-note of the year 
 Sounded by the callle clock. 
 
 From her funk eyes a llagnant tear 
 Stole forth, unfettled by the Ihock ; 
 
 But oft the woods renewed their green, 
 
 Ere the tired head of Scotland’s Queen 
 Reposed upon the block ! 
 
 Since Holvrood Palace, by the A<£t of Union, has been made 
 the place of meeting for the election of the noblemen who 
 reprefent the peerage of Scotland in the Imperial Parliament, it 
 has been, at different times, yet only for fhort periods, inhabited 
 
 2 A 
 
i 7 8 
 
 HOLYROOD ABBEY AND PALACE. 
 
 by the Duke of York, afterwards James II. ; by Prince Charles 
 Stuart; by the Duke of Cumberland ; by the King of France 
 from 1795 to 1799 > by George IV. on his vifit to Edinburgh 
 in 1822; and by Oueen Victoria on her annual journeys to 
 Balmoral in the Highlands. For this purpofe a certain fuite of 
 rooms, on the fouth fide of the quadrangle, is fitted up. The 
 rooms on the north fide, a hundred and fifty feet in length, 
 contain a long feries of portraits of the Scotch monarchs, mod 
 of which are as fidlitious as they are miferable. Many of them, 
 indeed, are of perfonages who exifted before the pidforial art 
 exifled in Scotland. There is alfo an indifferent Queen of 
 Scots. In the room where Rizzio was murdered, you are 
 flill fhown the traditional flains of his blood ; and the apart- 
 ments inhabited by Mary ftill contain furniture faid to have 
 been in ufe by her, as well as certain tapeftry and embroidery, 
 reported to be the work of herfelfand her ladies. 
 
 & 
 
Jtldrosf Jlbki). 
 
 Summer was on thee — the meridian light — 
 
 And, as we wandered through thy columned aifles, 
 Decked all thy hoar magnificence with fmiles, 
 Making the rugged foft, the gloomy bright; 
 
 Nor was reflettion from my heart apart, 
 
 As clomb our fteps the lone and lofty (fair, 
 
 Till gained the fummit, ticked in filcnt air 
 Thine ancient clock, as ’twere thy throbbing heart : 
 Monaftic grandeur and baronial pride 
 
 Subdued, the former half, the latter quite, 
 
 Pile of King David, to thine altar’s fite, 
 
 Full many a footftep guides and long /hall guide ; 
 
 Where thofe are met, who met not fave in fight, 
 And Douglas fieeps with Evers, fide by fide. 
 
 David Macbeth Moir. 
 
 HE foundation of Melrofe Abbey generally 
 dates from 1136, when David I. of Scot- 
 land, amongfl his many fimilar eredtions, 
 built a church here. But Melrofe, as a 
 feat of religion, boafts a much earlier 
 origin. It was one of thofe churches, or 
 more properly miffionary llations, which the fathers of Ireland 
 and of Iona fpread over Britain and the continent : one of 
 thofe fimple nuclei of the Chriftian faith, which were in the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries fo induftrioufly trodden under 
 foot or rooted out by the domineering ambition of Rome. It 
 was in fadl a portion of that pure and beautiful Britilh church 
 
i8o 
 
 MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 which exifted prior to the Roman hierarchy in thefe iflands, 
 and of which the profeflbrs prefented in their primitive habits 
 and primitive dodlrines fo apoftolic a character. 
 
 The way in which thefe apoftles of Iona were introduced 
 into this quarter is thus related by Venerable Bede: — “As foon 
 as Ofwald, the King of Northumberland, afcended the throne, 
 being defirous that his nation fhould receive the Chriftian 
 faith, whereof he had found happy experience in vanquifhing 
 the barbarians, he fent to the elders of the Scots (Irifh), 
 among!! whom himfelf and followers, when in banifhment, had 
 received the facrament of baptifm, defiring that they would 
 fend him a bifhop, by whofe inftrudtion and miniftry the 
 Englifh nation, which he governed, might be taught the 
 advantages and receive the facraments of the Chriftian faith. 
 Nor were they flow in granting his requeft, but fent him 
 Bifhop Aidan, a man of Angular meeknefs, piety, and modera- 
 tion ; zealous in the caufe of God, though not according to 
 knowledge, for he was wont to keep Eafter Sunday according 
 to the cuftom of his country, which we have before fo often 
 mentioned — from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon, — the 
 northern province of the Scots, and all the nation of the Pidfs, 
 celebrated Eafter then after that manner, and believing that 
 they were following the writings of the holy and praifeworthy 
 Father Anatolius, the truth of which every fkilful perfon can 
 difcern ; but the Scots which dwelt in the fouth of Ireland 
 had long fince, by the admonition of the bifhop of the Apoftolic 
 fee, learned to obferve Eafter according to the canonical 
 cuftom. 
 
 “ On the arrival of the bifhop, the king appointed him his 
 epifcopal fee in the ifle of Lindisfarn, as he defired, which 
 place, as the tide flows and ebbs twice a-day, is enclofed by 
 the waves of the fea like an ifland, and again twice in the day 
 
MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 1 8 1 
 
 MELROSE : FROM THE SOUTH-WEST. 
 
 when the thore is left dry, becomes contiguous to the land. 
 The king alfo, humbly and willingly in all cafes giving ear to 
 his admonifhers, induftrioufly applied himfelf to build and 
 extend the Church of Chrift in his kingdom, wherein, when 
 the bifhop, not being fkilful in the Englifh tongue, preached 
 the gofpel, it was molt delightful to fee the king himfelf 
 interpreting the Word of God to his commanders and miniftry, 
 for he had perfectly learned the language of the Scots during 
 his long banifhment. From that time many of the Scots came 
 daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the Word 
 
I 8 2 
 
 MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 to thofe provinces of the Englifh over which King Ofwald 
 reigned, and thofe amongft them who had received priefts’ 
 orders, and miniftered to them the grace of baptifm. Churches 
 were built in feveral places ; and the people flocked joyfully 
 together to hear the Word: money and lands were given of 
 the king’s bounty to build monafteries ; the Englifh, great and 
 fmall, were by their Scottifh mafters inftrucfted in the rules 
 and obfervances of regular difcipline, for moft of them that 
 came to preach were monks. Bifhop Aidan was himfelf a monk 
 of the ifland of Hii (the ancient name of Iona), whofe 
 monaftery was for a long time the chief of moft of thofe of the 
 northern Scots, and of all thofe of the Pi£ts, and had the 
 direction of their people. That ifland belongs to Britain, 
 being divided from it by a fmall arm of the fea ; but had been 
 long fince given by the Pi<fts, who inhabit thofe parts of 
 Britain, to the Scottifh monks, becaufe they had received the 
 faith of Chrift through their preaching.” 
 
 We are likewife told a very interefting facft regarding the 
 coming of Aidan to Northumberland. At firft, in accordance 
 with the requeft of King Ofwald, Corman, a pious but auftere 
 monk, had been fent. He foon returned difpirited to Iona, 
 faying, “ The people to whom you fent me are fo obftinate 
 that we muft renounce all idea of changing their manners.” 
 As Aidan heard this, he faid to himfelf, “ O my Saviour ! if 
 thy love had been offered to this people, many hearts could 
 have been touched. I will go and make thee known, — Thee 
 who broke not the bruifed reed.” Then turning to Corman, 
 he faid, “Brother, you have been too fevere towards hearers fo 
 dull of heart. You fhould have given them fpiritual milk to 
 drink until they were able to receive more folid food.” All 
 eyes were fixed on the man who fpoke fo wifely. The 
 
MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 183 
 
 brethren of Iona exclaimed, “ Aidan is worthy of the epif- 
 copate !” And accordingly he was confecrated by the laying 
 on of the hands of the elders, and fent forth. 
 
 “ From Lindisfarn,” fays Bede, “Aidan travelled all around 
 to fpread the gofpel. He was wont to traverfe both town and 
 country on foot. The king gave him a fine horfe, — he foon gave 
 it to a man in great need of one.” Such is the teftimony of 
 Bede to a teacher of doctrines oppofed to his own. One of the 
 firft churches planted mud have been Melrofe ; for Aidan only 
 arrived in Northumberland in 635, and fixteen years afterwards 
 there was a religious houfe there. The Iona apoftles con- 
 tinued bifhops of Lindisfarn till 664, during which time 
 Finan and Colman had fucceeded Aidan. In Colman’s time 
 popery had reared a determined and fuccefsful champion in 
 Wilfrid, Archbilhop of York, who was favoured by Ofwy, 
 who had now fucceeded King Ofwald. In that year (664) a 
 grand conference was held at Whitby on the fubjedt of the 
 differences of the two churches. On the one fide flood 
 Colman, with the bifhops and elders of the Britons ; on the 
 other Bifhops Wilfrid and Agilbert, with many other priefts 
 and abbots, Hilda, abbefs of Whitby, and Cedder, an Englifh 
 bifhop who had gone over to Rome. The decifion was 
 adverfe to the Iona creed, and rather than renounce it Colman 
 and his brethren returned to Iona. The queftion was not 
 merely regarding the keeping of Eafter and the peculiar fhape 
 of the tonfure, but the fupremacy of Rome, which the Irifh 
 clergy would not admit. 
 
 At this time we find that Eata, — one of twelve boys whom 
 Aidan had feledled from the Englifh, and had educated for 
 clergymen,— was Abbot ofMelrofe. He was willing to conform, 
 and was appointed to fucceed Colman as Bifhop of Lindisfarn. 
 The Abbey of Melrofe thus fell under Roman rule, but it 
 
184 
 
 MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 continued a funple ftrudture fo long as it remained a part of 
 the kingdom of Northumberland. In 1020 the boundaries of 
 Scotland were ftretched from the Tweed to the Cheviots, and 
 the part of Northumberland now called Roxburghfhire became 
 part and parcel of Scotland. In courfe of time the eftablilh- 
 ment at Melrofe declined, the houfe became ruinous, and the 
 abbey was granted to the monks of Coldingham during thofe 
 religious times when the monks had much to alk, and the king 
 and barons much to give. A hamlet, now called Old Melrofe, 
 ftill marks the fite of the ancient houfe. 
 
