THE
CASTLES AND ABBEYS
OF
ENGLAND,

FROM THE NATIONAL RECORDS, EARLY CHRONICLES, AND OTHER
STANDARD AUTHORS.
BY WILLIAM BEATTIE, M.D.,
GRAD. OF EDIN.; MEMB. OF THE ROYAL COLL. OF PHYS., LONDON; OF THE HIST. INSTIT. OF FRANCE; AUTHOR OF
“SWITZERLAND,” “SCOTLAND,” “THE WALDENSES,” “RESIDENCE IN GERMANY,” ETC. ETC.
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ILLUSTRATED BY UPWARDS OF TWO HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS.
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SECOND SERIES.

LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE CASTLE OF CHEPSTOW,
Monmouthshire.

Around us spread the hills and dales,
Where Geoffrey spun his magic tales,
And called them history: the land
Whence Arthur sprung, and all his band
Of gallant knights.—Bloomfield.

In another district, sculptures, pavements, altars, statues, coins, and inscriptions, bear testimony to Roman sway:—such is the Silurian settlement of Caerleon, with its classic vicinity.

On another hand, where the ivy has clasped its hallowed walls, as if to prop their decay, the traveller halts at some monastic rain; and, amid the crumbling fragments of its lofty arches, its richly-carved windows, shafts, and capitals, dwells with a deep and melancholy interest on the page of its eventful history. In such places the voice of Tradition is never mute: the vacant niche, the dismantled tower, the desecrated altar, the deserted choir—all discourse eloquent and impressive music; and in places where the sacred harp was once strung, its chords seem still touched by invisible hands:—such are the Abbeys of Tinterne and Llanthony.

It is among these remains and monuments of the past—the early homes of saints and heroes of the olden day—that we propose to conduct the reader. In the tour projected, we avail ourselves of such materials as personal investigation, with that of distinguished predecessors, poets, and historians, has furnished from times of remote antiquity, down to the present day.

The scenery of the Wye is of classic and proverbial beauty: it is the theme alike of poet and historian, the annual resort of pilgrims—whether admirers of the picturesque, or valetudinarians; and nowhere in the kingdom is nature more lavish of those charms which attract all classes of tourists, than in the course and confines of this beautiful and romantic river.[1] There—

Be thine object health or pleasure,
Historic sites or classic treasure;
The Roman camp, the Norman grave,
Or war-tower crumbling o’er the wave;
Or fertile vale, or vocal woods,
Or hills, and flocks, and crystal floods;

CHEPSTOW CASTLE,

From the Iron Bridge across the Wye.

And haunts and homes that love to claim
The patriot’s or the poet’s name—
Then hither bend thy pilgrim way,
Where Taga’s classic waters play;
And here thy weary heart shall find,
What soothes and renovates the mind.

In its general appearance—in its street architecture—Chepstow still presents some isolated features of the primitive style. Of these, the principal is the Western Gate, of unquestionable antiquity; and, in point of date, taking precedence of the castle itself. By a charter given in the 16th Henry VIII., the bailiffs were to have their prison for the punishment of offences within the Great Gate, “which they have builded by our commandment.” This is supposed to be a renewal of the ancient liberties of the town, granted by Howel Dhu, A.D. 940.

The Church, part of a Benedictine priory of Norman work, has undergone many alterations and repairs; but repairs, in some cases, are more fatal to the style and symmetry of ecclesiastical monuments, than the wasting hand of time, or even the shocks of violence—for they only disfigure what they meant to adorn; and, by deviating widely from the original plan, lose or debase all its original beauty. The nave and aisles are nearly all that remain of the original edifice.[2] The church has disappeared; but the pillars which supported the central tower are still preserved on the eastern extremity, and convey some idea of the massive strength of the original edifice. The western porch is justly admired for its zigzag tracery; and, in this respect, it presents one of the finest specimens that have descended to our day, of the true Saxo-Norman character. The church contains several monuments, not remarkable for their style or antiquity; the chief of which is that to the memory of the second Earl and Countess of Worcester, with their effigies at full length, in the attitude of prayer.

The repairs and restorations lately effected in this church, were suggested and carried out by the joint taste and liberality of the late Bishop of Llandaff and the parishioners. The result is creditable to the parties concerned; and here, it is to be hoped, their pious labours will not be suffered to terminate. The original priory was an alien branch of the Benedictine monastery of Cormeilles.

The acrostic, written upon himself by the regicide Henry Martin—first discarded from the chancel, and latterly from the sacred enclosure, by a former vicar—has somewhat recovered from its disgrace, by gaining admittance into the vestry, but only on sufferance. In the town and immediate neighbourhood are some remains of religious houses, under various denominations; for the situation of Chepstow, presenting many advantages for commerce, was not less favourable for monachism.

In iron times, when laws of battle were,
That weakly folk, of prowess small in fight,
The galling gyves of vassalage should bear;
Ere castle seneschals, with pale affright,
Heard the shrill horn wind of the errant knight—
A foeman firm affianced to be
To all who wrong’d the feeble of their right—
Such folk the Church let from their thraldom free,
A deed that had not shamed the Knight of Chivalry.
Econ. of Monast. Life.

We were told of a pleasing custom, transmitted from early times, and still observed here, that of repairing every Palm-Sunday to the graves of departed friends, and ornamenting them with flowers—much in the same way as the populace of Paris repair every All Saints’ morning to Père-la-Chaise, to scatter flowers and evergreens over the graves of their relations.

One of the finest points of view is the centre of the new iron bridge, comprising the castle, the vessels at anchor under the stupendous wall of rock on which it is erected; with the lawns and groves of Piercefield—a favourite and familiar name in the list of picturesque tours—closing the landscape. The former bridge[3] was of prodigious height, erected on piles. The present structure was founded in 1815; and in the March of that year, the tide rose from low-water mark to the remarkable height of fifty-one feet two inches. The new bridge consists of five arches, the centre one of which is one hundred and twelve feet in span; the two adjoining arches have a span of seventy feet, and the two outer ones a span of fifty-four feet each. It is of massive cast-metal, resting on stone piers; and its total length is five hundred and thirty-two feet.

The depth of the moorings in the river here is so great, that, at low water, ships of 700 tons burthen may ride safely at anchor. The rise of tide is from thirty to nearly sixty feet, a circumstance scarcely to be paralleled—and caused by the extraordinary swell of water at the rocks of Beechley and Aust, which, by protruding far into the Severn, near the month of the Wye, obstruct the flow of tide, and thus impel it with increased rapidity into the latter.[4] In January, 1768, according to our local guide, it attained the height of seventy feet: its greatest rise of late years has been fifty-six feet.

In 1634, we are informed, Colonel Sandys attempted to make the Wye navigable by means of locks; but after much labour and expense, the experiment failed, and the locks were removed. Every one curious in the phenomena of natural history, has heard of the intermitting well of Chepstow, which ebbs and flows inversely with the tide—that is, when the tide ebbs, the well flows; and when the tide flows, the well ebbs: when the tide is at its height, the well is nearly dry; a little before which it begins to subside, and soon after the ebb it gradually returns. It is neither affected by wet nor dry weather, but is entirely regulated by the tide. It is thirty-two feet in depth, and frequently contains fourteen feet of excellent water.

In melancholy connection with the old bridge of Chepstow, is a family calamity which drew from the late poet Campbell an epitaph[5] worthy of his pen. The victims by the sudden catastrophe were a lady and her two daughters, personal friends of the poet, and for whom he entertained sentiments of great esteem and regard. The lady and her daughters were on a visit at Chepstow; and, after hearing sermon, went on the river in a boat. The tide was running strong at the time; and in his attempt to clear the centre arch of the bridge, the boatman missed his aim—the frail bark struck against the wooden pier, and upset; and the lady and her two daughters were carried down by the stream and lost. Their lifeless remains were afterwards recovered, and buried in the churchyard of Monckton, where a tomb, erected to their memory, bears the following inscription:—

“In deep submission to the will above,
Yet with no common cause for human tears,
This stone to the lost Partner of his love,
And for his children lost, a mourner rears.
One fatal moment, one o’erwhelming doom,
Tore threefold from his heart the ties of earth—
His Mary, Margaret, in their early bloom,
And Her who gave them life, and taught them worth.

“Farewell, ye broken pillars of my fate!
My life’s companion, and my two first-born!
Yet while this silent stone I consecrate
To conjugal, paternal love forlorn—
Oh, may each passer-by the lesson learn
Which can alone the bleeding heart sustain—
Where friendship weeps at virtue’s funeral urn—
That, to the pure in heart, to die is gain!”

It is somewhat remarkable, that the text of Scripture which they had just heard expounded in the parish church the same morning, was—“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Of the principal victim in this calamity, Campbell thus speaks in a private letter to a friend:—“We looked to Mrs. Shute as truly elevated in the scale of beings for the perfect charity of her heart. The universal feeling of lamentation for her, accords with the benign and simple-minded beauty of her character.”

As the limits and object of this work do not permit us to enlarge our remarks on the particular history of Chepstow, we now proceed to that of the castle, whose roofless walls, and moss-clad ramparts, carry us back to the Norman Conquest, and fill an ample page in its subsequent history. The present structure, on a Roman or Saxon foundation, is ascribed to William Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford,[6] upon whom his kinsman the Conqueror had bestowed vast possessions, in this and the neighbouring counties, which could only be secured by sword and stronghold. On the forfeiture of his son Roger, it passed to the Clares, another great Norman family.

The hereditary lords of the town and castle were the old Earls of Pembroke, of the house of Clare, the last of whom was the renowned Richard[7] Strongbow, ‘Earl of Striguil, Chepstow, and Pembroke,’ who died in 1176, leaving a daughter, Isabel, by whose marriage the estates and title passed into the family of Marshall, and afterwards, by a similar union, into that of Herbert. In the reign of Edward the Fourth, the castle, manor, and lordship of Chepstow, were held by Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who was beheaded after the battle of Banbury, in 1469. By the marriage of Elizabeth, sole daughter and heiress of William Herbert—Earl of Huntingdon, and Lord Herbert of Raglan, Chepstow, and Gower—it descended to Sir Charles Somerset, who was afterwards created Earl of Worcester. It is now one of the numerous castles belonging to his illustrious descendant, the Duke of Beaufort.

During the wars of the Commonwealth, the castle was garrisoned by the king’s troops; but, in 1645, Colonel Morgan, governor of Gloucester, at the head of a small body of horse and foot, entered the town without much difficulty; and, on the 5th October, sent the following summons to Sir Robert Fitzmaurice: “Sir,—I am commanded by his Excellency, Sir Thomas Fairfax, to demand this castle for the use of the King and Parliament, which I require of you, and to lay down your arms, and to accept of reasonable propositions, which will be granted both to you and your soldiers, if you observe this summons: and further, you are to consider of what nation and religion you are; for if you refuse the summons, you exclude yourself from mercy, and are to expect for yourself and soldiers no better than Stinchcombe quarter. I expect your sudden answer, and according thereunto shall rest your friend,—Thomas Morgan.”

To this summons the governor answered: “Sir,—I have the same reason to keep this castle for my master the King, as you to demand it for General Fairfax; and until my reason be convinced, and my provisions decreased, I shall, notwithstanding my religion and menaces of extirpation, continue in my resolution, and in my fidelity and loyalty to the king. As to Stinchcombe quarter, I know not what you mean by it; nor do depend upon your intelligence for relief, which in any indigence I assure me of; and in that assurance I rest your servant,—Robert Fitzmaurice.

“P.S.—What quarter you give me and my soldiers, I refer to the consideration of all soldiers, when I am constrained to seek for any.”

Stinchcombe, near Dursley on the Severn, was a place where the Parliament accused Prince Rupert of putting their men to the sword.

In consequence of this answer the siege was commenced, and carried on with so much vigour, that, in the course of four days, the castle surrendered, and the governor and his garrison were made prisoners of war. Later in the history of that melancholy period, it was surprised by a body of royalists, under Sir Nicholas Kemeys. Cromwell then directed his whole strength upon it, and reduced the town; but, for a time, found the castle impregnable. At last, however, exhausted with fatigue, and on the verge of famine, the garrison were forced into a parley with the besiegers; and, in the surrender of the fortress, Sir Nicholas Kemeys “was killed in cold blood.” The following is Colonel Ewer’s report[8] on the reduction of Chepstow Castle. His letter is addressed to the Honourable William Lental, Speaker of the House of Commons:—

“Sir,—Lieutenant-General Cromwell, being to march towards Pembroke Castle, left me with my regiment to take in the Castle of Chepstow, which was possessed by Sir Nicholas Kemish [or Kemeys], and with him officers and soldiers to the number of 120. We drew close about it, and kept strong guards upon them, to prevent them from stealing out, and so to make their escape. We sent for two guns from Gloucester, and two off a shipboard, and planted them against the castle. We raised [razed] the battlements of their towers with our great guns, and made their guns unusefull for them. We also plaid with our shorter pieces into the castle. One shot fell into the governor’s chamber, which caused him to remove his lodgings to the other end of the castle. We then prepared our batteries, and this morning finished them. About twelve of the clock, we made a hole through the wall, so low that a man might walk into it. The soldiers in the castle, perceiving that we were like to make a breach, cried out to our soldiers that they would yield the castle, and many of them did attempt to come away. I caused my soldiers to fire at them to keep them in. Esquire Lewis comes upon the wall, and speaks to some gentlemen of the county that he knew, and tells them that he was willing to yield to mercy. They came and acquainted me with his desire, to which I answered, that it was not my work to treat with particular men, but it was Sir Nicholas Kemish, with his officers and all his soldiers, that I aimed at; but the governor refused to deliver up the castle upon these terms that Esquire Lewis desired, but desired to speak with me at the drawbridge, while I altogether refused to have any such speech with him, because he refused Lieutenant-General Cromwell’s summons; but, being overpersuaded by some gentlemen of the country that were there, presently I dismounted from my horse, and went unto the drawbridge, where he through the port-hole spake with me. That which he desired was, that he, with all his officers and soldiers, might march out of the castle without anything being taken from them; to which I answered, that I would give him no other terms but that he and all that were with him should submit unto mercy, which he swore he would not do. I presently drew off the soldiers from the castle, and caused them to stand to their arms; but he refusing to come out upon those terms, the soldiers deserted him, and came running out at the breach we had made. My soldiers, seeing them run out, ran in at the same place, and possesst themselves of the castle, and killed Sir Nicholas Kemmish, and likewise him that betrayed the castle, and wounded divers, and took prisoners as followeth:—Esquire Lewis, Major Lewis, Major Thomas, Captain Morgan, Captain Buckeswell, Captain John Harris, Captain Christopher Harris, Captain Mancell, Captain Pinner, Captain Doule, Captain Rossitre, Lieutenant Kemmish, Lieutenant Leach, Lieutenant Codd, Ensign Watkins, Ensign Morgan, with other officers and soldiers, to the number of 120. These prisoners we have put into the church, and shall keep them till I receive further orders from Lieutenant-General Cromwell.

“This is all at present, but that I am your humble servant,

“Isaac Ewer.”

“Chepstow, May 28, 1648.”

The captain who carried the news of this event to London was rewarded with fifty pounds; and Colonel Ewer, with the officers and soldiers under his command, received the thanks of parliament. This was the closing scene of its warlike history; and from that period down to the present, the Castle of Chepstow has remained a picturesque and dismantled ruin.

Of this brave but unfortunate governor of the castle, we collect the following particulars:[9]—

Sir Nicholas Kemeys, Bart.,[10] the sixteenth in descent of this honourable house, “was colonel of a regiment of horse, raised for the king’s service, and governor of Chepstow Castle, which he bravely defended against the powerful efforts of Cromwell and Colonel Ewer; nor did he surrender that fortress but with his life, fighting in the most gallant manner, till death arrested his farther exertions.”[11] There is a traditional story, that “the Parliamentary troops, as soon as they entered the castle, in revenge for Sir Nicholas’ obstinate resistance, mangled his body in the most horrid manner, and that the soldiers wore his remains in their hats, as trophies of their victory; but a branch of the Kemeys family,” says the writer, “told me they considered it as one of those acts of the times, which each party adopted to stigmatize the memory of its political opponents. Not a stone, it is said, nor other tribute of recollection, in any cemetery in Monmouthshire, records the spot in which the remains of this brave officer were deposited.”[12]

A portrait of Sir Nicholas Kemeys was “in the possession of the late Mrs. Sewel[13] of Little Kemeys, near Usk, in this county, now the property of John G. Kemeys, Esq. The picture is a three-quarters length. He is drawn in armour, and seems about forty years of age. He appears to have possessed a good person, if an opinion might be formed from his portrait. He has a fine open countenance, round face, dark piercing eyes, an aquiline nose, and wore his own hair, which was black and rather curly.” According to the fashion of his day, he is represented with whiskers, and a small tuft of hair growing under the lower lip—or, in modern phraseology, an imperial. “Although it is what an artist would pronounce a dark picture, yet, on the whole, it is in good preservation. There are two more portraits of this gentleman—one in the possession of the late Sir Charles Kemeys, Bart. of Halsewell, in Somersetshire; the other at Malpas, near Usk, probably all painted at the same time and by the same artist, but whose name has not been handed down in conjunction with his works.”

