Appendix

Description of the Plan of the Castle, page 243, as it appeared at the Queen’s visit in 1575.

Described at Page

1. Cæsar’s Tower, Kenilworth

2. Lancaster Buildings

3. Leicester Buildings

4. Base Court, or outer ballium 239-40

5. Lake ib.

6. Chase ib.

7. Gallery Tower

8. Tilt-Yard ib.

9. Mortimer’s Tower ib.

10. King Henry VIII.’s Lodgings

11. Inner Court ib.

12. The Strong, or Mervyn’s Tower

13. Kitchens

14. Pleasance

15. Great Hall

16. Leicester’s Chamber fronting the Lake

17. Gardens

18. Orchard ib.

19. Swan Tower

20. Great Gateway -2, 257

21. Lunn’s Tower

22. Water Tower ib.

23. St. Lowe Tower adjoins Mervyn’s Tower,
S. W., and is not seen in this point.

Page 245, “append.” The reader is here referred to Melvin’s account of Elizabeth.

(1) The Leicester Chimney-Piece, introduced at page 237. This justly-admired specimen of art is of alabaster, finely sculptured with bears and rugged staves, and the monograms of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester. When freshly gilded, and placed in a becoming situation, it justly deserved, says a writer of taste, to be eulogized as a work of decided skill and merit. Having happily escaped the Cromwellian devastation, this mantel-piece, together with the oaken pillars which surmount it (Wyld), were removed from one of the principal apartments or presence-chamber of Leicester Buildings, to the room which they now occupy—an oak-pannelled chamber in the old Gate-House. (2) The view introduced at page 253 represents—along with the Tower in the deep shadows of evening—a view of all that remains of the ancient moat on that side of the building. (3) The cut, page 256, is an allegorical subject of Leicester and Amy Robsart—the Dove and Snake,—or Innocence and Subtlety.

Authorities:—Camd.—Dugd.—Early Chronicles.—Strutt.—Spelman.—Harris.—Warner’s Illustr. Crit. and Hist.—Lodge’s Mem.—Brewer’s Hist. of Warw.—Monast. and Baron.—Monum. Vetusta.—Speed—Harding—Grafton—Holinshed—Secr. Mem. of Dudley—Parsons—Melvin—Pict. Hist.—Clarendon—Illustr. of Kenilw.—Guides and Topograph.—Sir W. Scott’s Notes.—Memoirs of Dudley Fam.—Annal. Elizab.—MS. Notes.—Collins’ P.—Civil and Milit. Trans. 1570-80—etc. etc.

“Ki ke volt çeo saver,
A Walteham, ultre le halt auter,
Meimes cel croiz purra trover,
E roi Haraud gisant en quer.”—Continuation of Wace’s ‘Brut.’

THE Abbey of Waltham owes most of its celebrity to its connexion with the last of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs. Our early forefathers were distinguished by their attachment to the pleasures of the chase; and the vast forest with which this district was covered must have been a favourite resort of the East-Saxon kings, as it was, after the subversion of their independence, of the thanes of Essex. One of these, named Tovi or Thovi, who held the high office of stallere (or steward) in the household of Canute the Dane, built himself a hunting residence in the rich meadows on the banks of the Lea, in the same neighbourhood where King Alfred had drawn away the waters of that river in order to cut off the retreat of the Danish fleet. This hunting-house was the weald-ham, or residence in the wood, from which the town afterwards received its name.

The “weald-ham” was a favourite residence of Earl Tovi, and was soon surrounded with the houses and huts of his retainers, thus becoming gradually a village, occupied, as we are informed in the early half-legendary history of the place, by threescore and six householders. The erection of a church followed as a matter of course: although the monks of the Abbey afterwards built there published a wild legend—how a cross, miraculously discovered on the summit of a hill in Somersetshire, then called Lutegaresberi, but since known by the name of Montacute, which was also the property of Tovi, was no less miraculously conveyed to this spot, and gave to it the subsequent appellation of Waltham Holy Cross. Tovi (who was lord of “Enefeld, Edelmetone, Cetrehunt, Mimmes (?), and of the barony which afterwards, under the Normans, passed into the family of the Mandevilles”) placed in his church two canons, endowed it with lands in Waltham, “Chenleuedene, Hyche, Lamhee, Luketune, and Alwaretune,” and gave to it the sword with which he had been first girt when he was made a knight. His wife Glitha, a very pious woman, added to these gifts a crown or wreath of pure gold. Their son Athelstan did not, however, inherit the virtues and wisdom of his parents; for, shortly after their death, he lost the manor of Waltham, which, with others in the neighbourhood, appears to have been forfeited to the Crown. Edward the Confessor gave it to his brother-in-law Harold.

Harold appears to have received these lands with the avowed purpose of founding a religious house, by which, while according to the superstitious belief of that age, he was securing the salvation of his own soul, he flattered the monastic prejudices of King Edward. In the twelfth century, the monks of Waltham had also a legendary account of this second foundation: they said that Earl Harold, on his return from the conquest of the Welsh, was visited by a dangerous attack of paralysis, which defied the skill of the physicians, until it was miraculously cured by a visit to the Holy Cross. From that moment, it is pretended the Earl never relaxed in his attachment to Waltham: in place of the small foundation of Tovi, he built a magnificent church; and there are strong reasons for supposing that, in spite of his patriotic feelings and his known hatred to foreigners, he employed Norman artists and workmen. The Waltham writers of the twelfth century, who saw Harold’s church in its original form, speak of it in the most enthusiastic terms, and tell us how, under the hands of his builders, the walls and columns rose up in lofty majesty, while the latter were connected by numerous arches, and the walls supported a roof groined within and protected by lead without. The interior of the building was covered with “plates of brass, gilt;” and the bases and capitals of the columns, with the “bendings” of the arches, were ornamented with sculpture. It is now ascertained, that in early times the interior of churches, and also of other buildings, was painted in bright colours, and gilt: the gilding being probably executed on thin plates of metal which were attached to the stone-work. This mode of ornamentation afterwards gave place to elaborate sculpture and carving. The mouldering remains of these buildings, although still imposing by their grandeur, convey to us only a slight idea of the effect which they must have produced when adorned with paintings and glittering with gold. The Interior of Waltham Abbey Church, degraded and mutilated as its ornaments and proportions are at the present day, conveys to our mind no mean idea of the former splendour of Harold’s church, of which we can hardly doubt that it forms a genuine portion. As we survey its rows of massive columns, and compare them with the humble objects around, we feel ourselves mentally carried back eight hundred years to the festive scene which followed their erection. At the consecration of those walls, were present, besides the founder Earl Harold, the last King and Queen of the regal line of the Anglo-Saxons—Edward the Confessor, and the fair and interesting Edith, with two archbishops—Stigand of Canterbury and Aldred of York, eleven bishops (among whom the most

eminent were Hereman of Salisbury, Leofric of Exeter, and Gyso of Wells), eleven abbots of important monastic houses, and a great number of princes and nobles. In their presence was read publicly the royal charter, which is still preserved, and bears the signatures of the King and Queen, Harold, the two archbishops, and the bishops, abbots, and thanes, who were assisting at the ceremony. The feast on this occasion lasted eight days; and the guests were not only served profusely, but large vessels full of wine and mead were placed in the fields and public roads, in order that even accidental passers-by might drink their full.

Harold increased the number of canons from two to twelve. By the charter just mentioned, they were put in possession of the manors of “Passefelda, Walde, Upminster, Walhfare, Pippedene, Alwaretune, Wodeforda, Lambehithe, Nesingnan, Brickendune, Melnho, Alichsea, Wormeleia, Nettleswelle, Hicche, Lukintone, and Westwaltham.” Portions of these lands were assigned to each canon to supply him with food and clothing, those of which the rents were applied to the latter purpose being distinguished by the name of scrud-land, or clothing-land. Westwaltham was appropriated to the dean, in addition to his share with the rest. Each canon had also assigned to him fifteen acres in Waltham of what were termed the Northlands, in order that they might not be distressed by any accidental stoppage of their supply from the out-farms. According to the directions of the founder, the canons of Waltham received extremely liberal rations of food. The daily allowance of each was two loaves of very white bread, and one of a coarser quality, the three being sufficient for six men; six bowls of ale, sufficient for ten men at one drinking bout; and six dishes of different kinds each day. In addition to this allowance, on feast days they were served with “pittances,” or delicacies: if it were a feast of the first dignity, each canon was to have three pittances; if of the second dignity, he was allowed two pittances; and if of the third dignity, one. A pittance, from Michaelmas-day to Ash-Wednesday, consisted of twelve blackbirds, or two “agauseæ,” or two partridges, or one pheasant; during the rest of the year, it consisted of goose or chickens. On Christmas-day, Easter-day, and the day of Pentecost, and on the two feasts of the Holy Cross, wine and mead were allowed. The object in giving the canons this profuse allowance of provisions, was to provide for strangers, and for the poor and needy, the latter receiving each day what was sent away from the Abbey table. The dean had a larger share than the others, because more persons depended upon his charity and hospitality than upon those of a simple canon. In former times, when from the want of means of conveyance the produce of the land was necessarily consumed on the land itself, hospitality of this kind was universally practised. Even in the houses of private gentlemen there was a servant named an almoner, whose office it was to collect and distribute to the poor at his master’s gate what remained of the meat and drink served at the table; and the person who distributed the bread to the guests, laid the first loaf in the alms-dish as an offering to God.

The consecration of the church of Waltham occurred a little before Whitsuntide, in the year 1062: in less than four years after this event, Harold was

advanced to the throne of England. During his short but eventful reign, he conferred innumerable benefits on the Abbey, which were remembered with gratitude long after the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty. In his return from the defeat of the Danish invaders in the north, to stop the progress of his Norman rival, Harold visited Waltham for the last time. The brotherhood received him with sorrowful countenances, for their minds were filled with gloomy forebodings; and when, on the morning of his departure, Harold humbled himself in prayer before the Holy Cross, which was surrounded by the relics and precious gifts which he had conferred, one of the canons, whose eyes were fixed on the image, declared that the wooden face suddenly assumed an air of sadness, and that he saw the head bend downwards. His brethren were struck with consternation; and, unable to restrain the king from exposing his own person in an unequal combat, they sent with him two of the elder canons, named Osegode Cnoppe and Ailric Childemaister, to watch the course of events, and to bring home the body of their benefactor in case he should be slain. The result of the battle of Hastings is too well known to need repeating on the present occasion.

Much obscurity still hangs over Harold’s fate. The old historians not only differ in various circumstances in their account of the manner in which he was killed, but some of them have declared their belief that he escaped from the field of battle with his life. Even the canons, and afterwards the monks, of Waltham were divided in their opinions on this subject; and each party consigned their reasons to writing, in separate treatises, which were long treasured up in the Abbey library, and which are fortunately still preserved. According to the most probable of these two versions of the story, when Osegode and Ailric saw that their presentiments had been but too well founded, they repaired to the Conqueror to obtain permission to seek for Harold’s body, and to carry it to Waltham for interment. With some difficulty they succeeded in their suit; but, after a long and fruitless search, Osegode was sent back to Waltham with the intelligence that they could find no traces of their king among the multitude of naked and stiffening corpses with which the field was strewed. By the advice of the other canons, Osegode took with him to Hastings Harold’s beautiful mistress, Editha Swanneshals (or Edith with the Swan’s neck), who recognized the body of her lover by secret marks which were known only to herself. Osegode then placed it on a bier which he had prepared for the purpose, and it was carried in solemn procession to Battle Bridge, whither the whole brotherhood of Waltham had come to meet it. They carried the corpse to Waltham, and buried it with honour in the choir of the Abbey Church.

Those who held a contrary opinion concerning Harold’s fate, said that Edith had mistaken another corpse for that of her paramour; and that the body of Harold had been found among a heap of corpses by some Saxon women, who visited the field to administer aid and comfort to their wounded and expiring countrymen. Finding him still breathing, they carried him away from the spot, ignorant that it was their king; but he was recognized by two countrymen, who took him to Winchester, where he remained in concealment two years. At the end of that period, having entirely recovered from the effects of his wounds, he went to Germany, in the hope of inducing the old Saxons and Norwegians to assist him in the deliverance of his country from the oppressions of the Normans; but failing in this project, and becoming weary of the vanities of the world, he determined to pass the rest of his days in retirement, and he first visited Rome. From thence he returned in disguise, under the assumed name of Christian, to England, and lived ten years as a hermit, with one faithful attendant, among the rocks in the neighbourhood of Dover. He next repaired to the borders of Wales, where he lived long in solitude, exposed to the insults of the Welsh, over whom he had so often triumphed in the days of his worldly glory. He finally removed to Chester, where he died at an advanced age in a little cell attached to the church of St. John, having, according to the story, confessed on his death-bed that he was King Harold. Such is the improbable legend which found credit with one or two of the most esteemed of our early writers.

Waltham Abbey appears to have experienced little favour from the first Anglo-Norman kings. William the Conqueror, or (according to other accounts) his son Rufus, carried away much of the valuable plate, gems, and rich vestments which had been given by Harold, to enrich his two churches at Caen in Normandy; but he seems to have left the landed possessions of the Abbey untouched. As a sort of reparation for this injury, William Rufus is said to have given to the canons those lands of Harold in Waltham which his father had conferred upon Walcher, bishop of Durham, who made this place his residence when he came to attend the court at London. The two queens of Henry I. were almost the sole benefactors of this foundation during the first century after the Norman Conquest:—the first, Matilda of Scotland, gave to the secular canons the mill at Waltham; while Adeliza of Lorraine, Henry’s second wife, bestowed upon them all the tithes of Waltham, as well those of her demesne lands as those of her tenants.

In the latter half of the twelfth century, the canons of Waltham experienced the same fate which had already struck most of the similar Anglo-Saxon institutions. As the power of the pope gained strength in England, it had constantly brought with it the dissolution of the ancient colleges of secular priests, to make way for the introduction of the more rigid discipline of the regular monks, who were literally the “soldiers” of papal Rome. It is probable that the secular canons of Waltham had relaxed in discipline and religion since their foundation, placed as they were amid the “fatness of the earth.” During the period of which we are now speaking, we find among them few traces of learning or literary taste, and the name of Waltham scarcely occurs in the political history of the twelfth century. Yet the few remaining writings of the monks of this place are full of vivid descriptions of the richness and beauty of the Abbey lands.

“O Waltham! pro te fecit manus Omnipotentis
Multum in mentis, semper et hinc amo te.
Nam dedit ipse tibi similem sibimetque figuram,
Excelsam, puram, quæ veneratur ibi.
* * * *
Tu ditaris ita, nam prata foves meliora;
Stas inter nemora dite loco posita.
Te cingit fluvius necnon percurrit amœnus,
Piscibus et plenus: est situs egregius.
Et licet orneris pratis latis et agellis,
Structuris bellis, floribus et teneris.”

So sang in quaint and jingling rhymes one of the historians of Waltham in the reign of Henry II. The flower-decked meads which surrounded the Abbey are not unfrequently alluded to; and that which has preserved to modern times the name of Harold’s Park, was celebrated in a proverbial leonine,—

“Haroldi parca florum bene dicitur archa.”

The numerous little streams into which the river is here divided added to the richness and diversity of the scenery, and were crossed by a number of picturesque bridges. In the time of Leland (the reign of Henry VIII.) there were “a 7 or viii. bridges in the towne of Waltham: for there be divers socours of streamelettes breking out of the thre principalle partes of Luye ryver.” The ruins of one of these little Bridges may still be seen over a “streamelette,” about two hundred yards to the north-east of the Abbey, forming an extremely picturesque feature in the landscape. It consists of an elliptical arch, supported or strengthened by three strong ribs, and appears to be a work of considerable antiquity.

