Admire well the graceful art
Of Nature's hand in every part:
Full well he knoweth how to prize
This fair Terrestrial Paradise;
And 'tis his wish sincere and true
That others should enjoy it too.
But to return to the High Cross and the Watling Street. The description
on the Cross was in Latin, of which the following is a translation:
The noblemen and gentry, ornaments of the counties of Warwickshire
and Leicestershire at the instance of the Right Honourable Basil Earl
of Denbigh, have caused this pillar to be erected in grateful as well
as perpetual remembrance of peace at last restored by her Majesty
Queen Anne. If, Traveller, you search for the footsteps of the
ancient Romans you may here behold them. For here their most
celebrated ways crossing one another extend to the utmost boundaries
of Britain. Here the Bennones kept their quarters and at the distance
of one mile from here Claudius, a certain commander of a Cohort,
seems to have had a camp towards the Street, and towards the Fosse a
tomb.
We were pleased to see that the remains of the Cross had been enclosed
in the garden of a house belonging to the Earl of Denbigh, a descendant
of the Earl who had been instrumental in building it, and it was now
comparatively safe from further defacement.
The Romans built stations along their roads, and near the High Cross
stood their military station Bennones, on the side of which many Roman
remains, including a Roman urn, had been discovered. It was of great
importance to them that any hostile movement amongst the turbulent
Britons should be reported immediately, so young men who were quick
runners were employed to convey intelligence from one station to
another; but this system was improved upon later by building on the side
of the road, in as prominent a position as possible, at intervals of
five or six miles, a house where forty horses were stabled so that news
or soldiers could, if required, be carried by relays of horses a
distance of a hundred miles along the road in the course of a single
day. We were now only about twelve miles from Leicester, and we had to
walk about six miles in that county in order to reach Lutterworth,
famous throughout England as the parish where the great Reformer John
Wiclif spent the last nineteen years of his life as rector. We passed
through a fine grazing and fox-hunting country on our way, and found
Lutterworth a rather pleasantly situated little town. Our first visit
was naturally to the church, and as we walked along the quiet street
leading up to it we saw a woman standing at her cottage door, to whom
we spoke concerning the great divine, asking incidentally how long it
was since he was rector there. She said she did not know exactly, but as
far as she could remember she thought it was about 146 years since he
died. On arriving at the church we found that it was about 487 years
since Wiclif departed, and we thought it strange that a lady who lived
almost under the shadow of the church steeple could have been so
ill-informed. The church had recently been restored, and a painting of
the Day of Doom, or Judgment, had been discovered over the arch of the
chancel under the whitewash or plaster, which we were told Oliver
Cromwell had ordered to be put on. At the top of this picture our
Saviour was represented as sitting on a rainbow with two angels on each
side, two of whom were blowing trumpets, and on the earth, which
appeared far down below, the graves were opening, and all sorts of
strange people, from the king down to the humblest peasant, were coming
out of their tombs, while the fire and smoke from others proclaimed the
doom of their occupants, and skulls and bones lay scattered about in all
directions.
[Illustration: JOHN WICLIF. _From the portrait in Lutterworth Church_]
It was not a very pleasant picture to look upon, so we adjourned to the
vestry, where we were shown a vestment worn by Wiclif in which some
holes had been cut either with knives or scissors. On inquiry we were
informed that the pieces cut out had been "taken away by visitors,"
which made us wonder why the vestment had not been taken better care of.
We were shown an old pulpit, and the chair in which Wiclif fell when he
was attacked by paralysis, and in which he was carried out of church to
die three days afterwards. We could not describe his life and work
better than by the inscription on the mural monument subscribed for in
1837:
Sacred to the Memory of John Wiclif the earliest Champion of
Ecclesiastical Reformation in England. He was born in Yorkshire in
the year 1324, and in the year 1375 he was presented to the Rectory
of Lutterworth. At Oxford he acquired not only the renown of a
consummate Schoolman, but the far more glorious title of the
Evangelical Doctor. His whole life was one perpetual struggle against
the corruptions and encroachments of the Papal Court and the
impostures of its devoted auxiliaries, the Mendicant Fraternities.
