doings on that occasion there is the following notice in the _Reading
Mercury_, of May 22nd, 1780:--"The ceremony of scowering and cleansing
that noble monument of Saxon antiquity, the White Horse, was celebrated
on Whit Monday, with great joyous festivity. Besides the customary
diversions of horse racing, foot races, etc., many uncommon rural
diversions and feats of activity were exhibited to a greater number
of spectators than ever assembled on any former occasion. Upwards of
thirty thousand persons were present, and amongst them most of the
nobility and gentry of this and the neighbouring counties; and the
whole was concluded without any material accident. The origin of this
remarkable piece of antiquity is variously related; but most authors
describe it as a monument to perpetuate some signal victory, gained
near the spot, by some of our most ancient Saxon princes. The space
occupied by this figure is more than an acre of ground."
There was also a list of the games, which was the same as that in
1776, excepting that in addition there was "a jingling-match by eleven
blind-folded men, and one unmasked and hung with bells, for a pair of
buckskin breeches."
An old man, William Townsend by name, whose father, one Warman
Townsend, had run down the manger after the fore-wheel of a waggon, and
won the cheese at this scouring, told the story, as his father had told
it to him, how that "eleven on 'em started, and amongst 'em a sweep
chimley and a millurd; and the millurd tripped up the sweep chimley and
made the soot flee a good 'un;" and how "the wheel ran pretty nigh down
to the springs that time."
[Illustration: WHITE HORSE HILL.]
The next Scouring seems to have been held in 1785, concerning which
one William Ayres of Uffington, aged about 84 years, in 1857 made
the following statements:--"When I were a buoy about ten years old
I remembers I went up White Hoss Hill wi' my vather to a pastime.
Vather'd brewed a barrel o' beer to sell on the Hill--a deal better
times than now--Augh! bless 'ee, a man medn't brew and sell his own
beer now: and oftentimes he can't get nothin' fit to drink at thaay
little beer-houses as is licensed, nor at some of the public-houses too
for that matter. But 'twur not only for that as the times wur better
then--But I be gandering shure enough,--well now, there wur Varmer
Mifflin's mare run for and won a new cart-saddle and thill-tugs--the
mare's name wur _Duke_. As many as a dozen or moor horses run, and
they started from Idle's bush, which were a vine owld tharnin'-tree in
thay days--a very nice bush. They started from Idle's bush, as I tell
'ee, and raced up to the Rudge-waay; and Varmer Mifflin's mare had it
all one way, and beeat all the t'other on 'um holler. The pastime then
wur a good 'un a wonderful sight o' folk of all sorts, rich and poor.
John Morse of Uffington, a queerish sort of a man, grinned agin another
chap droo' hos collars, but John got beeat--a fine bit o' spwoort to
be shure, and meead the volks laaf. Another geeam wur to bowl a cheese
down the Mainger, and the first as could catch 'un had 'un. The cheese
was a tough 'un and held together, a did I assure 'ee, but thaay as
tasted 'un said a warn't very capital arter all. Then were running for
a peg too, and they as could ketch 'un and hang 'un up by the tayl
had 'un. The girls, too run races for smocks--a deal of pastime to be
sure. Then wur climmin' a grasy pole for a leg of mutton, too: and
backsoordin', and wrastlin', and all that, ye knows. A man by the name
of Blackford, from the low countries, Zummersetshire, or that waay
someweres, he won the prize, and wur counted the best hand for years
arter, and no man couldn't break his yead; but at last, nigh on about
twenty years arter, I'll warn 'twer--at Shrin'um Revel, Harry Stanley,
the landlord o' the Blawin Stwun, broke his yead, and the low-country
men seemed afeard o' Harry round about here for long arter that. Varmer
Smallbwones, of Sparsholt, a mazin' stout man, and one as scarce no
one, go where 'a would, could drow down, beeat all the low-country
chaps at wrastlin', and none could stan' agean 'un. And so he got the
neam o' Varmer Great-Bwones. 'Twur only when he got a drap o' beer a
leetle too zoon, as he were drowed at wrastlin', but they never drowed
'un twice, and he had the best men come agean 'un for miles. This wur
the first pastime as I well remembers, but there med ha' been some
afore, for all as I knows. I ha' got a good memorandum, and minds
things well when I wur a buoy, that I does. I ha' helped to dress the
White Hoss myself, and a deal o' work 'tis to do 't, as should be, I
can assure 'ee. About Claay Hill, 'twixt Fairford and Ziziter, I've
many a time looked back at 'un, and a' looks as nat'ral as a pictur'."
