CHAPTER VI

LONDON, FELIXSTOWE--DUNWICH, FELIXSTOWE

In an 18 White steam car--Best exit from London

eastwards--General ignorance of the White steam

cars--Some interested prejudice against them--An

account of them--Independent testimony to

them--Woodford and Chingford--Popularity of Epping

Forest--Pepys on the roads--Little improvement--A

haunting cyclist--Impression of the Forest--"Seeing's

believing"--True woodland unkempt--Thorn trees as

evidence of antiquity--Motor-cyclist's

rivalry--Epping--Ongar--Chelmsford--Rich

country--Colchester--The "Red Lion"--Memories of the

Civil War--Deaths of Lucas and Lisle--Through

Ipswich--Trimley's two churches--Felixstowe--A hotel

half awake--Felix the Burgundian--Rainy morning--Glance

at Felixstowe--Mr. Felix Cobbold, M.P.--His perfect

home--Rock-gardens and pergolas--The walled garden--A

Jersey herd--An afternoon drive--Nature's garden of

Suffolk--The motorist's independence--Machine feels no

pain--A circuit to Woodbridge--Wickham Market and

Saxmundham--Hey for Dunwich!--Course laid over farm

tracks--Desolate Dunwich--Irresistible coast

erosion--Skeletons "all awash"--The lost

forest--Dunwich in the past--Steady loss of land--Back

to Felixstowe through byways and by road.

At precisely ten minutes past three in the afternoon of the 17th of March

an 18-h.p. White steam car glided out of Kingly Street, Regent Street. At

ten minutes to four, without any undue haste in driving, it was out in the

open country at Ponder's End, the route taken being by way of York Road

(hard by King's Cross Station) and Seven Sisters Road. This route, which

involves but three turns, if the right ones be chosen, is at once the

quickest way out of London to the eastward; far less unpleasant to eye,

nostrils, and ears than the drive through Whitechapel; far less difficult

in the matter of traffic; and it has the further advantage of leading the

traveller almost at once into scenes of sylvan beauty more often raved

about to the sceptical than seen by the eyes of the wise. For these

reasons it is given with pharmaceutical detail in the "Practical

Observations." The occupants of the car were Mr. Frederick Coleman, London

manager of the White Steam Car Company of the United States; Mrs. Coleman,

a lady possessing the rare gift of a remarkably exact topographical memory;

their child, my wife and myself, and a mechanic who sat contentedly, after

the manner of his kind, at my feet. The car was fitted with cape hood for

use if necessary, and, in the way of luggage, it carried two fair-sized

suit-cases upon a platform astern, containing all the impedimenta which

could reasonably be required by folks who intended to travel by day and to

rest comfortably at hotels in the evening. It may be added that we had no

absolutely fixed plan, for we meant to drift whither we pleased, allowing

fancy or inclination to dictate to us the time for halting and the

resting-place for the night.

The expedition had been anticipated with considerably more than ordinary

interest, because, although it had been my lot to be much in motors since

motors invaded England, it had not been my fortune ever before to take a

long drive in a White steam car. A very large number of motorists must

be--as in fact I know that they are--without personal experience of a White

steam car, although it may well be that they are familiar with reports to

its prejudice, or silent shrugging of the shoulders and raising of the

eyebrows when it is mentioned, which are perfectly natural and excusable. I

can readily imagine that if I had a pecuniary interest in any of the

leading types of petrol-driven cars, between which there is next to no room

for choice, I might show no headlong desire to testify in favour of a car

moving more smoothly than any petrol-car, free from the nuisance of a

starting-handle (it is a danger too sometimes, as the broken arm of a

friend's careless chauffeur has shown recently), absolved from the

necessity of change-speed gear, capable of an astonishing turn of speed,

singularly strong in hill-climbing and--considerably less expensive than

any petrol-driven car of equal power--by power I do not mean horse-power.

The best plan, perhaps, of avoiding the temptation to give such testimony

would be to avoid the preliminary experience, and not to try a White steam

car at all. Having no financial interest in any kind of car, being well

aware that even among motorists crass ignorance on the subject of this type

of car prevails, having heard from private friends, complete strangers to

the motor-car industry, that White cars have given them complete

satisfaction, and that, in their opinion, the public needs enlightenment on

the subject, I deem it right to give some account of the 1906 model of the

White steam cars.

Now this is an age of advertisement and, therefore, of necessity, an age

given to suspect latent advertisement. It is therefore prudent to state

that no consideration of any kind has passed or will pass from the White

Steam Car Company or anybody connected with it to me, or to the publishers,

that nobody connected with the company has even a suspicion that I am going

to attempt to describe the car, that anybody connected with the company

could do it more accurately, and that there is no other motive in writing

than a desire to make known a good thing to those who may be fortunate

enough to be able to obtain it. Every motorist, and many a man and woman

not fairly to be described as such, is familiar with the general principles

underlying every petrol-driven car; and the distinctions between types of

petrol cars are due entirely to little differences of detail in the

application of those principles. That is why no description of a

petrol-driven car is necessary in these pages or could be tolerated in

them. Very few motorists really know anything about White steam cars, and

that is why they are described in short and popular language.

Perhaps the best justification for it is to be found in a personal

explanation. A week or so after this expedition ended I met in Piccadilly a

friend, high in the service of the Crown and of large private means, whose

name it would be a breach of faith to publish; but, as a guarantee of good

faith, I here state that, in the margin of the manuscript, I have written

the name for the private information of the publishers. It is one which

would carry a great deal of weight if it were printed. I had left my

friend's house in May, 1905, after trying with him a French and English

car, both of well-known makes, of which he was very proud. After our first

greeting in March, 1906, I remarked that I had been trying a White steam

car exhaustively, and that I was simply astonished by its capabilities. It

turned out that, in the interval, he had acquired one, and he was entirely

at one with me. "I am delighted with it; so is my man; the public ought to

know about it." Those were the _ipsissima verba_ of an absolutely

independent man, whose mechanical and engineering knowledge is far above

the average, whom, as an exacting judge of sheer comfort, his friends

believe to have no superior in this world. After that, let him who pleases

suspect latent advertisement. In fact, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_, and let

the truth be told.

A White steam car is, in general outline and appearance, very like a

petrol-driven car, and the cautious Mr. Worley Beaumont, who is honorary

consulting engineer to the Automobile Club and consulting engineer to the

Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, has written thus: "The makers of

these cars are to be congratulated upon the possession and development of a

type of steam generator which, in combination with a cleverly designed

engine and well devised and constructed auxiliary gear and parts, has made

it possible to produce a car capable of continuing to compare favourably

with those propelled by the petrol engine." The essential points are the

steam generator, which it is simpler to call the boiler, and the burner, or

fire. The generator is an ingenious arrangement of coiled tubes, fed with

water from the top, always containing, when the fire has been kindled, some

water as well as a sufficient supply of superheated steam. The burner is,

to quote Mr. Beaumont, "in form a shallow drum, the upper face of which is

annularly ridged. The ridges are sawn or slit through at close intervals,

and provide openings through which the combustible gas and air mixture

combines with additional air flowing upwards through the numerous openings

in the tubes." In other words the fuel, petrol, or benzolene ingeniously

vaporized, is forced into the annular ridges, there mixes with air, and the

mixture burns fiercely. The steam temperature is most cleverly controlled

by the "thermostat," which may be described sufficiently for popular

purposes by stating that it regulates the force of the fire automatically

by the temperature of the steam, the automatic regulation being founded on

the different expansions of brass and steel under varying degrees of heat.

There are great opportunities, too, for humouring the engine, through the

burner and generator of course, by the adroit use of the throttle.

These are the essentials. The drawbacks, if such they be, to this kind of

steam car are that it needs to have its burner lighted for a period varying

from three to five minutes in the morning before starting, and that it

requires a fresh supply of water for every 150 miles or so. The second

requirement is really of no moment in this country; the first, it has been

argued with all appearance of seriousness, renders this steam car inferior

to a petrol car in "efficiency." Now this, unless "efficiency" has merely

technical signification, is absurd. Substantially, even if the hour of

setting forth has not been fixed beforehand, one can always afford to wait

three minutes before starting on a drive; if it comes to that so much time

is usually occupied in wrapping oneself up and in bestowing passengers;

and, in any ordinary acceptation of the word, the starting-handle, which

must be applied after every substantial halt, is the most inefficient

device conceivable. Other drawbacks, candidly, I found none, except that,

on our first day, some new asbestos packing made itself perceptible to the

nostrils; and there was no question that the absence of change-speed gear,

and the absolute smoothness with which more power could be applied when

necessary on hills, were a genuine pleasure.

That, however, was the lesson learned in the course of several days. So far

as the narrative went we had only passed out of London to Ponder's End,

which was of no interest. Then we were at Chingford, on an absolutely

lovely day, and the beauty of the Forest of Epping, its popularity among

Londoners, and the villainous quality of its roads became simultaneously

apparent. Concerning the roads, "Murray" says "the Forest Roads are no

longer as in Pepys's days--when he complained that riding in the main way

was like 'riding in a kennel.'" On verifying the quotation it appears

possible that Mr. Pepys has been misunderstood, but not too clear what he

really meant. He had reached Epping overnight, after a visit to Audley End

House, "where we drank a most admirable drink," and his entry of 28

February runs: "Up in the morning. Then to London through the forest, where

we found the way good, but only in one path, which we kept as though we had

rode through a kennel all the way." The meaning of the last clause is

perhaps a little obscure; but it is at least clear that Mr. Pepys,

following the road by which we travelled in 1906 in all probability, found

it tolerable when all the rest were bad. He was more fortunate than we

were, for all the way from Chingford past Buckhurst Hill to Epping the road

was atrocious. It was the sort of road, too, which promised to remain

scandalously bad, until such time as it should be taken thoroughly in hand

on some new principle, since it appeared to be made of gravel and dirt,

fairly firm in the middle, but shockingly ploughed up at the sides. On this

fine day it was crowded with holiday traffic, with persons walking on the

footpath by the side, with bicyclists innumerable struggling over the

broken surface, with hired carriages carrying family parties for a drive in

the sun through the heart of the Forest. If popularity of resort be a

reason why a road should be good rather than bad, as surely it ought to be,

then some authority has a good deal to answer for.

This was, shameful to relate, my first visit to Epping Forest, but, before

giving a first impression of it, there is a ghost to be exorcised. So often

as my mind recurs to this passage through the heart of the Forest it is

haunted by the memory of one particular cyclist. He was thin, pale to the

point of haggardness, anything than robust to look at. He crouched forward

over his handle bars, in the manner beloved of the "scorcher" and depriving

the exercise of any health-giving effects it might produce, until his back

was parallel to the road. We were travelling, designedly as a test of the

car, and accurately as the speedometer bore witness, at a steady and

unvarying pace of twenty miles an hour, on the level, on downward

gradients, and up hills which, while they offered no sort of trouble to a

powerful car, would have made me grunt and grumble and go slowly if I had

been on a bicycle. Yet this apparent weakling clung to us, being in fact

never more than twenty yards behind us for many miles, without showing any

signs of severe effort save in the tense features of his pallid face. It

was really a great achievement, greater probably than the bicyclist was

aware; it exemplified the effect of an air-shield and the value of a

pace-maker in races; but it was a relief when, at last, the pale-faced

bicyclist relinquished the pursuit.