The house of Kemeys,[14] “originally De Camois, Camoes, and Camys, is of Norman extraction, and the name of its patriarch is to be found on the roll of Battle Abbey. Large possessions were granted to the family in the counties of Sussex and Surrey; and, so early as the year 1258, Ralph de Camois was a baron by tenure. He was succeeded by his son, Ralph de Camois, who was summoned to parliament in the 49th year of Henry III.; and his descendants sat among the peers of the realm, until the demise, issueless, of Hugh de Camois, who left his sisters (Margaret, married to Ralph Rademelde, and Aleanor, wife of Roger Lewknor) his coheirs. A branch of the family which had settled in Pembrokeshire, there enjoyed large possessions, and, as lords of Camaes and St. Dogmaels, exercised almost regal sway. In the conquest of Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, the Camays were much distinguished, and were rewarded with grants of “Kemeys Commander” and “Kemeys Inferior.” One branch became established at Llannarr Castle, in Monmouthshire (now in the possession of Colonel Kemeys-Tynte), and another fixing itself at Began, in Glamorganshire, erected the mansion of Kevanmably, the residence of the present chief of the family.

“Edward Kemeys, son of Edward Kemeys who was at the conquest of Upper Gwent, married the daughter and heiress of Andrew de Began, lord of Began, a lineal descendant of Blethyn Maynerch, lord of Brecon, and thus acquired the lordship of Began, which, for centuries after, was the principal abode of his descendants. His great-great-great-grandson, Jenkin Kemeys of Began, married Cristley, daughter of Morgan ap Llewellyn, by whom he had one son, Jevan; and a daughter, married to Jevan ap Morgan of New Church, near Cardiff, in the county of Glamorgan, and was grandmother of Morgan Williams—living temp. Henry VIII.—who espoused the sister of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and had a son, Sir Richard Williams, who assumed, at the desire of Henry VIII., the surname of his uncle Cromwell; and through the influence of that once-powerful relative, obtained wealth and station. His great-grandson was the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.[15] From Jenkin Kemeys was lineally descended Sir Nicholas Kemeys of Kevanmably, who represented the county of Glamorgan in parliament, and was created a baronet 13th May, 1642. This gentleman, remarkable for his gigantic stature and strength, was pre-eminently distinguished by his loyalty to Charles I., and on the breaking out of the civil war (as we have already observed), having raised a regiment of cavalry, was invested with the command of Chepstow Castle.”

Notwithstanding the alliance with the blood of Cromwell, loyalty seems to have been hereditary in the house of Kemeys. In the family biography we have the following anecdote:—“Sir Charles Kemeys—knight of the shire for Monmouth, in the last parliament of Queen Anne, and for Glamorgan in the two succeeding parliaments—when on his travels, was shown great attention by George I. at Hanover, and frequently joined the private circle of the Elector. When his majesty ascended the British throne, he was pleased to inquire why his old acquaintance Sir Charles Kemeys had not paid his respects at court; and commanding him to repair to St. James’s, sent him a message, the substance of which was—that the King of England hoped Sir Charles Kemeys still recollected the number of pipes he had smoked with the Elector of Hanover in Germany. Sir Charles, who had retired from parliament, and was a stanch Jacobite, replied, that he should be proud to pay his duty at St. James’s to the Elector of Hanover, but that he had never had the honour of smoking a pipe with the King of England.”

Sir Charles Kemeys died without issue, when the baronetcy expired, and his estates devolved on his nephew, Sir Charles Kemeys-Tynte, Bart. of Halsewell, at whose demise, also issueless, his estates vested in his niece, Jane Hassell, who married Colonel Johnstone, afterwards Kemeys-Tynte,[16] and was mother of the present (1838) Colonel Kemeys-Tynte of Halsewell and Kevanmably. Through the Hassells, the family of Kemeys-Tynte claim descent from the Plantagenets.[17]

We now proceed to a brief description of the castle in its ruinous state.

CHEPSTOW CASTLE AND BRIDGE.

From the right bank of the Wye.

Plan of Chepstow Castle.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLAN.

The grand entrance is defended by two circular towers of unequal proportions, with double gates, portcullises, and a port-hole, through which boiling water or metallic fluids could be discharged on the heads of the besiegers. The massive door, covered with iron bolts and clasps, is a genuine relic of the feudal stronghold. The knocker now in use is an old four-pound shot. This introduces us to the great court, sixty yards long by twenty broad, and presenting the appearance of a tranquil garden. The walls are covered with a luxuriant mantle of ivy, through which the old masonry appears only at intervals; and here the owl finds himself in undisturbed possession, unless when roused by the choir of numberless birds that flit from tree to tree, or nestle among the leaves. The lover of solitude could hardly find a retreat more suited to his taste. The area, interspersed with trees, and covered with a fine grassy carpet, is annually converted into a flower and fruit show, for the encouragement of horticulture, under the patronage of the noble owner.

The castle, as one of its historians conjectures, is of the same antiquity as the town itself, to which it served the purposes of a citadel; but the precise epoch, neither Leland, Camden, nor any topographical writer has been able to ascertain. Stow, indeed, attributes the building of the castle to Julius Cæsar, but there is no evidence to support his supposition. Camden, on the contrary, thinks it of no great antiquity; for several affirm, says he, that “it had its rise, not many ages past, from the ancient Venta”—the Venta Silurum of Antoninus. Leland, in his Itinerary, says—“The waulles begun at the edge of the great bridge over the Wye, and so came to the castle, which yet standeth fayr and strong, not far from the ruin of the bridge. In the castle ys one tower, as I heard say, by the name of Longine.[18] The town,” he adds, “hath nowe but one paroche chirche: the cell of a blake monk or two of Bermondsey, near London, was lately there suppressed.”

During the life of Charles-Noel, fourth Duke of Beaufort, the castle was let on a lease of three successive lives to a Mr. Williams, a general merchant or trader, who adapted some of the great apartments to the following purposes, namely—the great kitchen to a sail manufactory; the store-room to a wholesale wine-cellar; the grand hall, or banqueting-room, was occupied by a glass-blower; and the circular tower by the gate, leading into the second court, was used as a nail manufactory. After the death of Mr. Williams, the roofs fell in, one after another—that of the Keep in 1799, the year in which the lease expired; and thus the stately castle was reduced to its present condition—a vast and melancholy ruin.

The only apartments now inhabitable are those of its loyal and intelligent warden and his family, whose civility and general information respecting the castle are very acceptable to its daily visitors.

One of the principal towers was converted, during the above-named lease, into a glass manufactory, the furnace of which has left its scars deeply indented in the solid masonry.

In a small chamber off the banqueting-hall, seventy-five pieces of ancient silver coin were recently discovered, and are now at Badminton Park; but of what value or of what reign we have not yet ascertained.

An ancient door—as ancient, we are told, as the castle itself—opens upon the second court, of very nearly the same dimensions as the first, and now also converted into a garden. Beyond this is an apartment, supposed by some to have been the garrison chapel;[19] but its pointed arches and elaborately-carved windows, all evincing an air of stately dignity, leave no doubt of its having been the great baronial hall, where the Clares, the Marshalls, and Herberts, drew around them their chivalrous retainers.

Connected with this, by a winding path, is a third court, now cultivated as an orchard; so that, with trees, flowers, and luxuriant ivy, the whole enclosure presents a mass of vegetation, in which the stern features of warlike art have almost disappeared.

A walk along the ramparts westward from this point, commands some glimpses of beautiful scenery, with the Wye at the base of the rocks expanding in the form of a lake, where vessels are seen riding at anchor, and boats passing to and fro—here gay with pleasure parties, and there laden with foreign or inland produce.

The Keep is another object which the tourist will regard with interest, as the twenty years’ prison of Henry Marten, whose vote, with those of his “fellow-regicides,” at the trial of Charles the First, consigned that unfortunate monarch to the block. To his epitaph written upon himself we have already alluded; and the reader is no stranger, probably, to Southey’s lines on the room where he was confined, which, with a sarcastic parody written by Canning, will be found in these pages.

Henry Marten, who attained such unenviable notoriety, was the son of Sir Henry Marten, a judge of the Admiralty, and M.P. for Berkshire. He was an able and active partisan of Oliver Cromwell, one of the “Executive Council;” and in the old prints representing the trial of the martyr-king, Marten occupies the chair on Cromwell’s left hand, immediately under the arms of the Commonwealth.[20] At the Restoration, he was brought to trial, and sentenced to death; but his sentence was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life. In the keep of this castle, since called “Marten’s Tower,” he spent twenty years; but much was done to soften the rigour of his sentence. “His wife was permitted to share his imprisonment; he was attended by his own domestic servants, who were accommodated in the same tower; and he had permission to visit, and receive visits from his friends in the town and neighbourhood. He died in 1680, at the mature age of seventy-eight, neither disturbed by the qualms of conscience, nor enfeebled by the rigour of confinement; and left behind him the character of a liberal and indulgent master.” At a comparatively recent period, the principal chamber of the Keep was frequently used by the inhabitants of Chepstow as a ball-room; and there is now residing in the town a lady, who remembers having been present at more than one of these festive reunions.

For the following notice of this “stern republican,”—somewhat different from the preceding—we are indebted to Heath’s description of Chepstow:—

Henry Marten,[21] commonly called Harry Marten, was born in the city of Oxford, in the parish of St. John the Baptist, in a house opposite to Merton College Church, then lately built by Henry Sherburne, gent., and possessed, at the time of Harry’s birth, by Sir Henry, his father. After he had been instructed in grammar-learning in Oxford, he became a gentleman commoner of University College in the beginning of 1617, aged fifteen years, where, and in public, giving a manifestation of his pregnant mind, had the degree of Bachelor of Arts conferred upon him in the latter end of the year 1619. Afterwards he went to one of the Inns of Court, travelled into France, and on his return married a lady of considerable worth; but with whom, it is said, “he never afterwards lived.”[22]

In the beginning of the year 1640, he was elected one of the knights for Berks, to serve in the parliament that began at Westminster the 13th of April; and again, though not legally, in October, to serve in the parliament that began at the same place on the 3d of November following. We shall not enter into his political actions on the great theatre of public life—as they are to be found in all the histories of England, from the reign of Charles I. to the Restoration—but content ourselves with noticing those parts of it which are more peculiarly interesting to the traveller in Monmouthshire, namely, the manner in which he passed his time, with occasional anecdotes, during his confinement in the castle of Chepstow.

Wood, an ultra-royalist, gives the following character of him:—“He was a man of good natural parts—was a boon familiar, witty, and quick with repartees—was exceeding happy in apt instances, pertinent and very biting; so that his company, being deemed incomparable by many, would have been acceptable to the greatest persons, only he would be drunk too soon, and so put an end to all their mirth for the present. At length, after all his rogueries, acted for near twenty years together, were passed; he was at length called to account for that grand villany, of having a considerable hand in murdering his prince, of which being easily found guilty, he was not to suffer the loss of his life, as others did, but the loss of his estate, and perpetual imprisonment, for that he came in upon the proclamation of surrender. So that, after two or three removes from prison to prison, he was at length sent to Chepstow Castle, where he continued another twenty years, not in wantonness, riotousness, and villany, but in confinement and repentance, if he had so pleased.”

“This person—who lived very poor, and in a shabbeel condition in his confinement, and would be glad to take a pot of ale from any one that would give it to him—died with meat in his mouth, that is, suddenly, in Chepstow Castle (as before mentioned), in September, 1680; and was, on the 9th day of the same month, buried in the church of Chepstow. Some time before he died he made the epitaph, by way of acrostic, on himself, which is engraved on the stone which now covers his remains.”

Mrs. Williams—“wife of the person who had the care of the castle, and who died in 1798, at a very advanced age—well knew and was intimately acquainted with the women who waited and attended on Harry Marten during his confinement in the castle. They were two sisters, and their maiden name was Vick.

“From what I could learn, I am of opinion that the early part of Marten’s confinement was rather rigorous; for whatever Mrs. Williams mentioned had always a reference to the latter part of it; and in this conjecture I am supported by her remark, that though he had two daughters living, they were not indulged with sharing their father’s company in prison till near the close of his life. In the course of years, political rigour against him began to wear away, and he was permitted not only to walk about Chepstow, but to have the constant residence of his family, in order to attend upon him in the castle. This indulgence at last extended itself so far, as to permit him to visit any family in the neighbourhood, his host being responsible for his safe return to the castle at the hour appointed.

“One anecdote of Marten, as mentioned by Mrs. Williams, I shall here repeat. Among other families who showed a friendly attention to the prisoner, were the ancestors of the present worthy possessor of St. Pierre, near Chepstow. To a large company assembled round the festive dinner-board Marten had been invited. Soon after the cloth was removed, and the bottle put into gay circulation, Mr. Lewis, in a cheerful moment, jocularly said to Marten, ‘Harry, suppose the times were to come again in which you passed your life, what part would you act in them?’ ‘The part I have done,’ was his immediate reply. ‘Then, sir,’ says Mr. Lewis, ‘I never desire to see you at my table again;’ nor was he ever after invited.[23]

“Great credibility,” says our authority, “deserves to be attached to this story, as containing Marten’s political opinion at that day; and, to support a belief in it, the late Rev. J. Birt, canon of Hereford, thus speaks of him, in his letter to the Rev. J. Gardner, prefixed to his ‘Appendix to the History of Monmouthshire:’—‘Henry Marten, one of the incendiary preachers during the great rebellion, was, at the Restoration, imprisoned for life at Chepstow, and buried there. As far as I can recollect, he died as he lived, with the fierce spirit of a republican.’ The Rev. Mr. Birt, who died at the advanced age of ninety-two, held distinguished preferment in the neighbourhood of Chepstow, and had been in the habits of intimate acquaintance with all the first families in the county. His testimony might therefore be said to stamp the anecdote with the sanction of truth, without seeking for farther evidence.

“Of his personal appearance, a friend of mine—on the authority of the late Mr. Harry Morgan, attorney at Usk, whose father had been in Marten’s company, and by whom he had been informed of it—says that Mr. Morgan described him, in general terms, as ‘a smart, active little man, and the merriest companion he ever was in company with in his life.’ Wood praises his social qualities, and talent for conversation; but that ‘he lived in a shabbeel condition, and would take a pot of ale from any one that would give it to him,’ may be doubted; unless he meant that the kindness shown to him by the families in and near Chepstow admitted such an interpretation.[24]

“Let us attend him to the grave. It is hardly possible to admit that such a mind as that of Marten would have penned—much less to suppose that he would have wished to have engraved on his tomb—the wretched doggerel that goes under the name of his ‘Epitaph,’ and which is said to have been written by him during his confinement in the castle. Not the smallest circumstance respecting his funeral is left on record; and whether his obsequies were marked with public procession, or whether he retired to the grave unnoticed and unregarded, tradition has not preserved the slightest memorandum.”

His biographer might, without difficulty, have concluded that—in those times, at all events—an imprisoned rebel would not be permitted to have any but the most private funeral. All that we are certain of is, that he was buried in the chancel of the church of Chepstow; and that, on a large stone from the Forest of Dean, is still to be traced the following “Epitaph, written on himself,” by way of acrostic, but now much defaced:—

(ARMS.)

Here, September the ninth,
was buried
A true Englishman,
Who, in Berkshire, was well known
To love his country’s freedom ’bove his own;
But being immured full twenty year,
Had time to write, as doth appear,

HIS EPITAPH.

H ere or elsewhere—all’s one to you, to me—
E arth, air, or water, gripes my ghostly dust,
N one knows how soon to be by fire set free:
R eader, if you an oft-tryed rule will trust,
Y ou’ll gladly do and suffer what you must.
M y time was spent in serving you, and you;
A nd death’s my pay, it seems, and welcome too:
R evenge destroying but itself, while I
T o birds of prey leave my old cage, and fly.
E xamples preach to the eye.—Care thou, mine says,
N ot how you end, but how you spend your days.[25]

Having retired to that asylum which is the common lot of humanity, his ashes were for some years permitted to rest in peace. But at length a clergyman of the name of Chest, we are told, was appointed to the vicarage of Chepstow, who, glowing with admiration for those principles of the constitution which he considered had been subverted, openly declared that the bones of a regicide should never pollute the chancel of that church of which he was vicar, and immediately ordered the corpse to be disinterred, and removed to the place where it now reposes, in the middle of the north transept, and over it the stone is placed that bears the epitaph before mentioned.

About this time, as Heath informs us, “there came to reside at Chepstow a person of the name of Downton, who afterwards married a daughter of the Rev. Mr. Chest; but, whatever affection he might cherish for the lady, the father was one unceasing object of his ridicule and contempt; and when the vicar died, he publicly satyrised him in the following lines:—

‘Here lies at rest, I do protest,
One Chest within another;
The chest of wood was very good—
Who says so of the other?’”

