slain at the house of, and by the order of, his stepmother. The body
of the murdered King was dragged some distance by his horse, and when
found was buried without any kingly honour at Wareham. On February
20th, 980, Ælfere, Eadward’s ealdorman, removed the body with all due
state from Wareham to Shaftesbury, and here it was buried, somewhere in
the Abbey Church. Doubtless the reason why Shaftesbury was chosen as
the place of his burial was because he was of Ælfred’s kin, and this
religious house had been founded by Ælfred.
Miracles soon began to be worked at his tomb. He appeared, so it was
said, to a lame woman who lived at some distant spot, and bade her go
to his grave at Shaftesbury, promising that if she went she should be
healed of her infirmity. She obeyed his injunction, and received the
due reward for her faith. The grave in which the King was laid did not,
however, please him as a permanent resting-place. First he indicated
his dissatisfaction by raising the tomb bodily, and then when this
did not lead to an immediate translation of his relics, he appeared in
visions and intimated his desire to have a fresh grave. This was about
twenty-one years after his burial in the Abbey. The grave was opened,
and, as was usual in such cases, a sweet fragrance from it pervaded the
church. His body was then laid in the new tomb in a chapel specially
dedicated to him. Possibly this chapel stood over the crypt on the
north side of the north choir aisle. The day of his death, March 18th,
and the days of the two translations of his relics, February 20th and
June 20th, were kept in honour of the King, who, for what reason we
cannot tell, was regarded as a saint and martyr. His fame spread far
and wide, and brought many pilgrims and no small gain to the Abbey. At
one time the town was in danger of losing its old name, Shaftesbury,
and being called Eadwardstowe, but in course of time the new name
died out and the old name was revived. Pilgrims were numerous, and
possibly sometimes passed the whole night in the church. In order to
make a thorough cleansing of the floor after their visits more easy, a
slight slope towards the west was given to the choir pavement, so that
it might be well swilled. A similar arrangement may be seen in other
churches.
At Shaftesbury, too, was Eadmund Ironside’s wife buried; and on
November 12th, 1035, Knut the Dane died at Shaftesbury, but was not
buried in the Abbey, his body being carried to the royal city of
Winchester and laid to rest within the Cathedral Church there. Up to
the time of the Conquest the Abbesses bore English names; after that
time the names of their successors show that Shaftesbury Abbey formed
no exception to the rule that all the most valuable church preferments
were bestowed on those of Norman and French birth. Through every change
of dynasty the Abbey of Shaftesbury continued to flourish, growing
continually richer, and adding field to field, until it was said that
if the Abbot of Somerset Glaston could marry the Abbess of Dorset
Shaston they would together own more land than the King himself. The
Abbess held a barony, and ranked with the mitred Abbots, who had the
privilege of sitting in Parliament, and it was said that her rank
rendered her subject to be summoned by the King, but that she was
excused from serving on account of her sex. At last the time came for
the Abbey to be dissolved. More prudent than Whiting, the last Abbot of
Glastonbury—who refused to surrender and was hanged on St. Michael’s
Hill, overlooking his wide domains—Elizabeth Zouche, the last Abbess
of Shaftesbury, gave up to Henry VIII., on March 23rd, 1539, the Abbey
with all its property, valued at £1,329 per annum, and received in lieu
thereof the handsome pension of £133 a year for her own use. At this
time there were fifty-four nuns within its walls, each of whom received
a pension varying from £7 down to £3 6s. 8d.; the total amount given in
pensions was £431.
From the day of the Dissolution the glory of Shaftesbury began to pass
away. In an incredibly short space of time the Abbey was demolished,
and when Leland visited the place a few years later the church had
entirely disappeared. There was much litigation between the town and
those to whom the Abbey lands had been granted—the Earl of Southampton
and Sir Thomas Arundel—and this dispute continued for fifty years,
greatly impoverishing the town.
