Beech of the Frith Common.
No sad associations with the young Beech of the Frith Common--Its dignity
and proportions--Majesty and luxuriance of Forest-trees--Aggregate effect
produced by Woodland Scenery--The Tree which stands alone can best be
understood--Poetry.--_Page 195._
Oak of Salcey.
The Roots of aged Trees--Sketch of the Oak of Salcey, at different hours
of the day and night--Solemn Aspect of the old Oak when seen dimly in the
clear nights of the summer solstice--Loneliness of its place of
growth--Songs of early Birds--Silent at Noon-day--Sounds heard at
Eventide--Conjectures respecting the old Tree.--_Page 207._
Old Trees in Welbeck Park.
Beauty of Woodland Scenery, superior to all others--Purity and freshness
of the Breezes that sport over wild thyme and short herbage--The Duke's
Walking-stick, and the Seven Sisters--Trees in Welbeck Park.--_Page 213._
The Queen's Oak.
Tradition respecting the Queen's Oak--Sketch of the surrounding
Scenery--Inhabitants of Grafton Castle--Marriage of Elizabeth Woodville to
John Gray--Abbey of St. Alban's--Battle fought beside its walls--John Gray
wounded--Visit of Henry VI. to the dying Youth--Confiscation of his
Estates--Return of Elizabeth to her Father's house--Hunting Visit of
Edward IV. to Whitlebury Chase--Elizabeth intercedes for the restoration
of her Husband's Estates--Frequent meeting of Elizabeth and Edward beneath
the old Oak--Poetry--Marriage at Grafton--Scene in the old Palace of
Reading--Dress of the Queen--Fêtes and Tournaments--Coronation of
Elizabeth--Count James, of St. Pol, invited to attend--Meeting of Cicely
of York and the Duchess of Bedford, beside the cradle of their
Grandchild--Flight of Edward--Retirement of his Queen to Sanctuary--Birth
of a Prince--Return of the King, with the Lord Grauthuse--Great
Entertainments--Betrothing of the young Duke of York with Anne Mowbray,
infant heiress of the Duchy of Norfolk, in St. Stephen's Chapel--Scene in
the Sanctuary of Westminster--Desolate condition of Elizabeth--Her
Conversation with Archbishop Rotherham--Sophistry of Richard III.--Visit
from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Queen--Her unwillingness to part
with her Son--Fearful Tragedies succeed--Aged Woman in the Abbey of
Bermondsey--Her venerable appearance, beautiful in its
decrepitude--Tolling of the Convent Bell--A small Boat with the Queen
Dowager's Coffin on board, seen on the River--The Queen's Daughters
accompany it to St. George's Chapel--A few old Men, meanly dressed, light
on the Funeral--Closing Observations.--_Page 217._
[Illustration: MELKSHAM COURT]
Melksham Court.
"I stood in the ruined hall where my ancestors once dwelt. I asked for
the noble owners. Where are they?--and the echo replied, Where are
they?"
In the midst of the lone forest which shadowed in ancient times a large
portion of the country of the Dobuni,[1] and which extended over hill and
dale, far as the distant mountains of the Silures,[2] and on either side
the river that waters this part of Britain, stood a solitary yew. On the
verge of the forest, and in places cleared of timber for the purpose, rose
the conically-shaped huts of the natives; the dwelling of the chieftain
was somewhat larger than the rest, and around it stood the wattled cabins
of his dependents. Their arts were few and simple, and their habits those
of men who were scarcely advanced beyond a savage state: corn was
occasionally cultivated, but in general they lived by hunting, or fed
upon the flocks which they pastured in the open country.
Years passed on, and while the aspect of nature remained the same, all
else was changed. This part of Britain bore no longer the appellation of
Dobuni; a term derived from the British word Duffen, because the
inhabitants frequently resided in places which lay low, and were sunk
under hills. It formed a considerable portion of Britannia Superior, and
along the side of its beautifully wooded hills, and on its thickly peopled
plains, palaces and forums, extensive military roads, aqueducts and
schools were rapidly erected. The rattling of heavy-laden cars, and the
loud sound of the woodman's axe, with the crash of stately trees, made way
for these improvements. In the course of a few short years, the country of
the Dobuni lost its wild and forest-like appearance, and far as the eye
could reach, the wide-spread landscape presented objects of fertility and
beauty. The ancient forest was also curtailed of its grandeur and extent;
and the plain country, whose rank luxuriant vegetation concealed marshes,
on which it was rarely safe to tread, except in seasons of great drought,
was cleared, and thrown open to the sun, and being quickly drained, was
covered with towns and villages; corn-fields and meadows succeeded to a
growth of underwood, and sheep and oxen grazed where the wolf had been.
Sounds too, which of all others awaken images of security and peace--the
bleating of sheep along the hills, and the lowing of oxen in the valleys,
were heard, instead of the piercing cries of those wild creatures, when
ranging in quest of prey. Meanwhile the ample river, whose capricious
windings could only be distinguished from the highest hills, was disclosed
to view, by the clearing away of tangled bushes, and the cutting down of
the huge trees that encroached upon, or shaded its bright waters. The
small skin-boats of the natives, and the stately galleys of the Romans,
glided along its surface, and commodities of various kinds were brought
from one part of the country to the other.
But the day arrived when the galley was rarely seen upon the river. When
the skin-boats of the natives ceased to spread abundance along its shores;
when many large and fair dwellings were deserted; and when the rolling of
chariots, filled with patrician families, whose villas had been erected in
some of the most beautiful parts of the country, were no longer heard on
the great military road that led from the city of Corinium. Instead of
these, bands of armed men spread over the land, for the Roman legions were
withdrawn, to save the capital from spoliation, and nothing remained for
the unhappy Britons but servitude or death. The Saxons came, for such were
the strangers called: their looks were bland, and their flowing vestments,
adorned with borders of many colours, betokened some degree of
civilization; but war was in their hearts, and soon, where cities had
stood, and peaceful homesteads met the view, all was silence and
desolation. No curling smoke was seen among the trees, the watch-dog's
bark had ceased, there were no flocks for him to guard, and only blackened
ruins told of what had been. Gradually, however, a better state of things
arose; the Saxons contrasted their past condition, their rude huts on the
far off shore, their precarious mode of life, with the elegances, and the
perfection in the arts and sciences which they observed in the homes which
they had won. They learned to adopt the habits and the manners of the
Romanized Britons, and to repair the desolations which they had wrought.
Kingdoms were established, and though war occasionally prevailed among the
chieftains, there were many who appreciated the blessings, and the
security of peace.
Next came the Danes, men of stern countenances and ruddy hair. War-chiefs,
accustomed to a life of rapine--they knew no pity; and what the Saxon
would have spared, when first he trod the shores of Britain, they
ruthlessly overthrew. The forest and vale country around the solitary yew,
was grievously infested with them. They took shelter in the hollows with
which this part of England abounded, and it was difficult to dispossess
them. Those hollows or little glens were so deep and narrow, that the rays
of the sun frequently did not enliven them for months together; yet still
some of the most accessible were brought into cultivation, and rewarded
the industrious husbandman with plentiful crops of corn and grass. Others
remained in their native wildness, and wild indeed they were. Shallow
streams ran through them, and by means of these they could alone be
visited: he who sought to explore their secret recesses must force his way
beside the channel of the stream; now stepping from stone to stone amid
the water's splash; now clinging to the branches of the trees which
drooped on either side. But whether wild or cultivated, there the Danes
settled themselves, till they were driven out in the days of Alfred.
Alfred established his throne in righteousness, and the country became
respectable and happy. Still the tree grew on, and lifted up its head
above the boughs of less stately trees, for the yew does not attain to its
highest elevation, or rest in the grandeur of its maturity, till five
hundred years have passed away, and when the period arrived, concerning
which I shall have to speak, the tree was only in its prime.
The forest had encroached upon the precincts of the fields and meadows,
during those disastrous times when the ground was trod by hostile steps,
as if it sought to recover its ancient rights; but this might not be, and
when peace was restored, the sound of the woodman's axe was heard again,
and the usurping trees fell beneath its stroke. Then, also, many of those
whose ample branches had long sheltered the margin of the cleared land,
were cut down, to make room for wider clearings; and by degrees the noble
yew, which had been in the depth of the dark forest, stood but a little
distance from the verge of the common, up which the road led, and which
being kept free from trees was reserved for the pasturing of sheep. It was
covered with short grass and tufts of wild thyme, round which the bees
came humming; and gay flowers, such as the bee-orchis, and the yellow
cistus, the pink-eyed pimpernell, and yellow rocket, grew profusely beside
the pathway. From the summit of the hill extended a noble panoramic view
of hill and dale. Downward, and far as the eye could reach, a precipitous
descent toward the vale country was covered with the trees of the old
forest, which had gradually been curtailed of its extent; towns and
villages varied the plain, through which the river flowed, and the strong
castles of Dursley and Berkeley, of Beverstone and Brimpsfield, with their
ample hunting-grounds, and the crowding dwellings of those who lived near,
were seen at intervals.
