The most important of all the castles in the middle marches of Wales was Ludlow, whose grand ruins, mouldered into beauty, stand upon the river Tame, near the western border of Shropshire. It was here that the lord president of the Council of Wales held his court. Its ruins, though abandoned, have not fallen into complete decay, so that it gives a fine representation of the ancient feudal border stronghold: it is of great size, with long stretches of walls and towers, interspersed with thick ma.s.ses of foliage and stately trees, while beneath is the dark rock on which it is founded. It was built shortly after the Conquest by Roger de Montgomery, and after being held by the Norman Earls of Shrewsbury it was fortified by Henry I.: then Joyce de Dinan held it, and confined Hugh de Mortimer as prisoner in one of the towers, still known as Mortimer"s Tower. Edward IV. established it as the place of residence for the lord president of the Council that governed Wales: here the youthful King Edward V. was proclaimed, soon to mysteriously disappear.
From Ludlow Castle, Wales was governed for more than three centuries, and in Queen Elizabeth"s time many important additions were made to it.
The young Philip Sidney lived here, his father being the lord president; the stone bridge, replacing the drawbridge, and the great portal were built at that time. In 1634, Milton"s "Masque of Comus" was represented here while Earl Bridgewater was lord president, one of the scenes being the castle and town of Ludlow: this representation was part of the festivities attending the earl"s installation on Michaelmas Night. It was in Ludlow Castle that Butler wrote part of _Hudibras_. The castle was held for King Charles, but was delivered up to the Parliamentary forces in 1646. The present exterior of the castle denotes its former magnificence. The foundations are built into a dark gray rock, and the castle rises from the point of a headland, the northern front consisting of square towers with high, connecting embattled walls. In the last century trees were planted on the rock and in the deep and wide ditch that guarded the castle. The chief entrance is by a gateway under a low, pointed arch which bears the arms of Queen Elizabeth and of Earl Pembroke. There are several acres enclosed, and the keep is an immense square tower of the Early Norman, one hundred and ten feet high and ivy-mantled to the top. On its ground floor is the dungeon, half underground, with square openings in the floor connecting with the apartment above. The great hall is now without roof or floor, and a tower at the west end is called Prince Arthur"s Tower, while there are also remains of the old chapel. The ruins have an imposing aspect, the towers being richly cl.u.s.tered around the keep. This famous castle is now the property of Earl Powis.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER, LUDLOW CASTLE.]
The town of Ludlow adjoins the castle, and on approaching it the visitor is struck by the fine appearance of the tower of the church of St.
Lawrence. The church is said to be the finest in Shropshire, and this tower was built in the time of Edward IV. Its chantry is six hundred years old, and belonged to the Palmers" guild. Their ordinances are still preserved, one of which is to the effect that "if any man wishes, as is the custom, to keep night-watches with the dead, this may be allowed, provided that he does not call up ghosts." The town is filled with timber-ribbed, pargetted houses, one of the most striking of these being the old Feathers Inn. The exterior is rich in various devices, including the feathers of the Prince of Wales, adopted as the sign perhaps in the days of Prince Arthur, when the inn was built. Many of the rooms are panelled with carved oak and have quaintly moulded ceilings. It is not often that the modern tourist has a chance to rest under such a venerable roof, for it is still a comfortable hostelrie.
The ancient priory of Austin Friars was at Ludlow, but is obliterated.
In the neighborhood of Ludlow are many attractive spots. From the summit of the Vignals, about four miles away, there is a superb view over the hills of Wales to the south and west, and the land of Shropshire to the northward. Looking towards Ludlow, immediately at the foot of the hill is seen the wooded valley of Hay Park: it was here that the children of the Earl of Bridgewater were lost, an event that gave Milton occasion to write the "Masque of Comus," and locate its scenes at and in the neighborhood of Ludlow. Richard"s Castle is at the southern end of this wood, but there is not much of the old ruin left in the deep dingle. At Downton Castle the romantic walks in the gardens abound in an almost endless variety of ferns. Staunton Lacey Church, containing Romanesque work, and supposed to be older than the Conquest, is also near Ludlow.
But the grand old castle and its quaint and venerated Feathers Inn are the great attractions before which all others pale. What an amazing tale of revelry, pageant, and intrigue they could tell were only the old walls endowed with voice!
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "FEATHERS" HOTEL, LUDLOW.]
LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL, LOOKING WEST.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL, REAR VIEW.]
We are told that in Central Staffordshire churches with spires are rare.
The region of the Trent abounds in low and simple rather than lofty church-towers, but to this rule the cathedral city of Lichfield is an exception, having five steeples, of which three beautiful spires--often called the "Ladies of the Vale"--adorn the cathedral itself. The town stands in a fertile and gently undulating district without ambitious scenery, and the cathedral, which is three hundred and seventy-five feet long and its spires two hundred and fifty-eight feet high, is its great and almost only glory. It is an ancient place, dating from the days of the Romans and the Saxons, when the former slaughtered without mercy a band of the early Christian martyrs near the present site of the town, whence it derives its name, meaning the "Field of the Dead." This ma.s.sacre took place in the fourth century, and in memory of it the city bears as its arms "an escutcheon of landscape, with many martyrs in it in several ways ma.s.sacred." In the seventh century a church was built there, and the hermit St. Chad became its bishop. His cell was near the present site of Stowe, where there was a spring of clear water rising in the heart of a forest, and out of the woods there daily came a snow-white doe to supply him with milk. The legend tells that the nightingales singing in the trees distracted the hermit"s prayers, so he besought that he might be relieved from this trial; and since that time the nightingales in the woods of Stowe have remained mute. After death the hermit-bishop was canonized and Lichfield flourished, at least one of his successors being an archbishop. St. Chad"s Well is still pointed out at Stowe, but his Lichfield church long ago disappeared. A Norman church succeeded it in the eleventh century, and has also been removed, though some of its foundations remain under the present cathedral choir.
About the year 1200 the first parts of the present cathedral were built, and it was over a hundred years in building. Its architecture is Early English and Decorated, the distinguishing features being the three spires, the beautiful western front, and the Lady Chapel. The latter terminates in a polygonal apse of unique arrangement, and the red sandstone of which the cathedral is built gives a warm and effective coloring. Some of the ancient bishops of Lichfield were fighting men, and at times their cathedral was made into a castle surrounded by walls and a moat, and occasionally besieged. The Puritans grievously battered it, and knocked down the central spire. The cathedral was afterwards rebuilt by Christopher Wren, and the work of restoration is at present going on. As all the old stained gla.s.s was knocked out of the windows during the Civil Wars, several of them have been refilled with fine gla.s.s from the abbey at Liege. Most of the ancient monuments were also destroyed during the sieges, but many fine tombs of more modern construction replace them, among them being the famous tomb by Chantrey of the "Sleeping Children." The ancient chroniclers tell bad stories of the treatment this famous church received during the Civil Wars. When the spire was knocked down, crushing the roof, a marksman in the church shot Lord Brooke, the leader of the Parliamentary besiegers, through his helmet, of which the visor was up, and he fell dead. The marksman was a deaf and dumb man, and the event happened on St. Chad"s Day, March 2d.
The loss of their leader redoubled the ardor of the besiegers; they set a battery at work and forced a surrender in three days. Then we are told that they demolished monuments, pulled down carvings, smashed the windows, destroyed the records, set up guard-houses in the cross-aisles, broke up the pavement, every day hunted a cat through the church, so as to enjoy the echo from the vaulted roof, and baptized a calf at the font. The Royalists, however, soon retook Lichfield, and gave King Charles a reception after the battle of Naseby, but it finally surrendered to Cromwell in 1646. Until the Restoration of Charles II.
the cathedral lay in ruins, even the lead having been removed from the roof. In 1661, Bishop Hacket was consecrated, and for eight years he steadily worked at rebuilding, having so far advanced in 1669 that the cathedral was reconsecrated with great ceremony. His last work was to order the bells, three of which were hung in time to toll at his funeral; his tomb is in the south aisle of the choir.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. JOHNSON"S BIRTHPLACE, LICHFIELD.]
