<g>Glamorganshire</g>.
“So fares it with the things of earth
Which seem most constant: there will come the cloud
That shall enfold them up, and leave their place
A seat for emptiness. Our narrow ken
Reaches too far, when all that we behold
Is but the havoc of wide-wasting Time--
Or what he soon shall spoil.”
WE learn from Bishop Tanner, that Richard de <g>Grainville</g>, and Constance,
his wife, gave their chapel,[397] in the Castle at <g>Nethe</g>, the tithes
belonging to it, a large tract of waste land, and other possessions, in
the time of Henry I., to the abbot and convent of Savigny, near Lyons,
that they might build an abbey here in Wales. And a very fair abbey,
dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was built accordingly on the west side of
the river, a little below the town of Neath, for monks of the order of
Savigny, or <g>Fratres Grisei</g>, who soon afterwards became Cistercians.
Notwithstanding the original gift to Savigny, as we learn from the same
authority, he did not find any proof that this house was ever subject to
that foreign abbey, or accounted as an alien priory. Being an abbey, it
could not be a cell; and appears rather to have been a daughter-house to
Savigny, in the same way as already described in our account of the two
Llanthonys--mother and daughter. In the Appendix to the Monasticon may
be seen the founder’s charter, with two subsequent charters of
confirmation from King John.[398] From a manuscript notice in Benet’s
College, Cambridge, we learn that, at the time of the dissolution, there
were only eight monks in Neath Abbey. In the twenty-sixth of Henry
VIII., the gross revenue of the house amounted to £150. 4s. 9d., the
clear income to £132. 7s. 7-1/4d. The site was granted to Sir Richard
Williams, alias Cromwell,[399] in exchange.
<g>The Seal</g> of the abbey represented the Blessed Virgin, crowned and
standing, holding in her right hand a lily, in her left the infant
Jesus; in a base, a shield with the arms of <g>Grainville</g> the
founder--namely, three clarions: the legend--“Sigillvm. Comvne.
Monaster. Beate. Marie. de Neth.” A very imperfect impression of this
seal is to be seen in the Augmentation Office.
In Moore’s Monastic Remains, it has been observed, in a passage quoted
from Leland, that Neath Abbey was ‘once the fairest in all Wales;’ and,
from the ruins still remaining, much credit may be given to this
description. The west end, excepting the great arch, was tolerably
perfect in 1788; but previously to that time the east end and principal
part of the nave had been demolished, while the lateral aisles remained
covered with ivy. In addition to these, several apartments of the abbey
were still standing on the south side of the church.
This monastery is said to have been so extensive, that seven preachers
might hold forth at the same time in different parts of the building,
without being mutually heard; but in the present day the crypt is the
only characteristic feature that is left. The ruins, however--spread
over an extensive area--still afford accommodation for numerous workmen
employed in the famous iron-works of the place. It was in the
Abbey-house of Neath, where he had taken refuge, that the unfortunate
King Edward the Second was arrested:--
“Whither,” says the Chronicle, in a passage at once pathetic and
picturesque,--“whither, in the meane space, doth woeful Edward flye?
What force, what course, what way takes he, poore Prince? Oh! fearful
condition of so great a monarche’s state, when a wife, a son, a kingdome
are _not_ trusted; and those only _are_ trusted, who had nothing strong
but a will to live and die with him!”... “The Queen, passing from
Oxford to Gloucester, onward to the siege of Bristol Castle, grew all
the whyle in her strength like a rouled snowball, or as a river, which
spreads still broader from the fountaine to the ocean--‘_vires acquirit
eundo_.’ For thither repayred to her, for the love of the young Prince,
the Lord Percy, the Lord Wake, and others, as well out of the North, as
the Marches of Wales. But Edward, having left the Earle of Winchester,
and the elder Lord Spenser, in the Castle of Bristol, for the keeping
thereof, meditates flight with a few into the isle of Lundie, in the
Severne sea, or into Ireland; and while he wandereth about, not finding
where to rest safe, his royall credite, name, and power--like a cliffe
which, falling from the top of some huge rocke, breakes into the more
pieces the further it rolles--are daily more and more diminisht as they
scatter, till now at last they are come to a very nothing.
“After a week, therefore, spent upon the sea, Sir Thomas Blount
forsaking him, and comming to the <g>Queene</g> he came on shore in
Glamorganshire, where, with his few friends, he entrusted himself to
God, and the faith of the Welsh, who indeed still loved him, lying
hidden among them in the <g>Abbey of Neath</g>.
“<g>The King</g> not appearing, proclamations were every day made in the
Queene’s army, declaring that it was the common consent of the realme
that he should returne and receive the government thereof, so as he
would conform himself to his people. This--whether stratagem or
truth--not prevailing, Henry, Earle of Lancaster, the late Earle’s
brother, Sir William de la Zouch, and Rhese-ap-Howell, a Welshman--who
all of them had lands in that quarter where the Kinge concealed
himselfe--were sent with coyne and forces to discover and take him.
“What will not money, diligence, and faire words doe, with corrupt
dispositions--everting of all bonds of either religious or civil duties?
By such means, therefore, the desolate, sad, and unfortunate <g>Kinge</g> fell
into his cousen of Lancaster’s hands, in the Abbey-house of Neath;” [or,
according to others, in the Castle of Llantrissant, a place of great
strength; but as the gates were thrown open by treachery, neither the
strength of the Castle nor the courage of those around him could avail
the royal victim,[400] doomed to expiate, it was supposed, the ruthless
cruelty of his father in massacring the bards.
“Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward’s race;
Give ample room and verge enough,
The characters of Hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright,
The shrieks of death, through Berkeley’s roof that ring--
Shrieks of an agonizing King!”]
<g>Richard de Greenvile</g>,[401] the reputed founder of Neath Abbey, and lord
of the adjoining Castle, is thus noticed in the ‘Baronage of
England:’--“In the fourth of William Rufus, Jestin, the son of Gurgunt,
being lord of Glamorgan, Rees-ap-Theodore, prince of South Wales, made
war upon him; and that Jestin, discerning himself to be unable to make
defence, sent one Enyon, his servant, to Robert Fitz-Hamon,[402] then a
knight of the privy chamber to the King, for his aid, with large
promises of reward for his help. And that hereupon Robert, having
retained twelve knights, marched with what power they could all make
into <g>Wales</g>; and so joining with Jestin, slew Rees, and Conan, his son.
Furthermore, that after this victory, demanding his reward according to
the agreement so made with Enyon, and Jestin refusing to perform his
promise, the difference came to be tried by battle; and that Jestin
being therein slain, this Robert Fitz-Hamon had full possession of all
that territory.
“<g>Whereupon</g>, for reward to those twelve knights, with other his
assistants, he gave unto them divers castles and manors; and, as second
on the list, he gave to Richard de Greenvile the lordship of <g>Nethe</g>.”
Subjoined is a view of the Crypt of this once magnificent <g>Abbey</g>, which,
though long exposed to the wasting hand of Time, and the depredations of
enemies, is still a monument of early piety, upon which few pilgrims
will look unmoved, and no archæologist can survey without admiration.
[Illustration]