Between 1785 and 1803 there were probably at least two Scourings about
which no reliable information seems to have been obtained.
At the Scouring of 1803 Beckingham of Baydon won the prize at
wrestling; Flowers and Ellis from Somersetshire won the prize at
backsword play; the waiter at the Bell Inn, Faringdon, won the cheese
race and at jumping in sacks; and Thomas Street of Niton won the
prize for grinning through horse-collars, but it was said "a man from
Woodlands would ha' beeat, only he'd got no teeth. This geaam made the
congregation laaf 'mazingly."
Then came a Scouring in 1808, at which the Hanney men came down in a
strong body and made sure of winning the prize for wrestling. But all
the other gamesters leagued against them, and at last their champion,
Belcher, was thrown by Fowler of Baydon. Two men, "with very shiny
top-boots, quite gentlemen, from London," won the prize for backsword
play, one of which gentlemen was Shaw, the Lifeguardsman, said to be a
Wiltshire man himself, who afterwards died at Waterloo. A new prize was
given at this pastime, viz., a gallon of gin or half-a-guinea for the
woman who would smoke most tobacco in an hour. Only two gipsy-women
entered, and it seems to have been a very blackguardly business, but it
is the only instance of the sort on record.
There seems to be some doubt as to the date of the next Scouring,
which was either in 1812 or 1813, but Judge Hughes thinks it was most
probably in the latter year, because the clerk of Kingston Lisle, an
old Peninsula man, told him that he was at home on leave in that year,
and that there was to be a Scouring, and all the people were talking
about it when he had to go back to the wars. At this Scouring there
was a prize of a loaf, made out of a bushel of flour, for running up
the Manger, which was won by Philip New, of Kingston-in-the-Hole, who
cut the great loaf into pieces at the top, and sold the pieces for a
penny a piece. The low-country men won the first backsword prize, and
one Ford, of Ashbury, the second; and the Baydon men won the prize
for wrestling. One Henry Giles had wrestled for the prize, but it is
supposed took too much beer afterwards; at any rate he fell into the
canal on his way home, and was drowned.
The next Scouring, about which any record is found, did not take place
till 1825, and it seems to have been the largest gathering there has
ever been. The games were held at the Seven Barrows, which are distant
two miles in a south-easterly direction from the White Horse, instead
of in Uffington Castle, for some reason which does not appear. These
seven barrows are popularly supposed to be the burial places of the
principal men who were killed at Ashdown.
After this there was no Scouring till 1838, when, on the 19th and 20th
of September, the old custom was revived under the patronage of Lord
Craven. The _Reading Mercury_ says that no more auspicious year could
have been chosen for the revival "than that in which our youthful and
beloved Queen first wore the British Crown, and in which an heir was
born to the ancient and noble house of Craven, whom God preserve."
The next took place in September, 1843, about which it is recorded that
the Berkshire and Wiltshire men, under Joe Giles, of Shrivenham, got
the better of the Somersetshire men led by Simon Stone at backsword
play; and then were two men who came down from London, who won the
wrestling prize away from the countrymen. There seems to have been
some difficulty in getting the elephant's caravan up the Hill,
for Wombwell's menagerie came down for the Scouring, and, though
four-and-twenty horses were put to, it stuck fast four or five times.
It does not seem to have struck the Berkshire folk that it would have
been simpler to turn the elephant out and make him pull his own caravan
up.
In September, 1857, was celebrated the festival so admirably described
by Judge Hughes in his book, "The Scouring of the White Horse," to
which we would refer our readers.
Of subsequent Scourings there is little or no record, village festivals
having fallen gradually into disuse through the advent of railways and
other means of communication with the outer world. The last took place
in 1892, and was undertaken at the sole expense of Lady Craven, of
Ashdown Park, the Horse having become so obliterated by neglect that
its outline could scarcely be traced even at a few miles distance. It
was unaccompanied by any festivities whatever.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: Drew lots.]
The Last of the Abbots.
There are few sadder stories than that of Hugh Farringdon, 31st mitred
abbot of the great Abbey of Reading. One of the foremost ecclesiastics
in the kingdom at the time of his terrible death, even in Henry VIII.'s
reign of terror, few men fell so far, so suddenly, and so fatally.