Marten’s apartment, as we have said, was in “the first story of the eastern tower, or keep; for this part of the building contained only a single room on each floor, if we except those near the top. Could he have detached from his recollection the idea of Sterne’s starling—‘I can’t get out, I can’t get out’—the situation might have been chosen out of remembrance or tenderness to the rank he had formerly held in society; for though it bore the name of a prison, it was widely different from the generality of such places. The room measured fifteen paces long, by twelve paces wide, and was very lofty. On one side, in the centre, was a fire-place, two yards wide; and the windows, which were spacious, and lighted both ends of the apartment, gave an air of cheerfulness not frequent in such buildings. In addition to this, he could enjoy from its windows some of the sweetest prospects in Britain. This apartment continues to bear the name of ‘Marten’s Room’ to this day, and few travellers enter the castle without making it an object of their attention.”

“Marten,” says Mr. Seward, “was a striking instance of the truth of Roger Ascham’s observation, who, in his quaint and pithy style, says—‘Commonlie, men, very quick of wit, be very light of conditions. In youth, they be readie scoffers, privie mockers, and over light and merrie. In age they are testie, very waspish, and always over miserable; and yet few of them come to any great age, by reason of their miserable life when young; and a great deal fewer of them come to show any great countenance, or beare any great authority abroade, in the world; but either they live obscurely, men wot not how, or dye obscurely, men mark not when.’[26]

“In the dining-parlour of St. Pierre, near Chepstow, there hung,” in the time of the writer, “a painting, said to be of Harry Marten. He is represented at three-quarters length, in armour. In his right hand he holds a pistol, which he seems about to discharge; while with the left he grasps the hilt of his sword. Behind him is a page, in the act of tying on a green sash; the whole conveying an idea that the person was about to undertake some military enterprise. Judging from the picture, the likeness appears to have been taken when Marten was about forty-five years of age. He there seems of thin or spare habit, with a high forehead, long visage; his hair of a dark colour, and flowing over the right shoulder. The cravat round the neck does not correspond with the age in which he lived, being tied in the fashion of modern times. There is a great deal of animation and spirit in his countenance, characteristic of the person it is said to represent.”[27]

Having adverted to Mr. Southey’s “Inscription,” and its parody by George Canning, we subjoin the following copies from the originals. The first, by Southey, is thus headed:—

Inscription
For the apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Harry Marten the regicide was imprisoned thirty years.

For thirty years secluded from mankind,
Here Marten lingered. Often have these walls
Echoed his footsteps, as with even tread
He paced around his prison. Not to him
Did nature’s fair varieties exist:
He never saw the sun’s delightful beams,
Save when through yon high bars he poured a sad
And broken splendour. Dost thou ask his crime?
He had rebelled against the king, and sat
In judgment on him; for his ardent mind
Shaped goodliest plans of happiness on earth,
And peace and liberty. Wild dreams! but such
As Plato loved; such as with holy zeal
Our Milton worshipp’d. Blessed hopes! awhile
From man withheld, even to the latter days,
When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfilled!

The next is the parody by Canning, as published in the first number of the Anti-Jacobin, 1797:—

Inscription
For the door of the cell in Newgate, where Mrs. Brownrigg the ’prentice-cide was confined
previous to her execution.

For one long term, or e’er her trial came,
Here Brownrigg lingered. Often have these cells
Echoed her blasphemies, as with shrill voice
She screamed for fresh Geneva. Not to her
Did the blithe fields of Tothill, or thy street,
St. Giles, its fair varieties expand;
Till at the last, in slow-drawn cart, she went
To execution. Dost thou ask her crime?
She whipped two female ’prentices to death,
And hid them in the coal-hole. For her mind
Shaped strictest plans of discipline. Sage schemes,
Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine
Of the Orthyan goddess he bade flog
The little Spartans: such as erst chastised
Our Milton when at college. For this act
Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws! but time shall come
When France shall reign, and laws be all repealed!

Adjoining the Keep, or Marten’s Tower, is a small chamber, or Oratory, remarkable for the elegance of its proportions, and the chaste but elaborate style of its ornaments. The lancet-pointed window, encircled by rows of delicately-carved rosettes, is in fine preservation.—See the opposite page.

The narrow path which, at a height of six feet above the ground, connects this portion of the castle with the donjon tower, commands a range of beautiful scenery, the prominent features of which are the lawns and groves of Persefield, the precipitous but picturesque banks of the river, with a noble background for the picture in the commanding summit of the Wynd Cliff, which overlooks the scene.

The West Gate, a Gothic archway, strongly defended by a double portcullis, with moat and drawbridge, opens into the fourth or principal court already noticed; and as portions of Roman brick are here observed in the masonry, some doubts have arisen as to its date: but whether furnished from an earlier building on the spot, or transported hither from the ruins of Caerleon, is a question which, so far as the writer could ascertain, is still undecided. It seems very

probable, however, that the commanding site occupied by the present castle was originally that of a strong military post, built and garrisoned by the Romans, the ruins of which were converted into a Norman fortress by William Fitzosborne.

In the view from the right bank of the Wye, the western gate is seen in all its elegant and massive proportions. The square tower, with its machicolated parapet, angular turrets, and vertical balustrariæ—through which flights of arrows or other missiles met the assailants—give a striking foreground to the picture; while the contiguous towers and bastions, lessening as they recede, and assuming new and often fantastic shapes, present a vast and highly diversified mass of buildings. Here clothed with trees and shrubs, there jutting forward in bare and broken fragments, and here again rising sheer and high from the water’s edge, their huge blocks of masonry seem as if they were rather the spontaneous work of nature than the laborious productions of art. In this view are comprised the whole line of embattled walls flanking the river, the new bridge, and part of the lower town; the rocky boundaries to the southward, with the modern quay, where the daily steamer discharges her cargo and passengers. The precipitous cliffs, by which the river is there confined, terminate upwards in wooded and pastoral scenes—enlivened here and there by cottages and farms, which command some remarkable and striking views of the river, the town and castle, with its western landscapes of hill, forest, and park-like scenery. A short way beyond the extreme verge of the engraving, the river Wye will shortly be spanned by a magnificent bridge, part of the South Wales Railway, now in progress.

An arched Chamber, cut in the natural rock overhanging the river at a great height, is supposed to have been used as a prison, but more probably as a store-room; for, by anchoring the boats close to the rock, their cargoes for the service of the garrison, whether provisions[28] or ammunition, could be easily hoisted into security by means of a windlass; and no doubt, under the cloud of night, and with a spring-tide, many a goodly bark has been thus relieved of its freight; nor is it improbable that adventurous captives may have thus found their way to some friendly bark, and regained their freedom.[29] In the hands of a skilful romance writer, this scene might be turned to excellent account—more particularly if the descending basket contained a damsel “flying from tyrants jealous,” and her lover-knight stood in the boat to receive her—all heightened by such dramatic machinery as midnight, with the tender hopes and imminent hazards of the enterprise, would easily supply. But all this is foreign to the spirit of archæology, which turns with disdain from such puerile vanities, and beckons us forward to the breach where the iron balls of the Commonwealth were directed with such fury in the last assault. Their batteries played from the opposite height, which the guide will point out as the commanding position which rendered the cause of the defenders so useless and desperate, and added another triumph to the Parliamentary cannon.

The Passage, or gallery, leading down to the vaulted chamber, is accurately shown in the annexed woodcut. It has an air of Gothic antiquity that harmonizes well with the place, for its pointed style and proportions clearly show that it belongs to the earliest portion of the structure. The massive arch, seen through the opening, is that of the mysterious chamber already noticed. The window,[30] terminating the vista, overlooks the river, and seems to project from the precipitous rocks that here form an impregnable barrier to the fortress; and even when the tide is at its full, the window seems suspended at a dizzy height above the water. The uses to which the passage and its chamber were originally applied, were probably those of a temporary refuge and retreat; and were, no doubt, well understood and appreciated by the Norman castellan, to whom the means of successful resistance or safe retreat were the grand objects in a feudal residence.

Such are the general features of this ancient stronghold.[31] But on the minuter points of its history, architecture, and internal arrangements, our restricted limits will not permit us to enlarge; but, aided by faithful engravings and woodcuts, the descriptions, however brief, may serve to convey a detailed and correct notion of the whole.

Persefield.—In the immediate environs, many objects are found to invite the traveller’s attention; but, as a combination of rich English scenery, the attractions of Persefield, or Piercefield, stand pre-eminent. The house and grounds are thus briefly described: The latter extend westward along the precipitous banks of the Wye, as shown in the engraving. On the north is the Wind-Cliff, or Wynd Cliff. The grounds are divided into the lower and upper lawn by the approach to the house, a modern edifice, consisting of a stone centre and wings, from which the ground slopes gracefully but rapidly into a valley profusely shaded with ornamental trees. To give variety to the views, and disclose the native grandeur of the position, walks have been thrown open through the woods and along the precipitous margin of the river, which command the town, castle, and bridge of Chepstow, with the Severn in the distance, backed by a vast expanse of fertile valleys and pastoral hills. But to describe the romantic features of this classic residence with the minuteness they deserve, would far exceed our limits; it is a scene calculated to inspire the poet as well as the painter; and it is gratifying to add that, by the taste and liberality of the owner, strangers are freely admitted to the grounds and walks of Persefield.

The Wynd Cliff.—This lofty eminence commands one of the finest and most varied prospects in the United Kingdom; while the scenery of the Cliff has a particular charm for every lover of the picturesque. Poet, painter, and historian, have combined their efforts to make it a place of pilgrimage; but, to be seen in all its beauty, the rich and various tints of autumn and a bright sun are indispensable accessories. It may be called the “Righi” of the Wye, commanding a vast circumference of fertile plains and wooded hills, all enlivened

Chepstow Castle and Town.

From the Windcliff.

with towns, villages, churches, castles, and cottages; with many a classic spot on which the stamp of history is indelibly impressed—names embodied in our poetry, and embalmed by religious associations. From the edge of the precipice, nearly a thousand feet in height, the prospect extends into eight counties—Brecon, Glamorgan, Monmouth, Hereford, Gloucester, Wilts, Somerset, and Devon.

For the enjoyment of this inspiring scene, every facility has been supplied; and even the invalid tourist, with time and caution, may reach the summit without fatigue. “The hand of art,” says the local guide, “has smoothed the path up the declivity, tastefully throwing the course into multiplied windings, which fully accord with its name, and the nature of the scenery which it commands. At every turn some pendant rock girt with ivy, some shady yew, or some novel glimpse on the vale below, caught through the thick beechy mantle of this romantic precipice, invite the beholder to the luxury of rest.” Still ascending, the tourist penetrates a dark-winding chasm, through which the path conducts him in shadowy silence to the last stage of the ascent, which gradually discloses one of the most enchanting prospects upon which the human eye can repose. From the platform to the extreme verge of the horizon, where the Downs of Wiltshire and the Mendip hills form the boundary line, the eye ranges over a vast region of cultivated fields, waving forests, and populous towns, sufficient of themselves to furnish the resources of a principality.

The pens of Reed, Warren, and Gilpin, have been successively employed in sketching the features of this magnificent panorama; but nothing can be more correct and graphic than the following description by Fosbroke:—“What a cathedral is among churches, the Wynd Cliff is among prospects. Like Snowdon, it ought to be visited at sunrise, or seen through a sunrise-glass called a Claude, which affords a sunrise view at mid-day, without the obscuration of the morning mist. This cliff is the last grand scene of the Piercefield drama. It is not only magnificent, but so novel, that it excites an involuntary start of astonishment; and so sublime, that it elevates the mind into instantaneous rapture. The parts consist of a most uncommon combination of wood, rock, water, sky, and plain—of height and abyss—of rough and smooth—of recess and projection—of fine landscapes near, and excellent prospective afar,—all melting into each other, and grouping into such capricious lines, that, although it may find a counterpart in tropic climes, it is, in regard to England, probably unique. The spectator stands upon the edge of a precipice, the depth of which is awful to contemplate, with the river winding at his feet. The right screen is Piercefield ridge, richly wooded; the left is a belt of rocks, over which, northward, appears the Severn, with the fine shores between Thornbury and Bristol, rising behind each other in admirable swells, which unite in most graceful curves. The first foreground appears to the eye like a view from the clouds to the earth, and the rich contrast of green meadows to wild forest scenery,—the farm of Llancaut, clasped in the arms of the winding river, backed by hanging wood and rock. The further horn of the crescent tapers off into a craggy informal mole, over which the eye passes to a second bay; this terminates in Chepstow Castle, the town and rocks beyond all mellowed down by distance, into that fine hazy indistinctness which makes even deformities combine into harmony with the picture.”[32]

An observatory, the guide informed us, was intended some years since to have crowned this noble eminence, and a subscription was got up for the purpose; but some difference having arisen between the projectors of the scheme and the proprietor of the land, it was dropped. It was suggested by a local writer, that a few Doric columns with architraves, however rude, would have had an imposing effect on the summit of the Wynd Cliff, and reminded the classic traveller of the ruined temple of Minerva on the Sunium promontory. “It might,” he says, “be partially immersed in wood; while, in the native rock, niches might be hollowed out; and on a tablet, at the finest point of view, the following words should be inscribed:—Valentine Morris[33] introduced these sublime scenes to public view. To him be honour: to God praise.”[34] This is concise and classical; but it is reserved probably for another generation to witness the completion of the design.

The whole scene, from this point to the Abbey of Tinterne, presents an uninterrupted combination of picturesque and romantic features. Above are hanging cliffs, richly clothed in variegated woods, perfumed with flowers, irrigated by murmuring rivulets, fountains, and cascades, and rendered vocal by the songs of birds. These woody solitudes are the annual resort of nightingales, whose note is familiar to every late and early tourist, who with slow and lingering step measures his leafy way between Chepstow and Tinterne—unable to decide at what point of the road there is the richest concentration of scenery. It is, indeed, a sylvan avenue of vast and variegated beauty, reminding us of the softer features of Helvetian landscape.

Far below, and seen only at intervals through its thick curtain of foliage, the classic Vaga continues its winding course. Here basking in sunshine, there sweeping along under shadowy cliffs—now expanding its waters over a broad channel, or rushing through deep ravines, it is often enlivened by boats laden with produce, or visitors in pleasure-barges, who make the “descent of the Wye,” as, in former days, pilgrims made that of the Rhine and Danube; for the boats that perform the trip from Ross to Chepstow, make, in general, but one voyage, and are otherwise employed or broken up at its conclusion—

Facilis descensus Averni—
Sed revocare gradum.

It is but recently, says a periodical authority, that the Wye has become at all frequented on account of its scenery. About the middle of last century, the Rev. Dr. Egerton, afterwards Bishop of Durham, was collated by his father to the rectory of Ross, in which pleasant town, situated on the left bank of the river, and just at the point where its beautiful scenery begins, the worthy doctor resided nearly thirty years. He was a man of taste, and had a lively enjoyment of the pleasures of society amidst the beautiful scenery of his neighbourhood. His chief delight was to invite his friends and connections, who were persons of high rank, to pay him summer visits at Ross, and then to take them down the Wye—

“Pleased Vaga echoing through its winding bounds,”—

which, as well as the town of Ross, had derived a new interest from the lines of Pope. For this purpose, we are told, Dr. Egerton built a pleasure-boat; and, year after year, excursions were made, until it became fashionable in a certain high class of society to visit the Wye. But when the rector of Ross was consecrated to the see of Durham, his pleasure-boat, like that of the Doges of Venice and Genoa, was suffered to rot at anchor; and with no successor of similar means and taste to follow his example, excursions on the Wye became unfrequent, because no longer fashionable. Yet the beauties of the scenery once explored, became gradually more attractive; and some pilgrim of Nature, deviating now and then from the beaten track, spoke and sang of its beauties, until, having again caught the public ear, it was admitted that we had a “Rhine” within our own borders—with no vineyards and fewer castles, but with a luxuriance of scenery peculiarly its own, and with remains of feudal and monastic grandeur which no description could exaggerate. Mr. Whately, a writer on landscape gardening, and an exquisite critic, first directed attention to the new weir at Tinterne Abbey, and one or two other scenes on its banks; and, in 1770, the Wye was visited by William Gilpin, who did good service to taste and the lovers of nature by publishing his tour. The same year, a greater name connected itself with the Wye—for it was visited by the immortal author of the “Elegy in a Country Churchyard.” “My last summer’s tour,” says Gray, in one of his admirable letters to Dr. Wharton, “was through Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire—five of the most beautiful counties in the kingdom. The very principal sight and capital feature of my journey was the river Wye, which I descended in a boat for nearly forty miles, from Ross to Chepstow. Its banks are a succession of nameless beauties.”[35] The testimony thus bequeathed to it by the illustrious Gray, has been confirmed and repeated by Wordsworth, while other kindred spirits, following each other in the same track, have sacrificed to Nature at the same altar, and recorded their admiration in immortal song:—

... “Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
“How oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!”
Wordsworth, July 13, 1798.

Authorities quoted or referred to in the preceding article:—Dugdale’s Monasticon.—Baronage.—Camden’s Britannia.—Leland’s Itinerary.—County History.—Local Guides: Heath.—Wood.—De la Beche.—Williams.—Thomas.—Roscoe.—Burke’s Peerage and Commoners.—Chronicles.—Giraldus Cambrensis.—William of Worcester.—History of the Commonwealth.—Life of Cromwell.—Notes by Correspondents.—MS. Tour on the Wye, 1848; with other sources, which will be found enumerated in the article upon Tinterne Abbey.

