Part XIX.
THE DOOM OF ENGLISH WILLS.
CATHEDRAL NUMBER ONE.
There are few things in this beautiful country of England, more picturesque to the eye, and agreeable to the fancy, than an old Cathedral town. Seen in the distance, rising from among cornfields, pastures, orchards, gardens, woods, the river, the bridge, the roofs of ancient houses, and haply the ruins of a castle or abbey, the venerable Cathedral spires, opposed for many hundred years to the winter wind and summer sun, tower, like a solemn historical presence, above the city, conveying to the rudest mind associations of interest with the dusky Past. On a nearer approach, this interest is heightened. Within the building, by the long perspectives of pillars and arches; by the earthy smell, preaching more eloquently than deans and chapters, of the common doom; by the praying figures of knights and ladies on the tombs, with little headless generations of sons and daughters kneeling around them; by the stained-glass windows, softening and mellowing the light; by the oaken carvings of the stalls, where the shorn monks told their beads; by the battered effigies of archbishops and bishops, found built up in the walls, when all the world had been unconscious, for centuries, of their blunt stone noses; by the mouldering chapter-room; the crypt, with its barred loopholes, letting in long gleams of slanting light from the Cloisters where the dead lie, and where the ivy, bred among the broken arches, twines about their graves; by the sound of the bells, high up in the massive tower; by the universal gravity, mystery, decay, and silence. Without, by the old environing Cathedral-close, with its red-brick houses and staid gardens; by the same stained glass, so dark on that side though so bright within; by the pavement of half-obliterated tombstones; by the long echoes of the visitors' footsteps; by the wicket-gate, that seems to shut the moving world out of that retirement; by the grave rooks and jackdaws that have built their nests in steeple crevices, where the after-hum of the chimes reminds them, perhaps, of the wind among the boughs of lofty trees; by the ancient scraps of palace and gateway; by the ivy again, that has grown to be so thick and strong; by the oak, famous in all that part, which has struck its mighty root through the Bishop's wall; by the Cathedral organ, whose sound fills all that space, and all the space it opens in the charmed imagination.
There may be flaws in this whole, if it be examined, too closely. It may not be improved by the contemplation of the shivering choristers on a winter morning, huddling on their gowns as they drowsily go to scamper through their work; by the drawling voice, without a heart, that drearily pursues the dull routine; by the avaricious functionary who lays aside the silver mace to take the silver pieces, and who races through the Show as if he were the hero of a sporting wager. Some uncomfortable doubts may, under special circumstances, obtrude themselves, of the practical Christianity of the head of some particular Foundation. He may be a brawler, or a proud man, or a sleek, or an artful. He may be usually silent, in the House of Lords when a Christian minister should speak, and may make a point of speaking when he should be silent. He may even be oblivious of the truth; a stickler by the letter, not the spirit, for his own purposes; a pettifogger in the supreme court of GOD'S high law, as there are pettifoggers in the lower courts administering the laws of mortal man. Disturbing recollections may arise, of a few isolated cases here and there, where country curates with small incomes and large families, poor gentlemen and scholars, are condemned to work, like blind horses in a mill, while others who do not work get their rightful pay; or of the inconsistency and indecorum of the Church being made a Robe and Candlestick question, while so many shining lights are hidden under bushels, and so many black-cloth coats are threadbare. The question may present itself, by remote chance, whether some shovel-hats be not made too much on the model of the banker's shovel with which the gold is gathered on the counter, and too little in remembrance of that other kind of shovel that renders ashes unto ashes, and dust to dust. But, on the whole, the visitor will probably be content to say, "the time was, and this old Cathedral saw it, when these things were infinitely worse; they will be better; I will do all honor to the good that is in them, (which is much), and I will do what in me lies for the speedier amendment of the bad."
In this conclusion, we think the visitor of the old Cathedral would be right. But, it is important to bring to the knowledge of all visitors of old Cathedrals in England, and of all who stay at home too, the most gigantic and least known abuse, attaching to those establishments. It is one which affects, not only the history and learning of the country, and that powerfully, but the legal rights and titles of all classes--of every man, woman, and child, rich and poor, great and small, born into this English portion of this breathing world.
For the purpose of the object on which we now enter, we have consulted a great mass of documents, and have had recourse to the personal experience of a gentleman who has made this kind of research his business. In every statement we make, we shall speak by the card, that equivocation may not undo us. The proof of every assertion, is ready to our hand.
The public have lately heard some trifling facts relative to Doctors' Commons, through the medium of a young gentleman who was articled, by his aunt, to a proctor there. Our readers may possibly be prepared to hear that the Registry of the Diocese of Canterbury, in which are deposited all the wills proved in that large, rich, and populous district, is a job so enormous as to be almost incredible. That the Registrars, with deputies, and deputies' deputies, are sinecurists of from sixteen to seventeen thousand pounds, to seven or eight thousand pounds, a-year; that the wills are not even kept secure from fire; that the real working men are miserably paid out of the rich plunder of the public; that the whole system is one of greed, corruption, and absurdity, from beginning to end. It is not, however, with the Registry of Canterbury that our business lies at present, but with the Registries and Peculiars of other dioceses, which are attached to the old Cathedrals throughout Great Britain, and of which our readers may be by no means prepared to hear what we shall have to tell.
Let us begin by setting forth from London on a little suppositious excursion--say with Mr. William Wallace, of the Middle Temple and the Royal Society of Antiquaries.
Mr. William Wallace, for the purpose of a literary pursuit in which he is engaged, involving the gratification of a taste he has for the history of old manners and old families, is desirous, at his own proper cost and charge, to search the registers in some Cathedral towns, for wills and records. Having heard whispers of corruption in these departments, and difficulty of search, Mr. Wallace arms himself with letters from the Bishops of those places. Putting money in his purse besides, he goes down, pretty confidently.
Mr. William Wallace arrives at Cathedral number one; and, after being extremely affected, despite a heavy shower of rain, by the contemplation of the building, inquires for the Registrar. He is shown a very handsome house in the Cathedral-close--a house very superior to the Bishop's--wherein the Registrar resides. For, the Registrar keeps a first rate roof over his own head, though he keeps his deeds in a dilapidated Gate-house; at which he takes toll to the amount of seven thousand a-year; and where, as at other toll-houses, "no trust" is the rule; for he exacts his fees beforehand.