Shaftesbury received its first municipal charter in the second year
of James I.; a second charter was granted in 1666 by Charles II. From
that time Shaftesbury led an uneventful life, broken at times by
the excitement of contested elections, which were fought with great
bitterness, and the consumption of much beer and the giving of much
gold. The town was originally represented by two members; the two first
of these sat in the Parliament of the twenty-fifth year of Edward
I. At the time of the Reform Bill of 1832 it lost one member, and
in 1885 it ceased to be a Parliamentary Borough, and was merged in
the Northern Division of Dorset. At the election of 1880 a singular
incident took place, which will show how high party feeling ran in the
ancient borough. The candidate who had represented the constituency in
the previous Parliament was defeated, and after the declaration of the
poll, about nine o’clock in the evening, his disappointed partizans
indulged in such violent and riotous conduct that the successful
candidate and his friends could not leave the room in the Town Hall
where the votes had been counted. Stones were thrown at the windows,
some of the police were injured, but the besieged barricaded the doors
of the building, closed the shutters, and waited with patience, while
the angry mob outside, for the space of four or five hours, yelled
like wild beasts disappointed of their prey. At last, finding that
they could not effect an entrance and make a fresh vacancy in the
constituency by killing the new member, the crowd began to drop off one
by one, and by two o’clock in the morning the siege was practically
raised, and the imprisoned member and his friends were able to get out
and reach their hotel unmolested. Some of the rioters were tried, but
evidence sufficiently clear to identify the men who had wounded the
police was not to be obtained, and the accused were acquitted. This was
the last time Shaftesbury was called on to elect a member; and as the
town stands quite on the borders of the new district of North Dorset,
the poll is not now declared from the Town Hall window at Shaftesbury,
but at Sturminster Newton, a town more centrally situated.
At one time there were twelve churches or chapels in Shaftesbury—St.
Peter’s, St. Martin’s, St. Andrew’s, Holy Trinity, St. Lawrence’s, St.
Michael’s, St. James’, All Saints’, St. John the Baptist’s, St. Mary’s,
St. Edward’s, and last, but not least, the Abbey Church of St. Mary
and St. Edward. Beyond the borough boundary was the Church of St.
Rumbold,[57] now generally spoken of as Cann Church. Why Shaftesbury,
which was never a large town, should have needed so many churches has
always been a mystery. The late William Barnes suggested a theory which
may partially account for it. He says that some of these churches may
have been old British ones, and that the Saxon Christians could not,
or would not, enter into communion with the British Christians, but
built churches of their own. This is probably true, although it still
fails to account for the number of churches which, on this supposition,
the Saxons must have built. It must be remembered, as explained in the
Introduction, that Dorset remained much longer free from the dominion
of the West Saxon Kings than Hampshire, and that when it was finally
conquered by the West Saxons, these men had already become Christians,
so that the conquest was not one of expulsion or extermination. The
Celtic inhabitants were allowed to remain in the old homes, though
in an inferior position. The laws of Ine, 688, clearly show this. In
Exeter there is a church dedicated to St. Petroc, who was a Cornish,
and therefore Celtic, saint. Mr. Barnes thinks that the Shaftesbury
churches dedicated to St. Michael, St. Martin, St. Lawrence, and the
smaller one dedicated to St. Mary, may have been Celtic. St. Martin
was a Gaulish saint, St. Lawrence may have been a dedication due to
the early missionaries, while the two hills in Cornwall and Brittany
dedicated to St. Michael show that he was a saint held in honour by the
Celts. The British Church differed in certain points of observance from
the Church founded by the missionaries from Rome under St. Augustine,
notably as to the date of keeping Easter. Bæda says that when he was
Abbot of Malmesbury he wrote, by order of the Synod of his own Church,
a book against the errors of the British Church, and that by it he
persuaded many of the Celts, who were subjects of the West Saxon King,
to adopt the Roman date for the celebration of the Resurrection. But
even if we assume that there were four Celtic churches, why should
no less than eight fresh ones have been built by the West Saxons? No
explanation has been offered. Possibly, however, some of the churches
may have been only small chapels or chantries.
[Illustration: GOLD HILL, SHAFTESBURY.]