TINTERNE ABBEY.

“There are some, I hear, who take it ill that I mention monasteries and their founders; I am sorry to hear it. But, not to give them any just offence, let them be angry if they will. Perhaps they would have it forgotten that our ancestors were, and we are, Christians; since there never were more certain indications and glorious monuments, of Christian piety than these.”—Camden’s Britannia, Pref. Ages of Faith, Book xi.

The name of Tinterne, as etymologists inform us, is derived from the Celtic words din, a fortress, and teyrn, a sovereign or chief; for it appears from history, as well as tradition, that a hermitage, belonging to Theodoric or Teudric, King of Glamorgan, originally occupied the site of the present abbey; and that the royal hermit, having resigned the throne to his son Maurice, “led an eremitical life among the rocks of Dindyrn or Tynterne.” It is also mentioned, as a remarkable coincidence in history, that two kings, who sought Tinterne as a temporary place of refuge, only left it to meet violent deaths. The first was Theodoric, who was slain in battle by the Saxons, under Ceolwilph, King of Wessex, in the year 600, having been dragged from his seclusion by his own subjects, in order that he might act once more as their leader. The next was “the unfortunate King Edward,[36] who fled from the pursuit of his queen,” Isabella. The Welsh monarch is said to have routed the Saxons at Mathern, near Chepstow, where his body was buried. Bishop Godwin says, that he there saw his remains in a stone coffin; and on the skull, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years, the wound of which he died was conspicuous—thus verifying the tradition as to the place and manner of his death.

Nothing could be more happily chosen for the seat of a religious community, than the beautiful valley of which these ruins are the unrivalled ornament. It would be difficult to picture, even with the aid of a fertile imagination, scenes more fitted to cherish devout feelings; to instruct us, from the tranquil bosom of Nature, to look up to Nature’s God; and in the exclusion of the busy world, to feel aspirations of gratitude continually ascending towards Him who enriched the valley with his bounty, and in homage to whom that temple and its altars were first erected. The latter, as the work of man, and a prey to neglect and violence, have disappeared or crumbled into ruins; but the former, as the work of God, has lost nothing of its original beauty. The woods that curtain the scene; the river that sweeps along under pendent cliffs of oak; the meadows and orchards that cover and adorn its banks,—all continue as luxuriant, as copious and abundant, as verdant and blooming, as on that day when the first pilgrim-father planted his cross in the soil, and consecrated the spot to the service of God.

It has been often observed—and the observation is confirmed by fact—that those venerable ascetics, who acted as pioneers in the army of Christian pilgrims, were no mean judges of soil and climate, and generally chose some fertile spot upon which nature had bestowed her special favour. But many instances may be pointed out where they chose even the inhospitable desert for their habitation; and, by unremitting labour, transformed that desert into a garden. To the personal example of those ancient Cistercians, the country is indebted for many improvements in all branches of cultivation and embellishment. From the model-garden and orchard of the monastery, hints were communicated and lessons taught, which found their way into every part of the country, and carried with them the principal arts of civilization and improvement. Thus, what first gave a prosperous agriculture to our own shores, is still in operation upon the barbarous islands of the Pacific, where Christian missions, religious fraternities, are busily propagating, by their own example, those domestic and mechanical arts which are the safest and best introduction to religious knowledge. Of this happy influence on the minds and habits of the peasantry, none of the monastic orders was more fully sensible than the Cistercians, whose laborious but abstemious lives, sumptuous temples, and gorgeous ritual, threw an air of luxury upon every spot where the Order had once set its name.[37]

From the shadowy woods which shelter and encompass it, Tinterne may be justly denominated the Vallis umbrosa of Monmouth; but the fertility of the soil, and solemn retirement of the scene, so desirable for a great sanctuary in the “Ages of Faith,” had an immense advantage in the noble and navigable river which formed the channel of communication between the interior and the sea; and, like an artery supplying nutriment to the system, brought its supplies of provision or treasure to the very gate of the abbey. And many a goodly cargo of corn from Hereford, and wine from Normandy, has been disembarked at that old pier, where the abbot’s galley has degenerated into a clumsy ferryboat, with old Richard Tamplin, the ferryman, for its commander.

From ancient historical sources, which treat of the origin, progress, and dissolution of this abbey, we select the following materials:—The founder was Walter de Clare, a name famous in the annals of chivalry and church-building. The first stone was laid in the thirty-first year of the twelfth century; but more than a century and a half elapsed before its completion. In those days churches were the work of generations; and it was rarely, indeed, that the founder lived to witness the fulfilment of his vow. “These all died in faith.” In 1287, we are told the White Friars took possession of the edifice consecrated to the Blessed Virgin,[38] and commenced those hallowed services which the Eighth Henry, by his sic volo, was destined to silence. These services, however, had lasted for centuries; and who shall say, during the lapse of barbarous times, how much crime was prevented, how much good effected, by those holy men. Shut out from the haunts and habits of secular life, they exercised their spiritual functions, we may charitably believe, in a manner that drew many penitents to their altar; and, in the midst of wars and tumults, displayed the sacred banner of peace, and published the doctrine of salvation. Their record is on high. And, in justice to the Cistercians, it must be confessed, that if less learned, they were more exemplary, and not more worldly, than some other fraternities of higher pretensions. They exercised and patronised agriculture; and planting themselves, as the rule directed, in the depths of forests, or on desert heaths, they drew from the earth such sustenance as it would yield to the hand of labour; and trusted to those who sought their spiritual aid and counsel, for the means of building and embellishing their altars.

The order of Cistercians, as the reader is aware, made its appearance in England about the year 1128. In imitation of Christ and his twelve Apostles, the brotherhood was limited to twelve, with an abbot at their head, according to the rule of the Founder:—“Et sicut ille monasteria constructa, per duodecim monachos adjuncto patre disponebat, sic se acturos confirmabant.”—Mon. Ang. iv. 699. Their first establishment in England was at Waverley, in Surrey; and in the course of time, their numbers had so multiplied, that, shortly before the dissolution of religious houses, they had seventy-five monasteries, and twenty-six nunneries in this country. Their patriarch was St. Robert, Abbot of Molesme, a Benedictine monastery in the bishopric of Langres. This holy man becoming alarmed at the gradual decay of vital religion among the brotherhood, and their wilful neglect of the rules instituted by their founder, adopted measures for the immediate reformation of the order. Having obtained the Pope’s sanction in support of his design, he chose twenty-one of the brethren, and retiring from Molesme to the neighbourhood of Chalons-sur-Saone, took up his abode in the wilderness[39] of Citeaux; where, under the protection of Otho, Duke of Burgundy, and the Bishop of Chalons, he laid the foundation of a religious house, in which the rules of St. Benedict were to be strictly enforced, and the character of his followers restored. But the wisdom and piety of Robert having introduced several improvements into the rules of St. Benedict, the brotherhood began to present features so distinct from the parent establishment, that, on the return of St. Robert to Molesme, his successor, Albericus, obtained a charter from the Pope, constituting the monks of Citeaux into an independent order—that of Cistercians, or Whitefriars. Their rules were positive and stringent; they involved the surrender of all secular affairs into the hands of lay brothers, so that their lives and labours might be exclusively devoted to the exercise of charity and the service of the altar. In their choice of localities for the establishment of new houses, they were enjoined, as already observed, to avoid cities, and go forth into the wilderness. This was favourable to pilgrimages; and with the fruits of these, and benefactions from all classes, what they had found a desert on their arrival, was speedily converted by labour and industry into a garden; and what was at first only a cell or chapel, was gradually extended into a church and abbey. The revenue of the order was divided into four parts—to the bishop, a fourth; to the priests, a fourth; to the exercise of hospitality, a fourth; and another fourth for the support of widows and orphans, the relief of the sick, and the repairs of churches and cloisters. And inasmuch as they could not find, either in the life or rule of St. Benedict,[40] that their founder had possessed any churches, or altars, or ovens, or mills, or towns, or serfs; or that any woman was ever permitted to enter his monastery, or any dead to be buried there, except his sister; they therefore renounced all these things: “Ecce hujus seculi divitiis spretis cœperunt novi milites Christi cum paupere Christo pauperes inter se tractare, quo ingenio, quo artificio, quo se exercitio in hac vita se hospitesque divites et pauperes supervenientes quos ut Christum suscipere præcipit regula sustentarent.” For a time the Cistercians continued in exemplary observance of their rules: poverty and humility walked hand in hand; but, in proportion as their revenues increased, their discipline began to relax; a taste for luxury[41] succeeded; and whoever has visited their splendid abbeys abroad, will readily confess that, while professing abstinence and self-denial, they were lodged like princes, and like princes shared in the vanities and pleasures of the world. Their ruling passion was said to be avarice; but if they amassed riches, they spent them with a princely liberality; and their buildings, in this and other countries, present some of the finest specimens of taste ever raised by the hand of man.[42]

Cistercians were Benedictines, according to the letter of the rule, without mitigation.[43] Their peculiarities are thus described in Dugdale’s Warwickshire:[44]—“First, for their habits, they wear no leather or linen, nor indeed any fine woollen cloth; neither, except it be on a journey, do they put on any breeches, and then, after their return, deliver them fair washed. Having two coats with cowls, in winter time they are not to augment, but in summer, if they choose, they may lessen them; in which habit they are to sleep, and after matins not to return to their beds. For prayers, the hour of Prime, they so conclude, that before the Lauda it may be daybreak, strictly observing their rule, that not one iota or tittle of their service is omitted. Immediately after Lauda, they sing the Prime; and after Prime, they go out performing their appointed hours in work. What is to be done in the day, they act by daylight; for none of them, except he be sick, is to be absent from his diurnal hours or Complinæ. When the Compline is finished, the steward of the house and he that hath charge of the guests go forth, but with great care of silence serve them.

For diet, “the Abbot assumes no more liberty to himself than any of his convent, everywhere being present with them, and taking care of his flock, except at meat, in regard his talk is always with the strangers and poor people. Nevertheless, when he eats, he is abstemious of talk or any dainty fare; nor hath he or any of them ever above two dishes of meat; neither do they eat of fat or flesh, except in case of sickness; and, from the ides of September till Easter, they eat no more than once a day, except on Sunday, and not even on festivals.

“Out of the precincts of their cloyster they go not but to work; neither there nor anywhere do they discourse with any but the abbot or prior. They unweariedly continue their canonical hours, not piecing any service to another, except the vigils for the deceased. Their manual labour was as follows: In summer, after Chapter, which followed Prime, they worked till Tierce; and, after Nones, till Vespers. In winter, from after Mass till Nones, and even to Vespers, during Lent. In harvest, when they went to work in the farms, they said Tierce and the conventual Mass immediately after Prime, that nothing might hinder their work for the rest of the morning; and often they said divine service in their places where they were at work, and at the same hours as those at home celebrated in the church.[45]

“They observe the office of St. Ambrose, so far as they can have perfect knowledge thereof from Millain; and, taking care of strangers and sick people, do devise extraordinary afflictions for their own bodies, to the intent their souls may be advantaged.” Of the same Order—

Hospinian says—“They allowed to candidates a year’s probation, but no reception to fugitives after the third time. All fasts were observed according to the rule: to visitors prostration was enjoined, with washing of feet. At the Abbot’s table sat the guests and pilgrims: they laboured more than the rule required: delicate habits were exploded: obsolete and primitive fervour was diligently revived and practised. But of this powerful order, avarice was the besetting vice: they were great dealers in wool, generally very ignorant, and, in fact, farmers rather than monks.”[46] The best account of this brotherhood, as Fosbroke has told us, is to be found in the Usus Cisterciensium; but of their habits and ceremonies further notice will be found when we come to treat of the more opulent houses. Guyot le Provins, first a minstrel, then a monk, has thus satirized them in a poem, which he called a bible, or, more properly, libel. The Cistercian “abbots and cellarers have ready money, eat large fish, drink good wine, and send to the refectory, for those who do the work, the very worst. I have seen these monks,” he affirms, “put pig-sties in churchyards, and stables for asses in chapels. They seize the cottages of the poor, and reduce them to beggary.”—With this brief account of the Order, we return to the subjects selected for illustration.

In a historical sketch, by the late Archdeacon Coxe, the ruins of Tinterne Abbey are thus described, and his description is at once accurate and graphic:—

“We stopped to examine the rich architecture of the west front; but the door being suddenly opened, the inside perspective of the church called forth an instantaneous burst of admiration, and filled us with delight, such as I scarcely ever before experienced on a similar occasion. The eye passes rapidly along a range of elegant Gothic pillars, and, glancing under the sublime arches which once supported the tower, fixes itself on the splendid relics of the eastern window—the grand termination of the choir.

“From the length of the nave, the height of the walls, the aspiring form of the pointed arches, and the size of the east window, which closes the perspective, the first impressions are those of grandeur and sublimity. But as these emotions subside, and we descend from the contemplation of the whole to the examination of the parts, we are no less struck with the regularity of the plan, the lightness of the architecture, and the delicacy of the ornaments. We feel that elegance, no less than grandeur, is its characteristic, and that the whole is a combination of the beautiful and the sublime. The church, constructed in the shape of a cathedral, is an excellent specimen of Gothic architecture in its purity. The roof has long since fallen in, and the whole ruin is thus thrown open to the sky; but the shell is entire: all the pillars are standing, except those which divided the nave from the northern aisle, and their situation is marked by the remains of their bases. The four lofty arches which supported the tower, spring high in the air, reduced to narrow rims of stone, yet still preserving their original form. The arches and pillars of the transepts are complete: the shapes of all the windows may yet be discriminated; the frame of the west window is in perfect preservation, the design of the tracery is extremely elegant, and, when decorated with painted glass, must have produced a gorgeous effect. The general form of the east window is also entire, but its frame is much dilapidated. It occupies the whole breadth of the choir, and is divided into two large and equal compartments by a slender shaft, not less than fifty feet in height, with an appearance of singular lightness, which, in particular points of view, seems as if suspended in the air. To these decorations of art, nature has added her own ornaments. Some of the windows are wholly obscured, others partially shaded, with tufts of ivy, or edged with lighter foliage:

W.H. Bartlett A. Willmore

THE WESTERN WINDOW.

Tintern.

the tendrils creep along the walls, wind round the pillars, wreath the capitals, or, hanging down in clusters, obscure the space beneath. But instead of dilapidated fragments, overspread with weeds and choked with brambles, the floor is covered with a smooth verdant turf, which, by keeping the original level of the church, exhibits the beauty of its proportions, heightens the effect of the gray stone, gives relief to the clustered pillars, and affords an easy access to every part. Ornamented fragments of the roof, remains of cornices and columns, rich pieces of sculpture, carved stones and mutilated figures of monks and warriors, whose ashes repose within these walls, are scattered on the green sward, and contrast present desolation with former splendour.”

Although the exterior appearance of these ruins is not equal to the inside view, yet in some positions—particularly to the east—they present themselves with considerable effect. From a point on its left bank, and about half a mile down the river, the ruins assume a new character; and seeming to occupy a gentle eminence, impend over the river without the intervention of a single cottage to intercept the view. “The grand east window, wholly covered with shrubs, and half-mantled with ivy, rises like the portal of a majestic edifice embowered in wood. Through this opening, and along the vista of the church, the clusters of ivy, which twine round the pillars or hang suspended from the arches, resemble tufts of trees; while the thick mantle of foliage, seen through the tracery of the west window,[47] forms a continuation of the perspective, and appears like an interminable forest.”

The Abbey is a cruciform structure, built, it is said, after the model of Salisbury Cathedral,[48] consisting of a nave, north and south aisles, transepts, and choir. Its length from east to west is two hundred and twenty-eight feet, and from north to south, at the transepts, one hundred and fifty feet. The nave and choir are thirty-seven feet in breadth; the height of the central arch is seventy feet, of the smaller arches thirty feet; of the east window sixty-four feet, and of the west window forty-two feet. The total area originally enclosed by the walls of the abbey is said to have been thirty-four acres.

The exterior of the western front is singularly striking; but, on entering, as already observed, the scene that represents itself is indescribably grand and impressive. “When we stood at one end of this awful ruin,” says Gilpin, “the elements of earth and air its only covering and pavement, and the grand and

VIEW FROM ENTRANCE.

VIEW FROM ENTRANCE.

venerable remains which terminated both, perfect enough to form the perspective, yet broken enough to destroy the regularity, the eye was above measure delighted with the beauty, the grandeur, the novelty of the scene.”

The inner walls of the church are nearly entire; most of the elegant and massive columns, as already noticed, which separated the nave from the south aisle are yet standing; and the four lofty and magnificent arches which formerly supported the central tower are nearly perfect. The columns that divided the nave from the north aisle have fallen; but their bases still occupy the ground, showing their number, shape, and dimensions.

