conducting us to the Abbey.
The name of _Abbey_, so dear to painting, poetry, and romance, naturally
raises in the mind an idea of the picturesque and the aweful; but we are
now approaching no gothic perspectives, no "long drawn aisles and fretted
vaults," and scarcely able to bring a single instance of assimilation, we
visit indeed an Abbey only in name; yet we visit a spot well adapted to
the purposes to which it was appropriated. Sequestered, surrounded by
pleasing objects, and dignified by the not uncertain evidences of
history, it offers to the thinking mind all those interesting sensations
which a review of past times, important events, and manners now no more,
can possibly produce.
An antient brick wall with a small niche of stone is the first indication
of its boundaries. This is said by Leland, to have been built by Bishop
Penny who was Abbot of this Monastery in 1496. This prelate continued in
his Abbacy till he was translated to the See of Carlisle, and even then,
when spared from his episcopal duty, he delighted to dwell among his
brethren in this religious retreat, and was interred in the neighbouring
church of St. Margaret. Tracing the wall, we enter the grounds by a
modern gateway, and perceive, among orchards, gardens, and potatoe
plantations (the land being occupied by a Gardener and Nursery-man) the
front wall, facing the north west, of the mansion, once belonging to the
Earls of Devonshire, which, as Mr. Grose has ascertained from a MS. in
the British Museum, was built out of the ruins of the Abbey, long after
its dissolution. The massy stone stanchions of the windows of this house
which still remain entire, and the firmness of the walls, shew the
durability of the materials. They still retain the traces of that fire
by which the forces of Charles the first on their retreat northward after
their defeat at Naseby, destroyed that mansion, a few days before, the
quarters of the king himself.
In these gardens, nearly thirty acres in extent, no traces now remain of
the refectory, the cells of the Abbot and twelve Canons, the structures
raised in the year 1134, by the great Robert Bossu, Earl of Leicester;
neither is there, as might have been hoped, one vestige of that noble
church, believed to have been built by Petronilla, the wife of his son
Robert Blanch-mains, and adorned with the pious donation of a braid of
her hair wrought into a rope, to suspend the lamp in the great choir; an
offering at which some of our modern females who sacrifice their tresses
with other views, may perhaps smile. Nor has the diligence of the
enquiring Antiquary been more successful in the discovery of any traces
of the tomb of Cardinal Wolsey, that great example of fallen ambition;
who, after a life of more than princely magnificence, stripped of his
honours, deprived of his eight hundred attendants, came here, sick,
almost solitary, and a prisoner, performing a wearisome journey on an
humble mule, to crave of the Abbot "_a little earth for charity_."
But, however barren this spot may seem to be of antient relicks, it is
not wholly destitute of objects calculated to revive in the thinking
mind, the events to which we have been alluding; for in the small garden
or court before the main front of the present ruins are still to be seen
the delapidated towers of that gate-way thro' which Wolsey entered in
melancholy degradation, and thro' which other great, more prosperous, and
often royal visitors were admitted with their stately trains.
Returning by the first entrance, and passing this interesting gate-way,
and the antient stone wall of the Abbey, overhung with profuse ivy, the
visitor will find himself well recompensed for the trouble of a traverse
along the Abbey meadow, from the Bleach-yard at the angle of the wall, to
the navigation bridge at the bottom of North-gate street.
On crossing the antient bed of the Soar, the eye will immediately take
its flight over a fine level plain containing at least five hundred acres
of perhaps the richest soil in the kingdom, for that may truly be said of
the _Abbey Meadow_. The right of this tract is vested partly in a number
of proprietors who claim the hay, and partly in the inhabitants of
Leicester, who possess the privilege of here pasturing their cows till a
certain period of the year.
This ample area was formerly used as a race ground, but that annual sport
is now removed to the South-side of the town, having been here frequently
incommoded by the floods from the Soar.
It has lately, at various reviews been dignified by a display of that
admirable patriotism, which, while it reflects honor on the British name
in general, is found in particular to glow with equal zeal and firmness
in the breasts of the Volunteers of Leicester and its County.
The view to the North-ward is simply ornamented by the church and village
of Belgrave, whose inhabitants in 1357, in consequence of a dispute with
the Abbot concerning the boundaries of the Stocking Wood, blockaded the
North Bridge, and the Fosse, with a determination of depriving the Monks
of their usual supply of provision from their _Grange_, or Farm at
Stoughton. This view forms a pleasing contrast to the towering churches
and close grouped houses of Leicester. The eye of taste will however
soon turn from these objects and dwell with greater pleasure on the noble
ivied walls bounding the Abbey domains; it will proceed to contemplate
the mingling angles of its ruins, and in the back ground, the rich tops
of the woods in the neighbourhood of Beaumont Leys. This scene however,
will not serve merely to amuse the eye, but will naturally lead the well
informed visitor to interesting and affecting thoughts, while he
contemplates the spot in which, in former times, were acted all the
striking rites of the Romish Church, tho' he may lament the superstitious
errors into which a dark and ignorant age had plunged mankind, he need
not join with the destroyer of these venerable institutions in lording
then memory with odious crimes, nor deem them even wholly useless. Pity
and a regard to truth will lead him to acknowledge that, tho' their
worship was less pure than the reformed service now happily established
in this Island, yet it was calculated, by its address to the senses, to
keep alive the remembrance of the faith of the Gospel, and to prevent the
warring Baron and his rude vassals from relapsing into heathenism. Let
it also be remembered, that Monks, odious as we are wont to consider
them, were at one time, the only inhabitants of Christendom, who were at
all acquainted with such sciences as then peered above the mists of
overwhelming ignorance. Of history, they may be said to be the modern
fathers, and tho' perhaps, like the age in which they lived, in some
respects, blind themselves, they led, not indirectly to the enlightening
of the present age. But in their own times they were far from useless;
their monasteries were ever ready to receive the wearied traveller, and
many persons of family, tho' of broken fortunes were honorably maintained
at their board. The poor were gratuitously relieved from their kitchens,
and that in a manner, upon the whole, more favorable to religion and
morality than they are now by those parish rates, which the abolition of
monasteries, and the partition of their property among private
individuals, have rendered so oppressively necessary. To these valuable
purposes the revenues of our Abbey were fully competent, for it possessed
the advowsons of thirty six parish churches in Leicester and its County,
which together with lands in various places, and rights in particular
districts, produced annually for its disposal more than one thousand
pounds.
