[Ill.u.s.tration: ALNWICK CASTLE, FROM THE LION BRIDGE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BARBICAN GATE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BARBICAN.]
Journeying northward through Northumberland, and following the coastline--for here England narrows as the Scottish border is approached--the road crosses the diminutive river Alne, running through a deep valley, and standing in an imposing situation on its southern bank is the renowned stronghold of the Percies and guardian of the Border, Alnwick Castle. The great fortress, as we now see it, was built as a defence against the Scots, and was protected on the northward by the river-valley and a deep ravine, which formerly cut it off from the village, which is as ancient as the fortress, as its quaint old Pottergate Tower attests. Roman remains have been found on the site, and it was also inhabited by the Saxons, the castle at the time of the Norman Conquest being held by Gilbert Tysen, a powerful Northumbrian chief. It was then a primitive timber fortress in a wild region, for the earliest masonry works are Norman, and are attributed to Tysen"s descendants. Alnwick Castle is a cl.u.s.ter of semicircular and angular bastions, surrounded by lofty walls, defended at intervals by towers, and enclosing a s.p.a.ce of about five acres. It has three courts or wards, each defended formerly by ma.s.sive gates, with portcullis, porters lodge, and a strong guardhouse, beneath which was a dungeon. Trap-doors are the only entrances to the latter, into which the prisoners were lowered by ropes. From the village the entrance to the castle is through the barbican, or outer gate, a work of gigantic strength and ma.s.sive grandeur, which has been the scene of many a brave encounter. Near by is the Postern Tower, a sally-port adjacent to the "b.l.o.o.d.y Gap" and "Hotspur"s Chair." The history of this famous stronghold is practically the history of this portion of the realm, for in all the Border warfare that continued for centuries it was conspicuous. In the reign of William Rufus it was gallantly defended by Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, in the memorable siege by the Scots under King Malcolm III. The garrison were about surrendering, being almost starved, when a private soldier undertook their deliverance. He rode out to the besiegers" camp, carrying the keys of the castle dangling from his lance, and presented himself a suppliant before the Scottish king, as if to deliver up the keys. Malcolm advanced to receive them, and the soldier pierced him through the heart. Malcolm fell dead, and in the confusion the bold trooper sprang upon his horse, dashed across the river, and was safe.
Malcolm"s eldest son, Prince Edward, advanced rashly to avenge the king"s death, and fell mortally wounded from the castle. Hammond"s Ford, named for the bold trooper, marks the spot where he and his horse swam across the Alne, which at the time was swollen. In memory of Malcolm, a cross stands on the spot where he was slain, and near by is Malcolm"s Well and the ruins of St. Leonard"s Chapel, built for the unfortunate king"s expiation. Upon the cross the inscription states that Malcolm fell November 13, 1093, and that the original cross, decayed by time, was restored by his descendant, Elizabeth, d.u.c.h.ess of Northumberland, in 1774. Eustace de Vesci, who built St. Leonard"s Chapel, lived in the days of Henry I. and Stephen, and founded the abbey of Alnwick. King David of Scotland captured the old timber castle there in 1135 on his great invasion of England, and Eustace afterwards built the first masonry work of Alnwick Castle, traces of his walls having since been found.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EASTERN ANGLE OF THE BARBICAN.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PERCY BEDSTEAD.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PERCY CROSS.]
Alnwick descended to William, son of Eustace, and in 1174, William the Lion, returning from an invasion of c.u.mberland, pa.s.sed before the castle, and was captured and sent a prisoner into England. Alnwick descended to William"s son Eustace, who was visited by King John in 1209, and the king there received the homage of Alexander of Scotland.