Generations came and went, and successive monarchs filled the English
throne, till the time of Harold, when on the battle-field of Hastings his
noble patrimony passed into the hands of the proud Norman. Great changes
then took place; strong castles were erected on the site of ancient Saxon
fortresses, and while seed-time and harvest did their work, and gradually
advanced and retreated, so gradually did the country emerge from out the
darkness of past ages, and attain an eminence among the nations of the
earth. But as night succeeds to day, and clouds obscure the cheerful light
of the bright sun, so did war succeed to peace, and ruthless men made
sorrowful the homes of England. When Stephen and the empress battled for
pre-eminence, fell sounds broke up the quiet of the valleys, and fugitives
often sought to hide themselves in the still close covert of the forest.
A gay pageant passed one day within sight of the noble yew. Men carrying
branches of the beech, and damsels with flowers in their hands, wound up
the road; and with them came a train of oxen, dragging a large tree, which
had been cut from out the forest. The tree was wreathed with flowers; the
horns of the oxen too were tastefully adorned, and when they reached the
summit of the hill, the tree was set up, round which the light-hearted
party danced right merrily. All this was done in honour of king Richard's
marriage. He had sought the sister of the Emperor Wenceslaus, fair Anne of
Luxemburg; and when, at length, the final arrangements were adjusted, she
left the palace of her brother, attended by the Duke of Saxony, and a
great number of knights and damsels, with men-at-arms, and a goodly
company, all well appointed to do her honour. They journeyed through
Brabant to Brussels, where the Duke and Duchess received the young queen
with great respect, and caused her attendants to be honourably
entertained, for the Duke was her uncle, and he rejoiced much in the
prospects of his niece. Anne expected merely to have spent a few pleasant
days in the society of the Duke and Duchess, but, when about to leave
them, intelligence was brought that twelve large Norman vessels, well
equipped, and filled with armed men, were cruising in the sea between
Calais and Holland, and that, under the pretence of seizing all who fell
into their hands, they were really waiting for the coming of the lady,
whom the king of France was desirous of getting into his possession, that
he might frustrate the intended alliance between the English and Germans.
The young queen was exceedingly alarmed at such unexpected intelligence.
She remained in consequence with her uncle and aunt, till the Lords de
Roasselaus and de Bousquehoir, having been deputed by the Duke to
negotiate with the King of France, obtained passports for the safe
conveyance of Anne and her attendants through his dominions, as far as
Calais, as also for the remanding of the Normans into port.
The young queen then set forwards, after taking leave of her august
relations and the ladies of the court, who witnessed her departure with
much regret. The Duke added to her train five hundred spears, and, as she
passed through Ghent and Bruges, the citizens received her with the utmost
honour. Thus she journeyed on, till being arrived at Gravelines, the earls
of Salisbury and Devonshire approached to do her homage, with five hundred
spears, and as many archers. They conducted her to Calais, and, having
safely confided her to the care of the English barons, who were appointed
to that honour by the king, they returned homeward. Great was the joy of
the Londoners, when the train, having passed over the sea to Dover, came
within sight of the city gates. Ladies of the highest rank were assembled
to receive their queen, all in their best attire, and with them came the
great authorities both of the court and city. The gates were then thrown
open with much solemnity, and Anne of Luxemburg having been conducted with
chivalrous magnificence to the Palace of Westminster, the ceremony of her
marriage was completed on the twentieth day after Christmas.
Christmas was well kept that year both in town and country; but when the
trees burst forth into leaf and beauty, and the contented note of the
solitary cuckoo, was heard in the still forest, the country people thought
that they would rejoice again, and this occasioned the May-pole to be set
up. They did not gather any branches from the yew, for the yew is a
funereal tree, used to deck the grave of him who has nought to do with the
cheerful scenes of busy life.
With the noble train who entered London came Margaret of Silesia, daughter
of the Duke of Theise, and niece to the King of Bohemia, as the
confidential friend, and first-cousin of the queen. This lady was received
with great distinction, and apartments were assigned her in the palace,
not only on account of her youth, but that she might enjoy a frequent
intercourse with the friend who was most dear to her. But these halcyon
days were not of long continuance. The queen died at Shene in Surry, and
so bitterly did the king bewail her loss, that he denounced a malediction
on the scene of her last illness, and commanded, in the wildness of his
grief, that not one stone should be left upon another of the palace where
she died. Margaret felt the death of the queen severely; she loved her
cousin with a sister's love, and the circumstance of their having left
their native land together, and their being to each other what none else
could be in a foreign country, had formed between them a bond of no common
interest.
The queen deceased without children; but Margaret having married a
gentleman of the ducal family of Norfolk, knight of the garter and
standard-bearer of England, their only child and heiress, Alana, became
the wife of Sir William Tyndale, who was equally respectable in point of
antiquity and alliances. His family possessed the valuable domain and
title of Tyndale in Northumberland, so called from the south Tyne, which,
rising in the mountains and moors of Cumberland, waters that dale, and
having joined the north Tyne near Hexham, falls into the German ocean at
Tynmouth. Their baronial residence rose proudly on an eminence which
commanded the southern banks of the river. It consisted of a spacious
antique quadrangle; the roof and walls being of immense strength and
thickness, extended in the form of the letter H; the whole was defended by
a fosse, and surmounted with four principal towers, in the position of
north and south.
"That castle rose upon the steep, of the green vale of Tyne;
While far below, as low they creep,
From pool to eddy dark and deep,
Where alders bend and willows weep,
You hear her streams repine."
The ancestral history of Margaret of Silesia, with that of her
distinguished husband, was of no ordinary kind. Her paternal ancestors had
filled for ten generations the throne of Poland, and on her mother's side
she represented Winceslaus the Good, nearly the last of the ancient kings
of Bohemia, as also the imperial houses of Luxemburg and Austria. Among
the distinguished crowd of those who figured greatly in by-gone days,
Piastus is the one, concerning whom I would briefly speak. His character,
seen only through the twilight of remote antiquity, is necessarily
involved in great obscurity, but light enough remains to discover the
moral grandeur of its proportions, as well as to justify the curiosity of
his descendants.
Ancient Polish chronicles relate concerning him, that after the tragical
catastrophe of Popiel II., when a dreadful famine added to the calamities
of the country, and people fell dead in the streets of Cruswitz, that two
angels, in the disguise of pilgrims knocked at the door of a private
citizen, named Piastus, and asked for relief. The citizen had only a
single cask, which contained some nutritive beverage of the country,
remaining in his house, but he would not refuse to help them, and he
invited the strangers to partake. Charmed with his benevolence, they
promised him the vacant throne, at the same time directing him to open his
doors and draw for the relief of the famished population. He did so, and
found his cask inexhaustible. The assembled crowds, in their transports,
shouted, A miracle! and with one consent elevated their benefactor to the
sovereignty of Poland.
From this period the history, both of prince and people, became the
subject of authentic narrative. Piastus, like another Numa, retained in
his elevation the virtues attributed to him in his private life. The
Polish nobles, although accustomed to sanguinary catastrophes, felt their
fierceness subside beneath the sway of a monarch who reigned only to make
his people happy. He died at an advanced age, beloved, revered, and almost
adored by his subjects; and, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years,
the name of Piastus is yet repeated with affectionate veneration.
Such is the brief biographical memoranda, which it is possible to rescue
from oblivion, concerning the remote ancestry of Margaret of Silesia. She
came with great pomp and splendour to the shores of England, and curious
has it been to see, while the stream of time flowed on, how some of the
noble of the earth, her immediate descendants, were upborn upon its
billows; how, in one case, knights and squires represented an elder
branch, sober citizens a younger, and how, in a third, the lordly line
sunk suddenly beneath the billows.
When the battle of Touton, in the year 1460, made it unsafe for those who
adhered to the house of Lancaster to remain in public, the immediate
descendant of Margaret, in that branch which is associated with the aged
yew, withdrew from his paternal estate and settled in Gloucestershire,
where he assumed the name of Hitchen. He married Alicia, daughter and sole
heiress of Hunt of Hunt's Court, in Nibley, by whom he acquired that
estate, and became the grandfather of William Tyndale, who is justly
termed the apostle of the English Reformation.
As the gathering mists of a hot summer evening, when the sun is set, and
dew begins to fall, veil the bold and prominent landscape, so the
obscurity of time has settled on the Tyndale family. The outlines yet
remain: the establishment of Hugh Tyndale in Gloucestershire, during the
troubles of York and Lancaster, his marriage with Alicia, and the birth of
his three grandsons, John, William, and Thomas, are events well known; but
whether Tyndale suffered a long imprisonment in the castle of Vilvorde,
near Louvain in Flanders, during the lifetime of his parents; whether days
of sorrow and nights of weariness befell them on his account; or whether
they were first laid to rest in Nibley churchyard, near which their
mansion stood, is entirely unknown. Be this as it may, his brother Thomas
had much to suffer on his account. He was abjured for receiving letters,
and for remitting him five marks during his residence in Flanders.