Mr. William Wallace now learns that, locally, the Registrar is a person of almost inordinate power; besides his seven thousand-pound-per-annum place, he is Chapter Clerk, Town Clerk, Clerk to the Magistrates--a Proctor, moreover, in boundless practice. He lives in great state; he keeps horses, carriages, dogs, and a yacht; he is--could he be anything else?--a staunch tory; he generally proposes the tory members for the county, and has been known to pay the entire electioneering expenses of a favorite tory candidate. Mr. Wallace, although fortified with a letter bearing the mitred seal of the Bishop of the diocese, feels that he is about to come in contact with a great power; an awful something that is not to be trifled with; one of the noblest institutions of our land, who is a very Miller of Dee, and accountable to nobody.
With a due sense of the importance of this outside buttress of the Church, Mr. Wallace presents himself with the Bishop's letter. The Registrar storms, and takes it extremely ill. He appears to confound Mr. Wallace with his own foot-boy. He says the Bishop has no power to interfere with _him_, and he won't endure it. He says the Bishop don't know what harm may come of showing wills. He can't make out, what people want to see wills for. He grudgingly concedes some obstructed search, on the usual terms; namely, two guineas per day for all the days a clerk--not fond of any sort of fatigue--may choose to take in making any particular search. "But perhaps you will allow me to look at the indexes?" asks Mr. Wallace. "_That's_ of no use," is the reply, "for a great many of the years are missing; and in those we have got, a great many wills are not entered. We often have to spend two months in finding a will." Our friend then performs a little mental arithmetic:--two months--or, even say fifty days--means one hundred guineas, to ferret out one will. Complete indexes would only occasion ten minutes' search, equal to one day, or, according to the Registrar's tariff, two guineas. Mr. Wallace then draws the inevitable conclusion, that bad indexes partly occasion the inordinate income of the Registrar, whose manifest interest it is to keep them as imperfect as possible. One little trait of the very early volumes (the earliest wills are dated A. D. 1180,) is as quaint, as it is productive to the Registrar: the names of the testators are arranged--alphabetically, it is true--but under the Christian instead of the Surnames. Imagine the number of days, or couples of guineas, that would drop into the Registrar's coffers, for picking out one particular John Smith from the thousands of "Johns," under the letter "J!" Since the year 1800, the index is better: indeed it is almost as available as the old catalogues of the British Museum, though not quite so perfect.
All this was despair to Mr. William Wallace, who modestly hinted that his archæological necessities pressed him to ask admission to the actual depository of the wills. The Registrar was petrified with astonishment. His figure expanded with a burst of indignation, which presently exploded in the interrogative interjection, "What?" that went off, like the sharp crack of a rifle.
What? Exhibit, to any living soul, the dilapidative neglect, the hideous disorder, the wilful destruction of documents, involving the transfer of the property, personal and landed, of seven counties; and which he, the Registrar, obtains seven thousand pounds per annum for preserving carefully, and arranging diligently! Why, only last year the Archæological Institute of Great Britain, itself, was peremptorily refused admission; and was it likely that the Registrar would allow Mr. William Wallace--the friend of a mere Bishop--to be turned loose, to browse at will upon the waste the Registrar and his predecessors had committed and permitted?
But what will not an enthusiastic antiquary dare, in his loved pursuit? Mr. Wallace was bold enough to hint that a Bishop had perhaps some power in his diocese--even over a Registrar. This appeared in a degree to lull the tempest; and after all storms there is a calm. The Registrar reflected. There was nothing very formidable in the applicant's appearance; he had not the hungry look of a legacy or pedigree hunter--a foolish young fellow, perhaps, with a twist about old manners and customs: and, in short, he _may_ take a look at the repositories.
Up a narrow stair, under the guidance of a grumpy clerk, our persevering Middle Templar wends. In a long room, over the arches of the gateway, he sees parallel rows of shelves laden with wills: not tied up in bundles, not docketed, not protected in any way from dust or spiders by the flimsiest covering. Only the modern wills are bound up; but--not to encroach upon the Registrar's hard earnings--the backings of the bindings are composed of such original wills as were written on parchment. These are regularly cut up--that is, wilfully destroyed--for bookbinding purposes!
Mr. Wallace sees, at a glance, that he may as well try to find a lost shell on a sea-shore, or a needle in a haystack, as attempt to discover what he is desirous of picking out of this documentary chaos. He looks round in mute grief; his archaic heart is heavy; he understands, exactly, how Rienzi felt amidst the Ruins of Rome, or the daughters of Jerusalem when they wept. Wherever he turns his eyes, he sees black, barbarous Ruin. In one corner, he observes decayed boxes filled with rotten wills; in another, stands a basket, containing several lumps of mediæval mortar, and a few brick-bats of the early pointed style--the edges, possibly, of some hole in the wall too large for even poor seven thousand a-year to shirk the stopping of. Despite the hints of the clerk that his time is valuable, Mr. Wallace is contemplating these relics with the eager gaze of an F.S.A., when he descries, hanging over the edge of the basket, something like an ancient seal. He scrutinizes it intensely--there is a document attached to it. He rescues it from the rubbish.
"What can this be?" asks Mr. Wallace with glistening eye.
"Oh!" answers the clerk, with listless indifference, "nothing of any consequence, _I'm_ sure."
By this time, Mr. Wallace has found out that this "nothing of any consequence," is a Charter of King William the Conqueror; _the identical instrument by which the See of Dorchester was transferred to Lincoln_--that's all! The broken seal is not of "much consequence" either. Oh, no!
Now it happens that there is only one impression of the great seal of the Great Norman extant, and that is in the British Museum, broken in half; this, being a counterpart, supplies the entire seal! Such is the priceless historical relic found in the year 1850, by chance, in a lime-basket, in the very place where it ought to have been as zealously preserved as if it had been the jewel of a diadem!
But, other treasures--equally of "no consequence," and about to be carried off by bricklayers' laborers, to where rubbish may be shot--are dug out by Mr. William Wallace:--Item, a bundle of pardons from King John to certain barons and bishops: Item, a Confession of the Protestant Faith made on his death-bed by Archbishop Toby Matthew, hitherto supposed by his biographers to have died a Catholic: Item, a contemporary poem on the Battle of Bosworth. The Registrar's clerk is of opinion, when these are shown to him, that "they an't worth much," but growlingly saves them, on remonstrance, and bundles them into his desk; where we trust they still remain; and whence we hope they may be rescued by the proper authorities.
