ENGLAND of my HEART

SPRING

BY

EDWARD HUTTON

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS BYGORDON HOME

MCMXIV

TO MY FRIENDO. K. 

INTRODUCTION

England of my heart is a great country of hill and valley, moorlandand marsh, full of woodlands, meadows, and all manner of flowers, andeverywhere set with steadings and dear homesteads, old farms and oldchurches of grey stone or flint, and peopled by the kindest andquietest people in the world. To the south, the east, and the west itlies in the arms of its own seas, and to the north it is held too bywater, the waters, fresh and clear, of the two rivers as famous aslovely, Thames and Severn, of which poets are most wont to sing, asSpenser when he invokes the first:

 "Sweete Themmes runne softly till I end my song";

or Dryden when he tells us of the second:

 "The goodly Severn bravely sings The noblest of her British kings, At Caesar's landing what we were, And of the Roman conquest here.... "

Within England of my heart, in the whole breadth of her delight, thereis no industrial city such as infests, ruins, and spoils other lands, and in this she resembles her great and dear mother Italy. Like her, too, she is full of very famous towns scarcely to be matched for beautyand ancientness in the rest of the world, and their names which arelike the words of a great poet, and which it is a pleasure to me torecite, are Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Exeter, and her ports, whose names are as household words, evenin Barbary, are Dover, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, and Bristol. All these she may well boast of, for what other land can match themquite?

But there is a certain virtue of hers of which she is perhaps unaware, that is nevertheless among her greatest delights: I mean her infinitevariety. Thus she is a true country, not a province; indeed, she ismade up of many counties and provinces, and each is utterly differentfrom other, and their different genius may be caught by the attentivein their names, which are Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, andBerkshire. Her variety thus lies in them and their dear, and let ushope, immortal differences and characteristics, their genius that is, which is as various as their scenery. For England of my heart not onlydiffers fundamentally from every other country of the known world, but from itself in its different parts, and that radically. Thus inone part you have ranges of chalk-hills, such as no other land knows, so regular, continuous, and tremendous withal, that you might thinksome army of archangels--and such might well abide there--had thrownthem up as their vast and beautiful fortifications, being good Romansand believing in the value of such things, and not as the heathendespising them. These chalk downs are covered, as indeed becomesthings so old, with turf, the smoothest, softest, and sweetest underthe sun. 

There are other hills also that catch the breath, and these be thoseof the west. They all bear the beautiful names of home, as Mendip, Quantock, Brendon, and Cotswold. And as there are hills, so there areplains, plains uplifted, such as that great silent grassland aboveSalisbury, plains lonely, such as the Weald and the mysterious marshof Romney in the east by which all good things go out of England, asthe legions went, and, as, alas, the Faith went too, another Romanthing many hundred years ago. There is also that great marsh in thewest by the lean and desolate sea, more mysterious by far, whence aman may see far off the great and solemn mountains of another land. By that marsh the Faith came into England of my heart, and there liesin ruin the greatest of its shrines in loving but alien hands, anddesolate. 

I have said nothing of the valleys: they are too many and too fair, from the fairest of all through which Thames flows seaward, to thoseinnumerable and more beloved where are for sure our homes. I saynothing of the rivers, for who could number them? Yet I will tell youof some if only for the beauty of their names, passing the names ofall women but ours, as Thames itself, and Medway, Stour, and Ouse andArun and Rother; Itchen and Test, Hampshire streams; and those fivewhich are like the fingers of an outstretched hand about Salisbury inthe meads, Bourne and Avon and Wylye and Nadder and Ebble; and thoseof the West, Brue, which is holiest of all, though all be holy, Exeand Barle, Dart and Taw, Fal under the sloping woods, Tamar, which isan eastern girdle to a duchy, and Camel, which kissed the feet ofIseult, and is lost ere it finds the sea. 

Of the uplifted moorlands which are a part of the mystery of the west, of the forests, of the greenwood, of the meads, of the laughing coast, white as with dawn in the east, darkling in the west, I know not howto speak, for in England of my heart we take them for granted and aresatisfied. They fill all that quiet and fruitful land with their ownjoy and beneficence, and are a part of God's pleasure. Because of themthe name of England of my heart might be but Happiness, or--as forages we have named that far-off dusky Arabia, --Anglia Felix. 

And yet, perhaps, the chief thing that remains with the mere sojournerin this country of mine, the true Old England, is that in the wholebreadth of it, it is one vast graveyard. Do you not know those longbarrows that cast their shadows at evening upon the lonely downs, those round tumuli that are dark even in the sun, where lie the men ofthe old time before us, our forefathers? Do you not know the grave ofthe Roman, the mystery that seems to lurk outside the western gate ofthe forgotten city that was once named in the Roman itinerary and nowis nothing? Do you not know many an isolated hill often dark withpines, but, more often still, lonely and naked where they lie of whomwe are come, with their enemies, and they call the place Battlebury orDanesbury, or for ever deserted like all battlefields it is nameless?If you know not these you know not England of my heart, though youknow those populous graveyards about the village churches where thegrass is so lush and green and the dead are more than the living;though you know that marvellous tomb, the loveliest thing in all mycountry, where the first Earl of Salisbury lies in the nave of thegreat church he helped to build; though you know that wonder by theroadside where Somerset and Wiltshire meet; though you know thebeauty that is fading and crumbling in the little church under thedark woods where the dawn first strikes the roots of the QuantockHills. 

There is so much to know, and all must be got by heart, for all is apart of us and of that mighty fruitful and abiding past out of whichwe are come, which alone we may really love, and which holds for eversafe for us our origins. 

After all, we live a very little time, the future is not ours, we holdthe present but by a brittle thread; it is the past that is in ourhearts. And so it is that to go afoot through Southern England is notless than to appeal to something greater and wiser than ourselves, outof which we are come, to return to our origins, to appeal to history, to the divine history of the soul of a people. 

There is a _genius loci_. To look on the landscapes we have alwaysknown, to tread in the footsteps of our fathers, to follow the Legionsdown the long roads, to trudge by the same paths to the same goal asthe pilgrims, to consider the silence of the old, old battlefields, topray in forgotten holy places to almost forgotten deities, is to bemade partakers of a life larger and more wonderful than that of theindividual, is to be made one with England. For in the quietness ofthose ancient countrysides was England made by the men who begat us. And even as a man of the Old Faith when he enters one of hissanctuaries suddenly steps out of England into a larger world, auniversal country; so we in the earthwork by Thannington or the Closeof Canterbury, or upon the hill where Battle Abbey stood, surely havesomething added to us by the genius of the place, indeed pass out ofourselves into that which is England, a splendour and a holinessbeyond ourselves, which cannot die. 

It is in such places we may best face reality, for they lend tohistory all its poetry and, as Aristotle knew, there is more truth inpoetry than in history. And this, at least to-day, is perhaps the realvalue and delight of our churches; I mean those great sanctuaries wecall Cathedrals which stand about England like half-dismantled castlesand remind us more poignantly than any other thing of all we are fainto forget. There are the indelible words of our history most clearlywritten. Consider the bricks of S. Martin's, the rude stones of thelittle church of Bradford, the mighty Norman work of Romsey, the EarlyEnglish happiness of Salisbury, the riches and security of the longnave of Winchester. Do we not there see the truth; can stones lie oran answer be demanded of them according to folly? And if a man wouldknow the truth, let us say, of the thirteenth century here in England, where else will he find any answer? Consider it then, the joy as offlowers, the happiness as of Spring, in that architecture we callEarly English, which for joy and happiness surpasses any other in theworld. The men who carved those shafts and mouldings and capitalscovering them with foliage could not curb their invention nor preventtheir hands from beauty and joy. They forgot everything in theirdelight, even the great logic of design, even to leap up to God, sinceHe was here in the meadows in this garden of ours that He has given usand blest. 

But these great buildings, scarcely to be understood by us save by thegrace of God and now a little lonely too, missing so many of theirsisters, and certainly in an alien service, are how much lessappealing and less holy than those village churches so humble and soprecious that everywhere ennoble and glorify England of my heart. Theystand up still for our souls before God, and are to be loved above allI think--and even the humblest of them is to be loved--for the tombsthey shelter within and without. More than any Cathedral they touch inus some profound and fundamental mystery common to us all, that is thelife and the energy of the Christian soul. They, above all, expressEngland, England of my heart, in them we find utterance, are joinedwith the great majority and together approach, in their humility, beauty, and quietness, God who has loved us all and given us Englandtherein and thereby to serve Him in delight. They kneel with the hindand now as ever in the name of Our Lord. It is enough. The Cathedralsare haunted by the Old Faith, and by Rome, whose they are: but thevillage churches are our own. Nor though we be of the Old Faith let usbe too proud to salute their humility. They stand admittedly in theservice of man, and this at least is admirable in the Church ofEngland of my heart--I mean her humility. To her, unlike Rome, absolute Truth has not been revealed; she is so little sure of anythingthat she will condemn no man, no, not one of her officers, though hedeny the divinity of Christ. She desires only to serve: and if anyman, even an atheist, can approach the God he ignorantly denies mosteasily through her open gates, she will not say him nay, nor deny him, nor send him away. It is her genius. Let us salute its humility. 

And so I look upon England of my heart and am certain I am of thecivilisation of Christ. He hath said, ye shall not die but live--England blossoms in fulfilment. He hath founded his Church, whosechildren we are, whether we will or no, and after a far wanderingpresently shall return homeward. For those words endure and willendure; more living than the words even of our poets, more lastingthan the cliffs of the sea, or the rocks of the mountains, or thesands of the deserts, because they are as the flowers by the wayside. 

Therefore England is not merely what we see and are; it is all the pastand all the future, it is inheritance; the fields we have alwaysploughed, the landscape and the sea, the tongue we speak, the verse weknow by heart, all we hope for, all we love and venerate, under God. And there abides a sense of old times gone, of ancient law, offriendship, of religious benediction. 

E. H. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I TO CANTERBURY THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO DARTFORD

CHAPTER II THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO ROCHESTER

CHAPTER III THE PILGRIMS' ROAD--ROCHESTER

CHAPTER IV THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO FAVERSHAM

CHAPTER V THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO CANTERBURY

CHAPTER VI THE CITY OF ST THOMAS

CHAPTER VII CAESAR IN KENT

CHAPTER VIII THE WEALD AND THE MARSH

CHAPTER IX RYE AND WINCHELSEA

CHAPTER X THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

CHAPTER XI LEWES AND SIMON DE MONTFORT

CHAPTER XII THE DOWNS

CHAPTER XIII THE WEALD

CHAPTER XIV TO ARUNDEL AND CHICHESTER

CHAPTER XV CHICHESTER

CHAPTER XVI SELSEY, BOSHAM AND PORCHESTER

CHAPTER XVII SOUTHAMPTON

CHAPTER XVIII BEAULIEU AND CHRISTCHURCH

CHAPTER XIX THE NEW FOREST AND ROMSEY ABBEY

CHAPTER XX WINCHESTER

CHAPTER XXI SELBORNE

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHEYNEY COURT AND THE CLOSE GATE, WINCHESTER

SHOOTERS' HILL

DARTFORD CHURCH AND BRIDGE

THE GATEWAY OF THE MONASTERY CLOSE, ROCHESTER

ROCHESTER

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRISTCHURCH GATE

WEST GATE, CANTERBURY

ON THE STOUR NEAR CANTERBURY

CHILHAM

A CORNER OF ROMNEY MARSH

RYE

WINCHELSEA CHURCH

BATTLE ABBEY

LEWES CASTLE

THE DOWNS

THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, NORTH OF LEWES

ARUNDEL CASTLE

THE MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER

BOSHAM

THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL'S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON

IN THE NEW FOREST

ROMSEY ABBEY

NORTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL

ST CROSS, WINCHESTER

SELBORNE FROM THE HANGER

ENGLAND OF MY HEART

CHAPTER I

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO CANTERBURY

FROM THE TABARD INN TO DARTFORD

When I determined to set out once more to traverse and to possessEngland of my heart, it was part of my desire first of all to follow, as far as might be, in the footsteps of Chaucer's pilgrims. ThereforeI sought the Tabard Inn in Southwark. 

For true delight, it seems to me, a journey, especially if it be forlove or pleasure, should always have about it something of devotion, something a little rigid too, and dutiful, at least in its openingstages; and in thus determining my way I secured this. For I promisedmyself that I would start from the place whence they set out so longago to visit and to pray at the tomb of the greatest of Englishsaints, that I would sleep where they slept, find pleasure in thevillages they enjoyed, climb the hills and look on the horizons thatgreeted them also so many hundred years ago, till at last I stood bythe "blissful martyr's tomb, " that had once made so great a rumour inthe world and now was nothing. 

In many ways I came short of all this, as will be seen; but especiallyin one thing--the matter of time. Chaucer and his pilgrims aregenerally thought to have spent three and a half or four days andthree nights upon the road. It is true they went ahorseback and Iafoot, but nevertheless a man may easily walk the fifty-six miles fromLondon to Canterbury in four days. I failed because I found so much tosee by the wayside. And to begin with there was London itself, which Iwas about to leave. 

It was very early on an April morning when I set out from my home, coming through London on foot and crossing the river by London Bridge. It was there I lingered first, in the half light, as it were to saygood-bye. 

I do not know what it is in London that at long last and in some quiteimpersonal way clutches at the heart and receives one's eageraffection. At first, even though you be one of her children, she seemsand for how long like something fallen, calling you with themonotonous, mighty, complaining voice of a fallen archangel, ceaselessly through the days, the years, the centuries and the ages. She is one of the oldest of European cities, she is one of the mostbeautiful, of all capitals she is by far the most full of character:and yet she is not easy to know or to love. Perhaps she does notbelong to us, but is something apart, something in and for herself, amighty and a living thing, owing us nothing and regarding us, whomshe tortures, with a sort of indifference, if not contempt. 

And yet she is ours after all; she belongs to us, is more perhaps ourvery likeness and self than the capital of any other people. What isBerlin but a brutalised village, or Paris now but cosmopolis, or Romebut a universe? She is ours, the very gate of England of my heart. Forshe stands there striding the boundary of my country, the greatest ofour cities, the greatest even of our industrial cities--a negative toall the rest. To the North she says Nay continually, for she isEnglish, the greater successor of Winchester, and in her voice is thesoul of the South, the real England, the England of my heart. 

Ah, we have never known her or loved her enough or understood that sheis a universe, without the self-consciousness of lesser things or theprepared beauty of mortal places. Indeed, she has something of thecharacter of the sea which is our home, its changefulness, itsinfinity, its pathos in the toiling human life that traverses it. Almost featureless if you will, she is always under the guidance ofher ample sky, responding immediately to every mood of the clouds; andin her, beauty grows up suddenly out of life and is gone e'er we canapprehend it.... 

But to come into Southwark on a Spring morning in search of Chaucerand the Tabard Inn is to ask of London more than she will give you. Itis strange, seeing that she is so English, that for her the living aremore than the dead. Consider England, southern England, if you knowher well enough, and remember what in the face of every other countryof Europe she has conserved of the past in material and tangiblethings--roads, boundaries, churches, houses, and indeed whole townsand villages. Yet London has so little of her glory and her past abouther in material things, that it is often only by her attitude to lifeyou might know she is not a creation of yesterday. It is true the fireof 1666 destroyed almost all, but apparently it did not destroy theTabard Inn, which nevertheless is gone--it and its successors. 

Something remained that should have been sacred, not indeed fromChaucer's day but at least from that of the Restoration, somethingthat was beautiful, till some forty years ago. All is gone now; of theold Inn as we may see it in a drawing of 1810, a two-storied buildingwith steepish roofs of tiles, dormer windows and railed balconiessupported below by pillars of stone, above by pillars of wood, standing about two sides of a courtyard in which the carrier's longcovered carts from Horsham or Rochester are waiting, nothing at allremains. The last of it was finally destroyed in 1875, and the TabardInn of the new fashion was built at the corner as we see. 

The old hostelry, which besides its own beauty had this claim alsoupon our reverence, that it represented in no unworthy fashion thebirthplace as it were of English poetry, owes of course all its fameto Chaucer, who lay there on the night before he set out forCanterbury as he tells us:

 When that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote.... Bifel that, in that season on a day In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, At night was come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in a companye Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde; The chambres and the shelter weren wyde, And wel we weren esed atte beste And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everichon, That I was of hir felawshipe anon And made forward erly for to ryse, To take our wey, there as I yow devyse. 

It is in these verses lies all the fame of the Tabard, which it mightseem was not a century old when Chaucer lay there. In the year 1304 theAbbot of Hyde, near Winchester, bought two houses here held of theArchbishop of Canterbury by William de Lategareshall. The abbot boughtthese houses in order to have room to build himself a town house, andit is said that at the same time he built a hostelry for travellers; atany rate three years later we find him applying to the Bishop ofWinchester for leave to build a chapel "near the inn. " In a later deedwe are told that "the abbots lodgeinge was wyninge to the backside ofthe inn called the Tabarde and had a garden attached. " Stow, however, tells us: "Within this inn was also the lodging of the Abbot of Hide(by the city of Winchester), a fair house for him and his train when hecame from that city to Parliament. "

Here then from the Inn of the Abbot of Hyde Chaucer set out forCanterbury with those pilgrims, many of whose portraits he has given uswith so matchless a power. The host of the inn at that time was HarryBailey, member of Parliament for Southwark in 1376 and 1379. He was thewise and jocund leader of the pilgrimage as we know, and though Chaucerspeaks of him last, not one of the pilgrims is drawn with a liveliertouch than he:

 Greet chere made our hoste us everichon And to the soper sette us anon; And served us with vitaille at the beste, Strong was the wyn, and wel to drinke us leste. A semely man our hoste was with alle For to han ben a marshal in an halle; A large man he was eyen stepe, A fairer burgeys is ther noon in Chepe; Bold of his speche and wys, and wel y-taught, And of manhod him lakkede right naught. Eek therto he was right a mery man, And after soper pleyen he bigan, And spak of mirthe amonges others thinges, Whan that we hadde maad our rekeninges.... 

A noble portrait in the English manner; there is but one, and that iswanting, we should have preferred. I mean the portrait of Chaucerhimself--that "wittie" Chaucer who "sate in a Chaire of Gold coveredwith Roses writing prose and risme, accompanied with the Spirites ofmany Kyngs, Knightes and Faire Ladies. " For that we must go to a lesserpen, to Greene, who thus describes him in his vision:

 His stature was not very tall, Lean he was; his legs were small Hos'd within a stock of red A button'd bonnet on his head From under which did hang I ween Silver hairs both bright and sheen; His beard was white, trimmèd round; His countenance blithe and merry found; A sleeveless jacket, large and wide With many plaits and skirts side Of water-camlet did he wear; A whittle by his belt he bear; His shoes were cornèd broad before; His ink-horn at his side he wore, And in his hand he bore a book;-- Thus did this ancient poet look. 

There is one other personage upon whom indeed the whole pilgrimagedepended of whom Chaucer says next to nothing, but we should do wrongto forget him: I mean the "blissful martyr" himself--St Thomas ofCanterbury. In old days, certainly in Chaucer's, we should have beenreminded of him more than once on our way e'er we gained the Tabard. For upon old London Bridge, the first stone bridge, built in the end ofthe twelfth century, there stood in the very midst of it a chapel ofmarvellous beauty with a crypt, from which by a flight of steps onemight reach the river, dedicated in honour of St Thomas Becket. Thischapel was built in memory of St Thomas by one Peter, priest of St MaryColechurch, where the martyr had been christened. It was this samePeter who began to build the great bridge of stone, and when he died hewas buried in the chapel he had erected in the midst of it. 

Such a wonder was, however, by no means the only memorial here, at thevery opening of the way, of the great and holy end and purpose of it. 

Every schoolboy knows St Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth, but not all knowthat the saint whose name that hospital bears is not the Apostle, butEngland's Martyr. Now, until 1868 St Thomas's Hospital stood not inLambeth but in Southwark, upon the site of London Bridge Station. [Footnote: The fact is still remembered in the name of St ThomasStreet, leading out of the Borough High Street on the east. ] It seemsthat within the precincts of St Mary Overy a house of Austin Canons, now the Anglican Cathedral of St Saviour, Southwark, was a hospital forthe sick and poor founded by St Thomas, which after his beatificationwas dedicated in his honour. But in the first years of the thirteenthcentury, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, rebuilt the littlehouse in a healthier situation--_ubi aqua est uberior et aer estmelior_--where the water was purer and the air better, and this newhouse, finished in 1215, of course also bore the name of St Thomas ofCanterbury. That the hospital fulfilled its useful purpose we know froma petition which it presented to Pope Innocent VI. , in 1357, wherein itwas stated that so many sick and poor resorted to it that it could notsupport its charges. Not quite two hundred years later, in 1539, a fewdays before the feast of St Thomas upon December 29, it was surrenderedto King Henry VIII. , the infamous Layton having been its visitor. Fromthe king it was bought by the City of London, a rare comment upon itssuppression, and so notoriously useful was it that Edward VI. Wascompelled to refound it, and therefore in some sort it still remains tous. It is curious to note that, ages before the hospital came toLambeth, St Thomas was at home there, for he had a statue upon theLollards' Tower, and it was the custom of the watermen to doff theircaps to it as they rowed by. 

It is meet and right that this pilgrimage should be begun with thoughtsof St Thomas, and especially of what we owe to him, for the first fewmiles of the way upon what we need not doubt was of old the Pilgrims'road, is anything but uplifting, crowded though it be with memories, most of them of course far later than the Canterbury pilgrimage. As yougo down the Borough High Street, for Southwark is of course the old_borgo_ of London, and all the depressing ugliness of modern life, itis not of anything so serene as that great poet of the fourteenthcentury, the father of English poetry, that you think, but of one whonevertheless, in the characteristic nationalism of his art, in hishumanity and love of his fellow-men, was only second to Chaucer, and inhis compassion for the poor and lowly only second to St Thomas: I meanCharles Dickens. No one certainly can pass the site of the MarshalseaPrison without recalling that solemn and haunting description in thepreface to "Little Dorrit": "Whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet onthe very paving stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see itsnarrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if atall, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; willlook upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; will stand among thecrowding ghosts of many miserable years. "

It is still of Dickens most of us will think in passing St George'sChurch, for was it not there that Little Dorrit was christened andmarried, and was it not in the vestry there she slept with the burial-book for a pillow? But St George's has other memories too, for it wasthere that Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, who staunchly refused theoath of supremacy to Elizabeth, was buried at midnight after his deathin the Marshalsea, on September 5th, 1569. There too General Monk wasmarried to Anne Clarges. 

These memories, for the most part so unhappy, have, however, nothing todo with the Pilgrims' Way. No memory of that remains at all amid allthe dismal wretchedness of to-day, until one comes to the "Thomas àBecket" public-house at the corner of Albany Road. This was the site ofthe "watering of Saint Thomas":

 A-morwe, whan that day bigan to springe, Up roes our host, and was our aller cok, And gadrede us togirde, alle in a flok, And forth we riden, a litel more than pas Unto the watering of seint Thomas. 

The "watering of St Thomas" was a spring dedicated to St Thomas, andit came to be the first halting-place of the pilgrims. It is stillremembered in the name of St Thomas's Road close by, and notinappropriately in the tavern which bears St Thomas's name. It washere that the immortal tales were begun:

 And there our host bigan his hors areste, And seyde; Lordinges, herkneth, if yow leste. Ye woot your forward, and it yow recorde If even-song and morwe-song acorde, Lat see now who shal telle the firste tale.... 

No memory of the pilgrims would seem to remain at all in the roadafter St Thomas's watering until we come to Deptford. The "Knight'sTale" and the "Miller's Tale" have filled, and one would think morethan filled that short three miles of road, till in the Reve'sPrologue the host began "to spake as loudly as a king.... "

 Sey forth thy tale and tarie nat the tyme, Lo, Depeford! and it is half-way pryme. 

Nothing more lugubrious is to be found to-day in the whole length ofthe old road than Deptford; but it is there that we begin to be freeof the mean streets. For Deptford, which the pilgrims reached, aftertheir early start, at "half-way pryme"--any hour, I suppose, betweensix and nine--lies at the foot of Blackheath Hill above Greenwich:

 Lo, Greenwich, ther many a shrewe is inne. 

Deptford Bridge, the only remaining landmark of old time, by whichwe cross Deptford Creek, had in the fourteenth century a hermitage atits eastern end dedicated in honour of St Catherine of Alexandria, andMass was said there continually from Chaucer's day down to thesuppression in 1531, the king, Henry VIII. , having previously helpedto repair the chapel. 

It is at Deptford, as I say, that we begin to leave the mean streets, for at the cross-roads we turn up Blackheath Hill, and though this isnot in all probability the ancient way, it is as near it as modernconditions have allowed us. The old road, as far as can be made out, ran farther to the east, quite alongside Greenwich Park, and not overthe middle of the Heath, as the modern road does. Blackheath is notalluded to in Chaucer's poem, though it must have been famous at thetime he was writing, for in 1381 Jack Straw, Wat Tyler, and theircompany were there gathered. Perhaps the most famous spectacle, however, that Blackheath has witnessed was not this abortive revoltof the peasants nor the rising of Jack Cade in 1450, but the meetinghere in 1400 of King Henry IV. And the Emperor of Constantinople, whocame to England to ask for assistance against the ever-encroachingTurk, then at the gates of Constantinople, which some fifty yearslater was to fall into his hands. Blackheath, indeed, has always playeda considerable part in the history of southern England, partly becauseit was the last great open space on the southern confines of London, and partly because of the royal residence at Greenwich. Fifteen yearsafter it had seen a guest so strange as the Emperor of the East, itsaw Henry V. Return from Agincourt, and the Mayor of London with thealdermen and four hundred citizens, "all in scarlet with hoods of redand white, " greet the hero king. 

 ... London doth pour out her citizens The mayor and all his brethren in best sort Like to the senators of the antique Rome With the plebeians swarming at their heels, Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in!

Across the Heath we go, taking the road on the right at the triangle, before long to find ourselves perhaps for the first time on the veryroad the pilgrims followed--the great Roman highway of the WatlingStreet. 

I call the Watling Street a great Roman highway, for that, as we knowit, is what it is, but in its origin it is far older than the Romanoccupation. It ran right across England from the continental gate atDover, through Canterbury to Chester, fording the Thames at Lambeth, and it was the first of the British trackways which the Romansstraightened, built up, and paved. It has been in continuous use formore than three thousand years, and may therefore be said to be theoldest road in England. It is older than the greatness of London, forin its arrow flight across England it ignores the City. After the fordat Lambeth, to-day represented by Lambeth Bridge, an older crossing ofthe Thames than that at London Bridge, it mounted the northern slope, passing perhaps across the present gardens of Buckingham Palace andthe eastern end of Hyde Park, where to-day it is lost or merelyrepresented by Grosvenor Place and Park Lane, to cross the greatwestern road out of London at Tyburn, the original "Cross Roads, " theancient place of execution close by the present Marble Arch, and topursue its way, as we may see it still, directly and in true Romanfashion down what we know as Edgware Road. That great north-westernhighway lies over the very pavement of the Romans, which lies only afew feet below the surface of the modern road. 

It is then upon this most ancient highway that in the footsteps of theBritons, the Romans their beneficent conquerors, and the Englishpilgrims our forefathers, we shall march on to Canterbury. The road ofcourse is broken here and there, indeed in many places, and notablybetween Dartford and Rochester, but for the most part it remains afterthree thousand years the ordinary highway between the capital and thearchi-episcopal city. 

The Watling Street takes Shooters' Hill, so called, I suppose, fromthe highwaymen that infested the woods thereabouts, in true Romanfashion, and it is from its summit that we get the first really greatview on our way, for that so famous from Greenwich Park does notproperly belong to our journey. We must, however, turn to another anda later poet than Chaucer for any description of that tremendousspectacle. Here indeed, more than in any other prospect the roadaffords, the horizon is changed from that Chaucer looked upon. 

[Illustration: SHOOTERS' HILL]

For we turn to gaze on London, the Protestant, not the Catholic, city: A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amid the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge dun cupola like a foolscap crown On a fool's head--and there is London town!

 Don Juan had got out on Shooters' Hill Sunset the time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity; While everything around was calm and still Except the creak of wheels which on their pivot he Heard--and that bee-like, babbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over with their scum. 

The prospect eastward across the broad valley of the Darent, if lesswonderful, is assuredly far lovelier than that north-westward overLondon; but from the top of Shooters' Hill we probably do not followthe actual route of the ancient way until we come to Welling. Thepresent road down the hill eastward is said to date from 1739 only. [Footnote: See H. Littlehales, "Some Notes on the Road from Canterburyin the Middle Ages" (Chaucer Society, 1898). ]

There is nothing to keep us in Welling, nor indeed in Bexley Heath, except to note that they are the first two Kentish villages upon ourroute, now little more than suburban places spoiled of any virtue theymay have possessed. It is said that at Clapton Villa in the latterplace there is preserved "an ancient and perfect sacramental wafer"--perhaps an unique treasure. 

The road runs straight on through a rather sophisticated countryside, almost into Crayford, but in preparing to cross the Cray the old roadhas apparently been lost. We may be sure, however, of not strayingmore than a few yards out of the way, if we keep as straight on asmaybe, that is to say, if we take the road to the right at the fork, which later passes Crayford church on the south. 

Crayford, though it be anything but picturesque, is nevertheless notwithout interest. It is the Creccanford of the "Saxon Chronicle, "and was the scene of the half-legendary final battle between theBritons here and Hengist, who utterly discomfited them, so that weread they forsook all this valley, even, so we are asked to believe, those strange caves which they are said to have burrowed in the chalkfor their retreat, and which are so plentiful hereabouts, but whichassuredly are infinitely older than the advent of the Saxon pirates. 

The real interest of Crayford, however, as of more than one place inthis valley, lies in its church. This is dedicated in honour of thecompanion of St Augustine, St Paulinus, who became the third Bishop ofRochester. The form of the church is curious, the arcade of the navebeing in the midst of it, while the chancel, of about the same widthas the nave, is possessed of two arcades and divided into threeaisles; thus the arcade of the nave abuts upon the centre of thechancel arch. Parts of the church certainly date from Chaucer's day, but most of it is Perpendicular in style. 

More interesting than Crayford itself are North Cray and Foot's Crayin the upper valley beyond Bexley. At North Cray there is one of thebest pictures Sassoferrato ever painted, a Crucifixion, over the altar. At Foot's Cray, the church, besides being beautiful in its situation, possesses a great square Norman font. 

These places are, however, off the Pilgrims' Road, which climbs upthrough Crayford High Street, and then in about two miles begins todescend into the very ancient town of Dartford, where it is saidChaucer's pilgrims slept, their first night on the road. 

CHAPTER II

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD

FROM DARTFORD TO ROCHESTER

The entry into Dartford completes the first and, it must be confessed, the dullest portion of the Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury. Here atDartford the pilgrims slept, here to-day we say farewell to all thatsuburban district which now stretches for so many miles in everydirection round the capital, spoiling the country as such and makingof it a kind of unreality very hard to tolerate. The traveller mustthen realise that it is only at Dartford his pleasure will begin. 

Dartford, as one sees at first sight, is an old, a delightful, Englishtown, full of happiness and old-world memories. Its situation ischaracteristic, for it lies in the deep and narrow valley of theDarent between two abrupt hills, that to the west of chalk, that tothe east of sand, up both of which it climbs without too muchinsistence. Between these two hills runs a rapid stream from the Downsto the southward, that below the town opens out suddenly into a smallestuary or creek. Where the Watling Street forded the Darent theregrew up the town of Dartford, on the verge of the marshes within reachof the tide, but also within reach of an inexhaustible river of freshwater. The ford was presently replaced by a ferry, and later still, inthe latter years of Henry VI. , by a great bridge, as we see, but thetown had already taken its name from its origin, and to this day isknown as Dartford, the ford of the Darent. 

The situation of Dartford is thus very picturesque, and as we mightsuppose its main street is the old Roman highway that the pilgrimsused. This descends the West Hill steeply after passing the Priory, oras it is now called the Place House, the first religious house whichDartford could boast that the pilgrims would see. In Chaucer's daythis was a new foundation, Edward III. , in 1355, having establishedhere a convent of Augustinian nuns dedicated in honour of Our Lady andSt Margaret. The house became extremely popular with the greatKentish families, for it was not only very richly endowed, but alwaysgoverned by a prioress of noble birth, Princess Bridget, youngestdaughter of Edward IV. , at one time holding the office, as later didLady Jane Scrope and Lady Margaret Beaumont: all are buried within. Inthe miserable time of Henry VIII. , when it was suppressed, itsrevenues amounted to nearly four hundred pounds a year. The kingimmediately seized the house for his own pleasure, but later gave itto Anne of Cleves. On her death it came back to the Crown, but JamesI. Exchanged it with the Cecil family for their mansion of Theobalds. They in their turn parted with it to Sir Edward Darcy. Little remainsof the old house to-day, a gate-house of the time of Henry VII. , and awing of the convent, now a farm-house; but considerable parts of theextensive walls may be seen. 

It may well have been when the bell of that convent was ringing theAngelus that Chaucer and his pilgrims entered Dartford on that Aprilevening so long ago. As they came down the steep hill, before theyentered the town, they would pass an almshouse or hospital, midwayupon the hill, a leper-house in all likelihood, dedicated in honour ofSt Mary Magdalen. Something of this remains to us in the building wesee, which, however, is later than the Reformation. 

Nothing I think actually in the town can, as we see it, be said tohave been there when Chaucer went by except the very noble church. Heand his pilgrims looked and wondered, as we do still, upon the greattower said to have been built by Gundulph as a fortress to hold theford, which, altered though it has been more than once, is stillsomething at which one can only admire. The upper part, however, datesfrom the fifteenth century. Then there is the chancel restored in1863, the north part of which is supposed to have been built in thethirteenth century in honour of St Thomas himself, no doubt by thepilgrims who, passing by on their way to Canterbury, were wont tospend a night in Dartford town, and certainly to hear Mass in theplace of their sojourn e'er they set out in the earliest morning. Thescreen is of the fourteenth century, as are the arcades of the naveand the windows on the north, and these too Chaucer may have seen; butall the monuments, some of them interesting and charming, are muchlater, dating from Protestant days. Certain brasses, however, remainfrom the fifteenth century, notably that of Richard Martyn and hiswife (1402), that of Agnes Molyngton (1454), and that of Joan Rothele(1464). There is, too, a painting of St George and the Dragon at theend of the south chancel chapel, behind the organ. 

Within the town one or two houses remain, perhaps in theirfoundations, from the fifteenth century. The best of these is that onthe left just west of the church, at the corner of Bullis Lane. Thishouse, according to Dunken, the historian of Dartford, was thedwelling of one "John Grovehurst in the reign of King Edward IV. Thatgentleman in 1465 obtained permission of the Vicar and church-wardensof Dartford to erect a chimney on a part of the churchyard, and inacknowledgment thereof provided a lamp to burn perpetually during thecelebration of divine service in the parish church. The principalapartment in the upper floor (a room about twenty-five feet by twentyfeet) was originally hung round with tapestry, said to be worked bythe nuns of the priory, who were occasionally permitted to visit atthe mansion. The principal figures were in armour, and two of them aslarge as life, latterly called Hector and Andromache; in thebackground was the representation of a large army with inscribedbanners. "

[Illustration: DARTFORD CHURCH AND BRIDGE]

The churchyard upon which John Grovehurst was allowed to erect achimney was till about the middle of the nineteenth, century largerthan it now is, part of it at that time being taken "to make the roadmore commodious for passengers. " This road was of course thePilgrims' Road, the Watling Street. That this always passed to thesouth of the church is certain, but it may have turned a little inancient time to take the ford. It turns a little to-day to approachthe bridge, and thereafter climbs the East Hill. 

Dartford Bridge, which already in the Middle Ages had supplanted fordand ferry, happily remains to the extent of about a third of the widthof the two pointed arches which touch the banks. It was kept in orderand repair by the hermit who dwelt in a cell at the foot of the bridgeon the east, a cell older than the bridge, for the hermits used toserve the ford. Here stood the Shrine of Our Lady and St Catherine ofAlexandria, which was much favoured by the pilgrims, so we may wellsuppose that Chaucer and his friends did not pass it by without areverence. 

Here too at the eastern end of the town stood a hospital dedicated inhonour of the Holy Trinity, but this Chaucer knew not, any more thanwe may do, for it was only founded in 1452. It seems, however, to havebeen built really over the stream upon piers, perhaps in somethingthe same way as the thirteenth-century Franciscan house at Canterburywas built, which we may still see. 

Dunken tells us that "the steep ascent of the Dover road leadingtowards Brent was in ancient times called St Edmunde's Weye from itsleading to a Chapel dedicated to that saint situated near the middle ofthe upper churchyard. " This chapel, of which nothing remains, EdwardIII. Bestowed upon the Priory of Our Lady and St Margaret. On itssite, such is the irony of time, a "martyr's memorial" has beenerected to the unhappy and unfortunate folk burnt here in the time ofQueen Mary. 

But Dartford is too pleasant a place to be left with such a merelyarchaeological survey as this. It is a town in which one may be happy;historically, however, it has not much claim upon our notice, itschief boast being that it was here the first act of violence in thePeasants' Revolt of 1381 occurred, when Wat Tyler broke the head ofthe poll-tax collector who had brutally assaulted his daughter. Wat orWalter--Tyler, because of his trade, which was that of covering roofswith tiles--would seem, however, not to have been a Dartford man atall. The very proper murder of the tax-collector would appear to havebeen the work of a certain John "Tyler" of the same profession, herein Dartford. 

The Peasants' Revolt, which, alas! came to nothing, brings us indeedquite into Chaucer's day, but it would have had little sympathy fromhim, nor indeed has it really anything specially to do with this town. The true fame of Dartford, which is its paper-making, dates from theend of the sixteenth century, when one Sir John Speelman, jeweller toQueen Elizabeth, is said to have established the first paper-mill. 

If Dartford is poor in history, nevertheless it is worth a visit ofmore than an hour or so for its own sake, as I have said. It boasts ofa good inn also, and the country and villages round about aredelicious. All that upper valley of the Darent, for instance, in whichlie Darenth, Sutton-at-Hone, Horton Kirby, and, a little way offFawkham, Eynsford, and Lullingstone, is worth the trouble of seeingfor its own beauty and delight. 

There is Darenth for instance, Darne, as the people used to call it, only two miles from the Pilgrims' Road, it is as old as England, anddoubtless saw the Romans at work straightening, paving, and buildingthat great Way which has remained to us through so many ages, andwhich the Middle Age hallowed into a Via Sacra. What can be moreworthy and right than that a modern pilgrim should visit this littleRoman village to see the foundations of the Roman buildings, tospeculate on what they may have been, and generally to contemplatethose origins out of which we are come?

And then there is the church too, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, the dear little lady who is so wonderfully and beautifully representedin Westminster Abbey for all to worship her, high up over the rascalpoliticians. All the village churches in England of my heart areentrancingly holy and human places, but it is not always that onefinds a church so rare as that of St Margaret in Darenth. For not onlyis it built of Roman rubble or brick, the work of the Saxons, theNormans, and of us their successors, but it boasts also an arch oftufa, has an Early English vaulted chancel of two stories, and aNorman font upon which are carved scenes from the life of St Dunstan, to say nothing of a thirteenth-century tower. 

Not far away at Horton Kirby, to be reached through South Darenth, arethe remains of Horton Castle and a very interesting, aislelesscruciform church of Our Lady with central tower, a great nave, arcadedtransepts, and much Early English loveliness, to say nothing of theDecorated tomb of one of the De Ros family, lords of Horton Castle, and fifteenth- and sixteenth-century brasses. Horton got its name ofKirby in this manner. At the time of the Domesday Survey the place washeld by Auschetel de Ros from Bishop Odo, but the heir of De Ros wasLora, Lady of Horton, who married into the north-country family ofKirby, who, however, had for long owned lands hereabouts. In the timeof Edward I. The Kirby of that day, Roger, rebuilt the castle, but itis not the ruins of his work we see, these being of a much laterbuilding. Nor will any one who visits Horton fail to see Fawks, thefamous old Elizabethan mansion of the London Alderman LancelotBathurst, who died in 1594. 

All this valley, as I have said, was used and cultivated by theRomans, whose work we find not only at Darenth but also here atHorton. At Fawkham, however, on the higher ground to the east I foundsomething more germane to the pilgrimage. For in the old church ofOur Lady there, over the western door, is a window in which we may seeone William de Fawkham clothed as a pilgrim with a book in his hand, and on one side a figure of Our Lord, on the other the Blessed Virgin. 

But the goal of my journey from the highway was reached at Eynsford. Here indeed I found my justification for leaving the road while onpilgrimage to Canterbury. For not only is Eynsford a beautiful placein itself, beautifully situated, but it was the quarrel which Williamde Eynesford had with St Thomas Becket, when the great archbishop wasin residence at Otford Castle, that led to the murder in CanterburyCathedral and the great pilgrimage which has brought even us at thislate day on our way. 

Becket's quarrel with the king and the civil power was, as we know, concerning the liberty of the Church, and more particularly here adispute as to the presentation to the church of St Martin in Eynsford, which still retains many features of that time. After the martyrdom, William de Eynesford, though he does not appear to have been directlyconcerned in the murder, was excommunicated, and Eynsford Castle wasleft without inhabitants, for no one would enter it. It fell intodecay, and was never after used or restored or rebuilt, only HenryVIII. Venturing to use it as a stable; but his work has been clearedaway, and what we see is a ruin of the time of St Thomas, and indeedin some sort his work. The ruin bears a strong resemblance to themighty castle of Rochester, and though it is of course very small incomparison with that capital fortress, it must have been a place ofsome strength when Henry II. Was king. 

St Martin's Church, whose spire rises so charmingly out of theorchards white with spring, has a fine western doorway and tower ofNorman work, and a chancel and south transept lighted by Early Englishlancets. That tower certainly heard the rumour of St Thomas's murder, and frightened men no doubt crowded into that western door to hearWilliam de Eynesford denounced from the altar. 

Now when I had seen all this and reminded myself thus of that greattale which is England, I set out on my way back to Dartford, passingby the footpath through the park to the south-east towardsLullingstone Castle, which, however, is not older in the main than theend of the eighteenth century. 

And then from Lullingstone through the shining afternoon I made my wayby the western bank of the Darent to Sutton-at-Hone, where there areremains of a Priory of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem; the placeis still called St John's. The church dedicated to St John Baptist isa not uninteresting Decorated building, the last resting place of thatSir Thomas Smyth of Sutton Place, who was not the least of Elizabethannavigators, director of the East India Company, interested in theMuscovy trade, and treasurer of the Virginia Company (1625). So I cameback to Dartford and on the next day set out once more for Canterbury. 

One leaves Dartford, on the Pilgrim's Road, with a certain regret, tofind oneself, at the top of the East Hill, face to face with a problemof the road. For there on the hill-top the road forks; to the leftruns the greater way of the two, into Gravesend; straight on lies alane which after a couple of miles suddenly turns southward toBetsham, where the direct way is continued by a footpath acrossSwanscombe Park. Which of these ways was I to follow? That questionwas hard to answer, because the road through Gravesend is full ofinterest, while the direct way is almost barren all the way toRochester. There can be little doubt, too, that many of the pilgrimson the way to Canterbury did pass through Gravesend, to which towndoubtless many also travelled from London by water, while otherslanded there from Essex and East Anglia. But the lane which is thestraight way and its continuation in the footpath across SwanscombePark is undoubtedly the line of the Roman road and in all probabilitythe route of Chaucer. 

Face to face with these considerations, being English, I decided upona compromise. I determined to follow the Gravesend road so far asNorthfleet, chiefly for the sake of Stone, and there by a road runningsouth-east to come into the Roman highway again, two miles or so eastof Swanscombe Park, whence I should have a practically straight roadinto Rochester. 

I say I chose this route chiefly for the sake of seeing Stone. Thislittle place, some two miles and a half from Dartford, has one of theloveliest churches in all England, to say nothing of a castellatedmanor house known as Stone Castle. "It is a common jest, " saysReginald Scot, writing in the time of Elizabeth, "It is a common jestamong the watermen of the Thames to show the parish church of Stone totheir passengers, calling the same by the name of the 'Lanterne ofKent'; affirming, and that not untruly, that the said church is aslight (meaning in weight not in brightness) at midnight as atnoonday. " The church, indeed, dedicated in honour of Our Lady is avery beautiful and extraordinarily interesting building of the end ofthe thirteenth century, in the same style as the practicallycontemporary work in Westminster Abbey and, according to the architectand historian, G. E. Street, who restored it, possibly from the designof the same master-mason. Certainly nothing in the whole county ofKent is better worth a visit. It would seem to have been built with apart of the money offered at the shrine of St William in the Cathedralof Rochester upon the Pilgrim's Way; for Stone belonged to the Bishopsof Rochester, who had a manor house there. The nave, aisles, chancel, and tower are all in the Early English style and very noble work oftheir kind, built in the time of Bishop Lawrence de Martin ofRochester (1251-1274); while to the fourteenth century belongs thevestry to the north of the chancel and the western windows in nave andaisles and the piers of the tower as we now see them. Perhaps theoldest thing in the church is the doorway in the north aisle whichwould seem to be Norman, but Street tells us that this "is a curiousinstance of imitation of earlier work, rather than evidence of thedoorway itself being earlier than the rest of the church. "

Within, the church is delightful, increasing in richness of detaileastward towards the chancel where nothing indeed can surpass thebeauty of the arcade, so like the work at Westminster, borne bypillars of Purbeck, its spandrels filled with wonderfully lovely, delicate, and yet vigorous foliage. Here are two brasses, one of 1408to John Lambarde, the rector in Chaucer's day, the other of 1530 toSir John Dew. In the north aisle we may find certain ancient paintingsthe best preserved of which represents the Madonna and Child. 

The north aisle of the chancel is not at one with the church; it wasbuilt in the early sixteenth century by the Wilshyre family as theirChantry. Here lies Sir John Wilshyre, Governor of Calais in the timeof Henry VIII. The glass everywhere is unfortunately modern. 

One leaves Stone church with regret; it is so fair and yet sohopelessly dead that one is astonished and almost afraid. Less than amile along the road, to the north of it one passes Ingress Abbey, where once the nuns of Dartford Priory had a grange. The presenthouse, once the residence of Alderman Harmer, the radical andreformer of our criminal courts, was built of the stone of old LondonBridge. 

Here upon the high road one is really in the marshes by Thames side;but a little way off the highway to the south on higher ground standsSwanscombe and it is worth while to see it for it is a very famousplace. "After such time, " says Lambarde, quoting Thomas the monk andchronicler of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, "after such time asDuke William the Conqueror had overthrown King Harold in the field atBattell in Sussex and had received the Londoners to mercy he marchedwith his army towards the castle of Dover, thinking thereby to havebrought in subjection this county of Kent also. But Stigande, thearchbishop, perceiving the danger assembled the countrymen togetherand laid before them the intolerable pride of the Normans that invadedthem and their own miserable condition if they should yield unto them. By which means they so enraged the common people that they ranforthwith to weapon and meeting at Swanscombe elected the archbishopand the abbot for their captains. This done each man got him a greenbough in his hand and beare it over his head in such sort as when theDuke approached, he was much amazed therewith, thinking at first thatit had been some miraculous wood that moved towards him. But they assoon as he came within hearing cast away their boughs from them, andat the sound of a trumpet bewraied their weapons, and withalldespatched towards him a messenger, which spake unto him in thismanner:--'The Commons of Kent, most noble Duke, are ready to offerthee either peace or war, at thy own choice and election; Peace withtheir faithfull obedience if thou wilt permit them to enjoy theirancient liberties; Warr, and that most deadly, if thou deny itthem. '"

They prevailed according to the legend and this as some say is thedifference between the Men of Kent and the Kentish Men, for the formerretained their old liberties and were never conquered, and these dweltin the valley of Holmsdale; but the rest were merely _victi_. As theold rhyme has it--

 The vale of Holmsdale Never conquered, never shall. 

It is pleasing with the memory of all this in one's heart--and upon itthere is a famous song--to come upon Swanscombe church, in which muchwould seem to be of Saxon times, as parts of the walls of both nave andchancel, and the lower part of the tower, where one may see signs ofRoman brick. The nave, however, at least within, is late Norman if notTransitional, and the windows in the chancel are Norman and EarlyEnglish. Here, too, is the tomb of Sir Anthony Weldon, the maliciousgossip [Footnote: He was the author of "The Secret History of the firstTwo Stuart Kings" and of "A Catt may look at a King, or a BriefeChronicle and Character of the Kings of England... "] of the time ofJames I. , who had acted as clerk of the kitchen to Elizabeth. His wifelies opposite him with others of his family. It is more interesting forus, however, to note that in Chaucer's day the church was chieflyfamous for its shrine of St Hildefrith, a soveran advocate against thevapours. 

I left Swanscombe in the early afternoon, and passing throughNorthfleet with its great church of St Botolph I followed the road withmany happy glimpses of the Thames, avoiding Gravesend and makingsouthward for the Watling Street, which I found at last, and an oldInn at the cross roads upon it. Thence I marched upon what I took tobe the veritable way and was presently assured of this at Singlewell, which it is said was originally Schingled well, that is a well roofedwith shingles of wood. This well stood within the parish of Ifield, but so famous was it, for it was known to every pilgrim, that itpresently quite put out the name of the parish, which in 1362 isdescribed as Ifield-juxta-Schyngtedwell, and to this day the place ismarked on the maps as Singlewell or Ifield. A chapel was soon builtbeside the well and here doubtless the pilgrims prayed and madeofferings. Singlewell, however, must not be confused with St Thomas'swell a mile further on the road, which is still used and still knownas St Thomas's well. 

All this proved to me that I was indeed upon the old road, and so Iwent on across Cobham Park without a thought of the great house, intent now on the noble city of Rochester, which presently as I cameover the last hill I saw standing in all its greatness over the broadriver of Medway, its mighty castle four square upon the further bank. Then was I confirmed in my heart in the words of Chaucer--

 Lo Rouchestre stant here fast by. 

CHAPTER III

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD

ROCHESTER

One comes down the hill into Rochester, through Strood, on this sidethe Medway, to find little remaining of interest in a place that hasnow become scarcely more than a suburb of the episcopal city. Somememory, however, lingers still in Strood of St Thomas, for certainfolks there hated him and to spite him one day as he rode through thevillage they cut the tail from his horse. Mark now the end of thismisdeed. In Strood thereafter everyone of their descendants was born, it is said, with a tail, even as the brutes which perish. 

The church of Strood, restored in 1812, is without interest, but closeto the churchyard is the site of a Hospital, founded, in the time ofRichard I. , who endowed it, by Bishop Glanville of Rochester. Thisplace must have been known to Chaucer and his pilgrims. It wasdedicated in honour of Our Lady and cared for "the poor, weak, infirmand impotent as well as neighbouring inhabitants or travellers fromdistant places, until they die or depart healed. " Those who served itfollowed the Benedictine Rule. A singular example of the hatred ofthese for the monks of Rochester appears in the story of the fightbetween the monks and the Hospital staff with whom sided the men ofStrood and Frinsbury, a village hard by, which took place in theorchard of the Hospital. The Bishop, however, soon brought all toreason, and as a punishment the men of Strood were obliged to go inprocession to Rochester upon each Whit-Monday, carrying the clubs withwhich they had assaulted the monks. 

[Illustration: THE GATEWAY OF THE MONASTERY CLOSE, ROCHESTER]

That Strood stood on the ancient way its name assures us, since it isbut another form of Street or Strada, as they say in Italy. FromStrood we cross the great iron bridge, the successor of that at theStrood end of which Bishop Glanville built a small chapel. The storyof the bridge is interesting. We do not know that there was a bridgeat all in Roman times, but certainly a wooden bridge was supplementedin the time of Richard II. By a new one of stone, consisting oftwenty-one arches of different spans. This bridge stood higher up theriver than that of to-day, nearer indeed to the Castle, and as at itswestern end there was a chapel, so at its eastern under the Castle, John de Cobham founded, in Chaucer's time, in 1399, a Chantry for allChristian souls, of which some ruins remain. This bridge, patched, altered, and constantly repaired, lasted till the existing bridge wasbuilt in our own time on the site of the old one of wood. 