Time went on, and religious animosities gradually subsided; a descendant
of Hugh Tyndale purchased Melksham Court in Stinchcombe, on the verge of
all that remained of the once great forest. It was a beautiful spot,
embosomed in trees, and moated according to the olden fashion, with its
terrace-walks and parterres. There his descendants continued to reside,
and their days seem to have passed tranquilly, till the stormy reign of
Charles I.
The valleys of Gloucestershire lying remote from the metropolis, and being
in many respects almost inaccessible, from the steepness of the hills,
having also no great public road near at hand, nor the sea within reach,
had been often spared from much suffering in very disastrous times; it was
otherwise at the present day. The forest, one of their great bulwarks, had
been curtailed during successive generations, and much of the moor country
having been brought into cultivation, towns and villages were built, and
roads were made from place to place. This opened a communication with the
thickly peopled parts of Gloucestershire, with such counties also as lay
contiguous: the quiet of the valleys was therefore broken up, and the
cities of Gloucester and of Worcester, having taken active parts in the
stirring incidents of the time, bands of armed men overspread the country.
Thomas Tyndale, the fifth in descent from the purchaser of Melksham Court,
was then residing on his patrimonial estate: he married a lady on her
mother's side, of the knightly family of Poyntz of Iron Acton; but
whether--for the mists of time have settled again on the domestic
incidents of the family--whether his lady was deceased, or whether he had
sent her with their young son and four daughters to a place of greater
security, cannot be ascertained. Certain it is, that seeing a band of
armed men advancing to the house, he fled for shelter into the forest
which skirted his domain. The forest could afford but little aid in his
distress. It was otherwise when its crowding trees extended further than
the eye could reach, now sinking into the deep, deep glens, whose circling
banks, if such they might be termed, rose far above its topmost boughs;
now ascending those high banks, and spreading over the vale country,
sinking and rising with the undulations of hill and dale, and, when the
wind howled among the branches, appearing like the tossing waves of a
restless sea. This had been; but cultivation trenched upon the good green
wood; spaces were even cleared, and its tall trees, for all the underwood
was gone, afforded a ready access to whoever liked to invade its beautiful
recesses. One hope for safety remained to the fugitive, and one only. The
yew-tree stood in all its beauty and luxuriance, near to the summit of
Stinchcombe wood, for such the old forest was now called, and thither he
fled for shelter. He was seen to leave the house by a band of soldiers,
and they hastened in pursuit of him. They thought that he would make for
the nearest glen, or else that he would seek to hide himself in some
sheltered nook among the trees. Heaven, in its mercy, prevented them from
searching the old tree, whose intermingling branches formed a close and
impervious shelter. Yet they passed, and repassed, beneath the shade, and
their words were hard to bear. They vowed to have no pity on him, nor on
his children, nor on anything that he possessed; and they said, "that if
they could discover him in his retreat, they would hew him small as herbs
for a porridge-pot." Being foiled in their search, they wreacked their
vengeance on his mansion, and during his dolorous sojourn of three days
and nights in the tree, he saw the burning of his once happy home, and
heard at intervals the voices of his pursuers, as they sought for him
again, among the glens, and through the secret passes of the wood. We know
not how, nor when the family were reunited; nor can I speak concerning the
joys and thankfulness with which they met, for the mists of time rest on
this also.
The yew-tree is still standing; around it are the remains of the old
forest, and beside it the wild common, with its thyme and flowers among
the grass. All else has changed since the days when the noble ancestor of
him who fled for refuge to the ample branches of the yew, first landed on
the English coast. Neither is the surrounding country such as it was, in
the days of Richard. The castles of Beverstone, of Brimsfield, and
Dursley, whose turrets were seen in ancient times from the summits of the
hill, are fallen to decay, and instead of these, modern dwellings, with
parks and gardens, farms and cottages, overspread the country. The
cheerful farm-house, with its lofty rookery, and wide arable, or ploughed
fields, with low fences or gray stone walls, are prominent features in the
southern portion of the landscape; as also well-timbered villages,
occasional heaths, and tufted woods, or rather groves. At the end of
summer, the strong colours of the yellow wheat and glaring poppy are
finely contrasted with the dark hue of the woods; that hue which becomes
deeper and more sombre, till the night-dews have done their work, and the
autumnal winds begin to blow, and the dark green leaves are suddenly
invested with a splendid variety of tints, from bright yellow to the
deepest orpiment.
On the verge of the old forest extend rural villages and fertile meadows,
high-aspiring elms, shallow brooks, and wooden bridges, crowding cottages
and green lanes, with here and there a church-spire, or gray tower rising
among the trees. Gentle swells and hollows, where sheep pasture on the
green sward, are seen in another portion of the landscape, with
apple-orchards and small enclosures; but along the banks of the Severn the
country assumes a different aspect. Its general characteristics are breaks
of lawn and thicket, with groves and stunted pollards, all footed and
entangled with briars and creeping plants.
A dilapidated court-house, overrun with ivy, and near it an aged church,
may be seen by him who knows their locality, from the summit of
Stinchcombe hill. The church is the waymark, for the walls of the old
court are low, and it is only when the wind favours the sight of them, by
causing the branches of near trees to bend beneath its sway, that even the
church-tower can be discerned among the young green foliage of the spring.
The gardens of the once stately mansion are gone to decay, or else, being
overgrown with grass, are fed upon by cattle; the windows were broken by
the fierceness of the flames when it was set on fire; and though strong
walls, still standing, tell of what has been, not a trace remains of the
great oriel window, and the roof has long been gone. He who wishes to
trace the former extent of the building may just discover the foundations
in some parts; but in others, not even a few scattered stones, sunk deep
in the untrodden grass, would reveal that a mansion had stood there.
Yet Nibley Court once occupied that spot; there a happy family dwelt, and
busy scenes went on--the sports of childhood, and the daily incidents of
domestic life. There my ancestors resided. But all are gone, and
scarcely-discovered ruins, which, as regard all grandeur of appearance,
might have belonged to a barn or an out-house, alone remain.
The yew-tree still lives, but that also betokens the lapse of time. Its
once ample boughs are few; they yield no shelter now; the blue sky may be
seen through them; the stem also teaches that ages have passed away, since
it bore up a noble canopy of mingled boughs. A rabbit from the warren on
the common might run up the scarred trunk, but it could not find a
hiding-place among the scattered branches.
[Illustration: BRADGATE PALACE]
Bradgate Palace.
"This was thy home then, gentle Jane,
This thy green solitude;--and here
At evening, from thy gleaming pane,
Thine eye oft watch'd the dappled deer,
While the soft sun was in its wane,
Browsing beneath the brooklet clear;
The brook runs still, the sun sets now,
The trees wave still; but where art thou?"
A rocky bank, with scattered sheep, are objects on which the mind loves to
rest. Such is the back-ground of Bradgate ruin, the birth-place of the
beautiful Jane Grey, the illustrious and ill-fated scion of the house of
Suffolk, concerning whom it was related by one who had seen and loved her,
that even in her eighteenth year she had the innocence of childhood, the
beauty of youth, the solidity of middle, and the gravity of old age; the
life of a saint, and yet the death of a malefactor. On that rocky bank she
had often gazed, for though man passes from his inheritance, and noble
dwellings crumble to the dust, nature changes not. Rude eminences extend
further back, on which the wild rose and sweet-briar have long fixed
themselves, with bramble-bushes, ferns, and fox-glove; they are skirted by
low and romantic dingles, where sheep pasture, and butterflies sport from
one flower to another. He who approaches the old ruin, from the little
village of Cropston, can hardly picture to himself that time has done its
work in laying low the ancient palace of the Greys. On the left, stands
that noble group of chesnut-trees, under the shade of which little Jane
used to play; on the right extends a slate coppice, intermingled with moss
and flowers, in beautiful contrast with the deep shade of the old
chesnuts, the roots of which are laved by the clear trout-stream, on which
stood a corn-mill in Leland's days;--"that faire and plentiful springe of
water, brought by master Brok, as a man would judge, agayne the hille,
thorough the lodge, and thereby it dryveth the mylee." The mill came into
decay when the mansion was deserted, and no one went thither for the
grinding of his corn; some of the large stones fell into the stream, and
interrupted for a short space the rapid flowing of the water, and among
them grow the water-dock and bulrush, with large river-weeds and trailing
plants. Again it hurries on, dancing from amid the roots and broken masses
of huge stones, clear and sparkling, and fringed with ferns and flowers,
the delight of Jane, when she used to watch beside it with Elmer, that
"deare friend and schoolmaster, who taught her so gently and yet so
pleasantly, that she thought the time as nothing, while she was with
him." This streamlet laves in its course the once hospitable mansion of
the Greys, and passes from thence into the fertile meadows of Smithland.