As Mr. Wallace follows his surly guide up the stairs of the Gate-house, the rain patters sharply against the casements, and a fusty, damp odor emerges from the upper story. Under a broken roof, and a ceiling being unplastered in huge patches by time and rain, in the top room, lie--or, more correctly, rot--the wills of the Archdeaconry of Blowe; a "Peculiar" of the diocese. The papers below stairs are merely worm-eaten, spider-woven, dusty, ill-arranged; but, compared with those which Mr. Wallace now sees--and smells--are in fastidious glass-case order. After dodging the rain-drops which filter through the ceiling, down among the solemn injunctions of the dead, Mr. Wallace is able to examine one or two bundles. Mildew and rot are so omnipotent in this damp depository, that the shelves have, in some places, broken and crumbled away. A moment's comparison between the relative powers of wood and paper, in resisting water, will give a vivid idea of the condition of the wills in this Archdiaconal shower-bath. The comers of most of the piles are as thoroughly rounded off, as if a populous colony of water rats (the ordinary species could not have existed there) had been dining off them since the days of King Stephen. Others are testamentary agglomerations, soddened into pulp,--totally illegible and inseparable; having been converted by age, much rain, and inordinate neglect, into _post-mortem_ papier maché.
All these, are original wills: no such copies of them--which Registrars are enjoined to provide--having been made by the predecessors of the present pluralist. In order that the durability of parchment should be of no avail in arresting the most complete destruction within the scope of possibility, it is the sheepskin testaments of this collection that are regularly shredded to bind up the modern wills ranged in books below.
The very sight of this place, shows the futility of anything like research. Mr. Wallace examines a few of the documents, only to see their extreme historical as well as local importance; turns away; and descends the stairs.
"Thus, then," says Mr. William Wallace solemnly, as he takes a parting look at the ancient Gate-house, "are documents, involving the personal and real property of Seven English Counties, allowed to crumble to destruction; thus, is ruin brought on families by needless litigation; thus, do Registrars roll in carriages, and Proctors grow rich; thus, are the historical records of the great English nation doomed--by an officer whom the nation pays the income of a prince to be their conservator--to rottenness, mildew, and dust."
Mr. Wallace having added nothing to the object of his pursuits and inquiries, in the Registry of this Cathedral number one, departed at once for Cathedral number two. How he fared there, the reader shall soon learn.
CATHEDRAL NUMBER TWO.
Mr. William Wallace, having taken some repose in the bosom of his family, and having recruited his nervous system, impaired for the moment by the formidable demonstrations made in unimpeachable Ecclesiastical Registry number one, resolved on making a visit to unimpeachable Ecclesiastical Registry number two; upheld by the consideration that, although an Ecclesiastical Registry is a fine Institution, for which any Englishman would willingly die; and without which he could, in no patriotic acceptation worth mentioning, be an Englishman at all; still, that the last wills and testaments of Englishmen are not exactly waste-paper, and that their depositaries ought, perhaps to be kept as dry--say as skittle grounds, which are a cheaper luxury than Registries, with the further advantage that no man need frequent them unless he likes: whereas, to Registries he _must_ go.
The literary object which Mr. Wallace had in view, in this second expedition, beckoned him to the North of England. "Indeed," said Mr. Wallace, pausing. "Possibly, to the second city of England; an Archbishopric; giving one of the princes of the blood his title; enjoying the dignity of a Lord Mayor of its own; an ancient and notable place; renowned for its antiquities; famous for its Cathedral; possessing walls, four gates, six posterns, a castle, an assembly-room, and a Mansion House; this is surely the place for an unimpeachable Registry!"
He arrived at the venerable city of his purpose, at ten minutes past three P. M., according to Greenwich, or at three-ten, according to Bradshaw.
Our traveler's first proceeding, was, to take a walk round the walls, and gratify his fancy with a bird's-eye-view of the unimpeachable registry. He could hardly hit upon the roof of that important building. There was a building in a severe style of architecture--but it was the jail. There was another that looked commodious--but it was the mansion house. There were others that looked comfortable--but they were private residences. There appeared to be nothing in the way of Registry, answering to the famous monkish legend in a certain Chapter-House:
As shines the rose above all common flowers, So above common piles this building towers.
Yet such a building must be somewhere! Mr. Wallace went into the town and bought a Guide-book, to find out where.
He walked through the quiet narrow streets, with their gabled houses, craning their necks across the road to pry into one another's affairs; and he saw the churches where the people were married; and the habitations where the doctors lived, who were knocked up when the people were born; and he accidentally passed the residence of Mrs. Pitcher, who likewise officiated on those occasions; and he remarked an infinity of shops where every commodity of life was sold. He saw the offices of the lawyers who made the people's wills, the banks where the people kept their money, the shops of the undertakers who made the people's coffins, the church-yards where the people were buried, but _not_ the Registry where the people's wills were taken care of. "Very extraordinary!" said Mr. Wallace. "In the great city of a great ecclesiastical see, where all kinds of moving reverses and disasters have been occurring for many centuries, where all manner of old foundation and usage, piety, and superstition, were, and a great deal of modern wealth is, a very interesting and an unimpeachable Registry there must be, somewhere!"
In search of this great public edifice, the indefatigable Mr. Wallace prowled through the city. He discovered many mansions; but he _could not_ satisfy himself about the Registry.
The uneasiness of Mr. Wallace's mind increasing with the growth of his suspicion that there must surely be a flaw in the old adage, and that where there was a will (and a great many wills) there was no way at all, he betook himself to the Cathedral-close. Passing down an uncommonly pure, clean, tidy little street, where the houses looked like a tasteful sort of missionary-subscription-boxes, into which subscribers of a larger growth were expected to drop their money down the chimneys, he came by a turnstile, into that haven of rest, and looked about him.
"Do you know where the Registry is?" he asked a farmer-looking man.
"The wa'at!" said he.
"The Registry; where they keep the wills?"
"A'dinnot know for shower," said the farmer, looking round. "Ding! If I shouldn't wondther if _thot_ wur it!"
