of income to the Priory and monks of Rochester. He was a wealthy Scottish
baker who, having amassed a fortune, probably both by overcharging for his
bread and in the giving of short weight, determined to go on pilgrimage.
He must have been a superlative rogue and cheat, for nothing less than a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem would serve his purpose. However, he never reached
the Holy City; for, having arrived at Rochester in 1201, and having
contributed magnificently to the shrines there, he was murdered by his
guide while journeying hence to Canterbury. At least, so runs the story,
but I believe the monks themselves did the deed. They were exceedingly
poor, having by some unexplained excesses squandered the wealth which the
once highly venerated bones of Saint Paulinus had brought them, and they
had already melted down the silver shrine of that Saint to pay their way
withal. The competition of Canterbury, too, was killing, and the fame of
Paulinus paled before that of Becket; and so they probably conceived the
idea of murdering the rich pilgrim in order to obtain at once a
remunerative martyr of their own, and to put themselves in funds with the
wealth he carried about with him. If the Dean and Chapter of Rochester
could in after years wilfully appropriate to their own uses an annual
income of several thousands of pounds intended for educational purposes,
and become thus common thieves and peculators, what scruples could be
supposed to hinder the monks of the dark ages from becoming murderers?
The south-east transept has a curious mural monument to Richard Watts;
with a coloured and very life-like portrait-bust "starting out of it like
a ship's figure-head," and underneath is a brass to the memory of Charles
Dickens. On the eastern wall is a medallion profile of Joseph Maas, the
singer, vulgar and amateurish beyond the power of words to tell.
[Sidenote: ROCHESTER CASTLE]
Rochester Cathedral is not rich in decorative carvings, but its two
enriched doorways are famous. One is the beautiful Norman west door, of
five receding arches, carved over with a profusion of characteristic
Norman scrolls; interlacing patterns; semi-human and half-supernatural
figures of appalling build and ferocious expression; and flanked by two
statues supposed to represent Henry the First and Queen Matilda. The
other is the unsurpassed Decorated doorway of the Chapter House, whose
sculptured emblematic figures of the Church, and of angels, priests and
bishops are at the other, and more beautiful, end of decorative art.
Having seen all these things, the verger who has hitherto shepherded his
flock of visitors through these upper regions, takes them down a flight of
stone stairs and unlocks the door of the crypt. An ancient and mouldy
smell rushes up from the dark labyrinth of pillars and indistinct arches,
and the ladies of the party pretend to be terrified. But they might just
as well be afraid of a coal-cellar, which is generally darker and dirtier,
for neither bones nor coffins, nor anything more awful than a few
shattered fragments of architectural carvings are to be seen. The usual
legends current in most old places would have us believe that a
subterraneous passage runs between Castle and Cathedral, and certainly
they are sufficiently near one another for such a communication to have
been made; but these legends have never been resolved into fact. Near
neighbours they are, and the Cathedral has suffered not a little at
different times from this close proximity. For when Rufus besieged the
Castle, and when, in 1215 and 1264, it was closely invested for
respectively three months and a week, the Cathedral had its share of the
violent doings that resulted in the Keep being undermined and the wooden
bridge of Rochester burned. Gundulf's Tower had not been completed when
that mighty master-builder died, and although it is generally ascribed to
him, it seems really to have been finished under the supervision of an
inexperienced architect employed by that Archbishop William de Corbeil to
whom and his successors of Canterbury Henry the Second granted "the
perpetual charge and constableship of the Castle of Rochester." This
prelate died in 1139, and the irony of circumstances decreed that only one
other of the Archbishops to whom the "perpetual constableship" was
granted should ever exercise the rights and privileges of the gift. This
was Stephen Langton. The Castle was found to be too important in those
times for it to be held by any other than the King, and so to the Crown it
reverted. Now that it is ruined and open to the sky the Mayors of
Rochester are _ex officio_ constables, and they wear a sword on grand
occasions as an outward and visible sign of their dignity.
