Part 18

Amongst many relics of other days and ways I have several of those old-fashioned wedding and betrothal rings which almost invariably contained a motto inscribed upon their inner surface—posy rings as they were called. The word “posy,” it may be added, is simply an abbreviated form of “poesy,” which Richardson, in his _Dictionary of Derivatives_, defines as “a brief poetical sentiment,” especially one inscribed on a ring. The custom of inscribing a motto or posy upon brooches survived in Scotland up to comparatively modern times. Those known as Luckenbooth brooches were sold in the “Luckenbooths” round St. Giles’ church in Edinburgh, and were used as love-tokens and betrothal gifts. On them were inscriptions such as—

While lyfe is myne my heart is thyne, Of earthly joys thou art my choise;

lines which also occur on many old English rings. Some ladies on the death of their husbands used to convert their wedding or posy ring into a mourning one. This was effected by engraving an elongated skeleton outside the ring, its bones being brought into prominence by a background of black enamel. Occasionally a death’s-head alone was engraved outside.

Another kind of ring which is now obsolete was the Serjeant’s ring. It was an old legal custom for a Serjeant-at-law, on his appointment, to present a ring to the Crown, and also a ring of lesser weight than the royal ring to each of his brother Serjeants. This custom was only abolished in 1873, when the office of Serjeant-at-Law was done away with. At Windsor Castle there are said to be candlesticks formed entirely of Serjeants’ rings placed one above the other. Unlike the posy rings, the inscription upon the Serjeants’ rings (a flat band of gold with a moulding at top and bottom) is placed upon the exterior surface—the motto being, as a rule, in Latin and very seldom in English. _Vivat Rex et Lex_ and _Lex regis præsidium_ are two to be found upon ancient rings of this kind.

Posy rings, though usually of gold, are sometimes found to be made of silver, and even of brass. For the most part quite plain, some few have decorative patterns on the outside. Besides betrothal and wedding rings, there were also posy rings made to be given as presents on St. Valentine’s Day; a certain number of these engraved with suitable inscriptions were, in all probability, always kept in stock by the goldsmiths of other days.

A curious motto found on a posy ring is—

Fare God and lye abed till Noone;

whilst

Like this my love shall endless prove

is one of the prettiest.

Lady Cathcart, on marrying her fourth husband in 1713, had “If I survive I will have five” engraved upon her wedding ring.

Since my young days the prices of many things have changed very considerably indeed. On the whole the necessities of life have certainly become cheaper, and its minor luxuries have been brought well within the reach of those boasting but a slender purse. When I was a child we used to burn mutton-fat candles in our nursery, and it was only in 1835, as I find from a letter of my dear old governess, that we abandoned this form of illumination for a little lamp trimmed with the best sperm oil. In still older days candles made of deer-fat used, I believe, to be burnt in country houses, where the whole problem of lighting was no easy matter.

The cumbersome oil lamps of pre-electric light days were a great source of trouble and expense, apart from the danger of fire which they sometimes caused owing to careless handling. In large houses men had to be specially told off to attend to the lamps. I remember the uncle of the present Duke of Rutland showing me the lamp-room at Belvoir full of gigantic barrels of oil; at the same time he told me that no less than six men were kept constantly employed at nothing else but looking after the lamps. This Duke of Rutland was very much devoted to hunting and had several very severe falls. My husband and myself used often to go to Belvoir, and I remember that on two occasions, when going to visit there, we turned back at Grantham, it being there reported to us that the Duke, having had a terrible fall, was hovering between life and death; nevertheless he survived both these accidents. The late Duke (Lord John Manners) I always considered one of the most high-bred-looking men I ever saw in my life. I knew him in youth and in old age, and in both he was ever the typical English aristocrat; his polished and courteous address—the heritage of his race still preserved in the present generation—will always linger pleasantly in my memory.