Mr. Wallace concealed his disparaging appreciation of the farmer's judgment, when he pointed with his ash-stick to a kind of shed--such as is usually called a lean-to--squeezing itself, as if it were (with very good reason) ashamed, into the south-west corner of the cross, which the ground-plan of the cathedral forms, and sticking to it like a dirty little pimple. But, what was his dismay, on going thither to inquire, to discover that this actually WAS the unimpeachable Registry; and that a confined den within, which would have made an indifferent chandler's shop, with a pestilent little chimney in it, filling it with smoke like a Lapland hut, was the "Searching Office."
Mr. Wallace was soon taught that seven thousand pounds per annum is, after all, but a poor pittance for the Registrar of a simple bishopric, when calculated by the ecclesiastical rule of three; for the registry of Cathedral number two, produces to its fortunate patentees twenty thousand per annum; about ten thousand a year for the Registrar who does nothing, and the like amount for his Deputy who helps him.
The portentous personage to whom Mr. Wallace was accredited, received him in state in the small office surrounded by a Surrogate (apparently retained on purpose to cross-examine Mr. Wallace) and the clerks. Mr. Wallace mentioned that he believed the Archbishop had written to the Deputy-Registrar to afford him every facility in consulting the documents under his charge. The Deputy Registrar owned that the Archbishop had done so, but declared that the Archbishop had no jurisdiction whatever over him; and, claiming as he did, complete immunity from, and irresponsibility to, all human control, he begged to say that his Grace the Archbishop, in presuming to write to the high-authorities of that unimpeachable Registry on such a subject, had taken a very great liberty. Mr. William Wallace inquired if that was to be the answer he was expected to convey to the Archbishop? bowed, and was about to retire, when the awful Deputy recalled him. What did he want to search for? Mr. Wallace repeated that his object was wholly literary and archæological. The chief clerk who here came in as a reinforcement, was so good as to intimate that he "didn't believe a word of it." Whereupon a strong opinion was added that Mr. Wallace wanted surreptitiously to obtain pedigrees, and to consult wills. A powerful battery of cross-questionings was then opened by the heavier authorities, aided by a few shots from the light-bob, or skirmishing party--the clerk. But had Mr. William Wallace been his great ancestor, he could not have held his position against such odds more firmly. At length the preliminaries of a treaty were proposed by the enemy, the terms of which were that Mr. Wallace should be allowed to consult any records dated before the year one thousand four hundred! This was demured to as utterly useless. Negotiations were then resumed, and the authorities liberally threw in another century, out of the fullness of a respect for the Archbishop, which they had refrained from condescending to express;--Mr. Wallace might consult documents up to the year fifteen hundred.
With this munificent concession, Mr. Wallace was obliged to be satisfied, and proceeded to venture on another stipulation:--
The researches which he had proposed to himself at this Cathedral number two, were elaborate and complicated; they would require such facilities as had been asked on his behalf by the Archbishop. Could he have access to the documents themselves?
The effect which this simple request produced in the office, was prodigious! A small schoolboy who should, at dinner, ask for a piece of the master's apple-pie; or a drummer on parade, who should solicit from his captain a loan of five shillings, could not produce a more sublime degree of astonishment, than that which glared through the smoke from the faces of the deputy-registrar, the surrogate, the chief clerk, and all the junior clerks, then and there assembled. The effect produced amounted to temporary petrefaction; the principals neither spoke nor moved; the subordinates left off writing and poking the fire. So superlative was the audacity of the request, that it paralyzed the pendulum of that small, rusty, dusty, smoky old ecclesiastical clock, and stopped the works!
Refusal in words was not vouchsafed to Mr. William Wallace; neither did he need that condescension. The silent but expressive pantomine was enough. As the Eastern culprit receives his doom by the speechless gesture of the judge's hand across his own neck; so Mr. William Wallace fully understood that, access to the record depositories of the province appertaining to Cathedral number two, was nearly equivalent to getting into a freemason's lodge after it has been "tiled," or to obtaining admission to St. Paul's cathedral without two-pence.
He therefore waved as perfectly impossible that item of the treaty. For the public, however, the evidence of that gentleman is hardly necessary to bring them acquainted with the manner in which the trust imposed on the Registrar and his Deputy is performed; for while the Deputy Registrar and Mr. William Wallace are settling their differences over the next clause of their treaty, we shall dip into the reports of the Ecclesiastical Commission issued in 1832, to show what the state of things was at that time; and to any one who can prove that those venerable documents have been by any means rescued from decay since that year, the public will doubtless be much obliged. At page one hundred and seventy of the report, Mr. Edward Protheroe, M.P., states, on oath, that in the instance of every Court he had visited the records suffered more or less from damp and the accumulation of dust and dirt. Then, speaking of the Registry of this same Cathedral number two, he declares its documents to have been in a scandalous state. "I found them," he continues, "perfectly to accord with the description I had received from various literary and antiquarian characters who had occasion to make searches in the office; and I beg leave to remark that the place must have been always totally inadequate as a place of deposit for the records, both as to space and security." Some of the writings he found in two small cells, "in a state of the most disgraceful filth;" others in "two apertures in the thick walls, scarcely to be called windows; and the only accommodation for these records are loose wooden shelves, upon which the wills are arranged in bundles, tied up with common strings, and without any covering to them; exposed to the effect of the damp of the weather and the necessary accumulation of dirt." To these unprotected wills the Deputy Registrar was perhaps wise in his generation to deny access; for Mr. Protheroe says in addition that, "if it was the object of any person to purloin a will, such a thing might be accomplished." Perfectly and safely accessible copies might be made, at "an expense quite trifling." What? Mr. Protheroe, would you rob these poor Registrars of a shilling of their hard earnings, just to save landed and other property, of some millions value, from litigation and fraud? Would you discount their twenty thousand a year by even a fraction per cent?
The clause of the treaty, offensive and defensive, which was being negotiated all this while, between the Deputy Registrar and his visitor, was drawn up by the former in these concise words, "How long do you want to be here?"
That, Mr. Wallace replied, would depend upon the facilities afforded him, the condition of the calendars and indexes, and the assistance he might be allowed to call in. After much battling, the conference ended by Mr. William Wallace, and a friend who accompanied him, being allowed to set to work upon the calendars of such wills as had been deposited before the year 1500.