 In 1136 the pious David raifed a new and much fuperior 
 abbey, about two miles weftward of the original fite, but on 
 the fame fouth bank of the Tweed, and eftablifhed in it the 
 Ciftercians. He conferred on them extenfive lands and 
 privileges; the lands of Melros, Eldun, and Dernwie; the lands 
 and wood of Gattonfide, with the fifhings of the Tweed along 
 the whole extent of thofe lands ; with the right of pafturage 
 and pannage in his forefts of Selkirk and Traguair, and in the 
 foreft between the Gala and the Leeder, with wood from thofe 
 forefts for building and burning. In 1 192 Jocelin, Bifhop of 
 Glafgow, granted to the monks of Melrofe the church of 
 Haffindean, with its lands, tithes, and other emoluments, a ad 
 fufceptionum pauperum et peregrinorum ad donum de Melros 
 venientem.” From this caufe the old tower of Haffindean was 
 called “ Monks’ Tower,” and the farm adjoining the church 
 is ftill called “Monks’ Croft.” In fa£t, the Abbey of Melrofe 
 was a fort of inn, not only to the poor, but to fome of the 
 greateft men of the time. The Scottifh kings from time to 
 time, and wealthy fubjedfs too, added frefh grants ; fo that in 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they had accumulated vaft 
 pofleffions and immunities ; had many tenants, great hufband- 
 men, with many granges and numerous herds. They had much 
 
MELROSE ABBEY. 185 
 
 other property in Ayrfhire, Dumfries-Ihire, Selkirklhire, and 
 Berwickfhire. 
 
 But the abbey church which David built was not that of 
 which we have now the remains. The whole place was 
 repeatedly burnt down by the Englilh invaders. In 1215 the 
 rebellious barons of King John of England fwore fealty to 
 Alexander II. of Scotland, at the altar of Melrofe. Edward I., 
 in 1295-6, when at Berwick, granted the monks of Melrofe 
 reftitution of the lands of which they had been deprived ; but 
 in 1322 Edward II. burnt down the abbey and killed the abbot 
 William de Peeblis, and feveral of his monks. Robert I., of 
 Scotland, in 1326, or four years afterwards, gave ^2,000, 
 Iterling to rebuild it; and Edward III., of England, came from 
 Newcaftle at Chriftmas, 1341, and held his yule in the abbey, 
 and made reftitution of the lands and other property which his 
 father had feized during the late war. In 1378 Richard II. 
 granted a protection to the abbot and his lands, but in 1385 
 he burnt down Melrofe and other religious houfes on his 
 expedition into Scotland. Robert Bruce, in the beginning of 
 the fourteenth century, granted a revenue to reftore the abbey, 
 and betwixt this period and the Reformation arofe the fplendid 
 ftructure, the ruins of which yet charm every eye. It is in 
 the higheft ftyle of the Decorated order, every portion is full of 
 work of the moft exquifite character, occafionally mingled 
 with the Perpendicular. They are only the ruins of the 
 church which remain, and they prefent the fineft fpecimen of 
 Gothic architecture and fculpture that Scotland poftefles. One 
 of Scotland’s moft difcriminating writers fays, “To fay that 
 Melrofe is beautiful, is to fay nothing. It is exquifitely — 
 fplendidly lovely. It is an object poffefled of infinite grace and 
 unmeafurable charm ; it is fine in its general afpect, and in its 
 minuteft details. It is a ftudy — a glory.” The church is two 
 
 2 B 
 
1 86 
 
 MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 hundred and eighty-feven feet in length, and at the greateft 
 breadth one hundred and fifty-feven feet. The weft is wholly 
 ruined ; but the great eaftern window remains, and one above 
 the fouthern door, which are extremely fine. The pillars that yet 
 remain to fupport the roof are of fingular grace, and wherever 
 you turn you behold obje£ts that rivet the attention by their 
 
 MELROSE I THE NAVE 
 
 richnefs of fculpture, though often only in fragments. The 
 only wonder is that fo much has efcaped the numberlefs 
 aflaults of enemies. During the reigns of Henry VIII., 
 Edward VI., and Elizabeth, the abbey was continually fuffer- 
 ing from their inroads, in which the fpirit of vengeance againft 
 
MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 lS 7 
 
 the Scots who refilled their fchemes of aggreffion was mixed 
 ftrongly with that of enmity to popery. In the year 1545, it was 
 twice burnt and ranfacked by the Englilh, firft under Sir Ralph 
 Eyre and Sir Bryan Layton, and again by the Earl of Hertford. 
 At the Reformation, when all its lands and immunities were 
 inverted in the Crown, they were valued at ^1,758 Scots, 
 befides large contributions in kind. Amongft them, in addi- 
 tion to much corn, was one hundred and five ftones of butter, 
 ten dozens of capons, twenty-fix dozens of poultry, three 
 hundred and feventy-fix moor-fowl, three hundred and forty 
 loads of peats, etc. Queen Mary granted Melrofe and its 
 lands and tithes to Bothwell, but they were forfeited on his 
 attainder. They then parted to a Douglas, and afterwards to 
 Sir James Ramfay, who refcued James VI. in the confpiracy 
 of Cowrie ; then to Sir Thomas Hamilton in 1619, who was 
 made Earl of Melrofe, and afterwards Earl of Haddington. 
 About a century ago they became the property of the family of 
 Buccleuch, in which they remain. The Douglas built himfelf 
 a houfe out of the ruins which may ftill be feen about fifty 
 yards to the north of the church. The ruins are preferved 
 with great care, and are Ihown by a family which is at once 
 intelligent and courteous. The perfon going round moft 
 generally, points out the Ihattered remains of thirteen figures at 
 the great eaftern window, in their niches, faid to have been 
 thofe of our Saviour and his Apoftles. They were broken to 
 pieces by a fanatic weaver of Gattonfide. A head is alfo 
 pointed out, faid to be that of Michael Scott, the magician, 
 who exerted his power fo wonderfully, according to tradition, 
 in this neighbourhood, as to fplit the Eildon Hill into three 
 parts. 
 
 Much as they have been hackneyed, we cannot omit the 
 
1 88 
 
 MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 lines of Scott, on Melrofe, from his “ Lay of the Laft 
 Minftrel,” as they are fo efpecially defcriptive : — 
 
 if thou wouldft view fair Melrofe aright, 
 
 Go vifit it in the pale moonlight ; 
 
 For the gay beams of lightfome day 
 Gild but to flout the ruins gray. 
 
 When the broken arches are dark in night, 
 
 And each fhafted oriel glimmers white ; 
 
 When the cold light’s uncertain fhower 
 Streams on the ruined central tower ; 
 
 When buttrefs and buttrels alternately 
 Seem framed in ebon and ivory ; 
 
 When filver edges the imagery, 
 
 And the fcrolls that teach thee to live and die ; 
 
 When diftant Tweed is heard to rave, 
 
 And the owlet to hoot o’er the dead man’s grave. 
 
 Then go — but go alone the while — 
 
 Then view St. David’s ruined pile ; 
 
 And home returning, foothly fwear, 
 
 Was never fcene fo fad and fair. 
 
 By a fteel-clenched poftern door, 
 
 They entered now the chancel tall ; 
 
 The darkened roof rofe high aloof 
 On pillars lofty, light and fmall ; 
 
 The key-ftone that locked each ribbed aide, 
 
 Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quartre-feuille ; 
 
 The corbels were carved grotesque and grim, 
 
 And the pillars with cluftered (hafts fo trim, 
 
 With bafe and capital furnifhed around, 
 
 Seemed bundles of lances with garlands bound. 
 
 The moon on the eaft oriel Ihone, 
 
 Through (lender (hafts of (hapely (bone, 
 
 By foliaged tracery combined : 
 
 Then wouldft thou have thought fome fairy’s hand 
 ’Twixt poplars ftraight the ofier wand 
 In many a freakilh knot had twined ; 
 
 Then framed a fpell, when the work was done, 
 
 And changed the willow wreaths to ftone. 
 
MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 189 
 
 The name of Melrofe is clearly derived from the Ancient 
 Britifh, Mellrofs, the projection of the ?neadow. Moel in Welfh 
 and Maol in Irifh fignify fomething bald, naked, bare. Thus 
 Maol-Rofs, in the language of the Irifh monks who firft built 
 a church here, would fignify the naked promontory. Moel 
 in Welfh is now ufually applied to a fmooth mountain, as 
 Moel-Siabod : and we find Rofs continually fhowing its Celtic 
 origin where there is a promontory, as Rofs on the Moray- 
 frith, and Rofs in Herefordfhire from a winding of the Wye. But 
 fome old fculptor, on a ftone ftill preferved in the village, has 
 made a punning derivation for it, by carving a mell , or mallet, 
 and a rofe over it. This flone was part of a wall of the old 
 prifon, long fince pulled down. 
 
 The fite of Melrofe, like all monaffic ones, is fine. The abbey 
 flands on a broad level near the T weed, but is furrounded by hills 
 and fields full of beauty, and peopled with a thoufand beings of 
 romance, tradition, and poetry. South of the village rife the 
 three peaks of the Eildon hill, bearing aloft the fame of Michael 
 Scott and Thomas the Rhymer. On the banks of the Tweed, 
 oppofite to Melrofe, lies Gattonfide, buried in its gardens and 
 orchards, and ftill retaining its faith in many a ftory of the fuper- 
 natural ; and about three miles weftward,on the fame bank of the 
 river, ftands Abbotsford, raifed by a magician more mighty than 
 Michael Scott. How is it poflible to approach that haunted 
 abode without meeting on the way the moft wonderful troop of 
 wild and lofty and beautiful beings, that ever peopled earth or 
 the realm of imagination ? Scotch, Englifh, Gallic, Indian, 
 Syrian come forth to meet you. The Bruce, the Scottifh 
 Jamefes, Coeur de Lion, Elizabeth, Leicefter, Mary of Scots, 
 James I. of England, Montrofe, Claverhoufe, Cumberland the 
 Butcher. The Covenanters are ready to preach and fight anew, 
 
MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 I9O 
 
 the Highland clans rife in aid of the Stuart. What women of 
 dazzling beauty — Flora M’lvor, Rofe Bradwardine, Rebecca 
 the noble Jewefs, Lucy Afhton, and Amy Robfart, the lovely 
 Effie Deans, and her homely yet glorious fitter Jenny, the 
 bewitching Die Vernon, and Minna and Brenda Troil, of the 
 northern illes, ftand radiant amid a hoft of letter beauties. 
 Then comes Rob Roy, the Robin Hood of the hills ; then 
 Balfour of Burley iflues, a ftalwart apparition, from his hiding- 
 places, and of infinite humour and ftrangenefs of afpedt. Where 
 is there a band like this — the Baron of Bradwardine, Dominie 
 Sampfon, Meg Merrilies, Monkbarns, Edie Ochiltree, Old 
 Mortality, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairfervice, Caleb 
 Balderftone, Flibbertigibbet, Norna of the Fitful Head, and that 
 fine fellow the farmer of Liddesdale, with all his Peppers and 
 Muftards yaffling at his heels? But not even out of Melrofe 
 need you move a ftep to find the name of a faithful fervant of 
 Sir Walter. Tom Purdie lies in Melrofe Abbey-yard, and 
 Scott himfelf had engraven on his tomb that he was “ the 
 Wood-forefter of Abbotsford,” probably the title which Tom 
 gave himfelf. Thofe who vifit Melrofe will like to take a 
 peep at the graveftone of Tom Purdie, who tteeps amid a 
 long line of the dead, reaching from the days of Aidan to our 
 own, as alive he filled a little niche in the regards of a matter 
 who has given to both high and low fo many niches in the 
 temple of immortality. 
 