The beauty of the scenery and the richness of the soil seem to have been the chief delight of these pampered canons. They were accused (how justly it is now difficult to decide) of luxurious living and great relaxation of discipline; and their last dean, Guido Rufus, was suspended from his office by Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, the immediate successor of Thomas Becket. The king was at this time seeking opportunities of appeasing the church of Rome for the murder of Becket, and, influenced by the persuasions of the archbishop, he went to Waltham on the eve of Pentecost, in the year 1177, and having expelled the secular canons, he established in their place sixteen regular canons of the order of St. Augustin, taken out of three of the older English monasteries, namely, six from Cirencester, six from Oseney, and four from Chiche. Walter de Gaunt, a canon of Oseney, was elected the first Abbot of Waltham. The Abbey itself was declared, as formerly, free from all episcopal jurisdiction; and a few years afterwards the abbot was allowed the use of the pontificals, and Waltham was raised to the rank of a mitred abbey. King Henry, judging, as he states in the charter, that the church thus reformed, “as a new spouse of Christ, ought to have a new dower,” added to its former possessions the manors of Siwardston and Epping.

From this period the Abbey of Waltham was, during several reigns, a favourite resort of the English monarchs; and, separated by its woods from the “busy hum” of the world around, it seems to have escaped the troubles and turmoils of baronial strife. Henry’s son and successor, the lion-hearted Richard, gave the monks a new charter, confirming all their possessions and privileges; and by a separate charter he bestowed on the church the whole of his manor of Waltham, with the great wood, and the park called Harold’s Park, three hundred acres of assart land, the market of Waltham, and the village of Nasing (a member of Waltham), with three hundred and sixty acres of assart land there, for all which they were to pay yearly to the king’s exchequer sixty pounds. King Richard also gave them the manor of Copt Hall, which afterwards became a favourite residence of the abbots. Henry III., who frequently visited Waltham, was also a munificent benefactor; and among other favours he granted them the privilege of holding a fair during seven days annually. In this reign considerable alterations appear to have been made in the buildings of the Abbey, The church was re-dedicated in the year 1242, by the Bishop of Norwich, in the King’s presence;

and it has been conjectured, that at that time was built Our Lady’s Chapel on the south side of the present church: this chapel still exists, although it has been long converted into a school-room. It has been supposed also that the Inner Porch, under the present steeple, was built about the end of this reign, or early in that of Edward I.

In spite of the royal favour and protection, the monks of Waltham were engaged in several vexatious disputes during the reign of Henry III. The kind of lordship which the abbot exercised over the town, the mode in which the Abbey possessions and business became intermixed with those of the townsmen, and the frequent and unavoidable clashing of their several interests, led to much mutual ill-will. A great number of the townsmen were tenants of the abbot. We still find in several parts of the town some remains of the old houses on the Abbey domain, particularly those standing in what is called Baker’s Entry, which have an appearance of great antiquity. But the most serious disputes arose out of the contending claims to rights connected with the common lands. Simon de Seham was elected Abbot of Waltham in 1248; and the same year the townsmen went in a riotous manner into the marsh, where they claimed rights in opposition to those enjoyed by the abbot, and killed four of the abbot’s mares, worth at least forty shillings sterling, and drove away the rest. Simon de Seham allowed this act of violence to pass without punishment; but when the men of Waltham came to him the year following, on the Tuesday before Easter, and summoned him to remove his mares and colts out of the marsh, he refused to listen to them, and deferred the matter till the Tuesday after Easter. On that day the men and women of the town assembled tumultuously at the Abbey gate to receive the abbot’s answer; but he again deferred the matter to a further day, stating in excuse that he had been busily occupied in preparing for a journey into Lincolnshire to meet the justices itinerant. Then the townspeople reviled the abbot in presence of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, the king’s brother, who had come to Waltham Abbey the same day; and, hastening to the marsh, they drove away the abbot’s mares and colts—drowning three, valued at twenty shillings; spoiling ten more, worth ten marks; and beating the keepers who resisted them, even to the shedding of blood. On the abbot’s return from Lincolnshire, the people of Waltham, apprehensive of the consequences of their violent proceedings, desired a love-day to settle the dispute; but suddenly changing their minds, they went to the king at London, and made a complaint against the abbot, that he was infringing their rights, introducing new customs, and, as they expressed it, that he was “eating them up to the bones.” The abbot, in retaliation, excommunicated them; and they impleaded him at the common law. After many hearings, the abbot, as the stronger party, gained the cause; and the people of Waltham were obliged to acknowledge that they had done him wrong, and they were fined twenty marks; but, on their submission, he remitted the fine, and relieved them from the sentence of excommunication.

In the same reign, the abbot of Waltham became involved in a lawsuit with the lord of the neighbouring manor of Cheshunt, who was, at that time, Peter Duke of Savoy, the king’s uncle, and therefore a powerful opponent. Both parties laid claim to certain meadow lands which lay between two branches of the river Lea, one asserting that the eastern stream, the other that the western stream, was the boundary line between their respective estates. After an obstinate dispute, the lord of Cheshunt agreed to yield up his claim to the abbot; but these meadows were frequently afterwards a subject of litigation. A new lawsuit was begun in the time of the last abbot of Waltham; and the question remained undecided when the Abbey was surrendered to King Henry VIII.

Until the reign of this monarch, Waltham continued to receive frequent visits from the English kings, who are said to have possessed a small house within the parish, at a spot known in more recent times by the name of Romeland, where occasionally they sought pleasure and retirement. Richard II. was residing here at the time of Wat Tyler’s insurrection. It was also a favourite retreat of King Henry VIII.; and Fuller has preserved a traditionary anecdote relating to one of Henry’s visits, which (though a similar story has been told of other kings in like circumstances) loses nothing by being repeated. The king was one day hunting in the forest; and, wandering from his companions, he came to the Abbey, about dinner-time, in the disguise of one of his own guard. He was immediately invited to the abbot’s table, and a sirloin of beef was placed before him. The king was hungry, and ate very heartily, to the great admiration of the abbot, whose pampered stomach had been spoilt by the good fare of his house. “Well fare thy heart!” he said to his guest: “here is a cup of sack, and remember the health of his Grace thy master. I would willingly give a hundred pounds on condition that I could feed as heartily on beef as thou dost. Alas! my weak stomach will hardly digest a wing of a small rabbit or chicken.” The king pledged his host, and then, thanking him for his hospitality, departed as secretly as he had arrived. Shortly afterwards, a pursuivant suddenly made his appearance at Waltham; and, to the consternation of the whole fraternity, the abbot was carried to London, and committed a close prisoner to the Tower, where he was kept for some days strictly confined to a diet of bread and water. The severity of his imprisonment was then as suddenly relaxed, and a sirloin of beef was set before him, on which, to use the quaint expression of the old narrator of this story, “he fed as heartily as a farmer of his own grange.” The king immediately entered from a small lobby, where he had been looking on unobserved, and demanded of his prisoner a hundred pounds, the sum promised to him who should restore his lost appetite, which the abbot paid immediately, and lost no time in returning again to enjoy the good cheer of his own refectory.

We can trace, but with uncertainty, the progress of destruction with which this noble building was visited after its Dissolution. Part of the church, with the offices and other parts of the Abbey, were probably demolished for the sake of the materials, the nave only being reserved to the people of Waltham to serve as a parish church. The commissioners were so unscrupulous in their plunder, that they even offered for sale the five bells in the steeple, which, however, were purchased by the parishioners. In the old books of the churchwardens, we find, under the date 1544, the item, “Received of Adam Tanner the overplus of the money which was gathered for the purchase of the bells, two pound four shillings and eleven-pence.” The ancient steeple stood in the middle of the church: it had been left in so dangerous a condition, that it was found necessary to take down the bells as soon as purchased, and to erect for them a wooden belfrey at the south-east end of the churchyard, where there stood formerly two yew-trees. A few years afterwards, in the beginning of the reign of Queen Mary, the steeple fell down: in 1556, there is an entry in the parish books, “For coles to undermine a piece of the steeple which stood after the first fall, two shillings.” The parishioners immediately began to build the present Steeple, at the west end of the church, at a very considerable expense, which was furnished from the money they had collected by the sale of the old church furniture, by subscriptions for the occasion, and by the sale of materials from the ruins of the Abbey; and, to finish it, they were at last obliged to sell the bells which they had before patriotically rescued from the fate that had absorbed so much of the rich plate and furniture of the Abbey. Several of the entries in the parish books at this time show us how the work of demolition was gradually proceeding. In 1558, at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, the sum of three shillings and two-pence was paid for taking down the rood-loft. In 1562, there was “paid for a bay nagge, given to Mr. Henry Denny for the Abbey wall, three pound seventeen shillings.” “Item, to labourers which did undermine the said wall, forty-nine shillings and nine-pence.” This Abbey wall was a building which extended eastward beyond the old steeple; and the churchwardens for some years afterwards carried on a great trade in the sale of lead, stone, and timber taken from it. In 1563, “for the old timber in the little vestiary of St. George’s Chapel, fifteen shillings.” All memory of the site of this chapel appears to be long lost. In the same year, “for taking down the stairs in the Abbey, seven shillings eight-pence;” and “for taking down the lead from the charnel-house, and covering the steeple, eighteen shillings.”

In 1547, King Edward VI. made a grant of the conventual estate of Waltham, for thirty-one years, to Sir Anthony Denny, one of the executors of Henry VIII., who dying soon afterwards, the reversion in fee was purchased by his widow. Their grandson, Sir Edward Denny, was created Baron of Waltham by King James I., and Earl of Norwich by King Charles I. From him the estate passed by marriage to James Hay, Earl of Carlisle; and it subsequently came into the possession of the family of Wake.

The Abbey of Waltham, when entire, was very extensive, including within its walls many acres of ground. The remains of the Entrance Gateway, approached by an old bridge, stand at some distance to the north of the church. This gateway is of stone, repaired with large bricks, and consists of a larger and a smaller pointed arch, with delicate mouldings; the exterior mouldings springing from figures of angels, which support shields containing the royal arms of England as they were drawn in the reign of Edward III. which appears to be the date of this part of the building. This gateway

and the church are all that now remain standing of this once noble edifice. The present parish church is formed of the nave of the ancient church, which had the form of a cross. The choir, which was a continuation of the present building towards the east, with the two transepts, and the Lady Chapel, appear to have been demolished immediately after the dissolution of the Abbey. The steeple stood at the intersection of the choir and nave with the transepts; and it appears to have fallen spontaneously a few years after the transepts and choir were taken down. By that accident, the nave was left open at the east end, and it was built up with modern masonry, which, mixed with the old circular arches and windows of the original building, and with the two great western supports of the steeple which are still visible, give to this part of the church externally a singularly dilapidated appearance.

The Choir appears to have been very extensive; for the site of Harold’s Tomb, which we know was in that part of the church, perhaps near the high altar where the Holy Cross stood, is still pointed out by tradition at a spot about forty yards to the east of the present church. This choir was probably built in the reign of Henry II., when that monarch changed the character of Harold’s foundation. At that period the relics of King Harold were translated thither from a former tomb; and the author of the treatise ‘De Inventione Sanctæ Crucis Walthamensis,’ who wrote in the latter part of the twelfth century, assures us that he was present on that occasion, and that he saw the wounds on Harold’s body. Fuller, speaking from tradition, says that the sepulchre of Harold was a plain tomb of grey marble, supported by “pillarets,” with a “sort of cross fleury” sculptured upon it; and he asserts that he had one of its pedestals in his own possession. Farmer, in his History of Waltham Abbey, has given an engraving of a mask, which, he says, (probably without any good reason,) was one of the ornaments of the same tomb. It is equally improbable, that the coffin discovered in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by a gardener in the service of Sir Edward Denny, was that which contained the body of the martyr of Hastings. Fuller, writing in the time of the Commonwealth, says that “a picture of King Harold in glass was lately to be seen in the north window of the church, till ten years since some barbarous hand beat it down under the notion of superstition.” About half a century ago another coffin was found near the same spot, containing an entire skeleton enclosed in lead. Many persons of distinction appear to have been buried at Waltham; among them are mentioned the names of Hugh Nevil, protho-forester of England, who, dying in 1222, was interred here under a noble engraved marble sepulchre; of his son John Nevil; and of Robert Passelew, archdeacon of Lewes, one of the favourites of Henry III.

A very elegant pointed arch, now forming the entrance from the tower to the interior of the church, of which we have given a representation on a preceding page, appears to be of the reign of Henry III.; the defects observed in the upper part of its ornaments were caused by some barbarous hand, which cut away part of the sculptured stone, in order to introduce a new erection, with which the workman appears to have proceeded no farther. The Principal Entrance, which is also an elegant sharply-pointed arch, is supposed to date from the reign of Edward III. At the south-east extremity of the present building is a chapel, which bears evident marks of the age of the Tudors, although much defaced and altered. Nearly the whole of the church itself, with the exception of the modern alterations which it has undergone, is the erection of King Harold, and formed perhaps the principal part of the church as he left it. The interior, which in modern times has been miserably disfigured by thick coats of plaster and whitewash, possesses still an appearance of solemn grandeur, although its groined roof has been taken down, and its place supplied by a lower flat ceiling. The close resemblance between this interior and the interior of the nave of Durham Cathedral (built a few years after the Conquest) has frequently been noticed. The body of the nave is separated from the side aisles by two rows of large and massive cylindrical pillars, ornamented with spiral and zig-zag grooves, like the similar pillars in the nave at Durham. These pillars support large circular arches, with zig-zag mouldings. Above these on each side is a second row of large arches, supported by short columns; and above these is a third series of treble arches, each consisting of one large arch, with a smaller one on each side. These latter front the principal windows by which the interior of the church is lighted. In the second or middle tier of arches there were once central columns, with arched mouldings, dividing each of the large arches into two. Between each series of arches a three-quarter pilaster moulding rises to the ceiling, and appears formerly to have sustained the groined roof. Two of the circular arches of the lower row have been altered, probably at the time

when the present steeple was erected, to pointed arches, and carried up to the string course of the clerestory. The only remnant of the furniture and utensils of this old church is its ancient Font. The east end of the nave has been railed in to form a chancel. The whole length of the nave is a hundred and six feet; and its breadth fifty-three feet, including the aisles. The interior height is at present forty-six feet. The most interesting monument in Waltham Abbey Church is that of Sir Edward Denny and his lady, which is situated near the eastern extremity of the south aisle. Near the altar rails is a defaced grey slab, which once bore a mitred figure, probably one of the abbots.

The steeple is a massive square tower, eighty-six feet high, embattled, and supported by strong buttresses. It was erected, as has been already stated, during the reign of Queen Mary, at the expense of the parishioners. It appears from the parish books that for the first fifty-three feet the expense of building, independent of the materials, was 33s. 4d. a foot, and that the upper part cost 40s. a foot, the difference arising probably from the increase in the value of labour in the reign of Elizabeth, when the tower was completed. The principal modern alterations in this church appear to have been made between the years 1668 and 1680.

The out-buildings attached to the church are on the South Side. They consist of a vestry and school-room, occupying what was formerly the Lady Chapel. This has been so much modernized, that very little of the original building can now be seen. It appears that a large portion of the money expended on reparations in the latter part of the seventeenth century was applied to the building and furnishing of the school-room. Underneath this

building is a crypt, curiously groined, which is now used as a charnel-house. This Lady Chapel, from the style of what remains of the original architecture, and the ornamental Buttresses which still exist, has been supposed to be as old as the time of Henry III.

Waltham Abbey can boast of fewer learned men than most of the old monastic houses. Fuller mentions Roger de Waltham, canon of St. Paul’s, a writer in the thirteenth century, and John de Waltham, keeper of the privy seal to King Richard II. The same historian places Robert Fuller, the last abbot of Waltham, among the literary men of that house, because he had written a history of his abbey, which Thomas Fuller professes to have consulted: it is probable, however, that this “history” was nothing more than the register of charters and other deeds of the abbey, still preserved in the Harleian Library, which would reduce Abbot Fuller’s claim to literary honours within very modest limits. It was from a deed of Abbot Fuller, that Farmer gave one Coat of Arms belonging to this abbey, which is gules, two angels or, flying with their wings extended, with their hands holding between them a cross argent. A different coat (which is represented in a former cut) is given by Fuller the historian, along with the arms of the other mitred abbeys. At the time of its surrender in 1539, Waltham was one of the richest abbeys in the kingdom, the gross amount of its revenues being, according to Speed, nearly eleven hundred pounds a-year: according to the Monasticon, the clear income was nine hundred pounds.

