Madeley Court--Chat with a collier--The miner's rule of life--Charles
II. in hiding--The building of Boscobel--The story of a moated
house--A stirring episode--A startling discovery--A curious
planetarium--A wishing-well--Lilleshall Abbey--"The Westminster
Abbey of Shropshire"--A freak in architecture--Tong Castle--Church
clerk-hunting.
It was certainly a rough and narrow lane, as the cyclist remarked,
that led to Madeley Court, and it led past a lot of untidy colliers'
cottages, for the hilly country around was well dotted with collieries;
yet I fancy from the lie of the land that a hundred years or so ago,
before the mines were sunk or the cottages built, that lane must have
been a very rural and retired one. At one of the cottages I noticed a
collier at work in his little garden; his face and hands and clothes
were black as though he had only recently come up from the pit, but
there he was busy amongst his flowers and vegetables, and there I
pulled up the car and ventured to bid him good-day. "'Tain't a bad
day," responded he, and went on with his work unconcernedly. Then I
said a word in praise of his flowers, adding I supposed he was fond
of gardening. "Well, a few flowers do look a bit cheerful like, so I
grows 'em." Now there had been a miners' strike lately, and I wanted
to learn his opinion about strikes. Nothing loth he gave it me. Miners
I have found, as a race, openly and frankly express their opinions
"without fear or favour," and I rather think they even enjoy a chance
to express them, sometimes pretty strongly too, for miners have no
respect of persons nor of other people's feelings. "We just says what
us think and have done with it," as one of them declared to me. "As to
strikes," said he, "I'm not gone on them; maybe they's necessary at
times, I don't know. You see, we're bound to belong to the trade union
lest the masters should best us; but the masters be all right in these
parts and we've no need to strike, but us have to strike to help other
folk when the unions tell us. Striking's poor game, I'd rather work
than play any day; I likes to get my money regularly every week, then I
know where I be. Now one never knows when the order may come to 'down
tools.' What I say is that every herring should hang by its own tail."
What exactly he meant by the last remark was not very clear to me, nor
had I ever heard it before, nor was I able to obtain any enlightenment
on the matter, for just then he exclaimed, "There be the missus
a-calling me in for tea, and I wants it," and without another word he
went to his tea. Just as I was leaving two of the miner's children ran
out into the garden; one of them plucked a flower, then ran and gave it
to me, saying, "Father told I to pluck it for thee"--a graceful little
act that was pleasing. So often under rough exteriors kind hearts
beat. That miner had not forgotten me, though he left and spoke so
abruptly. Yet the following, I am told, is the miner's rule of life:--
Hear all, see all, say nought,
Eat well, drink well, and care nought;
If thou dost ought for nought
Do it for thyself.
But I do not believe all I hear. A parson told me the miners were not
a bad lot as a whole, but they wanted knowing. They do! Now the poor
country folk have often manners; the miners have none.
Then we left the cottages behind and dropped sharply down into a
sheltered hollow, and there below was revealed to us the rambling and
ghostly-looking old manor-house of Madeley Court, a romance in stone,
built in the far-off Elizabethan days when men built pictures as well
as homes. A large, cheerless pool of water, dark and still, on one side
of the ancient and time-dimmed house added to the dreary and eerie
impression of the spot as it is to-day: that pool was suggestive to
me of some evil deed done in past days, though why I know not, but
over all the ancient place there brooded a certain indefinable sense
of mystery. It seemed to hold a life apart from its present-day,
commonplace surroundings.
[Illustration: MADELEY COURT.]
It was probably on this very lane that, wet through to the skin, weary
and hungry, Charles II. recently escaped from Worcester, sought shelter
with his guide, Richard Penderel, under a hedge from the pouring rain.
