GLASTONBURY ABBEY.
Rich in historical associations and reputed sanctity, the abbey of
Glastonbury was the ecclesiastical centre of western England. Here grew
the holy thorn which Joseph of Arimathea had planted when, fatigued
with travel, he had struck his staff into the ground, and lo! a goodly
tree; here was the holy well of which he had drunk, and where he
baptized his converts, so that its waters became possessed of
miraculous power to heal diseases.
Here again were memorials, dear to the vanquished Welsh; for did not
Arthur, the great King Arthur, the hero of a thousand fights, the
subject of gleeman’s melody and of the minstrel’s praise, lie buried
here? if indeed he were dead, and not spirited away by magic power.
A Welsh population still existed around the abbey, for it was near the
borders of West Wales, as a large portion of Devon and Cornwall was
then called, and Exeter had not long become an English town.xiv The
legends of Glastonbury were nearly all of that distant day when the
Saxons and Angles had not yet discovered Britain, and she reposed safe
under the protection of mighty Rome; hence, it was the object of
pilgrimage and of deep veneration to all those of Celtic blood, while
the English were unwilling to be behind in their veneration.
Here, in the first year of the great English king Athelstane, Dunstan
was born, the son of Herstan and Kynedred, both persons of rank—a man
destined to influence the Anglo-Saxon race first in person and then in
spirit for generations—the greatest man of his time, whether, as his
contemporaries thought, mighty for good, or, as men of narrower minds
have thought, mighty for evil.
In his early youth, Glastonbury lay, as it lies now, in ruin and decay;
the Danes had ravaged it, and its holy walls were no longer eloquent
with prayer and praise. Yet the old inhabitants still talked with
regret of the departed glories of the fane; the pilgrim and the
stranger still visited the consecrated well, hoping to gain strength
from its healing wave, for the soil had been hallowed by the blood of
martyrs and the holy lives of saints; here kings and nobles, laying
aside their greatness, had retired to prepare for the long and endless
home, and in the calm seclusion of the cloister had found peace.
Here the mind of the young Dunstan was moulded for his future work;
here, weak in body, but precocious in intellect, he drew in, as if with
his vital breath, legend and tradition; here, from a body of Scottish
missionaries, or, as we should now call them, Irish,xv he learned with
rapidity all that a boy could acquire of civil or ecclesiastical lore,
and both in Latin and in theology his progress amazed his tutors.
Up to this time the world had held possession of his heart, and,
balancing the advantages of a religious and a secular life, he chose,
as most young people would choose, the attractions of court, to which
his parents’ rank entitled him, and leaving Glastonbury he repaired to
the court of Edmund.
There his extraordinary talents excited envy, and he was accused of
magical arts: his harp had been heard to pour forth strains of
ravishing beauty when no human hand was near, and other like prodigies,
savouring of the black art, were said to attend him, so that he fled
the court, and took refuge with his uncle, Elphege, the Bishop of
Winchester.
A long illness followed, during which the youth, disgusted with the
world, and startled by his narrow escape from death, reversed the
choice he had previously made, and renounced the world and its
pleasures.
Ordained priest at Winchester, he was sent back with a monk’s attire to
Glastonbury, where he gave himself up to austerities, such as, in a
greater or less degree, always accompanied a conversion in those days;
here miracles were reported to attend him, and stories of his personal
conflicts with the Evil One were handed from mouth to mouth, until his
fame had filled the country round.xvi
The influence he rapidly acquired enabled him to commence the great
work of rebuilding Glastonbury, in which he was only interrupted by the
frequent calls which he had to court, to become the adviser of King
Edmund; where indeed he was often in the discharge of the office of
prime minister of the kingdom, and showed as much aptitude in civil as
in ecclesiastical affairs.
Glastonbury being rebuilt, the Benedictine rule xvii was introduced,
and Dunstan himself became abbot. It was far the noblest and best
monastic code of the day, being peculiarly adapted to prevent the
cloister from becoming the abode of either idleness or profligacy.
But this was not done without much opposition; the secular priests—as
the married clergy and those who lived amongst their flocks (as English
clergy do now) were called—opposed the introduction of the Benedictine
rule with all their might, and were always thorns in Dunstan’s side.
The unfortunate Edmund, after the sad event at Pucklechurch, on the
feast of St. Augustine, was buried at Glastonbury by the abbot, and his
two sons, Edwy and Edgar, were put under Dunstan’s especial care by the
new king Edred. The rest of the story is tolerably well known to our
readers.
