Audivi quidem dici et ex parte credo, quosdam linguæ levitate (et
utinam non odii livore) desiderâsse ut quilibet hujus Ecclesiæ
lapis _lepus_ foret: alios autem, quod in pace illorum dixerim, ore
sacrilego impetisse ut Ecclesia cum omnibus officinis abyssi voragine
absorberetur! Omnes verò <g>Ecclesiæ</g> hujus redditus pro suo
arbitrio expenderunt; illic excelsa et decentia officinarum ædificia
fabricantes; hìc verò fabricata situ et vetustate deferentes.
Et quoniam eis indignissimum videbatur ut locus [old Llanthony] tam
antiqua religione sacer et tam amplis possessionibus ditatus, omninò
virorum religiosorum residentiâ destitueretur, destinare solebant
genes debiles, et abjectiores, qui nec sibi nec aliis multum prodesse
valebant, qui non immeritò cum <g>Apostolo</g> dicere poterant:
_tanquam purgamenta fratrum facti sumus omnium paripsima usque
adhuc_.--_Pri. de Lanth. ord. S. Aug._
[337] In old writings it is spelt Hodenay, Hondy, Hodenie, &c.
[338] We have not introduced the original Welsh; but the reader may see
the whole in the “Historie of <g>Cambria</g>, now called Wales, a part
of the most famous Yland of Brytane, by <g>David Powel</g>, Doctor in
Divinitie, [=c] privilegio. 1584.”
[339] State of Europe during the Middle Ages.--_Hallam._
[340] Ibid.
[341] Hallam’s Middle Ages.
[342] Whewel.
[343] Sir Thomas More said to his lady that the consideration of the
time--for it was Lent--should restrayne her from so scolding her
servants. “_Tush, tush_, my lord,” said she; “_Lookye! here is one step
to heavenward_,”--shewing him a frier’s girdle. “Alas! I fear me,”
said he, “this _step_ will not bring you up one step higher.”--_Camd.
Remains_, quoted Brit. Monach. p. 173.
[344] Dugdale gives it at £71. 3_s._ 4_d._; Speed at £112. 1_s._ 5_d._
At the Dissolution, John Ambrose was Prior, and with John Nealand and
three other Canons subscribed to the Supremacy in 1534.
[345] See the notice of Tinterne Abbey.
[346] The north aisle is occupied by a wash-house and skittle-ground.
The cloisters, dormitories, and other offices are used for the
reception of visitors, under the direction of a resident steward.
Latterly, the ruins appear to have suffered little from time or
desecration. The western front is very perfect and beautiful, but the
tracery of the great window is obliterated. The owner of the property
is Walter Savage Landor, Esq., the poet.--_Archæol. Journ._
[347] _Edition_ 1806; but serious dilapidations have taken place since
then, and even within three or four years. Great credit is due to
the house of Beaufort for the pains taken in the conservation of the
religious houses and castles that have fallen to its possession and
custody; and it is very gratifying to know that the example is followed
by the present Proprietor of Llanthony.
[348] London: Pickering.
[349] Now, in Walter de Troucestre’s Chron., we read,
“A.D. 1301, on the first day of April, being Easter-eve,
the Church of Llanthony, near Gloucester, was entirely burnt to the
bare walls, together with its _four_ belfries, nor did any bell remain
that was not either broken or melted.”--_Roberts._
[350] Supposed by some to have been the Sacristy or Vestiary.--See
preceding pages.
[351] See Tinterne Abbey: Descrip. of Dole.
[352] Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. iii. Orat. August.
[353] The <g>Rules</g>--of which the above are but a meagre and
imperfect outline--are expressed with great beauty and simplicity
in the original, to which the reader is again referred. It is worth
mentioning that the celebrated Thomas à Kempis was a monk of this
Order; and, perhaps, no devotional work has appeared in so many
languages, or run through so many editions, as his “_De Imitatione
Christi_.”
[354] The tracts written, and supposed to be written, by him, were
published by Bertrand Tissier in 1662.
[355] Vol. iii. page 66.
[356] Conveyances of smoke by holes in the walls are of very ancient
date in English castles; but the earliest certain instance of chimneys,
properly so called, is understood to occur in some castles abroad,
about the year 1347.
[357] See Raglan Castle, description and woodcut, _ante_.
[358] The Castle of Grosmont, by a grant of King John, belonged to the
family of Breoses, but afterwards to Hubert de Burgh, who, to “calm
a court tempest,” resigned it with three others to Edward III. See
description of the Castle in this work.
[359] Thomas’s Glendower, 132
[360] Memoirs of Owen Glendower, 1822.
[361] See the preceding account of Raglan Castle.