Windows.—The magnificent windows are little altered by time: and though somewhat obscured by a luxuriant and graceful drapery of ivy, the tendrils of which twine in their tracery, creep along the walls, encircle the columns, and form natural wreaths around the capitals, the forms of the principal objects are still so far preserved as to be easily discriminated. The tracery of the western window, as already observed, is exquisite; while the eastern window,[49] high and graceful, and occupying nearly the whole breadth of the choir, with its slender umbilical shaft rising to a height of fifty feet, and diverging at the top into rich flowery traces, has quite a magical effect. The other windows, though less ornamented, are all in character, and have the same elegant design and finish.[50]

The floor, originally covered with encaustic tiles, is now enveloped in a thick smooth matting of grass, trimmed like a bowling-green, and here and there spotted with little heaps of mutilated sculpture, and striped with flat tombstones—all thrown open to the winds of heaven.

The effigy of a knight in chain armour, a pavache shield, and crossed legs, is supposed to be that of Strongbow, first Earl of Pembroke, already noticed, but more probably that of Roger Bigod, as Strongbow is historically known to have been buried in Dublin. This interesting relic, that had escaped the ravages of time and the hostile spirit of resolution, was at last, as Mr. Thomas informs us, wilfully mutilated by a native of the village.[51]

The next relic is a group of the Madonna and Child, much disfigured, but with sufficient evidence of its having been the work of a skilful artist. Mr. Bartlett considered it to be of very graceful design and execution.

Near the eastern window is the sculptured head of a friar, with the tonsure, but otherwise quite disfigured.

In the centre, between the transepts, is another broad stone slab, supposed to cover the ashes of the founder; but the fall of the tower, and the continual dropping of loosened fragments—until the ruin became an object of interest and consideration—have not left one of the sepulchral tablets or inscriptions entire. Many fragments may be discovered among the rubbish, but to reunite the scattered members were a very hopeless task. In the southern aisle is the only sepulchral antiquity that bears a legible inscription. It is elaborately carved in black or slate marble, with a cross finely sculptured on its surface longitudinally, and near its base three trouts,[52] so entertwined as to form the symbolic triangle, with the figure of a salmon on the right and left. The inscription, in black letter, along the top of the cross, is simple—

“Hic jacet humatus Johann: Willino.”

The sepulchral brasses have all disappeared. For a century and more after the Dissolution, the Abbey appears to have been abandoned to every species of wilful depredators, who defaced the altars, ransacked the graves, and carried off without molestation whatever was curious or portable.

In the same aisle, close to the wall, and now preserved with great care, is the lately-discovered pavement of encaustic tiles, with escutcheons of the ancient Clare and Bigod families intertwined. The figures on these coloured tiles represent flowers, animals, and knights in full career at a tournament. This pavement was probably that of a private altar, belonging to the founder, or benefactor of the Abbey. In the process of clearing away the vast accumulation of rubbish, many of the ancient memorials were removed in fragments; and of the few that remain, not one, probably, now covers the dust over which it was originally placed.

Leaving the grassy lawn-like floor of the Abbey, the ascent to the top is still practicable by means of a spiral staircase in an angle of the northern transept. Those who conclude their survey of the ruins by this experiment, will be amply rewarded for any fatigue it may occasion. At the time of our visit, however, in the month of August last year, some unexpected obstacle prevented the custodier from gratifying our curiosity by a view from the summit: for the steps were either so unsafe or deficient, as to make the experiment rather hazardous.

Mr. Thomas, from whose notes we have already quoted, and whose late professional residence near the Abbey rendered him familiar with all its minutest features, tells us that the prospect it commands is highly picturesque; and in turning from the outward landscape, to look down into the cloistered depths below, the view of clustering pillars, lofty arches, mullioned windows, and flowing tracery, is indescribably grand and impressive.

The broken summit of the walls, throughout its whole outline, is adorned with a profusion of shrubs and flowers, that, with interlacing leaves and tendrils, cover the mouldering coping like a fragrant mantle. Where the labour of man appears to decay, nature has put forth her vigour and beauty, and transformed those roofless walls into a wild botanic garden. Here, and amidst the débris immediately adjoining, Mr. Thomas[53] found a luxuriant crop of shrubs and flowers, all of different families, some of them rare, and in number between forty and fifty.

Reed, in his ‘Remains,’ gives the following eloquent and highly poetical description of the Abbey by moonlight:—“The great tree or vegetable rock, or emperor of the oaks, if you please, before which I bowed with a sort of reverence in the fields of Tinterne, and which for so many ages has borne all the blasts and bolts of heaven, I should deem it a gratification of a superior kind to approach again with an ‘unsandalled foot,’ to pay the same homage, and to kindle with the same devotion. But I should find amidst the magnificent ruins of the adjoining Abbey, something of a sublime cast, to interest and give pregnancy to my feelings. I must be alone. My mind must be calm and pensive. It must be midnight. The moon, half-veiled in clouds, must be just emerging from behind the neighbouring hills. All must be silent, except the wind gently rustling among the ivy of the ruins; the river lulling, by its faint murmurings, its guardian genius to repose; and the owl, whose funereal shriek would some time die along the walls in mysterious echoes. I should then invoke the ghosts of the Abbey; and Fancy, with one stroke of her magic wand, would rouse them from their dusty beds, and lead them into the centre of the ruin. I should approach their shadowy existences with reverence; making inquiries respecting the customs, and manners, and genius, and fate of antiquity—desire to have a glimpse of the destiny of future ages, and enter upon conversations which would be too sacred and even dangerous to communicate.” The lines by Sir Walter Scott, on “Melrose Abbey by Moonlight,” are equally descriptive of Tinterne.[54]

It has been well observed, that, as the Abbey of Tinterne is the most beautiful and picturesque of all our Gothic monuments, so is the situation one of the most sequestered and delightful. One more abounding in that peculiar kind of scenery which excites the mingled sensations of content, religion, and enthusiasm, it is impossible to behold. There, every arch infuses, as it were, a solemn energy into inanimate nature; a sublime antiquity breathes mildly in the heart; and the soul, pure and passionless, appears susceptible of that state of tranquillity which is the perfection of every earthly wish.[55] By the late Sir C. Colt Hoare, a man of taste and many travelled acquirements, this “seat of devotion, solitude, and desolation,” is pronounced as surpassing every other ruin he had seen in England or in Wales. Captain Barber, whose “Tour” is now very scarce, was so charmed with the scene, that he locked himself up in the Abbey, and employed several hours in delineating its picturesque features.

From the general aspect of this venerable pile—a coup d’œil that never fails to captivate the stranger—we proceed to a few detached features of the picture, all more or less interesting as relics of men, and times, that have long passed away.

Walter de Clare, the founder, was grandson of Osbert, Lord of Tudenham and Wollaston, by gift of William the Conqueror.[56] He departed this life on the 10th of March, 1139, and dying without issue, was succeeded by his brother, Gilbert[57] de Clare, who survived him nine years, and dying on the 6th of January, 1148, was buried in the church of Tinterne. This Gilbert de Clare left two sons by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Walleran, Earl of Melent—Richard, surnamed Strongbow, and Baldwin,[58] who, “fighting stoutly on the part of King Stephen, at the battle of Lincoln, was there taken prisoner.” Richard was one of the witnesses to that “solemn accorde,” made in 1153, between King Stephen, and Henry, Duke of Normandy, whereby the latter was to succeed to the crown of England after the king’s demise. In the year 1170 [16 Henry II.], the said Richard, Earl of Striguil or Pembroke, being stript of his paternal inheritance by King Henry II., invaded Ireland, and captured the cities of Dublin and Waterford. Soon after this event, when “the king, who was then at Argentine, was consulting with his nobles about an expedition into that realm; certain messengers from this earl being present, offered, on the part of Richard, the above-named cities, with all the castles which he had there captured, at the death of Dermot, king of Dublin, whose daughter and heiress he had married.” With this conciliatory offer, King Henry was so well pleased, that he restored to him all his lands, both in England and Normandy, and freely granted that he should enjoy all those in Ireland which he had received in dowery with his wife, constituting him at the same time constable or governor of that realm, and “thereupon passing thither, subdued it wholly without any considerable resistance.”

By the daughter of the said King of Dublin or Leinster, this last earl of his family, Richard Strongbow[59] left an only child, Isabel, who remained in ward fourteen years to the king, and was then given in marriage to William Marshall, who thereupon became Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Striguil, or Chepstow, and took possession of Leinster, with all the inheritance of the said Strongbow; and being thus advanced to that honour, he bore the royal sceptre of gold, with the cross on the head of it, at the solemn coronation of King Richard I.[60] The history of this family is given at full length in the Monasticon and Baronage of England, but it is much too diffuse for our purpose. William Marshall, who, by his marriage with Isabel, only child of Richard de Clare, came into possession of his estates and titles, was a great benefactor to the church; he built and endowed many religious houses both in England and Ireland; and having, by his last will and testament, constituted the abbot of St. Augustine’s at Bristol, and Henry Fitzgerald, his executors, he departed this life at Caversham, in the third of Henry II. Being thence carried to Reading, his body was received in solemn procession by the monks of the abbey, and placed in their choir, whilst mass was celebrated for him. It was then taken to Westminster, where the solemnity was again performed, and on Ascension-day it was consigned to the earth[61] with the following epitaph:—

Sum qui Saturnum sibi sensit Hibernia: Solem
Anglia; Mercurium Normannia; Gallia Martem.

These complimentary lines, meant to record his virtues, are characteristic of the times when heathen mythology was so frequently called in to assist in the eulogy of some great champion or benefactor of the Christian church. He certainly appears to have merited all that could be said of him as a great mover and promoter of monastic fraternities—especially the Cistercians; and in the same strain, Matthew of Paris has recorded that this mighty earl was a severe tamer of the Irish, a great favourer of the English, achieved much in Normandy, and was an invincible soldier in France—“Miles strenuissimus, ac per orbem nominatissimus.”[62] But of the five sons whom he left behind, with the fair and flattering prospect that his name and titles would descend through many generations, all died prematurely and without issue. This deplorable fact was much commented upon at the time:—“Some did attribute it to God’s especial judgment, by reason that, when the said William, first earl, was a great commander in Ireland, and, according to the practice of soldiers, exercised such cruelties of fire and sword as usually accompany that sort of life, he took away by violence two fair manors from a reverend bishop there, and possessed himself of them as the acquisition of war; and that the bishop, after frequent and earnest entreaties for their restitution, without any effect, did thereupon pronounce the sentence of excommunication against him for the fact, which he the earl contemned.” The bishop,[63] having proceeded to London, made his grievous wrong known to the king, showing wherefore he had excommunicated the said earl. “Whereupon the king, then very pensive, desired the bishop that he should go to his grave and absolve him, and then he would satisfy his desire. Whereupon the bishop went, and the king with him, and spoke as followeth: ‘O William! who liest here buried, and shackled with the fetters of excommunication, if these lands which thou most injuriously didst take from my church, be restored with full satisfaction, either by the king or any of thy kindred or friends, I then absolve thee: otherwise, I ratify that sentence to this end, that, being wrapt up with thy sins, thou mayest remain condemned in hell.’”

The king, who was “much displeased at these his expressions, blamed him for his ghostly rigour;” but anxious to remove the curse from the illustrious defunct, he sent private messages to the heir and his brothers, advising them in a friendly manner to come to terms with the bishop, and thus “in mercy release their father’s soul.” But the brothers were obstinate; they would not restore even an acre of bog, nor a stock of timber; observing that, “as the old doting bishop hath pronounced the sentence unjustly, the curse will fall upon himself. For my part,” quoth the heir, “I will never lessen my patrimony descended to me by inheritance.” The king being still under tutelage, and fearing the resentment of so powerful a family, “forbore to displease them.” But the bishop, hearing thereof, was much grieved, taking more offence at their contumacy, than of the injury first done by their father; and going to the king, he said, “Sir, what I have spoken, I have spoken; and what I have written is not to be reversed: the sentence therefore must stand; the punishment of evil-doers is from God; and, therefore, the curse which the Psalmist hath written, shall come upon this earl, of whom I do thus complain. His name shall be rooted out in one generation, and his sons shall be deprived of the blessing—increase and multiply. Some of them shall die a miserable death, and their inheritance shall be scattered. And this, O king, thou shalt behold in thine own lifetime, yea, in thy flourishing youth.”

Having spoken “thus much in the bitterness of his spirit, the bishop departed thence, leaving the defunct earl enthralled with that curse. Whereupon it happened that, in a few years after, all his sons died without issue.”[64]

William, his successor, who, “in his father’s lifetime, had taken part with the barons, then in arms against the king, was one of those betwixt whom and the King those covenants were made, whereby the government of the realm was placed in xxv. of them, and the city of London thereupon put into their hands. Yea, so great a confidant was he of that rebellious pack, that they constituted him to be one of those xxv., for which respect amongst them he underwent the sentence of excommunication by the Pope. But upon the death of King John, which happened soon after, his noble father reduced him to obedience; so that he became loyal to King Henry the Third, and thereupon had a grant of the lands of Saier de Quinci, Earl of Winchester, and David, Earl of Huntingdon, two of those great rebels, for his support in the king’s service.”

A few years after this, “whilst he, the said William Marshall, was in Ireland, Leoline, Prince of Wales, took two of his castles; and having cut off the heads of those whom he found therein, manned them with his own soldiers. But when tidings thereof came to him, he soon returned into Wales; and having, with a great power, won them again, took the like revenge upon the Welsh: and thinking this not enough, he invaded the lands of Leoline, and wasted them with fire and sword. Whereupon Leoline advanced towards him with all his strength, but to little purpose; for, encountering him in battle, the Marshall totally routed his whole army, of which to the number of nine thousand were slain and taken.” This earl married Eleanor, daughter of King John; and dying at Kilkenny, in 1231, was there buried in the choir of the Mendicant Friars.[65]

Richard, his brother and successor, being irritated by the violent conduct of the king and his ministry, formed an alliance with Llewellyn ap Jowarth, Prince of Wales, and in 1233 defeated the king’s army at Grosmont; but with dutiful respect for his sovereign, he fell back with the Cambrian army before sunrise, to allow his Majesty’s retreat from the Castle of Gloucester. Henry, not appreciating the generous conduct of his reluctant foe, resisted this attack; and on the return of the Lord Marshall to his estates in Ireland, he was treacherously wounded to death at Kildare,[66] and there buried by the side of his brother William, whom he had survived only three years.

Gilbert, the third son, married a daughter of Alexander, King of Scotland, and died in 1242.

Walter Marshall, the fourth son, died at Goodrich Castle, in December, 1245. And—

Anselm, the fifth and last son of this doomed family, died like his brothers, childless, in the same month of the same year, in the Castle of Striguil or Chepstow, and was interred with his brother in Tinterne Abbey.

Of their five sisters, Eve, the youngest, married “William de Braliuse or Braose,[67] of whose family more hereafter.

The male line in him having thus failed, Maude, their surviving sister, and heiress to the family possessions, was espoused to Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. From this alliance sprang two sons, Hugh and Roger, or Rudulfus. The younger of whom, Roger, in right of his mother, was installed lord-marshal of the kingdom, and granted a charter[68] to Tinterne Abbey, confirming those granted by the Clares and Marshalls, and adding large possessions to the brotherhood. Maude, on the death of her husband, Hugh Bigod, married John de Warren, Earl of Surrey; and departing this life, anno 1248, was buried in the Abbey of Tinterne; when her four sons—two by each marriage—carried her body into the choir. To prosecute the descent farther, would far exceed our limits; but readers who may feel curious to trace the genealogy of the founders, will find ample details in the Baronage, the Monasticon, and old chronicles.

Of Earl Roger it is told, that, being “openly reproached by the king as a traitor, he replied with a stern countenance that he lied; and that he, Bigod, never was, nor would be a traitor;” adding, “if you do nothing but what the law warranteth, you can do me no harm.” “Yes,” quoth the king, “I can thrash your corn and sell it, and so humble you.” “If you do so,” replied Bigod, “I will send you back the heads of your thrashers.”

The Hospitium, or guest-chamber, was generally a large room with columns, like the body of a church, and called palatium—the original meaning of which was a place of short residence. If a visitor came before dinner to the refectory, notice was given to the refectioner; if he was too late to dine with the convent, he staid in the locutorium, or parlour, until the refectory was swept, and then was introduced. The hosteler provided all things fit for Mass for the visitors; and if he was prevented, any one asked by him sang the mass and hours to them, for they had divine service as well as the convent. The visitors had meat and drink at solicitation, and the hosteler was to fetch the viands according to the rank of the person; all which, however, was accompanied with the appendage of a “soiled table cloth, very indifferent wine, grease in the salt, and a clownish servant.” The hospitaler[69] could not introduce them to the collation before the end of the first verse. When this was over, he lighted his lantern with which the visitors waited before the Chapter door. He then introduced them into the parlour, after which they had refection, and Complin was sung to them. When the visitors wished to depart before daybreak, or at that time, the hosteler took the keys of the parlour from the Prior’s bed; but on Sundays, before procession, no one could receive the benediction, or ceremony of dismission.