Quitting the Abbey meadow, and passing the North lock, we still continue
our walk along pleasing rural scenes. The sweeps of the river which here
beautifully meanders, wash, almost closely, a large extent of town,
affording an agreeable prospect on the left, and a slope finely
diversified with groves and pasturage descends gently to the meadows on
the right. Approaching the Bow-Bridge, we pass a plot of ground
insulated by the Soar, called the Black Friars, once the scite of a
monastery belonging to the Augustine or Black Friars, of which no traces
now remain. That arm of the river which flows under the west bridge, is
by some supposed, from its passing under the scite of the old Roman town,
to be a canal formed by that people for the convenience of their
dwellings. It is now called the _New Soar_, and whether it can
authentically boast the honor of being a Roman work, the antiquary may
perhaps endeavour in vain to decide. A tunnel or Roman sewer, was
discovered in 1793, at an equal distance between the Roman ruin, called
Jewry Wall, and the river, and in a direct line towards the latter, which
contained some curious fragments of Roman pottery.
Tho' it be the leading purpose of this survey to point out existing
objects, those who lament the loss of such antient remains as were justly
to be prized, will pardon a brief tribute to the memory of _Bow-Bridge_.
That single arch of stone, richly shadowed with ivy, spanned, at the
corner of this island, the arm of the Soar. Its beautiful curve,
unbroken either by parapet or hand-rail, well merited the name with which
some Antiquaries have graced it, the _Rialto Bridge_. On the top of the
bow, feeding on the mould which time had accumulated upon the stony
ridge, flourished a spreading hawthorn; this with the stream below, when
sparkling under the reflection of the western sun, the broken shrubby
banks, and the distant swell of Brad-gate Park hill, formed a picture
which has often allured the eye; a picture, that, as it repeatedly
arrested the painter's hand, we can hardly say is now no more.
Of this Bridge, the learned author of the _Desiderata Curiosa_, who has
mistaken it for the adjoining one of four arches, has given a plate in
which is represented a troop of horsemen with banners, carrying the dead
body of Richard the third, thrown upon a horse, over a bridge which never
exceeded three feet; a width fully sufficient for the purpose for which
it seems to have been constructed, that of affording a foot passage from
the monastery of the Augustines to a spring of pure water some yards
distant. This spring till within a few years, was covered with a large
circular stone, having an aperture in the centre, thro' which the monks
let down their pitchers into the water, and retained the name of _St.
Austin's Well_.
But tho' not over this bridge, yet over the adjoining one, known also,
probably from its vicinity to the other, by the name of _Bow-Bridge_, the
monster Richard really passed, proud, angry, and threatening, mounted on
his charger to meet Richmond; and over it, the day after the battle, his
body was brought behind a pursuivant at arms, naked and disgraced, and
after being exhibited in the Town-Hall, then situated at the bottom of
Blue-Boar Lane, was interred in the church of the Grey-Friars near St.
Martins.
The name of this king excites in the mind a sensation of horror;--and
tho' it required the overwhelming evidence of human depravity furnished
by the French revolution, to make the author of the "Historic Doubts,"
believe his crimes possible, the concurrent testimonies both of
Lancastrian and Yorkist Chroniclers, too well demonstrate them. Tho' the
latter may have endeavoured to soften the picture, and Shakespear may
have thrown upon it the darkest shades by working up his deformity of
body and mind into a picture of diabolical horror, the original, the
undoubted traits are preserved by both parties; traits, which so far from
being peculiar to Richard, marked likewise the other characters of the
contending houses. Nor did he deviate widely from the manners of the
times when he "_waded thro' slaughter to a throne_."
A pleasing woody road leads from Bow-Bridge to Danett's Hall, the seat of
Edward Alexander, M.D. The ground here rising in a gentle slope obtains
a command of the town, and that the dryness of the soil and agreeableness
of the situation, mark it as a desirable spot for residence, even the
taste of the antient Romans may prove; for in the plot of ground known by
the name of the "great cherry orchard," remains a relic of one of their
houses. This is a fragment of a tesselated floor, discovered a few years
ago, but covered over by a former possessor of the estate. It is
composed of tesseroe of various sizes, forming an elegant geometrical
pattern, but how far it extends, has not yet been ascertained.
Among the great number of these pavements found at Leicester, are three
very perfect ones discovered in the ground belonging to Walter Ruding
Esq. adjoining the old Vauxhall, near the west bridge--they also are
composed in curious and exact patterns, and form entire squares; but are
now filled up. Of these, together with that in the great cherry orchard,
very accurate plates are given in Nichols.
To the westward of Danett's Hall, and West-cotes, the seat of Mr. Ruding,
is a lane or bridle road, commonly called the Fosse, but various reasons
lead to the belief that it is not part of the antient Roman road of that
name. The unvarying testimony of tradition has clearly proved that the
road from the town westward lay, in the reign of Richard the third, over
Bow-Bridge. By attending to the Fosse, which runs nearly in the line of
the Narborough road by West-cotes, it will seem likewise necessary to
conclude that the approach to Leicester, in the time of the Romans, was
also over a bridge situate near that spot; for as it is certain that the
Fosse did pass thro' Leicester, and the Romans in forming their roads
scrupulously adhered to the strait line, they would cross the old Soar
near this place.