There was naturally something much more picturesque about old country life than is the case to-day, when, owing to railways and motor cars, people are kept in constant and close touch with town. The poacher, perhaps, is now the sole anachronism, and even he, I fancy, has discarded his old-world raiding ways in favour of more calculating and scientific methods. Poaching in old days was regarded by the country-folk much as smuggling had been by their forebears—that is, with a certain sneaking feeling of sympathetic toleration.

Many years ago, when I lived in Sussex, stories of the smugglers who formerly abounded along the coast were still told by those who had actually witnessed and, in some cases, taken part in their operations. Smuggling, as a matter of fact, hurting as it did no one but the Revenue, was not regarded with any particular horror, and the long trains of heavily loaded carts escorted by the smugglers were generally interfered with by no one except the Revenue officers and the coastguardsmen. One of the favourite haunts of the “Free Traders” was in Parham Park, and old Baroness de la Zouche used to say that, when she was a little girl, walking one day in the park with her governess, some smugglers had made her open a gate in order to facilitate the passage of a long train of pack-horses loaded with kegs, then on its way to a remote part of the park near the heronry. In Eridge Park, also, caves still exist where smugglers used to store their bales of goods. During the eighteenth century the house was not inhabited, and the surrounding park was practically a wilderness, so that these caves formed a most excellent and secure retreat. There runs beneath the present Eridge Castle a long passage, the entrance to which is far distant from the house, and as its existence has never been accounted for it is not improbable that smugglers may have had something to do with its construction; it is almost certain, at least, that they knew of it and kept it in repair.

The officers of the Customs, who were called “riding officers,” though sometimes assisted by dragoons, could do but little against the smugglers, who sometimes indulged in very savage reprisals. The last occasion when life was lost in a smuggling affray was in 1838 at Camber Castle, but it was some time before that date that the last great party of smugglers passed through Petworth—sixty well-armed men, pistols in their belts and cutlasses by their sides. They escorted two carts and a number of horses loaded with tubs of brandy and hollands, whilst a few of them also had bales of silk slung across their backs. This picturesque procession—the funeral cortège, as it were, of smuggling—came into the old town on a Sunday morning, whilst the inhabitants were at church, and made its way through the streets in a very leisurely fashion, some of the smugglers even halting at the inns to have a drink, for it was in the days when licensing reform was as yet a thing of the future. The last of the smugglers were armed chiefly with “bats”—thick ash poles about six feet long. An old smuggler, Smithurst by name, killed in a fight at Bexhill in 1828, was found with his bat almost hacked to pieces but still grasped tightly in his hands.

A particularly ferocious murder committed by smugglers was that of some Custom House officers in 1749, when five men actually robbed the Custom House at Poole. The criminals were eventually caught, hung, and gibbeted in chains, one only escaping this fate through dying of fright whilst being measured for his irons. One of the leg-irons of William Carter, a member of this gang, who was hung in chains near Rake on the Portsmouth Road, came into my possession, and this I still retain.

The last example of hanging in chains took place when I was a child in 1834, in which year a man named Cook, a bookbinder, who had murdered a Mr. Paas at Leicester, was hung and gibbeted in Saffron Lane outside the town. So much disorder and rioting, however, prevailed that the body was very soon removed, and in the same year hanging in chains was finally abolished.

It has been sometimes declared that criminals were at one time actually hung alive in chains, but this is pure fiction. Before being hung, a criminal, it is true, was measured for his irons—an ordeal under which many completely broke down. After the hanging, the body was taken down and thrown into a cauldron of boiling pitch, on being taken out of which it was placed in the chains, which were riveted around it, and then slung up upon a gibbet, where it swung in the wind as long as the chains held together. In some instances sacks took the place of chains.

