Part 3

NEWPORT

Before holding on by road, rail, or boat along the coast, let us take a course through the centre of the Island, on which we can pay due respect to its capital. From Ryde, Cowes, and Freshwater run railways that meet at Newport, where the Medina begins to be navigable, and thence go off branches to Ventnor and Sandown. This junction, then, makes the radiating point of the Isle of Wight’s communications; and all its main roads converge at Newport, which, though not quite so large as Ryde, and not so well recruited by strangers, is a flourishing place of over 10,000 people.

One sees at once that this is no _ville de plaisance_, but the home of all sorts and conditions of men, taking toll on the country round by varied industry. Roman origin has been claimed for it on hint of the straight streets and crossings that give it a more regular aspect than most country towns, shading off indeed on the skirts into wandering lanes and rising outgrowths of the “Mount Pleasant” order. A peculiar feature is the little Quay quarter, where the Lugley stream from Carisbrooke comes in to make the Medina navigable for small vessels freighted with timber, coals, malt, wheat, and so forth. But the tidal river below Newport adorns the landscape only at high water, being too often a broad ribbon of slime creeping between low banks, not beautified by the big cement works lower down, that get their raw material in mud as well as chalk. More picturesque are the Chalk Downs, on the other side embracing the town with their green shoulders and quarried faces.

The central cross-way is marked by a memorial to Queen Victoria. Close by, too narrowly shut up in its square, stands St Thomas’s Church, whose stately tower and high roof pitch makes the boss of Newport from all points of view. This is little more than half a century old, taking the place of the ancient shrine dedicated to the memory of St Thomas à Becket, which was rather unwarrantably pulled down, that “holy blissful martyr’s” dedication being at the same time usurped by Thomas the Apostle, a saint more congenial to our age. Some of its old treasures are preserved in the present structure, notably the Charles I. pulpit, carved with personifications of Justice and Mercy, the Three Graces, the Four Cardinal Virtues, and the Seven Liberal Arts, among which a goat marks the name of the artist, Thomas Caper. Another antiquity is the monument to Sir Edward Horsey, Captain of the Island, 1565-82, showing his canopied effigy in armour with an epitaph attributing to him, after the manner of such, more virtues than he gets credit for in history. The

most beautiful monument is a modern one by Baron Marochetti, to commemorate Princess Elizabeth, Charles I.’s deformed and sickly daughter, buried in the old church 1650; but her tomb had been forgotten till the accidental discovery of the coffin in 1793. She is represented as found dead by her attendants, according to tradition, with her face resting on the pages of an open Bible, the gift of her father; and a happy touch of symbolism shows the iron bars of her life broken by death. Along with this monument, Queen Victoria contributed two memorial windows and a medallion of the Prince Consort by the same sculptor.

There is no room for a churchyard in St Thomas’s Square; but across South Street will be found the old cemetery, close packed with graves. One, seen from the path leading along it, hints at a story too common a century ago, an ugly obelisk to the memory of Valentine Gray, “the little sweep,” erected by public subscription “in testimony of the general feeling for suffering innocence.” Here is buried John Hamilton Reynolds, Keats’ friend, and Hood’s brother-in-law, who himself in youth bid fair to earn poetic fame. He is understood to be part author of Hood’s _Odes to Great People_; and he was to have collaborated with Keats in a volume of Italian tales, not to speak of work of his own like “a runaway ring at Wordsworth’s Peter Bell”; but after penning stanzas not unsuccessfully, he had the singular fate of taking to engrossing as a solicitor. He seems to have grown soured or sottish in his later life, which he ended obscurely as an official of the Newport County Court.

Of the few old buildings left in Newport, the most remarkable is the Jacobean Grammar School at the corner of Lugley Street and the road going down to cross Towngate bridge for Parkhurst and West Cowes. The old portion, for a later addition has been made, is interesting not only in itself, but as understood to have housed Charles I. during his last abortive negotiations with the Parliament, at the end of which the king was hurried away to his doom. Here, at that day, it was usual to receive captains and other great men coming into the Island, with an oration prepared by the schoolmaster and recited by a promising pupil; but one fears that on his later appearances at Newport poor Charles was somewhat scrimply treated in the way of loyal addresses.

Visitors to Newport nowadays come mainly for the sake of Carisbrooke Castle, which is perhaps the chief attraction of the Island, drawing thousands of excursionists on a holiday occasion. Carisbrooke, at one time overshadowing the humble beginnings of Newport, is now almost one of its suburbs, the distance being only a mile or so. From the end of High Street, the way is by the Mall, a dignified parade that suggests Bath or Clifton. The road divides at a memorial cross to Sir John Simeon, Tennyson’s friend and neighbour at Swainston, notable as the first Catholic to sit in a modern parliament, though he belonged to a family whose theological associations were expressed by the Simeon Trust for stocking pulpits with Evangelical divines. Either fork leads to Carisbrooke, that to the right being the highway for the village, and the other going more directly to the castle, under a height on which is the cemetery.