Is it wrong to give an impression of Epping Forest in early spring, an

impression resulting from a single passage through it? Surely not. Did not

James Anthony Froude say, or did not somebody say in defence of James

Anthony Froude--it really does not matter which--something to the effect

that a man may write a tolerable description of a country from a single

visit, or a thorough account of it after prolonged study, but that in the

intervening period he cannot describe it at all? Whosoever said it, or even

if it was never said until now, it is a true saying, for in the period

between first impression and thorough knowledge the mind is so much

hampered with details that it cannot survey the whole in proportion. It

cannot see the wood for the trees. Of this Epping Forest I knew, as most

men do, something from hearsay and from desultory reading. I had read of

the ancient rights, apparently rather problematical as a matter of history,

of the City in the Forest, of the Epping Hunt, of the saving of seven

thousand wild acres, lying cheek by jowl with London, by the Epping Forest

Act of 1871; had read also countless articles, wherein the sylvan beauties

of Epping Forest, its ornithological and entomological treasures, were

proclaimed with emphatic sincerity. Yet the place itself was a revelation.

Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem

Quam quae sunt oculis submissa fidelibus.

So wrote Horace long ago, and "seeing's believing," is a blunt but adequate

translation of his verses. Epping Forest was and is a sheer delight. Apart

from the roads that traverse it, it is as distinctly genuine and unkempt a

piece of English woodland as is to be found on these islands. The reference

here is not to fine timber or to monumental trees, but to the tangled

thickets of ancient hawthorn, rising from beds of bracken--they were the

brown relics of the last year's glory as we saw them--with here and there a

natural alley through their midst, which stretched far on either side.

Nothing of the tree kind gives such convincing testimony of antiquity as

obviously old hawthorns, which have been left to the care of nature. Your

huge and venerable oak may be, and very often is, historic; its story may

be, and often is, traced back over several centuries. Men mourned over the

Fairlop Oak, in Hainault Forest hard by, when it was blown down in 1820,

because it had been forty-five feet in girth "and its boughs shadowed an

area of 300 ft."--the passage is quoted because its meaning is not too

clear--and it is said that the pulpit and lectern of St. Pancras Church

were made of the timber. Your historic oaks are the aristocracy of trees;

their annals are chronicled by the Debretts and Burkes of forestry. But as

there are ancient families of English peasants, their simple pedigrees

never kept because they seemed to be of no moment, which are probably far

older in the land than any noble family, so there are, in all human

probability, thorn trees more ancient by far than the oldest oak. They have

survived, or at any rate they give the impression that they have survived,

which is what really matters, longer than the oaks for the same reasons

which have led to the survival of the rustic families of men. As peasants

were left alone when peers went to Tower Hill, so thorn trees have been

passed unscathed by storms which have torn off the limbs of oaks or laid

them prostrate on the ground, have been spared by the woodcutter in search

of his raw material for England's wooden walls. They were insignificant,

very tough, of no particular value as timber. They have lived on,

unnoticed, growing into impenetrable thickets, bearded with time-honoured

lichen, garlanded with fragrant blossom in the season of the year, haunted

by nightingales which find in them nesting places defying even the most

hardy boy. A few of them have been famous in story, the Glastonbury thorn,

for example, and the _unica spinosa arbor_, round which the battle of Saxon

and Dane raged fiercest at Ashdown; but most of the old thorns in the

country are, like most of the old peasant families, simply of immemorial

antiquity and, when once they have attained maturity, particularly in an

exposed spot, they seem to change little from year to year, or in ten

years, or twenty, or thirty. That is why, to my mind, a thicket of gnarled

and lichened hawthorns, such as you may see by the acre in Epping Forest,

and to a greater extent there than in any other forest known to me, is the

strongest testimony of genuine antiquity; and it is the thorn brakes,

therefore, which charm me more than any other feature of the famous Forest

of Epping. They embody the very spirit of wild and untended woodland.

So we passed on through the long and rather pleasing street of Epping, and

here the cyclist elected to remain behind, being succeeded by a

motor-cyclist, a cheerful wretch who, since the road to Ongar is one of

many angles, had us somewhat at his mercy. His pace was nearly equal to the

best speed it was prudent for us to achieve; he could catch us and go ahead

at severe gradients, especially if there were a corner in front, and he

never failed to do so with a triumphant grin on his face. When he was

behind he knew that the way by which we passed would be clear to him; when

he was in front of us we could entertain no such confidence for ourselves

in relation to him. Barring accidents he could probably have clung to us

all day--that is to say, unless he had jolted his heart out through his

mouth. Motor-cyclists say, of course, that they feel no jolting. They may

say the thing which is true, but motor-cycling looks so vibratory that

their assertion produces no sort of effect on my mind. However, this

particular motor-cyclist grew weary of haunting us before we reached Ongar,

and he was not regretted.

Ongar, though it owns a mound and an entrenchment, made no deep impression

on us, and we passed on quickly to Chelmsford, trim, neat, ancient, and

modern, for the county town of Essex bulks fairly large in far-away

history, and, as for the modern appearance of its environs, especially

those through which we passed _en route_ for Colchester, it has been

written: "The Colchester road, through the northern suburb of Springfield,

is enlivened by an avenue of villas and gardens." Comment, as the

newspapers used to say, would be superfluous.

This Colchester road, through the northern suburb of Springfield, was the

old Roman road of our first tour, through Boreham and Witham and so far as

Marks Tey, at any rate; but we travelled it in more genial conditions this

time, and could see all there was to be seen. The villages and towns--for

Witham is quite a town, and an ancient one at that--did not seduce us into

a halt, although those of more leisurely mind may make one for the sake of

examining Witham Church, in the walls of which are many Roman bricks. But

the country, which pleased Arthur Young by its fertility and by virtue of

the intelligent pains with which it was treated by the Essex farmers, is,

in its peaceful way, one of the most fascinating and characteristic to be

found in all England. I shall not attempt to do justice to it at this

point, partly because our journey was taken too early in the spring for a

landscape, of which the trees are the chief glory to be seen at its best,

but principally because, as I think has been explained before, some account

of the scenic beauties of Essex can be given more suitably in an attempt,

to be made later, to record some of the experiences acquired, during a more

than commonly golden September, in the course of ten days spent in motoring

about Essex from Colchester as a centre. Let no more be said here than that

the Essex elms, or most of them, are not "shrouded," as is the custom of

many southern counties--that is to say, their side branches are not lopped

off periodically, to supply fuel and pea-stocks, a mere tuft being left at

the top--and the result of leaving the trees in their natural state is to

make the roads shady and delightful, although road surveyors might take a

different view of them.

Reaching Colchester, whereof any description is postponed for the reason

already given, in the late afternoon of a market-day, we betook ourselves

to my old head-quarters, the "Red Lion," for afternoon tea. It is a

delightfully old-fashioned house, having much oak timber, carved and black,

on the front, and the motor enters under an overhanging archway into a

courtyard shaded by an immemorial creeper. Here, usually, are military

officers to be found, and the house has military traditions, for it is at

least said that in the "Old Red Lion" were gathered together the ill-fated

Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle and their officers, after the

surrender of the city to Fairfax and Ireton had become inevitable, and, if

tradition be true, as there is no reason to believe that it is not, it was

from the "Red Lion" that they went forth gallantly and cheerfully to meet

their deaths. It was a fine episode, and a sad one. "Lucas was first shot,

and he himself gave the orders to fire, with the same alacrity as if he had

commanded a platoon of his own soldiers. Lisle instantly ran and kissed the

dead body, then cheerfully presented himself to a like fate. Thinking that

the soldiers, destined for his execution, stood at too great a distance, he

called to them to come nearer. One of them replied, 'I'll warrant you, Sir,

we'll hit you'; he answered smiling, 'Friends, I have been nearer you when

you have missed me.' Thus perished this generous spirit."

Darkness was beginning to threaten before we left Colchester for Ipswich,

and it had fallen before Ipswich was reached by the same road used in

leaving it heretofore. So we passed through the streets of Ipswich, still

crooked, of course, still infested with giant tramcars, and still crowded,

into the open country beyond, the light of the acetylene lamps piercing the

gloom for fully a quarter of a mile ahead. We pushed on partly because our

minds had been half made up to spend the night at Felixstowe, partly

because, on the whole, it seemed that Felixstowe would be a more pleasant

resting-place than Ipswich. The drawback was that we saw nothing more of

the country than that, apparently, we crossed a good deal of heathland, and

that at Trimley the towers of two churches appeared in quick succession.

They were in fact in the same churchyard, as was seen another day, and one

was and is Trimley St. Mary and the other Trimley St. Martin. Why they

stand cheek by jowl in this wasteful fashion I am unhappily not able to

say, not for lack of inquiry or curiosity, but because inquiry has not been

addressed to the right authorities and curiosity has therefore been vain.

Of Felixstowe that night we saw nothing much. We gathered an impression of

streets of new villas, detached and semi-detached, leading at last to a

large hotel which, albeit in a state of semi-hibernation, was welcome.

Semi-hibernation means that the dining-room proper was not in use, and that

only the first floor bedrooms were ready for the reception of visitors.

Still, there was dinner ready, and its readiness quite made up for cramped

quarters. Need it be added that the hotel is named after Felix the

Burgundian, as is the town? Felix, every schoolboy knows, but a good many

grown men and women may have forgotten, was the first Bishop of East

Anglia, imported by King Sigeberht in 630 A.D., and had his see at Dunwich,

perhaps the most weirdly forlorn place in all England, which we visited

next day.

That next day opened ill, with abundance of warm rain which, at first at

any rate, showed no signs of abating. That rain was really a blessing in

disguise, for when it abated sullenly, Mr. Coleman proposed a morning call

on Mr. Felix Cobbold, M.P., whom in fact he had been helping in the

election, which ought to be known for all time as the motor-car election,

and Mr. Cobbold was hospitality personified. He kept us willing prisoners,

taking us with him as hostages while he went in search of the ladies, and

hence comes it that, without stepping outside my rule never to inspect

another man's house save as his guest, I can at least attempt to describe

a very perfect gem of an earthly paradise. You must know first that

Felixstowe is fitly, one must not write "happily," named, in that, being

situate on the east coast of England, where the air has been known to

exceed its duties in the way of bracing the constitution of man, it has a

little aspect of its own nearly due south. Along the front of this for some

distance runs a parade, esplanade, promenade, or whatsoever they may choose

to call it, and from this, unless memory is playing a trick, the usual pier

of the modern watering-place runs into the sea in the usual way. It would

appear then that Felixstowe itself made no abiding impression, exercised no

strong fascination, on my mind. That is so. It is just a seaside town, with

lots of new houses, which lays itself out to attract sojourning visitors in

summer, and such places differ little. Some, Clacton-on-Sea for example,

which is also within my manor, are a little worse than others by reason of

the multitudes and quality of the company; some are a little better, and

have golf-links. Felixstowe is of the latter kind, and the golf-links,

which we saw next day, look distinctly good. But for seaside places, as

such, I have frankly no use, and it is the rarest thing in the world for

them to be possessed of any architectural interest.