When the Romans penetrated into Britain under the reign of Claudius, they
found it almost in every part, crowded with woods, and infested with
morasses; and as the natives well knew how to avail themeslves of these
fastnesses, the island could never be considered as effectually conquered
till it was rendered accessible to the march of the legions, and means
were provided for speedy communication of intelligence from even the most
distant parts of the provinces. On this account their Cohorts early
applied themselves to the task of forming roads; nor did they cease their
labours till in the time of Antoninus, they had opened passages thro' the
island in all directions. In the reign of that emperor, these works,
connected with others which they had already constructed on the
continent, formed a great chain of communication, which, passing thro'
Rome, from the Pict's wall, or north west, to Jerusalem, nearly the
southeast point of the empire, was drawn out to the length of 4080 Roman,
or as Mr. Reynolds has shewn, of so many British statute miles. Along
these roads proper relays of horses were stationed at short distances,
and it seems that couriers could travel with ease above an hundred miles
a day. Two of these roads, as already observed, passed thro' Leicester.
One, the _Via Devana_, leading from Camalodunum, or Colchester, in Essex,
to _Deva_, of west Chester, a distance of about two hundred miles, has
been lately discovered by some ingenious and able Antiquaries of the
University of Cambridge.
It enters Leicestershire in the neighbourhood of Rockingham; continues a
strait road for many miles till it nearly reaches Leicester, and passing
thro' the town it is found to leave the county near Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
The other road, called the _Via_ _Fossata_ or Fosse, always known, and
every where remarkable, traverses the island in a north-east direction,
from near Grimsby on the coast of Lincolnshire, passes thro' Bath, and
terminates at Seaton, a village situated on the coast of Devonshire, a
distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles. This road enters
Leicesteshire at a place called Seg's Hill, on the wolds, or antiently
wild and uncultivated parts of the county; from thence it passes the
village of Thurmaston and approaches the East gates of Leicester, by the
street called the Belgrave Gate. On the south-west of the town it is
again recognized in the Narborough road, and from that village it
proceeds again a solitary lane till it enters Warwickshire at High Cross,
where it crosses the no less celebrated Roman road, the Watling-Street.
It is well known that in the formation of these roads, the Romans spared
no cost and labour. From the remains of some of them it appears that
upon a bed of sand they spread a coating of gravel, upon which the
pebbles, and sometimes hewn or squared stones were laid, firmly compacted
together in a bed of cement. This, we have reason to believe, was the
structure of such of the roads in this island as are distinguished by the
title of _Street_, a word derived from the Latin _Strata_, meaning formed
of layers. But such pains were not, it is probable, taken in all cases;
and from the name of one of the roads passing thro' Leicester, the
_Fosse_, an abbreviation of the Latin _Via Fossata_, meaning the way
ditched, or dug, we cannot but conclude that it was a road raised by the
spade and formed with a rampart, and probably covered with gravel in the
manner of our present turnpike roads. The same may also be said of the
_Via Divana_, whose rampart, now covered with grass, the ingenious
discoverers observed in many places.
When the Saxons subdued this island, after the departure of the Romans,
to preserve a ready communication between distant places formed no part
of then rude and simple policy. Hence the best roads of the Romans were
neglected by them, and since the Romans had either forbidden, or the
inclination of the Britons had dissuaded them from erecting villages on
the line of public roads, those roads became useless, and their lasting
materials are only to be found, tho' not distinguished, in the
foundations of the neighbouring habitations. As it would always be more
easy to carry away the materials of a Roman road than dig for them in a
quarry, it has happened that those materials have been in general so
intirely removed, as to leave almost no where any other trace, than
history and tradition, of their existence.
From the departure of the Romans in 445, to the beginning of the
eighteenth century, the roads of this Island received little or no
improvement from the legislative powers, except by an order in the reign
of Henry the second, that roads should be cleared of woods and made open
that travellers might have leisure, if they should find it prudent, to
prepare to resist the almost armies of robbers which were spread over the
face of almost every county. Roads, being no longer regulated by any
system, to pass from place to place so as to avoid as well as might be
the inconveniences of woods, bogs, and sloughs, became the only business
of the traveller. It was thus by accident the line of our present roads
was formed, and to this their frequent circuits and other inconveniences
are owing.
During the period above mentioned they were in general so bad as to be
useless for the passage of any other carriages than carts, and for these
only in the summer season; so that the people inhabiting the same country
as the Britons, who are said to have had numbers and great variety of
cars of all kinds, were so exclusively confined to the use of horses and
mules, that scarcely any other mode of conveyance was known even in
London, and this so late as in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the
first; for it is certain that when the great Shakespeare fled from his
country and came to town, his first means of subsistence were the
pittances he might earn by holding the horses of the persons who had come
from different parts of London to see the plays then performed at the
Bankside Theatre.
It is not indeed to be asserted that till the eighteenth century our
roads never received any repairs, for necessity would frequently call for
something of the kind in most places; nor yet that Toll Bars were
antiently wholly unknown; for it is certain that a Gate or Bar was first
erected in the reign of Edward the first, at a place now called Holborn
Bars in London, for the purpose of collecting tolls for the repairs of
the roads. But it must be allowed that the art of constructing a good
and firm road was ill understood, and worse attended to; and when, in the
beginning of the last century, turnpike roads were first made, it was
imagined that the only good form was that of a ridge and furrow lying
across the road on the line of its direction. Turnpike gates were also
in many places considered as such impositions that even in the beginning
of the reign of George the second, some persons contested the payment,
several were frequently seen together, especially at newly erected gates,
suffering an interruption in their journey rather than submit to what
they deemed an imposition. Every one who understands the true
conveniences of life will rejoice, that both the formation and repairs of
roads, and also the usefulness of turn-pike tolls are now better
understood; that even countries once held to be inaccessible are now open
at all times and at all seasons to the traveller, and that most of our
roads are now so well suited to the purposes not only of convenience but
of pleasure, that we have no reason to lament the destruction of the
Roman ways, or even not to think that we have within these few years
greatly surpassed them in the expedition of our mails and all the
conveniences and comforts of travelling.
On this western side of the town, where its environs afford the
attraction of woody scenery, the stranger is invited to prolong his
stroll round _Ruding's Walk_. This walk, tho' a continuation of the
plantation that encloses West-cotes, is liberally left open by its
possessor, who generously shares with the public the pleasure of his cool
and shady scenery. Where the walk, after winding thro' a flourishing
shrubbery, enters a grove of tall and venerable elms, the churches and
buildings of the town, broken by the intermediate trees of the paddock,
and the long line of distance varied by villages, scattered dwellings and
corn-mills, unite in a rich and pleasing prospect.