The Windsor of Newport is in itself a place to delight our American guests, a long, steep village street of true British irregularity, giving off straggling lanes of rose-wreathed cottages, through which, in the hollow, flows a clear and shallow brook, bordered by luxuriant hedges, and by notices of “Teas Provided.” The main thoroughfare, mounting up to the Church, shows an unusual number of hotels and other places of entertainment; and the excursion vehicles that rendezvous here in summer rather disturb the peaceful charm of Carisbrooke, which too evidently lives on its visitors.

What is left of the Church, originally a double one divided between the parish and a priory that stood here, still makes a spacious structure, rearing the best tower in the Island, and enshrining some monuments and relics, most notable among them the tomb of Sir Nicholas Wadham’s wife, two generations before the founder of Wadham College. A quaint wooden tablet recalls the career of William Keeling, one of the earliest of our East Indian officials, whose name is preserved by the Keeling or Cocos Islands discovered by him far out in the Indian Ocean, in our time to be occupied by a Scottish family named Ross, who made this atoll group into a thriving settlement. The churchyard has a good show of old tombstones, including a weeping willow, railed in, as fanciful memorial of a former vicar.

A late incumbent was the Rev. E. Boucher James, whose Archæological and Historical Letters made valuable contributions to the annals of the Island. He does not omit to dig up the buried renown of his predecessor, the Rev. Alexander Ross, that erudite and voluminous Scot, now remembered only by the luck of rhyme that made a “sage philosopher” to have “read Alexander Ross over,” yet by his pen or his preaching, or somehow, he seems to have gained a considerable fortune, part of which he left to the poor of Carisbrooke. Any modern reader who cares to tackle this once-esteemed author, might try a spell at his “Πανσεβεια: View of all Religions,” which is still to be seen at libraries, if not on railway bookstalls. Another Carisbrooke worthy commemorated by Mr James was William Stephens, who, after losing his fortune and his seat as member for Newport, took part in General Oglethorpe’s philanthropic plan for settling Georgia, came to be president of the colony, and ended his life rather miserably in squabbles with the disciples of Whitfield and other discontented immigrants. Among this learned parson’s records is the pretty story of Dorothy Osborne, who, travelling with her father and brother in the days of the Civil War, at an inn hereabouts fell in with the future Sir William Temple, and the beginning of their courtship was through one of the young men scrawling on the window some disrespectful words about the Parliament, which led to the whole party being haled before the governor, to be released when Dorothy took the offence on herself: those stern Ironsides did not war against ladies. More than once the late vicar has to speak of his “friend and parishioner,” Henry Morley, who here ended the labours on English literature that made his name well known both in England and America.

Beside the parsonage is a sixpenny show of pavements, and other remains of a Roman villa unearthed about half a century ago, but since thrown into the shade by the larger one discovered at Brading. A more recent sign of Roman invasion is the establishment here of foreign religious communities, driven by French secularism into this pleasant exile. It is no common village that clusters about the tower, looking down “from its centuries of grey calm on the fitful stir and fret around it, and the fevered hopes and fears that must end at last in the quiet green mounds at its feet.”

The Castle stands across the valley, where its grey walls, buoyed by a flagstaff, hardly peep out above the wooded slopes and the thick greenery that floods the moat. This most picturesquely situated pile represents a very ancient fortress, held by the Romans, as by ruder warriors before them, then expanded and strengthened according to the needs of different times, so as now in its half-dilapidated, half-restored state, to form a charming medley of ruinous repair, wreathed with various historic memories, and specially haunted by those of the last year in which its walls were sternly guarded.

The oldest part is the Norman Keep, raised upon a mound that gives a fine prospect over Newport and down the Medina. Beautiful views can also be had from the moated walls within which Carisbrooke’s inner defences were enclosed by an Italian engineer in the days of the Armada. His work appears to have been stopped by the failure of that enterprise; had it been completed after his designs, this would have made the strongest fortress in Elizabethan England; and it enjoys the distinction of a virgin stronghold with no record of capture, unless may be counted to the contrary its honourable surrender by Lady Portland’s tiny garrison to the Parliamentary forces. The outer entrance bears the date 1598. The massive inner Gate-house, begun at the same time as the Keep, shows work of different periods, including recent restoration. Here, as so often in the Island, something has to be paid for admission; and there are further small charges for what an irreverent mind might term the side-shows. The main attraction is the remains of the royal prison that gives this castle its special interest as scene of almost the latest English romance in the history of such “grey and ivied walls where ruin greenly dwells.” Its earliest note

in more misty annals seems to be that here Sir Bevis of Hampton, having overcome his wicked stepfather, Sir Murdour, caused that traitor to be boiled to death in a caldron of pitch and brimstone, one of the facts not now known to “every schoolboy.” But such a well-informed personage is no doubt aware how the most famous event of this castle’s story was King Charles’ confinement here.