 ABBOTSFORD. 
 
 The calm of evening o’er the dark pine wood, 
 Lay with an aureate glow as we explored 
 Thy claflic precindts, hallowed Abbotsford ! 
 And at thy porch in admiration flood : 
 
MELROSE ABBEY. 
 
 I 9 I 
 
 We felt thou wert the work, the abode of him 
 Whofe fame had (hed a luftre on our age ; 
 
 The mighdeft of the mighty, o’er whofe page 
 Thoufands lhall hang until Time’s eye grow dim ; — 
 And then we thought, when (hall have palled away 
 The millions now purfuing life’s career, 
 
 And Scott himfelf is duft, — how, lingering here, 
 Pilgrims from all the lands of earth lhall dray 
 Amid thy maffive ruins, and furvey, 
 
 The fcenes around with reverential fear ! 
 
 David Macbeth Moir. 
 
Cnrisbroohe (Mle. 
 
 BOUT a mile weft of Newport, the 
 remains of this ancient caftle ftand on a 
 fteep, circular, and apparently artificial 
 hill. This knoll was probably raifed by 
 the ancient Britifti on the fummit of a 
 range of chalk hills, which command an 
 extenfive view. No remains of thofe early times appear to 
 exift. The keep at the north-eaft angle ftanding on a mound 
 confiderably higher than the other buildings, and which is of a 
 multangular form, has been afcribed to the Saxons, who had a 
 caftle here, but probably it only ftands on the fite of the Saxon 
 keep. In the fixth century it is ftated to have been a place 
 of great ftrength, and to have had a well in the interior no 
 lefs than three hundred and ten feet deep, which has fince been 
 filled up, there being another in the caftle-yard of nearly the 
 fame depth. The old caftle covered lefs than two acres of 
 ground, but, from fucceflive additions, efpecially in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, its remains cover about twenty acres. 
 
 The approach to the caftle is by a gateway leading to a 
 fecond. The fmaller external gate was built by Queen Eliza- 
 beth : her initials and the date, 1598, appearing upon it. With 
 the exception of this gate, the additions of Elizabeth appear to 
 have been confined to the outer wall, which (he enlarged fo as 
 to comprehend its prefent extent ; and to the domeftic buildings, 
 none of which appear older than her time. Amongft thefe 
 
CAR ISBROOKE CASTLE. 
 
 >93 
 
 CARISBROOKE J GATEWAY. 
 
 latter are fhown part of the chapel in which Charles I. was 
 confined, with the window through which he attempted to 
 efcape. 
 
 The moft modern building of the whole is the chapel of 
 St. Nicholas, rebuilt on the fite of a more ancient one, by 
 George II., in 1738. In this chapel the mayor of Newport 
 and the high conftables are ftill fworn into office, either by the 
 governor of the ifland or his deputy. 
 
 Advancing through the firft and fmaller gate, you behold the 
 fecond and much grander one, flanked by two noble round 
 towers. This was probably built by Lord Woodville, in the 
 
 2 c 
 
i 9 4 
 
 CAR IS BROOKE CASTLE. 
 
 reign of Edward IV., for his arms are yet vifible upon it. 
 This afpedt of the caftle is extremely pidfurefque. The gate- 
 way is ftrikingly impreffive, and the mouldering battlements, 
 hung with luxuriant ivy, give to it the folemnity of ruin. At 
 the fouth-eaft angle of the caftle is an ancient tower, called 
 Montjoy’s, the walls of which are in fome places eighteen 
 inches thick. But no part of the ancient remains is fuppofed 
 to be of a higher date than the Norman period, eredted by 
 William Fitz-Ofborne, its firft Norman lord, and his immediate 
 fucceffbrs. Conftderable additions were made in the reign of 
 Henry I. 
 
 The buildings eredted for the accommodation of the 
 governor of the ifland, when he choofes or has occafion to 
 refide here, are extenfive, but by no means magnificent ; nor 
 particularly cheerful, having only one window which looks out 
 beyond the enclofure of the caftle, or gives any view of the 
 extenfive but fomewhat naked landfcape which the caftle 
 commands. In fadf, one of the moft ftriking features of the 
 Ifle of Wight at the prefent day is its abfence of wood. It 
 is girdled by woodlands round its coafts, but its interior is one 
 monotonous fcene of undulating and neatly cultivated land — a 
 land almoft without a tree. The name of Carifbrooke has been 
 varioufly derived from Whitgara-burgh, the town of Whitgara, 
 a Saxon chief, and from Caer, the old Britifti name for a 
 ftronghold,and brook, referring to the brook in the valley below. 
 Neither of thefe appear to us very fatisfadtory. More probably 
 the Whitgara was but a corruption of Hvitgard, the Scandi- 
 navian for white refidence ; and Carifbrooke comes from the 
 Saxons having added their burg to the Britifti caer, though 
 meaning the fame thing, a caftle or fort ; and the burg, as in 
 Germany, being gradually corrupted into bruck, as in Ofna- 
 bruck, Innfbruck ; and fo to brooke, Caerfbruck, and thence to 
 Carifbrooke. 
 
CARISBROOK.E CASTLE. 
 
 *95 
 
 The well in the caftle-yard is, with much probability, as- 
 cribed to the Romans. They are known to have had pofteffion 
 of the ifland in the reign of the emperor Claudius ; and the 
 work is like one of their bold undertakings. The water is 
 drawn up by means of a large wheel, within which an afs 
 treads, and thus produces a rotatory motion. It is, in fa£t, an 
 afinine treadmill. Yet thefe animals feem to enjoy a won- 
 derful longevity in their Gibeonite office. They are always 
 fet to work to fetch up water for the amufement of vifitors ; a 
 lighted candle or lamp being alfo let down to fhow the immenfe 
 depth. Formerly the vifitors ufed to drop pins down ; but this 
 is now properly prohibited, as likely to injure the quality of the 
 water. One of the affies, we are told, performed the office of 
 turning the wheel for forty-five years, and another for twenty- 
 eight. 
 
 The inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Newport 
 appear to be allowed by the governor of Carifbrooke Caftle to 
 celebrate fome of their focial feftivities in the hall there. At 
 a late vifit by a friend of ours, women were fcrubbing the 
 floor, and perfons putting up flags, in preparation for the annual 
 banquet of an Odd Fellows’ Lodge : whilft at the fame time 
 tents were eredled within the ruins, and the gaieties of a flower- 
 fhow were proceeding. 
 
 In the grounds of the neighbouring vicarage, in 1859, t ^ ie 
 foundations of a Roman villa were difcovered, with a beautiful 
 teflellated pavement, which are now Ihown. In the neighbour- 
 hood are alfo veftiges of an ancient priory. Carifbrooke has 
 the reputation of being the only ancient fortrefs ever eredled 
 in the ifland. 
 
 But the circumftance which gives its chief intereft to the 
 caftle is the fadl of the confinement of Charles I. there by the 
 Parliament, from November 1647, to September of the fol- 
 
ig6 
 
 CAR1SBROOKE CASTLE. 
 
 lowing year. The circumftances which led him thither have 
 occafioned, perhaps, as much controverfy as any hiftorical event 
 of that troubled age. Clarendon — who is fuppofed not to have 
 liked John Afhburnham, who principally induced Charles to 
 feek refuge in the Ifle of Wight, becaufe he was more in the 
 confidence of the king than himfelf — has given an account of 
 the flight of the king, which, though confufed and inconfiftent 
 in itfelf, feems nearly, if not entirely, to accufe Afhburnham 
 and Berkeley, who accompanied Charles with Major Legg, of 
 treafon to their mafter. Both Afhburnham and Berkeley have 
 written narratives of the tranfadfion, and Clarendon ftates dis- 
 tinctly that he had carefully read and confidered thofe narratives 
 before he compofed his u Hiftory of the Rebellion,” and yet 
 he makes various ftatements unwarranted by either. 
 
 Charles was at Hampton Court, and the Parliamentary army 
 was encamped on Putney Heath. He was under the furveil- 
 lance of the army : and had been in adtive correfpondence with 
 the leading officers of it, endeavouring to come to terms of 
 agreement for his reftoration. Cromwell and his fon-in-law, 
 Ireton, appeared at that time quite earneftly to defire his 
 reftoration : and conditions were fubmitted to Charles by what 
 were termed the adjutators, or “ agitators,” of the army. The 
 king could not bring himfelf to accept them. Jealoufies fprang 
 up amongft the officers ; fome of them thinking Cromwell and 
 Ireton too much difpofed to allow Charles to recover the crown 
 on terms advantageous to themfelves and dangerous to the 
 reft. The levelling part of the adjutators declared, or were 
 faid to declare, that they would feize on Charles, and, if he did 
 not accord with their defires, would kill him. Such were the 
 circumftances when Charles fuddenly efcaped in the night with 
 Sir John Berkeley, Mr. John Afhburnham, and Mr. William 
 Legg, gentlemen in attendance on him, but who had lately been 
 
CARISBROOKE CASTLE. 
 
 1 97 
 
 removed by order of the parliament. They accompanied 
 him to Tichfield, a feat of the Earl of Southampton, and 
 Afhburnham and Berkeley were fent thence to feek an 
 interview with Colonel Hammond, the governor of the 
 Ille of Wight, which ended in Charles’s reception by the 
 governor, and his fubfequent imprifonment and delivery to the 
 parliament. 
 
 Clarendon fays that there is no clear ftatement in the narra- 
 tives of his two attendants “ of any probable inducement to 
 prevail with the king to undertake the journey,” and that he 
 had fought in thefe narratives, in vain, what the motives might 
 be which led to fo fatal a refult.— “ That when they fet off 
 the king had certainly no intention of going to the Hie of 
 Wight.” — That on the road he afked Afhburnham “ where the 
 fhip was ?” And he blames this gentleman extremely for not 
 having procured a fhip after having engaged to do fo. All 
 thefe are very ftrange aflertions, as every one who examines 
 thofe narratives muft perceive. The motives which led 
 Charles to think of the Ifle of Wight are all clearly detailed 
 by Afhburnham : no fhip is mentioned in Berkeley’s relation, 
 except that the king faid he had heard that he had one at Ports- 
 mouth ; to which Sir John replied that the whole was a fable 
 and an impoflibility, becaufe he had not a penny to procure one 
 with. In Afhburnham’s narrative, he himfelf gives as a reafon 
 for Charles’s concealment in the Ifle of Wight, that, as he 
 was in treaty with the Scots, it would be fatal to leave 
 England altogether, and that, if he defired it, it would require 
 fome time to procure a fhip. No queftion on the journey 
 was afked by Charles, of Afhburnham, “Where is the 
 fhip?” becaufe he knew very well from Berkeley that there 
 was none. The whole fcheme of the flight had been 
 duly difcufled, and was underftood by the whole party before 
 fetting out. Yet on fuch grounds does Clarendon fay, 
 
198 
 
 CARISBROOK.E CASTLE. 
 
