thickest part of it raged round Speen, on the Bath Road, and in the
gardens of Shaw House. This house, one of the finest mansions in
Berkshire, was built by Thomas Dolman, clothier, in 1581. He was evidently
something of a scholar, and worldly wise as well, for he knew that his
riches and his grand mansion would rouse envious talk. Accordingly he
caused Latin and Greek inscriptions to be carved over the entrance, which,
Englished, run--
"Let no envious man enter here."
And--
"The toothless man envies the teeth of those who eat, and the mole
despises the eyes of the roe."
It is quite obvious that Thomas Dolman had been a great deal criticized
locally, and that the iron of that criticism had entered his soul.
His son became Sir Thomas Dolman, and it was his descendant, Sir John
Dolman, who garrisoned the house and entertained King Charles here on the
night before the second battle. A hole is still shown in the panelling of
the drawing-room, said to have been made by a shot fired at the King that
night when standing at the window; and a brass plate records the
circumstance in a Latin inscription.
[Illustration: THE LAST OF THE SMOCK-FROCKS AND BEAVERS.]
The parapets of Shaw House were lined with Royalist musketeers on this
occasion, and entrenchments thrown up in the gardens; but after a
stubbornly contested fight the Royalists were too weakened to retain the
position. Their ordnance and the wounded were left at Donnington Castle, a
mile away, and they fell back upon Oxford. Neither side had been sorry
when night fell and put an end to a hard-fought, but inconclusive, day;
and for their part the Parliamentary leaders were glad to see the King's
forces withdrawing by the light of the moon, and did not dare risk an
attack upon them.
It is not a little singular that during all this clash of arms the
Royalist governor of Donnington Castle held that stronghold, although
repeatedly attacked, from August, 1644, to April, 1646, and then only
surrendered when desired by the King to do so.
[Illustration: CURIOUS OLD TOLL-HOUSE BETWEEN NEWBURY AND HUNGERFORD.]
[Sidenote: _SPEEN_]
The road ascends to Speen, or, as it is often called, "Church Speen." The
present writer was climbing it when he overtook a countryman in a
smock-frock, to whom the steep gradient was evidently anything but
welcome.
"You're a regular Mountjoy, a' b'lieve," said the countryman, puffing and
blowing.
"A regular what?"
"A Mountjoy--a walker. But there; you bain't Newbury?"
I told him I certainly was not a native of that town.
"Well," said he, "you won't, never have heerd of 'un, p'raps."
It seems, then, that about fifty years ago Newbury boasted a pedestrian of
that name, who obtained such a great local reputation that he has become
proverbial with the country people, so that a "regular Mountjoy" is any
one who possesses good walking powers.
Church Speen passed, an undulating road leads past a curiously castellated
old toll-house to Hungerford.
XXVIII
It is at Hungerford, sixty-four miles from Hyde Park Corner, that one
leaves Berkshire and enters Wilts, coming into wilder and less pastoral
country. Hungerford town, however, is just within the Berkshire borders.
The constant Kennet flows across the road here, and is crossed by a
substantial bridge, from whose parapets anglers may be seen patiently
waiting to lure the wily trout from their swims. Fuller quaintly says:
"Good and great trouts are found in the river of Kennet nigh Hungerford;
they are in their perfection in the month of May, and yearly decline with
the buck. Being come to his full growth, he decays in goodness, not
greatness, and thrives in his head till his death. Note, by the way, that
an hog-back and little head is a sign that any fish is in season."
The chief street of Hungerford lies along the road to Salisbury, and the
cyclist who is intent upon "doing" the Bath Road without turning to
thoroughly explore the places along its course, consequently sees little
of the town beyond the few old mansions and cottages, and the old coaching
inn, "The Bear," which front the highway. Not much, however, is in this
case lost, for Hungerford contains little of interest, and were it not for
its singular Hocktide customs, and for the fact that it was the first town
to obtain the free delivery of letters between its post-office and the
houses to which letters were addressed, would scarce demand an extended
notice.
