It is not my purpose to inform my readers how the manuscripts of that
eminent antiquary, the Rev. J. A. ROCHECLIFFE, D.D., came into my
possession. There are many ways in which such things happen, and it is
enough to say they were rescued from an unworthy fate, and that they
were honestly come by. As for the authenticity of the anecdotes which I
have gleaned from the writings of this excellent person, and put
together with my own unrivalled facility, the name of Doctor
Rochecliffe will warrant accuracy, wherever that name happens to be
known.
With his history the reading part of the world are well acquainted; and
we might refer the tyro to honest Anthony a Wood, who looked up to him
as one of the pillars of High Church, and bestows on him an exemplary
character in the _Athenæ Oxonienses_, although the Doctor was educated
at Cambridge, England’s other eye.
It is well known that Doctor Rochecliffe early obtained preferment in
the Church, on account of the spirited share which he took in the
controversy with the Puritans; and that his work, entitled _Malleus
Hæresis_, was considered as a knock-down blow by all except those who
received it. It was that work which made him, at the early age of
thirty, Rector of Woodstock, and which afterwards secured him a place
in the Catalogue of the celebrated Century White;—and worse than being
shown up by that fanatic, among the catalogues of scandalous and
malignant priests admitted into benefices by the prelates, his opinions
occasioned the loss of his living of Woodstock by the ascendency of
Presbytery. He was Chaplain, during most part of the Civil War, to Sir
Henry Lee’s regiment, levied for the service of King Charles; and it
was said he engaged more than once personally in the field. At least it
is certain that Doctor Rochecliffe was repeatedly in great danger, as
will appear from more passages than one in the following history, which
speaks of his own exploits, like Caesar, in the third person. I
suspect, however, some Presbyterian commentator has been guilty of
interpolating two or three passages. The manuscript was long in
possession of the Everards, a distinguished family of that
persuasion.[4]
[4] It is hardly necessary to say, unless to some readers of very
literal capacity, that Dr. Rochecliffe and his manuscripts are alike
apocryphal.
During the Usurpation, Doctor Rochecliffe was constantly engaged in one
or other of the premature attempts at a restoration of monarchy; and
was accounted, for his audacity, presence of mind, and depth of
judgment, one of the greatest undertakers for the King in that busy
time; with this trifling drawback, that the plots in which he busied
himself were almost constantly detected. Nay, it was suspected that
Cromwell himself sometimes contrived to suggest to him the intrigues in
which he engaged, by which means the wily Protector made experiments on
the fidelity of doubtful friends, and became well acquainted with the
plots of declared enemies, which he thought it more easy to disconcert
and disappoint than to punish severely.
Upon the Restoration, Doctor Rochecliffe regained his living of
Woodstock, with other Church preferment, and gave up polemics and
political intrigues for philosophy. He was one of the constituent
members of the Royal Society, and was the person through whom Charles
required of that learned body solution of their curious problem, “Why,
if a vessel is filled brimful of water, and a large live fish plunged
into the water, nevertheless it shall not overflow the pitcher?” Doctor
Rochecliffe’s exposition of this phenomenon was the most ingenious and
instructive of four that were given in; and it is certain the Doctor
must have gained the honour of the day, but for the obstinacy of a
plain, dull, country gentleman, who insisted that the experiment should
be, in the first place, publicly tried. When this was done, the event
showed it would have been rather rash to have adopted the facts
exclusively on the royal authority; as the fish, however curiously
inserted into his native element, splashed the water over the hall, and
destroyed the credit of four ingenious essayists, besides a large
Turkey carpet.
Doctor Rochecliffe, it would seem, died about 1685, leaving many papers
behind him of various kinds, and, above all, many valuable anecdotes of
secret history, from which the following Memoirs have been extracted,
on which we intend to say only a few words by way of illustration.
The existence of Rosamond’s Labyrinth, mentioned in these pages, is
attested by Drayton in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Rosamond’s Labyrinth, whose ruins, together with her Well, being paved
with square stones in the bottom, and also her Tower, from which the
Labyrinth did run, are yet remaining, being vaults arched and walled
with stone and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by
which, if at any time her lodging were laid about by the Queen, she
might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by secret issues
take the air abroad, many furlongs about Woodstock in Oxfordshire.[5]
[5] Drayton’s England’s Heroical Epistles, Note A, on the Epistle,
Rosamond to King Henry.