His labours in the cause of Scriptural truths were crowned by one
immortal achievement, his Translation of the Bible into the English
tongue. This mighty work drew on him, indeed, the bitter hatred of
all who were making merchandise of the popular credulity and
ignorance, but he found abundant reward in the blessing of his
countrymen of every rank and age, to whom he unfolded the words of
Eternal Light. His mortal remains were interred near this spot, but
they were not allowed to rest in peace. After a lapse of many years
his bones were dragged from the grave and consigned to the flames;
and his ashes were cast in the waters of the adjoining stream.
That he was a man of distinction may be taken for granted, as he was
master of that famous college at Oxford, Balliol College, where his
picture hangs in the dining-hall to-day.
When in Lichfield Cathedral, where we saw Chantrey's monument of Bishop
Ryder, we had omitted to ask for particulars about him, but here we were
told that he was appointed Rector of Lutterworth in 1801, and had been a
benefactor to the town. He was made Canon of Windsor in 1808, Dean of
Wells 1812, Bishop of Gloucester 1815, and finally became Bishop of
Lichfield and Coventry. He died at Hastings in 1836, and as Chantrey
himself died in 1841, his monument of Bishop Ryder, that had impressed
us so deeply, must have been one of his latest and best productions.
[Illustration: LUTTERWORTH CHURCH]
Lutterworth was the property of William the Conqueror in 1086, and it
was King Edward III who presented the living to Wiclif, who was not only
persecuted by the Pope, but also by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishop of London. On two occasions he had to appear before the Papal
Commission, and if he had not been the personal friend of John o' Gaunt,
Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of the King Edward who had given him
the living, and probably the most powerful man in England next to the
king, he would inevitably have suffered martyrdom. He was equally
fortunate in the following reign, as John o' Gaunt was uncle to Richard
II, the reigning monarch, under whose protection he was spared to finish
his great work and to translate the Holy Bible so that it could be read
in the English language.
We went to see the bridge which crossed the small stream known as the
River Swift, for it was there that Wiclif's bones were burned and the
ashes thrown into the stream. The historian related that they did not
remain there, for the waters of the Swift conveyed them to the River
Avon, the River Avon to the River Severn, the Severn to the narrow seas,
and thence into the wide ocean, thus becoming emblematic of Wiclif's
doctrines, which in later years spread over the wide, wide world.
A well-known writer once humorously observed that the existence of a
gallows in any country was one of the signs of civilisation, but
although we did not see or hear of any gallows at Lutterworth, there
were other articles, named in the old books of the constables, which
might have had an equally civilising influence, especially if they had
been used as extensively as the stocks and whipping-post as recorded in
a list of vagrants who had been taken up and whipped by Constables
Cattell and Pope, from October 15th, 1657, to September 30th, 1658. The
records of the amounts paid for repairs to the various instruments of
torture, which included a lock-up cage for prisoners and a cuck, or
ducking-stool, in which the constables ducked scolding wives and other
women in a deep hole near the river bridge, led us to conclude that they
must have been extensively used.