[Sidenote: _OLD POST-OFFICE CUSTOMS_]
The original plan of the General Post-Office, all over the country, was to
allow postmasters of country towns to demand a fee for delivery. Those who
expected letters were supposed to call for them. If they desired them to
be delivered, the additional fee was a penny or twopence, according to the
conscience or the cupidity of the postmaster, whose perquisites these fees
were. This applied to houses quite near post-offices, and even next door
to them. This extraordinary state of affairs was borne with for some time,
until at last several towns brought actions against the Post-Office to
decide if prepaid postage ought not to ensure delivery in the boundaries
of post-towns. Hungerford was selected by the Courts as a typical case,
and secured a judgment in its favour, Michaelmas, 1774.
Hocktide is a stirring time in this little town of less than three
thousand inhabitants. It is determined by Eastertide, and generally falls
in April. The odd observances derive their origin from the conditions
imposed by John of Gaunt, father of Henry the Fourth, who, in the
fourteenth century, conferred the rights and privileges of common-land and
fishing in the Kennet upon the town. To hand down the proof of his gift to
posterity, he presented with the charter a brass horn which bears the
inscription:--
"John a Gaun did giue and
grant the Riall of Fishing to
Hungerford Toune from Eldren
Stub to Irish stil excepting som
Seueral mil Pound
Jehosphat Lucas was Cunstabl."
Not this horn, but its seventeenth-century successor, is jealously
preserved in the Town Hall. It has a capacity of one quart.
[Sidenote: _HOCK TIDE_]
As an unreformed borough, Hungerford still enjoys the old-time custom of
appointing, in the place of Mayor and Corporation, a Constable, Portreeve,
Bailiff, Tithing-men, Keeper of the Keys of the Coffers, Hayward, Water
Bailiffs, Ale-tasters, and Bellman. The ceremonies begin on the Friday
before Hock Tuesday with a "macaroni supper and punchbowl," and are held
at the "John of Gaunt" inn. Tuesday, however, is the great day, when at an
early hour the bellman goes round the borough commanding all those who
hold land or dwellings within the confines of the town to appear at the
Hockney, under pain of a poll-tax of one penny, called the "head-penny."
Lest this warning should be insufficient, he mounts to the balcony of
the Town Hall, where he blows a blast upon the horn. Those who do not obey
the summons and refuse the payment of the head-penny are liable to lose
their rights to the privileges of the borough.
[Illustration: HUNGERFORD.]
By nine o'clock the jury are assembled in the Town Hall for the
transaction of their annual business, and immediately after they are sworn
in, the two tithing-men start on their round of the town. It is in this
part of the proceedings that most interest is taken, for the business of
the tithing-men is to take a poll-tax of twopence from every male
inhabitant and a kiss from the wives and daughters of the burgesses. This
is in recognition of the ancient powers of the Lord of the Manor, who had
peculiar rights over the property and persons of his "chattels," as the
people were once regarded.
[Illustration: HUNGERFORD TUTTI-MEN.]
The tithing-men are known as tutti-men; tutti being the local word for
pretty. They carry short poles as insignia of office, gaily bedecked with
blue ribbons and choice flowers known as tutti-poles; while behind them
walks a man groaning under the weight of the tutti oranges, it being the
custom to bestow an orange upon every person who is kissed, as well as
upon the school and workhouse children. The rights of office having been
duly vested in them by means of strange customs and exhortation, the two
favoured ones start off down the High Street on their kissing mission,
followed by the orange-bearer and greeted with the cheers of the assembled
people. One by one the houses are entered, and the custom observed both in
spirit and letter; nor is it confined to the young and comely, for the old
dames of Hungerford would deem themselves, if not insulted, at least sadly
neglected, were the tutti-men to pass their houses unentered. Usually
these officers find little difficulty in carrying out their pleasant
duties, but sometimes the excitement is increased by some coy maiden,
whose rustic simplicity prompts her to run away or hide. But as a general
rule the ladies of Hungerford show very little objection to the observance
of the ancient customs, so that the labours of the tutti-men are
considerably lightened.
Thus, amid laughter, merriment, and mock-seriousness, the fun is continued
until about half the borough is visited, by which time the tutti-men have
taken care that all the duty kisses that should gratify the ancient
inhabitants have been administered, as well as certain others that are
more a pleasure than a duty. Certainly they deserve well of the town, for
the tutti-men go through a good day's work by the time dinner is served.