Beautiful too is the vale of Newtown, lonely yet romantic, the favourite
resort of all who delight in the sylvan solitudes of nature--where, as
legends tell, Jane used to walk--with its hill and tower in the distance,
the nearest neighbours of Bradgate Palace, now, like that, all roofless
and deserted. What a contrast, in its loneliness, to the busy tide of
care, ever rolling on, in the ancestral halls, the towns and villages,
that vary the mighty landscape, which extends before the elevated
solitude, with its aged ruin! That ruin was dwelt in once, not by the owl
and bat, its sole tenants now, but by living men and women, who held
pleasant intercourse with the inhabitants of Bradgate Palace; with
dwellers too, in places, the sites of which, grass has long grown over, or
which the antiquary can hardly trace. Woods and fields and streamlets are
seen from the same high hill; wide commons and quiet valleys, with dells
and dingles; and above them extends the glorious dome of heaven, where
light summer-clouds are speeding, and the bright sun looks down on the
lovely scene beneath.
Back to my old ruin--for high hills, and far off scenes, are not the
objects of my search. Back to my old ruin, which stands alone in its
desolation, while all around is verdurous and joyful. Full shining on it,
are the warm beams of a summer sun, and soft breezes shake the tufts of
ferns and wallflowers that spring from out the crannies, the rents of
ruin, which time has made in the old walls. Butterflies shut and open
their gorgeous wings on the golden disk of that bright flower, which loves
to fling its friendly mantle over fallen greatness, and now carpets with
luxuriant vegetation the broken pavement, through the interstices of which
its broad leaves rise up. Birds are singing on the trees, and bees come
humming to gather pollen from the flowers of the noble chesnuts that droop
in all their beauty and luxuriance over the old ruins. Those who have long
ceased from among the living used to gaze on them, and gather their
beautiful tufts of pyramidical white flowers with which to adorn the open
spaces in the oriel window. They grew here far back as the reign of
Edward, when the great park of Bradgate, with its circumference of seven
miles, came into the possession of the Earl of Ferrars, for the chesnut is
a tree of long duration, and the stately group is beginning to decline.
Little now remains of the once princely mansion, the palace, large and
fair and beautiful, as wrote the historian Fuller. The walls are low and
roofless, broken and dismantled, and scarcely is it possible to point out
the different apartments that once resounded with cheerful voices. All is
still and lonely now; the tilt-yard is nearly perfect, but none are
playing there; the garden-walls, with their broad terrace-walks, remain
entire, but none are walking there; gray and yellow lichens, with tufts of
moss, dot over the old stones, and so wild and high has grown the grass,
that it looks as if no one had trodden there for ages. A noble
pleasure-ground formerly extended round the mansion, and beyond it was the
spacious park, where the duke and duchess, the parents of Lady Jane, with
all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, used to hunt. Traces of
walks and alleys, and broad spaces for exercise or pleasure are still
visible, though generations have passed away since the members of the
house of Groby sauntered among them, and the place has much the appearance
of a wilderness; yet the aspect is not that of total wildness, of a spot
where the hand of man has never been; indications everywhere present
themselves, that where the nettle, and the dandelion, with its golden
petals and sphere of down, reign undisturbed, the rose and lily once grew
luxuriantly. The house too, how desolate and changed! The earls of
Leicester, of Hinton, and of Ferrars presided here; then came Sir Edward
Grey, Lord Ferrars of Groby, and then the Earl of Huntingdon. Here also
resided the Marquis of Dorset, the son-in-law of him who wedded the
Dowager Queen of France, Charles Brandon, "cloths of gold and freize," as
sung the courtly poet, when contrasting his own condition with that of the
widowed queen.
"Cloth of freize, be not too bold,
Though thou art matched with cloth of gold;
Cloth of gold, do not despise,
Though thou art matched with cloth of frieze."
Tradition points through the dim vista of long ages to a broken tower, as
the one where Lady Jane resided, and which bears her name. Beside it is a
chapel, wherein are effigies of Lord Grey of Groby, and the Lady Grey, his
wife. The chapel is carefully preserved, but all else are in ruins:--the
tower, the great hall, the state apartment, the refectory, the
tennis-court, nothing remains of them but lichen-tinted walls, or ruins
black with smoke. Here then, amid lone ruins and green trees, beside the
streamlet's rush and the old grove of chesnuts, where the lavrock and the
titlark, the goldfinch and the thrush are singing, with no companions but
rejoicing birds and flowers, let me recall the mournful realities of
bygone days.
"Here, in departed days, the gentle maid,
The lovely and the good, with infant glee,
Along the margin of the streamlet play'd,
Or gathered wild flowers 'neath each mossy tree;
And little recked what cares were her's to be,
While listening to the skylark's soaring lay,
Or merry grasshopper that carolled free,
In verdant haunts, throughout the livelong day,
That beauteous child, as blithe, as sorrowless as they.
"And here, where sighs the summer breeze among
These echoing halls, deserted now and bare,
Oft o'er some tome of ancient lore she hung,--
No student ever since so wondrous fair!
Or lifted up her soul to God in prayer,
And pondered on his verse, of price untold,
Radiant with wisdom's gems beyond compare,
Richer than richest mines of purest gold,--
The star that guides our steps safe to the Saviour's fold.
"To fancy's wizard gaze, fleet o'er yon height,
Hunters and hounds tumultuous sweep along;
And many a lovely dame and youthful knight
Gaily commingle with the stalwarth throng
Of valiant nobles, famed in olden song;
But not amid them, as they rapid ride,
Is that meek damsel--trained by grievous wrong
Of haughty parents to abase her pride,
Ere yet her lot it was to be more sternly tried.
"Here from her casement, as she cast a look,
Oft might she mourn their reckless sport to scan;
And well rejoice to find, in classic book,
Solace,--withdrawn from all that pleasure can
Impart to rude and riot-loving man:
Aye, and when at the banquet, revels ran
To loud extreme, she here was wont to haste,
And marvel at Creation's mighty plan;
Or with old bards and sages pleasure taste,
Unknown to Folly's crowd, whose days all run to waste.
"And thus it was--the child of solitude,
She grew apart, beneath that Father's eye
Who careth for the wild-birds' nestling brood,
And decks the flow'ret with its varied dye;
Nor, in His presence, had she cause to sigh
For the vain pageants of delusive mirth;
Trained to uplift her soul, in musing high,
From this dark vale of wretchedness and dearth,
Aloft, above the stars, where angels have their birth.
"Well had she need! a scaffold was the path
To that abode her soul had often sought;
Scarce crowned before the stormiest clouds of wrath
Rolled o'er her head, with scathing ruin fraught.
Alas, for human greatness! it is nought!
And nought she found it, save a deadly snare.
Enchantment, by the evil genii wrought,
Whose diadems conceal the brow of care;
Whose tissued robes display a lustre false, as fair.
"Beautiful martyr! widowed by the hand
That reft thee of thy life, ere yet 'twas thine;
Thy grave to find beneath a guilty land,
Thou hast no need of gilded niche or shrine!
Fond recollections round thy memory twine--
A sacred halo circles thy brief years;
'Tis thine, redeemed from sin and death, to shine
Eternally above this world of fears:
Where Christ himself, thy King, hath wiped away all tears.
"Farewell, thou mouldering relic of the past!
An hour unmeetly was not spent with thee:
Events as rapid as the autumn's blast
Have hurried onward, since 'twas thine to see
The fairest flower of England pensively
Expand and blossom 'neath thy rugged shade;
And here thou stand'st, while circling seasons flee,
A monumental pile of that sweet maid,
Whom men of cruel hands within the charnel laid."
_The Author of the Visions of Solitude._
[Illustration]
[Illustration: GLENDOUR'S OAK]
Glendour's Oak.
"Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all
That once lived here, thy brethren:
A shatter'd veteran, hollow trunk'd,
And with excoriate forks deformed--
Relic of ages."
Such is the Oak of Chertsey, that celebrated tree, over which the storms
of many centuries have passed. The sunny bank on which it grows is covered
with primroses and cowslips, and among them the little pimpernel and
violet lift up their modest heads. Tufts of eyebright, with cuckoo-flowers
and sweet woodroof, grow also, beside the hollies and stunted hawthorns,
which are seen upon the common; their fragrant flowers and green leaves
present a striking contrast to the time-worn tree; the one tells of other
days, of ages that have passed since its stately stem arose in all the
grandeur of sylvan majesty; the other, in their freshness and their
loveliness, breathe only of youth and beauty.
The view is somewhat confined, but the eye that likes to rest on a quiet
home-scene finds much in it to admire. An ample river winds through green
meadows, with trees on either side, and, in the distance, is a church with
its solitary turret, and rude porch of the olden time. The gentle murmur
of a stream is heard at intervals, and the sighing of the wind among the
branches of the aged oak; on high the lark lifts up his song of joy, and
the warbling of birds breaks upon the stillness of the place; that of the
chaffinch and the throstle, the goldfinch and the linnet, and the sweet
full tone of the contented blackbird. They much affect this spot, it is so
lone, yet cheerful.