The two antiquaries would have commenced their researches immediately; only, on examining their dress, they found it in such a state of filth from the smoke with which the office had been filled during the arrangement of this important compact, that they were obliged to return to the hotel to change their linen. The prospect of spending a week in such a place was not altogether agreeable. Mr. Wallace did not enjoy the notion of being smoke-dried; and of returning to the Middle Temple a sort of animated ham. A sojourn in the place was not to be thought of without terror; yet the poor clerks endured their smoking fate with fortitude. Use was to them a second nature; and every man connected with these Registries must be completely inured to dust. But the man of the Middle Temple was a kind of knight-errant in the matter of rescuing ancient documents from their tombs of filth; and not to be daunted. He and his friend opened the campaign directly in the face of the enemy's fire--which, so great was their ardor, they only wished would become a little more brisk and less smoky.
That day and the next day they bored on with patience and perseverance through every obstacle. When they found in the calendar a reference to what they wanted, every possible obstacle was thrown in their way. The required document was either lost, or had been stolen, or had strayed. Nor was there the slightest reason to doubt that this was true. It was well known to the searchers that one class of documents at least had been actually made away with by a former Deputy Registrar. Dr. Thelwall, of Newcastle, wrote in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1819, page four hundred and ninety:--"It is a fact well known that, by a Canon of James the First, the clergyman of every parish was required to send a copy of the Register annually to the Bishop of the Diocese. The most shameful negligence is attributable to the person (the Deputy Registrar) in whose keeping they have been placed. Indeed I have some reason to suppose this, as I lately saw in the possession of a friend, a great number of extracts from the Register of a certain parish in this neighborhood, and, on questioning him as to the way in which he became possessed of them, I was informed they were given to him by his cheesemonger, and that they were copies forwarded by the clergyman of the parish to the proper officer in a bordering diocese, and had been allowed through the negligence of their keeper to obtain the distinguished honor of wrapping up cheese and bacon."
The sale of Records, for waste paper, was the mode adopted to revenge the meanness of the legislature, in not providing the under-paid Registrars with remuneration for this addition to their duties. Was it possible to keep life and soul together upon the ten or fifteen thousand sterling per annum which these two poor fellows were then obliged to starve upon? Certainly not! Therefore, to eke out a wretched existence, they found themselves driven to sell the property of the public, if not for the necessaries, for the luxuries, of life. They had, perhaps, managed to keep their families, by a rigid, pinching economy in bread--dry bread; but to butter it; to indulge themselves with the proper diet of even Church mice, they were obliged to dispose of paper--worth, perhaps, thousands and thousands of pounds to the parties whose names were inscribed on it--at a few pence per pound, to the cheesemonger.
From this doom of some of the parochial records of the province, Mr. William Wallace inferred the degree of care and exactitude with which the wills were kept. Previous knowledge had prepared him for it; but he was not prepared to find that _the whole_ of another and most important class of records, up to a comparatively late date, had been abstracted, in the lump, from the Registry of this Cathedral number two. The case was this:--
In the course of his investigations, it was necessary for him to refer to a "marriage allegation,"--that is, a copy of the statement made by a bridegroom previous to converting himself, by the help of the Bishop's license, into a husband. He then learnt that most of such documents are the "private property" of one of the clerks, who kept them in his own private house; that he had bought them of a deceased member of the Herald's College, and that for each search into them he charged according to a sliding scale, arranged according to the station of the applicant, the maximum of which was five pounds for the simple search, and five pounds more if what the party wanted were found. The English of this is, that the present custodier of these papers purchased of a dead Herald what did not belong to him; and what there could have been no difficulty whatever in restoring to the true owner; (because no one could have known better than the purchaser that they were public property); and that their proper place was not his private house, but the provincial Registry. The produce of this abstraction is an illegal income better possibly than the legal gains of an Admiral or a Government Commissioner; double that of a physician in good practice, or of a philanthropist in easy circumstances,--and treble that of our best dramatist, or our best poet.
Besides these hindrances, which could not be helped, a certain number of wilful obstructions were thrown in the way of our inquiring friends, because they had been desired by the Archbishop to be placed on the fee free-list. They were watched by the entire office; for it became Argus for the occasion. Remarks of a satirical character were discharged point-blank from behind the desks, whenever a good opening occurred. The non-paying searchers were "in the way"--(this was true, so unfit is the apartment for public accommodation); "what people got they ought to pay for, as other people did." Spies slid silently out from behind the ramparts, or desks, to look over their shoulders, and to see that they did not purloin any information posterior to the fifteenth century.
Mr. William Wallace stood all this manfully; but his ally was obliged to retire at the expiration of the second day. Mr. William Wallace at length found he could not advance the objects of his inquiries any more efficiently at this Cathedral number two, than he had advanced them at Cathedral number one; so, at the end of a week, he beat a dignified retreat with all the honors of war. He then turned his face towards the unimpeachable Registry of Cathedral number three, hoping for better success.
CATHEDRAL NUMBER THREE.
The core of the inquiry which Mr. William Wallace had a heart, lay imbedded in the depositories of unimpeachable Ecclesiastical Registry number three. To the city of that See he therefore repaired, warmed by that flaming zeal which only burns in the breast of an earnest antiquary, and which no amount of disappointment can quench. Though sanguine, even for an antiquity-hunter, the hopes which rebounded from his previous failures, sunk within him, when he remembered that whereas he was in former instances fortified with letters of recommendation--almost of command--from the Bishops of each Diocese; on this occasion, he had to fight single-handed, (like another St. George,) the dragons that "guarded" the treasures he sought. He had no better introduction to the third Deputy-Registrar than an honest purpose; and, his former experience taught him that that was about as unpromising an usher into such a Presence as could be imagined. Mr. Wallace therefore commenced this new attack with no strong presentiment of success.
Strengthened with an ally, in the person of a friendly attorney, Mr. William Wallace marched boldly to the great functionary's house, a splendid edifice in the Cathedral Close, with thirty-three windows in front, extensive grounds behind, detached stables and a tasteful boat-house at the edge of what is here called the "Minster Pool."
Into this great house of a great man, Mr. William Wallace was ushered by his friend. Nothing could exceed the obsequiousness of the man of law, and great was the civility of the man of wills. The interview was going on pleasantly and the antiquary was beginning to believe that at last he had found a pattern Deputy-Registrar, when the lawyer happened to mention that Mr. William Wallace was a literary man. Mr. Wallace felt that this would be fatal--and it was so. He knew the condign contempt Ecclesiastical Registrars entertained for the literary world, from the little circumstance of hearing only the week before in another Registry, the most eminent historian of the present day, and our best archaic topographer, designated as "contemptible penny-a-liners." Mr. Wallace was therefore not at all astonished when the Deputy-Registrar folded up his smiling countenance into a frown. He evidently knew what was coming. Literary men never pay, and Mr. William Wallace wanted to consult "his" registers gratis.