The first steps of Edwy’s reign were all taken with a view to one great
end—to revenge himself and to destroy Dunstan, who, aware of the royal
enmity, and of his inability to restrain the sovereign, withdrew
himself quietly to Glastonbury, and confined himself to the discharge
of his duties as its abbot.
But this did not satisfy Edwy, who, panting for the ruin of the monk he
hated, sought occasion for a quarrel, and soon found it. Dunstan had
been the royal almoner, and had had the disposal of large sums of
money, for purposes connected with the Church, on which they had been
strictly expended. Now Edwy required a strict account of all these
disbursements, which Dunstan refused to give, saying it had already
been given to Edred, and that no person had any right to investigate
the charities of the departed king.
His stout resistance gained the day in the first instance, but Edwy
never felt at rest while Dunstan lived at peace in the land, and
Ethelgiva and her fair daughter were ever inciting him to fresh acts of
hostility, little as he needed such incitement.
The first measures were of a very dishonourable kind. Evil reports were
spread abroad to destroy the character of the great abbot, and prepare
people’s minds for his disgrace: then disaffection was stirred up
amongst the secular clergy surrounding Glastonbury—a very easy thing;
and attempts were made in vain to create a faction against him in his
own abbey; then at last the neighbouring thanes, many of Danish
extraction and scarcely Christian, were stirred up to invade the
territory of the abbey, and were promised immunity and secure
possession of their plunder. They liked the pleasant excitement of
galloping over Dunstan’s ecclesiastical patrimony, of plundering the
farms and driving away the cattle, and there was scarcely a night in
which some fresh outrage was not committed. At this point the action of
our tale recommences.
It will be remembered that the father of Ella had found relief from his
grief, after the death of his unhappy son Oswald, in building and
endowing the monastery of St. Wilfred, situate on the river’s bank, at
a short distance from the hall.
The completion of the work had, however, been reserved for his son,
and, everything being now done, it became the earnest desire of Ella,
with the consent of the brethren who had been gathered into the
incomplete building, to place it under the Benedictine rule.
For this end he determined to send a messenger to negotiate with
Dunstan at Glastonbury, and, yielding to Alfred’s most earnest request,
he consented to send him, in company with Father Cuthbert, who was to
be the future prior, upon the mission.
Since the desertion of Elfric, his brother Alfred had been as a
ministering angel to his father, so tender had been his affection, yet
so manly and pure. He was by nature gifted with great talents, and his
progress in ecclesiastical lore, almost the only lore of the day, would
have well fitted him for the Church; but if this idea had ever been in
the mind of the thane, he put it aside after the departure of Elfric.
But it must not be supposed that the only literature of the period was
in Latin. Alfred, the great King Alfred, skillful in learning as in
war, had translated into English (as we have mentioned earlier in our
tale) the _History of the World_, by Orosius, and other works, which
formed a part of the royal library in the palace of Edred. All these
works were known to his young namesake, Alfred, far better than they
had been either to Edwy or Elfric, in their idleness, and he was well
informed beyond the average scope of his time. But his imagination had
long been fired by the accounts he had received of Glastonbury and its
sanctuary, so that he eagerly besought his father to allow him to go
thither.
But the poor old thane felt much like Jacob when he was begged to send
Benjamin into Egypt. Elfric was not, so far as home ties were
concerned, they had never heard of him since the coronation day, and
now they would take Alfred from him.
It may seem strange to our readers that Ella should regard a journey
from the Midlands to Glastonbury in so serious a light; but Wessex and
Mercia had long been independent states, communication infrequent, and
it would certainly be many weeks before Alfred could return; while
inexperience magnified the actual dangers of the way.
Coaches and carriages were not in use, neither would the state of the
roads have rendered such use practicable. All travellers were forced to
journey on horseback, and, like Elfric when he departed from home, to
carry all their baggage in a similar manner.
The navigation of the Avon, which would have opened the readiest road
to the southwest, was impeded by sandbanks and rapids; there were as
yet no locks, no canals.
Once the Romans had made matchless roads, as in other parts of their
empire, but not a stone had been laid thereon since the days of Hengist
and Horsa, and many a stone had been taken away for building purposes,
or to pave the courtyards of Saxon homes.xviii
Still the ancient Foss Way, which once extended from Lincolnshire to
Devonshire, formed the best route, and it was decided to travel by it,
making a brief detour, so as to enable the party to pass the first
night at the residence of an old friend of the family who dwelt on the
high borderland which separates the counties of Oxford and Warwick, in
old times the frontier between the two Celtic tribes, the Dobuni and
the Carnabii.