Soon after the dissolution of the Abbey, as has been said previously,
all the walls above the surface were pulled down, except the one that
skirts the steep lane known as Gold Hill. This wall stands, strongly
buttressed by gigantic masses of masonry on the outside (some of
them contemporaneous with the walls, others added afterwards), for
it has to bear up the earth of what was formerly the Abbey garden.
The foundations of the Abbey Church, either purposely or naturally,
in the course of time were covered with soil, and so remained until
1861, when some excavations took place and sundry relics were found,
among them a stone coffin containing a skeleton and an abbot’s staff
and ring. The foundations were then once more covered in, but recently
the Corporation obtained a twenty-one years’ lease of the ground
for the purpose of more thorough investigation. All the foundations
that remain will be uncovered, the ground laid out as an ornamental
garden and thrown open to the public. Considerable progress has been
made with this work; all except the extreme west end of the nave has
been excavated to the level of the floor, and some very interesting
discoveries have been made. Many fragments of delicately-carved
stonework, some of them bearing the original colour with which they
were decorated, were unearthed, and are preserved in the Town Hall.
The excavation began at the eastern end of the church, and proceeded
westward. It was found that the east end of the choir was apsidal, the
form usual in Norman times, but abandoned by English builders in
the thirteenth century, when many of the larger churches were extended
further to the east, though in France the apsidal termination is almost
universal. The form shows that the Abbey Church was rebuilt during the
Norman period of architecture, and that the choir was not afterwards
extended eastward, for in earlier days, as well as in the thirteenth
century and later, the rectangular east end was common. The north choir
aisle was apsidal internally and square-ended externally; the south
aisle was much wider than the north, and was evidently extended in the
fifteenth century. The foundations of the high altar are complete,
and on the north side of it is a grave formed of faced stone, which
probably contained the body of the founder of the Norman Church. The
crypt lies outside of the north aisle, and this has been completely
cleared out; its floor is sixteen feet below the level of the ground.
On this floor was found a twisted Byzantine column, which probably
supported a similar column in the chapel above the crypt. This is
the chapel which is believed to have been the shrine of King Eadward
the Martyr. A most curious discovery was made in the crypt—namely, a
number of dolicho-cephalous skulls. The question arises: How did they
get there? For the shape of these skulls indicates that their owners
were men of the Neolithic Age! In various graves sundry ornaments
and articles of dress have been found—a gold ring in which a stone
had once been set, a leaden bulla bearing the name of Pope Martin V.
(1417-1431), and a number of bronze pins, probably used to fasten
the garment in which the body was buried. The clay used for puddling
the bottom of the graves acted much in the manner of quicklime and
destroyed the bodies. Several pieces of the pavement, formed of
heraldic and other tiles, remain _in situ_. It is supposed by some
that the Abbey Church once possessed a central tower and a tall spire,
though it is doubtful if the _spire_ ever existed; if it did, the
church standing on its lofty isolated hill about 700 feet above the
sea-level must have been a conspicuous object from all the wide Vale
of Blackmore and its surrounding hills, as well as from the Vale of
Wardours to the north, along which the railway now runs.
St. Peter’s Church is the oldest building in the town, but it is
late Perpendicular in style. It is noteworthy that it has not, and
apparently never had, a chancel properly called so; no doubt a ritual
chancel may have been formed by a wooden screen. A holy-water stoup is
to be seen on the left hand as one goes into the entrance porch at the
west side of the tower. The richly-carved pierced parapet of the north
aisle bears the Tudor rose and the portcullis, and so shows that this
part of the church was built early in the sixteenth century.
Many of the houses in the town are old, but not of great antiquity.