[362] “Secunda urbicula, quam Burrium Antoninus dixit, sedet ubi
Brithin profluens Iscae commiscetur, Britannis hodie, transpositis
literis, Brumbegie pro _Burenbegie_, et Caer-Uske--Gyraldo Castrum
Oscæ--et Anglis Usk, nunc solum Castri ampli ruinas ostendit, quod
amænissimé intersidet inter Iscam flumen, et Oilwy rivulum ...”
[363] Monuments Antiqua, Kennet’s Rom. Antiq., Tacitus, Vegetius de re
Militari, Thomas, p. 141.
[364] We do not read of any nuns having been “stolen from the nunnery”
of Uske; but as the reader may be aware, poor Sir Osbert Giffard paid
severely for his sacrilegious gallantry in stealing not one but _two_
nuns out of Wilton Abbey. He was ordered never to enter a nunnery more!
never to be in the presence of a nun without special leave of his
Diocesan. Nor was this enough: he was condemned to go thrice “naked in
his shirt and breeches” to the parish church of W., though not, it is
said, in presence of the nuns; to be each several time beaten with a
rod, much to the comfort of his own soul, and the edification of the
by-standers; and so, also, in Salisbury market, and in Shaftesbury
church. He was condemned, moreover, to doff the insignia of knighthood,
and don a coarse garment of russet, trimmed with lamb or sheep’s wool;
to wear calf-skin on his nether extremities, and not to wear any shirt
after flagellation. And all this ignominious treatment to be rigorously
enforced, until he, the said Osbert, should have been three years in
the Holy Land, or recalled by royal authority.--_Brit. Monachism_, iii.
161. _County Hist._
[365] The town is incorporated and governed by a portreeve who has
concurrent jurisdiction with the county magistrates, a recorder,
two bailiffs, and burgesses. The recorder appoints the burgesses,
from among whom the portreeve is chosen at a court-leet, on a day
previous to St. Luke’s day, or the 29th of October. The recorder is
appointed by the lord of the borough. Four constables are chosen at
an annual court-leet of the lord of the manor of Uske, who is also
lord of the borough, although the latter is no part of the manor.
The quarter-sessions are held alternately here and at Monmouth. The
town-house, erected by the Duke of Beaufort, is a handsome building.
There are monthly fairs, and the inhabitants, besides the japan ware
already mentioned, are occupied in the salmon fishery and agriculture.
A free grammar-school for boys was founded here in 1621, by Roger
Edwards, with almshouses for twelve poor persons, and an exhibition
at Oxford. These almshouses, forming three sides of a quadrangle,
have been recently rebuilt. In the main street the houses are much
scattered, and ornamented by intervening gardens, which give an air of
healthy cheerfulness to the place. The Wesleyans, Independents, and
Roman Catholics, have all their meeting-houses or chapels.--_Parl. Gaz._
[366] Or in the elegant lines of Ausonius:--
“Nec te puniceo rutilantem viscere salmo
Transierim, latæ cujus vaga verbera caudæ
Gurgite de medio summas reseruntur in undas.”
[367] See vol i. of this work, art. “Arundel.”
[368] A.D. 1189. Hen. Rex ... dedit Maritagium Isabellæ, filiæ Ricardi
<g>Strongbow</g>. Willelmo <g>Marescallo</g> primo, et sic factus
est Comes totius Pembrochiæ, et dominus totius hæreditatis.--_Will.
Worcest._
[369] See history of Tinterne Abbey, _ante_ p. 44.
[370] See his character as already given in this work.
[371] See the original, as above.--Tinterne, p. 46.
[372] Gilbert Mareschal, a principal and most potent peere of the
realm, proclaimed here a Disport of running on horseback with launces,
which they called <g>Tourneaments</g>, under the name of _Fortunie_,
making a scorne of the King’s authority, whereby these Tourneaments
were inhibited. To which place, when a great number of the nobility and
gentry were assembled, it fortuned that Gilbert himselfe, as he ranne
at tilt, by occasion that his flinging horse brake bridle and cast him,
was trampled under foote, and so pitifully died.--_Chronicle._
[373] Among his other feats “of spirit and prowess,” the following,
recorded by the grave monk of St. Albans, is sufficiently
“characteristic:”--About this time, William de Valence, residing
at Hertfort Castle, as it is said, rode to the parke of Heathfeld,
belonging to the Bishop of Ely, and there, hunting without any leave,
went to the bishop’s manor-house; and there readily finding nothing
to drink but ordinary beer, and, swearing and cursing the drink and
those who made it, broke open the butlery doors. After all his company
had drunk their fills of the best wines in the bishop’s cellars, he
pulled the spigots out of the vessels, and let out the rest upon
the floor; and then a servant of the house hearing the noise, and
running to see what the matter was, they laughed him to scorn, and so
departed.--_Dugd._ B. 774, Paris, 855.
