a powerful army and fleet for the purpose of invading France, and the
town provided twenty ships and 264 mariners for the siege of Calais;
but these figures are disputed by Hackluit, who says there were but
fifteen ships and 263 mariners. In March, 1347, the bailiffs of
Weymouth seized all the goods, chattels, jewels, and armour of Geoffry,
Earl of Harcautly, who had joined the army of the French King. In 1377
the town suffered considerably from the fleet of Charles V., when great
portions of the ports of Dartmouth, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Hastings, and
Weymouth were destroyed.
The next event of importance was the landing here, on April 14th, 1471,
of Margaret of Anjou, the consort of Henry VI., on her return from
France with her son, Prince Edward.
So the tide of history swept on, with periodical ravages from pirates
and enemies, until the appearance off the harbour of a large foreign
fleet of eighty sail, which had voyaged from Middleburg on January
10th, 1505, to escort Philip and Johanna to their Kingdom of
Castile; but a violent hurricane caused the ships to run to Weymouth
for shelter. The inhabitants, being unaware of the quality of their
visitors, and alarmed at so formidable an array of vessels, speedily
armed themselves, and sent word to Sir Thomas Trenchard, at Wolfeton,
who, with Sir John Carew, marched into the town at the head of some
hastily improvised troops. On the rank of the visitors becoming known,
Sir Thomas invited them to his house at Wolfeton until he could advise
the King, Henry VII., of the fortuitous circumstance. As soon as Henry
had notice of the arrival of these royal visitors, he despatched the
Earl of Arundel with a troop of 300 horse, carrying torches, to escort
them to London.
There is much in the minor history of the town that one would fain
linger over, but we must confine ourselves to those larger and more
far-reaching historical events with which the old life of Weymouth was
so closely bound up.
In 1544 the bailiffs of Weymouth received the following letter from the
King, Henry VIII.:—
(By the King.)
Henr. R.
Trustie and well beloved, we greate you well. And whereas betweene us
and the Emperor upon provocation of manyfolde injuries committed by
the Frenche Kyng unto us both particularlie; And for his confederation
wyth the Turke, against ye whole commonwealthe of Christendome. It ys
agreede that eche of us aparte, in person, with his puissant Armie in
several parties this soommer, shall invade the Realme of Fraunce; and
beyng not yet furneyshed as to our honour appertayneth:—
We have appoynted you to send us the nombre of xv hable fotemen, well
furneyshed for the warres as appertayneth, whereof iii to bee archers,
every oone furneyshed with a goode bowe in a cace, with xxiii goode
arrows in a cace, a goode sworde, and a dagger, and the rest to be
billmen, havyng besydes theyre bill, a goode sworde, and a dagger, to
be levyed of your owne servants and tenants.
And that you put the saide nombre in such a redyness, furnished with
coats and hosen of such colours as is appointed for the battel of our
Armey.
As they faile not within oone houres warnyng to march forward to such
place as shall be appoynted accordinglie:—
Yeven under our Sygnete at our palace of Westmr., the v^{th} daie of
June, the xxxv yere of our reigne.
Henr. R.
Weymouth had been created a borough in the reign of Edward II., at the
time that his nephew, Gilbert of Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was lord
of the manor (one of whose sisters had married Piers Gaveston, and the
other sister was the wife of Hugh le Despencer); and although the town
is styled a “burg” in several documents relating to previous reigns, it
was not until the nineteenth year of the reign of Edward II. that it
returned a representative to Parliament.
The borough of Weymouth and the adjoining one of Melcombe (which
together now make up modern Weymouth) had long viewed each other
with jealous eyes; and so many complaints being made through their
respective members, the Parliament prepared a charter, at the
suggestion of Cecil, it is said, which was approved by Queen Elizabeth
in the thirteenth year of her reign, which united these two discordant
elements into one borough.
The merchants of the town, like all those of our southern ports, played
a zealous and active part in fitting out ships to fight the Armada; and
from a MS. in the Cottonian Library we learn that the following vessels
set out from Weymouth in 1588, with instructions to guard the coast and
seek out the Invincible Armada:—
Name. Tonnage. Master. Men.
_The Gallion_ 100 Richard Miller 50
_The Catherine_ 60 30
_The Heath Hen_ 60 30
_The Golden Lion_ 120 60
_The Sutton_ 70 Hugh Preston 40
_The Expedition_ 70 50
[Illustration: A Relic of the Armada.]
