Ruins and Old Trees, Associated with Memorable Events in English History Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRADGATE PALACE]

Bradgate Palace.

"This was thy home then, gentle Jane, This thy green solitude;--and here At evening, from thy gleaming pane, Thine eye oft watch'd the dappled deer, While the soft sun was in its wane, Browsing beneath the brooklet clear; The brook runs still, the sun sets now, The trees wave still; but where art thou?"

A rocky bank, with scattered sheep, are objects on which the mind loves to rest. Such is the back-ground of Bradgate ruin, the birth-place of the beautiful Jane Grey, the ill.u.s.trious and ill-fated scion of the house of Suffolk, concerning whom it was related by one who had seen and loved her, that even in her eighteenth year she had the innocence of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of middle, and the gravity of old age; the life of a saint, and yet the death of a malefactor. On that rocky bank she had often gazed, for though man pa.s.ses from his inheritance, and n.o.ble dwellings crumble to the dust, nature changes not. Rude eminences extend further back, on which the wild rose and sweet-briar have long fixed themselves, with bramble-bushes, ferns, and fox-glove; they are skirted by low and romantic dingles, where sheep pasture, and b.u.t.terflies sport from one flower to another. He who approaches the old ruin, from the little village of Cropston, can hardly picture to himself that time has done its work in laying low the ancient palace of the Greys. On the left, stands that n.o.ble group of chesnut-trees, under the shade of which little Jane used to play; on the right extends a slate coppice, intermingled with moss and flowers, in beautiful contrast with the deep shade of the old chesnuts, the roots of which are laved by the clear trout-stream, on which stood a corn-mill in Leland's days;--"that faire and plentiful springe of water, brought by master Brok, as a man would judge, agayne the hille, thorough the lodge, and thereby it dryveth the mylee." The mill came into decay when the mansion was deserted, and no one went thither for the grinding of his corn; some of the large stones fell into the stream, and interrupted for a short s.p.a.ce the rapid flowing of the water, and among them grow the water-dock and bulrush, with large river-weeds and trailing plants. Again it hurries on, dancing from amid the roots and broken ma.s.ses of huge stones, clear and sparkling, and fringed with ferns and flowers, the delight of Jane, when she used to watch beside it with Elmer, that "deare friend and schoolmaster, who taught her so gently and yet so pleasantly, that she thought the time as nothing, while she was with him." This streamlet laves in its course the once hospitable mansion of the Greys, and pa.s.ses from thence into the fertile meadows of Smithland.

Beautiful too is the vale of Newtown, lonely yet romantic, the favourite resort of all who delight in the sylvan solitudes of nature--where, as legends tell, Jane used to walk--with its hill and tower in the distance, the nearest neighbours of Bradgate Palace, now, like that, all roofless and deserted. What a contrast, in its loneliness, to the busy tide of care, ever rolling on, in the ancestral halls, the towns and villages, that vary the mighty landscape, which extends before the elevated solitude, with its aged ruin! That ruin was dwelt in once, not by the owl and bat, its sole tenants now, but by living men and women, who held pleasant intercourse with the inhabitants of Bradgate Palace; with dwellers too, in places, the sites of which, gra.s.s has long grown over, or which the antiquary can hardly trace. Woods and fields and streamlets are seen from the same high hill; wide commons and quiet valleys, with dells and dingles; and above them extends the glorious dome of heaven, where light summer-clouds are speeding, and the bright sun looks down on the lovely scene beneath.

Back to my old ruin--for high hills, and far off scenes, are not the objects of my search. Back to my old ruin, which stands alone in its desolation, while all around is verdurous and joyful. Full s.h.i.+ning on it, are the warm beams of a summer sun, and soft breezes shake the tufts of ferns and wallflowers that spring from out the crannies, the rents of ruin, which time has made in the old walls. b.u.t.terflies shut and open their gorgeous wings on the golden disk of that bright flower, which loves to fling its friendly mantle over fallen greatness, and now carpets with luxuriant vegetation the broken pavement, through the interstices of which its broad leaves rise up. Birds are singing on the trees, and bees come humming to gather pollen from the flowers of the n.o.ble chesnuts that droop in all their beauty and luxuriance over the old ruins. Those who have long ceased from among the living used to gaze on them, and gather their beautiful tufts of pyramidical white flowers with which to adorn the open s.p.a.ces in the oriel window. They grew here far back as the reign of Edward, when the great park of Bradgate, with its circ.u.mference of seven miles, came into the possession of the Earl of Ferrars, for the chesnut is a tree of long duration, and the stately group is beginning to decline.