Then, in accordance with the time-honoured precedent, the Chief Constable
is elected into the chair; the great bowl of punch is placed on the table
after dinner, and the various offices toasted and replied for. One is
drunk in solemn silence--that of John of Gaunt, the town's benefactor.
All the townspeople seem satisfied with their day's carnival, save,
perhaps, a crooning old burgher, who may occasionally be heard to extol
the good old days when the punch was strong and the newly-elected officers
went home in wheelbarrows.
XXIX
[Sidenote: _LITTLECOTE_]
From the everyday respectable dulness of Hungerford itself we will pass to
the exciting scandals which make up much of the story of Littlecote, that
gloomy and romantic Tudor mansion, which has become famous (or infamous,
if you will have it so) through the crimes and debaucheries of Will
Darell. There are two ways of reaching Littlecote from the Bath Road. The
most obvious way is by turning to the right when in the midst of
Hungerford town; the other, which is the more rural, is by a lane a mile
further down the road. Either will bring the traveller to that secluded
spot in the course of three and a half miles.
It stands, that hoary pile, in a wide and well-wooded park, sheltered
beneath the swelling Wiltshire downs and close beside the gentle Kennet,
whose stream has been fruitful of trout ever since "trouts" (as our
ancestors quaintly called them, in the plural) were angled for.
Littlecote, as we now see it, was built by the Darells in the closing
years of the fifteenth century, in whose early years it had passed from
the Colston family by the marriage of the heiress of the Colstons to
William Darell, son of Sir William Darell, of Sesay, in Yorkshire. A
descendant of this emigrant from the North Riding, the "Wild Will Darell"
of this blood-boltered history was born into an estate comprising an
ancestral home and many thousands of acres in the counties of Wilts,
Berks, and Hants, and might have been accounted fortunate had it not been
for the rather more than trifling circumstances of an unhappy up-bringing
which included a shameful treatment of himself and his mother by an
unnatural father; the paternal extravagances which had alienated much of
the property; the heavy charge made on the estate for the benefit of the
mistress of his brother, who preceded him in the estate; and, finally, the
crop of lawsuits into which he was plunged immediately upon succeeding to
this singularly-encumbered patrimony. At this interval of time it has
become quite impossible for serious historians to discriminate between the
facts and the--fancies, shall we call them?--of the Wild Darell story.
This difficulty does not arise from lack of patient research on the part
of Darell commentators, who have ransacked the Record Office to prove that
he was _not_ a villain of the most lurid kind, or the industry of others
who have searched among musty muniment chests to determine that he _was_.
It would, considering the fact of the records in the Littlecote muniment
room not having yet been explored for the benefit of these historic
doubts, be rash indeed for any one to pronounce definitely for either of
the very diverse views held of Darell as Villain, or Darell as Good Young
Man.
The story, which first became widely known through a footnote appended to
Sir Walter Scott's "Rokeby," is of a midwife summoned from the village of
Shefford, seven miles away, on a false pretence of attending Lady Knyvett,
of Charlton, near by, and of her being blindfolded and led on horseback in
the darkness of the night to quite another house, in one of whose stately
rooms lay a mysterious masked lady for whom her services were required.
The horrid legend then goes on to say that a tall, slender gentleman, a
lowering and ferocious-looking man, "havinge uppon hym a goune of blacke
velvett," entered the room with some others, and, without a word, took the
child from her arms and threw it upon a blazing fire in an ante-room,
crushing it into the flaming logs with his boot-heel, so that it was
presently consumed.
A prime horror, this, and rich in ferocity, mystery, and all the
incertitude that comes of age and conflicting testimony. Masked lady,
blindfolded nurse, burnt baby, taciturn and horrible stranger, what lurid
figures are these! and how royally abused for the possession of an
over-imaginative mind would be that novelist who should dare conceive
incidents so romantic!