Rochester Keep rises to a height of a hundred and twenty-five feet. Walls
ranging from ten to twelve feet in thickness attest its old-time strength,
and the ornamentation both of the State apartments, and of the Chapel on
the third floor, betokens a considerable display made in those far-off
times. But although one of the loftiest Norman keeps extant; though strong
and internally ornate, it seems to have been built by a copyist of Gundulf
who perhaps had neither his resources nor his love of a neat and
workmanlike finish. Whatever the cause, certain it is that here we miss
the close-jointed external ashlar that we are accustomed to see in such
grand contemporary Norman keeps as those of Castle Hedingham and
Scarborough. Ashlaring has been only sparingly used for quoins and
dressings of door- and window-openings, and the exterior of this keep
chiefly shows a broad expanse of roughly set Kentish rag-stone. The
result, although it does not commend itself architecturally, is at least
bold and rugged and altogether satisfying to the artist.
There is, according to a legend of unknown age, a vast treasure buried
beneath the ground here; concealed in some mysterious crypt whose door may
only by rarest chance be found. From this door hangs a Hand of Glory, and
not until the Hand is extinguished, finger by finger, can it be forced
open. Absolute silence is to be observed by the adventurer while
extinguishing the Blazing Hand, or the mystic power is broken. There was
once, says a sequel to the foregoing legend, a bold and fortunate spirit
who had by some means discovered this hidden door. He extinguished the
guardian Hand, all but the thumb; and, proceeding to snuff this out also,
he uttered an incautious exclamation of triumph. The fingers instantly
burst into flame again, and the man was dashed senseless to the ground;
nor was he ever again so fortunate as to recover the spot.
XXIII
Rochester has had many Royal and distinguished visitors, and many of them
have left traces of their sojourn in more or less quaint, instructive, and
amusing accounts. When Edward the First came here in 1300, he gave seven
shillings to the Priory for the shrine of Saint William, and twelve
shillings compensation to one Richard Lamberd whose horse, hired for the
King's service, was blown over Rochester Bridge into the Medway and
drowned. On his return from Canterbury, nine days later, the King flung
his shillings about in quite a reckless manner; giving seven shillings
each for the shrines of Saints Ithamar and Paulinus; while bang went
twenty-one other shillings at Chatham, offered to the image of the Blessed
Mary by the King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales.
[Sidenote: ROCHESTER BRIDGE]
The Bridge at Rochester, over which that unfortunate horse was blown, was
at this time a crazy structure of wood, and so dangerous that most folks
preferred crossing the Medway by boat. One unfortunate minstrel was blown
into the water just as he reached the middle, and he went floating down
the stream harping the praises of Our Lady upon his harp, and calling out
for her help at the same time _in English_, as the chronicler remarks--and
this was his English:--
Help usvyf, help usvyf,
Oiyer me--I forga mi lyf.
By "usvyf" he meant "wife." "Help us, wife," which strikes us as being
extremely familiar.
The Holy Mother, notwithstanding this horrid jargon, was pleased to save
him, and this pious "Harpur a Roucestre" landed about a league below the
city, making his way forthwith to a church to offer up thanks, and
followed by an immense crowd who had been watching the proceedings without
attempting to save him, which is ever the way of crowds.
[Illustration: ROCHESTER CASTLE AND THE MEDWAY.]
Fourteen years later, the Queen of Robert Bruce was a State prisoner in
Rochester Castle, with her sister and daughter, and here they remained
until Bannockburn altered the complexion of affairs. King John of France,
too, appears here, and in a grateful mood, for he was going back to his
kingdom, and so, to please the saints, made an offering of forty crowns
(valued at L6 13_s._ 4_d._) at the Cathedral, departing for "Stiborne,"
and resting the night at Ospringe. Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, passed
through "Rotschetter" in 1416, with a retinue of a thousand knights, on a
visit to Henry the Fifth, and Henry the Seventh was here in 1492, 1494,
and 1498, crossing over from Strood in a ferry-boat for which he paid L2,
an expense which would have been quite unnecessary had the authorities
kept the Bridge (then of stone, and about a century old) in decent repair.