On turning towards the West, the lover of contrast may for a moment call
to his imagination the dark, heavy, and almost impenetrable forest which
covered these lands in the twelfth century, and depicture figures of the
inhabitants of Leicester bearing from thence their allowed load of wood,
the supply for their hearths, and for this privilege, paying at the West
bridge, their toll of _brigg silver_ to their feudal Baron. To this
picture he will oppose the present scene of pasturage, flocks, and free
husbandmen, cultivating the earth under the protection of just and equal
laws. The slightest glance at past ages is a moral study, that renders
us not only satisfied but grateful.
We cannot pass West-cotes, without noticing an object in the possession
of Mr. Ruding, highly interesting to the admirers of the fine Arts. This
is a picture in painted glass, representing Mutius Scaevola affording
Porsena an astonishing proof of his resolution by burning that hand which
had assassinated the secretary instead of the king. The exquisite
finish, and perfect preservation of this small piece bespeak it of the
antient Flemish school, whose artists according to Guicciardini, invented
the mode of burning their colours into the glass so as to secure them
from the corrosion of water, wind, or even time. There is no department
of the delightful art of painting that so much excites wonder as this.
When, in examining this piece, it is considered that every tint and
demi-tint of the highly relieved drapery, every stroke of the distant
tents and towers, was laid on in a fusile state; that delicate command of
skill which could prevent the shades from liquefying into each other, and
arrest every touch in its assigned place, so as to produce the effects of
the most finished oil painting, cannot be sufficiently admired.
Entering the town we pass the Braunston Gate, to the bridge of the same
name, crossing the old Soar, and soon arrive at the West bridge, which
crosses the new Soar. From hence the canal, taking the name of Union
Canal, proceeds toward Market Harborough. On the corner of an old house
upon the bridge, is an antient wooden bracket, which formerly supported a
bell, by some supposed to have been used by the mendicant brothers of the
neighbouring monastery of St. Augustine, who here took their station to
beg alms, or, which is more probable, it might have been the bell
belonging to the porter of the gate which stood here.
The street called Apple-gate, that leads us to the church of St.
Nicholas, will not be passed without interest by those who recollect that
on this spot, where the ground rises in a gentle ascent from the river,
the Legions of Rome established their town; and we are now arrived at an
object which brings them more forcibly to remembrance, a massy arched
wall, commonly termed, from its bounding the quarter antiently inhabited
by the Jews, the _Jewry Wall_.
This ruin, so minutely described by many Antiquaries, will afford to
curious and learned observers, a valuable specimen of the mode of
building practised by the Romans, but the uses for which it was designed,
will, most probably, for ever elude their researches. They will not
however, forbear their conjectures concerning it; of these, two have
obtained most credit; one, that it was a temple of the Roman Janus; and
the other, the Janua, or great Gate-way, of the Roman town. The latter
seems chiefly supported by the assertion of the learned Leman, that the
line of the Fosse, having joined the Via Devana, runs thro' this spot.
But whoever minutely examines the arches, will not easily overcome the
objections which the work affords to oppose this opinion; or assign a
reason why a city no larger than our Ratae should have a Gateway with so
many openings; nor does any satisfactory answer occur to the query why a
gate should be placed in what seems to have been the central part of the
antient city. And perhaps all the evidence for the other opinion rests
upon the dark sooty coat that encrusts the interior of the arches; an
appearance which the smoak of the town would easily produce in one
century. Indeed, little, it seems, can be concluded from the present
outside of the work; for as we cannot conceive that the Romans would have
elected so rough an edifice, it must be supposed that the present remains
were originally coated with workmanship more worthy of such polished
builders. If, however we must indulge a conjecture, we shall be led to
imagine, from the slight remain of ornament, which is only the fragment
of a niche, that this wall was either part of a Roman temple or bath.
Still however such an opinion rests, and must rest, on nothing but
conjecture, since the remains are too scanty to afford sufficient data
for a settled opinion. Thus may we take our leave of this remarkable
object, which, tho' incontrovertibly of Roman origin, and likely to exist
when the church built with its stolen spoils shall be no more, must
continue for ever, as it is at present, an interesting mystery.
The adjoining church of St. Nicholas is a small edifice of very rude and
consequently very antient construction. It has evidently been built at
different periods. It consists only of two aisles, the north one having
long since been taken down; the south aisle is gothic, and the other,
properly the nave, is of that massy unornamented style, in use before and
at the conquest; from the circumstance of its being built with the
materials of the neighbouring Roman work, it will perhaps be no
anachronism to assign to it a date prior to that period. The tower is
also Saxon; and the spire having been damaged by the wind is now taken
down.
The area, eastward of the churchyard, is called _Holy Bones_; bones of
oxen having been there dug up in sufficient numbers to induce the belief
that it was once a place of sacrifice. The church of St. Augustine which
stood on this spot, is supposed to have been destroyed before the
conquest.
At the corner of this area is a charity school, established on the bounty
bequeathed by Ald. Gabriel Newton, for the clothing and educating thirty
five boys; and in the terms of the founder's will, "instructing them in
toning and psalmody."
In a lane not far from St. Nicholas' church, called Harvey Lane, is the
meeting house of the Calvinistic Baptists, which is capable of containing
500 persons.
From St. Nicholas' street, we again arrive at the High-Cross, and proceed
southward, along High-Cross-Street. In this street, in the house of Mr.
Stephens, are the remains of a chantry or chapel, established for the
purpose of saying masses for the dead, once belonging to St. Martins
church. They consist of a range of windows, exhibiting in curiously
painted glass, a regular series of sacred history.
The next object, worthy of attention, at which we arrive, is an elegant
gothic building, with an inscription "_Consanguinitarium_, 1792." It
consists of five neat dwellings, to which is annexed a yearly stipend of
upwards of 60l. and was built by John Johnson, Esq. a well-known
Architect as a perpetual home for such of his relations as may not be
favored by successful fortune.