When this shrewd surmise was, by a word from the attorney, realized, the Registrar struggled hard to smoothe his face again to a condition of bland composure; but in vain. The wound which had pierced through his pocket, rankled within. The depravity of literary people in endeavoring to dig and delve for historical information without paying for the privilege of benefitting the public by their researches, was _too_ abominable! The Registrar was so good as to say that he would grant Mr. Wallace the privilege of consulting any wills he pleased--on the usual terms: namely, two shillings and sixpence for every document.
With this condescending permission (which placed Mr. Wallace on exactly the same footing as the great body of the public which had not done itself the honor of visiting the Deputy-Registrar) he repaired to the Searching Office. The point he had set himself to ascertain at this Cathedral Registry number three, hinged upon an authentic attestation of the decease of the father of a distinguished general under Charles the First. The name was a very common one in the diocese, and of course continually occurred in the index. Will after will was produced by the clerks; half-crown after half-crown fell glibly out of Mr. Wallace's pocket. Still no success. This proved an expensive day. Mr. Wallace had had to pay, in the course of it, twenty-five pounds; although he was not allowed, as at the other places, to make a single extract.
The income of the office even of Deputy Registrar sometimes admits of the maintenance of from six to a dozen race-horses, but the expense of compiling paper calendars could never be tolerated. To make indexes of wills that have never been catalogued would be quite out of the question; for the Registrar charges his clients for the _time_ of his clerks in making searches, and it was owned to Mr. Wallace that it would take a year (at from one to two guineas per day) to find any will dated before the year 1526.
The searching office of this Registry was, like the others, inconvenient, small, and often crowded. The policy of the clerks was, therefore, to despatch the inquirers as fast as possible, so as to ensure a rapid change of visitors and a streaming influx of half-crowns. On the second day of Mr. Wallace's search the trouble he had given on the previous day for his money was intelligibly hinted to him. He was broadly told that he was "very much in the way;" for room was so much required that some applicants were plainly told that they must "come again to-morrow." To others who had not their inquiries ready cut and dried, in a business form, and who threatened long explanations respecting testators, a deaf ear was turned, or a pretended search was made, and they were told "there was no such will in the place." A pleasant case occurred on the second morning. An illiterate laborer tried to make the officials understand that an uncle of his wife had, he had heard, left him a legacy, and "he wanted to know the rights o' it." He gave the name and the exact date of the death, and a clerk retired under pretence of searching for the document. In a very short time he returned with--
"No such will in the place--half-a-crown, please."
"Half-a-croone?" said the countryman, "Wat vor?"
"Half-a-crown!" repeated the clerk.
"Wat, vor telling me nought?"
"Half-a-crown!" was again let off with a loud explosion, over the stiff embrasure of white cravat.
"But darn me if oi pay't," persisted the expectant legatee.
"Half-a-crown!"
The countryman went on raising a storm in the office, in midst of which the "Half-a-crown!" minute guns were discharged with severe regularity. At length, however, the agriculturist was obliged to succumb, and after a mighty effort to disinter the coin from under a smock-frock, and out of the depths of a huge pocket and a leather purse, the poor man was obliged to produce and pay over what was probably a fifth of his week's earnings.
This circumstance having attracted Mr. Wallace's attention and pity, he took a note of the name of the testator; and, after the inquirer had left, found it in the Calendar, and by-and-by, by dint of a little manoeuvring, got a sight of the will. In it he actually found that the poor man _had_ been left a small legacy.
Meanwhile Mr. William Wallace had been actively employed in calling for wills and paying out half-crowns. It was quite evident from the calendars that no greater care was taken of paper and parchment here than in the other Registries. Several wills entered in it, as having been once in the depository--wherever that was--had against them the words "wanting" and "lost." That ancient records should in the course of centuries fall aside, cannot be wondered at, even in a Registry, which produces at present to its officers from seven to ten thousand per annum; but what excuse can there be for the loss of comparatively modern ones? Certain wills were not to be found of the years 1746; 1750; 1753; and 1757.
Mr. Wallace soon found that in a place where dropping half-crowns into the till and doing as little as possible in return for them, is considered the only legitimate business, he was looked upon even at twenty-five pounds per day as a sort of bad bargain, who required a great deal too much for his money. They could not coin fast enough by Mr. William Wallace, and the Deputy-Registrar indulged the office with his august presence to inform him, that as he gave so much trouble for the searches he was making, he must pay, besides two-and-six-pence for every future search, two guineas per diem for the use of the office!
It happened that the Bishop of Cathedral number three was then in the city, officiating at an ordination, and to him Mr. William Wallace determined to apply for relief from this extortion. He enclosed to his Lordship his letters from other prelates and stated his case. The answer he received was the Bishop's _unqualified authority_ to search wherever and for whatever he wanted in the Registers of his Lordship's diocese.
Although this letter was addressed by the Bishop to the servant or deputy of _his_ servant, the Registrar, yet Mr. Wallace's dear-bought sagacity had taught him to place very little faith in a Bishop's power over his inferiors. As it turned out, he found himself one of those who are blessed, because, expecting nothing, they are not disappointed. The Deputy-Registrar received his superior's mandate with supercilious _sang-froid_. The old story--"The Bishop had no jurisdiction whatever over him," but this once, &c. &c.
Mr. William Wallace had met in Cathedrals numbers one and two, repulses and rudeness. But each Cerberus who pretended to guard the documentary treasures of those dioceses, honestly showed his teeth. _They_ had not been guilty of deceit. Deputy-Registrar number three was wiser in his generation. He gave a cold assent to the Bishop's mandate in Mr. Wallace's behalf; but with it such wily instructions to his clerks, as rendered it as nugatory as if he had put it in his waste basket or had lighted his cigar. During the two days that half-crowns rained in silver showers from the Antiquary's purse, nearly every Will he asked for was produced; but now, on the third day, when the Bishop's letter had closed his purse-strings, Mr. Wallace demanded document after document, and was told by the "Conservators" of this important kind of public property, that they had "been lost," "could not be found," "mislaid." But the most frequent return was, "destroyed at the siege of the City, in the year 1643"--stolen away with the Tomb of Marmion when
"Fanatic Brooke The fair Cathedral storm'd and took."
