The Abbey of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire

Ampla foro, et partis spoliis præclara, Theoci
Curia, Sabrinæ quà se committit Avona,
Fulget; nobilium sacrisque recondit in antris
Multorum Cineres, quondam inclyta corpora bello.—Leland.

FOUNDATION.—In his desire to do more especial honour to Tewkesbury, William of Malmesbury has fancifully traced its etymon to the Greek word Theotocos—the Mother of God—because the monastery which was built here was dedicated to the Virgin Mother. It is certain, however, that the town occupied the ground long before the monastery was erected. The popular tradition is, that a religious recluse, named Theocus, had a Christian cell or chapel in this place about the end of the seventh century—“ubi quidam heremita manebat nomine Theokus, unde Theokusburia”—and that from him the “Curia Theoci” was in process of time modified into Tewkesbury. In Weever’s Funeral Monuments, however, there is an ancient Saxon inscription, discovered in the church of Leominster at the close of the sixteenth century, which states that, in the Saxon era, Tewkesbury was called , that is, Theotisbyrg, from which it would appear that Tewkesbury was the town, castle, or borough of Theot. Others, by conjectures equally vague or plausible, have laboured to prove that the name is derived from Dodo or Thodo, one of the first lords of the manor, and founder of the monastery, adducing as corroborative evidence that the Ð and Th are frequently substituted for each other in the Saxon language; wherefore, say they, from Thodo comes the Latin derivative Theodocus, and from that, Teodechesberie, as in Domesday Book. But further, it has been conjectured that Theocus and Dodo, or Thodo, were one and the same person; and those who are curious in the investigation of such questions will find the subject elaborately discussed in all the principal histories of the county and abbey.

The foundation of this Abbey takes precedence of most others in the kingdom, and dates from the first fifteen years of the eighth century. In the reigns of Ethelred, Kenred, and Ethelbald, kings of Mercia, two brothers, with the euphonious names of Odo and Dodo, flourished in this beautiful district, and adorned their high station by the practice of many Christian virtues and pious examples. Of their zeal for the honour of God they were resolved to leave some permanent evidence to posterity, and with this view selected a suitable spot on their manor of Tewkesbury, and there erected the monastery which in after times became famous throughout the land. They endowed the abbey with much landed property—Stanwey cum membris, sic dicta, Tadington Prestecote et Didcot—which continued to form part of the abbey revenues till the Dissolution. The institution gradually extended its authority temporal and spiritual, and acquired a reputation for so much sanctity, that to obtain a grave in its sacred enclosure became an object of devout competition among the pious, and brought no little treasure to the prior’s exchequer.

The first personage of royal dignity who was buried in the Abbey was Brictric, king of the West Saxons, and son-in-law to King Offa. The next was Hugh, a Mercian noble, and patron of the abbey, who had procured for it the distinction of a royal mausoleum in St. Faith’s Chapel; to which his own remains were afterwards consigned, with all the monks attending in solemn procession, and chanting his requiem.

Towards the middle of the tenth century, Haylward Snew, descended from King Edward the Elder, founded a monastery on his own manor at Cranburne, in Dorsetshire, and to this he subjected the priory of Tewkesbury, of which he was patron. Historians give him the credit of having possessed, in an eminent degree, the virtues of personal valour and earnest piety; and of the latter, no better proofs could be adduced than the fact of his having bestowed much of his substance upon the church. Algar, his eldest son and successor, did not long enjoy his inheritance; and to him succeeded his younger brother, Brictric, of whom the annexed adventure is recorded.

When the Battle of Hastings had secured a vacant throne to William the Conqueror, Brictric was among those patriotic chiefs who survived that decisive field, and afterwards retired to the banks of the Severn, to concert measures for the recovery of the Saxon throne, or to bury his vain regrets in the bosom of his faithful friends and retainers. By one of those strange accidents, however, which frustrate all preconcerted schemes, Brictric’s hopes of freedom were completely blasted. Great as the grief of Maud had been at his abruptly quitting her father’s court in Flanders, as stated in the preceding note, it was not of long duration; for the Duke of Normandy having shortly after solicited her hand, and as such a union offered her no distant prospect of avenging herself, she at once assented. The marriage was solemnized. She was carried in triumph to Normandy; and now, when the subjugation of England had been effected, she did not lose the opportunity thereby afforded of resenting the slight which the impolitic Brictric had offered to her beauty. He was accordingly denounced as an enemy to the new dynasty; and the strongest argument produced against him being that he was a brave man, with a broad tract of country which he called his own, the evidence in proof of his disaffection to the Conqueror was conclusive. Maud, the queen, too, was actively employed in expediting the measures instituted against him—

Could she forgive him!—no! it was her duty
To crush a wretch that could resist such beauty.

One night, therefore, while returning from vespers, Brictric was seized at the door of his own manor of Hanley, and sent under a Norman guard to Winchester, where he pined for some time, oppressed with the double weight of degradation and imprisonment, and at length died without issue. His estates, in the meantime, had been given to Queen Maud, who enjoyed their revenues till her death; after which they were incorporated with the other royal demesnes of King William.

At the death of the Conqueror, they passed to his son Rufus, who some time afterwards bestowed Brictric’s Honor of Gloucester upon Robert Fitz-Hamon, son of Hamon Dentatus, Lord of Corboile in Normandy, as a reward for many important services performed in defence of his father’s crown.

This Robert Fitz-Hamon may be considered the second founder of Tewkesbury Abbey; for, at the instance of Sybil his wife, and Giraldus Abbot of Cranburne, he rebuilt the church with all its appendages, and endowed it with many large possessions. In confirmation of the elegance and liberality with which this was accomplished—“It cannot be easily reported,” says William of Malmesbury, on two several occasions, “how highly Robert Fitz-Hamon exalted this monastery, wherein the beauty of the buildings ravished the eies, and the charity of the holy brotherhood allured the hearts of all who repaired thither.” This great and pious undertaking is stated to have been accomplished as an act of atonement and public satisfaction for the destruction of the church of Bayeux in Normandy, which King Henry had burnt in order to liberate him from prison; but which, struck with remorse at the sacrilege, he afterwards re-edified and restored.

Having rebuilt the Abbey of Tewkesbury in the manner stated, and finding that it became more and more an object of attraction among pilgrims and devotees, Fitz-Hamon changed the Abbey of Cranburne into a priory, and made it subject from that time forward to the “Blackfriars” of Tewkesbury—so called from the black habit worn by monks of the Benedictine order.

But, to preserve the name of the founder in that sanctity to which his piety and good works had given him so just a title, a prior and two monks were left to minister in holy offices at Cranburne, so that the cause of true religion might suffer no detriment by the transfer thus effected. The situation of the New Abbey, in the centre of a fair and fertile country, variegated with beautiful landscapes, curtained almost round by green-wooded hills, and watered by noble rivers, presented all that could be desired for the advancement of those worldly objects in which men so spiritually-minded might be supposed to take any interest. With the completion of the New Abbey prosperity took up her abode under its immediate wing: habitations multiplied, trade was introduced, the produce of the adjoining vale increased with the demand, and the population was rapidly improved. In process of time the abbey was almost surrounded by a thriving town; while money, freely circulated by commerce, as well as by the better class of pilgrims, improved the general appearance of the habitations, and gave an air of cheerfulness and prosperity to the town and abbey.

Fitz-Hamon, who just lived long enough to witness the first prosperous days of the abbey, being general of the king’s army in France, repaired to the siege of Falaise, in Normandy, where he received a wound on the temple, and died shortly after, His remains were carefully brought home and deposited with great solemnity in the Chapter-house of the Abbey, of which the arcade mouldings, vaulted ceiling, pillars, buttresses, and pointed doorway, retain

much of their original beauty. It is now the grammar-school of the place. But in this part of the abbey, hereafter to be described, his relics were not permitted to rest more than a hundred and thirty-four years; they were then removed by Robert, the third abbot of that name, and interred in a plain tomb between two pillars on the right side of the Chancel, which, with the Chapter-house, will be noticed in a subsequent page.

One hundred and fifty-six years later, Thomas Parker, the eighteenth abbot, caused the original tomb to be enclosed within a richly-carved chapel, “satis mirifice tabulatam,” and appointed a mass to be celebrated every day for the souls of Robert Fitz-Hamon, and Sybil his wife. By this lady he left issue four daughters, co-heiresses to vast possessions which, during his active services in places of the highest trust under government, had greatly accumulated during the last two reigns. But King Henry, who was averse to seeing the Honor of Gloucester thus subdivided, adopted such arbitrary measures as effectually prevented the execution of the testator’s will, and disposed of his daughters in the following manner:—Hawise he made Abbess of Chichester; Cecilia he appointed Abbess of Shaftesbury; Amicia he gave in marriage to his firm adherent, the Earl of Brittany; and to Robert, his natural son, by the daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, Prince of Glamorgan, he united Mabilia, the eldest. Thus the four daughters of Fitz-Hamon were fairly settled by “royal authority,” and the estates concentrated upon his son, Earl Robert, and his descendants. But Mabilia, it appears, expressed some reluctance when this alliance was first proposed by the king, alleging that, as his son Robert had then no baronial title nor high military standing in the country, such a union was neither agreeable to her taste nor suitable to the rank and possessions bequeathed to her by so many illustrious ancestors. These objections, as stated by the monk of Gloucester, were too reasonable and well grounded to be confuted by the mere art of logic; but the king found a much more speedy and effectual way of removing them, by creating his son Earl and Consul of Gloucester, and installing him in the various high offices therewith connected. Of this earl, as the reader may remember, we have already spoken in a previous division of this work, when adverting to the Empress Maud, daughter of King Henry. “He was unquestionably,” says Lyttleton, “the wisest man of those times; and his virtues were such that even those times could not corrupt it.” It is to Count Robert of Gloucester that William of Malmesbury dedicates his work, and speaks of him in these terms: “Nullum enim magis decet bonarum artium esse fautorem quam te; cui adhæsit magnanimitas avi, munificentia patrui, prudentia patris, &c.... Consentaneous ergo sibi mores experiuntur in te literati, quos citra intellectum ullius acrimoniæ benignus aspicis, jucundus admittis, munificus dimittis. Nihil plane in te mutavit fortunæ amplitudo nisi ut pene tantum benefacere posses, quantùm velles.”

But the trait of character which connects Earl Robert more immediately with our subject is, that every Sunday throughout the year he had the Abbot of Tewkesbury and twelve of the monks to dine with him, thereby keeping up a most friendly understanding with the Church, patronizing learning and all who excelled in the arts, and building various castles and priories. He founded the priory of St. James in Bristol, and made it subject to the Abbey of Tewkesbury. But although he patronized the latter in an eminent degree, he chose the priory for his last resting-place, and was there buried in the choir, under a tomb of green jasper.

It was during the life of this earl, that Walleran de Beaumont, a younger son of the Earl of Leicester, and Count of Meulant, ransacked the town of Tewkesbury, which, judging by the quantity and value of plunder carried off, must have been, even at that early period, a town of no little opulence. In this raid, however, the goods of the Abbey were respected; for to such men an interdict from the Church was more terrific than “an army with banners.”

William, son and heir to Earl Robert, and his wife Matilda, confirmed all the charters which had been granted by his ancestors to the Abbey of Tewkesbury, and certified his approbation by conferring upon it several fresh endowments. He died in 1283, when the estates of the earldom were again vested in three daughters. But the policy which had been adopted by King Henry was again employed by King Richard, who had bestowed the youngest of the three heiresses with the earldom and its domains upon his brother John—a name sufficiently notorious in these pages—but by whom she was divorced shortly after his accession to the throne. Mabel or Mabilia, the eldest daughter of Earl William, married the Count d’Evreux in Normandy, by whom she had a son, Almeric Montfort, who died about the year 1221, leaving no children by his marriage. But the second daughter, who had married Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford, had a son, Gilbert de Clare, who, on the failure of the previous branches, was admitted to the honours of Gloucester and Glamorgan, as his legal inheritance, and was the first who held conjointly the earldoms of Gloucester and Hertford. He resided at Holme Castle, a feudal residence which crowned an eminence in the near vicinity of Tewkesbury, and married Isabel, daughter of William Marshall,

Earl of Pembroke. He was a great benefactor of the monastery, and dying in 1230, was buried in the middle Chancel of the Abbey church—the view of which is strikingly grand—with all the ceremony due to his rank and liberality.

His son Richard de Clare succeeding to the family titles and estates, supported the baronial character of his ancestors, and is recorded to have held a magnificent Christmas in his castle at Tewkesbury, where sixty knights were in waiting. In July 1262, “beyng with King Henry in Fraunce, this Richard Counte de Glocestre dyed of the febre quartane, and was buryed at Tukesbyri Abbay, where aboute his toumbe be wryten his noble actes.” Of his body there was a tri-partition: the bowels were bequeathed to the church of Canterbury; his heart to that at Tunbridge, and in the Abbey of Tewkesbury, on the right side of his father’s tomb, his body was deposited with great pomp, graced by the presence of two bishops, twelve abbots, and a great company of barons, knights, and other personages, who had repaired from all quarters to offer their testimony of respect to his memory. His tomb was subsequently adorned at vast expense by his Countess Matilda, daughter of the Earl of Lincoln. It was embellished with gold and precious stones, with an effigy in silver of the sword and golden spurs which he had lately worn in battle. The inscription was: Hic. pudor. Hippolyti: Paridis. gena: Sensus. Ulyssis: Æneæ. pietas: Hectoris. ira. jacet. This monument has long been removed or demolished.

To Earl Richard succeeded Gilbert the Red—so named, like Rufus, from the colour of his hair. He married Alice, daughter of Guy Count of Angoulême, niece to King Henry the Third, but having obtained a divorce against this lady, took for his second wife Joan d’Acres, daughter of Edward the First. This earl, according to Leland, dealt hardly with the Abbey of Tewkesbury, and took away the benefactions of his grandfather, Earl Gilbert, but which were subsequently restored by his son. He died at his castle of Monmouth, and was buried in the Abbey of Tewkesbury, near the tomb of his predecessors, leaving issue one son, Gilbert, the third earl of that name, who married the lady Matilda, a daughter of John de Borow, Earl of Ulster, and by this union had one son, who died in early life, and was buried with his ancestors. The earl himself was one of those chivalrous nobles who surrounded the throne of Edward the Second, and fought under his banner. He held a command in the disastrous expedition into Scotland headed by that unhappy monarch in 1314, and fell at the battle of Bannockburn, in the twenty-third year of his age,

When the best names that England knew
Claim’d in that death-prayer dismal due.

From the field of battle, the body of the gallant earl was conveyed by his friends and retainers to the Abbey of Tewkesbury, and there, in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, consigned to kindred dust, in the midst of prayers and lamentations. His death was more especially felt by the Abbot and brotherhood, because he had liberally repaired the injury inflicted upon the monastery by his father, and was the last of that honoured name who held the title and territories of the De Clares in the county of Gloucester.

In the former part of this work, we have had more than once occasion to remark how frequently these old family estates and honours passed away with the female line: and here was another instance. Leaving no issue by his marriage, the Gloucester and Glamorgan estates devolved upon his three sisters, among whom they were divided. Elianora, the eldest, married Hugh le Despenser—a name of tragical association in English history; and with her the earldom of Gloucester, the third part of the estates, and the patronage of the Abbey of Tewkesbury, passed into that family. Five years later, this unhappy nobleman was apprehended, and put to the cruel and ignominious death related in a former part of this work. Some portions of his dismembered body, after their miserable exposure in different parts of the kingdom, “were buried in Tewkesbury Abbey, near the lavatory of the high altar.” He left by his wife three sons, Hugh, Edward, and Gilbert, but with no inheritance save the pains and penalties entailed upon them by his own forfeiture. The Monument of the Despenser family, hereafter noticed, is one of the finest objects in the Abbey church.

The widow of this nobleman—who had lost both her brother and husband by violent deaths—sought consolation in a second marriage with William, Lord le Zouch, by whom she had a son, named Hugh. But she survived her second husband only two years. He was buried in the Abbey chapel of Our Lady; and at her own demise, the earldom of Gloucester was conferred on her sister Margaret’s husband, Hugh de Audley.

Hugh le Despenser, eldest son of the unfortunate Hugh by his wife Elianora, succeeded him in the inheritance of Hanley Castle, Tewkesbury, Yairford, and other baronies—which were occasionally disunited from the honour of Gloucester—and married Elizabeth, the widow of Giles de Badlesmere, and daughter of William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. This earl, among other good gifts, appropriated the church of Lantrissant to the abbot and convent in succession, from which they received fifty marks annually. Dying without issue, he was buried on the right side of the high altar at Tewkesbury. His widow was afterwards united in marriage to Gwido de Bryen, knight—said by some writers to have been of the Thomond family in Ireland, and by others, of the O’Briens of Castle Walwaine in Pembrokeshire—who was buried along with a numerous line of illustrious persons near the high altar in St. Margaret’s—or, as it was subsequently called, O’Brien’s Chapel—one of the chief sepulchral ornaments of the church. This posthumous distinction was secured by very substantial benefits conferred on the church in his lifetime.

The tombs of the illustrious individuals above mentioned are all more or less visible from the same point, and the coup-d’œil is very impressive.

This distinguished Patron of the monastery died near the close of the fourteenth century ; when the nephew of his wife—Edward, the second son of Hugh le Despenser the younger—took possession, in right of his aunt, of the old family estates of De Clare, among which were Hanley Castle, Tewkesbury Manor, and Malvern Chase. This nobleman espoused Anne, daughter of Lord Ferrers, and by this marriage left issue four sons, Edward, Thomas, Henry, and Gilbert. Edward, who was made Knight of the Garter and summoned to Parliament in the thirty-first year of Edward the Third, succeeded to the estates of Earl Hugh, his uncle, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Bartholomew de Burghurst, the king’s chamberlain. He commanded the rear of the English army during their fatiguing and perilous march from Calais to Bordeaux in 1373. He gave a cup of gold to the monastery, and a precious jewel, says the Chronicle of Tewkesbury, “wonderfully contrived to hold the sacrament on solemn days.” His eldest son, Edward, died early at Cardiff Castle, and, with two other children, a brother and sister, was buried in the family vault at Tewkesbury. At his death, two years after the expedition above mentioned, Edward left a son, named Thomas, and three daughters, Elizabeth, Anne, and Margaret, and was buried in the Abbey church of Tewkesbury, before the vestry door, near the chancel; where his widow, Dame le Despenser, to perpetuate his memory, built the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, hereafter mentioned. This lady survived her husband thirty-three years, and retained, as “her dowry, the lordships of Hanley, Fairford, and Tewkesbury,” and died at the commencement of the fifteenth century, when they fell to her grandson Richard, whose father, Thomas—the second son of the last-named Edward—had fallen a victim to the axe at the accession of Henry the Fourth. She was buried near her husband; and during her life, among various other benefactions, she bequeathed to the Abbey a suit of scarlet vestments, embroidered with lions of gold—namely, one coat with three royal robes and white vestments, and fifteen mantles or copes.

Thomas, her nephew above mentioned, married Constance, daughter of Edmund Langley, Duke of York, and was created Earl of Gloucester by Richard the Second, in right of his descent from Elianora, wife of Hugh Despenser the younger. But having taken an active part in the conspiracy formed to dethrone Henry the Fourth, he was apprehended at Bristol and executed, and a sentence of attainder passed upon his titles and estates. He was afterwards buried in the middle of the Choir in Tewkesbury church, where a lamp was kept constantly burning before the host. He left two children, Richard, who died at the age of eighteen, and Isabel, who, succeeding to the family estates, was married by the Abbot of Tewkesbury to Richard Parker, son and heir of William Lord Beauchamp, and afterwards Earl of Worcester. At the siege of Meuse-en-Bry (Meaux) in France, this nobleman was wounded by a stone cast from a sling, ‘lapide balistæ,’ and dying in consequence, his body was sent home and interred near the founder’s chapel, between the pillars at the bottom of the Choir; where the lady Isabel, his widow, erected a chapel to his memory and dedicated it to St. Mary Magdalen. It was covered with pictures of our Saviour, the twelve apostles, and emblazoned with coats of arms—long since defaced. This lady afterwards, by a papal dispensation, married her late husband’s cousin, Richard Beauchamp, fifth earl of Warwick, who was governor of France under King Henry the Sixth, and died at the city of Rouen, leaving issue by the said marriage a son and daughter, named Henry and Anne. The lady Isabel was a munificent benefactress of the Abbey of Tewkesbury, having settled upon it, for the support of six additional monks, lands worth three hundred pounds per annum. At her death she also left to it all her jewels and other personal ornaments, valued at three hundred marks additional, and procured the church of Farrande in the diocese of Salisbury, and the church of Penmarshe in that of Llandaff, to be appropriated to this Abbey. Furthermore, she ordered four masses to be said in the new chapel which she had founded, for the good of her soul and the souls of her ancestors and successors; and bequeathed to each of the priests who should officiate two shillings, to be paid weekly. She also confirmed all the privileges granted to the monastery by her ancestors, and was buried near the chapel which she had built, with great funeral pomp, by the bishop of Hereford, her confessor, and the lords abbots of Tewkesbury and Winchcomb, as specified in the Abbey Chronicle.