Persons of rank were received with processions and high honours. One of the great bells was struck three times, to give the monks notice of assembling in the church to robe themselves. Visitors were allowed to make a stay of two days and two nights, and on the third day, after dinner, they were to depart. If by accident a guest could not then go, the hosteler signified his request to the Abbot, or Prior, for a longer stay. If in health, he was to be present at Matins, and follow the convent in everything, unless he had leave to the contrary. Women were to be received who came with an honourable suite.[70] Particular attention was paid to the parents of monks, for whom necessaries and food were to be provided whenever they came to see their children—especially on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, wheresoever they took refection, in the town or house; and they were to be honourably received on the Vigil.[71]

The Refectory, as described by monastic writers, was a large hall wainscoted on the north and south sides, and in the west and nether parts was a long bench of stone, in mason-work, from the cellar-door to the pantry, or cove-door. It had a dresser in it: above the wainscot was a large picture of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. John; but in most places—and here perhaps—was the Cross or Crucifixion, to which, on entering the Fratry with washed hands, the monks made obeisance with their faces to the east. Within the door on the left was an Almery—where stood the grace-cup (the classical αγαθου δαιμονος), out of which the monks, after grace every day, drank round the table—and another large one on the right, with smaller within, where stood the mazers, of which each monk had his peculiar one, with a ewer and basin, which served the Sub-prior to wash his hands in at the table, of which he sat as chief.[72] At the west end was a loft above the cellar, ascended by stairs with an iron railing, where the convent and monks dined together, the Sub-prior sitting at the upper end of the table. At the south end of the high table, within a glass window-frame, was an iron desk, ascended by stone steps, with an iron rail, where lay a Bible, out of which one of the novices read a part in Latin during dinner. The readers at the table were to give ear to the Prior in case of error; and if they did not understand his correction, they were to begin the verse again, even repeatedly, until they comprehended the Prior’s meaning. When the reader had finished, the master of the novices rang a silver bell hanging over his head, to call one of them to come to the high table to say grace; a single stroke of this bell (skilla), signified the conclusion of the lecture or the meal.[73]

The Dole.—An opening in the wall of the refectory westward, shows the place where the monk appointed to that duty, administered to the poor their daily portion of bread and beer. To that door the hungry and the weary never applied in vain—

Pilgrim, whosoe’er thou art,
Worn with travel, faint with fear,
Halt, or blind, or sick of heart,
Bread and welcome wait thee here.

At the east end of the Refectory was “a neat table, with a screen of wainscot over it, for the master of the novices, the elects, and novices, to dine and sup at: two windows opened into the refectory from the great kitchen, one large for principal days, the other smaller for ordinary days; and through these the dishes were served. Over against the door in the cloister was a conduit or lavatory, for the monks to wash their hands and faces, of a round form, covered with lead, and all marble, excepting the outer wall, without which they might walk about the Tower. After the monks had waited a while on the Abbot, they sat down at two other tables, placed at the sides of the refectory, and had their service brought in by the novices, who, when the monks had dined, sat down to their own dinner. Fires in the refectory were ordered from All-hallows Day to Good-Friday, and the wood was found by the cellarer. Pinafores or super-tunics, to protect the clothes at dinner, are mentioned by Lynwood, and occur in foreign consuetudinals. Giraldus Cambrensis, on dining with the Prior of Canterbury, “noted sixteen dishes, besides intromels,” or entremets; “a superfluous use of signs, much sending of dishes from the Prior to the attending monks, and from them to the lower tables;” with “much ridiculous gesticulation in returning thanks, with much whispering, loose, idle, and licentious discourse;” herbs brought in but not tasted; numerous kinds of fish, roasted, boiled, stuffed, fried, eggs, dishes exquisitely cooked with spices; salted meats to provoke appetite; wines of various kinds; pimento made of wine, honey, and spices; with claret, mead, and other beverages. Respecting these, it was not unusual, says Barnard, to see brought a vessel half full to try the quality and flavour of the wine; and that, after proof thereof, the monks decided in favour of the strongest. Superior dinners were always given on the feasts of the Apostles; but it was not lawful, it seems, to eat the flesh of any animal nourished on the earth, because this had been cursed by God; but the curse not extending to air and water, birds were permitted, as created of the same element as fish. Hence the prohibition of quadrupeds; but as it was found

The Refectory.

Tintern Abbey.

impossible for inland monasteries to have fish enough, to eat flesh became unavoidable.[74] However, to the great rule all their articles of food bore relation; namely, bread, beer, soup, beans for soup, all Lent; oats for gruel, on Thursdays and Saturdays, in that season; flour for pottage, every day in the same season; fried dishes, wastels, or fine bread for dinner and supper, on certain feasts; formictæ, or fine flour cakes, in Advent, Christmas, against Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and certain feasts; ‘fat things,’ which appear to have been bacon,[75] were frequent with the Præmonstratenses; black beans and salt, with the Clugniacks; general bad fare with the Cistercians. In certain solemnities, we are told the convent was in the habit of retiring with the Abbot, leaving a few in the refectory, in order to eat meat elsewhere; and that they frequently dined in ‘extra-cloister’ apartments, where “they used to invite women (devout nuns, perhaps) to talk, eat, and drink with them.”[76]

Diet was strictly prescribed; variety of viands was forbidden; flesh was allowed only to the sick or invalids; fish, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese, were not to be used on common days, but only on special occasions, as dainties or “pittances.”[77] None but their guests and the sick were allowed any other than brown bread; they might use the common herbs of the country; but pepper and other spices were forbidden.

These observations, quoted from various authorities, apply to the monastic Orders generally, among whom the regulations of the refectory appear to have been nearly the same; but that order to which the Abbey of Tinterne belonged, professed the greatest abstinence, mortified diet, and abhorrence of all luxuries. To the devout taste of St. Bernard, the most rigid rules were the most agreeable; and hence he became a Cistercian, the strictest of the monastic orders in France. At that time they were but few in number, for, owing to their excessive austerities, men were discouraged from joining them. Bernard, however, by his superior genius, his eminent piety, and his ardent zeal, gave to this Order a permanent lustre and celebrity. At the age of twenty-three, with more than thirty companions, he entered into the monastery, and was afterwards appointed Abbot of Clairval. To those noviciates who desired admission, he used to say—“If ye hasten to those which are within, dismiss your bodies which ye brought from the world; let the spirit alone enter here; the flesh profiteth nothing.” “Yet, amidst all these disagreeable austerities,” says his biographer, “the soul of Bernard was inwardly taught of God; and as he grew in the divine life, he learned to correct the harshness and asperities of his sentiments.”

The Cistercian habit, as shown in the preceding woodcut, was a white robe in the nature of a cassock, with a black scapular and hood. Their garment was girt with a black girdle of wool; in the choir, they had over it a white cowl, and over that a hood, with a rochet hanging down, bound before to the waist, in a point behind to the calf of the leg. When they went abroad, they wore a cowl and a great hood, all black, which was also the choir habit.

The Lay Brothers of this Order were clad in a dark colour; their scapular hung down about a foot in length before, and was rounded at the bottom. Their hood was like that which the priests wore over their cowl, excepting the difference of the colour. In the choir they wore a cloak or mantle, reaching to the ground, and of the same colour as the habit.

The Novices, who were clerks, wore the same habit in the church, but it was all white; their scapular was not of the same length in all places, for sometimes it reached only half-way down the thigh, in others to the midleg, or even to the heels.[78]

The sumptuary regulations extended even to the ornaments of their churches, and the vestments of the ministers. The altar cloth, the alb, and the service, were to be of plain linen; the stole and maniple, which were at first of cloth, were allowed afterwards to be of silk. Palls, capes, dalmatics, and tunics, were forbidden. The crosses were to be of wood, painted; and it was forbidden to have them made of carved work, or of silver or gold. The cruets for the service of the altar, were not to be of gold or silver: the chalice and fistula might be of silver gilt; the candlesticks were to be iron, and the censers of iron or copper. Pictures or painted glass were not to be allowed in their churches; which in all monasteries of this order were dedicated to God, under the invocation of the Virgin Mary.

Cistercians, according to the reformed rule, were obliged to perform their devotions together seven times every twenty-four hours. The Nocturnal, the first of these services, was performed at two o’clock in the morning; two Matins, or Prime, commenced at six o’clock; Tierce, at nine o’clock; the Sexte, at twelve o’clock; the None, at three in the afternoon; Vespers, at six; and the Compline, at seven o’clock in the evening. As the monks retired to bed at eight, they had six hours to sleep before the Nocturnal began; and if they again betook themselves to rest, after that service, it was not considered any fault or infringement of the rule; but after matins, they were not permitted to have the same indulgence. At the first stroke of the convent-bell for prayers, they were to suspend all matters of business in which they might happen to be engaged at the moment; and those who copied books, or were employed in any kind of writing—even if they had begun a text letter—were not allowed to finish it. They were to fast every day in Lent, till six o’clock in the evening. During meals, as already mentioned in these pages, the Scriptures were read to them by one of the brethren, who performed this and other offices in weekly rotation. After the Compline, all conversation was prohibited, and they silently retired to rest. The dormitory was a long barrack-like room, not divided into separate cells, where each monk had his own bed furnished with a mat, blanket, coverlet, and a pillow which was not to exceed a foot and a half in length. When any of the fraternity went abroad, they always walked in couples, so that each might be a check upon the other, and incite him to edifying thoughts.[79]

At a General Chapter of the Cistercian Order, held in the year 1134, it was resolved that the rules of St. Benedict regarding diet, clothing, morals, and divine service, should continue to be strictly observed; and to these were added many new regulations for the suppression of luxury. It was directed that their monasteries, as already observed, should be founded in the most retired and solitary places; that the members of the Order should provide the necessaries of life by the labour of their hands. They were allowed, however, to possess lands, rivers, woods, vineyards, and meadows; with sheep, oxen, horses, and other domestic animals; but no deer nor bears, nor other animals kept merely[80] for pleasure. They were forbidden to possess tithes, the advowsons or revenues of churches, dues of ovens or mills, bond-servants, or even rents of lands.[81] The reason for these restrictions was, that they might not live by the labour of others; yet, upon the pretext of enabling the monks to live in greater retirement and abstraction from the world, they were allowed to admit into their community a certain number of lay brothers, called converts, whose office consisted in managing the secular business of the Convent, including the cultivation of their lands, in which they were permitted to employ hired servants. These lay brethren did not take the monastic vow; but in every other respect they were treated exactly like the professed monks.

With regard to the extension of their order, no convent was allowed to send forth a colony, unless the community consisted of at least sixty monks, and held a license, both from the general chapter, and from the archbishop, or bishop. Each monastery, as we have said, was to consist of at least twelve monks and their superiors;[82] and before they could be brought to their new residence, the buildings required for their immediate accommodation were to be provided; namely, an oratory, a dormitory, a stranger’s cell, and a porter’s lodge. The books required for divine service, were also to be got ready. The superior of the new establishment was bound to pay a visit to the parent monastery once a year; and the Abbots of all the monasteries of the Cistercian order, were obliged to attend the General Chapter held annually at Cisteaux,[83] those only excepted, who were excused by sickness or distance. Abbots in Scotland, Ireland, and Sicily, were obliged to be present only every fourth year. In some cases it was even allowed to send delegates.[84]

A similar ceremony was observed when he was again introduced into the Chapter-house next day, after having read the rules of the Order. On the third day, he was admitted into the cell of the novices, and began the year of his probation; during which he was prepared and instructed for taking the vows, by a person called the Master of the Novices, who was usually one of the oldest and most learned of the monks. At the conclusion of the twelvemonth’s probation, when it was supposed he had had a sufficient trial of their discipline and manner of life, he was again formally interrogated; and if he persisted in his request, he was allowed to make his profession, and become a regular member of the Order.[85] The following is a copy of the formulary used in English monasteries on such occasions:—

“The first petycion in the Collogium: ‘Syr, I besyche yow and alle the Convent for the luffe of God, our Ladye Sanct Marye, Sanct John of Baptiste, and alle the hoyle cowrte of hevyne, that ye wolde resave me to lyve and dye here emongs yow, in the state of a monke, a prebendarye and servant unto alle, to the honour of God, solace to the companye, prouffet to the place, and helth unto my sawle.’

“The answer unto the examinacyon: ‘Syr, I tryste through the helpe of God, and your good prayers, to keep alle these thyngs ye have now heyr rehersede.’

“The first petycion before the profession: ‘Syr, I have beyn heyr now this twellmonth nere hand, and lovyde be God, me lykes ryght well both the ordour and the companye. Whereupon I besyche yow, and all the companye, for the luffe of God, our Ladye Sanct Marye, Sanct John of Baptiste, and alle the hoyle companye of hevyn, that ye will resave me unto my profession, at my twellmonth day, according to my petycion which I made when I was first resaved heyr emongs yow.’”[86]

The Cistercians, much to their honour, took considerable pains to cultivate and promote learning. The transcribing of books was one of the principal occupations in all their monasteries. A certain number of the brotherhood were constantly employed in the Scriptorium, in making copies of the most esteemed works, to furnish and augment the common library. None, however, were permitted to write new books, without first obtaining a license to that effect from the General Chapter. In the principal monasteries a chronicle was kept, in which the monks recorded, in Latin, the most remarkable events, both of general and local interest, that occurred within their knowledge.[87] The chronicle of Tinterne Abbey, as partly transcribed in the Monasticon, contains copies of those deeds and charters, by which former rights and privileges were confirmed, and new benefactions added; but it includes no chronicle of passing events, public or private.

Many and great were the privileges, franchises, and immunities granted to this Order in general, by sundry kings and pontiffs; and on some particular houses were conferred very special favours. The brothers of the order were exempted from appearing in any court, or at the trial of any cause whatever, if the distance from the monastery exceeded two days’ journey. They were exempted from tithes; the ordinary could not call upon, nor punish them for any crime; neither could their houses be visited by any one, except their own abbot. Their benefactors, those who frequented their mills [molendini], as well as their friends and servants, were all exempted from the ban of excommunication.[88] Boniface XI. made an effort to relieve them still farther, by exempting them from the payment of tithes for their lands, though let out to others; but this was rejected by King Henry IV., who would not permit the bull for that purpose to be executed. The monks of Tinterne, in common with their brethren of that order, enjoyed all the privileges and immunities here named. They were great proficients in the science of agriculture; and from the skill manifested in the cultivation of the abbey lands, and in those occupied by their tenants, produced the happiest effects on that important branch of rural economy.

The Cloister, which is so often described in poetry as the abode of religious harmony, was nevertheless subject, at times, to all those unruly passions which in the world engender strife amongst brethren, and destroy the quiet of secular life. Every monastery contained within its own walls, those elements of malice and dissension, which it required no common energy on the part of the abbot to regulate and subdue. Perverse men, clothed in the robe of meekness, were a constant source of trial to those patterns of monastic discipline, who laboured to correct and reform them.[89] Persecution within the cloister existed occasionally under two forms: men of eminent sanctity suffered it from degenerate brethren, sometimes, simply on account of their superior justice; and at others, in consequence of their endeavours to reform them. Sometimes when the monastery fell under the dominion of an evil superior, the monks who persevered in sanctity fled from his persecution.[90]

The character of a good Cistercian monk, contrasted with one of an opposite disposition, is thus drawn:—It happened that the pious Gobert, a monk of Villars, having to undertake a journey for the arrangement of certain affairs, set out accompanied by one of the brothers named Peter. Arriving late in the evening at a town where they were to pass the night, they were fatigued and exhausted with the labour and heat of the day; and Peter, causing a table to be spread, drew from the bag he carried, abundant provisions, and then ordered cups to be served, and many things made ready for their repast. To the pious Gobert, all this seemed to be more than necessary, more than was consistent with perfect moderation, and his conscience silently accused him of yielding too readily to the force of temptation. But after both had supped, he did not venture to give utterance to the compunctious feelings that were then passing in his mind. Next morning, however, as they were again prosecuting their journey through umbrageous lanes, he began meekly and humbly to disclose his thoughts; expressing his fears that the expense of the previous day had exceeded their wants; adding, that the patrimony of Christ ought not to be spent in superfluities, but given to the poor; that beneficed clerks are only dispensers of the Church, not lords of its substance; that when, in the words of St. Ambrose, we assist the poor, we give nothing of our own, but only that which the church appoints us to dispense; and, therefore, that ecclesiastical goods belong not to clerks, but to the poor.[91]

Saying these and other things that pressed heavily on his mind, Gobert lamented that he should have squandered the money which did not belong to him. But brother Peter did not receive this reproof with a humble mind; on the contrary, he became so angry that he did not answer him a word. Thus they rode on for nearly three hours, Peter all the while preserving a sullen and painful silence, which the holy Gobert observing, he tried to soothe and turn away his displeasure, by addressing him in terms of mild and brotherly affection. At last, seeing that he could make no impression upon him, he said, “My brother, it is time for us to discharge the service of hours to our Creator!” Whereupon, according to the custom of the Cistercians, they dismounted and knelt down to begin the office. In this posture of devotion, while brother Peter was prostrate on the earth, Gobert, with clasped hands turned towards him, and bursting into tears, humbly implored his forgiveness for having, by words of admonition and seeming reproof, moved his resentment. But as this did not appear to soften the monk’s obdurate heart, he continued his entreaties, and declared that he would not rise from his knees until he had forgiven him. At last, touched and overcome by so much Christian humility, brother Peter relented; and, taking Gobert by the hand, with feelings of mingled shame and contrition, raised him up; and having freely forgiven him,[92] and received his forgiveness, they went on their way rejoicing.