Notwithstanding that their largest vessel was only of 120 tons, the
Weymouth contingent captured two of the galleons and brought them as
prizes into the harbour. The only other vessels sent by the county
on this occasion were two from Lyme Regis—_The Revenge_, of 60 tons,
and _The Jacob_, of 90 tons—and four from Poole. In the Guildhall
there is a memorial of the event in the shape of a massive iron-bound
chest (_see illustration_), believed to have been brought from one
of the captured galleons; and many other relics are scattered over
the county, as at Bingham’s Melcombe, where there is a magnificent
oval dining-table, of massive form and marvellous workmanship, with
the crest of a Spanish grandee in the centre, the whole mounted on a
sea-chest in lieu of legs. Many Spanish coins have been washed ashore
on the Chesil Bank, and it is possible that others of the ill-fated
ships sank in the vicinity of Portland, or that the dons threw their
money and valuables overboard rather than let them fall into the hands
of their captors.
Little is recorded during the next fifty years, save the building of a
wooden bridge of seventeen arches to unite the two towns, in 1594; and
thirteen years later the town was visited by one of those great plagues
which periodically swept over mediæval England.
The outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 found the county fairly evenly
divided in support of the rival parties, and Corfe Castle became the
headquarters of the Royalist, and Bingham’s Melcombe that of the
Parliamentary forces. In 1643 the Earl of Carnarvon seized and held
for the King, Weymouth, Melcombe, and Portland, and left them in
charge of Prince Maurice, whose troops are said to have pillaged and
ravaged the district. The following year the Earl of Essex defeated
the Royalist troops, and took the town for the Parliament, when he
was assisted by a fleet under the Lord High Admiral, the Earl of
Warwick. The towns proved a rich prize for the captors, as, in addition
to much ammunition, etc., no less than sixty ships fell into their
hands. The troubles of the inhabitants, however, were far from over,
as in 1645 Sir Lewis Dyves received orders from the King to make
an attempt to re-capture Weymouth, which, with the help of Sir W.
Hastings, the Governor of Portland, he succeeded in doing, and drove
the defenders across the harbour into Melcombe. On June 15th, 1644, the
town surrendered to the Parliamentary Commander, Sir William Balfour,
the final overthrow being largely due to the Earl of Warwick, who
appeared off the harbour with a large fleet, originally mobilised
for the relief of Lyme Regis. The spoils of war which fell into the
hands of the captors included 100 pieces of ordnance, 2,000 muskets,
150 cases of pistols, 200 barrels of powder, and 1,000 swords, in
addition to sixty ships of various tonnage lying in the harbour. The
losses sustained by the combined towns in the Civil War amounted to
£20,000, as a certificate from the Justices, in the Parliamentary Roll,
testifies. The town to-day shows no trace of the fierce bombardments it
underwent, but a house in Maiden Street has a “bogus” memento in the
shape of a cannon ball foolishly inserted in the masonry some decades
since.
[Illustration: Sandsfoot Castle]
In 1649 the inhabitants petitioned Parliament for a grant of £3,000, to
enable them to enlarge Melcombe Church, build a new bridge, and free
the harbour from rubbish.
[Illustration: Doorway Sandsfoot Castle]
The “Old Castle,” otherwise Sandsfoot Castle, situated about half a
mile from Weymouth proper, is to-day nothing but a mere shell of the
former stronghold. It was built by Henry VIII., about 1539, and was
part of his scheme for the fortification of various parts of the coast,
particularly Portsmouth, Portland, and Weymouth, against a possible
invasion on the part of Papal Europe on his throwing off the Roman yoke
in 1540. Leland calls it “a right goodlie and warlyke castel, havyng
one open barbicane.” The existing masonry shows its form to have been
a parallelogram, and from its commanding position it, no doubt, was a
fortress of considerable strength. It is difficult to identify, from
its crumbling remains, the various portions of the castle, but that
portion to the north, from its vaulted character, appears to have been
the Governor’s apartment; while fronting south was the gun platform, as
the embrasure shows. This platform would also flank its east and west
sides, which were also pierced for big guns, while almost level with
the ground was the barbican, with two tiers of loop-holes for small
arms.
On a tombstone at Whitchurch Canonicorum is the following inscription:—
Here lyeth Iohn Wadham of Catherstone, Esquyer, who deceased A.D.
1584, who was dewring his life time Captayne of the Queene’s Ma^{ties}
castell called Sandesfote, besides Waymouth in the countye of Dorset.