An Abbot of Reading was a member of the House of Lords. He had a
revenue with his abbey, amounting to well nigh £20,000 per annum at the
present day; one of the most charming country residences conceivable
at Pangbourne, Bere Place, which still retains some few relics of its
abbot owners; and, in the abbey itself; an abode whose magnificence,
even amidst those grand ruins, we very feebly realise. The abbey
precincts were at least thirty acres, in the midst of which the great
church arose in size and grandeur not far short of that of Canterbury
Cathedral itself.
The earlier portion of his abbacy seems to have been tranquil and
happy. We read of no such grave disputes as in the case of Abbot
Thorne. That 28th abbot seems to have carried fully out his name and
crest. He was a thorn in many sides. We read of bitter complaints
how he seized on the revenues of the Hospital for Poor Widows, and
appropriated them to the uses of the Almoner of the abbey, and not
content with this, laid hands also on St. Edmond's Chapel, which then
stood at the end of Friar Street, which he made into a barn.
The 31st abbot was a very different man from the 28th. He had more of
Mary than of Martha in him, as an old chronicler remarks somewhere of
somebody else. There is reason to believe that he was a most amiable
character. Mr. Kelly in his History of St. Lawrence has discovered
the following interesting record of him amongst the receipts for pew
rents:--
"1520. Setis--Item of my lord abbot for his moder's sete iiij d."
"A touching entry," says Mr. Kelly; "Hugh Faringdon, on his
promotion to the abbey, though a man of humble extraction, did not
forget to provide for the comfort of his poor aged mother."
It is true Leland speaks of him as an "illiterate monk." "Hugh Cook
was a stubborn monk, absolutely without learning." Of course he was
a monk, that goes without saying. With regard to his "stubbornness,"
there may be two opinions. As for being "absolutely without learning,"
he appears to have been one of those admirable in every age, who have
raised themselves from a low rank to a high one by sheer force of
character. A poor boy may still become Lord Chancellor or Archbishop of
Canterbury.
He appears not to have had educational advantages. He deplores this
in a letter of much dignified modesty. He had occasion to correspond
with the University of Oxford. The Oxford authorities seem to have been
in need of some stone from a quarry of the abbey, and had addressed
a polite request to him. He "returns thanks to the University for
considering him in the number of those learned persons who had been
members of that learned body," but speaks of himself as one who had
not the least pretences to that character. He styles himself a man of
no erudition; laments that the fates had denied him the advantages of
instruction in his youth, and states that he is still anxious to become
a member of the University, and apply himself to that course of study
which would suit his capacity, now become dull and feeble by length of
years.
He was evidently a patron of learned men. Leonard Cox, Master of the
Reading School, which, thanks to Henry VII., had been established in
St. Lawrence's Hospice rescued from Abbot Thorne, dedicates his "Art of
Rhetorick," 1539, to this last of the abbots.
He seems also to have been a good administrator, and an active
magistrate, and we read of him as taking his place at the Bench at
"Okingham," on 11th July, 1534, as one of the Justices of the Peace
for the county. More than this he was a religious man. He took care
that the Bible was read daily in the abbey. Dr. London, one of the
commissionaries for dissolving the Monastery and Friary, reports to his
superior, Lord Cromwell:--
"They have a gudde lecture in scripture daily redde in the chapter
house, both in Inglishe and Latin, to the which is gudde resort,
and the abbot is at it himself."
When the commissioners arrived, he does not seem to have opposed them,
or held back anything. Dr. London at first reports favourably:--
"I have requested of my lord abbot the relics of his house, which
he seledeted unto me with gudde will. I have taken an inventory
of them, and have locked them up beside the high altar, and have
the key in my keeping, and they be ready at your lordship's
commandment."
Abbot Hugh made no resistance, and it might have been supposed the
abbey would have escaped at least as well as the Friary; the Grayfriars
having nothing to lose, were simply turned out into the street with a
scanty pension, and their church given to the town for a town hall. How
was it, then, that such a cruel fate overtook the principal monks here,
for two others died with Hugh Faringdon on the same charge of high
treason? Stowe says it was for denying the King's supremacy.
