The Wye and Its Associations - a picturesque ramble

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Title: The Wye and Its Associations - a picturesque ramble
Author: Ritchie, Leitch
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Wye and Its Associations - a picturesque ramble" ***

Transcribed from the 1841 Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans
edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

[Picture: Decorative title page, with Goodrich castle (followed by proper
title page)]

THE WYE
AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS

A PICTURESQUE RAMBLE.

* * * * *

BY LEITCH RITCHIE, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF “WANDERINGS BY THE LOIRE,” “WANDERINGS BY THE SEINE,”
“THE MAGICIAN,” ETC.

* * * * *

LONDON:

LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND
LONGMANS.

1841.

* * * * *

LONDON:
PRINTED BY J. HADDON, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY.

ADVERTISEMENT,

A portion of the lower part of the Wye has been described by Gilpin,
Archdeacon Coxe, and some others; and the same portion has been touched
upon, with greater or less minuteness, by Prince Puckler Muscau, and
various Welsh tourists, as well as by Whateley in his Essay on Modern
Gardening. It seemed, however, to the writer of the present sketch, that
something more was due to the most celebrated river in England; and that
another book (not too large for the pocket, and yet aspiring to a place
in the library) which should point out the beauties of the Wye, and
connect them with their historical and romantic associations—beginning at
the source of the stream on Plinlimmon, and ending only at its confluence
with the Severn—might still be reckoned an acceptable service by the
lovers of the picturesque. Hence this little work, which may be
consulted at will either as a finger-post by the traveller, or as a
companion by the reading lounger at home.

_London_, _November_ 28_th_, 1840.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Page.
Philosophy of the picturesque—Peculiarities of English 1
scenery—Worcester—Immigration of peasant girls—The
Devils’ Garden—The Rest on the
Stones—Plinlimmon—Inhabitants of the summit—The
Inn—Source of the Wye
CHAPTER II.
Descent of Plinlimmon—Singular 17
illusion—Llangerrig—Commencement of the picturesque—The
Fall of the Wye—Black Mountain—Course of the
river—Builth—Peculiarity of the scenery—Approach to the
English border—Castle of the Hay—First series of the
beauties of the Wye
CHAPTER III.
Clifford Castle—Lords-marchers—Fair Rosamond—Ruins of the 31
Castle—The silent cottage—Approach to
Hereford—Castle—Cathedral—Nell Gwynn—Cider—Salmon—Wolves
CHAPTER IV.
Beauty and tameness—The travelling hill—Ross—The silver 45
tankard—The Man of Ross—The sympathetic trees—Penyard
Castle—Vicissitudes of the river—Wilton Castle—A voyage
to sea in a basket—Pencraig Hill
CHAPTER V.
Roman passes of the Wye—Goodrich 58
Castle—Keep—Fortifications—Apartments—Its
history—Goodrich Court—Forest of Dean—Laws of the
Miners—Military exploit—Wines of Gloucestershire
CHAPTER VI.
Iron furnaces of the Wye—Lidbroke—Nurse of Henry 74
V—Coldwell Rocks—Symond’s Yat—New Weir—Monmouth
CHAPTER VII.
Monmouth—History of the Castle—Apartment of Henry of 87
Monmouth—Ecclesiastical remains—Benedictine priory—Church
of St. Mary—Church of St. Thomas—Monnow Bridge—Modern
town—Monmouth caps—The beneficent parvenu
CHAPTER VIII.
Welsh pedigree of queen Victoria—A poet’s 100
flattery—Castles of Monmouthshire—Geoffrey of
Monmouth—Henry of Monmouth—The Kymin—Subsidiary tour—Sir
David Gam—White Castle—Scenfrith—The Castle
spectres—Grosmont—Lanthony Abbey
CHAPTER IX.
Raglan Castle—Description of the ruins—History of the 121
Castle—The old lord of Raglan—Surrender of the
fortress—Charles I. and his host—Royal weakness—The
pigeons of Raglan—Death of the old lord—Origin of the
steam engine
CHAPTER X.
Troy House—Anecdote—Antique custom—Village churches of 140
Monmouthshire—White-washing—The bard—Strewing graves with
flowers—St. Briavels’ Castle—Llandogo—Change in the
character of the river—The Druid of the Wye—Wordsworth’s
“Lines composed above Tintern Abbey”
CHAPTER XI.
Vales of the Wye—Valley of Tintern—Tintern 156
Abbey—History—Church—Character of the ruin—Site—Coxe’s
description—Monmouth—Insecurity of sepulchral
fame—Churchyarde on Tombs—Opinions on Tintern—Battle of
Tintern
CHAPTER XII.
The Wye below Tintern—Benagor Crags—Lancaut—Piercefield 174
Bay—Chepstow—Ancient and modern bridge—Chepstow
Castle—Roger de Britolio—Romance of History—Chepstow in
the civil wars—Marten the regicide
CHAPTER XIII.
Piercefield—Points of view—Curious appearance—Scenic 192
character of the place—View from Wyndcliff—Account of
Valentine Morris—Anecdotes—The Wye below Chepstow—Aust
Ferry—Black Rock Ferry—St. Theodoric—Conclusion

ENGRAVINGS.

Page.
GOODRICH CASTLE VIGNETTE TITLE.
LLANGERRIG 19
RHAIADYR 21
NEAR RHAIADYR 22
CLIFFORD CASTLE 35
HEREFORD 44
ROSS 48
THE NEW WEIR 81
TINTERN 158
TINTERN ABBEY 160
CHEPSTOW 177
VIEW FROM WYNDCLIFF 198

CHAPTER I.

Philosophy of the picturesque—Peculiarities of English
scenery—Worcester—Immigration of peasant girls—The Devils’ Garden—The
Rest on the Stones—Plinlimmon—Inhabitants of the summit—The Inn—Source of
the Wye.

Foreigners have often expressed their surprise that the English should
travel so far in search of picturesque scenery, when they have abundance
at home: but the remark is conceived in an unphilosophical spirit. We do
not travel for the mere scenery. We do not leave the Wye unexplored, and
go abroad in search of some other river of its own identical character.
What we gaze at in strange lands is not wood, and water, and rock, but
all these seen through a new medium—accompanied by adjuncts which array
universal nature herself in a foreign costume. A tree peculiar to the
country—a peasant in an un-English garb—a cottage of unaccustomed
form—the slightest peculiarity in national manners—even the traces of a
different system of agriculture—all contribute to the impression of
novelty in which consists the excitement of foreign travel.

The proof of this is our keener perception of the beauties of English
scenery after returning from abroad. We are then capable of instituting
a comparison; and our national manners are no longer the sole medium, but
one of various media through which nature is viewed. An untravelled
Englishman is ignorant of his own country. He must cross the seas before
he can become acquainted with home. He must admire the romance of the
Rhine—the sublimity of the (mountain) Rhone—the beauty of the Seine and
the Loire—before he can tell what is the rank of the Wye, in picturesque
character, among the rivers of Europe.

The journey from London to Worcester, which is the direct route to the
Upper part of the Wye, discloses many of the peculiarities of English
scenery and character—peculiarities which to the natives are of so every
day a kind, that it is only by reflection and comparison they learn to
appreciate them. The country seats of the great land proprietors, with
their accompaniments of lawn and plantation, extending as far as the eye
can reach, form a part of the picture; and so do the cottages of the
village peasantry, with their little gardens before the door, admitting a
peep into the interior of the humble abode. In the aristocratical
dwellings, half hidden in that paradise of groves and glades, we find
every refinement that gold can purchase, or taste produce: in the huts,
comfort, and its inseparable adjunct cleanliness, are the most striking
characteristics.

The former speak of wealth, and the happiness that depends on wealth; the
latter of comparative poverty, and the home pleasures that are compatible
with poverty. On the continent, there is always something out of keeping
in the picture. In the great chateaux and their grounds, there is always
some meanness, some make-shift observable; while in the great country
seats of England, on the contrary, all is uniform. In the cottages
abroad, even those of a higher order, there are always dirt and
slovenliness—inattention to the minute comforts of humble life—meals
snatched anyhow and anywhere—sleep taken without an idea of the luxuries
of sleep. In England, on the other hand, notwithstanding the
irregularities of fortune, we find an absolute identity in the various
classes of the population. The labourer—returned, perhaps, from mending
the highway, sits down in state to dinner, with a clean white
table-cloth, and the coarse ware nicely arranged before him. The floor
is swept, perhaps washed, to do honour to the occasion; and his wife, who
is at once the mistress and the servant of the feast, prides herself on
making her husband (whom she calls her “master”)—_comfortable_.

We need not be told that this is not a universal picture. We need not be
reminded of the want and misery which exist in numerous parts of the
country, for with these we are well acquainted. The _foreigner_,
however, to whom such scenes are new, will meet with them frequently
enough, and especially on the road we are now travelling, to induce him
to set them down as one of the grand characteristics of England.

The road presents, also, at various turnings, that truly English scene, a
well-known specimen of which is viewed from Richmond Hill. A level
country lies a few hundred feet below us, and extends in front, and on
either side, till it is lost in the distance, or bound in by low and
filmy hills which just mark the horizon with their waving line of shadow.
This expanse is studded with towns, and villages, and seats, and
cottages, and square towers, and tapering spires, rising amidst woods and
groves, and surrounded by green fields and meadows. A great part of the
peculiar character of the landscape is due to the enclosures of various
kinds of foliage which separate one field from another. In most parts of
the continent—and more especially in France—these are of very rare
occurrence; and thus the beauty of the picture, when it has any beauty at
all, depends upon the colours of the different kinds of grain or other
productions, which make the vast expanse of vegetation resemble an
immense and richly variegated carpet. In spring, therefore, before these
colours have been fairly brought out, it may easily be conceived that
France is one of the least interesting countries in Europe. With us, on
the other hand, the face of the earth resembles a garden, and more
especially in one of those flat landscapes we have alluded to. The
changes of the seasons diversify without diminishing the beauty; and even
winter presents, instead of a uniform and dreary waste, a varied picture
executed in hoar frost and snow.

Worcester is one of the most aristocratic looking towns in England, and
presents every token of being a wealthy and flourishing place. Its
cathedral, an edifice of the beginning of the thirteenth century, has
drawn hither many a pilgrim foot even from foreign countries. Our
present business, however, is with the works of nature, or with those of
art fallen into decay, and their fragments standing amidst the eternal
youth of the hills and rivers, like monuments of the insignificance of
man.

Worcester is famous for its manufactures of porcelain and gloves; but our
attention was more strongly attracted to exports of another kind, of
which it appeared to be at least the entrepôt, if it was not the original
market. At a little distance from the town, several waggons had halted
near a public house, and their freight, a numerous party of peasant
girls, were breakfasting by the road side. They were eating and drinking
as joyously as if their laps had been filled with far more enticing food
than bread and ale. They were on their way to some greater mart—perhaps
to the all-devouring metropolis; and when breakfast was over, they
resumed their slow journey, some few who had mounted the waggons singing
in parts, and the rest, walking by the side, joining in the chorus. They
had no fears, poor girls, of the result of their adventure—or rather, no
forethought.

But it is not till after we pass the little town of Kington, on the
eastern borders of Herefordshire, that the picturesque commences, and we
must hasten on to our more immediate task. Between Kington and New
Radnor, are the Stanner Rocks, with the Devil’s Garden on their summit,
luxuriously planted—of course by no human hand—with wild flowers. Beyond
New Radnor (formerly the county town, but now a paltry village,) opens
the Vale of Radnor on one side, and on the other, a rude mountain scene,
distinguished by a waterfall of some celebrity, called
Water-break-its-neck. The stream rushes down a precipitous descent of
seventy feet, into a hollow with craggy and unequal sides. The spot of
the cascade is marked by an insulated rock, eighteen or twenty feet high,
standing erect above it like a monument.

After passing the village of Penybont, the Llanbadarn Vawr, or great
church of Badarn, is to the left of the road, an edifice which dates from
the time of the Conqueror; and nothing else of interest is observable
till we reach Rhaiadyr, on the Banks of the Wye. As it will be more
convenient, however, to examine the river in descending with the stream,
we shall only say here, that the journey from Rhaiadyr to the summit of
Plinlimmon lies through woods, and hill passes, becoming ruder and wilder
at every step we advance. The character of the population seems to
change in conformity with their physical circumstances. The want of
tidiness which marks the British mountaineer is the more conspicuous from
the contrast it presents to the opposite quality we have admired in the
plains; and already the women have assumed the round hat of the ruder
sex, and destroyed with its masculine associations the charms peculiar to
their own. Against this absurdity we must protest, whether we meet with
it in the Welsh girl, or the fair equestrian of Hyde Park. It betrays
not only the most pitiful taste, but the most profound ignorance of
nature, on which is founded the theory of female beauty.

Stedva Gerrig, or “the Rest on the Stones” now commonly called by the
name of the mountain, is a hamlet of three or four houses situated on a
stream which separates the counties of Montgomeryshire and Cardiganshire,
in a nook of comparatively level land, into which abut several of the
lower ridges of Plinlimmon. The spot has little of the wildness of
mountain scenery, but its extreme solitude; for being here near the top
of the mountainous group, and surrounded by its remaining elevations, we
are insensible of our real altitude above the level of the country.
These elevations, besides, have none of the ruggedness of character we
usually find in such places. They are, in general, smoothly-swelling
eminences, which if rising from the plain would receive the name of
hills; they are wholly naked of trees, or even brushwood; and being
covered with green herbage, they at first sight give one the idea of an
extensive grass farm, rather than a sterile mountain. It is the altitude
of the spot, however, and the nipping blasts to which it is exposed, that
render it naked of the larger kinds of vegetation; and there is only a
nook here and there capable of bearing even a scanty crop of oats. This
region, therefore, excepting a few fields around Stedva Gerrig, supplies
subsistence only to sheep; and the greater number even of these we found
had been withdrawn to situations less exposed to the Welsh winds.

Of the few inhabitants of the hamlet, the principal man of course is the
innkeeper; and the other fathers of families are shepherds. The latter
class of men have wages amounting to twelve pounds a year, and enjoy
their houses and little fields of corn and potatoes, with as much
pasturage as they have use for free of rent. The husband, assisted by
his sons, when young, tends the sheep on the mountain; the wife makes
flannel, and knits stockings; and the daughters go out to service at an
early age. Their little menage is comfortable. Their bread is barley
cakes; they sometimes salt a pig; they provide themselves with a quarter
of beef at one time, and, like their betters, “live at home, and kill
their own mutton.” Nay, one of these flourishing shepherds is a rival of
_the_ innkeeper; his hut being duly licensed to sell ale, cyder, &c., and
the sign-board having the following intimation:—“The notorious hill of
Plinlimmon is on these premises, and it will be shown with pleasure to
any gentlemen travellers who wishes to see it.” And this intimation
(letting grammar alone) is correct; for although the notorious article in
question, viz., the loftiest part of Plinlimmon is not entirely in the
garden, curtained off, like the balloon at the Yorkshire Stingo, from the
gaze of all who do not pay a shilling to see it, yet it is actually on
the premises, about three or four miles—only a sheep walk—distant.

The Plinlimmon inn, undoubtedly, is the place for our money. It is
now—although its character was very different only two years ago—neat,
clean, and comfortable. We do not say that it affords the accommodation
of a city on the top of a Welsh mountain, but yet to the traveller who
has seen more of the world than the plains of England, it will make a
very desirable resting-place. Such traveller, on dismounting from the
Aberystwith mail, will be right glad to sit down by a clean and bright
fire-side, and if the turf should not be lighted in the parlour, he will
be proud of the privilege of the kitchen. There, if he has our own good
fortune, he will find the landlady, a frank, cheerful, and kindly woman,
with the table drawn in quite to the hearth, and reading “Elegant
Extracts.” Materials of another kind will speedily grace the board,
viz., bread, butter, cheese, eggs, and excellent home-brewed ale. Do you
sneer at this bill of fare? A fico for thy travellership! Then will
mine host enter in the midst, a bold, intelligent, yet modest fellow;
and, bustling through the various parts of the scene, will “come, like a
shadow, so depart” the substantial form of the serving maiden, her cheeks
round, and flushed, her eye beaming with innocent gaiety, and her full
and swelling chest seeming as if it were with difficulty withheld from
bursting the corsage. These three, by the way, are the only inhabitants
of the hamlet who speak English.

After supper, the traveller, if he be not of the heathen sect of
Tee-totallers, takes a glass of brandy and water, for the reason assigned
by St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy, or any other orthodox reason; and
finally, he will enter into a clean and comfortable bed, and sleep, not
the less soundly it is to be presumed, that his meal had not involved the
murder of a chicken, or of any other of his fellow creatures of the
earth.

The next morning the landlord walked with us to the source of the Wye,
about three miles distant. We ascended and descended several of the
rounded summits already mentioned; and upon the whole, the little
excursion is somewhat trying to the lungs. A rill flowed between every
two eminences, destined soon or late to unite with the Wye, and at length
the latter stream appeared, bubbling down the side of a slope in a volume
which might be comprised in the circumference of a teacup. Higher up, a
few rushes seem to hide the fountain from which it springs; but following
for a brief space a line of damp, plashy earth above, we reach a tiny
pool, little more than a hand-breadth across, supplied by droppings
rather than gushes from a bank of black earth—and this is the source of
the Wye. Looking down its tortuous valley, the view is majestic from the
massive forms of the objects which surround it; but the solitude, the
dreariness, the utter desolation of the scene, form the distinctive
features of the picture.

Plinlimmon, or Pumlumon, is not, correctly speaking, a single mountain,
but several distinct mountains rising from one base. Each of these
distinct mountains, again, is subdivided into several others; but in the
aggregate, there is little of the variety which might be expected from so
extraordinary an assemblage. It is entirely destitute of wood. There
are none of the craggy peaks and precipices which usually form the
picturesque of mountain scenery. All is smooth but blackened turf,
frequently undulating over fathomless bogs, the mysteries of which the
traveller who ventures into this desolate region without a guide has a
fair chance of exploring. The summit, of which the highest point is two
thousand four hundred and sixty-three feet above the level of the sea,
forms a plateau of several miles; whence the hills of Cardiganshire are
seen to the south; Cardigan bay and Saint George’s channel to the west;
to the north, the perpendicular brow of Cader Idris; to the north-west,
the three-peaked Breidden hills; and to the east, the fertile plains of
Herefordshire and Shropshire.

Besides the Wye, there are several other rivers which have their source
on Plinlimmon, the most distinguished of which is the Severn. About two
miles distant from where we now stand, this stream issues from a little
bog-hole, in a volume which might be stepped across by a child. The
whole mountain, in fact, seems a reservoir of water; and it is not
surprising that Owen Glendwr should have been able to maintain himself
here, as he did in 1401, even with so small a force as a hundred and
twenty men. The entrenchments made by the hero may still be traced; and
brazen spearheads, and other instruments of war, have been found within
them in our own day.

CHAPTER II.

Descent of Plinlimmon—Singular illusion—Llangerrig—Commencement of the
Picturesque—The Fall of the Wye—Black Mountain—Course of the
river—Builth—Peculiarity of the scenery—Approach to the English
border—Castle of the Hay—First series of the beauties of the Wye.

Leaving Stedva Gerrig, the road runs by the side of the stream before
mentioned, through a succession of mountain valleys, which, being without
the grandiose forms of the view from Plinlimmon, are uninteresting from
the want of trees. On the left there was a wreath of grey smoke flying
backward on the wind, from the brow of the steep which forms the side of
the valley; and we speculated within ourselves as to whether this was the
ensign of some unlawful still. It proved, however, to be the foam of a
little mountain torrent, caught suddenly by the gust ere it reached the
edge of the precipice; and so complete was the illusion, that it was not
till we had climbed to the spot, that we were convinced of the phenomenon
being the production of water instead of fire.

The valley here was wide, and the vista backwards towards Stedva Gerrig
of considerable length. A very remarkable effect was produced by the
light of the early sun streaming through masses of grey clouds, and
flashed back again not only by the stream, but by the entire surface of
the soil which was completely saturated by torrents of rain that had
fallen during the night. Just after this, and nearly three miles from
the inn, the Wye suddenly burst into the valley from the left, and
rushing beneath a bridge, flung itself into the little river. The
latter, conscious that although its volume was greater, its strength and
impetuosity were less than those of the marauder, quietly resigned itself
to its fate, receiving the name and acknowledging the authority of its
lord and spouse; and thenceforth, we found ourselves wandering along the
banks, less known than those less renowned, of the classic Vaga.

[Picture: Llangerrig]

The sameness of the scenery continued for five miles further, till on
entering the hamlet of Llangerrig, consisting of a few huts of the
meanest description, and an old church, of which a view is annexed, trees
began to add their interest to the picture. The valley, however, was
wide, the trees small, and the river, notwithstanding its receiving here
another accession, was still insignificant. By degrees, however, as we
proceeded, the hills became closer, and the massiveness of their forms
lent a certain degree of grandeur to the scene. These again disappeared;
and the hills returned: and the Wye as before ran brawling through a
commonplace valley. A series of vicissitudes went on till the hills,
assuming the character without the magnitude of mountains, threw
themselves wildly together, and we found ourselves in a savage pass, the
steep abutting masses of which were in some cases formed of grey and
naked rock.

The river here is occasionally almost choked up with stones and fragments
of rocks, which must either have rolled from the heights into the bottom
of the valley, or been uncovered in their original beds by the action of
the water. Here opens (in our judgment) the first of the numerous
picturesque views presented by the Wye. The spot is marked by the
accession of a tributary stream, which is crossed by means of a bridge.

After getting out of this gorge, the scenery becomes softer and more
commonplace; and at three miles nearer, the vista is terminated by the
little church tower of Rhaiadyr, painted against a misty hill at some
distance beyond.

In the time of the Welsh princes, there was here a fortress of some
importance, of which no vestiges remain. It was erected, we are told, by
Rhys, prince of South Wales, in the time of Richard II., and burnt down
in 1231, by Llewellin ap Jorwerth. The little town itself is modern, and
consists principally of two streets intersecting each other at right
angles. The name, which is in full _Rhaiadyr Pwy_, means the Fall of the
Wye, but is no longer applicable, the cataract having been almost
levelled in 1780, when the bridge was erected. From this bridge the view
of the river is exceedingly fine, as will be seen by the annexed
engraving; although all the remnant of the waterfall is the plunging of
the stream over a low ledge of rocks. The town itself has a good deal of
character. It is decidedly a Welsh town; and notwithstanding the
commingling that must have taken place in the races, it possesses that
foreign aspect which is so exciting to the curiosity.

[Picture: Rhaiadyr]

This appearance, however, is still more evident in the next place at
which we arrive, Builth; but the traveller must not be in a hurry to get
there. The valley of the Wye, during the fourteen miles which intervene,
presents a continuous series of picturesque views, sufficient of
themselves to make the reputation of the river. The stream rushes the
whole way through a singularly rocky and winding bed, bound in by lofty
and fantastic banks, and these by hills, naked or wooded, barren or
fertile, of every variety of form. One of the most remarkable of the
latter is the Black Mountain, which is posted directly in front, and
fills up the valley, as if to guard the pass from the further progress of
the Wye: but our wandering stream sweeps abruptly round its base, and
escaping by a narrow defile, pursues its triumphant way towards Builth.
One of those pictures is imitated in the annexed engraving, and it will
not be difficult to find the identical spot chosen by the artist.