Henry Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, son of Richard by Isabel, heiress of the Despenser family, was about fourteen years old at his father’s death. He was crowned King of the Isle of Wight by Henry the Sixth, and at the age of eighteen was created Duke of Warwick, and declared premier Earl of England. He had the Castle of Bristol given him, with the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, the patronage of the church and priory of St. Mary Magdalen of Goldcliff, with leave to annex it to the church of Tewkesbury. He confirmed the grants made by his predecessors to the church of Tewkesbury; gave all the ornaments he wore to purchase vestments for the monastery; died in the twenty-second year of his age; and was buried in the middle of the Choir. He left issue by his marriage with Cecilia, daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, one daughter, Anne, who died in infancy; whereby Anne, his sister, became sole heiress to his estates. This lady married Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury, who in right of his wife succeeded to the vast united inheritance of the Despensers and the Beauchamps—families in which the original possessions had been accumulating for ages. Nevil, in order that his rank in the peerage might keep pace with this great accession of property, was now created Earl of Warwick—familiarly known in the writings of his day as the stout Earl of Warwick, or the King-maker—for both King Henry the Sixth and Edward the Fourth held or lost the sceptre at his dictation. His deeds and prowess are familiar to every reader of history, and will be more particularly noticed when we arrive at that portion of the work with which the name is more intimately connected. His death at the battle of Barnet, and the results of the still more sanguinary battle of Tewkesbury, placed the crown on the head of Edward, and introduced a new order of affairs in the state.

After the fall of this renowned earl, Anne his countess, “reduced to great distress, was forced to abscond. King Richard would have willingly seized on her estates, had not her two daughters, Isabel and Anne, been his own sisters-in-law; but he put these ladies in possession of them all by an equal partition of the vast inheritance between them, which was confirmed by act of parliament.” Isabel, the elder of these daughters, married George, Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward the Fourth; and in her division of the family domains, the ancient manor of Tewkesbury was included. With this lady, therefore, the subject under consideration is more particularly connected. But she was destined not long to survive her renowned father, and died in child-bed in the twenty-fifth year of her age, at Warwick Castle, from which her remains were conveyed to the Abbey of Tewkesbury, and made the object of a grand funeral solemnity, which was prolonged to an unusual duration.

The annexed particulars may give some idea of the gorgeous ceremonial practised on that occasion:—Lord John Strensham, Abbot of Tewkesbury, with several other abbots, in the ecclesiastical habits of their order, and all the brethren of the convent, received her body in the middle of the choir. The funeral office was first performed by the Lord Abbot and his brother abbots there present, with the whole of the convent, in nine lessons; then by the suffragans of the bishops of Worcester and Llandaff; and lastly, by the dean and chaplains of the Duke of Clarence. The vigils were observed by the Duke’s own family till the following day, which was the vigil of the Epiphany. The suffragan of the bishop of Lincoln celebrated the first mass of St. Mary in the Chapel of the Virgin; the second mass of the Trinity was celebrated by the Lord Abbot at the high altar; the suffragan of the bishop of Worcester said the third mass of “Eternal Rest,” at which Dr. Weld, of the Grey Friars of Worcester, preached a sermon in the choir before the prelates and monks there assembled. Mass being ended, the body was left under the Herse, a fabric erected for that purpose in the middle of the choir, for the space of thirty-five days, on every one of which the same solemn obsequies were repeated. The body of this lady was then buried in a vault behind the high altar, before the door of the Lady Chapel, opposite that of St. Edward the Martyr’s.—To the fate of George Duke of Clarence, who only survived his lady about a twelvemonth, we need not particularly advert in this place. He was also buried at Tewkesbury, and left issue two children, Edward and Margaret. This Edward Plantagenet, entitled Earl of Warwick, and heir of Tewkesbury, was first seized and imprisoned by his uncle, the tyrant Richard; next, for safer custody, removed to the Tower, by his cousin, Henry the Seventh, and beheaded on the charge of a pretended conspiracy. But the only crime that could be alleged against him was his being heir male of the house of York; and to this and the king’s invincible jealousy he fell a victim in the flower of his age. But as we shall have occasion to revert to this subject hereafter, we omit in the meantime this part of the family history.

Margaret, the only sister of this unfortunate young noble, met with a fate equally tragical and unmerited on her own part, and disgraceful to the tyrant by whom it was inflicted. She was married to Sir Richard Pole in early life, by whom she had a family, and upon an act of attainder passed against her for corresponding with her son Cardinal Pole, she was beheaded in the thirty-third year of the reign of Henry the Eighth.

Anne, youngest daughter of Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury and Warwick, was first married to Edward Prince of Wales, son of King Henry the Sixth, who, being taken at the battle of Tewkesbury, was there murdered by Richard Duke of Gloucester, whom she afterwards married, and had issue Edward Prince of Wales, who died not long before his mother, who is said to have been poisoned by Richard to facilitate his intended union with his niece, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward the Fourth, and afterwards queen of King Henry the Seventh.

From this period till the accession of Edward the Sixth, the lordship of Tewkesbury was annexed to the crown. It was then granted to Sir Thomas Seymour, who held it till his attainder; when it reverted back again, and continued vested in the crown till the seventh of the reign of James the First, when it was granted, by letters patent from that monarch, to the corporation of Tewkesbury, for the sum of “two thousand four hundred and fifty-three pounds seven shillings and fourpence halfpenny.”

Such is the descent of the manor of Tewkesbury in connexion with the Abbey to which it gave origin, and with which it was intimately associated during the long lapse of six or seven centuries.

During the many ages of prosperity which intervened between the period of its foundation down to that of its dissolution the Abbey of Tewkesbury is a name of frequent recurrence in history. Its abbots were generally men of learning, moderation, and piety; and possessed an influence in public affairs which extended far beyond the jurisdiction of their convent. They had possessions in ten different counties, and, with few exceptions, exerted a mild and benignant sway over the monastic brotherhood, of whose moral and intellectual improvement they were the watchful guardians. The compliment paid to this Abbey and its numerous inmates by William of Malmesbury, already quoted, appears to have been well merited. But in later times it was still more deserving of admiration. The magnificent style of its architecture, the number and richness of its shrines, tombs, and chapels, the elegance of design and beauty of workmanship by which they were distinguished, did honour to the classical taste of the abbots, and fostered that national love of the fine arts which has never found more zealous or more munificent patrons than among the old English Hierarchy.

They loved the arts: what taste and truth approved,
What genius formed they patronized and loved.

The Abbey cloisters and offices have almost disappeared; they were demolished by the commissioners; but, like those of St. Albans, their remembrance is perpetuated in the sacred edifice of the conventual church to which they belonged, and which has happily escaped those violent state commotions which have exploded more than once under its very walls. Its dimensions bespeak the early importance to which it laid claim as one of the great temples of the national religion; whilst the style and elaborate execution exhibited in detail, do full justice to the noble design of the general mass as it first meets the eye. This church contains a rich and varied series of monuments, from the “early style to that of the late perpendicular. They amount to at least a dozen—all of excellent workmanship, and several of very singular composition. It contains also several good specimens of stone and iron work.” It is also enriched with a series of genealogical portraits in stained glass of the De Clares, the Despensers, and other benefactors of the Abbey—

—— who struggled to keep alive
The lamp of Hope o’er man’s bewildered lot.

But the Gateway is the only remaining feature that conveys to the spectator’s mind some idea of what the Abbey itself must have been in the days of its prosperity. It is a structure of great solidity, finely proportioned, crowned with embattled walls, and is much admired by architects and others for the beauty of its Norman arch. In its minuter features, it displays much of the fine and graceful workmanship usually observed in Gateways of

its class and period. Like that of St. Albans, it is said to have been the prison of the Abbot’s jurisdiction; and certainly no building connected with the monastery could have been more adapted for a place of “durance.” It was the strongest portion of the conventual buildings, and in cases of emergency served the double purpose of prison and barbican. At the period of the Dissolution it was particularly specified as one of the conventual buildings that were to be kept up.

When yonder broken Arch was whole,
’Twas there was dealt the weekly dole;
And where yon mouldering columns nod,
The Abbey sent the hymn to God.
So fleets the world’s uncertain span;
Nor zeal for God, nor love to man,
Gives mortal monuments a date,
Beyond the power of time and fate.—Scott.

The Abbey church of Tewkesbury presents in design and construction the characteristic features of its class and era. It is built in the usual form of a cross; with the central tower, erected over the great arcade which divides the transepts, and separates the nave from the choir. “This tower is considered the finest Norman specimen of its kind in England, and was only equalled by that of Malmesbury, now in ruins. It was built early in the twelfth century , by Robert, Consul and Earl of Gloucester, and patron of the Abbey.

In the first era of Norman architecture, towers of very large dimensions and great height were placed within the centre or at the west end of the cathedral and abbey churches. Many of these now lose the appearance of their real height from their extreme solidity. This abbey tower, like those of St. Albans, Lincoln, and others, was originally finished with a lofty wooden spire, covered with lead;” a plan which is still observed in Germany, where the church spires, constructed of wood and covered with tin or iron, serve as distant landmarks to the traveller. In forest countries this was not only ornamental but necessary. “One of the earliest deviations from the original timber spire to that of stone was in that of Salisbury Cathedral.”

The height of the abbey tower is upwards of a hundred and thirty feet. The height of spires and towers is usually found to be equal to the height and length of the nave—or, more accurately perhaps, of the transept. (Mitred Abbeys, Architect. Discourses: Notes.) Externally, this tower is a very striking feature in the landscape, and is much improved by the pinnacles at each corner, which, however, are comparatively modern. The three tiers of arcade mouldings on the outer walls are highly ornamental, and in the intermediate row intersect each other, so as to give the whole square mass a light and graceful appearance.

Cloisters.—There are some traces of the cloisters remaining on the South side of the nave. They were in the perpendicular style, very rich, and contain the remains of several stalls and screen-work carved in oak. The windows are very elegant. In several instances the tracery is quite fresh and highly ornamental. The upper windows are nearly of the same character, but those underneath are of richer workmanship, with mullions, transoms, and all the minute chisel-work of the florid style. This part of the conventual remains is full of interest, and carries back the spectator into times when the genius of architecture, fostered by the spirit of religion, shed unrivalled lustre over the land.

Now, if this Cloister, fallen and gone,
Ye fain would view as once it shone,
Pace ye with reverend step, I pray,
The moss-grown and forgotten way;
While murmurs low the fitful wind,
Winning to peace the meeken’d mind;
And evening, in her solemn stole,
With stillness o’er those woods afar,
Leads in blue shade her bright’ning star,
As spreads the slow gloom from the pole.

Cloisters were first introduced as an appendage to the larger monasteries, and in this variable climate their use is sufficiently obvious. They are common to all the chief conventual houses in England; but the most remarkable and capacious are those of Canterbury, Salisbury, Norwich, Exeter, and Gloucester. They were particularly adapted to conventual life; the “ambulatory” round the square, its open windows that descended by a dividing mullion to the floor, and the small grass-covered cemetery that occupied the centre of the enclosure—the silence of the place—the sanctity of every object around—all favoured a spirit of monastic seclusion, while, at the same time, the inmates found under these solemn arcades that healthful air, exercise, and social intercourse which they were not permitted to enjoy in public.

The modern entrance to the church is from the north side through a portal of considerable width and elevation, and is furnished with iron gates. Over the entrance is a mutilated image of the Madonna, under whose tutelary guardianship the abbey enjoyed many ages of prosperity. In one of the round massive columns near the entrance into the north aisle, is an ancient Piscina, or vessel for holy water; and attached to the same pillar are two antique alms-boxes, which appear to have been the expressive monitors of charity during many generations.

The internal area of the church consists of the nave, the transepts, with two extensive side aisles, and a semicircular aisle surrounding the chancel. The lateral aisles, which are rather lower than the body of the church, are divided from the nave by double rows of massive pillars, which bear the stamp of the twelfth century. In the aisle, which forms a semicircular sweep from the north to the south ends of the transept is the modern vestry—an apartment in which the archives of the abbey were formerly kept. The whole of the interior—the nave, choir, aisles, and transepts, are rich in the monuments of past ages. Shrines, tabernacle-work, sacella, tombs, inscriptions, religious imagery, military and heraldic badges, impart an air of solemn magnificence to the scene, and address the spectator from every part of the walls. The principal arcades, by which the nave is divided from the aisles, are circular, like those in the Cathedral of Gloucester. The centre, or nave, was highest in most of the great churches, and had a breadth scarcely less than the space of the pier arches.

The Grand Entrance from the west is the most striking point of view in the whole structure. The Great West Window is “perpendicular,” converted into a very lofty Norman arch of great depth, with shafts and mouldings. “The clerestory windows of the nave are inserted in the Norman arcade; those of the Choir are of the finest decorated tracery, with considerable remains of ancient stained glass.” In design and workmanship the arch possesses nearly every feature that can enter into the combination of what is beautiful and even sublime in architecture.

The perspective, though injured by modern arrangement—the introduction of the organ, and the consequent interruption of the grand coup-d’œil—is still solemn and impressive, and readily suggests to the mind a clear idea of what it must have been when the eye could range at once through the whole nave, with nothing between that and the choir to intercept the view.

The nave in style and construction is Norman; the piers are round, massive, and lofty. At the intersection of the cross is the fine Norman tower, so much admired by all connoisseurs and men practically skilled in the science of architecture. It is ornamented with rows of arches in successive stages, both within and without, which give lightness to the mass, and take off the heaviness that would otherwise mark the structure.

The choir has a multangular east end, with additional chapels and a Chapter-house, all of excellent decorated character. Of the windows in the aisles, some of them are decorated, others perpendicular. The great window of this arch was thrown down in a storm in 1661, and twenty years elapsed before it was restored.

King selects the Western Portico of Tewkesbury as the grandest in England in point of extent and effect. The western front, or façade, has always occupied a prominent part in every large church. “It exhibits in various instances a gradual alteration of style, from the early Norman to that at the close of the fifteenth century. In the principal feature, the entrance doorway, there is a remarkable difference between those in England and upon the Continent. The German and French portail forms nearly one half of the total space, and is surmounted by a circular or rose window of vast diameter;” while in the instance before us, as also at St. Albans, the doorway bears no relative proportion to the magnificent window which rises above it.

Font.—In the south transept is a beautiful baptismal Font, with a cover, richly carved, and finished with a cross. “The variety exhibited in the design of these is infinite, and upon no subject connected with ecclesiastical rites did sculptors exert more fancy and taste than in the design and workmanship bestowed on the font.” No genuine Saxon work is so frequent as this; fonts have often survived the church in which they originally stood, and been preserved as venerable relics of primitive Christianity. In the present specimen, however, elegance, design, and execution, not antiquity, are what chiefly claim attention, and which never fail to receive it from all who are curious in subjects of this kind.

Towards the close of the fourteenth century, a very ornamental appendage to fonts was introduced, and chiefly in the eastern counties. These consisted of carved oaken covers, exquisitely wrought and embellished, which were suspended from the ceiling, moveable at pleasure, and not unfrequently consisting of a pinnacle or frame several feet high. They have been classed by Mr. F. Simpson, in his Series of Baptismal Fonts, into Saxon, early English, and decorated English of the lower era.—See Dallaway, Bapt. Fonts, p. 205.

The Roof of this church has a great advantage over that of St. Albans, being of stone, and forming a magnificent groined vault, the ribs of which are richly carved at their points of intersection with curious devices, and ornamented with much beautiful tracery, which at that height has a particularly delicate appearance. The carvings, where the ribs cross each other or meet in clusters, are all emblematical of some passage in Scripture history, commemorative of events in that of the order of Benedictines, or obscurely referring to others against which the sculptor’s ingenuity indulged in a satirical humour. But here the latter is by no means so conspicuous as in others; for in those early times the ornaments of the churches were made the frequent vehicles of bitter satire against some rival brotherhood, whose vices, true or imputed, were hieroglyphically represented in the capitals, corbel heads, and archways of their respective buildings.

“No instance of a genuine Anglo-Norman building,” says a well-known authority, “possesses, or was intended to possess, a stone roof, which is indicated by the position of the capitals. The Norman wooden roof was open to the timbers, and hence the conflagration of the ancient churches were disasters of frequent occurrence. That of Tewkesbury was completely destroyed by fire—“igne consumpta.”

Far o’er the Severn’s crimson’d flood
That blazing Abbey flung its fire,
Till roof, and stall, and shrinèd rood
Their mass of smoking embers strew’d
On chancel, nave, and choir.

Cloister Bell-case.—Among other striking remains of elaborate workmanship with which the church was so profusely adorned, is a richly carved fragment, with pinnacles, supposed to have been the case in which was suspended the Cloister Bell, which at stated hours summoned the monastic brotherhood to prayers. It is at once elegant in design, and delicate in execution; and were larger models wanting, it would be sufficient of itself to illustrate the beautiful style of architecture to which it belongs.

Summoned by this bell, the whole brotherhood, with the Lord Abbot at their head, were wont to assemble for vespers; when the well-known hymn, in commemoration of the early life of their founder, Saint Benedict, was chanted in full chorus:—

Ille florentes peragebat annos
Cum puer dulces patriæ penates
Liquit, et solus latuit silenti
Conditus antro.
Inter urticas, rigidosque sentes
Vicit altricem scelerum juventam;
Inde conscripsit documenta vitæ
Pulchra beatæ.

The Tombs and sepulchral antiquities which here proclaim the virtues of the dead, and the sorrows of the living, are still numerous, though far from what they are known to have been at the dissolution of the monastery. Some of these are elaborate productions, and ably illustrate that period when the purchase of masses and the erection of costly sepulchres for the dead were the highest testimonies that could be offered to their memory. But to secure posthumous fame, liberality to the church was the surest channel, and of those erected to the great benefactors of Tewkesbury several remain in good preservation. The most interesting are those of Isabel, Countess of Warwick; of Hugh, Lord le Despenser; of Sir Edward le Despenser; of Sir Guy d’O’Brien; of Abbot Cheltenham; of Abbot Wakeman, &c. But the first in right of precedence, though not in beauty of design or workmanship, is the tomb of the founder, Robert Fitz-Hamon, to whose life the reader’s attention has been already directed. It stood originally in the Chapter-house, where he was buried in 1107; but in 1241 it was removed to its present situation in the church, where his bones were deposited with great solemnity in a tomb of grey marble, and afterwards enclosed with an altar-chapel by the Lord Abbot Parker. During the improvements which were made in the church about the end of the last century, this tomb was opened and examined, when the mortal relics, after an interval of more than six centuries, were brought once more to the light. At the head of the stone coffin, between two and three feet long, was a circular sheet of lead, in the inner fold of which were deposited the thigh-bones and one arm entire, and which were, beyond doubt, the last earthly remains of the venerable founder. It was originally ornamented with the founder’s effigy and other ornaments in brass; but these were all abstracted during the course of open spoliation which, subsequent to the dissolution of religious houses, mutilated or destroyed many of the finest sepulchral antiquities in the kingdom. The inscription which formerly, in short and simple phrase, directed the stranger to the founder’s tomb, was cut round the frieze of the chapel:—“In hac capella jacet Dns. Robertus Filius Hamonis, hujus loci fundator.”—Antiq. of Tewkesb.

The Chancel (p. 169), where this tomb, with several others, is still shown, exhibits a combination of magnificent features. It is supported by six pillars of noble proportions, and over these are seven windows of stained glass, richly ornamented with effigies and armorial bearings of the ancient Earls of Gloucester.

There the lone MONK would muse and read,
And meditate on sacred lore;
Or view the WARRIOR on his tomb,
With raised hands seeming to implore
Of Heaven a mitigated doom!
So shaded would each figure lie,
Tall arches pointing overhead,
That, though a window placed on high,
Its gloom through distant colours shed,
So dim would lie in shades below,
That whether living shape or dead,
The monk who gazed might hardly know.