Little now remains of the once princely mansion, the palace, large and fair and beautiful, as wrote the historian Fuller. The walls are low and roofless, broken and dismantled, and scarcely is it possible to point out the different apartments that once resounded with cheerful voices. All is still and lonely now; the tilt-yard is nearly perfect, but none are playing there; the garden-walls, with their broad terrace-walks, remain entire, but none are walking there; gray and yellow lichens, with tufts of moss, dot over the old stones, and so wild and high has grown the gra.s.s, that it looks as if no one had trodden there for ages. A n.o.ble pleasure-ground formerly extended round the mansion, and beyond it was the s.p.a.cious park, where the duke and d.u.c.h.ess, the parents of Lady Jane, with all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, used to hunt. Traces of walks and alleys, and broad s.p.a.ces for exercise or pleasure are still visible, though generations have pa.s.sed away since the members of the house of Groby sauntered among them, and the place has much the appearance of a wilderness; yet the aspect is not that of total wildness, of a spot where the hand of man has never been; indications everywhere present themselves, that where the nettle, and the dandelion, with its golden petals and sphere of down, reign undisturbed, the rose and lily once grew luxuriantly. The house too, how desolate and changed! The earls of Leicester, of Hinton, and of Ferrars presided here; then came Sir Edward Grey, Lord Ferrars of Groby, and then the Earl of Huntingdon. Here also resided the Marquis of Dorset, the son-in-law of him who wedded the Dowager Queen of France, Charles Brandon, "cloths of gold and freize," as sung the courtly poet, when contrasting his own condition with that of the widowed queen.

"Cloth of freize, be not too bold, Though thou art matched with cloth of gold; Cloth of gold, do not despise, Though thou art matched with cloth of frieze."

Tradition points through the dim vista of long ages to a broken tower, as the one where Lady Jane resided, and which bears her name. Beside it is a chapel, wherein are effigies of Lord Grey of Groby, and the Lady Grey, his wife. The chapel is carefully preserved, but all else are in ruins:--the tower, the great hall, the state apartment, the refectory, the tennis-court, nothing remains of them but lichen-tinted walls, or ruins black with smoke. Here then, amid lone ruins and green trees, beside the streamlet's rush and the old grove of chesnuts, where the lavrock and the t.i.tlark, the goldfinch and the thrush are singing, with no companions but rejoicing birds and flowers, let me recall the mournful realities of bygone days.

"Here, in departed days, the gentle maid, The lovely and the good, with infant glee, Along the margin of the streamlet play'd, Or gathered wild flowers 'neath each mossy tree; And little recked what cares were her's to be, While listening to the skylark's soaring lay, Or merry gra.s.shopper that carolled free, In verdant haunts, throughout the livelong day, That beauteous child, as blithe, as sorrowless as they.

"And here, where sighs the summer breeze among These echoing halls, deserted now and bare, Oft o'er some tome of ancient lore she hung,-- No student ever since so wondrous fair!

Or lifted up her soul to G.o.d in prayer, And pondered on his verse, of price untold, Radiant with wisdom's gems beyond compare, Richer than richest mines of purest gold,-- The star that guides our steps safe to the Saviour's fold.

"To fancy's wizard gaze, fleet o'er yon height, Hunters and hounds tumultuous sweep along; And many a lovely dame and youthful knight Gaily commingle with the stalwarth throng Of valiant n.o.bles, famed in olden song; But not amid them, as they rapid ride, Is that meek damsel--trained by grievous wrong Of haughty parents to abase her pride, Ere yet her lot it was to be more sternly tried.

"Here from her cas.e.m.e.nt, as she cast a look, Oft might she mourn their reckless sport to scan; And well rejoice to find, in cla.s.sic book, Solace,--withdrawn from all that pleasure can Impart to rude and riot-loving man: Aye, and when at the banquet, revels ran To loud extreme, she here was wont to haste, And marvel at Creation's mighty plan; Or with old bards and sages pleasure taste, Unknown to Folly's crowd, whose days all run to waste.

"And thus it was--the child of solitude, She grew apart, beneath that Father's eye Who careth for the wild-birds' nestling brood, And decks the flow'ret with its varied dye; Nor, in His presence, had she cause to sigh For the vain pageants of delusive mirth; Trained to uplift her soul, in musing high, From this dark vale of wretchedness and dearth, Aloft, above the stars, where angels have their birth.

"Well had she need! a scaffold was the path To that abode her soul had often sought; Scarce crowned before the stormiest clouds of wrath Rolled o'er her head, with scathing ruin fraught.