From the bridge we enter the High Street, almost certainly lying overthe old Roman road. Here are the old Inns, the Crown, the Bull, andthe King's Head. It is even probable that Chaucer may have stayed atthe Crown, the oldest of the three, not of course in the presenthouse, but in that which stood on the same site till 1863, and whichwas said to date from the fourteenth century. [Footnote: The old housewas famous at least as the scene of Shakespeare's "Henry IV. , " pt. I. Act ii. Sc. I. , as the resting-place of Queen Elizabeth in 1573, and asthe inn honoured by Mr Pickwick. It should never have been destroyed. ]

In Rochester, serene and yet active, the very ancient seat of abishopric, we have something essentially Roman, the fortress on theWatling Street guarding the passage of the Medway, precisely asPiacenza was and is a Roman fortress upon the Emilian Way guarding thepassage of the Po. The Romans called the place Durobrivae, and thoughwe know little of it during the Roman occupation of Britain, we may besure it was a place of very considerable importance, as indeed it hasremained ever since, twice in fact in our history the possession ofRochester has decided a whole campaign. 

Rochester, indeed, could not have escaped the military eye of theRomans. It must be remembered that the natural entry into England isby the Straits of Dover, and that for a man entering by that gatethere is only one way up into England and that the line of the WatlingStreet, for he must cross the Thames, even though he be going only toLondon. The lowest ford upon the Thames is that at Lambeth, which theWatling Street used. Now there is but one really formidable obstaclein the whole length of the Watling Street south of the Thames. Thatobstacle is the estuary of the Medway, which Rochester guarded andpossessed. Rochester then was first and foremost a great fortress, just as Piacenza was and is. 

What was its fate in the Dark Age that followed the failure of theRoman administration we do not know; but with the advent of StAugustine Rochester at once received a Bishop. It was, indeed, thefirst post in St Augustine's advance from Canterbury, King Ethelberthimself building there a church in 597 in honour of St Andrew. It thusbecame a spiritual as well as a material fortress. Of its fate afterthe Battle of Hastings we know little, but it submitted withoutresistance and came into the hands of that Odo of Bayeaux who gave somuch trouble to William Rufus. 

It is now that we see Rochester suddenly appear in its true greatness. Odo, expelled by William, had on the Conqueror's death returned andsuccessfully obtained of Rufus his estates, among them the Castle ofRochester, which he had built. In 1088, however, he was once more inrebellion against the Crown on behalf of the Conqueror's eldestbrother, Robert of Normandy. Rufus struck him first at Pevensey, whichwas the Norman gate of England. He took it but unwisely released Odo, on his oath to give up Rochester Castle and leave the country. Rochester was then in the hands of Eustace of Boulogne, sworn friendof Duke Robert, and when Odo appeared with the King's Guard before theCastle, demanding its surrender, he, understanding everything, captured his own lord and the king's guard also and brought them in. Rufus then turned to his English subjects and demanded theirassistance, for his Barons were then, as they have invariably beenthroughout English history, against the Crown, which truly representedand defended the people. They flocked to the Royal Standard, and aftersix weeks' siege, plague and famine ravaging the garrison, Odosurrendered and was imprisoned at Tonbridge, and later expelled thekingdom. As this great rascal Bishop came out of Rochester Castle, the English youths sang out "Rope and Cord! Rope and Cord for thetraitor Bishop. " But Odo was too near to the king. 

That was the first time we know of in which Rochester stood like thegage of England; the second was in the Barons' wars. When King John, in 1215, had taken Rochester and notably discomfited the rascalBarony, they immediately invited Louis of France to assist them. Heset sail with some seven hundred vessels, landed at Sandwich, andretook Rochester, which had been so badly damaged that it could notdefend itself. Forty-eight years later, in 1264, Henry III. Beingking, Simon de Montfort coming into Kent, burnt the wooden bridgeover the Medway which was too strongly held by the loyal inhabitantsof Rochester for him to capture, took the city by storm, sacked theCathedral and the Priory, and laid siege to the Castle. He failed, andLewes could not give him what Rochester had denied. 

Rochester Castle, which hitherto only famine had been able to open, was to fall at last to Wat Tyler and his Peasants in 1381, with thehelp of the people of the city. After that culminating misery of thefourteenth century, which was so full of miseries, Rochester playslittle part in history for many years. She appears again to take partin innumerable pageants, such as that in which Henry VIII. In 1540, and on New Year's day, first saw Anne of Cleves and was astonished ather little beauty, or that which greeted Elizabeth in 1573, or thatwhich greeted Charles I. And his bride after their wedding atCanterbury, or that which shouted for the Merry Monarch, when CharlesII. Rode down the High Street in 1660, after his landing at Dover. Itwas his brother, unfortunate and unhappy, who came in without anyherald and stole away in the night of December 19, 1688, havingforegone a throne and lost a kingdom. 

All these, sieges or pageants, however, what are they but a tale thatis told. There remains, in some sort at least, the Cathedral. This isthe oldest thing in Rochester and the most lasting. It was founded inthe end of the sixth century as we have seen, and its first Bishopwas that St Justus who had come with St Augustine from the monasteryof St Andrew on the Coelian Hill in Rome, the monastery we now knowby the name of the man who sent them, St Gregory the Great. StAugustine and St Justus were not, however, at first received withenthusiasm in Rochester. Indeed, it is said that fish tails were hungto their habits as they went through the city and that in consequencethe people of the diocese of Rochester were ever after born withtails, and were thus known as caudati or caudiferi, while upon theContinent this beastly appellation was even till our fathers' timeapplied to all English people. 

What the Cathedral suffered in the centuries between its foundationand the Norman Conquest, we shall never rightly know. That it wasravaged, burnt and sacked by the Danes is certain and it seems even atthe time of the Norman Conquest to have scarcely recovered itself. Indeed, Pepys, who was in Rochester in 1661, tells us that he foundthe western doors of the church still "covered with the skins ofDanes. " Nor did it fare much better when Odo of Bayeaux was lord. Butwhen Gundulph, the associate of the good and great Lanfranc, becamebishop in 1077, the Cathedral was almost entirely re-established andthe Priory which served it rebuilt. Gundulph, however, would havenothing to do with the seculars who had hitherto served the greatchurch. He established Benedictine monks in their place and Ernulph, Prior of Canterbury, where Lanfranc had done the same, succeeded him. 

Of the Saxon church which St Justus built, he and his successors, nothing remains but the foundations discovered in 1888. This church, which was very small, about forty-two feet long by twenty-eight feetin breadth, was furnished with an apse, but had neither aisles nortransepts. 

Of the first Norman church which Bishop Gundulph built, very littleremains, perhaps a part of the crypt, the nave, and the great fortresstower he built on the north side of the church. This church was a verycurious piece of Norman building. It was a long aisled church, thatwas unbroken from end to end, but the choir-proper was shut off fromits aisles by walls of stone as at St Albans. There were no transeptsor central tower, but two porches, one on the north and the other onthe south, and in the angle formed by them with the choir, Gundulphbuilt towers, one a belfry, the other a fortress detached from thechurch. To the south of the nave stood the first monastery and it isthere that we may still see fragments, five arches in all, ofGundulph's nave. 

It was Ernulph who built the second monastery to replace the probablywooden buildings of the first, to the south of the choir of whichparts remain to us. This done, he turned to the Cathedral and beganentirely to rebuild it, recase it with Caen stone or to remodel whathe left. It is therefore twelfth century Norman work we see atRochester. All this work, however, some of it not twenty-five yearsold, was damaged in 1179 by fire, and once more the monks began torebuild their church. They seem to have begun on the north aisle ofthe choir, and then to have set to work on the south aisle. Thencethey proceeded to rebuild the eastern end of the church, erecting atransept beyond the old choir, finishing their new sanctuary in 1227. 

The work did not stop there, however; by 1245 the north-west transeptwas finished, and by 1280 the south-west and the two eastern bays ofthe nave. It is astonishing to find the monastery able to support suchimmense and extravagant operations, but we know that in 1201 the monkshad successfully established a new shrine in their church, the shrineof St William. This popular sanctuary was the tomb of a Scotch pilgrimfrom Perth who had been a baker. "In charity he was so abundant thathe gave to the poor the tenth loaf of his workmanship; in zeal sofervent that in vow he promised and in deed attempted, to visit theplaces where Christ was conversant on earth; in which journey he madeRochester his way, where, after he had rested two or three days, hedeparted towards Canterbury. But ere he had gone far from the city, his servant--a foundling who had been brought up by him out ofcharity--led him of purpose out of the highway and spoiled him both ofhis money and his life. The servant escaped, but his master, becausehe died in so holy a purpose of mind, was by the monks conveyed to StAndrews and laid in the choir. And soon he wrought miraclesplentifully. "

The enormous fame of St William and the popularity of his shrine, notonly with those who were on the way to Canterbury, but with such aswere merely travellers to the coast, lasted for nearly a hundredyears, enriching the monks of Rochester. By the end of the thirteenthcentury, however, this shrine of St William had been utterly eclipsedby the fame of the shrine of St Thomas. For this reason, then, themonks of Rochester were happily never able to rebuild their nave, which remains a Norman work of the twelfth century. 

In the fourteenth century the central tower was at last completed, butit ceased to exist in 1749. Indeed, the resources of Rochester seem tohave been small after the third quarter of the thirteenth century. They had no Lady Chapel and when one was provided it was contrivedout of the south-west transept. Later the north aisle of the choir, always dark on account of Gundulph's tower, was heightened and vaultedand lighted with windows. Later still, similar Perpendicular windowswere placed in the old nave, the Norman clerestory was destroyed and anew one built, together with a new wooden roof and the great westernwindow was inserted. In 1830 Cottingham, and in 1871 Scott, workedtheir wills upon the place under the plea of restoration. Little hasescaped their attention, neither the beautiful Decorated tomb ofBishop Walter de Merton (1278) nor that of Bishop John de Sheppey(1360). The best thing left to us in the Cathedral and that whichgives it its character is the great western doorway with its sombreNorman carving of the earlier part of the twelfth century. The nave isalso beautiful and the crypt is undoubtedly one of the mostinteresting monuments left in England. Of the Priory practicallynothing remains but a few fragments. 

[Illustration: ROCHESTER]

Doubtless Chaucer and his company did not leave the great churchunvisited nor fail to look curiously, nor perhaps to pray, at theshrine of St William, for they, too, were travellers and pilgrims. Butthe spectacle in the little city which it might seem most filled theirimagination, as it does ours, was not the Cathedral at all, but thegreat Keep which stands above it, frowning across the busy Medway. Nothing more imposing of its kind than this great Norman Castle remainsin England. Having a base of seventy feet square, and consisting ofwalls twelve feet thick and one hundred and twenty feet high, it stillseems what in fact it was, almost impregnable by any arms but those ofthe modern world. Its great weakness lay always in the matter ofprovision, but it was perfectly supplied with water, by means of a wellsixty feet under ground, in which stood always ten feet of water. Fromthis well a stone pipe or tunnel, two feet nine inches in diameter, ledup to the very roof, access to it being given on each of the fourfloors into which the keep was divided within. These apartments oneand all were divided from east to west by walls five feet thick, sothat on each floor there were two chambers forty-six feet long byabout twenty feet in breadth. That this enormous keep is the work ofGundulph and contemporary with the Tower of London, there seems to beno reason to doubt. Of the great part it played in English history Ihave already spoken. But even in ruin it impresses one as few thingsleft to us nowadays, when everything we make is so monstrous incomparison with the work of our fathers, are able to do. To standthere on the platform a hundred and twenty feet in the air and lookout over the Medway crowded with shipping, ringing, echoing withfactories on either shore, to see the great ships in the tideway andthe fog and smoke of Chatham and its dockyards down the stream, is toreceive an impression of the fragile, but tremendous, greatness of ourcivilisation such as few other places in South England would be ableto give us suddenly between two heart beats. 

Such a vision of feverish and yet noble energy and endeavour, whollymaterial if you will, and seemingly unaware of any world or life butthis, is altogether alien from Rochester itself, where an oldfashioned leisure, an air almost Georgian lingers yet. Indeed, oneexpects to meet Mr Pickwick in the High Street or at least CharlesDickens come in from Gadshill. 

The only mood that has quite passed from Rochester, and that is yetmore securely crystallised there in the Cathedral and the Castle thanany other, is that of the Middle Age. You will not find it in any ofthe churches now, nor in any inn that is left to us, nor in the housesoften both interesting and charming. All day long Rochester expectsthe coach and not the pilgrims; but at night, under a windy sky, ifyou wander up the hill and linger about the Cathedral in the shadow ofthe great Keep while the moon reels steeply up the heavens, you mayin early Spring at any rate return for a little to that age whichbuilt such things as these, so that they have outlasted everythingthat has followed them and put it under their feet. And yet theirheart was set upon no such victory, but in the heavens. It was thegreat and self-forgetting act of an obscure baker, but a saint ofGod, that built the mighty half abandoned church we see at Rochester, nor was he for sure altogether forgotten when all England went by tokneel and to pray beside Becket's shrine at Canterbury, raised therein a heavenly cause, which must prevail in the end, though neitherRochester nor Canterbury to-day might seem to bear out any suchcertainty. 

The modern pilgrim, knowing what he knows, will be fain to remember atRochester, on his way to St Thomas, one who died in the same cause, but as it might seem, disastrously without success. 

For the liberty of the Church St Thomas died, that neither the kingnor any civil power should control, or govern that which Christ hadfounded long ago upon the rock of Peter. In that same cause diedBlessed John Fisher, the last Catholic Bishop of Rochester, in the year1535. He was almost the first of Henry's victims, and he was beheaded, as was Blessed Thomas More, for refusing to recognise the royalsupremacy. It was treason to deny the king's right to the title ofSupreme Governor of the Church in England; and though it be stilltreason to deny it, a host to-day will gladly stand beside St ThomasBecket and Blessed John Fisher of Rochester. 

This quarrel need never have arisen had not Henry, perjured andadulterous, desired to make the Pope his accomplice in putting awayhis lawful wife in order that he might marry Anne Boleyn. Because thePope refused to aid him in this crime Henry destroyed the CatholicChurch in England, and he and his successors founded the so-calledChurch of England, with himself as first Supreme Governor. 

Among those who had most strenuously opposed the claim for divorce wasBlessed John Fisher of Rochester, and with equally unflinchingfirmness he opposed the doctrine of the royal supremacy. He assertedthat "The acceptance of such a principle would cause the clergy ofEngland to be hissed out of the society of God's Holy CatholicChurch. " He was right, his prophecy has come true, and he nearly won. His opposition so far prevailed that a saving clause was added to theoath of convocation, "so far as the law of God allows. " This Henryrefused. The King persecuted him, Anne Boleyn tried to poison him, allEngland was putrid with lies concerning him contrived by those mastersof lies, the Tudors; but the imperial ambassador asserted that theBishop of Rochester was "the paragon of Christian prelates both forlearning and holiness, " and the Pope made him Cardinal with the titleof San Vitalis. Henry, in November 1534, with the passing of the Actof Supremacy, attainted him of treason and declared the see ofRochester vacant. But Blessed John Fisher said, as St Thomas had said, "The King our Sovereign is not supreme head on earth of the Church inEngland. " For this he was condemned to die a traitor's death; that is, to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered at Tyburn in order thatHenry might enjoy his Kentish mistress in peace, and found a newChurch eager to acknowledge his adultery as lawful and to enjoy thespoil of God. 

That death, once shameful but soon to be rendered glorious by theCarthusians, was denied to Fisher. His sentence was commuted to thatof death by beheading upon Tower Hill, where he suffered upon June22, 1535. His head was exposed on London Bridge; his body, interredwithout ceremony, now lies in the Tower, where a little later that ofBlessed Thomas More was laid beside it--two countrymen of St ThomasBecket martyred in the same cause. 

They might seem to have died in vain; their cause, as old asChristendom, might seem to have been long since defeated. Not so: thisbattle truly is decided, but in their favour, and my little son maylive to see the glory of their victory. For he shall know and believein his heart that his love and hope are set upon a country and a cityfounded in the heavens of which David sang, to which St John lookedforth from Patmos, and of which these our Saints have told us. 

CHAPTER IV

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD

ROCHESTER TO FAVERSHAM

The old road leaves Rochester to pass through Chatham, and is by nomeans delightful until it has left what Camden called "the bestappointed arsenal the world ever saw. " Chatham, indeed, is little elsebut a huge dockyard and a long and dirty street, once the Pilgrim'sWay. There is, however, very little to detain us; only the Chapel ofSt Bartholomew to the south of the High Street is worth a visit forBishop Gundulph's sake, for he founded it. Even here, however, onlythe eastern end is ancient. The parish church of Our Lady was for themost part rebuilt in 1788, but it still keeps a good Norman door tothe south of the nave. It was here that Our Lady had in Chaucer's daya very famous shrine concerning which the following rather gruesomelegend is told. The body of a man, no doubt a criminal or suicide, having been cast upon the beach in this parish, was buried here inthe churchyard. Our Lady of Chatham, however, was offended thereby, and by night went Herself to the house of the clerk and awakened him. And when he would all trembling know wherefor She was come. Sheanswered that near to Her shrine an unshriven and sinful person hadbeen laid, which thing offended Her, for he did naught but grin inghastly fashion. Therefore unless he were removed She Herself mustwithdraw from that place. The Clerk arose hurriedly we may be sure, and, going with Our Lady along towards the church, it happened thatShe grew weary and rested in a bush or tree by the wayside, and everafter this bush was green all the winter through. But the Clerk, goingon, dug up the body and flung it back into the water from which ithad so lately been drawn. 

Now, as to this story, all I have to say of it is that I do notbelieve a word of it. Not because I am blinded by any sentimentalismof to-day, which, as in a child's story, brings all right for everyonein the end; but for this very cogent reason that of all created beingsOur Lady is the most merciful, loving and tender--RefugiumPeccatorum. 

Also I know a better story. For it is said that one day Our Lord waswalking with Sampietro in Paradise, as the Padrone may do with hisFattore, when after a while He said, not as complaining exactly butas stating a fact, "Sampietro, this place is going down!"

Here Sampietro, who is always impetuous and knew very well what Hemeant, dared to interrupt, "Il Santissimo can't blame me, " said hehuffily. "Il Santissimo does not suppose they all come in by the gate?_Che Che!_"

"Not come in by the gate, Sampietro. What do you mean?" said Our Lord. "If Il Santissimo will but step this way, round by these bushes, " saidSampietro, "He shall see. " And there sure enough He saw; for there wasOur Lady drawing us all up helter-skelter, pell-mell, willy-nilly intoHeaven in a great bucket, to our great gain and undeserved good. Oclemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria. 

The road between Chatham and Sittingbourne might seem to beunquestionably that by which the pilgrims rode, and as certainly theRoman highway. It is, however, rather barren of mediaeval interest, little being left to us older than the change of religion. At Rainhamwe have a church, however, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, partsof which date from the thirteenth century, though in the main it is aPerpendicular building. Within are two ornaments of the lateseventeenth century, and two brasses, one to William Bloor, who diedin 1529, and the other to John Norden, who died in 1580, and to hisfour wives. As for William Bloor, there is a local story of somerelation of his, Christopher Bloor by name, and of a nightly journeyon a coach driven by a headless coachman beside whom sits a headlessfootman, and all drawn by headless horses, Christopher himself sittingwithin, his head in his hands. So much I heard, but I could not findout what it portended or referred to. 

But it is not till we come into Newington that we find any sign ormemory of St Thomas or the Pilgrimage. This village, however, becamefamous as a station for the pilgrims, because on his last journey fromLondon to Canterbury, the great Archbishop here administered the riteof Confirmation. A cross was erected to commemorate this event, andthere the pilgrims knelt to pray. But Newington in St Thomas's day wasbetter known on account of a great scandal involving the name of theconvent there. This convent was held of the king, of his manor ofMiddleton. We read that divers of the nuns, "being warped with amalicious desire of revenge, took advantage of the night and strangledthe lady abbess, who was the object of their fury and passionateanimosities, in her bed; and after, to conceal so execrable anassassination, threw her body into a pit, which afterwards contractedthe traditional appellation of Nun-pit. " [Footnote: Philipotts, "Villare Cantianum, " quoted by Littlehales, _op. Cit. _ p. 27. ] Nowwhether this tale be true or an invention to explain the queer name"Nun-pit" we shall never know, but as it happens we do know that thenuns were removed to the Isle of Sheppey and that St Thomas persuadedKing Henry II. To establish at Newington a small house of sevensecular canons to whom was given the whole manor. But curiouslyenough, one of these canons was presently found murdered at the handsof four of his brethren. Exactly where this convent was situatedwould seem to be doubtful. What evidence there is points to NunfieldFarm at Chesley, about a mile to the south of the high road. 

Newington itself in its cherry-orchards is a pretty place enough to-day, with an interesting, if restored, church of Our Lady in part ofthe thirteenth, but mainly of the fourteenth century. It is a finebuilding with charming carved details and at least four brasses, one ofthe end of the fifteenth century (1488) to William Monde, two of thesixteenth century (1510 and 1581) and one of the year 1600. There isnothing, however, in the place to delay anyone for long, and themodern pilgrim will soon find himself once more on the great road. 

On coming out of Newington such an one will find himself in about amile at Key Street, where is the Fourwent Way, in other words thecross roads, where the highway from the Isle of Sheppey to Maidstonecrosses the Pilgrims Way. Here of old stood a chapel of StChristopher or another, at which the pilgrims prayed, and rememberingthis, I too, at the cross roads, though there was no chapel, prayed inthe words of the prayer which begins:

 St Christopher who bore Our Lord Across the flood--O precious Load.... 

So I prayed, "er I come to Sidingborne, " as Chaucer says. 

The author of "Sittingbourne in the Middle Ages" tells us that, "Mediaeval Sittingbourne consisted of three distinct portions. Thechief centre of population was near the church, but there was animportant little hamlet called Schamel at the western extremity of theparish on the London Road ... As any traveller from London approachedSittingbourne in the Middle Ages, the first thing to attract hisattention was a chapel and hermitage standing on the south side of theroad, about three parts of the way up that little hill which risesfrom Waterlanehead towards the east; this was Schamel Hermitage andthe Chapel of St Thomas Becket, to which were attached houses for theshelter of pilgrims and travellers. A small Inn called "TheVolunteers" now stands upon or close to the site of this ancientchapel and this hermitage. " The chapel and hermitage it seems werefirst built at Schamel in the time of King John, when they wereoccupied by a priest named Samuel. He said Mass daily in the chapeland gave such accommodation as he had to wayfarers, by whose alms helived. After his death the chapel fell into disrepair, but in the timeof Henry III. It was rebuilt on a larger scale. A hermit namedSilvester, of the "Order of St Austin, " was appointed to the housewhich had now attached to it four lodgings for pilgrims on the road toCanterbury. But on Silvester's death it was realised that the chapelinterfered so much with the parish church that before the end of thethirteenth century it was suppressed. It re-arose, and in Chaucer'sday would seem to have been in a flourishing condition; at any rate itcontinued till the spoliation. 

If indeed Chaucer and his pilgrims slept in Sittingbourne, as one maywell believe, it is probable that they slept either at this chapel atSchamel or at the Lion Inn in the town. This Inn was certainly inexistence in his time, and there in 1415 King Henry V. Was entertainedon his return from Agincourt by the Squire of Milton. There, too, inall likelihood, Cardinal Wolsey rested in the autumn of 1514, andthere Henry VIII. , who spoiled the face of England and changed herheart, "paied the wife of the Lyon in Sittingbourne by way of rewardeiiiis. Viiid. " for the accommodation given. This famous Inn stands inthe centre of the town, the road passing to the south of it. Unhappilythe church is less interesting, having been almost entirely rebuilt in1762; but close by it were some old houses which apparently onceformed part of another old Inn called the White Hart. Certainly muchof the town must have been devoted to the entertainment of travellers. 

From Sittingbourne I wandered out to Borden, lovely in itself and inits situation upon the rising ground under the North Downs. Itpossesses a very fine church with a low Norman tower and western doorof the same date. Within is a very nobly carved Norman arch under thebelfry. 

If Schamel was, as it were, the western part of Sittingbourne with itschapel and hermitage, Swanstree was the eastern part, and it, too, hadits chapel of St Cross and its hospital of St Leonard. There is, however, this difference, that, whereas the priest and people ofSittingbourne did all they could to suppress the chapel and hermitageof Schamel, they on the contrary did all they could to encourage thechapel and hospital of Swanstree. Why? Because pilgrims coming fromLondon or the north with full pockets towards Canterbury, would reachSchamel _before_ passing through Sittingbourne, but Swanstree only_after_ passing through the town!

Following the Pilgrim's Road out of Sittingbourne one soon comes toBapchild, where at the exit from the village on the north side of theroad of old stood an oratory, and a Leper's Hospital, of which nothingseems really to be known save that it was founded about the year 1200. According to Canon Scott-Robertson, it was dedicated in honour of StJames, which is a curious dedication for a Leper House, but commonenough in a Hospital for pilgrims. Oratory and Hospital have alikedisappeared, but close by the place where they stood there stillremains St Thomas's Well, now known as Spring Head or Spring. 

So I went on through Radfield, where of old was a wayside chapel, andGreen Street to the Inn at Ospringe, passing, half a mile away to thenorth, Stone Farm, and, nearer the road, the ruins of Stone Chapel, another of those little wayside oratories still so common in Italyand France but which nowadays in England we lack altogether. 

Ospringe itself is an interesting place. To begin with, the veryancient inn by the roadside, together with the equally old houseopposite were once, according to Hasted, the historian of Kent, aHospital founded by Henry II. , for the benefit especially of pilgrims. This hospital, he tells us, "was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin andwas under the management of a master, three brethren and two clerksexisted till the time of Edward IV. " Henry VIII. , having seized byforce all such property as this in England, gave this Hospital to StJohn's College in Cambridge, which still owns it to the loss of us poortravellers. No doubt what money comes to the college from this poorplace goes to the support and bolstering up of the Great Tudor Mythupon the general acceptance of which most of the vested interests inEngland largely depend. But let us poor men lift up our hearts. TheGreat Tudor Myth is passing, and every day it is becoming more evidentthat it can be supported very little longer. Let us determine, however, that we will not be taken in again, and under the pretence ofa reformation of religion fix upon our necks a new political despotismworse than the Whig and Protestant aristocracy that the sixteenthcentury brought into being, to the irreparable damage of the Crownand the unspeakable loss of us the commonalty. May St Thomas avert anevil only too likely to befall us. As for Ospringe, however, it wasafter all in some sort royal property, the Crown having anciently aCamera Regis there for the King's use when he was on his way toCanterbury or to France. 

At Ospringe I left the great road to visit Davington and to sleep atFaversham. The long spring day was already drawing in when I came intoDavington, as delightful and charming a little place as is to be foundanywhere along the great road. Upon a hill-top there perhaps theRomans had a temple or a villa, at any rate they called the placeDurolevum, and so it stands in the Antonine _Itinerary_. There isevidence, too, that the site was not abandoned when with the failureof their administration and the final departure of the Legions, therewent down the long roads, our youth and hope. Where the present churchstands, in part a Norman building, there was probably a Saxon Chapel. Then in 1153 came Fulke de Newenham and founded here and built aBenedictine nunnery in honour of St Mary Magdalen. That the house wasnever richly endowed nor large at all, we may know from that name ithad--the house of the poor nuns of Davington. We know, however, verylittle about them or it, but its poverty did not save it of course atthe dissolution. The Priory was then turned into a manor house, andthis in part remains so that we find there a part of the cloisters ofthe time of Edward I. , and other remains of Edward III. 's time. Thenin Elizabeth's day the house seems to have been practically rebuilt. As for the little church, it owes all it is to-day to its late ownerand historian, Mr Willement, and though it is not in itself of verygreat interest it serves as a memorial of his enthusiasm and love. 

Davington is less than a mile out of the town of Faversham, andtherefore it was not quite dark when I made my way into that famousplace. Faversham must always have been an important place from itsposition with regard to the great road. We have seen how the sourceof the greatness of Rochester lay in its position upon the WatlingStreet where that great highway crossed the Medway. Faversham has halfRochester's fortune, for it stands where the road touches an arm orcreek of the Swale, that important navigable waterway, an arm of thesea which separates Sheppey from the mainland. 

The Swale there served the road and made of Faversham a port, but theroad did not cross it and therefore the Swale, unlike the Medway, wasnever an obstacle or a defence. Thus Faversham never became a greatfortress like Rochester; it was a port, and as it happened a RoyalVilla, where so long ago as 930 Athelstan held his witan. Its fate, however, after the Conquest, was to be more glorious. In 1147 Stephenand his wife, Matilda, founded an abbey of Benedictine monks here atFaversham in honour of Our Lord, and known as St Saviours, upon landshe had obtained from William of Ypres, Stephen's favourite captain, in exchange for her manor of Littlechurch in this county. At the endof April 1152 she fell sick at Hedingham Castle in Essex, and dyingthere three days later, was buried in the abbey church at Faversham. In August of the following year her eldest son, Eustace, was laidbeside her, and in 1154 Stephen, the King, was also buried here. Theabbey was, as I have said, dedicated to Our Saviour, and this becauseit possessed a famous relic of the True Cross which had been the giftof Eustace of Boulogne; the abbey was thus founded "In worship of theCroys, " and one might have expected some such dedication as "HolyCross. " As founder, the King, for he and his Queen had been equallyconcerned in the foundation, claimed after the death of the abbotcertain toll such as the abbot's ring, drinking cup, horse and hound. The abbot was a very great noble, held his house "in chief" and sat inParliament. At the Suppression Henry VIII. Granted the place to SirThomas Cheynay. Now mark the almost inevitable end. The Cheynays wereliving on Church property obtained by theft; at the least they werereceivers of stolen goods. Do you think they could endure? Theypresently sold to a certain Thomas Arden, sometime Mayor ofFaversham. Upon Sunday, 15 February 1551, this man was foully murderedin the abbey house he called his own, by a certain Thomas Mosby, aLondon tailor, the lover of Alice Arden, Thomas Arden's wife. Thistragic affair so touched the imagination of the time that not onlydid Holinshed relate it in detail, but some unknown writer who, by nota few, has been taken for Shakespeare himself, used the story as theplot for a play. Arden of Faversham, according to the dramatist, was anoble character, modest, forgiving, and affectionate. His wife Aleciain her sleep by chance reveals to him her adulterous love for Mosby;but Arden forgives her on her promising never again to see herseducer. From that moment she plots with her lover to murder herhusband, and succeeds at last, after many failures, by killing him inthe abbey house by the hands of two hired assassins, while he isplaying a game of draughts with Mosby. All concerned in the affairwere brought to justice, but the abbey of Faversham was no longercoveted as a place of abode. 

Almost every stone has disappeared of the abbey church in which layStephen, his Queen, and their son. It stood on the northern side ofthe town, where indeed the Abbey Farm still remains. It is to theparish church of Our Lady of Charity that we must turn for any memoryof the conventual house where many a pilgrim must often have knelt tovenerate the relic of the Holy Cross. 

The great church which remains to us is said to have been used by themonks, and if not part of the abbey itself which would seem to havestood at some distance from it, more than one thing that remains in itwould seem to endorse such a theory. To begin with, the church isvery spacious, and cruciform in plan, though the tower is at the westend. This, however, is a very ugly affair, dating from 1797. In themain the great church, which has been tampered with at very varioustimes, if not rebuilt, must have been Early English in style. As wesee it we have a building divided into three aisles, in nave, chanceland transepts. The nave as it is at present may be neglected, but inthe north transept we have a curious hagioscope or other opening inthe shape of a cross and there used to be some remains of paintings;the Nativity, the Virgin and Child, the Gloria in Excelsis, theCrucifixion and the holy women at the Sepulchre of Our Lord. In thechancel were other remains of paintings. There still remain the verynoble stalls which seem to assure us of the monastic use of thechurch, and a fine altar tomb of the fifteenth century; this on thenorth side. On the south are very fine sedilia and piscina. Close byis a brass to William Thanbury, the vicar here, dating from 1448. Theinscription considering the use of the church to-day, is pathetic; forthere we read CREDO IN SANCT. ECCLES. CATH. , a pleasing misreading ofthe true text which every one, though for different reasons, willrejoice to read. 

We are told by local tradition or gossip that the tomb at the end ofthe south aisle is that of King Stephen. This, however, could only betrue if this were indeed the church of the monastery. The tomb isDecorated in style and has a canopy, but is without inscription. 

Our Lady of Charity was, however, chiefly famous for its chapel of StThomas of Canterbury on the north side of the chancel, and for itsaltars of SS. Crispin and Crispian and of St Erasmus. Many pilgrimsturned aside from the road to visit Faversham which was not a stationon the pilgrimage, for the sake of these shrines and altars andespecially to pray in the chapel of St Thomas. 

It is said, indeed, that "no one died who had anything to leavewithout giving something to St Erasmus light. " As for SS. Crispin andCrispian they were the patrons of the town and leapt into great fameafter the victory of Agincourt upon their feast day, October 25, whenthe King had invoked them upon the field. 

 This day is called the feast of Crispian; He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 

 And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by From this day to the ending of the world, But we on it shall be remembered. 

The two saints, Crispin and Crispian, are not less famous in Francethan in England. They were indeed Rome's missionaries in Gaul aboutthe middle of the third century. They seem to have settled atSoissons, where now a great church stands in their honour. There theypracticed the craft of cobblers and of all cobblers they are thepatrons. After some years the Emperor Maximian Hercules coming intoGaul, a complaint concerning them was brought to him. They were triedby that most inhuman judge Rictius Varno, the Governor, whom, however, they contrived to escape by fleeing to England and toFaversham, where, as some say they lived, but as others assert theywere shipwrecked. For us at any rate their names are secure fromoblivion, not so much by reason of the famous victory won upon theirday as because Shakespeare has gloriously recorded their names withthose familiar in our mouths as household words:

 Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter, Warwick, and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester.... 

CHAPTER V

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD

FAVERSHAM TO CANTERBURY

From Faversham at least to the environs of Canterbury, the Pilgrim'sRoad seems to be unmistakable, for the Watling Street runs all the waystraight as a ruled line. Yet so few are the remaining marks of thepilgrimage, so little is that great Roman and mediaeval Englandremembered by men or even by the fields or the road which runsbetween them with so changeless a purpose, that at first sight wemight think it all a myth. And yet everything that is fundamental orreally enduring and valuable in our lives we owe to that England whichwas surely one of the most glorious and strong, as well as one of thehappiest, countries in Europe. Yet must the disheartened voyager takecomfort, for in how many small and negligible things may we not seeeven to-day the very mark and standard of Rome, her sign manual afterall, under the rubbish of the modern world. And if you desire anexample, let me give you weathercocks. 

No man can walk for day after day along this tremendous road whichleads us straight as a javelin thrust back through all the lies andexcuses to the truth of our origins, without noticing, and especiallysince he must keep an eye on the wind and the weather, the astonishingnumber of weathercocks there be between London and Canterbury. Uponalmost every steeple, chanticleer towers shining in the sun and wildlycareering in the winds of spring. You think that nothing at all, themost ordinary sight in modern England? But for the seeing eye itreveals, how much! Everyone of these weathercocks crows there on thetip top of the steeple over each town or village because of an orderof the Pope. They were to be the sign of the jurisdiction of St Peter, and that by a Bull of the ninth century. How entrancing it is toremember such a thing as that in the midst of modern England. 

In spite of the weathercocks and their watchfulness, however, thememories of the great pilgrimage between Faversham and Harbledown aredishearteningly few. One might surely expect to find something atPreston for instance, where, coming out of Faversham, one rejoins theWatling Street, but there is nothing at all to remind one of the greatpast of the Way. It is true that Preston church, dedicated in honourof St Catherine, is both ancient and beautiful, and once belonged tothe monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury; but neither in itschannel, which must once, before the eastern window was inserted in1862, with its single lancets and sedilia, have been extraordinarilyfine, nor in the nave, is there any memory at all of St Thomas or thePilgrims. It is not indeed until we come to Boughton that we arereminded of them. 

The older part of the parish of Boughton is South Street, where, however, nothing now remains older than the sixteenth century at theearliest. Here, however, was anciently a wayside chapel to the southof the road where now Holy Lane turns out of it. About a mile, orrather less, to the south, and clean off the road, stands on the crestof a steep, though not a high hill, the lovely village of Boughtonunder Blee, which, curiously enough, if we consider what is omitted, is mentioned by Chaucer, When ended was the lyf of seint Cecyle, Er we had riden fully fyve myle, At Boghton under Blee us gan atake A man, that clothed was in clothes blake, And undernethe he hadde a whyt surplys.... It semed he had priked myles three. 

This man who, with his yeoman, overtakes the pilgrims, is the richcanon, the alchemist who could pave with gold "all the road toCanterbury town. " He is said to have already ridden three miles, butwhence he had come it is impossible to say. That the pilgrims who hadridden not quite five miles had come from Ospringe might seemcertain, and since they were overtaken by the Canon it is possiblethat he was coming from Faversham. It is, however, more important toexplain, if we can, what the pilgrims were doing more than a mile offthe true Way at Boughton under Blean. The church of SS. Peter andPaul is of some interest and of considerable beauty it is true, but sofar as we may know there was no shrine there of sufficient importanceto draw the pilgrims from the road, as at Faversham, nor one mightthink would they be easily diverted from the goal of their journeyalmost within reach. All sorts of routes have been given here, onegoing so far as to lead the pilgrims south and east quite off theWatling Street and across the old green road, the Pilgrims Way fromWinchester, to enter Canterbury at last by the South Gate. This isabsurd. No good explanation has yet been offered, but perhaps we maybe near the truth if we suggest that Chaucer and his pilgrims nevervisited Boughton under Blean and the church of SS. Peter and Paul atall. After all we have in Chaucer's text (Frag. G. Canon's YeomanPrologue) merely the name, and that in the old form, Boghton underBlee. All this wild woodland and forest country which lies on a greatpiece of high ground stretching north-east and south-west across theWay parallel with the valley of the Great Stour, between Faversham andCanterbury, hiding the one from the other, was known as the Blean. Itis equally certain that the village of Dunkirk was known as Boughtonuntil the middle of the eighteenth century, when a set of squatterstook possession of the ground, then extra parochial as of a "free-port" from which no one could dislodge them. The district includingthe greater part of the forest was afterwards erected into a separatevilla called the "villa of Dunkirk. " Now Boughton Hill rises abruptlybeyond the village of Dunkirk, and it may well be that this and notthe tiny hamlet nearly a mile to the south of the great Way, wasChaucer's Boghton under Blee, where the Canon and his yeoman overtookthe "joly companye, " and rode in with them to Canterbury. And it isthere at Mad Tom's corner that we first catch sight of the gloriouscity of St Thomas. 

"Mad Tom's corner!" That name, it is needless to say I hope, has noreference to the great archbishop or the pilgrimage. Mad Tom's corner, whence we get our first view of Canterbury, is intimately connectedwith the gate close by, called Courtenay's gate, and refers to theexploits of a mad Cornishman who came to Kent and especially toCanterbury about 1832, and presently proclaimed himself to be the NewMessiah and showed to his deluded disciples the sacred stigmata in hishands and feet. It was the custom of these unhappy people to meet inthe woods of the Blean, and it is said one may still see their namescut upon the trees. Mad Tom, who, besides proclaiming himself to bethe Messiah, claimed also to be the heir to the earldom of Devon, andcalled himself Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtenay, the Hon. SydneyPercy, Count Moses Rothschild and Squire Thompson, to say nothing ofKnight of Malta and King of Jerusalem, was a madman, with a method inhis madness and a certain reasonable truth behind his absurdities. Hismission was, he said, to restore the land to the people, to take itaway, that is to say, from the great rascal families of the sixteenthcentury, the Russells, Cavendishes and so forth, who had appeared likevermin to feed upon the dead body of the Church, to gorge themselvesupon her lands and to lord it in her Abbeys and Priories. In the mindsof these people Tom was not only mad but dangerous. Mad he certainlywas, for all his dreams. Nevertheless he stood for Canterbury in theyear of the Reform Bill and polled 275 votes, and in the followingyear he started a paper called the _Lion_ which ran to eighteennumbers. Five years later, however, he had become such a nuisancethat a warrant was safely issued against him "on the charge ofenticing away the labourers of a farmer. " Tom shot one of theconstables who served the warrant, and on the afternoon of the lastmorning of May in 1838, two companies of the 45th regiment weremarched out of Canterbury to take him. They found him here in BleanWood, surrounded by his followers. He, however, was a man of action, and he promptly shot the officer in command. The soldiers then beganto fire, and next minute were charging with fixed bayonets. Tom andeight of his followers were killed, and three more died a few dayslater. 

One may well ask what can have induced the stolid Kentish folk tofollow so wild a Celt as this. We shall probably find the answer inthe fact that Tom was exceedingly handsome in an Italian way, having"an extraordinary resemblance to the usual Italian type of theSaviour. " Also, without doubt, he voiced, though inanely, the innateresentment of the English peasant against the great sixteenth centuryrobber families and their sycophants. These great families, now ontheir last legs and about to be torn in pieces by a host, financialand disgusting, without creed or nationality, seven times worse thanthey, laughed at Tom. They do not laugh at those who, about to compasstheir destruction, led by another Celt, have digged a pit into whichthey trample headlong, and astonishing as it might seem, to the regretof that very peasantry which has hated them for so long. At least, andlet us remember this, if they were greedy and unscrupulous their viceswere ours, something we could understand. They were of our blood, wetook the same things for granted, had the same prejudices, and afterall the same sense of justice. They with us were a part of Europe andlooked to Rome as their ancestor and original. But those who are aboutto displace them! Alas, whence do they come who begat them, from whathave they issued out? I cannot answer; but I know that with all theirfaults, their sacrilege, robbery, and treason, Russell, Cavendish, Cecil and Talbot are English names, and they who bear them men of ourblood, European, too, and of our civilisation. But who are those thatnow begin to fill their places? Aliens, Orientals and worse nowreceived without surprise into the peerage of England and the greatoffices of justice. And the names which recall Elizabeth and whosesyllables are a part of our mother tongue, are obliterated by suchjargon as these. 

These are miserable thoughts to come to a man on the road toCanterbury, but they are inevitable to-day in England of my heart. Thenew times belong to them. Let us then return to the old time beforethem and here for the first time in sight of Canterbury let usremember St Thomas, the greatest of English Saints, the noblestEnglish name in the Roman calendar. 

All that wonder which greets you from Mad Tom's corner upon BoughtonHill is, rightly understood, the work of St Thomas, and we might sayindeed that the great Angel Steeple was the last of his miracles forit is the last of the Gothic in England, and it rose above his tomb, while that tomb was still a shrine and a monument in the hearts ofmen. For "the church dedicated to St Thomas erects itself, " as Erasmussays, "with such majesty towards Heaven that even from a distance itstrikes religious awe into the beholders. "

So I went on my way in the mid-afternoon down hill to what in my heartI knew to be Bob-up-and-down on the far side of which lies and climbsHarbledown and the hospital of St Nicholas. 

 Wite ye nat wher ther stant a litel town Which that y-cleped is Bop-up-and-down Under the Blee in Caunterbury weye?

This "littel town" it might seem, has disappeared, unless indeed it beHarbledown itself, which certainly bears geographically muchresemblance to that descriptive name, as Erasmus describes it in hisstrange book. "Know then, " says he, "that those who journey toLondon, not long after leaving Canterbury, find themselves in a roadat once very hollow and narrow and besides the banks on either sideare so steep and abrupt that you cannot escape; nor can you possiblymake your journey in any other direction. Upon the left hand of thisroad is a hospital of a few old men, one of whom runs out as soon asthey perceive any horseman approaching; he sprinkles his holy waterand presently offers the upper part of a shoe bound with an iron hoofon which is a piece of glass resembling a precious stone. Those thatkiss it give some small coin.... Gratian rode on my left hand, next tothe hospital, he was covered with water; however he endured that. Whenthe shoe was stretched out, he asked the man what he wanted. He saidthat it was the shoe of St Thomas. On that my friend was angered andturning to me he said, 'What, do these brutes imagine that we mustkiss every good man's shoe? Why, by the same rule, they would offerhis spittle to be kissed or other bodily excrements. ' I pitied the oldman, and by the gift of a small coin I comforted his trouble. "

It is easy to see that we are there in the modern world on the veryeve of the Reformation. The unmannerly Gratian was John Colet to bethe Dean of St Paul's, hardly defended from the charge of heresy byold Archbishop Wareham. And like so many of his kidney he seems tohave forgotten the scripture upon which, as he would have asserted, his whole philosophy and action was based, --the scripture I mean whichspeaks of One, "the lachet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoopdown and unloose. " We shall not have the opportunity of being soproud and impatient as Dean Colet of unhappy memory, for no shoe, alas, of St Thomas or any other saint will be offered for ourveneration in the Hospital of St Nicholas at Harbledown to-day. Yetnot for this should we pass it by, for of all places upon the road, itbest of all conserves the memory of those far away days when Chaucercame by, and half-way up the hill rested awhile and prayed, e'er fromthe summit he looked down upon Canterbury. 

The Hospital of the Forest or Wood of Blean, dedicated in honour of StNicholas, lies upon the southern and western side of the last hillbefore the western gate of the city. It was founded in 1084 byArchbishop Lanfranc, and no doubt for a time served as a hospital forLepers, but it was soon appropriated for the use of the sick andwayfarers generally, and though nothing save the chapel remains to usfrom Lanfranc's day, the whole place is so full of interest that noone should pass it by. 

The chapel became in time the parish church of this little place onthe hillside which grew up about the hospital which itself wasprobably placed here on account of the spring of water known as StThomas's or the Black Prince's well, south and west of the building. Most of the chapel is of Norman building, the western doorway forinstance, the pillars and round arches on the north of the nave datingfrom Lanfranc's time. But the south side is later, of the thirteenthcentury, and the font and choir are later still, being Perpendicularfifteenth century work. 

The hospital, however, as we see it, is a rebuilding of theseventeenth century, but it was fundamentally restored in thenineteenth. In the "Frater Hall, " however, are some interestingremains of the old house, among them a fine collection of mazers andtwo bowls of maple wood, in one of which lies perhaps the verycrystal which Erasmus saw, and which was set in the upper leather ofthe shoe of St Thomas. 

Below the hospital in the orchard is the old well known as StThomas's. Above it grows an elder, surely a relic of the days of thePilgrimage. For the elder was known as the wayfaring tree and wassacred to pilgrims and travellers. It is not strange then, that itshould cool with its shade the spring of St Thomas; it is only strangethat the vandal has spared it for us to bless. But why the elder wassacred to travellers I do not know. 

 Wayfaring Tree! What ancient claim Hast thou to that right pleasant name? Was it that some faint pilgrim came Unhopedly to thee In the brown desert's weary way 'Midst thirst and toils consuming sway, And there, as 'neath thy shade he lay, Blessed the Wayfaring Tree?

But doggerel never solved anything. In truth a very different story istold of the elder and on good authority too. For if we may not trustSir John Maundeville who tells us that, "Fast by the Pool of Siloe isthe elder tree on which Judas hanged himself ... When he sold andbetrayed our Lord, " Shakespeare says that, "Judas was hanged on anelder, " and Piers Plowman records:

 Judas he japed With Jewish siller And sithen on an elder tree Hanged himsel. 

It is from the quietness and neglected beauty of this well of StThomas that under the evening I turned back into the road and, climbing a little, looked down upon what was once the holiest city offair England. 

 Felix locus, felix ecclesia In qua Thomae vivit memoria: Felix terra quae dedit praesulem Felix ilia quae fovit exsulem. 

In that hour of twilight, when even the modern world is hushed and itis possible to believe in God, I looked with a long look towards thatglory which had greeted so often and for so many centuries the eagergaze of my ancestors, but I could not see for my eyes like theirs werefull of tears. 

 CHAPTER VI

 THE CITY OF ST THOMAS

When a man, alone or in a company, entered Canterbury at last by thelong road from London, in the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenthcentury, he came into a city as famous as Jerusalem, as lovely asanything even in England, and as certainly alive and in possession of asoul as he was himself. 

When a man comes into Canterbury to-day he comes into a dead city. 

I say Canterbury is dead, for when the soul has departed from the body, that is death. Canterbury has lost its soul. 

Go into the Cathedral, it is like a tomb, but a tomb that has beenrifled, a whited sepulchre so void and cold that even the last trumpwill make there no stir. It was once the altar, the shrine, and as itwere the mother of England, one of the tremendous places of Europe intowhich every year flocked thousands upon thousands upon thousands ofmen. The altar is thrown down, the shrine is gone and forgotten, in allthat vast church the martyred Saint who made it what it was is not somuch as remembered even in an inscription or a stone; and theenthusiasm and devotion of centuries have given place to a silence soicy that nothing can break it. The place is dead. 

I remember very well the first time I came to Canterbury. I was a boy, and full of enthusiasm for St Thomas, I would have knelt where hefell, I would have prayed, yes with all my fathers, there where he waslaid at last on high above the altar. But there was nothing. I wasshown, as is the custom, all that the four centuries of ice havepreserved of the work of my forefathers; the glorious tombs of Kingand Bishop, the storied glass of the thirteenth century, unique inEngland, the litter and the footsteps of thirteen hundred years. I wasled up past the choir into that lofty and once famous place where forcenturies the greatest and holiest shrine in England stood. All aboutwere still grouped the tombs of Princes; Edward, the Black Prince, thehero of Crecy, Henry IV. , the usurper, Cardinal Chatillon; but of theshrine itself, of the body it held up to love and honour and worshipthere was nothing, no word even, no sign at all to tell that ever sucha thing had been, only an emptiness and a space and a silence thatcould be felt. 

Later I was led down into that north-west transept, once known as theMartyrdom, where St Thomas laid down his life; and left alone there, Iremember I tried in all that dumbness and silence to recollect myself, to pray, at least to recall, something of that great sacrifice whichhad so moved Christendom that for centuries men flocked here toworship--where now no man kneels any more for ever. 

I remember very well how it came to me in that tingling and icy silencethat St Thomas died for the liberty of the Church, that here in Englandshe might not become the king's chattel or anyway at all the creatureof the civil power. I was too young to smile when I remembered that inthe very place where St Thomas laid down his life in that cause, theresits to-day in his usurped place one who eagerly acknowledges the kingas the "Supreme Governor of the Church within these realms. " Yet in myheart I heard again those tremendous words, "Were all the swords ofEngland hanging over my head you could not terrify me from my obedienceto God and my Lord the Pope. " They who slew him fled away, and theirtitle, shouted in the winter darkness that filled the church, was heardabove the thunder and has echoed down the ages since: Reaux! Reaux!King's men! King's men! Is it not they who now sit in Becket's place?

But to-day I am content with a judgment less bitter and less logical. Who may know what is in the heart of God? Perhaps after all, after thisage of ice, Canterbury will rise again and my little son even may hearthem singing in the streets, gay once more and alive with endlessprocessions that noble old song:

 Laureata novo Thoma, Sicut suo Petro Roma, Gaude Cantuaria!

[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRISTCHURCH GATE]

For though St Thomas be forgot in Canterbury, he is on high andvaliant, and one day maybe he will return from exile as before, toaccomplish wonderful things. 

And indeed dead as she is and silent, Canterbury is worthy ofresurrection if only because she is as it were a part of him and apart, too, of our origins, the well, though not the source from whichthe Faith was given us. For some thirteen hundred years when men havespoken of Canterbury, they have had in mind the metropolitan churchof England, the great cathedral which still stands so finely there inthe rather gloomy close behind Christ Church gate, rightly upon thefoundations of its predecessors, Roman, Saxon, and Norman buildings. Ever since there was a civilisation in England, there has been achurch in this place; it is our duty, then, as well as our pleasure toapproach it to-day with reverence. 