The Abbey of Waltham, as we have before stated, makes no great figure in history after the Norman Conquest. An early collection of narratives of miracles supposed to have been performed by the virtues of the Holy Cross, furnishes us with some curious details of the misfortunes which befel the town and church in the days of King Stephen. At that turbulent period, when every man was at war with his next neighbour, and which is naïvely characterized in the legends referred to as being seditionis tempore, the town of Waltham, as part of the dower of Adeliza, Queen of Henry I., belonged to her second husband, William de Albini, Earl of Arundel, between whom and the outlawed baron, Geoffrey de Mandeville, a deadly feud had arisen. We shall probably have another occasion to speak at large of the exploits of Geoffrey de Mandeville. One day he brought or sent to Waltham a body of his Flemish auxiliaries, who set fire to the town, and the flames spreading quickly, communicated with the houses of the canons. In the midst of the confusion, the invaders penetrated to the church, where the town’s-people had deposited the most valuable part of their effects. The canons, who appear to have considered themselves entitled to the special protection of Geoffrey de Mandeville (as Earl of Essex), after vain endeavours to prevail with his men by fair words to desist from their enterprise, had recourse to what was then looked upon as a last and desperate expedient—they dragged from its place above the altar the Holy Cross, which was supposed to spread its protection over the neighbourhood, and threw it upon the floor: and it was handed down as a tradition of the place, that in the very hour of the throwing down of the Cross, Geoffrey de Mandeville received his death-wound at the siege of Burwell. The canons of Waltham boasted that their church was rescued from the rage of the plunderers by divine interposition; and that five Flemings, who had already filled their sacks with precious articles, were thrown miraculously into such a state of mental confusion that they could not find their way out of the church, but remained wandering among the boxes and packages with which the interior of the church was encumbered, until they were taken by the townsmen on their return from the pursuit of their enemies, whom they had driven away. The canons now rescued the offenders from the vengeance of the people of Waltham, and, after having administered to them the monastic discipline, namely, a severe flogging, they set them at liberty. One of their leaders, named Humphrey de Barentone, who, entering the church on horseback, had been active in inciting the Flemings to plunder and violence, is said to have been struck with madness (perhaps with paralysis) as he was leaving the town: he was carried back to the church, and died within three days; but not till he had repented and made some compensation to the church of Waltham, by giving to it fourteen acres of land in ‘Luchentuna.’

Environs.—The neighbourhood of Waltham presents a few historical sites, and some interesting localities. The river Lea was the scene of Isaac Walton’s piscatory rambles. It is now chiefly remarkable as giving motion to a number of powder-mills. The neighbouring hamlet of Waltham Cross contains one of the few that remain of the crosses erected by Edward I., in memory of his beloved queen Eleanor. To the south of Waltham is Enfield Chase; and a short distance to the west is the site of the Palace of Theobald. To the north may still be seen the mouldering ruins of the Nunnery of Cheshunt, said to have been founded in the reign of Henry III.

There is still a vague legendary tradition of a subterranean communication between the Abbey of Waltham and Cheshunt Nunnery. But the monks of the former house, who are accused of having sought comfort among the gentle occupants of the latter for the troubles and vexations they received from the litigious lords of the manor, appear to have sought no such hidden road by which to pay their visits to the nunnery. The tales which continued to be current in the time of Fuller, show that there must have been some ground for the scandal. The following story has found a place in the “Church History:”—

“One Sir Henry Colt, of Nether Hall in Essex, much in favour with King Henry VIII. for ‘his merry conceits,’ came to Waltham late at night, being informed by spies that the monks were on a visit at Cheshunt Nunnery. In order to intercept them on their return, he pitched a buckstall (which was used to take deer in the forest) in the narrowest place in the marsh, where he knew the monks must pass, and placed some of his confederates to watch it. The monks, as was expected, ran all into the net; where they were secured till next morning, when Sir Henry Colt brought the king to show him his game. The merry monarch is said to have burst into a loud fit of laughter, and to have declared that, ‘although he had often seen sweeter, he had never seen fatter venison.’”

Authorities.—Michel, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes.—The Legend De Invent. Sanct. Crucis Walthamensis, MS. Harl. 3776.—Miracles of the Holy Cross, MS. Cotton Julius, D. VI.—Fuller.—Farmer’s History of Waltham Abbey, Lond. 1735.—Wace’s Chronicle of the Norman Conquest.—Leland, &c.

When as the pliant Muse, with plain and easy flight
Betwixt her silver wings is wafted to the Wight,
That isle which jutteth out into the sea so farre,
Her offspring traineth up in exercise of warre.
Of all the southern isles she holds the highest place,
And th’ greatest coronal hath been in Britain’s grace.—Polyolbion.

AMONG the Anglo-Norman fortresses which so long upheld the feudal power, and maintained the independence of the British Islands, that of Carisbrooke holds a distinguished place. Crowning an elevated position near the centre of the island,—of which it has been for ages the ornament and safeguard,—and from its keep and battlements commanding every approach, it had all the advantages which the necessities and warlike spirit of the times could demand. It appears to have been selected as a post of defence from the remotest period of the Saxon monarchy, of which it still retains many substantial vestiges; and although nothing has been discovered that connects it by positive evidence with the Roman epoch, there can be no reasonable doubt of its having been one of the numerous military stations occupied by that people for the vigorous maintenance of its power.

At last, after the lapse of four centuries, the sway of the Cæsars began to wax faint; and when the victorious legions were finally withdrawn from the British shores, the natives, taking advantage of the strong places which had previously kept them in awe, seized them to their own use, and over the Roman substruction erected, after their own manner, the bulwarks of native strength and independence. Of this the keep, or donjon, hereafter to be noticed, presents clear and distinct evidence; but whether comprised in the fifty castles reconstructed by Alfred—under the circumstances already stated in this work—remains uncertain. From the localities, however, and other particulars which distinguished the castles so built or repaired on Roman foundations, it appears highly probable that Carisbrooke owes its preservation to that wise and patriotic monarch. Continually harassed by foreign marauders who infested these narrow seas, he found no measure so effectual as that of erecting castles and garrisoned forts on all those points of the coast most exposed to their piratical fury. But after the death of this monarch, and the conflicting policy which, during a century and a half, prepared the way for Norman supremacy, the national bulwarks had suffered from neglect; they were mostly ungarrisoned, and nearly all so much dilapidated that they could offer no effectual resistance against an invading enemy—a fact which readily accounts for the easy conquest which awaited the Norman army on its first landing on the coast of Sussex.

After the battle of Hastings, the Conqueror, with that characteristic policy which marked his actions, adopted every measure for the consolidation of his authority, by portioning out to his martial followers the domestic strongholds and landed possessions of the vanquished and proscribed natives. Of the Norman barons who then shared the profuse liberality of their leader, we have mentioned several instances in the course of the present work. But among the chief men who owed him fealty, and whose friendship and faithful services it was important to conciliate by rewards for the past, and the prospect of others in future, none came in for a more enviable share of his favour than his near kinsman,

William Fitz-Osborne.—This warlike Norman had accompanied his Chief in the expedition to England; and, among the brilliant circle of martial attendants who had espoused his cause, stood eminently distinguished for his talents and experience. He had the entire confidence of his sovereign; and at the battle of Hastings, where Roger Montgomery had also a high

command, performed the honourable and arduous duties of marshal of the army. Recommended to the Conqueror by the ties of blood, as well as by the high military talents which he had displayed in the field, he receiving a grant of the Isle of Wight,—“Ita, Gulielmus Filius Osborni, Veetam Insulam conquisivit, primusque Vectæ Dominus erat.” He was made constable of the newly-erected Castles of Winchester and York, and installed in the high office of Chief Justiciary for the King in the north. In the exercise of his new authority as Lord of Wight, he appears to have acted towards the old inhabitants with a rigour and exclusiveness which strongly evinced his distrust of their professed attachment to the foreign dynasty. Proceeding to the very extreme of the feudal despotism with which he had been so recently invested, he expelled the native inhabitants, divided their possessions among his Norman followers and retainers, and, reconstructing the ancient fortress of Carisbrooke, surrounded himself with a host of martial adherents, who held their new possessions on condition of military service to the chief, wheresoever and whensoever it should be required.

Having had the first grant of the Isle of Wight from the Conqueror, “to be held as freely as he himself held the kingdom of England,” Fitz-Osborne instituted the Knights’ Court, which was one of the privileges enjoyed by him as lord of the island, namely, that of holding a judicial tribunal called “Curia Militum,” from the judges being such as held a knight’s fee from the lord of the island, who “gave judgment as courts of equity without a jury.”

To this powerful Baron the whole of the Norman work now remaining in the Castle of Carisbrooke may be attributed. In Domesday Book he is called William Fitz-Osborne, Earl of Hereford—a name familiar in the pages of our early history. But his enterprising career was cut short by the casualties of war, when he had been scarcely four years in possession of the island; for, being sent by the Queen to support Ernulf, Count of Hainault, who was then enforcing his family claim to the earldom of Flanders, both she and the count were slain in battle. Dugdale is of opinion that he adopted this quarrel from the relationship which subsisted between that nobleman and himself—he having married for his second wife Rechildis, the mother of Count Ernulf, the Queen’s nephew. His remains were interred with great ceremony in the Abbey of Cormeilles, which he had founded, and in which one of his sons had previously become a monk. Bequeathing his Norman possessions to his second son, those of England, including the earldom of Hereford and lordship of the Isle of Wight, descended to his eldest son,

Roger de Bretteville—so named from the place of his birth.—Taking part with the turbulent spirits of his day, and highly irritated by the King’s refusal to sanction the marriage of his sister Emma with Ralph de Waer, or Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norfolk, he took advantage of the King’s absence in Normandy to have the union solemnized by a grand public festival, at which were present many of the great military tenants of the crown, who, readily entering into the rash views of Hereford, concerted measures for dethroning the King. The conspiracy, however, was divulged by Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, who was nevertheless beheaded for his participation therein at Winchester. They were routed by the King’s forces at a place called Fagadune; and the wreck of the insurgents escaping to Norwich, fortified themselves in the castle for a time, but were soon forced to surrender. Earl Roger made his escape to Hereford; but being apprehended and brought to trial, he was found guilty of levying war against his sovereign, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment and the loss of his estates. The rigours of confinement and confiscation, however, do not appear to have subdued his haughty spirit; for at the feast of Easter, when the King sent him a gracious present of certain costly robes—consisting of a royal mantle, an inner surcoat of silk, and an upper garment lined with precious furs, in remembrance of the station he once held in the King’s favour—Earl Roger caused a fire to be lighted in his prison, and, throwing the royal present into it, stood by with a look of complaisance, and chafing his hands at the blaze, till the whole present was consumed. This insane and insolent act being immediately reported to the King, he swore his usual oath—“per splendorem Dei”—by the glory of God—that in future Earl Roger’s only robe should be the roof of his prison! He kept his word: the Earl was remanded to strict confinement, and died about six years afterwards, leaving two sons, Raynald and Roger, both excellent soldiers under King Henry I. Carisbrooke Castle and the honor attached now reverted to the crown, in which it continued till the next reign, when it was granted to—

Richard de Redvers, first of that name, being nephew to the late earl, and son of Baldwin de Brion. Remaining faithful to Henry in the contest which followed, he was rewarded by many additional marks of royal favour—the chief of which were those of Earl of Devon and Lord of the Isle of Wight. When Henry I. granted not only his lands, but also the dominion over the whole Isle of Wight to Richard de Redvers, to be held in escuage at fifteen knights’ fees and a half, the crown had from that time no demand on the landholders of the island. The king received escuage, or scutage, from the lord of the island only, whose tenants were chargeable only in aid to him; they held their lands as “of the Castle of Carisbrooke,” whence, in the Liber Fœdorum, it is styled the Honor of Carisbrooke. They were chargeable towards making the lord’s eldest son a knight, and to the marrying of his daughter. All heirs under age were in the wardship of the lord of the island; the tenants were bound to defend the castle for forty days at their own charges whenever it should be attacked, and were also to attend the lord at his coming into, and at his leaving, the island. The lord had the return of the king’s writs, he nominated his own bailiffs, and his constable was coroner within the island; he had a chase, now called the Forest of Parkhurst; and a fence month not only there, but in certain moors, with a free warren on the east side of the river Medina. He had also wrecks, waifs, and strays, with fairs and markets at Newport and Yarmouth.—Sir R. Worsley.

His great liberality to the church secured him the peaceable enjoyment of what he retained for his own use; and with the king’s favour, and the monks’ benison, he quietly put off this life in the first year of the reign of King Stephen, and was succeeded by his son,

Baldwin de Redvers, or Rivers.—In the contest between the Empress Maud and King Stephen—to which we have adverted at some length in our notice of Arundel—Baldwin espoused the cause of the lady; and putting Carisbrooke and the other assailable points of his insular lordship in a state of defence, placed them at her service. The policy and tactics of King Stephen, however, prevailed. The warlike engines which he had invented for the defence of his Castle, at “the expense of much treasure,” proved of little avail, so that he was obliged to capitulate, and with his wife and family took refuge beyond sea. Matters, however, were afterwards so far accommodated, that he was again permitted to resume his hereditary station and dignities as “Lord of the Isle” and Earl of Devon. Among many pious works and benefactions, he founded the Cistercian Abbey of Quarr—the ruins of which still attract admiration in the neighbourhood; for it amounted to an article of faith in those times, that whoever should build a castle, was bound to erect and endow some convent, cloister, or priory in its vicinity, so that the military baron might thereby secure the prayers of the monks, and a family sepulchre.

Of this family and name were several other “Lords of the Isle,” who held the Castle and Honor of Carisbrooke in succession, and who were distinguished in the history between the period just mentioned and the death of King John. Among these was—

William de ‘Vernon’—from his having been educated in that place. He was one of the four nobles who supported the silken canopy over the head of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, at his second coronation at Winchester, after he had returned from the dungeon of Dürrenstein—an Austrian castle on the Danube. He also, as Earl of the Isle of Wight, united with the other barons in their successful resistance against the extortion and tyranny of King John, and was instrumental in wresting from him the grand bulwark of English liberty. (King John, it may be remembered, selected the Isle of Wight as a place of safe retreat; and here he lived for several months with a few members of his court, in expectation of subsidies from France.) William de Vernon resided mostly at his Castle of Carisbrooke, which, though far from being so extensive as many other fortresses of that day, was still a place of great strength, and had been successively repaired and embellished by the resident lords of the island. It commanded then, as it does in the present day, enchanting views of the intervening channel—the adjacent coast—and of that inland scenery which is so justly admired, so eagerly studied and imitated on the canvas of the painter. In that remote period, however, the landscape had probably a much more forest-like appearance than at

later periods; for the Norman fashion of appropriating large districts to the pleasures of the chase, which was considered an indispensable adjunct to martial training, had been long adopted in the Isle of Wight, where an extensive park, filled with game, surrounded the Castle, and threw open a vast field of amusement to the feudal lord and his retainers, several of whom attended him in the chase, as they were bound to do on the day of battle. We observe, in the later history of the island, that Edward III. imposed on John Maltravers, for certain lands held by him in the county of Dorset, the following service: That he “should attend the king at his Castle of Carisbrooke for one day at his own charge, both for himself and horse, and afterwards to remain during the king’s pleasure; but both himself and horse in that case were to be maintained by the crown.

At the death of Earl Baldwin, the Castle of Carisbrooke was placed by King John under the sheriff of the county; the wardship of his son was given to Falk de Briant, (who had married the mother of the young count,) whom the historian of St. Alban’s stigmatizes as an impious, ignoble, and base-conditioned man. For in noticing the death of this “Lady of the Isle,” he characterizes her as “nobilis ac generosa domina quondam uxor Falcasii cruentissimi proditoris;” and adds—“Copulabatur tamen eidem ignobili nobilis; pia impio; turpi speciosa, invita et coacta; tradente eam Johanne tyranno. De qua copula quidam ait satis eleganter;

“Lex connectit eos, amor, et concordia lecti.
Sed lex qualis? amor qualis? concordia qualis?
Lex exlex; amor exosus; concordia discors.”