Lichfield has five steeples grouped together in most views of the town from the Vale of Trent, the other two steeples belonging to St. Mary"s and St. Michael"s churches; the churchyard of the latter is probably the largest in England, covering seven acres, through which an avenue of stately elms leads up to the church. The town has not much else in the way of buildings that is remarkable. In a plain house at a corner of the market-place, where lived one Michael Johnson, a bookseller, Dr. Samuel Johnson, his son, was born in 1709. and in the adjacent market-place is Dr. Johnson"s statue upon a pedestal adorned with bas-reliefs: one of these represents the "infant Samuel" sitting on his father"s shoulder to imbibe Tory principles from Dr. Sacheverel"s sermons: another, the boy carried by his schoolfellows: and a third displays him undergoing a penance for youthful disobedience by standing up for an hour bareheaded in the rain. The "Three Crowns Inn" is also in the market-place, where in 1776 Boswell and Johnson stayed, and, as Boswell writes, "had a comfortable supper and got into high spirits," when Johnson "expatiated in praise of Lichfield and its inhabitants, who, he said, were the most sober, decent people in England, were the genteelest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the purest English." David Garrick went to school to Dr. Johnson in the suburbs of Lichfield, at Edial; Addison lived once at Lichfield; and Selwyn was its bishop a few years ago, and is buried in the Cathedral close; but the chief memories of the ancient town cl.u.s.ter around St. Chad, Johnson, and Garrick.
LADY G.o.dIVA OF COVENTRY.
The "three spires" which have so much to do with the fame of Lichfield are reproduced in the less pretentious but equally famous town of Coventry, not far away in Warwickshire, but they do not all belong to the same church. The Coventry Cathedral was long ago swept away, but the town still has three churches of much interest, and is rich in the old brick-and-timbered architecture of two and three centuries ago. But the boast of Coventry is Lady G.o.diva, wife of the Earl of Mercia, who died in 1057. The townsfolk suffered under heavy taxes and services, and she besought her lord to relieve them. After steady refusals he finally consented, but under a condition which he was sure Lady G.o.diva would not accept, which was none other than that she should ride naked from one end of the town to the other. To his astonishment she consented, and, as Dugdale informs us, "The n.o.ble lady upon an appointed day got on horseback naked, with her hair loose, so that it covered all her body but the legs, and then performing her journey, she returned with joy to her husband, who thereupon granted the inhabitants a charter of freedom." The inhabitants deserted the streets and barred all the windows, so that no one could see her, but, as there are exceptions to all rules, Tennyson writes that
"One low churl, composed of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole, in fear Peeped; but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivelled into darkness in his head, And drop: before him. So the Powers who wait On n.o.ble deeds cancelled a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pa.s.sed."
Thus has "Peeping Tom of Coventry" pa.s.sed into a byword, and his statue stands in a niche on the front of a house on the High Street, as if leaning out of a window--an ancient and battered effigy for all the world to see. Like all other things that come down to us by tradition, this legend is doubted, but in Coventry there are sincere believers, and "Lady G.o.diva"s Procession" used to be an annual display, closing with a fair: this ceremony was opened by religious services, after which the procession started, the troops and city authorities, with music and banners, escorting Lady G.o.diva, a woman made up for the occasion in gauzy tights and riding a cream-colored horse; representatives of the trades and civic societies followed her. This pageant has fallen into disuse.
[Ill.u.s.tration: COVENTRY GATEWAY.]
In this ancient city of Coventry there are some interesting memorials of the past--the venerable gateway, the old St. Mary"s Hall, with its protruding gable fronting on the street, coming down to us from the fourteenth century, and many other quaint brick and half-timbered and strongly-constructed houses that link the dim past with the active present. Its three spires surmount St. Michael"s, Trinity, and Christ churches, and while all are fine, the first is the best, being regarded as one of the most beautiful spires in England. The ancient stone pulpit of Trinity Church, constructed in the form of a balcony of open stone-work, is also much admired. St. Michael"s Church, which dates from the fourteenth century, is large enough to be a cathedral, and its steeple is said to have been the first constructed. This beautiful and remarkably slender spire rises three hundred and three feet, its lowest stage being an octagonal lantern supported by flying b.u.t.tresses. The supporting tower has been elaborately decorated, but much of the sculpture has fallen into decay, being made of the rich but friable red sandstone of this part of the country; the interior of the church has recently been restored. The Coventry workhouse is located in an old monastery, where a part of the cloisters remain, with the dormitory above; in it is an oriel window where Queen Elizabeth on visiting the town is reputed to have stood and answered a reception address in rhyme from the "Men of Coventrie" with some doggerel of equal merit, and concluding with the words, "Good Lord, what fools ye be!" The good Queen Bess, we are told, liked to visit Coventry to see bull-baiting. As we have said, Coventry formerly had a cathedral and a castle, but both have been swept away; it was an important stronghold after the Norman Conquest, when the Earls of Chester were lords of the place. In the fourteenth century it was fortified with walls of great height and thickness, three miles in circuit and strengthened by thirty-two towers, each of the twelve gates being defended by a portcullis. A parliament was held at Coventry by Henry VI., and Henry VII. was heartily welcomed there after Bosworth Field; while the town was also a favorite residence of Edward the Black Prince. Among the many places of captivity for Mary Queen of Scots Coventry also figures; the walls were mostly knocked down during the Civil Wars, and now only some fragments, with one of the old gates, remain. In later years it has been chiefly celebrated in the peaceful arts in the manufacture of silks and ribbons and the dyeing of broad-cloth in "Coventry true blue;" at present it is the "Coventry bicycle" that makes Lady G.o.diva"s ancient city famous, and provides amus.e.m.e.nt for youth who are able to balance their bodies possibly at the expense of their minds.