A few months later than his last visit, the King sent the Mayor of the
town L5 toward its restoration, for funds were low, and the
indulgences--to say nothing of the forty days' remittances from Purgatory
for all manner of sins--offered by Archbishop Morton to any one who would
give towards the work, were but little in request.
Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, was the next considerable personage
here, and of how great a consideration he was may be gathered from the
fact that he came up the road from Dover with a train of two thousand
attendants. He and Henry the Eighth, who had gone down to Dover to meet
him, stayed at Rochester on the night of Sunday, June 1, 1522, and went on
to Gravesend the following day. Eighteen years later, the King, already a
much-married man, came here to have a private view of his new matrimonial
venture.
[Sidenote: HENRY MEETS ANNE]
Two accounts are given of this meeting of Henry the Eighth and Anne of
Cleves. They agree neither with themselves nor with that other account in
which the King is made to call her a "Flanders mare":--"As she passed
toward Rochester," writes Hall, the Chronicler, "on New Yeres Even, on
Reynam Down, met her the Duke of Norffolke, and the Lord Dacre of the
South, and the Lord Mountjoye, with a gret company of Knyghtes and
Esquiers of Norffolke and Suffolke, and the Barons of thxchequer, (_sic_)
all in coates of velvet with chaynes of golde, which brought her to
Rochester, where she lay in the Palace all New Yeres Day. On which day
the Kyng, which sore desyred to see her Grace, accompanyed with no more
than viii persons of his prevy chaumbre, and both he and thei all
aparelled in marble coates, prevely came to Rochester, and sodainly came
to her presence, which therwith was sumwhat astonied; but after he had
spoken and welcomed her, she with most gracious and lovyng countenance and
behavior him received and welcomed on her knees, whom he gently toke up
and kyssed; and all that afternoone commoned and devised with her"
(whatever that may mean), "and that night supped with her, and the next
day he departed to Grenewich and she came to Dartford." Now hear how
different a complexion Stow puts upon this meeting, and then tell me what
you think of the difficulties of history-writing:--
"The King being ascertained of her arivall and approch, was wonderfull
desirous to see her, of whom hee had heard so great commendations, and
thereupon hee came very privately to Rochester, where hee tooke the first
view of her; and when he had well beheld her, hee was so marvelously
astonished that hee knew not well what to doe or say. Hee brought with him
divers things, which hee meant to present her with his owne hands, that is
to say, a partlet, a mufler" (Indian shawls had not yet been introduced),
"a cup, and other things; but being sodainly quite discouraged and amazed
with her presence, his mind changed, and hee delivered them unto Sir
Anthony Browne to give them unto her, but with as small show of Kingly
kindness as might be. The King being sore vexed with the sight of her,
began to utter his heart's griefe unto divers: amongst whom hee said unto
the Lord Admirall, 'How like you this woman? Doe you think her so
personable, faire, and beautifull as report hath beene made unto mee of
her--I pray you tell me true?'"
Whereupon the Lord Admiral discreetly replied no word of dispraise,
because people with opinions had in those days an excellent chance of
losing their heads; merely remarking that she appeared to have a brown
complexion rather than the fair one that had been represented to his
Majesty.
"Alas!" replied the King, "whom shall men--to say nothing of kings--trust?
I promise you I see no such thing in her as hath been shewed to me of her,
either by pictures or report, and am ashamed that men have praised her as
they have done; and I like her not." Which, of course, was final.
Queen Elizabeth, of course, was here, not once but thrice, and on her
first visit she stayed at the "Crown" inn, "which," says Francis Thynne,
"is the only place to intertaine Princes comming thither." It was, indeed,
the place where her father stayed, and where, according to one account,
Anne of Cleves lodged; and was the scene of the inimitable colloquy
between the carriers in _Henry the Fourth_, just previous to the robbery
on Gad's Hill. The "Crown," of course, is gone now, and an ugly building,
bearing the same sign, but dating only from 1863, stands on its site.