Our space, however, will not allow us to quote the frightful dream related by Father Matthew, which transformed this “wolf into a lamb,” and sent him to prostrate himself before the Abbot of St. Alban’s and his brethren, as the most abject of sinners.

Baldwin, the fifth of that name, who, along with the title of Earl of Devon, had enjoyed the lordship of Carisbrooke, married a princess of Savoy, cousin of Queen Eleanor; and at the nuptials of the Duke of Brittany with Beatrice, the daughter of King Henry III., received the honour of knighthood. He gave the first charter of franchise to the town of Yarmouth, and obtained the grant of a fair and market to be held at Carisbrooke—a grant of great importance in those times. At an entertainment given about two years afterwards by his kinsman Peter, Count of Savoy, he, together with Richard, Earl of Gloucester, and others, is said to have been poisoned. But in those times any disease that powerfully affected the digestive organs was frequently construed as the result of poison. That such was in numerous instances the fact, is not to be denied; but that every death, preceded by symptoms like those that usually supervened on the employment of deleterious drugs, was an act of poisoning, is no more to be credited than that consumption, or marasmus, was, in later times, the effect of witchcraft. But when, in reality, the art of poisoning was both studied and practised, it was natural in the bystanders to explain the mystery of any peculiarly sudden and fatal disease by ascribing it to poison. The frequent recurrence of these facts or suspicions in the old chronicles, is a proof that the practice was universally admitted; and it is painful to observe the ingenious precautions adopted by persons of rank, in order to avert the danger to which they were daily exposed in the use of their domestic viands. But, reserving this curious subject for a more convenient season, we pass to the next lord of Carisbrooke; and the late Earl of Baldwin leaving no surviving issue, the honors and estates devolved on his sister,

Isabella de Fortibus, so named from her having married William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle.—This lady, after the death of her husband, took up her residence in Carisbrooke Castle, where she lived in great state, appeared much in public, and obtained great popularity as Lady of the Isle—Domina Insulæ—both from her attention to the general interests of the inhabitants, and her particular liberality to religious houses. She was not so blind, however, as to permit herself to be overreached by her monastic neighbour, the Abbot of Quarrera, by whom many grave complaints were lodged against her for having only scattered her pious liberalities with one hand, that she might levy contributions with the other. If in one instance she conferred a benefaction to the church, she withheld its lands on another; so that at last the murmurs of abbots and priors became so loud that they reached the king’s ear, and produced an order for the sheriff of Hampshire to take the Abbey lands of Quarr under royal protection till matters between the countess and the convent could be adjusted. Our limits do not permit us to enlarge upon this lady’s administration of her authority; but it is certain that her residence at Carisbrooke Castle was highly beneficial to the island; and to her charter of franchise the beautiful town of Newport owes its

foundation and subsequent prosperity. She had five children—three sons and two daughters, Hawise and Avelina; the youngest of whom surviving her brothers and sister, and inheriting the vast possessions of her family, married King Henry’s son, Edmund Crouchback, but died without issue in her mother’s lifetime.

On the demise of this countess, the will by which, within a few hours of her death, she had conveyed the Isle of Wight to Edward I., was disputed by the heir-at-law, Hugh Courtenay; but after much evidence produced on both sides, it became finally vested in the king, who retained it in his own hands during life. At the accession of the weak and unfortunate son who succeeded the magnanimous Edward, the lordship of Carisbrooke and of the Isle of Wight was bestowed on his unprincipled favourite—

Piers Gavestone.—But this grant having occasioned great disapprobation among the nobility, who now gave open expression to their sentiments, Gavestone held the lordship only twelve months, when it was bestowed by the King on his son Edward, Earl of Chester—the renowned Edward III., who also retained possession of it during his life, and conducted the affairs of the island by wardens selected from the resident gentlemen, and who, in right of office, had their residence in the Castle. The popularity of this sovereign was acknowledged by many acts of valour on the part of the inhabitants; who, on every instance of aggression from French or other hostile cruisers, repulsed the invaders, and preserved the enviable title of their “invincible island.” In the reign of his grandson Richard II., the lordship of the Isle and Castle of Carisbrooke was granted to

William Montacute, son of the first earl of that name, who, for his service in apprehending Mortimer in the Queen’s chamber—a scene immortalized by Drayton—was elevated to the earldom of Salisbury. This lord of the isle was a mirror of chivalry; had filled with honour the highest posts of the state, and in the body-guard of Edward III. had performed many gallant exploits, which still figure in the martial chronicles of the fourteenth century. He had the misfortune, however, amidst all his glory, to slay his only son in a grand tilting-match at Windsor. But we shall have to introduce this illustrious family under another and more appropriate head of the work in hand. He died without issue; directing by will, that his body should be interred in the Conventual church of Bustleham, founded by his father; that every day, until his corpse should arrive at that place, seventy-five shillings should be distributed in alms to three hundred poor; that twenty-four poor persons, each dressed in a gown of black cloth with a red hood, should bear torches of eight pounds weight on the day of his funeral: also, that there should be nine wax lights and three ‘mortars’ of wax about his body, and banners of his arms placed on every pillar of the church; moreover, that thirty pounds should be given to the monks to sing trentals and pray for his soul; and lastly, that his executors should expend five hundred marks in finishing the sacred structure at Bustleham, and in erecting a tomb there for his father and mother; and another for himself and his son, who had married the daughter of Richard, Earl of Arundel, and was killed in the tilting-match already mentioned. The above ceremonial, as related by Dugdale, presents so striking a sketch of the manners of the time, and of the “pomp and circumstance” which this lord of the island had “willed” should commemorate his final departure, that we have inserted it by way of colouring to the general picture. The black gowns—scarlet hoods—lugubrious chant—blazing torches—waving banners—waxen tapers and mortars—all unite to form a spectacle that must have left a vivid impression on the minds of the spectators. The ceremony which attended the obsequies of his widow is no less curious as a picture of the times, and will be found in the same authority. It is supposed that this nobleman, during his lordship of the isle, contributed several important alterations and repairs to the castle; a circumstance which is rendered more probable by the arms of the family, consisting of three lozenges, being placed on a buttress at the corner of part of the governor’s lodging. The next personage who figured as lord of Carisbrooke was

Edward, Earl of Rutland, son of Edmund de Langley, fifth son of Edward III., and Duke of Albemarle, whose numerous posts of high honour and public trust evince the entire confidence reposed in him by King Richard, who found him but too pliant an instrument in the execution of his atrocious designs, of which some notice has already been taken in our account of the “Fitzalan Conspiracy.” The crimes, however, to which he was then accessary, and which, by the confiscations which ensued, added greatly to his possessions, brought at last the stroke of retribution; for on Bolingbroke’s ascending the throne, he was degraded in rank. He then entered into a conspiracy to take away the King’s life at Windsor; but confessing the treason, was pardoned, restored to honour and confidence, inherited his father’s title as Duke of York, and, after having filled the high post of Lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine, fell at last in the battle of Agincourt. Leaving no family, he was succeeded in his rights to the castle and manor of Carisbrooke and the island, by his surviving duchess, Philippa, daughter of John, Lord de Mohun, Baron of Dunster. To this lady succeeded, in the seventeenth of Henry VI.,

Humphrey “the Good,” Duke of Gloucester, whose character and death have been already detailed in our account of St. Albans. He appears to have been Seignior of Carisbrooke and the Isle of Wight during a period of eight years; and after his death the office of Constable of Carisbrooke was held by Henry Tranchard, in virtue of a royal grant. But the greatest event in the history of the castle and the island at this time, was the coronation of a King of the Isle of Wight in the person of

Henry Beauchamp, Duke of Warwick, son of Richard, Earl of Warwick, who had previously filled the high office of Regent of France. “Henricus Comes de Warwic a rege Henrico 6ᵗᵒ. cui charissimus erat coronatus est in regem de Wight et postea nominatus primus comes totius Angliæ.” At this august ceremony the king assisted in person, and with his own hands placed the crown on the head of his subject-monarch—but to whom the title of king conveyed no regal power, and invested him with no authority in the island; the lordship of which was still possessed by Duke Humphrey, who survived the new-made and short-lived king for some time. To this youthful sovereign—“cropt in the flower of his youth, and before his heroic virtues could be known,” we have already alluded in the historical notice of Tewkesbury; and in that of Warwick will be found several interesting particulars of his family and political connexions. Subsequent to this period of its history, the lordship of the castle and island appears to have been successively enjoyed by Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York; Edmund, Duke of Somerset; Henry his son; Anthony, Earl Rivers; and Sir Edward Wydeville his brother, who was appointed to the Captaincy of the island immediately after the accession of Henry VII. Of Sir Edward, the following incidents are recorded by Holinshed, Dugdale, Worsley, and others:—Three years after his appointment to the island, when the rupture between the Duke of Brittany and the King of France was at its height, Wydeville, or Woodville, presuming on the King’s partiality to the Duke’s cause, undertook to do what he conceived would prove highly acceptable to his royal master, and asked permission to take arms in the Duke’s interest. His offer of service, however, being declined, he still indulged the belief that in secret the king was favourable to his design, and only withheld his approbation that he, who had undertaken the office of mediator between the parties, might not be supposed to violate the rules of strict neutrality. Stimulated by this persuasion, Wydeville set instantly to work, and assembling the islanders at Carisbrooke, addressed them in a powerful harangue, appealing to them as sons of the “invincible island,” and urging them to take arms in a cause which the king had much at heart, and who would certainly acknowledge their loyal service in a manner which would secure blessings to themselves and their posterity. His eloquence, his political influence, and the well-known intrepidity of his character, had their due effect; and from all parts of the island, veterans and raw recruits flew to his standard. From the multitude assembled, he was enabled to select as fine a body of men as ever drew sword or bow; and hastening his preparations, a powerful force was speedily equipped and ready for action. They consisted, says Worsley, of “forty gentlemen, and four hundred common soldiers”—all men of stamp and martial courage—the flower of the island; and with these, dressed in white coats and red crosses, he embarked at the small port of St. Helen’s in four vessels, and set sail for Brittany. The hour of his departure was anxiously watched by the assembled population, who crowded the shore—all anxious to take a last look of their fathers, sons, brothers, lovers, friends, and companions, who now, elated with hope and buoyed up with assurances of many brilliant rewards, felt like men who were only leaving penury and obscurity to reap an abundant harvest, and bask in the light of a victorious sun. From every religious house in the island, monks had arrived to consecrate the departing banners, and pronounce a blessing on the martial sons of the isle. But the scene was such as may be more easily imagined than described. There might be sorrow indeed, when a mother parted with her son—a maid with her lover—or when a Jew beheld his creditor on the point of escape! But the general expression was that of exultation. All predicted speedy triumphs and a safe return; but how different was the result!

Landed on the French shore, the islanders were joined by fifteen hundred of the Duke’s forces, all dressed in the same uniform; and thus welcomed and encouraged, they longed ardently for battle. Their desire was soon granted: meeting the King’s army at St. Aubin, a sanguinary conflict ensued; but neither the unflinching gallantry of the islanders, nor the firm, intrepid example of their captain, could avert the terrible disaster which followed. The Duke’s army was completely routed. The English, who had sworn either to keep the field as victors, or to cover it with their dead bodies, stood like a wall of brass around their leader, and again and again repulsed the iron columns that successively charged and recoiled before them. But, overwhelmed by numbers, and deserted by those whom they had come to serve, they fought with such desperation, that of the whole force only one man is said to have returned with the mournful tidings of the day.

The fate of this expedition threw the whole island into mourning: not a family but had lost some of its members or relatives; gloom and distraction were everywhere apparent; the Abbey of Quarr, priory, and chapel, resounded with solemn anthems and masses for the dead—masses which, whatever rest they procured for the slain, were dearly purchased by the

survivors, many of whom spent their last penny in the purchase of a requiem. All that Scotland lost by the Field of Flodden, this island lost—only in a smaller degree—at the battle of St. Aubin—the flower of its chivalry, youth, and talent. With the exception of the grey veterans who still trod the battlements, or stood sentinel at the Wicket of Carisbrooke Castle, there was scarcely a man left fit to bear arms.

From the date of this ill-fated expedition, the lordship of Carisbrooke became part of the royal demesne, and has continued ever since annexed to the crown. Among the king’s lieutenants and wardens who had successively command of the castle and military force of the island, between the reign of Edward IV. and that of Elizabeth, several names occur which held distinguished places in the history of their day; but however pleasing it might be to enrich our pages with traits of individual character, acts of public service, and instances of private worth, we must relinquish this task for the present; but with the history of the old baronial families, as we proceed, most of the traits and anecdotes here omitted will be found incorporated. It may be mentioned, however, in passing, that in the captainship of Richard Worsley the island was visited by Henry VIII., who, attended by his favourite, Lord Cromwell—then constable of the castle, and afterwards beheaded—partook of the various entertainments prepared for him at the Captain’s seat of Appuldurcumbe. The object of the King’s visit on this occasion, observes the historian, appears to have been “to amuse himself with hawking, or some other species of chase,” as he had some time previously, in a letter dated “at our manʳof Otland,” given strict orders for the preservation of the game in the royal demesne.

We shall now pass on to a later epoch, in order to take a glance of the Castle of Carisbrooke, as it stood when garrisoned by the troops of Henry’s magnanimous daughter, Queen Elizabeth. Hitherto the personal valour and independent spirit of the inhabitants had been sufficient to protect the Isle of Wight from the violence of enemies, to which, by its natural position, it was continually exposed. Now, however, it was deemed expedient by government to strengthen it by the construction of new forts, and the better appointment of those that had stood the waste of centuries. With this view, the master-fort of the island, the Castle of Carisbrooke, underwent a thorough change. What was old was repaired and accommodated to the modern art of war; extensive additions, barracks, arsenals, and outer works—as shown in the plan—were added; so that whatever was considered by the engineers of Elizabeth’s reign as necessary for a military fortress, was carefully bestowed on that of Carisbrooke. The embrasures, in which rested the ponderous ordnance of modern warfare, contrasted strongly with the diminutive loopholes through which had glanced the feathered shafts of Fitz-Osborne; while the tramp of musketeers and troopers, who now paced its battlements and crowded its barracks, gave to the ancient precincts much of the stir and animation of a great citadel. But the “Invincible Armada,” which had presented so many terrors—and for the effectual resistance of which so many preparations had been made—passed harmlessly by, to waste its strength in

conflict with the waves. The castle at this time was under the command of Sir George Carey, “captain” or “governor” of the island,—whose Residence, with the barracks adjoining, forms a prominent feature in the castle. But in the absence of military events, the following anecdote, in proof of the peace and harmony which prevailed among the inhabitants at that time, occurs in the Memoirs of Sir John Oglander: “I have heard,” says he, “and partly know it to be true, that not only heretofore there was no lawyer or attorney in our island; but that, in Sir George Carey’s time, an attorney coming to settle in the island, he was, with a pound of candles dangling at his heels, lighted, with bells about his legs, and hunted out of the island; insomuch as our ancestors lived here so quietly and securely, being neither troubled to go to London nor Winchester, so they seldom or never went out of the island—insomuch that when they went to London, thinking it an East India voyage, they always made their wills.”—We now return to a survey of

The Castle—which has undergone little or no alteration since the above period—and gladly avail ourselves of Sir Richard Worsley’s authority as the ground-work of the short sketch which follows. Considering that the principal difference between a Saxon and Norman castle consisted in the former having built one regular entire fortification round, or as nearly so as the nature of the ground would admit; while the latter built theirs in two distinct fortifications—the keep, and the base-court; it has been concluded by Strutt and others, that the keep of Carisbrooke Castle is entirely of ancient British or Saxon workmanship, and that the base-court was added by the Normans. Of the original Saxon fortress, rebuilt by Fitz-Osborne, the walls enclose about an acre and a half, and in figure are nearly a rectangular parallelogram, having the angles rounded. The greatest space is from east to west. The old or Norman Castle is surrounded by a more modern fortification, faced with stone, of an irregular pentagonal form, defended by five bastions. These outworks, which are in circuit about three quarters of a mile and surrounded by a deep ditch, circumscribe in the whole about twenty acres. They were added in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and constructed by the Italian engineer Genebella, on the same plan as those of Antwerp. The work was undertaken at the representation of the governor, Sir George Carey, when the country was menaced by the Spanish Armada. In aid of the expenses, Queen Elizabeth gave four thousand pounds; the gentlemen of the island gave four hundred more, and the commonalty contributed their personal labour by digging the outward ditch gratis. For the following particulars the reader is referred to the Ground Plan at the close of the present subject.