 “He not being fure of a fhip, if the refolution were fixed for 
 embarking, which was never manifeft — the making choice of 
 the Ifie of Wight, and of Hammond to be trufted, fince 
 nothing fell out which was not reafonably to be forefeen and 
 expedfed — and the bringing him to Tichfield, without the 
 permiffion of the king, if not diredtly contrary to it — feemed to 
 be all fo far from a rational defign and conduit, that molt men 
 did believe that there was treafon in the contrivance,” etc. 
 
 Now, the whole ftory is very fimple and clear in the narra- 
 tives of thefe gentlemen ; and, with the exception of letting 
 Hammond know that Charles was near, and allowing him to 
 go with them to him, which was very foolifh, is far from any 
 blame on their part. The fail was, as ftated, that Charles was 
 afraid of his perfon being feized by the adjutators, and there- 
 fore determined to get away. But, as he was in treaty with 
 the Scots, he diftindfly declared that he would not leave 
 England altogether. Under thefe circumftances, Afhburnham, 
 who was greatly trufted by Charles, and added as his treafurer, 
 recommended that he ftiould feek concealment at the houfe of 
 Sir John Oglander, in the Ifie of Wight. He might then 
 learn how Colonel Hammond, the governor, was affedted 
 towards him, who had lately profefied himfelf extremely well 
 affedled, and, in the meantime, he would be out of the way of 
 the adjutators. The king freely accepted this fcheme : and 
 at nine o’clock on the evening of the 10th of November, he 
 being fuppofed to be gone to bed, flipped out ; and Legg, 
 Afhburnham, and Berkeley, received him at a poftern-door in 
 the garden at Hampton Court, where they all mounted and 
 rode away. They went firft to Oatlands through the foreft, 
 got loft in the dark, came to Sutton, where a fervant was 
 waiting for them, and, finding a Parliamentary committee 
 fitting in the houfe, did not go in to breakfaft, but rode on 
 towards Southampton. On the way Charles faid he would 
 
CARISBROOK.E CASTLE. 
 
 I 99 
 
 not go direct to the ifiand, but would flop at Tichfield — the 
 houfe of the Earl of Southampton, where the Earl’s mother 
 was flaying — whilfl Afhburnham and Berkeley went over and 
 founded the governor. This was done ; and here occurs the 
 only difcrepancy of any moment in the accounts of the nar- 
 rators. Afhburnham fays that Berkeley weakly let it out that 
 the king was not far off, and was coming to the ifland to throw 
 himfelf on the protection of the governor ; and Berkeley fays 
 that it was Afhburnham who did this. Unfortunately it was 
 done, and Hammond, who was a great friend of Cromwell’s, 
 was thrown into violent agitation at the predicament in which 
 he was placed between his regard for the king and his honour 
 as the officer of the parliament. But he pledged himfelf to 
 deferve the king’s confidence, as a man of honour and honefly. 
 He entreated that he might accompany them to bring in the 
 king ; and, though they at firfl objected, they were again weak 
 enough to comply. When they arrived at Tichfield, accom- 
 panied alfo by Bafket, governor of Cowes, and Afhburnham 
 went up to the king, and told him what they had done, Charles 
 exclaimed that they had undone him, and that he felt convinced 
 that, in fpite of what the governor had pledged, he would make 
 him a prifoner. Afhburnham replied, that this fhould not be 
 the cafe : if the king declined to go, they were flrong enough, 
 and he would foon difpofe of the governor and his companion, 
 the governor of Cowes. But this difpofing of by difpatching — 
 which was what Afhburnham meant — Charles would not con- 
 fent to. He took a frefh pledge from Hammond, and went 
 with him. 
 
 The upfhot was certain. No fooner did the parliament 
 learn where the fugitive monarch was, than they ordered 
 Hammond to keep him faff : and he did fo. Charles’s three 
 attendants were difmiffed, and a flridl guard was kept over 
 him. But his three faithful followers did not defert him. They 
 
200 
 
 CARISBR00K.E CASTLE. 
 
 contrived to correfpond with him, and a plan was laid for his 
 efcape to France to join the queen. He wrote a letter to 
 Henrietta, defiring her to fend a velfel for him, which was 
 done. The velfel lay at Southampton as a merchant velfel with 
 French commodities for fale. But the winds proved contrary, 
 and before they changed, Charles was not allowed to ride out 
 as he had been, but was confined to the walls of the caftle. 
 It was then agreed that he fhould at night efcape out of his 
 window, and horfes were in fecret waiting to convey him to 
 Ofborne, and fo to Cowes, and over to Southampton to the 
 queen’s fhip. Charles had found that he could pafs his head 
 through the window, and he thence concluded from a popular 
 faw that where the head could pafs the body could follow. 
 But in this, as in all his affairs, poor Charles had put his head 
 through the wrong way, that is, with the face foremoft, and 
 not fideways, in which the head being longer is the teft. He 
 had for years been trying to draw his body through the Britifh 
 conftitution, becaufe he thought he had got his head through 
 it ; yet he had fignally failed. And fo it proved in this cafe : 
 he had to fend word the next morning to his friends, that, 
 though he had got his head through, he could not get his body 
 through, and after much ftraining had got back again, though 
 he had for fome time lluck quite faff. 
 
 The attempt got wind. In fa£I, Cromwell wrote to 
 Hammond that the committee at Derby Houfe had full infor- 
 mation regarding it ; and accordingly, not only was the king 
 more ftridlly watched, but his three followers, now Alhburn- 
 ham, Legg, and Levett, were feized and conveyed feparately 
 to Arundel, Warwick, and Wallingford caflles. After a time, 
 Afhburnham was liberated, and ordered to keep himfelf at his 
 own houfe in Suflex, and not to go nearer to London. Not- 
 withftanding, he ff ill maintained a correfpondence with Charles, 
 and engaged in other fchemes to effedl his efcape once again 
 
CARIS BROOKE CASTLE. 
 
 201 
 
 from the Ifle of Wight, and once from St. James’s in London. 
 He was called upon to compound for his own liberty by the 
 facrifice of half his eftate, and was purfued by inceflant actions 
 for ^40,000, for which he had made himfelf refponfible to 
 different creditors whilft private treafurer to the king. As for 
 the king himfelf, hiftory has made us all familiar with his 
 
 CARISBROOKE CASTLE. 
 
 melancholy ftory. His enemies found a wider window for 
 him at Whitehall than he found for himfelf at Carifbrooke, 
 through which he efcaped from them into the great liberty of 
 the invifible. 
 
 After Charles’s death, Carifbrooke was made the place of 
 
 2 D 
 
202 
 
 CARISBR00KE CASTLE. 
 
 detention of his children, and there is a touching ffory of one 
 of them connected with the place. 
 
 After the death of Charles I., Carifbrooke became the place 
 of confinement of two of his children, Henry, Duke of 
 Gloucefter, and the princefs Elizabeth. Charles and James 
 were on the continent, as well as the infant princefs Henrietta, 
 who was with her mother in Paris. As if to add to the unhap- 
 pinefs of thefe children, they were on the execution of their 
 father removed from London to Carifbrooke, the fcene of his 
 former imprifonment. Elizabeth was about thirteen years of 
 age, Henry about eight. The parliament had talked of putting 
 Elizabeth apprentice to a button-maker, and Henry to a fhoe- 
 maker. Henry was not of an age to feel much their fituation ; 
 but Elizabeth is defcribed by Pere Gamache as a princefs of a 
 high and courageous fpirit, poflefling a proud confcioufnefs of 
 the grandeur of her birth and defcent. Meditating in her 
 folitude on the calamities of her father, and the fall of her 
 houfe, fhe fank into a flow and fatal fever. When fhe found 
 herfelf ill, (he refufed to take medicine. She expired alone, 
 fitting in her apartments at Carifbrooke, her fair cheek refting 
 on the Bible, the laft gift of her father, and which had been 
 her only confolation during the concluding months of her life. 
 She died on the eighth of September, 1650, in her fifteenth 
 year : and was obfcurely buried at Newport on the twenty- 
 fourth of the fame month. “ All the royal family,” fays Pere 
 Gamache, “ confidering her great talents and charms of perfon, 
 had reckoned on her as a means of forming fome high alliance, 
 which would better their fortunes.” 
 
Hicuflur JMbri). 
 
 N the old “ Magna Britannia ” the origin of the 
 foundingof this famous abbey is thus quaintly 
 given. “A monaftery of Ciftercian monks 
 was built at Rievaux by Walter Efpec, a 
 great man in the court of Henry I., upon 
 this occafion. In his youth he had married 
 a certain lady, named Adeline, and had by her a foil, named 
 Walter, a comely perfon, and the joy of his heart. This his 
 fon took much delight in fwift horfes, which at a time fpurring 
 to run paft his ftrength, occafioned him to (tumble and fall, 
 whereby he broke his neck, to the great grief of his famous 
 father. By this misfortune Walter, the father, who had 
 acquired a great eftate by his feveral public employments, — 
 namely, a general in war and a juftice itinerant in peace, — was 
 deprived of an heir, and was at fome lofs how to difpofe of it, 
 till by confultation with his uncle, William Efpec, then redtor 
 of Garton, he was advifed to make Chrift his heir of part of it 
 at lead ; as he accordingly did, by building and endowing a 
 monaftery here, at Kirkham, as is before obferved, and at 
 Waxdon, in Bedfordfhire. The reft of his eftates he left to 
 his three lifters, of whom Adeline, who married Peter de Ros, 
 had the patronage of this houfe. This priory was furnifhed 
 with monks at firft fent by St. Bernard, Abbot of Clarevallis.” 
 Dugdale fays that Walter Efpec became a monk in his own 
 
204 
 
 RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 priory, and was buried in it in 1153. So alfo Peter de Ros, 
 who married his filler Adeline. Many were the benefactors 
 to this monaftery, and it received large eftates and privileges. 
 At the di Ablution, Richard Blyton, lord abbot, and twenty- 
 three monks, furrendered the foundation to the commillioners 
 of Henry VIII., and had a hundred marks afiigned him, per 
 annum, for his life. The net refources of the houfe were 
 valued at ^278 ior. id. 
 
