Instead of turning off from Rugby by the new route to Leamington, we will
keep the old road, and so push on straight to the great Warwickshire
manufactory and mart of ribands and watches. First appears the graceful
spire of St. Michael's Church; then the green pastures of the Lammas, on
which, for centuries, the freemen of Coventry have fed their cattle, sweep
into sight, and with a whiz, a whirl, and a whistle, we are in the city and
county of Coventry--the seat of the joint diocese of Lichfield and
Coventry--which return two members to Parliament, at the hands of one of the
most stubbornly independent constituencies in England; a constituency which
may be soft-sawdered, but cannot be bullied or bribed.
A railroad here branches off to Nuneaton, distant ten miles, a sort of
manufacturing dependency of the great city; and on the other, at the same
distance, to Leamington, with a station at Kenilworth.
In addition to its manufacturing importance, an importance which has survived
and increased in the face of the changes in the silk trade and watch trade,
commenced by Huskisson, and completed by Peel, Coventry affords rich food for
the antiquarian, scenes of deep interest to the historical student, a legend
for poets, a pageant for melodramatists, and a tableau for amateurs of poses
plastiques.
Once upon a time Kings held their Courts and summoned Parliaments at
Coventry; four hundred years ago the Guilds of Coventry recruited, armed,
clothed, and sent forth six hundred stout fellows to take part in the Wars of
the Roses; at Coventry the lists were pitched for Mary of Lancaster, and
Phillip Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, to decide in single combat their counter-
charges before the soon-to-be-dethroned Richard II.
At Coventry you will find the effigy of vile Peeping Tom, and can follow the
course through which the fair Godiva rode naked, veiled by her modesty and
flowing tresses, to save her townsmen from a grievous tax. To be sure, some
English Niebuhrs have undertaken to prove the whole story a legend; but, for
our parts, we are determined to believe in tradition and Alfred Tennyson's
sonnet.
There are three ancient churches in Coventry, of which St. Michael's, built
in the reign of Henry I., is the first; the spire rising 303 feet from the
ground, the lofty interior ornamented with a roof of oak, curiously carved,
and several windows of stained glass.
[COVENTRY: ill11.jpg]
St. Mary's Hall, a large building, now used for corporation council meetings,
and festivities, erected in the reign of Henry VI., is one of the richest and
most interesting vestiges of the ornamental architecture of England. The
principal room has a grotesquely-carved roof of oak, a gallery for minstrels,
an armoury, a chair of state, and a great painted window, which need only the
filling up of royal and noble personages, their attendants, and the rich
burgesses of Coventry, to recall the time when Richard II. held his Court in
this ancient city, and, with "old John of Gaunt," settled the sentence on
Harry of Hereford, and Philip of Norfolk.
In this chamber is to be seen a beautiful piece of tapestry, executed in
1450, measuring thirty feet by ten, and containing eighty figures.
In the free school, founded by John Moles, in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir
William Dugdale, the antiquarian and historian of Warwickshire, was educated.
The income is about 900 pounds a-year, and the scholars have open to
competition two fellowships of St. John's College, Oxon, one at Catherine's
Hall, Cambridge, and six exhibitions at either University. Previous to the
investigations of the Charity Commissioners, the fine school-room was locked
up, and the books of the library torn for waste paper to light fires. At
present, under the reformed system, the school is attended by a large number
of scholars.
There are more than a dozen educational and other charities for the benefit
of the poor, enjoying a revenue of many thousands a-year.
There are also several curious specimens of domestic architecture of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to be found in Coventry. It is, however,
on the whole, a dark, dirty, inconvenient city. The surrounding belt of
Lammas lands on which the freemen have the right of pasturing their horses
and cows, has prevented any increase in the limits of the city.
In the middle ages Coventry was celebrated for its "mysteries and pageants,"
of which an account has been published by Mr. Reader, a local bookseller.
The chief manufactures are of ribands and of watches, both transplantations
from the Continent. The electors of Coventry distinguished themselves by
their consistency during the Free-trade agitation. They exacted a pledge
from their members in favour of Free-trade, except in watches and ribands.
More recently these same Coventry men have had the good sense to prefer a
successful man of business, the architect of his own fortunes, to a Right
Honourable Barrister and ex-Railway Commissioner.
[THE SHERBORNE VIADUCT, NEAR COVENTRY: ill12.jpg]
One thing needful to preserve the manufacturing position of Coventry is, a
first-rate School of Design--labour, and coal, and ample means of conveyance
they have, east and west, and north and south; and now the manufacturers only
need the cultivation of true principles of taste among the whole riband-
weaving population. For taste is a rare article, and many draughts of small
fry must be made before one leviathan salmon can be caught. Great advances
have been made recently in the production of the best kinds of ribands. A
specimen produced by subscription for the Hyde Park Exhibition of 1851,
proved that Coventry was quite able to rival the choicest work of France in
the class of machine-made ribands. The application of steam power to this
class of manufactures is of but recent date. Coventry surveyed, and this may
be done in a few hours, unless the traveller is able and willing to examine
its rich manufactories, it is difficult to resist the invitation of the
railway porter, bawling, to Kenilworth, Leamington, and Warwick, names
calling up a crowd of romantic associations, from Shakspeare to Scott and
Bulwer; but for the present we must keep steadily on to Birmingham, where
steam finds the chief raw materials of poetry and fashioner of beauty.