It is highly probable, that a singular piece of phantasmagoria, which
was certainly played off upon the Commissioners of the Long Parliament,
who were sent down to dispark and destroy Woodstock, after the death of
Charles I., was conducted by means of the secret passages and recesses
in the ancient Labyrinth of Rosamond, round which successive Monarchs
had erected a Hunting-seat or Lodge.
There is a curious account of the disturbance given to those Honourable
Commissioners, inserted by Doctor Plot, in his Natural History of
Oxfordshire. But as I have not the book at hand, I can only allude to
the work of the celebrated Glanville upon Witches, who has extracted it
as an highly accredited narrative of supernatural dealings. The beds of
the Commissioners, and their servants, were hoisted up till they were
almost inverted, and then let down again so suddenly, as to menace them
with broken bones. Unusual and horrible noises disturbed those
sacrilegious intromitters with royal property. The devil, on one
occasion, brought them a warming-pan; on another, pelted them with
stones and horses’ bones. Tubs of water were emptied on them in their
sleep; and so many other pranks of the same nature played at their
expense, that they broke up housekeeping, and left their intended
spoliation only half completed. The good sense of Doctor Plot
suspected, that these feats were wrought by conspiracy and
confederation, which Glanville of course endeavours to refute with all
his might; for it could scarce be expected, that he who believed in so
convenient a solution as that of supernatural agency, would consent to
relinquish the service of a key, which will answer any lock, however
intricate.
Nevertheless, it was afterwards discovered, that Doctor Plot was
perfectly right; and that the only demon who wrought all these marvels,
was a disguised royalist—a fellow called Trusty Joe, or some such name,
formerly in the service of the Keeper of the Park, but who engaged in
that of the Commissioners, on purpose to subject them to his
persecution. I think I have seen some account of the real state of the
transaction, and of the machinery by which the wizard worked his
wonders; but whether in a book, or a pamphlet, I am uncertain. I
remember one passage particularly to this purpose. The Commissioners
having agreed to retain some articles out of the public account, in
order to be divided among themselves, had entered into an indenture for
ascertaining their share in the peculation, which they hid in a bow-pot
for security. Now, when an assembly of divines, aided by the most
strict religious characters in the neighbourhood of Woodstock, were
assembled to conjure down the supposed demon, Trusty Joe had contrived
a firework, which he let off in the midst of the exorcism, and which
destroyed the bow-pot; and, to the shame and confusion of the
Commissioners, threw their secret indenture into the midst of the
assembled ghost-seers, who became thus acquainted with their secret
schemes of peculation.
It is, however, to little purpose for me to strain my memory about
ancient and imperfect recollections concerning the particulars of these
fantastic disturbances at Woodstock, since Doctor Rochecliffe’s papers
give such a much more accurate narrative than could be obtained from
any account in existence before their publication. Indeed, I might have
gone much more fully into this part of my subject, for the materials
are ample;—but, to tell the reader a secret, some friendly critics were
of opinion they made the story hang on hand; and thus I was prevailed
on to be more concise on the subject than I might otherwise have been.
The impatient reader, perhaps, is by this time accusing me of keeping
the sun from him with a candle. Were the sunshine as bright, however,
as it is likely to prove; and the flambeau, or link, a dozen of times
as smoky, my friend must remain in the inferior atmosphere a minute
longer, while I disclaim the idea of poaching on another’s manor.
Hawks, we say in Scotland, ought not to pick out hawks’ eyes, or tire
upon each other’s quarry; and therefore, if I had known that, in its
date and its characters this tale was likely to interfere with that
recently published by a distinguished contemporary, I should
unquestionably have left Doctor Rochecliffe’s manuscript in peace for
the present season. But before I was aware of this circumstance, this
little book was half through the press; and I had only the alternative
of avoiding any intentional imitation, by delaying a perusal of the
contemporary work in question. Some accidental collision there must be,
when works of a similar character are finished on the same general
system of historical manners, and the same historical personages are
introduced. Of course, if such have occurred, I shall be probably the
sufferer. But my intentions have been at least innocent, since I look
on it as one of the advantages attending the conclusion of WOODSTOCK,
that the finishing of my own task will permit me to have the pleasure
of reading BRAMBLETYE-HOUSE, from which I have hitherto conscientiously
abstained.