Canterbury began as we began in the swamps and the forests, a littlelake village in the marshes of the Stour, holding the lowest ford, notbeyond the influence of the sea nor out of reach of fresh water. Whengreat Rome broke into England lost in mist, here certainly sheestablished a city that was as it were the focus of all the ports ofthe Straits whence most easily a man might come into England from thecontinent. Canterbury grew because she was almost equally near to theports we know as Lympne, Dover, Richborough and Reculvers, so that aman setting out from the continent and doubtful in which port he wouldland, wholly at the mercy of wind and tide as he was, would nameCanterbury to his correspondent in England as a place of meeting. ThusCanterbury increased. There in the Roman times doubtless a churcharose which, doubtless, too, perished in the Diocletian persecution. That it re-arose we know, for Venerable Bede describes it as stillexisting when, nearly two hundred years after the departure of theRoman legions, St Augustine came into England, sent by St Gregory tomake us Christians. He came, as we know, first into Kent to findCanterbury the royal capital of King Ethelbert, and when, says Bede, "an episcopal see had been given to Augustine in the king's own cityhe _regained possession (re_cuperavit) with the king's help, _of achurch there which he was informed had been built in the city longbefore by Roman believers_. This he consecrated in the name of theHoly Saviour Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, and fixed there a homefor himself and all his successors. " [Footnote: Bede, _Hist. Eccl. _, I. Xxviii. ] This church, rudely repaired, added to and rebuilt, stooduntil Lanfranc's day, when it was pulled down and destroyed to makeway for the great Norman building out of which the church we have hasgrown. 

The little church which Lanfranc destroyed and which had seen so manyvicissitudes, was probably a work of the end of the fourth century, atany rate in its foundations. Eadmer indeed who tells us all we know ofit says that it was built on the plan of St Peter's in Rome. "Thiswas that very church, " he writes, "which had been built by Romans asBede witnesses in his history, and which was duly arranged in someparts in imitation of the church of the blessed Prince of the Apostles, Peter, in which his holy relics are exalted by the veneration of thewhole world. " We shall never know much more than Eadmer tells us, forif the foundations still exist they lie within the present church. Itis recorded, however, that in the time of St Elphege the church wasbadly damaged by the Danes, the archbishop himself being martyred atGreenwich. No doubt as often before, the church was patched up, only toperish by fire in 1067, the year after the Battle of Hastings. 

When Lanfranc then entered Canterbury, he found his Cathedral a mereruin, but with his usual energy, though already a man of sixty-five, heset to work to re-establish not only his Cathedral but also themonastery attached to it. He did this on a great scale, providingaccommodation for three times the number of monks that had served theCathedral in the decadent days of the Saxon monarchy, and when this wasdone he first "destroyed utterly" the Romano-Saxon church and then "setabout erecting a more noble one, and in the space of seven years, 1070-1077, he raised this from the foundations and brought it near toperfection. " That he worked in great haste and too quickly seemscertain. In fact it must be confessed that Lanfranc's church inCanterbury was a more or less exact copy of his church of St Stephen atCaen, but, built much more quickly, was too mean for its purpose. Itsoon became necessary to rebuild the choir and sanctuary; the nave, however, was allowed to stand until the end of the fourteenth century;but even then its design so hampered the builders of the present nave, for it had been decided to preserve one of Lanfranc's western towers, that to this day the nave of Canterbury is too short, consisting ofbut eight bays. 

Lanfranc's choir was of but two bays and an apse. This was tooobviously inadequate to be tolerated by the monks. In 1096 it waspulled down and a great apsidal choir of ten bays was built over alofty crypt, with a tower on either side the apse and an easterntransept having four apsidal chapels in the eastern walls, two in thenorth arm and two in the south. All this was done in the time of StAnselm and finished in 1115, when Conrad was Prior of Christ Church. 

It was this church with Lanfranc's short Norman nave, western façadeand towers, and Conrad's glorious great choir high up over the crypt, a choir broader than the nave and longer too, and with two transepts, the western of Lanfranc's time, the eastern of St Anselm's, that StThomas knew and that saw his martyrdom in 1170. 

Materials for the life of St Thomas are so plentiful that his modernbiographers are able to compose a life fuller perhaps in detail andfact than would be possible in the case of any other man of his time. But no account ever written of his martyrdom is at once so simple andso touching as that to be found in the Golden Legend. It was thisaccount which the man of the Middle Age knew by heart, and whichbrought him in his thousands on pilgrimage to Canterbury, andtherefore I give it here. 

"When the King of France had made accord between St Thomas and KingHenry, the Archbishop, " Voragine tells us, "came home to Canterbury, where he was received worshipfully, and sent for them that hadtrespassed against him, and by the authority of the Pope's Bull openlydenounced them accursed, unto the time they came to amendment. Andwhen they heard this they came to him and would have made him assoilthem by force; and sent word over to the King how he had done, whereofthe King was much wroth and said: If he had men in his land that lovedhim they would not suffer such a traitor in his land alive. 

"And forthwith four knights took their counsel together and thoughtthey would do to the King a pleasure and emprised to slay St Thomasand suddenly departed and took their shipping toward England. And whenthe King knew of their departing he was sorry and sent after them, but they were in the sea and departed ere the messenger came, wherefore the King was heavy and sorry. 

"These be the names of the four knights: Sir Reginald Fitzurse, SirHugh de Morville, Sir William de Tracy and Sir Richard le Breton. 

"On Christmas Day St Thomas made a sermon at Canterbury in his ownchurch and, weeping, prayed the people to pray for him, for he knewwell his time was nigh, and there executed the sentence on them thatwere against the right of Holy Church. And that same day as the Kingsat at meat all the bread that he handled waxed anon mouldy and hoarthat no man might eat of it, and the bread that they touched not wasfair and good for to eat. 

"And these four knights aforesaid came to Canterbury on the Tuesday inChristmas week, about evensong time and came to St Thomas and said thatthe King commanded him to make amends for the wrongs he had done andalso that he should assoil all them that he had accursed anon or elsethey should slay him. Then said Thomas: All that I ought to do byright, that will I with a good will do, but as to the sentence that isexecuted I may not undo, but that they will submit them to thecorrection of Holy Church, for it was done by our holy father the Popeand not by me. Then said Sir Reginald: But if thou assoil not the Kingand all other standing in the curse it shall cost thee thy life. And StThomas said: Thou knowest well enough that the King and I were accordedon Mary Magdalene day and that this curse should go forth on them thathad offended the Church. 

"Then one of the knights smote him as he kneeled before the altar, onthe head. And one Sir Edward Grim, that was his crossier, put forth hisarm with the cross to bear off the stroke, and the stroke smote thecross asunder and his arm almost off, wherefore he fled for fear and sodid all the monks that were that time at Compline. And then each smoteat him, that they smote off a great piece of the skull of his head, that his brain fell on the pavement. And so they slew and martyred him, and were so cruel that one of them brake the point of his sword againstthe pavement. And thus this holy and blessed archbishop St Thomassuffered death in his own church for the right of all Holy Church. Andwhen he was dead they stirred his brain, and after went in to hischamber and took away his goods and his horse out of his stable, andtook away his Bulls and writings and delivered them to Sir RobertBroke to bear into France to the King. And as they searched hischambers they found in a chest two shirts of hair made full of greatknots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and comingdown into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the groundwould not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but theysupposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And thenthey knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about, how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body andunclothed him and found bishop's clothing above and the habit of amonk under. And next his flesh he wore hard hair, full of knots, whichwas his shirt, and his breech was of the same, and the knots stickedfast within his skin, and all his body full of worms; he sufferedgreat pain. And he was thus martyred the year of Our Lord one thousandone hundred and seventy-one, and was fifty-three years old. And soonafter tidings came to the King how he was slain, wherefore the Kingtook great sorrow, and sent to Rome for his absolution.... "

Of the King's penance Voragine says nothing, but indeed it must havereverberated through Europe, though not perhaps with so enormous arumour as the humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV. Before Pope GregoryVII. At Canossa scarce a hundred years before had done. The first andthe most famous of Canterbury pilgrims came to St Dunstan's church uponthe Watling Street, outside the great West Gate of Canterbury, as wemay believe in July 1174. There he stripped him of his robes and, barefoot in a woollen shirt, entered the city and walked barefootthrough the streets to the door of the Cathedral. There he knelt, andbeing received into the great church, was led to the place of Martyrdomwhere he knelt again and kissed the stones where St Thomas had fallen. In the crypt where the body of the martyr was preserved, the King laidaside his cloak and received five strokes with a rod from every Bishopand Abbot there present, and three from every one of the eighty monks. In that place he remained through the whole night fasting and weepingto be absolved on the following day. 

[Illustration: WEST GATE, CANTERBURY]

The martyrdom of St Thomas, the penance of the King, these world-shaking and amazing events might in themselves, we may think, havebeen enough to transform the church in which they took place, if aswas thought at the time, heaven itself had not intervened anddestroyed Conrad's glorious choir by fire. This disaster fell uponthe city and the country like a final judgment, less than two monthsafter the penance of the King in 1174, and within four years of StThomas's murder. 

Something of the great masterpiece that then perished is left to usespecially without, and it is perhaps the most charming work remainingin the city, the tower of St Anselm, for instance, and much of thetransept beside it. 

For the rest the choir of Canterbury, as we know it, the choir beganin 1174 by William of Sens, is as French as its predecessor, but inall else very different. In order perhaps to provide a great space forthe shrine of the newly canonised St Thomas of Canterbury, to whosetomb already half Europe was flocking, the choir was built even longerthan its predecessor. The great space provided for the shrine in theTrinity Chapel behind the choir and high altar opened on the east intoa circular chapel known, perhaps on account of the relic it held, asBecket's Crown. Till 1220 when all was ready, the body of St Thomas layin an iron coffin in the crypt, and the great feast and day ofpilgrimage in his honour was the day of his martyrdom, December 29, soincredibly honourable as being within the octave of the Nativity of OurLord. But in 1220 it was decided to translate the body from the cryptto the new shrine in the Trinity Chapel in July, for the winterpilgrimage was irksome. From that year a new feast was established, thefeast of the Translation of St Thomas upon July 7th, and thus inEngland down to our own day, St Thomas has two feasts, that of hisMartyrdom on December 29, when still his relics are exposed in thegreat Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, and in the little church of StThomas, the Catholic sanctuary in Canterbury, and that of hisTranslation upon July 7th. 

Of that first summer pilgrimage to the new shrine of St Thomas we havevery full accounts. It was the most glorious and the most extraordinaryassemblage that had perhaps ever been seen in England. The Archbishophad given two years' notice of the event, and this had been circulatednot only in all England, but throughout Europe. "Orders had been issuedfor maintenance to be provided for the vast multitude not only in thecity of Canterbury itself, but on the various roads by which thepilgrims would approach. During the whole celebration along the wholeway from London to Canterbury, hay and provender were given to all whoasked, and at each gate of Canterbury in the four quarters of the cityand in the four licensed cellars, were placed tuns of wine to bedistributed gratis, and on the day of the festival, wine ran freelythrough the gutters of the streets. " In the presence of the youngHenry III. , too young himself to bear a part, the coffin in which laythe relics of St Thomas was borne on the shoulders of the PapalLegate, the Archbishop Stephen Langton, the Grand Justiciary Hubert deBurgh, and the Archbishop of Rheims, from the crypt up to the TrinityChapel in the presence of every Bishop and Abbot of England, of thegreat officials of the kingdom and of the special ambassadors of everystate in Europe. 

 Of bishops and abbots, prior and parsons, Of earls and of barons and of many knights thereto, Of sergeants and of squires and of his husbandmen enow, And of simple men eke of the land--so thick hither drew. 

So was St Thomas vindicated and God avenged. And St Thomas reigned aswas thought for ever on high, in the new sanctuary of his CathedralChurch. 

I say he reigned on high. The choir and sanctuary of Canterbury hadeven in St Anselm's time as we have seen, been high above the nave. William of Sens designed the new choir, as high as the old, but verynobly raised still higher, the great altar, and higher yet the Chapelof the Trinity in which stood the shrine. St Thomas had an especialdevotion to the Holy Trinity. It was in a former Trinity Chapel thathe had said his first Mass, and whether on this account or another, his devotion was such that it was he who first established that Feast, till then merely the octave of Whitsunday. His shrine then was wellplaced in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity. 

In examining the church to-day one can well understand the beauty ofWilliam of Sens' idea, and see, too, where, and perhaps understandwhy, it really fails or at least comes short of perfection. 

William of Sens trained in Latin traditions had, and rightly, littlerespect, we may think, for the work of the past. He would have had allnew. But by 1174, unlike Anselm in 1096, and still more unlikeLanfranc in 1070, he had in all probability a genuine English andnational prejudice to meet, an English dislike of destruction and anEnglish hatred of anything new. 

It has been said that the failure of William of Sens' design was dueto the meanness of the monks of Christ Church. But meanness is not anEnglish failing; on the contrary, our great fault is the veryopposite, extravagance. It was surely not meanness and at such a timeand in such a cause that forced the monastery to deny William of Sensthe free hand he desired; it was prejudice and a fear, almostbarbaric; of destruction. The monks forced their builder toaccommodate the new choir to what remained of the old work. Theyrefused to sacrifice St Anselm's tower on the south or the tower ofSt Andrew on the north, therefore the wide choir of Canterbury, already wider than the nave and growing wider still as it wenteastward, had to be strangled between them, and to open again as wellas it could into the Trinity Chapel and the Corona. All that was old, too, and that they loved they used; the old piers of the crypt were toremain and still to support the pillars of the choir, which were thus, no doubt to William's disgust, unequally placed so that here thearches are pointed but there round. In many ways William must haveconsidered his employers barbarians, and in the true sense of thatmuch abused term, he was right. No man brought up in the Greek andLatin traditions would have hesitated to destroy in order to buildanew. The English cannot do that; they patch and make do, and whatmust be new they cannot love until it is old; their buildings are notso much works of art as growths, and there is much to be said forthem. Only here at Canterbury their prejudice has been a misfortune. Not even the most convinced Englishman can look upon the twisted andconstricted choir of Canterbury and rejoice. 

William of Sens, however, hampered though he was, is responsible forthe work we see. It is true he died after some four years of work atCanterbury, falling one day from a scaffold, but William theEnglishman who followed him only completed what was really alreadyfinished. The design, the idea, and the genius of Canterbury choir are

French, spoiled by English prejudice, but undoubtedly French for allthat. 

As it appeared when that great Transitional choir was finished, Canterbury Cathedral remained till 1379. It is true that the northwall of the cloister and the lovely doorway in the north-east cornerwere built in the Early English time. It is equally true that thelower part of the Chapter House and the screens north and south of thechoir and a glorious window in St Anselm's Chapel are Decorated work, but the Cathedral itself knows nothing of the Early English or of theDecorated styles. It stood till 1379 with a low and short Norman naveand transept to the west, and a great Transitional choir and transeptto the east. In 1379 Lanfranc's nave and transept were destroyed. 

It may be thought that at last a great and noble nave would be builtnorth of the Frenchman's choir. Not at all. Again the English prejudiceagainst destruction--a lack of intellectual daring in us perhaps--prevented this. One of the western towers of Lanfranc was to remain, and therefore the new nave though loftier than the old, was no longer, and it remains a glory certainly without, but within a hopelessdisappointment saved from utter ineffectiveness only by the nobleheight of the great choir above it. It remains without life or zest, not an experiment but a task honestly and thoroughly done in thePerpendicular style. 

To the same period belong the great western screen of the choir, theChapel of St Michael and the Warrior's Chapel in the south transept, the Lady Chapel in the north transept, the Chantry and the tomb ofHenry IV. In the Trinity Chapel, the Black Prince's Chantry and thescreens of the Lady Chapel in the Crypt, the upper part of the ChapterHouse, now lost to us by restoration, and the south-west Tower. 

There remained at the end of the fifteenth century but one thingneeded--the central Tower. This, as it happened, was to be the lastgreat Gothic work undertaken in this country, and in every way it isone of the most impressive and successful. Begun in 1475 and finishedin 1503, the Angel Steeple is the last of Catholicism in England, andI like to think of it towering as it does over that dead city, and thelow hills of Kent, over all that was once so sacred and is nownothing, as a kind of beacon, a sign of hope until it shall ring theAngelus again and once more the sons of St Benedict shall chant theMass of St Thomas before the shrine new made: _Gaudeamus omnes inDomino, diem festum celebrantes, sub honore beati Thomae Martyris, decujus passione gaudent angeli et collaudant filium Dei_. 

For the great shrine, which for so long had been the loftiest beaconin England of the Christian Faith, was destroyed. It was the firstwork of the last Henry to avenge his namesake, and having made anotherThomas martyr in the same cause, to wipe out for ever all memory ofthe first who had steadfastly withstood his predecessor. It is strangethat the severed head of Blessed Thomas More should lie in the verychurch whence Henry II. Set forth to do penance for the murder of thefirst Thomas. 

We have no authentic record of the final catastrophe, such deeds areusually done in darkness. All we really know is that in 1538 "thebones, by command of the Lord (Thomas) Cromwell, were there and thenburnt ... The spoile of the shrine in golde and precious stones filledtwo greate chests such as six or seven strong men could doe no morethan convey one of them out of the church. " That the shrine was ofunsurpassed magnificence we have many witnesses. "The tomb of St Thomasthe Martyr, " writes a Venetian traveller who had seen it, "surpassesall belief. Notwithstanding its great size it is wholly covered withplates of pure gold; yet the gold is scarce seen because it is coveredwith various precious stones as sapphires, balasses, diamonds, rubiesand emeralds; and wherever the eye turns something more beautiful thanthe rest is observed; nor in addition to these natural beauties is theskill of art wanting, for in the midst of the gold are the mostbeautiful sculptured gems, both small and large as well as such as arein relief, as agates, onyxes, cornelians and cameos; and some cameosare of such size that I am afraid to name it; but everything is farsurpassed by a ruby, not larger than a thumb-nail, which is fixed atthe right of the altar. The church is somewhat dark and particularly inthe spot where the shrine is placed, and when we went to see it the sunwas near setting and the weather cloudy; nevertheless I saw the ruby asif I had it in my hand. They say it was given by a king of France. "

To carry out the theft with impunity it was first of all necessary todegrade the great national hero and saint and expose his memory toridicule. In November 1538 St Thomas was declared a traitor, everyrepresentation of him was ordered to be destroyed, and his name waserased from all service books, antiphones, collects and prayers underpain of his Majesty's indignation, and imprisonment at his Grace'spleasure. The saint indeed is said to have been cited to appear atWestminster for treason, and there to have been tried and condemned. That seems, too superstitiously insolent even for such a thing asHenry. But we may believe Marillac, the French Ambassador, when hetells us "St Thomas is declared a traitor _because_ his relics andbones were adorned with gold and stones. "

So perished the shrine and memory of St Thomas, and with it thethousand year old religion of England to be replaced by one knows notwhat. 

With the destruction of religion went the destruction of the religioushouses. Of these the chief was the Benedictine monastery of ChristChurch which lay to the north of the Cathedral and whose monks from StAugustine's time had always served it. Almost nothing remains of this, save the Cloister and Chapter House and Treasury attached to theCathedral, the Castellum Aquae, now called the Baptistery, the Prior'sChapel, now the Chapter Library, the Deanery, once part of the Prior'slodging, the Porter's gate, the Norman staircase of the King's schooland the fragmentary ruins scattered about the precincts, includingthe remains of the Archbishop's Palace in Palace Street. 

Not less venerable than the Benedictine House of Christ Church was theother Benedictine monastery, also founded by St Augustine in honour ofSS. Peter and Paul, to which dedication St Dunstan added the name ofSt Augustine himself. This stood outside the city to the east. It issaid to have been founded by St Augustine outside the walls with aview to his own interment there since it was not the Roman custom, aswe know, to bury the dead within the walls of a city. So honourable aplace in the Order did this great house hold that we are told theabbot of St Augustine's Canterbury sat next to the abbot of MonteCassino, the mother house, in the councils of the Order, and none butthe archbishop himself consecrated the abbot of St Augustine's, andthat in the Abbey Church. This also Henry stole away, seizing it forhis own use. But by 1844 what was left of the place had become abrewery, and to-day there remains scarcely more than a greatfourteenth century gateway and hall, the work of Abbot Fyndon in 1300. Of the church there is left a few fragments of walling, of StAugustine's tomb, nothing whatsoever. 

Less still remains to us of the smaller religious houses that aboundedin Canterbury. Of the Austin Canons, the Priory of St Gregory foundedby Lanfranc in 1084 near St John's Hospital, also a foundation ofLanfranc, in Northgate Street, really nothing, a fragment of oldwall; of the Nunnery of St Sepulchre, a Benedictine house, nothing atall. As for the Friars' houses scarcely more remains. Of the earliest, the Dominican house, only the scantiest ruins of the convent, therefectory, however, once in the hands of the Anabaptists, is now aUnitarian chapel. Of the White Friars, nothing. Of the Franciscanhouse, the charming thirteenth century ruin that stands over the riverto the south of St Peter's Street. That is all. 

The Canterbury of St Thomas is no more, it perished with his shrineand his religion. Even the hospital he is said to have founded, whichat any rate was dedicated in his honour, was suppressed by Edward VI. ;it is, however, still worth a visit, if only for the sake of the wallpainting recovered in 1879, in which we see the Martyrdom, and thepenance of the King. 

But in Canterbury to-day St Thomas is really a stranger, no relic, scarcely a remembrance of him remains; yet he was the soul of thecity, he is named in the calendar of his Church St Thomas ofCanterbury. 

No relic do I say? I am wrong. Let all the pilgrims of the past comein at the four gates in their thousands and their thousands; let thegreat processions form as though this were a year of jubilee, theyshall not be disappointed. Yet it is not to the Cathedral they shallgo, but to an ugly little church (alas!), in a back street, where overthe last altar upon the Epistle side there is a shrine and in theshrine a relic--the Soutan of St Thomas. The place is humble and meekenough to escape the notice of all but the pilgrims who sought andseek Canterbury only for St Thomas. 

Musing there in the late spring sunshine, for the church is open andquiet, and within there is always a Guest, I fell asleep; and in mysleep that Guest came to me and I spoke with Him. It seemed to me thatI was walking in early morning--all in the England of my heart--acrossmeadows through which flowed a clear translucent stream, and themeadows were a mass of flowers, narcissus, jonquil, violet, for it wasspring. And beyond the meadows was a fair wood all newly dressed, andout of the wood there came towards me a man, and I knew it was theLord Christ. And I went on to meet Him. And when I was come to Him Isaid: "I shall never understand what You mean ... I shall neverunderstand what You mean. For You say the meek shall inherit theearth.... I shall never understand what You mean. "

And He looked at me and smiled, and stretching forth His hands andlooking all about He answered: "But I spoke of the flowers. "

CHAPTER VII

THE VALLEY OF THE STOUR

CAESAR IN KENT

It was upon as fair a spring morning as ever was in England, that Iset out from Canterbury through the West Gate, and climbing up theshoulder of Harbledown, some little way past St Dunstan's, turned outof the Watling Street, south and west into the old green path ortrackway, which, had I followed it to the end, would have brought meright across Kent and Surrey and Hampshire to Winchester the oldcapital of England. This trackway, far older than history, woulddoubtless have perished utterly, as so many of its fellows have done, but for two very different events, the first of which was theMartyrdom of St Thomas, and the other the practice of demanding tollsupon the great new system of turnpike-roads we owe to the end of theeighteenth century. For this ancient British track leading half acrossEngland of my heart, a barbarous thing, older than any written wordin England, was used and preserved, when, with the full blossoming ofthe Middle Age in the thirteenth century, it might have disappeared. It was preserved by the Pilgrims to St Thomas's Shrine. All those menwho came out of the West to visit St Thomas, all those who came fromBrittany, central and southern France and Spain, gathered atWinchester, the old capital of the Kingdom, and when they set outthence for Canterbury this was the way they followed across thecounties; this most ancient way which enters Canterbury hand in handwith the Watling Street by the West Gate. 

To describe a thing so ancient is impossible. It casts a spell uponthe traveller so that as he follows under its dark yews across thesteep hop gardens of Kent from hillside to hillside, up this valley orthat, along the mighty south wall of the North Downs to the great fordof the Medway, and beyond and beyond through more than a hundred milesto Winchester he loses himself; becomes indeed one with hisforefathers and looks upon that dear and ancient landscape, his mostenduring and most beautiful possession as a child looks upon hismother, really with unseeing eyes, unable to tell whether she be fairor no, understanding indeed but this that she is a part of himself, and that he loves her more than anything else in the world. 

But that glorious way in all its fulness was not for me. I haddetermined to follow the Pilgrims' Road but a little way, indeed butfor one long day's journey, so far only as Boghton Aluph, where itturns that great corner westward and proceeds along the rampart of theDowns. But even in the ten miles twixt Canterbury and Boghton, thatancient way gives to him who follows it wonderful things. 

To begin with, the valley of the Stour. There can be few valleys inthis part of England more lovely than this steep and wide vale, through the hop gardens, the woods and meadows of which, the GreatStour proceeds like a royal pilgrim, half in state to Canterbury, andon to the mystery of the marshes, and its death in the sea. AboveCanterbury certainly, and all along my way, there is not a meadow nora wood, nor indeed a single mile of that landscape, which has not beencontrived and created by man, by the love and labour of our fathersthrough how many thousand years. And this is part of the virtue ofEngland, that it is as it were a garden of our making, a pleasaunce wehave built, a paradise and a home after our own hearts. And in thatdivine and tireless making we, without knowing it, have so mouldedourselves that we are one with it, it is a part of us, a part of ourcharacter and nature. There lie ever before us our beginnings, theearthworks we once defended, the graves we built, the defeats, thevictories, the holy places. By these a man lives, out of these hedraws slowly and with a sort of confidence the uncertain future, gladindeed of this divine assurance that there is nothing new under thesun. 

Such monuments of an antiquity so great that they have no history butwhat may be gathered from barrows and stones, accompany one upon anyday's journey in southern England, but it is only in one place that aman can stand and say: Here began the history of my country. Thatplace as it happens lies as it should upon the Pilgrims' Road. 

Beyond Harbledown, some two miles from Canterbury, he Pilgrims' Roadalong the hillside passes clean through earthwork of unknown antiquity. Well, it was here the Seventh Legion charged: here, indeed, we standupon the very battlefield which saw the birth of civilisation in ourisland. Lying there in the early morning sunshine I considered it allover again. 

Caesar's first landing in Britain in B. C. 55 had been, as he himselftells us, merely a reconnaissance. In the following summer, however, he returned in force, indeed with a very considerable army, and withthe intention of bringing us, too, within that great administrationwhich he and his adoptive son Augustus were to do so much to make afinal and in many ways an indestructible thing. 

It might seem that in spite of the lack of the means of rapidcommunication we possess, the admirable system of Roman roads enabledCaesar to administer his huge government--he was then in control ofthe two Gauls--with a thoroughness we might envy. After his firstreturn from Britain in the early autumn of B. C. 55 he crossed theAlps, completed much business in Cisalpine Gaul, journeyed intoIllyricum to see what damage the Pirustae had done, dealt with themeffectively, returned to Cisalpine Gaul, held conventions, crossed theAlps again, rejoined his army, went round all their winter quarters, inspected all the many ships he was building at Portus Itius and otherplaces, marched with four Legions and some cavalry against a tribe ofBelgae known as the Treviri, settled matters with them, and before thesummer of B. C. 54 was back at Portus Itius, making final preparationsfor the invasion of Britain. 

This invasion, glorious as it was to be, and full of the greatestresults for us, was accompanied all through by a series of pettydisasters. Caesar had purposed to set out certainly early in July, butdelay followed upon delay, and when he was ready at last, the windsettled into the north-west and blew steadily from that quarter fortwenty-five days. It had been a dry summer and all Gaul was sufferingfrom drought. The great preparations which Caesar had been making forat least a year were at last complete, the specially built ships, wideand of shallow draft, of an intermediate size between his own swift-sailing vessels and those of burthen which he had gathered locally, were all ready to the number of six hundred, with twenty-eight _naveslongae_ or war vessels, and some two hundred of the older boats. Butthe wind made a start impossible for twenty-five days. 

It was not till August that the south-west came to his assistance. Assoon as might be he embarked five Legions, say twenty-thousand men, with two thousand cavalry and horses, an enormous transport, anddoubtless a great number of camp followers, leaving behind on thecontinent three legions and two thousand horse to guard the harboursand provide corn, and to inform him what was going on in Gaul in hisabsence, and to act in case of necessity. 

He himself set sail from Portus Itius, which we may take to beBoulogne, at sunset, that is to say about half-past seven; but he must, it might seem, have devoted the whole day to getting so many ships outof harbour. The wind was blowing gently from the south-west, bearinghim, his fortunes and ours. At midnight the second of those smalldisasters which met him at every turn upon this expedition fell uponhim. The wind failed. In consequence his great fleet of transportswas helpless, it drifted along with the tide, fortunately then runningup the Straits, but this bore him beyond his landing-place of the yearbefore, and daybreak found him apparently far to the east of the NorthForeland. What can have been the thoughts of the greatest of men, helpless in the midst of this treacherous and unknown sea? To everyRoman the sea was bitter, even the tideless Mediterranean, how muchmore this furious tide-whipt channel. Caesar cannot but haveremembered how it had half broken him in the previous year. Veryprofoundly he must have mistrusted it. But his Gaulish sailors weredoubtless less disturbed; they expected the ebb, and when it came, every man doing his utmost, the transports were brought as swiftly asthe long ships to that "fair and open" beach where Caesar had landedin the previous summer, the long beach which Deal and Sandwich hold. 

Caesar himself, as it happens, does not tell us that he landed in thesame place upon this his second invasion of Britain as he had donebefore; it is to Dion Cassius that we owe the knowledge that he didso. It is Caesar, however, who tells us that he landed about mid-dayand that all his ships held together and reached shore about the sametime. He adds that there was no enemy to be seen, though, as heafterwards learned from his prisoners, large bodies of British troopshad been assembled, but, alarmed at the great number of the ships, more than eight hundred of which, including the ships of the previousyear and the private vessels which some had built for theirconvenience, had appeared at one time, they had retreated from thecoast and taken to the heights. The heights must have been the hillsto the south of Canterbury, nearly a day's march from the sea. 

If Caesar landed, as we know from Dion Cassius that he did, in thesame place as he had done in the previous year, he must have known allthere was to know about the natural facilities there for camping, about the supply of fresh water for instance. But perhaps he had notconsidered the dryness of the summer. In any case it might seem tohave been some pressing need, such as the necessity for a plentifulsupply of fresh water, which forced him immediately to make a nightmarch with his army. Leaving as he tells us, under Quintus Atrius, ten cohorts, that is, as we may suppose, two cohorts from each of hisfive legions, and three hundred horse to guard the ships at anchor, and to hold the camp, hastily made between midday and midnight, in thethird watch, that is between midnight and three o'clock, he startedwith his five legions and seventeen hundred horse, as he asserts, toseek out the enemy. Something, we may be sure, more pressing than anattack upon a barbarian foe there was no hurry to meet, must haveforced Caesar to march his army sleepless now for two nights, one ofwhich had been spent upon an unusual and anxious adventure at sea, outof camp, in the small hours, into an unknown and roadless country insearch of an enemy which had taken to its native hills. The necessitythat forced Caesar to this dangerous course was probably a lack offresh water. He was seeking a considerable river, for the smallerstreams, as he probably found, could not suffice after a long droughtfor so great a force as he had landed. 

He himself asserts that he advanced "by night" across that roadless andunknown country a distance of twelve miles. We know of course of whatthe armies of Caesar were capable in the way of marching; there havenever been troops carrying anything like their weight of equipmentwhich have done better than they; but to march something like fifteenthousand men and seventeen hundred horse twelve miles in about threehours into the unknown and the dark, is an impossible proceeding. Thatmarch of "about twelve miles" cannot have occupied less than from sixto eight hours, one would think, and the greater part of it must havebeen accomplished by daylight, which would break about half-past threeo'clock. As we have good reason to think, Caesar's march, however longa time it may have occupied, was in search of fresh water, and it issignificant that when the Britons were at last seen, they "wereadvancing to the river with their cavalry and chariots from the higherground. " In other words, Caesar's march had brought him into the valleyof the Great Stour, where he not only found the water he sought, butalso the enemy, who had probably followed his march from the greatwoods all the way. 

[Illustration: ON THE STOUR NEAR CANTERBURY]

The spot at which Caesar struck the valley was, as we may be sure, thatabove which the great earthwork stands, opposite Thannington. Here uponthe height was fought the first real battle of Rome upon our soil. Itwas opened by the Britons who "began to annoy the Romans and to givebattle. " But the Roman cavalry repulsed them so that they again soughtrefuge in the woods where was their camp, "a place admirably fortifiedby nature and by art ... All entrance to it being shut by a greatnumber of felled trees. " But like all barbarians, the Britons wereundisciplined and preferred to fight in detached parties, and asseemed good to each. Every now and then some of them rushed out of thewoods and fell upon the Romans, who continually were prevented fromstorming the fort and forcing an entry. Much time was thus wasteduntil the soldiers of the Seventh Legion, having formed a _testudo_and thrown up a rampart against the British fort, took it, and drovethe Britons out of the woods, receiving in return a few, though only afew, wounds. Thus the battle ended in the victory of our enemies andour saviours. Caesar tells us that he forbade his men to pursue theenemy for any great distance, because he was ignorant of the natureof the country, and because, the day being far spent, he wished todevote what remained of the daylight to the building of his camp. 

Caesar speaks of this camp and rightly of course, as a thing ofimportance. We know from his narrative, too, that it was occupied bysome fifteen thousand foot and seventeen hundred horse, with theirbaggage and equipment for more than ten days. Where did it stand? Itmust have been within reach of the river, for without plentiful waterno such army as Caesar encamped could have maintained itself for solong a period as ten days; exactly where it was, however, we shall inall probability never know. 

Wherever it was, there Caesar spent the night, both he and his army, sleeping soundly, we may be sure, after the sleepless and anxiousnights, one spent in the peril of the sea, the other in a not lessperilous night march in a roadless and unknown country. 

Yet did Caesar sleep? Towards sunset the wind arose, and all night agreat gale blew. This was the fourth misfortune the expedition hadexperienced. It had first been delayed for twenty-four days instarting; it had then lost the wind and had been for hours at the mercyof the tide, only landing at last when the day was far spent after awhole night upon the waters; it had been compelled by lack of water toquit the camp at the landing-place without rest, and utterly weary andsleepless, to undertake a perilous night march in search of water. Andnow in the darkness, after the first encounter with the enemy, a greatgale arose. 

How often during that night must Caesar have awakened and thought ofthe sea and his transports. It was, as he would remember, just such astorm which had ruined him in the previous summer. To avoid a likedisaster he had had his boats built for this expedition, shallow ofdraft and with flat bottoms that they might be beached. But with theMediterranean in his mind and the certain weather of the south, Caesar, seeing the August sky so soft and clear, had anchored and not beachedthe ships after all. Perhaps the late landing, the necessity ofbuilding a large camp, and finally the perilous lack of water hadprevented him from calling upon his men for a task so enormous as thebeaching of eight hundred ships. Whatever had prevented him, thattask was not undertaken. The eight hundred ships were anchored in theshallows, when, upon that third night of the expedition, a great galearose. 

Anxious though he must have been, very early in the morning of thefollowing day, he sent out three skirmishing parties to reconnoitreand pursue the defeated Britons of the day before; but the last menwere not out of sight when gallopers came in to Caesar from QuintusAtrius, at the camp by the shore, to report "almost all the shipsdashed to pieces and cast upon the beach because neither the anchorsand cables could resist the force of the gale, nor the sailors orpilots outride it, and thus the ships had dashed themselves to piecesone against another. "

The appalling seriousness of this disaster, as reported to Caesar, wasat once understood by him. He recalled his three parties ofskirmishers, and himself at once returned to Quintus Atrius and theships. He tells us that "he saw before him almost the very thingswhich he had heard from the messengers and by letters"; but he addsthat only "about forty ships were lost, the remainder being able to berepaired with much labour. " This he at once began with workmen from theLegions, and others he brought from the Continent, and at the sametime he wrote to Labienus at Portus Itius "to build as many ships ashe could. " Then he proceeded to do what he had intended to do atfirst; with great difficulty and labour he dragged all the ships upon the shore and enclosed them in one fortification with the camp. Inthese matters about ten days were spent, the men labouring night andday. Then he returned to the main army upon the Stour. 

But that delay of ten days had given the Britons time to recoverthemselves and to gather all possible forces. Caesar returned to hisarmy to find "very great forces of the Britons already assembled" tooppose him, and the chief command and management of the war entrustedto Cassivellaunus, who, though he had been at war with the men ofKent, was now placed, so great was the general alarm, in command ofthe whole war. 

Caesar, however, cannot have been in any way daunted save perhaps bythe memory of the time already lost and the advancing season. He atonce began his march into Britain. We may well ask by what route hewent, and to that question we shall get no certain answer. But itwould seem he must have marched by one of two ways for he had to crossthe Stour, the Medway and the Thames. We may be sure then that hisroute lay either along the old trackway which, straightened and builtup later by the Romans, we know as the Watling Street, which fords theMedway at Rochester, and the Thames at Lambeth and Westminster, or bythe trackway we call the Pilgrims' Way along the southern slope of theNorth Downs, in which case he would have forded the Medway atAylesford and the Thames at Brentford. The question is insoluble, Caesar himself giving no indications. 

Now, when I had well considered all this, I went on to that lovelinesswhich is Chilham; passing as I went, that earthwork older than anyhistory called Julaber's Grave, marked by a clump of fir trees. Hereof old they thought to find the grave of that Quintus Laberius, whofell as Caesar relates, at the head of his men, on the march to theThames; but it was probably already older when Caesar passed by, thanit would have been now if he had built it. 

No one can ever have come, whether by the Pilgrims' Road or another, into the little hill-village of Chilham, into the piazza there, whichis an acropolis, without delight. It is one of the surprises ofEngland, a place at once so little, so charming and so unexpected thatit is extraordinary it is not more famous. It stands at a point wheremore than one little valley breaks down into the steep valley of theStour and every way to it is up hill, under what might seem to be oldramparts crowned now with cottages and houses, till suddenly you findyourself at the top in a large piazza or square closed at the end bythe church, at the other by the castle, and on both sides by old linesof houses; really a walled _place_. 

The church dedicated in honour of Our Lady is of some antiquity in themain and older parts, a work of the fourteenth century replacingdoubtless Roman, Saxon and Norman buildings, but with later additions, too, of the Perpendicular time in the clerestory, for instance, andwith much modern work in the chancel. Of old the place belonged to thealien Priory of Throwley in this county, itself a cell of the Abbey ofSt Omer, in Artois; but when these alien houses were suppressed, Chilham like Throwley itself went to the new house of Syon, founded bythe King. To-day, apart from the English beauty of the church, not awork of art but of history, its chief interest lies in its monuments, some strangely monstrous, of the Digges family--Sir Dudley Diggesbought Chilham at the beginning of the seventeenth century--theColebrooks, who followed the Digges in 1751 and a Fogg and a Woldman, the latter holding Chilham until 1860. There is little to be said ofthese monuments save that they are none of them in very good taste, the more interesting being those to Lady Digges, and a member of theFogg family, both of the early seventeenth century, in which thePurbeck has been covered with a charming arabesque and diaperedpattern in relief. 

[Illustration: CHILHAM]

But it was not the church, beautiful though I found it on thatafternoon of spring, that made me linger in Chilham, but rather thecastle, which occupies the site of a Roman camp; and perhaps of what acamp? It may be that it was here Caesar lay on the first night of hisresumed march after the disaster of the ships. It may be that it washere, after all, that Quintus Laberius fell, and that here he wasburied so that the ancient earthwork known as Julaber's Grave, thoughcertainly far older than Caesar, was in fact used as the tomb of thehero whose immortality Caesar insured by naming him in hisCommentaries. Who knows? If Julaber is not a corruption of Laberius asthe old antiquaries asserted, and as the people here about believe, one likes to think it might be, for no other explanation of thisstrange name is forthcoming. 

So I went on through King's wood, and as I came out of it southward Isaw a wonderful thing. For I saw before me that division or part ofthe world which stands quite separate from any other and is notEurope, Asia, Africa nor America, but Romney Marsh. It lay thereunder the sunset half lost in its own mists, far off across the nearmeadows of the Weald, for I was now upon the southern escarpment ofthe North Downs and in the foreground rose the town of Ashford whereI was to sleep. It was twilight and more, however, before I reachedit, for in those woods I heard for the first time that year thenightingale, and my heart, which all day had been full of Rome, wassuddenly changed, so that I went down through the dusk to Ashford, singing an English song:

 By a bank as I lay, I lay, Musing on things past, heigh ho! In the merry month of May O towards the close of day-- Methought I heard at last-- O the gentle nightingale, The lady and the mistress of all musick; She sits down ever in the dale Singing with her notès smale And quavering them wonderfully thick. O for joy my spirits were quick To hear the bird how merrily she could sing, And I said, good Lord, defend England with Thy most holy hand And save noble George our King. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE WEALD AND THE MARSH

Ashford as we see it to-day, a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, is altogether a modern place and really in the worst sense, for itowes its importance and its ugliness to the railway; it is a bigjunction and the site of the engineering works of the South Easternand Chatham Company. Lacking as it is in almost all materialantiquity, it has little that is beautiful to show us, a fine churchwith a noble tower that has been rather absurdly compared with theAngel Steeple at Canterbury--nothing more--and its history is almostas meagre. It stands, the first town of the Kentish Weald, where theEast Stour flows into the Great Stour, in the very mouth of the deepvalley of the latter which there turns northward through the Downs. Tothe North, therefore, it is everywhere cut off by those great greenuplands, save where the valley, at the other end of which standsCanterbury, breaks them suddenly in twain. To the south it is cut offby a perhaps greater barrier; between it and the sea, stands theimpassable mystery of Romney Marsh. In such a situation, before therailways revolutionised travel in England, how could Ashford have hadany importance? Even the old road westward from Dover into Britain, the Pilgrims' Way to Stonehenge or Winchester passed it by, leaving itin the Weald to follow the escarpment of the Downs north or west. NoRoman road served it, and indeed it was but a small and isolated placetill the Middle Age began to revive and recreate Europe. Even thenAshford was probably late in development. 

Its history, if one may call it history, is concerned with the ownersof the manor of Ashford and not with any civil or municipal records. Indeed the earlier chroniclers, though they speak of Great Chart andWye, know nothing of Ashford which in Domesday Book appears to haveconsisted of a few mills and a small church, the manor being inpossession of Edward the Confessor, while St Augustine's at Canterburyand Earl Godwin held certain lands thereabout. Hugh de Montfort gotwhat the King and Earl Godwin had possessed, after the Conquest, butthe Monastery of St Augustine's seems to have continued to hold itsland. We know nothing more of Ashford, which, as I have said, tilllate in the Middle Age consisted of a church and two mills and a denefor the pannage of hogs in the Weald. It is not one of the manyowners of the Manor who is remembered to-day in Ashford as itsbenefactor, but the Lord of the Manor of Ripton during the Wars of theRoses, Sir John Fogge, who was Treasurer of the Royal Household and aPrivy Councillor. In the fourteenth century the church had passed toLeeds Abbey, and with the abbey the church of Ashford remained untilthe suppression, when it passed to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. It was not, however, the Abbey of Leeds that rebuilt it as we see it, apoor example it must be confessed in spite of the nobility of thetower, of the latest style of English Gothic architecture, thePerpendicular. It was Sir John Fogge, who for this and other reasons, is the father of the town. He lies in a great tomb in the chancel. Asfor the Smyths, who lie in the south transept, Thomas, and Alicia hiswife held the manor of Ashford in the sixteenth century. Alicia was thedaughter of Sir Andrew Judde to whom the manor of Ashford had beenmortgaged in the time of Henry VII. Her son, Sir Michael Smyth, liesclose by. The family were later ennobled and bore the title ofViscounts Strangford. 

For the outside world, however, Sir John Fogge is not Ashford'sgreatest son. This honour belongs surely to Jack Cade whom Shakespearespeaks of as the "headstrong Kentish man John Cade of Ashford, " andwho, according to the poet, if headstrong, proved in the end so feeble-minded that in Shakespeare's play we might seem to have a picture ofone suffering from general paralysis of the insane. Jack Cade, however, was, as we are beginning to realise, a much greater and moresignificant figure than Shakespeare allows us to see. 

But Ashford is not made for lingering, it is all for departure, theroads, if not the trains, lead swiftly away north, south, east andwest. As for me I went by the south-west road which said twelve milesto Tenterden. 

I went under a fine rain on a day of married white and blue, and evenbefore I had forgot Ashford, which was long before I crossed the Stour, the rain had ceased, the sun shone forth and a great wind came out ofthe marsh and the sea full of good tidings, so that climbing up toGreat Chart I laughed in my heart to be in England on such a day and onsuch a road. 

Great Chart, as I saw while still far off, is a village typical of thiscountry that I love, if indeed a place so completely itself is typicalof anything: a little English village, but it outfaces the whole worldin its sureness of itself, its quietness and air of immemorialantiquity. Many a city older by far looks parvenu beside Great Chart. Let us consider, with tears if you will, what they are making of Romeand be thankful that our ways are not their ways. For what wins you atonce in Great Chart is the obvious fact that it has always stood thereon its hill over the Weald, and as far as one may see at a glance, muchthe same as it stands to-day. And what delights you is the church thereon the highest ground, on the last hill overlooking the great Weald, asign in the sky, a portent, a necessary thing natural to the landscape. 

What you see is a rectangular building with three eastern gables overthree Decorated windows, a long nave roof over square Perpendicularwindows and clerestory, flat outer roofs and tall western Tower, anoble thing significant of our civilisation and the Faith out of whichit has come. 

Within, one finds a church like and yet unlike that at Ashford. Naveand chancel are of the same width, and the arcades run from end to endof the church really without a break, though half way a wall, borne bythree arches, crosses the church separating the chancel and itschapels from the nave. The central arch of the three is of course thechancel arch, but the wall it bears does not reach to the roof so thatthe nave, clerestory and roof are seen running on beyond it. All thisis curious rather than lovely, but like every other strangeness inEngland of my heart, it is to be explained by the long, long historyof things still--Deo gratias--remaining to us, so that when I saidthat our buildings were growths rather than works of art I spoketruth. 

The church of St Mary of Great Chart is not mentioned in the DomesdaySurvey, but that a church existed here in the twelfth century iscertain, for even in the present building we have evidences of Normanwork, for instance in the walling of the south chapel, and in thevestry doorway. According to the Rev. G. M. Livett, [Footnote: K. A. S. 26. ] the Norman nave was as long as that we have, which is built inall probability on its foundation. The aisleless Norman church, however, had a central tower to the east of the present chancel archand transepts, as well as a chancel. This church appears to have stoodtill the fourteenth century, when it was entirely rebuilt andreclaimed, and all the lower part of the present church built, to beheightened and lengthened at the end of the fifteenth century when theclerestory and the chancel arcade were built, a new aisle wall set upon the north and the south aisle raised, the rood loft built orrebuilt. 

We are reminded of all this history by the fine altar tomb in thenorth chapel where lie William Goldwell and Alice his wife (d. 1485). Their son James was Vicar of Great Chart in 1458, and became Bishop ofNorwich in 1472, when he obtained from the Pope "an indulgence in aidof the restoration of Great Chart church which had been damaged byfire. " Here is the cause and the source of the fifteenth centuryalterations and the church we see. The brasses in the church are alsointeresting. Many of them commemorate the Tokes of Godinton, whofounded the almshouse in the village, which, rebuilt more than once Ithink, we still see. All these things and more than these the greatyew in the churchyard has seen as its shadow grew over the graves. 

From Great Chart I went on through the spring sunshine across theWeald to Bethersden, whose quarries have supplied so much of the greymarble one finds in Kentish churches, in the monuments and effigiesand in the old manor houses in the carved chimney-pieces fair to see. These quarries are now all but deserted, but of old they were the mostfamous in Kent, which is poor in such things. Most of the stone forthe cathedrals and greater religious houses in the county came fromCaen, whence it was easily transported by water; but this stone notonly weathered badly, but was too friable for monumental effigies orsculpture. For these harder stone was needed, resembling marble, andthis Bethersden supplied, as we may see, in the Cathedrals ofCanterbury and Rochester and especially at Hythe where the chancelarcade is entirely built of it. 

Something too we may learn at Bethersden of the true nature of theWeald. I shall have something to say of this later, but here at anyrate the curiously difficult character of this country in regard tothe going may be understood, though of course less easily now than ofold. It is said that before, at the end of the eighteenth century, the excellent system of roads we still use was built up, the wayshereabouts were so bad--they are still far from good--that when springcame it was customary to plough them up in order that they might dryoff. We hear of great ladies going to church in carriages drawn byteams of oxen. Hardly passable after rain, the roads, says Hasted, were "so miry that the traveller's horse frequently plunged throughthem up to the girths of the saddle; and the waggons sank so deep inthe ruts as to slide along on the nave of the wheels and axle ofthem. In some few of the principal roads, as from Tenterden hither, there was a stone causeway, about three feet wide, for theaccommodation of horse and foot passengers; but there was none furtheron till near Bethersden, to the great distress of travellers. Whenthese roads became tolerably dry in summer, they were ploughed up, andlaid in a half circle to dry, the only amendment they ever had. Inextreme dry weather in summer, they became exceedingly hard, and, bytraffic, so smooth as to seem glazed, like a potter's vessel, though asingle hour's rain rendered them so slippery as to be very dangerous totravellers. " The roads in fact were and are, little more than lanesbetween the isolated woods across the low scrub of the old Weald. 

The church of Bethersden is dedicated to St Margaret. It follows thelocal type having a nave with north and south aisles and a chancel withnorth and south chapels, vestry, south porch and western tower. Theplace is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but about 1194 we findArchbishop Herbert confirming the church of St Margaret ofBeatrichesdenne, with the chapel of Hecchisdenne (Etchden) to thePriory of St Gregory in Canterbury. No sign of this Norman churchremains, the building we see in Bethersden being mainly Perpendicular;but the double lighted windows at the west end of the north aisle areEarly English and there is a Decorated niche under the entrance to therood left. The tower is modern, but possesses a fourteenth centurybell. 

It is curious that though the church is dedicated to St Margaret andthe fair, according to Hasted, was held upon July 20th, St Margaret'sday, the place should be spoken of as Beatrichesdenne as though therewere some local St Beatrice; but of her we know nothing. 

Bethersden is connected with the Lovelaces for they owned it, RichardLovelace, the poet, having sold Lovelace Place to Richard Hulse, soonafter the death of Charles I. Three members of the Lovelace familylie in the church, their tombs marked by brasses; William Lovelace(1459) another William Lovelace, gentleman (1459), and Thomas Lovelace(1591). 

From Bethersden I went on to High Halden, which stands upon a ridgeout of the Weald, a very characteristic and beautiful place, with amost interesting church dedicated to Our Lady. Indeed I do not knowwhere one could match the strange wooden tower and belfry and thenoble fourteenth century porch, masterpieces of carpentry, which closeon the west the little stone church of the fifteenth century. Withinthe most interesting thing left to us is the glass in the east windowof the south chancel where we see the Blessed Virgin with her lily, part of an Annunciation. There, too, in another window are the arms ofCastile and of Leon, a strange blazon to find in the Weald of Kent. 

But characteristic as Great Chart, Bethersden and High Halden are ofthis strange wealden county, they do not express it, sum it up anddominate it as does Tenterden Town, some two or three miles to thesouth of High Halden. 

If we look at the ordnance map we shall see that the town of Tenterdenis set upon a great headland thrust out by the higher land of theKentish Weald, southward and east towards those low marshlands thatare lost almost imperceptibly in the sea, and are known to us asRomney Marsh. This great headland, in shape something like a clenchedfist, stands between the two branches of the Rother, the river whichflows into the sea at Rye, and which was once navigable by ships sofar up as Small Hythe just under the southern escarpment of theheadland upon which Tenterden stands. Hither so late as 1509 theRother was navigable, and we find Archbishop Warham on the petition ofthe people licensing a small chapel there of St John Baptist still inexistence, for the use of the inhabitants and as a sanctuary or agraveyard for the burial of those wrecked on the "sea-shore" _infrapredictum oppidum de Smallhyth_. 