Le Despenser’s Chapel, or that dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, is a beautiful specimen of the style called Gothic. The roof is elaborately carved, supported on slender pillars of marble—now much destroyed. It was originally adorned with representations of our Saviour and his apostles, and emblazoned with armorial bearings of the families with which the Despensers claimed relationship. Under a canopy of state, on the same side, is another—consisting of three compartments, each diminishing as it ascends, till the last terminates in a point—with the effigies of Lord and Lady Despenser, in white marble. The whole of this shrine is richly carved, and, with its arches and pinnacles gradually tapering off in the form of an obelisk, is a very elegant and beautiful object, and well illustrates the florid style so prevalent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was founded by the Lady Isabella Despenser, the Countess of Warwick already mentioned, in honour of St. Mary Magdalen. The countess died in the Minories, London, in 1439, and was buried at the right hand of her father in the choir.—See, ante, p. 179.

The chapel of the Holy Trinity, on the south side of the chancel, was erected by the Lady Elizabeth, to the memory of her husband, Edward le Despenser, whose figure as an armed knight, with the bearings of the family emblazoned on his surcoat, occupies the top in a posture of supplication. What remains of these chapels is sufficient to show how highly they must have been ornamented, particularly the roof, upon which great taste and ingenuity have been displayed.

Nearly opposite the Despenser monument, and in the aisle surrounding the chancel, is the tomb of Guy d’O’Brien, already mentioned in the genealogical descent of the manor, as the second husband of the Lady Despenser. It is of open tabernacle-work, and under the arch is a recumbent figure of a knight in armour, with the arms of the O’Briens (Lords of Thomond) and the Montacutes.

Not far from the preceding, is the chapel of St. Edmund the Martyr. The monument is supported by an arch, under which, according to the fashion of those days, is a monk in the last stage of emaciation, stretched upon a shroud, and serving as a moral lesson to his brethren and all spectators, that to such complexion they must come at last. It is richly ornamented with Gothic ornaments, all minutely carved; and is understood to have been designed and executed by Wakeman, who was Abbot of Tewkesbury at the dissolution of the abbey; but he was not buried here. In a small chapel adjoining that of the Holy Trinity before mentioned, is the tomb traditionally known as that of the twelfth abbot, who presided in this monastery twenty years, and died in the middle of the thirteenth century. In Willis’s time, says Dyde, there appears to have been an effigy of this abbot, as that author mentions, that “under this arch are the effigies of a man lying in full proportion, which,” he adds, “is said to have been for Robert Fortington, the last abbot.”

Near this are the tombs of two other abbots; one a monument of dark marble, with the inscription in Saxon letters, of “Johannes Abbas hujus loci;” and another in the south wall, to the memory of “Alanus Dominus Abbas.” The latter is a fine example of its kind, and has often been engraved.

On the south side, at the Abbots’ Entrance into the church, is a monument with the arms of the De Clares, Earls of Gloucester, erected, as it has been conjectured, to the memory of Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who was beheaded after the battle of Tewkesbury. But it is probable, from the arms and other circumstances, that it is rather a memorial of the De Clares, several of whose name and family are interred within these precincts. The tomb is close to a rich-pointed doorway in the south transept, called the Abbot’s entrance, which communicated with the adjoining cloisters.

On the north side, and under an arch not unlike the preceding, is a recumbent figure of the unfortunate Lord Wenlock, whom, in a moment of fierce exasperation, Somerset struck down with his battle-axe in the field adjoining: but his body, as Leland reports, “was removed to some other place.”

Under the Tower is a brass plate with an inscription to the memory of Edward, Prince of Wales, only son of Henry the Sixth, the circumstances of whose death will be more particularly noticed hereafter. The spot where he was interred, however, is a mystery; it is merely stated that, in the common fosse, dug for the reception of the other victims, in the abbey, the body of the unfortunate prince was included.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet, nor in shroud, they bound him.

The epitaphs in the church are numerous—some curious, and all more or less illustrative of feelings by which, in general, the mourners were actuated, and of times when a mixture of classic taste and monkish superstition was the chief characteristic. Out of the many, that which follows is selected as a specimen. It is taken from a brass plate, on a stone in the body of the church, and has often been copied. (Histor. and Antiq. of Tewkes.) “In hoc Tumulo sepulta jacet Amia uxor Johannis Wiatt, Tewkesburiensis generosi, quæ spiritum exhalavit xxv August., Ao. Dni.” [Year effaced.] It is an acrostic—Amie Wiatt.

In cujus obitum versiculos perlegito subsequentes.

A : A me disce mori, mors est sors omnibus una;

M : Mortis et esca fui mortis et esca fores.

I : In terram ex terra terrestris massa meabis;

E : Et capiet cineres urna parata cinis.

V : Vivere vis cœlo, terrenam temnite vitam:

V : Vita pijs mors est; mors mihi vita pia.

J : Jejunes, vigiles, ores, credasq potenti,

A : Ardua fac: non est mollis ad astra via.

T : Te Scriptura vocat, te sermo, ecclesia Mater.

T : Teque vocat Sponsus, Spiritus atque Pater.

N.B. The Area consists of a grand principal aisle or nave, a transept or cross aisle, and two spacious side aisles, somewhat lower than the main body of the church, and separated from the nave by two rows of massive pillars. Also a handsome semicircular aisle surrounding the chancel, from the north to the south ends of the transepts, in which are the vestry (where the abbey records were formerly kept), several recesses and chapels dedicated to the founder, the benefactors, and other persons of distinction, with several Gothic tombs of splendid execution. We recapitulate these as the chief features of the Area.

Taking his position in the centre of the chancel, the stranger commands the most imposing features in the church; the rich groined roof, the bold massive pillars, the richly-sculptured tombs, the painted windows, blazoned shields, emblematic groups and Gothic inscriptions—all strike the mind with feelings of deep solemnity, and carry us back into the gorgeous imagery of the middle ages. Well may we exclaim with Quintilian—“En morti sacratos lapides!”—See, ante, p. 169.

There, in their sepulchres of costly art,
Where still the gold clings to the Parian stone,
Legend and shield and effigy impart
The accumulated fame of ages flown,
O’er sainted dust the classic wreath is strewn.
But now no mass is said—no requiem sung,
The priest is mute, the choristers are gone;
No votive “rose” upon the shrine is hung,
No flowers upon the Founder’s tomb are flung.

The Chapter-house.—This appendage to the Abbey—in which was the original tomb of the founder—is considered from the best evidence to be coeval with the building. Chapter-houses were introduced by the early Norman prelates, and formed an indispensable adjunct to every cathedral and monastery subsequently erected under their superintendence. They were not, however, built as merely necessary to the conventual establishments, and for assembling the members of the church at their elections, but they were likewise the depositaries of deceased superiors and noble benefactors. Here Fitz-Hamon, the great benefactor, or rather founder of Tewkesbury Abbey, was buried, as already mentioned, but afterwards removed to a more sacred dormitory within the church. The approach to the Chapter-house was uniformly through the cloisters, and in certain instances, as at Chester and Bristol, it had a large vestibule. That of Tewkesbury is now used as a school. The windows are lancet-pointed, and round the base and walls are pannellings and arcade mouldings after the Norman style.—See Discourses on Architecture, with the Analysis of Conventual Churches.

On the outside of the south wall is “a very beautiful arch, now closed, which opened a communication between the south aisle and the remaining abbey and cloisters.” From the style of the remaining arches in the side walls, the latter appear to have been extremely handsome. In the south wall, near the vestry door, is the tomb of Alanus—already named—the friend and biographer of Thomas-à-Becket, who died in 1202. The body is “deposited in a coffin of Purbeck marble, laid under a very plain semi-quatrefoil arch.” The coffin was opened in 1795; when the lid was taken off, the body appeared surprisingly perfect, considering that it had lain there nearly six hundred years. The folds of the drapery were very distinct, but from being exposed to the air, the whole very soon crumbled away, and left little more than a skeleton. The boots, however, still retained their shape and a certain degree of elasticity, and hung in large folds about the legs. On his right side lay a plain crosier of wood, neatly turned, the top of which was gilded, having a cross cut in it. It was five feet eleven inches in length and remarkably light. On his left side lay the fragments of a chalice.—Sepulch. Antiq.

Stalls are of the same early introduction as the other Norman appendages. “When composed of stone,” says the author already quoted, “they were first used near the altar by the officiating priests in choirs, and as subsellia in parish chancels.” Those of oak, now seen in the North Transept of the abbey, formerly stood in the choir. They are tolerably perfect; and in their canopies much intricate design and delicate carving are apparent. “In choirs, where many were united in one general plan, oak was soon introduced in place of stone,” as a material much better adapted to the purpose of elaborate carving.

The cenotaph of Abbot Wich is at the entrance of St. Edward’s Chapel; it represents, as already stated, an emaciated figure, surrounded by the ensigns of mortality, which seem to address every ear in these emphatic words—Memento mori!

The east end is hexagonal, separated from the aisles by six short massive columns supporting pointed arches. Beneath these are some larger monuments, and over them are windows fitted with painted glass. In two of them are very curious figures of knights in armour, eight in number, and represented standing under very rich Gothic canopies, each filling nearly one of the principal compartments of the windows, some in mail, others in plated armour. They are said to represent Robert first earl of Gloucester, the three Gilberts de Clare, Richard de Clare, Hugh le Despenser the younger, and one of the La Zouch family; all of whom have been already noticed in the genealogical introduction to this subject.—History of the County, art. Tewkesbury.

Benedictine. To fashion my reply to your demand
Is not to boast, though I proclaim the honours
Of our profession. Four emperors,
Forty-six kings, and one-and-fifty queens,
Have changed their royal ermines for our sables.
These cowls have clothed the heads of fourteen hundred
And six kings’ sons; of dukes, great marquises,
And earls, two thousand and above four hundred
Have turn’d their princely coronets into
An humble coronet of hair, left by
The razor—thus.—Shirley.

Tewkesbury Abbey was the last of the monastic establishments in Gloucestershire which surrendered to the mandate of Henry the Eighth. The surrender was made, under the convent seal, by John Wich, with fifteen of the brotherhood, on the 9th day of January, 1539, being the thirty-first year of the king’s reign, and began in these terms:—“To all Christian people to whom these presents shall come, We the Abbot, etc., and Brothers of the said monastery, send greeting. Know ye, that we upon full consideration, certain knowledge, and mere motion, and for divers causes just and reasonable moving our souls and consciences thereto, have freely and voluntarily given and granted to our Lord the King,” etc.

The clear annual “value of all the possessions belonging to the said monastery, as well spiritual as temporal, besides £136 8s. 1d., granted in fees and annuities to several persons by letters patent, under the convent seal, for their lives, was £1595 17s. 6d. The pensions assigned by the royal commissioners—Southwell, Petre, Kairn, Price, Kingsmen, Paulett, and Bernars—to the abbot, the prior, and other members of the establishment, amounted to £532 6s. 8d., leaving a handsome balance of £1063 10s. 10d. in favour of his Majesty’s exchequer. The keys of the treasury were delivered to Richard Paulett, receiver; but the records and evidences belonging to the monastery, which were deposited therein, and the houses and buildings which were to remain undefaced, were committed to the keeping of Sir John Whittington. Of the houses and buildings to be preserved were,—the lodging called Newark, leading from the gate to the Abbot’s Lodgings, with the buttery, pantry, cellar, larder, kitchen, and pastry thereto adjoining: the late abbot’s lodging; the hostrey; the great gate entering into the court, with the lodging over the same; the Abbot’s stable, bakehouse, brewhouse, and slaughter-house; the almary, barn, and dairy-house; the great barn next the river Avon; the malt-house, with the garners in the same; the ox-house in the Penton gate, and the lodging over the same.”—These afford some notion of the domestic offices of a lord abbot of that day.

The buildings “deemed to be superstitious or superfluous, and therefore to be demolished, were the church—but which was happily preserved with its appendages, and made parochial—the chapels, the cloister, the chapter-house, the two dormitories; the infirmary, with the chapels and lodgings within the same; the workhouse, with another house adjoining to the same; the convent kitchen, the library, the misericorde, the old hostrey, the chamber and lodgings, the new hall, the old parlour adjoining the abbot’s lodgings, the cellarer’s or butler’s lodging, the poultry-house, the garner, the almary, and all other houses and lodgings not before reserved.”

The list of materials to be converted to the king’s use, and delivered to the commissioners, were as follows:—the leads remaining on the choir, aisles, and chapels annexed; “the cloister, chapter-house, fratery, St. Michael’s chapel, halls, infirmary, and gatehouse, were estimated at 180 fodder. The bells remaining in the steeple were eight poizes, by estimation 14,600 lbs. weight.”

The jewels reserved for his Majesty’s use were,—two mitres, gilt, garnished with rugged pearls and counterfeit stones. The silver plate consisted of silver-gilt, 329 oz.—parcel of do. 605 oz.—plain silver, 497 oz.—making a total of 1431 ounces, which evinced no great luxury in that department. The ornaments reserved for his Majesty’s use were,—one cope of silver tissue, with one chesible and tunicle of the same; one cope of gold tissue, with one chesible and two tunicles of the same. The ornaments, goods, and chattels belonging to the said monastery were sold by the said commissioners, as in a book of sales thereof made appears, for the sum of £194 8s. To money given to thirty-eight religious persons of the said monastery, £80 13s. 4d. To one hundred and forty-four servants, for their wages and liveries, £75 10s. Paid the debts of the said monastery, £18 12s. These together made a sum of £174 15s. 4d., which deducted from the proceeds of the sale, left a balance in the commissioners’ hands of £19 12s. 8d.—History of the Abbey, referring to the Record in the Augmentation-office, dated 38 Hen. VIII.—Dyde.

The ecclesiastical livings in the gift of the monastery were numerous; the abbots, who successively presided as the spiritual lords of Tewkesbury, were twenty-six in number, and filling a long interval of four hundred and thirty-four years. Their names are,—Giraldus, 1104; Robert, 1110; Benedict, 1124; Roger, 1137; Fromund, 1162—during whose abbacy the conventual church was burnt. (A vacancy occurs here.) Robert II., 1182. (Another vacancy.) Alan, prior of Canterbury, 1187; Walter, 1202; Hugh, 1213; Bernard, a monk of Tewkesbury, 1215, but not approved; Peter, a monk of Worcester, 1216; Robert Fortington, prior of the Abbey, 1232; Thomas Stoke, 1253; Richard de Norton, 1276; Thomas Kemsey, 1282; John Cotes, 1328; Thomas de Legh, 1361; Thomas Chesterton, 1362; Thomas Parker, 1390; William Bristow, 1414; John Abingdon, 1443; John de Salys; (?) John Strensham—supposed that in his time the abbey was made parliamentary; Richard Cheltenham, 1481; Henry Bewly, 1509; John Wich or Wakeman, the last abbot, and first bishop of Gloucester, 1531. The abbey demesnes consisted of Stanway, modified and enlarged by Abbot Cheltenham; Forthampton, on the right bank of the Severn, about a mile below Tewkesbury; and Tewkesbury Park, Manor Place, on the east or left bank of the Severn.—Hist. and Antiq. of Tewkes. Chron. Series of the Abbots.

Domesday Survey.—In Teodechesberie were fourscore and fifteen hides in the time of King Edward. Of these forty-five were in demean, and free from all royal service and tax, except the service due to the lord of the manor. The manor was in capite. There were in demean twelve plough-tillages, and fifty between the servi and ancillæ, and sixteen bordars in waiting about the hall, and two mills of 20 sol., and one fishery, and a salt-pit at Wich, belonging to the manor.... In all Teodechesberie there are 120 acres of meadow, and a wood one mile and a half long, and as much broad.... There are now thirteen burgesses paying 20 sol. a-year; a market, established by the queen, pays 11 sol. and 8 den. And there is one plough-tillage more, and twenty-two between the servi and ancillæ, a fishery, and a salt-pit, &c.... This manor of Tewkesbury, when entire in the time of King Edward, was worth 100 lib. Whereas Radulf received 12 lib. because it was spoiled and disordered.... Brictric, the son of Algar, held this manor in the time of King Edward; and at that time had the underwritten estates of other thanes under his jurisdiction, &c. &c.—Dyde, 135. [The Norman pound or lib. equal to 12 ounces solid silver = £3 2s. sterling; the sol. = 3 shillings sterling; 48 Saxon shillings = £1 sterling.—Ibid.]—See References and Authorities.

Environs.—The first locality in the immediate neighbourhood to which the stranger’s attention is directed is the ancient battle-field, or, as it is now emphatically called, the “Bloody Meadow.” It was on this spot—the “field of Tewkesbury,”—that, on the 4th of May, 1471, the grand question between the rival houses of York and Lancaster was finally decided. The subject is familiar to every reader of history and the drama. It is commemorated, with many interesting details, by the old chroniclers; it is chosen by Shakspeare himself as the closing scene of one of his most powerful dramas; while the fair author of “Margaret of Anjou” has made it the theme of a spirited and graceful poem, in which the morning of the battle is thus introduced:—

“’Tis May—a bright and cloudless morn
Smiles on the world—on every thorn
The newly-open’d blossom glows,
And rich the woodland music flows;
Each hails the promise for his own,
As if the beam on nature’s face
Shone forth his single crest to grace,
And spake to him alone.
Alas! the welkin’s dazzling eye
But mocks the fleeting pageantry.”

“When Queen Margaret,” says Grafton, “knew that King Edward was come so near her, she tarried not long at Bath, but, removing in great haste to Bristow, sent out certain horsemen to espie whether she might safely pass ouer the riuer Seuerne, by Gloucester, into Wales, whither she determined first to go to augment her armie; and then without any delay, with speere and shielde, to set on her enemyes wheresoeuer they would abyde.” But having learned from the spies that the city of Gloucester had been intimidated by Richard, the king’s brother; that the Governor, Lord Beauchamp, had peremptorily refused to allow her to pass over their bridge; and that the townspeople were neither to be won by promises nor deterred by threats, “she shortly departed from Bristow with her armie to a propre towne on Seuerne-syde, called Tewkesbury. The Lord Beauchamp tooke from her rere-ward more ordinance than she might have well spared, which did to her no small prejudice.” The march lasted from sun to sun—impeded by the wretched cross-roads, and in continual skirmishes with the enemy.

“In weary march the night had pass’d,
And Lancaster with joy espied
Fair Tewkesbury’s hoary towers at last
Reflected in Sabrina’s tide.
Gloster had closed her gates, and sent
Loud insults from each battlement:
Nor did the rebel town make known
Her enmity in scoffs alone;
For many a mile, from copse and dell,
As onward passed the arméd train,
An arrowy shower around them fell,
And many a gallant form was slain—
Unseen the hand that brought his bane.
Bold Beaufort, who the vaward held,
As morning’s dewy mists dispell’d,
And Tewkesbury’s turrets tipt with light
Rose on his view—a welcome sight—
Through all his host the signal pass’d.”

Here, after their harassing night march, the troops were permitted to halt for some slight rest and refreshment; and, drawn up close to the banks of the Severn, could scan during their hasty repast the verdant field, now bright with the morning sun, over which the angel of destruction was hovering with outstretched but invisible wings. But full of hope, and encouraged by the words and presence of the Queen and her son Prince Edward, who had both shared with them the terrors of the night, and now anticipated a triumphant day, no thoughts of discomfiture once crossed the soldier’s mind.

“On Severn’s banks, in gladsome groups,
In thoughtless mirth, the scatter’d troops
Waste the free hour; some cast aside
Their heavy harness; some divide
With vigorous arm the opposing tide.
Nor did the crested Chieftains scorn
Their cumbrous helms aside to throw,
And woo the freshness of the morn
To fan each gallèd brow.
And many a richly blazon’d shield
Lay scatter’d on the dewy field.
But the loud laugh, the song, the jest—
Blithe echoes of the careless breast—
Rose from the humbler swarm; the rest,
Though thrown aside their outward gear,
Did still their bosom-burthens bear!”

“When the Queen,” continues the chronicle, “was come to Tewkesbury, and knew that Kinge Edward followed her with his horsemen at the very backe, she was sore abashed, and wonderfully amazed, and determined in herselfe to flie into Wales, to Jasper, Earle of Pembroke. But the Duke of Somerset willyng in no wise to flie backward, for doubts that he casted might chaunce by the way, determined there to tarrye to take suche fortune as God woulde sende.” When Oxford advised that, for another day at least, and until Pembroke’s reinforcements should have arrived, the Queen should not hazard a battle, where in point of numbers the chances were so much against her,—and added that if she did, her advisers would “think of it ere night,”—

“Not fight to-day!” cried Somerset:
“Thy words would tempt me to forget
That I have seen thee play a part
Which vouches for thy manly heart.
‘Think on’t ere night!’ Why, what care I?
’Tis now we’re call’d by Destiny!
Yes, Oxford, I do hope thy sword,
Ere this bright morn has pass’d away,
Shall proudly contradict thy word—
Yes, Oxford, we must fight to-day!”

