of having a statue erected to him during his lifetime, an unusual honour
which he shared with few others--Queen Victoria, the great Duke of
Wellington, Lord Roberts, Reginald, Earl of Devon, and, of course, Mr.
Gladstone. Mr. Palmer's fellow-townsmen elected to honour him in this way,
and decided to have a statue which should be in every way true to life,
and show the man "in his habit as he lived"--one in which the clothes
should be as characteristic as the features. Our grandfathers would have
represented him wrapped in a Roman toga, but those notions do not commend
themselves to the present age, and so the effigy stands in all the
supremely _un_-decorative guise of everyday dress: homely coat, and
trousers excruciatingly baggy at the knees; bareheaded, and in one hand a
silk hat and an unfolded umbrella. This is possibly the only instance in
which these last necessary, but unlovely articles have been reproduced in
bronze.
Ancient Reading knew nothing of biscuits or sauces. It was the home of one
of the very greatest Abbeys in England. The Abbot of Reading ranked next
after those of Westminster and Glastonbury, and usually held important
offices of State. In the Abbey, Parliaments have been held, Royal
marriages celebrated, and Kings and Queens laid to rest. Yet of all this
grandeur no shred is left. There are ruins; but, formless and featureless
as they are, they cannot recall to the eye anything of the architectural
glories of the past, and the bones of the Kings have for centuries been
scattered no man knows whither.
There are pleasant stories of Reading, and gruesome ones. Horrible was the
fate of Hugh Faringdon, the last Abbot, who was, in 1539, with one of his
monks, hanged, drawn and quartered for denying the religious supremacy of
that royal wild beast, Henry the Eighth. The King had been friendly with
him not so long before, and had presented him with a silver cup, as a
token of this friendship.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AND THE ABBOT_]
One wonders if this unfortunate prelate was the same person as that Abbot
of Reading mentioned by Fuller. The Abbot of that story was a man
particularly fond of what have been gracefully termed the "pleasures of
the table." His eyes, as the Psalmist puts it, "swelled out with
fatness,"--and his stomach, too, for that matter. To him came one day a
hungry stranger, fresh from the appetizing sport of hunting. He had lost
his way, and craved the hospitality of the Abbey. That hospitality was
extended to him, promptly enough, and he was seated at the Abbot's own
table.
It will readily be guessed that this hungry stranger was the King. He had
wandered thus far, away from Windsor Forest and his attendants, and was
genuinely famished. The Abbot, however, had no notion who he was; but he
could see that this strayed huntsman was a very prince among good
trencher-men, and envied him accordingly. "Well fare thy heart," said he,
as he saw the roast beef disappearing; "I would give an hundred pounds
could I feed so lustily on beef as you do. Alas! my weak and squeezie
stomach will hardly digest the wing of a small rabbit or chicken."
The King took the compliment and more beef, and, pledging his host,
departed. Some weeks after, when the Abbot had quite forgotten all about
the matter, he was sent for, clapped into the Tower, and kept, a miserable
prisoner--not knowing what his offence might be, or what would befall him
next--on bread and water. At length one day a sirloin of beef was placed
before him, and he made such short work of it as to prove to the King, who
was secretly watching him, that his treatment for "squeezie stomach" had
succeeded admirably; so, springing out of the cupboard in which he had
secreted himself, "My lord," says he, "deposit presently your hundred
pounds in gold, or else you go not hence all the days of your life. I
have been your physician to cure you, and here, as I deserve, I demand my
fee for the same."
The Abbot was enlightened. He, as Fuller says, "down with his dust, and,
glad he escaped so, returned to Reading, as somewhat lighter in purse, so
much more merry in heart, than when he came thence."
Little remains at Reading to tell of the coaching age. Where are the
"Bear," the "George," the "Crown"? Gone, with their jovial guests, into
the limbo of forgotten things, almost as thoroughly as the civilization of
Roman Calleva--the Silchester of modern times--situated at some distance
down the road from Reading to Basingstoke, and whose relics may be seen
gathered together in the Reading Museum. To that collection should be
added a set of articles used in the everyday business of coaching. They
would be just as curious to-day as those Roman potsherds of a thousand
years ago.
XXIV
The Bath Road climbs, with some show of steepness, out of Reading,
presently to enter upon that stretch of nearly seventeen miles of
comparatively flat sandy gravel road which, for speed cycling, is the best
part of the whole journey. The surface is nearly always splendid, save in
very dry seasons, when the sand renders the going somewhat heavy, and the
cyclist may well be surprised to learn that it was here, between Reading
and Newbury, that Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach,
lost their way, entirely through the badness of the roads.
