BEAULIEU ABBEY.
[Illustration: Arches of the Chapter House.]
I should trust that, on a fine day, twenty miles are not too much for
any Englishman. If they are, and any one should think the walk along the
coast too long, Beaulieu may be reached by going direct from Hythe,
across Beaulieu Common. The moor stretches out on all sides, flushed in
the summer with purple heather, northward to the Forest, southward to
the cultivated fields round Leap and Exbury. Passing “The Nodes,”[80]
the road runs quite straight to Hill Top, with its clump of firs, which
we reached in the last chapter.
Down in the valley, hid from us by a turn in the road, lies Beaulieu.
But a little farther on we reach part of the old Abbey walls, broken
here and there, clustered with ivy, and grass, and yellow mullein, and
white yarrow, whilst vine-clad cottages stand against its sides. The
village is situated on a bend of the Exe, where, spanned by a bridge,
the stream falls over the weir, formerly turning the old mill-wheel of
the monks, and then, broadening with the tide, winds through meadows and
thick oak copses down to the Solent.
Although far more beautifully situated, the Abbey is not nearly so well
known as its own filial house at Netley, simply because more out of the
way. For a moment let us give some account of its foundation,
illustrating as it does both King John’s cruelty and superstition. The
story, as told by the monks, is that John, after various oppressions of
the Cistercian Order, in the year 1204, convened their abbots to his
Parliament at Lincoln. As soon as they came, he ordered his retainers to
charge them on horseback. No one was found to obey such a command. The
monks fled to their lodgings. That night the King dreamt he was led
before a judge, who ordered him to be scourged by these very monks. The
next morning John narrated his dream, which was so vivid that he
declared he felt the blows when he awoke, to a priest of his court, who
told him that God had been most merciful in thus simply chastising him
in this world, and revealing the secrets of His will. He advised him at
once to send for the abbots, whom he had so ill-treated, and to implore
their pardon.[81]
Some truth, doubtless, underlies this story. Certain it is that in the
same year, or the next, John founded the Abbey at Beaulieu, then Bellus
Locus, so called from its beauty, placing there thirty monks from St.
Mary’s, at Citeaux, endowing it with land in the New Forest, and manors,
and villages, and churches in Berkshire; exempting it from various
services and taxes and tolls; giving further, out of his own treasury, a
hundred marks; and ordering all other Cistercian Houses to assist in the
work. Not only did he do this, but he revoked his gift of the manor of
Farendon, which, in the previous year, he had conditionally bestowed on
some other Cistercian monks, and now transferred it to Beaulieu, making
the House at Faringdon a mere offshoot from the larger building.[82] And
the abbot designate repaid him in his life-time by accusing his enemy,
Stephen of Canterbury, before the Pope, for treason, and causing him to
be suspended.[83]
John died, and Henry III. not only confirmed the privileges, but granted
several more in consideration of the great expense of the building, and
Innocent III. gave it the right of a sanctuary. So the work proceeded.
The stone was quarried principally from the opposite limestone-beds in
the Isle of Wight; and was brought over, says tradition, curiously
illustrating the vague notions of ancient geography, which we have seen
in Diodorus Siculus,[84] in carts. Not, however, till 1249, some
forty-five years after its foundation, was the monastery finished. Henry
himself, and his Queen, and Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and a long train
of nobles and prelates, came to its dedication on the feast of St. John;
Hugh, the first abbot, spending no less than five hundred marks on the
entertainment.[85]
So, at last, the good work was accomplished, and men came here and
lived, taking for their pattern the holy St. Benedict, and finding the
problem of life solved by daily prayer to heaven and labour on
earth.[86]
Here, to its sanctuary, in 1471, after she had landed at Southampton on
Easter Day, the very day of the battle of Barnet, fled the Countess of
Warwick, wife of the King-maker, slain on that bloody field.[87] Here,
too, in 1497, after having raised the siege of Exeter, and deserted his
troops at Taunton, fled the worthless Perkin Warbeck, not only an
impostor, but a coward, closely pursued by Lord Daubeny and five hundred
men. Persuaded, however, by Henry VII.’s promises, he left his shelter
only to become a prisoner in the Tower, and finally to expiate his
deceit at Tyburn.
So years passed at the Abbey, the monks happy in saying their daily
prayers, content to see the corn grow, and their vineyards ripen, and
their flocks increase, knowing little of the troubles which raged in the
outer world, save when some forlorn fugitive arrived. But even what is
best becomes the worst. Time brought a change of spirit on all the
monasteries. Long before the middle of the sixteenth century the stern
earnestness of a former age had dwindled into effeminacy and sensuality.
Piety had sunk into gross idolatry; and faith, amongst the laity, had
been corrupted into credulity, and, with the priests, into hypocrisy.
The greatest blessings had festered into curses. It was so, we know,
through all England. And Beaulieu must suffer with the rest of the
monasteries.