Such were the feelings with which I walked with Mr. Coleman, having first

seen that the car was feeling well, to the end of the sea-walk, whatsoever

its proper title may be. Edward Fitzgerald, I felt, would not visit

Felixstowe now if he were still in the flesh, and the author of "Murray"

would not recognize "the pleasant village of Felixstowe, frequented in

summer by a few visitors for sea-bathing," and apparently accessible only

by coach from Ipswich even in 1875. At the east end of the walk we reached

a barrier of oak palings, delightfully weathered, and in the palings in

due course a gate, which led us to the haven where we would be. Imagine a

long escarpment of land, facing the midday sun and the sea, and raised

above the sea some forty or fifty feet. On it stands a long, many-windowed

house with spacious verandas, from which, as from the windows, man may look

down on the vast highway of the sea, sometimes smooth, sometimes grandly

rough, and at the wayfarers upon it. He may enjoy all the advantages of

being at sea without what some regard as its disadvantages, may look at the

regular sailings of the Harwich boats, may speculate upon the destination

of this or that "tramp" of the ocean. Between him and the sea are terraced

walks, wonders in the way of rock and wall-gardens, glorious with plants

which revel in the soft sea air and will live in no other. Away to the

right, on the slope towards Felixstowe, is a sheltered yet sunny

rose-garden, and above it a glorious pergola of the substantial kind

beloved of Miss Jekyll. Off to the left, past tamarisks and fuchsias, is a

cunning mixture of trees and grass and flower-borders, of sheltered

rock-gardens and ingenious intricacies of light and shade, with glasshouses

far away, not obtruding themselves on the eye, but glorious when entered.

To a garden lover there could be no more unalloyed pleasure than a tour

round the outside of this house, especially under the guidance of the owner

and maker of the garden, who possesses not merely learning, but also that

sympathy with plants which is of more value than all the horticultural

books ever written by man or woman.

Of the inside of the house it is not fitting to speak in detail. Suffice it

to say that it is, in every respect, the fitting environment of a man of

advanced middle age, sometime scholar of Eton, still a Fellow of King's

College, Cambridge, much travelled, able to indulge a refined and catholic

taste in literature and art, of whose inner life books, pictures and plants

are the most familiar friends. But surely something may be written of the

great walled garden, behind all this and across the public road. It is

emphatically the most perfect "kitchen" garden I have ever seen, and on

this particular I may almost venture to claim to speak with some

authority--the authority, that is to say, which belongs to one who is a

natural lover of gardens, even of those which are useful, and who has had

the good fortune to see many of the finest gardens in England. How great

the space is 'tis hard to guess; it is ample. It is girt on all sides by

high brick walls, and these walls, although by no means ancient, have

already taken a glorious colour. Against them is trained all manner of

wall-fruit, the best aspects being chosen, of course, for the apricots, the

peaches and the nectarines, which delight to "drink the splendour of the

sun." The spacious area within the walls is divided into four parts by

pergolas converging upon a central circle of green turf. Those pergolas,

covering a wide avenue, are delightfully solid, their pillars united at the

top by stout timbers of cambered oak, sound enough to stand for centuries.

The life they support is that of cordon apples and pears, set close

together, and trained to absolute perfection. Both when the blossom is out,

especially when the pink of apple-blossom is at its best in May, and when

the fruit, ruddy, russet and golden, has taken its colour from the sun,

these pergolas must be a sight simply lovely. The central oasis of green

has, if memory serves accurately, a fountain in its midst, and round it

certainly are pillars clad with rambling roses, their tops united not, as

is customary, by drooping chains, but by stout hawsers, two inches or more

in diameter, for which it is claimed that they suit the roses as supports

better than metal, which is subject to rapid changes of temperature and

also to electrical influence. This last consideration was new to me, but

doubtless it rests on substantial ground, and the whole idea is an

illustration of what may be achieved in gardening by sympathy, which we can

all try to give--and by an expenditure which men of moderate means may well

shudder to contemplate.

To round off the picture of this ideal home by the sea, be it added that

Mr. Cobbold farms, and that his dairy cattle are of the gentle Channel

Islands breeds, some Jerseys, all of ascertained pedigree, to which a

little Guernsey blood has been added. At Norwich, seeing the Red Polls in

great numbers, I ventured an expression of opinion that, on the whole, the

native breed of a district is usually "most in the picture" and most

profitable in that district, and the opinion remains unshaken, so far as

wayside pastures and the ordinary stock on farms are concerned. But for the

home farm no cattle are so pleasing to the eye, none are so gentle in their

manners, and none give such eminently satisfactory milk as the Channel

Islands cattle; and Mr. Cobbold's herd is most decidedly a thing in place.

In answer to a leading question, based on personal experience, he writes:

"One of the bulls (imported) was a Guernsey one; and his progeny are in

some instances still to be distinguished by their whitish noses and

lighter-coloured shins. This, of course, would make the cows larger; but

apart from this, I have noticed a decided tendency in all the pure bred

Jerseys to grow larger on our pastures and subject to the conditions they

find here." As a matter of fact the same tendency is visible on pastures

less favoured than those of Felixstowe.

It may be said that this is not motoring; but it was a glorious episode on

a motor tour, and those who pass these modest oak palings on the way to

Bawdsey, as we did next day, may like to know how complete is the paradise

that is close to them. Still we did go a-motoring that afternoon, on the

principle, perhaps, that although true hospitality may have no limits,

nature has supplied one, a fairly high one it is true, to the absorbent

capacities of the sponge. Our expedition of the afternoon, by this time

soft and rainless, was merely half a Sabbath day's journey, from the point

of view of the motorist, for there is no revolutionary pursuit of our age

to which the Greek author's saying concerning the mutability of the meaning

of words is more applicable than it is to motoring. The saying, by the way,

is that in revolutionary times the signification of words as applied to

things is always changed. A Sabbath day's journey, for example, was to the

Hebrew of old seven miles. In the course of that afternoon, merely _pour

passer le temps_, without overstraining ourselves or the car, we travelled

at least eighty miles, starting well after three o'clock, taking our

afternoon tea at a supremely interesting spot, and returning to the

pleasing shelter of the hotel more or less in time for a rather late

dinner.

Our policy, after the first few miles, which were to take us through

nature's wild garden of Suffolk, was a policy of drifting, determined by

circumstances. There is a Greek word [Greek: autarkeia], which exactly

describes one of the chief fascinations of the motor-car for those who have

the strength of mind--for it is really strength and not weakness--to allow

happy chance to determine their course in some measure. It means

"sufficiency in oneself," or "independence," and I am emboldened to refer

to it because it is much beloved by Plato, and because Plato, I am given to

understand, is quite a popular author among the ladies of our day. Here

let a suggestion be offered to the learned gentleman who delivers lectures

to note-taking ladies on Plato in the sympathetic atmosphere of one of our

huge modern hotels. There is nothing like a concrete example for bringing

home to the modern mind the truth of these expressions used by the wise men

of the old world, and two illustrations of [Greek: autarkeia] are offered

freely. "Good horse between my knees" was the very embodiment of the

feeling of independence before motor-cars were in the land. Subject to

sundry risks, not numerous or probable enough to stop a man of courage from

setting forth, the mounted man can go pretty much whither his fancy leads

him and change his mind as often as he pleases, within certain obvious

limits. The motorist is even more happily situated. For the horseman the

risks and the limits remain practically unchanged throughout the ages; for

the motorist the risks, save those of tire trouble, are always being

reduced and the limits are always being extended. There is now practically

no limit, save that of his personal choice and his physical endurance, to

the distance he may go, and he need never be troubled, as the horseman must

be from time to time, by doubts whether his pleasure may not be causing

pain to the organism which carries him willingly from place to place. It is

of course just conceivable that the metals may feel, but it is not in the

least likely that they do. Everybody has heard of mysterious movements

inside apparently solid steel--did not Mr. Ruskin speak beautifully of the

"anarchy of steel"?--and it is a frequent experience that an engine will

seem to grow tired and to require to be driven with consideration for a

while, for no apparent reason. But at any rate, even the wildest fancy can

hardly picture steel in pain in the same sense as the overdriven horse or

the patient ricksha coolie whose short cough is a reminder that the race is

short-lived. No, in motoring, so far as the use of the machine is

concerned, there can be no inhumanity.

It was in this spirit that we set forth on that soft afternoon, with a

half-formed intention of taking tea with friends near Saxmundham and of

going no farther on our outward journey. As it happened we went a great

deal farther, taking a predetermined course at first along roads clearly

marked on every map, and then, having found a new objective, and having

ascertained the direction in which it lay, we made for it by such roads as

seemed, on the face of them, and without any regard to their quality or

surface, most likely to lead towards it. It took a little longer perhaps,

but it was interesting; it gave some exercise to the topographical

intelligence, and it led us out of the beaten track. The first part of the

route was simplicity itself. We simply retraced our tracks from Felixstowe

to Trimley of the twin churches along the Ipswich road, and a mile or two

beyond. Then we turned at an obtuse angle to the right and found ourselves

in what has been called the wild garden of Suffolk, not in any classical

work perhaps, but by word of mouth. A wide stretch it was of gorse and

heather, with trees here and there, singly and in groups, the greater part

of it some eighty or ninety feet above the level of the adjoining North Sea

and, roughly speaking, forty feet above that of the plain, ten miles in

width or thereabouts, following the coast northwards for ever so many miles

from the left bank of the demure and rather dull river Deben. The "garden"

was hardly at its best for, whether kissing was out of fashion or not, the

gorse was very certainly and completely out of blossom; and of course there

was no glory of bracken; but no strong effort of imagination was called

for, no very intimate knowledge of wild nature, to perceive that, later in

the year, this must be a divinely attractive run. As it was, the memory

left is of clear air and wide prospect, of russets and sombre greens, of

two villages--their names turn out to be Brightwell and Martlesham--of no

particular note, and of a nameless brook, a tributary of the Deben, forded

near the former. The surface of the roads, perhaps, left something to be

desired by the fastidious, but that is a matter to which experience and

intelligent curiosity lead one to pay less and ever less attention. Through

such a country, growing a little more disciplined as our route, nearly due

north, took us away from the sea and on to higher ground, we passed to

Woodbridge, whereof enough has been said before, and through Wickham Market

to our old acquaintance Saxmundham, the original objective of this

easy-going drive. But, as it happened, my charioteer's friends at whose

house we called had also been tempted abroad that afternoon, and it

appeared to be considered probable that they had gone to Dunwich. In came

[Greek: autarkeia], independence, and the happy thought, Why not go to

Dunwich too? A hasty glance at a map showed that if we pushed on along the

high road not quite so far as Yoxford, and then began to think of turning

eastward, we must in due course find a road leading us to Dunwich. This was

really hardly a case of "taking chances," as our American friends have it,

for on that desolate coast the dreary remains of Dunwich are the only point

between Southwold and Aldeburgh at which roads converge. Towards Yoxford

was some three or four miles through eminently English scenery, undulations

of land, which the auctioneer's catalogue would describe not ineptly as

"park-like," showing a remarkable succession of well-grown oaks. So

"park-like," indeed, was it that, no doubt, much of it was the real thing.

As it turned out a general sense of direction suggested the wisdom of

bearing to the right, not much more than half-way to Yoxford, and the

suggestion was obeyed. It led us by roads no better than farm tracks, and

probably never intended to be any better, through Middleton and Westleton,

neither of them a village of any note, to a winding road adorned by a

sign-post with the legend, "To Dunwich and the Sea." The latter piece of

information was not necessary to anybody who had learned to note, by the

evidence of the trees, the effects of salt-bearing winds. Wheresoever near

any of our coasts you see single trees all sloping in one direction, or

coverts almost penthouse-shaped, rising gradually from a puny height of a

few feet on one side, to a wall of respectable elevation on the other,

there you may be sure that you are quite near to the sea, and that the

salt-bearing winds have beaten first on the low side of the covert. So the

sign-post was hardly needed on this narrow road of many rectangles, at one

of which my charioteer's friends were happily met. A few more turns, a

sharp descent under the almost overhanging walls of a long deserted priory,

and we were in Dunwich.

[Illustration: DUNWICH AND DESOLATION]

This same Dunwich is without exception the most depressing scene on which

the eye could rest. Down the hill we swept into a bleak hamlet of some

twenty houses and to an inn, where tea was ordered. What time the ladies

thawed themselves over a new-lit fire it seemed good to the men to restore

circulation, and perhaps stimulate the mind a little, by a tour of

inspection, and to ask for guidance beforehand. It was given in grim

language. "If you want only to see the ruins you can go by the road; if you

want to see the bones you must follow the cliff." So desiring to see

everything as quickly as might be, we took the path to the cliff, through a

sandy cutting, and soon were close to the evidence of a recent fall into

the sea of land, rising perhaps a hundred feet above high-water mark, of

which the most reckless speculator would hardly buy the fee simple for any

tangible sum. It has been falling--sometimes in large pieces, sometimes in

small--since the reign of Edward III; it is falling still, and it will

continue to fall. It is of the kind of substance that has no more cohesion,

or very little more, than a child's castle of sand, which, having been a

broad-based cone in the beginning, has been cut till it opposes a sheer and

perpendicular and crumbling obstacle to the advancing tides. Waves and

rains--the latter far more destructive than is commonly imagined--are

destroying this part of England, even while others are being added to, with

remarkable celerity, nor is it easy to see how any protecting works could,

even if the enterprise were worth undertaking, be constructed with any

reasonable hope of success. The last fall--of part of the churchyard of the

derelict All Saint's--was clearly quite recent. The bones, mixed with

crumbling debris of the rotten cliff, were being washed by muddy wavelets a

hundred feet below the perilous verge of the cliff, a grisly and a

saddening sight. The church itself--its west end still standing--hung on

the edge of the cliff; it cannot last long. "Murray" writes in 1875: "It

might have served till the present day, but was abandoned in the middle of

the last century that the townsfolk might sell the bells and lead." He

would be a bold man who should say now that the townsfolk were not justly

prudent, for it is as plain as a pikestaff that All Saint's is liable at

any moment, hurtling down into the insatiable sea, to join St. Peter's and

the other five churches, once the glory of Dunwich; it has already sent

down half its burial ground, and the rest, although burials continued

after the church was abandoned, is sure to follow soon. Opposite my seat of

a Sunday in Winchester Cathedral when I was a boy, was a sepulchral chest

on top of a screen bearing the legend "In hac et altera e regione cista

reliquiae sunt ossium," and then a handful of kings beginning with Canute

were mentioned. It used to seem reasonably grim. But this shallow and

relentless sea round the last relics of Dunwich, with its bottom strewn by

the contents of six churchyards and a half, is to the chest at Winchester

as the earthquakes at San Francisco and Valparaiso are to the slipping of

an Irish bog. The scene is depressing, unspeakably sad; but it is necessary

to visit it in order to realize that Dunwich was once great and to

understand its fall, for it is falling still, and it will go on falling;

and you cannot help seeing how it all happened.

Hardly anywhere else, perhaps nowhere, is it possible at once to localize

and to realize so long and unvarying a story of progressive ruin. Felix,

whom we have met before on these wanderings, landed at Dunwich (another

legend lands him shipwrecked at Hunstanton) in the seventh century, on his

evangelizing mission; doubtless because King Sigeberht of East Anglia

prescribed a landing at the principal port of his kingdom. He found there a

flourishing community, a port which, for the seventh century, was large,

and, says "Murray," remains of a considerable Roman settlement. (But, for

reasons already given and of universal application in East Anglia, I am shy

of accepting Roman remains unless they be supported by definite and

satisfactory evidence.) At any rate the King built himself a palace, and

the saint built a church, the cathedral church of the new diocese of East

Anglia; and whether both or either used the Roman ruins no man may tell

with certainty, for the sea has devoured palace and cathedral church alike.

Perhaps, after all, it does not much matter now of what material they were

constructed, or what its origin was. Fifteen successive bishops, at any

rate, ruled East Anglia ecclesiastically from Dunwich. So early as

_Domesday_ there are records of falls; there is even a legend of an

extensive forest, flourishing east of the town that way, covering miles of

land over which now the "waves wap and the waters wan." Still Dunwich found

forty ships for Henry III, and though "rage and surgies of the sea" ravaged

it in the time of Edward III, it occurs in a quaint list of East Anglia's

contribution to the fleet raised against the Armada, a list which may be

given here once and for all:

Colchester, 1 shippe.

Ipswich and Harwich, 2 shippes, 1 pinnace.

Alborough, Orforth, and Dunwich, 1 shippe.

Yearmouth and Leistocke (Lowestoft), 1 shippe, 1 pinnace.

Lynne and Blackney, 2 shippes, 1 pinnace.

In the time of Leland the bitter cry of the people of Dunwich was heard in

the land and the legend of the submerged forest of Eastwood is found on his

pages: "_George Ferras_ told me that the men of Dunewich desiring Sucour

for their Town againe Rages of the Se, adfirme that a great Peace of a

Foreste sumtyme therby ys devourid up and turnid to the use of the Se." Who

George Ferras was, this deponent knoweth not, but by way of exemplifying

the difficulty of reading Leland, it may be mentioned that other places

named on the same folio are New-Windelesore (Windsor), Saresbyri

(Salisbury), Dovar, to say nothing of Edward III, Egidius, Walterus de la

Ville, Nicholas de S. Quintius, and "Mr. Balthazar," all in the space of

twenty-five lines of print. Leland's volumes, through no fault of his, as

has been pointed out before, are like conglomerate or puddingstone, with

here and there a gem, which takes a great deal of finding. Indeed that this

particular gem was found may be attributed to fortune. It shows us Dunwich,

before the untiring sea had reduced the inhabitants to absolute despair,

crying out for help, and crying to deaf ears. Its destruction, in truth,

was very gradual, very certain; and, while the nation would not help, it

was not worth while for the people to show the indomitable spirit of those

in San Francisco to-day, or to set about the task of rebuilding, for in

destroying Dunwich the sea wiped out its excuse for existence, making the

land that was left unapproachable by reason of its girdle of shallow water.

So there is nothing left but memories, a handful of mean houses of no

interest by the sea, the ruins of the Grey Friars monastery on the hill,

and the church of All Saints tottering on the crumbling verge of the

disappearing cliff. How any man or woman can consent to live in this

environment of desolation is a thing difficult to understand; but there

they are, apparently quite cheerful, a living testimony to the elasticity

of human spirits. A stranger, having seen the sights, having mused a little

as his eyes wander over that dreary expanse of monotonous sea, leaves

Dunwich gladly, without the slightest intention of returning, and convinced

that a not very prolonged residence there would assuredly produce

melancholia in one not to the manner born.

The opinion has been expressed already that it is not worth while at this

time of day, and it would probably be hopeless to endeavour, to cope

against the untiring sea in its work of demolishing the glacial cliffs

south of Dunwich. As they are demolished they go, by virtue of the

southerly drift given to the debris, to alter the coastline southward.

Attention has been called, for example, to the childish course pursued by

the River Alde. The fault does not lie with the river but with the

crumbling cliffs of the north, and they are responsible for closing up the

natural mouth it once had at Slaugden, barely half a mile from Aldeburgh.

At Southwold and Lowestoft defensive works are praiseworthy, because they

are feasible and the land is worth protecting, and this is even more true

of the vicinity of Felixstowe. Here much land was lost early in the last

century, owing to the fact that huge quantities of stones, forming a

natural protection, were removed for manufacture into cement, with the

result that the shore was denuded, and the loose pebbles were heaped up by

the drift into a totally undesirable shingle bank at Landguard Fort. This

bank in its turn threatened Harwich Harbour, and a groyne of concrete had

to be set up to arrest its progress. These facts, in detail, came to my

knowledge through the _Engineer_ in 1906, together with the somewhat

appalling estimate of land lost in East Anglia to the extent of 160 square

miles in ten centuries. Land has been gained elsewhere, at Bawdsey, where

we shall find ourselves very shortly, for example. At Bawdsey it has been

gained through human agency to the advantage of humanity, but on the whole

the sea, left to its own devices, works destruction at both ends of its

operation. It removes the earth from places where it is needed, as at

Dunwich for example, and so wipes one flourishing port out of existence: it

does its best to deposit that which it has taken away where it is not

needed, and to block up one port with the ruins of another. At Harwich it

has, we all hope, been stopped, but all the world knows the mischief which

has been wrought south of the estuary of the Thames by the gradual process

of accretion converting thriving ports into meaningless inland places. What

all the world does not realize, and what our most practised engineers in

this kind apprehend, without pretending to comprehend fully, is the

unforetellable character of the results that will follow from every attempt

to interfere with these mysterious processes of nature which takes the form

of opposing an obstacle to the sweep of the tide. Thus to build a groyne or

a sea wall, to say to the sea in effect, "Thou hast taken so much, but thou

shalt take no more," is hardly likely to produce any injurious result. On

the other hand, to stretch a solid pier across the drift, and to divert a

current, may be to affect the coast line for hundreds of miles along the

coast affected by the drift. As an engineer versed in these matters once

said to me, "When you interfere with the tides you must wait for the

effect; you cannot predict it."

So back to Felixstowe, varying the cross-country route to the main road a

little by following the sense of direction without consulting any maps, and

seeing nothing worthy of notice except a belated heron, its long legs

stretched behind its slow-flapping wings, making its way from the sea to

some distant heronry and croaking sadly as it went, as though to say, "The

moon will give no light to-night, so I must perforce go fasting." That is a

Welsh version of the heron's melancholy call--please note that the heron

always wears half mourning--but the marsh men doubtless express the same

thought in some way, for it is sound ornithology, and they know their birds

passing well.

CHAPTER VI--(_continued_)

FELIXSTOWE, BAWDSEY, WOODBRIDGE, IPSWICH, DUNMOW AND LONDON

A stormy morning--Past golf-links to Bawdsey Ferry--Sir

Cuthbert Quilter's work of reclamation--A short climb

but very stiff--Some remote byways to Woodbridge--Heavy

rain--Value of cape hood--Drawbacks of transparent

screens--Ipswich again--More Cobbolds, more

hospitality--Ipswich oysters and gloves--The "Crown and

Anchor"--An architect and antiquary--Jingling

prophecy--An abbot's bones and "extra dry"--Another car

arrives for us--Off for Dunmow--A frightened horse and

an awkward rider--Rules of conduct in such

cases--Through Braintree (remarks postponed) to Great

Dunmow--Little Dunmow the true _locus

classicus_--Leland and the Flitch--Far-fetched theories

and an obvious explanation--The heart of the forest

country--The old forest included Epping, Hainault, and

Hatfield Forests--Hainault restored--Hardships of old

forest law--Dunmow to Takeley--Hatfield Broad Oak and

Heath--A view of hounds--High Ongar, Epping, and

London, reversing original order--The drive reviewed.

Next morning, in a tearing wind, full of the promise of rain, we took a

road running as nearly N.N.E. as might be, making for the steam ferry which

crosses the mouth of the river Deben, a river whose banks are rich in

memories of the late Mr. C. J. Cornish, one of the brightest open-air

writers of our generation. Golf-links we passed, having plenty of natural

bunkers and hazards, having also that close turf, whereon the ball

"carries" well, which appears to be in better harmony than any inland turf

with the spirit of the royal and ancient game. Martello towers there were

too, on the flat and lonely beach, towers probably more useful now as

affording shelter and concealment to the wild fowler than for any purpose

of defence; and beyond them the shallow sea whipped by the wind into angry

little wavelets. Then the ferry hove in sight, the boat, or floating

bridge, being on the far side of a fretting strath from a quarter to half a

mile in width. On the far side also was the curious house of Sir Cuthbert

Quilter, and around it a considerable area of cultivated land, doing

infinite credit to the enterprise of that most ardent agriculturist; for

has he not converted a wilderness into fairly fruitful land, and is not the

man who does that a benefactor of humanity? Crossing seemed at first likely

to be no easy matter. The boat was on the far side, out of hearing in such

a wind as was blowing; a witless boy of the district, himself desirous of

crossing apparently, thought it came at fixed times, and had no idea when

those times were. It seemed that we might wait for hours; but prowling

round I found a signal post, and thereon directions how to raise the signal

for the ferry, and soon the boat was making for us. Entering it with the

car was no trouble; Avernus has always been easy of descent; but when the

craft had creaked to the far side we were faced with the stiffest task I

have ever seen offered to any motor-car in the shape of a sharply sloping

bank of soft gravel to be ascended without any preliminary run of any kind.

The steam car, however, ploughed slowly through the gravel and up the hill,

and I look back upon those ten or twelve yards of hill-climbing as the

finest exhibition of sheer strength in a motor-car it has ever been my

fortune to witness. So we went by devious and very bad roads, through

Alderton and Hollesley to Woodbridge, through a country not particularly

interesting, I imagine, at the best of times, and rendered less interesting

than ever by the angry curtain of clouds which hung over our path. Rain had

been an open question when we started; it was certainly coming now with a

will; and it was a case of up cape hood and down with the front screen, in

which a large piece of transparent talc, or celluloid, gave something of a

view to him who drove. It was better than getting wet through, that is all

that can be said. The rain for a short time was simply torrential, and as

it poured in waving streams down the transparent surface, one could see as

much as, but not very much more than, one can see with eyes opened six or

eight feet down in fairly clear river water. Outlines of objects were

blurred in the same fashion as they are to the diver (without a diving

dress of course), and one felt as doubtful of the distance of this or that

as one has often felt under water when catching sight of the saucer, the

white stone, or what you will, thrown in beforehand that it might be

searched for afterwards. So there is nothing to be said of this run from

Woodbridge to Ipswich, along the road followed in my first journey but in

the opposite direction, save that it was taken in "demmed, moist,

unpleasant weather," to quote Mr. Mantalini.

However, the rain abated before we reached Ipswich and halted, by previous

arrangement, at Mr. Cobbold's Bank, as a preliminary to receiving

open-handed hospitality from yet another member of that most hospitable of

Suffolk families. It is not suggested that all motorists should do

likewise, although, upon my word, judging by Mr. Cobbold's kindness to a

party upon two of whom he had never set eyes until that day, it seems

probable that a call at the Bank would be a promising venture for any

strangers. But into the secrets of comfort in Ipswich which he revealed to

us others may be admitted without his personal guidance. He showed the

old-world glove shop already mentioned. The oyster shop he showed us also,

almost next door to the glovers, both in a narrow street running parallel

to the main street on the far side from the "Crown and Anchor," and the

"Great White Horse," and better oysters were never eaten by man or woman.

Then he took us to luncheon at the "Crown and Anchor" which, sooth to say,

was more to my taste than the "Great White Horse"--of its charges it is

manifestly impossible for me to speak, but its fare was of the simplest and

best. Last, but not least of the kindnesses shown to me by Mr. Cobbold was

to invite to meet me Mr. Corder, architect and antiquarian--would that the

combination were universal--profoundly versed in the old-time legends of

the district. Mr. Corder it was who gave me a most fascinating print of the

back of the "Crown and Anchor" when it was the "Rampant Horse," and quoted

a jingled prophecy of days gone by, concerning the fate of the various inns

of Ipswich, which appears to have come true--

The Rampant Horse shall kick the Bear,

And make the Griffin fly,

And turn the Bell upside down,

And drink the Three Tuns dry.

Again, as our talk wandered over matters ancient and men of the past, the

name of the famous Abbot Sampson, much noted in his day as a preacher, was

mentioned, and Mr. Corder had a humorous story of his disinterment in

modern times. With the bones of the clarion-voiced preacher, in the same

coffin, was found the skull of a woman, a grim jest perhaps of those who

were left behind him in this world. The bones, pending reinterment in

decent form, were placed in the first convenient receptacle and, only some

time later was it observed, the relics of the preacher had, by the irony of

fate, been placed in a champagne case labelled "extra dry." Chance, very

likely, supplied an epitaph more truthful than is usual.

At Ipswich too my host and friend had prepared a surprise. Not entirely

satisfied with the behaviour of the car which had covered us, as well as

carried us, hitherto, he had telegraphed to London for another, and it

awaited us in the inn yard. It was uncovered, but the sky was now clear, so

we sped in it merrily along the already familiar route to Colchester,

entering Essex, "ful of good hoswyves," as Leland quotes, as we crossed the

river at Stratford St. Mary. Had we turned to the right a little before

this point we should have made ourselves familiar with the beautiful and

very characteristic scenery of those Stourside places Stoke-by-Nayland,

Sudbury, and Long Melford--all interesting places concerning which

something is said later. But all these matters and places come more

fittingly into the chapter describing a series of short day's drives from

Colchester as head-quarters. So do Marks Tey and Braintree through which,

as a matter of fact, we passed that day to Dunmow. In fact the only fact

about this little run which can be mentioned without impoverishing the mine

to be dug from later is an incident. We had the misfortune to meet a man

who was no horseman mounted on a half-broken colt which had the strongest

apparent objection to a motor-car. The man held up his hand. We stopped.

The horse, more frightened than ever, turned and bolted in the other

direction; but then the rider turning on to the grass beside the road,

dismounted hurriedly and we passed on. It was almost a solitary instance in

which, during much motoring of late, I have seen a horse thoroughly

frightened by a car, all the more alarmed probably because, by that curious

intuition which horses possess, it knew its rider to be incompetent. The

incident exemplified the folly of the existing law requiring a car to be

stopped completely whenever a person in charge of a horse, or with a horse

in charge of him, holds up his hand. Almost every petrol-car brought

suddenly to a stop makes far more noise and is far more alarming to a horse

than when it moves at a reasonable pace, and the car-driver, in a voice at

once audible and soothing, cries "Woa, my lad," or something of that kind,

thus convincing the animal that motor-cars are connected with human beings,

with whom he is familiar. In nine cases out of ten, however, the man is

more frightened than the horse, so that, tugging suddenly at the reins,

after being half asleep before, he compels the animal to start. In any

event the complete stopping is an error from the point of view of horseman

and motorist. It annoys the latter without being of the slightest use to

the former. Moreover, it gives irascible squires an opportunity of

exasperating the motorist, whom they detest. "My horses don't mind a car at

all," said one such to me not long since, "but I always hold up my hand

when I meet the beastly things; I hear they hate stopping." These are the

_ipsissima verba_ of one who, in every other relation of life, is

exceptionally kind and genial.

Passing through pleasant Braintree, and going at a spanking pace along an

open road, we left Little Dunmow, which is the real Dunmow of story,

unnoticed on the left through sheer ignorance, and went on to Great Dunmow.

Our ignorance was in some measure to be excused, because the custom of

Dunmow, although in old times it was established in connection with the

Priory of Little Dunmow, was revived in connection with Great Dunmow. And,

after all, in this case it would probably have been folly to be wise. We

should have found little, if anything, remaining of the Priory of Little

Dunmow, and we were quite happy, in our ignorance, over our tea in a

picturesque inn at Great Dunmow, believing all the time that we were at

the classic spot itself. Of the various accounts of a quaint custom,

mentioned in _Piers Plowman_ and by Chaucer, I prefer that given by Leland,

for its brevity. Writing of "the bacon at Dunmow," and referring to "Robert

Fitzwalter, Lord of Woodham and famous in the time of King Henry the

Thyrd," he continues, "In which Priory arose a custome, begun or instituted

either by him or some of his successors, that he that repenteth him not of

his marriage sleeping or waking in a yeere and a day may lawfully goe to

Dunmow and fetch a Gammon of Bacon." The quotations from Chaucer and _Piers

Plowman_ have been used too often in "seasonable articles" to be repeated

here. It is easy to agree with the curiously learned Dr. Samuel Brewer that

"the attempt to revive this 'premium for humbug' is a mere get up for the

benefit of the town"; but his quotation from Prior is distinctly apt and

unfamiliar:

Ah, madam! cease to be mistaken;

Few married fowl peck Dunmow bacon.

Also we may hope that the eight successful pairs of claimants from 1445 to

1772, Essex folk all, took the matter more seriously than those of later

time. One pair, Thomas Shakeshaft, Woolcomber of Weathersfield, and his

wife, are said to have made their successful claim in 1751 in the presence

of Hogarth. The most recent fame of Dunmow arises from its violent

resistance to uninvited Socialist propagandists. It is just the sort of

quiet place in which one would expect a rustic to describe the Socialist

ranters as "a passel o' fools"; and this is precisely what occurred.

Perhaps after all it is well to repeat the oath in verse as preserved by

Fuller, since to do so may save the trouble of reference for the curious:

You shall swear by the custom of our confession

That you never made any nuptial transgression,

Since you were married man and wife,

By household brawls or contentious strife;

Or otherwise, in bed or at board

Offended each other in deed or word;

Or, since the parish clerk said Amen,

Wished yourselves unmarried again;

Or, in a twelvemonth and a day,

Repented not in thought any way;

But continued true and in desire,

As when you joined hands in holy quire.

If to these conditions, without all fear,

Of your own accord you will freely swear,

A gammon of bacon you shall receive,

And bear it hence with love and good leave;

For this is our custom at Dunmow well known,

Though the sport be ours the bacon's your own.

There is a like custom of Wicknor in Staffordshire, but the ultra-learned

seem to me to have overstrained their fancies in imagining a common origin

for these flitches of bacon, and the "sow and pigs" which, according to

"Murray," are frequently seen on the carved bosses of church roofs in

Devonshire, and in suggesting a connection between the Dunmow flitch, which

after all was but a gammon, and the flitch which according to Dion

Halicarnassus, was kept at the Temple of Alba Longa until the time of

Augustus, because Aeneas found there the white sow and pigs. It may be true

that it was the custom of the Prussians of old time to offer a flitch of

bacon to the thunder-god whenever a thunderstorm came. As for the sow and

pigs on the roofs of Devonshire churches, they seem to me to have no more

direct connection with the Dunmow flitch than "the sow and pigs" as an inn

sign (which may be seen in Oxfordshire and perhaps elsewhere), or than the

Gadarene swine. Surely, when there is an obvious and historical

explanation there is no sort of need for plunging into the troubled waters

of comparative folk-lore. Robert Fitz-Walter desired to establish a reward

for conjugal fidelity. That is plain, and there was nothing out of the way

about such a desire in times when foundations similar in character, rewards

for constancy in servants and the like, were by no means uncommon. It

probably never occurred to him that the claimants would be other than

peasants. The recorded claimants in fact were in 1445, a labourer and his

wife; in 1510, a fuller; in 1701, a butcher; in 1751, a woolcomber; the

three last with their wives of course; and in the other cases the callings

of the claimants are not recorded.

Fitz-Walter's domain was situate in the heart of the forest country, a land

of innumerable oak trees, whereon herds of swine were fed upon the acorns

in autumn, under the care of the successors in title of Gurth the

Swineherd. To the peasantry the pig was, economically speaking, everything;

for that matter he is a great deal to them still since, take him for all in

all, he is the most profitable of domestic animals. What could be more

natural than that the great landowner should establish as the reward of

fidelity among peasants a part of the familiar beast whom they knew best,

and whom, to this day, they like best on the table. Those who have seen the

excitement of pig-killing at a cottage home, who know how it spells plenty

of fresh meat for a while, and how large a part fat bacon plays in the

meals which the agricultural labourer eats under the lee of a hedge, will

not desire to go to Alba Longa for an explanation of the Dunmow flitch;

nor, in a country where "chaw-bacon" was once synonymous with farm

labourer--unhappily they now consume tinned meat instead--need we think in

their connection of the sacrifices of the ancient Prussians. Robert

Fitz-Walter could not have devised a benefaction more to the taste of the

intended recipients.

Yes, we were some way from the spot truly sacred to the custom at Great

Dunmow; but we were uncommonly near to relics of the ancient forest, in

which the swine, the Dunmow flitches in process of formation, grew fat upon

the abundant acorns.

We were, indeed, in the very heart of the forest land, its principal

products timber, game, which was sacred to the king, and swine growing fat,

as obesity of pigs was reckoned in early days, on the acorns of autumn.

Hard by in Hertfordshire the country folk to this day collect acorns in

great quantity, feeding thereon the swine which, cribbed, cabined, and

confined, no doubt grow fatter than their predecessors roaming in the

woods. A perambulation was made in the twelfth year of Henry III (1228 and

Fitz-Walter's time), which showed nearly the whole of the county to be part

of a Royal Forest. From the Thames on the south to Stane Street, the road

between Colchester and Bishop Stortford, to the north, was a great forest

running right up to the walls of London. It was known as the Forest of

Waltham; it included Epping Forest, part of which has happily been

preserved, to the enduring credit of the City of London, Hainault Forest,

the relics of which have been reafforested of late, and Hatfield Forest,

along the margin of which we were shortly to pass on our way to London.

Hainault Forest once lay, and now again lies, south of Epping Forest, being

to the south of the river Roding. It once consisted of four thousand acres,

but was disafforested by Act of Parliament in 1851, the Crown receiving an

allotment of two thousand acres which, at an expenditure of more than

L40,000, were converted into arable farms. Of the whole six thousand acres

only a small tract retained its character of primitive woodland. This,

through the exertions of the Commons Preservation Society and of Mr. E. N.

Buxton, has now again been dedicated to the public, being vested in the

London County Council. In addition, thanks to Mr. Buxton and also to the

Commissioners of Woods and Forests, five hundred acres of tilled land,

formerly known as the "King's Woods" and later as Fox Burrows Farm, have

been reafforested after being forty years under the plough. For three years

Mr. Buxton, with the aid of the County Council, has been engaged in the

effort to make the tame land wild again. Grass has been sown, acorn and

beechmast have been inserted, seeds of bramble, briar, holly, blackthorn

and whitethorn have been introduced, and some saplings have been planted.

Bracken, perhaps the most essential feature of wild woodland, has come of

itself. So the tame is on its way to become wild and natural again. It will

be a long process which few living men can hope to see fully accomplished;

but that the experiment was well worth trying cannot be doubted.

Nothing, perhaps, illustrates more forcibly the difference between the

conditions of modern life and those of the thirteenth or even the

seventeenth century than our present attitude towards forests by comparison

with that of our forefathers. When, in the time of Charles I, an attempt

was made to declare the boundaries of the Forest of Waltham to be identical

with those prescribed in the perambulation of Henry III, it was regarded

as, and in fact it was, an outrage. It meant the effort to revive the harsh

Forest Law and to expropriate private owners who had acquired rights by a

prescription more than adequate from our modern standpoint. It meant a

determination to extend the rights of the Crown, to deny the rights of the

public. In the days of Edward VII all men rejoice over the patches of

forest which have been preserved, all England congratulates itself when

that which has been disafforested, as Hainault was in 1851, becomes forest

again. This is because the meaning of words as applied to things is changed

when the country passes from an unsettled to a settled state, just as,

according to one of the Greeks, it is changed in revolutionary times.

"Forest" in old times denoted a district and, in respect of that district,

connoted a wicked restriction of public rights, or of rights which, to our

mind, ought to have been public. "Forest" now means a district in which the

public have abundant liberty, limited only by consideration for the rights

of all, and the rights of the Crown in relation to it hardly come into

account. Every remaining forest, whatsoever its governance may be, is a

treasure-house for the naturalist, a sanctuary for wild birds and beasts, a

place to be prized above measure since, in it, the dwellers in our

congested islands may walk face to face with wild nature in pure air.

Of the relics of such a forest we were soon to have a pleasing view. From

Dunmow to Bishop Stortford, as one of the guide-books has it, there is

nothing of interest. We followed this high road along the railway, which

did not make for beauty, for some four miles until, climbing a slight

acclivity, we were at Takeley, where the church is said to possess a very

fine Perpendicular font-cover. Such minutiae, however, are not for the

motorist. There we turned sharply to the left and, passing along the brow

of a gentle hill for three miles, we were at Hatfield Broad Oak, amid true

forest scenery of wide stretches of turf bordered by wild woodland. Whether

the storied oak, carefully fenced around, still stands, this deponent is

not absolutely prepared to avouch; but his eye was arrested by a tree

which would certainly serve well to represent it. It was good going hence,

among charming sylvan scenery, through Hatfield Heath to Harlow, for five

miles, and at Harlow, as at Hatfield Heath or at Takeley for that matter,

we might have run to the right a little and so have struck the most eastern

of the two main roads from Cambridge to London. But we were out to see the

country; so we stuck to the byways, well worthy of following for their own

sakes and for ours, and we had our reward in a pretty picture. Passing

along an unfenced road, having broad stretches of turf backed by woodlands

on either side, we saw in the distance the pink coats of three or four

riders, and soon we were going slowly and gingerly past a staunch pack of

hounds returning to kennel under the charge of huntsman and whips after

their day's sport. They were good horses, workmanlike hounds, a thoroughly

characteristic English sight and one which, somehow or other, one never

sees from a train, partly perhaps because masters of hounds are prone, for

obvious reasons, to avoid the vicinity of railways as much as possible.

This little spectacle was secured by making a detour from Harlow almost to

Chipping Ongar, and High Ongar and thence back to Epping, from which we

returned to London as nearly as might be by the route taken on our outward

journey. This involved a few more miles of travelling than by the main

road, but it produced a very good general impression of the character of

the forest country. It is an impression well worth treasuring in

remembrance. It also produced an abiding respect for Mrs. Coleman's

topographical memory. Not once or twice but many times was this lady able

to point out the right turning and to save us from going astray. Once only

did she fail, and that was after we had entered the continuous houses of

London. The failure was but the exception proving the rule; indeed it may

not even have been that; for the din of the streets may have drowned her

warning voice. Be that as it may the return to London was not quite so

artistic in point of route as the exit had been.

How far had we travelled that day? An estimate is given in the practical

observations earlier, but in truth distance really hardly counts within

limits which grow wider every year, when one is motoring for pleasure. The

essential things were that we took breakfast at a reasonable time and at

leisure in Felixstowe, went by characteristic cross-country routes to

Woodbridge and to Ipswich, strolled through Ipswich and shopped and

lingered over luncheon, took tea at ease in Great Dunmow, explored many

pleasant byways between it and London, and were back in London in plenty of

time to dine and to go to a first night at the theatre, and not in the

least too tired to do both with enjoyment. That is the new kind of pleasure

which the motor-car has rendered possible, and it is a very real and

genuine one.

CHAPTER VII

LATE SUMMER. COLCHESTER AND EASTWARDS

Modern motoring and lack of sensational

events--Colchester and district seen during Military

manoeuvres--Farcical operations and abundant

leisure--Study of Colchester--Interesting back

streets--The Roman walls--Caesar comes, sees, conquers,

and departs--King Cunobelin--Claudius at

Colchester--Was his victory a "put up thing"?--The

Roman colony--Boadicea--The building of the

walls--Abundant Roman remains--Legend of King Cole--Not

necessarily all false--A playful theory--Was the

Empress Helena a Colchester inn-keeper's daughter?--The

Civil War--Siege of Colchester--Ireton's cruel

revenge--Grief of Charles I--Concerning

oysters--Colchester to Clacton-on-Sea--Sharp hillocks

and shady elms--Chasing a balloon--Wivenhoe to

Clacton--A wonderful society seen from a veranda--Great

Holland--Walton-le-Soken, meaning of--St.

Osyth--Between estuaries of Colne and Stour--Some hills

and many windings--A Lanchester as

hill-climber--Ardleigh and seed grounds--A

dialogue--Manningtree--"Manningtree Ox" and Thomas

Tusser--Matthew Hopkins the witchfinder--East

Bergholt--Constable's birthplace--His struggles and

career--To Dovercourt and Harwich--Fascinations of

seaports--Old-time stories of Harwich

Regatta--Landguard Fort--Lord Avebury on coast erosion

and accretion--Site of Yarmouth--Back to Colchester.

This little book has been absolutely candid and truthful so far, if it had

not been it might have been more fertile in accidents and incidents; but

the truth of the matter is that the modern motor-car in good hands goes so

well that accidents and incidents are rare. One reads of accidents in the

papers of course, because it is unnecessary to chronicle safe journeys; but

it would be a libel on the motor-car to invent mishaps for the sake of

literary variety. After motoring some tens of thousands of miles, I can lay

my hand on my heart, metaphorically, and say that of the many cars in which

I have driven none has ever touched a human being on the road, or a horse,

or a carriage, or vehicle of any kind. My entire butcher's bill, extending

over a good many years, amounts to one cat (which jumped from a wall in

front of the car), three fowls, and ten sparrows. Therefore, since I am

devotedly attached to Automobilism, and at the same time convinced that,

for many years to come, it will be the pastime of the minority and will

only exist on sufferance, fancy and imagination are ridden strictly on the

curb, throttled down, if the phrase pleases better, and truth is encouraged

to prevail.

In this chapter, and those which follow next, I am going to describe a

number of journeys taken by motor-car from Colchester as a centre, and one

which might have been made from Colchester by car, but was in fact made

from London by train for the sake of its destination. That destination was

very well worth reaching, even by train; how to reach it by car from

Colchester, and what there is to be seen when it is reached shall be told

in due course. This particular chapter involves very little travelling, and

has been written because it is felt that the motorists, liking to take a

holiday on occasion, will like to hear of the antiquities of Colchester,

the social peculiarities of Clacton, some old-time stories of Harwich, and

something from Lord Avebury about coast changes.

Three or four years ago, it will be remembered, an expeditionary force of

horse and foot and artillery, representing imaginary invaders of this

country, embarked in transports at Southampton, under Sir John French, with

orders to carry out the operation of invading the east coast of England,

the point of dis-embarkation being Clacton-on-Sea, supposed to have been

left unwatched. In the course of the business of a special correspondent, I

saw the tall ships--they were not a bit tall really, but the old phrase

clings--steam out of Southampton, and then hurried across country to

Colchester to await events. At Colchester, I found myself a welcome

passenger on an official motor-car, a Lanchester, driven by an Army Service

Corps driver, and I found myself also, by happy chance, in the company of

many soldier friends at the "Old Red Lion," concerning the antiquities and

traditions of which it has been found impossible not to make some

observations at an earlier stage. There could have been no more delightful

task for a conscientious correspondent, for it was his duty to see all he

could, and it was sheer pleasure to scour the country to that end; and on

the other hand, if he were also an honourable man, his task of writing was

of the easiest. There was no censor; but the special correspondents were

placed on their honour not to publish anything which could, by any chance,

help the other side. Theoretically, I was attached to Sir John French's

invading army; in fact, I perambulated the ground occupied by both armies

with perfect freedom; and, since it soon became plain that my illuminating

remarks would be capable of reaching General Wynne, who was defending

England, at the same time as "the rolls and Bohea"--to quote the old

_Spectator_--it became manifest at the same time that the less said about

military matters the better. Recognition of this fact and of its

consequences gave me much leisure, and the farcical character of the

manoeuvres on land--for farcical they were universally allowed to be by

competent military observers--gave me more. For example, General French,

unopposed by previous arrangement, spent some hours of an afternoon in

landing his troops, but not much of his stores and baggage, at Clacton,

amidst a crowd of trippers and bathers. After resting them for a brief

space, and as darkness began to fall, he began a march upon the fat city

of Colchester, over ground not too flat, the distance being some seventeen

miles. I, not anticipating anything of the sort, since there was no moon,

had gone back to Colchester and dinner. Enter, about ten o'clock at night,

a breathless comrade to announce that sharp fighting was in progress. Out

started a car, not the Lanchester, carrying us both; and within a few

miles, but Heaven only knew where, we were in the thick of it. We could see

flashes; we could hear the explosion of cordite in all directions; we could

hear the tramp of men and horses, and many voices. But, speaking as no

warrior at all, I am absolutely convinced that during this engagement,

which was one of many, it was beyond the capacity of any man to distinguish

friend from foe, to aim his rifle at anything, or even to set his sights.

So I went back to bed at the "Red Lion."

With the dawn I was back again, to find the invaders, or some of them,

lying close to the city of Colchester, their guns in positions from which

they commanded the city and from which, in the meanwhile, they poured

imaginary death and destruction upon the flying defenders. Theoretically,

General French had captured the rich city of Colchester. If our mimic war

had been real, the main difficulty of Sir John French and his officers

would have been to check their fierce and hungry soldiery from sacking the

town, looting the provision shops, gorging themselves with Colchester

"natives"--for it was September and the oysters were very good--and

drinking enormous quantities of liquor. But mimic war is sometimes a stern

business, for the conquerors. The theoretical victors had to rest, as best

they could, in an open field in the rain and, for a long time, without

tents. Provisions, sufficient but not sumptuous, were supplied to them by

the Army Service Corps, and the high authorities, whosoever they were,

agreed that an armistice of thirty-six hours was called for by the

exhausted condition of both sides. During those thirty-six hours, which

begun about two o'clock in the afternoon, if memory serves accurately, a

correspondent had no duties to perform.

So, keeping the "Red Lion" for head-quarters, I was free to ramble over one

of the most interesting cities in England, architecturally and

historically. The "Cups," a hotel more celebrated, was not available, being

occupied by the umpiring staff, military grandees generally, and military

and naval attaches of many nations. But there was no cause to regret the

necessity for abiding at the ancient "Red Lion"; and it was an admirable

centre from which to study the city and its characteristic features. To the

front, in the High Street, there is much that is distressingly modern. The

Town Hall, for example, is the kind of building men accounted "handsome" in

1841, when it took the place of a Moot Hall which had been standing since

the Conquest. Most of the buildings near it on the far side of the road

from the "Red Lion," including the "Cups," are modern and the epithet

"handsome" has doubtless been applied to them also a hundred times and

more. No doubt they serve their purposes adequately, but in the full light

of day they offend the eye of him who deems himself cultivated. Only when

the light grows dim above and a red sunset lends enchantment to the

outlines of buildings seen against it, casting details and crude colouring

into shade, does the High Street of Colchester look really picturesque; and

that effect is the more impressive if one enters the town by the

easternmost of the three bridges across the Colne. Then as the car climbs

the sharp hill, the picture is unfolded gradually, and one great block of

buildings at the end of the street (it is really, I fancy, something

connected with the waterworks, but that is of no moment if it be pleasing)

looks distinctly romantic and imposing. In full sun the principal street of

Colchester fails to please any eye save that which is satisfied by the

evidence of an abundant prosperity.

Once inside the "Red Lion," however, the traveller is in an atmosphere of

the old world and, if he pleases to humour his fancy, he may preserve that

fancy for quite a long time and over quite a considerable distance. The

hotel has a courtyard, as of course. The coffee-room and the bar-parlour,

wherein an interesting and characteristic gathering may be found on market

days, are on the left hand as one enters from the High Street, and so is

the principal entrance. It follows that to reach the main street on

emerging from the hotel door, to find commerce, shops, bustle, and

activity, a man must turn to the right. If he have no immediate inclination

for these things, necessary and valuable as they are in themselves, let him

turn to the left instead and pass through the long stable-yard, threading

his way among a series of vehicles, ancient and modern, until he reaches

the back gate of the yard. Once through that he will soon find himself in

old Colchester, among quiet rows of modest houses, in alleys whose names

speak of the Middle Ages, face to face with walls which are manifestly and

essentially of Roman construction. Such will inevitably be his environment.

In such an environment, if in any, will he be willing to hear something of

the story of Colchester, that most ancient city standing on the hill that

is girt to the north, the north-east, and the east by the sluggish waters

of the Colne. If he be unwilling, he had better skip the few pages

following.

A little of that story has been told before what time it became necessary,

or so seemed, to define early in this volume our sceptical attitude towards

so-called Roman remains and Roman roads. These are very often of doubtful

authenticity, and this very scepticism, this proved scarcity of Roman

remains in East Anglia, render the certain truth concerning Colchester the

more valuable. The situation, the commanding hill, half-girt by the river,

renders it more than probable that our rude forefathers (who really knew a

good deal more than the world gave them credit for having known) had a

settlement in pre-Roman times on the spot now known as Colchester. No time

has been spent in research into that matter for the purposes of this book,

for the simple reason that at least enough must needs be said concerning

the place after the Romans first knew it. Caesar came, saw, and conquered as

usual; and having conquered he went away. For nearly a century after that

the Romans were too much engaged over those troubles at home, about which

every schoolboy really knows a good deal, to concern themselves over an

outlying and unimportant province, and almost everything is uncertain

concerning the British history of the period. This is really a pity,

because it is clear that King Cunobelin, who then ruled at Colchester,

already apparently named as Camulodunum, was a progressive prince, and the

coins of his period show positively that the Britons under him were by no

means ignorant of the peaceful arts. That, very likely, was why they became

poor warriors.

In A.D. 43 came the second and most effectual Roman invasion. That

extraordinary person the Emperor Claudius, persuaded by a British exile

named Berre, who had got the worst of one of the petty quarrels in which

the Britons then, like the Welsh later, were constantly engaged, dispatched

Aulus Plautius with four legions and some Gallic auxiliaries to reconquer

Britain. So much is certain, and there is no doubt that a year sufficed to

quell the resistance of south-eastern Britain, although Caradoc,

Cunobelin's son, held out in the west for a long time. In the next year

Claudius himself crossed the Channel--one authority says he brought

elephants in his train--and joined Plautius on the north of the Thames.

Shortly afterwards he entered Camulodunum, or Colchester. Did he enter it

as having himself conquered, or as an Emperor taking the credit of his

general's victories? It is really almost impossible to say. Merivale,

having previously mentioned the elephants, says, "At Gessoriacum he

embarked for the opposite shores of Cantium (Kent), and speedily reached

the legions in their encampment beyond the Thames. The soldiers, long held

in leash in expectation of his arrival, were eager to spring upon the foe.

With the Emperor himself at their head, a spectacle not beheld since the

days of the valiant Julius, they traversed the level plains of the

Trinobantes, which afforded no defensible position, till the natives were

compelled to stand at bay before the stockades which encircled their

capital, Camulodunum. It is not perhaps too bold a conjecture that the

lines which can still be traced from the Colne to a little wooded stream

called the Roman river, drawn across the approach to a tract of twenty or

thirty square miles, surrounded on every other side by water, indicate the

ramparts of this British _oppidum_. Within this enclosed space there was

ample room, not only for the palace of the chief and the cabins of her

people, but for the grazing ground of their flocks and herds in seasons of

foreign attack; while, resting on the sea in its rear, it commanded the

means of reinforcement and, if necessary, of flight. But the fate of the

capital was decided by the issue of the encounter which took place before

it. The Trinobantes were routed. They surrendered their city and, with it,

their national freedom and independence. The victory was complete; the

subjection of the enemy assured. Within sixteen days from his landing in

Britain, Claudius had broken a powerful kingdom and accomplished a

substantial conquest."

Exactly so, but is not the story a little too complete to gain absolute

credit? Is not the historian, justly indignant at the injustice done by

Suetonius and others to Claudius, inclined to press down the balance too

heavily in his favour? After all, Suetonius says there was no resistance or

bloodshed, and that really is much the more probable story. We all know

that Claudius, the deformed child who was regarded as an imbecile, the

coward who hardly dared to accept power when it was thrust upon him by the

Praetorians, showed a remarkable genius for administration, and had the

ambition to imitate Augustus. He might easily have been a great general in

spite of his gluttony, his vice, and his cruelty. For all that, this rapid

entry into Colchester, combined with what we know of his delight in shows,

and with the suspicious fact that he brought his elephants with him, gives

the whole affair an air of pre-arrangement The chances are that Aulus

Plautius did the work and that Claudius took the credit. Certainly he

returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph in great style; and on his arch

of triumph is an inscription (largely conjectural now) which, says

Merivale, shows the estimation in which his exploits were held. It is much

more likely to show the view which Claudius wished to be taken, for the

incestuous, gluttonous, cowardly, and yet politically sagacious Emperor,

had a pretty style in prose. Of course it is just possible that Plautius

was doing but ill over his campaign, and that the Emperor with his

elephants--tradition says that the Britons were very much afraid of

them--turned the scale; but the probability is that the whole affair was

what they call a "put-up thing" on the far side of the Atlantic, and that

the elephants were brought over simply for the sake of pomp and

circumstance.

Now comes a confusing passage in the usually sinless "Murray," wherein the

author is himself quoting in part from the _Quarterly Review, No. 108_:

"Sixteen years later, 'to overawe the disaffected, and to show to the more

submissive an image of Roman civilization,' a Roman Colony was founded in

the capital of the conquered Trinobantes. 'It was dignified with the name

of Claudian, from the Emperor himself, or Victricensis, from the conquest

of which it was the symbol, which was also typified by a statue of Victory,

erected in its principal place.' The place received indiscriminately the

name of Colonia, Camulodunum,--or sometimes Colonia Camulodunum. It was the

first Roman Colony founded in Britain. 'Claudius determined to inform the

minds of his remotest subjects on the article of his own divinity--and

accordingly directed the Colonists of Camulodunum to consecrate to him a

temple, and appoint from among themselves an order of priests to minister

therein.'" Nothing could be more in this picture, nothing more thoroughly

in harmony with the character of Claudius; but the words "sixteen years

later" give pause. Sixteen years would bring us to A.D. 60, when Nero wore

the purple and misbehaved himself generally; and six years before that

Agrippina, who was already more than wife to Claudius, since she was his

niece also, became his murderess by the aid of the physician Xenophon. But

it is only the date that is wrong. It was in the year 50, six years later,

not sixteen, that the successor of Plautius, having been many times

worsted by the hard-fighting Silures of South Wales, was ordered to found a

colony at Camulodunum.

If Claudius had a political hobby it was the foundation of colonies, which

he usually permitted to be known as _Colonia_, "the Colony," simply. Such

was Colchester; such was Cologne, founded by him a year later at the asking

of Agrippina, who had been born there. But the English Colonia did not

quite come up to expectations, for the image of Roman civilization shown by

it was not attractive, and its military organization was non-existent. The

worn-out veterans, who were the colonists, did not build for themselves a

concentrated city, a sort of stationary camp. On the contrary, they settled

themselves in the scattered houses of the Britons. "The houses even of the

Britons," says Merivale, "were to the rude inmates of the Tent not

inconvenient." The Dean of Ely, as he afterwards became, wrote these words

somewhere between 1850 and 1860, and had not the chances open to us of

knowing that the families of the Britons of this epoch, the period of

Cunobelin's coinage be it remarked, most likely enjoyed quite comfortable

houses. A theatre, too, these colonists constructed, for their own

amusement. To the question of defences they gave no heed. Caradoc and his

fighting Welshmen were far away in South Wales. The Trinobantes around them

were quite subdued. The Iceni, to the eastward, owed and paid tribute to

Rome through their Prince Prasutagus. The luxury of Neronian Rome was

repeated no doubt, on a small scale, in the distant and careless colony.

In A.D. 61 came the ill-treatment of Boadicea, the widow of Prasutagus,

already recorded, and the revolt of the Iceni under her leadership. Then,

the moment being well chosen, for the Governor was away as before stated,

the colonists had bitter cause to rue their previous indolence, for the

colony was quite defenceless. As we have seen before, Boadicea and her

Britons enjoyed a short-lived but very complete revenge. Dion, indeed, goes

into details, making out the Britons to have been, if possible, rather

worse than Bashi Bazouks, as painted by the atrocity-monger. The ultimate

result, of course, was that the Iceni were wiped out of existence, and the

chances are that the Trinobantes also felt the strong wrath of Suetonius.

The steed having been stolen and recaptured, the stable door was locked, so

to speak, once and for ever. That is to say, the walls of Colchester were

built with such strength that no rising of the kind was likely to succeed

again; and that is why in Colchester we have the finest and most complete

Roman walls to be found in the kingdom.

Colchester is rich in Roman relics also, to be found stored in museums, and

in the form of Roman bricks and tiles built into the walls of the Norman

keep to the north of the High Street, and into the ruined walls of St.

Botolph's Priory Church, to the south-east of the town. This same keep, the

largest in England, was probably built by Eudo, high steward to William the

Conqueror, possibly on the site of the temple of Claudius, but as to that

there can be no assurance. What is certain is that much Roman material was

incorporated in the rubble of which the very solid walls are made; and this

is natural enough when we reflect that Colchester was a real Roman colony

for nearly 350 years. The most interesting objects in the Museum, which is

housed in the ancient chapel of the castle, are a curious sphinx, two feet

high, with the wings of a bird, the breasts of a bitch, the head of a

woman, and the paws of a lion, squatting over the lacerated carcase of its

human prey; the famous Colchester vase and a bust of Caligula, and there

have been a number of smaller "finds." Colchester is no doubt derived from

_Colonia_ and _castrum_, but it has a legendary connection with King Cole

of happy memory, and the principal bastion in Balcon Lane is still known as

Colking's Castle. The theory of the Britons, to summarize first and to

quote later a _Quarterly_ Reviewer, was that the descendants of Cunobelin

continued in Colchester under the Romans, and that one of them was Coilus,

_alias_ Cole, the same music and liquor-loving potentate who called for his

pipe a good many centuries before the uses of the soothing herb were known

in this country; of course, his pipe may have been an instrument of

so-called music. After the usurpation of Carausius and his successor, Cole

or Coel, Duke of Kaer-Coloin (Colchester), surrendered the island to the

Romans, "in return for which service he was allowed to retain the nominal

sovereignty in Britain, and has become renowned as the 'Old King Cole' of

popular song. On his dying soon afterwards, the British legends went on to

declare that Constantius the Senator, the representative of the Roman power

on the island, received the crown of Coel, but only in virtue of marriage

with his daughter Helena; and Colchester has hence enjoyed the reputation

of giving birth to Constantine, the first Christian Emperor. There is no

trace, however, of Constantius having been in Britain at all before the

year 296, at which time his son was twenty-four years old; and the most

credible writers assert that his consort was not a Briton, but a Bithynian.

We leave the good citizens of Colchester in possession of their arms 'a

cross intagled between four crowns,' in token of Helena's invention of the

Cross of Christ; but we cannot allow that they have any historical title to

them."

How others may feel in a matter of this kind it is not for me to say, but

in me the serene air of superiority with which the ultra-learned brush away

a tradition usually excites a suspicion, not wholly dissociated from a

desire, that they may be wrong. "The most credible writers" of the

_Quarterly_ Reviewer produce no impression on me. It is the kind of

expression one would expect of a writer who did not feel inclined to be at

the pains of research. Equally, when a presumably learned writer in the

_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ says, under the heading "Constantine," "a later

tradition, adopted with characteristic credulity by Geoffrey of Monmouth,

that Helena was the daughter of a British king, is a pure invention," I

reflect that assertion is not argument, although it often passes for such.

After all, this same contemptuous writer can but tell us that Constantine

was born in 274 to Constantius and Helena, "the wife of obscure origin

(daughter of a _stabularia_, or innkeeper, according to St. Ambrose), whom

her husband was compelled to repudiate on attaining the dignity of Caesar."

And when "Helena" is referred to, we find another learned author saying

that of her nationality nothing certain is known. Again, the statement that

there is no trace of Constantius ever having been in Britain before 296 (at

which time, by the way, Constantine was twenty-two, not twenty-four), does

not satisfy the court. In 273, the year in which the wanderings of the

father of Constantine would be material, Constantius Flavius Valerius was

but a young soldier, of Dalmatian origin, in whom nobody yet recognized the

future Emperor. He was twenty-three years of age, or thereabouts, for so

little is known of his early life that the exact year even of his birth is

unknown. It was not until nearly twenty years later that, having

distinguished himself in Dalmatia, he was adopted and appointed Caesar by

Maximian. There was no reason in life why he should not have gone to

Britain without attracting notice at the age of twenty-three, every reason

why, if he did so, he should visit the flourishing, comfortable, and very

accessible colony on the banks of the Colne. There he certainly did not

find Coel, or Cole, a reigning sovereign, but he might very possibly have

found a "merry old soul" of an innkeeper, who vowed that he was descended

from Cunobelin, and possessed a charming daughter.

It is not suggested that these things actually happened, but it is most

distinctly suggested that, unless the learned can trace the wanderings of

the father of Constantine all through 273 and show that he was not in

Britain, to say there is no trace of his having been in Britain before 296

is entirely beside the question. Here we have an example of a frequent kind

of historical incapacity, that of failing to realize the life of the past.

The dashing young officer might, in fact, have been in Colchester very

easily, and if he succumbed to the charms of the inn-keeper's daughter, the

event was not of a kind contrary to human experience. It is for the sceptic

to prove an alibi if he desires to upset tradition. Helena may, then, have

been the daughter of a Colchester innkeeper, she was certainly the mother

of Constantine. Equally certainly, when her son became Emperor, she took a

great interest in Britain, which tends to show that she may have been

British by birth. It is true that cities in Syria and Bithynia were named

Helenopolis after her, and this might be cited in favour of her Bithynian

origin, only it could not be more in favour of one than the other, since

she could not have been born in two places.

Here let a little confession and explanation be made. The _Quarterly_

Reviewer's statement that the arms of Colchester might be left to it "in

token of Helena's invention of the cross of Christ," left me quite in the

dark; and the darkness was dispelled in the most commonplace way by

reference to books. Helena did not invent the cross of Christ, in one sense

of the word, because the Romans had done so before her time. But, according

to tradition, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and found there the

Holy Sepulchre and the true cross of Christ. That is a tradition which I do

not attempt to justify, or to criticize beyond saying that the pilgrimage

would really be an easy one for the mother of a powerful Emperor who was

absolute in Jerusalem, and that the fabric might easily have been sound in

Helena's time.