[Ill.u.s.tration: COVENTRY.]
BELVOIR CASTLE.
In describing the ancient baronial mansion, Haddon Hall, it was mentioned that the Dukes of Rutland had abandoned it as their residence about a hundred years ago and gone to Belvoir in Leicestershire. Belvoir (p.r.o.nounced Beever) Castle stands on the eastern border of Leicestershire, in a magnificent situation on a high wooded hill, and gets its name from the beautiful view its occupants enjoy over a wide expanse of country. In ancient times it was a priory, and it has been a castle since the Norman Conquest. Many of the large estates attached to Belvoir have come down by uninterrupted succession from that time to the present Duke of Rutland. The castle itself, however, after the Conquest belonged to the Earl of Chester, and afterwards to the family of Lord Ros. In the sixteenth century, by a fortunate marriage, the castle pa.s.sed into the Manners family. Thomas Manners was created by Henry VIII. the first Earl of Rutland, and he restored the castle, which had for some time been in ruins. His son enlarged it, making a n.o.ble residence. The sixth Earl of Rutland had two sons, we are told, who were murdered by witchcraft at Belvoir through the sorcery of three female servants in revenge for their dismissal. The three "witches" were tried and committed to Lincoln jail. They were a mother and two daughters, and the mother before going to the jail wished the bread and b.u.t.ter she ate might choke her if guilty. Sure enough, the chronicler tells us, she died on the way to jail, and the two daughters, afterwards confessing their guilt, were executed March 11, 1618. The seventh Earl of Rutland received Charles I. at Belvoir, and in the wars that followed the castle was besieged and ruined. After the Restoration it was rebuilt, and in finer style. The Dukes of Rutland began to adapt it more and more as a family residence, and, after abandoning Haddon Hall, Belvoir was greatly altered and made a princely mansion. It consists of a quadrangular court, around which are castellated buildings, with towers surmounting them, and occupying almost the entire summit of the hill. Here the duke can look out over no less than twenty-two of his manors in the neighboring valleys. The interior is sumptuously furnished, and has a collection of valuable paintings. A large part of the ancient castle was burnt in 1816. The Staunton Tower, however, still exists. It is the stronghold of the castle, and was successfully defended by Lord Staunton against William of Normandy. Upon every royal visit the key of this tower is presented to the sovereign, the last occasion being a visit of Queen Victoria. Belvoir, in the generous hands of the Dukes of Rutland, still maintains the princely hospitality of the "King of the Peak." A record kept of a recent period of thirteen weeks, from Christmas to Easter, shows that two thousand persons dined at the duke"s table, two thousand four hundred and twenty-one in the steward"s room, and eleven thousand three hundred and twelve in the servants" hall. They were blessed with good appet.i.tes too, for they devoured about $7000 worth of provisions, including eight thousand three hundred and thirty-three loaves of bread and twenty-two thousand nine hundred and sixty-three pounds of meat, exclusive of game, besides drinking two thousand four hundred bottles of wine and seventy hogsheads of ale. Thus does Belvoir maintain the inheritance of hospitable obligation descended from Haddon Hall.
CHARNWOOD FOREST.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF BRADGATE HOUSE.]