Alas, for human greatness! it is nought!

And nought she found it, save a deadly snare.

Enchantment, by the evil genii wrought, Whose diadems conceal the brow of care; Whose tissued robes display a l.u.s.tre false, as fair.

"Beautiful martyr! widowed by the hand That reft thee of thy life, ere yet 'twas thine; Thy grave to find beneath a guilty land, Thou hast no need of gilded niche or shrine!

Fond recollections round thy memory twine-- A sacred halo circles thy brief years; 'Tis thine, redeemed from sin and death, to s.h.i.+ne Eternally above this world of fears: Where Christ himself, thy King, hath wiped away all tears.

"Farewell, thou mouldering relic of the past!

An hour unmeetly was not spent with thee: Events as rapid as the autumn's blast Have hurried onward, since 'twas thine to see The fairest flower of England pensively Expand and blossom 'neath thy rugged shade; And here thou stand'st, while circling seasons flee, A monumental pile of that sweet maid, Whom men of cruel hands within the charnel laid."

_The Author of the Visions of Solitude._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GLENDOUR'S OAK]

Glendour's Oak.

"Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all That once lived here, thy brethren: A shatter'd veteran, hollow trunk'd, And with excoriate forks deformed-- Relic of ages."

Such is the Oak of Chertsey, that celebrated tree, over which the storms of many centuries have pa.s.sed. The sunny bank on which it grows is covered with primroses and cowslips, and among them the little pimpernel and violet lift up their modest heads. Tufts of eyebright, with cuckoo-flowers and sweet woodroof, grow also, beside the hollies and stunted hawthorns, which are seen upon the common; their fragrant flowers and green leaves present a striking contrast to the time-worn tree; the one tells of other days, of ages that have pa.s.sed since its stately stem arose in all the grandeur of sylvan majesty; the other, in their freshness and their loveliness, breathe only of youth and beauty.

The view is somewhat confined, but the eye that likes to rest on a quiet home-scene finds much in it to admire. An ample river winds through green meadows, with trees on either side, and, in the distance, is a church with its solitary turret, and rude porch of the olden time. The gentle murmur of a stream is heard at intervals, and the sighing of the wind among the branches of the aged oak; on high the lark lifts up his song of joy, and the warbling of birds breaks upon the stillness of the place; that of the chaffinch and the throstle, the goldfinch and the linnet, and the sweet full tone of the contented blackbird. They much affect this spot, it is so lone, yet cheerful.

Time was when the site of the old tree resounded with the clang of arms, and rueful sights were seen from its topmost boughs, for the Oak of Chertsey was then in its prime; the now rough and quarried bark was smooth and glossy, and its ample branches sheltered an extensive s.p.a.ce, where sheep could lie down at noon.

A dreadful battle was fought between Henry IV. and Hotspur a short way off, and scarcely had any battle occurred in those ages of which the shock was more terrible. Furious and repeated vollies of "arrowy sleet,"

discharged from the strong bows of Hotspur's archers, did great execution in the royal army; they were showered from a rising ground covered with green sward, on which the shepherds loved to pasture their flocks, and where the village children used to gather cowslips and yellow-cups. But the flocks had been driven off, and the frightened children were in their homes; the rising ground was no place for them. The arrows that were thus furiously discharged did their work, and many fell; the king's bowmen were not wanting in return, and the battle raged with great fury. Henry was in the thickest of the fight, and his gallant son, who afterwards carried misery and desolation throughout the fields of France, signalized himself that day. Percy, too, supported the fame which he had earned in many a hard-fought battle, and Douglas, his ancient enemy, though now his friend, still appeared his rival, amid the horror and confusion of the scene. He raged through the field in search of the king, and as Henry, either to elude the vigilance of the enemy, or to encourage his own men by the belief of his presence everywhere, had accoutred several captains in the royal garb, the sword of Douglas rendered this honour fatal to many.

At length the standard of the king, fluttering high in air, recalled Douglas to the spot, and little heeding the flight of arrows, which rattled on his armour like hail, nor yet the chosen band who were appointed to guard the banner, he and his a.s.sociate Hotspur pierced their way thither. Henry was thrice unhorsed, and would have been either taken or slain, had not his men kept back, with desperate valour, the furious onset of the a.s.sailants, while the Earl of March forced him from the scene of danger. Yet still they sought him, and having beaten down his banner, and slain its bearer, with many of the faithful band appointed to guard the royal flag, victory began to swerve in favour of the rebel army. But in one moment a loud voice sounded far and wide over the dreadful scene.