On a small projecting stone on the north-east corner is carved the date M.D.XCVIII. The entrance is on the west side in the curtain, between two bastions through a small stone gateway; on the arch of which is the same date, with the initial letters E. R. (p. 296.) This gate leads to a second of much greater antiquity, machicolated, and flanked by two large round towers. It is supposed to have been built by Lord Woodville in the time of Edward IV., his arms being engraved on a stone at the top, and the Roses of York on each side. The old gate with its wicket (p. 293), of strong lattice-work, fastened with large nails at every crossing, is still remaining, and opens into the castle-yard. Entering the area on the right hand stands the chapel of St. Nicholas, with its enclosed Cemetery. The present building was erected on the ruins of an ancient chapel endowed about the time that Domesday Book was compiled. Over the original chapel was an Armory, containing breast, back, and head pieces for two or three troops of horse; but when defensive armour went out of use, they were sold by order of Lord Cadogan, then governor. Over the

door is carved G. II. 1738; and by a stone tablet at the east end, we are informed that it was rebuilt during the government of Lord Lymington. Farther towards the left are the ruins of some buildings, said to be those in which

King Charles was confined; and a window is shown as that through which he attempted to escape. Beyond these are the barracks and governor’s house, (see page 294,) which contain several good rooms with coved ceilings, and have been occasionally used for a military hospital; and certainly, with regard to air and situation, a more salubrious station could not have been selected. On a mount, raised considerably above the other buildings, stands

The Keep, or Donjon.—Its figure (as seen p. 281, 283, and in the plan) is an irregular polygon; the ascent to it is by seventy-two steps up the side of the mount, and there are more within—each step is about nine inches. This multangular tower bears evident marks of great antiquity: some of the angles are strengthened by walling of hewn stone, which was probably added under Edward IV. when the great gate was rebuilt. There is a well within this keep, said to be three hundred feet deep; but it has, like that in Arundel Castle, been partly filled up as useless and dangerous. The battlements command a most extensive and beautiful prospect, which is not confined to the island only, but takes in the New Forest and Portsdown, with the sea intervening at several points, and much picturesque scenery adjoining. At the south-east angle of the keep stands the remains of another tower, (cut p. 285,) called

Mountjoy’s Tower, probably in honour of the nobleman of that name, governor of Tourney in the time of Henry VIII. The walls of this tower are in some places eighteen feet thick, and still command a beautiful prospect, though less extensive than that from the keep. The ramparts between these towers is about twenty feet high and eight feet thick, including a parapet of two feet and a half, which was carried quite round the castle. Under a small building in the castle-yard, adjoining the governor’s house, is

The Garrison Well, from which the water is drawn by means of a large windlass-wheel, turned by an ass. On a former occasion this duty was performed

during a period of more than forty years by the same animal, which, on account of his services, was long one of the great curiosities of the place. Down the well it is usual to drop a nail, or even a pin, which, after a lapse of three seconds, produces a sound much greater than can be well conceived by those who have not actually heard it. Another experiment is often made in showing this well to strangers—namely, that of letting down, by means of a pulley, a lighted lamp in a wooden basin, which in descending occasions a loud noise, from the resistance of the air, like a hollow wind or distant thunder; and as the lamp floats upon the surface of the water, the compact masonry of the well—which is partly cut through the rock—is distinctly visible. The water furnished by the castle-well is remarkably pure and sparkling; and in instances where it has been carried to India and back, it has still retained its native purity.

The Governor’s House (see p. 294) contains several spacious apartments, but now unfurnished, and only inhabited by the cicerone of the castle. Like the additions above mentioned, it is of the Elizabethan epoch, and externally has a rather picturesque appearance—its gables and tall chimneys much resembling buildings of similar date in the Netherlands. At the conclusion of the late war, the garrison consisted of a governor, a lieutenant-governor, a captain, a master gunner, and three assistants. The salary of the governor was twelve hundred pounds, and that of the lieutenant-governor three hundred and sixty-five pounds per annum.

The castle has been on various occasions attacked by hostile fleets and marauders, and as often to the loss and discomfiture of the assailants. Of these attacks several instances are related by the chief historian of the island—Sir Richard Worsley. The island, however, had continued comparatively unmolested till the reign of Richard II., at which time, says Stowe, “The French took that invincible isle, more by craft than force.” In the preceding reign a landing having been effected by the French, the inhabitants fled for refuge to Carisbrooke Castle, then defended by Sir Hugh Tyrrill, who slew a great number of the assailants. During the siege a party of the intruders coming down a narrow lane towards the castle, fell into an ambuscade, and were mostly cut off. The lane is still called Deadman’s Lane. Unable to subdue the castle, the French withdrew; but, before they re-embarked, obliged the natives to redeem their houses from being burnt by a heavy contribution. Again, in the reign of Henry V., a body of French adventurers arrived on the island, and boasted that they would keep their Christmas there. But as about a thousand of them were driving cattle towards their ships, they were suddenly attacked by the islanders, and obliged to leave not only their plunder, but many of their men behind them. On another occasion, when a French fleet had arrived, and demanded a subsidy, the islanders gave them a hardy denial; but told them that, if they had a mind to try their prowess, they should have full permission to land, with six hours to refresh themselves; after which the natives would meet them in the field. But the invitation was not accepted.—For other particulars, the reader is referred to Worsley’s military history of the island.

Thus far our description has been confined to times and personages when Carisbrooke Castle was a fortress and palace; we now proceed to view it as the prison of King Charles I.—an event which excites more real interest than all the other circumstances in its history. At the time when the great question between the King and his Parliament agitated the whole country, Carisbrooke Castle was under the command of the Earl of Portland. This nobleman stood high in the estimation of the inhabitants; for, in a petition numerously signed and presented to Parliament in his behalf, they expressly mention him as “their noble, much honoured, and beloved captayne and governor.” He was nevertheless superseded, and Colonel Brett appointed to the command. In the interim, the Countess of Portland and her five children, accompanied by her husband’s brother and sister, took refuge in the castle. The desire of holding it for the king was by no means abandoned; and by her presence in the fortress she hoped to exert some salutary influence over the minds of the populace, whose attachment to her husband and his family had been so publicly manifested on a late occasion. The proverbial fickleness of popular favour, however, was soon to be verified; for, instigated by the mayor of Newport, who represented that the island could not be safe so long as Colonel Brett and the Countess of Portland remained in Carisbrooke Castle, Parliament directed the captains of all ships stationed in the river to assist in any measures which the said mayor might deem necessary

for securing the island. The Newport militia accordingly, with four hundred naval auxiliaries, were marched up to the walls of the castle, near Elizabeth’s Tower, which at this time, says Worsley, “had not three days’ provision for its slender garrison.” The moment was critical; the assailants had every advantage, while the prospect of famine or surrender was all that could be expected by the besieged. The countess, too, had a young family around her; and it may be imagined with what feelings she beheld the planting of hostile ordnance, and anticipated the probable effusion of kindred blood. There was little time for reflection or hesitation. With the magnanimity of a Roman matron, she made her appearance on the platform with a lighted match in her hand, and there, raising her voice, so as to be distinctly heard by the mayor and his armed followers, told them, with an undaunted air and unfaltering accents, that unless honourable terms were granted to herself and the garrison—whom they had so unaccountably summoned to surrender—she would instantly, with her own hand, discharge the first cannon, and defend the walls to the last extremity. Struck with her dignified demeanour, and the determination to which she had just given utterance, the mayor paused in his operations, and, having consulted with his townsmen, all that the countess demanded was agreed to: she was allowed to retain possession of her apartments in the castle; Colonel Brett, his staff, and servants, who composed the garrison, were allowed the freedom of the island, but were restricted from going to Portsmouth, then held for the king by Goring, and the castle was surrendered to Parliament. The countess, however, being represented as still firmly attached to the king’s interest—consequently a dangerous inmate in the castle—an order was issued, that within two days after notice given, she should vacate both the castle and island. She did so, and was indebted to the humanity of a few generous fishermen for the means of conveying herself and family to Southampton.—See the political history of this period.

Passing over the governorship of the Earl of Pembroke, who next held command in this ancient fortress, we come to that of Colonel Hammond, who had the unenviable distinction of being captain of the fortress when, as already mentioned, it became the prison of the martyr-king.

Among the accounts handed down by Clarendon and other writers, who have severally treated of King Charles’s confinement in this castle, there is considerable discrepancy; but the following particulars, condensed from other sources less accessible to general readers, seem best suited to the scope and limits of the present work. After effecting his escape from the palace of Hampton Court, in the manner described by Lord Clarendon, Charles threw himself into the Isle of Wight, of which Colonel Hammond was then governor. At first, and for a considerable time after his arrival in the island, he appears to have been well lodged, to have suffered neither humiliation nor outward restraint, but to have experienced, on the part of the civil and military authorities, every mark of respect and sympathy to which a good man and a great monarch, struggling with adversity, was so justly entitled. He was permitted to take exercise on horseback where he pleased, though his motions and actions were no doubt carefully observed; and as the Parliament had made him a grant at the rate of five thousand pounds per annum, he lived a few months in the state Apartments of the castle—still shown as King Charles’s Rooms—with much of the external forms and appearance of royalty. This liberty, however, was soon abridged; and he was made to feel that he was no longer a potentate to be heard and obeyed, but a prisoner at the mercy of his subjects. His chaplains and faithful attendants were first removed; and shortly afterwards his intercourse was peremptorily restricted to certain persons, strangers to him, whom the Parliament had appointed to be about his person. He was no longer permitted to pass the gate of the castle, but mostly confined to his apartments—now reduced to masses of rubbish and fragments of ivy-covered walls. So solitary was his confinement during a great portion of his time, “that as he was standing one day near the gate of the castle, with Sir Philip Warwick, he pointed to a decrepit old man, and said—‘That man is sent every morning to light my fire, and is the best companion I have had for many months.’” The king, however, submitted to all this severity with Christian patience and equanimity, and endeavoured as much as possible to keep his mind employed. He had always had serious impressions of religion,

and these were neither shaken nor diminished, but strengthened and confirmed, by the harassing restraint under which lie was now placed. Devotion, meditation, and reading the scriptures, were his greatest consolations. The few books which he had brought into the castle with him, were chiefly on religious subjects, or of a serious cast. Among these was Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity—a book which it is probable he had studied with great attention, as it related much to the national question so much agitated at that time, and in which no man was better versed. In his slender catalogue, we find also two books of amusement, Tasso’s “Jerusalem,” and Spenser’s “Faëry Queen.” His freedom, however, was more and more abridged. He was an excellent horseman, and fond of that exercise; but as this indulgence was denied, he spent two or three hours every morning in walking on the castle ramparts. There he enjoyed at least fresh air and an extensive prospect; although every object he beheld—the “flocks straying carelessly on one side, and the ships sailing freely on the other”—brought painfully to remembrance that liberty and enjoyment of life of which he was so cruelly deprived. Thus circumstanced, he became regardless of his dress; he allowed his beard to grow, lost much of his cheerfulness; and in the expression of his countenance betrayed the inward feelings of a patient but unhappy captive.

During his imprisonment in this castle, three several attempts appear to have been made, and chiefly by the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, for his enlargement. These are severally mentioned by Clarendon, Gilpin, and the writers of the Worsley Papers, from which it appears, that by a correspondence privately settled with some gentlemen of the island, it was agreed that the king should let himself down from

A window of his apartment; a swift horse with a guide was to wait for

him at the bottom of the ramparts, while a vessel in the offing was to be ready to convey him wherever he pleased. The chief difficulty was, how the King should get through the iron bars of his window: but Charles assured them that he had already made experiment of the passage, and had every reason to believe that it was sufficiently large to admit his person. All being ready—the night dark, the fortress quiet, and not a whisper of suspicion of what was going on—everything promised a successful issue. The signal was then made. Charles appeared at the window, and seeing his friends in attendance, signified his readiness to make the attempt at once. But what was his disappointment and the mortification of his friends, who stood watching him with unspeakable anxiety, when he found that, in his eagerness to lay hold of any rational means of escape, he had miscalculated the width of the aperture! Having protruded his head and shoulders, he could get no further; and what was worse, he could not draw himself back. His friends at the bottom of the wall heard him groan in distress, but durst neither relieve him by word nor act, without alarming the sentinels, and thus sacrificing their own lives. It was a moment of agonizing suspense. At length, after repeated exertions, the king succeeded in extricating himself from his perilous situation, and, waving his hand before the light as a signal, retired mournfully to his couch, there to brood over this fresh blow to his hopes, and the defeated loyalty of his friends.

In the next plan laid for his escape, from the same window, implements having been secretly conveyed to him for that purpose, Charles contrived, by night-work and with “wonderful trouble,” to saw the massive iron bar asunder, which had proved the great obstacle in his last attempt. But all these schemes were alike unsuccessful; and, until the treaty of Newport—of which some interesting particulars are related by Sir Richard Worsley—the king remained a close prisoner in the Castle of Carisbrooke. He was then seized by the army, and carried a prisoner to Hurst Castle. “Just at the break of day,” says Worsley—in an extract from Colonel Cooke’s ‘Narrative’—“the king, hearing a loud knocking at his outer door, sent the Duke of Richmond to learn the cause, who found there a person who said his name was Mildmay—a brother of Sir Henry Mildmay, and one of the servants placed by the Parliament about the king’s person. On the duke’s inquiring his business, he answered that there were several gentlemen from the army, who were very desirous to speak with the king. The duke carried in this message; but the knocking still increasing, the king gave orders for their admission. The doors were no sooner opened, than those officers rushed into the bed-chamber before the king could rise from his bed, and abruptly told him that they had orders for his removal. ‘From whom?’ inquired the king. ‘From the army,’ they replied. ‘And to what place?’ inquired the king. ‘To the castle,’ said they. ‘To what castle?’ demanded the king. They again answered, ‘To the castle.’—‘The castle,’ said the king, ‘is no castle;’ but added, that he was well enough prepared for any castle, and therefore required them to name it; when, after a short whisper together, they said ‘Hurst Castle.’—‘Indeed!’ replied the king, ‘you could hardly have named a worse.’... The Duke of Richmond then ordered the king’s breakfast to be hastened, presuming that there was little provision made for him in that desolate fortress; but before his majesty was well ready, the horses being come, they hurried him away, only permitting the duke to attend him for about two miles, and then telling him he must go no further. He therefore took a sad farewell of the king, being scarcely permitted to kiss his hand. The king’s last words to the duke were, ‘Remember me to my Lord Lindsay and Colonel Cooke; and command Cooke from me, never to forget the passages of this night!’” He then proceeded a prisoner to Hurst Castle, “which at that time,” says Warwick, “contained only a few dog-lodgings for soldiers.”—In his way to that dismal receptacle, he accidentally met Mr. Worsley, one of the gentlemen who had so generously risked their lives for him in the above-mentioned attempts to escape. Charles wrung his hand with affection; and pulling the watch out of his pocket gave it to him, with these words—“Keep this in remembrance of me: it is all my gratitude has to give.” This watch is still preserved in the Worsley family; it is of “silver, large and clumsy in its form; neatly ornamented in the case with filagree work; but the movements are of very ordinary workmanship, and are wound up with cat-gut.” On his arrival within its walls, the “solitude and dreariness of the castle struck like a death-damp to the heart of Charles!” Never till this moment had he thought himself in danger: but now suspicions of secret assassination haunted his mind; and as he looked around him, and compared Hurst Castle with that which he had left—“Here,” said he to himself, “were the place for such a deed!”—But the events which followed the king’s departure from the Isle of Wight require no further notice in this place.