Among its other Governors were George Bamfield, 1631; Sir Anthony
Ashley Cooper, 1643; Colonel Ashburnham and Colonel William Sydenham,
1644; and Humphrey Weld, of Lulworth, 1685. It is a matter for regret
that this old building should have been so neglected, as each year sees
large masses of its masonry falling over the cliff. As a writer as long
ago as 1829 said:
Its remains even now attract many an inquisitive enquiry as to why it
has been so neglected, as where the neighing of hostile steeds, and
the busy clang of arms once sounded to the battle’s din, the humble
grass now grows, its walls are the dormitories of the birds of the
air, and its rooms afford pasturage to the cattle; a change certainly
more gratifying to us as a nation; but still its bold towering
appearance, as seen ascending the hill, or viewing it from the hill,
reminds us of some bygone tale.
In addition to the castle, the town was further protected by several
forts. Probably none of these were in the nature of permanent
fortifications, except the Blockhouse, which stood near the east end
of Blockhouse Lane. The New Fort, or Jetty Fort, was erected at the
entrance of the harbour, at the end of the old pier, and was dismantled
in 1661, although in Hutchins’ time three guns were placed in position
on the same site. Then there was Dock Fort, under the hill, west of
the Jetty Pier, St. Nicholas’ Chapel converted into a fort by the
Parliamentary troops, and a small fort called the Nothe Fort.
Few events seem to have occurred during the Protectorate that need
recording beyond the great naval victory gained by Blake over Van
Tromp, off Portland; and, as some compensation for the damage done to
their property during the reign of his father, Charles II. granted the
town in 1660 an annuity of £100 a year for ten years from the Customs’
dues. It was during this reign that tradesmen coined small money or
tokens for the convenience of those wishing to buy small quantities
of goods, as but little small money was coined by authority. In 1594
the Mayor of Bristol was granted permission to coin a token, and the
benefit to the community proved so great that the custom spread to
other towns. Weymouth coined many of these tokens (_see illustration_),
which were made of copper, brass, or lead, and decorated as fancy
dictated. Every person and tradesman in the town was obliged to take
them, and they undoubtedly answered the purpose of providing the people
with small money. In 1672, however, Charles II. ordered to be coined
a sufficient number of half-pence and farthings for the exigencies
of the State, and these _numorum famuli_ were prohibited as being an
infringement of the King’s prerogative.
[Illustration:
The Town Token
Thomas Hyde
Bartholomew Beer
James Stanley
James Budd
Some Weymouth
Tokens]
The grant of armorial bearings to Weymouth and Melcombe Regis bears the
date of May 1st, 1592. The seals of the town were eight in number, a
description of which is recorded in Ellis’s _History of Weymouth_.
When the ill-starred Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis in 1685,
no Weymouthians seem to have flocked to his standard. Upon the
failure of the rebellion the participants of the neighbourhood were
quickly disposed of by Judge Jeffreys, who opened his Bloody Assize
at Dorchester, and ordered them to be hanged at Greenhill, and their
bodies to be dismembered and exhibited throughout the county as a
warning to rebels.
[Illustration: Arms of Weymouth]
So we come down to the close of the seventeenth century with little to
record save devastating fires, plagues, and storms. A general period of
poverty and depression seems then to have overtaken the two towns. The
causes leading to this change, which had begun to show itself in the
reign of Elizabeth, were many and various, and may be briefly ascribed
to the concrete result of the vicious rule of the Stuarts, the removal
of the wool trade to Poole, the loss of the Newfoundland trade, and
the injury received during the Civil War. Ellis tells us that, at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, “scarcely any idea can be formed
of the general devastation and depression that everywhere prevailed.
Houses were of little value ... the population had dwindled to a mere
nothing ... old tenements fell down ... the inhabitants consisted
chiefly of smugglers and fishermen.”
Before we turn to the brighter days which set in towards the middle
of the reign of George III., a short account must be given of the
larger memorials of the town—_e.g._, the old bridge, the priory, and
the parish church, although it must be confessed that of important
antiquities dating before the Georgian era the town has little to show
beyond a few remnants of Jacobean houses, part of one solitary pillar
of the chapel, and possibly a few old doorways; and in later and minor
memorials the town is little better off. There is, in the Guildhall,
the fine iron-bound chest before mentioned, and another, said to be
of similar origin, bequeathed by the late Sir Richard Howard. There is
also an ancient chair with a cardinal’s hat carved on the back, and
the old stocks and whipping-post; but for the most part nothing has
survived save the truly Georgian, such as round windows, picturesque
doorways, and part of the old Gloucester Lodge, now an hotel—an
altogether disappointing record in comparison with the long and varied
history of the place.