Eustace was one of the chief barons who wrested Magna Charta from John, and in the closing year of that reign met his death from an arrow before Barnard Castle. Henry III. visited Alnwick, and the great Edward I. was there several times as the guest of John de Vesci near the close of the thirteenth century. The Barons de Vesci soon afterwards became extinct, and then the warlike bishop of Durham, Antony Bek, came in and grabbed the castle. He sold it in 1309 to Henry de Percy, and from this dates the rise of the great family of the northern Border, who have held Alnwick for nearly six centuries, its present owner being his descendant, Algernon George Percy, Duke of Northumberland, in whose veins flows the blood of so many great families that he can use nine hundred heraldic devices on his armorial bearings, including those of many kings and princes. Henry de Percy became the leader of the Border barons, and, although living at Alnwick only five years, seems to have rebuilt most of the castle, his son completing it. The Percies became the Earls of Northumberland, and such warlike lives did they lead (as, for instance, young Henry Percy, "Hotspur") that it is noted that Henry Algernon, the fifth earl, was the first of the race who died in bed. The next of the line was executed for rebellion, and the next was beheaded at York for conspiring against Queen Elizabeth. The eighth earl, favoring Mary Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in the Tower, and was one day found in his chamber shot through the heart. Henry, the ninth earl, was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, imprisoned in the Tower, and fined $250,000. After his release he spent the remainder of his life at Petworth; Alnwick was neglected; and the direct line of descent ultimately ended with Elizabeth, daughter of the eleventh earl, who married the Duke of Somerset in 1682. Her grandson, Algernon, became Earl of Northumberland, and his daughter, Elizabeth Seymour, was the ancestress of the present family, her husband being created the first Duke of Northumberland. Alnwick was then a ruin, but he restored it, and subsequently, under the direction of the architect Salvin, it was completely rebuilt, everything worthy of preservation being kept, and the new work being adapted to the days of the earlier Percies, whose achievements gave the stronghold such world-wide renown.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CONSTABLE"S TOWER.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: EARL HUGH"S TOWER.]
This famous castle is full of recollections of the great men who formerly inhabited it. The Constable"s Tower, remaining mostly in its ancient condition, has in an upper apartment arms for fifteen hundred men, the Percy tenantry, while in the rooms beneath is deposited the ancient armor. "Hotspur"s Chair" is the name given to a seated recess of the Ravine Tower which was Hotspur"s favorite resort, where he sat while his troops exercised in the castle-yard beneath, and where he had an admirable lookout to discover an approaching enemy. Through the loopholes on either side of the seat in this commanding tower there is an extensive prospect over the valley of the Alne and to the distant seacoast. The "b.l.o.o.d.y Gap," another noted site in the castle, is between the Ravine and Round Towers. It was the name given to a breach in the wall made by the Scots during the Border wars, although the exact time is unknown. According to tradition, three hundred Scots fell within the breach, and they were ultimately beaten off. Many arrows have been found in the adjacent walls, so located as to indicate they were shot from the battlements and windows of the keep when the a.s.sailants were making this breach. Alnwick Castle was restored by Salvin with strict regard to the rules of mediaeval military architecture. When it was the great Border stronghold its governor commanded a force of no less than two thousand men, who were employed in a complicated system of day and night watching to guard against forays by the Scots. The day watchers began at daylight, and blew a horn on the approach of the foe, when all men were bound on pain of death to respond for the general defence. The great feature of the restored castle is the Prudhoe Tower, built about twenty-five years ago. After entering the barbican, which admits to the outer ward, the visitor pa.s.ses between the Abbot"s Tower on the left and the Corner Tower and Auditor"s Tower on the right. Earl Hugh"s turreted tower also rises boldly from the battlements. Pa.s.sing through the middle gatehouse, the keep, constructed in the form of a polygon around a court, is seen on the right hand, and in the gateway-wall is Percy"s famous draw-well, with a statue of St. James above blessing the waters.
Opposite this draw-well is a covered drive which leads to the entrance of Prudhoe Tower. This tower is a magnificent structure, containing the family and state-apartments, built and decorated in the Italian style, and approached by a staircase twelve feet wide. It was built at enormous cost, and alongside is a vaulted kitchen of ample proportions, constructed in the baronial style, where there are sufficient facilities to prepare dinner for six hundred persons at one time, while the subterranean regions contain bins for three hundred tons of coal. Such is this great baronial Border stronghold, replete with memories of the warlike Percies. From here Hotspur sallied forth to encounter the marauding Scottish force which under Douglas had laid waste England as far as the gates of York, and almost within the sight of the castle is the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Otterbourn, where Douglas fell by Hotspur"s own hand, though the English lost the day and Hotspur himself was captured.