It proclaimed, "Hotspur is dead," and with this thrilling cry ended the conflict of the day. Douglas, was taken prisoner, and there fell, on either side, near two thousand three hundred gentlemen, beside six thousand private men.

Owen Glendour heard the shout which proclaimed that his friend had fallen, for he witnessed the battle from the top of the lofty oak. He had marched with a large army to within a mile of Shrewsbury, and if the king had not proceeded thither with great haste, he would have joined his friend Hotspur. A broad and rapid river lay in front, and he pressed on to cross, if possible, before the beaming helmets, which he saw advancing rapidly over the plain country, could reach the town. But a heavy rain had fallen, and the water was exceedingly high; the ford at Shelton was, in consequence, impa.s.sable, and the bridge at Shrewsbury was strongly guarded. Owen Glendour therefore halted. He saw with grief the forces of Hotspur drawn up in order of battle immediately before him, for he knew that he could lend no a.s.sistance, and, when the next morning dawned, the armies had joined fight.

Owen Glendour then climbed the large oak; of which the topmost branches afforded a full view of the battle-field and the surrounding country. He saw from thence the furious onset, and heard the shock of battle; horses and men contending, and the dreadful shouts which, reverberating from the hollows of the hills, sounded like distant thunder; he heard, too, the one loud voice which told that his friend had fallen.

Owen Glendour returned to his castle in the Vale of Glyndwrdwey: it was situated amid the wildest and the sternest scenery, beside the torrent's roar, and surrounded with all the magnificence of rock and fell. There did he soon a.s.semble to his standard those ardent spirits who preferred death to slavery, and who vowed that the blue hills and the pleasant valleys of their fathers' land should never be subjected to the yoke of a usurper.

Daring adventures, and strange escapes by flood and field, marked his onward course. The English regarded him with superst.i.tious dread; the Welch looked to him as one possessed of more than mortal power; and thus during fifteen years did he resist the aggressions of a monarch, whose prowess had long been known, the efforts too of a chivalrous n.o.bility, and a martial people.

Yet Glendour was not designed by nature for a life of daring hardihood and of murderous intent. He was amiable and beloved in private life, and, his parents having designed him for the bar, he was qualifying himself as an able lawyer, when intelligence was brought that Henry IV. had granted a large portion of his paternal acres to Lord Grey of Rhuthin, that treacherous n.o.bleman who had long sought to prejudice the king against him. Owen Glendour closed the book that lay before him; he declared that a descendant of the Princes of Powys was not to be so treated; and having drawn his sword from out the scabbard, he sheathed it not again while life remained. A fierce battle, on the banks of the Evyrnwy, made Lord Grey his prisoner, and the payment of a thousand marks, with the marriage of his daughter to that n.o.bleman, alone obtained for him his liberty.

It was noted that disasters of various kinds attended the expeditions of King Henry into Wales. The natives of the country attributed them to the magic powers of Owen Glendour, whom they believed able to control the elements, and who, when his men grew faint and weary, and he himself wished for a short respite from the toils of war, could pour upon the bands of Henry the fury of the northern storm. It was said that he could loose the secret springs of the wild cataract, and cause it to send forth such a flood of water, that the moors and valleys, through which the invader had to pa.s.s, would seem like an inland sea. Some believed that he could even summon the loud thunders from their secret cell, and cause the forked lightning to strike terror into the stoutest heart; that in one moment he could not only bring to his a.s.sistance a wild storm from off the hills, but that, when the beautiful glens and woods appeared in all their loveliness and repose, and every hill was lighted up with a glorious sunbeam, he could suddenly obscure them with the darkest shades of night.

Thus men thought; they saw not, in the strange and terrible calamities which continually opposed the progress of King Henry, a continuation of events which had attended him since the death of Richard. Richard had been the friend and benefactor of Glendour; he had fought for him while living, and now that he was gone, he sought not only to revenge his death, but to preserve his native land from the usurpations of a foreign yoke. He performed, in consequence, such feats of valour, bore up beneath the pressure of such heavy trials, and devised such masterly schemes to circ.u.mvent the devices of the enemy, as his countrymen believed could neither be planned nor achieved by mortal mind or arm. They knew not the strength and the enthusiasm which injury and oppression will produce in either. Excited, therefore, to the highest pitch of feeling, Owen inspired his men with much of his own energy: aided by them, he foiled the power of the wary and martial Henry, and drove him ignominiously from the field. At the head of his choicest armies, the English king had often to retreat before a handful of men, whose chief had been unused to a military life; and though Glendour and his adherents were reduced at times to take shelter in caves and fastnesses, known only to themselves, they emerged again, and fell with terrible fury on the English, in moments, too, when they thought themselves most secure from their aggressions.