In 1537, the Abbey was dissolved, the last Abbot, Thomas Stephens, with
twenty out of the thirty monks, signing the deed of surrender.[88]
Stephens was pensioned off with a hundred marks; and some of the monks
received various annuities and compensations for their losses. So fell
the monastery of Beaulieu, and its stones went to build Henry VIII.’s
martello tower at Hurst, and its lead to repair Calshot,[89] to fight
against the very Power which had raised it to its glory.
Few abbeys have known so lovely a site. Placed close to the banks, it
overlooked the Exe, formed by the tide more into a lake than a river. On
every side it was sheltered: on the north by rising ground and the woods
of the New Forest, and on the east again by the Forest and more hills,
from whence an aqueduct brought down the water for the use of the monks;
and on the south and west all was guarded by the river.
To this day the outer walls are in places standing, with the water-gate
covered with ivy. And inside is the palace, placed amongst its own
grounds, surrounded by elms. Above its doorway is cut a canopied niche,
where stood the patron saint, the Virgin, and above runs the
string-course, supported by its carved corbel-heads. But the whole
building has been unfortunately defaced by a moat and turretted wall,
built as a defence by one of the Montagues against French privateers, as
also by the modernized windows.[90]
The entrance-hall, too, like all the other rooms, has been sadly
modernized, though its fine groined roof, springing from four shafts on
each side, and a lancet window in the east wall, still remain. Upstairs,
also, is left some oak panelling of Henry VIII.’s time, of the linen
pattern, but covered over with paint. Eastward, in the meadow adjoining,
stands the guest-house, better known in the village, from its former
occupants, as Burman’s House. Passing through it, we suddenly come upon
the green quadrangle once surrounded with cloisters, where the three
arches leading into the chapter-house still remain. The black Purbeck
marble shafts, and bands, and capitals, have, however, long since become
weather-worn and decayed, though the Binstead and Caen stone still
stands, here and there covered with ivy, crested with wall-flowers, and
white and crimson pinks, and rusted with lichens.
In the chapter-house are strewed the broken pillars which supported the
groined roof, and the broken stone-seats which ran round the inside,
whilst on the floor lie a stone coffin and gravestones. To the north of
it stand the ruins of the sacristy.
Of the cloisters, the north alley is the most perfect, with its seven
carols, where the monks sat and talked; whilst above project the corbels
which carried the cloister-roof. Here and there, too, as at the two
north doors leading into the church, some of the original pavement still
remains.
The church, however, has long since been destroyed. Nothing, except a
portion of the south transept, is left. The foundations, though, can be
accurately traced, showing the nave and aisles, and the large circular
apse at the east end. Scattered about, too, appear the tesselated floor,
bright as on the day it was laid down, and the graves of the abbots, and
of Isabella, first wife of Richard Earl of Cornwall.[91]
Out in the fields beyond stand the ruins of a building, now a mere
pinfold for cattle, called by tradition the Monk’s Vine-Press, whilst
the meadows beyond, lying on the slope of the hill, are still known as
“the Vineyards.”[92]
But the refectory still remains on the south side of the cloisters, from
which a doorway, still ornamented with iron scroll-work, used to lead.
Ever since the Reformation it has served as the parish church, differing
only in its appearance by its lack of orientation.[93] In 1746 it was
repaired, and its original roof lowered, and its fine triplet at the
south end spoilt by a buttress, and one of the lancets lighting the
wall-passage on the west side also blocked up. Its walls, however, are
now covered with common spleenwort, and wall-lettuce, and pellitory,
whilst the narrow-leaved rue—the “herb o’ grace o’ Sundays”—with which
the old churchyards used to be sown, shows its pale blue blossoms
amongst the gravestones.
[Illustration: Pulpit of the Refectory.]
Inside it is still more interesting. Here still stands the lovely stone
pulpit, its panels rich with flower-tracery, approached by a
wall-passage and open arcade springing from double rows of black Purbeck
marble pillars. This was the old rostrum of the monks, where one of the
brethren read to the rest at their meals; so that, as St. Augustine
says, their mouths should not only taste, but their ears also drink in
the Word of God. Here, in this very village church, the old Cistercian
monks obeyed the injunction of their order[94],—“When we enter, let us
bare our heads, and going to our seats bend before the cross. Let us not
behave idly, lest we give offence to any one. Let not our eyes wander,
lest we give occasion for bickering, or quarrelling, or laughing; but
fulfilling the saying of the blessed Hugh of Lincoln, ‘let us keep our
eyes upon the table, our ears with the reader, and our hearts with
God.’”[95]
In the churchyard, plainly traceable by the ruined foundations, and
mounds, and depressions, are the sites of the lavatory and kitchens,
whilst in the fields beyond lie the fish-ponds. Everywhere, in fact, are
seen the traces of the monks. Their walks still remain by the side of
the Exe, overgrown with oaks, bright in the spring with blue and crimson
lungwort, and sweet with violets, such as grew when Anne Beauchamp
sought refuge here that dismal Easter day.