We have now come into Leicestershire, and in that county, north of Leicester City, is the outcropping of the earth"s rocky backbone, which has been thrust up into high wooded hills along the edge of the valley of the Soar for several miles, and is known as Charnwood Forest. It hardly deserves the name of a forest, however, for most of this strange rocky region is bare of trees, and many of the patches of wood that are there are of recent growth. Yet in ancient years there was plenty of wood, and a tradition comes down to us that in Charnwood once upon a time a squirrel could travel six miles on the trees without touching the ground, and a traveller journey entirely across the forest without seeing the sun. The district consists of two lines of irregular ridgy hills, rising three hundred to four hundred feet above the neighboring country. These ridges are separated by a sort of valley like a Norwegian fjord, tilled with red marl. The rocks are generally volcanic products, with much slate, which is extensively quarried. Granite and sienite are also quarried, and at the chief granite-quarry--Mount Sorrel, an eminence which projects into the valley of the Soar--was in former times the castle of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester. In King John"s reign the garrison of this castle so hara.s.sed the neighborhood that it was described as the "nest of the devil and a den of thieves." In Henry III."s reign it was captured and demolished; the latter fate is gradually befalling the hill on which it stood, under the operations of the quarrymen. Near these quarries is the ancient village of Groby, which was quite a flourishing place eight hundred years ago, and has not grown much since. This village belonged to the Ferrars family, and an heiress of that family was the unfortunate Queen Elizabeth Widvile.
About two miles away is Bradgate, a spot of rare beauty and interest, the history of which is closely connected with Groby. On the end of one of the ridges of Charnwood, just where it is sinking down to the level of the surrounding country, stands Bradgate House. The surrounding park is quite wild and bare, but there are fine old oaks in the lower portions. From the ancient house a beautiful dell, called the Happy Valley, leads to the neighboring village of Newtown Linford. Bradgate House was destroyed in the early part of the last century by its mistress. The Earl of Suffolk, who then owned it, brought his wife, who had no taste for a rural life, from the metropolis to live there. Her sister in London wrote to inquire how she was getting on. She answered, "The house is tolerable, the country a forest, and the inhabitants all brutes." In reply the sister advised, "Set the house on fire, and run away by the light of it." The countess took the advice, and Bradgate never was rebuilt.
ULVERSCROFT AND GRACE DIEU ABBEY.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF ULVERSCROFT PRIORY.]
Charnwood Forest, like almost every other place in England, contains the remains of religious houses. There was a priory at Ulverscroft, not far from Bradgate, and some picturesque moss-grown remains still exist, said to be the finest ruin in Leicestershire. Grace Dieu Abbey was also in the forest, and on the dissolution of the monasteries was granted to the Beaumonts; the ruins of this abbey were much frequented by Wordsworth, who dedicated his poems to their owner. The Cistercians have in the present century established the monastery of Mont St. Bernard in the forest, and brought large tracts under cultivation as garden-land.
Bardon, the highest hill of Charnwood, which is near by, rises nine hundred feet, an obtuse-angled triangular summit that can be seen for miles away: not far from the forest are several famous places. The abandoned castle of Ashby de la Zouche has been made the site of an interesting town, deriving much prosperity from its neighboring coal-mines: this castle was built by Lord Hastings, and here dwelt Ivanhoe. The ruins of the tower, chapel, and great hall are objects of much interest, and in the chapel is the "finger pillory" for the punishment of those who were disorderly in church. Staunton Harold, the seat of Earl Ferrars, is north of the town, while about nine miles to the north-east of Ashby is Donington Hall, the palace of the Marquis of Hastings: this estate is connected with Langley Priory, three miles southward; the latter domain belonged to the Cheslyns fifty years ago, and had an income of $40,000 a year. Between lavish hospitality and ruinous lawsuits the entire property was eaten up, and Richard Cheslyn became practically a pauper; but he bore ill-fortune with good grace, and maintained his genial character to the last, being always well received at all the n.o.ble houses where he formerly visited. Sir Bernard Burke writes that Cheslyn "at dinner-parties, at which every portion of his dress was the cast-off clothes of his grander friends, always looked and was the gentleman; he made no secret of his poverty or of the generous hands that had "rigged him out." "This coat," he has been heard to say, "was Radcliffe"s; these pants, Granby"s; this waistcoat, Scarborough"s." His cheerfulness never forsook him; he was the victim of others" mismanagement and profusion, not of his own." John Shakespear, the famous linguist, whose talents were discovered by Lord Moira, who had him educated, was a cowherd on the Langley estate. The poor cowherd afterwards bought the estates for $700,000, and they were his home through life.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF GRACE DIEU ABBEY.]