[Picture: Near Rhaiadyr]

For more than half the distance the road runs close by the side of the
river; but on reaching a few houses called Newbridge, we diverge a
little, and do not come near again till we have travelled a distance of
nearly five miles and approached the town of Builth. The pedestrian,
however, cares little for roads; and, rejoining the river at will, he
finds the series of views continued—sometimes grand, sometimes beautiful,
sometimes picturesque, sometimes absolute gems of pastoral repose. The
river increases visibly before our eyes; and at length, when near Builth,
it rolls along, still foaming, still brawling, but in a stream of
considerable volume. Its principal tributaries between Rhaiadyr and this
place, are the Elian, the Ithon, and the Yrfon; the last of which is
celebrated by the defeat of Llewellin in 1282, which took place at the
spot where the little river is crossed by a bridge, just before it falls
into the Wye, above Builth.

This part of the country, however, is completely secluded. There never
was, so far as we know, a public conveyance between Rhaiadyr and Builth;
and at the latter town, at this season of the year—although it is still
early in October—the traveller will find no means of communication with
the rest of the world, except for those who journey with post horses, and
those who make use of the locomotive powers of their own limbs.

Builth is finely situated, its narrow streets rising in irregular
terraces on the side of a hill on the right bank of the Wye. The houses
are as Welsh as can be, and have a primitive, old world look, that has a
great charm in our eyes. The town is approached by a stone bridge of
considerable length; at the end of which, on the left hand, are some
mounds of grass and ivy, which conceal the remains of a castle supposed
to date from the eleventh century. All, however, is conjecture as
regards this castle, which was a small fortress, with a keep of forty
yards in circumference, surrounded by a ditch, and defended towards the
south by two trenches. It was repaired in 1209, by Gilbert, Earl of
Gloucester; after the death of Llewellin, it became an English fortress;
and in 1690, was accidentally destroyed by a fire, which at the same time
consumed the greater part of the town. Builth, however, is older than
its castle. It is set down by the learned as the Bullæum Silurum of the
Romans; and various druidical remains in the neighbourhood carry back the
ken of the antiquarian to a still more remote epoch, which is lost in
shadows.

It was in this neighbourhood, as we have said, that Llewellin, the last
of the Welsh princes, was defeated and slain in 1282. Tradition relates,
that while at Aberedw, a short distance down the river, on the opposite
bank, he was surprised by the English, and escaped so narrowly, that he
had only just time to pass the drawbridge of Builth, before his pursuers
came up. The English, however, succeeded in cutting him off from his
army, by getting between the town and a village on the right bank of the
Wye where it was posted. Llewellin, upon this, attempted to conceal
himself in the woods, but he was discovered, and beheaded, and his body
buried at a place called Cern y Bedd.

The air of Builth is supposed to be very salubrious, and for this reason
many respectable families have chosen it for their residence. The
abundance of game in its woods and hills, and of trout, salmon, and
grayling in its streams is another inducement, and probably the _cause_
of the good health of its visitors. In this neighbourhood are mineral
springs of three kinds,—saline, sulphurous, and chalybeate,—and a
pump-room, frequently attended by a numerous company.

From a hill above the town is obtained a fine view of the Llynsyraddon,
the largest lake in Wales except Bala. The country people believe that
its bed was formerly the site of a city; and, as in Ireland, Brittany,
and other places where a similar tradition prevails, they still see the
towers of old “’neath the calm, cold wave reclining.” Giraldus calls the
lake _Clamosam_, from the “terrible thundering noise it makes upon the
breaking up of the ice in winter.”

The valley of the Wye is less wild after passing Builth, but more
beautiful. After the fourth milestone, there is a magnificent specimen
of a formation of the hills which may be said to be the grand peculiarity
of this district. It consists of a massive range on the opposite bank,
laid out in square terraces, such as Martin delights to heap on each
other in his pictures. But here, where Nature is the builder, these
masses of architecture are of rough, disjointed stones, hoary with age,
and sometimes overgrown with moss and lichens. On the right bank where
we stood, a small house is built just above the road, as if to enjoy the
picture; and, a little further on, another of more aristocratic
pretensions. A view, including a portion of the latter—the green,
smooth-shaven pastures which answer for a lawn and extend to the water’s
edge—the Wye foaming and brawling at the bottom, half hidden by trees of
the deepest shadow—with the castellated mount beyond, and the sweep of
the valley closed in by hills to the left—would form a whole, which
Gilpin, with the dogmatism of art, might call “correctly picturesque.”

A little further on, we had an opportunity of inspecting these rocks more
closely, which are only remarkable from the forms they assume. In the
instance before us, they were two immense cubes of stone, as precise as
if ruled by the square, and cut with the chisel. They stood exactly
horizontal with the ground, and the upper was of smaller proportions than
the lower. No other rock or even stone was near. At some distance
another entirely insulated mass presented itself, as large as a cottage
of two stories, with walls as perpendicular, and secluded like a cottage
by trees.

The small village of Glasbury presents a view well worth notice. This is
particularly the case at Maeslough Hall, where Gilpin characterises the
scenery as “wonderfully amusing,” declaring that the situation is one of
the finest in Wales. On passing the seventh milestone, the valley
spreads out into a wide plain bounded by an amphitheatre of hills; and as
we proceed, numerous villas peeping through the trees, show that we have
now left entirely behind us the peculiarities of Welsh scenery, and are
again on the borders of merry England. As we approach the Hay, the
aristocratical buildings become more numerous, and the romance of the
scene diminishes, till at length we enter a small, but neat and
comfortable-looking town.

The Hay has some historical associations of the doings of Llewellin and
King John, by the latter of whom its castle was destroyed in 1216; but
with the exception of a Gothic gateway there are no remains to interest
the antiquarian. There are said, indeed, to be the fragments of some
Roman fortifications; but we are something like Sir Walter Scott in this
respect, who had seen so many ghosts, that at last he found it difficult
to believe in them. Tradition relates that the castle was built in one
night by the celebrated Maud de Saint Wallery, alias Maud de Hain, alias
Moll Walbee. “She built (say the gossips),” as we find in Jones’s
Brecknock, “the castle of Hay in one night: the stones for which she
carried in her apron. While she was thus employed, a small pebble, of
about nine feet long, and one foot thick, dropped into her shoe. This
she did not at first regard; but in a short time, finding it troublesome,
she indignantly threw it over the river Wye into Llowes churchyard in
Radnorshire (about three miles off), where it remains to this day,
precisely in the position it fell, a stubborn memorial of the historical
fact, to the utter confusion of all sceptics and unbelievers.”

Between Builth and the Hay ends one series of the beauties of the Wye.
The stream hitherto is a mountain rivulet, sometimes almost a torrent,
and its characteristics are wildness and simplicity. Its course is
impeded by rocks, amidst which it runs brawling and foaming; and,
generally speaking, it depends upon itself, and upon the nature of its
own bed for the picturesque, the hills around forming only the back
ground. We shall see, as we get on, the manner in which this will
change, till the banks become the objects of admiration, and the stream
itself, although much increased in volume, is considered a mere adjunct,
and its bosom a convenient site from which to view them.

Gilpin’s observations on this point are very judicious, although he had
not the advantage of seeing with his own eyes the upper part of the Wye.
“It is possible, I think,” says he, “the Wye may in this place (alluding
to the country between Builth and the Hay) be more beautiful than in any
other part of its course. Between Ross and Chepstow, the grandeur and
beauty of its banks are its chief praise. The river itself has no other
merit than that of a winding surface of smooth water. But here, added to
the same decoration from its banks, the Wye itself assumes a more
beautiful character; pouring over shelving rocks, and forming itself into
eddies and cascades, which a solemn parading stream through a flat
channel cannot exhibit. An additional merit also accrues to such a river
from the different forms it assumes according to the fulness or emptiness
of the stream. There are rocks of all shapes and sizes, which
continually vary the appearance of the water, as it rushes over or plays
among them; so that such a river, to a picturesque eye, is a continued
fund of new entertainment.”

CHAPTER III.

Clifford Castle—Lords-marchers—Fair Rosamond—Ruins of the Castle—The
silent cottage—Approach to Hereford—Castle—Cathedral—Nell
Gwynn—Cider—Salmon—Wolves.

Leaving Hay, the valley widens, the background softens, and the whole
scene assumes the character of an English vale, where the hills on each
side are cultivated to the summit. On the right, as we proceed, a deep
umbrageous wood comes in to give effect, just where effect was wanting;
and, surmounting a conical eminence above the road, near the second
milestone, the hoary ruins of Clifford Castle intermix with the monotony
of modern life the associations of the olden time.

Clifford Castle was built by William Fitzosborne, earl of Hereford, but
was held at the time of the Domesday Survey by Rudolphus de Totenie. It
was obtained by the Cliffords by the marriage of Walter Fitz-Richard with
Margaret, daughter of Ralph de Cundy. Walter Fitz-Richard—a descendant
of Richard II., duke of Normandy—whose father accompanied the Conqueror
into England, having married the heiress of Ralph de Cundy, of Clifford
Castle, took the name of De Clifford, and the place remained the baronial
seat of the family for two centuries.

The nobles of that age were not merely required to do military service
for their lands, but other imposts were laid upon them by the feudal
custom, which had the effect of a true property tax. At the marriage of
Matilda, daughter of Henry I., with Charles V. of Germany, the king
collected a sum equal to about £135,000 of our money from the land, at a
fixed rate per hide; and the returns (_certificationes_) show very
clearly the distribution of property at the time. We find Walter de
Clifford set down for one hide in Herefordshire in Wales. It may be
noted, in passing, that Henry was not only generous in granting lands to
his own and his father’s followers, but the same request being made to
him by some Flemings, whose share of terra firma had been wrested from
them by an incursion of the sea, he made no scruple to comply. “Being
very liberall,” say the Welsh chronicles, “of that which was not his
owne, he gave them the land of _Ros_, in West Wales, or Dynet, where
Pembroke, Haverford, and Tenby are now built; and they there remain to
this day, as may well be perceived by their speech and conditions being
farre differing from the rest of the countrye.”

The Norman knights who settled on the Welsh borders acquired the name of
Lords Marchers, being styled Marchiones Walliæ in the Red Book of the
Exchequer; although the title of nobility derived from this, _Marquis_,
was not introduced till the reign of Richard II. These lords marchers,
of whom were the Cliffords and other families in Hereford, had each a law
for his own barony, and determined of their own authority all suits
between their tenants. They were entitled to the goods and chattels of
such of their tenants as died intestate. This power, in fact, was such
as could only be continued by violence; and hence the coolness or
treachery of some of them when any serious attempt was made by the
sovereign to introduce the laws and customs of the English into Wales.
After the death of Llewellin, the last prince of Wales, this was at
length effected by Edward I.; but still, the Marches, not being included
in the division of the land into counties became a scene of such anarchy,
that it was found necessary to institute a court of judicature for that
district alone. This court continued till the first year of William and
Mary, when it was dissolved by an act of Parliament, in consequence, as
the preamble states, of its having become “a great grievance to the
subject.” Previous to this, however, in the time of Henry VIII., the
Marches of Wales were definitely united to England; when Clifford and
other places, which were before a debatable land of bloodshed and
confusion, became a part of Herefordshire.

But Clifford Castle is not associated merely with ideas of war and
rapine, but with those of love and beauty. Here was born that too
celebrated lady, of whom Dryden says—

“Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver,
Fair Rosamond was but her _nom de guerre_.”

[Picture: Clifford Castle]

She was the daughter of one of the earls of Clifford, and became
celebrated for her amour with Henry II.; who built her a bower in
Woodstock Park, which he defended from his jealous wife by the classical
device of a labyrinth. Queen Eleanor, however, who was as well read in
ancient history as her spouse, was not slow in hitting upon the expedient
of the clue of thread; and, on reaching her rival, the historical
romancers add, she compelled her to swallow poison. Whatever may have
been her fate, Fair Rosamond was buried at Godstow, and a Latin epitaph
inscribed on her tomb to this effect:

“Here lies not Rose the Chaste, but Rose the Fair,
Whose breath perfumes no more, but taints the air.”

The ruins of the castle, completely covered with ivy, look down solemn
and sad upon the Wye:

“Clifford has fallen—howe’er sublime,
Mere fragments wrestle still with time;
Yet as they perish, sure and slow,
And rolling dash the stream below,
They raise tradition’s glowing scene,—
The clue of silk, the wrathful queen;
And link in memory’s firmest bond
The love-lorn tale of Rosamond.”

We carried away with us for a considerable distance the dreamy repose of
Clifford Castle; but this was at length broken by repose of another
character. The scene was a little wayside hut, purporting to be an inn,
where the weary pedestrian might obtain shade or shelter, if no
refreshment. An old man, and an old woman, occupied the two fireside
corners, the one reading, the other sewing, in profound silence. Around
the hearth, there was a semi-circle of five cats, in various attitudes of
rest, but not one breaking the stillness of the place even by a pur. A
dog, apparently kept in proper order by his feline associates, lay
outside the semicircle, and shared in the tranquillity of the scene. We
paused for a moment at the door, feeling that our presence was an
intrusion; but, after a brief question, and a brief reply, the good wife
dropped her eyes again upon her work, and the dog, who had himself raised
his head, returned to his slumber with a sigh. As for the other
inhabitants, our presence had produced no effect upon them at all, and we
withdrew to proceed upon our wanderings, unconsciously taking care to
tread without noise.

From this place to Hereford, the road runs through a rich and well
cultivated country, dotted here and there with houses and villages, but
not thickly enough to disturb the idea of pastoral repose. Approaching
Bradwardine, where the old castle said to have been the residence of the
family of that name is _not_, the soil swells into wooded eminences, one
of which is called Mirebeck Hill; and Brobury’s Scar, a picturesque cliff
rising from the bank of the river, adds still further to the diversity of
the prospect. Then came the various villas which usually adorn the
neighbourhood of a large town—and which here are true embellishments to
the landscape; and finally we enter the ancient, sober, quiet cathedral
city of Hereford.

Hereford was a principal town of Mercia under the Heptarchy, the palace
of Offa, the most powerful of the Mercian princes, being within three
miles of it on the north-eastern side. Its church, in the time of Offa,
was probably nothing more than a wooden building; but to the rise of that
church in wealth and reputation was owing, according to the usual
sequence of events at the period, the prosperity of the town. Offa had
treacherously inveigled to his court Ethelbert, prince of the East
Angles, when he murdered him, and usurped his crown. The body of the
victim was buried in the church, where by working of miracles it
attracted so much attention to the spot, that a new church of stone was
constructed on the site of the wooden edifice, and dedicated to _Saint
Ethelbert_. Multitudes of course flocked to visit the martyr’s tomb; the
church was richly endowed by the remorse or hypocrisy of the assassin;
and Hereford speedily rose from its comparative obscurity.

About the year 939, the city was first enclosed by walls, the fragments
of which now existing are supposed to stand upon the original
foundations. They were eighteen hundred yards in extent, enclosing the
town on all sides except towards the south, where it has the defence of
the Wye. There were six gates, and fifteen embattled watch-towers. The
castle, concerning the date of which antiquarians are not agreed, stood
on the south and east sides of the city, with the Wye on the south and
the cathedral on the west. Leland describes the keep as having been
“high and very strong, having in the outer wall ten semicircular towers,
and one great tower within.” He adds, that “it hath been one of the
largest, fayrest, and strongest castels in England.” In the time of the
civil wars, Hereford was the scene of some strife, but since then nothing
has occurred—not even the introduction of manufactures—to disturb its
repose.

With the exception of the cathedral, a grand view of which is to be had
from the Castle Green Promenade—a fine public walk on a small scale—there
is nothing to detain the traveller. Some fragments of the city walls,
however, and of an old priory, may be visited by the antiquary; together
with an old house, a “brotherless hermit,” the last of a race demolished
for the purpose of widening the street where the town hall stands—or
rather sits—resting uneasily on some thin columns. The house, adorned
with grotesque faces, bears its date, 1621.

The traveller may also go, if he will, to Pipe Lane, formerly called Pipe
Well Street, leading from the bridge to the cathedral, to see the house
where Nell Gwynn was not born, and the bedchamber where she did not
sleep. These curiosities will be shown for a trifle, and they must now
suffice: the dwelling which really had the distinction of giving birth to
Mistress Eleanor having been pulled down more than twenty years ago.

After the removal of this celebrated lady to London, she made her first
appearance in Drury Lane Theatre, in the character of a fruit-girl, not
on the stage, but in the lobby. Mr. Hart, the manager, however, was
induced to notice her by her natural humour and vivacity, and he produced
her upon the boards about the year 1667. Here she became a favorite of
Dryden, who wrote some of his prologues and epilogues expressly for her.
“The immediate cause of her becoming the object of the king’s affection
is thus represented. At the duke’s theatre, under Killegrew’s patent,
the celebrated Nokes appeared in a hat larger than that usually assigned
to Pistol, which diverted the audience so much as to help off a bad play.
Dryden, in return, caused a hat to be made of the circumference of a
large coach wheel, and made Mrs. Gwynn speak an epilogue under the
umbrella of it, with the brim stretched out in its utmost horizontal
extension, not unlike a mushroom of that size. No sooner did she appear
in this strange dress, than the house was in convulsions of laughter.
Amongst the rest, the king gave the fullest marks of approbation, by
going behind the scenes after the play, and taking her home in his own
coach to sup with him.” {41} Her son, born in 1670, was afterwards
created duke of St. Albans; and her grandson became a prelate of the
church, and the denizen of the episcopal palace nearly adjoining the
humble house in Pipe Lane, where his maternal ancestor was born. Mrs.
Gwynne was one of the few royal favorites who have not abused their
power, otherwise than in spending money which should have been under the
control of the nation. She was munificent in her charities, and may be
considered, if not the founder of Chelsea Hospital, the cause of its
having been founded. “Her stature was short, her hair inclined to red;
her eyes were small and lively, and she possessed what the French term
embonpoint. Her feet were of the most diminutive size, and as such were
the subject of frequent mirth to the merry monarch.”

The staple commodity of Hereford is cider; but the reputation of the
county for this production dates backward only to the reign of Charles
I., when, according to Evelyn, it became “in a manner one entire
orchard.” The apples are merely a variety of the crab, as the pears are
descended from the common wild pear. The plantations are found in every
aspect, and on every soil; but in general the west winds, so much praised
by the Roman poets, and after them by Philips the bard of cider, are
unwholesome to the plant, from the circumstance of their blowing over the
Welsh mountains, which are capped with snow even in the spring. The best
colours for cider fruits are red and yellow, the juice of the green being
harsh and poor. The pulp should be yellow, but this part of the apple is
not so important as the rind and kernel, in which the strength and
flavour of the liquid reside; and for this reason the smaller the apple
is the better. From twenty-four to thirty gallons are required to fill
the provincial hogshead of one hundred and ten gallons.

The cider-mill used even at this moment is a rude and imperfect
contrivance, consisting of a circular stone, about twelve hundred weight,
set on its edge in a shallow circular trough, and drawn round by a horse.
The apples are gradually introduced into the trough, and a quantity may
be thus mashed equal to a hogshead of cider in the day. The expressed
juice is put into casks, not quite filled, and in the open air; and as
soon as the vinous fermentation takes place, it is racked. When two
years old it may be bottled, after which it will become rich and
sparkling, and so remain for twenty or thirty years. Perry is made with
pears pretty nearly in the same way.

The salmon is still the principal fish taken in the Wye, though far less
plentiful than formerly. It was at one time a common clause in the
indentures of apprentices that they should not be compelled to live on
salmon more than two days in the week. Wolves were formerly so numerous
in this district, that in 1234 a proclamation was issued commanding them
to be destroyed, and calling upon “all the king’s liege people to assist
therein.” A wolf would now be an extraordinary spectacle indeed on the
sunny slopes, or prowling among the apple orchards of Hereford! But the
Wye has seen changes more remarkable than this.

[Picture: Hereford]

CHAPTER IV

Beauty and tameness—The travelling hill—Ross—The silver tankard—The Man
of Ross—The sympathetic trees—Penyard Castle—Vicissitudes of the
river—Wilton Castle—A voyage to sea in a basket—Pencraig Hill.

Comparatively speaking, there is little worthy of remark between Hereford
and Ross; and yet Gilpin’s charge of _tameness_ is unjust. What it wants
is excitement. The valley of the Wye is here beautiful—neither more, nor
less; but its beauty is similar to that of the portion we have just
traversed between the Hay and Hereford, and we therefore call it tame.
Why did we not apply the word before? Because the contrast presented by
the valley after leaving Hay with the wilder or grander features we had
passed formed one of the _vicissitudes_ of the river. This will be
understood by a traveller who journeys up the stream. On reaching Ross,
after emerging from the tumult, or sublimity, of the lower passage, he
will gaze with delight on one of the most quietly beautiful landscapes in
England—whose smooth green eminences, gentle groves, orchards and hop
plantations (the latter far finer objects than the vineyards of the
continent), white cottages, villages, and village spires, give an endless
and yet simple variety to the picture. After passing Hereford, in quest
of new excitement, the scene-hunter will pronounce a similar character of
landscape _tame_.

Six miles from Hereford, the Lay adds its waters to the Wye, and near the
confluence we remark an abrupt elevation, which being wholly different in
character from the rest of the soil conveys the idea of an accident of
nature. And such it actually is.

Marclay Hill—for so the elevation is called—in the time of Elizabeth,
according to Camden, “rose as it were from sleep, and for three days
moved on its vast body with an horrible noise, driving everything before
it to an higher ground.” Fuller states that the ascent gained by the
surprising traveller was eleven fathoms, that its bulk was twenty acres,
and that the time it took to perform the feat was fourteen hours. Sir
Richard Baker, in the “Chronicles of England,” is still more minute. “In
the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth,” says he, “a prodigious
earthquake happened in the east parts of Herefordshire, at a little town
called Kinnaston. On the seventeenth of February, at six o’clock in the
evening, the earth began to open, and a hill, with a rock under it,
making at first a great hollowing noise, which was heard a great way off,
lifted itself up, and began to travel, bearing along with it the trees
that grew upon it, the sheepfolds and flocks of sheep abiding there at
the same time. In the place from whence it was first moved it left a
gaping distance forty foot broad, and fourscore ells long: the whole
field was about twenty acres. Passing along it overthrew a chapel
standing in the way, removed a yew tree planted in the churchyard from
the west to the east: with the like force it thrust before it highways,
sheepfolds, hedges, and trees; made tilled ground pasture, and again
turned pasture into tillage. Having walked in this sort from Saturday
evening till Monday noon, it then stood still.” The yew tree still
exists as a witness of the fact, and the church bell was dug up not many
years ago.

[Picture: Ross]

The traces of a Roman camp on Woldbury Hill, and on Eaton Hill those of
an ancient fortification, forming a link in the chain of defences which
formerly ran along this part of the country, may be inspected with
advantage by the pedestrian who is read in antiquarian lore; but to
others there will appear nothing which should detain their steps before
the little town of Ross. Here commences the tour of the lower Wye—of
that part of the river which is known to fame as _the_ Wye. As for the
town itself, it is neat and prim-looking, sitting quietly upon an
eminence above the river. It is full of memories of the Man of Ross,
which sanctify it from the boisterous vulgarities of a town. The
“heaven-directed spire” which he taught to rise is its prominent feature;
and this object keeps the lines of Pope ringing in our ears like the
church bell, and with a little of its monotony.

This bell, by the way, is something more than an ordinary bell. It bears
the name of John Kyrle, and was cast at Gloucester, in 1695, at his own
expense. Nay, it possesses a relic more valuable than his name, for
there is incorporated with its substance his favorite silver tankard. He
attended himself at the casting, and, drinking solemnly the orthodox
toast of “Church and King,” he threw the cup into the molten mass. In a
local guide-book, we find several little particulars of this fine old
fellow, which are interesting from their naïveté.