[374] This Earl of Pembroke fell at the battle of Bayonne, in June,
1296, being the 23d of Edw. I., and was buried in St. Edmond’s chapel,
Westminster.
[375] Scotticé, _Peel_, or castle.
[376] Penbrock, Penbrok, Pembrok, or Pembroke: names of the same places
and persons, all variously spelt in the original deeds.
[377] These jousts and tournaments were used a long time, says the
chronicle, and with such slaughter of gentlemen in all places, but
in this England most of all--since that King <g>Stephen</g> brought
them in--that by divers decrees of the Church they were forbidden,
upon paine that whosoever therein were slaine should want Christian
buriall in church or churchyard: and hiere with us King <g>Henrie</g>
the Third, by advice of his sages, made an Act of Parliament, that
their heires who transgressed in this kind should be disinherited.
Howbeit, contrary to the said law, so good and wholesome, this naughty
and wicked custome was practised a great while, and grew not quite
out of use before the happie daies of Kinge <g>Edward</g> the Third,
[Matt. Paris, 1248.] In the present instance, the Earl was a youth of
but seventeen; but inspired with the manly courage of his forefathers,
adventured to tilt with Syr John <g>St. John</g>, by an unlucky slip of
whose lance young Hastings was run through the body, and suddenly died.
He was a person of so noble disposition that, in bounty and courtesy,
he exceeded most of his degree. But, adds the chronicle, his untimely
death was then thought by many to be a judgment upon the family in
regard that Aymer de Valence, his ancestor, was one of those who gave
sentence of death upon Thomas, Earl of Lancaster; for it was observed,
that after that judgment so given, _none of the succeeding_ Earls ever
saw his father, nor any father of them took delight in seeing his child!
[378] The reader may refer to our account of this transaction in
the history of Raglan, in which, also, sketches of the Earls of
<g>Pembroke</g>, of the house of Herbert, are given.
[379] <g>Hywel y Fwyall</g>, a British chieftain, is described by the
Welsh bards as having commanded a body of his countrymen, as a corps of
reserve, at the battle of Cressy; and by his seasonable advance, and
valorous incursion upon the French lines, to have materially added to
the acceleration of victory.--_Ow. Glendwr_, 33.
[380] The Plantagenets are at the plough; while the descendants of the
knaves that served them are at the helm of public affairs.
[381] See Speed, p. 465.
[382] See the Drama of Richard III., Act V.
[383] See also the Enumeration as given by Shakspeare.
[384] Thomas’s “Glendwr,” 1822.
[385] It is mentioned as a curious genealogical fact, that Cromwell was
descended from Cadwgan, second son of Bleddyn-ap-Cynfyn, founder of
the third royal tribe. The family name was anciently Williams; Morgan
Williams, of Nantchurch, in Cardiganshire, married the sister of Thomas
Cromwell, the minister Earl of Essex, and was succeeded by his son,
Sir Richard Cromwell, of Hinchinbroke, in Huntingdonshire, who first
assumed the name of Cromwell. He was father to Sir Henry Cromwell, the
grandfather, by Robert, the second son of Oliver, the “Protector.”
Yorke--Thomas’ Mem. of Owen Glendwr, 225.
[386] _Caer-Tyf_--Castle or fort on the Taafe.--See Warner, p. 46.
[387] Powel’s Hist. p. 111; also, Warner’s Tour, p. 47
[388] Tanner’s Not. Monast.; Thomas’s Mems. of Glendower; Coxe’s Tour.
[389] Excursions in Wales. 1851.
[390] Its Welsh name is _Dynbych-y-Pyscoed_,--_piscium_ copia admodum
celebre, ut Britannicé Tenby-Piscoid denominatur.--_Gyrald._
[391] Of this inundation, which swamped part of Holland, and sent a new
colony to Wales, Drayton sings:--
“When wrathful Heaven the clouds so liberally bestowed,
The seas--then wanting room to lay their boist’rous load--
Upon the Belgian coast their pampered stomachs cast,
That peopled cities sank into the mighty waste.
The <g>Flemings</g> were enforced to take them to their oars,
To try the setting main to find out firmer shores.
When, as this spacious Isle them entrance did allow,
To plant the Belgian stock upon this goodly brow;
These nations, that their tongues did naturally affect,
Both generally forsook the <g>British</g> dialect.”