Again, as war"s fortunes change, just north of Alnwick is Humbleton Hill, where the Scots had to fly before England"s "deadly arrow-hail,"
leaving their leader, Douglas, with five wounds and only one eye, a prisoner in the hands of the Percies. It was from Alnwick"s battlements that the countess watched "the stout Earl of Northumberland" set forth, "his pleasure in the Scottish woods three summer days to take"--an expedition from which he never returned. Such was the history for centuries of this renowned castle, which is regarded as presenting the most perfect specimen now existing, perhaps in the world, of the feudal stronghold of mediaeval days.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DRAW-WELL AND NORMAN GATEWAY.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Gravestone in the Churchyard of St. Michael & all Angels.]
And now let us turn from the castle to the church. Almost alongside of it is St. Michael"s Church, built with battlements, as if prepared as much for defence as for worship, and a watch-tower, made evidently for a lookout and to hold a beacon to warn of the approach of forays. This was one of the regular chain of Border beacons. Within the church an old iron-work lectern still holds the "Book of the Homilies," while the churchyard is full of ancient gravestones. Alnwick Abbey once existed down alongside the river, under the protection of the castle, but it has been long since ruined, and its remains have served as a quarry for the village buildings until little of them remains. Its extensive domains are now part of the Duke"s Park, and another contributor to this park was Hulne Priory, the earliest Carmelite monastery in England, founded in 1240. It stood upon a projecting spur of rising land above the Alne, backed by rich woods, but was neither large nor wealthy, as the neighboring abbey eclipsed it. The discipline of the Carmelites was rigorous. Each friar had a coffin for his cell and slept on straw, while every morning he dug a shovelful of earth for his grave and crept on his knees in prayer. Silence, solitude, and strict fasting were the injunction upon all, and their buildings were sternly simple. The porter"s lodge and curtain-wall enclosing Hulne Priory still stand, and its outline can be traced, though the ruins are scant. Yet this, like all else at Alnwick, bears evidence of the troublous times on the Border. The most important of its remaining buildings is an embattled tower of refuge from the Scottish invader. Its inscription states that it was built in 1448 by Sir Henry Percy, fourth Earl of Northumberland.
Opposite Hulne Priory is Brislee Hill, which presents the most renowned view in Alnwick Park. A tower rises among the trees upon the crest of the hill from which bonfires now blaze on occasions of festivity. Here, over the park, can be seen the castle and town, and beyond, to the eastward, the sea, with its coast-castles as far north as Bamborough.
The little Coquet Island in the distance breaks the expanse of blue waters. To the westward beyond the moors rises the sharp outline of the Scottish Border, the Cheviot Hills, running off towards the north-east, and containing in their depressions the pa.s.ses through which the Scots used to pour when they harried Northern England and roused the Alnwick warriors to defend their firesides.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LECTERN, ST. MICHAEL"S CHURCH.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTER"S LODGE, HULNE PRIORY.]
FORD CASTLE AND FLODDEN FIELD.
Northward, past the extremity of the Cheviots, flows the Tweed, and one of its tributaries on the English side is the Till, which drains the bases of those sharp hills, that rise nearly twenty-seven hundred feet.
Here was Ford Castle, and here was fought the terrible Border battle of Flodden in 1513. Ford Castle dated from the time of Edward I., and its proximity to the Border made it the object of many a.s.saults. In the fifteenth century it was held by Sir William Heron, and a few days before the battle of Flodden the Scots, under James IV., during Sir William"s captivity in Scotland, stormed and destroyed Ford, taking captive Lady Heron, who had endeavored to defend it. In the last century Ford was restored by the Marquis of Waterford, to whom it had descended, so that it now appears as a fine baronial mansion, surmounted by towers and battlements, and standing in a commanding situation overlooking the valley of the Till, with the lofty Cheviots closing the view a few miles to the south-west, their peaks affording ever-varying scenes as the season changes.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FORD TOWER, OVERLOOKING FLODDEN.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHEVIOTS, FROM FORD CASTLE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FLODDEN, FROM THE KING"S BEDCHAMBER, FORD CASTLE.]