Now in this lies all the greatness of Tenterden. Rye, which had earlybeen added to the Cinque Ports, was a place of very considerableimportance, but upon the east it was entirely cut off by Romney Marsh, upon the west, too, a considerable marshland closed by a great anddesolate hill country closed it in, but to the north was a navigableriver, a road that is, leading up into England, and at the head of ita town naturally sprang up. That town was Tenterden, and her trueposition was recognised by Henry VI. , when he united her to Rye. Tillthen she was one of "the Seven Hundreds" belonging to the Crown. Domesday Book knows nothing of her; as a place of importance, as atown that is, she is a creation of Rye, and her development was thusnecessarily late and endured but for a season. I suppose the greatdays of Rye to have been those of the thirteenth and fourteenth andfifteenth centuries; and it was therefore during this period thatTenterden began its career as a town. After the failure of the sea, Rye sank slowly back into what it is to-day, but Tenterden wouldappear to have stood up against that misfortune with some success, for we find Elizabeth incorporating it under a charter. 

There can be but few more charming towns in Kent than Tenterden as wesee it to-day, looking out from its headland southward to the greatuplifted Isle of Oxney beyond which lies the sea, and eastward overall the mystery of Romney Marsh. The church which should, one thinks, have borne the name of St Michael, is dedicated in honour of StMildred. It is a large building of the thirteenth, fourteenth andfifteenth centuries, the tower, its latest feature, being also itsnoblest. Indeed the tower of Tenterden church, if we may believe thelocal legend, is certainly the most important in Kent. For it is said, and, rightly understood, there may after all be something in it, tohave been the cause of the Goodwin Sands. Fuller asserts "when thevicinage in Kent met to consult about the inundation of the GoodwinSands (date not given) and what might be the cause thereof, an old manimputed it to the building of Tenterden steeple in this county; forthese sands, said he, were firm sands before that steeple was built, which ever since were overflown with sea-water. Hereupon all heartilylaughed at his unlogical reason, making that effect in Nature which

was only the consequent on time; not flowing from, but following afterthe building of that steeple. "

According to Latimer, however, it was Sir Thomas More who drew thisanswer from the ancient, and if this be so, it certainly fixes thedate. "Maister More, " says Latimer, "was once sent in commission intoKent to help to trie out (if it might be) what was the cause of GoodwinSands and the shelfs that stopped up Sandwich haven. Thither comethMaister More and calleth the countye afore him, such as were thought tobe men of experience, and men that could of likelihode best certify himof that matter, concerning the stopping of Sandwich haven. Among otherscame in before him an olde man with a white head, and one that wasthought to be little lesse than an hundereth yeares olde. WhenMaister More saw this aged man he thought it expedient to heare him sayhis minde in this matter, for being so olde a man it was likely that heknew most of any man in that presence and company. So Maister Morecalled this olde aged man unto him and sayd, 'Father, ' sayd he, 'tellme if ye can what is the cause of this great arising of the sande andshelves here about this haven the which sop it up that no shippes canaride here? Ye are the oldest man that I can espie in all thiscompanye, so that, if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of alllikelihode can say most in it, or at least wise more than any other manhere assembled. ' 'Yea forsooth, good maister, ' quod this olde man, 'forI am well nigh an hundred yeares olde and no man here in this companyanything neare unto mine age. ' 'Well, then, ' quod Maister More, 'howsay you in this matter? What thinke ye to be the cause of these shelvesand flattes that stop up Sandwiche haven?' 'Forsooth syr, ' quod he, 'Iam an olde man. I think Tenterden steeple is the cause of GoodwinSandes. For I am an old man syr' quod he, 'and I may remember thebuilding of Tenterden Steeple and I may remember when there was nosteeple at all there. And before that Tenterden Steeple was inbuilding there was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands thatstopped the haven; and therefore I thinke that Tenterden steeple isthe cause of the destroying and decaying of Sandwich haven. "

Post hoc, propter hoc and this silly old man has been held up to allensuing ages as an absurdly simple old fellow. But what after all ifhe should be right in part at least?

Tenterden church, we are told, belonged to the Abbey of St Augustinein Canterbury, which also owned the Goodwin Sands, part, it is said, of the immense domain of Earl Godwin. Now it was in their hands thatthe money collected throughout Kent for the building and fencing ofthe coast against the sea had always been placed. We learn that "whenthe sea had been very quiet for many years without any encroachings, "the abbot commuted that money to the building of a steeple andendowing of the church in Tenterden, so that the sea walls wereneglected. If this be so, that oldest inhabitant was not such a foolas he seems to look. 

I slept under the shadow of Tenterden steeple and very early in themorning set out for Appledore, where I crossed the canal and came intothe Marsh. I cannot hope to express my enthusiasm for this strange andmysterious country so full of the music of running water, with itswinding roads, its immense pastures, its cattle and sheep and flowers, its far away great hills and at the end, though it has no end, thesea. It mixes with the sea indeed as the sky does, so that no man faroff can say this is land or this is water. 

It is famous as a fifth part of the world different from its fellows. And indeed, if it resembles anything I know it is not with the widemoors of Somerset, Sedgemoor, or the valley of the Brue, nor with thegreat windy Fenland in the midst of which Ely rises like a shrine ora sanctuary, I would compare it, but with the Campagna of Rome, whosetragic mystery it seems to have borrowed, at least in part, whosebeauty it seems to wear, a little provincially, it is true, and whosemajesty it apes, but cannot quite command. It is the Campagna inlittle; the great and noble mountains, the loveliest in the world aresunk to hills pure and exquisite upon which, too, we may still see thecities, here little towns and villages, as Rye, Winchelsea, Appledore, Lympne or Hythe, dear places of England of my heart, and all betweenthem this mysterious and lowly thing not quite of this world, agraveyard one might think, as the Campagna is, a battlefield as is theTrasimeno plain, a gate and certainly an exit not only out of Englandbut from the world and life itself. 

As one wanders about England here and there, one comes to understandthat if its landscape is unique in its various charm and soft beauty, it is also inhuman in this, that most often it is without the figureof man, the fields are always empty or nearly always, the hills areuniformly barren of cities or towns or villages, it is a landscapewithout the gesture of human toil and life, without meaning that is, and we can bear it so. But no man could live in the Marsh for a daywithout that gesture of human life that is there to be seen upon everyside. Lonely as it is, difficult as it is to cross, because of itschains and twisting lines of runnels, man is more visibly our comradethere than anywhere else in England I think, and this though there bebut few men through all the Marsh. He and his beasts, his work too, and his songs, redeem the Marsh for us from fear, a fear not quiteexplicable, perhaps, to the mere passenger, but that anyone who haslingered there during a month of spring will recognise as always athis elbow and only kept out of the soul by the humanity which hasredeemed this mysterious country, the shepherd with his flock, thedairyman with his cows, the carter with his great team of oxen in thespring twilight returning from the fields. And then there are thechurches, whose towers stand up so strong out of the waters and themist so that their heads are among the stars, and whose bells are thebest music because they tell not only of God and his Saints but ofman, of the steading and of home. 

[Illustration: A CORNER OF ROMNEY MARSH]

Take Appledore, for instance, with its fine old church, with its airof the fourteenth century and its beautiful old ivy growntower, once a port they say, on the verge of the Marsh; whatcould be more nobly simple and homely? Within, you may, if youwill, find, in spite of everything, all our past, the very altar atwhich of old was said the Holy Mass, the very altar tomb maybe where, upon Maunday Thursday Christ Himself was laid in the sepulchre, an oldrood loft, too, certain ancient screens complete, a little ancientglass. What more can a man want or at least expect from England of myheart? And if he demand something more curious and more rare, at Horn'sPlace, not a mile away, is a perfect chapel of the fifteenth centurywhich served of old some great steading, where, for a hundred yearsMass was perhaps said every day and the Marsh blessed. Or take Snargatewith its church of St Dunstan. It, too, has a fine western tower of thefifteenth century, but much of the church dates from the thirteenth, and upon the north chancel roof-beams are heraldic devices, among theman eagle and the initials W. R. And here is a piece of fine old glass inwhich we may see the Lord Christ. Or take Ivychurch; so noble andlovely a thing is the church that even without it catches the breath, while a whole afternoon is not enough to enjoy its inward beauty. Ortake Brenzett, where, it is true, the church has been rebuilt, butwhere you will still find a noble seventeenth century tomb with itseffigies in armour. 

It is, however, at Romney, Old Romney and New, that we shall find thebest there is to be had I think in this strange country from which thewaters have only been barred out by the continual energy of man. We arenot surprised to find that New Romney is older than Old Romney, it isalmost what might have been expected, but no one can ever have come tothese places without wonder at the nobility of what he sees. 

At New Romney there were of old five churches, dedicated in honour ofSt John Baptist, St Laurence, St Martin, St Michael, and St Nicholas, for Romney was, in the time of Edward I. , the greatest of the CinquePorts. It fell when, as we are told, in a great storm the course ofthe Rother was changed so that it went thereafter to serve Rye, andNew Romney fell slowly down so that to-day but one of those fivechurches remains, that of St Nicholas. But what a glorious church itis, and if the rest were like it, what idea must we have of thesplendour of New Romney in the thirteenth century? This great Normanchurch of St Nicholas with its partly fourteenth century nave, itsclerestory, its fine chancel with sedilia and Easter sepulchre, andnoble pinnacled tower is perhaps the greatest building in the Marsh. It belonged to the Abbey of Pontigny and was served by its monks whohad a cell here, and the town it adorns and ennobles, was the capitalof all this district. 

Nothing so glorious and so old remains in Old Romney, where the churchof St Clement has nothing I think, earlier than the thirteenthcentury, and little of that, being mainly a building of the fourteenthand fifteenth centuries, and yet it is not to be despised, for whereelse in the Marsh will you find anything more picturesque or anythingindeed more English?

Not at Dymchurch for all its Norman fragments. But Dymchurch is to bevisited and to be loved for other reasons than that of beauty. It isthe sentinel and saviour of the Marsh, for it holds back the sea fromall this country with its great wall, twenty feet high and twentyfeet broad and three miles long. Also here we have certain evidence ofthe Roman occupation of the Marsh, and may perhaps believe that it wasRome which first drained it. 

I said that the church of St Nicholas at New Romney was the noblestbuilding in the Marsh. When I said so had I forgotten the church ofAll Saints at Lydd, which is known as the Cathedral of the Marshes. No, glorious as All Saints is, it has not the antiquity of StNicholas; it is altogether English and never knew the Norman. For allthat, it is a very splendid building with a tower standing one hundredand thirty-two feet over the Marsh, a sign and a blessing. And yetbefore it I prefer the bell tower, built of mighty timber, aloof fromthe church, lonely, over the waters at Brookland. All Saints at Lyddbelonged to Tintern Abbey, but All Saints at Brookland to StAugustine's at Canterbury, and as its font will tell us it dates fromNorman times, for about it the Normans carved the signs of the Zodiac. 

Brookland, hard to get at, stands on the great road which runs south-westward out of the Marsh and brings you at last out of Kent intoSussex at Rye. It was there I lingered a little to say farewell. As one looks at evening across that vast loneliness, so desolateand yet so beautiful and infinitely subject to the sky, lyingbetween the hills and sinking so imperceptibly into the sea, one continually asks oneself what is Romney Marsh, by whomwas it reclaimed from the all-devouring sea, what forces builtit up and gathered from barrenness the infinite riches we see?Was it the various forces of Nature, the racing tides of thestraits, some sudden upheaval of the earth, or the tirelessenergy of men--and of what men? Those seventeen miles of richestpasture which lie in an infinite peace between Appledore andDungeness, to whom do we owe them and their blessedness? That wall atDymchurch which saves the marshes, Romney, Welland, Guildford andDenge, who contrived it and first took advantage of those great banksof shingle and of sand which everywhere bar out the great tides of thestraits and have thus created and preserved this strange fifth part ofthe world? Was it the Romans? May we see in Romney Marsh the greatestmaterial memorial of their gigantic energy and art to be found in thewestern provinces, a nobler and a greater work than the Wall as wellas a more lasting? And if this be so, how well is the Marsh namedafter them, for of all they did materially in our island, this work ofreclamation was surely the worthiest to bear their name. 

But to these questions there can perhaps never be an answer. Certainlythe very aspect of the Marsh recalls nothing so much as the Campagnaof Rome, in its nobility, loneliness and infinite subjection to thesun, the clouds, and the sky, so that at evening there we might almostthink that Rome herself lay only just beyond that large horizon, andthat with an effort we might reach the great gate of San Giovanni e'erdarkness fell. It is as though in the Marsh our origins for once andunmistakably were laid bare for us and we had suddenly recognised ourhome. 

CHAPTER IX

RYE AND WINCHELSEA

Out of the vagueness and loneliness of the Marsh, with its strangelevel light and tingling silence, I climbed one spring evening atsunset into the ancient town of Rye, and at first I could not believeI was still in England. No one I think can wander for more than a fewdays about the Marsh, among those half deserted churches, far too bigfor any visible congregation, whose towers in a kind of despair stillstand up before God against the sea, raging and plotting far offagainst the land, without wondering at last into what country he hasstrayed. In Rye all such doubt is resolved at once, for Rye is pureItaly, or at least it seems so in the evening dusk. When I came upinto it in the spring twilight out of the Marsh, I was reminded of oneof those Italian cities which stand up over the lean shore of theAdriatic to the south of Rimini, but it was not of them I thought whenin the morning sunlight I saw those red roofs piled up one uponanother from the plain: it was of Siena. And indeed Rye is in itssmaller, less complete and of course less exquisite way very like themost beautiful city in Tuscany. Here, too, as in Siena, the red-roofedhouses climb up a hill, one upon another, a hill crowned at last by agreat church dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin. But here thelikeness, too fanciful for reality, ceases altogether. It is true thatSiena looks out beyond her own gardens and vineyards upon a desert, but it is a very different desolation upon which Rye gazes all daylong, out of which she rises with all the confidence, grace, andgaiety of a flower, and over which she rules like a queen. 

From the Porta Romana of Siena or the outlook of the Servi, you gazesouthward across the barren, scorched valleys to the far-awaymountains, to Monte Amiata, the fairest mountain of Tuscany. From theYpres Tower of Rye or the Gun Garden below it, you look only acrossthe level and empty Marsh which sinks beyond Camber Castleimperceptibly into the greyness and barrenness of the sea. To theeast, across the flat emptiness, the Rother crawls seaward; to thewest across the Marsh, as once across the sea, Winchelsea risesagainst the woods, and beyond, far away, the darkness of Fairlighthangs like a cloud twixt sea and sky. 

Indeed, to liken Rye to any other place is to do her wrong, for bothin herself and in that landscape over which she broods, there isenough beauty and enough character to give her a life and a meaningaltogether her own. From afar off, from Winchelsea, for instance, inthe sunlight, she seems like a town in a missal, crowned by thatchurch which seems so much bigger than it is, gay and warm and yetwith something of the greyness of the sea and the sea wind about her, aplace that, as so few English places do, altogether makes a picture inthe mind, and is at unity with itself. 

And from within she seems not less complete, a thing wholly ancient, delightful, with a picturesque and yet homely beauty that is the childof ancientness. Yet how much has Rye lost! The walls of Coeur de Lionhave fallen, and only one of the gates remains; but so long as thechurch and the beautiful strong tower of William de Ypres stand, andthe narrow cobbled streets full of old and humble houses climb up anddown the steep hill, the whole place is involved in their beauty andsanctity, our hearts are satisfied and our eyes engaged on behalf of aplace at once so old and picturesque and yet so neat and tidy andalways ready to receive a guest. 

A place like Rye, naturally so strong, a steep island surrounded bysea or impassable marsh, must have been a stronghold from very earlytimes; it is in fact obviously old when we first hear of it as a gift, with Winchelsea, of Edward the Confessor's to the Benedictine Abbey ofFécamp just across the grey channel in Normandy. Both Rye andWinchelsea remained within the keeping of the Abbey of Fécamp until, for reasons of State easy to be understood, Henry III. Resumed theroyal rights in the thirteenth century, compensating the monks ofFécamp with manors in Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire. For before theend of the twelfth century it would seem Rye with Winchelsea hadbecome of so much importance as a port as to have been added to thefamous Cinque Ports, Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney and Hastings. Fromthis time both play a considerable part in the trade and politics ofthe Channel and the Straits. 

It was to enable her to hold herself secure in this business andespecially against raids from the sea that the Ypres Tower was builtin the time of King Stephen, by William of Ypres, Earl of Kent. It wasa watch tower and perhaps a stronghold, but it was never sufficient. Even in 1194 Coeur de Lion permitted the town to wall itself. Nevertheless Louis the Dauphin of France took Rye, and it may wellhave been this which determined Henry III. To take the town out of thehands of the monks of Fécamp and to hold it himself. 

Doubtless Rye's greatest moment was this thirteenth century, nor didshe appear much less in the fourteenth and the first half of thefifteenth century. But often sacked and burned, the town waspractically destroyed by the French in 1378 and 1448, when only theYpres Tower, part of the church, the Landgate, the Strandgate and theso-called chapel of the Carmelite Friars escaped destruction. But fromthis blow Rye recovered to play a part, if a small one, in the defeatof the Armada, and though the retreat of the sea, which seems to havebegun in the sixteenth century, undoubtedly damaged her, it did notkill her outright as it did Winchelsea, for she had the Rother to helpher, and we find her prosperous not only in the time of theCommonwealth, but even to-day, when, with the help of a new harbourat the mouth of the river, she is still able to carry on her trade. 

[Illustration: RYE]

Nothing in fact strikes the visitor to Rye more than the bustle andlife of a place obviously so old. All the streets are steep and narrowand the chief of them, the High Street, seems always to be gay andfull of business, and is as truly characteristic of Rye as those stilland grass-grown ways cobbled and half deserted, which lead up to thenoble great church in its curious _place_. 

It is of course to this great sanctuary dedicated in honour of theBlessed Virgin, that everyone will go first in Rye. It has been calledthe largest parish church in England, and though this claim cannot bemade good, it is in all probability the largest in Sussex, is in factknown as the Cathedral of East Sussex, and if a church became acathedral by reason of its beauty and size it might rightly claim thetitle. It is certainly worthy of the most loving attention. 

The church of Our Lady at Rye is a great cruciform building withclerestory, transepts, and central tower, but without western doors, the chief entrance being in the north transept. The church is of alldates from the Norman time onward, a very English patchwork, here dueto the depredations, not so much of time, as of the French who have sooften raided and burnt the town. The oldest part is the tower, whichis Norman, as are, though somewhat later, the transepts, where certaindetails show the Transitional style. In this style again, but somewhatlater, is the nave. The chancel and its two chapels are Early English, but with many important Decorated, Perpendicular and modern details, such as the arcade and the windows. The Early English chapel upon thenorth is that of St Clare, that upon the south is dedicated in honourof St Nicholas. In the south aisle of the nave is an Early Englishchantry, now used as a vestry. The communion table of carvedmahogany is said to have been taken from a Spanish ship at the timeof the Armada, but it would seem certainly not to be older than theend of the seventeenth century. The curious clock whose bells arestruck by golden cherubs on the north side of the tower, is said tohave been a gift of Queen Elizabeth and to be the oldest clock inEngland still in good order. It is probably of late Carolineconstruction, but even though it were of the sixteenth century itsclaim to be the oldest clock now at work in England could not beupheld for a moment, that in Wells Cathedral being far older. Thepulpit is of the sixteenth century. In the north aisle is a curiouscollection of Bibles and cannon balls, and here, too, is a smallwindow with glass by Burne Jones. 

To the south-west of the church is the so-called Carmelite Chapel, alate Decorated building. What exactly this was and to whom itbelonged, is uncertain; it was not a chapel of Carmelite Friars. Theonly establishment belonging to that Order within the county of Susseswas at Shoreham, founded in honour of the Blessed Virgin, by Sir Johnde Mowbray in 1316. 

So far as we know the only religious to be found in

Rye at the time of the spoliation were the Austin Friars. Their housestill stands--a building of the late fourteenth or early fifteenthcentury--on the Conduit Hill. It has passed through many strange uses, among others that of a Salvation Army barracks. It is now the AnglicanChurch House. This was the only settlement of the Austin Friars inSussex, and of its origin nothing is known. In 1368 we hear that theprior and convent of the Friars Eremites of St Austin in Rye permittedone of their brethren, a priest, to say Mass daily, at the altar of StNicholas, in the parish church for the welfare of William Taylour ofRye, and of Agnes his wife. In 1378 the town granted them a placecalled "le Haltone" near the town ditch. But apart from these two factstheir history is altogether wanting. 

From the parish church one descends south-east to the Ypres Tower. Thiswatch tower and stronghold was built in the time of King Stephen byWilliam of Ypres, Earl of Kent, and is in many ways the most impressivebuilding left to us in Rye. It is undoubtedly best seen from the river, but it and the garden below it afford a great view over the marshes ona clear day, eastward to the cliffs of Folkestone and westward toFairlight. In itself it is a plain rectangular building with roundtowers at the angles, but with nothing of interest within. Yet whatwould Rye be without it. For many years it was the sole defence of thetown. 

Most of those who come to Rye enter the town, and with a suddensurprise not to be found elsewhere, by the Landgate upon the north. There were, it is said of old, five gates about the town, butthis is the only one left to us. Nothing, or almost nothing, of the walls remain. Doubtless the French destroyed anythingin the nature of fortification so far as they could, only theYpres Tower they failed to pull down or to burn, and this great roundtowered gateway upon the north--why we do not know?

It is the Landgate which gives to Rye its power of surprise, so that aman coming up from the railway, at sight of it, is suddenlytransported into the Middle Age, and in that dream enters and enjoysRye town, which has never disappointed those who have come in theright spirit. For besides the monuments of which I have spoken thereare others of lesser interest, it is true, but that altogether go tomake up the charm and delight of this unique place. Among these I willname Mermaid Street where the grass grows among the cobbles and wherestands the Mermaid Inn and the half timber house called the Hospital, Pocock's School and Queen Elizabeth's Well. Better still, for me atleast, is the life of the river and the shipyards, where, though Ryeis now two miles from the sea, ships are still built and the life ofthe place and its heart are adventured and set upon the great waters. 

So alluring indeed is this little town that one is always loath toleave it, one continually excuses oneself from departure. One day Idelayed in order to see the famous poem in the old book in the townarchives which I already knew from Mr Lucas's book. It is certainlyof Henry VIII. 's time, and who could have written it but that unhappySir Thomas Wyatt who loved Anne Boleyn--

 What greater gryffe may hape Trew lovers to anoye Then absente for to sepratte them From ther desiered joye?

 What comforte reste them then To ease them of ther smarte But for to thincke and myndful bee Of them they love in harte?

 And sicke that they assured bee Ehche toe another in harte That nothinge shall them seperate Untylle deathe doe them parte?

 And thoughe the dystance of the place Doe severe us in twayne, Yet shall my harte thy harte imbrace Tyll we doe meete agayne. 

Then one sunny afternoon I went out by the road past Camber Castleacross Rye Foreign for Winchelsea on its hill some two miles from Ryeto the west. 

There is surely nothing in the world quite like Winchelsea. Lovelier byfar than Rye, not only in itself, but because of what it offers you, those views of hill and marsh and sea with Rye itself, like I know notwhat little masterpiece of Flemish art, in the middle distanceeastward, Winchelsea is a place never to be left or at worst never tobe forgotten. One comes to it from Rye on a still afternoon of springwhen the faint shadows are beginning to lengthen, expecting little. Infact, if the traveller be acceptable, capable of appreciating anythingso still and exquisite, Winchelsea will appear to him to be, as it isone of the loveliest things left to us in England, place, as CoventryPatmore so well said, in a trance, La Belle an Bois dormant. Nowhereelse in England certainly have I found just that exquisite stillness, that air of enchantment, as of something not real, something in apicture or a poem, inexplicable and inexpressible. How spacious it is, and how quiet, full of the sweetness and the beauty of some motet byByrd. History is little to us in such a place, which is to be enjoyedfor its own sake, for its own unique beauty and delight. And yet thehistory of Winchelsea is almost as unique as is the place itself. 

Winchelsea when we first hear of it as given by King Edward Confessorto the monks of Fécamp, was not set upon this hill-top as we see itto-day, but upon an island, low and flat, now submerged some threemiles south and east of the present town. Here William the Conquerorlanded upon his return from Normandy when he set out to take Exeterand subdue the West; here again two of those knights who murdered StThomas landed in their pride, hot from the court of Henry theirmaster. Like Rye, its sister, to whom it looked across the sea, Winchelsea was added to the Cinque Ports and was presently taken fromthe monks of Fécamp by Henry III. It was now its disasters began. In 1236 it was inundated by the sea as again in 1250, whenit was half destroyed. Eagerly upon the side of Montfort itwas taken after Evesham by Prince Edward, and its inhabitantsslain, so that when in 1288 it was again drowned by the seait was decided to refound the town upon the hill above, then inthe possession of Battle Abbey, which the King purchased for thispurpose. At that time the hill upon which Winchelsea was built, andstill stands, was washed by the sea, and the harbour soon became ofvery great importance, indeed until the sixteenth century, when thesea began to retire, Winchelsea was of much greater importance thanRye. The retreat of the sea, however, completely ruined it, for it wasserved by no river as Rye was by the Rother. 

The town of Edward I. , as we may see to-day, by what time has left usof it, was built in squares, a truly Latin arrangement, the streetsall remaining at right angles the one to the other. It had three gatesand was defended upon the west, where it was not naturally strong, bya great ditch. It was attacked and sacked by the French as often asRye, though not always at the same time. Thus in 1377, when Rye washalf destroyed, Winchelsea was saved by the Abbot of Battle, only tobe taken three years later by John de Vienne, when the town was burnt. No doubt these constant and mostly successful attacks deeply injuredthe place which, after the sea had begun to retreat in the sixteenthcentury, at the time of Elizabeth's visit in 1573, only mustered somesixty families. From that time Winchelsea slowly declined till thereremains only the exquisite ghost we see to-day. 

One comes up out of the Marsh into Winchelsea to-day through theStrand Gate of the time of Edward I. , and presently finds oneself inthe beautiful and spacious square in which stands the lovely fragmentof the church of St Thomas of Canterbury. 

This extraordinarily lovely building dates from the fourteenthcentury. As we see it, it is but a fragment, consisting of the chanceland two side chapels, but as originally planned it would seem to havebeen a cruciform building of chancel, choir with side chapels, acentral tower, transept and nave. It is doubtful, however, whetherthe nave was ever built, the ruins of the transepts and of two piersof the tower only remain. 

I say it was doubtful whether this nave was ever built. It has beenasserted, it is true, that it was burnt by the French either in 1380or in 1449, but it seems more probable that it was never completedowing to the devastation of the Black Death of 1348-9, though certaindiscoveries made of late would seem to endorse the older theory. Certain it is that until the end of the eighteenth century, therestood to the south-west of the church a great bell tower, a detachedcampanile, now dismantled, whose stones are said to have been used tobuild Rye Harbour. 

The church, as we have it, is one of the loveliest Decorated buildingsin the county; the Perpendicular porch, however, by which we enter doesnot belong to the church but possibly came here from one of thedestroyed churches of Winchelsea, St Giles's or St Leonard's. Withinwe find ourselves in a great choir or chancel, with a chapelon either hand, that on the right dedicated in honour of StNicholas and known as the Alard Chantry, that on the left the LadyChapel known as the Farncombe Chantry. The arcades which divide thesechapels from the choir are extraordinarily beautiful, as are therestored sedilia and piscina with their gables and pinnacles andlovely diaper work. The windows, too, are very noble and fine, and richin their tracery, which might seem to be scarcely English. 

[Illustration: WINCHELSEA CHURCH]

In the Chapel of St Nicholas, the Alard Chantry, on the south, are theglorious canopied tombs of Gervase Alard (1300) and Stephen Alard. Thefirst is the finer; it is the tomb of the first Lord High Admiral ofEngland. The sepulchral effigy lies cross-legged with a heart in itshands and a lion at its feet; and about its head two angels onceknelt. The whole was doubtless once glorious with colour, traces ofwhich still remain on the beautiful diaper work of the recess. Thetomb of Stephen Alard is later, but similar though less rich. Stephenwas Admiral of the Cinque Ports in the time of Edward II. Another ofthe family, Reginald, lies beneath the floor where of old a brassmarked his tomb (1354). 

In the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, the Farncombe Chantry, are threetombs all canopied with a Knight in chain armour, a Lady, and a youngSquire. We are ignorant whose they may be. It is certain that thesetombs are older than the church, and they are said to have beenbrought here from old Winchelsea. 

But Winchelsea has other ruins and other memories besides those to befound in the parish church. 

The Franciscans, the Grey Friars, were established in Winchelsea veryearly, certainly before 1253; and when old Winchelsea was destroyedand the new town built on the hill by the King it was agreed that nomonastery or friary should be built there save only a house for theFriars Minor. This was erected where now the modern mansion called'The Friars' stands, the old convent having been pulled down so latelyas 1819. A part of the ruined Chapel of the Blessed Virgin remains, however, the choir and apse. Decorated work not much later than theparish church, and of great beauty. Unhappily we know absolutelynothing of the Friars in Winchelsea, except that when the house wassuppressed in 1538 it was exceedingly poor. 

The Franciscans, however, were not the only Friars in Winchelsea inspite of the agreement made at the foundation of the new town. In 1318Edward II. Granted the Black Friars, the Dominicans, twelve acres onthe southern side of the hill. This situation was found inconvenient, and in 1357 the Dominicans obtained six acres "near the town. "Nothing, or almost nothing, remains of their house. 

Besides these two religious houses, Winchelsea possessed threehospitals, those of St John, St Bartholomew and Holy Cross. 

The Hospital of St Bartholomew was near the New Gate on the south-westof the town, and dated from the refounding of Edward. Nothing remainsof it, or of the Hospital of Holy Cross, which had existed in oldWinchelsea and was set up in the new town also near the New Gate. Butthe oldest and the most important of the three hospitals was that ofSt John. A fragment of this remains where the road turns towardsHastings to the north of the churchyard. Close by is the thirteenth-century Court House. 

It is always with regret I leave Winchelsea when I must, and even thebeautiful road through Icklesham into Hastings will not reconcile onewho has known how to love this place, to departure. And yet how fairthat road is and how fair is the Norman church of St Nicholas atIcklesham upon the way! The road winds up over the low shore towardsFairlight, ever before one, and at last as one goes up Guestling Hillthrough a whole long afternoon and reaches the King's Head Inn atsunset, suddenly across the smoke of Hastings one sees Pevensey Level, and beyond, the hills where fell the great fight in which William Dukeof Normandy disputed for England with Harold the King. At sunset, whenall that country is half lost in the approaching darkness, one seems tofeel again the tragedy of that day so fortunate after all, in whichonce more we were brought back into the full life of Europe and renewedwith the energy Rome had stored in Gaul. 

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

It is not often on one's way, even in England of my heart, that onecan come upon a place, a lonely hill-side or a city, and say: this isa spot upon which the history of the world was decided; yet I was ableon that showery morning, as I went up out of Hastings towards Battleand saw all the level of Pevensey full of rain, to recall two suchplaces in which I had stood already upon my pilgrimage. For I hadlingered a whole morning upon the battlefield where the Romans firstmet and overthrew our forefathers and thus brought Britain within theEmpire; while at Canterbury I had been in the very place where, afteran incredible disaster, England was persuaded back again out ofbarbarism into the splendour of the Faith and of civilisation. Theseplaces are more than English, they are European sanctuaries, two ofthe greater sites of the history of Europe. Perhaps as much cannotrightly be said for the hill where the town of Battle stands, thelanding-place at Pevensey and the port of Hastings. 

And yet I don't know. What a different England it would have been ifWilliam of Normandy had failed or had never landed here at all. And ifsuch an England could have endured how changed would have been thewhole destiny of Europe. I am not sure after all that we ought not tobe as uplifted by the memory of Hastings as we are or should be by thememory of Caesar's advent. At any rate since Hastings was fought andwon in the eleventh century any national prejudices that belong whollyto the modern world are quite as much out of place with regard to it asthey are with regard to Caesar or St Augustine. And if we must beindignant and remember old injuries that as often as not were sheerblessings, scarcely in disguise, let us reserve our hatred, scorn andcontempt for those damned pagan and pirate hordes that first fromSchleswig-Holstein and later from Denmark descended upon our Christiancountry, and for a time overwhelmed us with their brutish barbarism. As for me I am for the Duke of Normandy; without him England were notthe England of my heart. 

Now the great and beautiful road up out of Hastings, seven miles intoBattle, is not only one of the loveliest in Britain, every yard of itis full of Duke William's army, and thence we may see how in itswonderful simplicity all that mighty business which was decided thatOctober morning on the hill-top that for so long Battle Abbey guardedas a holy place, was accomplished. For looking southward over theoften steep escarpment, always between three and five hundred feetover the sea plain, we may see Pevensey Castle, the landing, Hastings, the port, and at last come to Battle, the scene of the fight that gaveEngland to the Norman for our enormous good and glory and honour. 

I say that the struggle for the English crown between Duke William ofNormandy and Harold, King of England, was in no sense of the word anational struggle; on the contrary, it was a personal question foughtand decided by the Duke of Normandy and his men, and Harold and hismen. Indeed the society of that time was altogether innocent of anyimpulse which could be called national. That society, all of one pieceas it was, both in England and in Gaul, was wholly Feudal, thoughsomewhat less precisely so here than in Normandy. Men's allegiancewas not given to any such vague unity as England, but to a feudallord, in whose quarrel they were bound to fight, in whose victory theyshared, and in whose defeat they suffered. The quarrel between KingHarold and Duke William was in no sense of the word a nationalquarrel but a personal dispute in which the feudal adherents of bothparties were necessarily involved, the gage being the crown and spoilof England. This is at once obvious when we remember that the groundof William's claim to the throne was a promise received from KingEdward personally, unconfirmed by council or witan, but endorsed forhis own part by Harold when shipwreck had placed him in Duke William'spower. Such were the true elements of the dispute. 

It is true that the society of that time was, as I have said, all ofone piece both in England and in Gaul, but it is certain that inEngland that society was less precisely organised, less conscious ofitself, less logical in its structure, in a word less real and morebarbarous than that of the Normans. The victory of Duke William meantthat the sluggish English system would be replaced or at any ratereinvigorated by an energy and an intelligence foreign to it, withoutwhich it might seem certain that civilisation here would have falleninto utter decay or have perished altogether. The service of DukeWilliam then, while not so great as that of Caesar and certainly farless than that of St Augustine, was of the same kind; he rescuedEngland from barbarism and brought us back into the full light ofEurope. The campaign in which that great service was achieved dividesitself into two parts, the first of which comes to an end with thedecisive action at Hastings which gave Duke William the crown; thesecond consists of three great fighting marches, the result of whichwas the conquest of England. I am only here concerned with the firstpart of that campaign, and more especially with the great engagementwhich was fought out upon the hill-top which the ruins of Battle Abbeystill mark. Let us consider this. 

Harold, the second son of Earl Godwin, was crowned King of England atWestminster upon the feast of the Epiphany in the year 1066. When DukeWilliam heard of it he was both angry and amazed, and at once began tocall up his feudatories to lend him aid to enforce his claim to theCrown of England against King Harold. This was not an easy thing todo, nor could it be done at all quickly. It was necessary to gather agreat host. 

Those lords who owed him allegiance had as often as not to bepersuaded or bribed to fulfil their obligation; and they with theirfollowers and dependents were not enough; it was necessary to engageas many as possible of those chiefs who did not own him as lord; thesehad to be bought by promises of gain and honour. Also a considerablefleet had to be built. All this took time, and Harold was thereforeperfectly aware of what Duke William intended, and gathered his forces, both of ships and men, to meet him in the south of England. All throughthe spring and summer he waited, in vain. Meantime, soon after Easter, a strange portent appeared in the heavens "the comet star which somemen call the hairy star, " and no man could say what it might mean. Itwas not this, however, which delayed William; he was not ready. It ispossible that had he been able to advance during the summer the wholehistory of England might have been different. As it was, when autumnwas at hand with the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin, Harold's men wereout of provisions and weary of waiting; they were allowed to disperse, Harold himself went to London and the fleet beat up into the Thames, not without damage and loss, against the wind, which, had he but knownit, now alone delayed the Duke. 

But that wind which kept William in port brought another enemy ofHarold's to England with some three hundred galleys, Hardrada ofNorway, who came to support the claims of Tostig, now his man, KingHarold's exiled brother, to Northumbria; for the Northumbrians hadrebelled against him, and Harold had acquiesced in their choice ofMorkere for lord. Neither Morkere nor his brother Edwin, with theirlocal forces, was able to meet Hardrada with success. They attemptedto enter York but at Fulford on the 20th September they were routed, and Hardrada held the great northern capital. 

Meanwhile Harold had not been idle. Gathering his scattered forces hemarched north with amazing speed, covering the two hundred milesbetween London and Tadcaster in nine days, to meet this new foe; butthis almost marvellous performance left the south undefended. Heentered York on September 25th, and on the same day, seven miles fromthe city at Stamford Bridge, he engaged the enemy and broke themutterly. Three days later William landed at Pevensey. 

What could Harold do? He did all that a man could do. William hadlanded at Pevensey upon Thursday, September 28th. It is probable thatHarold heard of it on the following Monday, October 2nd. Immediatelyhe set out for London, which by hard riding he reached, thoughprobably with but a few men, on Friday, October 6th, an amazingachievement, only made possible by the great Roman road between Yorkand London. Upon the following Tuesday and Wednesday he was joined byhis victorious forces from the north, who had thus repeated theirunequalled feat and marched south again as they had north some twohundred miles in nine days. Upon Wednesday, October 11th, Haroldmarched out of London at the head of this force, and by the evening ofOctober 13th--a day curiously enough to be kept later as the feast ofSt Edward the Confessor--this heroic force had marched in forty-eighthours some sixty miles across country, and was in position upon thatfamous hill some two hours from the coast, overlooking the landing-place of William at Pevensey and the port he had seized at Hastings. That great march has, I think, never been equalled by any British armybefore or since. 

It might seem strange that William, who had landed at Pevensey uponthe 28th of September, had not advanced at all from the sea-coast whenHarold and his men appeared upon that hill after their great marchfrom York upon October 13th. But in fact William, Norman as he was, had a very clear idea of what he intended to do. He left little tochance. He landed his men at Pevensey, seized upon Hastings andbeached his ships; then for a whole fortnight he awaited the hot andweary return of Harold. Harold appeared upon the evening of October13th. Upon the following day, a Saturday, the battle William hadexpected was fought, Harold was slain and his heroic force destroyed. 

The story of that day is well known. Harold's forces were drawn up uponthe ridge where the ruins of Battle Abbey now stand. William, upon thethirteenth, had marched out of Hastings and had occupied the hill tothe east called Telham, where to-day stands Telham Court. In those daysprobably no village or habitation of any sort occupied either of theseheights; one of the chroniclers calls the battlefield the place of"the Hoar Apple Tree. "

It is said that the night of October 13th was passed by Harold and hismen in feasting and in jollity, while the Normans confessed their sinsand received absolution. However that may be, in the full daylight, about nine o'clock of Saturday, October 14th, the battle was joined. 

This tremendous affair which was to have such enormous consequenceswas opened by the minstrel Taellefer, who had besought leave of DukeWilliam to strike the first blow. Between the two armies he rodesinging the Song of Roland, and high into the air he flung his lanceand caught it three times e'er he hurled it at last into the amazedEnglish, to fall at last, slain by a hundred javelins as he rode backinto the Norman front. 

Thus was begun the most famous battle ever fought in England. Itendured without advantage either way for some six hours till theNorman horse, flung back from the charge, fell into the Malfosse inutter confusion, and the day seemed lost to the Normans. But Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, retrieved it and from that time, about threeo'clock, the Normans began to have the advantage. The battle seems tohave been decided at last by two clever devices attributed to Williamhimself. He determined to break Harold's line, and since he had notbeen able to do this by repeated charges, he determined to try astratagem. Therefore he ordered his men to feign flight, and thus todraw the English after them in pursuit. This was successfully done, andwhen the English followed they were easily surrounded and slain. William's other device is said to have been that of shooting high intothe air so that the arrows might turn and fall as from the sky uponthe foe. This stratagem is said to have been the cause of Harold'sdeath; for it was an arrow falling from on high and piercing himthrough the right eye that killed him or so grievously wounded himthat he was left for dead, to be finally killed by Eustace of Boulogneand three other knights. 

With Harold down there can have been little hope of victory left tohis men, and indeed before night William had planted the Pope's bannerwhere Harold's had floated and held the battlefield. There he suppedamong the dead, and having spent Sunday, October 15th, in burying thefallen, he set out not for London, but for Dover, for his simple andprecise plan was to secure all the entries into England from thecontinent before securing the capital. When he had done this hemarched up into England by the Watling Street, burned Southwark, crossed the Thames at Wallingford, received there the submission ofthe Archbishop of Canterbury, and at Berkhampstead the submission ofLondon and the offer of the Crown which he received at Westminster atMass upon Christmas Day; twelve days less than a year after Haroldhad been crowned in the same place. 

One comes to Battle to-day along that great and beautiful road, highup over the sea plain, which still seems full with memories of theNorman advance from Hastings, thinking of all that great business. Ifone comes up on Tuesday, upon payment of sixpence, one is admittedto the gardens of the house in which lie the ruins of theabbey William founded in thankfulness to God for his victory, the highaltar of which was set upon the very spot where Harold fell: "HicHarold Rex interfectus est. "

It was while William was encamped upon Telham Hill, expecting thebattle of the morrow, that he vowed an abbey to God if He gave him thevictory. He was heard by a monk of Marmoutier, a certain William, called the Smith, who, when Duke William had received the crown atWestminster, reminded him of his promise. The King acknowledged hisobligation and bade William of Marmoutier to see to its fulfilment. Themonk thereupon returned to Marmoutier, and choosing four others, brought them to England; but finding the actual battlefield unsuitedfor a monastery, since there was no water there, he designed to buildlower down towards the west. Now when the King heard of it he was angryand bade them build upon the field itself, nor would he hear thempatiently when they asserted there was no water there, for, said he:"If God spare me I will so fully provide this place that wine shall bemore abundant there than water is in any abbey in the land. " Then saidthey that there was no stone. But he answered that he would bring themstone from Caen. This, however, was not done, for a quarry was foundclose by. Also the King richly endowed the house, giving it all theland within a radius of a league, and there the abbot was to beabsolute lord free of bishop and royal officer, [Footnote: The uniqueprivileges of the abbot of Battle included the right to "kill and takeone or two beasts with dogs" in any of the King's forests. ] and verymany manors beside. Yet ten years elapsed before the Abbey of Battlewas sufficiently completed to receive an abbot. In 1076, however, Robert Blancard, one of the four monks chosen by William of Marmoutier, was appointed, but he died e'er he came to Battle. Then one Gausbertwas sent from Marmoutier, and he came with four of his brethren andwas consecrated "Abbot of St Martin's of the place of Battle. " Besidethe extraordinary gifts and privileges which the Conquerorhad bestowed upon the Abbey in his lifetime, upon his death hebequeathed to it his royal embroidered cloak, a splendid collection ofrelics and a portable altar containing relics, possibly the very oneupon which Harold had sworn in his captivity in Normandy to supporthis claim to England. William is said to have intended the monasteryto be filled with sixty monks. We do not know whether this number everreally served there. In 1393, but that was after the Black Death, there appear to have been some twenty-seven, and in 1404 but thirty. In 1535, on the eve of the Suppression, Battle Abbey was visited bythe infamous Layton who reported to Thomas Cromwell that "all but twoor three of the monks were guilty of unnatural crimes and weretraitors, " adding that the abbot was an arrant churl and that "thisblack sort of develish monks I am sorry to know are past amendment. "Little more than two years later the abbot surrendered the abbey andreceived a pension of one hundred pounds. The furniture and so forthof the house was then very poor. "So beggary a house I never see, norso filthy stuff, " Layton writes to Wriothesley. "I will not 20s. Forall the hangings in this house.... " In August 1538 the place wasgranted to Sir Anthony Browne, who is said to have removed the cloakof the Conqueror and the famous Battle Abbey Roll to Cowdray. Thisrascal razed the church and cloisters to the ground, and made theabbot's lodging his dwelling. It is said that one night as he wasfeasting a monk appeared before him and solemnly cursed him, prophesying that his family should perish by fire. To the fulfilment ofthis curse Cowdray bears witness even to this day. 

[Illustration: BATTLE ABBEY]

What spoliation, time and neglect have left of the Abbey is beautiful, especially the great fourteenth century gateway which faces the MarketGreen. Nothing save the foundations is left of the great church. Fromthe terrace, doubtless, we look across the battlefield, but all is sochanged, the bleak hill-top has become a superb garden, that it isimpossible to realise still less to reconstruct the battle, and indeedsince we can only visit the place amid a crowd of tourists, our presentdiscomfort makes any remembrance of the fight or of the great andsolemn abbey which for so long turned that battlefield into a sanctuaryimpossible. 

Nor indeed are we more fortunate in the parish church which wasoriginally built by Abbot Ralph in the twelfth century. It has been sotampered with and restored that little remains that is unspoilt. There, and I think most fittingly, lies that Sir Anthony Browne who got BattleAbbey from the King who had stolen it. 

Now when I had seen all this I went on my way, and because I wasunhappy on account of all that theft and destruction, and because whereonce there had been altar and monks to serve it, now there was none, and because what had once been common to us all was now become thepleasure of one man, I went up out of Battle into the hills by thegreat road through the woods and so on and up by Dallington andHeathfield and so down and down and down all a summer day across theWeald till at evening I came to Lewes where I slept. I remembernothing of that day but the wind and the hills and the great sun ofMay which went ever before me into the west so that I soon forgot tobe sorry and rejoiced as I went. 

CHAPTER XI

LEWES AND SIMON DE MONTFORT

I do not know of a more beautiful town than Lewes in all the widesouth country; it is beautiful not only in itself but in itssituation, set there upon an isolated hill over the Ouse andsurrounded, as though they were great natural bastions set there inher defence, by Malling Hill on the north, Mount Caburn on the west, the broken heights of the Downs to the south, through which the Ouseflows towards Newhaven and the sea, and on the east by Mount Harryunder which was fought the very famous battle of Lewes in which Simonde Montfort took his king prisoner. 

The natural strength and beauty of this situation has been muchincreased by the labour of man, for Lewes is set as it were all in agarden out of which it rises, a pinnacle of old houses crowned by thecastle upon its half precipitous hill. It is a curiously un-Englishvision you get from the High Street for instance, looking back uponthe hill or from the little borgo of Southover or from Cliffe, and yetthere can be few more solidly English places than Lewes. 

That the Romans had here some sort of settlement there can be nodoubt, that Lewes was a place of habitation in the time of the Saxonsis certain, indeed in Athelstan's day it boasted of two mints, but thetown, as it appears to us in history, grew up about the CluniacPriory of St Pancras under the protection of the Castle, and to theseit owes everything except its genesis. 

Whatever Lewes may have been before the Conquest that revolution sawit pass into the power of one of the greatest of William's nobles, that William de Warenne who was his son-in-law. It was he and his wifeGundrada, generally supposed to be the Conqueror's daughter, whofounded the Priory of St Pancras at Southover. It is probable, evencertain, that a chapel, possibly with some sort of religious houseattached to it, existed here before William de Warenne obtained fromthe Conqueror the rape and town of Lewes. In any case it can havebeen of small importance. But within ten years of the Conquest Williamde Warenne and his wife determined to found an important monastery atthe gates of their town, and with this intention they set out onpilgrimage for Rome to consult, and to obtain the blessing of, thePope. They got so far as Burgundy when they found that it wasimpossible to go on in safety on account of the war between the Popeand the Emperor. When they found themselves in this predicament theywere not far from the great Abbey of SS. Peter and Paul at Cluny. 

Now the Cluniac Congregation, the first great reform of theBenedictine Order, had been founded there in the diocese of Macon in910, and it was then at the height of its power and greatness. Clunywas the most completely feudal of the orders, for the Cluniac monkswere governed by Priors each and all of whom were answerable only tothe Abbot of Cluny himself, while every monk in the Order had to beprofessed by him, that mighty ecclesiastic at this time can have beenmaster of not less than two thousand monks. Cluny's boast was itsschool and the splendour of its ceremonies and services; God wasserved with a marvellous dignity and luxury undreamed of before, andunequalled since Cluny declined. It was to this mother house of thegreatest Congregation of the time that William de Warenne turned withhis wife when war prevented them on the road to Rome, and we cannotwonder that they were so caught by all they saw that they determinedto put the monastery they proposed to build under the Abbot of Clunyand to found a Cluniac Priory at the gates of their town of Lewes. They therefore approached the Abbot with the request that he wouldsend three or four of his monks to start the monastery. They did notfind him very willing; for the essence of Cluny was discipline, thediscipline of an army, and doubtless the Abbot feared that, so faraway as Sussex seemed, his monks would be out of his reach and mightbecome but as other men. But at last the Conqueror himself joined hisprayers to those of William de Warenne, and in 1076 the Abbot of Clunysent the monk Lanzo and three other brethren to England, and to themWilliam de Warenne gave the little church of St Pancras especiallyrebuilt for their use with the land about it, called theIsland, and other lands sufficient to support twelve monks. But theAbbot of Cluny had no sooner agreed to establish his congregation inEngland than he seems to have repented. At any rate he recalled PriorLanzo and kept him so long that William de Warenne, growing impatient, seriously thought of transferring his foundation to the Benedictines;but at length Prior Lanzo returned and all was arranged as was atfirst intended. The monastery flourished apace and grew not only inwealth but in piety. Prior Lanzo proved an excellent ruler, and thePriory of St Pancras at Lewes became famous for its sanctity throughall England. 

To the same William de Warenne Lewes owes the foundation or therefoundation of its Castle the second centre about which the towngrew. 

A glance at the map will assure us that Lewes could not but be a placeof great importance, increasing with England in wealth and strength. The South Downs stand like a vast rampart back from the sea, guardingSouth England from surprise and invasion. But this great wall isbroken at four different places, at Arundel in the west where the Arunbreaks through the chalk to find the sea, at Bramber where the Adurpasses seaward, at Lewes where the Ouse goes through, and atWilmington where the Cuckmere winds through the hills to its haven. Each of these gaps was held and guarded by a castle while the leveleastward of Beachy Head was held by Pevensey. Of these castles Isuppose the most important to have been Lewes, for it not only heldthe gap of the Ouse but the pass by Falmer and in some sort theCuckmere Valley also. 

[Illustration: LEWES CASTLE]

But the great day of Lewes Castle was that of Simon de Montfort--Ishall deal with that later. Here it will be enough to point out thatonly a fragment of the great building with its double keep, whose ruinwe see to-day, dates from the time of the first De Warenne, the restbeing a later work largely of Edward I's. Time. 

Let me now return to the Priory which, in the development of the town, played a part at least as great as that of the Castle. 

The Priory had always been famous for its piety, and in 1199, Hugh, who had been Prior there till 1186, was raised to be Abbot of Clunyitself. This is interesting and important for we have thus an ex-Priorof Lewes as Abbot of Cluny during the great dispute between the Orderand the Earl of Warenne. In 1200 Lewes was without a Prior, and AbbotHugh appointed one Alexander. For some reason or other De Warennerefused to accept him and even went so far as to claim that theappointment lay with him, an impossible pretension. Yet even withinthe Priory he is said to have won support, certain of the monksclaiming that, save for a tribute of one hundred shillings a year toCluny, they were independent. The Pope was appealed to and he ofcourse gave a clear decision, not in the English way of compromise, which is the way of a barbarian and a coward, but like an honest mandeciding 'twixt right and wrong. His judgment was wholly in favour ofthe Abbot of Cluny. The Earl then began to bluster and to attempt toappeal beyond the Pope; he even dared to place armed men at the Priorygate and to stop all communications with Cluny. The Abbot replied byan interdict upon Lewes, and things were in this confusion when thePope appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops ofChichester and Ely to hear what De Warenne had to say in excuse for hisviolence. The Abbot of Cluny himself came over and was insulted inLewes by De Warenne's men. In appointing English judges to hear thecase the Pope must have known that all would end in a compromise. Atany rate this is what happened, and it was decided that in future, whena vacancy occurred, the Abbot of Cluny should nominate two candidatesof whom De Warenne should choose one for Prior. This ridiculousjudgment decided nothing. Of two things, one; either the Abbot wasright or he was wrong. If he were right why should he forego his claim, to satisfy De Warenne who was wrong? A decision was what was needed. In1229 the Pope rightly declared the compromise null and void, and theAbbot of Cluny regained his rights. At once the moral condition of thehouse improved, and when it was visited in 1262 everything was reportedto be satisfactory, and unlike any other Cluniac house in England thisof Lewes was not in debt. 