The result of the three days' investigations stood thus: "During the two paying days, out of a hundred Wills asked for, eighty were produced. Throughout the non-paying day, out of ninety Wills asked for, only _one_ was produced!"
When half-crowns were rife, not one word was said about "the siege of the City, in the year 1643," although nearly all the Wills Mr. Wallace was obliged with a sight of, were dated anterior to that destructive event.
For some explanation Mr. Wallace repaired to the Deputy-Registrar's abode. It was too late. The clever sub. knew what was coming--and retreated from the field. The servant's answer to Mr. Wallace was,
"Out of town, sir!"
But Mr. William Wallace was foiled even more completely in another point: he had a great desire to see where and how the Wills were kept. He knew their condition in 1832, from what Ulster King-at-Arms said before the Ecclesiastical Commission, "I consider the records very dirty; they have not, apparently, been dusted for many years." The remarkable result of Mr. Wallace's urgent inquiries was that not a soul he asked could, or would, tell in what place the ecclesiastical records of Cathedral number three were deposited.
Mr. Wallace gave up this investigation in despair and left the city. The _locus_ of the documents was to him a mystery and a wonder!
The habits of the antiquary do not, however, dispose him to indulge in listless despair. To find out the secret masses of the records of Cathedral number three was a task Mr. William Wallace had so earnestly set himself, that next to his domestic relations and his literary labors, it grew into one of the duties of his existence; therefore, on his way to Cathedral number four, he paid another visit to the city of Cathedral number three, fortified with letters to some of its clergy. To be sure _they_ could clear up the mystery.
His first application was to one of the Canons. Did he know where the ecclesiastical records were kept? Well, it was odd, but it never entered his head to inquire. He really did _not_ know. Perhaps some of the Chapter officials could tell.
To one of these, hies Mr. Wallace. Even that functionary--whose courteousness, together with that of his colleague, was pleasant to the applicant by the force of mere contrast--was equally unable to reveal the secret. "But surely," he added, "such a place cannot, when one sets about it, be so impenetrable a mystery. I have an idea that the _Miller_ could enlighten you."
"The Miller?"
"Yes. He knows everything about the town. Try him."
Mr. Wallace had business at the searching office, and having transacted it, determined to make another effort in this legitimate quarter. The following short dialogue occurred between him and the clerk:--"Pray," said Mr. Wallace, "where are the Wills kept?"
"That's not your business!" was the answer. Mr. Wallace returned to the charge but the clerk became deaf, and went on with some writing, precisely as if Mr. William Wallace were invisible and inaudible.
The Miller was the only resource. He was from home, and his wife gave the same answer as everybody else had done. "But," she said, pointing to an individual who was sauntering into the Close, "there's one as can tell 'ee. He's a _rachetty_ man--he is." Without waiting to inquire the meaning of this strange expression, off starts the record-hunter upon the new secret. He runs down his game in no time. It consists of a burly biped, bearing a cage of fine ferrets. Round his person is displayed the broad insignia of office,--he is a rat-catcher.
Here Mr. William Wallace's perseverance triumphs. The Rat-catcher knows all about it. "Why you see, Sir," he said, "I contracts for the Registrar."
"What for?"
"What for? Why, I catches the rats for him at so much a-year."
"And where do you catch them?"
"Where do I catch them? Why, where the old wills is."
"And where is that?"
"Where is that? Why, _there_."
The Rat-catcher points to a sort of barn that rises from the edge of the Minster Pool. It has no windows on the ground-floor. On the first-floor are six--two in the front of the building and four at the end,--twenty-seven windows less than are displayed in the front of the Registrar's beautifully glazed house; but much of the little glass afforded to the registry is broken. To mend it upon seven thousand a-year would never do, especially when old parchment is lying about in heaps. Why pay glaziers' charges when ancient wills and other ecclesiastical records keep out wind and weather as well as glass?--for light is a thing rather to be shunned than admitted into such places. Accordingly, as the Rat-catcher points to the shed, Mr. Wallace observes numberless ends of record rolls and bundles of engrossed testaments poked into the broken windows: in some places variegated with old rags.
Judging from the exterior, and from the contract for rat-catching, the interior of this depository of the titles of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property, must be an archæological Golgotha, a dark mouldy sepulchre of parchment and dust.
Lawyers say that there is not an estate in this country with an impregnable title; in other words, it is on the cards in the game of ecclesiastical and common law, for any family to be deprived of their possessions in consequence of being unable to establish a perfect title to them. How can it be otherwise when the very deeds by which they have and hold what they enjoy, are left to be eaten by rats, or to be stuffed into broken windows?
CATHEDRAL NUMBER FOUR.
An antiquary cannot approach the city of Chester from London, even in an express railway train, without emotions more lively than that class of observers generally have credit for. Despite a sensation akin to that of being fired off in a rocket, and a pardonable fancy that the hedges are endless bands of green ribbon in eternal motion, that the houses, and cottages, and churches, and trees, and villages, as they dart past the confines of the carriage window, are huge missiles shot across fields which are subjected to a rapid dispensation of distorted perspective; yet these mighty evidences of the Present do not dull his mind to the Past. He remembers, with wonder, that two thousand years ago, it was over this identical line of country that the legions of Suetonius lagged along after they had blunted the scythes of Boadicea, routed her hordes, and driven her to suicide.
We will not say that our own fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Mr. William Wallace, retrojected his imagination so far into the past while crossing the Chester platform with his carpet-bag, because we are led to believe, from his report to us, that his views were immediately directed to the more modern times of St. Werburgh, who founded the Abbey of Chester (once the most splendid in England); seeing that it is in the still-standing gateway of that obsolete establishment, that the objects of Mr. Wallace's especial solicitude are now, and always have been deposited, since Henry the Eighth erected Chester into a diocese.
His hopes of success in seeking out certain facts from the testamentary records of this see, were more slender than they had been while entering upon his errand at the other three cathedrals. He had written to the bishop for that permission to search which had been by other prelates so readily granted, but which had been rendered by the respective Registrars so utterly nugatory, and had received no answer. Awkward reminiscences of the state of this Registry, as disclosed before the last Parliamentary Committee on the Ecclesiastical Courts, fell like a dark shadow over his hopes. Up to the year 1832, the gateway where the wills are kept was, upon the Deputy Registrar's own showing, neither "fire-proof, sufficiently large, nor absolutely free from plunder." The searching-office was a part of the gateway; and was as inadequate as other searching offices. The Chief Registrar in 1837 was a sinecurist in the _seventieth_ year of office, and was verging towards the hundredth of his age; having received, in his time, not less than three hundred and fifty thousand pounds of the public money for doing nothing. The fees for searches and extracts were heavy, and nobody was allowed, as in most other Registries, to see how the wills were kept.