So Father Cuthbert and Alfred, with three attendant serfs, left
Æscendune early on a fine summer morning, and followed a byroad through
the forest, until, after a few difficulties, arising from entanglement
in copse or swamp, they reached the Foss Way. Wide and spacious, this
grand old road ran through the dense forest in an almost unbroken line;
huge trees overshadowed it on either side, and the growth of underwood
was so dense that no one could penetrate it without difficulty.
Sometimes the scene changed, and a dense swamp, amidst which the timber
of former generations rotted away, succeeded, but the grand old road
still offered, even in its decay, a firm and sure footing. Built with
consummate skill, the lower strata of which it was composed remained so
firm and unyielding, that, could the Romans but have returned for a few
years, they might have restored it to its ancient perfection, when the
traveller might post rapidly upon it from Lincoln even to Totness in
Devonshire.
Little, however, did our travellers think of the grand men of old who
had built this mighty causeway six or seven centuries earlier. Their
chief feeling, when they reached it, was one of relief; the change was
so acceptable from the tangled and miry bypath through the forest.
“Holy St. Wilfred,” exclaimed Father Cuthbert, “but my steed hath
wallowed like a hog. I have sunk in the deep mire where was no
footing.”
“A little grooming will soon make him clean again, father.”
“But verily we have passed through a slough and a wilderness, and my
inner man needeth refreshment; let us even partake of the savoury pies
wherewith the provident care of thy father hath provided us.”
The suggestion was by no means a bad one, and the party sat down on a
green and sloping bank, overshadowed by a mighty oak which grew by the
wayside. It was noontide, and the shelter from the heat was not at all
unpleasant. Their wallets were overhauled, and choice provision found
against famine by the road. There were few, very few inns where
travellers could obtain decent accommodation, and every preparation had
been made for a camp out when necessary.
So they ate their midday meal with thankfulness of heart, and reclined
awhile ere courting more fatigue. The day was lovely, and the silence
of the woods almost oppressive; nought save the hum of insects broke
its tranquillity.
Fatigued by the exertions of the morning, the whole party fell asleep;
the gentle breeze, the quiet rustling of the leaves, all combined to
lull the senses. While they thus slept, the day wore on, and the sun
was declining when they awoke and wondered that they had wasted their
time for so long a period.
Starting again with renewed energy, they travelled onward through the
mighty forest till sunset, when they approached the high ground which
now runs along the northern boundary of Oxfordshire and of which
Edgehill forms a portion. Though progress had been slow, for the road,
although secure, was yet in so neglected a state as to form an obstacle
to rapid travelling, and they had met no fellow travellers. Leaving the
Foss Way, which followed the valley, and slowly ascending the hill by a
well-marked track, they looked back from its summit upon a glorious
view. Far as the eye could reach stretched the forest to the northward,
one huge unbroken expanse save where the thin wreaths of smoke showed
some village or homestead, where English farmers already wrestled with
the obstacles nature had formed. But westward the view was more
home-like; the setting sun was sinking behind the huge heights now
known as the Malvern Hills, which reared their forms proudly in the
distant horizon.
The western sky was rich in the hues of the departing sun, which cast
its declining beams upon village and homestead, thinly scattered in the
fertile vale through which the Foss Way pursued its course.
But our travellers did not stay long to contemplate the beauty of the
scene; they were yet ten miles from the hospitable roof where they had
purposed spending the night, and they had overslept themselves so long
at their noontide halt, that they found darkness growing apace, while
their weary animals could scarcely advance farther.
“Is there no inn, no Christian dwelling near, where we may repose?
Verily my limbs bend beneath me with fatigue,” said Father Cuthbert.
“There is no dwelling of Christian men nearer than the halls of the
Thane of Rollrich, and we shall scarcely reach them for a couple of
hours,” said Oswy, the serf.
“Thou art a Job’s comforter. What sayest thou, Anlac?”
“There are the remains of an old temple of heathen times not far from
here, a little on the right hand of the road, but they say the place is
haunted.”
“Has it a roof to shelter us?”
“Part of the ruins are well covered.”
“Then thither we will go. Peradventure it will prove a safe abiding
place against wolves or evil men, and if there be demons we must even
exorcise them.”
When they had emerged from the forest, they had, as we have seen,
ascended the high tableland which formed the northern frontier of the
territory of the Dobuni—passing over the very ground where, seven
hundred years later, the troops of the King and the Parliament were
arrayed against each other in deadly combat for the first time.