This resolution having been confirmed by the sanction of the Queen; the Prince, her son, exclaims, in bitter remembrance of the field of Barnet, in which both the Nevils had perished—

“Is’t not time
To close the scene of woe and crime!
This hour shall close it! Ne’er again
Will I turn back from battle-plain
A beaten fugitive! Ere Even
With parting smile shall gild the west,
This sword shall triumph win, or rest—
Victory on earth, or—peace in heaven.”

Hereupon “the Duke of Somerset, like a pollitike warriour, trenched hys campe round about of such an altitude, and so strongly, that his enemyes by no means easily could make any entry; and further, perceiuyng that his part could neuer escape without battaile, determined there to see the ende of hys goode or yll chaunce; wherefore he marshalled his hoste after this maner: he and the lord Iohn of Somerset, his brother, led the forewarde; the middle warde was gouerned by the Prince, under the conduyte of the Lord of Saint Iohns and Lorde Wenlocke, whome King Edward had highly before preferred, and promoted to the degree of a baron.” [This fact the chronicler mentions in order, probably, to account for his subsequent conduct, and to justify the suspicion that he was not a hearty partisan in the queen’s cause.] “The rere-warde was put in the rule of the Earle of Deuonshire. When all these battayles were thus ordered and placed, the Queene and her sonne, Prince Edwarde, rode about the fielde encouraging their souldiors, promisyng to them, if theye did shew themselves valiaunt against their enemyes, great rewardes and high promocions, innumerable gaine of the spoyle and bootye of their adversaryes, and, above all other, fame and renoune through the whole realme.”

“Give me earth’s triumphs,” Margaret cries,
“This nether world concludes my schemes!
Ne’er could I teach my soul to prize
The moping beadsman’s dreams.
‘Victory on Earth!’—Friends! to this hour
A whole life’s energies are due!
Whate’er of ardour, skill, or power,
Your noble breasts imbue,
Call to the conflict! loudly call,
This grasping hour demands them all
’Tis a vast moment! ’tis the goal
Toward which, through years of strife, the soul
With untied vigour bent its force—
And now we touch the limits of the course!”

“In the meantime,” says the chronicler, “King Edward, which the day before had come within a mile of Tewkesbury, put his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, in the forewarde, and himselfe in the middlewarde; the Lorde Marques and the Lorde Hastyngs led the rere garde. The Duke of Gloucester, which lacked no pollicy, valiauntly with his battayle assaulted the trenche of the Queene’s campe, whome the Duke of Somerset with no less courage defended. Then the Duke of Gloucester, for a very pollitik purpose, with all his men reculed backe, the which Somerset perceiuying, like a knight more couragious than circumspect, came out of his trenche with his whole battayle and followed the chase, not doubting but the Prince and the Lorde Wenlocke, with the middlewarde, had followed just at his backe. But whether the Lorde Wenlocke dissimulated the matter for King Edward’s sake, or whether his harte serued him not, still he stoode lookyng on. The Duke of Gloucester, takyng the advantage that he adventured for, turned again face to face to the Duke of Somerset’s battayle; which, nothyng lesse thinkyng on than of the returne, were within a small space shamefully discomfited. Somerset, seeyng hys unfortunate chaunce, returned to the middlewarde, where, seeyng the Lorde Wenlocke standyng still, and after having reuyled and called hym traytor, with hys axe strake the braynes out of his heade.

“The Duke of Gloucester entered the trench, and after him the King, where, after no long conflict, the Queene’s part went almost all to wrecke, for the most part were slaine. Some fled for succour in the thicke of the Parke, some into the Monastarye, some into other places. The Queene was founde in her chariot almost dead for sorow, the Prince was apprehended and kept close by Sir Richard Croftes. The Duke of Somerset and the Lorde Prior of St. Johns were by force taken prisoners, and many other also. In the field and chase were slaine John, Lord Somerset, the Earle of Deuonshire,

Sir John Delues, Sir Edward Hampden, Sir Robert Wychingham, Sir John Lewkenor, and three thousand other.” In this battle the last blood and strength of the House of Lancaster being spent, Edward was established

——“On England’s royal throne,
Repurchased by the blood of enemies.—
What valiant foemen, like to autumn’s corn,
Have we mow’d down, in tops of all their pride!
Three Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown’d
For hardy and undoubted champions:
Two Cliffords, as the father and the son,
And two Northumberlands; two braver men
Ne’er spurr’d their coursers to the trumpet’s sound.
With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,
That in their chains fetter’d the Kingly Lion,
And made the forest tremble when they roar’d.
Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat.”——

The chronicle then proceeds with the sad detail as follows:—“After the field ended, King Edward made a proclamation that whosoever could bring Prince Edward to him alive or dead should have an annuitie of an hundred pound duryng his lyfe, and the Prince’s lyfe to be saved. Sir Richard Croftes, a wise and a valiaunt knight, nothing mistrustyng the king’s former promise, brought forth his prisoner, Prince Edward, beyng a goodly feminine and a well-featured young gentleman, whome when King Edward had well advised, he demanded of him howe he durst so presumptuouslye enter into his realme with banner displayed. The Prince beyng bold of stomack, and of a good courage, answered, saying, ‘To recover my father’s kingdome and enheritage, from his father and grandfather to him, and from him, after him, to me lineally descended.’ At these wordes King Edward sayde nothing, but with his hand thrust him from him, or as some say stroke him with his gauntlet, whom incontinent they yᵗstoode aboute, which were George, Duke of Clarence, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Thomas, Marques Dorset, and William, Lord Hastyngs, sodainly stroke and cruelly murthered him. The bitternesse of which murder some of the doers after in their latter dayes tasted and assayed by the very rod of justice and punishment of God”—each of them, the king excepted, having met with a tragical and untimely death. “His bodye was homelye interred with the other simple corses in the churche of the Monastarye of Blacke Monkes, in Tewkesbury.”

This interview between the king and the prince is powerfully drawn by Shakspeare,—in scene fifth of the third Part of “King Henry the Sixth”—who takes the old chronicles of his day as his authority for the death of Prince Edward, who received the daggers of the King, Gloucester, and Clarence, in quick succession:—

K. Edw. Take that, the likeness of this railer here. (Stabs him.)

Glo. Sprawl’st thou? take that to end thy agony.

Clar. And there’s for twitting me with perjury. (Each stabs him in turn.)

It is supposed that, when the queen was found and introduced into the presence of the conqueror, she was not aware of the extent of her misery. She believed that her son at least had escaped the carnage of the field, and believing this, all her agony was assuaged. But when the dreadful truth flashed upon her, and she beheld in the looks of those around her a ferocious exultation which could not be mistaken,—

“She look’d upon their weapons red,
She guess’d what blood their points had shed—
‘Where is my child? Mine only one!
Oh God—oh God! Is this my son?
Monsters! a mother’s curse lie strong
And heavy on ye! May the tongue—
The ceaseless tongue—which well I ween
Lives in the murderer’s murky breast—
With goading whispers, fell and keen,
Make havoc of your rest!
For ever in your midnight dream,
May the wan smile, which yet delays
On yon cold lips, appal your gaze—
And may a madden’d mother’s scream
Ring in your ears till ye awake,
And every limb with horror’s palsy shake!’—
An impulse like the grasp of death
Now hardly held her gasping breath.
Dire was the conflict. Mute she stood,
Striving—and fain to utter more,
Her writhing features struggled sore
With black convulsion, till the blood
Burst from her lips, a ghastly flood.
Then nature gave the combat o’er,
And the heart-stricken queen fell senseless on the floor!”

Queen Margaret, adds the chronicle, “lyke a prisoner, was brought to London, where shee remayned till King Reyner, her father, raunsomed her with money, which summe, as the French writers affirme, he borrowed of King Lewis XI.; and because he was not of power nor abilitye to repaye so great a dutye, he sold to the French Kinge and hys heyres the kingdomes of Naples and both the Sicilies, with the countie of Prouynce, which is the very tytle that King Charles the Seaventh made when he conquered the realme of Naples. After that raunsome payde, shee was conveyed into Fraunce with small honor, which with so great triumph and honorable enterteynment was with pompe above all pride receyved into this realme xxvii. yeres before. And where in the begynning of her tyme she lyved lyke a queene; in the middle shee ruled like an empresse; towards the ende she was vexed with trouble, never quyet nor in peace. And in her very extreme age she passed her dayes in Fraunce, more like death than lyfe, languishing and mourning in continuall sorow, not so much for herselfe and her husbande, whose ages were almost consumed and worne, but for the losse of Prince Edwarde, her sonne, whome shee and her husbande thought to have bothe overlyver of their progeny, and also of their kingdome, to whome in thys lyfe nothing could be more displeasant or grievous.”

Of the ancient lords of the manor of Tewkesbury we have given a brief account in tracing the descent of that honor; but in a future portion of the work, the “doings and sufferings” of the De Clares and the Le Despensers, with various biographical anecdotes, will be introduced. In the meantime, we take leave of this venerable Abbey—every feature of which is eloquent of the past—with a legend which, as connected with its founder, Robert Fitz-Hamon, has often been told and listened to in these very Cloisters, and with that implicit belief which nothing but the revival of miracles and monachism can restore! These apartments are now laid open to the blast; and over the grave of the beadsman “the stones of the sanctuary” are piled in mouldering heaps. Through the fretted shrines and casements, the March winds are now whistling a cold and shrill matin. The labourer has paused from his toil to discuss the merits of the New Parliament, the Gloucester Railway, and the Corn Laws! Shade of Fitz-Hamon, beholdest thou this!

Legend.—“On the day preceding his death in the New Forest, King Rufus had a dream, and behold he felt as if grievously wounded by a javelin, and that forthwith there gushed a stream of blood which reached even to the sky, cast its shadows over the sun, and diminished the very light of day. Starting from his sleep, the king invoked the name of the Blessed Virgin, and calling for lights, ordered his chamberlains to stay by him, and so passed the remainder of the night wide awake, being sorely troubled with the vision.

“But in the morning very early, a monk from beyond seas, who was then in attendance upon the king for certain affairs of the church, beckoning to Robert Fitz-Hamon, a man of great weight and influence about the king, said unto him that his rest had been troubled with a frightful dream, which he thus related:—‘As I lay on my pallet in sound sleep, methought I saw the king enter a certain church with a proud step and haughty demeanour, as is his wont, and shewing his contempt for those who were there gathered around him. Anon, seizing the crucifix with his teeth, he gnawed off its arms (brachia illius corrosit), and left it hardly a limb to stand upon. Now, when the crucifix had quietly borne with this horrible treatment for some time, at length, provoked beyond sufferance, and drawing back its right foot into a kicking attitude, it spurned the king’s person with such terrific strength that he fell prostrate on the pavement; and there, issuing from his mouth as he lay insensible, I beheld a flame widely diffused around me, and a cloud of smoke, like chaos, rising towards the sky.”

When the monk had thus related the terrific vision, Fitz-Hamon rehearsed it to the king, who, bursting into a loud incredulous fit of laughter, exclaimed “A monk, a monk! who for his own lucre hath dreamt a monkish dream. Give the friar a hundred shillings, that he may see that he has dreamt to some purpose.” But these signs and wonders were not yet over. The king himself had another dream within a few hours of his death. There appeared unto him a Child of surpassing beauty standing at a certain altar, whereupon the king, unable to overcome a strong propensity which he felt to taste the infant’s flesh, went up to it, and took a mouthful of the flesh, which was so remarkably sweet that he would have greedily devoured the whole body. But the Child putting on a stern and forbidding aspect, said to him in a threatening tone, “Forbear! thou hast already had too much!” Hereupon the king suddenly wakening, consulted a certain bishop as to the interpretation of this strange vision. The bishop suspecting that some fearful retribution was at hand, said to him, “Forbear, O king, to persecute the Church as hitherto; for in this dream behold the warning voice and paternal admonition of God, and go not forth to hunt this day as thou hast purposed.”

But the king, despising this ghostly counsel, went forth into the forest to commence his sport; when lo, as a mighty stag passed before him, he called out to the attendant, Walter Tyrrell, who stood near, “Draw, devil, draw!” Tyrrell instantly drew and let fly his arrow, but instead of hitting the stag, it glanced against a tree and struck the king in the heart. Thus was there a fearful confirmation of all the omens which had haunted the king’s pavilion the preceding night.

But without the following particulars, gravely related by the same author—Matthew of Saint Albans—the picture would be incomplete.

All the king’s followers having fled in alarm at this terrible accident, the dead body was removed from the spot where it lay by a char-burner, but so unaccountably heavy was the load, that the car broke down under it, and it was again left unattended in the depths of the forest. Here, however, a certain count having lost his companions in the chase, beheld to his utter amazement a huge, black, bristly stag carrying off the king’s body; whereupon he halted and adjured the stag by the Holy Trinity to declare what this fearful sight meant. “I am carrying your king,” said the stag, “even the tyrant William Rufus, the enemy of the Church, to the bar of judgment!”

For the sake of those who are curious in such matters we add the original Latin, by which it appears the “stag was no other than the ‘foul Fiend!’”

Authorities:—Malmesbury.—Dugdale, Monasticon.—Dyde, History and Antiquities of Tewkesbury.—Atkyns.—Mitred Abbeys.—Willis’s Cathedrals.—Saxon History.—Robert of Gloster.—History of the Clares.—Notes on Magna Charta.—Leland.—Dugdale, Baronage.—Tyrrel.—Wars of York and Lancaster.—MS. Hist. of the Abbey.—Dallaway.—Analogies of Cathedral Churches.—History of Gloucester.—Margaret of Anjou.—Drayton.—Domesday Survey.—Matth. Par.—Ord. Vital.—Fabyan.—Speed.—Sepulch. Antiquit.—Hist. Civil War.—Hist. Church,.—&c. &c. &c.

“Gaze on yon Arch, and mark the while,
Of all that feudal glory shared,
How war has reft what time had spared.
Oh, for a bard of olden time
To yield thee back thy life in rhyme—
To sing afresh thy glorious prime,
When wassail rout convulsed thy tower,
When banquet shook thy festive halls.
But all is still! thy crumbling walls
No more shall echo back the tread
Of prancing steeds: no more shall War
Roll at thy feet his iron car;
Nor trumpets’ clang, nor clashing swords,
Nor prisoner’s sigh, nor love’s last words,
Whisper amid thy voiceless dead.”—Leatham.

ONE of the most graphic pictures of “Old Kenilworth” which we have met with, occurs in the following passage:—“Where wilde brookes meeting together make a broad poole among the parkes, and so soone as they are kept in with bankes, runne in a chanell, is seated Kenelworth—in times past commonly called Kenelworde, but corruptly Killingworth—and of it taketh name a most ample, beautifull, and strong Castle, encompassed all about with parkes, which neither Kenulph, nor Kenelm, ne yet Kineglise built (as some doe dreame) but Geffrey Clinton, chamberlaine unto Kinge Henrie the First and his sonne with him, as may be shewed by good evidences; when he had founded there before a church for chanons regular. But Henrie, his nephew in the second degree, having no issue, sold it unto King Henrie the Third, who gave it in franke marriage to Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester, together with his sister Aleonor. And soone after, when enmity was kindled between the Kinge and Earl Simon, and hee slaine in the bloody wars which he had raised vpon faire pretexts against his Soveraigne, it endured six months’ siege, and in the end was surrendered vp to the Kinge aforesaid, who annexed this castle as an inheritance to Edmund his sonne, Earl of Lancaster; at which time there went out and was proclaimed from hence an edict, which our lawyers use to call ‘Dictum de Kenilworth,’ whereby it was enacted that ‘whosoever had tooke arms against the King, should pay every one of them five yeeres rent of their lands.’ A severe yet a good and wholesome course, without effusion of blood, against rebellious subiects, who, compassing the destruction of the state, put all their hopes upon nothing else but dissentions. But this Castle, through the bountifull munificence of Queene Elizabeth, was given and granted to Robert Dudleie, Earle of Leicester, who to repaire

and adourn it spared for no cost; insomuch, as if a man consider either the gallant building or the large parkes, it would seem as it were to be ranged in a third place amongst the Castles in England.”

Such is the concise description and historical epitome of this celebrated Castle, as recorded by the author of the “Britannia.” But many changes have occurred since then; its walls have been dismantled, its apartments thrown open to the weather, siege and storm have alternately expended their fury on its iron strength, and mutilated what they could not overthrow; for it is too firmly seated, too massive in its structure and materials, to feel the wasting hand of time, and happily too well cemented to be turned into a profitable quarry. The northern Ariosto, however, has done more to preserve it from further dilapidation than its own lords—he has invested its courts and halls with a charm which nothing can dissolve; and we have good reason to believe that the scenes which Scott has now rendered classic, the taste and patriotism of Clarendon will transmit unimpaired to posterity.

“Dim peering through the vale of night,
Yon murky forms bring back a crowd
Of images that seek the light,
That leap from out the misty shroud
Of ages—picturing as they glide
Athwart the tablet of my thought,
What did of good or ill betide
These walls, and all the deeds here wrought.”—Leatham.

Previous to the Conquest, observes the best authority on this subject, Kenilworth was a member of the neighbouring parish of Stoneleigh, being an ancient demesne of the Crown, and had within the precincts thereof a Castle, situate upon the banks of Avon, in the woods opposite to Stoneleigh Abbey, which castle stood upon a place called Holm Hill, but was demolished in those turbulent “times of warre betweene King Edward and Canutus the Dane.” At the time of the Norman Survey, Kenilworth was divided into two parts, one of which was styled Optone, and was held of the king by Albertus Clericus in “pure almes.” The other portion was possessed by Richard the Forester. In the reign of Henry the First, the manor was bestowed by the king upon Geoffrey de Clinton, who founded here a potent castle and a monastery. But although a fortified residence and a religious foundation were usually, in the early ages, the harbingers of wealth and consequence to the neighbouring town, Kenilworth does not appear to have greatly profited by its position, either in commerce or population. Henry the Third bestowed upon it the privileges of a weekly market on the Tuesday, and an annual fair to last three days; but this, it would appear, had fallen into disuse, for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, obtained from Queen Elizabeth the grant of a weekly market to be held on Wednesday, and a yearly fair on Midsummerday. Prosperity, however, never seems to have taken a hearty liking to the spot, and, notwithstanding the advantages of royal patronage and local position, became at length estranged from it, and fixed her seat in another though less favoured part of the county. The Castle, however, has in a great measure compensated for the lack of commerce; and by the great number of visitors who now resort to it at all seasons, from all parts of the kingdom, the inhabitants are partly indemnified for other privations. The romance of Kenilworth, it is probable, has brought, within the last fifteen years, more pilgrims to this town and neighbourhood—pilgrims of the highest rank—than ever resorted to its ancient shrine of the Virgin; more knights and dames than ever figured in its tilts and tournaments.

Of this lordly palace, where princes feasted and heroes fought—now in the bloody earnest of storm and siege, and now in the games of chivalry, and where beauty dealt the prize which valour won—“all,” says Sir Walter Scott, “all is desolate. The bed of the lake is but a rushy swamp, and the massive ruins of the Castle only show what their splendour once was; and impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment.” But from the picture of Kenilworth as it is, we return to those passages of ancient history which point out to us what it was.

The founder of the Castle, Geoffroi de Clinton, was treasurer and chamberlain to King Henry the First, but “to whom related” or from whom descended is a question on which genealogists have come to no satisfactory conclusion. By one he is said to have been a grandson of William de Tankerville, who held a distinguished office under the Duke of Normandy; by another he is mentioned as a soldier of fortune, who had no patrimony but his sword, with which he ultimately cut his way to the highest official dignities. But whatever his descent may have been, he was, beyond doubt, a person in whom the grand recommendations of valour and wisdom were eminently united. In addition to the offices of trust above-mentioned, he was appointed by the king to the chief-justiceship of England; and thus invested with all that honourable distinction to which a subject could aspire, he readily obtained those territorial possessions which gave him a high standing among the barons of his day, and have transmitted his name to the present time in a spot of ground near the Castle, with the distinctive appellation of ‘Clinton’s Green.’ The original keep, or donjon, appears to have been the work of this enterprising Norman, and is still the most imposing feature in the Castle. It is distinguished from the Norman donjon towers of that period by having had no prisons underground—such at least is the conclusion; for in several experiments which have been expressly made for ascertaining the truth of this exception, the ground on which it stands has been found solid, and with no appearance of either arches or excavations, although the examination has been carried to a depth of fifteen feet and upwards. It is probable, however, that the dungeons were either in the angular towers above, or in a part near the foundation, which remains to be discovered; for it is not at all probable that an appendage so indispensable to a feudal residence would have been neglected in this solitary instance. This massive and gigantic fabric, which was constructed to resist the slow waste of centuries, with scarcely any diminution of strength or bulk, has suffered greatly by the hand of violence. The north side appears to have been demolished for the sake of its materials, or to render it incapable of being again employed as a fortress. The external features have apparently undergone various alterations: the windows, which originally consisted of the roundheaded Norman arch, have been transformed in this particular to the fashion of a later day—a square head, to correspond with the other buildings erected by Leicester, so that in style and appearance the Castle might present one harmonious whole. The small towers which crowned the four angles in the battlements were originally much higher; but, in subserviency to the same plan, their height was reduced to Leicester’s new standard, and thus the more ancient character of the building was impaired rather than improved. The staircases in the south-west and north-east angles, the ancient well, some remains of colour in fresco, in imitation of niches, with trefoil heads, are among the few objects which arrest the eye and invite inspection.