Had Glendour lived in peaceful times, he would have been a poet of no ordinary rank. The bard Rhys Coch, was his cotemporary and chosen a.s.sociate in his days of woes and wanderings. A stone still remains near Bethgellert, where the bard used to sit and pour forth the melody of his harp to his own inspiring lays. There, tradition says, Glendour would sit beside him in that beloved retreat, where around them was all the stern majesty of nature, in her darkest, her loneliest, her loveliest moods. The rapid Gwinan prattled near them over her rocky bed, laving on one side green meadows, filled with cowslips and cuckoo-flowers, where cattle feed, and skirted with groves of oak, and ash, and birch; on the other, its bright waters race beside a wild and heathy tract of moorland, which slopes upward to the very base of Snowdon, that king of mountains, whose awful brow is often hidden in the clouds.

The bard, too, had suffered much, and had fled from cave to cave, and from hill to hill, pursued by the English forces, who sought to still those bold and pathetic strains--those deep laments, which aroused his countrymen to fresh deeds of valour against their oppressors. His enemies were not permitted to accomplish their designs. He continually eluded their pursuit, and died at length in peace, amid his beloved haunts of Bethgellert.

Here then stands the ancient tree, though reft of its former greatness.

More than four hundred years have elapsed since Owen Glendour climbed its lofty trunk, and surveyed the battle-field of Tewksbury; since his bannered hosts were stationed round, and he heard the shout which told him that his friend had fallen.

From this tree, also, might be heard, in ancient times, the sound of the workman's hammer, for King Henry appointed that a chapel should be built, and two priests placed within it, to pray both morning and evening for the souls of those who had been slain. Rapidly the chapel rose, for men thought that they did good service to their Maker when they wrought in such holy work; and the chapel, being enlarged in after years, became a handsome parish church. The condition of the time-worn tree, and of the church are somewhat similar. The tree is grown so hollow that it seems to stand on little more than a circle of bark, yet life still lingers, green leaves appear in the spring season, and acorns are gathered from its branches in the autumn. Great part of the once stately building has likewise fallen to decay; ivy grows luxuriantly over the broken walls, and sparrows build their nests among the matted branches; but Divine wors.h.i.+p is to this day still carried on in the part that remains entire. The country people and neighbouring gentry meet there; they bear the name of Englishmen, though blending in themselves varied and dissimilar races--the ancient Briton and the Roman, the Dane, the Saxon, and the Norman. But how widely different in their habits and their manners from those who a.s.sisted in building the ancient chapel, and those who a.s.sembled within its walls when the chapel was completed!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Yew-Trees of Skelldale.]

The Yew-Trees of Skelldale.

"Worthy indeed of note Are those fraternal yews of lone Skelldale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine, Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane; a pillared shade, Upon whose gra.s.sless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially, beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes May meet at noon-tide: Fear and trembling hope, Silence and foresight--death the skeleton, And time the shadow--there to celebrate, As in a natural temple, scatter'd o'er With altars undisturb'd of mossy stone, United wors.h.i.+p; or in mute repose To lie and listen to the mountain stream."

WORDSWORTH.

The busy hum of men has long ceased from the spot where stand the fraternal yew-trees. Ages have pa.s.sed away since the illuminator sat intent on his pleasant labours in the ruin hard by--since he put aside his liquid gold and Tyrian purple, and laid him down to rest in the burying-place beside the abbey. The copier of ma.n.u.scripts closed his book there, more than five hundred years ago; he, too, is gone, and with him all those who lived while he was living. The abbot, who presided in regal state; the brotherhood, in their cowls and gowns; learned men, who studied in their quiet cells, and the busy comers and goers, who worked either in the abbey-fields, or performed such menial labours as the condition of the place required--not a trace of them remains: even the stately monastery is in ruins, but the yew-trees still cast the shadow of their n.o.ble branches on the gra.s.sless floor of red-brown hue. Their history is inseparably connected with that of the ruined abbey, for they stood in their present site, and afforded a shelter to its founders, long before one stone was laid upon another of the stately building. Those who pa.s.sed in the days of the Saxon king, Ethelbald, through the Wolds of Yorks.h.i.+re, near Skelldale, in their way to Ripon, might see a company of men a.s.sembled in a wild and romantic spot, watered by a rivulet, and surrounded with rocks and woods.