I have already remarked, _a spirit of bravery is part of the British
character_. The perpetual contests for power, among the Britons, the
many roads formed by the Romans, to convey their military force, the
prodigious number of camps, moats, and broken castles, left us by the
Saxons, Danes, and Normans, our common ancestors, indicate _a martial
temper_. The names of those heroic sovereigns, Edward the Third, and
Henry the Fifth, who brought their people to the fields of conquest,
descend to posterity with the highest applause, though they brought
their kingdom to the brink of ruin; while those quiet princes, Henry the
Seventh, and James the First, who cultivated the arts of peace, are but
little esteemed, though under their sceptre, England experienced the
greatest improvement.--The man who dare face an enemy, is the most
likely to gain a friend. A nation versed in arms, stands the fairest
chance to protect its property, and secure its peace: war itself may be
hurtful, the knowledge of it useful.
In Mitchly-park, three miles west of Birmingham, in the parish of
Edgbaston, is _The Camp_; which might be ascribed to the Romans, lying
within two or three stones cast of their Ikenield-street, where it
divides the counties of Warwick and Worcester, but is too extensive for
that people, being about thirty acres: I know none of their camps more
than four, some much less; it must, therefore, have been the work of
those pilfering vermin the Danes, better acquainted with other peoples
property than their own; who first swarmed on the shores, then over-ran
the interior parts of the kingdom, and, in two hundred years, devoured
the whole.
No part of this fortification is wholly obliterated, though, in many
places, it is nearly levelled by modern cultivation, that dreadful enemy
to the antiquary. Pieces of armour are frequently ploughed up,
particularly parts of the sword and the battle-axe, instruments much
used by those destructive sons of the raven.
The platform is quadrangular, every side nearly four hundred yards; the
center is about six acres, surrounded by three ditches, each about eight
yards over, at unequal distances; though upon a descent, it is amply
furnished with water. An undertaking of such immense labour, could not
have been designed for temporary use.
The propriety of the spot, and the rage of the day for fortification,
seem to have induced the Middlemores, lords of the place for many
centuries, and celebrated for riches, but in the beginning of this work,
for poverty, to erect a park, and a lodge; nothing of either exist, but
the names.
MORTIMER's BANK.
The traveller who undertakes an extensive journey, cannot chuse his
road, or his weather: sometimes the prospect brightens, with a serene
sky, a smooth path, and a smiling sun; all within and without him
is chearful.
Anon he is assailed by the tempests, stumbles over the ridges, is
bemired in the hollows, the sun hides his face, and his own is
sorrowful--this is the lot of the historian; he has no choice of
subject, merry or mournful, he must submit to the changes which offer;
delighted with the prosperous tale, depressed with the gloomy.
I am told, this work has often drawn a smile from the reader; it has
often drawn a sigh from me. A celebrated painter fell in love with the
picture he drew; I have wept at mine--Such is the chapter of the Lords,
and the Workhouse. We are not always proof against a melancholy or a
tender sentiment.
Having pursued our several stages, with various fortune, through fifty
chapters, at the close of this last tragic scene, emotion and the
journey cease together.
Upon King's-wood, five miles from Birmingham, and two hundred yards east
of the Alcester-road, runs a bank for near a mile in length, unless
obliterated by the new inclosure; for I saw it complete in 1775. This
was raised by the famous Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, about 1324, to
inclose a wood, from whence the place derives its name.
Then that feeble monarch, Edward the Second, governed the kingdom; the
amorous Isabella, his wife, governed the king, and the gallant Mortimer
governed the queen.
The parishes of King's-norton, Solihull, Yardley, uniting in this wood,
and enjoying a right of commons, the inhabitants conceived themselves
injured by the inclosure, assembled in a body, threw down the fence, and
murdered the Earl's bailiff.
Mortimer, in revenge, procured a special writ from the Court of Common
Pleas, and caused the matter to be tried at Bromsgrove, where the
affrighted inhabitants, over-awed with power, durst not appear in their
own vindication. The Earl, therefore, recovered a verdict, and the
enormous sum of 300_l_. damage. A sum nearly equal, at that time, to the
fee-simple of the three parishes.
The confusion of the times, and the poverty of the people, protracted
payment, till the unhappy Mortimer, overpowered by his enemies, was
seized as a criminal in Nottingham-castle; and, without being heard,
executed at Tyburn, in 1328.
The distressed inhabitants of our three parishes humbly petitioned the
crown, for a reduction of the fine; when Edward the Third was pleased to
remit about 260_l_.
We can assign no reason for this imprudent step of inclosing the wood,
unless the Earl intended to procure a grant of the manor, then in the
crown, for his family. But what he could not accomplish by family, was
accomplished by fortune; for George the Third, King of Great Britain, is
lord of the manor of King's-norton, and a descendant from the house
of Mortimer.