ELIZABETH WIDVILE AND LADY JANE GREY.
Charnwood Forest is also a.s.sociated in history with two unfortunate women. Elizabeth Widvile was the wife of Sir John Grey of Groby, who lost his life and estate in serving the House of Lancaster, leaving Elizabeth with two sons; for their sake she sought an interview with King Edward IV. to ask him to show them favor. Smitten by her charms, Edward made her his queen, but he was soon driven into exile in France, and afterwards died, while her father and brother perished in a popular tumult. Her daughter married King Henry VII., a jealous son-in-law, who confined Elizabeth in the monastery of Bermondsey, where she died.
Bradgate pa.s.sed into the hands of her elder son by Sir John Grey of Groby, and his grandson was the father of the second queen to which it gave birth, whose name is better known than that of Elizabeth Widvile--the unfortunate "ten-days" queen," Lady Jane Grey. She lived the greater part of her short life at Bradgate, in the house whose ruins still stand to preserve her memory. We are told by the quaint historian Fuller that "she had the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of middle, the gravity of old age, and all at eighteen--the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, and the death of a malefactor for her parents" offences." These parents worried her into accepting the crown--they played for high stakes and lost--and her father and father-in-law, her husband and herself, all perished on the scaffold. We are told that this unfortunate lady still haunts Bradgate House, and on the last night of the dying year a phantom carriage, drawn by four gray horses, glides around the ruins with her headless body. The old oaks have a gnarled and stunted appearance, tradition ascribing it to the woodsmen having lopped off all the leading shoots when their mistress perished. The remains of the house at present are princ.i.p.ally the broken sh.e.l.ls of two towers, with portions of the enclosing walls, partly covered with ivy.
LEICESTER ABBEY AND CASTLE.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LEICESTER ABBEY.]
The city of Leicester, which is now chiefly noted for the manufacture of hosiery, was founded by the Britons, and was subsequently the Roman city of Ratae. Many Roman remains still exist here, notably the ancient Jewry wall, which is seventy-five feet long and five feet high, and which formed part of the town-wall. Many old houses are found in Leicester, and just north of the city are the ruins of Leicester Abbey, This noted religious house was founded in the twelfth century, and stood on a meadow watered by the river Soar. It was richly endowed, and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but its chief fame comes from its being the last residence of Cardinal Wolsey. This great man, once the primate of England, has had his downfall pathetically described by Shakespeare.
The king summoned him to London to stand trial for treason, and on his way Wolsey became so ill that he was obliged to rest at Leicester, where he was met at the abbey-gate by the abbot and entire convent. Aware of his approaching dissolution, the fallen cardinal said, "Father abbot, I have come hither to lay my bones among you." The next day he died, and to the surrounding monks, as the last sacrament was administered, he said, "If I had served G.o.d as diligently as I have done the king, He would not have given me over in my gray hairs." The remains were interred by torchlight before daybreak on St. Andrew"s Day, 1530, and to show the vanity of all things earthly tradition says that after the destruction of the abbey the stone coffin in which they were buried was used as a horse-trough for a neighboring inn. Nothing remains of the abbey as Wolsey saw it excepting the gate in the east wall through which he entered. The present ruins are fragments of a house built afterwards.
The foundations that can still be traced show that it was a grand old building. The gardens and park now raise vegetables for the Leicester market.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GATEWAY, NEWGATE STREET, LEICESTER.]
Leicester Castle still exists only in a portion of the great hall, but it has been enlarged and modernized, and is now used for the county offices. The castle was built after the Norman Conquest to keep the townspeople in check. It was afterwards a stronghold of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and it then became part of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Dukes of Lancaster restored it, and lived there frequently in great pomp, and they also built the adjoining Hospital of the Newarke and a singular earthwork alongside, called the Mount.
Several parliaments were held here, but after the time of Edward IV. the castle fell into decay. There are now few remains of the original castle, excepting part of the great hall and the Mount or earthwork of the keep, which is about thirty feet high and one hundred feet in diameter upon its flat, circular top. Not far from Leicester was fought the last great battle of the "Wars of the Roses," Bosworth Field, upon Redmoor Plain, about two miles from the village now known as Market Bosworth. It was a moor at the time of the battle in 1485, overgrown with thistles and scutch-gra.s.s. Shakespeare has been the most popular historian of this battle, and the well where Richard slaked his thirst is still pointed out, with other localities of the scenes of the famous contest that decided the kingship of England, Richard III. giving place to Richmond, who became Henry VII.