Time was when the site of the old tree resounded with the clang of arms,
and rueful sights were seen from its topmost boughs, for the Oak of
Chertsey was then in its prime; the now rough and quarried bark was smooth
and glossy, and its ample branches sheltered an extensive space, where
sheep could lie down at noon.
A dreadful battle was fought between Henry IV. and Hotspur a short way
off, and scarcely had any battle occurred in those ages of which the shock
was more terrible. Furious and repeated vollies of "arrowy sleet,"
discharged from the strong bows of Hotspur's archers, did great execution
in the royal army; they were showered from a rising ground covered with
green sward, on which the shepherds loved to pasture their flocks, and
where the village children used to gather cowslips and yellow-cups. But
the flocks had been driven off, and the frightened children were in their
homes; the rising ground was no place for them. The arrows that were thus
furiously discharged did their work, and many fell; the king's bowmen
were not wanting in return, and the battle raged with great fury. Henry
was in the thickest of the fight, and his gallant son, who afterwards
carried misery and desolation throughout the fields of France, signalized
himself that day. Percy, too, supported the fame which he had earned in
many a hard-fought battle, and Douglas, his ancient enemy, though now his
friend, still appeared his rival, amid the horror and confusion of the
scene. He raged through the field in search of the king, and as Henry,
either to elude the vigilance of the enemy, or to encourage his own men by
the belief of his presence everywhere, had accoutred several captains in
the royal garb, the sword of Douglas rendered this honour fatal to many.
At length the standard of the king, fluttering high in air, recalled
Douglas to the spot, and little heeding the flight of arrows, which
rattled on his armour like hail, nor yet the chosen band who were
appointed to guard the banner, he and his associate Hotspur pierced their
way thither. Henry was thrice unhorsed, and would have been either taken
or slain, had not his men kept back, with desperate valour, the furious
onset of the assailants, while the Earl of March forced him from the scene
of danger. Yet still they sought him, and having beaten down his banner,
and slain its bearer, with many of the faithful band appointed to guard
the royal flag, victory began to swerve in favour of the rebel army. But
in one moment a loud voice sounded far and wide over the dreadful scene.
It proclaimed, "Hotspur is dead," and with this thrilling cry ended the
conflict of the day. Douglas, was taken prisoner, and there fell, on
either side, near two thousand three hundred gentlemen, beside six
thousand private men.
Owen Glendour heard the shout which proclaimed that his friend had fallen,
for he witnessed the battle from the top of the lofty oak. He had marched
with a large army to within a mile of Shrewsbury, and if the king had not
proceeded thither with great haste, he would have joined his friend
Hotspur. A broad and rapid river lay in front, and he pressed on to cross,
if possible, before the beaming helmets, which he saw advancing rapidly
over the plain country, could reach the town. But a heavy rain had fallen,
and the water was exceedingly high; the ford at Shelton was, in
consequence, impassable, and the bridge at Shrewsbury was strongly
guarded. Owen Glendour therefore halted. He saw with grief the forces of
Hotspur drawn up in order of battle immediately before him, for he knew
that he could lend no assistance, and, when the next morning dawned, the
armies had joined fight.
Owen Glendour then climbed the large oak; of which the topmost branches
afforded a full view of the battle-field and the surrounding country. He
saw from thence the furious onset, and heard the shock of battle; horses
and men contending, and the dreadful shouts which, reverberating from the
hollows of the hills, sounded like distant thunder; he heard, too, the
one loud voice which told that his friend had fallen.
Owen Glendour returned to his castle in the Vale of Glyndwrdwey: it was
situated amid the wildest and the sternest scenery, beside the torrent's
roar, and surrounded with all the magnificence of rock and fell. There did
he soon assemble to his standard those ardent spirits who preferred death
to slavery, and who vowed that the blue hills and the pleasant valleys of
their fathers' land should never be subjected to the yoke of a usurper.
Daring adventures, and strange escapes by flood and field, marked his
onward course. The English regarded him with superstitious dread; the
Welch looked to him as one possessed of more than mortal power; and thus
during fifteen years did he resist the aggressions of a monarch, whose
prowess had long been known, the efforts too of a chivalrous nobility, and
a martial people.
Yet Glendour was not designed by nature for a life of daring hardihood and
of murderous intent. He was amiable and beloved in private life, and, his
parents having designed him for the bar, he was qualifying himself as an
able lawyer, when intelligence was brought that Henry IV. had granted a
large portion of his paternal acres to Lord Grey of Rhuthin, that
treacherous nobleman who had long sought to prejudice the king against
him. Owen Glendour closed the book that lay before him; he declared that a
descendant of the Princes of Powys was not to be so treated; and having
drawn his sword from out the scabbard, he sheathed it not again while
life remained. A fierce battle, on the banks of the Evyrnwy, made Lord
Grey his prisoner, and the payment of a thousand marks, with the marriage
of his daughter to that nobleman, alone obtained for him his liberty.
It was noted that disasters of various kinds attended the expeditions of
King Henry into Wales. The natives of the country attributed them to the
magic powers of Owen Glendour, whom they believed able to control the
elements, and who, when his men grew faint and weary, and he himself
wished for a short respite from the toils of war, could pour upon the
bands of Henry the fury of the northern storm. It was said that he could
loose the secret springs of the wild cataract, and cause it to send forth
such a flood of water, that the moors and valleys, through which the
invader had to pass, would seem like an inland sea. Some believed that he
could even summon the loud thunders from their secret cell, and cause the
forked lightning to strike terror into the stoutest heart; that in one
moment he could not only bring to his assistance a wild storm from off the
hills, but that, when the beautiful glens and woods appeared in all their
loveliness and repose, and every hill was lighted up with a glorious
sunbeam, he could suddenly obscure them with the darkest shades of night.
Thus men thought; they saw not, in the strange and terrible calamities
which continually opposed the progress of King Henry, a continuation of
events which had attended him since the death of Richard. Richard had been
the friend and benefactor of Glendour; he had fought for him while living,
and now that he was gone, he sought not only to revenge his death, but to
preserve his native land from the usurpations of a foreign yoke. He
performed, in consequence, such feats of valour, bore up beneath the
pressure of such heavy trials, and devised such masterly schemes to
circumvent the devices of the enemy, as his countrymen believed could
neither be planned nor achieved by mortal mind or arm. They knew not the
strength and the enthusiasm which injury and oppression will produce in
either. Excited, therefore, to the highest pitch of feeling, Owen inspired
his men with much of his own energy: aided by them, he foiled the power of
the wary and martial Henry, and drove him ignominiously from the field. At
the head of his choicest armies, the English king had often to retreat
before a handful of men, whose chief had been unused to a military life;
and though Glendour and his adherents were reduced at times to take
shelter in caves and fastnesses, known only to themselves, they emerged
again, and fell with terrible fury on the English, in moments, too, when
they thought themselves most secure from their aggressions.
Had Glendour lived in peaceful times, he would have been a poet of no
ordinary rank. The bard Rhys Coch, was his cotemporary and chosen
associate in his days of woes and wanderings. A stone still remains near
Bethgellert, where the bard used to sit and pour forth the melody of his
harp to his own inspiring lays. There, tradition says, Glendour would sit
beside him in that beloved retreat, where around them was all the stern
majesty of nature, in her darkest, her loneliest, her loveliest moods. The
rapid Gwinan prattled near them over her rocky bed, laving on one side
green meadows, filled with cowslips and cuckoo-flowers, where cattle feed,
and skirted with groves of oak, and ash, and birch; on the other, its
bright waters race beside a wild and heathy tract of moorland, which
slopes upward to the very base of Snowdon, that king of mountains, whose
awful brow is often hidden in the clouds.
The bard, too, had suffered much, and had fled from cave to cave, and from
hill to hill, pursued by the English forces, who sought to still those
bold and pathetic strains--those deep laments, which aroused his
countrymen to fresh deeds of valour against their oppressors. His enemies
were not permitted to accomplish their designs. He continually eluded
their pursuit, and died at length in peace, amid his beloved haunts of
Bethgellert.
Here then stands the ancient tree, though reft of its former greatness.
More than four hundred years have elapsed since Owen Glendour climbed its
lofty trunk, and surveyed the battle-field of Tewksbury; since his
bannered hosts were stationed round, and he heard the shout which told him
that his friend had fallen.