Such were the gloomy prepossessions of Mr. William Wallace, as he approached the archway which held the testamentary treasures of Diocese Number Four. He sought the searching office in vain, and at length was fain to address himself to the first passenger--a burly blacksmith--who, at once, in answer to his inquiry, pointed to a handsome new stone building, that stood within the Abbey Square.
Mr. William Wallace ascended the steps doubtingly; and when he found himself in the wide passage of an evidently well-planned public office--so contrary was the whole aspect of the place to his preconceptions of it, and to his previous experience of other ecclesiastical Registries--that he would have retired, had not the words, "Searching Office," as plain as paint and capitals could make them, stared him full in the face from a door on his right. This he boldly opened, and beheld a handsome apartment, so mounted with desks, counters, and every appurtenance for public convenience, as to put him in mind of the interior of a flourishing assurance office. "The room," says Mr. William Wallace, in his report to us, "is furnished with a counter of ample size, extending round it, on which you examine the indexes. On calling for one or two modern wills, the clerks brought me a substantial, well-bound book, in which he informed me all modern wills have been, since the appointment of the present Registrar, enrolled at length, in a round text, so distinct and plain, that illiterate persons might read them; and not engrossed, so as to become a source of revenue, as at Doctor's Commons, where the unlearned, in what is called 'court-hand,' are obliged to call in the aid of a clerk, and disburse a fee for the wills to be read to them. I was informed that I could see the originals on giving a satisfactory reason to the Registrar, or, in his absence, to a principal clerk. So promptly is business done here, that I found the wills which had been received from Manchester and other places that day, had been already indexed--very different to York, where wills are sometimes not indexed for six or eight months, and, consequently, often not at all. I next inquired for some earlier wills, and stated that I might probably want to have two or three days' research, for a literary purpose. On hearing this, the clerk informed me that the Registrar made no charge under such circumstances, except for the clerks' time. I then called for about six early wills, and only one of the six could not be found. Afterwards I asked for the returns of several Parish Registers; each set of which are well and substantially bound in a separate volume; for this a fee of three shillings and eight-pence is demanded; at York, for the production of a similar quantity of records, fifteen pounds is the price, without clerks' fees; and at Lincoln it would be impossible to collect them at all, many having been used to bind up modern wills, and for other such purposes."
Mr. William Wallace, pleasingly surprised at the contrast this Registry number four presented to others he had visited, and where he had been so egregiously snubbed, determined to learn and see as much respecting it as possible. With this view, he applied, without any other introduction than his card, to the Registrar; whose excellent custom it was, he understood, to be in attendance daily for several hours. At that time he was examining witnesses in a case for the Ecclesiastical Court, and handed the card to the bishop's secretary, who was also in official attendance. "That gentleman," says Mr. Wallace, "immediately came down, and informed me that the Bishop had written to me, in answer to my application, two days before, giving me permission to search, at reasonable hours, and that the Registrar, as was his usual custom, had not the slightest objection. I then asked to be shown the various parts of the building, the modes of preserving the records, which request was granted without the smallest hesitation."
Our informant then goes on to say that he found the building--which was raised solely at the expense of the present Registrar, since his appointment in 1837--conveniently divided into different departments like the best of the Government offices,--each department legibly indicated for the benefit of the inquirer, on the different doors.
The manner in which the records are preserved at this Cathedral number four, is spoken of by our friend with satisfaction. His report to us is silent on rats, wet, mildew, smoke, broken windows, torn testaments, and illegible calendars. "Modern wills," he repeats, "are copied at length into volumes, by the present Registrar, a practice which I regret is not adopted at York, Lincoln, Lichfield, Winchester, and other places I have visited. If wills of an earlier date than that of the enrolment books are required to be taken out of the office for production in any Court of Law, &c., an examined copy made for the purpose, is deposited in its place during its temporary removal from the Registry. The principal portion of the wills are deposited in a dry, but not a fire-proof building, in good repair, called the Abbey Gateway; where, during the office hours, two clerks are constantly kept at work in copying wills that come in. These are kept in boxes, arranged upon shelves with just sufficient space to admit them, like drawers; and upon the top of the wills is a sheet of pasteboard fitting the box, as a further protection from dust. The wills are alphabetically arranged in the boxes, which are of uniform size, and contain more or less letters; the first box for 1835, for instance, contains the wills of testators whose names commence with A. or B. The wills of each letter are placed separately, and are divided into packets of one month each, so that the exact date of Probate being known, the will is found immediately."
Before the period of its renovation, the Registry of Chester was as inefficient and exacting as the other three we have described. To whom the merit of the change and the contrast is really due, is not easily to be ascertained, although the present incumbent of the office must necessarily have the largest share of credit for it. We suspect, however, that the proximate impetus of the reform can be traced to the geographical position of the see. It includes the busiest of the manufacturing towns, and the most business-like, practical, and hard-handed examples of the English character. The thorough-going Manchester or Liverpool legatee would not endure, beyond a certain point and a certain time, the impositions, delays, destructions, and muddling confusion of the will offices in the more easy-going districts. Time with him is cash. What he wants he must have at once, especially if he pays for it. He may be put off once or twice with a rotten, illegible index, or a "Come again to-morrow;" but when he once sees that these may be obviated, he takes care to let there be no delay on his part, and agitates immediately. To engage a Free Trade Hall, and get up a public meeting, is with him a matter of no more consideration than scolding his clerk, or bringing a creditor to book. He has discredited the maxim that "talking is not doing;" and a constant iteration of pertinent speeches, ending with stinging "resolutions," has been found to _do_ greater feats, to perform much greater wonders than setting ecclesiastical registries in order. It is possible, therefore, that the lay authorities of the Chester Registry, having the dread of an uncompromising community before their eyes, saw their safety in renovation; and, like sensible men, made it, without that whining sophistication, that grim tenacity, with which abuses are excused and clung to, in exact proportion to their absurdity, profitableness, and injustice.