[Illustration: Old House on North Quay. Weymouth]
Of the old chapel,[52] the one remaining stone is preserved in the
wall of a school. The chapel was a chapel of ease to Wyke Regis, the
mother-church of Weymouth, and was dedicated to St. Nicholas. It stood
on the summit of a hill overlooking the old town of Weymouth, and its
site is commemorated in the name “Chapelhaye,” by which the district is
known. There are several documents extant relating to this chapel, and
among extracts from the _Liceirce_ is the following:—
None shall fail at the setting forth of the procession of Corpus
Christi day, on pain of forfeiting one pound of wax, and each brother
shall pay six pennies to the procession, and pay yearly.
This relates to the fraternity or guild in the Chapel of St. Nicholas,
which was founded by a patent granted in 20 Henry VIII. to Adam
Moleyns, Dean of Sarum, and certain parishioners of Wyke Regis, and
known as “The Fraternity or Guild of St. George in Weymouth.”
[Illustration: Old Chair at Weymouth.]
Before the building of a bridge across the harbour the means of direct
communication between the two towns was, so Leland says in 1530, by
means of a boat, drawn over by a rope affixed to two posts, erected on
either side of the harbour, a contrivance which was in use at Portland
Ferry as late as 1839. In 1594 this primitive method of crossing gave
way on the erection of the wooden bridge before referred to, erected
at the expense of several wealthy merchants of London, who appear to
have had trading interests here. This, in its turn, was so seriously
injured during the Civil Wars, that it fell to pieces, and was rebuilt
in 12 Anne by Thomas Hardy, Knt., William Harvey, James Littleton,
and Reginald Marriott, the towns’ Parliamentary representatives, and
it continued in use until 1741, when a bridge sixty yards long, with
a draw-bridge in the centre, took its place. The celebrated Bubb
Dodington, the first and only Lord Melcombe, contributed largely to its
cost. In 1770 another bridge was erected some seventy yards westward,
thus increasing the length of the harbour; but as the inhabitants were
forced to make a considerable detour to reach it, they petitioned
against the proposed alteration, but to no purpose. In 1820 it was
determined to erect the first bridge of stone,[53] which is still in
use, and only calls for mention here from the fact that on pulling down
some adjacent houses an urn filled with silver coins of Elizabeth,
James I., and Charles I. was found; and it is said that some of the
inhabitants had a fine haul of “treasure trove” on this occasion. More
interesting, perhaps, was the discovery of a gilt brass crucifix,
four inches long; and on the wall of one of the demolished houses was
painted the following verse:—
God saue our Queene Elizabethe,
God send hir happie dayes;
God graunt her grace to
Persevir in his most holie wayes.
A. Dom. 1577.
The old priory, or, as it was more commonly called, the “Friary,” stood
in Maiden Street. It was a house of the Dominican Friars, dedicated
in the name of St. Winifred, although Speed gives Dominic as the
dedicatory saint. Leland writes of it as “a fayre house of Freres in
the est part of the town.” The ancient chair now in the Guildhall
came from this priory, and it was said to possess miraculous powers of
healing the sick, and otherwise blessing the devout who were privileged
to sit upon it. The priory shared the fate of the other monastic
foundations at the Dissolution.
Of churches which can be rightly considered as memorials, Weymouth
has no example, as the oldest is that of St. Mary, the parish church.
The foundation-stone was laid on October 4th, 1815; this church was
erected partly on the site of a former church. It is a large, simple,
and unpretentious building, of which some hard things have been said
and written, but it is at least well built and free from sham, although
of its architecture the less said the better. It is, however, somewhat
redeemed by an excellently designed cupola containing one bell. Inside,
an altar-piece by Sir James Thornhill, a native of the town, whose
daughter married his pupil Hogarth, claims attention; as also does the
following curious inscription, in which the artist, by contracting
the word “worthiest,” has conveyed the very opposite estimate of the
deceased’s character to that intended:—
UNDERTH LIES YE BODY OF
CHRISR. BROOKS ESQ. OF JAMAICA
WHO DEPARD. THIS LIFE 4 SEPR. 1769
AGED 38 YEARS, ONE OF YE WORST. OF MEN
FRIEND TO YE DISTRESD.
TRULY AFFECTD. & KIND HUSBAND
TENDER PART. & A SINCR. FRIEND.