But of De Clinton, with whose name this part of the Castle is so particularly associated, little is known beyond the fact already mentioned, of his having founded this Castle, and a Monastery of canons-regular of the Saint Augustin order, which he amply endowed with lands, tithes, and other revenues.—“And more,” says Dugdale, “I cannot say of him than that, in the thirtieth of Henrie the First, the king, keeping his Christmas at Wodstoke, a false accusation of treason was there brought against him, and that he left issue Geffrey his son and heir, who held that office of chamberlain to the king, as his father had done. He married Agnes, daughter of Roger, Earl of Warwick, and with her obtained various grants and concessions of importance. He gave, at the burial of his father, the lordship of Neuton to the monks of Kenilworth, with eleven other possessions of great value and consideration. Henry de Clinton his son, and heir of Kenilworth, added considerably to these bequests; and in consideration of his piety and munificence to the church, the monks allowed him every day during his life two manchets—such as two of those canons had—with four gallons of their best beer, according to wine measure; all of which he was to have, whether he were at Kenilworth or not, from the time he should assume the habit of religion, except on such days as he should have entertainment in that monastery.” These worthy brethren, like the fraternity of Melrose, appear to have been no eschewers of “faire cookerye and good drinke.”

“The jolly monks they made good kail
On Fridays when they fasted,
Nor wanted they good beef and ale
As long as their neighbours’ lasted.”

“But,” says Dugdale (Baron. art. Clinton), “this Henry, ‘who had sold his heritage for a sop,’ quitted to King John all his right in Kenilworth Castle, and in the woods and pools, with whatsoever else appertained thereto; excepting what he did possess at the death of Henry the Second. By his wife, Amicia de Bidun, he left issue Henry, his son and heir, who having been in arms with the rebellious barons, returned to obedience 2ᵈᵒ Henry the Third, assuring the king of his future fidelity; whereupon he had livery of those lands in Kenilworth which descended to him by the death of his father; but dying without issue, his estates passed into the families of his three sisters, Amicabile, Isabel, and Agnes, who severally married Lucas de Columbers, Ralph Fitz-John, and Warine de Bragenham.

From this epoch in the history of Kenilworth, to the time when it was given by King Henry to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, as a marriage portion with his daughter, the Castle continued to be crown property. This alliance took place in 1253, and by various documents extant it appears that considerable sums were expended at intervals in repairs and embellishments of the royal fortress. Simon de Montfort, however, by joining the barons, as already mentioned in the history of Rochester Castle, made shipwreck of his fortune. At the battle of Evesham—a day on which, as the Monk of Gloucester observes, “the very heaven appeared in its most appalling hues”—Montfort, with his son Henry and many individuals of high rank, died on the field. “At the houre of his death,” says another chronicle, “it thundered and lightened, and so great a darkness spread the sky that men were sore amazed.” “A cruell and bloodye battayle it was,” says the annalist; “after which, in despite of the erle, some malicious persons cut off his head, mutilating him otherwise with a barbaritie too disgusting to mention. His feet also, and handes, were cut off from the body and sent to sundrie places, and the truncke of hys bodye was buryed within the church of Euisham.” But all this met afterwards with a singular retribution of vengeance at Viterbo, in Italy, as recorded by Rymer, Muratori, and others.

The king had hitherto been a prisoner in the camp of the barons, captured as already noticed at the battle of Lewis. But having now recovered his liberty, and made various state arrangements, he assembled his victorious troops in the month of June following; and with his son, Prince Edward, at their head, sat down before the walls of Kenilworth Castle, which still held out under the surviving son of De Montfort. Sir Henry Hastings, to whom Montfort, during his absence in France—where he was endeavouring to awaken a strong interest on behalf of the barons—had intrusted the command, so ably conducted the defence, that six months had elapsed before any impression could be made upon the garrison by the king’s forces.

Famine, however, accomplished what mere force could not effect. On the 20th of December, 1265, after the Dictum had been issued, a special stipulation was entered into, that “Sir Henry Hastynges and all those that were with him should have life and limme, horse and harnesse, with all things within the castelle to them belongyng, and a certeine of leysure to cary away the same.” The Castle was then delivered up to the king. The principal cause which had rendered this monarch so unpopular among his natural subjects, the old and high-spirited nobility, has been already noticed in the account of Rochester. His patronage of foreigners, and predilection for exotic customs, had prejudiced the native chivalry against him; and hence the series of battles and sieges, which only ended with the death of Simon de Montfort, and the surrender of Kenilworth Castle. At this siege stone balls of great size were employed by the besieged; some of them, which have been since dug up, measure sixteen inches in diameter, and ‘weigh nearly two hundred pounds.’ “But I doe not thinke,” says an old commentator, “that the gunnes of those dayes were such gunnes as we nowe use, but rather some pot gunne, or some such other invention.” The warlike engines then in use, however—the ‘catapultæ’ or ‘mangonels’—were sufficiently powerful to throw stones much heavier than those found at Kenilworth, as in a subsequent portion of this work we shall have occasion to show. It was whilst prosecuting this siege that the king gave his niece in marriage to the Duke of Brunswick; when the queen and her ladies, who had travelled from Windsor for that purpose, graced the ceremony with their presence.

Having thus recovered possession of the fortress, King Henry bestowed it upon his younger son Edmund, “with free chase and free warren, and right to hold in Kenilworth the weekly market and annual fair,” already mentioned; and, two years afterwards, created him Earl of Lancaster.

In this year the Castle of Kenilworth became the scene of one of those brilliant displays which commenced and vanished with the days of chivalry, but which still sparkle in the pages of the old chronicles, and enliven the tedium of more grave details. Edward I., on coming to the throne, greatly encouraged those martial exercises and amusements in which he himself so much delighted and excelled. It was under his auspices that, in imitation of the British Arthur, this fête of baronial splendour was got up; and at the head of it was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was imbued with the true spirit of his age, and delighted in those military spectacles which brought beauty and chivalry together. On this occasion, the round-table was introduced at Kenilworth, by means of which the guests were placed, for the time at least, on a footing of equality. The company consisted of five score knights, and an equal number of ladies. Among the former were many French and other foreign knights of distinction, who, in honour of their ladye-loves, had come to break a lance with England’s chivalry. The halls of the Castle were thrown open to the daily banquet; the tilt-yard was thronged with rival knights, where the fairest dame, presiding at the ring, rewarded the successful competitors for every successive display of martial strength and agility. In the evening, music and dancing filled up the interval till supper; after which the ladies retired to their ‘bower,’ and the wassail bowl circling for a time at the barons’ board, closed the brilliant exhibitions of the day. Of the dress of these court dames it is mentioned, as a proof of extreme luxury in that age, that they all appeared in “rich silken mantles.” Of this great military festival, Hardyng has drawn the following picture, which gives us a still more magnificent idea of Earl Roger’s splendour. The assembly, according to his account, was nearly tenfold that mentioned by other chroniclers:—

“And in the yere a thousand was full then,
Two hundred, also sixty and nineteen,
When Sir Roger Mortimer so began
At Kilengworth, the Round-table as was sene,
Of a thousand knyghts for discipline,
Of young menne, after he could devyse
Of turnementes and justes to exercise.
A thousand ladyes, excellyng in beautye,
He had also there in tentes high above
The justes, that thei might well and clerely see
Who justed beste there for their ladye-love,
For whose beautie it should the knightes move
In armes so eche other to revie [rival]
To get a fame in play of chivalrye.”—Hardyng Chron.

In illustration of this subject, it may be proper to introduce a passage from Strutt’s View of Manners and Customs, in which he justly remarks, “That all these warlike games—such as those of the round-table, and tilts, and tournaments—are by historians too often confounded together. They were, nevertheless, different games, as appears from the authority of Matthew Paris, who writes thus—Non in hastiludio illo quod vulgariter torneamentum dicitur, sed potius in illo ludo militari, qui mensa rotunda dicitur—‘Not in the tilts which we commonly call tournaments, but rather in that military game called the round-table.’ The first was the tilting, or running at each other with lances; the second, probably, was the same with that ancient sport called barriers, from the old French barres or jeu de barres, a martial game of men armed, and fighting together with short swords within certain limits or lists, whereby they were severed from the spectators; and this fighting without lances distinguished the barriers, or round-table knights, from the other.” (Vide also Warner’s Illustrations, critical and historical, vol. i. p. 255.) This splendid exhibition at Kenilworth was succeeded by the revival of the round-table at Windsor; and “so great was the concourse that flocked from all the countries of Europe—and particularly from France—to reap the laurels of chivalry in the court of Edward, that Philip de Valois, the French monarch, either stimulated by envy, or fearful that his own palace would be deserted by the flower of his nobility, instituted a round-table in his kingdom also. “The tournaments of this magnificent reign,” observes Warton, “were constantly crowded with ladies of the first distinction, who sometimes attended them on horseback, armed with daggers, and dressed in a succinct soldier-like habit or uniform, made expressly for the purpose.” “But this practice,” says Warren, on the testimony of Knyghton, “was at length deemed scandalous,” or at least very unfeminine.

The Hall, in which were held so many splendid reunions and banquets, is still magnificent in decay. Its proportions are ninety feet in length, forty-five

in breadth, and the same in height—proportions which were generally observed by the ancient builders in all edifices where harmony of parts and grandeur of effect were to be combined. In the windows, the richness of the mouldings and tracery still remains as a proof of what they must have been when, on the decoration of this Castle, all that art could accomplish or wealth command was lavishly bestowed. The undercroft, or hall, as described in the survey, is “carried upon pillars and architecture of freestone, carved and wrought as the like are not within this kingdom.” It is of the same dimensions as the Baron’s Hall above, and was intended for the domestics and those numerous guests and retainers who were not entitled to a place at the upper table.” On each side of the upper hall is a fire-place; near to the inner court is “an oriel, in plan comprehending five sides of an octagon, and a fire-place. On the side opposite is a recess with a single window and a small closet, described by the guide as ‘Queen Elizabeth’s dressing-room.’”

From the period just mentioned till that of Edward the Second, Kenilworth appears to have enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity, if not sunshine. It was the frequent resort of that “brave but unlettered nobility,” among whom it was the monarch’s ambition to keep alive the martial ardour which his example had awakened. On the death of the first Edward, however, and the accession of his son, a crisis was approaching. The reign of the latter, his weak and impolitic government, his disregard of public opinion, his total abandonment of the kingly duties in favour of pleasure; his patronage of foreign adventurers, and his protection of servile flatterers, on whom he lavished wealth, and power, and honours, alienated the nobility, and hastened his own downfall and that of his favourites. But without minutely entering into this subject, we shall merely touch upon such facts, or incidents, as connect the Castle of Kenilworth with the history of that period.

On the attainder of Thomas Earl of Lancaster, in the fifteenth year of this reign, Kenilworth again reverted to the crown, and was held by the king until the eve of his ‘abdication,’ when the orders issued to Odo de Stoke, his castellan, for its defence, could not be carried into effect. The king had left the capital, and become a fugitive from his exasperated vassals. Having lost his favourites—the Gavestons, and now losing both the Le Despensers by a horrid death—the unhappy monarch, thinking to secure his safety by flight, went on board a ship at Bristol, with the view of seeking refuge on the coast of Ireland. But contrary winds prevailing, he was driven on the coast of Wales; and being there made prisoner by Leicester, brother of him whom he had lately caused to be attainted, was conducted to Kenilworth Castle. “Alas,” says the chronicle, “with corrupt dispositions, even to everting of all bonds of either religious or civil duty, what will not money, diligence, and fair words accomplish! For by these means the desolate, sad, and unfortunate king fell into his cousin of Lancaster’s hands, and with him the yonger Lord Spenser, Earle of Glocester, Robert Baldock, Lord Chancellour, and Simon de Reding, there being no regard had to the detention of any other. The king was conveyed by the earle from the place of his surprise to Monmouth and Ledbury, and so on to the Castle of Kenelworth, belonging to the Earle of Leicester, who was appointed to attend him; that is, to keepe him safe. The other three, Spenser, Baldock, and Reding, were strongly guarded to Hereford, there to be disposed of at the pleasure of their most capitall enemies;” as hereafter will appear. “The mournefull king being at Kenelworth Castle, there repaired thither the Bishops of Winchester, Hereford, and Lincolne, two earles, two abbots, foure barons, two justices, three knights for every county; and for London, and other principall places, chiefly for the Cinque ports, a certaine chosen number, selected by the Parliament, which then the queene and her sonne held at London. The Bishops of Winchester and Lincolne, as it was agreed upon, came thither before any of the rest, as well to give the king to vnderstand what kinde of embassage was approaching, as to prepare him by the best arguments they could, to satisfie the desire and expectation of their new moulded common-weale, which could onely be by resignation of his crown, that his sonne might reign in his stead.” When they were admitted to his presence—the Earl of Leicester his keeper, being at hand—they “together so wrought upon him, partly by shewing the necessity, partly by other reasons, drawn out of common places, thoroughly studied for that purpose, that—although not without many sobs and teares—he finally did not dissent, if his answere, which some doubt, were truly reported to Parliament.”

The whole company sent by the Order of State—if “that might be called a body which then had no head there—from London, being placed by the Bishop of Hereford according to their degrees in the Presence Chamber of Kenilworth Castle, the king gowned in blacke came forth at last out of an inwarde roome—the Privy Chamber—and presented himself to his vassals, where—as being privy to their errand—sorrow stroke such a chillnesse into him that he fell to the earth, lying stretched forth in a deadly swoon.” The Earl of Leicester and the Bishop of Worcester beholding this ran to him, and with much labour recovered the half-dead king, setting him on his feet. But “rueful and heavy” as this sight was, we read not yet of any acts or effects of compassion expressed toward him—so settled was their hatred and aversion.

. . . . Miser atque infelix est etiam Rex,
Nec quenquam, mihi crede, facit diadema beatum.

The King being now come to himself—but to the sense of his misery—the Bishop of Hereford declared to him the cause of their present embassy; and running over the former points, concluded by saying, “That the king must resigne his diadem to his eldest sonne; or, after the refusall, suffer them to elect such a personne as themselves should judge to be most fit and able to defend the kingdome.” The delirious king having heard this speech, “brake forth into sighes and teares.” Yet, nevertheless, said that “it was greatly to his good pleasure and liking that—seeing it could none other be on his behalfe—his eldest son was so gracious in their sight; and therefore he gave them thanks for choosing him to be their kinge.” This being said, there was “forthwith a proceeding to the short ceremony of his resignation, which principally consisted in the surrender of his diadem and ensigns of majestic to the use of his sonne, the new kinge.... Edward being thus de-kinged, the embassie rode joyfully backe to London to the Parliament with the afore-named ensigns and dispatch of their employment.”—(So far Speed, Polyd. Virg., Thomas de la More, Walsingham.)

“Now, after he was deposed of his kinglie honor and title,” says Holinshed, “the said King Edward remained for a time at Killingworth Castle, in custodie of the Earle of Leicester. But within a while the Queen was informed by the Bishop of Hereford—whose hatred towards him had no end—that the Earle of Leicester favoured her husbande too much, and more than stoode with the suretie of her sonne’s estate; whereupon he, the King, was appointed to the keeping of two other lords, Thomas Berkeley and John Maltravers, who receiving him of the Earle of Leicester on the third of April, conveyed him from Kenilworth to Berkeley Castle, there to remain a close prisoner.” With the episode of this tragical history every reader is acquainted. In the words of the prophetic bard of Gray, he seems to hear

The shrieks of death through Berkeley’s roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!

But taking leave of this melancholy incident in the history of Kenilworth Castle, we pass on in company with the circumstantial chroniclers of that day. On the accession of Edward the Third, Henry, brother of the attainted lord, and who had captured the fugitive king in Wales, was restored to all his titles, honours, and estates, when Kenilworth became once more the seat of baronial splendour. To this nobleman succeeded Henry his son, whom the sovereign, as a farther mark of his approbation, created Earl of Derby and of Lincoln, and lastly Duke of Lancaster. But here the line was again

cut short. Dying without male issue in the thirty-fifth year of that reign, his two daughters became heirs to his vast demesne. Maude, the elder of these, married William Duke of Bavaria; and Blanche, the younger, John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward the Third, who shortly after, reviving the late title, created him Duke of Lancaster, “by girding him with a sword, and putting a cap of fur on his head, with a circlet of gold and pearles.” To him, in right of his wife, was assigned, in the partition of lands which followed, the Castle of Kenilworth as part of her dower; but to which, after the death of the said Maude, Duchess of Bavaria, the manor of Leicester and a great many others, as enumerated by Dugd. vol. ii. p. 114, were added.

Lancaster Buildings, so called from this celebrated personage, were among the important additions which he made to the Castle during the interval which elapsed between his accession to the demesne, and his death in 1399. The repairs, additions, and embellishments which he contributed to this ancient fortress, consisted of the range of buildings here named—forming the south side of the interior quadrangle; and the tower, with three stories of arches adjoining the hall on the north side. He flanked the outer walls with turrets, and accomplished many other works calculated to improve and strengthen the means of defence. Visitors will do well to climb over these arches, which the ruined state of the building and the rubbish that has fallen down render no difficult task, and from the top “they will enjoy a magnificent view of the country, with the house and church at Honiley in the background. One cannot stand here a moment without being struck with the idea of what a glorious prospect it must have been, with the valleys on either hand filled with the transparent waters of the lake, surrounded with a beautiful variety of pleasure-ground laid out in lawns and woods.”

Du marbre, de l’airain, qu’un vain luxe prodigue,
Des ornaments de l’art, l’œil bientôt se fatigue;
Mais les bois, mais les eaux, mais les ombrages frais,
Tout ce luxe innocent ne fatigue jamais.

In the following reign, when so much noble blood flowed on the scaffold, Lancaster was often exposed to the cold-hearted suspicions of his nephew, Richard the Second. In a former part of this work, where we have detailed at some length the circumstances attending the trial and execution of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, the Duke of Lancaster appeared at his trial; and it was he, John of Gaunt, who was conspicuously active in bringing that unhappy nobleman to the block. He survived him, however, only two years; and after many splendid services to the state, and having borne the titles of “Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Brittany, King of Castille,” and been thrice married, he died at his Castle of Leicester, or, according to others, at Ely House, in Holborn. Instances of his knightly prowess and prudent sayings are often detailed by the old chroniclers.

When leading the van in the battle against Henry, the bastard brother of Don Pedro in Spain, near the city of Pampeluna, pointing to the enemy in front—“There,” said he to Sir William Beauchamp, “there are your enemies; this day you shall seeme a good knight or die in the quarrel.” When John Wycliffe was called before the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and other prelates and peers, of whom this Duke of Lancaster was one; he (in favour of Wycliffe) spoke some reproachful words against the bishop, which gave such discontent to the citizens that they rose in an uproar and resolved to have murdered him, and to have set fire to his house, called the Savoy—then the fairest structure in England—had ‘not the bishop qualified them.’ On the accession of his nephew, King Richard, observing that he was under improper influence, and fearing that public blame might attach to him as the principal adviser, he obtained leave to retire to his Castle of Hereford, which he intended to have made his chief residence, and had taken measures for repairing and fortifying it. But in this he was defeated by the King’s injustice, who took it from him, at which he was much troubled, and in consequence took up his residence in his Castle of Kenilworth.—Baron.

The Hall, already mentioned, was finished only two years before the death of John of Gaunt, who, after being deprived of his other castle by King Richard, as above stated, employed his active mind in a thorough restoration of that at Kenilworth; “and for which,” says Dugdale, “he obtained a warrant from Richard, directed to Robert de Skillington, master mason, and supervisor of his buildings at Kenilworth, to impress twenty masons, carpenters, and others.”

The Strong Tower, or that which in the “Romance of Kenilworth” is called Mervin’s Tower, is also ascribed to John of Gaunt. Henry de Bolingbroke, his son, Duke of Hereford, who was destined to play so conspicuous a rôle in the national history, succeeded to his illustrious father in 1399. On his return from abroad—where he had been some time in exile—to take possession of his heritage according to the royal patent, Richard, jealous of his power and growing popularity, applied to the parliamentary commissioners, and by their authority revoked his letters patent, and retained possession of the late Duke’s estates. So glaring an act of injustice could not be overlooked, either by Hereford or his friends. Connected with most of the principal nobility by blood, alliance, or private friendship, they were easily brought, by a sense of common interest, to take part in his resentment; the consequences of which were, the deposition of King Richard, the elevation of Henry de Bolingbroke to the throne, and the origin of those unnatural wars between the houses of York and Lancaster which deluged the country with blood.