At the last public execution in England, which took place in 1852 at Northampton, the crowd which had assembled was exceedingly incensed at finding that the day had been changed. Some of them, indeed, loudly declared that if they could only get at the Under-Sheriff “they would let him know what it was to keep honest folk in suspense,” whilst one old lady, who was especially vociferous in her denunciation, announced that she should certainly claim her expenses from the authorities. It was also at Northampton in 1818 that the governor proudly described the new drop set up at the county gaol as being admirably suited for the hanging of twelve persons comfortably.

It may be observed that pictures of gibbets are exceedingly rarely to be found, the greatest number, oddly enough, being in works illustrated by Thomas Bewick. There are several gibbets in the tailpieces of his _British Birds_, and also one or two in his _Quadrupeds_. I may add that some sixteen years ago a very interesting little volume on the subject of _Hanging in Chains_ was written by Mr. Albert Hartshorne, a gentleman well known for his knowledge of old English glass and general love of research into the past. The book in question, however, which is fully illustrated, has now, unfortunately, become somewhat difficult to procure.

On North Heath, north of Midhurst, a gallows once stood. From this, some hundred and eight years ago, swung in chains the brothers Drewitt, convicted of having robbed the mail on that spot. Their guilt, nevertheless, does not appear to have been thoroughly proved, the real criminal, it was thought by some, having been their father, who after the execution used to be seen sitting at the foot of the gallows beneath the bodies of his sons. A curious old Sussex tradition declared that a dead man’s hand would cure any affection of the throat, and people would walk great distances to put this cure to the test. Whilst the body of the younger of the two Drewitts swung in the wind (which it did for a long time, a further proof, it was pointed out, of his innocence), children were brought from far away and held up in the air in order that the dead man’s hand might swing across their throat. The younger Drewitt, who to his last breath maintained that he was quite unconnected with the robbery, was generally considered a martyr in the district, and the tale of his unjust fate, together with numerous details of his capture, “in a new pair of buckskin breeches,” was told at many a cottage fireside long years after hanging in chains had become but a memory of the past.

A far more barbarous method of punishment than hanging in chains was “pressing to death,” the last recorded infliction of which took place in Sussex, at Horsham gaol, in 1736. When a man, for no matter what reason, refused to plead, he was ordered to be laid naked on his back on the bare floor of a low dark chamber, and as great a weight of iron as he could bear—and more—put upon him. From time to time he was questioned, and should he continue to refuse to answer, heavier weights were added. As the victims of this torture sometimes survived for days, the law very humanely provided that on the first day they were to be allowed three morsels of the “worst bread procurable,” whilst on the second three draughts of “standing water” were allowed. This alternation of food and drink was to continue from day to day till the prisoners answered or till they died. The last man to suffer this horrible punishment was one who was charged with robbery and with murdering a woman at Bognor, and who refused to plead, not uttering a word. Many endeavours were made to induce him to speak, but all of them proving useless, he was taken back to Horsham gaol to be pressed to death. The weight which finally killed him was some four hundred pounds, in addition to which the executioner, a man turning the scale at sixteen stone, jumped upon the board and thus administered the _coup de grâce_.

Executions in quite modern times were horrible affairs. Within my own lifetime the skin of more than one murderer has been taken from his body, tanned, and used to bind a book. Such a thing happened after the execution of William Corder, who was hung at Bury St. Edmunds in the year 1828, having been found guilty of murdering Maria Martin. On this occasion the Bury coach on its way to London was stopped in order that the passengers might witness the execution. Macready used to say that during the performance of _Macbeth_ the same evening at Drury Lane the actor who impersonated Duncan was interrupted at the words, “Is execution done on Cawdor?” by a man in the gallery who shouted out, “Yes! He was hung this morning at Bury.” In connection with books bound in human skin it may be mentioned that a copy of the Poetical Works of John Milton in the Exeter Museum is said to be bound in the skin of George Cudmore, a Devonshire murderer executed in 1830, whilst I believe there is also a large quarto volume preserved at Bristol which is bound in the skin of a murderer executed as recently as 1843.

During the Reign of Terror in France, it has been stated, several pairs of ladies’ white kid gloves were made from the same gruesome material.