Turning down a narrow alley, called Castle Street, we arrive at a
spacious area, on the right of which is a charity school, built in 1785,
belonging to the parish of St. Mary, which clothes and educates 45 boys
and 35 girls.
The visitor will now have a full view of St. Mary's church, antiently
known by the distinguishing addition of _infra_ or _juxta Castrum_, a
building in which he will perceive, huddled together, specimens of
various kinds of architecture, from the Norman gothic of the north
chancel, to the very modern gothic of the spire; a mixture which evinces
the antiquity of the church, marks the disasters of violence, accident,
and time, and proves that the neighbourhood of the castle, within whose
outer ballium or precincts it stood, was often most dangerous. That
there was a church, on this spot in the Saxon times, seems almost
certain, from some bricks apparently the workmanship of that people,
found in the chancel; and the cheveron work round the windows of this
chancel proves that the first Norman Earl of Leicester, Robert de
Bellomont, when he repaired the mischiefs of the Norman conquest, or
rather of the attack made by William Rufus upon the property of the
Grentemaisnells, constructed a church on a plan nearly like the present,
and adorned it with all the ornaments of the architecture of his times.
This Earl founded in it a college of twelve canons, of whom the Dean was
most probably one, and among other donations for their support, he
endowed it with the patronage of all the other churches of Leicester, St.
Margaret's excepted. These, his son and successor, Robert, surnamed
Bossu, converted into regular canons, and removed them, with great
additional donations to the Abbey in the meadows. He seems however to
have continued an establishment of eight canons in the collegiate church,
tho' with revenues comparatively small, since their income, at the
dissolution of the monasteries, was valued only at 23l. 12s. 11d. That
the number of these canons remained unchanged at the time of the
dissolution, appears probable from the circumstance of seven cranes and a
socket for an eighth being still found in a kind of press, or ark, as it
is called, in the vestry, for the purpose of suspending the priests'
vestments.
The inside of the church is spacious and commodious, and has lately been
rendered still more so by converting the gothic arches of the south side
of the nave into one bold semicircular arch whose span is 39 feet, and
erecting a gallery in the wide south aisle, said to have been built by
John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster.
In the great choir or chapel called Trinity choir, at the east end of the
great south aisle, (for the aisles of our churches were formerly often
divided into chapels, but of which in this church no traces now remain),
was held a _Guild_ or Fraternity, called _Trinity Guild_, founded in the
reign of Henry the Seventh, by Sir Richard Sacheverel, Kt. and the good
Lady Hungerford. Collections were made four times a year, of the
brethren and sisters belonging to this Society, whatever it might be, for
Antiquaries have not rendered the point sufficiently clear, but from
their meetings being held in churches, it is most probable that they were
of a religious nature. The money when collected was applied to meet
various expenses, but chiefly to pay the wages of their priest, perhaps
their confessor, and to supply their great feast held annually on Trinity
Sunday, for which, according to the account of the steward and wardens,
the following articles were purchased, A.D. 1508.
s. d.
A dozen of Ale 1 8
A fat Sheep 2 4
Seven Lambs 7 0
Thirty Chickens 1 11
Two gallons of Cream 0 8
0.5qr. of Malt 2 0
Fourteen Geese 4 3
From a curious and ingenious Mathematical Essay on the comparative prices
of similar articles in different ages, presented to the society of
Antiquaries, we have here the pleasure of offering to the attention of
our visitor, the following valuable remarks.
"The generality of readers when they look into the records of antient
times, are forcibly struck by the seeming lowness of the prices of
every article of common demand, when compared with the modern prices.
When they find that an ox was formerly sold for a few shillings, and
the price of a quarter of corn calculated in pence, they are led to
envy the supposed cheapness of those ages, and to bewail the
distressing dearness of the present. Nothing however can be more
absurd than the whining complaints founded upon such facts; for since
the cheapness of living depends not so much upon the price given for
every article of prime necessity, as upon the means by which, to use
a common expression, the purchase may be afforded, we must, if we
wish to form a proper judgment on the subject, rightly compare these
means as they existed in different ages, otherwise our conclusions
will be not only idle, but sometimes mischievous.
"It is very certain that money is a commodity, no less than the
articles it is employed to purchase, and like them, its absolute
value is depreciated or lowered by abundance. Since the discovery of
America, the quantity of gold and silver brought into general
circulation, and of late, the general and extensive use of paper
money which represents real specie, produces the same effect as would
arise from a still greater encrease of it. From this natural
depreciation alone of the value of coin, it follows that were all
other circumstances to have continued the same, the relative value of
money would have decreased, or a greater number of pieces of the same
denomination would be now required to produce the same effect as
formerly, and therefore that it will be necessary to multiply any sum
of money of the present age, into some certain number, in order to
learn the effect of the same sum in an assigned preceding age."
From this multiplication it is demonstrated that the price of the dozen
of Ale, for which the Trinity Guild paid 20d. is equivalent to something
more than 6d. a quart;--the fat sheep at 2s. 4d. to 1l. 11s. 4d.--the
seven lambs at 7s. to 16s. each;--the thirty chickens at 23d. to rather
more than 2s. 6d. the couple;--the two gallons of cream at 8d. to 2s. 8d.
a quart;--the half quarter of malt at 2s. to 3l. 4s. the quarter;--the
fourteen geese at 4s. 3d. to nearly 5s. each.
In the reign of the Norman kings, articles, but especially corn, were
dearer than at present. In Henry the sevenths reign meat was cheaper,
but other articles dearer than at present. We now return to the church
of St. Mary.
In the year 1783, the spire which had several times been injured by
lightening, was so much shattered by a fresh stroke as to require to be
taken down to the battlements. It was rebuilt under the direction of an
architect, of the name of Cheshire at an expense, exclusive of the old
materials, of 245l. 10s. the height of the spire from the ground 61
yards. In this church, in which for many years he officiated as curate,
is interred the Rev. W. Bickerstaffe, a man of great simplicity of
manners, and urbanity of disposition; who by his laborious and minute
researches materially assisted the Topographers of Leicester.
