"A home of pleasure, a place meet for the Muses."--LELAND.
Warwick--what olden glories and tales of other times are associated with
this county. How many of its sites are connected with high-minded men and
great and glorious actions. To the antiquary, the poet, and the
philosopher, every foot is hallowed ground; and even the cold calculations
of the commercial speculator treat with regard a county whose manufactures
add to the stock of national wealth and importance. How many stories of
love, war, and chivalry are told of its halls, castles, and monasteries,
their lords and ladies and maidens of high birth. Kenilworth and
STRATFORD--Leicester, SHAKSPEARE and Warwick--like long trails of light,
all flit before us in this retrospective dream of the days of "merry
England."
Guy's Cliff is situated about one mile and a half north-east of Warwick.
Here the river Avon winds through fertile meadows; and on its western bank,
a combination of rock and wood, singularly picturesque, invited at an early
period the reveries of superstitious seclusion and poetical fancy. It is
supposed that here was an oratory, and a cell for the hermit, in Saxon
times; and it is certain that a hermit dwelt in this lovely recess in the
reigns of Edward III. and Henry IV. This is the spot to which the renowned
_Guy_, Earl of Warwick, is said to have retired after his duel with the
Danish Colbrond;[1] and here his neglected countess, the fair Felicia, is
reported to have interred his remains. It appears that Henry V. visited
Guy's Cliff, and was so charmed with its natural beauties, and, probably,
so much interested by the wild legend connected with the place, that he
determined to found a chantry for two priests here. But war and an early
death prevented the performance of this, among many other pious and
benevolent intentions ascribed to the heroic Henry. Such a chantry was,
however, founded in the first year of Henry VI. by Richard Beauchamp, Earl
of Warwick; but the chapel and some contiguous buildings were not completed
till after the earl's decease. In this delightful retreat lived John Rous,
the antiquary, as a chantry priest.
[1] See MIRROR, vol xiii. p. 114.
About the middle of the eighteenth century, this estate passed to a private
gentleman, who built a handsome mansion here. But the chief attractions
are the natural beauties of the grounds--as the rock, on which the house
and chapel are built. Here is shown a cave, devoutly believed by
neighbouring peasants to be that which Guy "hewed with his own hands," and
in which he lived
Like a Palmer poore.
The chapel founded by Richard Beauchamp was a plain, substantial edifice.
The founder caused to be carved from the solid rock on which this chapel
abuts, a rude statue of the famous Earl Guy, about eight feet in height. It
would appear, from a print in Dugdale's Warwickshire, that this figure was
well preserved in the seventeenth century.
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