 “Aelred, who was abbot in 1140,” fays Dugdale, “was 
 an, if not the only, eminent perfon in his houfe for piety, 
 learning, and all the virtues of a monaftic life which is not 
 faying much for the piety and learning of Rievaux. Aelred, 
 we are told, became fo famous for his abilities and good 
 qualities, that David, king of Scotland, invited him to go 
 there, but he refufed all worldly honours, refufed even to be 
 made a bifhop, and gave himfelf up to contemplation and 
 preaching. “ He imitated St. Bernard in all his aClions, 
 being mild, modeft, humble, pious, chafte and temperate, and 
 wonderfully for peace.” Yet he muft have been tolerably 
 induftrious, for “ he hath written many books of hiftory, piety, 
 and divinity, namely : The Lives of King Edward the Con- 
 fefior, and fome other kings of England, in verfe and profe, 
 of David, king, and Margaret, queen of Scotland, and St. 
 Ninian, bifhop; of miracles in general, and of thofe of the 
 Church of St. Hagulftadt in particular, with the flate of the 
 fame ; Chronicles from Aidan ; and the Wars of the Standard ; 
 of the foundation of St. Margaret’s of York, and of Foun- 
 tains ; feveral homilies and fermons.” 
 
 Yet Dugdale, feeming to recoiled himfelf, tells us that Walter 
 Daniel, a monk of this houfe, was his difciple, and equalled 
 him in fome things, and furpaffed him in others. He, too, 
 wrote many things, and on many fubjeCls, as of the conception 
 
RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 205 
 
 and virginity of St. Mary ; of true friendfhip ; of the burden 
 of the Bead: of the South ; a hundred homilies ; and many 
 volumes on the words “He was sent,” etc. All this valuable 
 literature, and much more, we are told, was difperfed, if not 
 wholly loft, at the dilTolution. 
 
 Walter Efpec, the founder of Rievaux, is defcribed as a man 
 of gigantic fize and of eminent bravery, and as one of the chief 
 commanders in the battle of the Standard. He only lived 
 about two years after retiring to this monaftery. His gifts to 
 the monks feem to have been moft lordly. His manfion at 
 Kirkham he gave up, and it was converted into a priory. 
 Probably he abandoned this noble manfion becaufe it was near 
 it, on the way to Frithly, that his fon was killed by his horfe 
 {tumbling near a {tone crofs. The eftates given up there 
 appear to have been large, according to the catalogue of them ; 
 and he endowed the priory with feven churches and their 
 impropriations, three of them in Northumberland. On 
 the contrary, this abbey of Rievaux, though it had extenfive 
 lands, with pafturage for four thoufand fheep and cattle, 
 befides free warren and other privileges, did not poflefs one 
 church or chapel befides the church of the abbey itfelf. 
 
 When the abbey was firft eftablifhed in the twelfth century, 
 the country all around it was a wild wildernefs of almoft 
 unbroken woods, abounding with animals, but with very few 
 men. One William came there with his little company of 
 monks, and fet about at once to erecSl a monaftery, which 
 probably was fmall and rude. Thefe monks were of the 
 Ciftercian order, and the abbey, like all their houfes, was 
 dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The habit of this order was a 
 white robe of the nature of a caffock, with a black fcapular 
 and a hood, and they had a girdle of woollen cord. In the 
 choir they had a white cowl, and over it a hood, with a rochet 
 
206 
 
 RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 hanging down before to the waift, and in a point behind to the 
 calf of the leg ; and when they went abroad they wore a cowl 
 and a hood, all black, which was alfo the choir habit. Their 
 difcipline was extremely fevere, abounding in vigils day and 
 night. 
 
 Any one {landing on the fine terrace called Duncombe- 
 terrace, which looks down upon the abbey, may form an idea 
 of the almoft frightful folitude and favagenefs of the place in 
 the early days of the ellablifhment. Grainge, in his “ Caftles 
 and Abbeys of Yorkfhire,” fays : — “ The ruins of the abbey 
 are fituate in a deep, narrow valley, near the Rye, a rapid 
 mountain-ftream flowing from the pidlurefque valley of Bils- 
 dale, and the bleak moors of Snilefworth. In the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the ruins, half a dozen lateral valleys open 
 out their fides, and pour their babbling brooks into the Rye, 
 thus prefenting great variety of fcenery ; and fuch are the 
 windings of the main valley, that, looking from the abbey, it 
 appears on all fides furrounded by hills clothed in wood, rifing 
 to the level of the moors above ; the central point of a magni- 
 ficent natural amphitheatre : a grand framework of natural 
 beauty enclofing a noble relic of ancient art.” 
 
 But imagine this fcene, not as now, when feven hundred 
 years of cultivation have palled over it, but when enveloped 
 in denfe woods, this network of winding valleys choked with 
 tangled brufhwood and briars, with no cottage-fmoke to cheer 
 the dark glades, no little crofts or farms to break its monotony, 
 and no voice but of the leaping waters refounding through its 
 pathlefs glens. What a dreary hufh ! What a gloomy mantle 
 of brooding obfcurity mull: have lain on this hidden ifolated 
 houfe of perpetual fallings, watchings, and penances ! We are 
 told that in thofe days the only way to the abbey was by a 
 fingle path, which wound here and there amid the labyrinth of 
 
RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 207 
 
 tangled wood. One of its brethren grew weary of this mono- 
 tony of life — of the ftriCtnefs of Ciftercian difcipline — of the 
 vaft and defert ftillnefs that lay like a nightmare on the place, 
 and refolved to make his efcape. He plunged into the woods 
 and hurried defperately along, threading the thickets, wading 
 through morafles, clambering up rugged fteeps, but becoming 
 only the more involved in the intricacies of thefe dales and 
 forefts. Still he hoped eventually to reach fome habitable fpot ; 
 and towards funfet, juft as the fhadows caft a deeper gloom, 
 his wifti was accompliftied. He caught the found of a bell, 
 and hurried wildly towards it. Soon above the trees peered 
 the towers and fpires of a lordly building. He drew near and 
 gazed in amazement — not on the hofpitable caftle of fome 
 neighbouring baron, but on the carved and crocketed front of 
 his own abbey, which he had left in the morning. 
 
 The poor monk had experienced what many a wanderer in 
 unknown wilds has experienced, both before and fince — what 
 the Auftralian terms being “ bufhed.” Confounded by the 
 blinding denfenefs of the foreft, thrown from his intended track 
 by unexpected obftacles, he had grown anxious, and from his 
 anxiety confufed. In fuch a condition all idea of the quarters 
 of the heavens are loft, and the alarmed wanderer goes round 
 in a circuit when he imagines that he is going direCtly onwards. 
 Many a man in the vaft woods of new regions has thus gyrated 
 from day to day till he has fallen exhaufted, and left his bones 
 to ftartle in after years fome perhaps equally bewildered tra- 
 veller. The monk of Rievaux, more fortunate, on recognizing 
 his old abode, faid “ The hand of God is in it !” defcended the 
 hill, rang the bell, and begged to be again admitted amongft the 
 brethren. 
 
 In the courfe of time Rievaux, or the abbey in the vale of 
 Rye, became the head of the Ciftercian order in England. At 
 
208 
 
 RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 the feaft given by Nevill, archbilhop of Y ork, on his inftallation 
 in 1464, the abbot of Rievaux ranked fourth in the order of 
 precedence at table. The abbey flourifhed for more than four 
 hundred years, and was prefided over by thirty-three abbots, of 
 whom Aelred, the hiftorian of the “ Battle of the Standard,” 
 was the third. As Rated, it was furrendered to the commis- 
 fioners of Bluff Harry, by Richard de Blyton ; its grofs income 
 being at that time upwards of ^300 per annum, and its net as 
 ftated above. The plate of the church amounted to five 
 hundred and fixteen ounces. Some of the tombs, as well as the 
 altar, were richly adorned : that of the abbot Aelred being 
 liberally ornamented with gold and filver. A hundred fodder 
 of lead was ftripped from its roofs by the commiffioners, its 
 fine bells carried away, and it was left in its then auguft fplen- 
 dour to the infults and ravages of the long-reftrained elements. 
 Its fite was granted by Henry, in exchange for other lands, to 
 Thomas Lord Rofs, Earl of Rutland, a defcendant of the 
 Efpec family, through Peter de Ros, who married one of the 
 fillers of the great Walter. Peter de Ros, and others of his 
 family, both knights and ladies, were buried here, and others at 
 the priory of Kirkham. The property defcended by marriage 
 to the Duke of Buckingham, and in 1695 it was fold by 
 George, the fecond duke, to Sir Charles Duncombe, an an- 
 cellor of Lord Feverlham, the prefent owner. This George, 
 Duke of Buckingham, was that George Villiers fo notorious 
 for his profligacy, and whofe miferable end, in a fmall inn at 
 Kirby Moorfide, Pope has fo graphically defcribed : — 
 
 In the worft inn’s worft room, with mat half-hung, 
 
 The floors of plafter, and the walls of dung ; 
 
 On once a flock-bed, but repair’d with ftraw, 
 
 The tape-tied curtains never meant to draw : 
 
 The George and Garter dangling from that bed, 
 
 Where tawdry yellow ftrove with dirty red, 
 
RIEV'AUX ABBEY. 
 
 209 
 
 Great Villiers lies* — alas ! how changed from him, 
 
 That life of pleafure, and that foul of whim ! 
 
 Gallant and gay, in Clevedon’s proud alcove, 
 
 The bower of wanton Shrewlbury,+ and love, 
 
 Or juft as gay, at council, in a ring 
 Of mimick’d ftatefmen, and their merry king. 
 
 No wit to flatter, left of all his (tore ; 
 
 No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. 
 
 There, viflor of his health, of fortune, friends, 
 
 And fame, this lord of ufelefs thoufands ends ! 
 
 His grace’s fate fage Cutler^ could forefee, 
 
 And well (he thought) advifed him, “ Live like me.” 
 
 As well his grace replied, “ Like you, Sir John ? 
 
 That I can do, when all I have is gone !” 
 
 Refolve me, Reafon, which of thefe is worfe, 
 
 Want with a full or with an empty purfe ? 
 
 Thy life more wretched, Cutler, was confelf’d, 
 
 Arife, and tell me, was thy death more blelf’d ?” 
 
 Pope’s Moral Essays. 
 
 The ftranger, in vifiting Rievaux, ftiould take his firft view 
 of it from what is called the Duncombe-terrace. Proceeding 
 along a winding carriage-drive, you are admitted at a lodge- 
 gate, and fuddenly find yourfelf on one of the fineft natural 
 terraces imaginable. This is now kept beautifully fmooth, 
 and is adorned at each end by Grecian temples, the interiors of 
 which have been enriched with paintings by Bernici. But the 
 moft ftriking fcene is without ; for you find yourfelf on the edge 
 of the noble terrace, looking down into a deep valley, out of 
 which rifes, like an apparition of the paft, the ruined pile of 
 Rievaux. The effedf is moft impreffive. There deep below 
 
 * This lord, yet more famous for his vices than his misfortunes, after having been 
 poflefled of about £50,000 a-year, and parted through many of the higheft ports in 
 the kingdom, died in the year 16S7 in a remote inn in Yorkshire, reduced to the 
 utmoft mifery. 
 
 f “ Shrewlbury.” — The Countefs of Shrewlbury, a woman abandoned to gallantries. 
 The Earl, her hulband, was killed by the Duke of Buckingham in a duel ; and it has 
 been faid that during the combat fhe held the Duke’s horfe in the habit of a page. 
 