Charles had fled from "the faithful city" with a few followers and
had sought temporary asylum at White Ladies, the house of Charles
Giffard, that gentleman being recommended to the king by the Earl of
Derby. Giffard, however, advised the king not to tarry there, as his
house was well known, and suggested that he should go to his retired
hunting-box of Boscobel, where there were hiding-holes that had not
been discovered; so to Boscobel the king went escorted by one Richard
Penderel, a trusted retainer of Giffard's. Now two other retainers
of the same family of the Penderels, William Penderel and Joan his
wife, had charge of Boscobel, where they assisted, from time to time,
in secreting persecuted Roman Catholic priests; indeed chiefly, if
not wholly, for this purpose of giving refuge to such fugitives was
Boscobel in reality built and planned: the hiding-holes there were
no after-thoughts. Boscobel was then "an obscure habitation in a
wilderness of woods," and was ostensibly merely a hunting-box. After
resting there a few days the king became uneasy, for it had become
known to the Parliamentarians that he had escaped into Shropshire, and
troops of soldiers were scouring the country all around in search of
him. So Charles determined to endeavour to make his way into Wales, but
before starting forth he had himself disguised by having his locks cut
off, his face and hands stained with walnut juice, and then to complete
the disguise he donned a woodman's attire belonging to one of the
Penderels, and he consented to be known as Will Jones. Thus disguised,
one stormy night the king, with the faithful Richard Penderel for a
guide, tramped to Madeley close to the Severn, trusting to find shelter
there either at Madeley Court, the home of that staunch Royalist, Sir
Basil Brooke, and personal friend of Giffard's, or at another house
on the hill above, the abode of William Woolf, a yeoman and an honest
man well known to Giffard, both houses having the conveniences of
hiding-holes. The king deemed it prudent to go first to Woolf's house,
as being a comparatively small one and that of a simple yeoman; he
thought it less likely to be suspected or searched than Madeley Court,
especially as Sir Basil Brooke was known to favour the Royalists, and
he had many servants, some of whom might prove curious and become
suspicious. A thousand pounds was the price for betraying the king, and
death the penalty for harbouring him.
So late that night the faithful Penderel went alone to Woolf's house,
and rousing its owner inquired of him if he would be willing to give
shelter for the night to a gentleman of quality. Mr. Woolf said he
would gladly do so, but it was impossible, he was a suspect; his son
had lately been arrested and put in prison; moreover his house had been
searched, all his hiding-holes discovered, so they were useless, and
his house might at any moment be searched again. Then Penderel confided
to him that he for whom he sought shelter was no less a personage than
the king himself. Hearing this Woolf exclaimed, "I would the king had
come anywhere than here, for soldiers are all round about and are
watching the Severn in case any fugitives should escape that way. Now
that I know who it is that desires shelter I would risk my life to do
that service, but it is not safe for the king to be here." Whereupon
Penderel explained that the king was tired out and famished and knew
not where to go. After this the two consulted as to what was best to be
done, and it was arranged that the king should hide himself in one of
the barns amongst the straw. Woolf saw to this and brought the king out
refreshments, and there the king with Penderel lay hiding that night
and the whole of the next day. Finding it would be folly to attempt to
cross the closely guarded Severn, they walked back to Boscobel on the
following night.
[Illustration: MADELEY COURT, GATEHOUSE.]
But to return to Madeley Court, this fine old house, now going, alas!
to decay, being converted into miners' abodes and left to their tender
care, still retains some semblance of its former stateliness. It is
approached by a fine gate-house flanked by two octagonal and roofed
towers, of which I give an illustration; beyond the gate-house the
many-gabled building stands, and with its big chimneys presents an
effective and picturesque outline against the sky. It is the very ideal
of a haunted house, but now that it is divided into miners' tenements I
can hardly imagine that any self-respecting ghost would remain in such
quarters; even ghosts may have their feelings. Madeley Court possesses
the abiding charm of antiquity. An ancient time-worn home like this
that has made its history, what a wide gulf separates it from a modern
building that has no story to tell, even though the modern building
be beautiful in itself, which it seldom is. I believe it was Ruskin
who said he could not live in a land that had no old castles, and I
should like to add ancient houses of the eventful and picturesque
Elizabethan or Jacobean era. Castles have their lure to lovers of the
past, though they beat the big drum too loudly for my fancy; give me
rather a grey-gabled, rambling, old moated house, remote in the country
and away from other human habitations, pregnant with traditions that
have gathered round it; and if I fail to unearth those traditions, I am
quite capable of inventing some for myself suitable to the place, and
to my liking.