It appears he was entered a gentleman commoner, of Baliol College,
Oxford, in 1654, and that he was intended for the bar but soon
relinquished all thoughts of that profession, and returning to Ross gave
himself up to agriculture and building, and the improvement of his native
town.

An old maiden cousin, of the euphonous name of Bubb, kept house for him
many years. In his person, John was tall, thin, and well-shaped; his
health was remarkably good, and he scarcely knew any of the frailties of
old age until within a very short time of his death. His usual dress was
a suit of brown _dittos_, and a king William’s wig, all in the costume of
his day. He disliked crowds and routs, but was exceedingly fond of snug,
social parties, and “of dinnering his friends upon the market and fair
days.” He was also exceedingly pleased with his neighbours dropping in
without ceremony, loved to make a good long evening of it, enjoyed a
merry story, and always seemed sorry when it was time to break up. His
dishes were generally plain and according to the season, but he dearly
loved a goose, and was vain of his dexterity in carving it. During the
operation, which he invariably took upon himself, he always repeated one
of those old sayings and standing witticisms that seem to attach
themselves with peculiar preference to the cooked goose. He never had
roast beef on his table save and except on Christmas day; and malt liquor
and good Herefordshire cider were the only beverages ever introduced. At
his kitchen fire there was a large block of wood, in lieu of a bench, for
poor people to sit upon; and a piece of boiled beef, and three pecks of
flower, made into loaves, were given to the poor every Sunday. The
number he chose at his “invitation dinners,” were nine, eleven, or
_thirteen_, including himself and his kinswoman, Miss Bubb; and he never
cared to sit down to table until he had as many as made one of these
numbers. He not only superintended the labours of the road makers,
planters, and gardeners, but commonly took an active part in them
himself, delighting above all things to carry a huge watering-pot to
water the trees he had newly set in the earth. “With a spade on his
shoulder and a glass bottle of liquor in his hand, he used to walk from
his house to the fields and back again several times during the day.”

Without the trees planted by John Kyrle, Ross would be nothing, so far as
the picturesque is concerned; and a delightful tradition, the truth of
which is vouched by undeniable evidence, proves that the trees were not
ungrateful to their founder. A rector, as the story goes, had the
impiety to cut down some of these living monuments of the taste of John
Kyrle, which shaded the wall of the church beside his own pew; but the
roots threw out fresh shoots, and these, penetrating into the interior,
grew into two graceful elms, that occupied his seat with their foliage.
If any one doubt the fact, let him go and see. The trees are still
there; their branches curtain the tall window that opens upon the pew;
and their beautiful leaves cluster above the seat,

“And still keep his memory green in our souls.”

Besides the elms in the churchyard and neighbourhood, there is a fine
avenue, planted by John Kyrle, called the Prospect, or the Man of Ross’s
Walk. It is on the ridge of a hill behind the church, and commands a
view of the valley of the Wye, about which there is some difference of
opinion. In King’s anecdotes the planter’s taste for prospects is
commended; and it is said that “by a vast plantation of elms, which he
disposed of in a fine manner, he has made one of the most _entertaining_
scenes the county of Hereford affords.” Gilpin, on the other hand, who
travelled with an easel before his mind’s eye, cannot make a picture of
it; and Gray the poet asserts, in reference to the spot in question, that
“all points that are much elevated spoil the beauty of the valley, and
make its parts, which are not large, look poor and diminutive.”

The only other relic shown at Ross is a fragment of an oak bedstead, on
which Charles I. slept, on his way from Ragland Castle. A house in
Church Lane, called Gabriel Hill’s Great Inn, contains the chamber so
distinguished.

Here the traveller may hire a boat, if he choose, for the remainder of
his journey. The Wye, however, is navigable to Hereford in barges of
from eighteen to forty tons; and sometimes in lighter boats even to the
Hay, but the shoals in summer and the floods in winter frequently
interrupt the navigation. In 1795 the river rose fifteen feet at the
former place within twenty-four hours, and carried away bridges, cattle,
sheep, timber, and everything that stood in its way.

But even if he determine afterwards to proceed by the river, the
traveller will do well to walk from Ross to the ruins of Penyard Castle;
not that these ruins are in themselves worthy of his attention, but the
road is beautiful throughout, and from the summit, Penyard Chace, he will
see the little town he has left, and our wandering Wye in a new phasis.
The country is diversified with hills and valleys, and wooded spaces
between; and more especially when the shadows of evening are stealing
over the landscape, the whole is a scene of enchantment.

Although the lower passage of the river commences at Ross, we do not, for
two or three miles further, get fairly into its peculiarities. From the
gentle, the graceful, the gay, it glides almost insensibly into the
picturesque, the bold, and the grand. The tranquillity of its course
from the Hay—a tranquillity dearly purchased by the labours of its wild
career during the upper passage—has prepared it for new vicissitudes, and
new struggles. The following description, by archdeacon Coxe, applies to
a great part of the portion we are now entering upon, and cannot be
improved either in fidelity or style.

“The effects of these numerous windings are various and striking; the
same objects present themselves, are lost and recovered with
different accompaniments, and in different points of view: thus the
ruins of a castle, hamlets embosomed in trees, the spire of a church
bursting from the wood, figures impending over the water, and broken
masses of rock fringed with herbage, sometimes are seen on one side,
sometimes on the other, and form the fore-ground or background of a
landscape. Thus also the river itself here stretches in a continuous
line, there moves in a curve, between gentle slopes and fertile
meadows, or is suddenly concealed in a deep abyss, under the gloom of
impending woods.” “The banks for the most part rise abruptly from
the edge of the water, and are clothed with forests, or are broken
into cliffs. In some places they approach so near that the river
occupies the whole intermediate space, and nothing is seen but woods,
rocks, and water; in others, they alternately recede, and the eye
catches an occasional glimpse of hamlets, ruins, and detached
buildings, partly seated on the margin of the stream, and partly
scattered on the rising grounds. The general character of the
scenery, however, is wildness and solitude; and if we except the
populous district of Monmouth, no river perhaps flows for so long a
course in a well cultivated country, the banks of which exhibit so
few habitations.”

A little below Ross, on the right bank of the river, are the ruins of
Wilton Castle, which was for several centuries the baronial residence of
the Greys of the south, and was destroyed by the Hereford royalists in
the time of Charles I. Let us relate, however, as a circumstance of
still more interest, that it was left, with the adjoining lands, by
Thomas Guy, to the admirable charity in London which he founded, known by
the name of Guy’s Hospital.

The Wye here passes under Wilton bridge, a construction of rather a
curious kind, which dates from the close of the sixteenth century.
Coracles are seldom seen so high up the river as this; but we mention
them here because the hero of Gilpin’s often repeated anecdote was an
inhabitant of Wilton. This man, it seems, ventured into the British
Channel in a coracle, as far as the isle of Lundy; a very remarkable
voyage to be made in a canvass tub, the navigation of the estuary of the
Severn being quite as trying as that of any part of the British seas.
Previously, however, to this exploit, the very same feat was performed by
an itinerant stage-doctor of Mitchel Dean in the Forest. The coracles
are a sort of basket made of willow twigs, covered with pitched canvass
or raw hide, and resembling in form the section of a walnut-shell.
Similar rude contrivances are in use among the Esquimaux and other savage
tribes, and were employed by the ancient Britons for the navigation of
rivers. They are now the fishing-boats of the rivers of South Wales; and
when the day’s work is done are carried home on the shoulders of their
owners, disposed in such a way as to serve for a hood in case of rain.
The early ships of Britain are described by Cæsar and Pliny as being
merely larger coracles—clumsy frames of rough timber, ribbed with hurdles
and lined with hides. According to Claudian they had masts and sails,
although they were generally rowed, the rowers singing to the harp.

At the farm of Weir End, the river takes a sudden bend, and rolls along
the steep sides of Pencraig Hill, which are clothed with wood to the
water’s edge. Soon the ruined turrets of Goodrich Castle present
themselves, crowning the summit of a wooded eminence on the right bank,
and as they vanish and reappear with the turnings of the river the effect
is magnificent.

CHAPTER V.

Roman passes of the Wye—Goodrich
Castle—Keep—Fortifications—Apartments—Its history—Goodrich Court—Forest
of Dean—Laws of the Miners—Military exploit—Wines of Gloucestershire.

If the conjecture of antiquaries be correct, that the great Roman road
from Blestium to Gloucester, by Ariconium, proceeded by the ford of the
Wye at Goodrich Castle, it is possible that this spot may have been of
some consequence before the period when history takes any cognizance of
the fortress. Blestium is supposed to be Monmouth, from which the road
probably led along the line of the present turnpike, between an
entrenchment to the left, opposite Dixon Church, and an encampment on the
Little Doward, to the right, supposed by some to be Roman, but usually
described in the road books as British. The name of Whitchurch Street,
applied to a portion of this route further on, favours the supposition of
a Roman origin. Ariconium, the next station from Blestium, is Rosebury
Hill, near Ross, according to those who identify Monmouth with Blestium.
There was another Roman way which led from Blestium to Glevum
(Gloucester) by a more direct route; crossing the Wye at the former
place, and leading up the Kymin from the left bank of the river. At
Stanton, a little further on, the vestiges of a Roman settlement are
indubitable, not only in the name of the place itself, but in the
entrenchments that may be observed near the church, and the Roman cinders
scattered about the fields. At Monmouth and Goodrich Castle, therefore,
were the two great passes of the Wye used by the Romans. At the latter
the river is crossed by a ferry.

“The awe and admiration could not be enhanced with which I wandered
through the dark passages and the spacious courts, and climbed the
crumbling staircase of Goodrich Castle.” So says the German prince:
although the time of his visit was winter, when the Wye and its ruins are
stripped of the adjunct of foliage, which in the imagination of common
travellers is inseparably connected with ideas of the picturesque or
beautiful in natural scenery.

Goodrich Castle forms a parallelogram, with a round tower at each angle,
and a square keep in the south-west part of the enclosure. A minute
account of this remarkable ruin is given in the “Antiqua Monumenta;” and
Mr. Bonner introduces his brief description, in illustration of his
perspective views, with the remark that “the fortification (although not
of large dimensions) contains all the different works which constitute a
complete ancient baronial castle.” For this reason, if for no other, it
would demand special observation; but the tourist of the Wye, even if
ignorant of the interest which thus attaches to Goodrich Castle, will
acknowledge that it forms one of the finest objects hitherto presented by
the banks of the river. It stands on the summit of a wooded hill, in the
position of one of the castles of the Rhine, and in the midst of a scene
of solemn grandeur which Mason may have had in view when he wrote his
spirited description of the sacred grove of Mona, in “Caractacus.”

“Here, Romans, pause, and let the eye of wonder
Gaze on the solemn scene: behold yon oak
How stem it frowns, and with its broad brown arms
Chills the pale plains beneath him: mark yon altar,
The dark stream brawling round its rugged base,
These cliffs, these yawning caverns, this wide circus,
Skirted with unhewn stone: they awe my soul
As if the very genius of the place
Himself appeared, and with terrific tread
Stalked through his drear domain.”

“Yonder grots,
Are tenanted by bards, who nightly thence,
Robed in their flowing vests of innocent white,
Descend, with harps that glitter to the moon,
Hymning immortal strains. The spirits of the air,
Of earth, of water, nay of heav’n itself,
Do listen to their lay: and oft, ’tis said,
In visible shapes dance they a magic round
To the high minstrelsy.”

The keep is the most ancient remains of the castle, and presents, on a
small scale, all the usual features of this part of a fortification of
the olden times. It was composed of three stories, being intended to
overlook the works, and had no windows on the landward side. Each of
these stories consisted of a single small room, the lowest being the
prison, without even a loophole to admit air or light. “The original
windows,” says King, “are the most truly Saxon that can be.” This
applies more particularly to the one in the middle of the upper story,
which appears to have remained without any alteration; while, in the one
beneath, a stone frame for glass seems to have been inserted. The style
of this addition points to the time of Henry VI., and we may believe that
it was made by the celebrated Earl Talbot, who tenanted one of these
small chambers. Besides the glass window, this apartment boasts a hearth
for fire; and, as is usual in such buildings, the communication with the
floor above is by a circular staircase in an angle of the massive wall.
“To this staircase is a most remarkable door-way; it was one large
transom-stone, as if to aid the arch to support the wall above, and in
this respect resembles several other Saxon structures, in which this
strange kind of fashion seems to have been uniformly adopted; until it
became gradually altered by the introduction of a flattish _under-arch_,
instituted in the room of the transom-stone.” {63}

The entrance to the keep was by a flight of steps, leading to the above
apartment; but the dungeon had an entrance of its own, of a construction
which leads antiquarians to conjecture, that it was added in the reign of
Edward III., when Richard Talbot obtained the royal license for making
his dungeon a state prison.

The fortifications to be surmounted before an enemy could arrive at the
keep, were numerous and complete. Independently of the fosse, there was
a deep pit, hewn out of the solid rock, to be crossed by a drawbridge,
and then commenced a dark vaulted passage between two semicircular
towers. Eleven feet within the passage was a massive gate, defended (as
likewise the drawbridge) by loopholes in the sides of the vault, and
machicolations in the roof, for pouring down molten lead or boiling water
on the assailants. A few feet farther on was a portcullis, and then a
second, the space between protected by loopholes and machicolations.
Presently there was another strong gate, and finally a stone projection
on both sides, intended for the insertion of beams of timber, to act as a
barricade. If we add that the passage thus defended was less than ten
feet wide, and that the exterior walls of the whole building were in
general seven feet thick, an idea may be formed of the strength of
Goodrich Castle.

Within the ballium, or enclosed space, entered with such difficulty, were
the keep here described, the state apartments, chapel, &c.; but the whole
of these are in so ruinous a state, as to be nearly unintelligible except
to antiquaries. The great hall was sixty-five feet long and twenty-eight
broad, and appears to have been a magnificent apartment of the time of
Edward I., as its windows indicate. The fire-place is still
distinguishable in the great kitchen. Communicating with the hall is a
smaller room, from which a passage led into another room of state,
fifty-five feet by twenty; and this opened into the ladies’ tower,
standing upon the brow of a lofty precipice, and commanding a delightful
view over the country.

It is curious that so remarkable a structure should be almost destitute
of authentic history, till the very period when it ceased to exist but as
a ruin. All that is known of its origin is, that a fort, held by a
doomsday proprietor, of the name of Godric, commanded the ford of the
river at this place before the Conquest. The fort consisted, in all
probability, of little more than the keep; to which, at later periods,
additions were made, cognisable by their style, till Goodrich Castle
became a regular fortress. In 1165 it was the property of the earl of
Pembroke, then lord of the whole district from Ross to Chepstow; and,
subsequently, it was a seat of the Talbot family, who, in 1347, founded a
priory of black canons at Flanesford, which is now a barn, about a
quarter of a mile below the castle. During the civil wars this fortress
played a conspicuous part, being taken and retaken by the opposing
parties. In the first instance it held for the parliament; but was
afterwards seized by Sir Richard Lingen, who, in 1646, defended it with
great gallantry against Colonel Birch for nearly five months, and thus
conferred upon it the distinction of being the last castle in England,
excepting Pendennis, which held out for the king. In the following year
it was ordered by the parliament to be “totally disgarrisoned and
_slighted_,” which sentence was just sufficiently carried into effect to
give the Wye a magnificent ruin at the very spot where taste would have
placed it. “Here,” says Mr. Gilpin, “a grand view presented itself, and
we rested on our oars to examine it. A reach of the river, forming a
noble bay, is spread before the eye. The bank on the right is steep, and
covered with wood, beyond which a bold promontory shoots out, crowned
with a castle rising among trees. This view, which is one of the
grandest on the river, I should not scruple to call correctly
picturesque.”

Near the spot where Mr. Gilpin must have been is the ferry where Henry
IV., who was waiting to be taken across, received intelligence of his
queen’s being delivered of a prince at Monmouth Castle. The king,
according to tradition, was so overjoyed at the news, that he presented
the ferry and boat, which at this time belonged to the crown, to the
ferryman. On the left bank, nearly opposite, are the church and village
of Walford, in the former of which is buried Colonel Kyrle, who deserted
the service of Charles I. for that of the parliament.

Goodrich Court, to which a winding path leads from the castle, is
somewhat nearer Ross. It is the seat of Sir Samuel Meyrick, the well
known antiquary, and presents, in the architecture, an exact imitation of
a mansion of the middle of the fourteenth century. In this respect, as
well as in the arrangement of its proprietor’s valuable collection of old
armour, the house may be said to be absolutely perfect. It forms in
itself and its contents, one of the most interesting museums in Europe;
and it is open, with very little ceremony, to the inspection of the
traveller, as all such things are, when they do not happen to be the
property of persons unworthy to possess them.

The river sweeps boldly round the wooded headland on which Goodrich
Castle stands; and the ruin is thus presented again and again, in new
phases (but none so interesting as the first), to the voyager, as he
glides down the now varied and romantic river. A steep ridge on the
right bank is called Coppet, or Copped Wood Hill, where the stream makes
a sweep of five miles, to perform the actual advance of one. The mass of
foliage on the opposite bank is a part of the Forest of Dean, variegated,
by rocks, hamlets, and village spires. Bishop’s Brook here enters the
Wye, and serves as a boundary between the counties of Hereford and
Gloucester, and between the parishes of Walford and Ruerdean. “The view
at Ruerdean church,” says Mr. Gilpin, “is a scene of great grandeur.
Here both sides of the river are steep, and both woody; but on one
(meaning the left bank), the woods are interspersed with rocks. The deep
umbrage of the Forest of Dean occupies the front, and the spire of the
church rises among the trees. The reach of the river which exhibits this
scene is long; and of course the view, which is a noble piece of natural
perspective, continues some time before the eye; but when the spire comes
directly in front, the grandeur of the landscape is gone.”

The famous Forest of Dean is in the space which here lies between the
Severn and the Wye. “In former ages,” as Camden tells us, “by the
irregular tracks and horrid shades,” it was so dark and dreary as to
render its inhabitants more audacious in robberies. In the time of
Edward I. there were seventy-two furnaces here for melting iron; and it
is related, that the miners of those days were very industrious in
seeking after the beds of cinders, where the Romans of Britain had been
at work before them, which remains, when burnt over again, were supposed
to make the best iron. The privileges of these miners were, no doubt,
for the most part assumed, but some granted by law are highly curious.
The following are specimens:—

“Also, if any smith holder, or any other be debtor, for mine to a
miner, the which smith holder or other be within, then the miner is
bailiff in every place (except his own close), to take the horse of
the debtor, if he be saddled with a work saddle, and with no other
saddle; and be it that the horse be half within the door of the
smith, so that the miner may take the tail of the horse, the debtor
shall deliver the horse to the miner. And if he so do not, the miner
shall make and levy hue and cry upon the said horse, and then the
horse shall be forfeit to the king for the hue and cry made and
levied, and yet the miner shall present the debtor in the Mind Law,
which is the court for the mine.”

“And the debtor before the constable and his clerk, the gaveler and
the miners, and none other folk to plead the right, only the
ministers shall be there, and hold a stick of holly, and the said
miner demanding the debt, shall put his hand upon the said stick, and
none other with him, and he shall swear by his faith, that the said
debt is to him due; and the prove made, the debtor, in the same
place, shall pay the miner all the debt proved, or else he shall be
brought to the castle of St. Briavells till grace be made, and also
he shall be amerced to the king in two shillings.

“Also the miner hath such franchises to inquire the mine in every
soil of the king’s of which it may be named, and also of all other
folk, without withsaying of any man.

“And also if any be that denieth any soil, whatsoever it be, be it
sound or no, or of what degree it may be named, then the gaveler, by
the strength of the king, shall deliver the soil to the miners, with
a convenient way, next stretching to the king’s highway, by the which
mine may be carried to all places and waters that lean convenient to
the said mine, without withsaying of any man.”

The Forest of Dean plays a conspicuous part in the wars of Monmouthshire,
serving as a natural outwork for the county. The following transaction
is described by Sanderson, the historian of Charles I.:—“After Sir
William Waller,” says he, “had refreshed his men, he advanced towards
Monmouthshire, invited by some gentlemen to reduce these parts. At his
coming to the town of Monmouth, the garrison of the lord Herbert retired,
leaving a naked place to Sir William; where he found small success of his
parties, sent abroad for supplies of money. He marches to Usk, and
spending some time to no purpose in that county, he returns, the stream
of the people affording him no welcome, being all universal tenants of
that county to the earl of Worcester.

“In this time Prince Maurice enters Teuxbury, with a brigade of horse and
foot added to the lord Grandeson, resolving to make after Waller, or to
meet his return out of Wales. A bridge of boats wafts him over the
Severn, with a body of two thousand horse and foot. Waller was nimble in
his retreat, not to be catcht in a noose or neck of Wales; but, by a
bridge of boats, came back at Chepstow, with his foot and artillery, and
himself, with his horse and dragoons, passed through the lowest part of
the Forest of Dean, near the river side of Severn; and ere the prince had
notice, sends forth two parties to fall upon two of the Prince’s
quarters, which was performed, while Waller’s main body slipped between
both, and a party was left also to face them, and make good the retreat,
which came off but disorderly, with loss of some soldiers. It was held a
handsome conveyance, and unexpected, to bring himself out of the snare by
uncouth ways.”

Gloucestershire, of which the Forest of Dean forms a part, although still
boasting one of the richest soils in England, is no longer a _wine
country_. “The ground,” according to William of Malmesbury,
“spontaneously produces fruit in taste and colour far exceeding others,
many of which will keep the year round, so as to serve their owners till
others come in again. No county in England has more or richer vineyards,
or which yield greater plenty of grapes, and of a more agreeable flavour.
The wine has not a disagreeable sharpness to the taste, as it is little
inferior to that of France in sweetness.” On this Camden remarks, that
it is more owing to “the indolence of the inhabitants than to the
alteration in the climate,” that in his time wine was no longer a
production of the county.

Vines were introduced into Britain by the Romans, and the hills of South
Wales became more especially famous for their vineyards. They were
mentioned in the Domesday Book, before the time of William of Malmesbury;
and tithes of wines are frequently alluded to in the records of
cathedrals.

CHAPTER VI.

Iron furnaces of the Wye—Lidbroke—Nurse of Henry V.—Coldwell
Rocks—Symond’s Yat—New Weir—Monmouth.

The woods rising amphitheatrically on the left bank, just before reaching
Ruerdean, are called Bishop’s Wood; and there will be observed, for the
first time of their presenting themselves conspicuously, the iron
furnaces, which form a very striking characteristic of the river.

The iron furnaces on the Wye rather add to than diminish the effect of
the scenery. This is caused by the abundance of wood in the furnace
districts, which conceals the details, while it permits the smoke to
ascend in wreaths through the trees, and float like a veil around the
hills. These works, however, are merely a modern revival of a species of
industry which extends backwards beyond the reach of history. The heaps
of cinders which are discovered on the hills of Monmouthshire are the
production either of bloomeries, the most ancient mode of fusing iron, or
of furnaces of a very antique construction. The operation of smelting
was performed in both of these by means of charcoal; and after the lands
were cleared, the want of fuel led to the decline of the iron works.
About eighty years ago, in consequence of the discovery of the mode of
making pig iron, and subsequently even bar iron, with coal instead of
charcoal, this branch of industry suddenly revived; although on the Wye
charcoal is still burnt, and made upon the spot, where, instead of
vulgarising the district, it adds a very remarkable feature to the
picturesque.