But at this remote period the country where the Celts had once lived,
and whence their civilised descendants had been driven by the English,
had become a barren moorland. Scarce a tree grew on the heights, but a
wild common, with valley and hill alternating, much as on Dartmoor at
the present day, stretched before the travellers, and was traversed by
the old Roman trackway. Dreary indeed it looked in the darkening
twilight; here and there some huge crag overtopped the road, and then
the track lay along a flat surface. It was after passing some huge
misshapen stones, which spoke of early Celtic worship, that suddenly,
in the distance on the right, the ruined temple lay before them.
Pillars of beautiful workmanship, evidently reared by Roman skill,
surrounded a paved quadrangle raised upon a terrace approached on all
sides by steps. These steps and the pavement were alike of stone, but
where weeds could grow they had grown, and the footing was damp and
slippery with rank vegetation and fungus growth.
At the extremity of the quadrangle the roof still partly covered the
adytum or shrine from the sky, the platform reared itself upon its
flight of massive steps where early British Christianity had demolished
the idol, and beneath were chambers once appropriated to the use of the
priests, which, by the aid of fire, could shortly be made habitable.
There was plenty of brushwood and underwood near, and our travellers
speedily made a large fire, which expelled the damp from the place,
albeit, as the smoke could only escape by an aperture in the roof,
which, it is needless to say, was not embraced in the original design
of the architect, it was not till the blaze had subsided and the
glowing embers alone warmed the chamber, that mortal lungs could bear
the stifling atmosphere, so charged had it been with smoke.
Still it was very acceptable shelter to the travellers, who must
otherwise have camped out on the exposed moorland, and they made a
hearty and comfortable meal, which being concluded, Father Cuthbert
made a very brief address.
“My brethren,” he said, “we have travelled, like Abraham from Ur of the
Chaldees, not ‘_sine numine_,’ that is not without God’s protection;
and as we are about to sleep in a place where devils once deluded
Christian people, it will not be amiss to say the night song, and
commend ourselves ‘_in manus Altissimi_,’ that is to say, to God’s
care.”
The compline service was familiar to each one present, and Father
Cuthbert intoned it in a stentorian voice, particularly those portions
of the 91st Psalm which seemed to defy the Evil One, and he recited
just as if he were sure Satan was listening:
“Thou shalt go upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the
dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.”
All the company seemed to feel comfort in the words, and, first posting
a sentinel, to be relieved every three hours, they commended themselves
to sleep.
Alfred found his couch very pleasant at first, but before he had been
long asleep his rest became disturbed by singular dreams. He thought he
was standing within a grassy glade in a deep forest; it was darkening
twilight, and he felt anxious to find his way from the spot, when his
guardian angel appeared to him, and pointed out a narrow track between
two huge rocks. He followed until he heard many voices, and saw a
strange light reflected on the tree tops, as if from beneath, when
amidst the din of voices he recognised Elfric’s tones.
“Wouldst thou save thy brother, then proceed,” his guardian angel
seemed to whisper.
He strove, in his dream, to proceed, when he awoke so vividly impressed
that he felt convinced coming events were casting their shadows before.
He could not drive the thought of Elfric from his mind; he slept, but
again in wild dreams his brother seemed to appear; once he seemed to
oppose Elfric’s passage over a plank which crossed a roaring torrent;
then he seemed as if he were falling, falling, amidst rushing waters,
when he awoke.
“I can sleep no longer. I will look out at the night,” he said.
A faint moon had arisen, and lent an uncertain light to the outlines of
hill, crag, and moorland, while it gilded the cornice above, where the
wind seemed to linger and moan over departed greatness. The Druidical
worship of olden days, the deluded worshippers now turned into dust,
and the cruel rites of their bloodstained worship, older even than
those of the ruined temple, rose before his imagination, until fancy
seemed to people the silent wastes before him with those who had once
crowded round that circle of misshapen stones which stood out vividly
on the verge of the plain.
He felt that nameless fear which such thoughts excite so strongly, that
he sought the company of the sentinel whom they had posted to guard
their slumbers, and found not one but two at the post.
“Oswy and Anlac! both watching?”
“It was too lonesome for one,” said Oswy.
“Have you seen or heard aught amiss?”
“Yes. About an hour ago, there were cries such as men make when they
die in torture, smothered by other sounds like the beating of drums,
blowing of horns, and I know not what.”
“You were surely dreaming?”
“No; it came from yonder circle of stones, and a light like that of a
great fire seemed to shine around.”
Alfred made no reply; but he remembered that they had talked of the
Druidical rites the night before, and thought that the idea had taken
such hold upon the minds of his followers as to suggest the sounds to
their fancy. Still he watched with them till the first red streak of
day appeared in the east.