The great attraction of the view, however, is the famous hill of Flodden, about a mile to the westward, crowned by a plantation of dark fir trees, and presenting, with the different aspects of the weather, ever-changeful scenery, recalling now the "dark Flodden" and anon the "red Flodden" of the balladists. Across the valley from Ford Castle, and at the foot of this fir-crowned hill, was fought one of the bitterest contests of the Border. Now, the famous battlefield is a highly-cultivated farm and sheep-pasture. James IV. of Scotland had unjustly determined to make war upon England, and he set out upon it in opposition to the real desire of his countrymen, and even against the omens of Heaven, as the people believed. A few days before he departed for his army the king attended St. Michael"s Church, adjacent to his stately palace at Linlithgow, when a venerable stranger entered the aisle where the king knelt. The hair from his uncovered head flowed down over his shoulders, and his blue robe was confined by a linen girdle.
With an air of majesty he walked up to the kneeling king, and said, "Sire, I am sent to warn thee not to proceed in thy present undertaking, for if thou dost it shall not fare well either with thyself or those who go with thee." He vanished then in the awe-stricken crowd. But this was not the only warning. At midnight, prior to the departure of the troops for the south, it is related that a voice not mortal proclaimed a summons from the market cross, where proclamations were usually read, calling upon all who should march against the English to appear within the s.p.a.ce of forty days before the court of the Evil One. Sir Walter Scott says that this summons, like the apparition at Linlithgow, was probably an attempt by those averse to the war to impose upon the superst.i.tious temper of James IV. But the king started at the head of the finest army, and supported by the strongest artillery-train, that had down to that time been brought into the field by any Scottish monarch. He entered England August 22d. without having formed any definite plan of action. He wasted two days on the Till, besieged Norham for a week, when it surrendered, and then besieged Ford. These delays gave the English time to a.s.semble. King James, as above related, captured Lady Heron at Ford. She was beautiful and deceitful, and soon enthralled the gay king in her spells, while all the time she was in communication with the English. Thus James wasted his time in dalliance, and, as Scott tells us,
"The monarch o"er the siren hung, And beat the measure as she sung, And, pressing closer and more near, He whispered praises in her ear."
All the time the energetic Earl of Surrey was marshalling the English hosts, and, marching with twenty-six thousand men northward through Durham, received there the sacred banner of St. Cuthbert. On September 4th. Surrey challenged James to battle, which the king accepted against the advice of his best councillors. The Scots had become restive under the king"s do-nothing policy, and many of them left the camp and returned home with the booty already acquired. James selected a strong position on Flodden Hill, with both flanks protected and having the deep and sluggish waters of the Till flowing in front. Surrey advanced and reconnoitred, and then sent the king a herald requesting him to descend into the plain, as he acted ungallantly in thus practically shutting himself up in a fortress. The king would not admit the herald.
Surrey then attempted a stratagem. Crossing the Till on the 8th, he encamped at Barmoor Wood, about two miles from the Scottish position, concealing his movement from the enemy. On the 9th he marched down the Till to near its confluence with the Tweed, and recrossed to the eastern bank. This, too, was uninterrupted by the Scots, who remained strangely inactive, though it is recorded that the chief Scottish n.o.bles implored the king to attack the English. The aged Earl Angus begged him either to a.s.sault the English or retreat. "If you are afraid, Angus," replied the king, "you can go home." The master of artillery implored the king to allow him to bring his guns to bear upon the English, but James returned the reply that he would meet his antagonist on equal terms in a fair field, and scorned to take an advantage. Then Surrey drew up his line between James and the Border, and advanced up the valley of the Till towards the Scots. The king set fire to the temporary huts on the hillside where he had been encamped, and descended to the valley, the smoke concealing the movements of each army from the other; but Surrey"s stratagem was thus successful in drawing him from his strong position.
