1. Entrance Gateway.
2. Marten’s Tower.
3. Well.
4. First Court.
5. Rooms above the Vaulted Chamber.
6. Second Court.
7. Hall, or Chapel.
8. Third Court.
9. Sunken Way and Drawbridge.
10. Fourth Court.
11. Sunken Way and Bridge.
12. Perpendicular Cliff.
]
[Illustration: B]UILT on a lofty perpendicular rock, that rises sheer
from the bed of the Wye, the position of the Castle is at once strong
and commanding; while, on the land side, the great height and massive
strength of its walls and outworks, present the remains of all that
ancient art could effect to render it impregnable.
The grand entrance is defended by two circular towers of unequal
proportions, with double gates, portcullises, and a port-hole, through
which boiling water or metallic fluids could be discharged on the heads
of the besiegers. The massive door, covered with iron bolts and clasps,
is a genuine relic of the feudal stronghold. The knocker now in use is
an old four-pound shot. This introduces us to the great court, sixty
yards long by twenty broad, and presenting the appearance of a tranquil
garden. The walls are covered with a luxuriant mantle of ivy, through
which the old masonry appears only at intervals; and here the owl finds
himself in undisturbed possession, unless when roused by the choir of
numberless birds that flit from tree to tree, or nestle among the
leaves. The lover of solitude could hardly find a retreat more suited to
his taste. The area, interspersed with trees, and covered with a fine
grassy carpet, is annually converted into a flower and fruit show, for
the encouragement of horticulture, under the patronage of the noble
owner.
The castle, as one of its historians conjectures, is of the same
antiquity as the town itself, to which it served the purposes of a
citadel; but the precise epoch, neither Leland, Camden, nor any
topographical writer has been able to ascertain. Stow, indeed,
attributes the building of the castle to Julius Cæsar, but there is no
evidence to support his supposition. Camden, on the contrary, thinks it
of no great antiquity; for several affirm, says he, that “it had its
rise, not many ages past, from the ancient <g>Venta</g>”--the Venta Silurum of
Antoninus. Leland, in his Itinerary, says--“The waulles begun at the
edge of the great bridge over the Wye, and so came to the castle, which
yet standeth fayr and strong, not far from the ruin of the bridge. In
the castle ys one tower, as I heard say, by the name of Longine.[18] The
town,” he adds, “hath nowe but one paroche chirche: the cell of a blake
monk or two of Bermondsey, near London, was lately there suppressed.”
During the life of Charles-Noel, fourth Duke of Beaufort, the castle was
let on a lease of three successive lives to a Mr. Williams, a general
merchant or trader, who adapted some of the great apartments to the
following purposes, namely--the great kitchen to a _sail_ manufactory;
the store-room to a wholesale wine-cellar; the grand hall, or
banqueting-room, was occupied by a _glass_-blower; and the circular
tower by the gate, leading into the second court, was used as a nail
manufactory. After the death of Mr. Williams, the roofs fell in, one
after another--that of the Keep in 1799, the year in which the lease
expired; and thus the stately castle was reduced to its present
condition--a vast and melancholy ruin.
The only apartments now inhabitable are those of its loyal and
intelligent warden and his family, whose civility and general
information respecting the castle are very acceptable to its daily
visitors.
One of the principal towers was converted, during the above-named lease,
into a glass manufactory, the furnace of which has left its scars deeply
indented in the solid masonry.
In a small chamber off the banqueting-hall, seventy-five pieces of
ancient silver coin were recently discovered, and are now at Badminton
Park; but of what value or of what reign we have not yet ascertained.
An ancient door--as ancient, we are told, as the castle itself--opens
upon the second court, of very nearly the same dimensions as the first,
and now also converted into a garden. Beyond this is an apartment,
supposed by some to have been the garrison chapel;[19] but its pointed
arches and elaborately-carved windows, all evincing an air of stately
dignity, leave no doubt of its having been the great baronial hall,
where the Clares, the Marshalls, and Herberts, drew around them their
chivalrous retainers.
Connected with this, by a winding path, is a third court, now cultivated
as an orchard; so that, with trees, flowers, and luxuriant ivy, the
whole enclosure presents a mass of vegetation, in which the stern
features of warlike art have almost disappeared.