 + “ Cutler,” a notorious mifer. 
 
 2 E 
 
210 
 
 RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 rifes the lofty fhattered fabric of this once magnificent abbey, 
 filent as in the hufh of ages. Near it a little ruftic hamlet, 
 the fmoke of whofe chimneys afcends with a peacefulnefs as if 
 ftill touched by the monaftic fpirit of the place. Around 
 ftretch wooded valleys and ancient paftoral hills, feeming yet 
 lovingly to enfhrine this vifion of beauty reaching us from the 
 days of a once proud hierarchy, that never dreamed of its 
 temples and ccenobia Handing as warnings of the vanity of 
 all ambition, even of that which thinks it has laid eternal foun- 
 dations in the hopes and fears of the human foul. But let us 
 defcend. 
 
 The chief remains are thofe of the tranfept and the choir, 
 with a portion of the main tower ftanding at the jundlion of 
 the tranfept, and what once was the nave, but of which only the 
 foundation can now be traced. What, in fa£t, is the prefent 
 tranfept, muft have been the body of the original church. It 
 bears all the ftamp of that early period. Its fmall, and, for the 
 moil part, round-headed windows and rude mafonry tell of the 
 Norman period of the days of Walter Efpec. The tower is 
 Ihort and broad, like moft Norman towers, with its tall narrow 
 lancet windows ; but the choir has all the air of a later day. 
 The lofty pillars, its pointed and often deeply-moulded arches, 
 and all its carvings, are of much more advanced ftyle. The 
 whole length of the church was three hundred and forty-eight 
 feet : the nave being one hundred and fixty-fix feet long by 
 fixty-three wide ; the tranfept one hundred and eighteen feet 
 long and thirty-three wide. The arch opening from the 
 tranfept into the choir is feventy-five feet high, and the 
 circumference of the bafe of each pillar is thirty feet. The 
 fide aifles are divided from the centre by eight cluftered 
 columns on each fide ; above is the triforium arcade, confifting 
 of fourteen arches on each fide ; above which is a paflage along 
 
RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 21 1 
 
 both fides of the choir, going paft the windows. The 
 brackets of the columns, rifing from between the arches of the 
 lower arcade, are adorned with foliage finely carved, yet as 
 frefh as when find cut. 
 
 Though the tout enfemble of the church is broken up by 
 ruin, it yet prefents to the eye of the imagination the noble 
 
 RIEVAUX : OLD GATEWAY. 
 
 afpe£t of the whole when it was complete and in ufe ; its 
 windows filled with painted glafs, and the incenfe floating in 
 clouds amongfl its lofty groins and traceried capitals, and the 
 found of anthems fwelling from the choir. The place is 
 worthy of all its fame. The floors of the choir and tranfept 
 
212 
 
 RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 were cleared of their loads of rubbifh in 1819, thus leaving the 
 full height and other proportions of thefe beautiful remains of 
 Englifh art clear. In 1821 a part of a teffellated pavement was 
 laid bare, near the high altar, and in it were wrought the letters 
 Sbc fHavta gr. This is now preferved in the circular temple 
 at the fouth end of Duncombe-terrace. Some fragments of 
 ftained glafs were alfo found ; and it is worthy of remark that 
 ftained glafs is firft mentioned in the North of England, in 
 1 140, as appearing in the windows of Rievaux. 
 
 Moft of the other buildings of the abbey, as the cloifters, 
 the abbot’s houfe, the refectory, etc., are in a great ftate of 
 ruin, and many of them hung with heavy mafles of ivy, 
 while the floors are buried beneath heaps of the fallen roofs 
 and walls. But what is this which we have here? On the 
 weft fide of the refectory there is a mountainous heap of iron 
 flag and cinders, fhowing that an iron-foundry exifted here in 
 fome long-paft age. It is overgrown with grafs, and appears 
 to have been unnoticed, amongft the other mounds and 
 inequalities made up of the fallen materials of the buildings, 
 till late years. When we were there this vaft heap was 
 being carted away to mend the roads, and feemed as though it 
 would furnifh an excellent fupply for that purpofe for a very 
 long period. Did the monks, amongft their other occupations, 
 avail themfelves of the ore in the neighbourhood, and, bearing 
 the general appellation of “lazy monks,” thus employ a por- 
 tion of their time to their own and the public benefit ? There 
 is very little doubt that this was the cafe. The monks in 
 many places were holders of extenfive lands, and induftrious 
 improvers of it. They were, in fact, the leaders and 
 ftimulators of agriculture, as they were the almoft infpired 
 architects and the moft exquifite fculptors and carvers of their 
 time. It was not alone in their fcriptorium that they copied 
 
RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 213 
 
 miftals and breviaries in the mod exquifite caligraphy, and 
 embellifhed them with equally exquifite paintings ; it was not 
 alone in writing hiftories of faints and kings that they employed 
 their time ; nor in carving beautiful cups and crucifixes for 
 their altars; nor in working gorgeous copes and chafubles; but 
 they extended their attention to all the more rude and matter- 
 of-fa£t arts and purfuits of ordinary life. They had farms and 
 mills, and cider-prefles, and fifheries with weirs and traps. 
 Some of them, as Roger Bacon, Bifhop Groftefte of Lincoln, 
 Dunftan, and others, dived deep into the myfteries of chemiftry, 
 and other more occult arts, and nothing is better afcertained 
 than that out of the quiet of a monaftery came forth the 
 thunder of gunpowder. They had, too, thefe “ lazy monks,” 
 it now appears clearly, their mines and fmelting-houfes and 
 bloomeries. Not only does this huge heap of flags anddrofles 
 bear teftimony to the fa£t, but at Ayton Priory, and in the 
 Forge Valley, near Scarborough, remain the veftiges of thofe 
 mining and iron-fmelting concerns in which they were cut 
 fhort by the fummary commiffioners of Henry VIII. We 
 are informed by our friend J. G. Baker, of Thirlk, in York- 
 Ihire, that a rock of from feven to twelve feet thick, running 
 through a range of hills near Scarborough, which one of thefe 
 monaftic brotherhoods worked before the di Ablution of their 
 houfe, is now again being worked, and promifes to yield 
 twenty thoufand tons of iron ore to the acre, producing thirty 
 per cent, of metal, probably the beginning only of one of the 
 largeft iron-producing tracts in the country. Truly thefe 
 “ lazy monks” had their redeeming qualities ! They were not 
 all, it would appear, “ tarred with the fame brufh.” The 
 monaftic fyftem, though not the moft natural or wife ofinftitu- 
 tions, was in fa£t cenfurable not fo much for its inftitution as 
 for its corruption. It was the light of dark and barbarous 
 
214 
 
 RIEVAUX ABBEY. 
 
 times. It afforded peaceful fpots under the fhadow of its 
 fan&ity, amid the perpetual turbulence and ravage of war. It 
 preferved in its libraries the learning of the old world — the 
 Bible amongft the reft ; and it originated or perfected the chief 
 arts of the new : architecture, fculpture, carving, caligraphy, 
 painting on canvas, wood, vellum, and glafs. Aftrology, the 
 rude parent of aftronomy ; alchemy, the equally rude but 
 cunning-looking parent of chemiftry ; botany, and the introduc- 
 tion of new plants and fruits, medicine, and metaphyfics — all 
 received a loving welcome in the cells of monks, and won 
 fubftantial advances at their hands. Agriculture was profecuted 
 with great zeal, efpecially by the Ciftercians ; and it now 
 appears that we muft add the refearches of mining and the 
 labour of forges to their lift of induftries. Let us remember 
 the energetic as well as the lazy monks ; the fcientific as well 
 as the ignorant ; the virtuous and enterprifing as well as the 
 fordid and fenfual j the Bernards, the Bacons, the Grofteftes, 
 and many a fhrewd and diligent labourer who has left no 
 name, as well as the fwinifh herd which roufed the ire and 
 gave fuch pungency to the fatire of Chaucer, who lived in the 
 midft of it. Even as we approach the fallen fhrines of this 
 much and juftly abufed race of men, remembering their many 
 beautiful arts and achievements, and the world of once great 
 and wise hearts which beat there, we may, in the words of 
 Lord Byron, fay — 
 
 “ Stop, for thy tread is on an empire’s duft ! ” 
 
/untess Jlbki) 
 
 An apparition hung amid the hulh 
 Of the lone vale ; whether exhaled from earth 
 Or dropt from heaven, as yet my beating heart, 
 That quaked unto the fudden folitude, 
 
 Knew not, nor cared to know — a mill — a cloud — 
 Material thadow — or a fpiritual dream ! 
 
 Slowly and waveringly it feemed to change 
 Into a hoary edifice, o’erhung 
 By hoary trees with mouldering boughs as mute 
 E’en as the mouldering Hones — a ghoftlike Ihow ! 
 Uncertain in their tremor where to reft, 
 
 Like birds difturbed at night, my ftartled thoughts 
 Floated around the dim magnificence 
 Of air-woven roofs, and arches light as air 
 Spanning the faded funfet, till the Pile, 
 
 Still undergoing, as my fpirit gazed 
 Jntenflier and intenflier through the gloom, 
 
 Strange transformation from the beautiful 
 To the fublime, breathing alternately 
 Life-kindling hope and death-foretelling fear, 
 Majeftically fettled down at laft 
 Into its own religious charadter, 
 
 A houfe of prayer and penitence — dedicate 
 Hundreds of years ago to God, and Her 
 Who bore the Son of Man ! An abbey fair 
 As ever lifted reverentially 
 The folemn quiet of its ftately roof 
 Beneath the moon and ftars. 
 
 Professor Wilson. 
 