[Illustration: THE STAGE WAGGON. (_After Rowlandson._)]
[Sidenote: _THE "BERKSHIRE LADY"_]
In spite of these modern advantages, the road is quite suburban and
uninteresting until Calcot Green is passed, in two miles and a half. But
it is here, amid the pleasant, though tame, scenery that Calcot Park, the
home of the famous "Berkshire Lady," may be sought.
The "Berkshire Lady" was the daughter of Sir William Kendrick, of Calcot,
who flourished in the reign of Queen Anne. Upon the death of her father,
she became sole heiress to the estate and an income of some five thousand
pounds per annum. Rich, beautiful, and endowed with a vivacious manner, it
is not surprising that she was courted by all the vinous, red-faced young
squires in the neighbourhood; but she refused these offers until,
according to an old ballad--
"Being at a noble wedding
In the famous town of Reading,
A young gentleman she saw
Who belonged to the law."
We may shrewdly suspect that she not only "saw" him, but that they
indulged in a desperate flirtation in the conservatory, or what may have
answered to a conservatory in those times.
The "Berkshire Lady" was evidently a New Woman, born very much in advance
of her proper era. For what did she do? Why, she fell in love with that
"young gentleman" straight away, and so furiously that nothing would
suffice her but to send him an anonymous challenge to fight a duel or to
marry her.
Benjamin Child--for that was the name of the young and briefless (and also
impecunious) barrister--was astonished at receiving a challenge from no
one in particular; but, accompanied by a friend, proceeded to the
rendezvous appointed by the unknown in Calcot Park. Arrived there, they
perceived a masked lady, with a rapier, who informed the pair that she was
the challenger:--
"'It was I that did invite you:
You shall wed me, or I'll fight you,
So now take your choice,' said she;
'Either fight, or marry me.'
Says he, 'Madam, pray what mean ye?
In my life I ne'er have seen ye;
Pray unmask, your visage show,
Then I'll tell you, aye or no.'"
The lady, however, would not unmask:--
"'I will not my face uncover,
Till the marriage rites are over;
Therefore take you which you will,
Wed me, sir, or try your skill.'"
The friend advised Benjamin Child, Esq., to take his chance of her being
poor and pretty, or rich and--plain (those being the usually accepted
conjunctions), and to marry her, which he accordingly promised to do. He
had a reward for his moral courage, for the lady unmasked and disclosed
herself as the beautiful unknown with whom he had flirted at the wedding.
That they "lived happily ever afterwards" we need find no difficulty in
believing.
[Illustration: THEALE.]
Many stories were current locally of this Mr. Child. One, in particular
(certainly not a romantic one), related his great fondness for oysters, of
which he was in the habit of consuming large quantities; in fact, he is
said to have kept a museum of the tubs emptied by him, for one room in
Calcot House was fitted round with shelves, upon which these empty
mementos were arranged in regular order. It was his humour to show his
friends this unique arrangement as a convincing proof of his capabilities
in that particular branch of good living.
Upon the death of his wife, Calcot became unbearable to him, and he sold
it. But, curiously enough, nothing could induce him to quit the house, and
the new proprietor was reduced to rendering it uninhabitable to him by
unroofing it. Mr. Child then retired to a small cottage in an adjoining
wood, where he spent the rest of his days in retirement.
The Kendrick vault in the church of St. Mary, Reading, was exposed to view
in 1820, when, among the numerous coffins found, was one bearing the
inscription, "Frances Child, wife of Benjamin Child, of Calcot, first
daughter of Sir W. Kendrick, died 1722, aged 35." The coffin was of lead,
and was moulded to the form of the body, even to the lineaments of the
face. Mr. Child was the last person buried in this vault. His coffin, of
unusually large dimensions, is dated 1767.
[Sidenote: _THEALE_]
Two and a half miles from Calcot Green, and we are at Theale, a village
prettily embowered among trees, but possessing a large and extraordinarily
bad "Carpenter's Gothic" church, built about 1840, which looks quite
charming at the distance of a quarter of a mile, but has been known to
afflict architects who have made its close acquaintance with hopeless
melancholia. In fine, Theale church is a horrid example of Early Victorian
imitation of the Early English style.