A walk along the ramparts westward from this point, commands some
glimpses of beautiful scenery, with the Wye at the base of the rocks
expanding in the form of a lake, where vessels are seen riding at
anchor, and boats passing to and fro--here gay with pleasure parties,
and there laden with foreign or inland produce.
[Illustration]
<g>The Keep</g> is another object which the tourist will regard with interest,
as the twenty years’ prison of Henry Marten, whose vote, with those of
his “fellow-regicides,” at the trial of <g>Charles</g> the First, consigned
that unfortunate monarch to the block. To his epitaph written upon
himself we have already alluded; and the reader is no stranger,
probably, to Southey’s lines on the room where he was confined, which,
with a sarcastic parody written by Canning, will be found in these
pages.
<g>Henry Marten</g>, who attained such unenviable notoriety, was
the son of Sir Henry Marten, a judge of the Admiralty, and M.P. for
Berkshire. He was an able and active partisan of Oliver Cromwell, one
of the “Executive Council;” and in the old prints representing the
trial of the martyr-king, Marten occupies the chair on Cromwell’s
left hand, immediately under the arms of the Commonwealth.[20] At the
Restoration, he was brought to trial, and sentenced to death; but his
sentence was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life. In the keep
of this castle, since called “Marten’s Tower,” he spent twenty years;
but much was done to soften the rigour of his sentence. “His wife
was permitted to share his imprisonment; he was attended by his own
domestic servants, who were accommodated in the same tower; and he had
permission to visit, and receive visits from his friends in the town
and neighbourhood. He died in 1680, at the mature age of seventy-eight,
neither disturbed by the qualms of conscience, nor enfeebled by the
rigour of confinement; and left behind him the character of a liberal
and indulgent master.” At a comparatively recent period, the principal
chamber of the <g>Keep</g> was frequently used by the inhabitants of
Chepstow as a ball-room; and there is now residing in the town a lady,
who remembers having been present at more than one of these festive
reunions.
For the following notice of this “stern republican,”--somewhat different
from the preceding--we are indebted to Heath’s description of
Chepstow:--
Henry Marten,[21] commonly called Harry Marten, was born in the city of
Oxford, in the parish of St. John the Baptist, in a house opposite to
Merton College Church, then lately built by Henry Sherburne, gent., and
possessed, at the time of Harry’s birth, by Sir Henry, his father. After
he had been instructed in grammar-learning in Oxford, he became a
gentleman commoner of University College in the beginning of 1617, aged
fifteen years, where, and in public, giving a manifestation of his
pregnant mind, had the degree of Bachelor of Arts conferred upon him in
the latter end of the year 1619. Afterwards he went to one of the Inns
of Court, travelled into France, and on his return married a lady of
considerable worth; but with whom, it is said, “he never afterwards
lived.”[22]
In the beginning of the year 1640, he was elected one of the knights for
Berks, to serve in the parliament that began at Westminster the 13th of
April; and again, though not legally, in October, to serve in the
parliament that began at the same place on the 3d of November following.
We shall not enter into his political actions on the great theatre of
public life--as they are to be found in all the histories of England,
from the reign of Charles I. to the Restoration--but content ourselves
with noticing those parts of it which are more peculiarly interesting to
the traveller in Monmouthshire, namely, the manner in which he passed
his time, with occasional anecdotes, during his confinement in the
castle of Chepstow.
<g>Wood</g>, an ultra-royalist, gives the following character of him:--“He was
a man of good natural parts--was a boon familiar, witty, and quick with
repartees--was exceeding happy in apt instances, pertinent and very
biting; so that his company, being deemed incomparable by many, would
have been acceptable to the greatest persons, only he would be drunk too
soon, and so put an end to all their mirth for the present. At length,
after all his rogueries, acted for near twenty years together, were
passed; he was at length called to account for that grand villany, of
having a considerable hand in murdering his prince, of which being
easily found guilty, he was not to suffer the loss of his life, as
others did, but the loss of his estate, and perpetual imprisonment, for
that he came in upon the proclamation of surrender. So that, after two
or three removes from prison to prison, he was at length sent to
Chepstow Castle, where he continued another twenty years, not in
wantonness, riotousness, and villany, but in confinement and repentance,
if he had so pleased.”