During these fierce and sanguinary contests, the castle and demesnes of Kenilworth were alternately in the power and custody of the rival houses; but the lighter amusements of the age, the chivalric entertainments, jousts and tournaments, which had so frequently enlivened its courts, had been laid aside for the stern realities of domestic war. Days of battle and nights of mourning, or fearful preparation, drove mirth and festivity from the gate; while the continual tramp of steeds, the clang of arms, and the approach of fresh conflicts, kept alive that melancholy interest and excitement, which for a time isolated this magnificent fortress and its garrison within the pale of its own fosse and ramparts.

“O England, years are fled since first
Wide o’er thy plains the war-cloud burst!
Long years are fled; yet following years
Still hear thy groans, still mark thy tears!
Yet where are they whose fatal shout
To havoc roused the maddening rout?
Where they who toss’d the fatal brand
Of discord through their hapless land?
They’re gone—and following in their place,
Another and another race.
But peace, peace, comes not! They repose
Which kindled first their country’s woes;
But, ere they slept, they left behind
A fatal present to mankind.”

The Swan Tower forms the north-west angle of the outer wall, at the meeting of the lake and canal, or wet ditch. Near this, and of an oblong shape, divided into parterres cross-fashioned, and with a circular space in the centre, was the ancient garden of the Castle, which communicated with the Maison de Plaisance already named, and this again with the strong tower adjoining. In shape it is octagonal, and is supposed to have derived its name from the swans which resorted hither to be fed by the keeper. Another of these towers, which forms the opposite or north-east angle of the outer wall, is considerably larger than the preceding, polygonal in shape, and contained several apartments, two of which have fire-places. It is known in the History of the Castle as “Lunn’s Tower,” and is seen to advantage in the general view of the Castle from the north-east. Of nearly the same size within, but not nearly so high, and in its architectural style and proportions deserving of particular attention, is the Water Tower. It appears to have been intended for military defence, and used in connexion with the other warlike outworks by which, on the land side, the castle wall was protected. The next prominent object in the same line, where the lake and ditch again meet on the south-east, is Mortimer’s Tower, already described. Communicating with this, by means of a long gallery, was the Flood Gate, which contained a “spacious and noble room,” from which the ladies might conveniently witness the martial pastimes of joust and tournament in the capacious tilt-yard adjoining, which extended from tower to tower. The buildings here enumerated form the chief features in the outer circuit, and succeed each other at various distances along the embattled wall on the north and east of the castle.

The Kitchens, three in number, occupied the whole space between the keep and the strong tower on the north-west. The buildings are in total dilapidation; but the important office to which they were applied—the restaurant of the castle—is clearly indicated by what remains. In this part of the castle—as if the walls had not yet lost the high temperature to which they had been raised in the times of baronial revelry—the ivy luxuriates in great redundancy; the lizard sports on the hearth, and the owl and bat roost together in the larder. Così trapassa, al’ trapassar’ d’ un giorno, la gloria della—cucina!

Henry the Fifth, according to Stow, kept his “Lent in the Castle of Kenelworth, and caused an harbor there to be planted in the marish for his pleasure, among the thorns and bushes, where a foxe had harbored, which foxe he killed, being a thing thought to prognosticate that he should expell the craftie deceit of the French king; besides which he also there builded a most pleasaunt place, and caused it to bee named ‘le Plaisant Marais,’ or the Pleasaunt Marsh.” Here, also, during the same Lent, “whilst the King lay at Kenelworth, messingers came to him from the Dolphin of France, named Charles, with a present of Paris balles with him to play withall; but the Kinge wrote to him that he would shortlie send to him London balles, with the whiche he woulde breake down the roofes of houses.” Of this incident Shakspeare has taken advantage in the following scene in his play of Henry the Fifth:—

Ambass. The prince, our master,
Says that you savour too much of your youth,
And bids you be advised, there’s nought in France
That can be with a nimble gaillard won—
You cannot revel into dukedoms there;
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and in lieu of this,
Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?
Exe. Tennis-balls, my liege.
K. Hen. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for.
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
And tell the pleasant prince, this mock of his
Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
Shall this his mock, mock out of their dear husbands;
Mock mothers from their sons; mock castles down.—Act i. sc. 2.

On the accession of Henry the Seventh, the Castle was bestowed upon his son, as Duke of Cornwall, who, to the numerous repairs and embellishments made by his royal predecessors, contributed many others. He removed what was called the ‘Plaisance en Marais’—supposed to have been a small summer-house in the marshy flat beyond the walls—to the interior of the castle-yard, where its remains are still visible near the Swan Tower. Inheriting the munificence and taste of his father—“the onlie phœnix of hys tyme for fyne and curious masonrie,” and whose “buildings were most goodlie and after the newest caste, all of pleasure,” the Duke evinced in his repairs of Kenilworth that love and patronage of the fine arts by which he was afterwards distinguished as Henry the Eighth. The building formerly known as “Henry the Eighth’s Lodgings,” was a capacious structure, situated between the Keep, or Cæsar’s Tower, on the right, and Leicester’s Buildings on the left; comprising an extensive suite of apartments, and forming the eastern side of the inner court. Through this building, close to the tower, was the archway leading into the castle-yard. From Henry the Eighth it descended to his son, Edward the Sixth; then to Mary, and lastly to Queen Elizabeth, who bestowed it upon her favourite, Robert Dudley, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland, with all the royalties thereto belonging. This forms the most memorable incident in the history of Kenilworth.

This Sir Robert Dudley appears on almost every page of the history of Elizabeth’s reign. He had been included in the attainder of his family, but was restored in blood by Queen Mary, who appointed him, when a very young man, Master of the Ordnance at the siege of St. Quintin. Elizabeth overwhelmed him with dignities; giving him the Garter while a commoner; creating him Baron of Denbigh and Earl of Leicester; and investing him with the order of St. Michael, which the King of France, by way of compliment, had requested her to confer on two of her subjects. He was likewise Master of the Horse, Steward of the Household, Chancellor of Oxford, Ranger of the Forests south of Trent, and Captain-general of the English forces in the Netherlands; and, as though the great ancient offices of his country were not sufficient for the gratification of his ambitious temper, a patent was preparing at the time of his death for one before unheard of—the Queen’s Lieutenant in the government of England and Ireland. He was distinguished by the elegance of his manners and the profuseness of his expenses, and affected a great degree of piety, and a strict purity of conduct. To these plausible appearances, though unpossessed of either wisdom or virtue, he owed the maintenance of his power to the last, against a strong party at court, and even against the Queen herself, who would gladly have pulled him down when those motives, which doubtless produced her first favours to him, had lost their force. The most material circumstances of his political history never appeared to public view; for he was the darkest character of his time, and delighted in deriving the success of his schemes from the operation of remote causes, and the agency of obscure instruments. It is highly probable that the Queen of Scots, and the Duke of Norfolk, were sacrificed to this crooked sort of policy; a conjecture which tends to wipe out somewhat, though, alas! but little, of the bloody stain which those enormities have left on Elizabeth’s memory.—Illust. of Brit. Hist.—Lodge.

He married, first, Anne, daughter and heiress to Sir John Robsart (for a particular account of whose murder, and the suspicions that fell on her husband, see Ashmole’s History of Berks): secondly, Douglas, daughter of William Lord Howard of Effingham, and widow of John Lord Sheffield, by whom he had a son, Sir Robert, who is frequently mentioned in the papers of the succeeding reign. But soon after, having conceived a violent passion for Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, and widow of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose late death had been attended by strong indications of foul play, he wedded her, and disowned his former marriage and its unfortunate offspring. Douglas submitted patiently, and lived for some time in the obscurity which suited her disgraced character; till Leicester having attempted to take her off by poison, she married Sir Edward Stafford of Grafton, in hopes of shielding herself against the Earl’s future malignity, by affording him in her own conduct a presumptive evidence in favour of his allegations. All the curious circumstances relating to this double bigamy may be found in Dugdale’s Warwickshire.—Ibid. Note, vol. i. p. 378.

The repairs, alterations, and additions made to the Castle by this nobleman were on the most splendid scale, and finished at an expenditure of sixty thousand pounds: an immense sum at that time.

The Stables, which formed so important an object in the establishment of every military baron, were in proportion to the number of his retinue and retainers. The lower story of the building, described as Leicester’s Stables, is of solid stone mason-work. The lofts, or upper story, consist of brick and timber pane-work, each compartment having a diagonal piece of timber in it, carved in rude imitation of the “Ragged Staff,” part of the armorial bearings of the family.

His principal works are thus enumerated:—“The first was the great Gate-house on the north side; for, after having filled up a part of the moat on that side, he made the principal entrance from the north, instead of the south, as it had been originally. He erected a large mass of square rooms at the north-east angle of the upper court, called Leicester’s Buildings, and built from the ground two handsome towers at the head of the pool. The one called Flood-gate, or Gallery Tower, stood at the end of the tilt-yard, and contained a spacious and noble room, from which the ladies might conveniently see the exercises of tilting and other sports. The other was called Mortimer’s Tower, either, as Dugdale thinks, after one that previously stood there, and in which this lord lodged at the round-table festival already mentioned, or because Sir John Mortimer was confined there when a prisoner in the reign of Henry the Sixth. By Leicester, also, the baronial chase, or park, was greatly enlarged. But although his works are of so recent a date, they present, nevertheless, the appearance of great antiquity, owing to the quality of the stone, which, being of a friable nature, is readily acted upon by the weather.”

Leicester’s Buildings, which comprise the lofty range from north-east to south-west, present, even in their present state of dilapidation, the skeleton of a majestic structure, and enable the stranger to form a fair estimate of the splendid accommodation provided for the queen and her court. To correct a popular error, it may be observed that “the great staircase flanked the centre apartment, and that the projecting erection at the south-west angle, usually called the staircase, was a suite of closets or dressing-rooms.” The date of 1571 is cut in stone below the centre window of the east front. To give a general idea of the extent and splendour of this Castle at the time

of the queen’s arrival, when it was in the meridian of its strength and beauty, we select the following particulars from the pen of the ‘Great Magician:’—“The outer wall enclosed a space of seven acres, a part of which was occupied by extensive stables, and by a pleasure garden with its trim arbours and parterres, and the rest forming the large base-court, or outer yard, of this noble castle. The lordly structure itself, which rose near the centre of this spacious enclosure, was composed of a huge pile of magnificent castellated buildings, apparently of different ages, surrounding an inner court; and bearing in the names attached to each portion of the magnificent mass, and in the armorial bearings which were there blazoned, the emblems of mighty chiefs who had long passed away, and whose history—could ambition have bent an ear to it—might have read a lesson to the haughty favourite who had acquired, and was now augmenting, this fair domain. A large and massive keep—[that already described as Cæsar’s Tower]—which formed the citadel of the castle, was of uncertain though great antiquity: it bore the name of Cæsar, probably from its resemblance to that in the Tower of London so called. The external wall of this royal castle was, on the south and west sides, adorned and defended by a lake, partly artificial, across which Leicester had constructed a stately bridge, that Elizabeth might enter the castle by a path hitherto untrodden, instead of the usual entrance to the northward, over which he had erected a Gate-house or barbican, which still exists, and is equal in extent, and superior in architecture, to the baronial castle of many a northern chief. Beyond the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red deer, fallow deer, roes, and every species of game, and abounding with lofty trees, from amongst which the extended front and massive towers of the castle were seen to rise in majesty and beauty.” Such was the royal Castle of Kenilworth, when, attended by thirty-one barons, the ladies of her court, and four hundred inferior servants, Queen Elizabeth accepted the hospitality of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

The progresses of the maiden Queen were eminently calculated to inspire lofty ideas of royalty. They were performed with a pomp and circumstance which dazzled the popular eye, drew around her the great and gifted of the land, excited the envy and admiration of foreigners, and, by the splendid hospitality with which she was entertained, insured a free and even profuse circulation of money wherever she halted.

Harrison, after enumerating the Queen’s palaces, adds, “But what shall I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the Queen’s Majesty hath? Sith all is hers; and when it pleaseth her in the summer season to recreate herself abroad, and view the estate of the country, and hear the complaints of her poor commons, injured by her unjust officers or their substitutes; every nobleman’s house is her palace, where she continueth during pleasure, and till she return again to some of her own, in which she remaineth so long as she pleaseth.” But in no palace was her Majesty entertained in such gorgeous state as in that of Kenilworth.

It was the twilight of a summer night—the 9th of July, 1575—the sun having for some time set, and all were in anxious expectation of the Queen’s immediate approach. “The multitude had remained assembled for many hours, and their numbers were still rather on the increase. A profuse distribution of refreshments, together with roasted oxen, and barrels of ale set abroach in different places of the road, had kept the populace in perfect love and loyalty towards the Queen and her favourite, which might have somewhat abated had fasting been added to watching. They passed away the time, therefore, with the usual popular amusements of whooping, hallooing, shrieking, and playing rude tricks upon each other, forming the chorus of discordant sounds usual on such occasions. These prevailed all through the crowded roads and fields, and especially beyond the gate of the chase, where the greater number of the common sort were stationed; when all of a sudden, a single rocket was seen to shoot into the atmosphere, and, at the instant, far heard over flood and field, the great bell of the castle tolled.

“Immediately there was a pause of dead silence, succeeded by a deep hum of expectation, the united voice of many thousands, none of whom spoke above their breath; or, to use a singular expression, the whisper of an immense multitude.”

The annexed account is abridged from the “Somerz Progrest, 1575.”

His honour, Robert Dudley, having made her Majesty great cheer at dinner on her halt at Long Ichington, and pleasant pastime in hunting by the way after, it was eight o’clock in the evening ere her Highness came to Killingworth; where, in the park, about a slight shoot from the Brays and first gate of the castle, one of the ten sibyls, comely clad in a pall of white silk, pronounced a proper poezie in English rhyme and metre,—of effect how great gladness her good presence brought into every stead where it pleased her to come; and specially now into that place that had so often longed after the same; and ended with prophecy certain, of much and long prosperity, health, and felicity. This her Majesty benignly accepting, passed forth unto the next gate of the Brays, which for the length, largeness, and use—as well it may so serve—they call now the Tilt-yard, where a porter, tall of person, big of limb, and stern of countenance, wrapt also all in silk, with a club and keys of quantity according, had a rough speech full of passions, in metre, aptly made to the purpose: whereby, as her Highness was come within his ward, he burst out in a great pang of impatience to see such uncouth trudging to and fro, such riding in and out, with such din and noise of talk within the charge of his office; whereof he never saw the like, nor had any warning afore, nor yet could make to himself any cause of the matter. At last, upon better view and advisement, as he pressed to come nearer, confessing anon that he found himself pierced at the presence of a personage, so evidently expressing an heroical sovereignty over all the whole estates, and by degrees there beside, calmed his astonishment, proclaimed open gates and free passage to all, yielded up his club, his keys, his office, and all, and on his knees humbly prayed pardon of his ignorance and impatience: which her Highness graciously granting, he caused his trumpeters that stood upon the wall of the gate there, to sound up a tune of welcome. Which,

beside the noble noise, was so much the more pleasant to behold, because these trumpeters, being six in number, were every one an eight foot high, in due proportion of person beside, all in long garments of silk suitable, each with his silvery trumpet of five foot long, formed taper ways, and straight from the upper part unto the nether end, where the diameter was sixteen inches over, and yet so tempered by art, that being very easy to the blast, they cast forth no great noise, nor a more unpleasant sound for time and tune, than any other common trumpet, be it never so artificially formed. These harmonious blasters, from the foreside of the gate at her Highness’s entrance where they began, walking upon the walls unto the inner, had this music maintained from them very delectably; while her Highness, all along this tilt-yard, rode under the inner gate, next the base-court of the castle: where the Lady of the Lake, famous in King Arthur’s Book, with two nymphs waiting upon her arrayed all in silks, attended her Highness’s coming. From the midst of the pool, where, upon a moveable island, bright blazing with torches, she, floating to land, met her Majesty with a well-penned metre, and matter after this sort: viz. First of the antiquity of the castle, who had been owner of the same e’en till this day, most always in the hands of the Earls of Leicester; how she had kept this lake since King Arthur’s days; and now, understanding of her Highness’s coming hither, thought it both office and duty, in humble ways to discover her and her estate; offering up the same, her lake and power therein, with promise of repair unto the court. It pleased her Highness to thank this lady, and to add withall, “We had thought indeed the lake had been ours, and do you call it yours now? Well, we will herein commune more with you hereafter.”

This pageant was closed up with a delectable harmony of hautboys, shalms, cornets, and such other loud music, that held on while her Majesty pleasantly so passed from thence toward the castle gate; whereunto from the base-court, over a dry valley cast into a good form, was there framed a fayre bridge of a twenty foot wide, and a seventy foot long, gravelled for treading, railed on either part with seven posts on a side, that stood twelve foot asunder, thickened between with well-proportioned pillars turned. Upon the first pair of posts were set two comely square wire cages, a three foot long, two foot wide; and high in them live bitterns, civileirs, shoovelarz, hearsheawz, godwitz, and such like dainty birds of the presents of Sylvanus, the God of Fowls. On the second pair, two great silver’d bowls, featly apted to the purpose, filled with apples, pears, cherries, filberds, walnuts, fresh upon their branches; and with oranges, pomegranates, lemons, and pippins, all as gifts of Pomona, the Goddess of Fruits. The third pair of posts, in two such silver’d bowls, had (all in ears green and old) wheat, barley, oats, beans, and pease, as the gifts of Ceres. The fourth post against it had a pair of great white silver livery pots for wine; and before them two glasses of good capacity filled full; the one with white wine, the other with claret, so fresh of colour, and of look so lovely, smiling to the eyes of many, that by my faith methought, by their leering, they could have found in their hearts, as the evening was hot, to have kissed them sweetly, and thought it no sin: and these for the potential presents of Bacchus, the God of Wine. The fifth pair had each a fair large tray, strewed with fresh grass; and in them, conger, burt, mullet, fresh herring, oysters, salmon, crevis, and such like, being gifts to her Highness, from Neptune, God of the Sea. On the sixth pair of posts were set two ragged staves of silver, as my Lord gives them in arms, beautifully glittering of armour, thereupon depending, bows, arrows, spears, shield head-pieces, gorget, corslets, swords, targets, and such like, for Mars’ gifts, the God of War. And the more aptly, methought, was it that those ragged staves supported these martial presents, as well because these staves by their tines seem naturally meet for the bearing of armour, as also that they chiefly in this place might take upon them principal protection of her Highness’s person, that so benignly pleased her to take harbour. On the seventh posts, the last and next to the castle, were there pight to faer bay branches of a four foot high, adorned on all sides with lutes, violins, shalms, cornets, flutes, recorders, and harps, as the presents of Phœbus, the God of Music, for rejoicing the mind, and also of physic, for health to the body. Over the castle gate was there fastened a table, beautifully garnished above with her Highness’s arms, and featly with ivy wreathes bordered about, of a ten foot square; the ground black, whereupon in large white Roman capitals, fayr written, a poem mentioning these gods and their gifts, thus presented unto her Highness: which, because it remained unremoved, I took it out as followeth:—[Each word in reference to the Queen was written in gold.]—

Ad Majestatem Regiam.
Jupiter huc certos cernens te tendere gressus
Cœlicolas Princeps actutum convocat omnes;
Obsequium præstare jubet tibi quemque benignum.
Unde suas Sylvanus aves, Pomonaque fructus,
Alma Ceres fruges, hilarantia vina Lyæus,
Neptunus pisces, tela et tutantia Mavors,
Suave melos Phœbus, solidamque longamque salutem.
Dii tibi, Regina, hæc (cum sis Dignissima) præbent;
Hoc tibi cum Domino, dedit se et werda Kenelmi.

This was read to her by a poet, “in a long ceruleous garment, with a bay garland on his head, and a skro in his hand. So passing into the inner court, her Majesty (that never rides but alone), thear set down from her palfrey,

was conveied up to Chamber [in which stood a splendid Chimney-piece], when after did follo a great peal of gunz, and lightning by fyrwork.”—Progrest.