A curious custom prevailed in Lutterworth in olden times. There were two
mills on the River Swift, and the people were compelled to grind all
their malt at one mill and all their corn at another, and to bake all
their bread in one oven; in those "days of bondage" a person durst not
buy a pound of flour from any other miller. These privileges were abused
by the millers to make high charges, and it was on record that a person
who ventured to bake a cake in his own oven was summoned, but discharged
on his begging pardon and paying expenses. This unsatisfactory state of
things continued until the year 1758, when a rebellion arose headed by a
local patriot named Bickley. This townsman roused his fellow-citizens to
resist, and built a malthouse of his own, his example being soon
followed by others, who defied the owner of the privileged mill, and
entered into a solemn bond to defend any action that might be brought
against them. The contest was one of the most interesting and remarkable
ever known in the district, and was decided at the Leicester Assizes in
July 1758, the verdict being in favour of the parishioners, with costs
to the amount of £300. One of the greatest curiosities to be seen in
Lutterworth was an old clock which was there in 1798, and still remained
in good working order; the description of it reads as follows:
The case is of mahogany; and the face is oval, being nineteen inches
by fifteen inches. The upper part exhibits a band of music,
consisting of two violins, a violoncello, a German flute, three vocal
performers, and a boy and girl; the lower part has the hour and
minutes indicated by neat gilt hands; above the centre is a moment
hand, which shows the true dead beat. On the right is a hand
pointing to--chimes silent--all dormant--quarters silent--all active;
to signify that the clock will perform as those words imply. On the
left is a hand that points to the days of the week, and goes round in
the course of seven days, and shifts the barrel to a fresh time at
noon and midnight. The clock strikes the hour, the four quarters, and
plays a tune three times over every three hours, either on the bells
alone, the lyricord, or on both together. Three figures beat exact
time to the music, and three seem to play on their instruments; and
the boy and the girl both dance through the whole if permitted. But
still, by a touch all are dormant, and by another touch all are in
action again. The lyricord will play either low or loud. The machine
goes eight days, either as a watch clock, quarter clock,
quarter-chime-clock or as a quarter chime lyrical clock. It will go
with any or all parts in action, or with any or all parts dormant. It
has four chime barrels, and plays sixty-five tunes, many of them in
two or three parts, on nineteen musical bells, and on the like number
of double musical wires. A child may do everything necessary to show
its varied and complicated action.
[Illustration: LUTTERWORTH AND THE RIVER SWIFT, WHERE THE ASHES OF
WICLIF WERE SCATTERED.]
The maker was Mr. Deacon, a Baptist minister of Barton-in-the-Beans, who
began life as a farm boy when he was eleven years of age. A gentleman
happened to call on the farmer one evening and had some nuts given to
him, and as he could not crack them, one of the other servants said to
the boy, "Sam, bring the wooden nut-crackers you made!" When the boy
brought them, the visitor, after cracking a nut, examined them carefully
for some time, and was so struck with the ingenuity displayed in their
construction that he took the lad and apprenticed him to a clock-maker
in Leicester, where he became one of the cleverest workmen in the
kingdom, the most elaborate and curious piece of mechanism he made being
this wonderful clock.
We returned from Lutterworth by a different route, for we were now off
to see Peeping Tom at Coventry; but our experiments on the roads were
not altogether satisfactory, for we got lost in some by-roads where
there was no one to inquire from, and eventually reached the snug little
village of Monks Kirby. Here, according to the name of the village, we
should at one time have found a Danish settlement, and at another a
church belonging to the monks; but on this occasion we found a church
and a comfortable-looking inn opposite to it, where we called for an
early tea. This was quickly served and disposed of, and shortly
afterwards we reached, coming from the direction of the High Cross, the
Fosse, or Foss-way, one of the four great roads made by the Romans in
England, so named by them because there was a fosse, or ditch, on each
side of it. We walked along its narrow and straight surface until we
came to a road which crossed it, and here, about halfway between Rugby
and Coventry, we turned to the right, leaving the "fosse" to continue
its course across Dunsmore Heath, where in ancient times Guy, the famous
Earl of Warwick, slew the terrible Dun Cow of Dunsmore, "a monstrous
wyld and cruell beast." The village of Brinklow was now before us,
presenting a strange appearance as we walked towards it from the brook
below, for at the entrance stood a lofty mound formerly a Roman camp,
while behind it was a British tumulus. In the Civil War there was much
fighting all along the road from here to Coventry, and Cromwell's
soldiers had not left us much to look at in the church, as the windows
had all been "blown out" at that time, leaving only some small pieces of
stained glass. The church, however, was quite a curiosity, for it sloped
with the hill, and was many feet lower at the Tower end than at the
east. We walked along a rather steep inclined plane until we came to a
flight of four steps which landed us on the chancel floor, where another
inclined plane brought us up to the foot of the two steps leading to the
altar; we were told that there was only one other church built in such a
form "in all England." We were now well within the borders of the county
of Warwickshire, which, with the other two Midland Counties of
Worcestershire and Staffordshire, formerly contained more leading Roman
Catholic families than any other part of England, so we were not
surprised when we heard that we were passing through a country that had
been associated with the Gunpowder Plot, and that one incident connected
with it had occurred at Combe Abbey, which we would pass a mile or two
farther on our way. The originator of the Gunpowder Plot, Catesby, was
intimately connected with many of the leading families in these
counties, and was lineally descended from the Catesby of King Richard
III's time, whose fame had been handed down in the old rhyme:
The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel the Dog
Rule all England under the Hog.