“This person--who lived very poor, and in a shabbeel condition in his
confinement, and would be glad to take a pot of ale from any one that
would give it to him--died with meat in his mouth, that is, suddenly, in
Chepstow Castle (as before mentioned), in September, 1680; and was, on
the 9th day of the same month, buried in the church of Chepstow. Some
time before he died he made the epitaph, by way of acrostic, on himself,
which is engraved on the stone which now covers his remains.”
Mrs. Williams--“wife of the person who had the care of the castle, and
who died in 1798, at a very advanced age--well knew and was intimately
acquainted with the women who waited and attended on Harry Marten during
his confinement in the castle. They were two sisters, and their maiden
name was Vick.
“From what I could learn, I am of opinion that the early part of
Marten’s confinement was rather rigorous; for whatever Mrs. Williams
mentioned had always a reference to the latter part of it; and in this
conjecture I am supported by her remark, that though he had two
daughters living, they were not indulged with sharing their father’s
company in prison till near the close of his life. In the course of
years, political rigour against him began to wear away, and he was
permitted not only to walk about Chepstow, but to have the constant
residence of his family, in order to attend upon him in the castle. This
indulgence at last extended itself so far, as to permit him to visit any
family in the neighbourhood, his host being responsible for his safe
return to the castle at the hour appointed.
“One anecdote of Marten, as mentioned by Mrs. Williams, I shall here
repeat. Among other families who showed a friendly attention to the
prisoner, were the ancestors of the present worthy possessor of <g>St.
Pierre</g>, near Chepstow. To a large company assembled round the festive
dinner-board Marten had been invited. Soon after the cloth was removed,
and the bottle put into gay circulation, Mr. Lewis, in a cheerful
moment, jocularly said to Marten, ‘Harry, suppose the times were to come
again in which you passed your life, what part would you act in them?’
‘_The part I have done_,’ was his immediate reply. ‘Then, sir,’ says Mr.
Lewis, ‘I never desire to see you at my table again;’ nor was he ever
after invited.[23]
“Great credibility,” says our authority, “deserves to be attached to
this story, as containing Marten’s political opinion at that day; and,
to support a belief in it, the late Rev. J. Birt, canon of Hereford,
thus speaks of him, in his letter to the Rev. J. Gardner, prefixed to
his ‘Appendix to the History of Monmouthshire:’--‘Henry Marten, one of
the incendiary preachers during the great rebellion, was, at the
Restoration, imprisoned for life at Chepstow, and buried there. As far
as I can recollect, he died as he lived, with the fierce spirit of a
republican.’ The Rev. Mr. Birt, who died at the advanced age of
ninety-two, held distinguished preferment in the neighbourhood of
Chepstow, and had been in the habits of intimate acquaintance with all
the first families in the county. His testimony might therefore be said
to stamp the anecdote with the sanction of truth, without seeking for
farther evidence.
“Of his personal appearance, a friend of mine--on the authority of the
late Mr. Harry Morgan, attorney at Usk, whose father had been in
Marten’s company, and by whom he had been informed of it--says that Mr.
Morgan described him, in general terms, as ‘a smart, active little man,
and the merriest companion he ever was in company with in his life.’
Wood praises his social qualities, and talent for conversation; but that
‘he lived in a shabbeel condition, and would take a pot of ale from any
one that would give it to him,’ may be doubted; unless he meant that the
kindness shown to him by the families in and near Chepstow admitted such
an interpretation.[24]
“Let us attend him to the grave. It is hardly possible to admit that
such a mind as that of Marten would have penned--much less to suppose
that he would have wished to have engraved on his tomb--the wretched
doggerel that goes under the name of his ‘Epitaph,’ and which is said to
have been written by him during his confinement in the castle. Not the
smallest circumstance respecting his funeral is left on record; and
whether his obsequies were marked with public procession, or whether he
retired to the grave unnoticed and unregarded, tradition has not
preserved the slightest memorandum.”
His biographer might, without difficulty, have concluded that--in those
times, at all events--an imprisoned rebel would not be permitted to have
any but the most private funeral. All that we are certain of is, that he
was buried in the chancel of the church of Chepstow; and that, on a
large stone from the Forest of Dean, is still to be traced the following
“Epitaph, written on himself,” by way of acrostic, but now much
defaced:--
(ARMS.)
Here, September the ninth,
was buried
A true Englishman,
Who, in Berkshire, was well known
To love his country’s freedom ’bove his own;
But being immured full twenty year,
Had time to write, as doth appear,