With these brief notices of Carisbrooke Castle, and the chief personages and events with which it is connected, we close this portion of our subject; and for many interesting facts and persons which our limits will not permit us to detail, we refer, with every due acknowledgment, to the Authorities here annexed—particularly to that of the late Sir Richard Worsley.

Authorities:—Order. Vital. De Gul. Primo.—Gul. Cimitensis, De Ducib. Normannis, lib. vii. c. xv.—Dugd. Bar. and Monast.—Will. Malmsb.—Matt. Paris.—Holinshed.—Polyd. Virg.—Camden.—Froissart.—Sir Richard Worsley.—Cooke.—Lane.—Clarendon, Hist. Rebel. vol. iii. Part I.—Gilpin.—Monstrelet, vol. ii. 458.—Col. Cooke’s Narrative, MSS. Harleian Collect.—Hist. of England, Civil and Milit. Transact., p. 298; for the event here noticed, see Monstrelet, vol. i. p. 32.—For Waltheof v. Ingulph. Selecta Monumento, p. 254. Note.—See also Append. to Orig Extracts to this Volume.

“Now sunk, deserted, and with weeds o’ergrown,
Yon prostrate walls their harder fate bewail;
Low on the ground their topmost spires are thrown,
Once friendly marks to guide the wandering sail.

The ivy now with rude luxuriance bends
Its tangled foliage through the cloister’d space,
O’er the green windows’ mould’ring height ascends,
And fondly clasps it with a last embrace.”—Keate.

FEW monastic ruins are equally interesting with that of Netley Abbey; yet we know of no monastery of the same importance of which the history is so imperfectly known. Its position in a secluded spot, where the ground it occupies might be spared from other purposes, and accidental circumstances of different kinds, have so far preserved its walls from destruction, that we may here still trace with accuracy the arrangement and internal economy of those great religious establishments which, in former ages, were to be seen in every part of our island.

The modern name of Netley appears itself to be only a corruption of the more ancient one of Letley, Lettely, or Latelie, under which the place is mentioned in Domesday Book, as being held by Richard Pungiant. We learn from the same important document, that previously to the Norman Conquest it had been held of King Edward by Alward, “who could go where he would.” It was probably from the circumstance of its having been a manor belonging to Edward the Confessor, that it afterwards took the name of “the Place of St. Edward,” or Edwardestowe. The derivation of the name Letley is very uncertain; it was probably the remarkable taste for punning on proper names, so characteristic of the writers and scholars of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which led them to call it in Latin De Laeto Loco, or “the joyful place.”

The Abbey of Netley, or Letley, can boast of no great antiquity. It appears certain that it was founded by King Henry III. in the year 1239; although it has been supposed, on very weak grounds, that a religious house of some kind had previously occupied its site. Henry’s original charter is not preserved; but in a subsequent brief charter of confirmation—dated

March 7, 1251—he speaks of it as the church which he had founded—“ecclesia quam nos fundavimus”—and gives or confirms to it the lands of Lettelege, Hune, Welewe, Totinton, Gumelculne, Nordleg, Deverell-Kingston, Waddon, Ayheleg, and Lacton, with all their appurtenances, with the rents of Charleton, Southampton, and Suthwerk, and a hundred acres of land in the manor of Schire, as well as the advowson of the church of that manor. The lands in Schire appear to have been given, or sold, to the Abbey in 1243: we have the confirmation of the grant, by John de Warren, Earl of Surrey, dated on the day of the Epiphany, 1252, but his original charter is also lost. The Seals of Netley Abbey, of which three are known, describe it as the Abbey of St. Mary of Edwardestowe. An impression of the seal of the abbot, attached to a deed of the beginning of the reign of Edward III., represents a figure of an abbot, surrounded by the inscription, S. Abbis Loci S’ci Edwardi. A seal of the abbey, of the same date, but much mutilated, has the following fragments of an inscription:...... Commune Abb....... Edwardi. De. Lette.... At the latter end of the last century, the matrix of a seal of this house was discovered in the possession of a dealer in curiosities in London: the seal was very small, not much larger than a modern shilling; on it was represented a person kneeling before the Virgin and Child, and surrounded by the inscription, S.Beate.Marie.De.Stowie.S’ci.Edward’. Mr. Brand imagined that the kneeling figure was intended to represent King Edward the Confessor.

The king placed in his foundation a small party of Cistercian monks, then the most powerful and encroaching of all the religious orders. This monastic colony was brought from the Abbey of Beaulieu, in the New Forest. Antiquaries have succeeded, after much labour, in discovering the names of eight Abbots of Netley; but as these stretch over a space of three centuries, there can be no doubt that the list is incomplete. The list of benefactors is equally imperfect: in addition to those already mentioned, we only know with certainty the names of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the second son of the founder, Robert de Vere, and Walter de Burgh. The latter is stated to have given property in the county of Lincoln, which he held of the king in capite by the service of presenting to him a hat, lined with sindon, a kind of fine linen, and a pair of gilt spurs. It has been supposed that Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester from 1502 to 1528, was one of the latest benefactors.

In point of revenue, Netley Abbey was one of the smaller monasteries. At the time of its dissolution in 1538, the community consisted of an abbot and twelve monks; and their possessions produced, according to Dugdale, £100 1s. 8d., or, according to Speed, £160 2s. 9-1/4d. The site was granted to Sir William Paulet, subsequently created Marquis of Winchester, and one of the most remarkable statesmen of his time. It was he who built the magnificent house at Basing, celebrated for the obstinate siege which it sustained in the civil wars of the seventeenth century. This nobleman died in 1572, at the great age of ninety-seven years; and is said to have seen, before his death, a hundred and three persons descended from him. He probably sold Netley to the Earl of Hertford, in whose possession we find it in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth. There is a tradition, that this nobleman turned the ruined abbey into a dwelling-house: and it is said that a part of the church was converted into a kitchen. There are, however, at present, no traces about the buildings to support this story. We might be led to suppose that the house inhabited occasionally by the Earl of Hertford, and then known by the name of Netley Castle, was rather the old fort below the abbey, of which the rains still remain. In 1560, the Earl of Hertford was here honoured by a visit from his sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. According to the register of St. Michael’s parish, Southampton, “the queen’s majesty’s grace came from the Castle of Netley to Southampton, on the thirteenth day of August.” It is not improbable that, at this time, many parts of the abbey were in a sufficient state of repair to be fitted up for the reception of the queen’s attendants.

If, at a later period, the abbey was really used as a dwelling-house for the Hertford family, they probably occupied the buildings, of which the ruins are still considerable, on the west and south sides of the great court. It is pretended that the church was then used as the family chapel: and George Keate, the poet, informs us that he had seen, in an interleaved almanack of the year 1665, which had belonged to a lady of the same family, an entry stating, that the lady of Francis, Lord Seymour—a younger branch of the Hertford family—lay in there of Charles, Lord Seymour, second Baron of Troubridge, who was baptized in the chapel. This part of the history of Netley Abbey is, however, very obscure. It is said to have passed in the latter part of the seventeenth century to the Earl of Huntingdon, who also resided there (according to the tradition). In 1700 it belonged to Sir Bartlet Lucy, who sold the materials of the church to a Mr. Taylor of Southampton; and from that period it appears that we are to date the commencement of the destruction of this once noble edifice.

The general style of this Church is that of the reign of Henry III., and the present building is doubtlessly coeval with that monarch’s foundation. It formed the northern side of the abbey, and was, as usual, cruciform, having north and south transepts. The walls of the south transept remain nearly perfect to the roof; the south wall of the church also remains in nearly its whole elevation; but the north wall, which contained the larger windows, is in a less perfect condition, and the site of the north transept is only marked by a confused heap of rubbish, overgrown with trees and brambles. The east and west ends of the church are also standing. The north wall is supported externally by low buttresses; and some traces of buildings, with the heaps of rubbish on the ground, lead us to suppose that there was one or more smaller external buildings, perhaps chapels, attached. The West Window, as well as the great eastern window, appears to have been, when perfect and filled with stained glass, extremely handsome and

striking. The springings which supported the arches of the groined roof are still visible; and until a comparatively recent period, part of the roof itself remained standing, and among the ruins “various arms and devices were to be traced.” Its ruins, mixed with those of the columns which separated the aisles from the nave, still encumber the floor in a picturesque manner, partly covered with shrubs and plants, and held firmly together by the roots of lofty trees which have grown upon them. The old lady who has taken her station at the entrance of the abbey, to act as a guide to the interior, regards these shapeless heaps with peculiar attachment: and she fails not to tell the visitor, in accents of sorrowful indignation, of the recent depredations of a barbarian workman who was sent to gather up the “loose stones,” and who did not hesitate to lay his sacrilegious hands on portions of that which was not loose. Vulgar tradition points out the largest of these masses as a monument of divine retribution on the wretch whose avarice led him to spoil the pious work of his forefathers; and it is believed that he lies buried beneath the rubbish which his own hand had dragged down.

“Here too (belief could old tradition claim),
Where swells the rocky mound in shapeless heaps,
(His name now lost, his guilt divulged by fame,)
Some rude dismantler of this abbey sleeps.

Long, long in thought the patient earth he cursed,
That bore the fabric’s then unbroken spires;
Long wish’d the power to bid volcanoes burst,
Or call from heaven thought-executing fires.

‘Wide wave,’ he cried, ‘all bright with golden grain
The neighbouring vales, while this proud cumbrous mass
For many a barren furlong chills the plain,
And draws with idle zeal the crowds that pass.

‘No more the votaries of each time-shook pile,
As ruin’s heirs, shall call these shades their own;
For blazon’d arms explore the pageant aisle,
Or search dark registers of faithless stone.’

He spoke—resolved. The menaced arches frown’d,
The conscious walls in sudden conflict join’d,
Crush’d the pale wretch in one promiscuous wound,
And left this monument of wrath behind.”

The appearance of this church shows that its ultimate destruction has been the work of accident, rather than of design; although a story of a less doubtful character informs us, that we owe the preservation of the building in its present condition to a retributary accident, resembling that of the legend just mentioned. We have already stated that, about the commencement of the last century, the materials of the abbey were sold to a person of the name of Taylor, who resided at Southampton. His friends, who looked with superstitious feelings on this venerable pile, urged him not to conclude the bargain, and advised him to abstain from being instrumental in the work of sacrilege; but he was deaf to their entreaties. He had scarcely taken possession of his purchase, when in his sleep he was visited by a fearful dream, in which it appeared to him that the key-stone of one of the arches, which was to be demolished first, fell upon his head, and fractured his skull. Although troubled in mind, he at first paid no attention to this dream; but when it was repeated more than once, he ventured to disclose it to a friend. That friend was Mr. Watts, a schoolmaster in Southampton, the father of the celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts. He advised Taylor to desist from the undertaking; but the avarice of the latter overcame all scruples or fears, and he returned to the work of demolition. He had hardly begun, when, in exerting himself to tear down a board, he loosened the identical stone which had been represented to him in his dream, and which in its fall struck him a violent blow on the head. He was carried home, and his skull was found to be slightly fractured, but no apprehensions were entertained of serious consequences. The surgeon, however, in probing the wound, accidentally thrust his instrument into the brain, and caused instant death. The fate of Taylor is said to have acted as an effectual check to future depredations of a similar kind.

The arches of the South Transept of Netley Abbey Church are peculiarly elegant and graceful; although, like those of the nave and choir, they are devoid of the rich and diminutive ornamentation which characterizes the architecture of a somewhat later period. Above the lower series of arches, a passage or corridor runs round this part of the building, which is approached by a small spiral staircase in the corner between the transept and the choir. Below, delicately-wrought arches and recesses in the wall mark the spots formerly occupied by sepulchral monuments, raised probably over the bones of abbots or benefactors. The ruins of this transept were cleared away from the floor a few years ago, and it is said that coats-of-arms were observed on some of the stones. The vaulted aisle on the east side of this transept is still in a perfect state, by which, through a door in the south-east corner, the monks entered from the sacristy. Another door, between the door just mentioned and that which leads to the staircase, communicates with a narrow yard behind the choir of the church. The entrance from the principal court of the monastery is situated in the south-west corner of the same transept.

It is probable that a tower rose above the intersection of the transepts with the church, although no distinct traces of it now remain. Tradition says that its lofty pinnacles formerly served as land-marks to the sailors in their way up the Southampton-water. The whole length of the church is about two hundred feet: its breadth is sixty feet. The space between the extreme walls of the two transepts appears to have been about a hundred and twenty feet.

The general arrangement of the abbey buildings bears a strong resemblance to that of the older colleges in our Universities. The entrance gateway, which faces the south, and is approached from the beach, leads us into the principal court of the abbey, which, when perfect, must have been

a noble quadrangle. A fountain is said to have stood in the centre, from which it has long been known by the name of the Fountain Court; but its site is now occupied by a clump of picturesque trees: similar trees have taken root in other parts of the court. The south and west sides were formed by buildings, the dilapidated walls of which afford no clue to the object to which they were formerly devoted, although they appear to have been divided into apartments of different dimensions and forms, some of which had fire-places. Portions of the walls, from the circumstance of their being repaired with bricks, seem to indicate that this part of the building was inhabited at no very distant period. But modern brick-work is found in other parts of the abbey, and it was perhaps added only for the purpose of securing the walls from falling. The north side of the court is formed by the nave of the church; while on the east side stands the southern transept, and adjoining to it the principal buildings of the abbey.

This court is of large dimensions, and its walls are still erect. It was the most public part of the abbey, being open equally to those who came to offer up their prayer in the church, or who were anxious to unburden their mind in the confessional; to the traveller who sought a temporary shelter among the monks, or to the mendicant who lived upon their alms. The solitary ruins speak to our hearts of other days, of which the reality is long passed away: the house of prayer has been rifled and dishonoured, the spacious halls now afford but a dubious shelter to the pilgrim, and the almoner has ceased to dole out the daily portion to the poor.

“No more shall Charity, with sparkling eyes
And smiles of welcome, wide unfold the door
Where Pity, listening still to Nature’s cries,
Befriends the wretched and relieves the poor.”

On Mondays, the Fountain Court presents a singular scene of gaiety. It has long been the custom for people from Southampton, and the neighbourhood to meet at the abbey on that day, and to hold a kind of festival. Tea and other provisions are furnished by the inhabitants of a neighbouring cottage, and this is followed by music and dancing.

On the eastern side of the quadrangle are four doorways. The door to the south leads into a vaulted passage, which formed the communication between the first court and the interior quadrangle of cloisters. To the north of this passage are the apartments connected with the government of the house and the service of the church: to the south, the hall, kitchen, &c. Of the three exterior doors which lay to the north of the entrance to the passage, the first is the entrance to the chapter-house; the second, a small but very elegant arch, leads to the ancient confessional; and the last communicates with the south transept of the abbey church.