[Sidenote: "ROGUES AND PROCTORS"]
On the last day of her visit, the queen was entertained by "that
charitable man but withal most determined enemy to Rogues and Proctors,"
Master Richard Watts, whose almshouse for the lodgment of six poor
travellers bears still upon its front the evidence of his aversions.
Controversy has long raged around the term "proctor," and the victory
seems to rest with those who declare that the class thus excluded from the
benefits of Master Watts' charity was that of the "procurators" who were
licensed by the Pope to go through the country collecting "Peter's pence";
but I have my own idea on that point, and I believe that the "proctors"
referred to were not papists, but either "proctors that go up and downe
with counterfeit licences, cosiners, and suche as go about the countrey
using unlawfull games"; or the "proctors" especially and particularly
mentioned in the Statute Edw. VI. c. 3, s. 19, licensed to collect alms
for the lepers who at that time were still numerous in England. These
privileged beggars were deprived of their immunity from arrest by the "Act
for Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdie Beggars" (39 Eliz. c. 4),
wherein "all persons that be, or utter themselves to be _Proctors_,
procurers, patent gatherers, or collectors for gaols, prisons, or
hospitals"[5] are, together with "all Fencers, Bearewards, common players
of Interludes, and Minstrels" to be adjudged Rogues and Vagabonds. Now it
is sufficiently remarkable that this Act was passed (perhaps with the
strenuous help of Master Watts, who was a Member of Parliament, and who we
see hated proctors so ardently) at about the time when the "Six Poor
Travellers" was built, and the reasons for refusing admission either to a
true Proctor of a lazar-house, or to a pretended one, must be sufficiently
obvious.
Master Watts entertained the Queen at his house on Boley (? Beaulieu) Hill
on the last day of her visit, and when that courtly man apologised for the
"poor cottage" (he didn't mean it, but 'twas the custom so to do) Her
Majesty is supposed to have graciously answered "Satis," and so Satis
House it remained, and the hideous building that now stands upon its site
still bears, grotesquely enough, its name.
Quite a train of miscellaneous Royalties and celebrities came here after
Elizabeth's second visit in 1582; the Duke of Sully; James the First, who
angered the seafaring population because he didn't care for the ships,
loved hunting, and was afraid of the cannon--James the First again, with
Christian the Fourth of Denmark and Prince Henry; Prince Henry by himself
in 1611; Frederick, Elector Palatine of Bohemia; Charles the First on two
occasions, on the second of which "the trane-bands ... scarmished in
warlike manner to His Majesties great content"; the French Ambassador, in
1641, who thought Rochester was chiefly observable on account of its
Bridge "furnished with high railings, that drunkards, not uncommon here,
may not mix water with their wine"; and nineteen years later, Charles the
Second, on his "glorious and never-to-be-forgotten Restoracion."
How Charles was feted here, and how he stayed at the beautiful old place
that has taken the name of "Restoration House" from this visit, these
pages cannot tell; the story is too long.
[Sidenote: PEPYS]
And here, in the name of all that's lewd and scandal-mongering, comes old
Pepys again. It is no use trying to keep him out of one's pages: suppress
him at one place, and he recurs unfailingly at another, with a worse
record than before. I discreetly "sat on" him at Deptford, but here he is
at Rochester, "goin' on hawful," to quote one of Dickens' characters (I
forget which, and the society of so many Kings and Queens on the Dover
Road is so fatiguing that I have neither sufficient time nor energy to
inquire).
Well then, it was in 1667[6] that Mr. Samuel Pepys came here, and, putting
up at the "White Hart," strolled into the Cathedral, more intent upon the
architecture than the doctrine, it would seem; for when service began he
walked out into the fields, and there "saw Sir F. Clark's pretty seat."
And so "into the Cherry Garden, and here he met with a young, plain, silly
shopkeeper and his wife, a pretty young woman, and I did kiss her!" And
after this they dined, and walked in the fields together till dark, "and
so to bed," without the usual "God forgive me!" which, considering how he
had shirked the Cathedral service, and how questionable had been his
conduct in the Cherry Garden, was more needful than ever, one would think.