Thatched cottages abound in the side lanes, and even the long main
street, which runs from east to west, has a picturesque irregularity
on the sky-line. The most interesting house is one in Bimport, marked
in a map dated 1615 as Mr. Groves’ house. It stands near the gasworks
and the chief entrance to Castle Hill. It is a good example of a town
house of the early sixteenth century, and contains some well-carved
mantelpieces of somewhat later date. This house has served various
purposes—at one time it was an inn, and some years ago narrowly escaped
destruction. It, however, did escape with only the removal of its
old stone-slabbed roof, in place of which one of red tiling has been
substituted. An additional interest has been given to this old building
by its introduction into _Jude the Obscure_ as the dwelling-place of
the schoolmaster Phillotson, from a window of which his wife Sue once
jumped into the street. Beyond this house is one known as St. John’s,
standing as it does on St. John’s Hill, more of which hereafter.
It was, in great measure, built of material bought at the sale of
Beckford’s strange and whimsical erection known as Fonthill Abbey,
of which the story is told in the _Memorials of Old Wiltshire_. In
the garden of St. John’s Cottage is a curious cross, in which are two
carved alabaster panels, covered with glass to preserve them from frost
and rain.
Shaftesbury owes what distinction it possesses to its position, and
this is due to its geological formation. A long promontory[58] of
Upper Greensand runs from the east, and ends in a sharp point where
the steep escarpments facing the north-west and south meet. On the
triangle formed by these two the town is built. Looking out from the
end of this high ground we may see a conical, wooded hill known as
Duncliffe; this is an outlier of the same greensand formation; all the
rest of the greensand, which once occupied the space between, has been
gradually washed away, and the surface of the lower ground consists
of various members of the Jurassic series. Under the greensand lies a
bed of Gault, a blue-coloured clay impervious to water; and, as the
greensand rock is porous, the gault holds up the water that percolates
through the greensand, with the result that a thickness of about
twenty-five feet of the lowest bed of the greensand is full of water,
while the upper layers are dry. Hence, to get water to supply the town,
wells would have to be sunk to the depth of 150 feet. Some such wells
were, indeed, sunk in mediæval times, but were not satisfactory. It is
only in recent times that regular water-works, with pumping-engines,
reservoir, and mains, have been constructed, and Shaftesbury had to
depend for water until that time on a supply obtained from springs at
Enmore Green, a village situated under the hill and to the north of
the town. This gave rise to a quaint and curious custom. On the Sunday
next after the Festival of the Invention of the Cross, May 3rd (the
day was changed in 1663 to the Monday before Ascension Day), the Mayor
and burgesses of Shaftesbury went down to the springs at Enmore Green
with mirth and minstrelsy, and, chief of all, with a staff or bezant
adorned with feathers, pieces of gold, rings and jewels, and sundry
dues—to wit, a pair of gloves, a calf’s head, a gallon of ale, and two
penny loaves of fine wheaten bread: these were presented to the bailiff
of the manor of Gillingham, in which the village of Enmore Green was
situated. Moreover, the Mayor and burgesses, for one whole hour by
the clock, had to dance round the village green hand in hand. Should
the dues not be presented, or the dance fail, the penalty was that
the water should no longer be supplied to inhabitants of the borough
of Shaftesbury. The decoration of the bezant was a costly matter;
the original one, of gilded wood in the form of a palm-tree, was in
the possession of Lady Theodora Guest, and has been presented by her
ladyship to the Corporation of Shaftesbury. The water was brought up
in carts drawn by horses, and strong ones they must have been, for the
hill they had to climb is one of the steepest in the neighbourhood. The
fixed price for a bucketful of water was a farthing. From the scanty
supply of drinking-water it came to pass that a saying got abroad that
Shaftesbury was a town where “there was more beer than water”; to which
was added two lines describing other noteworthy characteristics of the
place—namely, that “here there was a churchyard above the steeple,”
and that the town contained “more rogues than honest people.” Once
during the writer’s fifteen years’ sojourn in the town some accident
happened to the pumping apparatus at the water-works, and for several
weeks the inhabitants were thrown back upon the old source of water
supply. Day after day water-carts might be seen slowly passing along
the streets, while servants or housewives came out from every doorway
with empty pails or buckets, though they were not called upon to pay
their farthings for the filling of them, as the expense was borne by
the owners of the water-works.