Some years ago during my road wanderings I came, in Worcestershire,
upon the decayed but delightfully picturesque moated hall of Huddington
Court, standing, isolated and with a sadly forlorn look, in a desolate
district, far removed from the beaten track. Of its history, at the
time, I could glean nothing, but that it had some story to tell I felt
convinced; there was a certain subtle something about the place, actual
enough to me but indefinable, that suggested old-time romance. I could
not get away from that feeling; I had it with me for days long after.
Now in a previous book I described the old place and the glamour it
cast over me, and this brought me from a reader of my book and a direct
descendant of its former owner a long and most interesting letter
giving a graphic account of certain stirring events connected with it,
and I take the liberty of here quoting a portion of this letter as
showing the share in history, often forgotten history, which many an
old house inherits. This, then, is the story of the ancient home as
given to me:--
"Huddington Court, with its moat, its priest-holes, was the ancestral
home of the Winters, and has played a notable part in many a stirring
scene intimately connected with some of the most romantic and
fascinating pages of English history. It was at Huddington Court that
the famous Gunpowder Plot was in part hatched, Robert Winter (or
Wintour, or again Wyntour), the then owner of the Court, being one of
the chief conspirators with Thomas, his redoubtable brother. It was
at that top window, under the great gable, shown in your excellent
photograph, that Lady Mary Winter stood to watch the horseman who
should bring her news as to the success, or failure, of the Plot. The
prearranged signal was a raised hand (in case of success), and it is an
easy matter to picture her look of eagerness and poignant inquiry as
she caught a glimpse of the mounted messenger coming down the very road
where in all probability you left your car whilst inspecting the Court.
As the horseman drew near, what, think you, must have been her feelings
when with bowed head he clattered onwards without a sign? There was no
necessity for a spoken word; she knew only too well that the Plot had
failed, and that the consequences must be swift and terrible. So in
truth they were.
"Riding like fiends before the breath of destruction the conspirators
fled into the night, and from London and elsewhere converged, one and
all, upon the Court House of Huddington. The day after the discovery
of the Plot they were all assembled there, and received absolution
at the hands of a priest who had journeyed post-haste from Coughton
Court, another historic old home in the neighbourhood. Under the shadow
of the Court, just across the moat, you will remember the little
church into which you failed to obtain entrance; there it was that
the conspirators met in those last solemn rites of the church. Then
as a last desperate effort they rode forth to raise the countryside.
They visited Hewell Grange, and failing to enlist the sympathy, or
assistance, of the then Lord Windsor or his followers, they turned to
and sacked the place, carrying away with them arms and ammunition from
its well-stored armoury. By this time the forces of armed justice were
close upon their heels, and their plight was desperate indeed. Fate
played into the hands of their pursuers, and they found themselves
'hoist with their own petard,' for crossing the Stour (then in flood)
the bags of gunpowder attached to their saddles became wet. They
presently dismounted and carried them into an inn so that they might
dry before the open fire. During the risky operation a spark flew out
from the fire and blew the majority of the conspirators to atoms.
Leaving the injured to their own devices, the remaining portion of the
band clambered again into the saddle and made off in every direction.
Thomas Winter, with several other desperate companions, turned to
bay in a house near by, where a hand-to-hand fight ensued of a most
sanguinary character. Thomas, whose sword must have done deadly service
for a time, for he was a noted swordsman, only succumbed after being
grievously wounded in the stomach by a pike, and was taken prisoner.