From this tree, also, might be heard, in ancient times, the sound of the
workman's hammer, for King Henry appointed that a chapel should be built,
and two priests placed within it, to pray both morning and evening for the
souls of those who had been slain. Rapidly the chapel rose, for men
thought that they did good service to their Maker when they wrought in
such holy work; and the chapel, being enlarged in after years, became a
handsome parish church. The condition of the time-worn tree, and of the
church are somewhat similar. The tree is grown so hollow that it seems to
stand on little more than a circle of bark, yet life still lingers, green
leaves appear in the spring season, and acorns are gathered from its
branches in the autumn. Great part of the once stately building has
likewise fallen to decay; ivy grows luxuriantly over the broken walls, and
sparrows build their nests among the matted branches; but Divine worship
is to this day still carried on in the part that remains entire. The
country people and neighbouring gentry meet there; they bear the name of
Englishmen, though blending in themselves varied and dissimilar races--the
ancient Briton and the Roman, the Dane, the Saxon, and the Norman. But how
widely different in their habits and their manners from those who assisted
in building the ancient chapel, and those who assembled within its walls
when the chapel was completed!
[Illustration: Yew-Trees of Skelldale.]
The Yew-Trees of Skelldale.
"Worthy indeed of note
Are those fraternal yews of lone Skelldale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine,
Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially, beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes
May meet at noon-tide: Fear and trembling hope,
Silence and foresight--death the skeleton,
And time the shadow--there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple, scatter'd o'er
With altars undisturb'd of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie and listen to the mountain stream."
WORDSWORTH.
The busy hum of men has long ceased from the spot where stand the
fraternal yew-trees. Ages have passed away since the illuminator sat
intent on his pleasant labours in the ruin hard by--since he put aside his
liquid gold and Tyrian purple, and laid him down to rest in the
burying-place beside the abbey. The copier of manuscripts closed his book
there, more than five hundred years ago; he, too, is gone, and with him
all those who lived while he was living. The abbot, who presided in regal
state; the brotherhood, in their cowls and gowns; learned men, who studied
in their quiet cells, and the busy comers and goers, who worked either in
the abbey-fields, or performed such menial labours as the condition of the
place required--not a trace of them remains: even the stately monastery is
in ruins, but the yew-trees still cast the shadow of their noble branches
on the grassless floor of red-brown hue. Their history is inseparably
connected with that of the ruined abbey, for they stood in their present
site, and afforded a shelter to its founders, long before one stone was
laid upon another of the stately building. Those who passed in the days of
the Saxon king, Ethelbald, through the Wolds of Yorkshire, near Skelldale,
in their way to Ripon, might see a company of men assembled in a wild and
romantic spot, watered by a rivulet, and surrounded with rocks and woods.
These men were monks, who, desiring to imitate the extraordinary sanctity
of the Cistercian abbey of Rieval, had withdrawn from their own monastery
of St Mary's at York, and being sanctioned in their preference by the
archbishop, they retired to this desolate and uncultivated spot. They had
no house to shelter them, nor certainty of provisions to subsist on; but,
in the depth of the lone valley, stood an aged elm, among the ample
branches of which they erected a straw roof, and this was their only
shelter for some time. But at length the rain fell fast, and the wind rose
high, and they were constrained to quit the shelter of the elm for that of
seven stately yew-trees, which grew on the south side of the valley, where
a splendid abbey afterwards arose. These trees were of extraordinary size,
for the trunk of one of them measured twenty-six feet in circumference, at
the height of three feet above the root. Neither history nor tradition
have preserved the knowledge of that period when they first arose from out
the ground. Ages may have passed since, and countries rose and waned. The
yew-trees of Skelldale may have continued growing even from the brilliant
periods of Thebes and Memphis, when Phoenician barks traded to the Isle of
Tin, and all around them was one wild impenetrable forest. But the
yew-trees were now in their prime, and beneath them the monks took shelter
by night and by day, from the rain and snow, and the cold east wind, that
swept moaning through the valley. Thus they lived, drinking at the stream
when thirsty, and allaying their hunger with the bread which their
archbishop sent them from time to time. When the snow melted from the
branches of the sheltering trees, and the cold east wind was still--when
the delicate yellow blossoms of the yew varied its dark funereal branches,
and bees came humming to gather in the pollen, they cleared a small spot
of ground to serve them as a garden, and built a wooden chapel. Thus they
passed the first winter, and their piety was noised abroad. Many repaired
to them from distant parts, some for instruction, others to join the
fraternity; and as their numbers increased, their privations increased
also. They were often reduced to the necessity of eating the leaves of
trees and wild herbs; but their fortitude did not fail them, and one day
when their stock of provisions consisted of merely two loaves and a half,
a passing stranger asked for a morsel of bread. "Give him a loaf," said
the abbot; "the Lord will provide." The hope thus piously expressed, was
soon fulfilled, and a cart piled with bread was seen coming down the rocky
pathway, a present from Eustace Fitz-John, owner of the neighbouring
castle of Knaresborough.
Time passed on, and none who witnessed the privations which the monks of
Skelldale endured, could have pictured to themselves the future greatness
of their monastery. Meanwhile, the garden flourished, and fields were
added to those which they began to cultivate, till at length, wrote one of
the secluses, "We have bread and cheese, butter and ale, and in time we
shall have beef and mutton." He lamented that the soil was too poor for
the growth of vines; but he added, "that the garden was well supplied with
pot-herbs." Of these he gave no particular description, but we may presume
that they consisted of colewort and onions, of peas and beans, of spinach,
and radishes with a vegetable called feret, most probably carrot, or
perhaps beet, and a variety of sweet-herbs, for such were in use among the
Saxons. At length the privations of the monks of Skelldale ceased, as also
the necessity for labour. Hugh, Dean of York, bequeathed to them his
wealth, and benefactions having poured in successively, from different
quarters, the abbey became exceedingly rich in land and cattle, with plate
and costly vestments. A wild and beautiful spot was also bestowed on
Fountains Abbey by the Percy family; this was Walham Cove, situated among
the hilly and mountainous tracts of the West-Riding of Yorkshire. It was
included in lands belonging to the manor of Walham, and possessed a
valuable right of fishing in the ample stream that flowed from out an
immense and perpendicular crag of limestone, more than three hundred feet
in height, that stretched across the valley like a magnificent screen.
Thither the monks of Fountains Abbey used to repair; thither, too, many of
those recluses, who wearied with fights and forage in foreign lands,
sought for rest within the abbey walls, loved to muse and moralize upon
the passing waters. But they learned not wisdom from them, nor read in
things inanimate, lessons that might have taught them to retain the habits
of their predecessors. Most of those devoted men, who had sought to
worship their Creator in privacy and stillness, were laid down to rest.
They had laboured with their hands while living, and thankfully saw the
blessings which they sought, spring from out the earth they cultivated;
those who filled their places were not actuated by the same necessity,
and hence the passer-by no longer beheld a humble cloister, with its
garden and low fence, but instead of this a stately building, the Abbey of
the Fountain, as it was called in reference to the stream that flowed
beside it, fresh and untroubled as when the monks of St. Mary's first
sought the precincts of the dale. There were many in after years who
desired that their mortal remains might be deposited beneath the abbey
walls, and for this purpose they devised large sums of money:--some who
had been in the deathful career of storm and siege, and those, the flowers
of chivalry, who had won the prize at tilts and tournaments; when armed
knight met knight, and high-born ladies gazed on and awarded the victor's
meed. Rest they had not found on earth, amid the stunning tide of crime
and human care, and they wished that bells might toll for them, and
prayers be said for them, beside the rushing waters of the Skill. The
mental eye, back glancing, through the vista of long ages, sees at
intervals successive funerals slowly proceeding through the abbey gates.
Warriors of the noble house of Percy borne there. Lord Rieland, one of the
twenty guardians of the Magna Charta, he who sustained the shock of arms
and cheered on his vassals in the Barons' wars. He too, Lord Henry de
Percy, another member of that ancient race, who followed in after years
the banner of King Edward into Scotland, was borne by his tall yeomen to
that still and narrow bed which receives alike the prince and peasant.
Others also followed, great in their day, and filled while living with
busy schemes, but of whom, as years were added, scarcely a trace
remained.--Where knees bent in prayer, and the white-robed priest chanted
the high requiem, a broken stone figure, recumbent on a lichen-dotted
stone, points out a warrior's resting-place; and perchance a mound thrown
up, with broken slabs of richly-sculptured marble, indicate that some one
who had figured greatly in past ages lay there; again, a broken crosier,
or a pilgrim's staff, tell of years spent in wanderings, and in prayer.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HOWE SELE'S OAK]
Howel Sele's Oak.
"I mark'd a broad and blasted oak,
Scorched by the lightning's livid glare,
Hollow its stem from branch to branch,
And all its shrivell'd arms were bare.
E'en to this day, the peasant still,
With cautious fear, avoids the ground;
In each wild branch a spectre sees,
And trembles at each rising sound."
How beautiful is this wild spot, with its accompaniments of lawn and
thicket, with its clear stream, now prattling over a rocky bed, and now
dancing in playful eddies beside the tufts of grass and yellow flowers,
that skirt the margin of the water! Innumerable boughs shut out the
distant prospect, and neither a church-spire, nor curling smoke, ascending
from some lone cottage, betoken the abode of men. In the midst of this
fair spot stands a "caverned, huge, and thunder-blasted oak;" its dry
branches are white with age, the bark has long since fallen from them, and
most impressive is the contrast which it presents to the lightness and the
freshness of the young green trees among which it stands, as among them,
though not of them. Beyond their verdurous circle are a variety of
romantic dingles, covered with blackberry-bushes, with moss, and ivy.