[Sidenote: _WILD DARELL_]
Scott gleaned his traditions from the weird legends current in the
country-side. They had, when he first printed them, been the fireside
gossip of that district for over two hundred years, and of course in that
length of time had lost nothing in the repetition. For that reason we are
asked nowadays to discredit them altogether. We cannot, however, do that,
because there came to light some years ago the actual deposition to the
facts made by the midwife, Mrs. Barnes of Shefford, taken down on her
deathbed by a Mr. Bridges of Great Shefford, a magistrate, who was also a
cousin of Darell, and would not, it may well be supposed, be inclined to
spread any baseless gossip to the hurt of a family with which he was
connected. This deposition tells the story as already narrated. It does
not identify Darell or Littlecote, nor does it even hint the identity of
_any_ person or place. But the sinister discovery, some twenty years ago,
at Longleat, of an original letter from Sir H. Knyvett, of Charlton, to
Sir John Thynne, of Longleat, dated January 2, 1578/9 (about the time of
the midwife's confession), brings us to the original rumours pointing to
Darell's being the man and Littlecote the place.
[Illustration: LITTLECOTE.]
[Sidenote: _DEATH OF DARELL_]
There was then residing at Longleat a Mr. Bonham, whose sister was well
known to be living with Darell as his mistress, and this letter requests
that "Mr. Bonham will inquire of his sister touching her usage at Will.
Darell's, the birth of her children, how many there were, and what became
of them: for that the report of the murder of one of them was increasing
foully, and would touch Will. Darell to the quick." To that letter there
is no reply, and it remains uncertain whether Darell was ever arraigned
for murder and acquitted (as the story goes), or whether the rumours
simply were never crystallized into a definite charge against him. The
probability seems to be that he never was called upon to stand his trial.
It is quite certain, however, that the legend of his being haunted along
the roads by the apparition of a burning infant which startled his horse
so that Wild Darell was thrown and killed is a more or less pleasing
invention. Darell died quite peacefully in his bed, at Littlecote, eleven
years after the midwife's death, and was buried in the Darell Chapel at
Ramsbury, where he was laid to rest, October 1st, 1589. Notwithstanding
these well-ascertained facts, Darell is now, if we are to credit the
stories of the country-side, an apparition himself, and superstitious
rustics still fear to face the roads o' nights because of a Burning Babe
and a Spectral Horseman, who comes dashing down them at a terror-stricken
gallop, mounted on a horse of coal-black hue, with a breath like steam and
eyes like burning coals!
As for the elaborate embroideries added to the Wild Darell story from time
to time, there are many. According to these ingenious fictions, the
midwife counted the stairs of the strange house, and cut a piece out of
the bed curtains, which she carried away. By these means; by finding the
number of the stairs at Littlecote to tally with her counting, and by
fitting her piece of tapestry to a hole in the curtains of a bed at
Littlecote, we are told to believe the truth of the story. The singular
thing, however, is that Mrs. Barnes made absolutely no mention of these
things in her deposition. There remains, it is true, the fact already
alluded to, that the magistrate who took down the woman's statement was a
connection of Darell's, and might possibly have suppressed facts which
could point to his relative being concerned in the affair. Another story
is that upon Darell being arraigned (which in itself is uncertain), he
made interest with Sir John Popham, the Chief Justice, to procure an
acquittal.
[Illustration: THE HAUNTED CHAMBER.]
Now it is quite certain that Popham did not become Chief Justice until
1592, when Darell had been in his grave nearly three years, and could not
therefore have done so. He was, it is true, Attorney-General at the time
of Darell's supposed crime, and, _had_ there been a trial, and _had_ he
been bribed, could possibly have procured a _nolle prosequi_.
But Darell certainly made over the reversion of Littlecote to Popham in
1586, and Popham took possession upon Darell's decease. The story of this
transaction being the bribe in question we owe to Aubrey, the county
historian (or rather, the county gossip), who actually gives an account of
the trial and says, "Sir John Popham gave sentence according to law, but
being a great person and a favourite, he pronounced a _noli prosequi_."
More to the point is the fact that Darell, in 1583, offered Lord
Chancellor Bromley the then large sum of L5000 to be "his good friend."
Those who are interested in the Darell story are equally divided as to his
general character. One would have us believe that he was a Model Squire,
who fished for trout, took an enthralling interest in his flower-garden,
and if he did not always come home to tea (because tea not having at that
period been introduced, it was impossible to do so), was content with a
modest pint of claret at dinner, and spent the rest of the evening in
reading what improving literature was to be had in the Elizabethan age;
which, I fear, judging from the general character of the time, was of a
somewhat meagre nature.