After his escape from Hampton Court in November 1647, attended by three gentlemen, the king made for the Solent, and crossed to the Isle of Wight, believing the Governor, Colonel Hammond, to be favourable to him. But Hammond, a connection of Cromwell, and son-in-law of John Hampden, received Charles as a prisoner rather than a sovereign,--at first, indeed, treated with respect and allowed to ride out hunting about Parkhurst Forest, with the governor in his train. Carisbrooke was so slightly guarded, that the king judged it easy to escape when he pleased. At the end of the year, he did propose to escape to Southampton down the Medina, but found himself baffled by a change of wind to the north. After that, he was kept in closer restraint, most of his faithful attendants being dismissed, and the Castle made a real prison. One Captain Burley tried to raise a rescue for him at Newport, but was taken prisoner, to be with legal mockery tried and executed for treason against the king in his parliament.

Poor Charles was soon stripped of what royal ceremonial had been left him. For exercise he walked up and down the Tilt Yard turned into a bowling-green, or round the ramparts, looking sadly out on the green slopes that bounded his view. He spent much time in reading, writing, and gloomy meditation. Now, according to a discredited tradition, he finished that _Eikon Basilike_ which has been almost conclusively shown to be the work of Dr Thomas Gauden. Nor should his admirers press a dubious title for him as poet, in the verses entitled _Majesty in Misery_, that begin by a rather lame invocation--

Great Monarch of the world, from whose power springs The potency and power of kings, Record the royal woe my suffering brings,

And teach my tongue that ever did confine Its faculties in truth’s seraphic line, To track the treasons of Thy foes and mine.

As sympathising attendants he had Harrington, author of _Oceana_, and Thomas Herbert, who stuck by him to the end; while one Osborne, put near him as a spy for the Parliament, seems to have been so far won by the captive’s woes, that he is found helping an attempt at escape. The most authentic occupation for the king’s too much leisure was intriguing with his friends, by means of letters in cipher and other communications through the trusty servants left him, till this secret correspondence was tapped by his custodians.

His cause was not yet lost. While Cromwell strove to trim the captainless ship of State between the extreme Presbyterians and Levellers, there were signs of reaction in the king’s favour. Fresh civil war broke out from the still smouldering embers in different parts. Hamilton with his army of Scots invaded England. Prince Charles with a loyal section of the fleet hovered upon the east coast from his base in Holland; and it seems strange that he made no attempt to rescue his father by a landing on the Island, even when Parliamentary ships guarded the Solent. The queen, on the continent, was hatching war against the distracted government _de facto_, which had good reason for holding her husband fast, lest he should place himself at the head of any of these movements.

In March a plot had nearly succeeded, by which Charles should have broken out and ridden away with a band of loyal gentlemen of the Island, as Mary did from Loch Leven. But he was not so lucky as his bewitching grandmother. He stuck fast in a barred window, and had to give up the attempt. Two months later, the bar having been filed or eaten away with acid, he tried again, but being more closely watched, found Hammond on the alert and double guards posted on the walls. Now confined in closer quarters, the king seems to have lost heart. His uncrowned head turned grey, he let his beard grow, and the once trim cavalier became careless of his dress. Nor had his gaoler Hammond a happy time of it, who is found complaining to Cromwell of the “sad and heavy burden” laid upon him, when he had hoped for peace and quiet in retiring from active service to this backwater of civil strife.

Yet still Charles might have been saved by a little more of the craft that had brought him to ruin. In September he was moved to Newport for a last effort at negotiation between himself and the Parliament, which now saw reason to dread the army as a more formidable tyrant. But hopes of an understanding stuck upon the point of religion, the “conscientious and untrustworthy” king proving firm in his devotion to prelacy. He once again seems to have thought of escaping, in spite of having given his word to remain at Newport. Then, while the treaty dragged itself on, the soldiers, exasperated by renewed bloodshed, raised a cry for sharper measures. Cromwell began to talk loudly of justice. A band of his troopers appeared in the Island to “guard” the residence of Charles, who now refused to escape, as bound by his parole. On the last night of November, the shifty and irresolute king was forcibly carried off to Yarmouth by two troops of horse, to be ferried across to Hurst Castle, and thence, before Christmas, taken to Windsor as prisoner of the army, that meanwhile, by “Pride’s Purge,” had got rid of the moderate party in Parliament, putting England under martial law.