Gigantic trees fling the shadow of their noble branches over the green
sward, and the spaces between them are filled, here, and there, with an
exuberant growth of underwood. The music of almost every feathered
songster that frequents the woods of England is heard in this wild spot;
but except the buzzing of flies that rise in crowds from the copses, and
the pleasant rippling of the stream, no other sound meets the ear.
The old tree with its bleached and skeleton arms has a fearful name, and
stout of heart must the man be who would pass within sight of it when the
sun is set behind the hill, and the trees cast their lengthened shadows on
the grass. It is called the 'haunted oak,' the 'spirit's blasted tree,' or
the 'hobgoblin's hollow tree,' and dismal is the tale to which the name
refers.
Howel Sele, whose sad history is associated with this blasted oak, was
lord of the wide domain which extends around it for many miles. We know
not whether his heart was secretly inclined to espouse the faction of
Henry IV., or whether he loved a life of ease, and preferred to dwell in
his castle-hall, hoping that the storm which threatened to overwhelm his
country might pass away. Certain it is that Owen Glendour thought not well
of him, and perhaps with reason. He came not forth to assist in delivering
his country from the aggressions of a foreign enemy; some even said that
he had been induced to desert her cause, and that he only waited for an
opportunity to avow himself. Others, whispered, that he looked with a
jealous eye on the generous Glendour; and that he feared not to speak of
him as the sole leader of a desperate faction, who, if deprived of their
head, had no other hope.
Glendour knew that such evil rumours were abroad, and it seemed as if he
wished to set his kinsman at defiance; for having taken with him his
chosen companion Madog, he set forth to drive the red deer from the forest
brake, in the domains of the unbending lord of Nannau. But the lord of
Nannau could not brook that his red deer should be thus vexed and driven,
and when one of these noble animals crossed his path, closely pursued by
the fiery Glendour with hound and horn, he rushed from the forest and
summoned his cousin to single combat. It was a fatal one for Howel; he
fell on the green sward, in the very place where all is now so verdurous
and joyful, and his corpse was dragged by his enraged kinsman beneath the
tree, whose bare and sapless branches and high top, bald with dry
antiquity, whose gnarled and rugged trunk, and large projecting roots are
almost fearful in their decay.
The tree was hollow at that time, and the companion of Glendour having,
with his assistance, lifted the corpse of the unhappy chieftain from off
the ground, dropped it within the oak. This was a ruthless deed, but the
natural gentleness of Owen Glendour had been perverted by the scenes in
which he mingled, and by the oppression that was exercised towards him. He
saw only, in the husband and the father who had fallen by his hand, one,
who, if he favoured not the cause of the usurper, was yet indifferent to
the welfare of his country. He, therefore, sought not for him Christian
burial, in consecrated ground.
Glendour could no longer tarry in the domains of the murdered chieftain,
for he knew how greatly Howel was beloved, and that when the hour of his
return was passed, every glen and forest-path would be sought for him.
Calling to his companion, he hastened back to his stronghold, Glyndwrdry,
where, amid rocks and waterfalls, and the howling of fierce winds, he
passed a few more unquiet years. The wretched day which caused him to
become a murderer, and deprived Nannau of her lord, was one of anxiety and
grief. Far and wide did his vassals haste, now down the glen, now in the
depth of the still forest, now scouring over the wide moor, and now making
every rock resound with his name. But in vain did they hurry along the
forest paths, or dash amid the torrent's roar, or scour over the wide
moor, echo alone answered to their loud shouts. In vain did the sorrowing
wife of Howel look out through the gloom of evening, and listen for his
footsteps; and when the moon shone bright, and louder sounded the wild
torrent, and the whoop of the owl was heard, did she pace her lonely
chamber and strain her sight through the gathered mist, to see if he was
coming.
The next day, and the next, did the vassals of Nannau renew their search.
Again every glen was visited, and every forest-walk was traced and
retraced; the base, too, of every hill was carefully examined, lest the
chieftain should have fallen from some height, which the creeping bramble
and thickly-tangled underwood had concealed. But no trace of Howel was
discovered.
Thus one year succeeded to another, and no tidings of the chieftain were
received, till at length an armed horseman was seen to urge his weary
steed up the hill that leads to Nannau, from the neighbouring town of
Dolgelly. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew a perfect hurricane, but
he seemed not to heed either the one or the other, or to spare the horse
on which he rode. The vassals hastened to the castle-gate, and the lady
looked anxiously from the window. Perhaps a faint hope flashed across her
mind that the Lord of Nannau was returning. But it was not him, although
the stranger brought tidings where he might be found. He told the lady
that the enemy of her house was dead; that he in dying, had conjured him
to bring to her ear tidings of her husband, and to make known the dreadful
mystery of his sudden disappearance. He then told his tale; for it was
Madoc, who came thus late, and he referred to the blasted oak in
confirmation of the truth. The vassals of Nannau hurried thither, and
with them went Madoc, but he could not bear to see the bringing forth of
him, whom he had helped to sepulchre within its trunk; he shrunk from
witnessing the awful sight that was about to be revealed, and plunging
into the forest was soon on the road to Dolgelly. The evening was far
advanced when Madoc reached the castle, and now the night had closed in.
The vassals worked by torch-light, for such was the lady's command, and
their own eagerness confirmed it. Their strokes fell heavy on the trunk of
the tree, which sounded hollow, and somewhat of a rattling was heard
within, as if of iron and of bones. Some feared to continue, and truly it
was solemn work, for the night was dark, and the wind exceeding loud, and
the tree stood forth in its sepulchral whiteness, with its long
skeleton-looking and bleached arms, which the lightning had riven. A few
strokes more, and the horrid mystery' was revealed. There stood the
skeleton of Howell; his right hand grasped a rusty sword, and those who
saw it, well remembered that it had often been wielded by their chieftain.
[Illustration: QUEEN MARY'S TOWER.]
Queen Mary's Tower.
Oh! 'tis a strange unearthly sound,
When loud the raging wind rides round
This ruined home of other days;
The warrior's boast, the minstrel's praise!
For now the stately pile is low,
And rank the grass and nettles grow,
Where princes sat in regal state,
And bold retainers past the gate.--
The strong old gate, all broken now,
Twin'd with the ivy's matted bough.--M. R.
Such is Winfield castle; and its noble oak, the old oak which bears its
name, stands within sight of the long suite of rooms where Mary Stuart
passed nine years of her sad captivity; for even nine years, however
passed, teaches many a heavy lesson. Much of grief and sorrow, and those
strange reverses which only the great may feel in all their fulness and
their bitterness, had been comprised in the short life of this unhappy
princess, once the Queen of France, then of Scotland, but at length a
prisoner, when she passed beneath the portcullis of Winfield castle. Other
tales of sorrow and endurance, but none more pitiable, were connected
with this old castle: its early history is lost in the uncertainty of
ages; no one knows who built it, or why it stands in this wild spot,
whether its origin be Saxon or Danish; except that its first and oldest
name was given in commemoration of some forgotten victory. Peverel of the
Peak, erected the high tower, with a portion of the walls, and successive
chieftains added to the structure, till at length the castle came to be
much spoken of for its size and strength. Peverel's tower still remains,
with a part of the old building, but that portion of it which more than
any other awakens images of bygone days, are the rooms of state, with a
small tower on the wall, where the captive queen resided; tradition says
that she used to spend much of her time in summer on the roof of the
tower, watching for signals from Leonard Dacre, who made many attempts to
procure her liberation, either by force or stratagem. But the vigilance of
the Earl of Shrewsbury was not readily eluded; and for nine long years did
Mary inhabit this stern fortress, and watch from her high tower for
succour that never came.
Ruins are best seen in wintry weather, when storms and thunder are abroad,
and the woods are bare of leaves. Such was the fourteenth of October, when
some years back, the narrator, saw for the first time, that dilapidated
portion of Winfield castle. The rain had been exceeding heavy in the
night, and the wind blew a perfect hurricane, making the tall trees groan
and sway, beneath its fury, and driving the autumn leaves in shoals upon
the ground. But the rain had ceased, and the loud wind was still, except
when it came in gusts, moaning over the wide heath, and around the ancient
castle, with that wailing sound which is heard only in places where men
have dwelt, as if singing the wild requiem of departed greatness. The
skirt of the heavy storm-cloud was seen retreating in the west, with its
grey windy banners; while, on high, rolling masses of dark clouds were
following swiftly, as if they feared to be left behind. Now they were no
more seen; clouds, of a still somewhat stormy character, succeeded them,
hurrying across the heavens, and changing as they passed, at one moment
dark and threatening, at another light and fleecy; while at intervals the
blue sky appeared, and the sun broke forth gloriously, causing the earth
to look as if it smiled from some internal consciousness of delight.