Thus far the chronicle, which the reader will find quoted in the Ages of Faith. “But,” says the learned author, “it was chiefly as reformers of their respective communities, that the holy men of monastic life suffered persecution.” In estimating the fortitude of those who laboured in this vineyard, it is to be observed, that specious arguments were never wanting to excuse the evil for which they sought a remedy. The monks of St. Benedict, according to Orderic Vitalis, who resisted the reform introduced by the Abbot Robert,[93] defended themselves on this ground, urging that the different circumstances of the times required a life different from that of the hermits of Egypt. “God forbid,” said they, “that valiant knights, that subtile philosophers, and eloquent doctors, merely because they have renounced the world, should be obliged as mean slaves to occupy themselves in ignoble works.[94] On these occasions, however, the real source of hostility was seldom avowed. Much was advanced in the time of St. Bernard, in respect to the colour of habits; but St. Peter the Venerable disengaged the question from its adventitious appendages: “Perhaps,” said he, writing to St. Bernard, “there is another and a deeper cause for this dissension between the Clugniacs and the Cistercians—between the ancient and the modern communities. We are restorers of piety that was grown cold; we are distinguished from others in manners, as well as in habits and customs. This is the secret and urgent cause of the breach of charity and of tongues, that are sharpened like swords against us. And oh, how much to be deplored, if the abstinence, the purity of a whole life; if invincible obedience, if unbroken fasts, if perpetual vigils, if such a yoke of discipline, if so many palms of patience, if so many labours—not so much of an earthly, as of a celestial life—should be dissipated by one hiss of the serpent: how much to be deplored, if the old dragon should thus, in an instant, with one breath, dissipate all your treasures collected by the grace of God, and leave you empty in the sight of the Supreme Judge!”[95]

Waltheof, an abbot of whom we read in the Cistercian Annals, had many severe trials to undergo, not only with refractory monks, but with the arch-fiend himself, who appeared to have delegated the management of his other affairs to inferior powers of darkness, in order that he himself might direct his whole force and strategy against the uncompromising Waltheof. But the abbot, aware of all these machinations, never lost an inch of ground; every fresh rencontre was to him a fresh triumph; for knowing the strength and skill of the enemy, he took up the shield of faith, and, cased in this armour of proof, met his spiritual foe with a look of contempt and defiance. To report their numerous conflicts, would be to recapitulate the days of the life of Waltheof—for it was literally a warfare. At length, one evening after Compline—when all the monks had retired to the dormitory—the abbot continued lingering in the church; for, feeling a weight at heart, he wished to unburden his grief in solitary prayer and meditation. At such moments, it is well known, the powers of darkness are always most active—most on the alert; and Waltheof no sooner looked down the left aisle, than he perceived the arch-fiend moving stealthily from behind a pillar. In this instance he had assumed the habit of a monk; but as he cast no shadow behind him, and caused no sound as he shuffled along the tesselated floor, the abbot soon recognised his old customer, and calmly waited for him at the foot of the altar. Seeing himself thus baffled, the fiend suddenly threw aside his cowl, and assumed the terrific form of a soldier, armed at all points, and of such gigantic proportions, that in a moment every pillar in the nave seemed to have dwindled into insignificance. His grand object, as the abbot foresaw, was to inspire him with sudden terror, and thus drive him from his sanctuary; but the attempt was vain. He then brandished a huge spear, and belching forth streams of blue fire as he approached, made a feint, as if he would have hurled the weapon at his head. But the abbot, continuing to make the sign of the cross, kept the great adversary of mankind at bay; yet still finding that he did not quit the sacred pile, he armed himself with the pix which contained the sacred wafer; and then advancing, exclaimed, “Behold, thou wicked soldier, thou base hireling! here is thy judge, who shall quickly send thee to the bottomless pit! Wait for him if thou darest!” What need of words; at this sight the foul fiend suddenly collapsed in all his terrific proportions, and vanished in a cloud of smoke.[97]

These two examples may suffice to give the reader some idea of the numerous legends with which the monastic annals abound: and, in addition to what has been already said of the internal administration of this order, we shall, from time to time, introduce other particulars, drawn from various sources, but chiefly from their own chronicles.

Environs.—It would be difficult to name a locality that, within so small a compass, contains so many richly-varied landscapes, as the Vale of Tinterne. In whatever direction we move, the eye is arrested by new features, new combinations of the graceful and picturesque. A saunter along the river, where it forms a crescent between the abbey and the village, will gratify every lover of the picturesque, and bring before him the beauty and freshness of nature, in striking contrast with the sublime but faded monuments of art. The best hour for enjoying this scene is about sunset; and, on returning, the tourist may ascend the Chapel Hill, and thence, in a more extended panorama, look down upon what would have furnished a rich subject for the pencil of Claude. The river, with its fantastic windings, here clamorous among shallows—there gliding away with the rapid but inaudible march of time—masses of brown rock overhanging the pass, gleaming in confused blocks through the trees that clamber up their

The Vale of Tintern.

From the Devil’s Pulpit.

steep sides, or crown their pinnacles with masses of verdure; while here and there a cottage, with its whitewashed walls, gives new life and interest to the scene.

How oft the pilgrim, lingering here,
Beneath that yew’s sepulchral shade,
Hath dropt the penitential tear,
And, sighing to himself, hath said—
There’s solace here for all my woe,
St. Mary’s altar gleams below;
And blessèd be the hand divine,
That leads the pilgrim to her shrine.

But the point from which the Abbey of Tinterne is seen to most advantage, is that chosen by Mr. Bartlett in the illustration opposite. The way to the ‘Devil’s Pulpit,’ as it is called, runs along the left bank of the Wye, and, in its winding course, presents many little glimpses of the vale and river, that, like small cabinet-pictures, serve as a gradual introduction to the splendid panorama of nature—the features of which are here so faithfully illustrated by the pencil, as to render description superfluous.

The river, rolling far below—
Here swift as time, there still and slow;
O’ershadowed here with arching bowers,
There sweetly fringed with summer flowers;
The Vale—where, through its orchard trees,
The curling vapour meets the breeze,
And, vast and venerably grand,
The Abbey’s mouldering arches stand,—
All these a wondrous scene impart,
To charm the eye and melt the heart;
The scroll of ages to unfold,
And paint the wondrous men of old.

Of this lofty and romantic scene Mr. Thomas writes:—“Who shall describe the glories of this splendid view? Who cannot but involuntarily think of the second scene in the Temptation, when the prince of the power of the air took the Prince of peace into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, in a moment of time? But let no satanic thought break in upon the holy influence which the soul delights to cherish in this lovely spot! It seems as though imagination, that potent enchantress of the mind, had transmitted us to some pinnacled mountain to show us the peace, the beauty, and permanence of the works of God, in vivid contrast with the feeble, the transitory, the desolated works of man—the ruined abbey encircled by the everlasting hills. This comprehensive panorama contains the most pleasing combination of nature and art, mountain and meadow, water and wood. There flows the glassy Wye, coiled like a serpent, and either buried in woods, or gliding peacefully through meadows spangled with fleecy flocks. Its buoyant bosom bears a little bark freighted with the gay partizans of pleasure, whose scarlet banner is playing with the summer’s breeze. The distant sounds of a solitary flute harmonize with the busy hum of bees, and the song of some half-secluded bird. Again, we hear the hoarser cry of the mariner, and the metallic voice of an industrious anvil. The unpretending church of Tinterne, in its unspotted whiteness, contrasts with its aged companion—a sombre yew, which, like an ample pall, is overshadowing the clustered monuments of death.”

Lancaut cliffs, which contribute a striking feature to this part of the scenery, are rendered still more interesting by the following tradition:—During the calamitous war, so often referred to in these pages, Sir John Winter was eminently distinguished by his devotion to the royal cause. The personal risks and pecuniary sacrifices to which he was daily exposed, only served to give more warmth to his loyalty. When the Parliament sent their first troops to the banks of the Wye, Winter converted his house at Sidney into a fortress; and so promptly and skilfully was this accomplished, that it was rendered not merely inaccessible, but so well provisioned and fortified as to be able to stand a siege. In this, perhaps, there was some little exaggeration; for the garrison, then at Gloucester, and acting under the direction of skilful and determined leaders, were not likely to have been foiled, had they made any such attempt. Their grand object was Chepstow Castle; and if that fortress was ultimately found to be untenable, the defence of a private fortalice must have been a rash and hopeless attempt. It proves, nevertheless, that his loyalty admitted of no fear, and was prepared for every extremity. Acting under the command of Lord Herbert—whose operations will be detailed in our account of Raglan—Winter, by his rapid movements, frequently alarmed the troops under General Massey. But after the siege of Gloucester was raised by the Earl of Essex, the king’s interest in that part of the country was much impaired; and the Parliamentary forces continuing to advance, Sir John Winter was compelled by urgent duties to abandon his own residence, and retire across the frontier. In his retreat, however, through the forest of Tudenham, Cromwell’s dragoons were immediately on his traces; escape was seemingly impossible—he was completely hemmed in by the enemy on one hand, and the Wye on the other; and though well mounted, he soon perceived that his pursuers were sensibly gaining upon him. Determined that they should never boast of having taken him prisoner, he turned his horse’s head suddenly towards the rocks, which now bear his name, and by means, he knew not how, quickly disappeared and descended the cliffs in safety. At the base of these rolled the Wye, then in flood tide; but plunging into the river, his gallant steed carried him safely to the opposite bank, where he was soon joined by a party of royalists, and congratulated upon his miraculous escape. The point at which he descended the rocks is still called Winter’s leap. Of his escape, by scrambling down the cliff, there is no doubt; but to represent it as the result of a leap[98] on horseback, would be to assume the peculiar privilege of “Geoffrey of Monmouth.”

After this perilous feat, the hardy royalist returned to his house at Sidney; but finding it, on closer inspection, to be quite untenable, he had it demolished, and then, joining the king’s forces, took part in the battle of Naseby, which gave a finishing blow to the king’s affairs.

Near to the Cross, the ancient market-place of the village, the stranger is shown a ruined edifice, partly covered with ivy, and bearing the evidence of having suffered less from time than violence. This is supposed to have been the villa, or extra-cloister residence of the abbots of Tinterne, to which at certain seasons they could retire from the exercise of their public functions, and enjoy the privileges of social life—the society and conversation of friends and strangers, without the forms and austerities of the cloister. Of this building, nothing but a few shapeless walls is left; but from the size and structure of the windows, square-headed and divided by transoms, it seems probable that the house is not earlier than the reign of Elizabeth. Mr. Thomas thinks, that from its Tudor-Gothic style, it was probably built by the abbot and some of the brotherhood, as a retreat about the period when the original foundation was dissolved. During the war which devastated the frontier in 1645-6, it was taken and ransacked by the soldiers of the Commonwealth. Since that period it has often changed its owners; and at one time, we are told, though on rather uncertain ground, it was the residence of the family of Fielding the novelist—

Whose name
Still draws the pilgrim to its shattered frame,
And bids him linger ’neath its shadow.

The parish church of Tinterne Parva is a small but very ancient building, irregularly divided into porch, nave, and chancel. Its erection, according to the historian of the abbey, was anterior to the foundation of the monastery itself; and by some writers it is even considered to have been the parent church. The evidences of its great antiquity may be found in the building itself; and a practised eye will detect indications of a British origin, in certain niches or circular arched windows in the massive walls of the western side. The porch, which is chaste and in good preservation, is a subsequent erection, and yet of a remote age. The chancel, which “most uncouthly joins the nave,” is the latest portion of the fabric. There are fragments of some antique monuments scattered about the floor—memorials of ecclesiastics—which, the writer sarcastically observes, “have been judiciously cut up, and squared, to mend the pavement!” By this sage arrangement, the parochial economy has been brought into the sharpest practice; and although it has evinced no special veneration for the sainted dead, or the hallowed relics of antiquity, yet “the ruinous expense of hauling fresh slabs from the quarry, on the opposite side of the way, has been most considerately spared.” Moreover, he adds, “the pipe of the stove within, is picturesquely thrust through the only Gothic window remaining in the nave!”[99]

As if its smoke, though dark and somewhat denser,
Were meant to represent the ancient Censer,
That once, with daily sacrifice, perfumed
The ground where saints and heroes lay inhumed.

By the churchyard stile, as Mr. Thomas happily describes it, “and beneath the dark mantling boughs of the yew-tree, a scene of exquisite sweetness steals upon the eye. The beautiful meadows beyond are skirted by a ridge of lofty woods, with the gentle Wye flowing like a liquid mirror below. Beneath the

The Ferry at Tintern.

renewed limbs of an aged elm-tree, hollowed and blasted by the storms of many winters, a flock of unmolested sheep repose in grateful shade; these are, indeed, made “to lie down in green pastures,” and are “led beside the still waters.”

It would be difficult to picture to the mind’s eye a scene of more enchanting repose; in such a place as this, with such objects before him, the verdant pastures, the pendent groves, the winding river, the tranquil sky,—where the very clouds, with their fleecy wings stretched forth in vain to catch the subtile current, seem like a fleet becalmed on the wide ocean, waiting for the breeze;—with these before him, ambition forgets the world; sorrow looks up with more cheerful resignation; cares and disappointments lose both their weight and their sting: with so little of sordid earth, so much of the sublimity of nature to contemplate, his thoughts become chastened, soothed, and elevated; and the heart expands under a new sense of happiness, and a feeling of brotherly kindness and benevolence towards everything that breathes. He feels the poet’s exhortation in all its force—

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come, like a blight,
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, the shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth into the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teaching!

And then turning to Wordsworth:—

For I have learnt
To look on Nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the roused ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows, and the woods,
And mountains, and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create,
And what perceive.

Striguil.—The whole frontier of this interesting country—the land of Gwent—is sprinkled over with picturesque ruins,—the crumbling remains of those warlike strongholds raised by the Norman barons, as a defence to their newly-acquired possessions, which were brought into frequent jeopardy by the martial and reluctant subjects of the new dynasty. To these we can only advert in passing—for the plan on which this work is conducted, does not admit of their being noticed in detail. In the second century after the Conquest, six of these strongholds were erected near the British forest of Wentwood[100]—a still venerable chase of between two and three thousand acres in extent, and associated with many events in the history and traditions of the Welsh frontiers. The grand object of these castles was to form a chain of garrisoned forts for the protection of Norman interests against the incursions of a people who, although compelled to pass under a foreign yoke, still gloried in their independence, and embraced every occasion to prove that their martial spirit, though bowed, was not broken.

One of the strongest of these embattled fastnesses was Castell-glyn-y-Striguil,[101] erected, according to Doomsday-book, by the Norman warrior so often named in this work, William Fitzosborne. In Hammer’s Irish Chronicle,[102] however, its erection is ascribed to Gilbert Strongbow, whose life and family we have already noticed in the account of Tinterne Abbey. The remains of this castle, though inadequate to convey any just notion of its original strength, are still sufficiently marked with regard to its size and proportions. Its outworks have mouldered down into shapeless masses, over which nature has thrown so dense a matting of underwood, that the traces of art have been almost obliterated. The form “was that of an oblong square, the angles of which, as usual in such cases, were defended by octagonal towers;”[103] at one extremity was the donjon, or keep, the situation of which is indicated by the shapeless mound of vegetation, which draws nutriment from its débris. The walls were encircled by a deep moat, supplied by two mountain rivulets, which unite at this point to form the Troggy, one of the silver tributaries of the river Usk.

The other castles Avhich deserve a cursory notice, are, Llanvair, Llanvaches, Pencoed, Dinham, and Penhow.[104] The latter, an ancient seat of the Seymours, occupies a bold and romantic situation. The acclivity which forms the direct approach to it, is nearly perpendicular. The view which it commands consists of a valley, or rather wooded ravines, in the foreground; and in the distance, a range of barren hills that bound the horizon—

Hills that, giving birth
To circling fountains, glad the parent earth;
And from their bosom, framed for martial toil,
Sent forth the guardian heroes of the soil.

By the marriage of the Lady Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour, with Henry the Eighth, and the birth of their son, afterwards Edward the Sixth, the house of Penhow was placed in a situation to compete with that of Raglan; and by the fortuitous influence thus acquired, the Seymours took a leading authority in the management and direction of county affairs.

This castle, or rather fortalice, appears to have derived its strength, more from its isolated and once inaccessible position, than from the extent of its walls or outworks. A portion of the interior has been repaired and rendered habitable, or rather a house has been erected on the site of the old berçeau, and thus future patriots and statesmen may yet “come forth of Penhow.”

Llanvair, about six miles west from Chepstow, was the ancient residence of the Kemeys family, from whom sprang Sir Nicholas Kemeys, the last governor of Chepstow Castle, whose heroic but tragical fate has been already noticed in these pages. The ruins of this ancient homestead are too inconsiderable to challenge more than a passing glance from the tourist. The same may be said of Dinham, a hamlet in the parish of Llanvair-Discoed.