Robert Winter escaped to the house of a friend and lay in hiding for
several weeks, only to be eventually discovered and captured. Both
Thomas and Robert suffered death upon the gallows in London for their
share in the Plot, and John Winter, a half-brother, was executed at
Worcester. No wonder an air of desolation and the mystery of an untold
sorrow still seems to hang about the place; it would be strange if it
were not so."
Such is the tragedy connected with Huddington Court. Most old houses
have some story to tell, at least most old houses of former importance
seem to be haunted by the memory of some interesting episode in which
they have had their part. Sooner or later, as in the case of Huddington
Court, their story will out. The spirit of place calmly awaits
discovery. One old house that took my fancy the first time I saw it
I afterwards found was connected with quite a romantic incident that
reminded me of Dorothy Vernon's famous exploit. Early in the eighteenth
century it appears that the daughter of the house clandestinely eloped
with her lover, letting herself down from her chamber by the aid of two
sheets tied together, just before sunrise one morning. Reaching the
garden below safely and unobserved she met the man of her choice, who
was quietly waiting near by with two saddle-horses, one for him and
one for her, when the pair galloped off to a distant church, where all
was arranged for their wedding. This is a true story and no invented
legend, and the very sheets are still kept by the family as heirlooms.
Writing of old houses, here is an account of a curious discovery made
in one that I transcribe verbatim from my morning paper of July 10,
1912: "Whilst repairing the fireplace and chimney at the Feerm Farm,
near Mold, workmen have discovered a revolving stone, which on being
moved revealed a secret chamber. The house was built in the early
part of the sixteenth century and was once a manor-house. In the
chamber was antique oak furniture, including a table on which lay old
firearms, household utensils, and the remains, reduced to dust, of a
repast. It is surmised that the room was used as a hiding-place by
Royalist fugitives during the Civil War in the reign of Charles I.,
and that since then it had remained undisturbed." Still a stranger
discovery, and a most tragic one, relating to an old house in England
is recorded by Mrs. Hugh Fraser in _A Diplomatist's Wife in Many
Lands_, and this is her account of it: "The owners of a certain old
house, having inherited it from another branch of the family, decided
to clear away a crowded shrubbery that almost covered one side." Upon
the shrubbery being cut down, we learn, "it became evident that a part
of the building ran out farther into them than any one had noticed.
Measurements were taken and proved that a room existed to which there
was no entrance from within; this was finally effected by breaking
down a bricked-up window, and then the long-excluded daylight showed
a bedroom, of the eighteenth century, in wild confusion, garments
thrown on the floor, and chairs overturned as if in a struggle. On the
mouldering bed lay the skeleton of a woman, still tricked out in satin
and lace, with a dagger sticking between the ribs. Under the bed was
another skeleton, that of a man, who seemed from the twisted limbs and
unnatural position to have died hard. No clue had been obtained to the
story."
After this who shall say that old houses have not their romances,
recorded or unrecorded? Mrs. Fraser's account of a hidden chamber and
of skeletons found therein is not the only one of the grim kind that
has come to my notice. A book indeed would be needful to tell all the
strange and, I believe, truthful tales about old houses in remote spots
that I have gathered during many years of road wandering. Boscobel,
like many another house of its kind, might never have become famed or
known to the outer world but for the chance sojourn there of the hunted
king.
I have been digressing: it was the sight of that ghostly-looking old
house of Madeley Court with its haunting charm of suggested romance
that set my thoughts and my pen a-wandering thus. To return to
Madeley Court, its walled-in pleasure garden is now but a pathless,
grass- and weed-grown space--a play-ground for pigs when I was there.
When I opened the gate to peep into it, a miner's wife bade me be
careful not to let the pigs out. "Them's our pigs," she exclaimed.