The English van was led by Lord Thomas Howard, Surrey commanding the main body, Sir Edward Stanley the rear, and Lord Dacre the reserves. The Scottish advance was led by the Earls of Home and Huntley, the king leading the centre, the Earls of Lennox and Argyle the rear, and the reserves, consisting of the flower of the Lothians, were under the Earl of Bothwell. The battle began at four in the afternoon, when the Scottish advance charged upon the right wing of the English advance and routed it. Dacre promptly galloped forward with his reserves, and restored the fortunes of the day for the English right. The main bodies in the mean time became engaged in a desperate contest. The Scottish king in his ardor forgot that the duties of a commander were distinct from the indiscriminate valor of a knight, and placed himself in front of his spearmen, surrounded by his n.o.bles, who, while they deplored the gallant weakness of such conduct, disdained to leave their sovereign unprotected. Dacre and Howard, having defeated the Scottish wing in front of them, at this time turned their full strength against the flank of the Scottish centre. It was a terrific combat, the Scots fighting desperately in an unbroken ring around their king. The battle lasted till night, and almost annihilated the Scottish forces. Of all the splendid host, embracing the flower of the n.o.bility and chivalry of the kingdom, only a few haggard and wounded stragglers returned to tell the tale. The English victors lost five thousand slain, and the Scots more than twice that number, and among them the greatest men of the land.
They left on the field their king, two bishops, two mitred abbots, twenty-seven peers and their sons, and there was scarcely a family of any position in Scotland that did not lose a relative there. The young Earl of Caithness and his entire band of three hundred followers perished on the field. The body of the dead king, afterwards found by Dacre, was taken to Berwick and presented to his commander, who had it embalmed and conveyed to the monastery of Sheyne in Surrey. The poetic instincts of the Scots were deeply moved by the woes of the fatal field of Flodden, and innumerable poems and ballads record the sad story, the crowning work of all being Scott"s _Marmion_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRYPT, FORD CASTLE.]
BAMBOROUGH AND GRACE DARLING.
North of Flodden Field, and not far distant, is the Scottish Border, which in this part is made by the river Tweed, with Berwick at its mouth. The two kingdoms, so long in hot quarrel, are now united by a magnificent railway-bridge, elevated one hundred and twenty-five feet above the river and costing $600,000. For miles along the coast the railway runs almost upon the edge of the ocean, elevated on the cliffs high above the sea, while off the coast are Holy Isle and Lindisfarne.
Here St. Cuthbert was the bishop, and its abbey is a splendid ruin, while on the rocky islet of Farne he lived a hermit, encompa.s.sing his cell with a mound so high that he could see nothing but the heavens. Two miles from Farne, on the mainland, was the royal city of Bebban Burgh, now Bamborough, the castle standing upon an almost perpendicular rock rising one hundred and fifty feet and overlooking the sea. This was King Ida"s castle, a Border stronghold in ancient times whose ma.s.sive keep yet stands. It is now a charity-school, a lighthouse, and a life-saving station. Thirty beds are kept in the restored castle for shipwrecked sailors, and Bamborough is to the mariner on that perilous coast what the convent of St. Bernard is to the traveller in the Alps. Here, at this Border haven, we will close this descriptive tour by recalling Bamborough"s most pleasant memory--that of Grace Darling. She was a native of the place, and was lodged, clothed, and educated at the school in Bamborough Castle. Her remains lie in Bamborough churchyard under an altar-tomb bearing her rec.u.mbent figure and surmounted by a Gothic canopy. She is represented lying on a plaited straw mattra.s.s and holding an oar. All this coast is beset with perils and wrecks have been frequent. The islet of Farne and a cl.u.s.ter of other rocks off sh.o.r.e add to the dangers, and on some of them there are lighthouses. One of these rocks--Longstone Island--Grace Darling rendered memorable by her intrepidity in perilling her life during the storm of September, 1838.
Her father was the keeper of Longstone Light, and on the night of September 6 the Forfarshire steamer, proceeding from Hull to Dundee, was wrecked there. Of fifty-three persons on board, thirty-eight perished, and on the morning of the 7th, Grace, then about twenty-three years of age, discovered the survivors clinging to the rocks and remnants of the steamer, in imminent danger of being washed off by the returning tide.
With her parents" a.s.sistance, but against their remonstrance, Grace launched a boat, and with her father succeeded in rescuing nine of them, while six escaped by other means. Presents and demonstrations of admiration were showered upon her from all parts of the kingdom, and a public subscription of $3500 was raised for her benefit. Poor Grace died four years later of consumption. A monument to her has been placed in St. Cuthbert"s Chapel on Longstone Island, and upon it is this inscription, from Wordsworth:
"Pious and pure, modest, and yet so brave, Though young, so wise--though meek, so resolute.