The turning point in the history of the Priory would seem to have beenthe one great moment in the story of the town; the appalling affair inwhich it was involved by Simon de Montfort in 1264 when he took thetown, then Henry III. 's headquarters, and captured the King and youngPrince Edward. It would seem that De Montfort's soldiers had verylittle respect for holy places, for we read that not only were thealtars defiled but the very church was fired and hardly saved fromdestruction. 

The quarrel between the King and his barons would seem, too, to haveinvolved the monks, for we find the sub-prior and nine brethren wereexpelled from Lewes for conspiracy and faction and went to do penancein various houses of the Congregation. Indeed such was the generalcollapse here that before the end of the century the Priory waspractically bankrupt. 

That Lewes suffered severely from the Black Death of 1348-49 iscertain, but we know very little about it, and indeed the history ofthe house is negligible until, in the beginning of the fifteenthcentury the whole system of Cluny was called in question and it wasclaimed on behalf of Lewes that it should be raised to an abbacy withthe power to profess monks. It will be remembered that the Abbot ofCluny--the only Abbot within the Congregation--alone could profess, andin times of war, such as the fourteenth century, this must have beenvery inconvenient. Indeed we read of men who had been monks their wholelife long, but had never been professed at all. It is therefore notsurprising that such a claim should at last have been put forward. Itis equally not surprising that such a claim was not allowed. The Abbotof Cluny refused to raise Lewes to the rank of an abbey, but he grantedthe Prior the privilege of professing his monks; this in 1410. Sothings continued till in 1535, the infamous Layton was sent by ThomasCromwell to inquire into the state of the Priory of Lewes, to nose outany scandal he could and to invent what he could not find. His methodsas applied to Lewes are notorious for their insolence and brutality. Heprofesses to have found the place full of corruption and rank withtreason. And in this he was wise, for his master Cromwell wanted thehouse for himself. Upon November 16, 1537, the Priory of St Pancras atLewes was surrendered. It was then served by a Prior and twenty-threemonks and eighty servi; and it and its lands were granted by theKing to Thomas Cromwell. 

Such was the end of the most famous Cluniac house in England, thesanctuary founded by that De Warenne who had built up Lewes betweenhis Castle on the height and his monastery in the vale. Almost nothingremains to-day of that great and splendid building, but in 1845, inbuilding the railway, the coffins of the founders De Warenne and hiswife Gundrada were found. These now lie in St John's Church, here inSouthover close by, which belonged to the Priory. It was originally aplain Norman building of which the nave remains, the rest of thechurch as we see it, being for the most part either Perpendicular oraltogether modern. 

Of course the Priory of St Pancras was not alone in the fate thatbefell it at the hands of the Tudor in 1537. The only other religioushouse in Lewes suffered a like fate. This was the convent of theFranciscans, dedicated, as most authorities agree, in honour of OurLady and St Margaret. The Friars Minor were established in Lewesbefore 1249, and their convent was one of the last to be surrendered, in 1538. 

From St John's Church, the visitor, not without a glance at the oldhalf timber house close by said to have been the residence of Anne ofCleves, will pass up to the High Street where, under the Castle, stands the parish church of St Michael, the only ancient part of whichis the round Norman tower, a rare thing. A fourteenth century brass toone of the De Warennes is to be seen within. Further west is theTransitional Norman church of St Anne, with curious capitals on thesouth side of the nave. Here is a fine basket-work Norman font, andin the south aisle at the east end a vaulted chapel. To the north ofthe chancel is a recessed tomb. 

But it is not in the churches we have in Lewes that we shall to-dayfind the symbol, as it were, of that old town, still so fair a thing, which held the passage of the Ouse through the Downs and in thethirteenth century witnessed the great battle in which Simon deMontfort, mystic and soldier, defeated and took captive his king. Forthat we must go to the Castle ruin that crowns Lewes as with abattlement. 

The Castle is reached from the High Street near St Michael's church bythe Castlegate. It was founded, as I have said, by the first DeWarenne, but the gate-house by which we enter is later, dating fromKing Edward's time, the original Norman gate being within. The Castlehad two keeps, a rare feature. Only one of these remains, reached by awinding steep way, and of this only two of the fine octagonal towersare left to us. These two are thirteenth century works. From theprincipal tower, now used as a museum, we may get the best view of thefamous battlefield under Mount Harry, one of the most famous sites ofthe thirteenth century in England, for the battle that was foughtthere seemed to have decided everything; in fact it decided nothing, for its result was entirely reversed at Evesham by the military geniusof Prince Edward. 

The cause contested upon these noble hills to the north-west of Lewesis one which continually recurs all through English history; the causeof the Aristocracy against the Crown. The monarchies of westernEurope, which slowly emerged from the anarchy of the Dark Ages andhelped to make the Middle Age the glorious and noble thing it was, are, if we consider them spiritually at least, democratic weapons, orrather, politically, they seem to sum up the national energy and toexpress it. In them was vested, and this as of divine right, theexecutive. Without the Crown nothing could be done, no writ issued, nofortress garrisoned. In the Crown was gathered all the national ends, it was a symbol at once of unity and of power. Against this gloriousthing in England we see a constant and unremitting rebellion on thepart of the aristocracy. It was so in the time of King John when therascal barons curbed and broke the central government; it was so inthe time of Henry III. When Simon de Montfort led, and for a timesuccessfully, the rebellion. It has been so always and not least inthe Great Rebellion of the seventeenth century so falsely representedas a democratic movement, when the parvenu aristocracy founded uponthe lands and wealth of the raped Church in the sixteenth century, broke the Crown up and finally established in England a puppet king, amere Venetian Doge incapable, as we have seen in the last few years, of defending the people against an unscrupulous and treasonousplutocracy led by a lawyer as certainly on the make as ThomasCromwell. The infamous works of such men as these have most often beendone under the hypocritical and lying banner of the rights of thepeople as though to gain his ends the devil should bear the cross ofChrist. It is so to-day; it was so in the time of Simon de Montfort. 

I have said that the King was the fountain of all power in the Englandof Simon; it was therefore his supreme object to get possession of theKing's body that he might have control of the executive machinery ofthe country and thus in fact be king _de facto_. It was this which heachieved upon the battlefield of Lewes in 1264. 

For some ten years before that battle the Barons of England had beenrestless under the yoke of the central government, the Crown, whichstood not for them but for us all. They had already wrung from HenryIII. Under compulsion, when he was within their power and not a freeagent, certain concessions which now he refused to confirm to them. They called him liar and covered him with the same abuse that theirsuccessors hurled at Charles I. ; but Henry stood firm, he refusedwhat had been dragged from him by force, and Simon de Montfort, Earlof Leicester, raised an army not from the people but from his ownfeudal adherents and his friends and took the field, striking into thevalley of the Severn, where he seized Hereford, Gloucester, Worcesterand Bridgnorth with their castles. Then he marched straight uponLondon where, among the Guilds, he had many adherents and friends. Warseemed inevitable, but, as it happened, a truce was called, and thequestion which Simon had made an excuse for his rising, the questionof the King's refusal to confirm the grant of privileges wrung fromhim by force, was submitted for decision to St Louis of France, undoubtedly the most reverent, famous, and splendid figure of thatday. St Louis, unlike an Englishman, decided not with a view to peaceas though justice were nothing and right an old wives' tale, butaccording to law and his conscience, honestly and cleanly before Godlike an intelligent being. Of two things one, either the King wasright or he was wrong. St Louis decided that the King was right, andthis upon January 23rd, 1264. 

Simon refused to abide by the decision. This man in his own conceptionwas above law and honour and justice, he was the inspired andprivileged servant of God. In this hallucination he deceived himselfeven as Oliver Cromwell did later and equally for his own ends. He, too, would break the Crown and himself govern England. He, too, wasbrutal beyond bearing, proud and insolent with his inferiors, imperious even to God, a great man, but one impossible to suffer inany state which is to endure, a dangerous tyrant. 

This great mystical soldier at once took the field, and when Henryreturned from Amiens, where the court of St Louis had sat, he foundall England up, the Cinque Ports all hot for Simon, London ponderousin his support, and in all south-eastern England but one principlefortress still in loyal hands, that of Rochester. 

North and west of London, however, things were less disastrous, andHenry's first move was to secure all this and to cut off London, theapproach to which he held on the south-east in spite of everything, since he commanded Rochester, from the Midlands and the West. Simon'sanswer was the right one; he struck at Rochester and laid siege to it. Down upon him came King Henry to relieve it and was successful. Simonswept back upon London, there he gathered innumerable levies andagain advanced into the south against the King. 

Henry having relieved Rochester, marched also into the south, doubtless intent upon the reduction of the Cinque ports; for this, however, Simon gave him no time. He came thundering down, half Londonweltering behind him, across the Weald, and Henry, wheeling to meethim, came upon the 12th of May up the vale of Glynde and occupiedLewes. On the following day Simon appeared at Fletching in the vale ofthe Weald, some nine miles north of Lewes; there he encamped. Veryearly in the morning of the 14th May, Simon arrayed his troops andbegan his march southward upon the royal army. Dawn was just breakingwhen his first troopers came over the high Down and saw Lewes in themorning mist, the royal banners floating from the Castle--all stillasleep. Slowly and at his ease Simon ordered his men. Upon the north, conspicuously, he set his litter with his standard above it and aboutit massed the raw levies of London. Upon the south he gathered theknights and men-at-arms led by the young Earl of Gloucester. As forhimself he remained with the reserve. Then when all was ready he gavethe order and both wings, north and south, began to advance upon thetown "hoping to find their enemies still abed. "

Simon's plan was a simple one, he hoped to surprise his foes and heintended in any case to throw his main strength southward upon thePriory of St Pancras, while pretending that his main attack was to beupon the Castle. He did not altogether succeed in surprising hisfoes, but in everything else he was successful. The royalists wereaware of his approach only at the last moment, so that when theypoured out of the Castle and Priory and town they were in someconfusion. Then Prince Edward, observing the standard of Simon overthe litter, flung himself upon the Londoners, who broke and fled whilehe pursued them, nor did he stay his hand till he was far away fromLewes. He returned at last victorious and triumphant to find Simon'sbanner floating from Lewes Castle, the King of the Romans and the Kingof England in Simon's hands and the day lost. Weary though he was, heattempted with all the impetuosity of youth to reverse that verdict. Through the streets of Lewes he fought, till at length he was forcedto take refuge in the church of the Franciscans, where indeed Simonfound him. 

Such was the battle of Lewes, which gave all England to De Montfort formore than a year; till indeed Lewes was reversed, by Prince Edward who, escaping from his hands at Hereford, gathered a new army about him andforced Simon to meet him upon the field of Evesham where, when thegreat soldier-mystic saw the royal banners upon the dawn, he cried outthat last great word of his, "The Lord have mercy on our souls for ourbodies are Prince Edward's": to be answered when he demanded mercy, "there is no treating with traitors. "

CHAPTER XII

THE DOWNS

LEWES TO BRAMBER

Perhaps after all the most fundamental truth about Lewes is that she isthe capital of the South Downs, and the South Downs are the glory ofthe South Country; from the noble antiquity of Winchester to thesplendour of Beachy Head they run like an indestructible line of Latinverse beneath the blazon of England. They stand up between the land andthe sea, the most Roman thing in England, and of all English land it istheir white brows that the sun kisses first when it rises over the sea, of all English hills every morning they are the first to be blest. 

The most Roman thing in England I call them; and indeed this "noblerange of mountains" has not the obvious antiquity of the Welshmountains or the Mendip Hills, nor the tragic aspect as of something asold as time, as old as the world itself, of the dark and sea-torncliffs of Cornwall, or the wild and desolate uplands of Somerset andDevon. The South Downs seem indeed not so much a work of Nature as ofman; and of what men! In their regular and even line, in theircontinuity and orderly embankment, in their splendid monotony ofcontour they recall but one thing--Rome; they might be indeed onlyanother work of that mighty government which conceived and built thegreat Wall that stretches from the Solway to the Firth of Forth whichmarked the limit of the Empire and barred out its enemies. And thiswall of the South Downs, too, marked but another frontier of the samegreat government; beyond it lay the horizons unknown, and it barredout the sea. 

But how much older than Rome are the South Downs! Doubtless before thefoundation of Rome, e'er Troy was besieged, these hills stood upagainst the south and served us as a habitation and a home. Nor indeedhave we failed to leave signs of our life there so many thousand yearsago, so that to-day a man wandering over that great uplifted plateauwhich slopes so gradually towards the sea, though he seem to beutterly alone, as far as possible from the ways and the habitations ofmen, immersed in an immemorial silence, in truth passes only fromforgotten city to forgotten city, amid the strongholds and the burialplaces of a civilisation so old that it is only the earth itself whichretains any record or memory of it. Here were our cities when wefeared the beast, before we had knowledge of bronze or iron, when ourtool and our weapon was the flint. 

The man, our ancestor, who chipped and prepared the flints for our useat Cissbury for instance, doubtless looked out upon a landscapedifferent from that we see to-day and yet essentially the same after all. The South Downs in their whole extent slope, as I have said, verygradually seaward and south, and there of old were our cities chiefly set, but northward their escarpment is extraordinarily steep, rising from timeto time into lofty headlands of which the noblest, the most typical andthe most famous is Chanctonbury. Standing above that steep escarpment aman to-day looks all across the fruitful Weald till far off he sees thelong line of the North Downs running as it were parallel with thesesouthern hills, and ennobled and broken by similar heights as that ofLeith Hill. Between, like an uneven river bed with its drifts andislands of soil, running from west to east, lies the Weald, opening atlast as it were into the broad estuary of Romney Marsh, half lost inthe sea. And what we see to-day our neolithic forefathers saw too--witha difference. Doubtless the Downs then were as smooth and bare as theyare now, but the Weald, we may be sure, was different, wilder andcertainly fuller of woodland, though never perhaps the vast andimpenetrable forest of trees of which we have been told. 

I say that the Downs, now deserted save by the shepherd and his flock, were of old populous, and of this fact the evidence is plentiful. Thereis indeed not one of the five main stretches of the Downs that does notbear witness to the immemorial presence of man. To say nothing of thediscoveries about Beachy Head, the earthworks there, and the neolithicimplements and bronze weapons discovered about East Dean and Alfriston, we have in the Long Man of Wilmington, that gigantic figure cut out inthe chalk of the hill-side, something comparable only with the Giant ofCerne Abbas in Dorset and the White Horses of Wiltshire. That figure issome two hundred and forty feet in height and holds in each hand astave or club two hundred and thirty feet long. It would seemimpossible to be certain either of its age or its purpose, but we mayperhaps be sure that it lay there upon the Downs above Polegate beforethe landing of Caesar, and it may have been the foundation of one ofthose figures described by him as formed of osiers and filled withliving men to be destroyed by fire as a sacrifice for our barbariangods. 

Nor is this all. The whole range of the Downs as I say is scatteredthick with the work of our pre-historic forefathers. In Burlough Castleand Mount Caburn we have fortresses so old that it is impossible toname the age in which they were contrived and built, nor can we assertwith any confidence who they were that first occupied the camp uponDitchling Beacon, the highest point of the South Downs, or who firstdefended Wolstanbury. And it is the same with those most famous placesCissbury Ring and Chanctonbury. But the flint mines upon Cissbury giveus some idea of the neolithic men, our forefathers, which should anddoes astonish us. The Camp itself is less wonderful than the mines uponthe western side of it. Here we have not only numerous pits from ten toseventy feet in diameter and from five to seven feet deep, but reallyvast excavations leading to galleries which tap a belt or band offlints. That these mines were worked by neolithic man it is impossibleto doubt, but he may not have discovered or first used them. They maybe older than he, though all record even upon that marvellous hill-side, has been lost of those who first exploited them. Nor isChanctonbury, though it cannot boast of mines such as these, lessastonishing or less ancient. The camp set there following the contourof the hill can only have been one of the most important in south-east England. It commands the camps at Cissbury, the Devil's Dyke, High Down and White Hawk, the whole breadth of the Weald lay beneathit and a signal displayed upon Leith Hill upon the North Downs couldeasily be answered from this noble mountain; Mount Caburn itself wasnot more essentially important. 

It has been thought that the Romans may have used Chanctonbury, but ifso they have left but little mark of their occupation, and indeed, though the Downs as a whole far off are stamped with so Roman acharacter, there is but one spot in their whole length where we maysay; here certainly the Legions have been. That spot lies upon thelast division of the Downs towards the west, the line of hills whichstands between Chichester and the Weald. 

It is certain that the Romans were, in Sussex, most at home on thatgreat sea plain towards which the Downs slope so gradually southward. Here indeed they built their town of Regnum, and perhaps towards theend of their occupation of Britain they laid out the only purely militaryhighway which they built here from Regnum to London Bridge. This greatRoman road, known as the Stane Street, coming out of the eastern gateof Chichester, takes the Downs as an arrow flies, crossing thembetween Boxgrove and Bignor, nor is the work of Rome even to-daywholly destroyed, for there under Bignor Hill we may still see thepavement of their Way, while at Bignor itself we have perhaps thebest remains of a Roman villa left to us in Sussex. 

[Illustration: THE DOWNS]

But though all these marks and signs, the memory and the ruins notonly of our forefathers, but of those our saviours who drew us withinthe government of the Empire so that we are to-day what we are and notas they who knew not the Romans, make the Downs sacred to us, it isnot only or chiefly for this that we love them or that in any thoughtof Southern England, when far away, it is these great hills whichfirst come back into the mind and bring the tears to our eyes. We lovethem for themselves, for their beauty and their persistencecertainly, but really because we have always known them and they morethan any other thing here in the south remind us and are a symbol ofour home. A man of South England must always have them in his heart

for every day of his childhood they have filled his eyes. And to-daymore especially they stand as a sign and a symbol. For not only arethey the first great hills which the Londoner sees, but they offer thenearest relief and repose from the modern torture and noise of thatenormous place which has ceased to be a city and become a mere asylumof landless men. From the mean and crowded streets he seeks with anever increasing eagerness the space of the Downs, from the noise andconfusion and throng, this silence and this emptiness; from thebreathless street, this free and nimble air, which is better thanwine. And so to-day more than ever the Downs have come to stand as asymbol of an England half lost, which might seem to be passing away, but that is, as indeed these hills assure us, eternal andindestructible, the very England of our hearts, which cannot die. There are some doubtless who grumble at this invasion and are fearfullest even this last nobility should be destroyed by the multitude orthis last sanctuary desecrated by the rapacity of the rich, or thislast silence broken by the brutal noise of the motor car. But theDowns are too strong, they have seen too many civilisations pass away, and the men and the ages that built upon their hill-sides have becomeless than a dream in the morning. They remain. And is it nothing thatin our day if a man hears a bird sing in a London street in spring itis of the Downs he thinks, if the wind comes over the gardens in somehaggard suburb it is these hills which rise up in his mind, thesehills, which stand there against the south, our very own fromeverlasting to everlasting. 

But to possess the Downs at least as a symbol, to dream of them as arefuge, it is not necessary to know them in all their secret places, to have seen all their little forgotten homesteads, or to be able torecognise all their thousand steep tracks one from another. 

For me indeed the Downs, long as I have known them, remain most dearas a spectacle, but this you will miss altogether if you are actuallyupon them, lost amid their rolling waves of green turf with only thesky and the wind and the sun for companions. Therefore when I set outfrom Lewes to go westward I did not take the way up past the race-course over the battlefield south of Mount Harry towards DitchlingCamp and Beacon. Let me confess it, I followed the road. And what aroad! In all South England I know no other that offers the travellersuch a spectacle, where above him, in full view, that great rampartstands up like a wall, peak speaks to peak, till presently with amajesty and a splendour, not to be matched I think in our island, Chanctonbury stands forth like a king crowned as with laurel toweringupon the horizon. 

Now this road I followed passes westward out of Lewes and then turnsswiftly north, climbing as it goes, under the Downs beyond Offham, turning west again under Mount Harry and so on past Courthouse Farmand Plumpton church, which stands lonely in a field to the north ofthe road, till suddenly by Westmaston church under Ditchling Beacon itturns north again towards the Weald and enters the very notablevillage of Ditchling. All that way is worth a king's ransom, for itgives you all the steepness of the Downs upon their steepest side, their sudden north escarpment, towering up over the Weald some sevenhundred feet or more. On a spring morning early I know no way morejoyful. 

Ditchling Beacon itself stands some eight hundred and fifty feet abovethe sea and is the highest point in all the range of the South Downs, though it lacks the nobility of Chanctonbury. The earthworks here areirregular and not very well defined, but there is a fine dewpound tothe east of the camp though perhaps this has not much antiquity, aseemingly older depression now dry in the north-west corner is ratheran old rainwater ditch than a dewpound. Altogether it might seem thatDitchling Camp was rather a refuge for cattle than a militaryfortress. 

Ditchling village is charming, with more than one old half-timberhouse, and the church of St Margaret's is not only interesting initself, but, standing as it does upon rising ground and yet clear ofthe great hills, it offers you one of the finest views of the Downsanywhere to be had from the Weald. It consists of a cruciform buildingof which the north transept and the north wall of the nave wererebuilt in the thirteenth century. The chancel, however, has somebeautiful Early English work to show and the nave is rather plainTransitional. The eastern window and most of the windows in the naveare of the early Decorated period, the window in the south chancelaisle being somewhat later. 

Something better than Ditchling church awaits the traveller at Claytonwhere the little church of St John the Baptist possesses a mostinteresting chancel arch, round and massive, that may well be Saxon. The chancel itself is of the thirteenth century with triple lancets atthe western end with two heads, perhaps of a king and queen on themoulding. Here, too, on the south chancel wall is a fine brass of 1523in which we see a priest holding chalice and wafer. In the nave arethe remains of frescoes of the Last Judgment. 

Right above Clayton rises Wolstanbury, a hill-top camp or circularwork some two hundred and fifty yards in diameter. It is interestingbecause it is curiously and cleverly fortified, the rampart beingbuilt up below and outside the fosse, owing to the steepness of thehill. To the left are certain pits which may have been the site ofdwellings; certainly many neolithic implements have been found here. 

Below Wolstanbury which thrusts itself out into the Weald like a greatheadland nearly seven hundred feet in height, lies Pyecombe to thesouth-west. This little place which lies between the heights ofWolstanbury and Newtimber Hill is celebrated for two things, itsshepherds' crooks and the Norman font of lead in the little churchwhose chancel arch is Norman too. You may see here even in so small aplace, however, all the styles of England, for if the font and chancelarch are Norman, the lancets in the chancel are Early English, thedouble piscina is Decorated and the windows of the nave arePerpendicular while the pulpit is of the seventeenth century. 

Pyecombe is hard to reach from Clayton without a great climb over theDowns, but there is a way, though a muddy one, which turns due west outof the Brighton road where the railway crosses it. This leads one roundthe northern side of Wolstanbury (and this is the best way from whichto visit the camp on the top) and so by a footpath past NewtimberPlace, a moated Elizabethan house well hidden away among the trees westof the road to Hurstpierpoint. 

From Pyecombe there is a delightful road winding in and out under theDowns about Newtimber Hill to Poynings. Poynings is, or should I saywas, one of the loveliest, loneliest and most unspoiled villages to befound here under the Downs, but of late it has been accessible byrailway from the Devil's Dyke and Brighton. Nothing, however, can spoilthe beauty and interest of its church which is, I suppose, one of theearliest Perpendicular works in the county, built before 1368 by thethird Baron de Poynings, some remains of whose old manor-house maystill be found east of the churchyard. The church is a Greek cross withcentral tower, and is dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity. Everything in it is charming, especially the beautiful eastern window, the triple sedilia and the piscina; but the pulpit and altar rails areof the seventeenth century as is the great south window which oncestood in Chichester Cathedral. The Poynings lie in the south transept, but their tombs have been defaced. The north transept is the MontaguChapel; here in the window is some old glass in which we may see theAnnunciation. 

The Devil's Dyke, which stands right above Poynings, is a great trenchin the Downs, dug according to the legend by the devil, whose genialintention it was to drown holy Sussex by letting in the sea. He wasallowed from sunset to sunrise to work his will, but owing to thevigilance of those above who had Sussex particularly in their keeping, the cocks all began to crow long before the dawn, and the devil, thinking his time was spent, went off in a rage before he hadcompleted his work. This would seem to prove what I have oftensuspected that the devil is as great a fool as he looks. 

The camp above the Devil's Dyke is of the usual design of a hill-topfortress, the defence following the natural line of the hill, thelook-out having been apparently upon the north-west, whence aremarkably extensive view is to be had both over the Weald and theDowns. But as no water would seem to have been conserved here it isdifficult to believe that this camp was ever a permanent fortresswhich only a very large number of people could have defended. Nevertheless a great number of neolithic implements have been foundthere. 

From Poynings in full view of Chanctonbury the beautiful road runs allthe way at the foot of the Downs to that great gap through which theAdur seeks the sea, and which of old was guarded by Bramber Castle. Onthe way it passes through the loveliest of villages, to wit, Edburton, where in the Early English church of St Andrew is the second of thethree Norman fonts of lead within this county. The church isaltogether interesting, for if it is for the most part of thethirteenth century, it has a charming Decorated eastern windowand it is said that Archbishop Laud himself presented thepulpit and altar rails. What the two low side windows were for Iknow not, but the chapel on the north was dedicated in honour of StCatherine of Alexandria. 

It was already dusk when I came out of Edburton church, the late duskof a day in early May; and so, liking the place passing well, Idetermined to sleep there and soon found a hospitable cottage. In themorning I liked the place better still, and remembering the "tarmac"and the sophistication (alas!) of Steyning, I decided to stay where Iwas two or three days and to visit thence a place in the Weald it hadlong been my desire to see. And so having made up my mind, beforenine o'clock I set out on my way. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE WEALD

There can be no one who has stood upon one of the great heights of theDowns north and south, upon Ditchling Beacon, Chanctonbury or LeithHill, who, looking across the Weald, has not wondered what thiscountry, lying between the two great chalk ranges, might be, what isits nature and its history and what part it has played in the greatstory of England. For even to the superficial onlooker it seems todiffer essentially not only from the great chalk Downs upon which hestands, but from any other part of England known to him. It lies, thickly sprinkled with scattered and isolated woodlands, a mightytrench between the heights, not a vast plain but an uneven lowlanddiversified by higher land but without true hills, and roughly dividedwest and east into two parts by a great ridge known by various names, but in its greater part called the Forest, St Leonard's Forest, Ashdown Forest, Dallington Forest, and so forth. This country which weknow as the Weald is obviously bounded north and south by the Downswhich enclose it, as they do, too, upon the west, where betweenWinchester and Petersfield and Selborne the two ranges narrow andmeet. Thence, indeed, the Weald spreads eastward in an ever wideningdelta till it is lost in the marshes and the sea. 

Such is the aspect of this great country as we see it to-day from anyof the heights north and south of it; but what is its true characterand what is its history?

We hear of it first under a Saxon name, Andredeswald, whence we get ourname of the Weald, and we find it always spoken of not only by theSaxons, but by the Romans before them as an obstacle, though not, itwould seem, an insurmountable one. It was, in fact, a wild forestcountry of clay containing much woodland, everywhere covered withscrub, and traversed by various sleepy and shallow streams. That it wasdifficult to cross we have Roman evidence; that it was a secure hiding-place we know from the Saxons; but as we look upon it to-day neither ofthese historic facts is self-evident, and therefore a curious myth hasgrown up with regard to the Weald; and the historian, seeking toexplain what is not to be understood without time and trouble andexperience, tells us that the Weald was once an impenetrable forest, awhole great woodland and undergrowth so thick that no man might crossit without danger. Such an assertion is merely an attempt on the partof men, who do not know the Weald, to explain the facts of which I havespoken, namely, that the Weald appears as an obstacle in our earlyhistory, though not insurmountable, and that it continually offered asecure hiding-place and refuge to the fugitive. 

The Weald as it appears to us first, is the secure home of those whofirst smelted the ironstone in which it abounds, and as such itremained during many ages. But the two main facts about it which helpto explain everything in its history are first that it consisted forthe most part of clay, and secondly that it was everywhere illwatered. Let us consider these things. 

The Weald, even as we see it to-day, tilled and cultivated and tendedthough it be, remains largely a country of scattered woodland, verythickly wooded, indeed, as seen in a glance from any height of theDowns, but revealing itself, as we traverse it, as a country ofisolated woods, often of oak, and with here and there the remains ofa wild and rough moorland country, of which, as we may think, in theRoman times, it, for the most part, consisted. It later possessed somesix forests properly so called, but itself was never a legal forestnor in any sense of the words an impenetrable wood. It alwayspossessed homesteads, farms and steadings, but almost nowhere withinit was there a great or populous town; men lived there it is true, butalways in a sort of isolation. And this was so not because the Wealdwas an impassable forest of woodland and undergrowth--it was neverthat; but because of its scarcity of water or more accurately itsuncertainty of water and its soil, the Wealden clay. The state ofaffairs anciently obtaining in the Weald does not fundamentally differfrom what obtains to-day, and in a word it was and is this: in dryweather there is no water, but the going is good; in wet weather thereis plenty of water, but the going is impossible. Of course, theseconditions have in modern times been modified by the building of roadsand the sinking of wells and the better embankment and preservation ofthe rivers, but in Roman times, as later, the Weald was an obstaclebecause it was difficult, though never impossible, to cross on accountof the badness of the going or the lack of water. It was a securehiding-place for such a fugitive as a Saxon king because he could notbe pursued by an army; he himself with a few followers could move fromsteading to steading and enjoy a certain amount of state, but apursuing army would have perished. 

Evidence in support of this explanation of the secret and character ofthe Weald is not far to seek. The Weald lay between the Channel andits ports, that is to say, the entries into England from thecontinent, and the Thames valley; it was then an obstacle that had tobe overcome. Had it been merely a great woodland forest, it would nothave troubled the Romans who would merely have driven a great roadthrough it. But the Romans had more to face than an impenetrablewoodland or the roughness of the country; they had to overcome thelack of water, and therefore in the Weald their day's march of sometwelve miles was pressed to double its normal length. The Frencharmies, according to Mr Belloc, do exactly the same thing in the Plainof Chalons to-day. And indeed a man may see for himself, even yet, what exactly the Weald was if in summer he will cross it by any of thewinding byways that often become good roads for a mile or so and thenlapse again into lanes or footpaths. Let him follow one of these afootand drink only by the wayside. And then in winter let him follow thesame tracks if he can. He will find plenty of water, but his feet willbe heavy with clay. For an army or even a regiment to go as he goeswould be almost impossible, and this not because of the woodland orundergrowth, but because of the lack of water, the lack of towns orlarge villages and the clay underfoot. 

Such then was the nature of the barrier which lay between the ports ofthe Channel and the valley of the Thames. The Weald was indeedinhuman, and this helps to explain why it was not only a barrier but arefuge. 

We read in the rude chronicle of the Saxons of two men who soughtrefuge in the Weald, in the seventh and eighth centuries. The first ofthe three was Caedwalla, (659?-689) a young man of great energy, according to Bede, and probably a dangerous aspirant to the West-Saxonthrone. At any rate he was exiled from Wessex and he took refuge withhis followers in the forest of Anderida, that is to say in the Weald. There about 681 he met St Wilfrid who had fled, too, from the WestSaxon kingdom. Wilfrid was busy converting the South Saxons, andCaedwalla, going from steading to steading with his followers, savedfrom any considerable pursuit by the nature of the country, becamegreat friends with him. This, however, did not prevent him in 685from ravaging Sussex, slaying the South Saxon king and at lastsucceeding his old enemy Centwine upon the West Saxon throne. Caedwalla, after conquering the Isle of Wight and puttingto death the two sons of King Arvaldus, having allowed them first tobe baptised, was himself converted, and to such purpose that he laiddown his crown, went on pilgrimage to Rome, and was baptised under thename of Peter, by the Pope, on the vigil of Easter 689. He died, however, before Domenica in albis, and was buried in Old St Peter's, nor was he the only English king that lay there. 

All this came out of the Weald; but it is most significant for usbecause it allows us to understand the nature of this refuge and whatit offered in the way of safety to an exile. 

This is confirmed by the experience of Sigebert, King of the WestSaxons. He, too, first took refuge in the Weald when deposed by hiswitan. He fled away and was pursued, we read, by Cynewulf, so that hetook refuge in the forest of Andred where he was safe from pursuit bymany men, being killed at last at Privet near Petersfield in Hampshireby a swineherd in revenge for his master's death. Such then was thenature of the Weald and such fundamentally it remains, a stubborn andreally untameable country, even to-day not truly humanised, stilllargely empty of towns and villages but scattered with isolated farmsand steadings. And the essential inhumanity of the true heart of theWeald is borne out by the scarcity of religious houses there. Only thelittle Priory of Rusper, a small Benedictine nunnery perhaps founded byone of the De Braose family before the end of the twelfth century, andthe small Benedictine nunnery of Easebourne founded in the thirteenthcentury may be said to belong to the true Weald; of the others, suchas the Abbey of Robertsbridge, the Priories of Michelham and Shulbred, the Abbeys of Otham, Bayham, and Dureford not one is really old orstands really within the true Weald. Nor are they of very muchimportance. The greatest of these houses was the Cistercian Abbey ofRobertsbridge founded in 1176 by Alfred de St Martin, Sheriff of therape of Hastings, within which the abbey stood, really upon the lastof the forest ridge towards the Level of Pevensey. It is true that thisabbey played a considerable part in history during the first years ofits existence; for it was the Abbot of Robertsbridge who set out withthe Abbot of Boxley to search for Coeur de Lion in 1192 and who found himin Bavaria, and we find the Abbot of Robertsbridge employed more thanonce again as an ambassador; but its fame soon dwindled, and thoughit escaped the first suppression and indeed survived till 1538 itcould boast then of but eight brethren. 

[Illustration: THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, NORTH OF LEWES]

The only other houses as old as Robertsbridge are those of Otham andDureford, houses of Premonstratensian Canons, neither in the heart ofthe Weald, and both dating from the twelfth century. The otherreligious houses, Michelham and Shulbred of the Augustinian Canons, Easebourne of Augustinian nuns and Bayham the successor of Otham, alldate from the thirteenth century, and indeed no more belong to thetrue Weald than do the rest. It is, in fact, only to-day that a greatmonastery stands in the heart of the Weald, and of all wonderfulthings that is a Carthusian House of the like of which Pre-reformationEngland boasted but twelve, and Sussex none at all. 

It was one day as I came over the Adur by Moat Farm that I becameaware of this great establishment, for there suddenly, as I turned acorner, by the Lord, the road was full of Carthusian monks all intheir white habits, a sight as marvellous as delightful once more uponan English road. And so I found my way to the great house of St Hughat Parkminster. 

One should learn to be astonished at nothing in England of my heart, for it will beggar one's admiration. But Carthusians! Was it not thisOrder which Henry II. Had brought into England as part of his penancefor the murder of St Thomas? Was it not this Order which had first beenestablished in my own Somerset, and alone of all Orders in England by aSaint, and which there at Witham and at Hinton, still so fair andlovely, built its first two houses in England, of which all told therewere but twelve? Was it not this Order that had faced and outfacedHenry Tudor to the last so that the monks of the London Charterhousewere burnt at the stake at Tyburn?

Well is this monastery dedicated in honour of St Hugh. And if you donot know why let me write it here. It is well known that after themurder of St Thomas and Henry II. 's public repentance for his part inall that evil, Pope Alexander III. Gave him for penance a crusade ofthree years in the Holy Land, but when that was found not to beconvenient he commuted it for the building of three monasteries ofwhich one was to be Carthusian, for the Carthusians at that time had nohouse in England. This Order had been founded at Grenoble in 1086 by StBruno, who had been sent by St. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, to a desertspot in the Alps 14, 000 feet above the sea. There St Bruno founded hismonastery known as the Grande Chartreuse. His monks were hermit monks, each had, as each has still, his own little dwelling. The Order, whichhas never been reformed--Cartusia nunquam reformata Quia nunquamdeformata--and has uniformly followed the Rule approved byPope Innocent XI. , recognises three classes of brethren, thefathers, the conversi or lay brethren, and nuns. Each house isgoverned by a Prior and each monk lives, as I have said, in a separatedwelling of five little rooms and a tiny cloister, or ratherambulatory, facing a little garden. His food is given him through ahatch at the foot of the stairs leading to his rooms. He attends Massin Choir, Matins and Vespers too, but the other Hours are said in hiscell. As the Carthusians were when they first came into England sothey are to-day. 

But it is not in honour of St Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, that themonastery at Parkminster is dedicated, but of quite another saint. 

When Henry II. Set out to found a Carthusian house in England inobedience to the Pope, the place he chose for it was Witham inSelwood, a solitude, for the Rule of the Order demanded it, and thatis also why we have this monastery in the Weald to-day. It bearswitness as nothing else could do to-day, perhaps, to the truecharacter of the Weald. 

Witham, it is true, was not so desolate as the Grande Chartreuse, butit was in the heart of the Forest, far from the abode of men. Even to-day Witham is not easy to reach by road. This house, thus founded didnot flourish; whether the place was too hard for the monks, or whetherthere was some other cause we know not, but the first two priors, though both from the Grande Chartreuse, failed to establish it. ThenKing Henry was advised to beg of the mother-house her great andshining light, Hugh of Avalon, not of Avalon in England, but of Avalonin Burgundy. He was successful in his request. The Bishop of Bath andWells, his ambassador, then in the Alps, was able to bring Hugh homewith him, though the loss of that "most sweet presence, " as the Priordeclared, widowed his house; and Hugh came to England and to Withamand was received as "an angel of the Lord. " It is in honour of thisgreat and holy man, later Bishop of Lincoln and known as St Hugh ofAvalon, that the Carthusian monastery of Parkminster is dedicated. Ihave here no room to speak of him, the true founder of the Order inEngland, of his holy, brave and laborious life in Selwood or of hisrule there of ten years. He is forgotten even at Witham and his nameno longer, alas, means anything to us whom he served. Only theCarthusians have not forgotten, and to the keeping of no other saintin the Calendar could they so honourably have entrusted their newhouse. 

This monastery, founded in the Weald, upon October 17, 1877, is agreat, if not a beautiful, pile of buildings, and is, in fact, one ofthe largest houses of the Order in the world. The visitor rings at thegate, and is admitted by a lay-brother dressed in the beautiful whitehabit, caught about the waist by a leathern girdle from which a rosaryhangs. Upon his feet are rough shoes and his head is shorn but hegreets you with a smile of welcome and leads you into a largequadrangle, where before you is the great Romanesque church with achapel upon one side and the refectory upon the other, and all aboutare cloisters. Here over the entrance to the church is a statue of StHugh. Within, the church is divided by a screen into two parts, thechoir for the Fathers, the nave for the lay-brothers. Over the screenis a rood, and beneath, two altars, dedicated in honour of St John theBaptist, who went into the desert, and St Bruno, the founder of theOrder. From the church one is led to the Chapter House, in which therestands an altar and Crucifix, and there upon the walls are depictedscenes from the martyrdom of the London Carthusians in the time ofHenry VIII. From the Chapter House one is led to the Chapel of theRelics, where there is a beautiful silver reliquary that belonged tothe English Carthusians before the Reformation, and in it is a relicof St Thomas of Canterbury. Here, too, is the stole of St Hugh and abone of St Bruno. 

The monastery proper lies behind the church, where a vast quadrangle, the Great Cloister, some three acres in extent, opens out, surroundedon three sides by the little houses of the monks, with the graveyardin the midst. Here the monks live, and are buried without coffin orshroud in their white habits, the hood drawn over the face. The cellsare delightful to look upon, "a solitude within a solitude"; eachconsists of five rooms, two below and three above, reached by astaircase, the whole approached from a passage closed by a door givingon to the Great Cloister. Here live and pray some thirty-six monks, with a like number of conversi or lay-brothers. 

I do not know in all England a place more peaceful than this one, moresolemn and salutary to visit in the confusion of our modern life. Hereis one of the lightning conductors that preserves the modern worldfrom the wrath of God. Let others think as they will, for me themonastery of St Hugh in the Weald is holy ground. 

And at any rate, even though you may not agree with me so far, in thisat least I shall carry you with me, when I say that this monastery, and especially because it is Carthusian, bears out the old characterof the Weald and endorses it. I have said the Weald was ever a wildand inhuman place where only few men could go together, without greattowns and with only infrequent villages; not a thick or impenetrablewoodland but a difficult and a lonely country sparsely scattered withsteadings. Well, it is such places that the Carthusians have eversought out for their houses, such was Witham and such was the GrandeChartreuse also. That a Carthusian monastery should have been foundedto-day in the midst of the Weald proves, if anything can, that it hasnot yet wholly lost its character. 

CHAPTER XIV

TO ARUNDEL AND CHICHESTER

From my little quiet retreat at Edburton, I set out one May morning tofollow the road under the Downs, through Steyning for Arundel andChichester, because it is one of the fairest ways in all the world, and, rightly understood, one of the most interesting. And to beginwith, I found myself crossing one of those gaps in the South Downs, each of which is held by a castle. The one I now crossed was that madeby the Adur, and it was held by the Castle of Bramber. 

Now Bramber, merely beautiful to-day, must in the old times always havebeen of importance, for it holds an easy road through the rampart ofthe Downs, one of the great highways into Normandy, because of theharbour of Shoreham at the mouth of the Adur, one of the principalports upon this coast. Of immemorial antiquity, the harbour ofShoreham, first of Old Shoreham, perhaps the Roman Portus Adurni, andthen when that silted up of New, has played always a great part in thehistory of South England. That the Romans knew and used it is certain. It was probably here that the Saxon Ella and his three sons Cymne, Cissa, and Wlencing, landed in 477, and it is not likely that it wasneglected by the Normans, who, in fact, built here a very noblecruciform church, dark and solemn, indeed, rather a fortress than achurch. It was at Shoreham certainly that John landed when he returnedto England to make himself king after the death of Coeur de Lion, andwe may gather some idea of the real importance of the port from thefact that it furnished Edward III. With twenty-six ships for his fleetin 1346. Thereafter the place declined, but history repeated itselfwhen Charles II. , in flight in 1651 and anxious to reach the Frenchcoast, set out from Shoreham and landed at Fécamp. Shoreham thus wasan important way in and out of England, but the road by which it livedwas not in its keeping at all, but in the power of the Castle ofBramber which dominated and held it on the north side of the Downs, where it issued out of the pass or gap made by the Adur. 

Bramber Castle stands upon a headland thrust out into the valley andthe Weald in the very mouth of the pass; and even in its ruin, only anold gateway tower and a fragment of the lofty barbican in which is aNorman window remain. It is easy to understand how important and howstrong it must once have been. Indeed, Norman though these remainsare, it was by no means the Normans who first fortified thispromontory and held this pass. It is probable that the Castle ofBramber occupies the site of a Roman Castellum and a Saxon fortress, some say a palace of the Saxon kings. After the Conquest the castlecame into the hands of the great William de Braose, lord of Braose, near Falaise in Normandy, who received such great estates in Englandfrom the Conqueror. He fixed his seat, however, here at Bramber, andbuilt or rebuilt the Castle which became the greatest fortress in hispossession. Later, by marriage, it passed to the Mowbrays, and fromthem descended to the Dukes of Norfolk, the present Duke, indeed, still holding it. It is, however, of William de Braose we think inBramber; for he not only built the great Castle which gives itscharacter to the place even to-day, but the church of St Nicholasalso, under the Castle, of which the nave and tower of his time onlyremain. He built it indeed as a chapel to his Castle, and to serve ithe founded there a small college of secular canons under a dean, andendowed it with the church of Beeding and many tithes, among themthose of Shoreham. But about 1080 William de Braose seems to haverepented of what he had done, for he then granted to the Abbey of StFlorent in Saumur the reversion of the church of St Nicholas here, when the last of the canons then living in his college at Beedingshould have died. It was thus that the Abbey of St Florent came toestablish a Priory at Beeding, or Sele as the monks called it, andthis about 1096; and William's son Philip confirmed them in hisfather's gifts, and before the end of the twelfth century this alienpriory possessed the churches of Sele, Bramber, Washington, OldShoreham and New, to say nothing of the little chapel of St Peter onthe old bridge between Bramber and Beeding. 

This old bridge over the Adur is worth notice, for it is said to havebeen first established by the Romans upon a road of theirs that ranunder the north escarpment of the Downs from Dover to Winchester. Certain Roman remains have indeed been found there, and the chapel ofSt Peter _de veteri ponte_ was doubtless founded in order to guard itand keep it open and in order. 

Evil days fell upon the Priory with the rise of nationalism and thewars of the fourteenth century. Like every other alien house it cameunder suspicion of spying, and being near the coast, indeed, at thevery threshold of an important gate, it was seized by the Crown. Atlast, in 1396, Richard II. Permitted it to naturalise itself, and itsonly connection thereafter with St Florent was the payment of a smallannual tribute. But the misfortunes of the Priory were not over. Forsixty years or more all went well, but in 1459 the Bishop ofWinchester bought the patronage of the place from the Duke ofNorfolk, and won leave from the Pope and the Bishop of Chichester tosuppress it and appropriate it to his new College of St Mary Magdalenin Oxford. The suppression, however, was not to take effect till thelast monk then living should die, and this came to pass in 1480. Forthirteen years the Priory was unoccupied, and then in 1493 the Fellowsof Magdalen allowed the Carmelite Friars of Shoreham to use the place, their own house in Shoreham having been engulfed by the sea. TheseWhite Friars were the poorest in all Sussex; so poor were they thatthey failed even to maintain themselves at Sele. In July 1538, whenthe Bishop of Dover came to visit the place, he found "neither friarnor secular, but the doors open ... And none to serve God. " Such wasthe end of the house William de Braose had built in the first years ofthe Conquest. What remains of it will be found in the church of StPeter in Upper Beeding, an Early English building of no great interestsave that it contains many carved stones from the Priory, a window anda door also from the same house, upon the site of which the vicaragenow stands. 

William de Braose, who made Bramber his chief seat, must have had anenormous influence upon building in this neighbourhood, which aboundsin Norman churches such as those of Botolphs and Coombes, to saynothing of those at Shoreham Old and New; but he was by no means theonly renewer of life here. 

The most beautiful thing in the still beautiful village of Steyning isthe great church of St Andrew, but with this the Lord of Bramber hasnothing to do; the Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp rebuilt this noblesanctuary, but its foundation is said to be due to an English saint, St Cuthman, who, having been a shepherd boy, upon his father's deathcame out of the west into Sussex bearing his mother, who was crippled, in a kind of barrow which he dragged by a cord. A thousand queerstories are told of him as he went on his way, happily enough itseems, until he came to Steyning, where the cord of his barrow broke. There he built a hut for his mother, and constructed a little churchof timber and wattles in which at last he was buried. In his life hehad performed divers miracles so that his grave became a place ofpilgrimage, and it is said to have been about this shrine that thevillage and church of Steyning grew up. It remained a holy place, andEthelwolf, the father of Alfred, is said to have been buried there, his body later being removed to Winchester. 

That the place was of some sort of importance would seem to beevident, for we find Edward the Confessor, granting the manor andchurches of Steyning to the Benedictines of Fécamp, Harold taking itfrom them, and the Conqueror restoring it. Two churches at Steyningare spoken of in the Domesday Survey, and it has been thought that thesecond of these is really that at Warminghurst. But we find a churchin Steyning in the thirteenth century served by secular canons. Thiswas, however, in all probability the church of St Andrew we know, which in 1290 was a royal free chapel answerable neither to theArchbishop nor to the Bishop of Chichester, but to the Abbot of Fécamponly. The College of Canons had by then, if indeed it ever servedthis church, been dissolved. At the suppression of the alien prioriesin the fifteenth century Steyning passed to the new Abbey of Sion. 

There can be no doubt that the church we have at Steyning is due tothe Benedictines of Fécamp, and it is one of the noblest buildings inthe county. Of the earlier church they built here much would seem toremain, the rudely carved arches at the eastern end of the aisles, theNorman window on the north, and much of the aisle walls. This churchwas probably cruciform and may have been larger than that we now see. It was rebuilt again by the monks in the middle of the twelfthcentury, when the great chancel arch we have, the beautiful navearcades and clerestory were built, with the fine mouldings andcapitals and dog-tooth ornament. The font, too, would seem to be ofabout this time. The tower only dates from the sixteenth century, andthe chancel is modern. 

Now Steyning lies under Chanctonbury, but I resisted the temptation tospend the afternoon in the old camp there looking over the "bluegoodness of the weald, " for I wished especially to visit the church ofWiston, and to see, if I might, Wiston House, which Sir ThomasShirley built about 1576, and where those three brothers were born whoastonished not only Sussex and all England, but Rome itself and thePope by their marvellous daring and adventures. 

The old manor house is delightfully situated in its beautiful parkunder the dark height of Chanctonbury, and though much altered, retains on the whole its fine Elizabethan character. The manororiginally belonged to the De Braose, from whom it passed by marriageto the Shirleys. In the church, a small Decorated building, there isa fine brass of 1426 to Sir John de Braose, on which over and overagain we read Jesu Mercy: this in the south chapel. His little son isburied under an arch on the north, where there is a curious effigy ofhim. The first Shirley, whose monument we find here, though only inpart, is that of Sir Richard, who died in 1540; but it was Sir Thomas, who also has his monument, that built Wiston and was the father ofthose three remarkable sons. He was the great-grandson of Ralph Shirleyof Wiston, and the son of William Shirley, who died in 1551. Till histime the family had of course been Catholic; it was he who firstabandoned the Faith; perhaps it was this spirit of adventure sounfortunate in him which descended to that famous "leash of brethren"and drove them out upon their adventures. The least remarkable and themost unfortunate of these sons of his was the eldest, Thomas, whoselife, however, as a soldier and freebooter, both on shore in the LowCountries and at sea, is sufficiently full of adventure to satisfyanyone. He came, however, to utter grief at last, and had to sellWiston, retiring to the Isle of Wight, where he died in 1630. 

It was his brother Anthony who really made the Shirleys famous. He hadgraduated at Oxford in 1581, and having, as he said, "acquired thoselearnings which were fit for a gentleman's ornament, " he went to theLow Countries with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and was present atthe battle of Zutphen, where Sir Philip Sidney fell. In 1591 he was inNormandy with the Earl of Essex, whom he devotedly followed, in supportof Henry of Navarre, who made him a knight of St Michael. For acceptinga foreign knighthood without her leave, Elizabeth locked him up in theFleet, and only let him out when he promised to retire from theOrder. This he actually did, but his title stuck to him, and he wasalways known as Sir Anthony. He then married Elizabeth Devereux, afirst cousin of his patron, the Earl of Essex; but the marriage wasunfortunate; he could not abide his wife, and in order to "occupy hismind from thinking of her vainest words, " in 1595 he fitted out withEssex's aid and his father's a buccaneering expedition to the Gulf ofGuinea. But in something less than two years after the most amazingadventures he came home to Wiston under the Downs, "alive but poor, "and with his passion for adventure in nowise abated. In 1597 heaccompanied Essex on the "Islands voyage, " but, seeking more payingadventure, in the winter of 1598 he consented at Essex's suggestion tolead a little company of English adventurers to assist Cesare D'Este toregain his Duchy of Ferrara, then in the hands of the Pope. He setforth, but upon reaching Venice found that Cesare had submitted. Againhe was out of employment; but it was upon the quays of Venice that heconceived the most astonishing enterprise that even an Englishman hasever undertaken. He proposed to set out for Persia with the object ofpersuading the Shah to ally himself with Christendom against the Turk, and hoped also to establish commercial relations between England andPersia. Upon this astonishing Crusade he left Venice with his brotherRobert and twenty-five Englishmen disappointed of a row in Ferrara, onMay 29, 1599, for Constantinople. Thence he went on to Aleppo, and sodown the Euphrates, to Babylon, to Isapahan and Kazveen, wherehe met the Shah Abbas the Great. There, thanks to the Shah'stwo Christian wives, he had a good reception; the rank of Princewas conferred upon him, and he won the concession, for all Christians, of the right, not only to trade freely, but to practise their religionin Persia. For five months he remained at the court of the Shah, andthen returned to Europe as his ambassador to invite all Christianpowers to ally themselves with Persia against the Turk. He went firstto Moscow, where he was, however, treated with contempt, as was hismission. He went to Prague and was well received. At last, in 1601, after visiting Nuremberg, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbruck, and Trent, hearrived in Rome, and, professing enthusiasm for the Faith his fatherhad repudiated, was well received. The truth was, he was in grave moneydifficulties, and indeed in 1603 was arrested by the Venetians andimprisoned "in a certain obscure island near unto Scio. " The EnglishGovernment, however, came to his aid and obtained his release, butrefused him permission to return to England. He went to Prague, andthence on the business of the Emperor to Morocco. There he was receivedin great state and remained five months. Before leaving, however, hereleased certain Portuguese whom he found in slavery, and sailed withthem for Lisbon, where he hoped to reimburse himself for their ransom. In this he was disappointed, so on he went to Madrid, where he was madevery much of and promised the Order of Sant'Iago. In the service now ofSpain, he went to Naples in 1607, after a visit to the Emperor atPrague where he was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He seemsto have travelled considerably in Southern Italy, and after a briefvisit, to obtain money, to Madrid, set out for Sicily in command of afleet to attack the Moors and Turks. He achieved nothing and wasdismissed. In 1611 he appeared again in Madrid in utter poverty, butthe King took compassion upon him and gave him a pension, and in Madridhe remained writing an account of his adventures till he died inbeggary. The English ambassador notes in 1619, "The poor man sometimescomes to my house and is as full of vanity as ever he was, makinghimself believe that he shall one day be a great prince. " It mightindeed seem a long road from Wiston under the Downs to the Gulf ofGuinea, the Quays of Venice, Constantinople, the Euphrates, Babylon, Moscow, Prague, Rome, and Morocco, to die at last a beggar in purse, but in heart a great Prince in Madrid. 