At Lidbroke, on the same side, the commoner sympathies of life come into
play, and the vulgar occupations of men serve at once to diversify the
scene, and even to give it a new character of the picturesque. The lower
passage has hitherto been chiefly distinguished by a romantic grandeur,
both in the forms of nature, and the associations of history; and even
the iron furnaces, from the circumstances we have mentioned, have added a
charm congenial to the character of the picture. At Lidbroke, the new
adjunct is nothing more than a _wharf_, with little vessels lying near
it,—boats passing and repassing,—horses, carts, men, women, and children
stirring along the banks: but the whole, in such a spot, forms an
assemblage which adds, by contrast, to the general effect.

On the opposite bank the district of Monmouthshire, called Welsh Bicknor,
commences—for we have hitherto been in Hereford—and Courtfield claims our
attention for a moment, as the place where Henry V. is said to have been
nursed, under the care of the countess of Salisbury. The remains of a
bed, and an old cradle, were formerly shown as relics of the Monmouth
hero. Half a mile further down the river is Welsh Bicknor Church, which
has puzzled the antiquarians by its sepulchral effigy, representing a
recumbent female figure in stone, not ungracefully dressed in a loose
robe, but without inscription or coat of arms. Tradition will have it
that this is _the_ countess of Salisbury; and it is perhaps correct in
the person, though wrong in the name, for the lady who nursed Henry at
Courtfield (supposing him to have been there at all) was, in all
probability, Lady Montacute, who married a second son of the first earl
of Salisbury, but was no countess herself. Her son, however, Sir John de
Montacute, who possessed the manor of Welsh Bicknor, succeeded to the
earldom, and became earl-marshal of England. It was he who was chief of
the Lollards, and was murdered in 1400 by the populace of Cirencester.
The manor, although falling to the crown on account of his supposed
treason, was afterwards restored to the family, and became the property
of his descendant Richard, the great earl of Warwick and Salisbury.
Dugdale traces this ominous heirloom to Margaret, grand-daughter of the
great earl, daughter of the duke of Clarence, and wife of Lord Montague.
This lady, after witnessing the execution of her brother Edward, earl of
Warwick, and her son Henry Lord Montague, was herself beheaded in 1541.
The manor of Welsh Bicknor, and the mansion of Courtfield, passed
subsequently into the ancient family of Vaughan. We may mention here,
however, although the circumstance is of no great consequence, that Sir
Samuel Meyrick assigns the costume of the figure in Welsh Bicknor Church
to the era of Edward I., about a century before that of Henry V.

A short distance below the church this abutment of Monmouthshire
terminates, and the right bank of the river lies as before in Hereford,
the left in Gloucester. At Coldwell, the view is closed in by a
magnificent rock scene, differing entirely in character from any yet
afforded by the Wye. To suffer this to appear—supposing the traveller to
be descending the river—a wooded hill, called Rosemary Topping, one of
the common features of the stream, shifts like a scene in a theatre, and
becomes a side-screen; so that the almost naked cliff remains the
principal object, and confers its character upon the view, to which the
river and its banks to the right and left are only adjuncts.

The first grand mass of rock is nearly insulated, and reminds one at
first sight of the keep of some ruined castle. But the Coldwell rocks
want no associations of the kind: they are fragments of the temples of
nature, and have nothing to do with the history of man. To our judgment,
the shadowy hollows scooped out of the sides of the precipices, and
overhung by foliage, which are nothing more than the sites of _lime
kilns_, are more advantageous to the picture than the finest ruins
imaginable. They come in without pretence; they make no effort at
rivalry; but present the idea of human nature in an attitude of befitting
humility and simplicity. “These,” says the German prince, “are craggy
and weatherbeaten walls of sandstone, of gigantic dimension,
perpendicular or overhanging, projecting abruptly from amid oaks, and
hung with rich festoons of ivy. The rain and storms of ages have beaten
and washed them into such fantastic forms, that they appear like some
caprice of human art. Castles and towers, amphitheatres and
fortifications, battlements and obelisks mock the wanderer, who fancies
himself transported into the ruins of a city of some extinct race. Some
of these picturesque masses are at times loosened by the action of the
weather, and fall thundering from rock to rock, with a terrific plunge
into the river.”

From Symond’s Yat to the New Weir, this _kind_ of scenery continues;
although the masses of cliff of course change their form and situation.
The river, in a portion of its course, washes their base, at one time an
almost perpendicular wall, at another clothed in woods till near the
summit, which is seen rising out of the foliage, and tracing its
battlemented outline upon the sky. From these two points the distance is
only six hundred yards by land, and not less than four miles by water;
and the shorter route is in this case the better. On the river, we soon
lose the magnificence of the picture; while on shore, there is superadded
to this a view of the extravagant mazes of the Wye on either side of the
neck of land on which the spectator stands. If it be added that the
point of view, Symond’s Yat, appeared to Mr. Coxe to be two thousand feet
high (although this is an evident mistake), it will readily be imagined
that this scene is of itself worth a pilgrimage to the Wye. The
prospect, comprehending portions of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and
Monmouthshire, embraces the following objects, according to those who are
versed in the local names. To the north is seen Coppet Wood Hill,
interspersed with rock and common;—to the north-west appear the spire and
village of Goodrich, and, at the foot of the hill, Rocklands and
Huntsholm Ferry;—to the west, Hunthsolm, behind which is Whitchurch, and,
in the distance, the Welsh hills;—to the south-west, the mountainous side
of the Great Doward;—to the south, Staunton Church, and the Buck-stone,
upon a promontory; and below, Highmeadow Woods and the river; on the
left, the rock of the New Weir, and on the right, the rocky wall of the
east side of the Doward;—to the south-east, the village of English
Bicknor, a side view of Coldwell Rocks, and Rosemary Topping;—and, to the
east, Ruerdean Wood, with the church in the distance, Bishop’s Wood, and
Courtfield, with the woody ridges of Hawkwood and Puckwood completing the
panorama.

[Picture: The New Weir]

Gilpin calls the New Weir the second grand scene on the Wye.

“The river,” says he, “is wider than usual in this part, and takes a
sweep round a towering promontory of rock, which forms the
side-screen on the left, and is the grand feature of the view. It is
not a broad, fractured piece of rock, but rather a woody hill, from
which large projections in two or three places burst out, rudely hung
with twisting branches, and shaggy furniture; which, like the mane
round the lion’s head, gives a more savage air to these wild
exhibitions of nature. Near the top a pointed fragment of solitary
rock, rising above the rest, has rather a fantastic appearance—but it
is not without its effect in marking the scene . . . On the right
side of the river, the bank forms a woody amphitheatre, following the
course of the stream round the promontory. Its lower skirts are
adorned with a hamlet, in the midst of which volumes of thick smoke,
thrown up at intervals from an iron forge, as its fires receive fresh
fuel, add double grandeur to the scene. . . .

“But what peculiarly marks this view, is a circumstance on the water.
The whole river at this place makes a precipitate fall—of no great
height indeed, but enough to merit the name of a cascade, though to
the eye above the stream it is an object of no consequence. In all
the scenes we had yet passed, the water moving with a slow and solemn
pace, the objects around kept time, as it were, with it; and every
steep, and every rock which hung over the river, was solemn,
tranquil, and majestic. But here the violence of the stream, and the
roaring of the waters, impressed a new character on the scene: all
was agitation and uproar, and every steep and every rock stared with
wildness and terror.”

Let us add the testimony of another great authority on the picturesque;
more especially as his remarks serve to corroborate our own on the effect
received by the river from objects which elsewhere are mean and common.

“A scene at the New Weir on the Wye, which in itself is truly great
and awful, so far from being disturbed, becomes more interesting and
important by the business to which it is destined. It is a chasm
between two high ranges of hills, that rise almost perpendicularly
from the water: the rocks on the sides are mostly heavy masses, and
their colour is generally brown; but here and there a pale craggy
shape starts up to a vast height above the rest, unconnected, broken,
and bare: large trees frequently force out their way amongst them;
and many of these stand far back in the covert, where their natural
dusky hue is heightened by the shadow that overhangs them. The river
too, as it retires, loses itself in the woods, which close
immediately above, then rise thick and high, and darken the water.
In the midst of all this gloom is an _iron forge_, covered with a
black cloud of smoke, and surrounded with half-burnt ore, with coal,
and with cinders: the fuel for it is brought down a path, worn into
steps narrow and steep, and winding among precipices; and near it is
an open space of barren moor, about which are scattered the huts of
the workmen. It stands close to the cascade of the Weir, where the
agitation of the current is increased by large fragments of rocks,
which have been swept down by floods from the banks, or shivered by
tempests from the brow; and the sullen sound, at stated intervals, of
the strokes from the great hammer in the forge, deadens the roar of
the waterfall. Just below it, while the rapidity of the stream still
continues, a ferry is carried across it; and lower down the fishermen
use little round boats called truckles (coracles), the remains
perhaps of the ancient British navigation, which the least motion
will overset, and the slightest touch may destroy. All the
employments of the people seem to require either exertion or caution;
and the ideas of fear or danger which attend them give to the scene
an animation unknown to the solitary, though perfectly compatible
with the wildest romantic situation.” {85}

To this, however, we must add as a note, that both Weir and forge have
now vanished. The more headlong rush and louder roar of the river mark
the place where the former stood; and some limekilns contribute the smoke
of the latter without its noise.

During the whole of this part of the passage, the stream is interrupted
by fragments of rock, around which the water rushes tumultuously; but at
the New Weir these interruptions, above noticed, acquire a character of
sublimity, when taken in conjunction with the rest of the picture. The
river, roaring and foaming, is in haste to escape, and at length is lost
to the eye, as it seems to plunge for ever into sepulchral woods.

Beyond this, there are several other rock scenes, but none that will bear
description after the foregoing; although to the traveller wearied with
excitement, they come in with good effect. Below New Weir, the river
stretches with a curve between Highmeadows Wood on the left bank, and the
precipitous cliffs of the Great Doward on the right. Then the Little
Doward peeps over a screen of rocks and shrubs. These two hills are
called King Arthur’s Plain, and between these is King Arthur’s Hall, the
level of an exhausted iron mine. Then we pass a cluster of rocks called
St. Martin’s or the Three Sisters, and a pool of the river named St.
Martin’s Well, where the water is said to be seventy feet deep. Various
seats and cottages give variety to the picture, situated in the midst of
rich woods and undulating eminences; and at length the landscape sinks
calmly down, and Monmouth—“delightsome Monmouth”—is seen in long
perspective, terminating a reach of the river.

CHAPTER VII.

Monmouth—History of the Castle—Apartment of Henry of
Monmouth—Ecclesiastical remains—Benedictine priory—Church of St.
Mary—Church of St. Thomas—Monnow Bridge—Modern town—Monmouth caps—The
beneficent parvenu.

Monmouth lies embowered among gentle hills, only diversified by wood,
corn, and pasture; but to view it either from the Wye, or any of the
neighbouring eminences, one would be far from supposing it to have so
tame, or at least so quiet a site. From one point, its spire is seen
passing through a deep and mysterious wood; from another, it hangs
perched on a precipitous ridge; and from the Wye it rises with
considerable stateliness in the form of an amphitheatre. It stands at
the confluence of the Wye and the Monnow, from which it derives its
English name.

A royal fortress existed here before the conquest, a circumstance which
renders its early history full of fearful vicissitudes, although these
are but very imperfectly traced. In the time of Henry III., the castle,
after changing hands repeatedly, was taken and rased to the ground.
“Thus the glorie of Monmouth,” says Lambarde, “had clean perished, ne had
it pleased God longe after in that place to give life to the noble King
Henry V., who of the same is called Henry of Monmouth.” It was a
favourite residence of the father of this prince, King Henry IV., and
also of his father, John of Gaunt, “time honoured Lancaster,” to whom it
came by his marriage with Blanch, daughter and heiress of Henry, duke of
Lancaster, whose title he was afterwards granted. Henry V. was born here
in 1387, and from this circumstance is styled Henry of Monmouth. This
prince enlarged the duchy of Lancaster with his maternal inheritance, and
obtained an act of parliament that all grants of offices and estates
should pass under the seal of the duchy. Henry VI. and VII. possessed
the castle of Monmouth, as part of the duchy, by right of inheritance;
but between these reigns it was given by Edward IV. to Lord Herbert,
afterwards earl of Pembroke. Although the duchy, however, continued in
the crown, the castle, together with other possessions in Monmouthshire,
was alienated, and became private property, but at what period does not
clearly appear. In the reign of Elizabeth, it is ascertained, by
different grants, to have been still parcel of the duchy, and also in
that of James I., by the following presentment made under a commission:
“Item, wee present that his majestie hath one ancient castell, called
Monmouth Castell, situated within the liberties of the said towne, which
is nowe, and hath been for a long time, ruinous and in decaye, but by
whom it hath byn decayed wee knowe not, nor to what value, in regarde it
was before our rememberment, savinge one greate hall which is covered and
mayntayned for the judges of the assise to sitt in. And for and
concerning any demean lands belonginge to the same castell, wee knowe not
of any more save only the castell hill, wherein divers have gardens, and
the castell green, which is inclosed within the walls of the said
castell.”

Before the end of the seventeenth century, we find the castle in the
hands of the first duke of Beaufort, if the following anecdote,
indicative either of an ambitious or a fantastic spirit, can be believed.
“The marchioness of Worcester,” says the author of the Secret Memoirs of
Monmouthshire, “was ordered by her grandfather, the late duke of
Beaufort, to lie in of her first child in a house lately built within the
castle of Monmouth, near that spot of ground and space of air, where our
great hero Henry V. was born.”

Whatever mutilations this castle may have undergone since the days of its
royal magnificence, by whomever it may have been at length “decayed,” or
at whatever period it came into the hands of the Beauforts, this at least
is certain, that there is now not more than enough left to indicate its
site. “The transmutations of time,” says Gilpin, “are often ludicrous.
Monmouth Castle was formerly the palace of a king, and the birthplace of
a mighty prince; it is now converted into a yard for fattening ducks.”
The ruins, however, must have been concealed from his view by the stables
and other outhouses that had risen from the fragments, so as completely
to hide them from the townward side. Coxe, a much more correct observer,
although less learned in the laws of the picturesque, describes them in
1800 as presenting, when viewed from the right bank of the Monnow, “an
appearance of dilapidated grandeur which recalls to memory the times of
feudal magnificence.”

Although the roof and great part of the walls had already fallen, the
site of two remarkable apartments could be traced distinctly; that in
which Henry was born, and another adjoining which had been used, even
within the memory of some of the inhabitants, for the assizes. The
latter was sixty-three feet in length and forty-six in breadth, and was
no doubt the “greate hall” mentioned in the presentment quoted above as
being “mayntayned for the judges of the assise to sitt in.”

The apartment of Henry of Monmouth is thus described by the archdeacon:

“The apartment which gave birth to the Gwentonian hero was an upper
story, and the beams that supported the floor still project from the
side walls; it was fifty-eight feet long, and twenty-four broad, and
was decorated with gothic windows, of which some are still remaining,
and seem to be of the age of Henry III. The walls of this part are
not less than ten feet in thickness. About fifty years ago, a
considerable part of the southern wall fell down with a tremendous
crash, which alarmed the whole town, leaving a breach not less than
forty feet in length. On the ground floor beneath are three circular
arches terminating in chinks, which have a very ancient appearance;
at the north-eastern angle, within a stable, may be seen a round
tower six feet in diameter, which was once a staircase leading to the
grand apartment.”

To the right of this apartment, the same author traced the vestige of the
original walls in a private house built within the ancient site. They
were from six to ten feet, formed of pebbles and mortar, and is so
compact a mass as not to yield in hardness to solid stone.

Next to the ruined castle of an ancient town, come the ecclesiastical
remains; for the stronghold of the chief, and the cell of the monk, were
usually the nucleus round which the town was gathered. The principal
relics of the latter kind in Monmouth are those of a benedictine priory
of black monks, dedicated to St. Mary, which was founded as a cell to the
monastery of St. Florence, near Saumur in Anjou, by Wikenoc, lord of
Monmouth in the reign of Henry I. The ruins are small, but interesting;
and not the less so from containing an apartment distinguished by a rich
gothic bay window, pointed out by tradition as the study of that
mysterious personage, Geoffry of Monmouth. The church of the priory
stood on the site of the present parish church of St. Mary, of which the
tower and the lower part of the spire are the only remains of the
original. This spire, which is “lofty, and light, and small,” is the
grand scenic feature of the town when viewed from a distance; and in
return, it affords to the traveller who will take the trouble to ascend
it a point from which to view the country to most advantage. The
beautiful vale in which the town stands, with its undulating eminences,
among which wander the Wye, the Monnow, and the Trothy, is seen in an
almost circular form, enclosed from the vulgar world, by a line of hills
mantled with woods and forests.

The ancient church of St. Thomas stands near the bridge of the Monnow,
and from its circular arches, and extreme simplicity of appearance, is
probably older than the conquest. This does not apply, however, to the
entire building, the western window, and some other morçeaux, displaying
the ornamented Gothic of a late period. The antiquity of the building,
it should be said, is rendered the more probable by its standing beyond
the bridge, where the suburbs of the modern town are supposed to occupy
the site of the British town during the Saxon era.

The bridge, of which a view is given in Grose’s Antiquities, is itself an
object of interest, containing, on its centre, the Monnow Gate, the only
one of the four original gates, mentioned by Leland, that remains entire.
Both bridge and gate bear evidence of very high antiquity, and were
probably erected by the Saxons as a barrier against the Welsh. The town
was farther fortified by a wall and moat, of which the latter was entire
in the time of Leland, and some fragments of the former remaining. But
all vestiges of those defences have now vanished, with the exception of
the Monnow Gate, and some pieces of a tower.

Of the modern town, it can be said that it is neat and clean, with one
broad and well-built street. It is neither mean nor elegant, and
presents no offensive contrast to the beautiful scenery by which it is
surrounded. The navigation of the Wye is its principal support, for at
the present day at least it has no manufactories, although celebrated in
that of its own Henry for _caps_. “If your majestie is remembered of it,
the Welchmen did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing
leeks in their Monmouth caps.” The account given of this staple article
by Fuller, in his Worthies, is worth quoting.

“These,” says he, “were the most ancient, general, warm, and
profitable coverings of men’s heads in this island. It is worth our
pains to observe the tenderness of our kings to preserve the trade of
cap-making, and what long and strong struggling our state had to keep
up the using thereof, so many thousands of people being thereby
maintained in the land, especially before the invention of
fulling-mills, all caps before that time being wrought, beaten, and
thickened, by the hands and feet of men, till those mills, as they
eased many of their labour, outed more of their livelihood. Capping
anciently set fifteen distinct callings on work, as they are reckoned
up in the statute: 1. carders, 2. spinners; 3. knitters; 4. parters
of wool; 5. forfers; 6. thickeners; 7. dressers; 8. walkers; 9.
dyers; 10. battelers; 11. shearers; 12. pressers; 13. edgers; 14.
liners; 15. band-makers, and other exercises. No wonder then that so
many statutes were enacted in parliament to encourage this
handicraft.” * * * * “Lastly; to keep up the usage of caps, it was
enacted, in the 13th of Queen Eliz. cap. 19, that they should be
worne by all persons (some of worship and quality excepted) on
sabbath and holy days, on the pain of forfeiting ten groats for the
omission thereof.

“But it seems that nothing but hats would fit the heads (or humours
rather) of the English, as fancied by them fitter to fence their fair
faces from the injury of wind and weather, so that the 39th of Queen
Elizabeth this statute was repealed; yea, the cap, accounted by the
Romans an emblem of liberty, is esteemed by the English (falconers
and hunters excepted) a badge of servitude, though very useful in
themselves, and the ensign of constancy, because not discomposed, but
retaining their fashion, in what form soever they may be crouded.

“The best caps were formerly made at Monmouth, where the capper’s
chapel doth still remain, being better carved and gilded than any
other part of the church. But on the occasion of a great plague
happening in this town, the trade was some years since removed hence
to Beaudley, in Worcestershire, yet so that they are called Monmouth
caps unto this day. Thus this town retains, though not the profit,
the credit of capping, and seeing the child keeps the mother’s name,
there is some hope in due time she may return to her.”

Monmouth appears also to have dealt largely in ale, if we may judge by a
grant of Henry IV. as lord of the manor, to its burgesses. “That the
brewers of ale there, who were anciently held to pay the king’s ancestors
and progenitors eight gallons of ale at every brewing, in the name of
Castlecoule, during the time the king, or his heirs, were dwelling in the
said town, should now pay in lieu thereof 10d. each brewing, except when
the king, his heirs or his councils, holding his sessions there, were
present in the said town, in which case the ancient custom of
Castlecoules should be observed.”

We must not omit an anecdote connected with the history of a free-school,
founded here in the reign of James I. William Jones, born at Monmouth,
as Burton tells us in his History of Wales, was forced to quit the place
for not being able to pay ten groats. He removed to the great field for
adventurers, London, and became first a porter, then a factor, and
afterwards went over to Hamburgh, where he found such sale for his Welsh
cottons, that in a very short time he realised a handsome fortune. He
founded a school in his native place, allowing fifty pounds a year to the
master, and a hundred pounds salary to a lecturer, together with an
almshouse for twenty poor people, each having two rooms and a garden, and
two shillings and sixpence a week. It is said, however, by other
authorities, that Jones was a native of Newland, in Gloucestershire; and
after having made his fortune in London, that he returned thither in the
assumed character of a beggar, to try the liberality of his townsmen. In
this he found them wanting, for they tauntingly told him to go and ask
relief at Monmouth, where he had lived at service. He took their advice,
and being better received there, founded the above charities in token of
his gratitude.

CHAPTER VIII.

Welsh pedigree of queen Victoria—A poet’s flattery—Castles of
Monmouthshire—Geoffrey of Monmouth—Henry of Monmouth—The Kymin—Subsidiary
tour—Sir David Gam—White Castle—Scenfrith—The Castle
spectres—Grosmont—Lanthony Abbey.

“Monmouthshire,” as has been well observed, “though now an English
county, may be justly considered the connecting link between England and
Wales, as it unites the scenery, manners, and language of both.” In
ancient times, it was a debatable land of another kind, when Romans,
Saxons, and Normans, strove by turns against the aboriginal Britons.
During the Roman invasion it was a part of the territory of the Silures,
who inhabited the eastern division of South Wales, and were one of the
three great Welsh tribes; but in the conflict of the Saxons, Gwent (its
British name) played the most distinguished part of all, under its
sovereign Utha Pendragon and the renowned king Arthur. To Gwent,
moreover, if chronicles say true, we are indebted for our present
sovereign lady, who is descended collaterally from its princes. Merrich,
the son of Ithel, king or prince of Gwent, died without issue male,
leaving one daughter, Morvyth, who espoused Gwno, great grandson to Rees
ap Theodore, prince of South Wales, and lineal ancestor of Sir Owen
Tudor, grandfather of Henry VII. “So that it appears,” say the Secret
Memoirs of Monmouthshire, “that the kings of Scotland and England are
originally descended from Morvyth, this Gwentonian prince’s daughter, and
heir to Meyrick, last king of Gwent, who, according to several authentic
British pedigrees, was lineally descended from Cadwalladar, the last king
of Britain, and as our historians do testify, did prognosticate, fifteen
hundred years past, that the heirs descended of his loins should be
restored again to the kingdom of Britain, which was partly accomplished
in king Henry VII., and more by the accession of James I. to the British
throne, but wholly fulfilled in the happy union of all Britain by the
glorious queen Anne; whom God long preserved of his great goodness, and
the succession of the Protestant line.”