The festivities lasted seventeen days, and comprised nearly every pastime which the resources of the age could produce. The hart was hunted in the park; the dance was proclaimed in the gallery; and the tables were loaded from morn to midnight with sumptuous cheer. The park was peopled with mimic gods and goddesses, to surprise the regal visitant with complimentary dialogues and poetical representations. In the chase, a savage man, with satyrs, bear-baitings, fireworks, Italian tumblers, a country bride-ale, with runnings at the quintain and morrice-dancing; and that nothing might be wanting which those parts could afford, the Coventry men came and acted the ancient play, long since used in that city, called “Hock’s Tuesday,” setting forth the destruction of the Danes in King Ethelred’s time; which pleased the Queen so much, that she gave them a brace of bucks, and five marks in money, to bear the charges of a feast. Likewise on the pool there was a Triton, riding on a mermaid, eighteen feet long; as also Arion, on a dolphin; and rare music. The costs and expenses of these entertainments may be guessed at by the quantity of beer then drank, which amounted to three hundred and twenty hogsheads of the ordinary sort. More simple amusements were also studiously introduced: the rural neighbours were assembled to run at the quintain; and a marriage, in strict consistency with country ceremonials, was celebrated under the observance of the Queen. Every hour had its peculiar sport. A famous Italian tumbler displayed feats of agility; morris-dancers went through their rude evolutions, by way of interlude; and thirteen bears were baited for the gratification of the courtiers! During the Queen’s stay, five gentlemen were honoured with knighthood, and “nyne persons were cured of the peynful and daungerous deseaz called the King’s Evil.”—Letter from a freend officer attendant in the coourt unto his freend a citizen and merchaunt of London, in this Somerz Progrest, 1575.

After this splendid reception given to her Majesty at Kenilworth, and which cost the noble host a thousand pounds per diem, Leicester continued to make the Castle his favourite residence. At his death he bequeathed it to his brother

Ambrose Earl of Warwick for life, and after him to his own son Sir Robert Dudley, who wandered abroad till his father’s death, when he returned, and challenged his right to the family dignities; which being denied, he determined to quit for ever a country in which he had experienced so much injustice. To complete this long scene of iniquity, James I. seized the estates by virtue of Mary’s statute of fugitives; but, in order to avoid the odium which so tyrannical an act justly merited, obliged Sir Robert to consent to a nominal sale of them to Henry Prince of Wales, at one third of their value, and even that was never paid. Thus this great property was unjustly drawn back to the same source from which, with so little merit, it had been originally derived.—See Lodge’s Illustrations of British History.—Letters.

Survey by the King’s Commissioners. The following survey of Kenilworth Castle and the demesne thereto adjoining, which was made at this time, conveys a splendid idea of a baronial residence. (Our authority is Dugdale.) The Castle is described as situated on a rock; the circuit whereof within the walls containeth seven acres; and upon the walls are walks so spacious and fair, that two or three persons together may walk upon most places thereof. The Castle and the four gatehouses are all built of freestone, hewn and cut: the walls in many places are ten and fifteen feet in thickness, some more, some less, the least four feet. The Castle and the four gatehouses aforesaid are all covered with lead, whereby it is subject to no other decay but the glass, through the extremity of the weather. The rooms of great state within the same are able to receive his Majesty, the Queen and Prince at the same time, and are built with as much uniformity and convenience as any houses of later times, and with such stately cellars (the Undercroft or Nether-hall already noticed) as are not within this kingdom, and also all other houses for offices answerable. About the said Castle, in chases and parks, there lieth twelve hundred pounds per annum; nine hundred whereof are grounds for pleasure, the rest is meadow and pleasure lands thereunto adjoining, tenants and freeholders. There joineth upon this ground a park-like ground called the King’s Wood, with fifteen several coppices lying together, containing seven hundred and eighty-nine acres within the same, which in the Earl of Leicester’s time were stored with red deer, since which the deer have strayed. But the ground is in no sort blemished, having great store of timber and other trees of much value upon the same. There runneth through the said grounds, by the walls of the Castle, a fair pool, containing one hundred and eleven acres, well stored with fish and wild fowl, which pool is at pleasure to be let round the Castle.

For timber and wood upon the ground to the value of twenty thousand pounds has been offered, having a convenient time allowed for their removal, but which, to his Majesty, are valued at eleven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two pounds; which proportion, in a like measure, is held in all the rest upon the other values to his Majesty. The circuit of the castle, manors, parks, and chase, lying round together, contains at least nineteen or twenty miles, in a pleasant country; the like both for strength, state, and pleasure, not being within the realm of England.

These lands have been surveyed by Commissioners from the King and the Lord Privy Seal, with directions from his Lordship to find all things under their true worth, and upon the oaths of jurors, as well freeholders as customary tenants; which course being held by them, are, notwithstanding, surveyed and returned at thirty-eight thousand five hundred and fifty-four pounds fifteen shillings. Out of this sum there is to be deducted ten thousand pounds for Sir Robert Dudley’s ‘Contempt,’ and for the Lady Dudley’s jointure, which is without impeachment of waste, whereby she may sell all the woods, which by their survey amount to eleven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two pounds. His Majesty hath herein the mean profits of the castle and premises, through Sir Robert Dudley’s ‘Contempt,’ during life, or his Majesty’s pardon, the reversion in fee being in the Lord Privy Seal.—See References.

It may be readily imagined that a castle with so many powerful recommendations was not lost sight of by the King and his advisers; and as Prince Henry was in want of a country palace befitting his name and station, that of Kenilworth was at once suggested to him as possessing every requisite for a princely residence. But independently of that splendour to which it had been raised by the late Earl of Leicester, the Castle was strongly associated with the lives and actions of former sovereigns, who had either made it their residence, or the scene of alternate conflict or festivity, from the days of Henry the First to those of Elizabeth. Enhanced by these recommendations, it was an object of ambition with the prince to obtain possession of it, and with this view, “affecting it as the noblest and most magnificent thing in the midland

parts of this realm, he made overture by special agents” to Sir Robert Dudley, to purchase the castle and domain for a sum not exceeding fourteen thousand five hundred pounds. This was probably not more than one-fourth of its value; but as the offer came from a quarter where he could expect little favour, and seeing no prospect of his being ever restored to his paternal inheritance, the unfortunate heir was driven to the painful alternative of either disposing of his right for the sum offered, or of provoking by non-compliance the resentment of the Court. “Whereupon, in consideration of £14,500 being paid within the compass of a twelvemonth, certain deeds were sealed and fines levied, settling the inheritance thereof.”

Having completed the transfer, the last hope was abandoned, and Dudley resolved never to return to a country in which he had received such manifest injustice. The conditions were, that three thousand pounds should be paid within a twelvemonth after the ratification of the transfer; but the money, which was to have been remitted to him at Florence in Italy, was lost by the failure of the merchant in whose hands it had been incautiously placed. Of the remaining sum of eleven thousand five hundred, nothing was ever paid; yet on the death of Henry the Prince of Wales, his brother Charles took possession of the castle and manor as heir to his brother, and obtained a grant out of the Exchequer for four thousand pounds to be paid to the Lady Alice, wife of Sir Robert Dudley, in lieu of her jointure, but which was not paid for many years, to the damage of the said lady. It remained thus in the possession of Prince Charles till his accession to the throne: after which, in the first year of his reign, he made a grant of it to Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth, Lord Carey, his eldest son, and Thomas Carey, Esq., in whose hands it continued till—

“Teint du sang de son Roi, l’hypocrite Cromwell
Etablit, par degrés, son pouvoir criminel:
Usurpateur habile autant que politique,
De l’état qu’il transforme en une république,
Il renverse à son gré les anciens fondemens.”—Fastes Britann.

Having then fallen into the hands of Oliver, the castle and manor were divided amongst several of his officers, who, paying no respect either to the splendour of the edifice, the richness of the furniture, or the beauty of the landscape in which the castle was embosomed, regarded it only in a pecuniary point of view; and apprehensive, probably, that their tenure was very insecure, made haste to convert everything available into money. They stript the castle of its princely decorations, cut down the timber, drained the lake, and demolished the very walls for the sake of the materials. They threw open the park and chase, killed and dispersed the deer, and subdivided the whole into distinct farms, the rental of which they continued to receive and appropriate to their own use till the Restoration. These officers were Colonel Hawkesworth, Major Creed, Captain Phipps, Captain Ayres, Captain Smith, Captain Matthews, and four others, of the names of Hope, Palmer, Clark, and Coles. “These new lords of the manor,” says the old record of that day, “tyrannize and govern the parish as they list. They pull down and demolish the castle, cut down the King’s woods, destroy his parks and chase, and divide the lands into farms amongst themselves, and build houses for themselves to dwell in. Hawkesworth seats himself in the gate-house of the castle, and drains the famous pool, consisting of several hundred acres of ground. Hope and Palmer enclose a fourth part of the commons, called the King’s woods, from the inhabitants, and take it as their own free estate. In 1657 these petty lords, attended by some of the inhabitants of the parish, took a survey, and gave in an estimate of all the lands within the liberties of the said manor, and in the following year, on the fourteenth of June, made their perambulation, and went their procession round the bounds of the parish. But, on the twenty-seventh of May, 1660, King Charles the Second came to enjoy his own dominions, and among others the lands and manor of Kenilworth. Hereupon these soldiers soon scampered away, when the daughters of Lord Carey, Earl of Monmouth, intercede and prevail to hold that said manor, as their father before them, by lease or leases from the Crown.” But this having nearly expired, he granted the reversion of the whole manor to Laurence, Lord Hyde, second son to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, whom he created Baron Kenilworth and Earl of Rochester. On the death of this nobleman in 1711, he was succeeded in his estates and titles by Henry his only son, who, at the death of Edward, the third Earl of Clarendon, in 1723, succeeded to that title also. But leaving no male issue at his decease in 1753, his grand-daughter, the Lady Charlotte Capel—daughter of William Capel, Earl of Essex, and the Lady Jane Hyde, his wife, then dead—became the representative of the Hyde family, and, in pursuance of the will of the late earl, took the name and arms of Hyde. This lady married the Honorable Thomas Villiers, second son of the Earl of Jersey, who in 1756 was created, by George the Second, Baron Hyde of Hindon, in the county of Wilts. He

had the further title of Earl of Clarendon conferred upon him by George the Third, and, at his death in 1786, was succeeded by his eldest son the late earl, whose family honours are inherited by his nephew, George William-Frederick Villiers, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Hyde of Hindon, a Count of Prussia, and sometime envoy and minister plenipotentiary at the Court of Madrid. Such is a brief outline of the descent of Kenilworth Castle, and of the many changes which it has undergone during the lapse of seven centuries.

“Illustrious Ruin! hoary Kenilworth!
Thou hast outlived the customs of thy day;
And, in the imbecility of age,
Art now the spectacle of modern times.
Yet though thy halls are silent, though thy bowers
Re-echo back the traveller’s lonely tread,
Again imagination bids thee rise
In all thy dread magnificence and strength;
Thy draw-bridge, foss, and frowning battlements,
Portcullis, barbican, and donjon-tower.”

In addition to the particulars already stated regarding the life and character of that extraordinary individual, Robert, Earl of Leicester, we avail ourselves of the following facts, as related by various writers who were his contemporaries, and founded their judgment on close personal observation. During the life of his father, the Duke of Northumberland, the first appointment which he received at Court, and to which he was duly sworn, was that of one of the six gentlemen in ordinary to Edward the Sixth. “But,” says Hayward in his life of that monarch, “this Robert Dudley was his father’s true heir, both of his hate against persons of nobility, and cunning to dissemble the same; and afterwards for lust and cruelty a monster of the Court; and as he was apt to hate, so was he a true executioner of his hatred; such was his, rather by practice than by open dealing, as wanting rather courage than wit; and,” adds the same authority darkly, “after his entertainment into a place of so near service (that of the privy chamber), the king enjoyed his health not long.” (Sir John Hayward’s Life of Edward the Sixth.) But although included in the sentence of attainder pronounced against his family, he soon emerged from obscurity, and by the very hand which had signed his father’s execution, he was made master of the Queen’s horse at the battle of St. Quentin’s, an office which was also confirmed to him by Elizabeth, who—to the surprise of many, and the disgust of all who knew his real merits—loaded him with honours. He was installed a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, made Constable of Windsor Castle for life, and finally recommended as a husband to Mary, Queen of Scots; promising, that on the Queen’s assenting thereto, she, Elizabeth, would then, by authority of Parliament, declare her to be her sister or daughter, and heir to the crown of England, in case she herself should die without issue. Her real intentions, however, are matter of suspicion; and those who were best acquainted with the policy of the Maiden Queen, thought that all this show was merely to try if the proposal would be accepted, and then to marry him herself with less dishonour. (See Appendix.)

To give further weight to this recommendation, she advanced him to the dignity of the peerage with the title of Baron Denbigh, and the very day following, being Michaelmas-day, she raised him to the Earldom of Leicester. But the French nation esteeming it dishonourable that such an alliance should be offered to Queen Mary, urged the Scotch authorities to decline it,—promising the nation many advantages in return, and suggesting that Elizabeth had no real intention of ever allowing the match to be carried into effect (Dugdale), a suspicion which appears to have been correctly founded. In compliment to Elizabeth, with whom Dudley was now the chief favourite, Charles the Ninth conferred upon him the Order of St. Michael. No Englishman had ever been admitted into this Order before, except Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, which made the Queen “look upon it as a considerable honour.” The ambassador charged with this complimentary office was M. Rambouillet; and the Queen having selected from the noblemen of her Court the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Leicester—the one distinguished by his high birth, the other by her Majesty’s favour—as candidates for the honour, they were invested in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall with great solemnity. But the more that honours were showered upon Leicester, the more was he exposed to the contempt of the old nobility, who felt as if their own degradation at Court was in exact proportion to his advancement. This was not disguised by the Earl of Sussex, who piqued himself much in the antiquity of his house, and could ill brook to see the Queen’s favour lavished on a parvenu. “Who,” said he, “is this Earl of Leicester? He can name but two ancestors, and both were executed for treason!” This language—which was the more galling from its truth—divided the whole Court into factions; and whenever the two earls went abroad, they were attended with a large retinue of followers, armed with “swords and bucklers, with iron pikes pointing out at the bosses,” insomuch that the Queen was compelled to interpose her authority, when the breach was seemingly made up. But Sussex never overcame his aversion to Leicester; and even in his last illness addressed his friends in these words: “I am now passing into another world, and must leave you to your fortunes and to the Queen’s grace and goodness; but beware of the ‘Gypsie’ (meaning Leicester), for he will be too hard for you all: you know not the beast so well as I do.”

Leicester, continuing to advance in favour, was one of the peers appointed for the trial of the Duke of Norfolk; and four years afterwards, when Walter, Earl of Essex, died in Ireland by “no common death,” it was much suspected that he had a hand in it; which is the more probable, as from that time he forsook his wife, the Lady Douglas Sheffield, by whom he had a son, Robert, already mentioned, and promised her much money and other advantages in case she would be content therewith, and so married Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knolles, and widow of the Earl of Essex, “to whom,” says Dugdale, “he had privately borne much affection before.”

The death of Essex, “in the midst of incredible torments,” was attributed to poison. Two of his own servants, Crumpton his cupbearer, and Lloyd his secretary, are reported to have been confederates in the murder; and it is said that Mrs. Alice Dracot, a pious lady, whom the earl much valued, was accidentally poisoned at the same time and with the same cup, and died a few days before him. It is farther alleged that his lordship’s page, who was accustomed to taste of his drink before he gave it to him, very hardly escaped with his life, and not without ‘the loss of his hair,’ though he drank but a small quantity; and that the earl, in compassion to the boy, called for a cup of drink a little before his death, and drank to him in a friendly manner; and says he, “I drink to thee, my Robin; but ben’t afraid, ’tis a better cup of drink than that thou tookest to taste when we both were poisoned.” (Secret Memoirs of the Earl of Leicester.) This report was formally contradicted by Sir Henry Sidney, the Lord Deputy of Ireland; but the suspicion of Leicester’s being privy to the death of Essex was never removed; and the facts of his previous intimacy and subsequent marriage with the countess added no little strength to the charge.

When the marriage between the Queen and the Duke of Anjou was first suggested at Court, he opposed it with all his influence, public and private, and had the satisfaction of attending that prince on his hasty departure from the English Court. But on his return, the elevation at his success was not a little damped by the discovery that his marriage with the Lady Lettice had been communicated to the Queen by Simier, the French minister, in revenge of the defeated plans of the Duke of Anjou. Greatly incensed at this act of duplicity, and piqued with jealousy of the lady, Elizabeth caused the Earl to be shut up in the Castle of Greenwich, as a prelude to his being sent to the Tower. Charging all these misfortunes to the conduct of Simier, he indulged the wildest passion for revenge; but the rigour of his confinement was soon moderated; the Queen relented; and the only results were greater honours, more unlimited confidence, which proved that Dudley held no secondary place in the heart of the Queen.

It was in his Castle of Kenilworth that Leicester first married Lady Essex privately; but her father, Sir Francis Knolles, being well acquainted with his lordship’s inconstancy, refused to give any credit to it unless the marriage were solemnised in his own presence. In consequence of this resolution, the ceremony was again performed at Wanstead, in presence of the said Sir Francis, the Earl of Warwick, the Lord North, a public notary, and several other witnesses. On the publication of marriage, his former wife, the Lady Douglas, in “order to secure her life from any future practices,” contracted a marriage with Sir Edward Stafford, a man of high character and reputation, and at that time Her Majesty’s ambassador in France. This step was peremptorily called for, as she laboured under constant apprehension of being made away with by Leicester; for it is certain, according to Dugdale, that she had already “some ill potions given to her,” so that, with the loss of her hair and nails, she narrowly escaped death.

Some time before the arrival of Simier with overtures from the Duke of Anjou, Leicester had engaged Astley, one of the Queen’s bedchamber, to search out her disposition towards him, and had met with an unfavourable answer. For when he was covertly recommended to her Majesty for a husband, she replied in a passion—“Do you think that in choosing a husband I should be so regardless of my character, so unmindful of my royal dignity, as to prefer my servant whom myself have raised, to the greatest princes of Christendom?” These words being reported, were thunderbolts to the Earl of Leicester; who now perceived that, should he interpose in the affair of the French match, his opposition would be construed to proceed from interested motives, and might be a means to promote rather than prevent it. He therefore chose to withdraw himself from public view, to counterfeit sickness and retire to his chamber; and there, under pretence of taking physic, he became a voluntary prisoner.

In 1585, he was made Justice-eyre of all the Forests south of Trent. He received a commission for levying five hundred men to be sent into Holland; and three weeks afterwards, he was constituted Lieutenant and Captain-General of the whole army designed for the service of the United Provinces against the Spaniards, and the same year took the command in person. In little more than a year, however, many grave charges were brought against him by the States for having abused his authority, and neglected the due performance of the high trusts reposed in him. Greatly mortified at these complaints, which, besides wounding his vanity, had a tendency to weaken his influence at Court, he affected disgust at the injustice inflicted upon him, and made his last will and testament at Middleburg, as a preparation for his retiring altogether from the public service. The contents of this will, dated the 1st of August, 1587, have been already mentioned.

On his return to England, he found that the complaints lodged against him by the Dutch had so moved the Queen’s displeasure, that “he was constrained to humble himself to his royal mistress, and with tears to beg of her, that, having sent him thither with power, she would not receive him back with disgrace; that whom she had raised from the dust, she would not bury alive!” The Queen was moved by this strain of courtly pleading, and the influence of the favourite became greater than ever. The last public service in which Leicester was engaged was with the army at Tilbury, when the Spanish Armada was expected to make a landing, and when the Queen, in addressing the troops, did him honour in these terms: “In the meantime, my Lieutenant-General shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my General, by your concord in the camp, and by your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, and of my people.” But, notwithstanding her Majesty’s commendation, there was no opportunity for his lordship to exert his abilities; for the Spanish army never landed on the English shore—the elements performed all the service which was to have devolved on Leicester.

Having thus concluded his public career, he designed to spend the remainder of his days in his Castle of Kenilworth, on which he had continued to expend all the resources of art; but, taken suddenly ill of a fever at Cornbury Park, in Oxfordshire, he there closed his earthly account, on the 4th of September. From Cornbury Park his remains were conveyed with much pomp to Warwick, and there interred, in our Lady’s Chapel, adjoining the choir of the Collegiate Church, where a very noble monument was erected to his memory, with the following inscription:—

Deo Viventium S.