Now, when I had been reminded of all this, I was directed to visitBuncton Chapel to the north of Wiston Park, where I found indeed someNorman work in the nave and chancel arch. And so I went on my waythrough the failing afternoon by that beautiful road within sight ofthe high Downs to the Washington Inn, where I slept, for it is a quietplace not to be passed by. 

And on the morrow I went on my way, still through as fair a country asis to be found in all South England, through Storrington, and so by wayof Parham Park, with its noble Elizabethan house and little church withthe last leaden font in Sussex, a work of the fourteenth century, toAmberley in the meads of the Arun, a dear and beautiful place. 

Amberley boasts a Castle and stands right in the mouth of one of thosegaps in the Downs as Bramber does, the gap of the Arun, and it mightwell be thought that Amberley held this pass. As a fact she did not. That gap is held by Arundel; the Castle at Amberley was a palace of theBishop of Chichester, granted to the Bishop of Selsey long before theConquest; it was only castellated in the fourteenth century. It is nonethe less an interesting ruin, very picturesque, with remains of achapel, while the beautiful house built within the castle walls earlyin the sixteenth century is altogether lovely. And as for the church, Ican never hope to tell of all its interest and beauty. Certainly aNorman church once stood here, of which the nave of that we see waspart, as was the very noble chancel arch; but the chancel itself, thesouth aisle, and the tower are of the thirteenth century, while thesouth door is very early Decorated, most beautifully carved. There isnot surely in all Sussex a more delightful spot than this lying soquietly in the meads, with its beautiful church, its ruined castle, andfine old Elizabethan house, where Arun bends slowly and lazily towardsthe Downs and the sea. 

It was with real regret that on that May morning I left Amberley, turning often to look back at it, and last from the great seven-archedbridge over the Arun, whence one may look down stream upon the woodedslopes of Arundel Park. Then I went on up the road that winds through thesteep village of Houghton swiftly up on to the Downs, wooded here verynobly, and so at the top of Rewell Hill I turned to the left and made myway through the noble park to the little town of Arundel. 

Now I cannot say why, but in spite of its seduction, which is full ofsplendour, of its noble history and great buildings, I have never beenable to love Arundel. One is there always I feel too much in the shadowof that mighty Castle which for the most part is not old at all, toomuch in the power of that great new church that surely was never builtby English hands, which has altogether blotted out the oldersanctuary, and which, Catholic though it be, has never won myaffection. Arundel itself is all in the shadow of these two things, each of which is too big for it, too heavy for free laughter and light-heartedness. So it seems to me. 

All I can find in Arundel that pleases me lies in the little townitself, and in the old church of which one half, the chancel, has beenclosed to all who do not hold the Duke's written permission to enterit--as though the house of God, even though it be the property of aCatholic duke, were not by nature as it were free to all. And so thereis a kind of sorrowfulness about Arundel that spoils my pleasure in it, yes, even in the very noble remains of the old Castle that are hiddenaway within the sham Gothic affair of 1791. Even in the beautiful oldchurch, of which one half is closed, even in the steep little townwhich might have been as gay as Rye, I felt, overwhelmed by the newCastle and the new church, neither of which has any antiquity, tradition, or beauty. 

[Illustration: ARUNDEL CASTLE]

The old Castle, with its great circular Norman keep within the hugesham "fortress" of the eighteenth century, beneath which the town lieslike one afraid to ask for mercy, should not be left unvisited, for itwas probably built by that Roger de Montgomery, who led the Bretoncentre at Hastings, and has thus nearly a thousand years of historybehind it, to say nothing of three sieges, that of 1102, when it wassurrendered to Henry I. , that of 1139, when Stephen there held Matildaprisoner and allowed her to pass out, and that of 1643, when Wallertook it after seventeen days. 

Nor indeed should anyone fail to visit the beautiful parish church ofSt Nicholas, a glorious cruciform building, Perpendicular in style, built in 1380. It, too, has a long history. The church was originallyserved by secular canons, but in 1177 the then Earl of Arundelintroduced in their place four or five monks under a Prior from StMartin of Seez. In the fourteenth century, however, these alien monkswithdrew to their mother house, and in 1380 the Priory of St Nicholasin Arundel was reconverted into a collegiate church. This collegeconsisted of a master and sub-master, ten chaplains, two deacons, twosub-deacons, and five choristers. The choir of the church was thechapel of the college, the remainder being parochial. The collegesurvived the general suppression, but was eventually bought by the Earlof Arundel, who had previously offered a thousand pounds for it. And soit was that after a long law-suit in 1880 the chancel of the parishchurch of Arundel was given up to the Duke of Norfolk. 

I did not sleep in Arundel, but, though it was already afternoon, I setout westward once more through the great park, and just before sunset Icame to the great church of Boxgrove, which stands between the road Ihad followed from Arundel and the Roman Stane Street, where theyapproach to enter the East Gate of Chichester together at last. Thisgreat and beautiful sanctuary, gives one, I think, a better idea ofwhat the great monastic churches really were, than any other buildingleft to us in Sussex. It is like a cathedral for solemnity, and forsize too, though it is only a fragment, and its beauty cannot beforgotten. 

In its foundation the church is very ancient, a small college ofsecular canons serving it in Saxon times. But all was changed whenRobert de Haza, to whom Henry I. Had granted the honour of Halnaker, in1105 bestowed the church upon the Abbey of Lessay, which sent hitherits Benedictines and built for them a new sanctuary. Boxgrove was thusan alien priory from 1108 till in 1339. Richard II. Affirmed itsindependence, and this was confirmed by the Pope in 1402. It seemsthen to have been in a bad way, but later recovered. In the thirteenthcentury it had boasted nineteen monks, but at the time of thesuppression it only mustered eight priests, who seem to have kept aschool for the children of the neighbourhood. What remains of thePriory, not much more than a gateway, for most of it was destroyed in1780, stands to the north of the church. 

The original Norman church here was cruciform. Of this building westill see the tower, the transepts and the lower part of what remainsof the nave, and the arcade to the south. This Norman church wasgreatly enlarged in the twelfth century, when the nave now destroyedwas built, the tower piers were then cased in the Transitional styleand the arches which carry the tower were altered. Later, about 1235, the chancel we see and its aisles, as lovely as anything in southernEngland, were added in the Early English style, that often reminds oneof Chichester Cathedral. To the fourteenth century belong the southporch and more than one window in the aisles, while the font and otherwindows are Perpendicular. 

I had often read of the unique vaulting of the choir of BoxgrovePriory, but the twilight was so deep in the church, for it was alreadyevening, that I could not see it. I saw, however, the empty tomb, veryfine and splendid, of the Earl de la Warr, who begged Boxgrove ofThomas Cromwell unsuccessfully; and then I went out and marched on intoChichester, the East Gate of which I entered not long after dark. 

CHAPTER XV

CHICHESTER

The mere plan of Chichester proclaims its Roman origin. It is a littlewalled city lying out upon the sea plain of Sussex, cruciform by reasonof its streets, North Street, South Street, East Street, and WestStreet, which divide it into four quarters, of which that upon thesouth became wholly ecclesiastical: the south-west quarter beingoccupied by the Cathedral and its subject buildings, while the south-east quarter was the Palatinate of the Archbishop. As for the quarternorth-east it was appropriated to the Castle and its dependencies, ofwhich however, nothing remains, while the quarter north-west wasoccupied by the townspeople, and to-day contains their parish church ofSt Peter Major. These four quarters meet at the Market Cross, whencethe streets that divide the city set out for the four quarters of theworld. 

To come into Chichester to-day even by the quiet red-brick street--South Street--from the railway station, the least interesting entryinto the city, is to understand at once what Chichester is; one ofthose country towns that is to say, cities in the good old sense, because they were the seat of the Bishop, which are not only the prideof England, but perhaps the best things left to her and certainly themost characteristic of all that she truly means and stands for. If suchplaces are without the feverish and confused life of the greatindustrial centres of modern England, let us thank God for it, theyhave nevertheless a quiet vitality of their own, which in the long runwill prove more persistent and strong than the futile excitement ofplaces noisy with machinery and wretched with the enslaved poor. Suchplaces as Chichester may indeed stand for England in a way thatManchester, for instance, with its cosmopolitan population andegotistical ambition, its greed, its helplessness, and appallingintellectual mongrelism and parvenu and international society, cannever hope to do. England truly remains herself, the England of myheart, because of such places as Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, and those dear market towns which still remember and maintainher great past and renew the ways of our forefathers. All are very old, co-eval with England, all have sturdy and unforgotten traditions, andin these, if we but knew it, lies our best hope for the future. 

Among these dear places Chichester is no exception, rather is she mosttypical; she has an immemorial past, and out of it she will contrivesomehow or other to face and to outface whatever the future may bring. Like everything that is best in England, that is indeed most typical ofourselves, her origins are not barbarian, but Roman. Her ancient namewas Regnum, the city, it is said, first of Cogidubnus, King of theRegni and Legate in Britain of Claudius Caesar. That the Romans builtand maintained an important town here cannot be doubted; the very formof the city to-day would be enough to establish this, apart from thenotable discoveries of buildings, pavements, urns, inscriptions, and Iknow not what else belonging to the whole of the Roman occupation ofBritain. It is obvious that Chichester played a great part in the Romanadministration of South Britain; its port was large, safe andaccessible, while it was the first town upon the east of that greatgroup of creeks and harbours which run up out of Spithead andSouthampton Water. Throughout the Middle Ages, Bosham, the port ofChichester, maintained its position, while even in the eighteenthcentury Chichester harbour was sufficiently important to warrant thecutting of the canal which unites the Arun with Chichester Channel. There is, however, something else which must always place beyond doubtthe importance of Chichester in Roman times. It was from Chichester, out of the East Gate, that the great Roman road set forth for London, the road we know as the Stane Street, chiefly, as we may suppose, agreat military way. This was the only Roman road over the South Downs, the only road that connected London with the greater harbours of theSouth Coast. Its terminus was Chichester. 

[Illustration: THE MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER]

Of the early connection of the town with Christianity there is to saythe least high probability. An inscription found in North Street, andnow preserved at Goodwood, recording the dedication of a Temple by theCollege of Smiths to Neptune and Minerva, would seem to refer to thatClaudia and that Pudens mentioned by St Paul, and thus to connect themwith Regnum. However that may be, we know that it with the rest of Britainmust have been a Christian city long before the failure of the Romanadministration. 

With that failure and the final departure of the Legions, Regnum fellon evil days. Its position as the key to those harbours which had givenit its importance now exposed it to the first raids of the pirates. These barbarians, according to legend, were Ella and his three sons, one of whom, Cissa, is said to have given Chichester her name--Cissa'scamp, Cissa's Ceaster. Of Chichester's story during the Dark Ages weknow as little as we know of most of the cities of England, but that itwas destroyed utterly, as has been asserted, common sense refuses toallow us to believe. It certainly continued to exist, in barbarousfashion perhaps, but still to live, till with the conversion of theEnglish it began to take on a new life, and with the Conquest wasfinally established as the seat of the Bishop. 

The apostle of the South Saxons, St Wilfrid, wrecked upon the flat andinhospitable shore of Selsey, was, as we know, their first bishop. Heestablished his See, however, not at Chichester, but at Selsey where itremained until the Conqueror began to reorganise England upon a Romanplan, when more than one See was removed from the village in which ithad long been established to the neighbouring great town. So it waswith the Bishopric of Sussex, which in the first years of the Normanadministration was removed from Selsey to Chichester. 

Thus Chichester was restored in 1075 to the great position it had heldin the time of the Romans. Its lord was that Roger de Montgomery whoreceived it from the Conqueror, together with more than eighty manors, and to him was due the castle which stood in the north-east quarter, and the rebuilding of the Roman walls, which continually renewed andrebuilt, still in some sort stand, upon Roman foundations, and mark thelimits of the Roman town. 

Of the South Saxon cathedral church at Selsey we know almost nothing. It seems to have been established as a Benedictine house under anabbot who was also bishop, but later the monks were replaced by secularcanons. Then when in 1075 the See was removed from Selsey to Chichesterthe old church dedicated in honour of St Peter, which stood upon thesite of the present cathedral, was used as the cathedral church, andthe Benedictine nuns, to whom it then belonged were dispossessed infavour of the canons. This, however, did not last long; by 1091 a newNorman church, the work of Bishop Ralph, whose great stone coffinstands in the Lady Chapel, had been built upon this site and dedicatedin honour of the Blessed Trinity, the old church being commemorated inthe nave, which still was used as the parochial church of St PeterMajor. This new building, however, was soon so badly damaged by firethat it was necessary to rebuild it--this in 1114; but a like fatebefell it in 1187, and again the church was restored, this time byBishop Seffrid. Then in the thirteenth century came Bishop Richard. Hewas consecrated in 1245, and ruled the diocese for eight years. Thisman was a saint, and in 1261 he was canonised. Thus Chichester got ashrine of its own, which became exceedingly famous and attracted vastcrowds of pilgrims, and thus indirectly brought so much money to thechurch that great works, such as the transformed Lady Chapel, and themany chapels which the Cathedral boasts, were able to be undertaken. 

St Richard of Chichester was not a Sussex man; he was born about 1197, at Droitwich in Worcestershire, and thus gets his name Richard deWyche. His father, a man well-to-do, died, however, when Richard wasvery young, and he being only a younger son fell into poverty. We findhim, according to his fifteenth-century biographer, labouring on hisbrother's land, and to such good purpose, it is said, that he quite re-established his family, and withal such love was there between thebrothers that the elder would have resigned all his estates in favourof the younger. But Richard would not consent, preferring to go as apoor scholar to Oxford, where, we learn, that he lived in the utmostpoverty sharing indeed a tunic and a hooded gown with two companions, so that the three could only attend lectures in turn. At Oxford heseems chiefly to have devoted himself to the study of Logic, and forthis purpose he presently went to Paris, returning, however, to Oxfordto take his degree. Thence once more he set out, this time to studyCanon Law at Bologna, where he not only won a great reputation, but wasappointed a public professor of that faculty. So beloved and respectedwas he in that great university, where there was always a considerableEnglish contingent, that his tutor offered him his daughter inmarriage, and gladly would he have taken her, but that marriage was notfor him. So he set out for England and Oxford, where he was joyfullyreceived and indeed such was his fame that he was made chancellor ofthe university. In truth, he was in such great demand that bothCanterbury and Lincoln wished to secure him, and at last ArchbishopEdmund Rich succeeded where Robert Grosseteste failed, and Richardbecame chancellor of Canterbury and the dear friend of the Archbishop. They were indeed two saints together, and even in their lifetime weregreeted as "two cherubim in glory. " Together they faced the king, whenhe continued to allow so many English bishoprics to remain vacant, andtogether they went into exile to Pontigny, and later to Soissy, whereSt Edmund died. Heart-broken by the loss of so dear a friend Richardretired into a Dominican house in Orleans and immersed himself in thestudy of Theology. There he was ordained priest, and there he founded achapel in honour of St Edmund. But Boniface of Savoy, who had succeededSt Edmund in the archbishopric of Canterbury, besought him to return. He obeyed, and was appointed rector of Charing and vicar of Deal in1243, becoming once more Chancellor of Canterbury. But still thereremained the enmity of the King. Two good things Henry III. Gave us, Westminster Abbey and Edward I. ; but he was almost as difficult asHenry II. , with regard to investitures. Fortunately he was not soobstinate, or we might have had a martyr instead of a confessor inChichester, as we have in Canterbury. 

In the year 1244 the See of Chichester fell vacant by the death ofBishop Ralph Neville, and at the King's suggestion the canons electedtheir archdeacon, a keen supporter of his. Boniface at once held asynod, quashed the election, and recommended his chancellor Richard asBishop, to which the chapter agreed. The king was, of course, furious. Richard, who was received by him, could do nothing with him, and soimmediately appealed to the Pope, Innocent IV. , it was, who consecratedhim at Lyons upon March 5, 1245. Even this did not move the King. Richard returned to England, found the temporalities of his Seedisgracefully wasted by the King, sought and obtained an interview withHenry, but achieved nothing. For a time he lived at Tarring with a poorpriest named Simon, for in his own diocese he was a beggar and astranger as it were in a foreign land. In 1246, however, the Popehaving threatened excommunication, the King gave way, and Richard atonce began to reform his diocese, to discipline his priests, and torestore the ritual of his cathedral, and indeed of all the churches inhis diocese. He lived a life of severe asceticism, and gave so much inalms that he was always a beggar. Usurers were punished byexcommunication, and Jews were forbidden to build new synagogues. Itwas he, too, who first established the custom of the Easter offeringcontribution from the faithful to the Cathedral, known later as StRichard's pence. He loved the Friars, more especially the Dominicans, who had befriended him at Orleans, and to which Order his confessorbelonged. He ardently preached the crusade and was eagerly loyal to StPeter. It was, indeed, as he was journeying through southern England, urging men to take the Cross, that at Dover he fell ill and died thereduring Mass in the Hospitium Dei. His body was buried in a humblegrave, we read, near the altar he had built in honour of St Edmund, hisfriend, in the Cathedral of Chichester. And from the moment of hisdeath he was accounted a saint. Miracles were performed at his tomb, which even Prince Edward visited, and in 1262, in the church of theFransicans at Viterbo, Pope Urban IV. Raised him to the altar. In June1276 St Richard's body was taken from its grave in the nave ofChichester Cathedral, and in the presence of King Edward I. And a crowdof bishops, was translated to a silver gilt shrine. Later, this wasremoved to the tomb in the south transept. 

St Richard was not only a popular hero and saint both before and afterhis death, to him and his shrine is due very much that is most lovelyin the Cathedral, and it was he who really reformed the chapter there. 

Chichester had always been served by a dean and chapter of secularcanons. The canons were originally, of course, resident, but thechapter had always been poorly endowed, and as time went on residencewas actually discouraged. Perhaps then arose the canon's vicars whorepresented the canons and chanted in choir. The vicars choral were, however, not incorporated until 1465; they were assisted by ten ortwelve boy choristers, whose chief business it was, I suppose, to singthe Lady-Mass in prick-song. Beside this company of canons, vicars andchoristers directly serving the cathedral, a number of chaplains servedthe various altars and chantries within it, which at the Dissolutionnumbered fifteen. St Richard not only reorganised the cathedral staff, but also established the "use" of Chichester, which he ordered to befollowed throughout the diocese. This "use" was followed until 1444, when, by order of the archbishop, that of Sarum, was established. 

With the Reformation, of course, everything but the Cathedral itselfand the form of its administration and government was swept away. Norwas it long before even what Henry and Elizabeth had spared wasdemolished. In 1643 Chichester was besieged by Waller and taken afterten days. His soldiers, we read, "pulled down the idolatrous imagesfrom the Market Cross; they brake down the organ in the Cathedral anddashed the pipes with their pole-axes, crying in scoff, "Harke! how theorgans goe"; and after they ran up and down with their swords drawn, defacing the monuments of the dead and hacking the seats and stalls. "Indeed, such was their malice that it is wonderful to see how muchloveliness remains. 

No cathedral, I think, and certainly no lesser church in England is socompletely representative of the whole history of our architecture asis Chichester. In Salisbury we have the most uniform building in ourisland, in Chichester the most various, for it possesses work in everystyle, from the time of the Saxons to that of Sir Gilbert Scott. 

It was Bishop Ralph who before 1108 built the church we know, andcompleted it save upon the west front, where only the lower parts ofthe south-western tower are Norman. But work earlier than his, Saxonwork, may be seen in the south aisle of the choir, where there are twocarved stones representing Christ with Martha and Mary and the Raisingof Lazarus. Bishop Ralph's church was badly damaged by fire in 1114, and it would seem that the four western bays of the nave date from thefollowing rebuilding and restoration. Then in 1187 the Cathedral wasburnt again, and Bishop Seffrid vaulted it for the first time--tillthen only the aisles had been vaulted--building great buttresses tosupport this and re-erecting the inner arcade of the clerestory. Apparently the apse and ambulatory which till then had closed thegreat church, on the east had been destroyed in the fire. At any rateBishop Seffrid replaced them with the exquisite retro-choir we have, and square eastern chapels. He did the same with the old apses of thetransepts, and he recased the choir with Caen stone, using Purbeck veryfreely and with beautiful effect. All this work is very lateTransitional, the very last of the Norman or Romanesque. 

Then in the thirteenth century, which was to see St Richard Bishop ofChichester, the beautiful south porch was built, a pure Early Englishwork, the north porch almost as lovely and of the same date, and laterthe sacristy beside the south porch. In St Richard's own day the south-west tower was built as we see it. The Norman tower over the crossingwas destroyed and a lighter one built in its place as we see, and thegalilee was set up before the western doors. Then, too, the chapelswere built out from the nave aisles, upon the north those of St Thomas, St Anna, and St Edmund, upon the south, those of St George and StClement, things unique in England, and all largely works of the secondhalf of the thirteenth century and the early Decorated style, whichindeed give to the Cathedral, with its dark Norman nave, all its charm, its variety and delight. 

Not much later than this transformation of the nave, though the naveitself was not touched, was the rebuilding or rather the lengtheningand transformation of the Lady Chapel. Fundamentally this beautifulDecorated chapel is a Norman work, transformed into a Transitional one, to be glorified and transfigured in the very end of the thirteenthcentury, and now spoilt as we see. All this was done either by StRichard himself, or with the money gathered at his shrine. 

In the first half of the fourteenth century little would appear tohave been built, save that certain beautiful windows, as that in theend of the south aisle of the choir and that in the south transept, with Bishop Langton's tomb beneath it, were inserted, and the finestalls were built in the choir. 

In the Perpendicular period the detached campanile was erected to thenorth-west and the Cathedral was crowned by the great spire, a noblework lost to us in our own time and replaced by the copy of Sir GilbertScott. Later still, in the sixteenth century, a great stone screen, nowdestroyed, was erected across the church, with chantries, and thecloister was built. There, over a doorway on the south, is a shield, with the arms of Henry VII. , and two figures kneeling before theBlessed Virgin, attended by an angel holding a rose. 

A few tombs of interest or beauty, which the Puritans failed todestroy, remain to this great Catholic building. These are the tombs ofSt Richard, of which I have spoken, in the north transept against thechoir, the restored Arundel Chantry and tomb of Richard Fitzalan in thenorth aisle of the nave, and the exquisite Decorated tomb in the chapelof St John Baptist at the eastern end of this aisle; little beside. 

It must indeed be confessed that when all is said and done, essentiallyromantic as the Cathedral of Chichester is with its so various stylesof architecture, lovely as certain parts of it are still, it mustalways have been a building rather interesting than beautiful, and ithas suffered so much from vandalism and restoration that it cannot beaccounted a monument of the first order. Nevertheless, I always returnto it with delight and am reluctant to go away, for in Englandcertainly a cathedral, even of the second order, of restricted grandeurand spoilt beauty, may be a very charming and delightful and preciousthing as indeed this church of Chichester is. 

At any rate it is by far the most interesting thing left to us in thecity. The other churches, except perhaps St Olave's, are not worth avisit; even in St Olave's everything has been done to make it as littleinteresting as possible. 

The best thing left to us in Chichester, apart from the Cathedral andits subject buildings, is, I think, St Mary's Hospital, a foundationdating from the time of Henry II. , which possesses a noble great hall, and a pretty Decorated chapel, with old stalls, which is still used asan almshouse. It stands upon the site of the first Franciscan houseestablished in Chichester. In 1269 the Friars Minor left this place andmoved to the site of the old Castle. There they built the church ofwhich the choir still remains, a lovely work ruined at the dissolutionand used as the Guildhall. It is now a store room. Nothing inChichester is more beautiful than this Early English fragment, whichseems to remind us of all we have lost by that disastrous revolution ofthe sixteenth century, whose latest results we still await with fearand dread. 

But let who will be disappointed in Chichester, I shall love it all mydays; not so much for these its monuments, but for itself, itscuriously sleepy air of disinterested quiet, its strong dislike of anysort of enthusiasm, its English boredom, even of itself, its completesurrender to what is, its indifference to what might be. May it everremain secure within sight of the hills, within sight of the sea, steeped in the Tudor myth, certain in its English heart, that twice twois not four but anything one likes to make it, nor ever hear ribaldvoices calling upon it to decide what after all it stands for in theworld, denying it any longer the consolation it loves best of findingin the conclusion what is not in the premises, or, as the vulgar mightput it, of having its cake and eating it too. 

CHAPTER XVI

SELSEY, BOSHAM AND PORCHESTER

It was my good fortune, while I was in Chichester, to be tempted toexplore the peninsula of Selsey, which most authorities declare to haveno beauty and little interest for the traveller to-day. For StWilfrid's sake, I put aside these admonishments, and one morning setout upon the lonely road to Pagham, across a country as flat as a fen, of old, as they say, a forest, the forest of Mainwood, and still inspite of drainage and cultivation very bleak and lonely with marsheshere and there which are still the haunt of all kinds of wild-fowl. 

It is only to the man who finds pleasure in the Somerset moors, thefens of Cambridgeshire or the emptiness of Romney Marsh that thiscorner of England will appeal, but to such an one it is full ofinterest and certainly not without beauty. Pagham, however, of which Ihad read, with its creek and harbour, its curious Hushing Well, itsgolden sands, and extraordinary melancholy, as it were a ruin of thesea, sadly disappointed me. Only its melancholy remains. Its harbour, where of old we read the sea-fowl were to be seen in innumerableflocks, and the whole place was musical with the cry of the wild-swan, has been wholly reclaimed, and the famous Hushing Well no longer existsat all. This last was a curious natural phenomenon and must have beenworth seeing. It consisted apparently of a great pool in the sea, onehundred and thirty feet long by thirty feet broad, boiling and bubblingand booming all day long. This was caused, it is said, by the airrushing through a bed of shingle beneath which was a vast cavern fromwhich the sea continuously expelled the air as it rushed in. Nothing ofthe sort exists at Pagham to-day; it has disappeared with thereclamation of the harbour, which itself was formed, we are told, inthe fourteenth century by a tidal wave, when nearly three thousandacres were inundated. The only thing which the continual fight of managainst water in this peninsula has left us that is worth seeing inPagham to-day is the church of St Thomas of Canterbury. This is anEarly English building much spoiled by restoration, the best thingremaining being the beautiful arcade of the end of the twelfth century. But the eastern window which consists of three lancets is charming, asis the fourteenth-century chantry at the top of the north aisle, founded in 1383 by John Bowrere. In the chancel is a curious slab withan inscription in Lombardic characters, perhaps a memorial of a formerrector. The font is Norman. The church was probably built by one ofthe early successors of St Thomas in the See of Canterbury; for Paghambelonged to the Archbishops until the Reformation, and certain ruins oftheir palace remain in a field to the south-east of the church. AtNyetimber, on the Chichester road, a mile out of Pagham, are the ruinsof a thirteenth-century chapel. 

To reach Selsey and its old church of Our Lady, what remains of it, from Pagham is not an easy matter, the footpaths across the fieldsbeing sometimes a little vague. The walk, however, is worth the troubleit involves, for you may thus gather some idea of the history of thisunfortunate coast, which the sea has been eating up for at leastfifteen hundred years. Indeed, in the time of St Wilfrid the peninsulawas probably nearly twice as big as it is to-day, and Selsey wasundoubtedly a little island, probably of mud, divided from the mainlandat least by the tide. It was here, St Wilfrid was shipwrecked in 666, and it is from his adventures in Sussex that we learn of theextraordinary barbarism of the South Saxons, two generations after theadvent of St Augustine. 

St Wilfrid's ship, it seems, was stranded on the mud flats, and thequite pagan South Saxons attacked him and the crew, and it was only therise of the tide which floated the ship that saved them, with a loss offive men. It was not till 681 that Wilfrid, really a fugitive, cameagain into Sussex, and this time as to a refuge, for Ethelwalch, kingof the South Saxons, and his queen were then Christians, though theirpeople were still pagan. There was a certain monk, however, probably anIrishman, who had a small monastery at Bosham encompassed by the seaand the woods, and in it were five or six brethren who served God inpoverty and humility; but none of the natives cared either to followtheir course of life or to hear their preaching. Of these heathen StWilfrid at once became the Apostle. For, as Bede tells us, he "not onlydelivered them from the misery of perpetual damnation, but also from aninexpressible calamity of temporal death, for no rain had fallen inthat province in three years before his arrival, whereupon a dreadfulfamine ensued which cruelly destroyed the people. In short, it isreported that very often forty or fifty men, being spent with want, would go together to some precipice, or to the sea-shore, and therehand in hand perish by the fall, or be swallowed up by the waves. Buton the very day on which the nation received the baptism of faith therefell a soft but plentiful rain; the earth revived again, and, theverdure being restored to the fields, the season was pleasant andfruitful. Thus the former superstition being rejected, and idolatryexploded, the hearts and flesh of all rejoiced in the living God andbecame convinced that He who is the true God had, through His heavenlygrace, enriched them with wealth, both temporal and spiritual. For thebishop, when he came into the province and found so great misery fromfamine, taught them to get their food by fishing; for their sea andrivers abounded in fish, but the people had no skill to take themexcept eels alone. The bishop's men having gathered eel-netseverywhere, cast them into the sea, and by the blessing of God tookthree hundred fishes of several sorts, which, being divided into threeparts, they gave a hundred to the poor, a hundred to those of whom theyhad the nets, and kept a hundred for their own use. By this benefit thebishop gained the affections of them all, and they began more readilyto hear his preaching and to hope for heavenly good, seeing that by hishelp they had received that good which is temporal. Now at this timeKing Ethelwalch gave to the most reverend prelate Wilfrid, land ofeighty-seven families, which place is called Selsey, that is, theIsland of the Sea-Calf. That place is encompassed by the sea on allsides, except the west, where is an entrance about the cast of a slingin width; which sort of place by the Latins is called a peninsula, bythe Greeks a chersonesus. Bishop Wilfrid, having this place given him, founded therein a monastery, which his successors possess to this day, and established a regular course of life, chiefly of the brethren hehad brought with him; for he, both in word and actions, performed theduties of a bishop in those parts during the space of five years, untilthe death of King Egfrid. And forasmuch as the aforesaid king, togetherwith the said place, gave him all the goods that were therein, with thelands and men, he instructed them in the Faith of Christ and baptisedthem all. Among whom were two hundred and fifty men and women slaves, all of whom he by baptism, not only rescued from the servitude of thedevil, but gave them their bodily liberty also and exempted them fromthe yoke of human servitude. "

The church and monastery which St Wilfrid thus founded at Selsey, thereby establishing the bishopric of Sussex, have long sincedisappeared beneath the sea. Camden, however, tells us thathe saw the foundations at low water; they lay about a mile tothe east of the little church of Our Lady, which remained completeuntil the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was allpulled down except the chancel which we see to-day in the graveyardwhich it serves as chapel. It is a work of the fourteenth century, andwithin is the fine sixteenth-century monument of John Lews and hiswife. The old Norman font has been removed to the new church of StPeter at Selsey, built largely out of old materials. There, too, is anElizabethan chalice and paten of the sixteenth century. 

Thus nothing at all remains at Selsey, not even the landscape as it wasin St Wilfrid's day. Till yesterday, however, one might realise in theloneliness and desolation of this low, lean headland something of thatfar-off time in which the great bishop came here and had to teach thatbarbarous folk even to fish. Now even that is going, or gone, for thenew light railway from Chichester is bringing a new life to Selsey, which, after all, it would ill become us to grudge her. 

By that railway indeed I returned to Chichester, and then at once setout westward for Bosham, where I slept. Bosham is perhaps the mostinteresting place in all this peninsula as well as probably the mostancient. That Bosham was a port of the Romans seems likely, but that itwas the earliest seat of Christianity in Sussex after the advent of thepagans is certain. There, as Bede tells us, St Wilfrid, when he cameinto Sussex in 681, found a Scottish (most probably Irish) monk namedDicul, who had, in a little monastery encompassed by the sea and thewoods, five or six brethren who served God in poverty and humility. With the conversion of the South Saxons that monastery flourished, thehouse grew rich, and Edward the Confessor bestowed it upon his Normanchaplain Osbern, Bishop of Exeter, whom, of course, the Conqueror didnot dispossess. Indeed, the place became famous and appears in theBayeaux tapestry, in the very first picture, where we see "Harold andhis Knights riding towards Bosham" to embark for Normandy. Bosham, indeed, was one of Harold's manors, his father, according to thelegend, having acquired it by a trick. _Da mihi basium_, says EarlGodwin to the Archbishop Aethelnoth, thus claiming to have receivedBosham. That Earl Godwin held Bosham we are assured by the DomesdaySurvey, which also speaks of the church, presumably the successor ofthe old monastery of Dicul. This, as I have said, and as Domesday Booktells us, Bishop Osbern of Exeter "holds of King William as he had heldit of King Edward. " The Bishop of Exeter still held it, "a royal freechapel" in the time of Henry I. Then was established here, in place, asI suppose, of the monks, a college of six secular canons, the Bishopbeing the Dean. Exeter, indeed, only once lost the church of Bosham, and that in a most glorious cause, the cause of St Thomas. For whenHenry II. Quarrelled with Becket [Footnote: Herbert of Bosham, possiblya canon of Bosham, was St Thomas' secretary and devoted follower, and wascertainly born in Bosham. ] he deprived the Bishop of Exeter, who took hispart, of this church and bestowed it upon the Abbot of Lisieux, who heldit till 1177, when it came once more to the Bishop of Exeter, who held it, he and his successors till the Reformation. In 1548 the college wassuppressed, only one priest being left to serve the church, with acurate to serve the dependent parish of Appledram. 

The church, as we have it to-day upon a little sloping green hill overthe water, is of the very greatest interest. The foundations of a Romanbuilding have been discovered beneath the chancel, and the foundationand basis of the chancel arch may be a part of this building. But thegreater part of the building we have is undoubtedly Saxon; the greatgrey tower, the nave, the chancel arch, one of the most characteristicworks of that period, and the chancel itself, though enlarged in latertimes, are without doubt buildings of Saxon England. Mr Baldwin Brownin his fine work upon "The Arts in Early England, " thus speaks of it:"The plan, as will be seen at a glance, has been set out with more thanmediaeval indifference to exactness of measurements and squareing, andthe chancel diverges phenomenally from the axis of the nave. Theelevations are gaunt in their plainness, and the now unplasteredrubble-work is rough and uncomely, but the dimensions are ample, thewalls lofty, and the chancel arch undeniably imposing. " Of the baseshere he says: "These slabs are commonly attributed to the Romans, butit is not easy to see what part of a Roman building they can ever haveformed. The truth is that they bear no resemblance to known classicalfeatures, while they are on the other hand, characteristically Saxon. The nearest parallel to them is to be found in the imposts of thechancel arch at Worth in Sussex, a place far away from Roman sites. TheWorth imposts, like the bases at Bosham, are huge and ungainly, testifying both to the general love of bigness in the Saxon builderand to his comparative ignorance of the normal features which in theeleventh century were everywhere else crystallising into Romanesque. Saxon England stood outside the general development of Europeanarchitecture, but the fact gives it none the less of interest in oureyes. "

The church of Holy Trinity, Bosham, is thus the most important Saxonwork left to us in Sussex, indeed save for the aisles and arcades andthe Norman and Early English additions to the chancel, that gloriouseastern window of five lancets, which in itself is worth a journey tosee, the clerestory, and the furniture we have here really a completeSaxon work. The font is later Norman and not very interesting; but theexquisite recessed tomb with the effigy of a girl lying upon it is anoble work of the thirteenth century, said to mark the grave ofCanute's daughter. The crypt dates also from that time. Near the southdoor is another fine canopied tomb, said to be that of Herbert ofBosham. The windows are Norman in the clerestory and Early English andDecorated elsewhere throughout the church. The stalls in the chancelare Perpendicular. But here if anywhere in south-eastern England wehave a church dating from the Dark Age, in which happily we werepersuaded back again within the influence of the Faith and of Rome. Bosham then for every Englishman is a holy place only second toGlastonbury and Canterbury: it is a monument of our conversion, of there-entry of England into Christendom, of that Easter of ours which sawus rise from the dead. 

A few ruins, mere heaps of stones, mark the site of the college to thenorth of the church. Of Earl Godwin's manor-house only the moat remainsnear an ancient mill towards the sea; and there, upon the little greenbetween the grey church and the grey sea, one may best recall thereverent past of this lovely spot. Little is here for pride, much tomake us humble and exceeding thankful. God was worshipped here betweenthe sea and the greenwood when our South Saxon forefathers were notonly the merest pagans, but so barbarous that they knew not even how tofish, when they were so wretched that in companies they would castthemselves into the sea because there was no light in their hearts andnothing else to do. Out of that darkness St Wilfrid led them, but evenbefore he came with the light of Christ and of Rome, in some halfbarbarous way in this little place men prayed and Mass was said, andthere was the means of deliverance though men knew it not, beingbarbarians. 

It is as though at Bosham we were able to catch a glimpse, as it were, of all that darkness out of which we are come by the guiding of a star. 

[Illustration: BOSHAM]

That Bosham was a harbour in Roman times, and that it had more than alittle to do with the founding of Regnum, and the building perhaps ofthe Stane Street, I had long since convinced myself. All these creeksand harbours were probably known and used even then, and certainly allthrough the Middle Ages Bosham was of importance as a port; and theseries of creeks, the most eastern of which it served, and the mostwestern of which is Southampton Water, with Portsmouth Harbour betweenthem, was still among the greatest ports in England, easily thegreatest, I suppose, in the south country. 

In order to see something of this low and muddy coast, which has seenso much of the history of England, I set out from Bosham very early onemorning, intending to make my way through Emsworth and Havant, by theRoman road which joins Chichester and Southampton and runs across thenorth of these creeks, which may perhaps be considered as one greatport of which only the more western part is famous still. 

That way has little to recommend it, and indeed I learned little, forthe modern world has obliterated with its terrible footsteps nearly allthat might have remained of our humble and yet so glorious past, and itwas still early morning when I crossed the Hampshire boundary and cameinto the little town of Emsworth, once famous for its trade in foreignwines, now, I suppose, best known as a yachting station. Emsworth wasoriginally of far less importance than Warblington, of which it was ahamlet. There the fair was upon the morrow of the feast of theTranslation of St Thomas of Canterbury, to which saint the parishchurch of Warblington is dedicated. This is a very beautiful andinteresting building, but it is obvious at once that it cannot alwayshave stood in the name of St Thomas, for part of its central tower--thechurch consists of chancel, and nave, with a tower between them, northchancel, vestry, north and south nave-aisles, and north porch--is ofSaxon workmanship. Only one stage of this, however, now remains, thelower part having been altogether rebuilt. This tower was originally awestern tower, the Saxon church standing to the east of it. There is nosign of Norman work here, and it seems probable that the Saxon churchremained until in the first years of the thirteenth century a new naveand aisles were built to the west of the old tower, the lower part ofwhich was then removed and the tower supported by arches in order toopen a way into the nave of the old church, which thus became thechancel of the new. It was then in all probability that the church wasnewly dedicated in honour of St Thomas. The whole of the old church, nave and chancel together, however, was destroyed before the end of thethirteenth century, and a large new chancel built with a chapel orvestry at the eastern end upon the north; at the same time the aislesof the nave were rebuilt. Later in the fourteenth century the easternarch bearing the tower was rebuilt, and thus appeared the church whichin the main we still see. The difference in the north and southarcades of the nave is, though, very striking here, because of thegreat contrast between the exquisite and delicate beauty of the southwith its clustered columns of Purbeck and the plain round stone columnsof the north, common enough. Tradition has it that the church was builtby two maiden ladies who lived in the old castle near the church, andthat each built a side of the church according to her taste. One issaid to lie in the chapel at the east end of the south aisle, wherethere is a tomb with effigy, the other in a tomb in the north aisle. The "castle" came in 1551 to Sir Richard Cotton, whose son Georgeentertained Queen Elizabeth there for two days in 1586. In 1643 aRichard Cotton held the "strong house" of Warblington against theParliament till it was taken by "sixty soldiers and a hundred muskets. "All that remains of the place to-day is a beautiful octagonal tower ofred brick and stone, once part of the main gateway. 

Now when I had seen all this I went on into Havant, and there at thecross-roads I found the church of St Faith close by an old sixteenth-century half-timbered house--the Old House at Home. Havant is, inspite of the modern world, a place of miracle; for it possesses aspring to the south-west of the church, called, I think, St Faith's, which never fails in summer for drought, nor in winter for frost. Butfor all that the most interesting thing in the town remains the church. This is a cruciform building with a tower over the crossing, and isas, we have it, of Norman foundation, though it seems to stand upon aRoman site, coins having been found when the old nave was destroyed in1832 and Roman brick and cement and foundations. The church we see, however, dates absolutely from the late twelfth century, and isnowhere, it would appear, older. Unhappily much is far later, the navebeing really a modern building and even the central tower has beenentirely taken down and rebuilt, and indeed all periods of Englisharchitecture would seem to have left their mark upon the church betweenthe end of the twelfth century and our own day. The manor of Havantbelonged when Domesday Survey was made to the monks of Winchester. Butit is not of them but of William of Wykeham we think here, for hissecretary, Thomas Aylward, was rector of this parish and in 1413 wasburied here in the north transept, where his brass still remains, showing his effigy vested in a cope. He was not the only notable rectorof Havant, for in 1723 Bingham, the author of the "Antiquities of theChristian Church, " was holding the living when he died. Three yearsbefore he had been wrecked in the South Sea Bubble, and this issupposed to have caused his death. His work was put into Latin, andwas, I think, one of the last English works to be translated into theuniversal tongue. 

Out of Havant I went, nor did I stay now on my way until a little afternoon I reached Porchester; but in Bedhampton I did not forget to prayfor the soul of Elizabeth Juliers, who died there after a mostunfortunate and most wretched life in 1411. This lady, daughter of theMarquis of Juliers and widow of John Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, tookthe veil in her widowhood at Waverley. Then appears Sir EustaceDabrieschescourt, and she being young, in spite of her vow, marrieshim. And having repented and confessed she devoted her life to penance, being condemned daily to repeat the Gradual and the Penitential Psalms, and every year to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas. Thispenance, with others, she performed during fifty-one years. She wasmarried to Dabrieschescourt in the church of Wingham in Kent, and diedhere in Bedhampton, and was buried in the church of St Thomas, for themanor was her father's and part of her first dower. 

Porchester, where I found myself late in the afternoon, is a veryinteresting and curious place. What we really have that is ancientthere is a great walled green about six hundred feet square. We enterthis area to-day on the west, the outer gate being thus opposite to usin the eastern wall, the castle keep and bailey on our left in thenorth-west corner, and the church to the south-east. All this ismediaeval work, but the origins of Porchester are far older than that;the place was a fortress of the Romans. 

It is certain that a Roman road ran, as I have said, from Southamptonto Chichester, which it entered by the West Gate, and met the Romanmilitary highway, the Stane Street which entered Chichester by the EastGate, whither it had come from London' Bridge. This Roman roaddoubtless served many a little port upon these creeks and harbours thatlie between Southampton Water and Chichester Harbour, but undoubtedlythe most important port upon that road, apart from the two cities whichit joined, was the Roman Porchester. 

It has been suggested, and not without reason, that the Stane Streetitself dates only from the latter part of the Roman occupation ofBritain, that it was, in fact, a purely military way built for thepassage of troops, which until the fourth century were certainly notneeded in any quantity in southern Britain. That they were needed thenwas due to the Saxon pirates. The same pagan robbers, who, when theLegions left us never to return in the first years of the fifthcentury, might seem to have overrun the whole country. Now it seemsfairly certain that Roman Porchester was a military and perhaps anaval fortress, built not earlier than the fourth century here at thewestern extremity of what the Romans called the Litus Saxonicum, andfor the purpose of defending southern Britain from the raids of thesebarbarous and pagan rogues. If so, it might seem to be of one piecewith that presumably purely military Way the Stane Street, and to giveit its meaning. 

At any rate, the mediaeval builder of Porchester Castle used, with thehelp of rebuildings and patchings, the Roman fortifications, which didnot perhaps differ very much, and not at all in form, from those wesee. Roman Porchester was just what mediaeval Porchester was, a greatfortress, not a "city, " nor a village, but a port similar to the othersthat lined the Saxon shore from the Wash to Beachey Head. 

Of what became of the place in Saxon times we are entirely ignorant. The Domesday Survey speaks of it as a "halla, " but in the first half ofthe twelfth century the Normans built a castle in the north-west cornerof the Roman enclosure, which in 1153 Henry II. Granted to HenryManduit, and from that time it appears as the military port, as itwere, of the capital, Winchester; Henry II. Richard I. John and HenryIII. Not only frequently taking up their residence at Porchester, andthere as in a strong place, transacting the most important business, but they all of them most frequently set out thence for the Continentin days when a king of England was as often abroad as at home. ExceptEdward I. There is scarcely an English king from Henry II. To HenryVIII. Who did not use Porchester, and Elizabeth, the last royalvisitor, held her court in the Castle. 

As we see it to-day the keep of Porchester Castle resembles that ofRochester, not only in its appearance, though there it comes short, butin its arrangement. It is, however, surrounded by some later ruins ofthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the use of which has, I think, never been ascertained. 

The whole place is extraordinarily impressive, and not less so onaccount of its containing a church within the Roman walls, possiblyoccupying the site of a Roman sanctuary. The church of Our Lady ofPorchester, however, as we see it, was, of course, a Norman building, built not later than 1133 when Henry I. Gave it to the Austin Canons astheir priory church, but about 1145 the canons were removed toSouthwick, where a house was built for them. They must, indeed, havebeen very much in the way within so important a fortress seeing howinternational the interests of their congregation were. The church, ofcourse, remained. It was originally a cruciform building, with centraltower, but the south transept has been destroyed as has the chapel eastof the north transept where now the vestry stands. The eastern apse, too, has been replaced by a square end. Apart from these changes, however, the church remains largely as it was in the time of Henry I. , the west front being especially fine, and the font with its relief ofthe Baptism of Our Lord, a very notable Romanesque work. I lingeredlong in Porchester, indeed till sundown. Nothing in all England rightlyunderstood is more reverent than this great ruin, not even the Wall. It, too, like that great northern barrier, was built in our defence byour saviours against our worst foes the barbarians, the pagans. It, too, was an outpost of civilisation and of the Faith against thedarkness. Wherever Rome has passed, there a flower will blow for ever, wherever Rome has been, there is light, wherever Rome has built, thereis something which moves us as nothing else can do, and not least herein England of my heart upon the verge of the Saxon shore, while werecall the past at evening and question the future, the future whichwill not be known. 

CHAPTER XVII

SOUTHAMPTON

When I left Porchester I went on into Fareham to sleep, and nextmorning set out by train, for it was raining, to go to Clausentum. Before I left the railway, however, the weather began to clear, andpresently the sun broke through the clouds, so that when I came intoClausentum the whole world was again full of joy. 

Clausentum, which even to-day, is not without charm was as I understandit, the mother of Southampton, a Roman, perhaps even a Celticfoundation, for its name Clausentum is certainly of Celtic origin. Ofits high antiquity there can at least be no doubt, for there we maystill see parts of the Roman walls near nine feet thick and innumerableRoman remains have been found within them. 

The situation of Clausentum, too, was rather Celtic than Roman. Itstands upon a tongue of land thrust out into the Itchen from the leftbank, between Northam and St Denys on the right bank; the river washedits walls upon three sides, north, south and west, but upon thelandward side to the east it was protected by two lines of defence, anouter and an inner, the one nearly three hundred yards from the other. At first this arrangement might seem rather Celtic than Roman, and infact, it may well be that the Romans occupied here earthworks far olderthan anything built by them in Britain, and yet it seems perhaps moreprobable that they are responsible for all we have here, un-Romanthough it seems, and that the true explanation is that the outerdefences, while their work, are the older of the two; that with thedecline of their administration in the fourth century, with thebuilding of the Stane Street and the general walling of the Roman townsthis older and larger defence was abandoned, and the place, whatever itmay have been, reduced to a mere fort to hold which upon the landwardside the inner defence was there built. 

Of the fate of Clausentum in the Dark Age we know nothing; if it was amere fort with no life of its own it may or may not have beenabandoned; but it would seem certain that with the renewal ofcivilisation in southern England, by the return of Christianity, a townwas established upon the right bank of the estuary opposite Clausentum. This town was the first Southampton, and there Athelstane is said tohave established mints. This town, however, does not seem to haveoccupied the same site as the Southampton we know, but rather to havebeen gathered about St Mary's church to the north-east as Leland wastold when he visited Southampton in 1546. The place was probably burntby the Danes, and it is to one of them, to Canute, that we owe thefoundation of the town we know. If Canute was the founder ofSouthampton, however, it was the Normans who really and finallyestablished it, the greatness of the place as a port really dating fromthe Conquest. The Normans seem to have settled there early inconsiderable numbers, and their energy and enterprise began thedevelopment which continued throughout the Middle Age and theRenaissance. In the seventeenth century, however, Southampton rapidlydeclined, and this continued till in the time of our grandfathers itwas arrested and Southampton rose again, to become the chief port ofsouthern England. So extraordinary indeed has been her moderndevelopment that it has completely engulfed the great town of theMiddle Age, which, for all that, still forms the nucleus as it were ofthe modern city, though no one, I suppose would suspect it at firstsight. 

Of the greatness of Southampton in the Middle Age, however, there canbe no doubt. It was the best exit out of that England into Normandy, the natural port of the capital Winchester, and its whole record isfull of glory. It was in a very real sense the gate of England. Hithercame the great ships from the South and the East, from the ports ofNormandy and Anjou, from Bayonne and Venice, with wine and Easternsilks, leather from Cordova, swords and daggers from Toledo, spicesfrom India, and coloured sugars from Egypt. Here the merchantsdisembarked to trade in the capital or to attend the great fair of StGiles; hither came the pilgrims, thousands upon thousands, to followthe old road from Winchester to the Shrine of St Thomas atCanterbury; while out of Southampton streamed the chivalry of theCrusades; hence "cheerly to sea" sailed the fleets of Coeur de Lion forPalestine, of Edward III. For France, the army that won at Crecy, thearmy that won at Agincourt. All the glory of mediaeval EnglandSouthampton has seen pass by. 

That the abandonment of Guienne and Aquitaine by the English was asevere blow to Southampton is certain, but still it had the Venicetrade, the "Flanders Galleys" laden with the spoil of the East, thewines of the Levant, the "fashions of proud Italy"; and the realdecline of Southampton dates from the moment when Venice too waswounded even to death by the discovery of the Cape route to the Eastand the rise of Portugal. 