2l6 
 
 FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 N that remarkable promontory in the 
 north-weft of Lancafhire, which runs out 
 into the fea oppofite to Walney Ifle, and 
 between the river Duddon and the waters 
 ofMorecambe Bay, ftand the ruins of the 
 once princely abbey of Furnefs. This 
 name it derives from the promontory which anciently bore the 
 name of Fuder-nefte, or the further nofe or promontory, a 
 Scandinavian name, teftifying, like fo many of our promontories 
 which bear the name of nefs, to the one-time fojourn of the 
 Northmen. This promontory or peninfula, now condenfed into 
 Furnefs, is hemmed in by the hills of Cumberland and Weft- 
 moreland, and the inland portion of it partaking of the hilly 
 and rocky character of thofe counties, is known as High 
 Furnefs, or Furnefs Fells. In Low Furnefs, or the portion of 
 lower and more fertile land approaching the fea, and in a deep 
 glen by the way as you proceed from Ulverftone to the Ifle of 
 Walney, the monks of Furnefs fixed their fheltered abode. 
 They exercifed that tail for which monks were fo famous in 
 the feleilion of their fite. Whilft extending their lordfhip 
 over the higher and wilder diftriils of the peninfula, where 
 they could enjoy all the privileges of free warren and of the 
 chace, collecting the tribute of its mountain-ftreams in the 
 fhape of trout, they had feated themfelves amid the paftoral 
 fatnefs of the land. Befides this, their territory abounded in 
 ftone and timber for building, and in wealth of minerals, iron 
 and lead, of which we have had occafion to note that they 
 fully comprehended the value. The valley in which they 
 ereCted their abbey was named by the Saxons Bekanfgill, or 
 the valley of Nightfhade, from the growth of that beautiful 
 but deadly plant, the Atropa Belladonna, ftill to be found flou- 
 
FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 2I 7 
 
 rifhing amid its ruins. So fays John Still, the poetical hiftorian 
 of the abbey in the reign of Henry VI. — 
 
 “ Haec vallis tenuit olim fibi nomen ab herba 
 Bekan, qua viruit, dulcis nunc, tunc fed acerba ; 
 
 Inde domus nomen, Beckanfgill, claruit ante.” 
 
 Hence, too, the nightfhade figures largely in the armorial 
 devices of the ancient feal of the abbey. 
 
 Furnefs was founded in 1127, by mon k s from the monaftery 
 of Savigni, who were invited by Stephen, Earl of Bologne, 
 afterwards King Stephen, to whom the lordfhip had been 
 
 FUKNF.SS ABBEY. 
 
 2 F 
 
2 1 8 
 
 FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 granted. Thefe monks were of the Ciftercian order, as was 
 fo generally the cafe with thofe who founded the abbeys of the 
 twelfth century. It is noteworthy that, of the ten abbeys and 
 priories which we have introduced into this volume, the whole 
 of them, without our having feleifted them on that account, 
 feem either to have been founded or refounded in the twelfth 
 century. Three of thefe — Glallonbury, Iona, and Melrofe — 
 were ancient Britifh churches, taken poffeftion of and refounded 
 by the Roman Catholics. Of thefe, too, no fewer than nine 
 were pofl’efled by the Ciftercian order, and, therefore, with one 
 exception, dedicated, according to their wont, to St. Mary : 
 namely : — 
 
 Fountains, founded 
 
 H 3 2 > 
 
 dedicated to St. Mary. 
 
 Rievaux, ditto 
 
 113c 
 
 ditto 
 
 ditto. 
 
 Tintern, ditto 
 
 n 3 r > 
 
 ditto 
 
 ditto. 
 
 Melrofe, refounded 
 
 H 3 6 > 
 
 ditto 
 
 ditto. 
 
 Holyrood, founded 
 
 11— 
 
 ditto 
 
 ditto. 
 
 Furnefs, ditto 
 
 1127, 
 
 ditto 
 
 ditto. 
 
 Lanthony, ditto 
 
 1 108, 
 
 ditto 
 
 St. Auguftine. 
 
 Glaftonbury, refounded I2th cent., 
 
 Mary and Jefus 
 
 Iona, ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 ditto. 
 
 The twelfth century was the period of the afcendancy of the 
 Ciftercian order. Of the feventeen chief abbeys and priories 
 of Yorkfhire, thirteen were founded in that century, and of 
 thefe, fix were Ciftercian. Thofe founded earlier were 
 generally Benedicftine, and the later Carthufian or Francifcan. 
 
 Furnefs, indeed, had a Benedicftine origin, Savigni being 
 originally a houfe of that order ; but the fourth abbot of 
 Savigni furrendered the houfe and all its dependencies to St. 
 Bernard, the great abbot of Clairvaux, to become Ciftercian ; 
 and though Peter of York, the fourth abbot of Furnefs, went 
 to Rome and obtained an order from the Pope to disobey this 
 
FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 219 
 
 ceffion, he was, on his return, feized by the monks of Savigni, 
 and compelled to refign his abbey, and remain a monk there, 
 F urnefs continuing Ciftercian. In its early days F urnefs had alfo 
 a ftruggle for precedence with the abbey of Waverley in Surrey, 
 which was alfo Ciftercian, on the ground that Waverley was 
 founded a little pofterior to it. But it was ruled by the pope 
 that Waverley fhould ftand at the head of all the Ciftercian 
 houfes in England ; but that Furnefs fhould ftand fecond, and 
 Rievaux third : though fome authors have placed Rievaux 
 firft. 
 
 The charter of Stephen conferred on Furnefs immenfe 
 eftates, which endowed it with almoft regal power. In this 
 and fucceeding charters they are defcribed as pofleffing the 
 right of fifhery in Lancafter, Staplethorne, Furnefs Foreft, the 
 Ifle of Walney, and the chace of Walney, the fifhery of 
 Dalton, Winterburne, Fordbotle, Crinelton, Rofe, Berdefiey, 
 Newby, Sellefec, etc. The abbot had, alfo, amongft other 
 privileges, fheriff’s term, affize of bread and beer, wreck of 
 the fea, wayf and eftray, infangenetheof, and free chace in 
 Dalton, Kyrkeby, Ireleth, Penyngton, Ulverfton, Alding- 
 ham, Legh, and Urfewyk in Furnefs. He was free from 
 county fines and amercements, and from county fuits and 
 wapentakes, for himfelf and men in thofe towns ; and to have 
 a market, fair, and gallows in Dalton ; with full authority to 
 make fummons and attachments by his bailiff - in Furnefs. In 
 fhort he had all the power of a fovereign prince over life and 
 death. The ferjeantry or ftewardfhip was of fuch importance 
 that it was ufually held by men of high rank. In the reign of 
 Edward III. we find Sir Robert de Holland holding this office ; 
 and in that of Henry VIII. Cardinal Wolfey foliciting it for 
 Stanley, Earl of Derby. 
 
 The fize and fplendour of the abbey was in keeping with 
 
220 
 
 FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 this fecular greatnefs ; in thefe refpedts it was fecond only to 
 Fountains in Yorkfhire. It continued in this full-blown 
 dignity and wealth till the dilTolution, when its revenues 
 amounted, according to Speed, to jT 766 7 s. 10 d.\ but accord- 
 ing to Dugdale to ^805 i6j. 5 d., exclufive of the woods, 
 meadows, paftures, and fiftieries, retained by the monks in 
 their own hands, and of the {hares of moneys, mills, and 
 faltworks, which belonged to the abbey. The number of the 
 abbots from firft to laft was thirty-eight. The firft abbot 
 was Evan de Abrineis from Savigni ; the laft, who furrendered 
 it to the commiffioners of Henry VIII., on the 9th of April, 
 1 537? was Roger Pyle. By a fingular cuftom, however, of this 
 abbey, only ten abbots are recorded in the mortuary or dead 
 book, for when an abbot had prefided ten years he was tranflated 
 or depofed. All fuch abbots as died before the tenth year were 
 not entered in this book ; but only fuch as were allowed to be 
 exceptions to the rule of tranflation or depofition, and to 
 continue abbots beyond their decade till their death. Of thefe 
 there were during the whole time only ten. No other abbey 
 of the fame order had this fingular cuftom. 
 
 With their large eftates the monks feem to have exercifed a 
 grand hofpitality. Mr. Weft, in his hiftory of the abbey, 
 fays that in the courfe of a difpute betwixt the abbot and the 
 attorney of the duchy of Lancafter, in 1582, fome curious 
 proofs of this came up. One deponent, aged feventy-eight, 
 faid that he had many times feen the tenants refort to the 
 monaftery on tunning days, fometimes with twenty, fometimes 
 with thirty horfes, and had delivered to every of them firkins 
 or barrels of beer, or ale, each containing ten or twelve 
 gallons; and the fame was worth 1 od. or 12^. a barrel at that 
 time. A dozen loaves of bread were delivered to every one 
 that had a barrel of ale or beer ; which bread and beer, or ale, 
 
FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 221 
 
 were delivered weekly ; and every dozen loaves was worth 6 d. 
 Another deponent had known divers children of the tenants 
 and their fervants to have come from the plough, or other 
 work, into the faid abbey, where they had dinner or fupper; 
 and the children of the faid tenants came divers times to the faid 
 abbey, and were fuffered to come to fchool and learning within 
 the faid monaftery. This was confirmed by a third, who faid 
 there was both a grammar fchool and a fong fchool in the 
 monaftery, to which the children of the tenants that paid 
 penfions were free to come and refort ; and that he was at the 
 faid fchool. And Richard Banks depofed that the tenants and 
 their families and children did weekly receive charity and 
 devotion, over and above the relief and commodities before 
 rehearfed, to the value of 40*. fterling. The abbot and monks 
 did not fubmit to the deprivation of their fplendid eftate and 
 patronage without a ftruggle. They took a diftinguifhed lead 
 in exciting thofe they had fo long maintained to the celebrated 
 Pilgrimage of Grace. 
 
 The remains of the abbey bear the character of their early 
 origin. They combine the maftivenefs of the Saxon with the 
 fuperior grace of the Norman architecture. The roof, being 
 ftripped of its lead, foon fell in, and the work of ruin went 
 rapidly on. That of the chapter-houfe being fpared, the roof 
 did not fall till the middle of the eighteenth century. It was 
 vaulted, and formed of twelve ridged arches, fupported by fix 
 pillars in two rows, at fourteen feet diftance from each other. 
 The entrance, or front, to this graceful building is by one of the 
 fineft circular arches, deeply receding and richly ornamented, 
 with a portico on each fide ; the whole fupported by maffive 
 fculptured pillars. A very good defcription of Furnefs in 
 its prefent ftate is given by Edward Baines in his “ Com- 
 panion to the Lakes.” He fays, “ I turned from the high 
 
222 
 
 FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 road into a lane {haded by oaks, running down a narrow 
 valley, or glen, called the Glen of the Deadly Nightfhade : and 
 at the bottom of this glen, under the folemn {hade of majeftic 
 foreft trees, I came upon the ruins of the famous abbey of 
 Furnefs. I beheld it handing with a grafly area in front, and 
 enclofed on each fide by noble groves of plane-tree, alh and 
 oak. Though much fhattered, and having loft the central 
 tower, it is ftill extenfive and magnificent. Lofty walls and 
 arches, cluftered columns, and long-drawn aifles, remain ; and 
 the fine fymmetry and noble proportions of the arches contrail: 
 molt piCturefquely with the rents and fiflures of the pile. The 
 former extent of the building may in fome degree be judged 
 of, when I ftate that what remains meafures five hundred feet 
 from north to fouth, and three hundred from eaft to weft. 
 