And now the road wanders sweetly between the green and pleasant levels
beside the sedgy Kennet. Road, rail, river, and canal run side by side, or
but slightly parted, for miles, past Woolhampton and the decayed town of
Thatcham, to Newbury, and so on to Hungerford.
A short mile before reaching Woolhampton, there stands, on the left-hand
side of the road, quite lonely, a wayside inn, the "Rising Sun," a relic
of coaching times. They still show one, in the parlour, the old
booking-office in which parcels were received for the old road-waggons
that plied with luggage between London and Bath, and talk of the days when
the house used to own stabling for forty horses. A larger inn is the
"Angel," at Woolhampton, with a most elaborate iron sign, from which
depends a little carved figure of a vine-crowned Bacchus, astride his
barrel, carved forty years ago by a wood-carver engaged on the restoration
of Woolhampton Church. Tramps and other travellers unacquainted with the
classics generally take this vinous heathen god to be a representation of
the Angel after whom the inn was named.
[Illustration: WOOLHAMPTON.]
Woolhampton, once blessed with two "Angels," has now but one, for what was
once known as the "Upper Angel" has been re-named the "Falmouth Arms."
Although Woolhampton village possesses a railway station on the Hants
and Berks branch of the Great Western Railway, travellers will look in
vain for the name of it in their railway guides. If they will refer to
"Midgham," however, they will have found it under another title.
Originally called by the name of the village, it was found that passengers
and luggage frequently lost their way here in mistake for Wolverhampton,
also on the Great Western, and so the name had to be changed.
[Illustration: THATCHAM.]
[Sidenote: _THATCHAM_]
Three and a half miles from Woolhampton comes Thatcham, famed in the
coaching age for its "King's Head" inn, but now a decayed market town
which has sunk to the status of a very dull village. A battered stone, all
that remains of a market cross, stands in the middle of the wide, deserted
street, enclosed by a circular seat, bearing an inscription recounting the
history of the market, and the kingly protection which Henry the Third
afforded the place against the "Newbury men." But, kingly help
notwithstanding, the "Newbury men" have long since snatched its trade away
from Thatcham, which has become a village, while Newbury has grown to be a
town of 20,000 inhabitants. The only interesting object in the long street
is Thatcham Chapel, an isolated Perpendicular building, purchased for
10_s._ by Lady Frances Winchcombe in 1707. She presented it to a Blue Coat
school which she founded in the village.
XXV
Newbury, the "hated rival," is three miles down the road. Within a mile of
it in coaching times, but now not to be distinguished from the town
itself, is Speenhamland, the site of that famous coaching inn, the
"Pelican," whose charges were of so monumental a character that Quin has
immortalized them in the lines:--
"The famous inn at Speenhamland,
That stands beneath the hill,
May well be called the Pelican,
From its enormous bill."
Alas! how are the mighty fallen! The Pelican is no longer an inn, but has
been divided up, and part of it is a veterinary establishment.
[Illustration: RAIL AND RIVER: THE KENNET AND THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.]
[Sidenote: _THOMAS STACKHOUSE_]
The most famous inhabitant of Newbury was that fifteenth-century clothier,
that "Jack of Newbury," whose wealth and public benefactions were alike
considered wonderful in his day. The most notorious inhabitant was that
scandalous Vicar of Beenham Vallance, near by, who flourished flamboyantly
here between 1733 and 1752. Candour compels the admission that the Rev.
Thomas Stackhouse, besides being the learned author of the "History of the
Bible," was also a great drunkard. That history, indeed, he chiefly wrote
at an inn still standing on the Bath Road near Thatcham, called "Jack's
Booth." He would stay there for days at a time, and write (and drink), in
an arbour in the garden, going frequently from this retreat to his church
on Sundays, where, in the pulpit, he would break into incoherent prayers
and maudlin tears, asking forgiveness for his besetting sin, and promising
reformation of his evil courses. But after service he was generally to be
seen going back to his inn. Here one day a friend found him and reminded
him that it was the day of the Bishop's Visitation, a circumstance which
he had quite forgotten. He went off, clothed disgracefully, and by no
means sober. "Who," asked the Bishop, indignantly, on seeing this strange
creature--"who is that shabby, dirty old man?" The vicar answered the
query himself. "I am," he shouted, "Thomas Stackhouse, Vicar of Beenham,
who wrote the 'History of the Bible,' and that is more than your lordship
can do!" The historian of these things says this reply quite upset the
gravity of the solemn meeting; and the statement may well be believed.