We know not what value may be attached to this illustrious ancestry by
Queen Victoria; but her predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, was fond of tracing
her descent from the ancient kings of her country—a predilection which
the courtly Spenser does not omit to flatter in his Faerie Queene.

“Thy name, O soveraine Queene, thy realme and race,
From this renowned prince derived arre,
Who mightily upheld that royal mace
Which thou now bear’st, to thee descended farre
From mighty kings and couquerors in warre,
Thy fathers and thy grandfathers of old,
Whose noble deeds above the northern starre,
Immortall fame for ever hath enrold;
As in that _old man’s booke_ they were in order told.”

The _old man_ have referred to is Geoffrey of Monmouth, of whom more
anon.

It is to the Norman invasion that Monmouthshire owes its castles; for the
great barons were not employed by the state, as had been the case with
the Saxons, to conquer the territory, but were invited to enter upon
adventures at their own cost, and for their own gain. The lands they
subdued became their own; they were created lords-barons over them; and
castles speedily bristled up all over the territory to maintain the
authority so acquired. Pennant states the number for Wales at a hundred
and forty-three, of which Monmouthshire, as the frontier region between
the belligerents, had of course the greatest proportion, amounting, it is
said, to at least twenty-five. In these baronial lands, the writs of
ordinary justices of the royal courts were not current. The barons
marchers, as they were called, had recourse to their feudal lord the king
in person; and the same abuses and confusion were the result which we
have noticed in Herefordshire, till Henry VIII. abolished this anomalous
government, divided Wales into twelve shires, and withdrew Monmouthshire
into the list of the English counties. It is interesting to trace the
chain of fortresses thus destined to become, still earlier than in the
natural course of time, a series of ruins. They extend, in this county,
along the banks of the Monnow, the Wye, and the Severn, and from
Grosmont, diagonally, to the banks of the Rumney; while castellated
mansions, such as Raglan, which we shall notice presently (at first only
a rude fortress), arose in all quarters to keep the natives in due
respect.

King Arthur, mentioned above as prince of Gwent, did not reign at
Monmouth, but at Caerleon; although he is closely associated with the
former place, inasmuch as the gothic room in the priory which we have
pointed out, on the authority of tradition, as the study of Geoffrey of
Monmouth, was in all probability the birthplace of his most heroic
achievements. Geoffrey, in fact, for it is needless to attempt to
conceal the fact from our readers, was an historical romancer rather than
an historian. The groundwork of his celebrated performance was Brut y
Breninodd, or the Chronicle of the Kings of Britain, written by Tyssilio,
or St. Telian, bishop of St. Asaph, in the seventh century; but Geoffrey
owns himself, that he made various additions to his original,
particularly of Merlin’s prophecies. After all, however, if we may
venture to express our private opinion on so recondite a subject, it
seems to us that a monkish history, of the seventh century, must have
been reasonably fertile in itself in wonderful incidents and legendary
tales, and that in all probability Geoffrey of Monmouth deserves less
credit as a romancer than he has received from one party, as well as less
credit as an historian than he has received from the other.

However this may be, the work has served as a valuable storehouse for our
poets and romancers. It has even supplied the story of King Lear to
Shakspeare, who deepened the pathos by making Cordelia die before her
father; whereas, in the original story, Lear is restored to his kingdom,
and Cordelia to life. Milton drew from it his fiction of Sabrina in the
Mask of Comus; and in early life he had formed the design of writing an
epic poem on the subject taken up from Geoffrey by Spenser, in the second
book of the Faerie Queene—

“A chronicle of Briton kings,
From Brute to Arthur’s reign.”

Dryden, also, intended to produce an epic poem on the subject of king
Arthur, but he contented himself with an opera, in which he has sublimely
described the British worthy

“in battle brave,
But still serene in all the stormy war,
Like heaven above the clouds; and after fight
As merciful and kind to vanquished foe
As a forgiving God.”

Pope followed, in like manner, with plentiful materials for the pavement
of a certain place—good intentions; but after all, our national history
has been left to the muse of Blackmore. {106}

Geoffrey was born in Monmouth, and is supposed to have been educated in
the monastery, although the room pointed out as his study is evidently of
a more modern date. He became archdeacon of his native town, and in 1152
was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph. This is all that is known of his
history; and his works, with the exception of his great romance adverted
to above, are confined to a treatise on the Holy Sacraments, and some
verses on the enchanter Merlin.

Perhaps a word may not be amiss on the other worthy connected by birth
with the fame and the ruins of Monmouth. Henry V. passed some of his
earliest years in this county; but in his youth was transferred to
Oxford, where he studied under his uncle Cardinal Beaufort, then
chancellor of the university, and where, as Stowe relates, he “delighted
in songs, meeters, and musical instruments.” He is thus described by the
chronicler, on the authority of John of Elmham:

“This prince exceeded the meane stature of men, he was beautiful of
visage, his necke long, body long and leane, and his bones small;
neverthelesse he was of great marvellous strength, and passing swift
in running, insomuch that he with two other of his lords, without
hounds, bow, or other engine, would take a wild buck or doe in a
large parke.”

Henry is usually treated as a mere warrior; and it is the custom to sneer
at him as such, by those who are unable to judge of the minds of men by
the spirit of the age in which they live. He was remarkable, however,
for more than his military prowess, and exhibited many traits of a truly
great character. Some of these are very agreeably detailed by Mr. Coxe,
who relates also, from Speed, that “every day after dinner, for the space
of an hour, his custom was to lean on a cushion set by his cupboard, and
there he himselfe received petitions of the oppressed, which with great
equitie he did redresse.” His sudden change from the wild licentiousness
of his youth is described by his contemporary, Thomas de Elmham, as
having taken place at the bedside of his dying father; and we need not
remark that in that age, the religious feeling he exhibited on the
occasion was not inconsistent with the ferocity of the hero.

“The courses of his youth promis’d it not;
The breath no sooner left his father’s body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem’d to die too: yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipped the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradise,
To envellop, and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady current, scouring faults;
Nor ever hydra-headed wilfulness,
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.”

Monmouth, as the half-way station between Ross and Chepstow for the
tourists of the Wye, usually claims a large portion of their attention;
and, independently of its historical associations, the delightful walks
in the neighbourhood abundantly repay it. The views from numerous points
are very beautiful; and one more especially, independently of the nearer
parts of the picture, commands on all sides an expanse of country which
seems absolutely unlimited.

“If among these views,” says the historical tourist, “one can be selected
surpassing the rest, it is perhaps that from the summit of the Kymin,
which rises from the left bank of the Wye, and is situated partly in
Monmouthshire, and partly in Gloucestershire. On the centre of this
eminence overhanging the river and town, a pavilion has been lately
erected by subscription, to which is carried a walk, gently winding up
the acclivity. . . .

“I shall not attempt to describe the unbounded expanse of country around
and beneath, which embraces an extent of nearly three hundred miles. The
eye, satiated with the distant prospect, reposes at length on the near
views, dwells on the country immediately beneath and around, is attracted
with the pleasing position of Monmouth, here seen to singular advantage,
admires the elegant bend and silvery current of the Monnow, glistening
through meads, in its way to the Wye, and the junction of the two rivers,
which forms an assemblage of beautiful objects.

“The level summit of the Kymin is crowned with a beautiful wood, called
Beaulieu Grove, through which walks are made, terminating in seats,
placed at the edge of abrupt declivities, and presenting in perspective,
through openings in the trees, portions of the unbounded expanse seen
from the pavilion. There are six of these openings, three of which
comprehend perspective views of Monmouth, stretching between the Wye and
the Monnow, in different positions. At one of these seats, placed on a
ledge of impending rocks, I looked down on a hanging wood, clothing the
sides of the declivities, and sloping gradually to the Wye, which sweeps
in a beautiful curve, from Dixon Church to the mouth of the Monnow; the
town appears seated on its banks, and beyond the luxuriant and undulating
swells of Monmouthshire, terminated by the Great and Little Skyrrid, the
Black Mountains, and the Sugar Loaf, in all the variety of sublime and
contrasted forms.”

It is not our intention to notice any of the numerous seats and mansions
with which this delightful region abounds; but, leaving the tourist to
make such easy discoveries for himself, we would hint to him that, while
at Monmouth, he has an opportunity, without great expense of time or
labour, of making himself acquainted with many interesting objects which
ought to be considered as adjuncts of the tour of the Wye. Between this
place and the Hay the river describes an irregular semicircle, of which
the Monnow, for about half way, may be said to be the cord; and this
latter stream, as the most important and beautiful tributary of the Wye,
has a claim upon the pilgrim which should not be set aside.

This minor excursion, however, will not be complete without diverging a
little to the left at the outset for the purpose of visiting White
Castle; for this ruin is inseparably associated with the other reliques
of baronial power presented by the route. It is within a short distance
of Landeilo Cresseney on the Abergavenny road, where a farm will be
pointed out to the traveller, called the Park, belonging to the duke of
Beaufort, as the site of Old Court, formerly the residence of the valiant
Sir David Gam, who, before the battle of Agincourt, reported to Henry V.
that there were “enough of the enemy to be killed, enough to run away,
and enough to be taken prisoners.” It is said that the children of this
Welsh worthy were so numerous as to form a line extending from his house
to the church. From Gladys, one of these children, the dukes of Beaufort
and earls of Pembroke are descended. The farm alluded to was formerly
the red deer park of Raglan Castle.

White Castle must have been constructed in the earliest period of the
Norman era, if not before the conquest; and the massive ruins that still
remain attest that it must have kept the country side in awe, as the
abode of one of those fierce barons who were the prototypes of the giants
and dragons of the romancers. This fortress, with those of Scenfrith and
Grosmont on the banks of the Monnow, belonged to Brien Fitz Count, the
Norman conqueror of the tract called Overwent, stretching from the Wye to
Abergavenny; and they were afterwards seized by Henry III., and given by
him to the celebrated Herbert de Burgh. Herbert resigned them anew to
the crown, after being imprisoned and almost famished to death. Henry
granted them to his son Edward Crouchback, and they afterwards fell to
John of Gaunt, in the way we have related of Monmouth Castle, and became
parcel of the duchy of Lancaster.

The ruins stand on the ridge of an eminence, surrounded by a moat. The
walls, which are very massive, describe nearly an oval, and are defended
by six round towers, not dividing the courtine in the usual way, but
altogether extramural, and capable, therefore, of acting as independent
fortresses, even after the inner court had been taken. The principal
entrance was protected by a portcullis and drawbridge, and by an immense
barbican, greatly disproportioned to the size of the castle, on the
opposite site of the moat. The name of the place was Castell Gwyn, White
Castle, or Castell Blanch, all which mean the same thing in British,
Saxon, and Norman.

In the time of James I., it is presented as “ruinous and in decay time
out of mind,” and yet, during the reign of his immediate predecessor
Elizabeth, it is described in the Worthines of Wales as “a loftie
princely place.”

“Three castles fayre are in a goodly ground,
Grosmont is one, on hill it builded was;
Skenfrith the next, in valley it is found,
The soyle about for pleasure there doth passe;
Whit Castle is the third of worthy fame,
The county there doth bear Whit Castle’s name,
A stately seate, a loftie princely place,
Whose beauties give the simple soyle some grace.”

Scenfrith is not more than five miles from White Castle, but the access
to it is only fit for pedestrians. The ruin stands on a secluded spot in
the midst of hills, and overlooks the placid Monnow, the passage of which
it was no doubt its duty to guard. It is a small fortress severely
simple, and exhibiting all the marks of high antiquity. There are no
traces of outworks; but the walls are flanked by five circular towers.
About the middle of the area is a round tower, which was the keep or
citadel. Scenfrith seems to have no history peculiarly its own; it was
one of “the three castles,” changing hands with them apparently as a
matter of course, and that was enough for its ambition.

The road from Scenfrith to Grosmont leads through Newcastle; but the
remains of the fortress, from which this place derived its name, are
barely discernible, and its history has for ever perished. In the
absence of human associations, however, it is well provided with those of
another kind. The mount, or barrow, under which its fragments are
hidden, is the haunt of spirits; and an oak tree in the neighbourhood is
so completely protected by such means, that an attempt even to lop a
branch is sure to be punished by supernatural power.

The ruins of Grosmont Castle stand on an eminence near the Monnow,
surrounded by a dry moat, with barbican and other outworks. Its pointed
arches declare it by far the youngest of the three sisters. The remains
now left enclose only a small area; but walls and foundations may be
traced, which show that its original size was really considerable, and
this is confirmed by the presence of a spacious apartment, which no doubt
formed the great baronial hall. In the reign of Henry III. it was
invested by Llewellin, and the siege raised by the king; and, on another
occasion, Henry retreated to Grosmont, where his troops were surprised by
the Welsh as they slept in the trenches, and lost five hundred horses,
besides baggage and treasure. The banks of the Monnow, from which the
ruins rise, are precipitous, and tufted with oaks, and the whole scene is
singularly picturesque. The hero of the village tradition is here John
of Kent, or Guent, who built a bridge over the Monnow in a single night,
by means of one of his familiar spirits. Many other stories as wonderful
are related of him by the inhabitants; some say he was a monk, versed in
the black art; others that he was a disciple of Owen Glendowr; and others
that he was the great magician himself.

At Grosmont the line of the Monnow turns away to the west, towards its
source among the Black Mountains; but the traveller who eschews more
fatigue than is necessary will take the route by Craig-gate and
Crickhowell, and so get into a road which will lead him along the Honddy,
a tributary of the Monnow, to the magnificent ruins of Lanthony Abbey,
the furthest object we propose to him in this subsidiary tour.

“Here it was, stranger, that the patron saint
Of Cambria passed his age of penitence—
A solitary man; and here he made
His hermitage; the roots his food, his drink
Of Honddy’s mountain-stream. Perchance thy youth
Has read with eager wonder how the knight
Of Wales, in Ormandine’s enchanted bowers,
Slept the long sleep: and if that in thy veins
Flows the pure blood of Britain, sure that blood
Has flowed with quicker impulse at the tale
Of Dafydd’s deeds, when through the press of war
His gallant comrades followed his green crest
To conquests. Stranger! Hatterel’s mountain heights,
And this fair vale of Cwias, and the stream
Of Honddy, to thine after thoughts will rise
More grateful, thus associate with the name
Of Dafydd and the deeds of other days.”

“After catching a transient view of the Honddy,” says archdeacon Coxe,
“winding through a deep glen, at the foot of hills overspread with wood
and sprinkled with white cottages, we proceeded along a hollow way, which
deepened as we advanced, and was scarcely broad enough to admit the
carriage. In this road, which, with more propriety might be termed a
ditch, we heard the roar of the torrent beneath, but seldom enjoyed a
view of the circumjacent scenery. We passed under a bridge thrown across
the chasm, to preserve the communication with the fields on each side:
this bridge was framed of the trunks of trees, and secured with side
rails, to prevent the tottering passenger from falling in the abyss
beneath. It brought to my recollection several bridges of similar
construction, which I observed in Norway, which are likewise occasionally
used as aqueducts, for the purposes of irrigation. Emerging from this
gloomy way, we were struck with the romantic village of Cwnyoy, on the
opposite bank of the Honddy, hanging on the sides of the abrupt cliff,
under a perpendicular rock, broken into enormous fissures. We continued
for some way between the torrent and the Gaer, and again plunged into a
hollow road, where we were enclosed, and saw nothing but the overhanging
hedgerows. . . . The abbey was built like a cathedral, in the shape of
Roman crosses, and though of small dimensions, was well proportioned.
The length, from the western door to the eastern extremity, is 210 feet;
and the breadth, including two aisles, 50; the length of the transept,
from north to south, 100. It was constructed soon after the introduction
of the Gothic architecture, and before the disuse of the Norman, and is a
regular composition of both styles. The whole roof, excepting a small
fragment of the north aisle, is fallen down, and the building is
extremely dilapidated. The nave alone exhibits a complete specimen of
the original plan, and is separated on each side by the two aisles, by
eight pointed arches, resting on piers of the simplest construction,
which are divided from the upper tier of Norman arches by a straight band
of _fascia_. From the small fragment in the northern aisle, the roofs
seem to have been vaulted and engroined, and the springing columns, by
which it was supported, are still visible on the wall. Four bold arches,
in the centre of the church, supported a square tower, two sides of which
only remain. The ornamental arch in the eastern window, which appears in
the engraving of Mr. Wyndham’s Tour, and in that published by Hearne, has
now fallen. The only vestiges of the choir are a part of the south wall,
with a Norman door, that led into the side aisle, and the east end of the
south wall; a bold Norman arch, leading from the transept into the
southern aisle of the choir, still exists. The walls of the southern
aisle are wholly dilapidated; and the side view of the two ranges of
Gothic arches, stretching along the nave, is singularly picturesque; the
outside wall of the northern aisle is entire, excepting a small portion
of the western extremity; the windows of this part are wholly Norman, and
make a grand appearance. In a word, the western side is most elegant;
the northern side is most entire; the southern the most picturesque; the
eastern the most magnificent.”

The abbey originated in a small chapel, built here as a hermitage by St.
David, the titular saint of Wales; but for the account of its foundation
and history, we must refer the reader to Mr. Coxe’s Tour, Dugdale’s
Monasticon, or the History of Gloucestershire.

CHAPTER IX.

Raglan Castle—Description of the ruins—History of the Castle—The old lord
of Raglan—Surrender of the fortress—Charles I. and his host—Royal
weakness—The pigeons of Raglan—Death of the old lord—Origin of the steam
Engine.

That magnificent specimen of what is called a castellated mansion, Raglan
castle, is so interesting in itself, and at so convenient a distance from
the river, that it forms an indispensable part of the tour of the Wye.
The ruins stand upon an eminence, near the village of the same name,
eight miles from Monmouth, and cover, with their massive forms, an area
of one-third part of a mile in circumference. This includes the citadel,
which was not contained within the fortress as usual, but formed a
separate building, connected with it by a drawbridge. It was called
Melyn y Gwent, or the Yellow Tower of Gwent. It was of a hexagon form,
five stories high, defended by bastions and a moat, and surrounded with
raised walks or terraces. The building was faced with hewn stone, of a
greyish colour, and from its smoothness resembling polished marble.

The earliest style of this edifice dates only from the reign of Henry V.;
but the greater part was probably added afterwards, when, by the marriage
of Sir Charles Somerset into the house of Herbert, and the acquisition
then of the lordships of Raglan, Chepstow, and Gower, the house of
Beaufort became one of the greatest in the county. The building is of a
description peculiar to that period in the history of Monmouthshire, when
the barons had superadded to their warlike habits those of modern luxury
and magnificence. Externally, the place has evidently been a strong
fortress; internally a splendid mansion. The ascent to the state
apartment is both noble and well contrived; while the circular staircase
in the hexagon citadel, the windows of the great hall, and the
chimney-pieces, with their light and elegant cornices, are in the style
of modern edifices. The kitchen and butlery were connected with the
hall, and indicate, by their construction, the princely hospitality of
the lords of Raglan. All the rooms had chimneys, those of each floor
distinct from the rest. The cellars were extensive—so were the
subterranean passages and dungeons. The architecture is various, some
parts of the most elegant gothic, some heavy and unwieldy, representing
at once the two distinct characters of luxury and war. The southern
declivity, towards the village, was laid out in fish-ponds; three parks
of considerable extent supplied game and recreation; and the proprietor
of this unique mansion was able, through the fertility of his surrounding
estates, to maintain a garrison of eight hundred men.

“Of these noble ruins,” says Mr. Coxe, “the grand entrance is the
most magnificent; it is formed by a gothic portal, flanked with two
massive towers: the one beautifully tufted with ivy, the second so
entirely covered, that not a single stone is visible. At a small
distance, on the right, appears a third tower, lower in height,
almost wholly ivyless, and with its machicolated summit, presenting a
highly picturesque appearance. The porch, which still contains the
grooves for two portcullises, leads into the first court, once paved,
but now covered with turf, and sprinkled with shrubs. The eastern
and northern sides contained a range of culinary offices, of which
the kitchen is remarkable for the size of the fire-place; the
southern side seems to have formed a grand suite of apartments, and
the great bow window of the hall, at the south-western extremity of
the court, is finely canopied with ivy. The stately hall which
divides the two courts, and seems to have been built in the days of
queen Elizabeth, contains the vestiges of ancient hospitality and
splendour: the ceiling is fallen down, but the walls still remain; it
is sixty feet in length, twenty-seven in breadth, and was the great
banqueting-room of the castle. At the extremity are placed the arms
of the first marquis of Worcester, sculptured in stone, and
surrounded with the garter: underneath is the family motto, which
fully marks the character of the noble proprietor, who defended the
castle with such spirit from the parliamentary army: ‘Mutare vel
timere sperno;’ ‘I scorn either to change or to fear.’ The
fire-place deserves to be noticed for its remarkable size, and the
singular structure of the chimney. The hall is occasionally used as
a fives court.

“To the north of the hall are ranges of offices, which appear to have
been butteries; beyond are the traces of splendid apartments. In the
walls above I observed two chimney-pieces, in high preservation,
neatly ornamented with a light frieze and cornice: the stone frames
of the windows are likewise in many parts, particularly in the south
front, distinguished with mouldings and other decorations, which Mr.
Windham justly observes, would not be considered inelegant, even at
present.

“The western door of the hall led into the chapel, which is now
dilapidated; but its situation is marked by some of the flying
columns, rising from grotesque heads, which supported the roof. At
the upper end are two rude whole-length figures, in stone, several
yards above the ground, recently discovered by Mr. Heath, under the
thick clusters of ivy. Beyond the foundations of the chapel is the
area of the second court, skirted with a range of buildings, which,
at the time of the siege, formed the barracks of the garrison. Not
the smallest traces remain of the marble fountain, which once
occupied the centre of the area, and was ornamented with the statue
of a white horse.

“Most of the apartments of this splendid abode were of grand
dimensions, and the communications easy and convenient. The strength
of the walls is still so great, that if the parts still standing were
roofed and floored, it might even now be formed into a magnificent
and commodious habitation.”

The fountain mentioned above was called the White Horse, from the figure
from which the water played. In a note supplied by Dr. Griffin to
Williams’s History of Monmouthshire, it is said that the people who
showed the ruins used to exhibit part of the body of a _black_ horse
which stood in the middle of the water which supplied the castle. The
cause of the change of colour was that during the siege the
parliamentarians poisoned the fountain! The horse, it seems, absorbed
the fatal drug, and not only became black, but when struck by any hard
substance, emitted a fetid smell. It is difficult to trace the early
history of the castle, from the contradictory accounts given of it by
Dugdale; but in the time of Henry V. the proprietor was Sir William ap
Thomas, second son of Sir Thomas ap Guillim, from whom the earls of
Pembroke, Powis, and Caernarvon are descended in the male, and the dukes
of Beaufort in the female line. William, the eldest son of this Sir
William, was created by Edward IV. lord of Raglan, Chepstow, and Gower;
and, in obedience to the royal command, he discontinued the Welsh custom
of changing the surname at every descent, and took Herbert as his family
name, in honour of his ancestor Herbert Fitzhenry, chamberlain to Henry
I. Richard was for some time detained at Raglan in the custody of lord
Herbert, who was a distinguished partisan of the house of York, and who
at length died on the scaffold, at Banbury, in this cause, having
previously been created earl of Pembroke. His son, by the desire of
Edward IV., yielded this title to the Prince of Wales; and, dying without
male issue, the castle of Raglan, and many other noble possessions
devolved upon his daughter Elizabeth. The heiress married Sir Charles
Somerset, natural son of the duke of Somerset, who lost his head in 1463
for his devotion to the house of Lancaster; and he, a brave soldier, a
prudent statesman, and an accomplished courtier, was created by Henry
VIII., for his services, earl of Worcester.