[Illustration: HIGH STREET, ROCHESTER: EASTGATE HOUSE.]
Twenty-one years after this date came James the Second on two hurried
visits to Rochester within a few days of one another. If he had had time,
and had been in a sufficiently calm frame of mind, he might have reflected
on the vicissitudes of Kings in general, and of his own Royal House in
particular; but being shockingly upset, and in a mortal terror lest he
should lose his head as thoroughly in a physical sense as he had already
done in a figurative way of speaking, he lost that opportunity of coolly
reviewing his position which, had it but been seized, would have led him
to return to London and stay there. It is not a little sad to reflect
that, had the gloomy and morose James not been a coward, the House of
Stuart might still have ruled England. At any rate, men did not love the
taciturn Prince of Orange and his Dutchmen so well but what they would
have gladly done without him and have taken back their King, if that King
had only shown a little more spirit and a little less of religious
bigotry. William could not but perceive that his principles and not his
person were acclaimed, and when he gave the King leave to retire to
Rochester, he both knew that James desired an opportunity to escape from
the kingdom, and hoped he would use it. And he did use the chance so
gladly given him, secretly departing from Rochester in the small hours of
a December morning, and making for Ambleteuse on the French coast in a
fishing-smack.
[Illustration: JACK IN HIS GLORY. _From a painting by Julius Caesar
Ibbetson._]
XXIV
This was the last romantic event that befell at Rochester, and it fitly
closed a stirring history.
But Chatham and Rochester, although outward romance had departed, did not
cease to be interested in naval and military affairs. Indeed, they have
grown continually greater on them.
[Sidenote: HOGARTH'S SATIRES]
It was in 1756 that the plates of _England_ and _France_ were published by
Hogarth. We were suffering then from one of those panic fears of invasion
by the French to which this country has been periodically subject, and
these efforts were consequently calculated to have a large sale. Hogarth,
of course, after his arrest for sketching at Calais, was morbidly,
vitriolically patriotic, and his work is earnest of his feelings. The
English are seen drilling in the background of the first plate, while in
front of the "Duke of Cumberland" inn a recruit is being measured, and
smiles at the caricature of the King of France which a grenadier is
painting on the wall. A long inscription proceeds from the mouth of His
Most Christian Majesty, "You take a my fine ships, you be de Pirate, you
be de Teef, me send you my grand Armies, and hang you all, Morbleu," and
he grasps a gibbet to emphasize the words. Meanwhile, a fifer plays "God
Save the King"; a soldier in the group has placed his sword across a
great cheese; and a sailor has guarded his tankard of beer with a pistol.
But see how different are things across the Channel. Outside the _Sabot
Royal_ a party of French grenadiers, lean and hungry-looking after their
poor fare of _soupe maigre_, are watching one of their number cook the
sprats he has spitted on his sword. A monk with a grin of satisfaction
feels the edge of an axe which he has taken from a cart full of racks and
other engines of torture destined towards the furnishing of a monastery at
Blackfriars in London, of which a plan is seen lying upon this heap of
ironmongery; and a file of soldiers may be seen in the distance,
reluctantly embarking for England, and spurred forward by the point of the
sergeant's halberd. Garrick wrote the patriotic verses that went with this
picture, and you may see from them how constantly Englishmen have thought
the French to be a nation of lean and hungry starvelings. That is, of
course, as absurd as the unfailing practice of French caricaturists to
whom the typical Englishman is a creature who has red hair and protruding
teeth, and says "Goddam"--
With lanthorn jaws and croaking gut,
See how the half-starv'd Frenchmen strut,
And call us English dogs;
But soon we'll teach these bragging foes,
That beef and beer give heavier blows
Than soup and roasted frogs.
The priests, inflam'd with righteous hopes,
Prepare their axes, wheels, and ropes,
To bend the stiff-neck'd sinner:
But, should they sink in coming over,
Old Nick may fish 'twixt France and Dover,
And catch a glorious dinner.
[Illustration: THE INVASION OF ENGLAND: ENGLAND. _After Hogarth._]
[Sidenote: CHATHAM]