The view from the old tree accorded well with the stormy aspect of the
heavens on that day. Full in front rises the stately keep, with its broken
battlements and rusted portcullis, its strong iron-bossed oaken door,
rusted also on its hinges, brown and broken, with large spaces, showing
the desolate and grass-grown area within. To the right of the keep extends
a high wall, flanked with a round tower, and then a long sweep of wall,
without windows, separated by a strong jutting out from another wall,
wherein are the state apartments which Mary occupied. Here stands the
tower which bears her name, and from amid a mass of ruins at the base
springs up a beautiful ash, which rises to the highest story, and waves
before her window. Well might that tree be called Mary's Ash, for the ash
is the Venus of the forest, the most graceful of all trees, and she was
the loveliest of her kind. It seems to grow there, a living thing, where
all else tells of death and ruin; a beautiful and appropriate memorial of
one who was the fairest among women, in the days of her sojourning. Unlike
the oak of Winfield, which stands in its strength, rugged and embossed,
with upheaved roots and strong boughs, fitted to resist the storms of
ages; standing, perhaps, when Peverel of the Peak, leaving his stronghold
on the summit of the castle-rock, raised here his tower in a fairer spot,
deep forested, with green fields, and ample hunting grounds. When, too,
successive chieftains enlarged the bold structure, and presided with all
the pomp and splendour of feudal magnificence. But the ash had no root
within the soil when Mary lived here,--when the Earl of Shrewsbury, his
stately dame, her maidens, and his men-at-arms, inhabited the castle. The
ash sprung up since Mary went away, and now its leafless branches wave
before the window where she used to watch and weep.
[Illustration: The Chesnut of TORTWORTH]
The Chesnut of Tortworth.
When Eva, the gentle one, came,
And sat down in my ample shade;
And with her was that noble Thane,
The lov'd one of the Saxon maid;
I call'd to the rustling breeze,
That my boughs might their homage pay;
While the joyous birds sang from the trees,
And the soaring lark warbled his lay.--M. R.
The great Chesnut of Tortworth stood where now it stands, far back as the
reign of John, at which period it bore the name that still distinguishes
it among trees of the same species. It was then in all its grandeur and
luxuriance, and its noble branches cast a deep and lengthened shade upon
the waste beneath, for grass and flowers do not readily vegetate under the
shadow of the chesnut. But the deer of the forest resorted thither to feed
on the nuts, when shaken from the boughs by autumn winds; thither, also,
troops of wild hogs, which the Saxons used to pasture in the woods, would
gather beside the tree, and listen for the dropping of the kernels that
fell in their ripeness to the ground.
Had Salvator Rosa been living when the great chesnut was in its prime, he
would have braved the dangers both of land and sea to have studied its
magnificent proportions, for this is the tree which graces all his
landscapes; it flourished in the mountains of Calabria, where he painted,
and there he observed it in all its forms, breaking and disposing of it,
in a variety of beautiful shapes, as the exigences of his compositions
required. But Salvator Rosa was not then living, nor, perhaps, his
ancestors for many generations; neither was the art of painting developed
in England; that beautiful art, which transmits to canvas the glow of an
evening sky, and the effects of foliage when shaken by the wind; which
embodies, within the space of a few inches, an extent of many miles, with
mingled wood and flood, bold headlands and mountains fading in the
distance, or crowded cities, with their palaces and schools. Even the
Bayeux tapestry, which chronicled, in after years, events connected with
civil history and domestic misery, presented merely an ungraceful
portraiture of passing events.
The tree had attained nearly to its altitude at that period of England's
sorrows, when the fierce Penda carried war and desolation through some of
her fairest provinces. At this time, also, his son, being appointed
Governor of Mercia, resided with his wife, Eva, at Glocester, in the
centre of his dominions, where many persecuted persons, who fled from the
sword of Penda, were secretly protected and relieved, for Eva was a
Christian, and her husband inclined to her faith. Gloucester, where they
held their court, was a place of great antiquity. It was one of the
twenty-eight cities which the Britons erected, previous to their conquest
by the Romans, and was called Caer-Glou, or Caer-Gloyw, which signified,
in their language, the bright or splendid town, from its situation on an
eminence at the termination of the flat and marshy part of the kingdom of
Mercia, and being well watered with an ample river.
Wolfere presided over the dominions which his father confided to his care,
with equal wisdom and consideration; but within the range of the highest
window of his palace, grievous sights were witnessed at one time, by those
who had the hardihood to look for them. A dreadful battle was fought in
the neighbourhood of Corinium, at about twelve miles distant, between the
fierce king, for whom Wolfere ruled, and the King of Wessex. Corinium was
much fallen from its ancient grandeur: it had been, in former times, the
seat of arts and elegance; Roman generals lived there, and there
Constantine occasionally resided; but war and time had greatly changed its
once royal aspect, though still a considerable city, and having within its
precincts a store of goods and cattle. Penda desired to possess them, and
the hard victory which he gained before the walls gave the inhabitants an
earnest of the calamities that awaited them. The consequences of this
great victory were severely felt in the kingdom of Wessex, and again,
throughout the wide expanse of the Cotswold Hills, and among the
beautiful vales of Mercia, were acted those scenes of misery, which the
youths of that day had shuddered to hear beside the blazing hearth-stone,
when narrated in the winter tales of their grandfathers.
The victory which Penda had gained, within sight of his son's palace at
Gloucester, was succeeded by the fall of the brave Oswold, near Oswestry,
in Shropshire. The kingdom of Bernicia was added by his death to the
already extensive dominions of the conqueror, and with the increase of his
territories, increased also the sufferings of the Christians, whom he
persecuted with unwearied malignity. Penda was born a pagan, and as such
he passed the period of his youth and middle age. According to the custom
of his country, he worshipped images of wood and stone, and joined
devoutly in all the unhallowed rites which had been established by his
Saxon ancestors; like them he believed that demons of good or ill presided
over the fields and groves, and he sought to obtain the favour of the one,
and to conciliate the other, by such observances and propitiations as the
priesthood had enjoined. To them he was devoutly attached, and his temper
being naturally inclined to seriousness, somewhat too, unyielding, with a
strong bias to religion, he sought to extirpate the Christian faith, which
had been represented to him as tending equally to overthrow the altars of
his ruthless deities, with the throne itself.
But the Saviour, whose disciples he thus ignorantly persecuted, refused
not, on his behalf, the prayers of one who ceased not to supplicate that
he might become a sharer in the hopes and blessings of which she knew the
value. This was Eva, who has been already mentioned as the wife of his
son, Wolfere, the governor of Mercia. Men of the present generation, those
even who live where she once lived, have heard little concerning her.
Historians speak rather of crimes and sorrows; they chronicle what the
great adversary of mankind has achieved to make nations miserable; the
life spent in quiet duty, the lifting up of the heart in secret prayer,
are no themes for them. But the memorial of Eva is in heaven, her record
is on high, and there is reason to believe that she was allowed to witness
the softening of that rugged temper, which had occasioned such a variety
of wretchedness--to hear, also, that Penda allowed the preaching of
Christianity in his dominions nearly two years before his death. It was
even said that he was baptized by Bishop Aiden, with Sigebert, King of the
East-Angles.
Eva died in good old age, after presiding for more than thirty years over
the nunnery of St Peter's, at Gloucester. She retired thither on the death
of her husband, and greatly benefited the abbey to which it was attached,
by causing the revenues to be increased, and by obtaining the confirmation
of former donations. With her terminated the office of lady Abbess, during
the cruel war which succeeded, between Egbert and the King of Mercia, when
the nuns were forced to depart, and the abbey became desolate. The roof
which had sheltered the remains of former Abbesses, of Eilburg, who
governed the nunnery, both religiously and prudently, for more than half a
century, and of Kyneburg, the widow of Elred, King of Northumberland, was
thrown open to the winds of heaven, and nothing remained of its former
splendour but walls black with smoke, and a few broken effigies.
Neither Wolfere, nor his wife Eva, anticipated that such would be the fate
of the noble abbey which the piety of former kings had founded, and which
the governor of Mercia sought to enlarge and beautify, because Eva loved
to worship there. The future is in mercy veiled from the eyes of men; they
could not bear to contemplate events that are often close at hand, for
though strength is promised for the day of sorrow, it is not given before
that sorrow comes. Eva went, as she was wont, on every holy day, to offer
prayers, and to present her gifts within the hallowed walls of St Peter's
Abbey, and Wolfere continued to embellish the noble city that was confided
to his care, by causing many spacious buildings to be erected both for
ornament and use. The city had suffered greatly in former wars, and he not
only rebuilt such portions of the walls as had been broken down, but so
enlarged and adorned it, that it was soon spoken of as one of the finest
cities in the Heptarchy. Great hospitality was also exercised at his
court, and many found a shelter there, whose homes had been destroyed in
the rage of civil discord.