It is probable that the castle of Raglan, owed a great part of its
magnificence to him. In the following reign, it is thus mentioned in the
Worthines of Wales.

“Not far from thence, a famous castle fine,
That Raggland hight, stands moted almost round,
Made of freestone, upright, straight as line,
Whose workmanship in beauty doth abound.

“The curious knots, wrought all with edged toole,
The stately tower that looks ore pond and poole,
The fountain trim, that runs both day and night,
Doth yield in showe a rare and noble sight.”

Four earls of Worcester held almost royal state in this princely abode;
but the fifth earl and first marquis was destined to witness its fall.
He was one of the most devoted friends of Charles I.; and may be said to
have defended not only his own mansion but all Monmouthshire from the
parliamentary arms.

The defeat of the royal army at Marston Moor was the signal for the fall
of Monmouth and of Raglan Castle. Prince Rupert immediately directed his
attention to the marches of Wales, and ordered colonel Gerard to force
his way through Gloucestershire by the Aust passage: but the latter was
opposed by Massey, and defeated. Monmouth soon after fell into the hands
of Massey by the treachery of Kirle, lieutenant-colonel to Holtby,
governor of the town for Charles; and lord Worcester at Raglan, in great
alarm, demanded the assistance of prince Rupert’s cavalry.

Throgmorton, on whom the command of Monmouth devolved, set out with a
party of three hundred horse to surprise the castle of Chepstow, and in
his absence the following brilliant exploit was performed by the
royalists, which we give in the words of Sanderson. “The cavaliers from
Ragland and Godridg, about break of day, lodg themselves undiscovered
behind a rising ground near Monmouth, and viewing all advantages, fourty
of them come up to the higher side of the town towards Hereford, having a
sloping bank cast up of good height, with a ditch, over which they pass,
mount the bank, and climbed over, and so got to the next part, fell upon
the guard, some killed, other fled, and with an iron bar break the post
chain, force the gate, and open it to the horse, who ride up with full
career to the main guard, seized them, and took the rest in their beds,
with colonel Broughton, four captains, as many lieutenants and ensigns,
the committee, all the common souldiers, two hundred prisoners, two
sakers, a drake, nine hammerguns, ammunition and provision, and five
hundred muskets.”

But the fate of the war was now determined, and after the battle of
Naseby Charles was unable to meet the parliamentarians in a general
engagement, and retired to the castle of Raglan. Thence he secretly
departed to commit himself to the Scottish army; and the marquis of
Worcester was besieged at Raglan for six months. The old lord, who was
then eighty-four years of age, on hearing of the landing of his son lord
Glamorgan with some Irish forces, sent the following bold letter to the
parliamentarian committee at Chepstow.

“Having notice that you are not ignorant of my son’s landing with the
Irish forces, I am so much of a father, and tender of the whole
country’s ruin, that if this coming to this place be hasted by the
occasion of your answer, you and not I will be the occasion of the
country’s curse. You have taken from me my rents and livelihood, for
which if you give unbelied reparations, I shall be glad to live a
quiet neighbour amongst you; if otherwise, you will force me to what
my own nature hath no liking of, and yet justifiable by the word of
God, and law of nature. I expect your answer by the messenger, as
you give occasion.

“H. WORCESTER.

“Raglan, May 29, 1646.”

This brought on a long and fruitless negotiation. The old lord saw that
even the master of Raglan was not the master of circumstances; and, at
length, it was agreed that the castle should be delivered up. “Nobly
done,” says Sanderson, “to hold out the last garrison for the king in
England or Wales.” In the articles of surrender, however, the soldierly
honour of the marquis was spared as much as possible, it being agreed
“that all the officers, gentlemen, and soldiers, with all other persons
there, should march out with their horses and arms, colours flying, drums
beating, trumpets sounding, matches lighted at both ends, bullets in
mouth, each soldier twelve charges of powder, matches and bullets
proportionable, bag and baggage, to any place within two miles of any
garrison where the marquis shall mention.”

Soon after this surrender, the castle was demolished, and the timber cut
down in the parks, the loss to the family, in personal property, without
including the forfeiture and an estate of twenty thousand pounds a year,
being estimated at upwards of a hundred thousand pounds. The Chase of
Wentwood, including Chepstow Castle and Park, was immediately bestowed
upon Oliver Cromwell; who appears also to refer, in the settlements upon
his family to other estates in Monmouthshire, parcels of the noble
property of the marquis of Worcester.

In a publication of that day, entitled “Witty Apothegms delivered at
several times, and on several occasions, by king James I., king Charles
I., and the marquis of Worcester,” several anecdotes are given which
throw a strong light upon the character of this fine old lord of Raglan.

“In the midst of the civil commotions, Charles I. made several visits to
Raglan Castle, and was entertained with becoming magnificence. The
marquis not only declined all offers of remuneration, but also advanced
large sums; and when the king thanked him for the loans, replied, Sir, I
had your word for the money, but I never thought I should be so soon
repayed; for now you have given me thanks, I have all I looked for.” At
another time, the king, apprehensive lest the stores of the garrison
should be consumed by his suite, empowered him to exact from the country
such provisions as were necessary for his maintainance and recruit, “I
humbly thank your majesty,” he said, “but my castle will not stand long
if it leans on the country; I had rather be brought to a morsel of bread,
than any morsels of bread should be brought me to entertain your
majesty.”

The following conversation shows the amiable weakness of Charles’s
humanity.

Sir Trevor Williams, and four other principal gentlemen of Monmouthshire,
being arrested for disloyalty, and conducted to Abergavenny, the king was
advised to order them to an immediate trial, which must have ended in
their conviction; but Charles, moved by the tears and protestations of
Trevor Williams, suffered him to be released, on bail, and committed the
others only to a temporary confinement. “The king told the marquess what
he had done, and that when he saw them speak so honestly, he could not
but give some credit to their words, so seconded by tears, and withal
told the marquess that he had onely sent them to prison; whereupon the
marquess said, what to do? to poyson that garrison? Sir, you should have
done well to have heard their accusations, and then to have shewn what
mercy you pleased. The king told him, that he heard that they were
accused by some contrary faction, as to themselves, who, out of distaste
they bore to one another on old grudges, would be apt to charge them more
home than the nature of their offences had deserved; to whom the marquess
made this return, Well, Sir, you may chance to gain the kingdom of heaven
by such doings as these, but if you ever get the kingdom of England by
such ways, I will be your bondman.”

Another conversation between the marquis and Sir Thomas Fairfax is worth
relating.

“After much conference between the marquess and General Fairfax, wherein
many things were requested of the general by the marquess, and being, as
he thought himself, happy in the attainment, his lordship was pleased to
make a merry petition to the general as he was taking his leave, viz. in
behalf of a couple of pigeons, who were wont to come to his hand, and
feed out of it constantly, in whose behalf he desired the general that he
would be pleased to give him his protection for them, fearing the little
command that he should have over his soldiers in that behalf. To which
the general said, I am glad to see your lordship so merry. Oh, said the
marquess, you have given me no other cause, and hasty as you are, you
shall not go untill I have told you a story.

“There were two men going up Holborn in a cart to be hanged; one of them
being very merry and jocund, gave offence to the other who was sad and
dejected, insomuch that the downcast man said unto the other, I wonder,
brother, that you can be so frolic, considering the business we are going
about. Tush, answered the other, thou art a fool; thou wentest a
thieving, and never thought what would become of thee, wherefore being on
a sudden surprised, thou fallest into such a shaking fit, that I am
ashamed to see thee in that condition: whereas I was resolved to be
hanged, before ever I fell to stealing, which is the reason nothing
happenning strange or unexpected, I go so composed unto my death. So,
said the marquess, I resolved to undergo whatsoever, even the worst of
evils that you are able to lay upon me, before I took up arms for my
sovereign, and therefore wonder not that I am so merry.”

“In the correspondence with Fairfax,” says the author of the Historical
Tour, “which preceded the capitulation, the marquis of Worcester seems to
have strongly suspected that the parliament would not adhere to the
conditions. His apprehensions were not groundless, for on his arrival in
London he was committed to the custody of the Black Rod. He bitterly
complained of this cruel usage, and deeply regretted that he had trusted
himself to the mercy of the parliament. A few hours before his death, he
said to Dr. Bayley, If to seize upon all my goods, to pull down my house,
to fell my estate, and send up for such a weak body as mine was, so
enfeebled by disease, in the dead of winter, in the winter of mine age,
be merciful, what are they whose mercies are so cruel? Neither do I
expect that they should stop at all this, for I fear they will persecute
me after death.

“Being informed, however, that parliament would permit him to be buried
in his family vault, in Windsor Chapel; he cried out, with great
sprightliness of manner, Why, God bless us all, why then I shall have a
better castle when I am dead, than they took from me whilst I was alive.
With so much cheerfulness and resignation did this hero expire, in the
eighty-fifth year of his age.”

The second marquis was the author of that puzzling “Century of the Names
and Scantlings of such Inventions as I can at present call to mind to
have tried and perfected.”

“It appears,” we are told, “from a passage in the Experimental Philosophy
of Dr. Desaguliers, that Captain Savary derived his invention of the fire
engine, since called the steam engine, from the 68th article in the
Century of Scantlings; and that to conceal his original he bought up all
the marquis’s books, and burnt them.” The following is the “scantling.”

“An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire, not by
drawing or sucking it upwards, for that must be, as the philosopher
calleth it, _intra sphæram activitatis_, which is at but such a
distance. But this way hath no bounder, if the vessels be strong
enough; for I have taken a piece of a whole cannon, whereof the end
was burst, and filled it three quarters full of water, stopping and
screwing up the broken end, as also the touch-hole, and making a
constant fire under it, within twenty-four hours it burst, and made a
great crack; so that having a way to make my vessels that they are
strengthened by the force within them, and the one to fill after the
other, I have seen the water run like a constant fountain stream
forty feet high; one vessel of water, rarified by fire, drives up
forty feet of cold water. And a man that attends the work has but to
turn two cocks, that one vessel of water being consumed, another
begins to force and refit with cold water, and so successfully, the
fire being tended and kept constant, with the self-same person may
likewise abundantly perform in the interim between the necessity of
turning the said cocks.”

We now renew our onward course, but with many a lingering look at
“delightsome Monmouth.”

CHAPTER X.

Troy House—Anecdote—Antique custom—Village Churches of
Monmouthshire—White-washing—The bard—Strewing graves with flowers—St.
Briavels’ Castle—Llandogo—Change in the character of the river—The Druid
of the Wye—Wordsworth’s “Lines composed above Tintern Abbey.”

Just below Monmouth the Wye forms a sharp curve, the apex of which is met
by the Monnow and the Trothy, in such a way that these two streams,
tending to nearly the same point, but coming from different directions,
and the two sides of the Wye curve, make the place resemble the meeting
of four roads. We have already seen how interesting the Monnow is; the
Trothy, which passes White Castle, and has its source in the mountains
near the Great Skyrrid, is hardly less so; the Wye we have followed from
the summit of Plinlimmon, through a tract of mingled beauty and grandeur,
unrivalled in England; and we are now about to trace its course to the
monastic ruins of Tintern, and through the fairy land of Piercefield to
its destined bourne, the Severn.

The banks are at first low, and the country laid out in level meadows,
framed in at a short distance by swelling hills. Troy House is the first
object that arrests our attention in front by its sombre woods. In the
reign of James I. it was the property of Sir Charles Somerset, the
brother of the gallant defender of Raglan Castle, between whom and
Charles I. a conversation relating to Troy House took place, which is
thus reported in the “Apothegms.”

“Sir Thomas Somerset, brother to the marquis of Worcester, had a house
which was called Troy, five miles from Ragland Castle. This Sir Thomas,
being a complete gentleman, delighted much in fine gardens and orchards,
where, by the benefit of art, the earth was made so gratefull to him at
the same time that the king (Charles the first) happened to be at his
brother’s house, that it yielded him wherewithal to send him a present;
and such a one as (the times and seasons considered) was able to make the
king believe that the sovereign of the planets had now changed the poles,
and that Wales (the refuse and outcast of the fair garden of England) had
fairer and riper fruit than England’s bowels had on all her beds. This
present, given to the marquis, he would not suffer to be presented to the
king by any other hand than his own. ‘Here I present you, sir,’ said the
marquis, (placing his dishes on the table) ‘with that which came not from
Lincoln that was, nor from London that is, nor from York that is to be,
but from Troy.’ Whereupon the king smiled, and answered the marquis,
‘Truly, my lord, I have heard that corn grows where Troy town stood, but
I never thought there had grown any apricots before.’”

Some articles said to be relics of Henry V. are preserved here: the bed
in which he was born, the cradle in which he was rocked, and the armour
in which he fought at Agincourt. There is also a carved oak
chimney-piece from Raglan Castle.

Soon the hills approach nearer, and, covered with rich foliage, sweep
down more suddenly towards the river. On the right bank is Penalt
church, standing on a wooded eminence; and behind it, an extensive common
distinguished for a superstitious custom, derived, as is supposed, from
the days of the druids. When a funeral passed that way, the cortege
stopped at an oak tree, and placed the corpse on a stone seat at its
foot. The company than sang a psalm, and resumed their procession. It
may be remarked that wherever an old oak tree is found in this part of
the country, in an insulated or otherwise remarkable situation, there is
sure to be connected with it some religious tradition, or some observance
whose origin is lost in antiquity. The churches are usually an
interesting feature in the landscape, for it would seem as if their
founders had sought purposely out for them solitary places, by the banks
of rivers or in the midst of groves or fields. In general they are
exceedingly simple in appearance, many having the marks of great
antiquity, and almost all being whitewashed from top to bottom. An
antiquary has ingeniously accounted for this peculiarity, by the custom
the Normans had of constructing even large buildings of pebbles and
rag-stone, which obliged them to cover the inequalities, outside and
inside, by a coat of lime and sand. However this may be, the effect is
not unpleasing; more especially when the rural temple, as is frequently
the case, is shaped like a barn, and without a belfry. Such churches,
more especially in the mountainous districts, still present the rounded
arches, and other peculiarities, which denote that their rude walls were
raised by our Saxon ancestors, if not by the ancient Britons themselves.

We find the white walls, so common in Wales, alluded to as a poetical
circumstance by one of the bards of the fourteenth century, in a piece of
considerable beauty; and in the succeeding paragraph there is an allusion
to another Welsh custom, of more classical authority, that of strewing
the graves of the dead with flowers. The poem is an invocation to
summer, to shed its blessings over the country of Gwent. The following
is the paragraph referred to, with the second allusion, terminating the
ode by an abrupt and pathetic transition.

“If I obtain thee, O summer, in thy splendid hour, with thy fair
growth and thy sporting gems; thy serenity pleasantly bear, thou
golden messenger, to Morganoc. With sunshine morn gladden thou the
place, and greet the whitened houses; give growth, give the first
fruits of the spring, and collect thou blossoms to the bushes; shine
proudly on the wall of lime, full as light and gaily bright; leave
there in the vale thy footsteps in juicy herbage, in fresh attire;
diffuse a load of delicious fruits, in bounteous course among its
woods; give thy crop like a stream over every lawn, the meadows, and
the land of wheat; clothe the orchard, the vineyard, and the garden,
with thy abundance and thy teeming harvest; and scatter over its fair
soil the lovely marks of thy glorious course!

“And oh! whilst thy season of flowers, and thy tender sprays thick of
leaves remain; I will pluck the roses from the branches; the
flowerets of the meads, and gems of the woods; the vivid trefoils,
beauties of the ground, and the gaily smiling bloom of the verdant
herbs, to be offered to the memory of a chief of favorite fame:
Humbly I will lay them on the grave of Ivor!”

The Ivor here alluded to was Ivor Hael, or the Generons, an ancestor of
the Tredgear family of Morgans, whose pedigree is traced, by the Welsh
bards from the third son of Noah. The poet David, ap Gwillim, styled the
Welsh Ovid, loved a lady of the name of Morvid, in whose praise his
prolific muse produced no fewer than a hundred and forty-seven poems. A
rich rival, however, gained the unwilling prize; and the son of song
consoled himself by carrying off his lost mistress on two several
occasions, when her husband, Rhys Gwgan, was with the army in France,
where he served in the rank of captain at the battle of Crecy. For both
these offences he was fined and imprisoned, and in both instances
liberated by the gentlemen of Gwent, who came forward in a body in favour
of their darling bard. The above extract is taken from one of two poems
which he wrote in testimony of his gratitude. It may be added, that when
flowers are planted on graves, it was, and we believe is the custom to
surround the area with stones, which are periodically _whitewashed_.

On the bank opposite Penalt, or a little further down, is Redbrook, upper
and lower, the one standing above the other on the hill side. The stream
from which they derive this name separates Monmouthshire from
Gloucestershire, and the Wye then continues the boundary. The brook,
also, serves the purpose of turning the wheels of some iron and tin
works; but without vulgarising any more than such accidents have done
heretofore, the scenic romance of the river. Wye Seal House comes next,
on the same side of the river, with the hamlet of Whitebrook and its
paper-mills on the opposite bank. Then Pan-y-van hill, and the ruins of
the old manor-house of Pilton—then an iron bridge over the Wye, and then
Big’s-weir House, and its surrounding grove, with Hudknolls behind, and
the ruins of St. Briavels’ Castle on their summit.

This fortress stands in the forest of Dean, and dates from the reign of
Henry I., when it was founded by Milo, earl of Hereford, for the
residence and defence of some of the lords-marchers. St. Briavels,
formerly a place of some importance, is now a village. Its inhabitants
enjoyed several singular immunities which are now obsolete; but they have
still a right of common in Hudknolls wood, a tract of land on the banks
of the Wye seven miles long. They are supposed to enjoy the privilege
through the performance of a strange ceremony on Whit-sunday. Each
inhabitant pays twopence to the churchwardens, who buy bread and cheese
with the fund, which they cut into small pieces, and distribute to the
congregation immediately after the service is ended, in the midst of a
general scramble. They are also allowed to cut wood, but not timber, in
any part of the forest. It is said that a countess of Hereford procured
for them their privileges by the performance of a feat similar to that of
the Lady Godiva.

St. Briavels’ Castle was erected by Milo St. Walter, earl of Hereford, in
the time of Henry I., as a barrier against the Welsh. Two circular
towers alone remain entire with a narrow gateway between, composing the
north-west front. They contain several apartments, the walls of which
are eight feet thick. One is used as a prison for the hundred. In the
interior are two other similar gateways, on the right and left of which
are the remains of spacious rooms.

The governor of St. Briavels—for it became a royal fortress after the
Hereford family had possessed it for about a century—had formerly
jurisdiction over the forest of Dean; and it is recorded, that in his
court the miners were sworn upon a branch of holly instead of the
testament, lest the holy book should be defiled by their fingers.

We now enter a long reach of the river, with Tiddenham Chase Hill rising
boldly in front; till Llandogo appears, a beautiful little village on the
right bank, seated on a hill side in the midst of gardens and orchards,
and with its small church near the edge of the water, peeping through the
trees. This is a scene of quiet beauty, which after the massive forms we
have passed, we term _prettyness_. Whatever be its proper name, however,
in the pedantry of taste, it is not surpassed on the Wye in its own kind.
It is unfortunate, nevertheless, that at this spot an unfavourable change
should be observed in the river—although only in the river considered as
a volume of water, and not taken in conjunction with its scenery. Here
the Wye becomes a tide stream, acted upon by the ebb and flow of the
Severn sea; and in consequence, it is henceforward habitually turbid, and
no longer a current of pure element, subject only to the influence of
rains and freshes.

This circumstance has also its effect upon the moral character of the
river. Large barges are floated up by the tide to Brook Weir, a little
lower down, which is midway between Monmouth and Chepstow, or nine miles
from each; and there they receive the merchandise brought thither in
small inland vessels from the upper part of the Wye. Our romantic
stream, therefore, whose outlines hitherto have been broken only by the
smokes of furnaces hidden among the trees, and whose still life has been
varied only by the corracles of the ancient Britons, and other inland
craft that never dreamt of the breezes of the salt sea, becomes now a
small highway of trade, a sort of water lane by which the corn, and
hoops, and fagots, and other productions of the interior are conveyed to
Bristol. But even the coasting barge, with her blackened sails, and
sixty tons of cargo, is not here “a jarring and a dissonant thing.”
Creeping with the tide along those solemn banks, she acquires a portion
of their solemnity; floating silently through those pastoral vales, she
is invested, for the time being, with their simplicity. Her
characteristics are swallowed up in the character of the river—the spell
of the Wye is upon her!

If you doubt the fact, let us wander on but a little further; let us turn
the point of Lyn Weir, and, looking along the reach beyond, inquire with
what vulgarised ideas, with what broken associations, we find ourselves
gliding into the region of Tintern! Near this spot, the great Druid of
the Wye, the poet of nature internal and external, produced a poem which
in all probability will be read, either with tears or smiles of delight,
long after the works of man shall have completely obliterated those
features of the grand, the beautiful, the simple, and sublime, to which
it is our humble task to point the finger.

“Five years have past, five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very doors, and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees;
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit’s cave, where, by his fire,
The hermit sits alone.

“These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood
In which the burden of the mystery
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

“If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart;
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee.

“And now with gleams of half extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again,
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment, there is life and food
For future years, and so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows, and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise,
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”

CHAPTER XI.

Vales of the Wye—Valley of Tintern—Tintern Abbey—History—Church—Character
of the ruin—Site—Coxe’s description—Monuments—Insecurity of sepulchral
fame—Churchyarde on tombs—Opinions on Tintern—Battle of Tintern.

The “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the
banks of the Wye during a tour,” are justly esteemed one of the
masterpieces of modern poetry; but independently of this, they belong so
peculiarly to the river we are attempting to illustrate, and are
associated so intimately with the character of its scenery, and its
reputation as a fountain of high thoughts and beautiful feelings, that
our volume would have been incomplete without them. It is curious that
this piece, which is dated in the concluding years of the last century,
should be the only fruits as yet given to the world of the poetical
inspiration of the Wye—for the effusions of Bloomfield are not to be
named with those of Wordsworth.

We have seen that where the picturesque character of the Wye is chiefly
formed by its banks, which is the case from Goodrich Castle downwards,
these embrace the stream with more or less straitness, rising in naked
crags from the water’s edge, or throwing their waving woods over the
current. At intervals, however, they recede to some little distance from
either side; picturesque hills forming the side-screens, and hills,
rocks, and trees terminating the perspective in front, and enclosing the
river like a lake. In such cases, the bottom is formed by a green
pastoral meadow, through which the stream wanders leisurely, as if
reposing after former struggles, and preparing for new ones. These
lonely vales are not merely secluded from “the hum, the crowd, the shock
of men,” but from all turbulent thoughts and unholy desires. The world
lives in them only in the recollections of dead things, and feelings, and
persons. They are spots, to use the fine but unappreciated image of
Maturin,

“Where memory lingers o’er the grave of passion,
Watching its tranced sleep!”

The admirable taste so unequivocally displayed by the monks of old, in
the selection of sites for their ascetic retreats, could not have
overlooked this characteristic of the Wye; and accordingly we find, in
the most beautiful of these delightful nooks, standing on a gently
swelling meadow, by the banks of the lake-like river, the finest
conventual ruins in England.