In the old coaching days Shaftesbury was a livelier place than now,
since the London and Exeter coaches, with their splendid teams and
cheerful horns, passed through it daily, changing their horses at the
chief hostelry. When the Salisbury and Yeovil Railway (afterwards
absorbed by the London and South-Western) was planned it was intended
to bring the line, not indeed through the town, but within a half-mile
or so of it, with a station under the hill; but the bill was here,
as in many another place, opposed by the landowners, with the result
that the line was not allowed to come within about three miles
of Shaftesbury, and was carried through the neighbouring town of
Gillingham, which from that time began to increase, while Shaftesbury
decreased. Periodically there has been an agitation for a branch line
or a loop or a light railway running from Tisbury and passing near
Shaftesbury, and joining, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Wareham,
the line to Weymouth. But all the agitation has ended in nothing
practical.
The beauty of its scenery and the clearness of its air have raised
a hope in the minds of some of its inhabitants that Shaftesbury may
become a summer health resort; but as long as the town is so difficult
of access these hopes do not seem likely to be fulfilled to any great
extent.
There are scarcely any historical events connected with Shaftesbury
besides those already mentioned; but it is worthy of notice that once
for a short time two royal ladies were held prisoners at the Abbey.
Robert the Bruce, when on one occasion things were not going well with
him, entrusted his second wife, Elizabeth, and her step-daughter,
Marjory (the only child of his first wife, Isabella of Mar), to the
care of his younger brother, Nigel Bruce, who was holding the strong
Castle of Kildrummie, near the source of the Don, in Aberdeenshire.
The castle was besieged by the English, under the Earls of Lancaster
and Hereford, but when the magazine was treacherously burnt the
garrison had to surrender. Nigel Bruce was taken to Berwick, tried,
condemned, and executed. Elizabeth and Marjory were carried off across
the border, and, with a view of placing them far beyond all chance of
rescue, were ultimately handed over to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in
1313. King Edward II. allowed them twenty shillings a week for their
maintenance, a sum of much greater value in those days than now. After
the battle of Bannockburn (June, 1314), the Earl of Hereford, who had
been taken prisoner by Bruce, was given up in exchange for the Queen,
who during all her married life, with the exception of two years, had
been in the hands of the English, for she had been married in 1304, and
had been taken prisoner in 1306.
It is needful, before finishing this chapter, to explain the old
saying about the churchyard being higher than the steeple. There was
once a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist that stood at the
south-west point of the hill on which Shaftesbury is built; this has
long ago passed away, but its graveyard still remains. Its parish
was amalgamated with that of St. James, whose church stands below
the hill, and for some time the old churchyard of St. John’s served
as the burial-ground for the united parishes. Hence arose the saying
quoted. Speaking of St. James leads us to notice the interesting fact
that part of this parish lies outside the municipal boundaries, and is
situated in the Liberty of Alcester,[59] so called because this land
belonged to a monastery at the town of Alcester, in Warwickshire, and
was free from the payment of local tithes. Some have supposed that
the word Alcester was the name of a Roman town, on the ruins of which
Shaftesbury was built; but this is not the case.
In the early part of the eighteenth century a free school was founded
by one William Lush, merchant, of Shaftesbury, for the education of
a small number of boys and girls. A new scheme was drawn up about
thirty years ago by the Charity Commissioners: new buildings were
erected to the east of the town close to Cann Church, but within the
boundaries of the parish of Shaston St. Peter, and in 1879 Shaftesbury
Grammar School, as it is always called, was opened, the writer of this
chapter holding the office then, and for fifteen years afterwards, of
headmaster of the re-organised school, which, though never likely to be
a large one, has already done, and is still doing, useful work in its
own quiet and unobtrusive way.
Despite the fact that strangers may call Shaftesbury a sleepy place,
and far behind the times in enterprise; despite the fact that it has
fallen from its former importance, and may by some be looked on as a
mere derelict—yet those who have known it and dwelt upon “The Rock”
cannot but keep a tender spot in their memories for this quaint Dorset
town.