An old chalice belonging to the former church which stood on this site
was in the possession of Mr. Ellis. It was made of pewter, weighed
(without the lid, which was missing) 4½ lbs., and held four pints.
On the front was engraved:
HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD,
ZACH. XIV., VER. 20.
JOHN STARR,
CHURCHWARDEN,
1633.
About the middle of the eighteenth century a gentleman of Bath, Ralph
Allen (the original of Fielding’s “Squire Allworthy”), having been
recommended sea-bathing for his health, found the shore of Melcombe so
suitable for his purpose that he spoke of it to the Duke of Gloucester.
His Royal Highness came, sampled the salt water, and built Gloucester
Lodge, to which house he shortly afterwards invited the King, George
III., who spent eleven weeks here, with his Queen and family, in the
summer of 1789. The result of this and subsequent visits was that His
Majesty purchased the house and converted it into a royal residence. A
great stimulus was thus given to the town, which entered upon a period
of prosperity; for here George III. held court, and heard the news of
some of Nelson’s and Wellington’s victories. Very gay, indeed, was
the life of those days, with music, feasting, and dancing, which took
place in what is now called “the Old Rooms” (formerly an inn), across
the harbour. It was at Gloucester Lodge that His Majesty received his
ministers, and from whence he and Queen Charlotte used to walk to the
little theatre in Augusta Place to witness the performances of Mrs.
Siddons and her contemporaries. Queen Charlotte’s second keeper of
robes was Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay), the chronicler of George
III., and the author of _Evelina_ and _Camilla_, for which last she
received 3,000 guineas, with which sum she built Camilla Cottage, at
Mickleham, near Dorking.
At Weymouth, in 1785, was born Thomas Love Peacock, the author of _The
Monks of St. Mark_, and other works. He was Under-Secretary to Sir
Home Popham, and afterwards Chief Examiner and Clerk to the East India
Company, from which post he retired in 1856 with a pension of £1,333
per annum. He was a friend of Shelley, whom he had met on a walking
tour in Wales in 1812. He died in 1866, aged eighty years.
In the long list of eminent men who have represented the towns in
Parliament we find the names of Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam), Sir
Christopher Wren, and the celebrated political adventurer, Bubb
Dodington.
One of the most interesting studies for the topographer lies in tracing
the origin of the names of the streets of a town; and the names of
the principal streets of Weymouth are distinctly traceable to their
origin. St. Nicholas’ Street derives its name from the patron-saint
of maritime towns; Francis Street comes probably from Franchise; Boot
Lane (formerly Buckler’s), from an inn called “The Boot”; Helen Lane,
from Queen Eleanor, who held the manor of Melcombe; Maiden Street, from
Queen Elizabeth, who united the boroughs; and St. Edmund’s Street, St.
Thomas’ Street, and St. Mary’s Street, possibly from chapels dedicated
in honour of these saints.
[Illustration: The Old Stocks, Weymouth.]
THE ISLE OF PORTLAND
BY MRS. KING WARRY
To the stranger of antiquarian or geological tastes Portland must ever
be of interest; but the casual visitor—seeing it for the first time
in the glare of the noonday sun, amidst eddying clouds of stone-dust
tossed hither and thither by blustering winds, or when the over-charged
atmosphere settles like a misty cap on the Verne Heights—is apt, if
he have formed expectations, to be woefully disappointed. The fact is
that nowhere, perhaps, is the Spirit of Place more coy and difficult
of access than in modern Portland, having retreated before barracks,
fortifications, and prison, before traction-engines and signs of
commercial prosperity. But, properly wooed, it can still be won, and
once found, how well it repays the trouble of seeking! A mere cycle
run or drive through the island is emphatically _not_ the way to see
Portland Isle, especially the Portland of the past. The visitor needs
to walk, saunter, and lounge idly for at least a few days, and then,
if he have a well-stored mind and fail to experience the subtle,
indefinable sensation called “charm,” he must be strangely lacking in
that spiritual perception which alone makes man feel at one with the
universe and with God.
The convict establishment and Government quarries have displaced much
which lent an interest to the island; the barracks and harbour works
have displaced still more—but fortunately we retain a few records
which, scanty though they be, reveal a something of the past. Gone
is the barrow of that king whose very name is lost; and this supposed
last resting-place of a mighty chieftain, swept through long centuries
by pure sea-laden breezes, is now desecrated by quarrying operations:
the barrow of Celtic Bran is but an empty name, though Mound Owl still
remains in part, a silent witness of Saxon prowess and possibly of the
fierceness of the contest maintained so long in Royal Dorset.