"The Act of Suppression passed in May, 1539, and in November
following he was drawn, hanged, and quartered with two of his
monks. The same day the Abbot of Glastonbury was executed, and
shortly after the Abbot of Colchester."
It is here we get a clue, I think, to this extreme severity; these
three leading Churchmen had all got involved in a treason plot. The
Pilgrimage of Grace had very recently been suppressed. It had been
assisted with money by various monasteries, and it would seem that
these three great houses were specially compromised. Froude states this
distinctly, speaking in the first instance of the Abbot of Glastonbury
(History of England, Vol. III., ch. 16, p. 240):--
"An order went out for enquiry into his conduct, which was to be
executed by three of the visitors, Layton, Pollard, and Moyle. On
16 September (1539) they were at Reading, on the 22nd they had
arrived at Glastonbury ... the Abbot was placed in charge of a
guard, and sent to London, to the Tower, to be examined by Cromwell
himself, when it was discovered that both he and the Abbot of
Reading had supplied the northern insurgent with moneys."
For this there could be no pardon. The insurrection had been too
nearly successful. The principal leaders had suffered, and now their
three supporters followed. Hugh Faringdon had not allowed the King's
supremacy, but this might have been overlooked; he had been very
favourably reported by London to Cromwell. But now the law took its
course, that horrible and terrible death assigned to high treason.
Froude describes the aged Abbot of Colchester drawn through the town
that dismal November morning; dragged to the top of Glastonbury Torre,
there hanged, drawn, and quartered. It cannot be doubted that an
equally ghastly scene was enacted at Reading. As accomplices in both
instances, two monks were executed along with their principal.
The execution is supposed to have taken place here in front of the
inner gateway, which still survives, and is a place of resort for the
Berkshire Archæological Society. It may equally well have been at
Gallows Common beyond Christ Church which was for long the ordinary
place for executions. It would appear from St. Mary's registers that
even in the eighteenth century twice in the year batches of prisoners
were sent off there to the gallows: if so, the long and sad procession,
as at Glastonbury, would traverse the whole length of the town. It was
a most awful reverse of fortune. Both in 1532, and in 1535, we read of
his receiving a gilt cup from the king as a New Year's present. He had
even been on the commission for investigating how a manifesto from the
leader of the insurrection in Yorkshire had got into circulation at
Reading; but that fatal gift of money, which Cromwell had traced home
to the Abbot of Glastonbury, and also to Abbot Hugh, was an act beyond
pardon. He had been the king's favourite abbot, but was now convicted
of high treason, and the sentence took its course.
"He leaves a name which long time will avail
To point a moral, and adorn a tale."
Siege of Reading.
"Full soon the curse of Civil War
Came all our harmless sports to mar:
When law and order ceased to reign,
And knaves did eat up honest men;
When brother against brother stood
And all the land was drenched in blood."
--"_Donnington Castle._"
[Illustration: THE INNER GATEWAY, READING.]
"What a glorious thing must be a victory Sir!" an enthusiastic young
lady once exclaimed to the Iron Duke. "The greatest tragedy in the
world," he replied, "Madam, except a defeat!" A siege is bad enough:
an interesting thing to read and tell of, but, though it only lasted
ten days, an event burned deep into the memories of Reading; replete
with all but ruin to very many of her citizens; and entirely destroying
for all time that town's once famous cloth-trade. As the tide of war
ebbed and flowed along the Thames valley, now one side was uppermost,
and now the other, and, in either case, it was "woe to the vanquished."
One time there were the king's demands, then presently those of the
Parliamentary party; fines followed levied unmercifully on recusants
as also loans wrung from, at length, unwilling supporters. A letter,
still in the town archives, gives a vivid picture of the position of
very many in those days in Berkshire and in Oxfordshire. It is a letter
from G. Varney to the Town Clerk of Reading, not dated except from the
prison into which the soldiers had cast him:--
"Going," says Varney, "to market with a load of corn, the Earl of
Manchester's soldiers met with my men, and took away my whole team
of horses, letting my cart stand in the field four miles from home;
and I never had them more. When the king's soldiers come to us they
call me Roundheaded rogue, and say I pay rent to the Parliament
garrison, and they will take it away from me; and likewise the
Parliament soldiers, they vapour with me, and tell me that I pay
rent to Worcester and Winchester, therefore the Parliament say they
will have the rent."