Near the north door of this church is a passage leading under an old
fashioned building forming a gate-way into an area called the castle
yard. That the present structure was the gate-way of the castle when it
was tenable as a place of defence, cannot, for a moment be imagined; but
that there was always an entrance at this place we are well assured, for
the adjoining building on the left is known by the name of the Porter's
Lodge, and it must therefore be concluded that the present was built upon
the scite of the antient gate-way, and that it was constructed with the
timbers and other materials taken in later ages from some part of the
castle which had been taken down.
At this gateway was preserved, till within a few years past, an antient
ceremony expressive of the homage formerly paid by the magistrates of
Leicester, to the feudal Lords of the castle. The mayor knocking for
admittance at the gate was received by the constable of the castle, while
the mace was sloped in token of homage; he then took an oath of
allegiance to the king as heir to the Lancastrian property; the latter
ceremony, agreeable to one of the corporation charters, is still
performed, but in private. The office of constable of the castle, which
in the beginning of the reign of Mary, was held by Henry duke of Suffolk,
with the annual fee of sixty shillings and eight pence, is now retained
only nominally.
Opposite the gate-way stands a building most probably erected by the
first of the Bellomonts, tho' the modern front which meets the eye
effectually conceals all the outward traces of antiquity. The inside of
the edifice however is a room exceedingly curious. Its area is large,
being about seventy-eight feet long, twenty-four high and fifty-one
broad. It is framed into a sort of aisles, by two rows of tall and massy
oaken pillars, which serve to support a large and weighty covering of
slate. This vast room was the antient hall of the castle, in which the
earls of Leicester, and afterwards the dukes of Lancaster, alternately
held their courts, and consumed in rude but plenteous hospitality, at the
head of their visitors, or their vassals, the rent of their estates then
usually paid in kind. On the south end appear the traces of a door-way,
which probably was the entrance into a gallery that has often, among
other purposes, served as an orchestra for the minstrels and musicians of
former days. This hall, during the reigns of several of the Lancastrian
princes was the scene of frequent Parliaments, whose transactions our
provincial historians have carefully recorded. At present it is used
only for the holding the assizes and other country meetings, to which
purpose it is, from its length, so well adapted, that, tho' the business
of the civil and crown bars is carried on at the same time at the
opposite ends of the room, the pleadings of the one do not in the least
interrupt the pleadings of the other.
The reflecting visitor, who may choose to compare the uses to which this
place is now applied, with the purposes for which it was built, will not
fail to derive from the comparison so very favorable to the present
times, a satisfaction most worthy the benevolent heart. Instead of the
rude licentious carousals of the Bellomonts, when the baron domineered,
even in drunkenness, over his assembled slaves, we often see large bodies
of the inhabitants of the county, men worthy of freedom and possessing
it, assembled to consider with decorum, and to decide with unawed,
unbiassed judgment, upon measures of no little importance to the kingdom
of England. And instead of the savage violence, or idiot folly which
mostly dictated the award of every kind of property, in those feudal
times, we see happily substituted the fair examination of the witnesses,
the eloquent pleadings of the barristers, the learned observations of the
Judge, and the impartial decisions of the Jury, nobly co-operating to
investigate truth, and to decide, according to right, the means alike of
happiness and virtue. In what manner, and by what degrees this happy
change was effected, the following well authenticated anecdote may serve
to shew.
Robert de Bellomont, the first earl, sitting in the apartment of the keep
of his castle at Leicester, heard a loud shout in the neighbouring
fields. Enquiring into the cause, he found that it was given by the
partizans of a combatant who was then fighting a duel with his near
relation to ascertain the right to a certain piece of land in St. Mary's
field. The cruelty and absurdity of such a mode of decision seems to
have been forcibly impressed upon the mind of the earl, by this affecting
circumstance; and he agreed with the burgesses and inhabitants of
Leicester, on the payment of one penny for every house that had a gable
or gavel in the High-street (a payment afterwards known by the term
_gavel pence_) that all pleas of the above mentioned nature should be
determined by a jury of twenty four persons.
From the county hall, or castle, as it is commonly called, a road to the
right leads to an antient gate-way strongly built and once furnished with
a port-cullis, and every requisite for defence. The embattled parapet
being much decayed, was taken down a few years ago, and its roof is now
reduced to one of an ordinary form. When this alteration was made, the
arms of the dukes of Lancaster by whom the gate-way was undoubtedly built
were destroyed on the outside; but on the inside, at the spring of the
arch, two mutilated figures, one of a lion, the other of a bear,
doubtless some of their devices, still remain. The lion passant, it is
well known, formed part of the arms of that family, and the muzzled bear
was a symbol used on the seal by Edward the first in his transactions
with Scotland. Nothing can be more probable than that the Lancastrian
princes would ornament their buildings with a figure which would serve to
preserve the memory of their descent from so renowned a monarch.
The stranger must now be requested to pass thro' the uninviting doorway
of the adjoining public house; and he will be led by an easy ascent up to
the _mount_, or perhaps the scite of the keep of the castle, which tho'
lately lowered considerably for the purpose of converting it into a
Bowling-green, yet affords a pleasant station for a view of the environs
of Leicester, and is the spot from which the best idea can be formed of
the antient form and boundaries of the fortifications.