Not only do the Abbey grounds,[96] but the whole district, show the size
of the monastery. Going out of Beaulieu, upon the road to Bucklershard,
we come upon the ox-farm of the monks, still called Bouvery, and still
famous for its grazing land. A little farther, about the centre of their
various farmsteads, at St. Leonard’s, better known now as the Abbey
Walls, stands part of the large barn, or _spicarium_, of the monastery,
such as still remains in other parts of England—at Cerne Abbey, and
Abbotsbury, and Sherborne, and Battle Abbey.[97] A modern barn now
stands within it, partly formed by its walls, but its original size is
well shown by the lofty eastern gable, locally called the Pinnacle,
which, covered with ivy, overhangs the road. Close to the old
farm-house, built from its ruins, stands a small roofless Decorated
Chapel. The west window, and the arch of the west doorway, still remain,
and at the same end still project the corbels which supported the
gallery. In the east wall are canopied niches, under which stood
figures; and on the south the piscina, and the broken conduit where the
water ran, and two aumbries are still visible, whilst opposite to them,
in the present doorway, another aumbrie is inserted with its two grooves
for shelves cut in the stone.[98]
[Illustration: The Barn of St. Leonard’s Grange.]
[Illustration: The Chapel of St. Leonard’s Grange.]
Close to St. Leonard’s lies also the sheep-farm of the monks, still
called Bargery, and still famous for its sheep-land. Nearer Bucklershard
is Park Farm, another grange, where fifty years ago stood a chapel,
smaller even than the one we have just seen, partly Early-English and
Decorated. It was divided into two compartments by a stone screen
reaching to a plain roof. The piscina in the south wall was finally used
by the ploughmen to mix their wheat with lime, until the whole building
was pulled down to enlarge the farm-house from whose south-east end it
projected.[99]
At these two granges the brethren worked in summer from chapter till
tierce, and from nones till vespers. Here lived the ploughmen and
artisans, the millers, and smiths, and carpenters, of the monastery. For
them were these chapels built, lest either the weather or the roads
might prevent them going to the Abbey Church.[100] Here they all
worshipped as one family, the serf no longer a serf, but a freedman,
when he entered the service of the abbey.
Farther away to the westward lies Sowley Pond, called in the Abbey
Charters Colgrimesmore, and Frieswater, covering some ninety acres,
formerly the boundary of the abbey estate, and used by the monks as a
preserve for their fish. Here once were iron-works, whose blast-furnaces
were heated with wood and charcoal from the Forest. The iron-stone was
brought from Hengistbury Head and the Hordle Cliffs, and after being
melted was shaped by the tilt-hammers, and finally sent off inland to
Reading, or shipped at Pitt’s Deep. But like all the other ferraria of
Sussex and Hampshire, these too have long since been stopped, driven out
of the field by the Staffordshire iron-works. Nothing now remains to
tell their former importance but a few mounds and the village
Forge-Hammer Inn, and a country proverb, “There will be rain when Sowley
hammer is heard,” whose meaning is fast being lost.
Returning, however, to Beaulieu, let us once more look at the old abbey
and the ruins of the cloisters, and try to imagine for ourselves the
time when, secluded from the world, in the midst of the New Forest, the
monks from Citeaux prayed and worked, clad in their coarse white woollen
robes, and slept, according to their vow, on pallets of straw, giving
shelter to the fugitive, and food to the hungry.[101] It is only by
seeing some such grey ruins as these, still breathing of a long past
religion, placed amongst the solitude of their own green meadows and
woods, by the silent lapse of some stream flowing and ebbing with every
tide, that we can at all understand the meaning of a life of
contemplation, and its true value. Along these cloisters paced the
brethren, their eyes bent on the earth, their thoughts on heaven. Here
tolled the great abbey-bell, its sound, full of solemn sweetness, borne
not only over the lonely Forest, but down the river seaward to the
tossing sailor. Here was that comfort, which could never fail, offered
to the most desolate, and heaven itself, as a fatherland, to the exile.
Here the great gate not only rolled back the noise of the world, but, to
show that mercy is ever better than vengeance, stayed the hand of the
law, and blunted the sword of the pursuer.
In these days we are surrounded by noise and excitement. Everywhere is
haste and its accompanying confusion. It matters not what we do, the
fever of competition ever rages. We travel as though we were flying from
ourselves. We write the history of things before they are accomplished,
and the lives of men before they are dead. Surely there is some profit
to be found in coming to a quiet village like this, if it will only give
us some glimpses of a life which stands out in such strange contrast to
our own.
[Illustration: Canopied Niche in St. Leonard’s Chapel.]