Still more pathetic is the petition to Parliament that presently
was made: "That, since the time the two armies came into the town,
your petitioners have had their sufferings multiplied upon them; the
soldiers going to that height of insolence that they break down our
houses and burn them, take away our goods and sell them, rob our
markets and spoil them, threaten our magistrates and beat them; so
that, without a speedy redress, we shall be constrained, though to our
utter undoing, yet for the preservation of our lives, to forsake our
goods and habitations, and leave the town to the will of the soldiers;
who cry out they have no pay, have no beds, have no fire; and they must
and will have it by force, or they will burn down all the houses in the
town whatever become of them."
Such was the state of things which the mayor, with his twelve aldermen
and twelve councillors of that day, had to grapple with: and a very
difficult matter, as we shall see, he found it. Things were coming
to a crisis here in 1643, in the April of which the ten-days' siege
occurred; but they had long been leading up to this.
In 1636 the town was deeply stirred on the subject of ship-money; one
party carried a resolution: "They who deny payment of ship-money to
be proceeded against as the council of the corporation shall direct;"
a little later another party seems to have got the uppermost, and the
entry in 1641: "Agreed that those persons within the town which were
distressed for ship-money shall have their moneys repaid them."
At first the Parliamentary Party were in the ascendency; then 1642
came. Edgehill was fought 23rd October, then the king took Banbury,
and then marched upon Reading. Henry Martin, M.P., afterwards the
regicide, had been appointed by the Parliament governor of Reading;
but, upon the royal advance, at once withdrew with his small garrison
and fled to London. The king arrived here on November 4th, from which
time matters certainly became sufficiently exciting.
"The game of Civil War will not allow
Bays to the victor's brow.
At such a game what fool would venture in,
Where one must lose, yet neither side can win?"
--_Cowley._
Yet every day saw the game played more and more in earnest. Charles
reached Reading, 4th November, 1642, having sent on the following
missive on the previous day: "Whereas I have received information that
the bridge on the river Thames at Causham was lately broke down, our
Will and express Command is that ye immediately upon sight hereof cause
the said bridge to be rebuilt, and made strong and fit for the passage
of our army by time 8 of the clock in the morning as the bearer shall
direct; of this you may not fail at your utmost peril."
The mayor at this time was a firm royalist. One of the Diurnals of
the other side thus records his endeavours: "At the king's coming to
Reddinge a speech was made unto him by the mayor of the town, wherein
after he had in the best words he could devise bid him welcome thither,
for want of more matter he concluded very abruptly." This is malicious
enough, but nothing to the story that follows: "Not long after he
invited Prince Robert (_sic_) to dine, providing for him all the
dainties that he could get, but especially a woodcock, which he brought
in himself. Prince Robert gave him many thanks for his good cheer,
and asked him whose was all that plate that stood upon the cupboard?
The mayor, who had set out all his plate to make a show, and besides
had borrowed a great deal of his neighbours to grace himself withal,
replied, 'And please your Highness the plate is mine!' 'No!' quoth the
prince, 'this plate is mine,' and so accordingly he took it all away;
bidding him be of good cheer, for he took it, as the Parliament took
it, upon the public faith."
Lord Saye and Sele, just before, however, had carried off two large
baskets, full of the Christ Church plate, at Oxford, for parliamentry
purposes.
Now almost every day has its event, and dates must be regarded.
November 8th.--The town is startled by a peremptory order to impress
all the tailors in Reading, and within six miles round, to make clothes
for the garrison, with which they are to be honoured; Sir Arthur Ashton
is appointed governor, with a salary from the town of £7 per week; he
is soon able to lend the poor corporation £100. At once he begins to
fortify; all are forced to assist; those who do not come to work being
fined 7d. per day; forts and chains are placed at the end of every
street, and the Oracle, or cloth factory at once is utilized as a
barrack.
It is an interesting fact, that through the pious care of a wealthy
citizen, Reading still possesses the old gates of the Oracle. There
they are in honourable retirement at the top of St. Mary's Hill; the
Kenrich crest in one place, the initials, J.K., of the founder of this
factory for poor clothiers, in another; the date 1526 still in another
part; all being in very fair state of preservation. How few of the busy
many that pass those gates every day think of the scenes that these
have witnessed, and could tell of, if walls had voices as well as ears!
"When Puritan and Cavelier
With shout and psalm contended!
And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer,
With sound of battle blended!"--_Whittier._