 “ The abbey lies in a nook, apparently fo fecluded that it 
 might be deemed the utmoft corner of the earth ; but you 
 have only to afcend the hills on either fide, and you look ahead 
 on the wide world, embracing all the extent of fea and land 
 vifible from the fhores of the bay of Morecambe. The 
 college and the fchool-houfe are the mod complete apartments 
 remaining. The former has an arched roof, ftill quite perfect : 
 its tall narrow windows have no arch, but terminate upwards 
 in the fhape of a pediment. The fchool-houfe is equally 
 perfect, but is fmaller and lefs ornamental.” 
 
 After defcribing the remains of the kitchens and the noble 
 refectories, he fays, — “ Palling through the cloifters, of which 
 only the lkeletons remain, we entered the church under the 
 great central tower, the lofty arches of which are yet {landing. 
 The eaftern window is of vaft dimenfions, and its ornamental 
 frame was anciently filled with painted glafs, fome of which 
 yet exifts in the church of Bownefs, Windermere. In the 
 wall at the right of the window, are four ftalls with a fretted 
 
FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 223 
 
 canopy, where the priefts fate at intervals during the fervice of 
 mafs, and both its rows of pillars are gone. Their bafes, which 
 remain, fhow that the pillars were alternately round and clus- 
 tered. Four ftatues of admirable workmanfhip, — two of 
 marble, and two of ftone, — are Ihown to the vifitor. One is in 
 chain armour ; two others are alfo in armour, and the fourth 
 
 FURNESS ABBEY ; NORTH TRANSEPT. 
 
 is a lady. They are in the recumbent pofture, and have lain 
 upon fepulchral monuments. Near the central tower are three 
 chapels, with pavements of ornamental brickwork, and traces 
 of altars. At the weftern end of the church is a winding 
 ftaircafe, ftill perfect, afcending to the top of the building, from 
 
224 
 
 FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 whence you have an interefting view of the ruin. The head 
 of Stephen, the founder of the abbey, and that of Maud, his 
 queen, both crowned, are feen on the outfide of the eaftern 
 window.” 
 
 The liberty and lordlhip of Furnefs remained in the crown 
 from the period of the dilTolution till 1662, when Charles II. 
 granted them to Monk, the Duke of Albemarle, and his heirs, 
 for his fervices in fecuring his return to his throne. The pro- 
 perty palled by Monk’s granddaughter, to Henry, duke of 
 Buccleuch, in which family it Hill remains. Some of the leafe- 
 holders of Furnefs previous to the grant by Charles, of the 
 name of Prefton, employed the materials of the abbey to 
 conftrudl them a manor-houfe on the former fite of the abbot’s 
 houfe. Such is the ftory and the flatus quo of venerable 
 Furnefs : 
 
 And though Time 
 
 Has hulhed the choral anthems, and o’erthrown 
 The altar, nor the holy crucifix 
 Spared, whereon hung outftretched in agony 
 Th’ Eternal’s vifioned arms, ’tis dedicate 
 To prayer and penitence ftill. So faid the hulh 
 Of earth and heaven unto the fetting fun, 
 Speaking, methought, to nightly-wandering man. 
 With a profounder warning than the burft 
 Of hymns in morn or evening orifons 
 Chanted within imagination’s ear, 
 
 By fuppliants, whofe duft hath long been mixed 
 With that of the hard ftones on which they flept, 
 In cells that heard their penitential prayers ; 
 
 The cloifters, where between the hours of prayer 
 The brethren walked in whifpering folitude, 
 
 Or fate with bent-down head, each in his niche 
 Fixed as Hone image with his rofary 
 In pale hands, dropping on each myftic bead 
 To Mary Mother mild a contrite tear. 
 
 Professor Wilson. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 225 
 
 With this fketch we clofe our prefent excurfions amongft 
 the Caftles and Abbeys of England. Whilffc recalling for a 
 moment the part glories of thefe memorials of a vanifhed con- 
 dition of human fociety in thefe iflands, we have felt ftrongly, 
 not only the fragmental beauty of their remains, but the leflons 
 and the encouragements that they afford us. They ftand amid 
 the fair landfcapes of England as if meant only to ftud them 
 with gems of additional lovelinefs ; but from amongft their ivy- 
 mantled walls, where huge trees ftrike their roots into their once 
 hallowed or dreaded pavements, and the wild rofe and the wall- 
 flower fling their hues and fragrance from traceried windows 
 once gorgeous with emblazoned glafs, there come to us whifpers 
 of retribution and of the profound purpofes of Providence. 
 In no country befides our own, do we meet with fuch numbers 
 of the graceful fkeletons and fradtured bones of the once proud 
 forms of papal greatnefs. We are fo accuftomed to regard 
 thefe with the eye of poetry and pidlorial effedf, that we almoft 
 forget at times the ftupendous power of which they are the 
 figns, and of the great conflidl and victory of which they 
 preferve the remembrance. How little do we now realize the 
 ftate, and the veneration amounting to terror, with which thefe 
 fuperb palaces and temples of a gigantic priefthood were fur- 
 rounded ! With what feelings an ignorant and Ample popula- 
 tion gazed on their fculptured towers and quaintly-chifelled 
 pinnacles, and at the found of their matin or their vefper 
 anthems proftrated their fouls before an overfhadowing dread 
 which drew its triple force from the powers of earth, of heaven, 
 and of hell — which came armed with aflumptions more than 
 regal, from the King of kings, and his vicegerent, fitting afar off 
 on fome diftant throne, around which, in the clouded imagina- 
 tions of the long-bowed-down multitude, flalhed the lights of 
 Deity, and beneath which roared the fires of delegated damna- 
 
 2 G 
 
226 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 tion. How little do we now realize the melTages which came 
 from time to time, from that diftant but all-potent prefence, 
 blafting, as it were, the monarch on his throne, hurling him 
 down in the dull at the feet of legate and nuncio, and fhutting 
 up the doors of church and grave to his banned and ftiud- 
 dering people ! How little feel we the amazing ftrength of 
 thofe rumours of this reprefentative of Divinity who went forth 
 amid the duft-covered heads of nobles, along a path paved 
 with the prone faces of the multitude, and with monarchs proud 
 to hold the bridle and the ttirrup of his fteed ! — How little the 
 deep reverence which like an aura rofe up from the broad lands 
 and wealthy farms, the dark vaft forefts alive with deer and 
 wild cattle, from the ftreams and the mountains that lay around 
 the palaces of thefe fatraps of that fpiritual king, and fet them 
 above the fteel-clad barons, themfelves fo haughty and auguft. 
 We no longer fee thofe great eftates, thofe gorgeous houfes, 
 raifed by the miraculous force of arts which they and kings 
 only could command ; thofe Gothic temples, carved and crock- 
 etted and pinacled, with their great ftoried windows blazing 
 with the colours of the rainbow, and with all the folemnities 
 of facred record. On us the fculptured majefty of monarchs 
 and faints no longer looks down from the awful fronts and 
 within the gilded fhrines of thofe temples. We approach 
 no longer trembling thofe high altars glittering with heaped 
 jewels and gold, fpread with refplendent tapeftry, as with 
 the colours of the celeftial realms, lit by tapers emulating the 
 cluttered columns that bore up the groined and efcutcheoned 
 roofs, and amid the blaze of fun-glowing windows dazzling 
 with pageantry of dyes ; amid canopied tombs, carved as 
 in fnowieft ivory, of warriors and kings and prelates; amid 
 the found of pealing organs, amid the choral thunder of 
 human voices, mingled in dread harmony like the found of 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 227 
 
 heaven’s own hofts. No longer with the fame palpitating fouls 
 do we behold the great mitred abbot iffue, with his train like a 
 very army, with crozier and crofs and banner borne before 
 him, and with glittering battle-axes following on ftalwart 
 fhoulders, as he went forth to attend as a great temporal and 
 fpiritual peer in Parliament. No longer do we drop with all our 
 kith and kin on our knees, and, as the folemn dignitary llowly 
 pafles by on his plump mule, in caparifon of damafk and gold, 
 receive the bleffing from his extended hands. Thofe hands ! 
 which could, to the general belief, open the gates of Paradife, 
 or lock them up at pleafure ; open the place of purgatorial or of 
 more confirming fires ! 
 
 Such was, during the reign of Rome, the living period of thefe 
 houfes, the heavinefs of the weight that lay on the fouls of men. 
 We can talk of it, but we cannot feel it. It is beyond words, 
 beyond the fubtleft force of re-creative imagination. Such an 
 incubus of death can live and ftretch its bloated body and its 
 dragon wings only over generations blind and catalepfed by 
 ignorance. With our light and our intelleftual activity, we 
 can no more infpire ourfelves with a fenfe of that worfe than 
 Egyptian bondage, than we can conceive of fome yet untried 
 ftate of being. 
 
 But at once the thunderbolt fell. In the pride and confi- 
 dence of that great fyftem, it fell. As yet no yellow leaf 
 Ihone ominous on its tree ; as yet no trembling paralyfis of age 
 fhook it, no grey hair drooped on its temple ; but in the 
 luftrous day and fummer of its ftrength the thunder crafhed, 
 and the ruins of its glory ftrewed the earth. The irate hand 
 of the temporal ftruck down the fpiritual Titan. The ftout 
 arm of the Tudor, ftrung by paffion and refentment, ftruck, and 
 broke, the livid arm of Rome. Three hundred years have 
 palled, and the power which was fo wounded lives on elfewhere. 
 
228 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 It is only now that the temporal papacy totters to its fall, whilft 
 its fpiritual influence Hill lives, and fhall long live, over vaft 
 lands. But here thefe ruins Hand, as the Jews Hand amid the 
 Chriftian world, fignificant monuments of what has been, and 
 yet fhall be. They tell us that if any enemy opprefles us, if 
 any power in its haughty tyranny lead us to queftion whether 
 God and Juftice ftill live — God and Juftice do live, and falva- 
 tion will furely come in the appointed time. It may not wait 
 till the injury has grown old and feeble; but a fummer cloud 
 may bring the eleCtric flafh, and the blue regenerate fky fhine 
 out above us, ere we can well have faid— “ God defend us !” 
 And now, from thefe fallen haunts and tabernacles of the part 
 fpiritual dynafty, come up more reconciled and mufical voices. 
 The wrath and the refentment have died out, and we remember 
 only the beauties and the benefits. We recall the works of 
 literature preferved, the fcience delved after, the arts cherifhed, 
 and the benevolence praCtifed towards the poor. We feek, 
 though yet with unequal fuccefs, to revive the architectural 
 genius which evolved thefe fallen fanes ; amid their crumbling 
 ftones and clafping ivy we feek for principles of grace and truth ; 
 and thefe point us fmilingly to that inexhauflible fource whence 
 mediasval builders drew their laws and forms — to all-informing, 
 God-informed Nature. To thefe voices, to this great fchool- 
 miftrefs, we cannot liffcen too much or too frequently amid the 
 beautiful remains of the Caftles and Abbeys of England. 
 
 Richard Barrett, Printer, 13, Mark Lane, London. 
 

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