It is well known that the fast Saxons built few or no castles, for having
nearly exterminated the Britons, during the long continued warfare that
preceded their conquest of that people, they had no occasion for strong
fortresses to secure the possession of the territories they had acquired;
and in the later ages of their dynasty they were too indolent and
ignorant to undertake such works with spirit and effect, notwithstanding
the frequent and sudden inroads of the Danes, rendered such places of
retreat highly necessary, and the great Alfred earnestly recommended
their construction. Hence the places of defence found in this island at
the conquest, were few in number, and those generally too slight to
resist the continued attacks of time. For this reason the antiquary need
not endeavour to extend his researches after the state of the castle of
Leicester beyond the time of the arrival of William the Norman. On the
division of the provinces made by that monarch, Leicester became part of
the royal demesne; a castle was erected to ensure the submission of the
inhabitants, and the wardenship of it entrusted to Hugh Grentemaisnell
baron of Hinckly, who possessed considerable property in the
neighbourhood. This castle, like other Norman works of the same kind,
would have its barbican or out-work, defending the gate and bridge over
the outer ditch would be commanded by a strong wall, eight or ten feet
thick, and between twenty and thirty high, with a parapet, and crennels
at the top, towers at proper distances, and a gate-way opening into the
town. It would, we may presume, extend from the river below the Newark
round by St. Mary's church, and then, turning towards the river again,
whose waters were brought by a cut across the morass lying on the west
side, to wash that part of the wall, and fill the ditch, would thus
enclose what was called the outer Bayle or Ballium. Within this, at a
distance not now to be ascertained, but probably not less than eighty or
an hundred yards, another, similar, but perhaps stronger fortification,
would extend from, and to the river, and this entered at the gates
already described, would enclose the inner Bayle, where stood the lofty
massy keep, the hall, and all the apartments and rooms belonging to the
noble and potent owners. Although the curious will be inclined to join
in the pathetic laments of the writer of the memoirs of Leicester,
(Throsby) that the just position of the castle and its extent in former
times cannot be known; yet strong probability will almost authorize us to
believe that the account here given does not vary very widely from the
truth; for these conjectures are directly confirmed by the well still
open on the top of the castle hill or keep, and by the entire remains of
a large cellar, forty-nine feet long and eighteen wide, nearly adjoining
the great hall, on the west. That more traces should not be discoverable
will not appear surprising when we consider what effects may be produced
by the decays of time and accident, by the accumulation of soil, and
encroachments of buildings.
During the disputes concerning the succession, on the death of the
Conqueror, the Grentemaisnells seized Leicester castle, and held it for
duke Robert. This subjected it to the fury of the successful partizans
of William Rufus, and the castle lay for some time in a dismantled state.
In the next reign it was granted by Henry to his favourite Robert first
earl of Leicester, who repaired the damages and it became the principal
place of residence of himself and the second earl, Robert Bossu. The
third earl Robert surnamed Blanchmains, encreased his property and power,
by his marriage with Petronilla, or Parnel, the heiress of the
Grentemaisnells, but the violent temper of this earl involved him in
disputes with king Henry the second, whose forces under the command of
the Chief Justiciary, Richard de Lucy, took Leicester and its castle by
assault, and reduced both to an almost uninhabited heap of ruins.
Blanchmains regained however the favor of his king and was restored to
his estates, but both he and his son, Robert Fitz-Parnel engaging in the
crusades, the town of Leicester was but ill rebuilt, and the castle
remained in a state of delapidation for many years. Fitz-Parnel dying
without issue, the _honor_ of Leicester, as part of the Bellomont estates
were called, passed into the family of Simon de Montfort, in consequence
of his marriage with one of the sisters of Fitz-Parnels. But the
Montfort earls of Leicester, both father and son, were too much engaged
in the busy transactions of their times to pay much attention to their
property at Leicester. After the death of the latter, in the Battle of
Evesham, the Leicester property was conferred by Henry the third on his
second son Edmond earl of Lancaster, whose second son Henry, heir and
successor to Thomas earl of Lancaster, beheaded at Pontefract, in the
year 1322 made Leicester his principal place of residence, and under him
and the two next succeeding earls, the castle recovered and probably
surpassed its former state of splendor.
When the dukes of Lancaster ascended the throne, Leicester tho'
frequently honored with their presence, received no permanent benefit,
and tho' several parliaments were held there in the reign of Henry the
sixth, the castle had so far decayed in the time of Richard the third,
that that monarch chose rather to sleep at an inn a few evenings before
his fall, than occupy the royal apartments in the castle. From this time
the castle seems to have made constant progress to decay, so that in the
reign of Charles the first, orders, dated the ninth of his reign, were
issued to the sheriff Wm. Heyrick, Esq. of Beaumanor (as appears from
papers in the possession of that family) "to take down the old pieces of
our castle at Leicester, to repair the castle house, wherein the audit
hath been formerly kept, and is hereafter to be kept, and wherein our
records of the honor of Leicester do now remain; to sell the stones,
timber, &c. but not to interfere with the vault there, nor the stalls
leading therefrom."
From others of the same papers it appears that the timber sold for 3l.
5s. 8d. the freestone, and iron work for 36l. 14s. 4d. and that the
repairs above ordered cost about 50l. Thus was the castle reduced to
nearly its present state, and tho' the Antiquary may in the eagerness of
his curiosity lament that so little of it now remains, yet he must surely
rejoice in his reflecting moments that such structures are not now
necessary for the defence of the kingdom, and that the fortunes of the
noblemen are now spent in a way calculated to encourage the arts and
promote industry, rather than in maintaining in these castles a set of
idle retainers, ever ready to assist them in disturbing the peace of the
realm, and still more ready to insult and injure the humble inhabitants
in then neighbourhood.
Descending from the castle mount, and passing thro' the south gale-way of
the castle yard, the visitor enters a district of the town called the
Newark, (New Work) became the edifices it contained were new when
compared with the buildings of the castle. They owed their foundation to
Henry, the third earl of Lancaster, and his son Henry first duke of that
title. By these two noblemen they were nearly finished, and what was
wanting towards their completion was afterwards added by John of Gaunt.
They must then have formed a magnificent addition to the antient dignity
of the castle. The remains of the walls which enclosed this area enable
us to affirm that its form was a long square, bounded on the north by the
castle, on the east by the streets of the suburbs of the town, on the
south by the fields, and on the west by the river.