In my childhood also, “resurrection men,” as those who stole dead bodies for sale to the surgeons were called, were much dreaded, extraordinary methods of protecting corpses from being carried away being often employed. Such things seem quite of another age to-day, but the evil in question was only ended in 1832 when the Anatomy Act was passed.

In the eighteenth century the Sussex roads were notorious for their bad condition, and little effort was made to improve them, partly owing to an idea that better means of communication would bring many cut-throats, pickpockets, and other undesirable folk down from London. Indeed, when the road to Brighton through Cuckfield was first made, the inhabitants of Hurstpierpoint became so alarmed at the proposal to run it through that place that they petitioned Parliament, and were successful in having it diverted. So bad were some of these Sussex roads that there are records of people having habitually used oxen to draw their coaches. Defoe, for instance, travelling in Sussex in the eighteenth century, came upon a lady, whom he describes as “of very good quality,” being drawn to church in a village near Lewes by six oxen.

It was largely owing to the isolation produced by faulty means of travel that Sussex villages, up to comparatively recent times, retained so much of old-world quaintness and charm. Many of the labourers of a past generation never moved out of their own district during the whole of their lives. A story used to be told of a Heathfield labourer who, after a quarrel with his wife, deserted his home and went to another village a few miles away. Home sickness, however, soon overcame him, and, coming back to his family, he declared that he had had quite enough of “furrin parts”—nothing like Old England after all! An old lady of the village of Ditchling, who was going up to London, being asked what sort of place she thought she was about to see, replied that she expected it would be “about like the bustling part of Ditchling.”

The old cottages in the villages were formerly full of Sussex ironwork, and of this I made a collection, which includes some very good specimens—fire-dogs and backs, rush-light holders, tongs, and the like—of this extinct industry. At that time I lived in the very centre of what was formerly a great iron-producing district, for near Heathfield were many furnaces which at one time kept half the population in full employ. Many Sussex families owed their fortunes to the ironworks, amongst them the Fullers, one grateful member of which set up the inscription “Carbone et Forcipibus” on the house. The old hammer ponds still existing are extremely picturesque, in many cases having clear rippling streams, containing brook trout, flowing out of them. The last furnace in Sussex—Ashburnham Furnace—was only finally blown out in 1825, having been worked by Lord Ashburnham up to that time; the iron produced there was at one time said to be the best in the world. As the iron industry decayed hop-growing was introduced, which gave some measure of employment to the population which began to find its old occupation gone.

Some time before I began collecting Sussex ironwork I used to live in quite another part of the county bordering upon Hampshire, and here also I found much of great antiquarian interest. Not many miles distant from our house, for instance, stood the crumbling walls of Cowdray, the beautiful seat which once belonged to the Brownes, and was destroyed by fire in 1793. I have several relics and pictures of this old mansion. At the time of the fire the young owner, Lord Montague, was away on the Continent, and the house was being renovated in view of his return. In the disastrous conflagration perished many valuable relics of art and pictures, for the house being under repair at the time, everything had been stored in the north gallery, which was difficult of access. A picture of Charles I. at Woburn is said to have been one of the few saved, another being a painting of the two brothers Fitzwilliam lying dead in armour. Many relics from Battle Abbey were also destroyed, among them, it is said, the sword of the Conqueror, his coronation robe ornamented with gold and rare gems, and, most interesting perhaps of all, the Roll of Battle Abbey. These had been removed to Cowdray when the seventh Lord Montague sold Battle Abbey in 1717.

After the burning of Cowdray no care appears to have been taken to safeguard any of the contents which remained undamaged. Things, indeed, saved from the fire were taken away to Midhurst by any one who cared to take the trouble, the whole neighbourhood being allowed to roam through the ruins. I myself, indeed, as has been said, possess some relics of Cowdray—several good pieces of carved woodwork (the decoration of the salon) which I purchased near Midhurst from a man whose grandfather, I am very much afraid, had in all probability annexed them without leave.