The Confessional forms a portion of a long rectangular apartment adjacent to the church, of which the remaining and larger portion is said to have been the sacristy, and from which the confessional was separated by a stone wall, the lower part of which still remains. Besides the entrance from the court, it has a communication with the adjoining chapter-house. It was here that the penitent, or should-be-penitent, laid open to the priest his secret failings, and was instructed in the kind of reparation or the quantity of self-punishment which was necessary to atone for them. In greater trespasses, or

where the penitent himself desired it, he was led into the adjoining chapter-house, and received the monastic discipline at the hands of the monks, which consisted in a severe flogging on the bare skin—a punishment which is now only preserved in the army and navy. Great offenders were at times subjected to this penance. We learn from Matthew Paris, that when the ferocious Falcasius de Breant, one of King John’s foreign auxiliaries, had plundered the town and abbey of St. Albans, he was warned in a dream that he would be pursued by the vengeance of Heaven, unless he made some reparation to the monks. Falcasius, we are told, went with some of his most active soldiers to the abbey, where they suffered themselves to be stripped in the chapter-house; and, having submitted to the discipline with becoming humility, they received absolution for their offence. The practice of confession, and the giving of absolution, were sources of great power to the Romish Church: they were often made an instrument of benefiting the community, but they were as frequently productive of great evils, and the facility of obtaining absolution acted as an encouragement to crime. Among the numerous stories told by the monks in illustration of the efficacy of confession, it is related that a knight, who suspected one of his attendants of a grave crime against his own person, determined to carry him before a certain wizard, who was famous for laying open people’s hidden faults. On their way, the criminal, aware of the object of their journey, requested permission to visit for a few hours a neighbouring town. He hastened to a religious house, confessed the crime of which he was accused among his other sins to the priest, received penitence, and submitted to a very rude application of the monastic discipline. When they stood before the wizard, and the knight inquired what were the secret failings of his attendant, the answer he received was—“This morning, when you left home with him, I knew him well and all his works; but now he only knows his works who has given him a bleeding back: I know nothing further.” Confession and absolution were a source of profit to the priest.

The Sacristy communicates by a door with the south transept of the church. It is a dark and rather low vaulted room, where the consecrated vessels and the articles of church furniture were deposited. The sacristan, whose office is partly represented in the Protestant Church by that of the humble sexton, was one of the most important personages in the monastery after

the abbot. He was the keeper of the books, vestments, and sacred utensils belonging to the church; it was his duty to attend to the altars in the church, and to collect and account for the offerings: he was intrusted also with legacies and gifts for building, repairing, or furnishing the church. The treasure was also frequently placed in his keeping; and we read of unfaithful sacristans, who fled from their abbeys, carrying with them the money which had been intrusted to their charge.

The sacristy is lighted by two windows, under one larger arch, on the east side. In the walls are several niches and recesses, which appear to have been intended to receive some of the articles intrusted to the sacristan’s care. It was perhaps the traditionary remembrance of the treasures which were deposited in the sacristy, which led a countryman in the neighbourhood to dream that there was money concealed in the wall, beneath the most ornamental of these niches; who, to seek for this imaginary object, came with a pickaxe, and broke away the bottom of the niche in the manner in which it now appears. Treasure legends are generally connected with ancient ruins, and this is not the only story of the kind which has been located in the Abbey of Netley. On the internal face of the south wall of the great quadrangle, near its eastern extremity, is seen an irregular excavation. It is said that, many years ago, a countryman dreamt of treasure buried in this wall; the same dream was presented to his imagination three different times, and he then proceeded with proper implements to the spot. After having cleared away the wall with assiduous labour, his exertions were rewarded, as tradition informs us, by the discovery of a ponderous chest filled with riches, which he bore away in triumph. But the indiscreet boastings of the finder soon reached the ears of the lord of the manor, who seized upon the treasure for his own use.

The Chapter-House was the monastic council chamber, and as such, being one of the most important rooms in the abbey, was also the most richly decorated. Its delicately-groined roof is entirely destroyed, and trees grow on its floor; but the elegantly-proportioned arches which adorned its walls, and the clustered columns which support them, still bear testimony to its former beauty. This apartment forms a regular square of thirty-six feet. Each wall is divided into three arches, between which sprung the ribs of the vaulted roof. Within the three arches on the east side are the windows, which likewise are more ornamental than those of the other apartments of the abbey. The extreme arch to the right on the west wall forms the entrance from the great quadrangle. In the recesses of the other arches are the remains of the stone seats on which the monks placed themselves when assembled in chapter to deliberate on the affairs of the monastery, or when they met to listen to the spiritual or moral exhortations of their Superior. We have already stated that the chapter-house was the place in which the discipline, or flogging, was administered to the unruly brethren and other offenders. The Cistercian monks are said to have been particularly addicted to the use of the rod—

“Est ibi virga frequens, atque diæta gravis.”

The southern wall of the chapter-house divides it from the passage we have already mentioned as forming the communication between the first and second courts. This passage forms the separation between those apartments of the abbey which were devoted to the spiritual concerns of the brotherhood, and those which were set apart for their bodily comforts. The chapter-house itself appears to have had no communication with this passage; but on the opposite side is a door which leads us into the Abbey Parlour, a room which answers to what is now called in our colleges the Combination-Room. This parlour, which possesses a fire-place, was the place of social meeting for the inmates of the abbey.

The next apartment in the south was the Refectory, hall, or dining-room, and is the largest room in the abbey. Its windows, like those of all the chambers in this line of buildings, look to the east. On the opposite wall we can still trace a large arch, built up with masonry, under which was perhaps a seat or side-table for the use of the attendants.

Although the monastic rule enjoins strict moderation and silence at table, yet we know that, from an early period, the monks’ refectory was no less a scene of mirth and festivity than the baronial hall. The Cistercian monks in England appear to have been especially noted for their attachment to good living. The satirists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries recount the number and delicacy of their dishes, and the goodness of their wines. One of these writers, whose work (which commonly goes under the name of Walter Mapes, the great enemy of the Cistercian order) enjoyed a vast popularity in the thirteenth century, describes thus their greediness in eating:—

“Quibus prandentibus voto præcipiti
Fauces celerrimæ, dentes solliciti,
Sepulcrum patens est guttur, par gurgiti
Spumoso stomachus, et rastris digiti.”

And he thus describes their evening potations—

“Sed ne potandi sit illa conditio,
Qui tenet, teneat, donec de medio
Fiat, hinc esset lis et contradictio,—
Ad plenum bibitur sine litigio.

Tunc legem statuunt pactumque mutuum,
Ne sit in calice quicquam residuum:
Sic, sine requie ventris et manuum,
Vas plenum vacuant, et replent vacuum.”

Another well-known writer, who was no friend of the Cistercians, Giraldus Cambrensis, has left a glowing description of their jovial mode of living. The silence enjoined by their statutes had given place to boisterous jests; and the solemn reading of the bible or saints’ legends, commanded by the founder of the order, had been replaced by the clang of minstrelsy and the feats and grimaces of the jongleurs. Giraldus, among innumerable anecdotes of the private life of the Cistercian monks, has preserved one which is curious not only on this account, but because it is the groundwork of a numerous class of ballads which were popular at a later period.

It happened one day that King Henry II. was indulging in hunting, the favourite amusement of the Anglo-Norman princes, probably in the woods of Hampshire. Eager in pursuit of the chase, the king was separated from his companions, and, missing his way, came at night-fall to a house of Cistercian monks on the border of the wood, and, pretending to be one of King Henry’s knights, he demanded a lodging there. The abbot and brethren received the wanderer with a hospitable welcome; and after supper the former called for a plentiful supply of the choicest liquor in the abbey. In the merry days of Old England, a particular form in drinking, derived from our Saxon forefathers, was universally observed: with each full cup one party pledged the other with the word (or rather words) Wæsheil, equivalent to Health to thee! and the origin of the more modern wassail: the answer was Drincheil, or, I drink thy health. But great topers and men of social habits, instead of using the common expression, invented drinking words of their own, private signals of affectionate regard, which appear to have had no particular meaning. Such was the case with the abbot in our story: the supposed knight, in return for his hospitable entertainment, had promised to use his influence with the king in furtherance of a suit which the abbot intended to prefer the next morning; and the latter, in the openness of his heart, pledged his guest with his private drinking-word, which was pril, and he instructed him in the proper mode of answering, which was by the similar word wril. In this manner they spent a considerable portion of the night with the monks in great joviality, the walls resounding to the continual shouts of pril and wril. After having taken a short repose, the king departed at the break of day, and hastened to a neighbouring town where he had established his court: he there gave strict orders to the officers of his household, that they should give the abbot immediate admission to his presence. Accordingly, at an early hour in the forenoon, the abbot, attended by two of his monks, repaired to the court, light-hearted with the expectation of the good offices of his guest of the preceding night. On his arrival, he was astonished to find that the servants of the king appeared as though aware of his mission, and that they passed him with unusual quickness and attention from one room to another, until he found himself suddenly in the royal presence. The monarch, who in his altered dress was not recognized by his host, caused the abbot to be seated by his side, and scarcely giving him time to utter his petition, told him that he had been made acquainted with his wishes, and that they were already granted. The abbot, after returning his humble thanks, would have taken his leave; but the king insisted on retaining him and his two monks to dinner. At table the abbot was seated near the king, and was treated with the greatest attention; and after the eating was over, large drinking-cups were placed before all the guests, and filled with excellent wine. The king then, suddenly taking up his own cup, and addressing himself to the abbot, said, “Father abbot, I say to thee pril.” The abbot, suddenly recognizing his guest, was struck with confusion, and besought the king in humble manner for his grace and forgiveness; but the king stopped him short, and making use of a popular oath, declared, that it was his will they should be good fellows together on the present occasion, just as they had been the previous night in the abbot’s refectory; and that he thought it but right and fair, that as he had answered wril to the abbot’s pril before, the abbot should now pay him the same compliment. And thus the knights and monks, as well as the king and abbot, passed the remainder of the day in drinking pril and wril to each other, amid shouts of laughter and merriment.

Over the series of buildings which we have been describing was another floor, on which we trace the remains of a number of smaller chambers. These were probably the Dormitories, or bed-chambers of the monks. They were placed near the church, because the monks were obliged to leave their beds in the night to perform the vigilæ nocturnæ, or night service, which lasted from two o’clock to nearly four, when they returned to their repose.

Adjoining to the hall, or refectory, are the Buttery and Kitchen, which form the southern extremity of the abbey, separated from the fields only by the outer wall. The former of these offices is a small room, with little to indicate the purposes to which it was formerly applied. The kitchen, on the contrary,

is a large and strong vaulted apartment, forty-eight feet in length, and eighteen wide. Its roof still remains unbroken. The most remarkable characteristic of this kitchen is its spacious fireplace; its form is that which was common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and perhaps earlier, and of which we have many examples in the illuminations of ancient manuscripts. The kitchen appears to have possessed, when in a perfect state, a considerable share of architectural elegance. The ornamental springings of the arches of the roof still remain. The kitchen appears to have communicated with the inner court of the abbey by a door to the right of the fire-place; opposite which there seems to have been a door in the outer wall, communicating with the country, by which provisions, &c. were conveyed into the house. Two openings in the wall, one connecting the kitchen with the buttery, the other forming a communication between the buttery and the refectory, were used for passing the dishes to the attendants who were serving at table. On the south side of the kitchen, beneath the floor, is a subterranean passage, now uncovered, which communicates with a series of other passages or vaults, under the field, and said to terminate beneath a coppice at a short distance from the abbey. These vaults, which are generally supposed to have been a common sewer, or a place intended for concealment and retreat, have every appearance of having been the Cellars of the abbey, which very properly were attached to the kitchen and buttery. Most of these vaults have been explored: there is a large breach through the vaulted roof of one of them in the field on the outside of the walls of the abbey.

The series of buildings which we have just described separates the Fountain Court from the second court of the abbey, which also appears to have been surrounded with buildings, at least on three sides. This second court forms at present a fair lawn, on which pic-nic parties visiting the ruins take their dinner or tea, and which is designated as the Abbey Garden. On three sides are the remains of a raised terrace: this, combined with some other circumstances, leads us to conclude that the so-called garden was the Cloisters of the abbey. The present terrace was the floor of the cloister, which we know was, in most instances, raised above the level of the enclosed court. This cloister appears to have formed an exact square, like the first court. The windows of the sacristy, chapter-house, parlour, and refectory, looked into it on the west side. The north-west corner adjoined the transept and choir of the church. On the south it was probably separated from the kitchen by a small court, or by less important offices. At the east side of this court, there are traces of a smaller court, and considerable ruins of a large building, with vaulted rooms on the ground-floor, and chambers above. This may have been the Abbot’s House. It appears to have communicated with the woods behind, perhaps by one of those “privie posternes” mentioned in the old satirists, by which the abbots are said to have introduced into their lodgings persons of a very equivocal character.

The ground on which the Abbey of Netley is built is a gentle declivity, sloping towards the beach. Although much concealed by trees and brushwood, the ruins are seen to effect from several different points. Perhaps the most interesting general view is that from the north, where the hill rises rather abruptly from the walls of the church, affording almost a bird’s-eye view of the interior. The effect of the picture thus presented to the view has been in some degree lessened by the destruction of the ivy with which, some years ago, the walls were clothed. “This destruction was begun by the French emigrant royalists who were encamped on the neighbouring common, previously to the ill-fated expedition to Quiberon during the revolutionary war; but it was recently carried on, much more effectually, by order of the late Lady Holland, then its proprietor, who is said to have been induced to commit this desecration by the representation of a member of the Dilettanti Club, who unfortunately had read in Pausanias of the injury which a certain ancient temple in Bœotia had sustained from the ivy which encircled it loosening the cement of the stones, and separating them from each other, and who, in consequence, implored her ladyship to prevent her temple from sharing a similar fate.” The beauty of the scene is here increased by the Southampton Water, which appears in the background, the distant view of the New Forest, and the still more remote shores of the Isle of Wight; and from time to time a steamer, working its busy way to or from the sea, contrasts strangely with the hoary walls below.

Descending the hill towards the right, the view of the west side of the abbey, with the great west window of the church rising above the green trees, is remarkably picturesque. To the left the hill continues to some distance, giving us a succession of pleasing views, including the east end of the church, and the picturesque mass of ruins which we have supposed to belong to the abbot’s house. We then descend to lower ground, and obtain a view across the second, or cloister court, which however is in some measure spoiled by the wall that separates it from the fields.

The South Front of the abbey is at present concealed from a distant view by numerous trees. When near it, we may judge by its appearance in its present ruined state, that when entire it must have been a very striking object viewed from the water. On this side was the entrance to the abbey, but it does not appear to have had a gateway tower. To the right, a mass of building stands much in advance of the front of the court: this building contains the buttery and the kitchen. The style of the windows and doors in this part of the abbey shows that it had undergone extensive repairs, either a short period before the Dissolution, or afterwards, when it was first made a private habitation.

At some distance behind the abbey, the monks had two fish-ponds, which are still in perfect preservation. The first is nearly square, bordered with underwood, and backed with flourishing oaks. The upper pond is still more picturesque, being partly overhung with fine trees. The neighbourhood of Netley Abbey was perhaps more thickly wooded in ancient times than at present. In the steward’s book of the town of Southampton, under the year 1469, is an entry of two pounds three shillings and fourpence, “paid to the Abbot of Netteley for a grove of woode bought by the maire for to make piles and hegges by the sea syde.”