"Oh that winds and waves could speak Of things which their united power called forth From the pure depths of her humanity!
A maiden gentle, yet at duty"s call Firm and unflinching as the lighthouse reared On the island-rock, her lonely dwelling-place; Or, like the invincible rock itself, that braves, Age after age, the hostile elements, As when it guarded holy Cuthbert"s cell.
"All night the storm had raged, nor ceased, nor paused, When, as day broke, the maid, through misty air, Espies far off a wreck amid the surf, Beating on one of those disastrous isles-- Half of a vessel, half--no more; the rest Had vanished!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: GRACE DARLING"S MONUMENT.]
VI.
LONDON, WESTWARD TO MILFORD HAVEN.
The Cotswolds--The River Severn--Gloucester--Berkeley Castle--New Inn--Gloucester Cathedral--Lampreys--Tewkesbury; its Mustard, Abbey, and Battle--Wercester; its Battle--Charles II."s Escape--Worcester Cathedral--The Malvern Hills--Worcestershire Beacon--Herefordshire Beacon--Great Malvern--St. Anne"s Well--The River Wye--Clifford Castle--Hereford--Old Butcher"s Row--Nell Gwynne"s Birthplace--Ross--The Man of Ross--Ross Church and its Trees--Walton Castle--Goodrich Castle--Forest of Dean--Coldwell--Symond"s Yat--The Dowards--Monmouth--Kymin Hill--Raglan Castle--Redbrook--St. Briard Castle--Tintern Abbey--The Wyncliff--Wyntour"s Leap--Chepstow Castle--The River Monnow--The Golden Valley--The Black Mountains--Pontrilas Court--Ewias Harold--Abbey Dore--The Scyrrid Vawr--Wormridge--Kilpeck--Oldcastle--Kentchurch--Grosmont--The Vale of Usk--Abergavenny--Llanthony Priory--Walter Savage Landor--Capel-y-Ffyn--Newport--Penarth Roads--Cardiff--The Rocking-Stone--Llandaff--Caerphilly Castle and its Leaning Tower--Swansea--The Mumbles--Oystermouth Castle--Neath Abbey--Caermarthen--Tenby--Manorbeer Castle--Golden Grove--Pembroke--Milford--Haverfordwest--Milford Haven--Pictou Castle--Carew Castle.
GLOUCESTER.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]
Journeying westward from the metropolis and beyond the sources of the Thames, let us mount to the tops of the Cotswold Hills, in which they take their rise, and look down upon the valley of the n.o.ble Severn River beyond. We have already seen the Severn at Shrewsbury, Wenlock, and Bridgenorth, and, uniting with the cla.s.sic Avon, it drains the western slopes of the Cotswolds, and, flowing through a deep valley between them and the Malvern Hills, finally debouches through a broad estuary into the British Channel. There is much of interest to the tourist along the banks and in neighborhood of this well-known river. As we stand upon the elevations of the Cotswolds and look over "Sabrina fair," the lower part of its valley is seen as a broad and fertile plain, and the Severn"s "gla.s.sy, cool, translucent wave," as the poet has it, flows through a land of meadows, orchards, and cornfields, with the hills of the Forest of Dean rising on the western horizon. Alongside the river is the cathedral city of Gloucester, the depot for a rich agricultural region and for the mining wealth of Dean Forest, the Berkeley Ca.n.a.l leading from its docks for sixteen miles down the Severn until the deep water of the estuary is reached. The Romans early saw the importance of this place as a military post, and founded Glevum here, upon their Ermine Street road, as an outpost fortress upon the border-land of the Silures. Fragments of tessellated pavements, coins, and other relics from time to time exhumed attest the extent of the Roman settlement.
When the Britons succeeded the Romans, this settlement became gradually transformed into Gleawecesore, forming part of the kingdom of Mercia, and in the seventh century aethelred bestowed it upon Osric, who founded a monastery here. Athelstan died here in 941, and a few years afterwards the Danes, who overrun and devastated almost the whole of England, burned the town and monastery. The history of Gloucester, however, was without stirring incidents, excepting an occasional destructive fire, until the siege took place in the Civil War, its people devoting themselves more to commerce than to politics, and in the early part of the seventeenth century engaging extensively in the manufacture of pins.