It was in the Abbots’ Hall at Battle that the curse of fire and water was pronounced against Sir Anthony Browne, who was holding his first great feast there after the spoliation of the monasteries by Henry VIII., the abbey having been granted to him by that king, in whose favour he stood very high. Striding through the crowd of guests and retainers, a monk is said to have made his way to the daïs where Sir Anthony sat, and, raising his voice, to have solemnly cursed him and his posterity. “By fire and water thy line shall come to an end; thus shall it perish out of the land.”

The fact that the eighth Lord Montague was drowned when attempting to shoot the falls of Laufenburg at the very time that Cowdray (then being renovated in view of his coming of age) was consumed by fire has been regarded by many as the fulfilment of the curse, but it must not be forgotten that Sir Anthony Browne himself and his descendants lived quite free from misfortune for some two hundred years. As is well known, the two sons of Lord Montague’s only sister, Mrs. Poyntz, were drowned in the very flower of their youth, before the eyes of their parents, in a boating accident at Bognor in 1815—another sad catastrophe also attributed to the curse. On the death of Mr. Poyntz the Cowdray estate passed out of the Browne family, being divided amongst his sisters, and in 1843 it was sold to the sixth Earl of Egmont for some three hundred thousand pounds. The new possessors of the place made no attempt to restore the ruins of the noble old mansion, a splendid example of domestic architecture, but built a new house on the site of the keeper’s lodge which was pulled down.

In West Sussex we had many pleasant neighbours, amongst them the Rev. Mr. Knox, a most amusing man and a great authority on birds. He lived in an ancient manor-house which belonged to my husband—Trotton Place, a quaint old house still the property of my eldest son. Trotton, a small village on the Petersfield Road, possesses some claim to attention in having been the birthplace of the unfortunate Otway, who was the son of the rector of the adjacent parish of Woolbeding. Educated at Winchester and Oxford, Otway, when twenty years old, betook himself to London and became an actor, and, some five years later, a playwright. Obtaining a cornet’s commission in a regiment about to proceed to Flanders, his military career was short and unfortunate, lasting only about a year. The force to which he was attached never reached its destination, the money voted for transport having been diverted by King Charles II., who preferred the worship of Venus to that of Mars, to more peaceful and congenial purposes. In his comedy of _The Soldiers Fortune_ Otway clearly alludes to his disappointment:—

Fortune made me a soldier, a rogue in red (the grievance of the nation). Fortune made the peace—just as we were on the brink of war; then Fortune disbanded us and lost us two months’ pay. Fortune gave us debentures instead of ready money; and by very good fortune I sold mine and lost heartily by it, in hopes the grinding, ill-natur’d dog that bought it may never get a shilling for’t.

After his retirement from the army the young poet wrote several plays, amongst them _The Orphan_, and in 1685 the powerful and beautiful _Venice Preserved_, which, as Dr. Johnson wrote, though the work of a man not attentive to decency or zealous for virtue, yet shows that the author was a man of great force and originality, and had consulted nature in his own breast.

At thirty-four years of age Otway died, choked, it is said, by a roll which he too hastily swallowed after a long fast. The unfortunate poet, almost naked, starving, and fearfully harassed by creditors, was given a guinea by a friendly gentleman in a coffee-house where he had asked for a shilling. Out of this guinea he purchased the piece of bread which caused his death. Another account declares that Otway, desirous of avenging the death of a friend who had been shot in the street, pursued the assassin as far as Dover on foot, which brought on a fever from which he died in the “Bull Inn” on Tower Hill. Pope corroborates this version of Otway’s death, but says his friend had been merely robbed and not murdered.

A brass affixed to the wall of Trotton church within comparatively recent years commemorates the memory of the unfortunate young man, but Otway himself lies in a vault under the church of St. Clement Danes.