Lucky miners to live in a stately, if dilapidated, old hall and to
keep pigs galore, and yet to go on strike, as they had lately done,
though as the honest old miner I met, as already mentioned, frankly
confessed, "we hereabouts has nothing to complain of." As a mere
onlooker it appeared to me that these miners felt the need of a trade
union to protect their interests, yet were themselves half afraid of
the power they had set up over them. One thing remains in the neglected
spot that once was, I presume, a garden trim and gay with flowers, and
that is a large and remarkable sun-dial or planetarium. This consists
of a great square block of stone raised on four stout pillars above
some steps; on the four sides of the stone are large cup-like recesses
that formerly contained the dials; these, I was informed, not only
showed the time, but also the daily or nightly position of the moon and
the planets. How they could do all this passes my comprehension; the
position of the moon I might possibly grant, but that of the various
planets that change positions every twenty-four hours is "a big order."
Had only Madeley Court been a little cared for and in pleasanter
surroundings, it would have been one of the most picturesque homes
imaginable. But the country about being blest with coal beneath is,
by the getting of it, curst with ugliness above. I left Madeley by a
rough lane that threaded its way through a hilly country and past many
collieries, but in time I escaped the spoilt scenery, where both the
buildings and the land looked sombre and sad, and reached a fairer
country, though for some distance the atmosphere was dull and grey
with the drifting smoke from the chimneys of the mines. Then as the
evening came on I found myself in the little town of Shifnal, where I
discovered a decent inn, and that, to me, was the chief attraction of
the place.
That night I consulted my map to hunt up the position of Boscobel,
for I was minded to see that historic and ancient house next day,
and the study of my map revealed the fact that Lilleshall's ruined
abbey and the remains of White Ladies Nunnery were not far off, so I
determined to make a round of it and see them on my way, and a pleasant
cross-country expedition, mostly over winding lanes, it promised to be.
I had heard of Lilleshall Abbey but not of White Ladies Nunnery that I
found marked plainly on my map, at a spot apparently remote and not far
from Boscobel.
From Shifnal I went to Sheriff Hales, a small village of no interest,
but it was a convenient point to make for first on the complicated way
to Lilleshall. Somehow, though I used my eyes and consulted my map,
I managed to successfully miss the abbey, notwithstanding the fact
that it stood close to the road I was on; but so screened by trees
were the ruins that I passed them unawares, and soon found myself a
little beyond them in the village of Lilleshall, where there is nothing
notable to see unless it be a tall obelisk that crowns the hill above.
This obelisk, erected to the memory of a former Duke of Sutherland, is
a prominent landmark for miles around, and from the hill-top is a grand
panoramic prospect over a goodly country, a prospect that well repays
the easy climb.
The church of Lilleshall is uninteresting; the only thing that
attracted my attention in it was a monument in the chancel with the
recumbent effigy of a stately dame on it, her head bound round with a
fresh linen bandage. It appears that the nose of the figure had been
broken off, and had been replaced and cemented on again, and that
the bandage was there to hold the nose in position until the cement
hardened. But in the church's gloom the freshly bandaged head gave the
effigy a curious look, as though it were alive and suffering severely
from toothache!
At Lilleshall there still exists an ancient pond of considerable size,
the water from which once drove the abbey mill, and the course of the
mill-race may still be traced. From near this pond I found a footpath
over the fields that led to the abbey ruins, and half-way to them I
came to a little lonely railed-in well, known of old as "Our Lady's
Well."
Above the well a little nook
Once held, as rustics tell,
All garland-decked, an image of
The Lady of the Well.
Nowadays it is known as "The Wishing Well," and it is said that whoever
drops a pin in it and wishes, his or her wish will be fulfilled. Having
no pin with me I was unable to test the efficacy of the well; but this
I can say, that I know a certain "Wishing Gate" in the Lake District,
much esteemed for its virtues, where all you have to do is to lean
against the gate and wish; now when I was much younger I leant against
it in the company of one and wished, and my wish was realised.
Approaching the abbey ruins by the footpath, they made an effective and
pathetic picture lightened and warmed by the soft sunshine, with the
green woods behind them, the ruins so old and wan, and the woods so
freshly green. The chief feature of the abbey is its bold and beautiful
late Norman west doorway, and from this wide portal the whole of the
church can be seen at a glance, so that one can judge the extent of it,
and a glorious and stately fane it must have been when the last abbot
in 1538 meekly handed it over to the minions of Henry VIII., "with all
its manors, lordships, messuages, gardens, meadows, feedings, pastures,
woods, lands, and tenements." A rare and rich morsel for that greedy
monarch.