Camden says, "Newburie must acknowledge Speen as its mother," and Newbury,
in fact, was originally an offshoot from Speen, which was anciently a
fortified Roman settlement in the tangled underwoods of the wild country
between the Roman cities of Aquae Solis and Calleva (Bath and Silchester).
The Romans called it "Spinae," _i.e._ "the Thorns," a sufficiently
descriptive title in that era. The Domesday Book calls it "Spone." The
fact of Speen having been the original settlement may be partly traced in
the circumstance of its lying directly on the old road, while Newbury, its
infinitely bigger daughter, sprawls out on the Whitchurch and Andover
roads, which run from the Bath Road almost at right angles.
There are quaint houses at Newbury, and old inns; some of them, like the
"Globe" or the "King's Arms," converted into shops or private houses,
while others perhaps do a brisker trade in drink than in good cheer of the
more hospitable sort. There are the "White Hart," and the "Jack of
Newbury," with a modern front, and others. The Kennet divides the town in
half, and runs under a bridge which carries the street across its narrow
width, bordered with quaint-looking houses. Here is the old Cloth Hall, a
singular building, neglected now that the weaving trade has decayed; and
on the west side of the bridge stands the parish church with a small brass
in it to the memory of the great "Jack," and a very economical monument to
a certain "J.W.C.," 1692, just roughly carved into the stonework of a
buttress at the east end.
[Illustration: AT THE 55TH MILESTONE.]
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION. NEWBURY CHURCH.]
It is strange to think that only twenty-seven years ago (in 1872, as a
matter of fact), at Newbury, a rag and bone dealer who for several years
had been well known in the town as a man of intemperate habits, and
upon whom imprisonment in Reading Gaol had failed to produce any
beneficial effect, was fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly
conduct at Divine service in the parish church. Twenty-six years had
elapsed since the stocks had last been used, and their reappearance
created no little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons
being attracted to the spot where they were fixed. The sinful rag man was
seated upon a stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few
minutes past one. He seemed anything but pleased with the laughter and
derision of the crowd. Four hours having passed, he was released.
[Sidenote: _"JACK OF NEWBURY"_]
It is impossible to escape Jack of Newbury in this the scene of his
greatness. "John Smalwoode the elder, alias John Wynchcombe," as he
describes himself in his last will and testament, in 1519, was the most
prominent of the clothworkers in the reigns of the Seventh and Eighth
Henrys. He is perhaps best described in the words of a pamphlet published
towards the close of the sixteenth century:--"He was a man of merrie
disposition and honest conversation, was wondrous well beloved of rich and
poore, especially because in every place where he came he would spend his
money with the best, and was not any time found a churl of his purse.
Wherefore, being so good a companion, he was called of olde and younge
'Jacke of Newberie,' a man so generally well knowne in all this countrye
for his good fellowship, that he could goe into no place but he found
acquaintance; by means whereof Jacke could no sooner get a crowne, but
straight hee found meanes to spend it; yet had he ever this care, that hee
would always keepe himselfe in comely and decent apparel, neither at any
time would hee be overcome in drinke, but so discreetly behave himselfe
with honest mirthe and pleasant conceits, that he was every gentleman's
companion."
This is so excellent a voucher for him that it is not surprising so
universal a favourite stepped into the shoes of his master's widow. She
was rich, and he with a plentiful lack of coin; yet though she had a
choice of suitors, including a "tanner, a taylor, and a parson," she set
her heart on Jack with something of the determination which characterized
the "Berkshire Lady" already referred to in these pages; and though he was
something loth, married him out of hand. We are not told that she
regretted it, but probably she did, for the stories have it that she was a
gossip and given to staying out late, while Jack stopped at home and went
betimes to bed. Once, when she returned at midnight, and knocked at the
door, he looked from his window and told her that, as she had stayed out
all day for her own delight, she might "lie forth" until the morning for
his. "Moved with pity," as the narrative says, but more likely because her
continual knocking kept him awake, he at last went down in his shirt and
opened the door, when "Alack, husband," says she, "what hap have I? My
wedding ring was even now in my hand, and I have let it fall about the
door; good, sweet John, come forth with the candle and help me seek it."
He "went forth" accordingly, into the street, and she locked him out! We
are not told what happened when he got in again.