As it happens we have at the time of her greatest prosperity adescription of the town from the hand of Leland. "There be, " he writes, "in the fair and right strong wall of New Hampton, eight gates. OverBarr Gate by north is the _Domus Civica_, and under it the town prison. There is a great suburb without it, and a great double dyke, wellwatered on each hand without it. The East Gate is strong, not so largeas Barr Gate, and in its suburb stands St Mary's Church, to the SouthGate joins a Castelet well ordinanced to beat that quarter of thehaven. There is another mean gate a little more south called God'shouse gate, of an hospital founded by two merchants joined to it; andnot far beyond it is the Water Gate, without which is a quay. There aretwo more gates. The glory of the Castle is in the dungeon, that is bothfair and large and strong, both by work and the site of it. There befive parish churches in the town. Holy Rood Church standeth in thechief street, which is one of the fairest streets that is in any townin England, and it is well builded for timber building. There be manyfair merchants' houses, and in the south-east part was a college ofGrey Friars. Here was also an hospital called God's House, founded bytwo merchants, appropriated since to Queen's College, Oxford. "

Of all this what remains? Happily more than might seem possibleconsidering the enormous modern development of the place. The town ofSouthampton stood looking south-west upon a tongue of land thrust outsouth into the water with the estuary of the Itchen upon the east, andSouthampton Water upon the west, upon the south were the vast mud-flatsswept by every tide which the great modern docks now occupy. The townwas, as we have seen, enclosed by walls, perhaps by Canute, certainlyby the Normans, and these seem to have been enlarged by King John, andrebuilt and repaired after the French raid of 1338. They formed a rudequadrilateral, roughly seven hundred yards from north to south, andthree hundred from east to west, were from twenty-five to thirty feethigh and of varying thickness. Something of them still remains, especially upon the west of the town over the quays. Here we have twogreat portions of the old wall which is practically continuous from thesite of the Bugle Tower upon the south, to the site of the Bigglesgateabout half-way up this western side. This portion includes two of theold gates, the West Gate and the Blue Anchor Postern. Beyond the siteof the Bigglesgate the old wall has been destroyed as far as theCastle, but from there it still stands all the way to the Arundel Towerat the north-west corner of the town. So much for the western front. Upon the north the wall is broken down at the western end, the Bargate, which still stands, being isolated, but beyond two portions remaincomplete as far as the Polymond Tower at the north-east angle. Upon theeast of the town there is very little standing until we come to thesouthern corner, where God's House Tower and the South-East Gateremain. Upon the south almost nothing is left. 

Southampton in its mediaeval greatness had eight gates, of which, as wesee, four remain: two upon the west, the West Gate and the Blue AnchorPostern; one upon the north, the Bargate; upon the east, or rather atthe south-eastern angle of the walls, God's House or South-East Gate;upon the south none at all. 

The West Gate is a plain but beautiful work of the fourteenth century, a great square tower over a pointed arch, under which is the entry. Thetower within consists of three stages, the last being embattled andnow roofed, while the first is reached by a picturesque outsidestairway of stone, which served both it and the ramparts. Close by, against the wall, is a timber building upon a stone basement, calledthe guard-room, dating from the fifteenth century. 

The best portions of the old wall run northward from the West Gate overthe western shore road. This is Norman work added to in the fourteenthcentury. Here is the Blue Anchor Postern, or as it is more properlycalled, simply the Postern, little more than a round archway within thegreat arcading and the wall itself. Just to the south of this gate isthe twelfth-century building known as King John's Palace. We follow thegrand old wall till it ends upon the site of the Bigglesgate, where weturn eastward a little into the town and come to the Castle, of which, unhappily, almost nothing remains. It consisted of a great Keep in themidst of an enclosure, entered by two gates, the Castle Gate upon thenorth-east where now is Castle Lane, and the Postern over the site ofwhich we have entered the Castle Green. The decay of this fortressdates, at least, from the sixteenth century, and apparently before theCivil War it had been pulled down. 

The walls still enclose the Bailey of the Castle upon the west. There, in some sort, still stands the Castle Water Gate, a mere fragment, within which is a great vaulted chamber some fifty feet long andtwenty-five feet high, with only one small window. From thisfragmentary gate the wall sweeps away to the salient, for the mostpart Norman; but beyond the salient its character changes, two towersappear--the Catchcold Tower of the late fourteenth and early fifteenthcentury, and the fine Arundel Tower, now only a curtain of fourteenth-century work in the Decorated style. 

It is in these western walls of the town that we shall get our bestidea of what mediaeval Southampton was, and if we add to our impressionby an examination of the two remaining gates, one upon the north andthe other at the south-east angle, we may perhaps understand howformidable it must have appeared standing up out of the sea armed atall points. 

Mediaeval Southampton had eight gates, of these, as I have said, butfour remain, the most notable of which is undoubtedly the Bargate, uponthe north. This is a fine work of various periods in two stages, thelower consisting of a vaulted passage-way of fine proportions, a workof the fourteenth century and the upper of a great hall, the Guildhallnow used as a court room. The original gate, of course, was Norman, andthis seems to have endured until about 1330 two towers were built oneither side, without the gate, and a new south front added. In thefirst years of the fifteenth century a new north front was contrived, and this remains more or less as we see it. Of old the gate was reachedby a drawbridge across a wide moat. 

Beyond the Bargate we come to the Polymond Tower or the Tower of StDenys, beautiful with creepers. This would seem to be in some wayconnected with the Priory of St Denys which held all the churches inthe town, as we shall see. As for its other name of Polymond, it wouldseem to get it from that John Polymond, who, in the fourteenth century, from which time the tower, as we see it, dates, was nine times mayor ofSouthampton. 

As for the God's House Gateway, to reach it we must cross the town. Itis a plain but charming work of two periods, the gate proper being ofthe thirteenth century, while the tower with the two-storied buildingattached to it is of the fourteenth. From the beginning of theeighteenth century until 1855 it was used as the town gaol. 

The old town of Southampton, a town within a town, is a fascinatingstudy, the interest of its gates and old walls is inexhaustible, butapart from these it has little architectural beauty to boast of. Forall that it is amusing to linger there, if only to solve the problemsthat time has contrived for us. Among these not the least is that ofthe first site of the town. Not one of the churches in Southampton isof any great beauty or interest, but it is astonishing to find that themother church is not in the town at all, but at least half a mileoutside it upon the north. Leland, as I have already said, was told, when he was in Southampton in 1546, that the first town did not occupythe site of that we see but was further to the north, where St Mary'sstands. The fact that St Mary's is the mother church would seen toconfirm this. Moreover, there is no mention in the Domesday Survey ofany church at all within the borough of "Hantune, " and though we maythink that the church of St John then existed, St John's was never themother church; this was St Mary's which possessed all the tithes of thetown. In the time of Henry II. We find the King granting to the Prioryof St Denys, founded in 1124 by Henry I. , a Priory of Austin Canons, his "chapels" of St Michael, the Holy Rood, St Laurence and All Saints, that is all the churches save St John's already granted to the Abbey ofSt Mary of Lire, in Southampton. But that these chapels had somerelation to the mother church of St Mary might seem certain. Indeed therector of St Mary's was continually in controversy with the canons asto his rights, and eventually, in the thirteenth century, he won theday. In any case the mother church of Southampton was St Mary's, outside the walls of the town. That a Saxon church stood upon this siteis certain, and this was possibly represented in Leland's time by thechapel of St Nicholas, "a poor and small thing, " which then stood tothe East of "the great church of Our Lady, " which he saw and whichprobably dated from the time of Henry I. This church was, alas, destroyed by the town only a few years later because its spire was saidto guide the French cruisers into Southampton Water, and the stoneswere used to mend the roads. It may be that the chancel escaped, or itmay be that a new and much smaller church was erected in 1579. This, whichever it was, was much neglected till in 1711 a nave was built onto it. Then in 1723 the chancel was destroyed, and a new one built. In1833 this was rebuilt, and then in 1878 a new church was built, inplace of the old which was pulled down, by Street. Thus in St Mary'schurch, the mother church of Southampton to-day, we have only alifeless modern building. 

Much the same fate has befallen the churches within the walls ofSouthampton. The oldest, that of St John, was pulled down in theseventeenth century, that of Holy Rood, in the High Street, was rebuiltabout fifty years ago, so was St Laurence, while All Saints wasdestroyed in the eighteenth century. The only ancient church remainingis that of St Michael, which, though not destroyed, was ruined in 1826. It remains, however, in part, a Norman building, with an interestingfont of the twelfth century, a lectern of the fifteenth century, and afine tomb with the effigy of a priest in mass vestments. 

The same fate which has so brutally overtaken the churches ofSouthampton has, with perhaps more excuse, fallen upon the oldreligious houses. The Priory of St Denys, founded by Henry I. , uponwhich all these churches within the walls were in a sense dependent, has been totally destroyed, a piece of ruined wall alone remaining, the present church of St Denys dating from 1868. 

Nor does much remain of the Hospital of St Julian or God's House, founded for the poor in the town, by Gervase le Riche, in 1197. It wasone of the most important hospitals in the diocese of Winchester, andin 1343 the King, its protector, gave it to Queen's College, Oxford, just founded by Queen Philippa. As the possession of this college itsurvived the suppression, and was still carrying on its good work in1560. About 1567, however, certain Walloons, refugees from the LowCountries, settled in Southampton, and these were granted the use of StJulian's Chapel by Queen's College. 

The house should have remained to us, but that in 1861, by as black anact of vandalism as was ever perpetrated, this seat of learning sweptaway all the old domestic buildings of the hospital, which dated fromits foundation, and in their place erected what we might expect, at thesame time "restoring" the chapel of St Julian, of course, out of allrecognition. May St Julian forget Queen's College, Oxford, for ever andever. 

[Illustration: THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL'S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON]

Not far from this hospital for the poor the Grey Friars built theirhouse in 1237, or rather the burgesses of Southampton built it forthem, including a cloister of stone, but nothing remains at all of thishouse. 

For the most part, too, the great houses that of old filledSouthampton, and helped to glorify it, are gone. "The chiefest house, "writes Leland, "is the house that Huttoft, late customer ofSouthampton, builded on the west side of the town. The house thatMaster Lightster, chief baron of the King's exchequer, dwelleth in, isvery fair; the house that Master Mylles, the recorder, dwelleth in, isfair, and so be the houses of Niccotine and Guidote, Italians. " Ofthese, what remains? Nothing. The only noble dwelling is that calledTudor House, in St Michael's Square, a fine half-timbered building, and of this nothing is known. 

No, the only thing to be enjoyed in Southampton to-day is the old wallwith its gateways, that upon the west still valiantly outfaces themodern world and recalls for us all that noble great past out of whichwe are come. And yet I suppose Southampton is fulfilling its purposeto-day more wonderfully than ever before. It was once the port ofEngland for those dominions oversea we held in France. They are gone, but others we have since acquired, though less fair by far, remain. Itis to these Southampton looks to-day, south and east, as of old overhow many thousand miles of blue water. 

CHAPTER XVIII

BEAULIEU AND CHRISTCHURCH

While I was in Southampton, I made up my mind to visit a place which Ihad all my life desired to see, but which I had never yet set eyesupon, I mean Beaulieu Abbey in the New Forest. To this end I set outearly one morning, by steamboat, across Southampton Water, and landedat Hythe, whence I had only to cross the eastern part of BeaulieuHeath, a walk of some five miles, to find myself where I would be. 

The day was fair, the tide at the flood; in the woods, across thewater, I could see where Netley Abbey, another Cistercian house, younger than Beaulieu, once lifted up its voice in ceaseless praise ofGod, the Maker of all that beauty in which it stood, scarcely spoiledeven now by the amazing energy of the modern world. It was then with alight heart that I set out by a byway under Furze Down, and so acrossthe open heath, coming down at last through the woods to the ruins ofthe abbey and the river of Beaulieu. 

There can be no more delicious spot in the world. St Bernard loved thevalleys as St Benedict the hills, and as St Bernard was the refounderof the Cistercian Order to which Beaulieu belonged, it, like Waverley, Tintern, Netley, and a hundred others in England, was set in one ofthose delicious vales in which I think England is richer than any othercountry, and which here, in England of my heart, seem to demand ratherour worship than our praise. 

Beaulieu Abbey had always interested me. In the first place it was oneof the greatest, though not the earliest, houses in England of theCistercian Order, that reform of the Benedictines begun as William ofMalmesbury bears witness by an Englishman, Stephen Harding, sometime amonk of Sherborne. And then it was the only religious house within theconfines of the New Forest. It seems that in the year 1204, just a yearafter he had given the manor of Faringdon in Berkshire to St Mary ofCiteaux, and established there a small house of Cistercian monks, KingJohn founded this great monastery of St Mary of Beaulieu for the sameOrder, making provision for not less than thirty brethren, and givingit Faringdon for a cell. John endowed the house with some six manorsand several churches, gave it a golden chalice, and many cattle, aswell as corn and wine and money, and besought the aid of the abbots ofthe Order on behalf of the new house. To such good purpose, indeed, didhe support Beaulieu, that Hugh, the first abbot, was alone his friend, when Innocent III. , in the spring of 1208 placed England under aninterdict. This Hugh went as the King's ambassador to Rome, and havingreceived promises of submission from the King, who awaited his returnin the mother house of the Order in England, at Waverley, was successful in reconciling him with the Pope. In returnthe King gave him a palfrey among other presents, and theinterdict being lifted, contributed nine hundred marks towardsthe building of Beaulieu, to be followed by other even more generousofferings. Nor was Henry III. Neglectful of the place, so that in 1227upon the vigil of the Assumption, the monks were able to use theirchurch, though it was not till nineteen years later that the monasterywas completed, and dedicated in the presence of the King and Queen, Prince Edward and a vast concourse of bishops, nobles, and commonfolk, by the Bishop of Winchester. Upon that occasion, Prince Edwardwas seized with illness, and, strange as it may seem, we are told thatthe Queen remained in the abbey, to nurse him, for three weeks. But thehouse was always under the royal protection. Edward I. Constantlystayed there, and the abbots were continually employed upon diplomaticbusiness. From 1260 to 1341, when he asked to be freed from the duty, the abbot of Beaulieu sat in Parliament, and in 1368 Edward III. Granted the monks a weekly market within the precincts. One otherprivilege, unique in southern England, Beaulieu had, the right toperpetual sanctuary granted by Innocent III. , and this seems to havebeen used to the full in the Wars of the Roses, at least we findRichard III. Inquiring into the matter in 1463. There it seems PerkinWarbeck had found safety, as had Lady Warwick after Barnet, and at thetime of the Suppression there were thirty men in sanctuary in the"Great Close of Beaulieu, " which seems to have included all theoriginal grant of land made to the abbey by King John. Beaulieuevidently very greatly increased in honour, for in 1509 its abbot wasmade Bishop of Bangor but continued to hold the abbey, and when he diedthe abbot of Waverley, the oldest house of the Order in England, succeeded him, the post being greatly sought after. The Act of 1526suppressing the lesser monasteries, in which so many Cistercian housesperished, did not touch Beaulieu, but Netley fell early in thefollowing year, and the monks were sent to Beaulieu. Many then lookedfor the spoil of the great abbey, among them Lord Lisle who besoughtThomas Cromwell for it, but he was denied. Indeed there seems to havebeen no idea of suppressing the house at that time. But the AbbotStevens was a traitor. In 1538 he eagerly signed the surrender demandedby the infamous Layton and Petre, and the site was granted to ThomasWriothesley, afterwards Earl of Southampton, from whose family it camein the time of William III. To Lord Montagu, and so to the Dukes ofBuccleuch, who still hold it. 

Nothing can exceed the beauty of the remains of the house there by theriver, in perhaps the loveliest corner of southern England. The greatabbey church has gone, destroyed at the Suppression, but not a littleof the monastery remains. The great Gate House called the abbot'slodging and now the Palace House, the seat of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, a fine Decorated building with a beautiful entrance hall, may sometimesbe seen. From this one passes across the grass to the old Refectory, now fitted up as the parish church, a noble work of the Early Englishstyle of the thirteenth century, as is the fine pulpit with its arcadein the thickness of the wall. Here of old the monk read aloud while hisbrethren took their meagre repast. 

From the Refectory one comes into the ruined cloisters, lovely with allmanner of flowers, and so to the site of the old Chapter House, of thesacristy and the monastic buildings. All that remains is in the earlyDecorated style of the end of the thirteenth century. Here, too, uponthe north stood the great abbey church, three hundred and thirty-fivefeet long, a cruciform building consisting of nave with two aisles, central tower, transepts with aisles, chancel with circular apse andchapels, now marked out in chalk upon the grass. All about are thewoods, meadows, fishponds and greens of the monks who are gone. 

I do not know how this strikes another who shall see it to-day, in allits useless beauty, in the midst of our restless and unhappy England;but what I felt has already been expressed and by so good an Englishmanas William Cobbett. 

"Now ... I daresay, " he writes, "that you are a very good Protestant;and I am a monstrous good Protestant too. We cannot bear the Pope, nor"they there priests that makes men confess there sins and go down upontheir marrow-bones before them. " But let us give the devil his due; andlet us not act worse by these Roman Catholics (who by the by were ourforefathers) than we are willing to act by the devil himself. Now thenhere were a set of monks. None of them could marry, of course none ofthem could have wives and families. They could possess no privateproperty; they could bequeath nothing; they could own nothing but thatwhich they owned in common with the rest of their body. They couldhoard no money; they could save nothing. Whatever they received as rentfor their lands, they must necessarily spend upon the spot, for theynever could quit that spot. They did spend it all upon the spot; theykept all the poor. Beaulieu and all round about Beaulieu saw no misery, and had never heard the damned name of pauper pronounced as long asthose Monks continued. 

"You and I are excellent Protestants; you and I have often assisted onthe 5th of November to burn Guy Fawkes, the Pope and the Devil. But youand I would much rather be life holders under Monks thanrackrenters.... "

St Thomas Aquinas has told us that there were three things for a sightof which he would have endured a year in Purgatory, not unwillingly:Christ in the flesh, Rome in her flower, and an Apostle disputing. Christ in the flesh, I would indeed I might have seen, and Rome in herflower were worth even such a price, but for me an Apostle disputingwould, let me confess it, have little attraction. Instead I would thatI might see England before the fall, England of the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth century, England of my heart, with all hergreat cathedrals still alive, with all her great monasteries still inbeing, those more than six hundred houses destroyed by Henry, and notleast this house of the Cistercians in Beaulieu. And if I might seethat, I should have seen one of the fairest things and the noblest thatever were in the world. 

From Beaulieu I set out in the afternoon across the Forest, and atfirst over the western part of Beaulieu Heath for Brockenhurst. Theroad across the heath is not in itself of much beauty, but it affordssome glorious views both of the Forest and the sea. As I drew nearer toBrockenhurst, however, I came into the woods, and the sylvan beauty ofthe vale, through which the Lymington River flows southward, wasdelicious. Brockenhurst itself is charmingly embowered and issurrounded by some of the loveliest of the woodlands. The church standshigh, perhaps as a guide, over a woodland churchyard, and is theevident successor of a Norman building, as its south doorway and fontof Purbeck bear witness and the chancel arch too, unless indeed this beearlier still. The chancel, however, dates from the fourteenthcentury, a good example in its littleness of the Decorated style, butit is half spoiled by the enormous pew which blocks the entrance. Thetower and spire and a good part of the nave are completely modern. Thegreat yew in the churchyard must date at least from Edward I. 's time, and perhaps may have seen the day on which Red William fell. 

From Brockenhurst, on the following morning, I set out again over theopen heath for Boldre southward. Many a fine view over the woods I had, and once, as I came down Sandy Down, I caught sight of the Isle ofWight. Then the scene changed, and I came through meadows, and pastcoppices into Boldre. In the midst of a wood, as it were, I suddenlyfound the church, and this interested me more than I can well say, forhere again I found what at one time must have been a complete Normanbuilding. Surely if the history-books are right this is an astonishingthing; but then, as I have long since learned, the history one istaught at school is a mere falsehood from start to finish. There isprobably no schoolboy in England who has not read of the awful crueltyand devastation that went with the formation of the New Forest, by theConqueror in 1079. It is generally spoken of as only less appallingthan the burning of Northumberland. It is said that more than fifty-twoparish churches within the new bounds of the New Forest were destroyed, and a fertile district of a hundred square miles laid waste anddepopulated to provide William with a hunting-ground. Now if this betrue how does it come that upon my first day in the Forest I find aNorman church at Brockenhurst with something very like a Saxon chancelarch, and that upon my second day I walk right into another church inpart Norman too? This is surely an astonishing thing. It is also, Ifind, a fact that much of the New Forest had been a royal hunting-ground in the Saxon times, and that the afforestation of William is notso much as mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle. The whole story of thedevastation of this great country would seem to rest upon the writingsof William of Jumièges or Ordericus Vitalis, neither of whom was aliveat the time of the afforestation. This must have been known surely toour modern historians; but so is the history of England written. Ourreal grievance against William was not his afforestation, but his cruelForest Law, which demanded the limb of a man for the life of a beast, athing I think unknown in England before his advent. It was this harshlaw, so bitterly resented, which at last, as we may think, cost WilliamRufus his life. But the old tale remains, and therefore I was greatlyastonished in Boldre Church. 

Doubtless the original Norman church consisted of a nave, chancel andnorth and south aisles. The south aisle remains, as does the arcadewhich separates it from the nave. In the Early English time the northaisle was rebuilt or added, perhaps, for the first time, and thechancel rebuilt. Later the church was lengthened westward, and thetower built at the eastern end of the Norman aisle. In that aisle thereis a tablet to William Gilpin, the author of "Forest Scenery, " who wasvicar of Boldre for a generation, dying in 1804 aged eighty years. Heis buried in the churchyard. 

Boldre is certainly a place to linger in, a place that one is sorry toleave, but I could not stay, being intent on Lymington. Therefore Iwent down through the oak woods, over Boldre Bridge, to find the highroad, which presently brought me past St Austin's once belonging tothe Priory of Christchurch, under Buckland Rings to the very ancientborough of Lymington, with its charming old ivy-clad church tower atthe end of the High Street. The church, in so far as it is old of thethirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has little to boast of, for it hasbeen quite horribly restored. In the long street of Lymington I slept. 

There seemed to be nothing to keep me in Lymington, and therefore, early upon the following morning, I set out for Milford, five milesaway by the sea, and there I wonderfully saw the Needles and the greatIsland and found another Norman church, Norman that is to say in itsfoundations. All Saints, Milford, consists to-day of chancel with northand south chapels west of it, transepts, nave with north and southaisles, and a western chapel on either side the western tower, and asouth porch. It is a most beautiful and interesting building. Doubtlessthere originally stood here a twelfth-century Norman church, consistingof nave with aisles and chancel, of which two arches remain in thesouth arcade of the nave. Then in the thirteenth century the church wasrebuilt, as we see it, and very beautiful it is, in its Early Englishdress, passing into Decorated, in the chancel and transepts. 

From Milford, through a whole spring day, I went on by the coast as farI could, westward to Christchurch. All the way, the sea, the sky, andthe view of the island and of Christchurch bay closed by HengistburyHead in the west, and the long bar on which Hurst Castle stands in theeast were worth a king's ransom. They say all this coast has strongattractions for the geologist; but what of the poet and painter? Surelyhere, when the wind comes over the sea and the Island, showing histeeth, to possess the leaning coast, one may see and understand whyEngland is the England of my heart. At least I thought so, and lingeredthere so long that twilight had fallen before I found myself under thedarkness of the great Priory of Christchurch, the goal of my desire. 

It was not without due cause and reason that I wished to see, insteadof an Apostle disputing, England before the fall. Indeed I am sure thatI should not have been unwise to exchange "Rome in her flower" for sucha sight as that; Christchurch proves it. 

We march up and down England and count up our treasures, of which thisPriory of Christchurch is not the least; but we never pause perhaps toremember what, through the damnable act of Thomas Cromwell and HenryTudor, we have lost. What we have lost! hundreds of churches, hundredsof monasteries as fine as Christchurch, and hundreds far more solemnand reverent. Reading, which now gives a title to an Isaacs, (God saveus all!) was, before the fall, just a great monastery, a Norman pile asgrand as Durham or Ely. What of Glastonbury and Amesbury, older far, and of those many hundred others which stood up strong before God forour souls--without avail? They are gone; Christchurch in some sortremains. 

Christchurch stands in the angle where the rivers Avon and Stour meet, and it is thus secured upon the north, east, and south; its great andperhaps its only attraction is the great Priory church in whose namethat of the town, Twyneham, has long been lost; but there are beside aruined Norman house, and a pretty mediaeval bridge over the Avon, fromwhich a most noble view of the great church may be had. This, whichdates in its foundation from long before the Conquest, is to-day agreat cruciform building consisting roughly of Norman nave andtransepts, the nave buttressed on the north in the thirteenth century, fifteenth-century chancel and western tower, and thirteenth-centurynorth porch--altogether one of the most glorious churches left to usin England. 

Its history, as I say, goes back far beyond the Conquest, when it wasserved by secular canons, as it was at the time of the Domesday Survey, when we find that twenty-four were in residence. But in the time ofWilliam Rufus, Ranulph Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, his chiefminister, obtained a grant of the church and town of Christchurch, andsoon had suppressed all the canonries save five, and would havesuppressed them all but for the timely death of the Red King, whichinvolved the fall and imprisonment of his rascal minister. After aninterval, in which the church was governed by Gilbert de Dousgunels, who set out for Rome to get the Pope's leave to refound the house, butdied upon the journey, Henry I. Gave manor, town and church to his cousin, Richard de Redvers, who proved a great benefactor to the Priory, andestablished a Dean over the canons, one Peter, who was succeeded byDean Ralph. Then in 1150 came Dean Hilary, who as Bishop of Chichester, petitioned Richard de Redvers to establish Christchurch as a Priory ofCanons Regular of St Austin. This was done; a certain Reginald wasappointed first prior, and he ruled Christchurch for thirty-six yearstill, in 1186, he was succeeded by Ralph. It was not, however, till thetime of the third Prior that the high altar of the new church begun byGilbert and continued by Richard de Redvers and his priors wasdedicated upon the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury, 1195. This wouldseem to prove that the Norman choir was not finished until then;similar consecration of other altars would lead us to believe thatperhaps the vault and the clerestory of the nave were completed in1234. At the same time the beautiful north porch was built and thenorth aisle was buttressed. To the fourteenth century we owe the finerood screen restored in 1848, but the next great period of building wasthe fifteenth century, when the Lady Chapel, with the chapels north andsouth of it, were built, and later in the same century the great choirwas entirely re-erected. 

Thus Christchurch Priory grew until the Reformation. It escaped thefirst raid of Cromwell in 1536, but in spite of the petition of JohnDraper, the last Prior, in 1539 the house was demanded of him and hesurrendered it. The report of the vandals and sacrilegious persons whoreceived it is worth copying, if only to show their character. "Wefound, " they wrote, "the Prior a very honest, conformable person, andthe house well furnished with jewels and plate, whereof some be meetfor the king's majesty in use as a little chalice of gold, a goodlylarge cross, double gilt with the foot garnished, and with stone andpearl; two goodly basons double gilt. And there be other things ofsilver.... In thy church we find a chapel and monument curiously madeof Caen stone, prepared by the late mother of Reginald Pole for herburial, which we have caused to be defaced, and all the arms and badgesto be delete. " It is consoling to note that one of the rascals thatsigned that report, Dr London, was shortly afterwards exposed in histrue colours and openly put to penance for adultery before he died inprison, where he lay for perjury. 

The report stated that the church was superfluous. It was the only trueword written there. When a religion is destroyed, its temples arecertainly superfluous. However, there was a considerable influencebrought to bear by the people of the neighbourhood, and the churchitself was granted them for their use. The Priory, which stood to thesouth of the church, was, of course, destroyed. 

One might stand a whole month in that glorious building with this onlyregret, that it is in the hands of strangers. The use to which it isput is not that for which it was intended, and half the delight of theplace is thus lost to us. But no one can pass down that great avenue ofelms to the glorious north porch, a master-work of the thirteenthcentury, without rejoicing that when all is said the church was savedto us. The great Norman nave, with its thirteenth-century clerestory, and alas, modern stucco vaulting, the Norman aisles and north transept, are too reverent for destruction, the fifteenth-century choir andeastern chapels too lovely. 

A certain amount of the old furniture remains to the church in therestored screen of the fourteenth century, and the reredos over thecommunion table and another in the Lady Chapel; here, too, is the oldaltar stone of Purbeck. The chantry of the poor Countess of Salisbury, who was beheaded for high treason in 1541, so brutally defaced by DrLondon and his infamous colleagues, stands there too upon the north;and close by in the north chapel is the tomb with fine alabastereffigies of Sir John and Lady Chydroke (d. 1455), removed from thenave, and in the Lady Chapel lie its founders, Sir Thomas and LadyWest. Of the modern restorations and additions I have nothing to say, and more especially of the monument to Shelley; a parody of a Pietàmerely blasphemous, beneath the tower. 

Now when I had seen all this, to say nothing of the old school-roomover the Lady Chapel and the Norman house and castle mound of the DeRedvers, somewhat sorrowful for many things, I began to think again ofthe Forest, and immediately set out where the road led to Lyndhurst, and this just before midday. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE NEW FOREST AND ROMSEY ABBEY

All day I went through the Forest, sometimes by green rides, enchantedstill, such as those down which Lancelot rode with Guinevere, talkingof love, sometimes over heaths wild and desolate such as that whichknew the bitterness of Lear, sometimes through the greenwood, ancientBritish woodland, silent now, where the hart was once at home in theshade, and where at every turn one might expect to come upon Rosalindin her boy's dress, and think to hear from some glade the words ofAmiens' song:

 Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat; Come hither, come hither, come hither.... 

There are days in life of which it can only be said, that they areblessed; golden days, upon which, looking back, the sun seems to shine;they dazzle in the memory. Such was the day I spent in the byways ofHolmsley and Burley, in the upper valleys of Avon water, Ober water andBlack water, forest streams; in the silent woods, where all day longthe sun showered its gold, sprinkling the deep shade with flowers andblossoms of light, where there was no wind but only the sighing of thewoods, no sound but the whisper of the leaves or the rare flutter of abird's wings, no thoughts but joyful thoughts filling the heart withinnocence. 

 Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats And pleased with what he gets; Come hither, come hither, come hither.... 

At evening I came to Lyndhurst. 

Lyndhurst is the capital of the Forest; as its name implies it wasestablished in a wood of limes, a tree said to have been introducedinto England only in the sixteenth century. It is already spoken of inthe tenth century Anglo-Saxon ballad of the Battle of Brunanburh!

 Athelstan king, Lord among earls, Bracelet bestower and Baron of barons; He with his brother Edmund Atheling Gaining a lifelong Glory in battle. Slew with the sword-edge, There by Brunanburh, Brake the shield wall, _Hew'd the lindenwood_, Hack'd the battleshield, Sons of Edward with hammered brands. 

Oak, beech, and holly, which so largely make up the woodland of the NewForest we have always had in England, but the limes which namedLyndhurst it is said we owe to someone else, and if so it can only beto the Roman. 

What the Forest was when the Romans administered the land we know not;but in Anglo-Saxon times it was doubtless a royal hunting ground, _terra regis_ and _silva regis_, for spoiling which by fire as forkilling the game therein fines must be paid. These royal huntinggrounds, of which the great Forest in Hampshire was certainly not theleast, only became legal "forests" with the Conquest, when they wereplaced under a new Forest law of extraordinary harshness, which even inthe Conqueror's time indeed demanded an eye or a hand for the takingof game, and in the days of the Red King the life of a man for the lifeof a beast. 

The Conqueror, as we know, greatly enlarged the old "royal huntingground" here in Hampshire when he made the New Forest, and that act ofhis which brought an immensely larger area than of old under a new andincredibly harsher forest law gradually produced a legend ofdevastation and depopulation here which, as I have already said, can nolonger be accepted as true. Henry of Huntingdon (1084?-1155) assertsthat "to form the hunting ground of the New Forest he (William) causedchurches and villages to be destroyed, and, driving out the people, made it a habitation for deer. " It is true that the Conqueror forged acharter purporting to date from Canute in which the king's sole rightto take beasts of chase was asserted, and to this he appealed asjustifying his harsh new laws; but it is untrue that he depopulatedand destroyed a thriving district to make a wilderness for the reddeer. "We shall find, " says Warner, "that the lands comprised in thistract (the New Forest) appear from their low valuation in the time ofthe Confessor to have been always unproductive in comparison withother parts of the kingdom; and that notwithstanding this pretendeddevastation they sunk (in many instances) but little in their valueafter their afforestment. So that the fact seems to have been, William, finding this tract in a barren state and yielding but little profit, and being strongly attached to the pleasures of the chase, converted itinto a royal forest, without being guilty of those violences to theinhabitants of which Henry of Huntingdon, Malmesbury, Walter Mapes, andothers complain. "

Of this great New Forest, Lyndhurst was made the capital and theadministrative centre, and such it is still. In Domesday Book we read:"The King himself holds Lyndhurst, which appertained to Amesbury, which is of the King's farm. "

The King granted a small part, namely, one virgate to "Herbert theForester, " before 1086, and this Herbert is generally supposed to havebeen the ancestor of those Lyndhursts who for so long held thewardenship of the Forest. The King's house, a fine building of QueenAnne's time, is the successor of the old royal lodge at least as old asthe fourteenth century, and is now occupied by the Deputy Surveyor ofthe Forest. In the Verderers' Hall close by, the forest courts of theverderers are still held. There, too, may be seen the old dock, certaintrophies of the chase and "the stirrup-iron of William Rufus, " reallythe seventeenth century gauge "for the dogs allowed to be kept in theforest without expeditation, the 'lawing' being carried out on all'great dogs' that could not pass through the stirrup. "

Lyndhurst itself, as we see it to-day, is devoid of interest; even thechurch dates but from 1863, and its greatest treasure is the wall-painting by Lord Leighton of the Wise and Foolish Virgins in thechancel. A church, a chapelry of Minstead, certainly stood here in thethirteenth century, but was destroyed, and a Georgian building erected--in its turn to give place to the church we see. 

Lyndhurst, though almost without interest itself, is undoubtedly thebest centre for exploring the Forest, or, at any rate, perhaps the mostbeautiful and certainly the most interesting parts of it. So by many abyway I went northward to Minstead in Malwood, where I found a mostcurious church, rather indeed a house than a church, with dormerwindows in the roof, an enormous three-decker pulpit within, galleries, and two great pews, one with a fireplace, and I know not what otherquaint rubbish of the eighteenth century. All this I found enchanting, and more especially because the nave and chancel seemed to me to beoriginally of the thirteenth century, and certainly the font is Norman. But the church with its eighteenth-century tower is perhaps the mostamazing conglomeration of the work of all periods since the twelfthcentury to be found in southern England. 

From Minstead I went on up the Bartley water to Stone Cross, nearlyfour hundred feet over the Forest, from which by good fortune I saw themighty Abbey of Romsey in the valley of the Test, where I intended tosleep. Then I went down past Castle Malwood to where stands Rufus'Stone. There I read:

 "Here stood the oak-tree on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag glanced and struck King William II. , surnamed Rufus, on the breast, of which stroke he instantly died on the 2nd August 1100. 

 "King William II. , surnamed Rufus, being slain as before related, was laid in a cart belonging to one Purkess and drawn from hence to Winchester and buried in the cathedral church of that city. 

 "That where an event so memorable had happened might not hereafter be unknown this stone was set up by John Lord Delaware who had seen the tree growing in this place anno 1745. 

 "This stone having been much mutilated and the inscriptions on the three sides defaced, this more durable memorial with the original inscription was erected in the year 1841 by him. Sturges Bourne, warden. "

The memorial and inscription are of iron. 

The most famous thing that ever befell in the New Forest was thisstrange murder or misfortune which cost the Red King his life. Ithaunts the whole forest, and rightly understood fills it with meaningand can never have been or be far from the thoughts of anyone whowanders there, even as I have done in the excellent days of Spring. 

[Illustration: IN THE NEW FOREST]

No less than three members of the Conqueror's family were killed in theNew Forest; first Richard, one of his sons, then another Richard, bastard son of Duke Robert of Normandy, this in May 1100; and in Augustof the same year, his son and successor William, surnamed Rufus. Allthese deaths are said to have been caused by accidents, all were causedby arrows; it is a strange thing. 

All we really know about the death of William Rufus may be found in theEnglish "Chronicle. " "On the morrow was the King William shot off withan arrow from his own men in hunting. " Whether the arrow, as traditionhas it, was shot by Walter Tyrrel or no, whether it was aimed at theKing or no, can never now be known. The most graphic account of theaffair is given to us by Ordericus Vitalis, who, however, was not onlynot present, but at best can have been but a child at the time, for hedied in 1150. For all that he doubtless had access to sources of whichwe now know nothing, and the whole atmosphere of his story suggeststhat, as we might expect, the King was murdered because of his generalharshness and oppression, perhaps especially exemplified in his ForestLaw. It was he and not the Conqueror who demanded the life of a man forthat of a beast; his father had been content with an eye or a limb. 

It would seem, according to Ordericus, that the whole country was fullof stories of terrible visions concerning the end of the King longbefore his sudden death. Henry of Huntingdon, for instance, tells usthat "blood had been seen to spring from the ground in Berkshire, " andadds that "the King was rightly cut off in the midst of his injustice, "for "England could not breathe under the burdens laid upon it. "Ordericus himself says that "terrible visions respecting him were seenin the monasteries and cathedrals by the clergy of both classes, andbecoming the talk of the vulgar in the market-places and churchyards, could not escape the notice of the King. "

He then gives a particular instance: "A certain monk of goodrepute and still better life, who belonged to the Abbey of St Peter atGloucester, related that he had a dream in the visions of the night tothis effect: 'I saw, ' he said, 'the Lord Jesus seated on a loftythrone, and the glorious host of heaven, with the company of thesaints, standing round. But while, in my ecstasy, I was lost in wonder, and my attention deeply fixed on such an extraordinary spectacle, Ibeheld a virgin resplendent with light cast herself at the feet of theLord Jesus, and humbly address to Him this petition, "O Lord JesusChrist, the Saviour of mankind, for which Thou didst shed Thy preciousblood when hanging on the Cross, look with an eye of compassion on Thypeople, which now groan under the yoke of William. Thou avenger ofwickedness, and most just judge of all men, take vengeance I beseechThee on my behalf of this William and deliver me out of his hands, foras far as lies in his power he hath polluted and grievously afflictedme. " The Lord replied, "Be patient and wait awhile, and soon thou wiltbe fully avenged of him. " I trembled at hearing this and doubt not thatthe divine anger presently threatens the King; for I understood thatthe cries of the holy virgin, our mother the Church, had reached theears of the Almighty by reason of the robberies, the foul adulteriesand the heinous crimes of all sorts which the King and his courtierscease not daily of committing against the divine law. '"

On being informed of this, the venerable Abbot Serle wrote letterswhich he despatched in a friendly spirit from Gloucester informing theKing very distinctly of all the monk had seen in his vision. 

William of Malmesbury also records that the King himself the day beforehe died, dreamed that he was let blood by a surgeon, and that thestream, reaching to heaven, clouded the light and intercepted the day. Calling on St Mary for protection he suddenly awoke, commanded a lightto be brought and forbade his attendants to leave him. They thenwatched with him several hours until daylight. Shortly after, just asthe day began to dawn, a certain foreign monk told Robert Fitz Hamanone of the principal nobility that he had that night dreamed a strangeand fearful dream about the King: "That he had come into a certainchurch, with menacing and insolent gesture as was his custom, lookingcontemptuously on the standers by. Then violently seizing the Crucifixhe gnawed the arms and almost tore away the legs; that the imageendured this for a long time, but at length struck the King with itsfoot, in such a manner that he fell backwards; from his mouth as he layprostrate issued so copious a flame that the volumes of smoke touchedthe very stars. Robert, thinking that this dream ought not to beneglected as he was intimate with him, immediately related it to theKing. William, repeatedly laughing, exclaimed, 'He is a monk and dreamsfor money like a monk; give him a hundred shillings. '"

"Nevertheless, " adds William of Malmesbury, "being greatly moved, theKing hesitated a long while whether he should go out to hunt as hedesigned; his friends persuading him not to suffer the truth of thedreams to be tried at his personal risk. In consequence he abstainedfrom the chase before dinner, dispelling the uneasiness of hisunregulated mind by serious business. They relate that havingplentifully regaled that day, he soothed his cares with a more thanusual quantity of wine. "

All this, I suppose, befell in the Castle of Malwood. 

After dinner the King prepared to hunt. "Being in great spirits, " saysOrdericus, "he was joking with his attendants while his boots werebeing laced, when an armourer came and presented him six arrows. TheKing immediately took them with great satisfaction, praising the work, and unconscious of what was to happen, kept four of them himself andheld out the other two to Walter Tyrrel. "It is but right, " said he, "that the sharpest arrows should be given to him who knows best how toinflict mortal wounds with them. " This Tyrrel was a French knight ofgood extraction, the wealthy lord of the castles of Poix and Pontoise, filling a high place among the nobles, and a gallant soldier; he wastherefore admitted to familiar intimacy with the King and became hisconstant companion. Meanwhile as they were idly talking and the King'shousehold attendants were assembled about him, a monk of Gloucesterpresented himself and delivered to the King a letter from his abbot. Having read it, the King burst out laughing and said merrily to theknight just mentioned, "Walter, do what I told you. " The knightreplied, "I will, my lord. " Slighting then the warnings of the elders, and forgetting that the heart is lifted up before a fall, he saidrespecting the letter he had received, "I wonder what has induced mylord Serlo to write me in this strain, for I really believe he is aworthy abbot and respectable old man. In the simplicity of his heart hetransmits to me, who have enough besides to attend to, the dreams ofhis snoring monks and even takes the trouble to commit them to writingand send them a long distance. Does he think that I follow the exampleof the English, who will defer their journey or their business onaccount of the dreams of a parcel of wheezing old women?

"Thus speaking, he hastily rose and mounting his horse rode at fullspeed to the forest. His brother, Count Henry with William de Bretanel, and other distinguished persons, followed him, and having penetratedinto the woods the hunters dispersed themselves in various directionsaccording to custom. The King and Walter Tyrrel posted themselves witha few others in one part of the forest and stood with their weapons intheir hands eagerly watching for the coming of the game, when a stagsuddenly running between them the King quitted his station and Waltershot an arrow. It grazed the beast's grizzly back, but glancing fromit mortally wounded the king, who stood within its range. Heimmediately fell to the ground, and, alas! suddenly expired. "

William of Malmesbury gives a somewhat different account of the King'sdeath. "The sun was declining when the King, drawing his bow andletting fly an arrow; slightly wounded a stag which passed before him;and keenly gazing followed it still running a long time with his eyes, holding up his hand to keep off the power of the sun's rays. At thisinstant, Walter, conceiving a noble exploit, which was, while theKing's attention was otherwise occupied, to transfix another stagwhich by chance came near him, unknowingly and without power to preventit--oh gracious God!--pierced his breast with a fatal arrow. Onreceiving the wound the King uttered not a word; but breaking off theshaft of the weapon where it projected from his body, fell upon thewound by which he accelerated his death. Walter immediately ran up, butas he found him senseless and speechless he leaped swiftly upon hishorse, and escaped by spurring him to his utmost speed. Indeed, therewas none to pursue him; some consented in his flight, and others pitiedhim, and all were intent on other matters. Some began to fortify theirdwellings; others to plunder, and the rest to look out for a new king. A few countrymen conveyed the body, placed on a cart, to the cathedralat Winchester, the blood dripping from it all the way. Here it wascommitted to the ground within the tower, attended by many of thenobility though lamented by few. Next year [really in 1107] the towerfell; though I forbear to mention the different opinions on thissubject, lest I should seem to assent too readily to unsupportedtrifles, more especially as the building might have fallen throughimperfect construction even though he had never been buried there. Hedied in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1100, of his reign thethirteenth, on the fourth before the nones of August, aged above fortyyears. "

So died the Red King. Whose arrow it was that slew him, whether it cameaforethought from an English bow or by chance from that of WalterTyrrel, we shall never know. The Red King fell in the New Forest andthere was no one in all broad England to mourn him. William ofMalmesbury says that a few countrymen carried his body to Winchester. We may well ask why not to Malwood Castle, which was close by? We mayask, but we shall get no answer. According to a local legend it was acharcoal burner of Minstead, Purkess by name, who found the King's bodyand bore it away, and ever after his descendants have remained inMinstead, neither richer nor poorer than their ancestor. As for SirWalter, he is said to have sworn to the Prior of St Denys de Poix, amonastery of his foundation, that he knew nothing of the King's death. Leland tells us that in his day not only did the tree still existagainst which, according to him, the arrow glanced off and struck theKing, but a little chapel remained there then very old, in which Masswas wont to be offered for the repose of the King's soul. I wish that Imight have seen it, for it would have pleased me. 

Now when I had well considered all this, not without an orison for thatmisguided King, I set off for Cadnam, and holding now only to the road, marching fast, for it was late, I came over the ridge beyond Blackwater into the valley of the Test, and so entered Romsey a little afterit was dark. 

[Illustration: ROMSEY ABBEY]

Romsey, as I soon found on the following morning, has nothing at all tooffer the traveller except one of the most solemn and noble Normanchurches in all England, monastic too, for it was the church of thegreat Benedictine Nunnery of Our Lady of Romsey. It is impossible toexaggerate the impression this astonishing Norman pile, of vast sizeand unsurpassed age and reverence, makes upon the traveller. One seemsin looking upon it to see before his eyes the foundation of England. Icannot hope to describe it or to convey to another what it meant to me. It is at once grandiose and reverent, of enormous, almost incrediblesize and weight and strength larger than many a cathedral, heavy as akingdom, stronger than a thousand years. It seems to have been hewnbodily out of the cliffs or the great hills. 

It is enormously old. The house was founded or perhaps refounded morethan a millennium ago by Edward the Elder in 907; his daughter wasabbess here, and here was buried. In 967 Edgar his grandson gave thehouse to the Benedictines. It remained English after the Conquest, forWilliam seems not to have dealt with it and in 1086 the sister of EdgarAtheling became abbess. Out of it Henry I. Chose his bride thatAbbess's niece Maud a novice of Our Lady of Romsey. Said I not wellthat it was as the foundation of England?

We know little of the Abbey for near a hundred years after that, andthen in 1160 the daughter of King Stephen, Mary, whose uncle, Henry ofBlois, was Bishop of Winchester, became abbess, and it was decided torebuild the place. Thus the great Norman church we have, arose in thenew England of the twelfth century. Mary, princess and abbess, was, however, false to her vows. How long she was abbess we do not know, perhaps only a few months or even days. At any rate, in the very yearshe became abbess, the year of her mother's death, [Footnote: See supraunder Faversham. ] she forsook her trust and married the son of the Earlof Flanders, and by him she had two daughters. Then came repentance;she separated from her husband and returned to Romsey as a penitent. 

The great religious house which had grown up thus with England, continued its great career right through the Middle Ages, about fortynuns serving there in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, thoughthis number had dwindled to twenty-three at the time of the Surrenderin 1539. How this surrender was made we do not know; but whether withor without trouble the result was the same, the great convent wasutterly destroyed. Many of the lands passed to Sir Thomas Seymour, andthe people of Romsey, who had always had a right to the north aisle ofthe church, which indeed they enlarged at their own expense in 1403, bought the whole from the Crown, for one hundred pounds, in 1554. 

I have said that there was undoubtedly a great Saxon church here, wherethe Norman Abbey of Romsey now stands, and part of the foundations ofthis great building were discovered in 1900. That building, founded byEdward the Elder, rebuilt by Edgar and restored by Canute, stood tillthe building of the present church in 1125. The older part of thisbuilding (1125-1150) is to the east of the nave, and consists ofsanctuary and transepts: the nave was begun towards the end of thetwelfth century, the church being finished in the beginning of thethirteenth. The church is cruciform, two hundred and sixty-three feetlong and one hundred and thirty-one wide; it consists of a greatsanctuary with aisles ending in chapels, square without, apsidalwithin, wide transepts each having an eastern apsidal chapel, nave withaisles, and over the crossing a low tower which was once higher, havingnow a seventeenth century polygonal belfry. To the east of thesanctuary stood two long chapels destroyed since the Suppression. Wehave here, as I have said, one of the most glorious Norman buildings inthe world, Norman work which at the western end passes into the mostdelightful Early English. The cloister stood to the south of the nave, to the north stood of old the parish church, growing out of the northaisle as it were, built so in 1403. This has been destroyed and thenorth aisle wall has been rebuilt as in 1150. 

The church possesses more than one thing of great interest. The oldhigh-altar stone is still in existence, and is now used as thecommunion table. In the south transept is a fine thirteenth centuryeffigy of a lady, carved in purbeck. At the end of the south aisle ofthe choir is a remarkable stone Crucifix that evidently belonged tothe old Saxon church; about the Cross stand Our Lady, St John and theRoman soldiers, above are angels. A later Rood is to be seen in theeastern wall of the old cloister which abutted on to the transept; thisdates from the twelfth century. In the north aisle of the choir is avery fine painting which used to stand above the high altar in Catholictimes. There we see still the Resurrection of Our Lord with two angels, above are ten saints, among them St Benedict and St Scholastica, StGregory, St Augustine of Canterbury, St Francis and St Clare. This fine work, which of old showed, above, Christ in Glory, isof the end of the fourteenth century. 

Now when you have seen Romsey Abbey thus as it were with the head; thenis the time to begin to get it by heart. In all South England you mayfind no greater glory than this, nor one more entirely our very own, atleast our own as we were but yesterday. It may be that such a place asRomsey Abbey means nothing to us and can never mean anything again. ButI'll not believe it. For to think so is to despair of England, torealise that England of my heart has really passed away. 

There are two ways by which a man may go from Romsey, in the valley ofthe Test to Winchester, in the valley of the Itchen. The morebeautiful, for it gives you, if you will, not only Otterbourne, Shawford and Compton to the west of the stream, but Twyford to theeast, the Queen of Hampshire villages, is that which makes for theRoman road between Winchester and Southampton, and following up thevalley of the Itchen enters Winchester at last, by the South Gate, after passing St Cross in the meads. The shorter road, though far lesslovely, is in some ways the more interesting; for it passes MerdonCastle and Hursley, where the son of Oliver Cromwell lies, and for thiscause I preferred it. 

Merdon Castle, of which some few scanty ruins remain, was built by theBishop Henry of Blois about 1138, and no doubt it served its purpose inthe anarchy of Stephen's time, but thereafter it seems to have becomerather a palace than a fortress. The manor of Merdon had alwaysbelonged to the See of Winchester, it is said, since 636, when it wasgranted to the Bishop by King Kinegils. It remained with the Bishopricuntil the Reformation, when it was granted to Sir Philip Hoby to berestored to the Church by Queen Mary, and then again regranted to theHoby family about 1559. The manor had passed, however, by 1638 toRichard Major, a miser and a tyrant, who "usurped authority over histentant" and more especially, for he was a fanatic Roundhead, "whenKing Charles was put to death and Oliver Cromwell was Protector ofEngland and Richard Major of his Privy Council, and Noll's eldest son, Richard, was married to Mr Major's Doll. " Thus Merdon came into theCromwell family, another piece of Church property upon which that verytypical sixteenth-century family had already grown exceedingly wealthy. Richard Cromwell (as he called himself) lived at Merdon a good deal, till he succeeded his father in the usurped governance of England. Butwhen he was turned out in 1660 he found it safer to return to Merdon, but only for a little while, France offering him, as he wisely thought, a more secure asylum, not only from a charge of High Treason, but fromhis creditors. While he was abroad, we learn he went under anothername; not a new experience for one of his family, which seems to havehad no legitimate name of its own, its members, Oliver amongst them, signing in important personal matters such as getting hold of thedowries of their wives, "Williams _alias_ Cromwell. " It would, therefore, be interesting to know under what alias this latestdescendant of the infamous minister of Henry VIII. Corresponded withthe wife and family he had left at Merdon. He did not return to Merdontill 1705, upon the death of his son Oliver. His wife had died in 1676, and his time was soon to come. He died at Cheshunt in 1712, and wasburied with considerable pomp in Hursley church, where we may still seehis monument, moved from the old church and re-erected in that built bythe efforts of John Keble, vicar of this parish for thirty years, from1836 to 1866. 