[Picture: Tintern]

Tintern Abbey, though one of the oldest of the Cistercian communities in
this country, was never famous either for its wealth, or the number of
its brethren; and at the dissolution it contained only thirteen monks,
supported by a rental of between two and three hundred pounds at the
highest calculation. {158} It was founded in 1131 by Walter de Clare,
and dedicated to the Virgin Mary; but the endowments were greatly
increased by Gilbert de Strongbow, lord of Striguil and Chepstow, and
afterwards earl of Pembroke. The religious colony consisted of
Cistercians, otherwise called White Monks, introduced into England only
three years before, where they formed an establishment at Waverley in
Surrey. These brethren spread so luxuriantly, however, that in the reign
of Henry VIII. there were thirty-six greater, and thirty-nine lesser
monasteries, and twenty-six nunneries, of their rule.

The founder of the church was Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk; and it would
appear that the choir was finished and consecrated before the rest of the
building was complete, a circumstance not unusual at that time. The
consecration took place in 1268; and in the body of the church the
architecture is of a style long subsequent. The remains of the church
are now the only interesting parts of the ruin, at least as a picture:
and they are in fact what is called “Tintern Abbey;” although there are
still fragments remaining here and there of the other parts of the pile.
The church was built in the regular cathedral form; with a nave, north
and south aisles, transept and choir, and a tower which stood in the
centre.

Complete as the demolition is, there are at least vestiges, even in the
most ruinous parts, which explain the original form, and even most of the
details of the edifice. The very effects of time, as may be well
supposed, are here among the principal advantages. The broken outlines,
the isolated columns, the roofless walls, are all adjuncts of the
picturesque; but added to these, there are the curtains, the canopies,
the chaplets, coronals, festoons, of ivy, mosses and lichens, which give
as much effect to a ruin, as rich draperies do to naked walls.

[Picture: Tintern Abbey]

The tiles which formed the flooring have been removed; and a carpet of
smooth turf laid down, on which fragments of columns, monuments, statues,
and sculptures are scattered. This of course is not entirely the doing
of time; but art is not displayed obtrusively enough to offend. A ruined
edifice, it should be observed, although this is frequently forgotten by
critics, is a work of man and nature _conjointly_; and the traces,
therefore, of taste or ingenuity are not to be condemned, as if these
were exercised in shaping a cliff or amending a cataract.

Gilpin describes Tintern Abbey as occupying “a great eminence, in the
middle of a circular valley;” and another author declares its site,
somewhat tautologically, to be a _flat plain_; to which some idle person
has taken the liberty of appending this marginal note, in the copy of the
work in the British Museum—“Flat plain indeed! It is situated just at
the brow of a richly wooded hill!” The truth is, that the ruin itself is
not to be entirely depended upon, as it contrives to assume a different
appearance even in respect of position, at every turn. Viewed from a
short distance down the river, it actually looks as if standing on an
eminence; but on a nearer approach, we find it in reality not greatly
elevated above line of the water. It is in fact built at the bottom of
the valley, in a spot chosen apparently for solitude and meditation. The
solitude, however, it must be confessed is not now so complete as one
would wish. The inhabitants of the monastery, it is true, have vanished,
but their places have been supplied by poor cottagers, who hide their
misery in the very cells of the monks; and, if this were not enough,
fragments of the ruin have been broken up, or unearthed, for the
construction of other hovels. In the following description will be found
the opinions on this remarkable scene of archdeacon Coxe, who, together
with the less correct, but more _artistical_ Gilpin, have been hitherto
the only recognised authorities of the Wye.

“We disembarked about half a mile above the village of Tintern, and
followed the sinuous course of the Wye. As we advanced to the
village, we passed some picturesque ruins hanging over the edge of
the water, which are supposed to have formed part of the abbot’s
villa, and other buildings occupied by the monks; some of these
remains are converted into dwellings and cottages, others are
interspersed among the iron founderies and habitations.

“The first appearance of the celebrated remains of the abbey church
did not equal my expectations, as they are half-concealed by mean
buildings, and the triangular shape of the gable ends has a formal
appearance.

“After passing a miserable row of cottages, and forcing our way
through a crowd of importunate beggars, we stopped to examine the
rich architecture of the west front; but the door being suddenly
opened, the inside perspective of the church called forth an
instantaneous burst of admiration, and filled me with delight, such
as I scarcely ever before experienced on a similar occasion. The eye
passes rapidly along a range of elegant gothic pillars, and, glancing
under the sublime arches which supported the tower, fixes itself on
the splendid relics of the eastern window, the grand termination of
the choir.

“From the length of the nave, the height of the walls, the aspiring
form of the pointed arches, and the size of the east window, which
closes the perspective, the first impressions are those of grandeur
and sublimity. But as these emotions subside, and we descend from
the contemplation of the whole to the examination of the parts, we
are no less struck with the regularity of the plan, the lightness of
the architecture, and the delicacy of the ornaments; we feel that
elegance is its characteristic no less than grandeur, and that the
whole is a combination of the beautiful and the sublime.

“The church was constructed in the shape of a cathedral, and is an
excellent specimen of gothic architecture in its greatest purity.
The roof is fallen in, and the whole ruin open to the sky, but the
shell is entire; all the pillars are standing, except those which
divided the nave from the northern aisle, and their situation is
marked by the remains of the bases. The four lofty arches which
supported the tower spring high in the air, reduced to narrow rims of
stone, yet still preserving their original form. The arched pillars
of the choir and transept are complete; the shapes of all the windows
may be still discriminated, and the frame of the west window is in
perfect preservation; the design of the tracery is extremely elegant,
and when decorated with painted glass must have produced a fine
effect. Critics who censure this window as too broad for its height,
do not consider that it was not intended for a particular object, but
to harmonise with the general plan; and had the architect diminished
the breadth, in proportion to the height, the grand effect of the
perspective would have been considerably lessened.

“The general form of the east window is entire, but the frame is much
dilapidated; it occupies the whole breadth of the choir, and is
divided into two large and equal compartments, by a slender shaft,
not less than fifty feet in height, which has an appearance of
singular lightness, and in particular points of view seems suspended
in the air.

“Nature has added her ornaments to the decorations of art; some of
the windows are wholly obscured, others partially shaded with tufts
of ivy, or edged with lighter foliage; the tendrils creep along the
walls, wind round the pillars, wreath the capitals, or, hanging down
in clusters, obscure the space beneath.

“Instead of dilapidated fragments overspread with weeds and choked
with brambles, the floor is covered with a smooth turf, which, by
keeping the original level of the church, exhibits the beauty of its
proportions, heightens the effect of the gray stone, gives a relief
to the clustered pillars, and affords an easy access to every part.
Ornamented fragments of the roof, remains of cornices and columns,
rich pieces of sculpture, sepulchral stones, and mutilated figures of
monks and heroes, whose ashes repose within these walls, are
scattered on the green sward, and contrast present desolation with
former splendour.

“Although the exterior appearance of the ruins is not equal to the
inside view, yet in some positions, particularly to the east, they
present themselves with considerable effect. While Sir Richard Hoare
was employed in sketching the north-western side, I crossed the
ferry, and walked down the stream about half a mile. From this
point, the ruins, assuming a new character, seem to occupy a gentle
eminence, and impend over the river without the intervention of a
single cottage to obstruct the view. The grand east window, wholly
covered with shrubs, and half mantled with ivy, rises like the portal
of a majestic edifice embowered in wood. Through this opening and
along the vista of the church, the clusters of ivy, which twine round
the pillars or hang suspended from the arches, resemble tufts of
trees; while the thick mantle of foliage, seen through the tracery of
the west window, forms a continuation of the perspective, and appears
like an interminable forest.”

The reputation of Tintern Abbey depends upon no historical associations.
The romance of its situation is heightened by no romance of incident. It
is simply a part of a picture, and might be entitled in the catalogue of
a gallery “an abbey.” The sepulchral remains it holds retain neither
name nor date; and one of the most entire of the figures (supposed to be
the effigies of the founder of the monastery, which, however, must be
looked for at Gloucester, where according to Leland he was buried) is
disputed the possession of the usual number of fingers on the right hand;
one antiquary, hesitating between four and five, and another according to
it, more generously, five fingers—and a thumb! In no part of the country
has this means of prolonging fame been more constantly resorted to than
in Monmouthshire; but unfortunately, owing to its geographical position
as a frontier district, in no part of the country has the object been
more frequently defeated. As a solitary instance of this among
thousands, we are tempted to quote a fragment which just now catches our
eye, from the rhymes of _Churchyarde_ (a most suitable name), and the
rather that it exhibits the poet of the “Worthines of Wales” in a more
poetical light than usual. He is describing the tombs in the church of
Abergavenny; and after noting the arms and other particulars, proceeds—

“But note a greater matter now,
Upon his tomb in stone,
Were fourteene lords that knees did bow
Unto this lord alone.
Of this rare work a porch is made,
The barrons there remaine
In good old stone, and auncient trade,
To show all ages plaine,
What honour wass to Hastings due,
What honour he did win:
What armes he gave, and so to blaze
What lord had Hastings bin.”

But alas for the frailty of fame even so secured! The dilapidated
monument laughed in the unconscious rhymer’s face through the rents of
time; the principal effigies had been removed to a window, and several of
the “fourteene lords” placed in a porch; and the very name of him whose
memory the whole had been intended to perpetuate, had become a matter of
doubt and controversy! “Some say this great lord was called Bruce and
not Hastings, but most do hold opinion he was called Hastings!”

It may seem almost superfluous to give any further evidence respecting
the picturesque character of Tintern Abbey; but as we design this volume
not merely to act the part of a sign-post, but to save the common reader
the trouble of reference, we shall add two other quotations.

“It would be difficult to imagine a more favourable situation, or a
more sublime ruin. The entrance to it seems as if contrived by the
hand of some skilful scene-painter to produce the most striking
effect. The church, which is large, is still almost perfect; the
roof alone, and a few of the pillars, are wanting. The ruins have
received just that degree of care which is consistent with the full
preservation of their character; all unpicturesque rubbish which
could obstruct the view is removed, without any attempt at repair or
embellishment. A beautiful smooth turf covers the ground, and
luxuriant creeping plants grow amid the stones. The fallen ornaments
are laid in picturesque confusion, and a perfect avenue of thick
ivy-stems climb up the pillars, and form a roof over head. The
better to secure the ruin, a new gate of antique workmanship, with
iron ornaments, is put up. When this is suddenly opened, the effect
is most striking and surprising. You suddenly look down the avenue
of ivy-clad pillars, and see their grand perspective lines closed, at
a distance of three hundred feet, by a magnificent window eighty feet
high and thirty broad: through its intricate and beautiful tracery
you see a wooded mountain, from whose side project abrupt masses of
rock. Over head the wind plays in the garlands of ivy, and the
clouds pass swiftly across the deep blue sky. When you reach the
centre of the church, whence you look to the four extremities of its
cross, you see the two transept windows nearly as large and beautiful
as the principal one; through each you command a picture totally
different, but each in the wild and sublime style which harmonises so
perfectly with the building. Immediately round the ruin is a
luxuriant orchard. In spring, how exquisite must be the effect of
these grey venerable walls rising out of that sea of fragrance and
beauty!”

The other extract belongs to the class sentimental, and is not a
description of Tintern Abbey, but of the mood of mind to which it
disposes.

“The great tree, or vegetable rock, or emperor of the oaks (if you
please), before which I bowed with a sort of reverence in the fields
of Tintern, and which for so many ages has borne all the blasts and
bolts of heaven, I should deem it a gratification of a superior kind,
to approach again with ‘unsandaled feet’ to pay the same homage, and
to kindle with the same devotion. But I should find amidst the
magnificent ruins of the adjoining abbey, something of a sublime
cast, to give poignancy to my feelings. I must be alone. My mind
must be calm and pensive. It must be midnight. The moon, half
veiled in clouds, must be just emerging from behind the neighbouring
hills. All must be silent, except the winds gently rushing among the
ivy of the ruins. I should then invoke the ghosts of the abbey; and
fancy, with one stroke of her magic wand, would rouse them from their
dusty beds, and lead them into the centre of the ruin. I should
approach their shadowy existences with reverence, make inquiries
respecting the manners and customs, and genius and fate of antiquity,
desire to have a glimpse of the destiny of future ages, and enter in
conversations which would be too sacred, and even dangerous to
communicate.”

The only event unconnected with the monastery which is assigned to this
locality is a _battle_. Whether it was fought on the hills above, or
whether the demon of war actually intruded within the charmed circle of
Tintern—or whether the whole is a fable, invented for the express purpose
of desecrating the very idea of the place—we cannot tell. But however
this may be, the fact, or the falsehood, is commemorated in the following
epitaph, which is placed on the north side of the chancel of the church
of Mathern.

Here lyeth entombed the body of
Frederic, King of Morganoch or
Glamorgan, commonly called
St. Thewdrick, and accounted a martyr,
because he was slain in a battle against
the Saxons, being then Pagans, and in
defence of the Christian religion. The
battle was fought at Tintern, when he
obtained a great victory. He died here
being in his way homeward, three
days after the battle, having taken
order with Maurice his son, who suc-
ceeded him in the kingdom, that in the
same place he should happen to decease, a
church should be built, and his body buri-
ed in ye same, which was accordingly performed
in the year 1601.

CHAPTER XII.

The Wye below Tintern—Banagor Crags—Lancaut—Piercefield
Bay—Chepstow—Ancient and modern bridge—Chepstow Castle—Roger de
Britolio—Romance of history—Chepstow in the civil wars—Marten the
regicide.

The Wye being now a tide river, time requires to be studied by the
traveller who would see it in its beauty or grandeur. The shores must be
hidden by the full stream, and the overhanging woods fling their shadow
as before over the glancing waters. Some bargain for the moon, to silver
the tree tops, and send her angel-visitings through the vistas of
foliage. But the truth is, before reaching this point we have become the
spoiled children of nature; we have grown fastidious in our admiration,
and would criticise perfection itself.

With the one drawback of the sludginess of the shores at ebb water, the
Wye below Tintern is as worthy of our homage as ever. But it may be,
that the romance of its rocks and woods impending over the current, and
the deep stillness of the scene, broken only by the rippling sound of its
flow, may harmonize _too_ closely with the holy solitude we have left.
Our sensations are uninterrupted; we carry with us the ruins and their
associations; the mouldering abbey glides upon the stream before us; and
the recesses of the rocks, and deep paths of the woods, are peopled with
the spectres of the monastery. Thus we have no new impressions to mark
our progress, and one of the finest parts of the river escapes almost
without notice.

There is notwithstanding much variety in this part of our course. The
reaches are short; the banks steep, sometimes overhanging in naked
precipices, sometimes waving with romantic woods; while numerous narrow
promontories intercept the view, and cut the scene into separate
pictures. Banagor Crags, on the left, form a stupendous wall of cliff,
extending for a considerable distance, without presenting anything in
themselves to relieve the eye, except here and there some recesses or
small shrubs, painting their interstices. But, as if aware of the
disadvantage even of a sublime uniformity, nature has spread upon the
opposite side a scene incomparable for richness and variety. A bright
green sward, broken into narrow patches, swells upwards from the water’s
edge, till it is lost in acclivities mantled with woods; and rising from
the ridge of these, a mass of perpendicular rock towers aloft to the
height, as it is computed, of eight hundred feet, overhung with shaggy
thickets.

We now turn the peninsula of Lancaut, which comes sloping down from
Tiddenham Chase, till it terminates in fertile meadows; and, on the
right, rise from the water’s edge, with a kind of fantastic majesty, the
Piercefield cliffs, capped with magnificent woods. Twelve projecting
masses of these rocks have received the names of the twelve apostles, and
a thirteenth is called St. Peter’s Thumb. While wondering where this
will end, we sweep round another point, and find ourselves in Piercefield
Bay. To the right a line of perpendicular cliffs is still seen, but
crowned instead of trees with an embattled fortress; which, for a moment,
might seem to have been cut out of the rock. The view is closed by a
range of red cliffs, with the magnificent iron bridge of Chepstow
spanning the river. This is the last of the great views _on_ the Wye;
and if seen under favorable circumstances of time and tide, it is one of
the finest.

[Picture: Chepstow]

Chepstow stands on the side of an acclivity, overlooked itself on all
sides by loftier hills, so that from every part of the town a different
view is obtained. Approaching it from the road which leads from the New
Passage, this position, owing to the singularity of a part of the higher
ground, gives the scene a very peculiar appearance. Nothing is seen but
the red cliffs of the Wye, and the tall masts of the shipping rising
among them; and it is not till close at hand that the houses appear,
shelving down to the river. Archdeacon Coxe observes, that he has seldom
visited any town whose picturesque situation surpassed that of Chepstow;
and according to Mr. Wyndham, another traveller in this district, “the
beauties are so uncommonly excellent, that the most exact critic in
landscape would scarcely wish to alter a position in the assemblage of
woods, cliffs, ruins, and water.” Among these features, the Wye and its
banks are conspicuous. The ridge of cliff on the left bank below the
bridge is remarkable both for its form and variety of colouring; while,
on the opposite bank above, the gigantic remains of the castle,
stretching along the brink of the precipice, give an air of romance to
the picture, not frequently found in one of the crowded haunts of men.

The bridge is of cast iron, and was completed only in 1816. There are
five arches, resting on stone piers; but although in reality a massive
structure, it has the air of lightness, when viewed from the river, which
iron bridges usually possess. The old bridge was formerly composed of a
level floor, carried along wooden piers, except in the centre, where a
massive pillar of stone, dividing Gloucester and Monmouth, was the
support. Afterwards, however, stone piers were substituted for those on
the Monmouth side, before the two counties joined in the erection of the
present noble structure.

“According to tradition,” says Mr. Coxe, “the bridge of the Wye was
formerly half a mile above the present bridge, at a place called Eddis,
nearly opposite to the alcove in Piercefield grounds, and seemingly in a
direction leading towards an ancient encampment which encircles the
grotto. The remains of the abutments are said to have been visible in
the memory of some of the present generation; and the vestiges of a
pitched road were recently found in digging near the spot. I walked to
the spot, but could not discern the smallest traces of the ancient
bridge, and the ground on which the pitched road was discovered was
planted with potatoes. I was, however, amply gratified for my
disappointment by the pleasantness of the walk by the side of the river,
the beauty of the hanging woods of Piercefield, and the picturesque
appearance of the castle.”

The castle of Chepstow is said by some antiquaries, to have been built
originally by Julius Cæsar; which is denied by others, on the reasonable
grounds, that Julius Cæsar never was there, and that Roman reliques,
although abundant in the neighbourhood, have never been discovered in the
town. However this may be, the name by which it is at present known, is
Saxon, and denotes a place of traffic; and Leland traces at least its
prosperity to its situation being favourable for commerce. “The towne of
Chepstowe,” says he, “hath been very strongly walled, as yet well doth
appere. The walles began at the grete bridge, over the Wy, and so came
to the castel; the which yet standeth fayer and strong, not far from the
ruin of the bridge. A grete lykelyhood ys, that when Carguen began to
decay, then began Chepstow to flourish, for yt standeth far better, as
upon Wy there ebbing and flowing, by the Rage coming out of the Severn,
so that to Chepstowe may come grete shippes.”

The castle, as we have said, crowns the brow of a precipice, forming here
the right bank of the Wye; and its walls, on the northern side, are so
close to the edge as to seem nothing more than a prolongation of the
rock. The rest of the fortress was defended by a moat and its own lofty
towers.

The area was divided into four courts. The first, which is entered by a
Norman gateway, contained the grand hall, the kitchen, and other
apartments, on a scale of considerable grandeur. At the south-eastern
angle of this court is the keep, or citadel, now called Harry Marten’s
Tower. The second court contains no architectural remains, except the
walls; but in the third is a remarkable building, usually designated as
the chapel. It seems to have formed one magnificent apartment, probably
with a gallery running along the sides. The fourth court was separated
from the rest by a moat, which was crossed by a drawbridge. Whether a
former building stood here or not, William Fitzosborn, earl of Hereford,
is said in Domesday Book to have built the castle of Chepstow. It was
inherited by his third son Roger de Britolio, who was deprived of his
estates, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment for rebellion. The
fierce character of this Norman baron is well illustrated in the
following anecdote preserved by Dugdale.

“Though he frequently used many scornful and contumelious expressions
towards the king, yet he was pleased, at the celebration of the feast
of Easter in a solemn manner (as was then used), to send to this earl
Rodger, at that time in prison, his royal robes, who so disdained the
favour, that he forthwith caused a great fire to be made, and the
mantle, the inner surcoat of silk, and the upper garment, lined with
precious furs, to be suddenly burnt. Which being made known to the
king, he became not a little displeased, and said, ‘_Certainly he is
a very proud man who has thus abused me_; _but_, _by the brightness
of God_, _he shall never come out of prison as long as I live_.’
Which expression was fulfilled to the utmost, for he never was
released during the king’s life, nor after, but died in prison.”

In the reign of Henry I., we find Chepstow in the possession of the Clare
family; of whom Richard de Clare, surnamed, like his father, Strongbow,
is famous for his Irish adventures. ‘At the solicitation of Dermot
Macnagh, king of Leinster, who had been dethroned by his rival Roderic
the Great, king of Connaught (for there were then five kings in Ireland),
he proceeded to that country with twelve hundred men, to espouse the
cause of the unfortunate potentate: being offered, in the spirit of the
age, his daughter for a wife, and his kingdom for an inheritance.
Strongbow landed at Waterford in 1171; married the princess; and his
father-in-law dying at the very moment demanded by poetical justice,
conquered his promised kingdom, and took possession of Dublin the
capital. The romance, however, was spoiled by Henry II., who, in high
dudgeon at this presumption of a subject, confiscated his estates, and
carried an army over to Ireland, with the purpose of annexing Leinster to
the English crown. Strongbow submitted; abandoned Waterford and Dublin
to his feudal master; was restored to his estates, and made constable of
Ireland. His character is thus described by Giraldus Cambrensis:

“This earle was somewhat ruddie and of sanguine complexion and
freckle face, his eyes greie, his face feminine, his voice small, and
his necke little, but somewhat of high stature: he was verie
liberall, corteous, and gentle; what he could not compass or bring to
passe in deed, he would win by good word and gentle speeches. In
time of peace he was more redie to yield and obeie than rule and
beare swaie. Out of the campe he was more like to a souldier
companion than a captaine or ruler; but in the camp and in the warres
he carried with him the state and countenance of a valiante captaine.
Of himselfe he would not adventure anie thing; but being advised and
set on, he refused no attempts; but for himselfe he would not rashlie
adventure or presumptuouslie take anie thing in hand. In the fighte
and battell he was a most assured token and signe to the whole
companie, either to stand valiante to the fight, or for policie to
retire. In all chances of warre he was still one and the same manner
of man, being neither dismaied with adversitie, or puffed up with
prosperitie.”

By the marriage of a daughter of Richard Strongbow (who had no male
issue) our castle next came into the hands of one of the greatest men of
his time, William, marshal of England, lord protector of the kingdom; and
by the marriage of his daughter (for although he had five sons they all
died without issue), it fell to Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk. This
daughter was Maud, remarkable for having been in her widowhood created
_marshal_ in virtue of her descent, the king himself, Henry III.,
solemnly giving the truncheon into her hands. She was buried in Tintern
Abbey in 1248, her body being carried into the choir by her four sons.

After changing hands several times, Chepstow Castle appears to have been
_sold_ to the earl of Pembroke; whose heiress Elizabeth conveyed it by
marriage, as we have already had occasion to relate, to Sir Charles
Somerset, afterwards earl of Worcester. Churchyarde mentions the fact of
the sale in his uncouth rhymes.