He seems to have taken her loss, a little later, calmly enough, for he
speedily married again, and although "wondrous wealthie," he chose a poor
girl who lived at Aylesbury. A grand wedding it was when Joan (for that
was her name) and Jack were married. Her head, we are assured, was adorned
with a "billement of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold, hanging downe
behind her." In fact, "Her golden hair was hanging down her back," as the
music-hall songster has it; which goes far to prove that the modern
_penchant_ for yellow locks has a respectable antiquity, and warrants
brunettes in using all the arts of the toilet to redress the errors of
Nature.
[Sidenote: _JACK AS ENTERTAINER_]
Jack of Newbury entertained Henry the Eighth here, and, wonderful to
relate, the floors of the house were covered with broad cloth, instead of
the then usual rushes. Also, he equipped a hundred of his workmen, fifty
as horsemen, and fifty armed with bows and pikes, "as well armed and
better clothed than any," and went with them to the Scotch war. The
"Ballad of the Newberrie Archers" tells us how they distinguished
themselves at Flodden Field; but it must be added that it is doubtful
whether they ever reached so far; which proves the ballad-maker--the
"special correspondent" of that time--to have been more eloquent than
truthful. That Jack was the principal man of his trade must be evident
from these facts and from the statement that he employed a hundred looms;
and a great deal more evident from his having been selected to head the
petition of the clothiers for the encouragement of trade with France. He
had a pretty taste in sarcasm, too, if his retort upon Wolsey, to whom it
had been referred, and who had delayed to answer it, is considered. "If my
Lord Chancellor's father," said he, "had been no hastier in killing
calves than he in despatching of poor men's suits, I think he would never
have worn a mitre." It is only necessary to remember that Wolsey was the
son of a butcher for the sting of this quip to be appreciated.
[Illustration: OLD CLOTH HALL, NEWBURY.]
XXVI
In 1531, and again in 1556, Newbury was the scene of martyrdoms; and in
1643 and 1644 the site of two battles between Charles and his Parliament,
both almost equally indecisive, and both remarkable for desperate courage
on either side.
[Sidenote: _FIRST BATTLE OF NEWBURY_]
The first battle was fought to the south of the town on September 18, and
was the culmination of a Royalist attack upon the Parliamentary army under
the Earl of Essex, on the march from Gloucester to London. Essex had
designed to lie at Newbury, the town being strongly for the Parliament;
but as he was marching across Enborne Chase on the 16th, his line was cut
by the appearance of Prince Rupert, who charged down upon him with his
dragoons. In this skirmish the Marquis de Vieuville was slain, and many
others of the Royalists. The battle thus forced on by the rashness of
Prince Rupert was one of the fiercest in the war.
The King was encamped near Donnington. Essex advanced and seized some
elevated ground, where his men were charged by the Royalist cavalry, at
whose head was the Earl of Carnarvon. Carnarvon had that morning measured
a gateway with his sword, to see if it were wide enough for the prisoners
who, with Essex at their head, they were to lead through it in the
evening. Although they cut up Essex's cavalry, Carnarvon himself fell in
that gallant charge, and was carried through the same gateway, a corpse,
that night.
It was the Parliamentary foot, the London train-bands, that saved the day,
which would otherwise have been a disastrous rout for their leader. They
withstood the cannonading and the impetuous charges of Rupert's horse,
and, with Essex himself among them, in a conspicuous white hat, drove back
the Royalist infantry. It was not until night had fallen that the contest
ceased. Six thousand were slain that day, and neither side had won. Essex
was so weakened that he retreated upon Reading the next morning.
He had nearly reached Theale when Rupert descended upon his rear like a
hurricane, and cut down many of his troops in a spot still called, from
this circumstance, "Dead Man's Lane."
The Royalists perhaps had slightly the better of the First Battle of
Newbury; but at what a cost! Carnarvon, the young Earl of Sunderland; and
Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, slain! Falkland was Secretary of State,
and a patriot whose feelings were above partizanship. He seems to have had
a presentiment of death, for he received the Sacrament on the morning of
the battle, saying, "I am weary of the times, and foresee much misery to
my country; but I believe I shall be out of it ere night." There is a
monument on Wash Common to him--
"The blameless and the brave,"
who fell thus with his brothers-in-arms; and mounds still mark the places
where the dead were buried. The memory of this great battle has recently
been revived, for in 1897 its anniversary was celebrated, and wreaths and
crosses of evergreens were laid upon the monument and the tumuli.
XXVII
[Sidenote: _THE SECOND BATTLE_]