And so considering all these strange things I went on to Winchester. 

CHAPTER XX

WINCHESTER

I do not know what it is that moves me so deeply in the old cities ofSouthern England, in Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, most of all, perhaps, in Winchester, unless it be that they sum up in a way nothingelse can do the England that is surely and irrevocably passing away. How reverently we approach them, with what hesitation and misgiving wetry to express what we feel about them! They are indeed the sanctuariesof England, sanctuaries in which it is wiser to pray than to exult, since their beauty and antiquity, their repose and quietness, fill uswith an extraordinary uneasiness and amazement, a kind of nostalgiawhich nothing really our own can satisfy. For if Winchester appeals tous as the symbol of England, it is not the England of our day for whichshe stands. Let Manchester or Sheffield stand for that, places sounquiet, so meanly wretched and hopeless, that no one has ever thoughtof them without a kind of fear and misery. Alas, they are the reality, while Winchester gradually fades year by year into a mere dream city, as it were Camelot indeed, too good to be true, established, if at all, rather in the clouds, or in our hearts, than upon the earth we tread. And if in truth she stands for something that was once our own, it isfor something we are gradually leaving behind us, discarding andforgetting, something that after four centuries of disputation andanarchy no man any longer believes capable of realisation here and now. Yet Winchester endures in her beauty, her now so precariousloveliness, and while she endures it is still possible to refuse todespair of England. For she is co-eval with us; before we knewourselves or were aware of our destiny she stood beside the Itchenwithin the shadow of her hills east and west, in the meads and thewater meadows. She saw the advent of the Roman, she claims to beArthur's chief city, as later she was the throne of the Saxon kings; inher council chamber England was first named England. 

Of what indeed she was before the Romans came and drew us within theirgreat administration, we are largely ignorant; but we know that theyestablished here a town of considerable importance, which they calledVenta Belgarum, larger than Silchester, if we may believe that themediaeval walls stand upon Roman foundations, and certainly a centre ofRoman administrative life. Four Roman roads undoubtedly found in hertheir goal and terminus, coming into her Forum from Sorbiodunum (OldSarum) upon the west, from Calleva (Silchester) upon the north, fromPorchester upon the south, and from Clausentum upon the south-west. Herchief Temple in Roman times, before the advent of Christianity, wasthat of Apollo, which is said to have occupied the site of theCathedral, close by was the Temple of Concord, while it is impossibleto believe that a town so plentifully supplied by nature with waterwas without considerable baths. Legend has it indeed that Winchesterwas the capital of the King Lucius, who is said in the second centuryto have introduced Christianity into Britain. The first Christianchurch, which he erected, traditionally stood upon the site of theCathedral. But alas, Lucius is a myth, his cathedral a church neverbuilt with hands. We know nothing of any Christian church in RomanWinchester, and though we may be sure that such a building certainlyexisted, no excavation has so far laid bare its foundations. Indeed weare almost as ignorant of Roman as we are of Celtic Winchester. Eventhe lines of its walls are conjectural, we suppose them to be the sameas those of the Middle Age, yet such foundations of Roman buildings ashave been discovered, lie not only within an area much more restrictedthan that which the mediaeval walls enclosed, but in certain instancesoutside them. No discoveries of Roman foundations have been made to thenorth of the High Street. This fact, however, formidable though it be, does not of itself prove that the Roman walls did not coincide with themediaeval fortifications; it is even probable that they did, except atthe south-west corner, where stood the mediaeval castle. In any case, the Roman walls, built we may think in the fourth century, enclosed anirregular quadrilateral, and possessed four gates out of which issuedthose four roads to Old Sarum, to Silchester, to Clausentum and toPorchester. 

In the beginning of the fifth century the Roman administration whichhad long been failing, to which one may think the building of thosewalls bears witness, collapsed altogether, and with the final departureof the Legions full of our youth and strength, Britain was leftdefenceless. What happened to Winchester in the appalling confusionwhich followed, we shall never know. It is said that in 495, threegenerations that is to say after the departure of the Legions for thedefence of Rome, Cerdic and his son, Cymric, landed upon the southerncoast, and presently seized Winchester within whose broken walls theyestablished themselves. In the year 519, according to the "SaxonChronicle, " "Cerdic and Cymric obtained the kingdom of the West Saxons;and the same year they fought against the Britons where it is now namedCerdicsford. And from that time forth the royal offspring of the WestSaxons reigned. " That is all we know about it, and it is not enoughupon which to build an historical narrative or from which to draw anyclear idea even of what befell. All we can say with any sort ofcertainty is that the Saxons, through long years of probably spasmodicfighting, very gradually established themselves in southern England, and out of it carved a dominion, the kingdom of Wessex, whose capitalwas Winchester. Until the year 635 this kingdom, such as it was, waspagan. In that year St Birinus converted the West Saxons and their KingKynegils to Christianity. Though Kynegils seems immediatelyto have begun to build a church in Winchester in which heestablished monks and endowed it with the whole of the landfor a space of seven miles round the city, Winchester didnot become an episcopal See until the year 662. Till then, Dorchester in the Thames Valley had been the seat of the Bishopof Wessex, but in that year Kynewalch, the son and successor ofKynegils, completed the church of Winchester, in which he had beencrowned, and his father buried, as for the most part were theirsuccessors, and there he established a bishop. 

It was now that Winchester began her great career. She rose with thefortunes of the Wessex kingdom until, in the time of Egbert, sheappears as the capital of the new kingdom of England which is so named, and for the first time in her witan. 

 The com kyng Egbryth Ant wyth batyle ant fyht Made al Englond yhol Falle to ys oune dol; Ant sethe he reignede her Ahte ant tuenti folle yer: At Wynchestre lyggeth ys bon, Buried in a marble-ston. 

Egbert triumphed and established England none too soon. As early asthe year 787, according to the "Saxon Chronicle, " "ships of theNorthmen" had reached our southern coasts, and Egbert had scarcelynamed his new kingdom when they imperilled it. His son, Ethelwulf, whocame to his throne in 836, was to see Winchester itself stormed beforethe invaders were beaten off; but beaten off they were, and it was inWinchester that Alfred was to reign, to give forth his laws and to planhis campaigns against the same enemy. He was victorious, as we know, and at Ethandune not only broke his pagan foes, but dragged Guthrum, their leader, to baptism. And in his capital he made and kept the onlyrecord we have of the Dark Ages in England, the "Saxon Chronicle, "begun in Wolvesey Palace; founded the famous nunnery of St Mary to thenorth-east of the Cathedral in the meads; and provided for thefoundation, by Edward his son, of the great New Minster close by, wherehis bones at last were to be laid. The three great churches with theirattendant buildings must have been the noblest group to be seen in theEngland of that day. Thus Winchester flourished more than ever securein its position as capital, so that Athelstan, we read, establishedthere six mints, and Edgar, reigning there, made "Winchester measure"the standard for the whole kingdom: "and let one money pass throughoutthe king's dominions, and let no man refuse; and let one measure andone weight pass, such as is observed at London and Winchester. "

Such was Winchester at the beginning of the ninth century; before theend of that century she was to suffer violence from the Danes; and inthe first years of the tenth century to fall with the rest of Englandinto their absolute power, and to see a Danish king, Canute, crowned inher Cathedral. There, too, at last, that Danish king was buried. He wasa generous conqueror, and a great benefactor to his capital, andwith him passes much of the splendour of Winchester. Edward theConfessor, though hallowed at Winchester, looked upon Londonas his capital and there built the great abbey which was thenceforthto see the crowning of England's kings. For St Edward was atheart a Norman, and Winchester, beside summing up in itself all thesplendour of pre-Norman England, had been given by Ethelred to thewidow of Canute, Emma, the mother of St Edward. She allied herself withthe great Earl Godwin to oppose the Norman influence which St Edwardhad brought into England, and it was only when she died that the kingcame again into Winchester for Easter, and to hold a solemn court. During that Easter week Earl Godwin died, and was buried in theCathedral. He was the last champion of Saxon England to lie there. 

Nothing marks the change that England had passed through during thefirst half of the eleventh century more certainly than the fact thatWilliam Duke of Normandy was crowned King of England, not in the oldMinster of Winchester but in that of St Peter, Westminster, which PopeNicholas II. In King Edward's time had constituted as the place of theinauguration of the kings of England. It is true that William was latercrowned again in Winchester, as were Stephen and Coeur de Lion, but thefact remains that from the time of William the Conqueror down to ourown day, as the Papal Bull had ordered, Westminster and not Winchesterhas been the coronation church of our kings. This Bull marks, as itwere, the beginning of the decline of Winchester. Little by little, inthe following centuries, it was to cease to be the capital of England. Little by little London was to take its place, a thing finally achievedby Edward I. , when he removed the royal residence from Winchester. 

Norman Winchester was, however, by no means less splendid than had beenthe old capital of the Saxon kings. There Domesday Book was compiled, and there it was kept in the Treasury of the Norman kings, and the onlyname which it gives itself is that of the "Book of Winchester. " Therethe great Fair of St Giles was established by the Conqueror, whichattracted merchants from every part of Europe, and there in 1079 BishopWalkelin began, from the foundations, a new cathedral church completedin 1093, of which the mighty transepts still remain. In 1109 the monksof New Minster, which had suffered greatly from fire and mismanagement, removed to a great new house without the walls upon the north, andsince this new site was called Hyde Meads, New Minster was thenceforthknown as the Abbey of Hyde; and certainly after the fire in 1141, ifnot before, the great Benedictine Nunnery of St Mary was rebuilt. 

As for the Castle of Wolvesey, Bishop Henry of Blois rebuilt it in1138. It was indeed in his time that Winchester suffered the mostdisastrous of all its sieges, as we may believe, and this at the handsof the Empress Matilda in 1141. The greater part of the city is thensaid to have been destroyed; the new Abbey of Hyde was burned down notto be rebuilt till 1182; the old Nunnery of St Mary was destroyed alsoby fire; and we are told of more than forty churches which thenperished. "Combustibles were hurled from the Bishop's Castle, " Williamof Malmesbury tells us, "in the houses of the townspeople, who, as Ihave said, rather wished success to the empress than to the bishop, which caught and burned the whole abbey of nuns within the city and themonastery which is called Hyde without the walls. Here was an image ofOur Lord crucified, wrought with a profusion of gold and silver andprecious stones, through the pious solicitude of Canute, who wasformerly king and presented it. This being seized by the flames andthrown to the ground was afterwards stripped of its ornaments at thecommand of the Legate himself; more than five hundred marks of silverand thirty of gold, which were found in it, served for a largess to thesoldiers. "

It would, perhaps, be untrue to say that Winchester never reallyrecovered from the appalling sack and pillage which followed the flightof Matilda; but it is true to assert that time was fighting againsther, and that the thirteenth century did not bring the splendid giftsto her that it brought to so many of our cities. One great ceremony, the last of its kind, however, took place in her Cathedral in 1194; thesecond coronation of Coeur de Lion. "Then King Richard, " we read, "being clothed in his royal robes, with the crown upon his head, holding in his right hand a royal sceptre which terminated in a cross, and in his left hand a golden wand with the figure of a dove at the topof it, came forth from his apartment in the priory, being conducted onthe right hand by the Bishop of Ely, his Chancellor, and on the left bythe Bishop of London. ... The silken canopy was held on four lancesover the King by four Earls. ... The King being thus conducted into theCathedral and up to the High Altar, there fell upon his knees, anddevoutly received the archbishop's solemn benediction. He was then ledto the throne, which was prepared for him, on the south side of thechoir. ... When Mass was finished the King was led back to hisapartments with the solemnities aforesaid. He then laid aside his robesand crown, put on other robes and a crown that were much lighter, andso proceeded to dinner, which was served in the monks' refectory. "

Winchester's next glory was the birth of Henry III. , known to the dayof his death as Henry of Winchester--this in 1207. In 1213 the city wasthe scene of the reconciliation of King John and Archbishop Stephen, but in 1265 she was sacked by the younger de Montfort, and this seemsfinally to have achieved her overthrow. When Edward I. Came to thethrone in 1272 he abandoned Winchester. The city never regained itsplace, London was too strong for it both geographically andeconomically. Its trade, which remained very considerable until thelatter part of the fourteenth century, chiefly owing to its wool andcloth, was, however, slowly declining, and politically the history ofthe city becomes a mere series of incidents, among the more splendid ofwhich were the marriage of Henry IV. With Joan of Navarre in 1403; thereception of the French ambassadors by Henry V. Before Agincourt in1415; the rejoicings for the birth in Winchester of Arthur Tudor theson of Henry VII. And Elizabeth of York in 1457; the meeting of theEmperor Charles V. And Henry VIII. In 1522; and the marriage of MaryTudor to Philip of Spain in 1554. At that great ceremony, the lastCatholic rite the old Cathedral was to witness, there were present, according to the Venetian Envoy, "the ambassadors from the Emperor, from the Kings of the Romans and Bohemia, from your Serenity, fromSavoy, Florence, and Ferrara and many agents of sovereign princes. Theproclamation was entitled thus: Philip and Mary, by the grace of God, King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, Ireland, Defenderof the Faith, Prince of Spain, Archduke of Austria, etc. "

But when Queen Elizabeth visited the city in 1560 (she was there fourtimes during her reign), she said to the mayor, "Yours Mr Mayor is avery ancient city"; and he answered, "It has abeen, your Majesty, ithas abeen, " and in spite of bad grammar he spoke but the truth, Winchester's great days were over. Yet it saw the trial of Sir WalterRaleigh in 1603, and the town having been taken by Waller in 1644 theCastle was besieged by Cromwell himself in 1645. "I came toWinchester, " he writes, "on the Lord's Day the 28th of September. Aftersome disputes with the Governour we entered the town. I summoned theCastle; was denied; whereupon we fell to prepare batteries, which wecould not perfect until Friday following. Our battery was six guns;which being finished, after firing one round, I sent in a secondsummons for a treaty; which they refused, whereupon we went on with ourwork and made a breach in the wall near the Black Tower; which afterabout two hundred shot we thought stormable; and purposed on Mondaymorning to attempt it. On Sunday morning about ten of the clock theGovernour beat a parley, desiring to treat, I agreed unto it, and sentColonel Hammond and Major Harrison in to him, who agreed upon theseenclosed articles. "

Cromwell presently departed and the city caught a glimpse of the RoyalMartyr, the victim of the great families, as he passed from HurstCastle to Windsor and the scaffold in Whitehall. With the Restoration, which was most gallantly welcomed in the old royal city, Charles II. Came to Winchester, and having been burnt out at Newmarket was, according to Evelyn, "all the more earnest to render Winchester theseat of his autumnal diversions for the future, designing a palacethere where the ancient castle stood.... The surveyor has already begunthe foundation for a palace estimated to cost £35, 000.... " But Charlesdied too soon to finish this new house, which, it is said, Queen Annewished to complete, liking Winton well, but again death intervened. 

In spite of these royal fancies, however, Winchester, which hadsuffered badly in the plague of 1667, continued to decline inimportance and in population, and to depend more and more upon the twogreat establishments which remained to it, the Cathedral, founded byKynegils in 635 and re-established under a new Protestantadministration in the sixteenth century, and the College of St Mary ofWinchester founded by William of Wykeham in connection with the Collegeof St Mary, Winton, in Oxford, called New College, for the education ofyouth and the advancement of learning. Winchester is, of course, as itever has been, the county-town of Hampshire, but it still maintainsitself as it has done now these many years chiefly by reason of thesetwo great establishments. 

Certainly to-day the traveller's earliest steps are turned towardsthese two buildings, and first to that which is in its foundation neareight hundred years the older--the Cathedral church once of St Swithin, the Bishop and Confessor (852-863) and now since the Reformation of theHoly Trinity. 

To come out of the sloping High Street past the ancient city Cross, through the narrow passage-way into the precincts, and to pass downthat great avenue of secular limes across the Close to the great porchof the Cathedral, is to come by an incomparable approach to perhaps themost noble and most venerable church left to us in England. The mostvenerable--not I think the most beautiful. No one remembering the Abbeyof Westminster can claim that for it, and then, though it possesses thenoblest Norman work in England and the utmost splendour of thePerpendicular, it lacks almost entirely and certainly the best of theEarly English. Its wonder lies in its size and its antiquity. It is nowthe longest mediaeval church not only in England, but in Europe, thoughonce it was surpassed by old St Paul's. It is five hundred and twenty-six feet long, but it lacks height, and perhaps rightly, at least Iwould not have it other than it is, its greatness lying in itsmonotonous depressed length and weight, an enormous primeval thinglying there in the meads beside the river. Winchester itself might seemindeed to know nothing of it. The city does not rejoice in it as doLincoln and York in their great churches; here is nothing of the sheerjoy of Salisbury, a Magnificat by Palestrina; the church of Winchesteris without delight, it has supremely the mystery and monotony of theplainsong, the true chant of the monks, the chorus of an army, with allthe appeal of just that, its immense age and half plaintive glory, which yet never really becomes music. 

And Winchester, too, has all and more than all, the surprise of theplainsong; the better you know it the more you are impressed. No onecertainly has ever come by the narrow way out of the High Street, downthe avenue of limes to the West Front without being disappointed; butno one thus disappointed has ever entered into the church withoutastonishment, wonder and complete satisfaction. It was not always so. That long nave was once forty feet longer and was flanked upon eitherside by a Norman tower as at Ely. Must one regret their loss? No, theastonishment of the nave within makes up for everything; there is nogrander interior in the world, nor anywhere anything at all like it. Upthat vast Perpendicular nave one looks far and far away into theheight, majesty and dominion of the glorious Norman transept, andbeyond into the light of the sanctuary. It has not the beauty ofWestminster Abbey, nor the exquisite charm of Wells, but it has amajesty and venerable nobility all its own that I think no other churchin England can match. 

Of the old Saxon church, so far as we really know, the only predecessorof the present church, nothing really remains. This, as I have said, had been founded by King Kynegils upon his conversion, by St Birinus in635. We know very little about it, except that it was enlarged orrebuilt in the middle of the tenth century by St Aethwold, and if wemay believe the poetical description of Wolstan, we shall be inclinedto believe the church was enlarged, for it appears to have been a verycomplex building with a lofty central tower, having a spire andweathercock, in accordance with the Bull of Pope Urban, and a crypt, both the work of St Elphege. This church, which, like its successoruntil the Reformation, was served by monks, stood till the year 1093, when it was destroyed as useless, for the new Norman church of BishopWalkelin begun in 1079 was then far enough advanced to be used. It isthus practically certain that the two churches did not stand on thesame site, the newer, it would seem, rising to the south of the olderbuilding. But the sacred spot which, it would seem, every church, thatmay ever have stood in this place, must have covered is the holy well, immediately beneath the present high altar in the crypt of the Normanbuilding. This surely was within the Saxon building as it must havebeen within any church that may have stood here in Roman times?

The two great shrines of the Saxon church were, however, those of StBirinus, the Apostle of Wessex, and of St Swithin, Bishop of Winchesterin the ninth century, the day of whose translation, July 15th, was, till the Reformation, a universal festival throughout England. In hishonour the Saxon church, till then known as the church of SS. Peter andPaul, was rededicated in 964. 

The great Norman church which Bishop Walkelin built to take the placeof the Saxon minster cannot fundamentally have differed very much fromthe church we see, at any rate so far as its nave and transepts wereconcerned. The eastern arm was, however, different. It consisted offour bays, with north and south aisles at the end of which wererectangular chapels, an apse about which the aisles ran as anambulatory, and beyond the apse an eastern apsidal chapel. Of thischurch all that really remains to us is the crypt and the transept. Inthe crypt we divine the old eastern limb of the church, and aredoubtless in the presence of the earliest work in the Cathedral. It is, however, in the double aisled transepts that we can best appreciate howvery glorious that first Norman church must have been; there is nothingin England more wonderful; and so far as I know there is nothing inEurope quite to put beside them. If only the whole mighty church couldhave remained to us!

The first disaster that befell Bishop Walkelin's building was the fallof the central tower in 1107, which all England, at the time, attributed to the burial beneath it of William Rufus. The tower wasrebuilt, though not to its original height, but in the reconstruction, the parts of the transept nearest to the tower were also rebuilt, andthus we have here two periods of Norman work; the main building of 1107and the reconstruction after that date. 

Of the Transitional work of the second half of the twelfth century verylittle is to be seen at Winchester. It was for the most part the periodof that great Bishop Henry of Blois, and he was probably too muchimmersed in the brutal politics of his time, too busy building andholding his castle to give much thought to the Cathedral. The font, however, dates from his time, and perhaps a door in the north-westernbay of the south transept. 

The earliest Gothic work in the Cathedral is the chapel of StSepulchre, which was built upon the northern wall of the choir beforethe north transept. There we may still see wall paintings of thePassion of Our Lord. Not much later is the retro-choir. This consistsof three bays, and is the largest in England. It was begun in 1189 byBishop Godfrey de Lucy, and we must admit at once that it is whollywithout delight, and yet to build it the Norman apse was sacrificed. According to Mr Bond, this was probably a very popular destruction. Thereversion, says he, "to the favourite square east end of English churcharchitecture was popular in itself. Almost every Norman cathedral ended inan apse; and in the apse, high raised behind the high altar, sat theNorman bishop facing the congregation; the hateful symbol of Normandomination. " This may have been so, but considering that the monasticchoir of Winchester occupied not one, as the choir does to-day, butthree bays of the nave from which it was separated by a vast roodscreen, though the Bishop had been as high as Haman, he would have beenscarcely visible to the populace in the western part of the nave. Popular or no, however, the apse was sacrificed and the low retro-choirbuilt with the Lady Chapel in the Early English style. 

The next thing undertaken was to place in the old Norman choir themagically lovely choir stalls (1245-1315) which happily still remainto us. Perhaps it was their enthusiastic loveliness which led about1320 to the rebuilding of the Presbytery and the lovely tabernacle inthe back of the wall of the Feretory. When all this was done thereremained of the old Norman church only the transepts and the nave. Thetransepts remain to us still, but the nave was transformed, in the verybeginning of the Perpendicular time. It was transformed not rebuilt. Bishop William of Wykeham has obliterated Bishop Walkelin, butfundamentally the nave of Winchester remains Norman still. ThePerpendicular work is only a lovely mask, or rather just the sunlightof the fourteenth century which has come into the dark old Normanbuilding. The most notable change is the roof, in Norman times a flatceiling, now a magnificent vault. But that century was notcontent with transforming the nave, it littered it with the first ofits various delights, those chantries which are among the greatestsplendours of this Cathedral, and which still, in some sort, commemorate Bishop Edingdon (1366), Bishop Wykeham (1404), Bishop Beaufort (1447), Bishop Waynflete (1416), Bishop Fox (1528) andBishop Gardiner (1555) the last Catholic Bishop to fill the See. 

[Illustration: NORTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL]

The transformation of the nave, which occupied full an hundred years, was not, however, the last work undertaken in the Cathedral before thechange of religion. Bishop Courtenay, in the last years of thefifteenth century, lengthened the Lady Chapel, and finally Bishop Foxin the very beginning of the sixteenth century began the transformationof the early fourteenth century Presbytery, but got little furtherthan the insertion of the Perpendicular windows. He did, however, transform the Norman aisles there, and screened them, and upon thescreens in six fine Renaissance chests he gathered the dust of the oldSaxon saints and kings. 

But apart from its architecture the church is full of interest. Wherecan we find anything to match the exquisite iron screen of the eleventhcentury which used to guard St Swithin's shrine but which, now that isgone, covers the north-west doorway of the nave? Is there another fontin England more wonderful than that square black marble basinsculptured in the twelfth century with the story of St Nicholas? Isthere any series of chantries in England more complete or more lovelythan these at Winchester, or anywhere a finer fourteenth centurymonument than that of Bishop Wykeham? Nowhere in England certainly canthe glorious choir stalls be matched, nor shall we easily find a pulpitto surpass that in the choir here dating from 1520. If the restoredretablo over the high altar is disappointing in its sophistication, we have only to pass into the Feretory to discover certain marvellousfragments of the original reredos which are so beautiful that they takeaway our breath--that broken statue of the Madonna and Child, forinstance, perhaps the loveliest piece of fourteenth century sculptureto be found in England. No, however we consider the great church ofWinchester, it stands alone. As a mere building it is more tremendousand more venerable than anything now left to us upon English soil; as aburial place it possesses the dust not only of the Apostle of the heartof England but of the greatest of the Saxon kings, while beneath itsmighty vault William Rufus sleeps, the only Norman king that lies inEngland. And as a shrine of art it still possesses incomparable things. It stands there as the Pyramids stand in the desert, a relic of a lostcivilisation; but by it we may measure the modern world. 

It is, too, when you consider it, utterly lonely. The revolution wecall the Reformation upon which the modern world turns and turns asupon a pivot, while it spared Winchester Cathedral, though reluctantly, swept away all the buildings which surrounded it. The great monasteryis gone, scarcely a sign of it remains. Nothing at all is left of thefamous nunnery of St Mary. Of Wolvesey Castle there are a few beautifulruins, of Hyde Abbey, all has been swept away, even the stones, eventhe bones of Alfred. Nor have the other and later religious houses, with which Winchester was full, fared better. It is difficult to findeven the sites of the houses of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, theAustin Friars, the Carmelites. And what remains of the College of StElizabeth, and, but for a Norman doorway, now in Catholic hands, of theHospital of St Mary Magdalen? Only the Hospital of St John remains atthe east end of the High Street, still in possession of its fine Hall andChapel, and the great school founded by William of Wykeham in 1382, "for seventy poor and needy scholars and clerks living college-wise inthe same, studying and becoming proficient in grammaticals or the artand science of grammar. " It remains without compare, the oldest and thegreatest school in England, whose daughter is Eton and whose latedescendant is Harrow. 

To say that the Cathedral, the College and the Hospital of St John areall that remains of mediaeval Winchester would not, perhaps, bestrictly true; but it is so near the truth that one might say itwithout fear of contradiction. Most of the old churches even haveperished. There remain St John Baptist, which can boast of Transitionalarcades, and fifteenth century screen and pulpit; St Maurice with aNorman doorway; St Peter with its twelfth and thirteenth century work;St Bartholomew with some Norman remains near the site of Hyde Abbey;and in the High Street there is more than one fine old house. The factthat so little remains cannot altogether be placed to the discredit ofthe Reformation and the Puritan fanatics. Until the eighteenth centurysomething remained of Hyde Abbey, much of the Hospital of St MaryMagdalen; the city walls were then practically perfect, having alltheir five gates, north, south, east and west, and King's gate; now ofall these only the Westgate of the thirteenth century remains to uswith the King's gate over which is the little church of St Swithin. 

But in spite of vandalism, forgetfulness and barbarism, often of theworst description as in the mere indifference and ignorance thatscattered Alfred's bones, no one has ever come to Winchester withoutloving it, no one has ever been glad to get away. Its innumerablevisitors are all its lovers and the most opposite temperaments findhere common ground at last. Walpole praises it, and so does Keats. "Weremoved here, " writes the latter in 1819 to Bailey, "for theconvenience of a library, and find it an exceedingly pleasant town, enriched with a beautiful cathedral and surrounded by fresh-lookingcountry.... Within these two months I have written fifteen hundredlines, most of which, besides many more of prior composition, you willprobably see next winter. I have written two tales, one from Boccacciocalled the 'Pot of Basil' and another called 'St Agnes Eve' on apopular superstition, and a third called 'Lamia' (half-finished). Ihave also been writing parts of my 'Hyperion, ' and completed four actsof a tragedy. "

"This Winchester, " he writes again, "is a place tolerably well suitedto me. There is a fine cathedral, a college, a Roman Catholic chapel... And there is not one loom or anything like manufacturing beyondbread and butter in the whole city. There are a number of richCatholics in the place. It is a respectable, ancient, aristocraticplace, and moreover it contains a nunnery. " "I take a walk, " he writesto his family, "every day for an hour before dinner, and this isgenerally my walk; I go out the back gate, across one street into thecathedral yard, which is always interesting; there I pass under thetrees along a paved path, pass the beautiful front of the cathedral, turn to the left under a stone doorway--then I am on the other side ofthe building--which, leaving behind me, I pass on through two college-like squares, seemingly built for the dwelling-place of dean andprebendaries, garnished with grass and shaded with trees; then I passthrough one of the old city gates and then you are in College Street, through which I pass, and at the end thereof, crossing some meadows, and at last a country of alley gardens I arrive, that is my worshiparrives, at the foundation of St Cross, which is a very interesting oldplace.... Then I pass across St Cross meadows till I come to the mostbeautiful clear river. "

That walk, or rather that over the meads to St Cross, is for everylover of Winchester that which he takes most often I think, that whichcomes to him first in every memory of the city. Its beauty makes itsacred and its reward is an hour or more in what, when all is said, isone of the loveliest relics of the Middle Age anywhere left to us inEngland, I mean the hospital and church of St Cross in the meads of theItchen. 

Doubtless we are the heirs of the Ages, into our hearts and minds theEmpire, the Middle Age and the Renaissance have poured their riches. Doubtless we are the flower of Time and our Age, the rose of all theAges. That is why, in our wisdom, we have superseded such places as StCross by our modern workhouses. 

St Cross was founded by the great Henry of Blois in 1133 for thereception, the clothing and the entertainment of thirteen poor men, decayed or past their strength, and the relief of an hundred others; itwas a mediaeval workhouse, called a hospital in those days, and in itsbeauty and its humanity and its success it cannot, of course, comparewith the institutions which, since we have not been able to abolishpoverty altogether, we have everywhere established for the reception ofour unfortunate brethren. It would be odd indeed if eight hundredyears of Christian government, four hundred of them enjoying theinfinite blessings bestowed by the Reformation and the Protestantreligion, had not vastly improved these institutions for the receptionof the very poor. It is, in fact, in such establishments as ourworkhouses that our "progress" is to be seen most clearly. 

[Illustration: ST CROSS, WINCHESTER]

Well, it is something to be assured of that; and yet, let me confessit, St Cross has a curious fascination for me. I feel there, it istrue, that I am in a world different from that in which we do so wellto rejoice, but such is my perversity I cannot help preferring the oldto the new. This is a mere prejudice, quite personal to myself, andcomes perhaps of being a Christian. When I look at St Cross I amvividly reminded that this was once a Christian country with aChristian civilisation; when I look at one of our great workhouses Iknow that all that has passed away and that we have "progressed" sofast and so far that Christianity has been left some four hundred yearsbehind us. St Cross is, as it were, a rock of the old Christian timestill emerging from the grey sea of the modern world. 

Bishop Henry de Blois intended, as I have said, to provide, by thefoundation of the Hospital of St Cross, for the maintenance of thirteenpoor men and the relief of an hundred others. His design was pervertedin the thirteenth century, but gloriously restored by the founder ofWinchester College and his successor in the Bishopric, CardinalBeaufort, who added to the original foundation the almshouse of NoblePoverty, in which he hoped to support thirty-five brethren with twopriests and three nuns to minister to the inmates. The hospital, by themerest good fortune, escaped suppression at the Reformation, but duringmost of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and throughmany years of the nineteenth its revenues were enjoyed by menwho, as often as not, had never seen the place, and so the poorwere robbed. Perhaps the most insolent abuse of the kind occurredbetween 1808 and 1815. In the former year Bishop Brownlow North, of Winchester, appointed his son Francis, later Earl of Guildford, to be master. This man appropriated the revenues of the placeto the tune of fourteen hundred pounds a year, and when at lastthe scandal was exposed, it was discovered that between 1818 and 1838he had taken not less than fifty-three thousand pounds in fines onrenewing leases, a manifest and probably wilful breach of trust, thatought, one may think, to have brought him to the Old Bailey. Theexposure of this rascal led to a reformation of the administration, which is now in the hands of trustees who elect thirteen brethrenprovided for by Bishop Henry of Blois. These wear a black gown with asilver cross. St Cross also still maintains certain brethren of NoblePoverty, and these wear a red gown, and not less than fifty poor folk, who do not live within its walls, while a very meagre wayfarer's doleis still distributed to all who pass by so far as a horn of beer andtwo loaves of bread will go. Each of the Brethren of St Cross beside alittle house and maintenance receives five shillings a week. 

All this sounds, if you be poor, too good to be true. It is too good toowe its origin to the modern world, but not extraordinary for theMiddle Age, which was eagerly and even violently Christian. And just asthe institution seems in itself wonderful to us in our day, so do thebuildings, which, if one would really understand how gloriously strangethey are, should be carefully compared with the county workhouse. 

One enters the Hospital by a gate, and, passing through a small court, comes to the great gatehouse of Cardinal Beaufort, consisting ofgateway, porter's lodge and great square tower. Here and there we stillsee Cardinal Beaufort's arms and devices, while over the gate itselfare three niches, in one of which a kneeling figure of the Cardinalremains. Within this gatehouse is a large quadrangle, about three sidesof which the hospital is set with the church upon the south, betweenwhich and the gatehouse runs a sixteenth century cloister. The whole iswonderfully quiet and peaceful, a corner of that old England, Englandof my heart, which is so fast vanishing away. 

The noblest building of this most noble place, and the only one nowleft to us which dates from its foundation by Bishop Henry of Blois isthe church. This is a great Transitional building, one of the finestexamples of that style in England, and dates from about 1160 to 1292. It is a cruciform building with central tower, the nave and chancelbeing aisled, the transepts, aisles and all, vaulted in stone in thefourteenth century. The earliest part of the church is the chancel, which has a square eastern end, and the lower parts of the transeptsprobably date from the same time. These transepts were finished alittle later, when the nave was begun and finished, and the north porchbuilt in the thirteenth century. The clerestory of the nave dates fromthe first half of the fourteenth century, and so does the great westernwindow. Much of the furniture of the church is interesting, such as thefourteenth century tiles, the curious Norman bowl that does duty as afont, the fourteenth century glass in the clerestory window of thenave, and that, little though it be, of the fifteenth century in thenorth transept, the fine fifteenth century screen between the north-choir aisle and the chancel, the foreign sixteenth century woodwork inthe south-choir aisle, the curious wall painting of the Martyrdom ofSt Thomas in the south transept, and the old Purbeck altar stone thatnow serves as the communion table. Here, before the altar, lies John deCampeden, appointed Master of St Cross by Bishop William of Wykeham in1383, his grave marked by a good brass. 

Much, too, within the hospital is interesting, and the old men whoeagerly show one all these strange and beautiful things are most humanand delightful. Nevertheless, though the church would anywhere elseclaim all our attention for a whole morning, and an afternoon is easilyspent poking about the hospital, it is not of the mere architecture, beautiful though it be, that one thinks on the way back intoWinchester, across the meads beside the river which has seen and knownboth the Middle Age and this sorrowful time of to-day, but of thatwondrous institution where poverty was considered honourable anddestitution not an offence or even perhaps a misfortune, where it wasstill remembered that we are all brethren, and that Christ, too, hadnot where to lay His head. All of which seems nothing less than marvellousto-day. 

CHAPTER XXI

SELBORNE

I set out from Winchester early one June morning by Jewry Street, as itwere out of the old North Gate to follow, perhaps, the oldest road inold England towards Alton, intending to reach Selborne more than twentymiles away eastward on the tumble of hills where the North Downs meetthe South, before night. 

I say the road by which I went out of Winchester and followed for somany miles, through King's Worthy and Martyr Worthy, Itchen Abbas, NewAlresford and Bishops Sutton, is perhaps the oldest in England; in factit is the old British trackway from the ports of the Straights andCanterbury to Winchester and Old Sarum, the western end, indeed, of theway I had already followed from Canterbury to Boughton Aluph up thevalley of the Great Stour, known to us all as the Pilgrim's Way. Forthough it is older than any written history, it was preserved fromneglect and death when the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were makingall new, here as elsewhere, by the pilgrims, who, coming from WesternEngland, from Brittany and Spain to visit St Thomas' shrine, used it astheir road across Southern England from Winchester to Canterbury. 

Now, though for any man who follows that road to-day it is filled withthese great companies of pilgrims, there are older memories, too, whichit evokes and which, if the history of England is precious to him, hecannot ignore. 

To begin with the exit from Winchester: there in Jewry Street a Romanroad overlies the older British way, not indeed exactly, but roughly, certainly as far as King's Worthy, whence it still shoots forthstraight as an arrow's flight over hill over dale to Silchester. Thevery street by which he leaves the city, as it were, by the nowdestroyed North Gate, is Roman, one of the four roads which met in theForum of Venta Belgarum and divided Roman Winchester into fourquarters, though, perhaps because of the marshes of the Itchen, notinto four equal parts as in Chichester. The present name of this road, Jewry Street, indicates its character all through the Middle Ages, whenhere by the North Gate, upon the road to London, the Jews had theirbooths, and the quarter of Winchester which this road served wasdoubtless their ghetto, the richest quarter of the city. 

It was not, however, of the Middle Age, but of the Dark Age I thoughtas I issued out of Winchester where, not much more than a hundred yearsago, the old North Gate still held the way. In the year 1001, after thebattle of Alton, in which the men of Hampshire were utterly broken bySweyn and his Danes, this road was filled with the routed Saxons inflight pouring into the city of Winchester. The record of thatappalling business is very brief in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, " a fewlines under the date 1001. "A. 1001. In this year was much fighting inthe land of the English, and well nigh everywhere they (theDanes) ravaged and burned so that they advanced on one courseuntil they came to the town of Alton; and then there cameagainst them the men of Hampshire and fought against them. And there was Ethelward the King's high-steward slain, and Leofric atWhitchurch and Leofwin the King's high-steward and Wulfhere thebishop's thane, and Godwin at Worthy, Bishop Elfry's son, and of allmen one hundred and eighty; and there were of the Danish men many moreslain, though they had possession of the place of slaughter. " A mereplundering expedition, we may think, but it foretold with certainty therule of the Danes in England, which as we know came to pass, and wasnot the catastrophe it might have been, because of the victory ofAlfred at Ethandune, a century and a half before, when he had madeGuthrum and his host Christians. Till the year 1788 Alfred's bones laybeside this very gate through which the beaten Saxons poured into hiscity in 1001. For though Hyde Abbey was destroyed at the Reformationhis bones seem to have been forgotten, to be discovered in the end ofthe eighteenth century in their great leaden coffin and sold, I knownot to whom, for the sum of two pounds. 

I considered these unfortunate and shameful things as I went on alongthis British, Roman, Saxon and English way, the way of armies and ofpilgrims into Headbourne Worthy, whose church stands by the roadside onthe north. 

This little church dedicated in honour of St Swithin is all of a piecewith the road, and illustrates it very well. Its beauty alone wouldrecommend it to the wayfarer, but it also possesses an antiquity sogreat that nothing left to us in Winchester itself can match it. For inplan, and largely in masonry too, it is a Saxon sanctuary, though alate one, dating as it would seem from the early part of the eleventhcentury. What we see is a beautiful little building consisting of navewith curious western chamber, chancel, south-western tower and modernsouth porch. The original church probably did not differ very much inplan from that we have, but only the north and west walls of the naveof the original building remain to us; the latter having the originaldoorway of Binstead stone. The south wall of the nave and the towerwere rebuilt in the thirteenth century, as was the chancel, which isnow a modern building so far as its north and eastern walls areconcerned. In the late fifteenth century the western chamber was addedto the nave as in our own day the south porch. The best treasure of thechurch is, however, the great spoilt Rood, with figures of our Lady andSt John, upon the outside of the west wall of the Saxon nave, topreserve which, in the fifteenth century, the western chamber wasbuilt. The western chamber was originally in two stages, the loweracting as a porch to the church, the upper as a chapel with an altarunder the Saxon rood. It is needless to say that the Reformers, BishopHorne of Winchester it is said, the accursed miscreant who ordered thedestruction of all crucifixes in his diocese, defaced this gloriouswork of art and religion, cutting the relief away to the face of thewall so that only the outline remains. Nevertheless it is still one ofthe most imposing and notable things left to us in southern England. 

Headbourne Worthy, granted to Mortimer after the Conquest, was the mostimportant of the three little places grouped here in a bunch which bearthat name. King's Worthy, where the road first turns eastward and wherethe church, curiously enough, stands to the south of the way, [Footnote: According to Mr Belloc (_The Old Road_) this modern roaddoes not exactly represent the route of the Pilgrim's Way which ran tothe south of King's Worthy church] was but a hamlet and of MartyrWorthy, Domesday knows nothing. Little that is notable remains to usin either place, only the charming fifteenth century tower of King'sWorthy church and a fourteenth century font therein. 

Much the same must be said of Itchen Abbas, Itchen A Bas, where theroad falls to the river, the small Norman church there having been bothrebuilt and enlarged in or about 1863, while an even worse fate hasbefallen the church of Itchen Stoke, two miles further on, for it hasdisappeared altogether. Nor I fear can much be said for the church ofNew Alresford or the town either, for apparently, owing to a series offires, it has nothing to show us but a seventeenth century tower, apoor example of the building of that time, the base of which may beSaxon, while the windows seem to be of the thirteenth century. 

New Alresford would seem only to have come into existence as a town inthe end of the twelfth century, when it was re-established by BishopGodfrey de Lucy (1189-1204). The old road did not pass through it asthe modern road does; for as Mr Belloc seems to have proved thePilgrim's Way, which descended to the river at Itchen A Bas as we haveseen, crossed the ford at Itchen Stoke, Itchen Stakes that is, andproceeded east by south where the workhouse now stands, coming into themodern road again at Bishop Sutton. But though the Pilgrim's Way knewit not, New Alresford is of high antiquity. Local tradition has it thatit owes its existence, as distinct from Old Alresford, "to a defeatinflicted by the Saxons on a party of Danes near the village of WestTisted about five miles (south) east of Alresford. The Saxons grantedquarter to the defeated enemy on condition that they went to the fordover the River Alre [Footnote: It is curious that Guthrum was baptisedat Aller and then his Danes in the Alre] to be baptised. Incommemoration of the victory a statue of the Virgin was then erected inthe churchyard of Old Alresford. " [Footnote: V. C. H. , Hampshire, vol. 3, p. 350. ] Local tradition cannot, at any time, be put lightly aside, andwhen as here it preserves for us one of the great truths of the earlyhistory of modern Europe we should rejoice indeed. For here we have theobvious reality of the eighth century when Europe, slowly recoveringitself and beginning to realise itself as Christendom, was everywhereattacked by hordes of pagans. The work of Charlemagne, of Offa and ofAlfred was not merely the conquest of the barbarians, but really sincethey could not be wholly destroyed, their conversion, and thus alonecould Christendom be certainly preserved. So after Ethandune Guthrummust be christened at Aller, and after the fight here on the Alre thedefeated heathen must be christened at the ford. Since New Alresfordhas preserved for us a memory of this fundamental act we can easilyforgive her lack of material antiquity. 

The little village thus founded, certainly still existed in the time ofthe Conquest, and such it would always have remained but for Godfrey deLucy, Bishop of Winchester, who, among his many achievements, numbersthis chiefly that he made the Itchen navigable not only fromSouthampton to Winchester but here also in its headwaters, and this bymeans of the great reservoir, known as Alresford Pond, into which hegathered the waters of many streams to supply his navigation. Inreturn, King John not only gave him the royalty of the river, but aweekly market here for which he rebuilt the place and called it NewMarket a name which was soon lost, the people preferring their old nameNew Alresford. So the market town of New Alresford came into existence, and, but for the unfortunate fires of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies, would bear upon its face the marks it now lacks ofantiquity. 

Bishop Godfrey de Lucy was constantly in residence at Bishop Sutton inthe palace there. The road passes through this delightful village amile or more to the east of New Alresford and something remains, theruins of the kennels it is said, of the palace. This was doubtless "themanour-house ... A verie olde house somtyme walled round aboutte withstone now decaied well waterid with an olde ponde or moote adjoyning toit, " of which we hear in the time of Edward VI. It seems to have beendestroyed in the Civil war, but even in 1839 much remained of it. "Within the memory of many persons now living, " writes Mr Duthy in1839, "considerable vestiges of a strong and extensive building stoodin the meadows to the north of the church, which were the dilapidatedremains of an ancient palace of the Bishops of Winchester. The wallswere of great thickness and composed of flints and mortar, but it wasimpossible to trace the disposition of the apartments or the form ofthe edifice. " Bishop Sutton had belonged to the church of Winchestersince King Ine's day, but in the early part of the eleventh century itwas held by Harold, and after the Conquest by Eustace of Boulogne. Bishop Henry de Blois regained it for the church by exchange, in whosepossession it has remained but for a few brief intervals in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in one of which John Evelynbought it, until to-day. 

It is probably to this fact we owe the beauty and preservation of thechurch here, with its fine twelfth century nave, not fundamentallyaltered, and its chancel still largely of the thirteenth century. Especially notable are the two Norman doorways in the nave and curioussupports of the belfry there, four naked and massive posts. 

[Illustration: SELBORNE FROM THE HANGER]

Bishop Sutton was the last place I was to see upon the old road, for amile beyond that village I left it where it turned northward, to goeast into Ripley and so by the byways to climb into the hills, andcrossing them to descend steeply at evening into the village ofSelborne by the Oakhanger stream just before it enters that narrowbrief pass into the Weald. There in the twilight I stayed for awhileunder the yew tree in the churchyard to think of the writer, for loveof whom I had made this journey all the way from Winchester. 

"In the churchyard of this village, " writes Gilbert White in "TheAntiquities of Selborne, " "is a yew-tree whose aspect bespeaks it to beof great age; it seems to have seen several centuries and is probablyco-eval with the church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity; thebody is squat, short and thick, and measures twenty-three feet in thegirth, supporting a head of suitable extent to its bulk. This is a maletree, which in the spring sheds clouds of dust and fills the atmospherearound with its farina.... Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determineat what period this tree first obtained a place in churchyards. Astatute was passed A. D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. , the title of which is"Ne rector arbores in cemeterio prosternat. " Now if it is recollectedthat we seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a churchyardbut yews, this statute must have principally related to this species oftree; and consequently their being planted in churchyards is of muchmore ancient date than the year 1307. As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respectable parishioners were buried under theirshade before the improper custom was introduced of burying within thebody of the church where the living are to assemble. Deborah, Rebekah'snurse, was buried under an oak--the most honourable place of interment--probably next to the cave of Machpelah, which seems to have beenappropriated to the remains of the patriarchal family alone. Thefurther use of yew trees might be as a screen to churches, by theirthick foliage, from the violence of winds; perhaps also for thepurpose of archery, the best long bows being made of that material, andwe do not hear that they are planted in the churchyards of other partsof Europe, where long bows were not so much in use. They might also beplaced as a shelter to the congregation assembling before the churchdoors were opened, and as an emblem of mortality by their funeralappearance. In the south of England every churchyard almost has itstree and some two; but in the north we understand few are to be found. "

Even in that passage, full as it is of all the quietness of the Englishcountryside, something of the secret of Gilbert White, his ever livingincommunicable charm may be found: his extraordinary and gentle gift ofbecoming, as it were, one with the things of which he writes, hiswonderfully sympathetic approach to us, his so simple and so consummatemanner. The man might stand in his writings for the countryside ofEngland, incarnate and articulate. He not only leads you ever out ofdoors, but he is just that, the very spirit of the open air, the out-of-doors of a country where alone in Europe one can be in the lanes, inthe meadows, on the hills under the low soft sky with delight every dayof the year. He teaches, as Nature herself teaches; we seem to move inhis books as though they were the fields and the woods, and there theflowers blow and the birds sing. It is not so much that his observationis extraordinarily wide and accurate, but that we see with his eyes, hear with his ears, and the phenomena, beautiful or wonderful, which hedescribes, we experience too, and because of him with something of hislove, his interest and carefulness. What other book ever written uponNatural History can we read, who are not Naturalists, over and over andover again, and for its own sake, not for the myriad facts he gatheredthrough a long lifetime, the acute observation and record of which havewon him the homage of his fellow scientists, but for the pure human andliterary pleasure we find there, a pleasure the like of which is to befound nowhere else in such books in the same satisfying quantity, andat all, only because of him. 

And so on the next morning the first place I went to see was The Wakes, the house where this great and dear lover of England of my heart lived, dying there in 1793, to lie in his own churchyard, his grave marked bya simple headstone bearing his initials "G. W. " and the date. In thechurch is a tablet to him and his brother Benjamin, who has also placedthere in memory of him the seventeenth century German triptych overthe altar. But he needs no memorial from our hands; all he loved, Selborne itself in all its beauty, the exquisite country round it, thehills, the valleys, the woods and the streams are his monument, thevery birds in their songs remind us of him, and there is not a walkthat is not the lovelier because he has passed by. Do you climb upthrough the Hanger and admire the beeches there? It is he who has toldus what to expect, loving the beech like a father, "the most lovely ofall forest trees whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, itsglossy foliage or graceful pendulous boughs. " Do you linger in thePlestor? It is he who tells you of the old oak that stood there, andwas blown down in 1703 "to the infinite regret of the inhabitants andthe vicar who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again;but all this care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time thenwithered and died. " Or who can pass by Long Lythe without rememberingthat it was a favourite with him too. For he loved this place so well, that as Jacob waited for Rachel so he for Selborne. He had been bornthere, where his grandfather being then vicar, aged seventy-two yearsand eleven months, he was to die in 1720. He went to school at Farnhamand Basingstoke, and then in 1739 to Oriel College, Oxford, where in1744 he was elected to a Fellowship. Presently benefice after beneficewas offered him but he refused them all, having made up his mind tolive and die at Selborne. Selborne must then have been a very secludedplace, the nearest town, Alton, often inaccessible in winter one maythink, judging from the description Gilbert White gives of the "rockyhollow lane" that led thither, but it is perhaps to this very fact thatwe owe more than a few of those immortal pages ever living and evernew. Since he was cut off from men he was able to give himself whollyto nature. He is less a part of the mere England of his day than anyman of that time; he belonged only to England of my heart. Yet theevents of his time, though they touched him so little, were neither fewnor unimportant. The year of his birth was the year of the South SeaBubble. When he was a year old the great Duke of Marlborough died. Hiseighth birthday fell in the year which closed the eyes of Sir IsaacNewton. He was twenty-five in the "forty-five, " when Prince CharlesEdward held Edinburgh after Preston Pans. He saw the change in thecalendar, the conquest of India by Clive, the victory and death ofWolfe at Quebec the annexation of Canada, the death of Chatham, theloss of the American Colonies, the French Revolution. And how littleall this meant to him!

But anything connected with Selborne interested him, and he wrote ofand studied its "antiquities" as well as its "natural history. " Norwere these antiquities so negligible as one might think. In his day thechurch was still an interesting building, and he has left us aninteresting account of it. But he does not forget to tell us, too, ofthe Augustinian Priory of Selborne, that was founded in 1233 and stoodto the east of the village, the way to it lying through his belovedLong Lythe, and the site of which is now occupied by Priory Farm, a fewruins remaining. Nothing, indeed, that concerned his beloved villagewas to him ungrateful. It is, without doubt, this careful love of hisfor the things that were his own, at his door, common things if youwill, common only in England of my heart, that has endeared him toinnumerable readers, many of whom have never set foot upon our shoresand would only not be utter strangers here if they did, because of him. Such at least is the only explanation I can give of his immortality, his constant appeal to all sorts and conditions of men. 

Day by day as I wandered through the lanes and the woods that he hadloved with so wonderful and unconscious an affection, in a repose thatwe have lost and a quietness we can only envy him, I tried to discover, I tried to make clear to myself, what it really is that on a dullevening at home, in a sleepless night in London, or in the long winterevenings anywhere, draws me back again and again to that curious book. But even there in Selborne the secret was hidden from me. In truth onemight as well inquire of the birds why they delight us, or of theflowers why we love them so; for in some way I cannot understandGilbert White was gently at one with these and spoke of them sweetlylike a lover and a friend having a gift from God by which he makes uspartakers of his pleasure. 

And so spring drew to a close as I lingered in Selborne, for I couldnot drag myself away. And when, at last, I determined to set out, theFeast of St John was already at hand, so that I made haste once moreacross the hills for Winchester on my way to Old Sarum and Stonehenge, where I would see the sunrise on midsummer morning.