“To Chepstowe yet, my pen agayne must passe,
When Strongbow once (an earl of rare renown),
A long time since, the lord and maister was
(In princly sort) of casle and of towne.
Then after that, to Mowbray it befell,
Of Norfolke duke, a worthie known full well;
Who sold the same to William Harbert, knight,
That was the earle of Pembroke then by right.”

During the civil wars, this place was considered of great importance.

“At first, Chepstow was garrisoned for the king, until in 1645,
Colonel Morgan, governor of Gloucester, at the head of three hundred
horse and four hundred foot, and assisted by the mountaineers, with
little difficulty made himself master of the town, and in a few days
compelled the governor, Colonel Fitzmorris, to surrender the castle.
But the castle was afterwards surprised by the loyalists, under Sir
Nicholas Hemeys, who, in the absence of the governor, by means of a
secret correspondence, obtained possession of the western gate, and
made the garrison prisoners of war. On this event Cromwell marched
against it in person, took possession of the town, but assailed the
castle without success, though garrisoned only by a hundred and sixty
men. He then left Colonel Ewer, with a train of artillery, seven
companies of foot, and four troops of horse, to prosecute the siege.
But the garrison defended themselves valiantly, until the provisions
were exhausted, and even then refused to surrender under promise of
quarter, hoping to escape by means of a boat, which they had provided
for that purpose. A soldier of the parliamentary army, however, swam
across the river, with a knife between his teeth, cut the cable of
the boat, and brought it away; the castle was at length forced, and
Sir Nicholas Hemys and forty slain in the assault. This event was
considered by the parliament so important, that the captain who
brought the news was rewarded with fifty pounds, and a letter of
thanks was sent to Colonel Ewer and the officers and soldiers engaged
in that service.”

In 1645, the castle, with the other estates belonging to the marquis of
Worcester, were settled upon Oliver Cromwell, but were given back to the
family at the restoration.

“For thirty years secluded from mankind,
Here Marten lingered. Often have these walls
Echoed his footsteps, as with even tread
He paced around his prison. Not to him
Did nature’s fair varieties exist:
He never saw the sun’s delightful beams,
Save when thro’ yon high bars he pour’d a sad
And broken splendor.”

All this, it now appears, is a poetical exaggeration, and the thirty
years’ captivity (diminished to twenty years) passed away as easily as
the sense of captivity would permit. The regicide was permitted to spend
his property as he pleased, to enjoy the association of his wife, to
receive visits, and even to return them in the neighbourhood, accompanied
by a guard.

Marten was one of the most zealous of those men who cast down the statue
of royalty from a pedestal, upon which, although re-erected, it can never
again stand securely of its own strength unsupported by public opinion.
He does not appear to have been himself of irreproachable character, but
he was honest at least in theory, and true to his principles, such as
they were.

“Being authorised,” says Anthony Wood, “by parliament, about 1642, he
forced open a great iron chest, within the college of Westminster, and
thence took the crown, robes, sword, and sceptre belonging anciently to
king Edward the Confessor, and used by all our kings at their
inaugurations; and with a scorn greater than his lusts and the rest of
his vices, he openly declared that there should be no farther use of
those toys and trifles, and in the jolity of that humour he invested
George Wither (an old puritan satyrist) in the royal habiliments; who
being crowned and royally arrayed (as well right became him) did first
march about the room, with a stately garb, and afterwards with a thousand
apish and ridiculous actions exposed those sacred ornaments to contempt
and laughter.”

Marten was a member of the high court of justice, regularly attended the
trial, was present when sentence was pronounced, and signed the warrant
of death. It is added, that when Cromwell took up the pen to sign, he
spattered some ink upon Marten; and Marten, when his turn came, returned
the frolic! The two friends, however, were enemies at last. Cromwell
would have made himself king if he had been able, but Marten said, “If
they must have a king, he had rather have had the last than any gentleman
in England; he found no fault in his person, but in his office.” When
the regicides who surrendered to the king’s proclamation were condemned,
they claimed mercy on the score of having given themselves up in order to
save their lives; and Marten, always forward and fearless, added, “that
he had never obeyed any proclamation before this, and hoped that he
should not be hanged for taking the king’s word now.” He was at length
condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but both in the Tower and in
Chepstow Castle he was treated with great lenity. He died of apoplexy in
the twentieth year of his confinement, and seventy-eighth of his age. He
was buried in the chancel of the parish church at Chepstow, and a stone,
with an inscription written by himself placed over his body. This was
removed, however, to another part of the church, by the pious loyalty of
a succeeding vicar; but the stone being defaced, a new one was
substituted, by order of the churchwardens, in 1812, with the original
epitaph.

Here,
September the 9, in the year of our Lord 1680,
Was buried a true Englishman,
Who in Berkshire was well known
To love his country’s freedom ’bove his own,
But living immured full twenty year,
Had time to write, as does appear,

HIS EPITAPH.

H ere, or elsewhere (all’s one to you, to me),
E arth, air, or water, gripes my ghostly dust;
N o one knows how soon to be by fire set free.
R eader, if you an oft-tried rule will trust,
Y ou will gladly do and suffer what you must.

M y life was spent in serving you,
A nd death’s my pay (it seems), and welcome too;
R evenge destroying but itself, while I
T o birds of prey leave my old cage and fly.
E xamples preach to th’ eye, care then (mine says)
N ot how you end, but how you spend your days.

The church was part of the chapel of a priory of Benedictine monks,
founded here soon after the Conquest; and is interesting from its
architecture, being for the greater part in the early Norman style, but
with ornamented gothic windows—and a tower adorned by the taste of the
present age with Greek pilasters!

CHAPTER XIII.

Piercefield—Points of view—Curious appearance—Scenic character of the
place—View from Wyndcliff—Account of Valentine Morris—Anecdotes—The Wye
below Chepstow—Aust Ferry—Black Rock Ferry—St. Theodric—Conclusion.

The romantic region of Piercefield, extending from Chepstow to
Wyndcliff—a distance of about three miles by the sinuous walk, is one of
the grand attractions of this place. It is nothing more, it is true,
than a gentleman’s park; but then the landscape gardener by whom this
park was laid out is Nature herself, who has lavished here her beauty,
her grandeur, and her romance, in the wildest profusion. Art is entirely
subservient to her purposes, opening the view where it was shut in, and
forming paths for the pilgrim foot that would approach to worship.

“In the composition of the scenery,” says the historical tourist, “the
meandering Wye, the steep cliffs, and the fertile peninsula of Lancaut,
form the striking characteristics.

“The Wye, which is everywhere seen from a great elevation, passes between
Wyndcliff and the Bangor rocks, winds round the peninsula of Lancaut,
under a semicircular chain of stupendous cliffs, is lost in its sinuous
course, and again appears in a straight line at the foot of the Lancaut
rocks, and flows under the majestic ruins of Chepstow Castle towards the
Severn.

“The rocks are broken into a variety of fantastic shapes, and scattered
at different heights and different positions: they start abruptly from
the river, swell into gentle acclivities, or hang on the summits of the
hills; here they form a perpendicular rampart, these jet into enormous
projections, and impend over the water.

“But their dizzy heights and abrupt precipices are softened by the woods
which form a no less conspicuous feature in the romantic scenery; they
are not meagre plantations placed by art, but a tract of forests
scattered by the hand of nature. In one place they expand into open
groves of large oak, elm, and beech; in another form a shade of timber
trees, copses, and underwood, hiding all external objects, and wholly
impervious to the rays of the sun, they start from the crevices of the
rocks, feather their edges, crown their summits, clothe their sides, and
fill the intermediate hollows with a luxuriant mass of foliage, bring to
recollection of the border

“‘Of Eden, where delicious paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides,
With thicket o’ergrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied, and over head up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

* * * * * *

A sylvan scene and as the banks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view.’”

And this grandeur is heightened, not diminished, by the view presented in
the midst of fertile fields, and the simple details of rural occupation.
The peninsula of Laucaut, on the opposite bank of the Wye, is a
comparatively extensive farm, cultivated to the highest perfection, and
rich with the gifts of Ceres. It is dotted with trees, and a range of
elms fringes it on the side of the river. Towards the middle of its
pear-shaped area, or rather approaching the isthmus, stands the farm
house, with rocks and woods behind. The principal points of view are the
following:

1. The Lover’s Leap. 2. A seat near two beeches on the edge of the
precipice. 3. The Giant’s Cave, which occupies the centre of the
amphitheatre and overlooks Lancaut peninsula. 4. The halfway seat under
a large beech tree. 5. The double view. 6. Above Piercewood. 7. The
grotto. 8. The platform. 9. The alcove.

But other portions of the grounds not so frequently visited are noticed
by an observant traveller. “From the Giant’s cave, a road winds
beautifully along the brow of the cliff to a grove of lofty oak, beech,
and sycamore, which is cleared from underwood, in the centre of the
extensive forest which spreads beneath the Lover’s Leap. In this
charming and sequestered spot is a cold bath supplied by a copious and
transparent rill, which springs at the foot of the winding cliff, and
ripples down the side of the declivity. The road then descends to
Malridge meadow, on the bank of the Wye, where the river appears like a
lake, and the fertile peninsula of Lancaut rises in a gentle declivity
from the margin of the stream to the isthmus.

“A beautiful walk, two miles in length, skirts this meadow, at the foot
of the stupendous range of Piercefield cliffs, and then mounts to the
house by steps, cut in a steep rock. As the house stands several hundred
feet above the river, the ascent is long and difficult, but the toil is
amply repaid by the beauty and sublimity of the scene.”

From some of these points, it may be observed, the Severn, seen _beyond_
the Wye, appears to be considerably _above_ it; and, however easily
explained the phenomenon may be, an indescribably puzzling effect is
produced by the idea that the latter river, a few miles lower down, runs
into the former. The fact is noticed by Mr. Coxe, whose description is
truly excellent.

“From the Lover’s Leap the walk is carried through a thick mantle of
forests, with occasional openings, which seem not the result of art or
design, but the effect of chance or nature, and seats placed where the
spectator may repose and view at leisure the scenery above, beneath, and
around. This

Bowery walk
Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day
Falls on the lengthened gloom,

is conformant to the genius of Piercefield; the screen of wood prevents
the uniformity of a bird’s eye view, and the imperceptible bend of the
amphitheatre conveys the spectator from one part of the fairy region to
the other without perceiving the gradation. Hence the Wye is sometimes
concealed or half-obscured by overhanging foliage, at others, wholly
expanding to view, is seen sweeping beneath in a broad and circuitous
channel; hence in one place the Severn spreads in the midst of a
boundless expanse of country, and on the opposite side to the Wye; at
another both rivers appear on the same side, and the Severn seems
supported on the summit of the cliffs which form the bank of the Wye.
Hence the same objects present themselves in different aspects, with
varied accompaniments; hence the magic transition from the impervious
gloom of the forest to open groves; from meadows and lawns, to rocks and
precipices, and from the beauties of English landscape, to the wildness
of Alpine scenery.

[Picture: View from Wyndcliff]

“The summit of Wind Cliff, which towers above the northern extremity of
the grounds, commands, in one point of view, the whole extent of this
interesting scenery: as I stood on the brow of this precipice, I looked
down on the fertile peninsula of Lancaut, surrounded with rocks and
forests, contemplated the hanging wood, rich lawns, and romantic cliffs
of Piercefield, the castle and town of Chepstow, and traced the Wye,
sweeping in the true outline of beauty, from the Bangor crags to its
junction with the Severn, which spreads into an estuary, and is lost in
the distant ocean.

“A boundless extent of country is seen in every direction from this
commanding eminence, comprehending not less than nine counties. In the
midst of this expanse, I principally directed my attention to the subject
of my tour, which now drew to a conclusion. I traced, with pleasing
satisfaction, not unmixed with regret, the luxuriant vallies and romantic
hills of this interesting country, which I had traversed in various
directions, but I dwelt with peculiar admiration on the majestic rampart
which forms its boundary to the west, and extends in one grand and
unbroken outline, from the banks of the Severn to the Black Mountains,

“‘Where the broken landscape, by degrees
Ascending, roughens into rigid hills;
O’er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds
That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.’”

Till Piercefield was inherited by Valentine Morris, whose father had
obtained it by purchase, the capabilities of the place were unknown,
principally, we should think, from the view being hidden by a deep veil
of forest. Morris saw everything, however, with the eye of taste; and
without officiously intermeddling with nature, he contrived, by merely
displaying the treasures that before were concealed, and by opening out
paths through the woods to enable visiters to enjoy them, to render
Piercefield the fairy-land it now appears. He seems to have been a man
of a princely mind, but a thoughtless, unreflecting disposition. His
beautiful property was nothing to him without admirers; and he was so
grateful for admiration, that he caused his servants to wait upon and
feast, gratuitously, even the vagrant stranger, as soon as his foot had
entered the magic circle. It is hardly necessary to add, therefore, that
by the time the beauties of Piercefield had become extensively known,
their master was ruined. Various other circumstances, however, concurred
to dissipate a large fortune, and at length he retired to the West
Indies, where he had inherited considerable property. The following
anecdote is told of his adieu to Piercefield:—

“Before his final departure from England, he indulged himself with
bidding adieu to Piercefield. In company with a friend he surveyed
his own creation, for the last time, with apparent composure and
manly resignation. On his return to Chepstow he was surrounded by
the poor; who, throwing themselves on their knees, thanked him for
the numerous instances of his bounty, and implored the blessing of
Heaven on their generous benefactor. Even this affecting spectacle
he bore with silent fortitude, and entered the chaise which conveyed
him to London. But he no sooner reached the Gloucestershire side of
the bridge, than his ear was struck with the mournful peal of bells,
muffled, as is usual on the loss of departed friends; deeply affected
with this mark of esteem and regret, he could no longer control his
emotions, and burst into tears.”

He was made lieutenant-governor, and afterwards governor in chief, of St.
Vincent’s; where his affairs prospered so much that he had almost
recovered his fortune, when the island was attacked by the French. With
his usual nobility of spirit, he advanced large sums out of his private
funds towards the defence, but all in vain: St. Vincent’s was taken, and
Morris Piercefield never could obtain from government either his outlay
or arrears. He returned to England to seek redress; was arrested by his
creditors, and himself a creditor of the country to a large extent,
languished in a debtor’s prison for seven years. His books, movables,
trifles, everything were sold for bread; and his wife sunk under the
horrors of their situation, and became insane. Morris at length
recovered his liberty, and Lord North determined to shame his
predecessors in the ministry, by performing an act of common honesty. A
minister, however, is seldom honest from choice, because the outlay of
money curtails his resources, and because the wilful withholding, even of
a just debt, does not involve his character in society as a man of
honour. Lord North accordingly delayed the restitution as long as he
could; and poor Valentine Morris in 1789, was indebted to his
brother-in-law for a bed on which to die.

We cannot refrain from adding an anecdote relating to one of the family
of Walters, to whom the estate of Piercefield formerly belonged.

“Holding one day a conversation with Mr. Knowles, whom he employed in
building the alcove, he made inquiries concerning the family of
Walters, and asked if any of them were yet living. Knowles replied
that William, the brother of John who sold the estate, was still
alive and in great distress. ‘Bring him to Piercefield,’ said
Morris, ‘and I will make him welcome.’ ‘If you would give him your
whole estate he could not walk, he is so much affected with the gout
in his feet, and earns a precarious livelihood by fishing.’ ‘If he
then cannot come to me, I will take the first opportunity of calling
on him.’ Being some time afterwards engaged with Knowles in forming
an opening in the wood, he saw two men in a boat; ‘Stay here,’ he
said to Knowles, ‘I will cross the river in that boat, and examine
whether the objects I want to show can be seen from hence.’
Descending hastily he hailed the watermen, leaped into the boat, was
ferried over, and on his return entered into conversation with the
men, and inquired their names and condition. ‘My name,’ said one of
them, ‘is * * * * *, I am a native of Chepstow; and that man,
pointing to his companion, is William Walters.’ ‘What, Walters of
Piercefield!’ exclaimed Morris. ‘Yes, please your honour, I am the
brother of John, who sold the estate that you now enjoy.’ Morris
made no reply; but giving a gratuity to each of the men, leaped on
shore, rapidly ascended the hill, and rejoining Knowles, cried, ‘I
have been talking with Walters:’ taking out several guineas, he
added, ‘carry these to him, and tell him that he shall never want
while it is in my power to assist him.’ Knowles suggested, that as
the man was much addicted to liquor, he would render him more service
by a weekly allowance. The next market-day one of Morris’s servants
carried to Walters a joint of meat, and a small sum of money, which
was continued weekly until his death. Morris defrayed the expenses
of his funeral, and his carriage conveyed the corpse to St. Arvans,
where it was interred in the family vault.” {204}

From Chepstow to the confluence of the Wye with the Severn, the distance
is three miles; but although the banks are in general lofty, they possess
no features of interest to the descending traveller. It may be
sufficient merely to name the Red Rocks, the Hardwick Cliffs, and
Thornwell Woods. After these St. Ewan’s Rocks appear on the left bank;
and we glide gradually into the wide expanse of the Severn. A
prolongation, however, of the left bank continues for some time after we
are fairly out of the Wye; the peninsula of Beachley, extending almost
half way across the Severn. From this is the ferry of the Aust Passage,
supposed to have been named after one of the Roman generals. A
steam-packet now plies instead of an open boat, and lands passengers at a
handsome pier at all hours of the tide.

On the Monmouthshire coast, a little way beyond the mouth of the Wye, is
the Black Rock Inn of the New Passage ferry, supposed, notwithstanding
its name, to be as ancient as the other. This ferry was suppressed by
Oliver Cromwell, on account of a catastrophe which took place here of a
very interesting description. When the king was pursued by his enemies,
he crossed the Severn to Chiswell Pill on the opposite side; but when the
boatmen returned to the Black Rock, they found a party of sixty armed
republicans, waiting to follow the royal fugitive. The ferrymen were
royalists, but there was no resisting commands enforced by so many drawn
swords, and reluctantly they took the enemies of their prince on board,
and pulled across the Severn. They landed their unwelcome freight upon
the English Stones, which appeared to be a part of the shore, but was in
reality separated by water, fordable only at low tide. The tide had just
turned. Some moments, no doubt, were lost in dismay, and some in
shouting to the treacherous boatmen, who lay upon their oars to watch the
event. The English Stones disappeared with a suddenness customary in the
flow of that river; and the cries of sixty drowning men were lost in the
rush of the wild waters of the Severn.

Before the Black Rock Inn, and near the mouth of the Wye, is Mathern,
formerly the episcopal residence of the bishops of Llandaff. The church
close by is the one pointed to by tradition as having been raised over
the ashes of Theodoric, the hermit-king, who desecrated the holy solitude
of Tintern with the sounds of battle.

“The manor of Matherne, where there is now a palace, was given to the
bishops of Llandaff by Maurice, king of Glamorganshire, about the
year 560, on the following occasion:—His father, St. Theodoric, as he
is usually called, having resigned his crown to this son, embraced
the life of a hermit. The Saxons invading the country, Theodoric was
reluctantly called from his hermitage to take the command of the
army; he defeated them near Tintern upon the Wye. Being mortally
wounded in the engagement, he precipitated his return, that he might
die among his friends, and desired his son to erect a church, and
bury him on the spot where he breathed his last: but scarcely had he
proceeded five miles, when he expired at a place near the conflux of
the Wye and Severn. Hence, according to his desire, a chapel being
erected, his body was placed in a stone coffin. As I was giving
orders to repair this coffin, which was either broken by chance or
decayed by age, I discovered his bones, not in the smallest degree
changed, though after a period of a thousand years, the skull
retaining the aperture of a large wound, which appeared as if it had
been recently inflicted. Maurice gave the contiguous estate to the
church, and assigned to the place the name of Merthur Tewdrick, or
_the martyrdom of Theodorick_; who, because he perished in battle
against the enemies of the christian name, is esteemed a martyr.”

Our task is now finished: we turn away to seek “fresh fields and pastures
new,” but the murmur of the Wye will remain long in our ear.

DISTANCES IN THE TOUR OF THE WYE.

From the source of the Wye to miles.
Stedva Gerrig 2½
Rhaiader 17½
Builth 14
Hay 15¼
Clifford Castle 2½
Hereford 16½
Ross 14¼

FROM ROSS TO MONMOTH AND CHEPSTOW.

_By Land_.
_m_. _f_. _p_.
From Ross by the turnpike to Monmouth 10 0 0
In a straight line, or as the crow flies 9 0 10
From Ross to Chepstow by the turnpike 24 0 0
By Coleford 21 0 0
In a straight line 16 4 0

The base or supposed tunnel of the hill, between Coldwell and the New
Weir, is six hundred yards; the circuit of the river is four miles two
furlongs.

_By Water_.
_m_. _f_. _p_.
From Ross to Goodrich Castle 4 4 0
To Coldwell 7 0 0
To New Weir 4 2 0
To Monmouth 5 1 0
From Ross to Monmouth 20 7 0
To Tintern 10 4 0
To Chepstow 6 4 60
From Ross to Chepstow 37 7 60

NAMES OF PLACES AS THEY OCCUR IN DESCENDING THE RIVER FROM ROSS.

RIGHT BANK. LEFT BANK.
Wilton Bridge and Castle
Weir End Hill or New Hill Court
Pencraig House and Wood
GOODRICH Court
Castle
Priory or Haverford Walford Church
North side of Coppet Wood Hill Lays Hill
Bishop’s Wood
Ruerdean Church
Court Field Lidbrook
Welsh Bicknor Rosemary Topping
Mr. Warren’s Monument COLDWELL ROCKS
South side of Coppet Wood Hill SYMOND’S YAT
Goodrich Church
Whitchurch NEW WEIR
Great Doward Highmeadow Woods
Arthur’s Vale
Little Doward and Lays House Table Mount
Dixton Church
MONMOUTH
Troy House Halfway House
Penalt Redbrook
Whitebrook
Pen-y-van Hill and Maypole Wye Seal-house
Paper Mills
Pilstone House Big’s Weir House
LLANDOGO St. Briavels
Coedithal Weir Hudknolls
Llyn Weir Brook Weir
Tintern
Fielding’s House
TINTERN ABBEY
Bennagor Crags
WYNDCLIFF and Moss Cottage Fryer’s Rocks
Lover’s Leap Lancaut
PIERCEFIELD Piercefield Bay
Twelve Apostles Tiddenham Rocks
CHEPSTOW Tutshill

FROM MONMOUTH TO CHEPSTOW BY THE NEW ROAD.

Upper Redbrook 2¼ miles.
Lower Redbrook ¼
Florence College 3
Big’s Weir ½
Llandogo 1
Tintern 2¾
Tintern Abbey ¾
Wyndcliff and Moss Cottage 2
St. Arvans 1
Crossway Green 1½
Chepstow ½
15½

The distance from Chepstow to the embouchure of the Wye about three
miles.

* * * * *

J. Haddon, Castle Street, Finsbury.

Footnotes

{41} Duncomb’s Collections.

{63} Monumenta Antiqua.

{85} Whateley’s Observations on Modern Gardening.

{106} Of late years, Mr. Pennie attempted to revive a taste for such
subjects in his “Britain’s Historical Drama,” but without effect. It a
work, however, of considerable merit. Southey’s Madoc has only a slender
groundwork in British history.

{158} According to Dugdale, £132. 1s. 4d.; and Speed, £256. 11s. 6d.

{204} Historical Tour.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Wye and Its Associations - a picturesque ramble" ***

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