Gloucester, however, gave the t.i.tle to several earls and dukes, generally men not much envied; as, for instance, Richard Crookback, who sent from Gloucester the order for the murder of his nephews, the young princes, in the Tower. But the town never took kindly to him, and warmly welcomed Richmond on his avenging march to Bosworth Field. The siege of Gloucester was made by King Charles"s troops, the citizens having warmly espoused the cause of the Parliament and strongly fortified their city, mounting guns for its defence which they got from London. A polygonal line of fortifications surrounded Gloucester, which was then much smaller than now, and the bastions came down to the river, with outlying works to defend a small suburb on the opposite bank. The Cavaliers were in great strength in Western England, and the malignity of the Gloucester pin-makers seriously embarra.s.sed them. On August 10, 1643, the siege began with a summons to surrender, which the authorities refused. Parts of the suburbs were then burned, and next morning a bombardment began, red-hot b.a.l.l.s and heavy stones being plentifully thrown into the place, knocking the houses into sad havoc, but in no wise damping the st.u.r.dy courage of the defenders. They replied bravely with their cannon and made repeated sorties, which inflicted serious damage upon the besiegers. After over three weeks of this sport, the Royalists shot an arrow into the town, September 3, with a message in these words: "These are to let you understand your G.o.d Waller hath forsaken you and hath retired himself to the Tower of London; Ess.e.x is beaten like a dog: yield to the king"s mercy in time; otherwise, if we enter perforce, no quarter for such obstinate traitorly rogues.--From a Well-wisher." This conciliatory message was defiantly answered in a prompt reply signed "Nicholas Cudgelyouwell;" and two days later, Prince Rupert having suffered a defeat elsewhere, the Cavaliers abandoned the siege. Charles II., upon his restoration, took care to have himself proclaimed with great pomp at Gloucester, and also took the precaution to destroy its fortifications. The castle, which had stood since the days of the Norman Conquest, then disappeared. The west gate, the last remains of the walls, was removed, with the old bridge across the Severn, in 1809, to make room for a fine new bridge. This structure is chiefly known through a humorous connection that Thackeray has given it with King George III. That monarch made a royal visit to Gloucester, and in his lectures on the "Four Georges" Thackeray says: "One morning, before anybody else was up, the king walked about Gloucester town, pushed over Molly the housemaid with her pail, who was scrubbing the doorsteps, ran up stairs and woke all the equerries in their bedrooms, and then trotted down to the bridge, where by this time a dozen of louts were a.s.sembled. "What! is this Gloucester new bridge?" asked our gracious monarch; and the people answered him, "Yes, Your Majesty."--"Why, then, my boys, let"s have a hurray!" After giving them which intellectual gratification he went home to breakfast."
The town is quaint and picturesque, but the buildings generally are modern, most of them dating from the days of good Queen Anne, but they exhibit great variety in design. The most noted of the older Gloucester houses is the "New Inn," on Northgate Street. After the murder of Edward II. at Berkeley Castle, not far from Gloucester, where he had been imprisoned in a dungeon in the keep, in 1327, his remains were brought to the abbey church at Gloucester for interment, a shrine being raised over them by the monks. The king was murdered with fiendish cruelty.
Lord Berkeley at the castle would willingly have protected him, but he fell sick; and one dark September night Edward was given over to two villains named Gurney and Ogle. The ancient chronicler says that the "screams and shrieks of anguish were heard even so far as the town, so that many, being awakened therewith from their sleep, as they themselves confessed, prayed heartily to G.o.d to receive his soul, for they understood by those cries what the matter meant." The king"s shrine in Gloucester naturally attracted many pilgrims, and the New Inn was built about 1450 for their accommodation. It is a brick-and-timber house, with corridors leading to the chambers running along the sides of the inner court and reached by outside stairways, as was the common construction of houses of public entertainment three or four centuries ago. The inn remains almost as it was then, having been but slightly modernized. Most of the pilgrims to the shrine brought offerings with them, and hence the pains taken for their accommodation. The usual tale is told about a subterranean pa.s.sage connecting this inn with the cathedral. New Inn is enormously strong and ma.s.sive, and covers a broad surface, being constructed around two courtyards.