Lilleshall Abbey has been picturesquely ruined, yet I wish it had been
a little less ruined, for one misses the graceful tracery that once
adorned its now vacant windows; it is the tracery of their windows
that gives such an added charm to Tintern and Melrose. The abbey was
fortified and held for the king in the Civil Wars, and was bombarded
by Cromwell's merciless cannon-balls; afterwards it was utilised as a
ready-made stone quarry, so that one wonders, and is thankful, that
so much of it remains. Past the abbey's walls runs a little slothful
stream with scarcely a murmur, a stream now weed-grown and overhung
by trees, and very pleasant it was to ramble by its cool and shady
side with the grey ruins on one hand and the tangled woods on the
other; the quiet wind just whispering as it passed by, it might be, the
secrets of the past. I had the abbey to myself; not a soul did I see;
not a sound did I hear but the hardly audible lisp of the stream, and
the subdued rustle of the wind-stirred leaves. The spell of peace was
there. I fancy the abbey is little visited, for, like Haughmond, it
lies out of the track of tourist travel, and there is no inn or railway
within miles of it as far as I can remember; now the tourist demands
an inn and refreshment in near proximity to the places he haunts. To
get beyond railways and inns, that is the thing for the peace-loving
traveller. The motor-car he must suffer, but the average motorist loves
the highway; on the Shropshire byways I met scarcely one.
From the abbey I started forth to discover White Ladies Nunnery and
Boscobel. Eventually I discovered both, but so out of the world are
they that I had much difficulty in making their discovery. Signposts
were useless, for not one directed me to either place. First I went to
Tong, as the road to that village is fairly clear to follow, and it
appeared to be on my way; moreover I had been told of a wonderful old
church at Tong, so full of stately monuments that it is locally known
as the "Westminster Abbey of Shropshire," and is sometimes termed the
"Church of the Dead"; also it has gained the title of the "Minster of
the Midlands." Quite a choice of names.
Just before Tong I observed an Arabian Nights sort of a building, a
freak in architecture standing desolate in a large neglected park. The
house, with its Oriental domes, looked strangely un-English and out of
place in the landscape. It might have been bodily conveyed from the
East and boldly set down there. I even rubbed my eyes to be quite sure
that I saw aright. This I found to be Tong Castle, though anything more
unlike a castle I could not imagine; but I learnt that a castle once
stood on the spot, and there was a big board put up in the park that
told its story, for boldly painted on it was "Tong Castle. For Sale."
[Illustration: LILLESHALL ABBEY.]
At Tong I pulled up at the church to find that the door of it was
locked, so I went to hunt for the clerk; fortunately I found him at
home close by, and at my service. It does not always happen so, for at
different times I have spent many an hour clerk-hunting, and failed
to run down my quarry. It is the most uncertain of sports. It seems
passing strange to me how in a small village this minor official
occasionally entirely disappears, and no one can tell you where he is,
not even the publican; on the other hand, so contrary do things arrange
themselves that frequently, when you stop in a village for any purpose,
the clerk ferrets you out at once and almost insists on showing you the
church whether you desire to see it or no. On a former tour, coming to
a small country town in the Eastern Counties where I had been told the
church contained a very curious and interesting old tomb, unique of
its kind in the kingdom, I spent one whole hour clerk-hunting. Nobody
appeared to have seen the clerk that morning, and nobody could tell
me where he was. The last person of whom I made inquiries was an old
woman standing by her house door. Neither did she know, but she had
seen him yesterday, which was not very helpful. Then, perhaps noticing
my look of disappointment, she suddenly exclaimed, "I be sorry you
can't find the church clerk; but I've the key of the Methodist chapel,
if you would like to see over that"!