Spe Certa Resurgendi In Christo Hic Situs Est Illustrissimus Robertus Dudleyus, Johannis Ducis Northumbriæ, Comitis Warwicki, Vice-Comitis Insulæ, &c., Filius Quintus, Comes Leicestriæ, Baro Denbighæ, Ordinis Tum S. Georgii Cum S. Michaelis Eques Auratus, Reginæ Elizabethæ (Apud Quam Singulari Gratia Florebat) Hippocomus Regiæ Aulæ, Subinde Seneschallus, Ab Intimis Conciliis; Forestarum, Parcorum, Chacearum, &c. Citra Trentam Summus Justificarius; Exercitus Anglici A Dicta Regina Elizabetha Missi In Belgio, Ab Anno MDLXXXV. Ad Annum MDLXXXVII. Locum Tenens Et Capitaneus Generalis; Provinciarum Confederatarum Ibidem Gubernator Generalis Et Præfectus, Regnique Angliæ Locum Tenens Contra Philippum II. Hispanum, Numerosa Classe Et Exercitu Angliam Anno MDLXXXVIII. Invadentem. Animam Deo Servatori Reddidit, Anno Salutis MDLXXXVIII., Die Quarto Septembris. Optimo Et Charissimo Marito, Mœstissima Uxor Leticia, Francisci Knolles Ordinis S. Georgii Equitis Aurati, Et Regiæ Thesaurarii, Filia, Amoris Et Conjugalis Fidei Ergo Posuit.

It is said that the Earl died much in the Queen’s debt, and that her Majesty caused his goods to be sold at a public sale, that payment might be made; for “however favourable,” says her biographer, “she might have been in all other respects, the Queen is observed never to have remitted the debts that were owing to her treasury.”

The generally received account is, that his death was occasioned by his having swallowed a draught of poison, which had been designed by him for another person: a just stroke of retribution for the lives which—as there were strong grounds to suspect—had been cut short by his employment of the like means. In a curious manuscript copy of the information given by Ben Jonson to Drummond of Hawthornden, as abridged by Sir Robert Sibbald, Leicester’s death is ascribed to poison administered as a cordial by his Countess, to whom he had given it, representing it to be a restorative in any faintness, in the hope that she herself might be cut off by using it. It may be here added, that the following satirical epitaph on Leicester occurs in Drummond’s Collections, but is “evidently,” says Scott, “not of his composition:”—

Epitaph on the Erle of Leister.

Here lies a valiant warrior,
Who never drew a sword;
Here lies a noble courtier,
Who never kept his word;
Here lies the Erle of Leister,
Who govern’d the estates,
Whom the earth could never living love,
And the just heaven now hates.
“Kenilworth,” Vol. ii. 397.

The character of Leicester is thus summed up by Camden in his Annals of Elizabeth:—“He was esteemed a most accomplished courtier, free and bountiful to soldiers and scholars; a cunning time-server and respecter of his own advantages; of a disposition ready and apt to please; crafty and subtle towards his adversaries; much given formerly to women, and in his latter days doating extremely upon marriage. But, whilst he preferred power and greatness, which are subject to be envied before solid virtue, his detracting emulators found large matter to speak reproachfully of him, and, even when he was in his most flourishing condition, spared not disgracefully to defame him by libels, not without a mixture of some untruths.” But, “to take him in the observation of his letters,” says Sir Robert Naunton, “I never saw a style or phrase more seeming religious and fuller of the strains of devotion, had they been sincere!”—Dugd. Bar.; Camden’s Annals; Secret Mem. of Robert Dudley.

The following particulars of Sir Robert Dudley, who was so unjustly deprived of his rightful inheritance, may be new to some of our readers. His life is a striking instance of the vicissitudes to which every condition of society, and more particularly that of the patrician order, was exposed, during the period in question. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and is said to have been a profound mathematician, and master of other acquirements, which he had afterwards an opportunity of turning to good purpose abroad. His earliest service was in 1595, when he had the command of three small ships, with which he took and destroyed nine Spanish traders freighted with wine. The following year he served under the Earl of Essex in the expedition to Cadiz, where he displayed so much characteristic gallantry and prudence, that he received from her Majesty the honour of knighthood; and was justly esteemed among his companions in arms, as a soldier who possessed in no ordinary degree the virtues of wisdom and prowess.

Soon after this, in a voyage to the West Indies, he called an island in the mouth of the river Orinoco, after his own name, Dudleyana. In the will of his father, the “favourite Dudley,” he is pronounced illegitimate—“my base son;” but notwithstanding this paternal stigma, there is every ground to believe that he was born in wedlock: for it appeared by depositions afterwards taken on oath in the Star Chamber, that the Earl of Leicester had been lawfully married to his mother, the Lady Douglas Sheffield, by a clergyman, according to the form prescribed by the Church of England. But by the interest of the Lady Letitia, widow to the Earl of Essex, whom Leicester had married some time before his death, these depositions were ordered to be sealed up by the Clerk of the Court, and never more to be seen or published; whilst at the same time a censure was passed upon the deponents as having entered into a conspiracy to defame the Dowager Lady Leicester, and unjustly to entitle Sir Robert Dudley to the honours which had been enjoyed by his ancestors. The unfairness, the palpable injustice of such proceedings, filled his mind with such disgust, that he determined, as already mentioned, to abandon the country of his birth; and having obtained the King’s permission to travel for three years, proceeded to Italy, where he took up his residence in the Tuscan capital with “the style of Earl of Warwick.” But having left several enemies at home, who watched every opportunity to wrest from him his princely inheritance of Kenilworth, his absence was construed into disaffection;

and a special Privy Seal being obtained for that purpose, he was commanded to return home forthwith. But fully aware of the motive which actuated the King’s advisers, and of the annoyance and mortification which awaited him, he evaded the summons, and resolved to continue in exile beyond the Alps. Advantage was immediately taken of his contumacy, and by the “statute of fugitives,” his lands were seized in the manner already described in the survey, and the mesne profits of them applied to the King’s use.

There is a romantic story told of this Sir Robert—the last of the Dudleys of Kenilworth—which mentions, that on quitting England he carried off with him the beautiful daughter of Sir Robert Southwell, in the habit of a Page. The lady had long been the object of his admiration; but as the legal proceedings instituted against him were calculated, however unjustly, to strip him of his inheritance and degrade him in his station, the family of the lady were naturally averse to the alliance, and took all necessary precautions to break off the intimacy which had hitherto existed between the parties. Driven to the necessity of expedients, where the open and honourable profession of his attachment had been rejected with coldness or even disdain, the knight employed stratagem; and having arranged a stolen interview with the lady, had no great difficulty in persuading her to quit an ungrateful country, and with him to seek refuge in that southern land where he was sure of a welcome, and where, at least, they would be far beyond the reach of both kingly and paternal despotism. How these arguments were received by the lady may be readily understood by the fact, that, within a few days after this interview, Sir Robert Dudley, accompanied by a beautiful page, had embarked for Italy.

It is not our province to detail the adventures which befell this “Lara” of his time, and his gentle page by the way; but on their reaching the Tuscan Athens, the page had suddenly disappeared, no person of his small retinue knew how. In the venerable church of the Santa Croce, however, preparations were observed as if for some religious solemnity; and in the evening of the feast of St. George, Dudley communicated to his immediate friends and attendants, that he should that evening lead a bride to the altar, and invited them to partake of the supper which had been prepared at his quarters in the Piazza della Trinità. The mere announcement of his marriage excited no particular surprise; for inheriting the manly figure, the courtly manners, and elegant accomplishments of his father, whom the maiden Queen of England had so “delighted to honour,” it was readily surmised that some signora, with the old Etruscan blood in her veins, had made a conquest of the English knight: and yet the name of the lady was a profound secret, which puzzled as much the learned cognoscenti as it did the simple contadini, whom the rumour of “English espousals” had drawn to the square in front of the church. But the mystery was speedily solved; for the procession was already under the porch of the sacred temple, and on kneeling at the altar it was no difficult matter to recognize in the lovely bride, the peerless features of Blanche Southwell—the faithful page of the exiled Robert Dudley.

Having now fixed his residence on the banks of the Arno, and become master of that rank and consideration which had been denied him at home, Dudley’s active mind, forgetting the splendour of Kenilworth Castle, soon began to exert its energies in an enterprise of great public utility. This was in concerting plans for the drainage of the fens and marshes in the neighbourhood of Leghorn, adjoining the Maremma; and with so much success did he prosecute his undertaking, that he raised that town from an inconsiderable fishing village, to the rank and importance of one of the most frequented seaports in Italy. Thus, out of seeming evil, disgrace, destitution, expatriation, much ultimate good was educed, not only to the country which had extended to him the rights of hospitality, but to himself and his successors. The Duke settled a handsome pension upon him. The reputation of his accomplishments, coupled with the history of his misfortunes, secured for him the highest consideration in Italy; while the Emperor of Germany, Ferdinand the Second, conferred upon him, by letters-patent, dated Vienna, March, 1620, the title of Duke; in consequence of which he resumed that of his grandfather, the attainted Duke of Northumberland, whose tragical end we have already mentioned in the earlier portion of this work. Thus elevated to the highest rank in the state, Dudley erected a magnificent

palace in the city of Florence, and there spent his days in works of public utility and private beneficence. His daughters by the lady, whose romantic story we have just recorded, were all married to princes of the Empire; and at his own demise—when he was succeeded in the same title by his eldest son Charles—a grant was obtained from King Charles the First, under the great seal of England, that his widow, the Lady Alice, should enjoy the title of Duchess for her natural life, and that her daughters should take rank and precedence accordingly.

This Sir Robert Dudley, according to Dugdale, was a man of heroic stature, “comely in feature, strong, valiant, famous at the exercise of tilting; singularly skilled in all mathematick learning, but chiefly in navigation and architecture; a rare chymist, and of great knowledge in physick, as his learned works do sufficiently manifest—especially that ‘De Arcanis Maris,’ printed at Florence in 1646, and afterwards at Venice in folio, adorned with sculpture: also that of physic called ‘Catholicon,’ of no small esteem with the most skilful in that profession. Nor is his memory a little famous as the inventor of that powder called Cornachine-powder; touching the virtue whereof, the learned Marcus Cornachinus, of Pisa, hath written, and endeavoured to show that all corporeal diseases may be safely and suddenly cured thereby.

“Nor is it less remarkable that his merits were so highly esteemed by the grand Duke of Tuscany (Cosmo the Second), as that he allowed him an yearly stipend of little less than a thousand pounds sterling.... Moreover, he died at a palace of the Dukes of Florence, two or three Italian miles distant from that city, in or about the year 1650. And his bodye resteth in the monastery of the nuns at Boldrone, except it be removed to the church of St. Pancras in Florence, where he raised a noble monument for his wife, with purpose to be there interred himself. Likewise he left to his sons divers curious mathematical instruments, chiefly of his own invention, of which they, making little use, have disposed of to the great Duke of Tuscany.”—Dugd. Baron, Art. Leicest. vol. ii. p. 225.

Classical Associations.—The narrative of the popular romance of Kenilworth hinges upon the sad fortunes of Amy Robsart, which form “a painful tissue of unvaried disappointments, distresses, and privations, closed by an unmerited and horrible death.”

We have already observed that the first wife of Leicester was Amy, the daughter of Sir John Robsart, of Sheen, in Surrey; a match effected, like most of the marriages between the offspring of the great in that age, “when the parties,” says Warner, “were very young, and resulting from plans and adjustments of their parents, rather than from their own predilection for each other.” The connexion was sanctioned by the young king, Edward the Sixth, who honoured the ceremony with his presence, and speedily advanced the bridegroom to considerable offices at court. For a few years Leicester and his wife appear to have lived together on what are called decent, if not on affectionate, terms; and though the rays of royal favour, which daily shone upon him with increasing warmth, gradually produced and embittered his regret at having matched himself with so humble a partner for life as Amy Robsart, yet he does not seem to have conceived any notion of ridding himself of this domestic burthen by violent means, till the prospect of sharing either the Scotch or the English throne dazzled his imagination. To both of these speculations, Amy was an insurmountable obstacle; and he resolved to remove it by her immediate destruction. How this was effected is a matter of some doubt. All that we know of it is contained in the following narrations: “Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly personage, being a great favourite to Queen Elizabeth, it was thought, and commonly reported, that had he been a bachelor or widower, the Queen would have made him her husband. To this end, to free himself from all obstacles, he, with flattering entreaties, desires his wife to repose herself at Cumnor, in Berkshire, at his servant Anthony Foster’s house, who then lived in the manor-house of this place; and also prescribed to Sir Varney, a promoter of this design, at his coming hither, that he should first attempt to poison her, and if that did not take effect, then by any way whatsoever to despatch her.” The poisoning scheme, Aubrey says, not succeeding, the foul instruments of Leicester’s villany effected their purpose in the following manner: “Sir Richard Varney, who, by the Earl’s order, remained with her alone on the day of her death, and Foster, who had that day forcibly sent away all her servants from her to Abingdon fair, about three miles’ distance from this place; these two persons first stifling her, or

else strangling her, afterwards flung her down a pair of stairs, and broke her neck, using much violence upon her; yet caused it to be reported that she fell down of herself, believing the world would have thought it a mischance, and not have suspected the villany. As soon as she was murdered, they made haste to bury her, before the coroner had given in his inquest, which the Earl himself condemned, as not done advisedly; and her father, Sir John Robsart, hearing, came with all speed hither, caused her corpse to be taken up, the coroner to sit upon her, and further enquiry to be made concerning this business to the full. But it was generally thought that the earl stopped his mouth; who, to show the great love he bore to her while alive, and what a grief the loss of so virtuous a lady was to his tender heart, caused her body to be buried in St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, with great pomp and solemnity. It is also remarkable that Dr. Babington, the earl’s chaplain, preaching the funeral sermon, tripped once or twice in his speech, recommending to their memories that virtuous lady so pitifully murdered, instead of saying so pitifully slain.”

It is evident that the above particulars are given by Aubrey from

the celebrated book, written by Parsons the Jesuit, entitled “Leicester’s Commonwealth;” but “he has omitted,” says Warner, “several curious circumstances respecting the attempt to poison the unhappy lady, which throw some light on the practices of the time, and the diabolical character of the Earl.” The book consists of a dialogue between a scholar, a gentleman, and a lawyer:—“Lawyer. Here the lawyer began to laugh a-pace, both at the device and at the minister; and said, ‘Now, truly, if my Lord’s contracts hold no better, but hath so many infirmities with subtleties, and by places besides, I would be loth that he were married to my daughter, mean as she is.’ ‘But yet,’ quoth the gentleman, ‘I had rather of the two be his wife, for the time, than his guest, especially if the Italian chirurgeon, or physician, be at hand.’ ‘True it is,’ saith the lawyer; ‘for he doth not poison his wives, whereof I somewhat marvel at his first wife: I muse why he chose rather to make her away by open violence than by some Italian comfortive.’ ‘Hereof,’ said the gentleman, ‘may be divers reasons alleged. First: that he was not at that time so skilful in those Italian wares, nor had about him so fit physicians and chirurgeons for the purpose; nor yet do I think that his mind was so settled then in mischief, as it hath been since; for you know that men are not desperate the first day, but do enter into mischief by degrees, and with some doubt, or staggering of conscience, at the beginning; and so he, at that time, might be desirous to have his wife made away with, for that she letted him in his designments, but yet not so strong-hearted as to appoint out the particular manner of her death, but rather to leave that to the discretion of the murderer. Secondly: it is not, also, unlike that he perscribed to Sir Richard Varney, at his going thither, that he should first attempt to kill her by poison, and if that took not place, then by any other way howsoever to despatch her. This I prove by the report of old Dr. Bayly, who then lived in Oxford—another manner of man than he who now liveth about my lord of the same name—and was professor of the physic lecture in the same university. This learned grave man reported for most certain, that there was a practice in Cumnor, among the conspirators, to have poisoned the poor lady a little before she was killed, which was attempted in this order: they, seeing the good lady sad and heavy—as one that well knew, by her other handling, that her death was not far off—began to persuade her that her disease was abundance of melancholy and other humours, and therefore would needs counsel her to take some potion; which she absolutely refusing to do, as suspecting still the worst, they sent one day—unawares to her—for Dr. Bayly, and desired him to persuade her to take some little potion at his hands, and they would send to fetch the same at Oxford, upon his prescription, meaning to have added, also, somewhat of their own for her comfort, as the doctor, upon just cause, suspected. Seeing their great importunity, and the small need which the good lady had of physic, therefore he flatly denied their request; misdoubting, as he afterwards reported, lest, if they had poisoned her under the name of his potion, he might have been hanged for a colour of their sin. Marry, the said doctor remained well assured that this way taking no place, she should not long escape violence, as after ensued.”—Sec. Mem.

In taking leave of Kenilworth, one cannot but regret with Fuller that so splendid a structure should have passed so rapidly into a mass of ruins; and that, not by the slow waste of time—not by the frequency of siege, nor the severity of tempests,—but by the wanton hand of aggression. “I am not stocked with charity,” says this quaint writer, “to pity the miners thereof, if the materials of this castle answered not their expectation who destroyed it. Some castles,” he adds, “have been demolished for security, which I behold destroyed, ‘se defendendo,’ without offence; others demolished in the heat of wars, which I look upon as Castle Slaughter: but I cannot excuse the destruction of this Castle from wilful murder, being done in cold blood since the end of the wars.”

“Hark! ’twas a stone that from yon turret top
Dropp’d heavily upon the sod below.
These falling fragments of departed strength,
These mouldering masses, make one feel ashamed
That earthly grandeur has so little power
To hand her greatness down to future times.”

Summary.—Consulting the ground-plan of Kenilworth, we find that the dungeons lay at the western extremity of the castle, the part which is now most ruinous. They were situated under Mervyn’s Tower—a sallyport of the castle, and which we apprehend formed, with Cæsar’s Tower, the substance of the original fortress—probably Saxon. This portion of the ruins we examined, but found it a mere shapeless heap, with some indications of strong vaultings, sufficient to justify the belief of their having been places of confinement in the ruder and more warlike days of the Barony. Kenilworth, in the absence of additions absolutely modern, affords specimens of the architecture of more various periods than most English castles. The Keep, or Cæsar’s Tower (p. 214), corresponds in some important points with the recognized specimens of Saxon building extant at Bamborough, showing the same narrow buttresses traversing the entire elevation; and a window remaining on the eastern face of the Keep, narrow, with a circular arch, and diminishing inward to a mere slit, is of a corresponding time. Supposing the body of the Keep to date before the Norman Conquest, we take the wings to be of Norman addition, from their being similar to the castle at Newcastle-on-Tyne, built immediately after the Conquest. Some portions on the western side indicate additions made about the time of Edward the Third, by John of Gaunt, and called Lancaster’s Building (p. 224); some of the windows of the great Hall (p. 220-222) are beautiful examples of this period. Near this quarter, on the south-western angle of the group, are some turrets constructed so as to be defended by three archers back to back, the loopholes extending outwards, and giving them the means of annoying an invading party under a sufficient cover. In Leicester Buildings (p. 231) are some elegant remains, particularly a superb oriel; and in this part are the details of a very delicate and elaborate style.

The Gate-House (p. 232) is comparatively recent; and some tall gabled puritanic-looking dwellings patched upon it, in an ungainly fashion, may from their aspect have been the work of those commissioners of the Parliament who made such havoc upon the venerable pile committed to their charge.—MS. Notes, A. May, 1842.

Environs.—The Priory of Kenilworth—of which our notice must be very brief (p. 215)—originally occupied a considerable space, which is indicated

by the remains of foundations, a perfect portion of which—the base of the Chapter House—was exposed by the sexton while digging in the churchyard. This has been cleared, and exhibits the base of an octagonal building with buttresses, adjacent to which is the burialplace of the Priors, which has probably been a cloister: the graves are marked by stone slabs bearing a curious variety of sculptured crosses. The remaining portions of the Priory are all of the early pointed style, with the exception of the Chapel, which evinces, by the peculiar construction of the window, a very early period. The roof of the Chapel has been richly decorated with projecting heads sculptured in a good style; one of these lies in the interior of the Priory Gate-House. The parish Church immediately adjacent to the Priory, has a richly-ornamented circular door, and in the tower a pleasing chime of bells, one of which, originally belonging to the Priory, retains its monastic habit of duly chiming the matins and ‘curfew.’ The writer was much struck with the effect of the former, on waking early on the first morning of his sojourn in Kenilworth, and making inquiry of the sexton in the course of the day, was informed that it was one of his functions to announce the dawn and sunset in this manner daily throughout the year.—From MS. Notes by an eminent Artist, communicated to the Editor.

The Town of Kenilworth, in addition to the few particulars which will be found scattered through the preceding pages, has nothing of paramount interest for the stranger. It extends along the post-road for nearly a mile, and contains various schools (liberally supported), almshouses, and other charities, which reflect the greatest credit on their founders and patrons. The population is considerably upwards of three thousand, but with very little trade. The parish church contains a splendid window of modern stained glass, contributed by the late Bishop of Lichfield when Master of Shrewsbury School, and finished under the direction of Mr. David Evans of that city. The Bridge, consisting of two spacious arches, and commanding a fine view of the striking objects around, is highly ornamental to the place.