[392] There was also a chapel, dedicated to St. Julian, on the quay;
the free chapel of St. John’s, founded by the Valences, or Valentias,
with a lazar-house and almshouse. The modern charities of Tenby are
liberally supported.
[393] See his Memoirs of Owen Glendwr, p. 61, to which we are indebted
for much information on this subject.
[394] See vol. i. of this work, Castles and Abbeys, pp. 155, 156.
[395] “The first day he read the _first book_ to a great concourse of
people, and afterwards entertained all the poor of the town; on the
second day he read the _second book_, and entertained all the doctors
and chief scholars; and on the third day he read the _third book_, and
entertained all the young scholars, soldiers, and burgesses.”
[396] The rivulet here mentioned is that which supplied the ancient
ponds, and is shown on the right of the engraved picture. On the left
is seen the church with its tall embattled tower--much resembling an
Italian campanile--of Norman workmanship, and a style peculiar to
this county. On the foreground is the dilapidated framework of an
ancient cottage, with a chimney common to the country. This relic is
supposed to belong to an era not less remote than that of the castle.
To the right of the engraving, the promontory of St. Gowan’s Head is
seen closing the distant horizon; and directly in front, the sea view
presents an unlimited expanse of waters.
[397] Capellam nostri Castelli de Nethe, cum omni decima procurationis
nostræ dæmus, in annona, et cateris rebus, et cum omni decima hominum
mestrorum illius provincia, viz.: Francorum et Anglorum, etc., etc.
[398] Dat. per manum H. de <g>Well</g>, Arch. de Well, apud Burbeche,
vj Januarii, anno regni nostri ix.
[399] See note regarding this name, _ante_ p. 305.
[400] <g>Edward II.</g> is also said to have found a temporary asylum
in the parish of Llangynwyd-fawr, in the county of Glamorgan. He
had interested himself much in the concerns of his Welsh subjects,
arbitrating the feuds, and determining the disputes among the
chieftains. In the day of adversity, these condescensions were repaid
with loyal devotion to his person; and when harassed by his barons,
and deserted by his English subjects, he found a brief sanctuary in
Wales, at Neath Abbey, and also, as other writers conjecture, at
<g>Tinterne</g>.
[401] Or Grenville, Grainvil, Greenfeld--various spellings for the same
name.
[402] See Tewkesbury, vol. i. of this work, p. 172.
[403] On the authority of Girald. Cambrens.; _query_, Gwentiana, from
Gwent, fair?
[404] Tourist in Wales, (1851,) p. 130.
[405] This and most others of the native patronymics are all variously
spelt by different writers.
[406] Nevertheless, the old maxim of ἀριστον μεν ὐδωρ has lost
nothing of its truth as a medicinal agent in the treatment of human
maladies. The superstitious belief that once carried the invalid to
drink, “nothing doubting,” of some distant well, necessitated, in many
instances, a total change of scenes and habits, which could hardly fail
to prove beneficial in many cases, in which the comforts of home and
the established rules of treatment had been found quite ineffectual.
The cures ascribed to hydropathy in our own time are, in many cases,
not a whit less wonderful than those ascribed by monkish legends to the
holy wells of England and Wales. The only difference is, that while
tradition affirms that new _limbs_ were known to sprout out [as in the
claw of a lobster] by the plentiful use of certain waters, hydropathics
restrict themselves to the reproduction of _lungs_ only; so that the
modern wells have rather an advantage over the ancient in the art of
miracle-working.
[407] This daughter afterwards married Sir Henry le Scrope, Knt.
[408] Near the entrance to the lawn in front of the castle, on the
road leading to Carew village and church, stands one of the early
<g>Crosses</g>, in the centre of which is an elaborate inscription, but
which cannot now be deciphered.--_Prescot_, 164.
[409] G. H. Warrington, Esq. See “Thomas’ Glendwr,” 1822.
[410] See the particulars as related in the chronicles of Speed and
others.
[411] Camden.
[412] The Earl being at the time Lord Steward of the King’s
household.--_Clarend._, vol. i. p. 58.
[413] _Vide_ Dec. Lanfr. Fosb. 67.
[414] Sanctor. Patrum. Reg. Monast. Louv. 12mo. 1571, fol. 9-51. Joh.
de Turre Cremata, Concordia Regularum, &c., quoted in the Brit. Monach.
p. 68.
[415] So far we have followed Stevens; but according to other
authorities, he seems to have forgotten that the ancient Benedictines
wore a _coif_ upon the head. The “Specimen Monochologiæ” clothes the
Benedictine monk with breeches.--_V. Brit. Mon._
[416] His work on Osteology--written during the time he acted as
Demonstrator in one of the metropolitan schools, and before he had
reached his twentieth year--did him great credit.