the rat meaning Ratcliffe, the cat Catesby, and the hog King Richard,
whose cognisance was a boar. Robert Catesby, the descendant of the
"cat," was said to be one of the greatest bigots that ever lived; he was
the friend of Garnet, the Jesuit, and had been concerned in many plots
against Queen Elizabeth; when that queen died and King James, the son of
Mary Queen of Scots, ascended the throne, their expectations rose high,
for his mother had suffered so much from Queen Elizabeth that they
looked upon her as a martyr, and were sure that their form of religion
would now be restored. But great was their chagrin when they found that
James, probably owing to his early education under John Knox in
Scotland, was more ready to put the laws in force against the Papists
than to give them greater toleration.
[Illustration: THE OLD MANOR HOUSE, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS.]
Catesby and his friends resolved to try to depose James and to place the
Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, afterwards the beautiful Queen
of Bohemia, whom her royal parents had placed under the care of the Earl
of Harrington, then the owner of Combe Abbey, about five miles from
Coventry, on the throne in his stead. The conspirators assembled at
Dunchurch, near Rugby, but held their meetings about six miles away, in
a room over the entrance to the old Manor House at Ashby St. Ledgers,
the home of Catesby, where it was proposed to settle matters by blowing
up the Houses of Parliament. These were to be opened on November 5th,
1605, when the King, Queen, and Prince of Wales, with the Lords and
Commons, would all be assembled. In those days the vaults, or cellars,
of the Parliament House were let to different merchants for the storage
of goods, and one of these immediately under the House of Lords was
engaged and filled with some innocent-looking barrels, in reality
containing gunpowder, which were covered by faggots of brushwood. All
preparations were now completed except to appoint one of their number to
apply the torch, an operation which would probably involve certain
death. In the meantime Catesby had become acquainted with Guy Fawkes, a
member of an old Yorkshire family, and almost as bigoted a Papist as
himself, who had joined the conspirators at Dunchurch, the house where
he lodged being still known as Guy Fawkes' House, and when the question
came up for decision, he at once volunteered his services, as he was a
soldier and a brave man. They were accepted, and Sir Everard Digby was
to stay at Dunchurch in order to be ready to seize the young Princess
Elizabeth while the others went to London. It so happened that one of
the conspirators had a friend, Lord Monteagle, whom he knew would be
sure to attend the opening of Parliament, and as he did not want him to
be killed he caused an anonymous letter to be written warning him not to
attend the opening of Parliament, "for though there be no appearance of
any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament,
and yet shall not see who hurts them." The letter was delivered to
Monteagle by a man in a long coat, who laid it on his table and
disappeared immediately. It was afterwards handed to King James, who,
after reading the last paragraph, repeated it aloud, "and yet they shall
not see who hurts them," and said to Cecil, "This smells gunpowder!"
Their suspicions were aroused, but they waited until midnight on
November 4th, and then sent soldiers well armed to search the vaults,
where they found a man with a long sword amongst the barrels. He fought
savagely, but was soon overpowered. When the conspirators found that
their plot had been discovered, and that Guy Fawkes was in custody,
instead of escaping to France as they might easily have done, they
hastened down to Dunchurch, "as if struck by infatuation," in the wild
hope of capturing the young Princess and raising a civil war in her
name; but by the time they reached Combe Abbey, the Earl of Harrington
had removed Elizabeth to Coventry, which at that time was one of the
most strongly fortified places in England. They now realised that their
game was up, and the gang dispersed to hide themselves; but when the
dreadful nature of the plot became known, it created such a profound
sensation of horror throughout the country, that every one joined in the
search for the conspirators, who in the end were all captured and
executed. Great rejoicings were held, bonfires lit, bells rung, and guns
fired in almost every village, and thereby the people were taught to--
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
The Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot.
