Part 6

ONE of the famous books of the last generation was that of _Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque_. If the Doctor had extended his journey as far as Maldon, in Essex, he would have been well rewarded for his pains. Essex can boast of two towns set upon a hill. One is Colchester, the other is Maldon; but as regards picturesqueness, Maldon bears away the palm. Everywhere you have a fine view of the country—on one side the Chelmer reaching away to Chelmsford, on the other the Blackwater making its winding way to the German Ocean. At one time this Blackwater was a source of trouble, as by means of it the Danes used to sail up, as it were, into the very bowels of the land, murdering, and plundering, and ravishing, and pillaging everywhere. There is no fear of that now; it is a thing of the past. Said a friend of mine the other day, as we stood admiring the peaceful prospect lying at our feet, “from my bedroom window I can see eight churches,” and, strict Noncon. as he is, I fancy the sight is pleasanter to him than that of Danish pirates landing from their ships to carry terror and devastation all over the land. Maldon claims to be the oldest borough in Essex, and to have a history, if rather a dull one. Up to the time of the last Reform Bill it returned two members, and as a matter of fact, the candidate who bribed most freely was the winning man. Now-a-days it is only at an election that the passions of the people are aroused. There is a rector who preaches in an ancient church, there is a Congregational chapel, which I am told is in a flourishing condition; there are Baptists and Wesleyans, and all work together pleasantly excepting when an election ensues. Then the people are aroused, and bad passions come into play, and friends quarrel never to be friendly again, although the cynical observer might exclaim—

Strange such difference there should be ’Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee.

There was a time when it was otherwise. For instance, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we find the Maldon electors petitioning their representatives on their sufferings from Prelatic parsons. “They are crueller,” so they affirm, “than the ostriches of the wilderness, and more unkind than the dragons.” They ask to be relieved of the teaching of ungodly men such as have been “Popish priests, taylors, fletchers, serving-men, wheelwrights, and many of these alehouse haunters, dicers, quarrellers, whoremongers, and full of gross sins.” Moved by this and similar appeals, the friends of the Puritans in the House of Commons endeavoured to obtain them some relief, but in vain—the Queen and her Bishops were of quite another way of thinking. For taking their part the Maldon M.P. was committed to the Tower. Matters became worse rather than better under James I., and it was not till the Civil War that a Commission was formed by Parliament for the purpose of investigating complaints against the existing ministry; and of that Commission Sir Henry Mildmay, M.P., for Maldon, was one. Essex was full of Puritan divines. One of these was Thomas Horrocks, the rector of Maldon, where, says Calamy, he was “a diligent and powerful preacher twelve years together, and was an instrument for converting many souls.” After his ejectment he continued to preach, and was at length cast into the dungeon of the town, where he lay ten days. A court being held in the town, he was accused of all sorts of crimes, and called by some of the aldermen heretic, schismatic, and traitor; and when he was pleading for himself, one of them rose from the bench and gave him a box on the ear, and beat off his satin cap. At the time of the Revolution Mr. Joseph Billio came to Maldon to gather together under his ministry those whom Mr. Horrocks had prepared for separation. On the site of the present meeting-house, one was erected to hold four hundred persons. When Mr. Billio was succeeded by a minister of Unitarian sentiments, there was a split in the congregation, and a small place of worship was erected elsewhere. In 1778 the congregation returned to their old place of worship. In 1801 a new place of worship was erected on the site of the old one, which had now become insufficient. It is there the present minister, the Rev. H. H. Carlisle, preaches. The place will hold eight hundred hearers, and is well attended. Attached to it is a fine modern lecture-hall and day-schools, which are well filled. I was particularly struck with the bright and happy appearance of the boys and girls being trained there to become men and women. With such training the old joke about Essex calves undoubtedly will lose a good deal of its point and power.

A very quiet place is Maldon—at one time a great centre of the corn trade, which, in consequence of railways, has shifted elsewhere—and which the Great Eastern Railway has brought within an hour and a half’s ride of London. The population is about six thousand, and, by the last census, it seems slightly to have declined. In the Town Hall are portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne, Charles II. and George III., and Dr. Plume, a Maldon celebrity, of whose career I have no particulars, save that he was a clergyman, and presented a library of over 6,000 volumes to the town. It is open daily from 10 till 12. The great artist, J. R. Herbert, R.A., was a native of the place, and Landseer studied there in his early days. Its chief claim to fame seems to have been that it was the birthplace of Edward Bright, a shopkeeper in the town, who died in 1750, and was so enormously fat that he weighed about 616 lbs. and seven men were on one occasion buttoned in his waistcoat without breaking a stitch or straining a button.

Remains around Maldon testify to the antiquity of the place. On the west side are the remains of a camp formed by Edward the Elder as far back as 920. Near the town are the remains of a Lepers’ Hospital, which makes one note with thankfulness that, thanks to sanitary science in England, we have no need of such buildings now, and we rejoice that the good old times are gone. By the side of the river, about a mile from the town, are the remains of Beeleigh Abbey, founded for monks of the Premonstratensian order in 1180; considerable remains still exist, but have been much altered in the process of converting the building into a farmhouse, still there is a good deal remaining well worthy the attention of the antiquary, though at one time the chapter-house, which has a fine groined roof, was used as a pig-sty. In the Abbey was buried Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, in 1483. One of the Maldon churches has a triangular tower. It is said that only in Italy is there another tower of the same kind. I may also state, as one of the peculiarities of Maldon, that the custom of Borough English, by means of which the youngest son succeeds to the copyhold estates of his father, still prevails there. Thus altogether a pleasant ancient flavour attaches to the place, in spite of its Reform Club, which dates from 1874. One might do worse than live at Maldon, where good houses are to be had at a bargain, and where in the summer-time, far from the wicked world, there is a good deal of boating, and where in the winter time, in the coming glacial era, which Sir Robert Ball confidently predicts as reserved for the people of England, you may skate as far as Chelmsford, a consummation by no means devoutly to be wished. For bicycles Maldon is by no means favourable, incredible as it may seem to those who will persist in believing that Essex is a flat country. There are two hills in the town, one of which is pronounced to be the most dangerous hill in all Essex for bicyclists.

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