[Sidenote: _THE REAL DARELL_]
The real Darell was not quite like that picture. We already know that he
had one mistress at Littlecote, and then there was Lady Anne Hungerford,
an elderly charmer, whom by some means Wild Will had seduced from her
husband, and whose letters, still preserved, to her "deare Dorrell" are
not so improving as the recipient's other reading. One learns from these
choice communications that Lady Anne had been accused of murder, adultery,
and trying to poison her husband; and, under the circumstances, it seems
quite likely that all these charges were well-founded, even though she
says that "luker and gaine makes many dissembling and hollow hearts"
(which sounds like one of the admirable copy-book maxims of our youth),
and that she anticipates being cleared from suspicion of these "vill and
abomynabell practiscis." Add to these hot-blooded intrigues the
extravagances which, together with his litigious disposition, served to
ruin his estate and to bring him into disfavour with his neighbours, and
we obtain the genesis of all the ill-favoured legends of this picturesque
figure of the Elizabethan era.
XXX
[Sidenote: _THE GREAT REBELLION_]
Littlecote had not done with stirring scenes when Darell was dead and the
Pophams took possession. The Great Hall, hung round with pikes, leather
jerkins, helmets, and cuirasses of Cromwellian times, serves to tell, in
its warlike array, of how the place became a rendezvous of the Roundheads
of this vicinity. These relics are the arms and accoutrements of the
Popham Horse, raised by Colonel Alexander Popham, whose own suit of armour
is still suspended here, over one of the doorways. A fitting place this,
then, for that gathering of the King's Commissioners who came to
Littlecote in December, 1688. The occasion was an historic one. James the
Second was tottering upon his throne, and the Prince of Orange, invited to
these shores to protect the civil and religious liberties of the nation,
had marched up with his Dutchmen from his landing in the West Country. No
man knew what would be the course of events, because not one of those
concerned in that memorable crisis knew his own mind, from the King and
his adherents on the one side, to the Prince and his partisans on the
other.
The two parties met at Hungerford on December 8. On the following day,
Sunday, the Commissioners dined at Littlecote, and then and there the fate
of the kingdom was settled, quite amicably. The old Hall was crowded with
Peers and Generals--Halifax, the judicious "trimmer," whose cautious
diplomacy guided the crisis through to its solution without bloodshed;
Burnet, Nottingham, Shrewsbury, and Oxford, all waiting upon events.
Halifax, the partisan of the King, seized the opportunity of extracting
from Burnet all he knew and thought. "Do you wish to get the King into
your power?" he asked the Bishop. "Not at all," replied Burnet: "we would
not do the least harm to his person." "And if he were to go away?" slyly
insinuated Halifax. "There is nothing so much to be wished," whispered the
Bishop, apprehending his meaning; and so James slunk away, and William of
Orange reigned in his stead.
For the rest, Littlecote is a veritable storehouse of art and antiquities.
The collection of ancient armour in the Great Hall is one of the finest in
England. Here, too, is Chief Justice Popham's chair, and the thumbstocks
which he used as a means of extracting confessions from petty offenders
with whom persuasion of the merely moral kind had failed. Then there is
the painting of Mr. Popham's horse, "Wild Dayrell," which won the Derby in
1855, and many interesting objects besides. First in point of interest,
however, is the Haunted Chamber, which is even now said to resound with
groans and imprecations; and is still very much in the same condition as
in Darell's day, although, to be sure, the fateful ante-room is now
divided from it. Darell's Tree, an ancient elm, patched and chained
together, is still to be seen on the south side of the house, carefully
tended; the legend running that Littlecote will flourish so long as its
hoary trunk holds together.
XXXI
But to return to the road, which presently comes to the charming village
of Froxfield, with its wide village green and great red-brick barracks of
almshouses, founded in 1686 by Sarah, Duchess of Somerset, for fifty
clergymen's widows, and perched up on a bank above the right-hand side of
the highway.
[Sidenote: _SAVERNAKE FOREST_]