Judging from what remains of these walls, we feel inclined to maintain
that they were rather calculated to enclose, than strongly protect, the
buildings they surrounded; for if the walls now standing be the original
walls, they were not capable of resisting the modes of attack usually
practised in the age in which they were built; nor is the gate-way that
still remains entire, formed with towers to command, or with grooves for
a port-cullis to defend, the entrance. Indeed if the state of England
during the age of the founders be considered, magnificence rather than
great strength might be expected to be their object, and magnificent
truly were the buildings of the Newark. The gate-way now known by the
name of the Magazine, from the circumstance of its being the arsenal of
the county, is large and spacious, yet grandly massive; and the form of
its arches, which partake of the style of the most modern gothic, tho'
built at the time when, according to the opinions of the most learned
Antiquaries, that truly beautiful species of architecture was not
generally established, prove the ready attention of the founders to the
progress of the arts.
This gate-way led to an area, which tho' nearly surrounded by buildings,
was much more spacious than the present wide street, an area worthy the
dukes of Lancaster. On the south another gate, similar to the Magazine
now standing, opened into the court opposite the strong south gate of the
castle, and on the west rose a college, a church, and an hospital, which
completed the grandeur of the Newark. These latter buildings formed a
lesser quadrangle or court, having on the north the present old, or
Trinity Hospital, built and endowed for an hundred poor people, and ten
women to serve them. On the south stood a church dedicated to St. Mary,
and cloysters; the former called by Leland "not large but faire;" the
"floures and knottes in whose vault were gilded," he says, by the rich
cardinal of Winchester; the latter, (the cloysters,) were both "large and
faire;" the houses in the compace of the area of the college for the
Prebendaries (standing on the west side) the same author says, "be very
praty," and the walls and gates of the college occupying the east side of
the court, he says, "be very stately." Nor did the princes of Lancaster
limit their designs to magnificent structures; this college was as well
filled as the hospital, for it contained a dean and twelve prebendaries;
thirteen vicars choral, three clerks, six choristers and one verger, in
all thirty-six persons; and the endowment was adequate to the
establishment, for the revenues at the dissolution amounted to 595l. 12s.
11d. Among the various donations to this college, the following taken
from the Parliamentary rolls of the year 1450, will not be found unworthy
the attention of the curious. The king (Henry the seventh) grants to the
dean and Canons of the church collegiate of our lady at Leicester, "a
tunne of wynne to be taken by the chief botteller of England in our port
of Kingston upon Hull," and it is added "they never had no wynne granted
to them by us nor our progenitors afore this time to sing with, nor
otherwise."
When it is considered that the castle just surveyed occupies a station
most pleasant as well as commanding; that from the buildings of the
Newark it derived all the splendor which the arts and taste of the times
could bestow, and that its adjoining a large, well fortified, and not ill
built town was calculated to contribute most essentially to the
convenience of its possessors, it will appear to have been one of the
most agreeable residences in the kingdom for such powerful noblemen as
were the dukes of Lancaster; nor will the visitor be surprised to find
that it was occasionally used as a seat by the kings, its owners.
But of all the periods of its history that will surely appear most
interesting, in which Henry de Gresmond, first earl of Derby, and on the
death of his father, earl and then duke of Lancaster, already renowned
thro' Europe for his atchievements in arms, aud crowned with laurels from
the fields of Guienne, where he taught the English how to conquer at
Crecy and Agincourt, returned to reside at Leicester, and to add to the
distinction of wise and brave the still more valuable title of _good_,
which he was about to earn by the practice of almost every virtue at this
place. Then indeed was Leicester castle the scene of true splendor and
magnificence, for it was the scene of bounty influenced by benevolence
and guided by religion, of taste supported by expense yet directed by
judgment and regulated by prudence, and of elegance such as the most
accomplished knight of that most perfect age of chivalry might be
expected to display. This nobleman died of a pestilential disorder at
the castle, in the year 1361, greatly lamented by the inhabitants of
Leicester. The order of his funeral appointed by himself, and curiously
recorded by our local historians, is a pleasing proof of his good sense
and piety; the body being taken in a hearse from St. Mary's near the
castle, to his collegiate church as he directed, "without the pomp of
armed men, horses covered, or other vanities"--and the rank of the
deceased alone denoted by the magnitude of five tapers, each weighing one
hundred pounds, and fifty torches.
The buildings of the Newark continued nearly in the state already
described till the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, when Robert
Boone the last dean, terrified by the power of the tyrant Henry, and
alarmed by the unjustifiable rigours of the king's commissioners,
surrendered his house and received with the rest of his brethren,
trifling pensions for life, from this period the buildings of the college
being unsupported by any fund sunk into decay, or were applied to
purposes widely different from the intention of the founders. The
church, cloysters, and gate-way are entirely removed, with the exception
of two arches of the vault under the former, which are still to be seen
firm and strong in a cellar of the house, now a boarding school.
The old hospital itself seems also to have been infected with the
contagion of ruin, for tho' spared by the rapacious hand of Henry, the
number of poor in the house 64 men and 36 women, are reduced from their
original allowance of seven pence weekly, to the now scanty stipend of
two shillings, which arises from the rents of lands and tenements in
Leicester, and its vicinity. The house has been reduced to its present
form by contracting the dimensions of the old one; for that standing in
need of considerable repairs, his present Majesty, to whom, as heir to
the dutchy of Lancaster, the expensive privilege of repairing it belongs,
gave the produce of the sale of an estate at Thurnby in this
neighbourhood, which had escheated to the crown, for that purpose.
At the east end is a small chapel in which prayers are read twice a day,
and where some mutilated monumental figures, probably of the Huntingdon
family, are still to be seen.
Nothing farther remains to be noticed concerning this interesting part of
the town, except that the south gateway was beaten down by the king's
forces at the storming of the place in the spring of the year 1645, when
they left only a part of the jamb on the eastern side standing. One of
the prebendal houses on the west side of the antient quadrangle of the
college has, within these few years, been purchased for the vicarage
house of St. Mary's parish. Opposite the old hospital a house has been
lately erected as an Asylum for the reception and education of poor
female children.
From the Newark, in a lane opposite to which called Mill-Stone lane, is a
Meeting-House of the Methodists, we proceed along South gate or