These celebrations have been continued on each fifth of November for
centuries, November 5th becoming known as "Bonfire Day." And in our Book
of Common Prayer there was a special service for the day which was only
removed in the time of Queen Victoria. Guy Fawkes was executed on
February 6th, 1606.
Fortunately for the Protestants the reign of the queen who was known by
them as the "Bloody Queen Mary" was of short duration, for they were
then subjected to very great cruelties; on the other hand there was no
doubt that during the much longer reign of Queen Elizabeth that
followed, the Papists also suffered greatly; still under James they were
now bound to suffer more in every way, short of death, for the great
mass of their fellow-countrymen had turned against them owing to the
murderous character of the Gunpowder Plot, so--
On Bonfire Day, as Britons should,
They heaped up sticks, and turf, and wood;
And lighted Bonfires bright and hot,
In memory of the Popish Plot!
We were ourselves greatly interested in November 5th, which was now due
to arrive in three days' time; not because some of our ancestors had
been adherents to the Roman Catholic Faith, nor because of the
massacres, for in that respect we thought one side was quite as bad as
the other; but because it happened to be my birthday, and some of our
earliest and happiest associations were connected with that day. I could
remember the time when a candle was placed in every available
window-pane at home on November 5th, and when I saw the glare of the big
bonfire outside and the pin-wheels, the rip-raps, and small fireworks,
and heard the church bells ringing merrily, and the sound of the guns
firing, I naturally thought as a child that all these tokens of
rejoicing were there because it was my birthday. Then the children from
the village came! first one small group and then another; these were the
"Soulers," or "Soul-Cakers," who ought to have appeared, according to
history, on All Souls' Day; they were generally satisfied with apples or
pears, or with coppers. The most mysterious visitor was the horse's
head, or hobby horse, which came without its body or legs, but could
make a noise just like the neighing of a horse, and could also open its
mouth so wide that a glass filled with beer could pass down its throat.
To complete the illusion we could hear its jaws, which were filled with
very large teeth, close together with a crack, and although the glass
was returned in some way or other, we never saw the beer again. The
horse's head was accompanied by a lot of men known as Mummers, dressed
in all sorts of queer clothes, who acted a short play, but the only
words I could remember were, "King George, King George, thou hast killed
my only son!" and at that point one of the actors fell on the grass as
if he were dead. But these were reveries of the past; when the spell
broke I found myself walking with my brother in the dark alongside the
grounds of Combe Abbey, the only lights we could see being some in the
park, which might have been those from the abbey itself. We were
expecting to come upon a private menagerie which was supposed to exist
somewhere in the park, and we had prepared ourselves for the roars of
the lions seeking their prey as they heard our footsteps on the road, or
for the horrid groans of other wild animals; but beyond a few minor
noises, which we could not recognise, all was quiet, and passing the
small village of Binley we soon arrived at Coventry, where we stayed for
the night at an ancient hostelry near the centre of the town.
St. George, the Patron Saint of England, who lived in the early part of
the fourth century, and was reckoned among the seven champions of
Christendom, was said to have been born in Coventry. In olden times a
chapel, named after him, existed here, in which King Edward IV, when he
kept St. George's Feast on St. George's Day, April 23rd, 1474, attended
service. Coventry was a much older town than we expected to find it,
and, like Lichfield, it was known as the city of the three spires; but
here they were on three different churches. We had many arguments on our
journey, both between ourselves and with others, as to why churches
should have towers in some places and spires in others. One gentleman
who had travelled extensively through Britain observed that towers were
more numerous along the sea coasts and on the borders of Wales and
Scotland, while spires were most in evidence in the low Midland plains
where trees abounded. In these districts it was important to have part
of the church standing out from the foliage, while on a hill or a bare
cliff a short tower was all that was needed. He actually knew more than
one case where the squires in recent times had a short spire placed on
the top of the church tower, like the extinguisher of an old
candlestick, because it was said they needed guide-posts by which to
find their way home from hunting!
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH SPIRE, COVENTRY.]