Goldcliffe, “so called,” says Camden, “because the stones there, of a golden colour, by reverberation of the sunne shining full upon them, glitter with a wonderful brightnesse. Neither can I be easilie perswaded that nature hath given this brightnesse in vaine unto the stones, and that there should be a flowre here without fruit; were there any man that would serch into the veines there, and using the direction of Art, enter into the inmost and secretest bowels of the earth.”[105] But what was a mystery in the days of Giraldus, and even of Camden, admits of a very simple solution. The Gold Cliff, so called, consists of a rock nearly perpendicular, which rises abruptly to the height of a hundred feet in an extensive moor.[106] It consists of limestone strata, nearly horizontal and parallel, supported by a base of brown sandstone, abounding with yellow mica. The brilliant effect of the sun upon this micaceous surface, was a reason for the old belief in the neighbourhood, that the rock contained gold, and was therefore considered as a situation of peculiar value and sanctity.[107] The church of Goldcliffe belonged to a priory founded and endowed in 1113, by Robert de Chandos, eighteen years earlier than that of Tinterne Abbey, who, by the persuasion of Henry the First, annexed it to the Abbey of Bec, in Normandy, whence a prior and twelve Black, or Benedictine, friars were conveyed to it. On the suppression of alien priories, Henry Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, obtained of King Henry the Sixth the patronage of the priory, with permission to annex it to the Abbey of St. Mary, at Tewkesbury, to which it was made a cell in 1442. The Cambro-Britons, however, being offended at this measure, obliged the prior and monks of Tewkesbury to quit Goldcliffe in 1445; but in the following year they were permitted to return. In the twenty-ninth of the reign of Henry the Sixth, Goldcliffe Priory was granted to the college at Eton, and to Tewkesbury again. At the accession of Edward the Fourth, but seven years later, it was restored to Eton college, in whose possession it has since remained.[108]

Caldicot.—The castle of this name is said to have been erected by one of the ancient Bohuns, earls of Hereford, hereditary lords-high-constables of England,[109] for nearly two hundred years. From them the castle descended to Henry, Duke of Lancaster, and upon his accession to the throne as Henry the Fourth, it was invested in the crown. The ivy-mantled walls enclose a large court, with three entrances. The principal gateway is flanked by lofty square towers; and on the east side are the remains of the hall, comprising a range of windows, of large size and elegant workmanship. The style of masonry, as shown in the construction of the walls, is excellent; the courses of large and equal sized stones, are accurately squared and jointed; but the whole construction has more the appearance of an ancient domestic residence, than of a British stronghold—well suited for the accommodation of a feudal baron and his retinue in times of peace, but ill prepared to resist an enemy, or sustain a siege.

Yet there Tradition tells her tale
Of warrior-knights in glittering mail—
Of martial feat, and festive hall,
And banners waving from the wall;
When Cambria’s rival spears were bent
For martial joust and tournament;
While Beauty, from her lattice high,
Surveyed the scene with radiant eye—
And Cambria’s Chivalry in arms
Did faithful homage to her charms.

But Caldicot, how lonely now!
The wreath has withered from thy brow;
The scene of song and martial deeds
Is now a wilderness of weeds!
Ah, such at last the homes shall be
Of England’s proudest Chivalry!

Mathern is remarkable as the burial-place of Theodoric or Teudrick, the hermit king of Glamorgan, already mentioned.[110] His hermitage “among the rocks of Tinterne,” to which he had retired for repose and meditation in the evening of life, is supposed to have stood on the site of the present abbey, which had thus, in the traditional records of the people, a spot already consecrated by royal example, as a foundation for those gorgeous altars by which it was subsequently distinguished.

When dragged from his retreat by the supplications of his family and subjects, and armed once more against the Saxons, he solemnly enjoined his son that, in the event of his falling in battle, they should erect a Christian church over his remains, as a monument of his faith and patriotism. The battle that speedily ensued, as tradition reports, was a great victory, but a victory purchased with the blood of Teudrick; for during the fierce conflict that had covered the Vale of Tinterne with the slain, he received a blow from a Saxon battle-axe which proved fatal. From the field he was conveyed homeward as far as Mathern, where he died; and there his son, who succeeded him in the chieftainship, erected a church to his memory, the name of which has perpetuated his martyrdom.[111]

The foundation of this church in its primitive state, consisted, like other British structures, of a nave only—a side aisle and chancel appear to have been added at a very early date; and, subsequently to these, a tower was erected which completed the sacred edifice, and rendered it more conspicuous as a historical landmark, and place of pilgrimage. It is distinguished by handsome Gothic windows, portions of which are adorned with stained glass; and the roof is supported by Saxon arches, resting on massive octagon piers.

On a plain mural tablet in the Chancel of this ancient church, is the following inscription, supposed to have been written by Bishop Godwin. The fact of its being the sepulchre of the British Prince Teudrick, was finally ascertained by the discovery of his stone coffin, in which the skeleton was found almost entire. On the skull, also, in accordance with local tradition, a fracture was observed, which clearly indicated the manner of his death, and confirmed the testimony of local history.

The following is the inscription:—“Here lyeth entombed the body of Theodoric, King of Morganuch, or Glamorgan, commonly called St. Theodoric, and accounted a martyr, because he was slain in battle against the Saxons, being then pagans, and in defence of the Christian Religion. The battle was fought at Tynterne, where he obtained a great victory. He died here, being on his way homeward, three days after the battle, having taken order with Maurice, his son, who succeeded him in the kingdom, that in the same place where he should happen to decease, a church should be built, and his body buried in the same, which was accordingly performed in the year 600.”

“On ascending the tower of this church,” says Mr. Thomas, “a scene of great extent and surpassing beauty is spread before the eye; on one side you have a long reach of water, strewn with vessels and rocks; on the other a wide undulating tract of land, overspread with villas and smiling meadows, crowded with many a gentle herd; while beneath, and not the least interesting objects of this scene, are those melancholy wrecks of bygone splendour—Mathern Palace and Moinscourt.” The first of these two objects, the old episcopal residence, is now “the ruinous retreat of some humble followers of the plough.” The north and north-east portions, comprising the porch and tower, were erected by Bishop De la Zouch, who was consecrated in the year 1408, and the chapel hall, and some other compartments, were added by Miles Sulley, who came to the see in 1504. Moinscourt, now reduced to the humble uses of a farmhouse, was another of the palaces, belonging to the see of Llandaff, and supposed to have been erected by Bishop Godwin, who made it his favourite residence. Passing beneath a Gothic porch, crowned with two lofty turrets, we enter a spacious quadrangular court, at the extremity of which stands the palace. Over the entrance is an escutcheon, on which are sculptured the arms of Godwin, impaled with those of the see, and bearing the date of 1603. The court was formerly adorned with two monuments of Roman antiquity found in the vicinity—one a votive altar, the other an inscription, recording the rebuilding of the Temple of Diana, by T. F. Posthumius Varus. It was from the ancient Roman slabs, built into the garden walls of this residence, that Bishop Godwin supplied the drawings and inscriptions for Camden’s Britannia.[112]

Before adverting to the final suppression of Tinterne Abbey, and the confiscation of its revenues to the king’s treasury, we shall now take a brief view of the circumstances which led to this grand revolution in our ecclesiastical government—quoting for our authority those writers of unquestionable veracity, who have treated of that momentous epoch. First, with regard to the

Dissolution.—“Never,” says an historian of this epoch,[113] “never was there any exploit, seemingly so full of hazard and danger, more easily achieved than the subversion of our English monasteries.” The church commissioners presented a startling report of the vices[114] and deceptions of the monks and nuns; and, what was of equal weight in the condemnation, they sent in the title-deeds of their estates, with the inventory of their plate, jewels, and ready money. Upon this a bill was introduced, giving unto the king and his heirs all monastic establishments, the revenues of which did not exceed two hundred pounds sterling a year, with every kind of property attached to them, whether real or personal. Three hundred and eighty of the lesser houses fell within this category, and were suppressed; whereby the king was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds per annum—an enormous sum in that day—in addition to a hundred thousand pounds in ready money, plate, and jewels. The bill, according to one writer, was not passed through the House of Commons without some difficulty; but Henry, sending for the ministers, and telling them that he would have either the bill or their heads, they passed it immediately.

The parliament, which, by successive prorogations, had sat for the unprecedented term of six years, was now dissolved; and Henry, after all their passive obedience, appears to have been disgusted at this their last and feeble effort at opposition. He now named other commissioners to take possession of the suppressed monasteries, and to prepare measures for the seizure of others. If these men, mostly the friends of Cromwell or of Cranmer, had a better religion before their eyes, they certainly were not blind to the charms of lucre, and the temptations of fair houses and fat glebes; as many of them made a harvest for themselves, out of the spoils of the monks and nuns.[115]

The superiors of the suppressed houses were promised small pensions for life, which were very irregularly paid. All the monks not twenty-four years of age were absolved from their vows, and turned loose upon the world without any kind of provision; the rest, if they wished to continue in the profession, were divided among the greater houses that were still left standing. The poor nuns were turned adrift to beg or starve; having nothing given to them, save one common gown for each.[116] “These things,” says Godwin, “were of themselves distasteful to the vulgar sort, of whom each one did, as it were, claim a share in the goods of the church; for many being neither monks, nor allied to monks, did, notwithstanding, conceive that it might hereafter come to pass that either their children, friends, or kindred, might obtain their share; whereas, when all their property was once confiscated, they could never hope for any such advantages. But the popular commiseration for the thousands of monks and nuns who were, almost without warning given, thrust out of doors, and committed to the mercy of the world, became a more forcible cause of discontent. There were not wanting desperate men to take advantage of this state of public feeling; and it was diligently rumoured in all parts, that this was but the beginning of greater evils and more general spoliations—only a trial of their patience; that, as yet, the shrubs and underwood were but touched; but unless a speedy remedy were applied, the end would be with the fall of the lofty oaks.” At the same time, the crowds of poor, who, by an ancient but defective system, had derived their support from the monastic establishments, became furious at finding their resources cut off, and at seeing the monks who had fed them now begging like themselves by the roadsides.

In the midst of these general discontents, Cranmer and Cromwell issued certain doctrinal injunctions to the clergy, which were too novel to find immediate favour with the multitude; and certain Protestant reformers, who had more courage than they, ventured to print books about Iconolatria, image-worship, auricular confession, transubstantiation, and other fundamental tenets and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The king, who assumed all the authority in matters of dogmas that had ever been claimed by the popes, and much more than they had ever put in practice in England, pronounced rewards and sentences which irritated both parties alike, and all these questions were referred to him—thus occupying a good deal of his time, and keeping in dangerous activity his old political bile.[117] We find the Lord Chancellor Audley writing in great perturbation to Cromwell, telling him that “there is a book come forth in print, touching the taking away of images, and begging to know whether he was privy to the publishing thereof,” which Cranmer probably was,[118] though, had such a fact been known to his master at that moment, his neck would have been in jeopardy. The chancellor says, “I assure you, in the parts where I have been, some discord there is, and diversity of opinion among the people, touching the worshipping of saints and images; and for creeping, kneeling at cross, and such like ceremonies heretofore used in the church, which discord it were good should be put to silence; and this book will make much business in the same, if it should go forth. Wherefore,” he continues, “I pray you, I may be advised whether you know it or no, for I intend to send for the printers and stop them; but there may be many abroad. It were good that the preachers and people abstained from opinions of such things, till such time as by the report of such as the king’s highness hath appointed for the searching and ordering of laws of the church, his grace may put a final order on such things, how his people and subjects shall use themselves without contention. And if the people were thus commanded by proclamation to abstain till that time, such proclamation, drawn in honest terms, would do much good to avoid contention.”[119]

The king was by no means backward in issuing his final orders and decrees spiritual; and the reformers herein concealing their ulterior views, he was led to reduce the number of sacraments from seven to three—Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and Penance; to forbid the direct adoration of images; to abrogate a number of saints’ days or holidays, especially such as fell in harvest time; to declare the Scriptures, with the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, the sole standards of faith; to order every parish priest to expound these to his parishioners in plain English; and to direct the printing and distribution of an English translation of the Bible, one copy of which was to be kept in every parish church. The king, in his wisdom, insisted on the necessity of auricular confession, and denounced any questioning of the ‘real presence’ in the eucharist as a damnable heresy, to be punished with fire and faggot. Purgatory, he confessed, puzzled him; steering a middle course, he declared himself to be uncertain on this head; and kindly permitted his subjects to pray for the souls of their departed friends, provided only that they fell into none of the old abuses of enriching religious houses and shrines for this object.[120]

“Meanwhile,” says the historian, “the king continued much prone to reformation, especially if anything might be gotten by it.” Nothing was more easy than to prove that all the monastic orders had been engaged in the late insurrection;[121] and as many of the richest abbeys and priories remained as yet untouched, there was no want of wise counsellors, all anxious to share in the spoil, who recommended their total suppression. In some cases, out of a dread of martial law, or, what was equally bad, a prosecution for high treason, the Abbots surrendered, gave, and granted their abbeys unto the king, his heirs and assigns for ever; but still many replied, like the prior of Henton, “that they would not be light and hasty in giving up those things which were not theirs to give, being dedicated to the Almighty for service to be done to his honour continually, with other many good deeds of charity which be daily done in their houses to their Christian neighbours.”[122] “These recusants were treated with great severity; the prisons were crowded with priors and monks, who died so rapidly in their places of confinement, as to excite a dreadful suspicion.”

Without waiting for a “needless act of parliament, the king suppressed many other houses; and soon after, with the full consent of Lords and Commons, finished the business, by seizing all the abbeys without exception, with all the other religious houses, except a very few, which, at the earnest petition of the people, were spared or given up to the representatives of their original founders.” Before proceeding to the “final suppression, under the pretence of checking the superstitious worshipping of images, he had laid bare their altars, and stripped their shrines of everything that was valuable; nor did he spare the rich coffins and the crumbling bones of the dead.” At the distance of four hundred years—exasperated at that extraordinary man’s opposition to the royal prerogative—he determined to execute vengeance on the bones and relics of

Thomas a Becket.—The Martyr’s tomb was broken open; and by an insane process, worthy of a Nero or a Caligula, a criminal information was filed against him as “Thomas Becket, some time Archbishop of Canterbury;” and he was formally cited to appear in court, and answer to the charges. Thirty days were allowed the saint; but we need hardly inform our readers that his dishonoured relics rested quietly at Canterbury, and did not appear to plead in Westminster Hall. With due solemnity the court opened its proceedings.[123] The attorney-general eloquently exposed the case for the prosecution, and the advocates of the saint—who no doubt spoke less boldly—were heard in defence; and that being over, sentence was pronounced, that “Becket” had been guilty of rebellion, treason, and contumacy; that his bones should be burnt as a lesson to the living not to oppose the royal will; and that the rich offerings with which many generations of men, native and foreign, had enriched his shrine, should be forfeited to the crown as the personal property of the traitor. “In the month of August,” continues the historian, “Cromwell, who must have smiled at the course pursued, sent down some of his commissioners to Canterbury, who executed their task so well, that they filled two immense coffers with gold and jewels, each of them so heavy that it required eight strong men to lift it.” “Among the rest,” says Godwin, “was a stone of especial lustre, called the Royal of France, offered by King Louis VII., in the year 1179; together with a great massive cup of gold, at what time he also bestowed an annuity on the monks of that church of an hundred tuns of wine. This stone was afterwards highly prized by the king, who did continually wear it on his thumb.” A few months after, the king, by proclamation, stated to his people, that forasmuch as it now clearly appears Thomas Becket had been killed in a riot provoked by his own obstinacy and insolence, and had been canonized by the Bishop of Rome merely because he was champion of that usurped authority, he now deemed it proper to declare that he was no saint whatever, but a rebel and traitor to his prince: and that, therefore, he, the king, strictly commanded that he should not be any longer esteemed or called a saint; that all images and pictures of him should be destroyed; and that his name and remembrance should be erased out of all books, under pain of his majesty’s indignation, and imprisonment at his grace’s pleasure.[124]

The revenues of Tinterne Abbey, though far inferior to others of the same order, particularly those in Yorkshire, were still sufficient for the maintenance of the brotherhood, the repairs and decoration of the buildings, and the exercise of hospitality, which formed so important a feature in the monastic code. The estimate recorded by Dugdale is probably under the mark; while that of Speed may possibly exceed, by a few pounds, the actual rental of the abbey lands. The former has computed it at £192. 1s. 3d., the latter at £252. 11s. 6d., sums which, taking into account the value of money in those times, give no mean idea of its annual resources. This sum, however, is exclusive of the daily tribute received from the pious hands of pilgrims, and the donations of many distinguished guests, who, from time to time, sat at the Abbot’s table, or found refuge in its sanctuary.

The details of the first endowments[125] of Tinterne Abbey, as well as various later benefactions, down to the seventh year of Henry the Third, are contained in a charter of confirmation from William Marshall, grandson of Walter de Clare, the founder.

“Herein,” says Tanner, “were thirteen religious about the time of the dissolution, when the estates belonging to this monastery were rated at £256. 11s. 6d. in the gross, and £192. 1s. 4-1/2d. per annum, clear income.”