After Charles’ execution, Carisbrooke received two more royal prisoners, Princess Elizabeth and the little Duke of Gloucester, kept in hand as possible figure-head of a constitutional monarchy, now that his two elder brothers were out of the Commonwealth’s power. The treatment of these young captives makes a pleasant contrast to the fate of Louis XVI.’ss children in their harsh prison, though some extremists had proposed that the young malignants should be “apprenticed to honest trades.” A yearly £1000 was granted for their support, £5000 having been the king’s allowance. But almost at once the poor princess caught cold through getting wet at a game of bowls, and a month later was laid, as we saw, in Newport Church. The little duke, addressed as “Master Harry,” was kept here for two years, then allowed by the Protector to join his family on the continent, England being by this time provided with a ruler who made more than a figure-head. This young prince died of small-pox, just as the Restoration was opening brighter prospects for his house. A later captive at Carisbrooke was Sir Henry Vane, a man too good for those troubled times, whose fate was to offend all parties, driven out of his governorship in Massachusetts, imprisoned by Cromwell, and executed under Charles II. Sir William Davenant is said also to have spent part of his imprisonment here.

The scenes traditionally connected with that moving story are shown to visitors. Relics of the unfortunate Charles and his family are preserved in a museum above the gateway, a part of the castle restored by way of memorial to her husband by Princess Henry of Battenburg, who, as Governor of the Island, is _châtelaine_, her deputy occupying a habitable portion as keeper. The ruined chapel of St Nicholas in the courtyard has also been restored, in memory of the king whom modern historians make not so much of a saint and a martyr. Another sight of the Castle is its deep well, from which water is drawn by a wheel worked by a dynasty of donkeys that have the reputation of enjoying longer life than falls to the lot of most monarchs.

Carisbrooke has a station, a little to the north, on the Freshwater line. Beyond this, the westward high-road is edged by a front of dark firs that mark the enclosure of Parkhurst or Carisbrooke Forest, compact fragment of a once more extensive woodland, swelling up into eminences of two or three hundred feet. This is Government property, but ways through it are open for shady rambles, very pleasant on a hot day. A field-path from Newport, starting by a footbridge beside a prominent block of brewery buildings just below the station, leads to the south-east corner of the forest, where workhouse, prison, and barracks adjoin one another to make up a little town. Parkhurst Prison, whose inmates one has seen engaged in the idyllic occupation of haymaking within a fence of fixed bayonets, ranks as a sort of sanatorium among our convict depôts, to which delicate criminals are sent rather than to the bleak heights of Portland or Dartmoor.

The soldiers at the barracks are kept in better order than that Scots regiment that proved such a curse and corruption to the quiet Wight parishes in Oglander’s time. He represents them as billeted in the Island “because they should not run away, being constrained for the most part to serve contrary to their wills”--_volunteers_, as he elsewhere calls them “a proud, beggarly nation, and I hope we shall never be troubled with the like [again], especially the red-shanks, or the Highlanders, being as barbarous in nature as their clothes.” These strangers, “insolent by reason of their unanimous holding together,” brought about so many “inconveniences,” murders, rapes, robberies, and so forth, that when at length they were shipped off to the siege of La Rochelle, after being reviewed by Charles on Arreton Down, the worthy knight can record how “we were free from our Egyptian thraldom, or like Spain from the Moors, for since the Danish slavery never were these Islanders so oppressed.” In the outspoken fashion of his day, he notes how the Scots left behind them a considerable strain of northern blood, which may have been not altogether an evil for a too closely connected neighbourhood, where, if all tales are true, marrying in and in has generated a good deal of physical and mental feebleness.

Keats, who seems to have written part of _Endymion_ at Carisbrooke, denounces the barracks at Parkhurst as a “nest of debauchery.” But at the worst, they may have been an Arcadian nook compared to that East India Company’s recruits depôt near Ryde, described by Scott, in _The Surgeon’s Daughter_, as a gaol of adventurous scum of society swept together by crimps and kidnappers. Sir Walter must have visited or at least coasted “the shore of that beautiful island, which he who once sees never forgets,” when in 1807 he stayed with his friend Stewart Rose at Gundimore on the Hampshire coast. Since his day, the Island has seen various samples of Highland soldiers, and found them not too barbarous either in dress or manners.

By Parkhurst there is a pleasant way to Gurnard Bay, the nearest bathing-place on the coast. Cowes, under half a dozen miles off, may be gained by roads on either side the river, or by boat when the tide serves. The well-shod and wary explorer might trace the Medina upwards through the Downs, and among the peaty bogs of the “Wilderness” on to its obscure source behind the Undercliff. On either side the “quarried downs of Wight” offer fine airy walks with valley villages for goal, or such points as the ancient British settlement, whose pit dwellings may be traced by an antiquary’s eye in the hollow below Rowborough Downs, near the road leading south from Carisbrooke. On the other side of the Medina, by St George’s Down, is mounted the ridge of chalk stretching to Brading and Bembridge.