THE EDGEHILL BATTLEFIELD.
[Ill.u.s.tration: EDGEHILL.]
While we are considering this locality two other famous battlefields not far away, that together were decisive of the fate of England, must not be overlooked. These were Edgehill and Naseby, the opening and closing contests of the Civil War that overthrew Charles I., the scene of one being visible from the other, though the intervening contest spread almost all over the island. The high ground that borders Warwickshire and Northamptonshire has various roads crossing it, and the opposing forces meeting on these highlands made them the scenes of the battles--practical repet.i.tions of many hot contests there in earlier years. The command of the Parliamentary army had been given to the Earl of Ess.e.x, and he and all his officers were proclaimed traitors by the king. Charles I. a.s.sembled an army at Nottingham in 1642 to chastise them, and it was considered an evil omen that when the royal standard was set up on the evening of the day of a.s.semblage, a gale arose and it was blown down. Charles moved west from Nottingham to Shrewsbury to meet reinforcements from Wales, and then his army numbered eighteen thousand men. Ess.e.x was at Northampton, and moved southward to Worcester. Charles desired to march to London to break up the Parliament, but to do this must either defeat or outflank Ess.e.x. He chose the latter plan, moved to Kenilworth, but could not enter Coventry, because Lord Brooke, who was afterwards killed at Lichfield, held it for the Parliament. Ess.e.x left Worcester, and pressed the king by forced marches, but Charles turned his flank and started for London with Ess.e.x in pursuit. In October he reached Edgecot, near the field at Edgehill, and there in the open country he was astonished to find a gentleman amusing himself with a pack of hounds. He asked who it was who could hunt so merrily while his sovereign was about to fight for his crown. Mr. Richard Shuckburgh was accordingly introduced, and the king persuaded him to take home his hounds and raise his tenantry. The next day he joined Charles with a troop of horse, and was knighted on the field of Edgehill.
Charles slept in the old house at Edgecot: the house has been superseded by a newer one, in which is preserved the bed in which the king rested on the night of October 22, 1642. At three o"clock next morning, Sunday, he was aroused by a messenger from Prince Rupert, whose cavalry guarded the rear, saying that Ess.e.x was at hand, and the king could fight at once if he wished. He immediately ordered the march to Edgehill, a magnificent situation for an army to occupy, for here the broken country of the Border sinks suddenly down upon the level plain of Central England. Ess.e.x"s camp-fires on that plain the previous night had betrayed his army to Prince Rupert, while Rupert"s hors.e.m.e.n, appearing upon the brow of the hill, told Ess.e.x next morning that the king was at hand. Edgehill is a long ridge extending almost north and south, with another ridge jutting out at right angles into the plain in front: thus the Parliamentary troops were on low ground, bounded in front and on their left by steep hills. On the southern side of Edgehill there had been cut out of the red iron-stained rock of a projecting cliff a huge red horse, as a memorial of the great Earl of Warwick, who before a previous battle had killed his horse and vowed to share the perils of the meanest of his soldiers. Both sides determined to give battle; the Puritan ministers pa.s.sed along the ranks exhorting the men to do their duty, and they afterwards referred to the figure as the "Red Horse of the wrath of the Lord which did ride about furiously to the ruin of the enemy." Charles disposed his army along the brow of the hill, and could overlook his foes, stretched out on the plain, as if on a map, with the village of Kineton behind them. Ess.e.x had twelve thousand men on a little piece of rising ground known afterwards as the "Two Battle Farms," Battledon and Thistledon. The king was superior both in numbers and position, with Prince Rupert and his cavalry on the right wing; Sir Edmund Verney bore the king"s standard in the centre, where his tent was pitched, and Lord Lindsey commanded; under him was General Sir Jacob Astley, whose prayer before the battle is famous: "O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.--March on, boys!" The king rode along in front of his troops in the stately figure that is familiar in Vand.y.k.e"s paintings--full armor, with the ribbon of the Garter across his breastplate and its star on his black velvet mantle--and made a brief speech of exhortation. The young princes Charles and James, his sons, both of them afterwards kings of England, were present at Edgehill, while the philosopher Hervey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, was also in attendance, and we are told was found in the heat of the battle sitting snugly under a hedge reading a copy of Virgil.