The English monks, in selecting the sites of their houses, always endeavoured to secure a good supply of fish and game. The woods and waters

in the neighbourhood of Netley were peculiarly advantageous in this point of view, and the Buttery and Kitchen must have been abundantly furnished with every article of provision which could raise the appetites of the brethren within. The manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, although written by the monks themselves, are full of stories illustrating their attachment to good living. Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian from whom we have already quoted one anecdote of monastic life, gives us a remarkable description of the multitude and variety of dishes with which the tables of the monks in his days were loaded; the numerous kinds of fish and meats dressed in every possible manner, and arranged by the ingenuity of skilful cooks so as to provoke their pampered appetites; the numerous savoury sauces; the rich and rare wines which were supplied by distant lands. This writer has preserved an amusing story concerning the monks of St. Switlmn’s at Winchester:—One day, when King Henry II. was hunting in the neighbourhood of Guilford, the prior of St. Swithun’s, accompanied by a party of his monks, went to meet him, with countenances which indicated extreme chagrin and sorrow, and, although the spot was little better than a quagmire, they fell upon their knees in a position of the most abject supplication. When the king desired them to state their griefs, they told him that their bishop had diminished the number of courses that had been from time immemorial served to their table. The king inquired what number of courses were usually allowed them: they said, thirteen, which the bishop had reduced to ten. The king, in astonishment, turned round to his attendants:—“Per oculos Dei!” said he, (for that was his usual oath,) “see here these unhappy monks! I thought by their sorrowful looks that their whole monastery had been burnt, or that some equal disaster had befallen them; and, behold, they complain that their bishop has taken three courses from their table, and left them but ten. May the bishop fare the worse, if he do not immediately take away the ten, and leave them only three! I, although King of England, am satisfied with that number.” We are told, in another monkish story, of an abbot who was so cruel to his monks, that he reduced them to the number here recommended by the king, and allowed them but three courses: the monks prayed daily for the death of their superior; and for this or some other cause he soon died. Another came, who reduced them to two: whereupon they prayed more fervently than ever for release from his rule. He also died; and there came a third, who deprived them of another course. The unfortunate brethren, now driven to desperation, met together to consider what was best to be done. One among the rest stepped forward and said, “Happen what will, let us pray no longer: every time we have prayed for a new abbot, we have obtained one worse than his predecessor; and if this man should go, we shall have one who will reduce us to actual starvation.” Against the monkish vice of gluttony, we must however place in the scale the virtue of hospitality. The weary traveller was always welcome to the table of the monastery. We are tempted to quote another monkish story. It is said that a certain religious house, in which the virtue just alluded to had been neglected, was reduced to poverty, and a meeting was held in the chapter-house to deliberate on the means of regaining their former state. Then a monk stood up in the midst of the others, and said, “We have driven away two servants: as long as they were with us, all good things abounded in our house; since they went, our prosperity is defeated; but if we invite one

back, they will both return.” “Who are they?” said the abbot; “let us call them back by all means.” The monk answered, “One is called Date, and the other Dabitur-vobis: since we drove away Date, Dabitur-vobis has left us; but let us immediately recall Date, and Dabitur-vobis and everything will be well.” The monks themselves had an easy method of atoning for the peccadilloes of the table; but a few paces from the refectory stood the Confessional, and there they received a ready Absolution.

The ruins of Netley Abbey attract numerous visitors from the neighbouring town of Southampton; and there is scarcely a stone within the reach of ordinary mortals which is not disfigured by a crowd of initials rudely “incised” by their barbarian and sacrilegious hands. In more propitious times, pilgrims of a holier class have visited the hallowed spot,

“Where Netley’s ruins, bordering on the flood,
Forlorn in melancholy greatness stand.”

Horace Walpole was enraptured with what he terms, “not the ruins of Netley, but of Paradise. Oh, the purpled abbots; what a spot they had chosen to slumber in! The scene is so beautifully tranquil, yet so lively, that they seem only to have retired into the world.” When he visited Netley, there were standing “fragments of beautiful fretted roofs, pendent in the air, with all variety of Gothic patterns of windows topped round and round with ivy.” The last remains of the “fretted roof” have long fallen; and, as we have before observed, most of the windows have, since Walpole’s time, been stripped of their ivy. Among the poets who have here sought inspiration, we must not pass over the names of Gray and Bowles. The former has left us a glowing description of the thoughts which these ruins raised. “In the bosom of the woods,” he tells us in one of his letters, “concealed from profane eyes, lie hidden the ruins of Netley Abbey. There may be richer and greater houses of religion, but the abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow, under the shade of those old trees that bend into a half-circle about it, he is walking slowly (good man!) and bidding his beads for the souls of his benefactors, interred in that venerable pile that lies beneath him. Beyond it (the meadow still descending) nods a thicket of oaks that mask the building, and have excluded a view too garish and luxuriant for a holy eye; only on either hand they leave an opening to the blue glittering sea. Did you not observe how, as that white sail shot by and was lost, he turned and crossed himself, to drive the tempter from him that had thrown that distraction in his way?” We must ourselves now take a parting glance of this venerable picture of the transitoriness of all earthly greatness. Bowles has given us a beautiful sonnet

ON VISITING NETLEY ABBEY.
“Fall’n pile! I ask not what has been thy fate,—
But when the weak winds, wafted from the main,
Through each lone arch, like spirits that complain,
Come hollow to my ear, I meditate
On this world’s passing pageant, and the lot
Of those who once might proudly in their prime
Have stood, with giant port; till, bow’d by time
Or injury, their ancient boast forgot,
They might have sunk, like thee: though thus, forlorn,
They lift their head, with venerable hairs
Besprent, majestic yet, and as in scorn
Of mortal vanities and short-lived cares:
Even so dost thou, lifting thy forehead grey,
Smile at the tempest and Time’s sweeping sway.”

Historical Associations.—The neighbourhood of Netley is interesting in many points of view to the antiquary. At some distance to the north is the modern village of Bittern, the site of the Roman town of Clausentum, of the earth-works of which some traces still remain. On Netley Heath, which lies between Netley and Bittern, are numerous tumuli, probably indicating the places of burial of some of the more distinguished of the Roman inhabitants of this spot. We trace the footsteps of that extraordinary people almost within the precincts of Netley Abbey; for in its immediate vicinity, in a field by the shore near West Wood, a few years ago, a coarse earthen vessel, filled with Roman coins of the Lower Empire, was dug up by a labourer. The larger portion of these coins was of the description called small brass, and of the period of the younger Gallienus.

After Clausentum had been deserted and forgotten, its importance was transferred to the neighbouring town of Hamton, known in more modern times by the name of Southampton, to distinguish it from the other Hamton, now called Northampton. During the period of the Saxons, Southampton is chiefly known as having been repeatedly plundered by the Danes, to whose attacks it was exposed by its position. In 980, seven Danish ships came suddenly and destroyed the town, and slaughtered or carried away into captivity nearly all its inhabitants.

Although we know little of the history of Southampton during this early period, we find that the district was afterwards connected with historical traditions, now long forgotten, which found their way into the poetry of our forefathers. It was here, in the neighbourhood of Netley, according to the legendary history of the ancient Britons, that the Emperor Claudius made his descent upon the shores of our island. The romances tell us that he was met here by a British king named “Gwyder,” who defeated the Romans with great slaughter. But Claudius had a faithful councillor named Ham, or Haimo, who clad himself in the arms and dress of a Briton, went to the enemy’s camp, and, after a short period, obtained the favour of the invincible Gwyder. Another desperate battle between the Britons and Romans followed; when Ham, who kept near the British king, treacherously drew his sword and slew him, and then fled to the Romans, supposing that he had secured the victory for his countrymen. But Arviragus, the brother of Gwyder, took the command of the Britons; and by his bravery the Romans were again vanquished, and driven with great loss to their ships. Ham, with a small body of men, was cut off from the main army, and took shelter in a wood near the shore; he was there attacked by the Britons, and, retreating to a haven, was slain on the spot where was afterwards built the town called (according to the legend) from him, Hampton.

“Ac the luther Haym with ys folk toward the wode hymn drowe:
Arvirag hym sywede, and to grounde ever slowgh.
Atte laste ys tricherie wel lutel he by-lowgh;
He overtok hym at an havene, and slogh hym ryght there:
Lutel harm thei tricherus so alle y-served were.
The havene ther he was y-slawe, after Haymys name y-wys,
Hamptone was y-clepud, as he yet y-clepud ys,
For South-hamptone he is y-clepud, and worth ever mo.”

So sang the quaint old chronicler, Robert of Gloucester. Legends probably connected with the ravages of the Danes in this neighbourhood, and the troubles of the latter ages of Anglo-Saxon history, formed the foundation of another romance of great popularity. In the baronial halls of Old England, the harp has often resounded to the chivalrous adventures of Bevis of Hampton. The figure of the hero may still be seen rudely sculptured on the antique tower at Southampton, called the Bargate. History gives us no clue to identify the personage who, in medieval romance, figures as

“Bevis of renoun,
The right heir of Southamptoun.”

But, according to the story, the father of Bevis was a powerful thane, named Guy, Earl of Hampton, or Southampton. He married a young wife, who, falling in love with a stranger knight named Doon de Mentz, caused her husband to be murdered by her paramour, whom she afterwards married. Young Bevis, by a series of marvellous adventures, escaped from the fate which had fallen on his father; and, leaving his inheritance to be enjoyed by the murderer, fled to the east, where he becomes engaged in no less extraordinary adventures among the infidels. He there falls in love with a beautiful Saracen maiden, named Josiana, daughter of the King of Armenie, with whom, after many years’ absence, he returns home. Bevis and his wife Josiana have a son named Guy. After having recovered his paternal estates, and punished the murderers of his father, Bevis becomes involved in a war with his sovereign, the King of England; and, the king’s son having been killed, he is obliged to fly with Josiana and his child. On their arrival on the Continent, they seek repose and shelter in a forest; but, while Bevis is absent in search of food, a party of pirates arrive and carry away his wife and child. They give young Guy to a fisherman; and Josiana afterwards escapes unhurt from their hands. The three are thus separated from each other, and each passes through a series of adventures in search of the other, which form a large portion of the romance. Bevis and his wife both arrive at the court of Armenie, where in her right he succeeds to the crown. But in the meantime the King of England dies without heirs; and the nobles of the land decide that Bevis and his son are the next in succession: they discover the latter at Paris, and offer him the throne. Guy determines at once to set out in search of his father; and he also arrives at last in Armenie, where his father is king. When Bevis is thus made acquainted with the events which had followed his banishment from England, he resigns the crown of Armenie to his son; and, with his wife Josiana, returns to his own country, where he is crowned with great ceremony and splendid festivities. Five years after his accession to the throne of England, Josiana dies; overcome with chagrin for the loss of his queen, and tired with the pomp of the world, Bevis leaves his own court, and retires secretly to a hermitage, where he remains seven years before the place of his retreat is known. At the end of that period, an angel discovers it to the King of France, at the moment when Bevis is dying. Such is the outline of the legend of Bevis of Hampton, than which the writer of the romance assures us a better was never sung,—

“Plaist-vous oïr, bonne gent honnorée,
Bonne chanson de bien enluminée?
Meilleur de li ne puet estre chantée
Par jongleour, dite, ne devisée,
Comme ceste est qui çi vous est contée.”

At a short distance from the town of Southampton is a large tumulus, or sepulchral mound, which is known by the name of Bevis’s Mount. Some antiquaries, probably with little reason, have supposed it to be the remains of an ancient Danish fort. There is another Bevis’s Mound in the park of Arundel Castle, which is said to be the hero’s grave. His sword, six feet long, is still preserved at Arundel. Bevis’s Mount, near Southampton, is now enclosed in the gardens of a gentleman’s seat.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Southampton and its neighbourhood was a common landing-place for pirates and French marauders, who infested the southern coast of England. In 1337 a considerable part of the town was burnt by the French. We have no information as to the effect which these hostile incursions had upon the monks of Netley. In recent times, Netley Heath has been more than once the rendezvous of troops destined for the invasion of France.

Independent of its historical recollections, the neighbourhood of Netley Abbey is interesting to the visitor for the beauty of its scenery. The walk from Southampton is extremely agreeable, lying chiefly along the beach.

Itchen Ferry, which we must first pass, is now crossed by means of a moving bridge, worked by a steam-engine. A pleasant winding lane leads to the shore of the Southampton Water. The path then lies along the edge of the water, skirted on the left by wooded eminences. After proceeding a short distance, we arrive at Weston Beach, whence, by a little lane to the left, we reach the beautiful hamlet of Weston, thickly embedded in trees. A modern poetess, Miss Mitford, has celebrated the charms of this rural spot:—

“Hills which the purple heath-bell shield,
Forest and village, lawn and field,
Ocean and earth, with all they yield
Of glorious or of fair.”

On the beach, a post directs us to the village inn, which is frequented by fishermen, who form the greater part of the population of the hamlet. Their boats are frequently seen in considerable numbers at anchor by the shore.

Pursuing our path along the beach, after a short walk, we arrive at a lane which conducts us to the entrance of Netley Abbey. Below, on the water’s edge, lies Netley Castle. The road which we have now entered, passing in front of the abbey, leads by Netley grange towards Netley hamlet, and the heaths of Netley and Bursledon. A little farther lie in succession the picturesque villages of Hound, Bursledon, and Hamble, the two latter situated on another creek of the sea, larger than the Itchen water. Leland the antiquary, who visited these parts immediately after the dissolution of the monasteries, appears to have passed along the shore in a boat from Portsmouth to Southampton. He gives the following account of the coast between Hamble and Itchen creek: “Scant a miles from the mouth of Hamelrise creeke lyithe Letelege, on the shore upward in the mayne haven. Here a late was a great abbay in building of White monkes. About a 2 miles upward brekith in a great creeke out of the mayne haven, and goith into the land by northe. On the lift hand of this creeke by west a litle from the shore stondith a chapelle of our Lady of Grace, sumtime hauntid with pilgrimes. Right agayne it is Hichyn, a smaulle village on the est side, and hereof the trajectus is caullid Hichin-fery.” The manner in which Leland speaks of Letley, or Netley, gives strength to the supposition that considerable alterations were making in the buildings of the abbey at the time of its dissolution, and accounts probably for some of the traces of modern architecture which are found in it.

There were several monastic houses situated within a short distance round Netley Abbey. To the south-east, at a distance of about six miles, stood the Abbey of Titchfield. Immediately after the dissolution, the site was granted to Sir Thomas Wriothesley, afterwards created Earl of Southampton, who erected on the same spot a splendid mansion, which Leland describes as “a right stately house, embatoled and having a goodely gate, and a conducte (conduit) castelid in the middle of the court of it; the very same place where the late monastrie of Præmonstratenses stoode, caullyd Tichefelde.” The ruins of Titchfield House are still visible. Besides the religious establishments in the town of Southampton, at a short distance from the town, to the north-east of Netley, stood the priory of St. Dionysius. A few miles beyond Southampton stood the ancient Saxon nunnery of Romsey, the church of which will repay with interest a visit from the antiquarian wanderer. Nearly opposite Netley, on the other side of the water, stood the mother Abbey of Beaulieu, deeply embedded in the wilds of the New Forest.

Netley Castle, or Fort, is not a building of any considerable antiquity. The circumstance of its not being mentioned by Leland, proves that it did not exist before the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII. It is commonly supposed to have been erected for the purpose of guarding this part of the shore from invaders. It stands in the midst of a thicket of trees, on a little hill close to the beach, and forms a striking object as seen from the water. The tower is a modern addition, built by the late proprietor, Mr. Chamberlayne, who is said to have taken the idea from one of Horace Walpole’s letters, who recommended this adjunct to render the building habitable. The castle itself consists of two small platforms. Behind the castle stands a neat modern cottage, of an antique Gothic design, where tea, &c. is prepared for the visitors to the ruins of Netley Abbey.

One reason of our want of information relating to the early history of Netley Abbey, is the circumstance that no registers or chronicles of any monastic houses in this neighbourhood are known to exist. Literature appears not to have flourished in this part of England. Among the manuscripts in our great public libraries, but a few can be traced to any of these monasteries, and we believe none to Netley. Leland mentions but one book in the library of Netley Abbey, which was a work of Cicero; but this is far from showing, as it has been supposed, that the library was ill furnished, because that antiquary only noticed books of a certain class which he found in the course of his peregrination, and did not pretend to make an inventory of the contents of the monastic libraries. Of Romsey Nunnery, the most ancient of the religious houses we have just enumerated, the history is equally obscure; and the sisters appear to have been chiefly remarkable for their irregularities. One of the most remarkable events recorded as connected with this house, is the circumstance that, in the reign of Henry III., the abbess had to enforce by law her claim to the privilege of judging and hanging capital offenders, because, from long disuse, even her gallows had fallen down. In 1314 or 1315, the Abbess of Romsey was poisoned, and suspicions appear to have been cast upon the sisterhood. It appears by a visitation, made in 1506, that the nuns were then accused of immoderate drinking, the lady abbess setting the example by inviting the nuns to her chamber to participate in her intemperance.

Authorities:—The Monasticon.—Domesday Book.—Bullar’s Netley Abbey.—Keates’ Elegy on Netley Abbey.—Giraldus Cambrensis, and the Collections of Monkish Stories.—Leland’s Itinerary and Collectanea.—Matthew Paris.—Robert of Gloucester.—The Early Romances, &c.