In olden times, ere the enemy could approach the village, the cattle
were able to be driven in the church, while the men kept an easy
look-out from the tower, and the loopholes in it served as places where
arrows could be shot from safe cover. In some districts we passed
through we could easily distinguish the position of the villages by the
spires rising above the foliage, and very pretty they appeared, and at
times a rivalry seemed to have existed which should possess the loftiest
or most highly decorated spire, some of them being of exceptional
beauty. The parish churches were almost invariably placed on the highest
point in the villages, so that before there were any proper roads the
parishioners could find their way to church so long as they could see
the tower or spire, and to that position at the present day, it is
interesting to note, all roads still converge.
We had no idea that the story of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom was so
ancient, but we found it dated back to the time of Leofric, Earl of
Mercia, who in 1043 founded an abbey here which was endowed by his wife,
the Lady Godiva. The earl, the owner of Coventry, levied very hard taxes
on the inhabitants, and treated their petitions for relief with scorn.
Lady Godiva, on the contrary, had moved amongst the people, and knew the
great privations they had suffered through having to pay these heavy
taxes, and had often pleaded with her husband on their behalf. At last
he promised her that he would repeal the taxes if she would ride naked
through the town, probably thinking his wife would not undertake such a
task. But she had seen so much suffering amongst the poor people that
she decided to go through the ordeal for their sakes, and the day was
fixed, when she would ride through the town. Orders were given by the
people that everybody should darken their windows and retire to the back
part of their houses until Lady Godiva had passed. All obeyed except one
man, "Tom the Tailor," afterwards nicknamed "Peeping Tom," who, as the
lady rode by on her palfrey, enveloped in her long tresses of hair,
which fell round her as a garment, looked down on her from his window,
and of him the historian related that "his eyes chopped out of his head
even as he looked." The ride ended, the taxes were repealed, and ever
afterwards the good Lady Godiva was enshrined in the hearts of the
people of Coventry. Many years later a beautiful stained-glass window
was placed in the Parish Church to commemorate this famous event, and
Leofric was portrayed thereon as presenting Godiva with a charter
bearing the words:
I Luriche for love of thee
Doe make Coventry toll free.
[Illustration: THOMAS PARR =_The Olde, Old, very Olde Man or Thomas Par,
the Sonne of John Parr of Winnington in the Parish of Alberbury. In the
County of Shropshire who was Borne in 1483 in The Raigne of King Edward
the 4th and is now living in The Strand, being aged 152 yeares and odd
Monethes 1635 He dyed November the 15th And is now buryed in Westminster
1635_=]
This story Tennyson has immortalised, and its memory is still
perpetuated in the pageants which are held from time to time in the
city. Coventry was described in 1642 by Jeremiah Wharton, an officer
under the Earl of Essex in the Parliamentary Army, as "a City environed
with a wall, co-equal with, if not exceeding, that of London, for
breadth and height, and with gates and battlements, and magnificent
churches and stately streets, and abundant fountains of water,
altogether a place very sweetly situated, and where there was no lack of
venison." The walls of Coventry, begun in the year 1355, were very
formidable, being six yards high and three yards thick, and having
thirty-two towers and twelve principal gates. They defied both Edward IV
and Charles I when with their armies they appeared before them and
demanded admission, but they were demolished after the Civil War by
order of Charles II, because the people of Coventry had refused
admission to his father, King Charles I. Coventry possessed a greater
number of archives than almost any other town in England, covering eight
centuries and numbering over eleven thousand. My brother was delighted
to find that one of them related to a very old man named Thomas Parr,
recording the fact that he passed through the town on his way to London
in 1635, at the age of 152 years. It reminded him of a family medicine
known as Old Parr's Pills, which at one time was highly prized; they had
been used by our grandfather, who died in his ninety-seventh year, and
he often wondered whether his longevity was in any way due to those
pills. They were supposed to have been made from the same kind of herbs
as old Parr was known to have used in his efforts to keep himself alive,
and during supper my brother talked about nothing else but that old man;
if he was an authority on anything, it was certainly on old Thomas Parr.
This man was born on the Montgomery border of Shropshire, where a tablet
to his memory in Great Wollaston Church bore the following inscription: