Bolingbroke, to which is now added the epithet “old,” to distinguish it
from the modern creation, New Bolingbroke, near Revesby, lies distant
about seven miles, in an easterly direction from Horncastle, and about
four miles westward from Spilsby, in a kind of _cul-de-sac_, formed by
steep hills on three sides. As to the meaning of the name, whether its
commonly accepted derivation from the brook, the spring-head of which, as
Camden says (Britannia, p. 471), is in low ground hard by, be correct, we
must leave to full-fledged etymologists to decide; but the small
streamlet, as it exists at present, in no way answers to the ideal of a
bowling brook, sufficient to be a distinguishing feature of the place.
We would venture to suggest, as a fair subject for their enquiry, that,
as “bullen” is Danish for “swollen,” and “brock” is only another form of
“burgh” (and common enough in Scotland), meaning a fort (as we have a few
miles away, near Hallington station, _Bully_-hill, near an ancient
encampment), there may have been an older fort, swelling out like an
excrescence at the mouth of this valley; and so a “bollen” (or bulging)
“broc,” providing a fitting site on which the later castle was also
erected. It might, too, seem some confirmation of this, that, in
Domesday Book, the name is given as Bolin broc. Be this as it may,
however, the place itself is one of unusual interest to the archæologist.
It is a town in decadence. Possessed of a market-place, and a number of
good houses, some paved streets, a fine church, the site of a castle, and
that rare distinction an “Honour,” it is yet but a village, with little
to stir its “sleepy hollow” into social life or animation. The visitor
may, perhaps, meet there (as the writer has done), one who has retired
from her Majesty’s service; who has weilded his cutlass on quarterdeck,
or carried his rifle through stockade or over battlement; the said
individual may long, on the settle by the snug hostel fire, to fight his
battles over again, in converse with some kindred spirit; but there is
now no tread of sentinel on castle-wall, no warder now blows his bugle at
castle gate. The castle itself is but a phantom of the past, only to be
now seen in imagination. He would, perhaps, fain know something of its
bygone history; but he finds no one to tell it. Ichabod echoes through
the silent streets, and he can only murmur in the words of an ancient
lament (for, is it not written in the book of Jasher?) “How are the
mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished.” The County Directory
tells him (as would also Domesday Book) that Bolingbroke had a weekly
market {26a}; from a like authority he may learn that the soke, or
Honour, of Bolingbroke embraced nearly 30 parishes, Spilsby amongst them.
{26b} Yet he goes to Spilsby on a Monday and finds it crowded with
traffickers, while, from week’s end to week’s end, the market place of
Bolingbroke does not see a merchant or a huckster. Sooth to say, the
secluded nature of the locality, which of old commended it as a fitting
position for a strongly-protected castle, embedded in hills, save on one
side, served really to isolate it from the outer world, and hindred, and
ultimately destroyed, the traffic, which became gradually transferred to
other towns more easy of access. And so the once busy market is grass
grown, and the buzz of its barter would not awaken a baby. The sole
sound, indeed, of any volume, to break the moribund monotony—and this
only one of recent creation—is the peal of fine bells with which the
church is now furnished, and instead of soliloquising further we will now
proceed to describe these, and then unfold the fine features of the
church, of which they form so melodious an appurtenance. There are six
larger bells and the old sanctus bell. Of the larger bells, one is old,
and five were presented in 1897, by Miss Maria Wingate, whose family,
formerly resided at Hareby House, which small parish and benefice were
annexed to Bolingbroke in 1739. {27} The five new bells were cast by
Messrs. Taylor, of Loughborough, a well-known firm of bell-founders.
These were consecrated by Bishop King, of Lincoln, soon after they were
hung. On one of them, the treble bell, is the inscription, “God save the
Queen, a thank-offering in commemoration of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee,
1897.” The peculiar appropriateness of this inscription will be the more
manifest, when the singular fact is remembered (as will be fully
explained hereafter), that, as Duchess of Lancaster, the Queen was Lady
of the Manor of Bolingbroke. The old bell bears the date 1604, and has
the inscription—
“I, sweetly tolling, men do call,
To taste our meats that feede the soole.”
This old bell is a very fine one, and is named among the “Bells of
Lincolnshire.”
Of the church itself, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, it may be said
that it has had its peculiar vicissitudes. It was built probably by John
of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; as the flamboyant style of its architecture
indicates a late 14th century erection; and he was granted the manor in
that century (1363). Many of our finest churches, such as those of
Boston, Grantham, Heckington, &c., were built in that century. This of
Bolingbroke is one of the latest of them, corresponding most closely in
style and date to the Church of Kyme Priory; but it is certainly not one
of the least striking. We now see in it only a portion of the original,
namely, the south aisle, porch, and tower. It was occupied as head
quarters by the Parliamentary troops in 1643, while they were laying
siege to the castle, which was held for the King; and, with their usual
puritan hatred of holy places, they destroyed the beautiful stained glass
which adorned the windows; while, further, their presence there drew upon
the building heavy bombardment by the King’s men, no less destructive to
the edifice itself. Since that time, the original south aisle has been
used as the main body of the church; and until recently, the arches of
the arcade, formerly dividing it from the original nave, were distinctly
visible, built up in the (later) north wall; while the tower, originally
standing at the west end of the nave, became (in consequence of the
destruction of the latter, semi-detached from the later south aisle)
church, at its north-west angle. The church was restored in 1889,
through the munificence of Mr. C. S. Dickinson, of Lincoln, at a cost of
£3,000; the architect being the late Mr. James Fowler; and it was
re-opened by the Bishop on Oct. 10th of that year; the old disfiguring
galleries having been removed, and new battlements and pinnacles being
added to the tower; and a new north aisle being erected, extending
eastward from the tower; the original south aisle being still retained as
a modern nave, re-seated, and re-furnished in every respect; and a new
organ added, with various improvements. As to the result, we cannot do
better than quote some of the observations of the late Precentor
Venables, made by him on the visit of the Lincolnshire Architectural
Society in 1894. {28} He described it as “a building of great
stateliness, the proportions being excellent, and in its general design
and architectural details, presenting a specimen of the decorated style
in its greatest purity and beauty; the windows are almost faultless
examples of flowing tracery in its early purity. The east window has
five lights, with quatrefoil window in the gable above; the west window
four lights; and the side windows three lights each; all excellent. The
south porch has a well-proportioned inner door with good moulding; there
being an open quatrefoil over the door. In its east corner there is a
very sumptuous holy water stoup of unusual design, surmounted by a tall
canopy of great richness. There is a statue bracket over the door, and
one at the side. The recently opened arcade on the north side of nave is
composed of fine equilateral arches, with mouldings continuous from their
bases, without the intervention of capitals. On the south wall of the
present chancel is a range of three rich, though rather heavy, stone
sedilia, with projecting canopies over-braided with wall-flowers, and
groined within Traces of canopied niches of similar design to the
sedilia, are visible on each side of the east window. The piscina, with
projecting basin, is plain.”
In the middle of the south wall of the nave there is also an old piscina,
with aumbrey above it, which would indicate that, in the original church,
there was here a chantry. {29} The present pulpit, and the choir seats
in the chancel, are of modern oak richly carved; and the vestry, at the
back of the organ, is screened off by similar rich modern oak carving.
The tower has a west door, with a four-light window over it; a two-light
window above this, with corresponding ones in the north and south faces.
Within the tower, over an ancient fireplace, is embedded in the wall,
4ft. from the ground, a curious old gurgoyle head of peculiar
hideousness, which doubtless, at one time, grinned down from the original
roof. Over the said fireplace there is this inscription graven in a
stone:—“Sixpence in bread every Sunday for ever for the poore women
present at divine service, given by John Andred, M.A., rector of
Bolingbroke, Anno Domini MDCLXXX.”
In the churchyard is a tall monument, surmounted by a cherub with
expanded wings, in memory of Edward Stanley Bosanquet, who died July
16th, 1886, formerly vicar; also of his wife Emmeline, and three
children, who died at different dates. Outside the north wall are some
stone ends of seats, formerly in the tower.
It may here be worthy of remark that Chancellor Massingberd, in his
account of the battle of Winceby mentions that “among the slain on the
side of the King was a Lincolnshire gentleman of the name of Hallam, the
immediate ancestor of the Historian of the Middle Ages,” Henry Hallam.
The name is not a common one; and on a broken stone slab, lying behind
the N.E. buttress, under the N.E. window, is the fragmentary inscription,
“Body of Henry Hallam, who dyed January The 6, 1687.” {30a}
We conclude our notice of this church with the words of the
Precentor:—“We may realize the magnitude, and the beauty of the (former)
entire church, when we bear in mind that, besides what we now see, there
was a wide nave, a north aisle, doubtless equal in dimensions and style
to that now standing, and a long chancel reaching to the limits of the
churchyard.” A building so fine would attest the former importance of
the place; and we now proceed to consider other proofs of that importance
which we know to have existed.
Bolingbroke is, indeed, a place of no mushroom growth. The Castle was
built in the reign of Henry I. by William de Romara, Earl of Lincoln, who
also founded the Abbey of Revesby about 1143. But history carries us
back to a still earlier date, and to an older, and even more interesting,
and more important family than that of Romara. The mother of William de
Romara (or, according to others, his grandmother) was Lucia, a Saxon
heiress {30b}; sister of the powerful Morcar, Earl of Northumberland, who
for some time withstood the Conqueror, and daughter of Algar, Earl of
Mercia, who was the brother of Edgiva, King Harold’s Queen (others making
Edgiva the sister of Lucia). She was also a near relative of the
renowned “Hereward the Wake,” the stubborn champion of Saxon freedom.
There was an earlier Algar, Earl of Mercia, who, 200 years before, fell
in the famous fight of Threckingham (between Sleaford and Folkingham)
against the Danes, about A.D. 865. He was the son of another Algar, and
grandson of Leofric, both successively Earls of Mercia; the wife of the
last-named being the Lady Godiva (or God’s gift, “Deodata”), renowned for
her purity and good works. This Lady Godiva was the sister of Turold, or
Thorold, of Bukenale (Bucknall), {30c} Lord of Spalding, and Vice-Count,
or Sheriff of the County of Lincoln. And these Thorolds, father and son,
were among the chief benefactors of the famous Monastery of St. Guthlac,
at Croyland; a similar good work being also performed, in her own day, by
the aforesaid Lady Lucia, who was chief patroness of the Priory of
Spalding {31a} an offshoot of the greater Croyland Abbey. Thus William
of Romara was not only a Norman “of high degree,” on his father’s side,
but, through his mother, he came of a race of Saxons, powerful, brave,
and distinguished for their services to their country and religion. It
has been frequently observed that, although the Normans conquered and
subjugated Saxon England, the stubborn Saxon eventually absorbed, or
prevailed over, his Norman master; and we have an illustration of it
here, not uninteresting to men of Lincolnshire. The name of Romara has
long been gone, in our country and elsewhere, beyond recall; but the old
Saxon name of Thorold yet stands high in the roll of our county families.
There is probably no older name in the shire; none that has so completely
maintained its good position and succession, in unbroken descent. {31b}
Now the Lady Lucia inherited many of the lands of her Saxon ancestors;
and among those which passed to her Son William of Romara, was
Bolingbroke. He was a man of many, and wide domains, but of them all he
selected this, as the place for erecting a stronghold, capable of defence
in those troublous times. The castle is described by Holles (temp.
Charles I) as “surrounded by a moat fed by streams, and as covering about
an acre and half; built in a square, with four strong forts,” probably at
the corners; and “containing many rooms, which were connected by passages
along the embattled walls and capable to receyve a very great prince with
all his trayne.” The entrance was “very stately, over a fair draw
bridge; the gate-house uniforme, and strong.” The gateway, of which the
crumbling ruins were engraved by Stukeley in the first half of the l8th
century, finally fell in 1815; and nothing now remains above ground. The
whole structure was of the sandstone of the neighbourhood, which, as
Holles observes, will crumble away when the wet once penetrates it. The
moat is still visible; and further, in the rear of it, to the south,
beyond the immediate precincts, there is another moated enclosure, still
to be seen, the residence doubtless of dependants under the shelter of
the castle; or these may have been earthworks excavated by the forces
besieging the castle. We cannot here give in detail the long and varied
history of the great owners of Bolingbroke. But, omitting minor
particulars:—“A Gilbert de Gaunt by marrying a Romara heiress, obtained
the estate. One of his successors of the same name, joining the Barons
against King John and Henry III., forfeited it. It was then granted to
Ranulph, Earl of Chester. It afterwards passed to the de Lacy family,
earls in their turn, of Lincoln; and by marriage with Alicia de Lacy,
Thomas Plantagenet, grandson of Henry III. obtained it, with the title.
A later Gaunt, the famous John, Duke of Lancaster, married the heiress of
this branch of the Plantagenets, and so in turn became Earl of Lincoln
and Lord of Bolingbroke, and their son Henry, born here April 3, 1366,
became Henry IV. As being the birthplace of a sovereign, the estate,
instead of remaining an ordinary manor, was elevated to the rank of an
‘Honour’” (Camden’s Britannia, p. 471) and is entitled, in all legal
documents “the Honour of Bolingbroke.” Since the accession of Henry IV.
it has remained an appanage of the Crown; and as Duke of Lancaster, King
Edward is “Lord of the Honour,” at the present day. Gervase Holles
states that Queen Elizabeth made sundry improvements in the interior of
the castle, adding “a fayre great chamber with other lodgings.” The
Constable of the Castle was (in his day) “Sir William Mounson, Lord
Castlemayne, who received a revenue out of the Dutchy lands of £500 per
annum; in part payment of £1,000 yearly, given by the King to the
Countess of Nottingham his lady.” He also says “In a roome in one of the
towers they kept their audit for the whole Dutchy of Lancaster,
Bolingbroke having ever been the prime seat thereof, where the Recordes
for the whole country are kept.” {32}
And he then gives a detailed account of the following supernatural
occurrence, as being beyond controversy authenticated:—Which is, that the
castle is haunted by a certain spirit in the likeness of a hare; which,
“att the meeting of the auditors doth runne betweene their legs, and
sometimes overthrows them, and soe passes away. They have pursued it
downe into the castleyard, and seen it take in att a grate, into a low
cellar; and have followed it thither with a light, where, notwithstanding
they did most narrowly observe it, and there was no other passage out,
but by the doore or windowe, the roome being all close-framed of stones
within, not having the least chinke or crevice, they could never finde
it. Att other times it hath been seen to run in at the iron grates below
into other of the grotto’s (as their be many of them), and they have
watched the place, and sent for hounds, and put in after it; but aftar a
while they came crying out.” (Harleian M.S.S. No. 6829, p. 162). The
explanation of this hare-brained story we leave to others more versed in
the doings of the spirit world; merely observing that such an apparition
has not been entirely confined to Bolingbroke Castle.
The town of Bolingbroke confers the title of Viscount on the family of
St.-John of Lydiard Tregoze, Co. Wilts. The career, the abilities, the
accomplishments, the vicissitudes, and the writings, of the great
statesman, author and adventurer, Henry St.-John, Viscount Bolingbroke,
during the reigns of Anne, William and Mary, and George I. are too
well-known, to need further mention here.
Saunders in his History of Lincolnshire (Vol. ii., p. 101, 1834) says
that there was then still in the church the remains of an altar cloth,
beautifully embroidered, and traditionally said to have been the work of
Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt, and mother of Henry
IV., who is celebrated in Chaucer’s poem “the Dream.” Chancellor
Massingberd, however, writing his account of Bolingbroke Castle in 1858
(“Architect Soc. Journ.” vol. iv. p. ii.) says that it had then
disappeared, and not been seen for some 20 years, having probably been
disgracefully purloined.
The parish register dates from 1538; a rather unusual occurrence, as the
keeping of registers was only enforced 1530–8 by Act of 27 Henry VIII.,
and the order was in few cases observed till a later period.