Part 17

[56] Richard de Beauchamp was born on the 28th of January. 1381, and succeeded his father in the Earldom of Warwick in 1401. At the coronation of Henry IV., he was created a Knight of the Bath, being then only 19 years of age. “When scarce more than a youth,” he suppressed the rebellion in Wales, under Owen Glendower, whose standard he took in battle. During the whole of the reign of the fourth Henry, he was one of the most prominent, honourable, and useful “pillars of the state;” and, at the coronation of Henry the 5th, he was constituted Lord High Steward; in 1415, he was declared Captain of Calais, and Governor of the Marches of Picardy: subsequently, he became tutor to the young Prince Henry, and on the death of the Duke of Bedford--14 Hen. VI.--he was appointed Regent of France, and Lieutenant-General of the King’s forces in that realm and the Duchy of Normandy. He died in the Castle of Rouen, April 30, 1439--17 Henry VI. His body was conveyed to England, and deposited in the Church of St. Mary, “in a fair chest made of stone.” until the Chapel was prepared for its reception.

[57] Thomas de Beauchamp died of the pestilence at Calais, on the 13th of November, 1370, at the age of 63. He had retired from public life, but hearing that the English army, under the Duke of Lancaster, lay in camp, perishing from famine and disease, and refused to fight the French, by whom they were surrounded, he instantly embarked for France, where his “bare appearance so alarmed the enemy, that they commenced an instant retreat.” Recumbent figures of the Earl and his Countess--finely sculptured--are laid upon the monument which occupies the centre of the choir. A fine brass of his second son, Thomas, and Margaret, his wife, was preserved from the fire of 1694, and is now placed against the east wall of the transept, and near the entrance to the Chapel. It is a beautiful specimen of the costume of the period, and has been engraved in Waller’s recent publication.

[58] Dugdale has preserved a curious and interesting document in connexion with the Chapel, being the “Covenants of Agreement between the Executors of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, viz. Thomas Huggeford, Nich. Rodye, and Wm. Berkswell, and the severall Artists that were employed in the most exquisite parts of its fabrick and ornaments--as also of the costly Tombe before specified, bearing date xiii Junii, 32 H. 6.”

These are the covenants of John Essex, Marbler; Will. Austen, Founder; Thomas Stevyns, Coppersmith; Bartholomew Lambespring, Dutchman and Goldsmith. John Prudde, of Westminster, Glasier, further covenanted to glase all the windows in the new Chappell in _Warwick_, with Glasse beyond the Seas, and with no Glasse of _England_; and that in the finest wise, with the best, cleanest, and strongest glasse of beyond the Sea that may be had in _England_, and of the finest colours of blew, yellow, red, purpure, sanguine, and violet, and of all other colours that shall be most necessary, and best to make rich and embellish the matters, Images, and stories that shall be delivered and appointed by the said Executors by patterns in paper, afterwards to be newly traced and pictured by another Painter in rich colour at the charges of the said Glasier. All which proportions the said _John Prudde_ must make perfectly to fine, glase, eneylin it, and finely and strongly set it in lead and souder, as well as any Glasse is in _England_. Of white Glasse, Green Glasse, black Glase, he shall put in as little as shall be needfull for the shewing and setting forth of the matters, Images, and storyes. And the said Glasier shall take charge of the same Glasse, wrought and to be brought, to _Warwick_, and set up there, in the windows of the said Chapell; the Executors paying to the said Glasier for every foot of Glasse _ii_ s. and so for the whole _xci_ li. _i_ s. _x_ d.

[59] While standing among the graves of generations of the family, and noting down the words in which were recorded their claims to live in memory, we heard suddenly from a young woman who guided us to the church--and who conveyed the sad intelligence with tearful eyes--that on the very morning of our visit another of the Lucys had been summoned to take his place among the dead. George Lucy, Esq., the Lord of Charlecote, died on the 1st of July, 1845--somewhat suddenly; leaving, however, a son, not yet of age, to inherit the honours and estates. The circumstance was to us peculiarly unfortunate; for Mr. Lucy had courteously offered to supply us with all the information in his power to give, concerning the neighbourhood and its several associations. We found that his loss was felt in the cottages almost as bitterly as in the mansion; and obtained certain assurance that he, like his progenitors, had been a generous landlord, and a kind friend to the poor.

[60] The painting is so well described by Washington Irving that we quote his words:--

“The picture gives a lively idea of the costume and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet; white shoes with roses in them, and has a peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, a cane-coloured beard. His lady is seated on the opposite side of the picture, in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his perch in the foreground, and one of the children holds a bow; all intimating the knight’s skill in hunting, hawking, and archery, so indispensable to an accomplished gentleman in those days.”

[61] It is now generally admitted, however, that the lines beginning--

“A parliament member, a justice of peace, At home a poor scarecrow, in London an asse,”

were--neither the whole nor a part--written by Shakspere, the lampoon containing no indications of genius; it is a libel on the memory of the poet to assert that they were the offspring of his mind--to say nothing of the “poorspite” they would have manifested,--a feeling totally away from so great a soul. The story of Shakspere’s early transgression and its consequences is thus related by Rowe: “An extravagance that he was guilty of first forced him out of his country, and that way of living which he had taken up; and though it seemed at first to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune to him, yet it afterwards happily proved the occasion of exerting one of the greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatic poetry. He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and, amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford; for this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and, in order to revenge that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him.” That Shakspere engaged in a frolic similar to the one related of him, is by no means improbable; freaks of the kind are common enough to “young fellows;” and although it is impossible to imagine that the poet took part in this, from any motive other than that love of risk and adventure inseparable from great minds in the bud, we may readily believe tradition to be in the main correct. That Sir Thomas Lucy was not a man of even poor understanding is sufficiently proved by the epitaph to the memory of his wife.

[62] Mr. Wheeler, a most intelligent gentleman of Stratford, who has given much time and thought to all subjects connected with Shakspere’s history,--and by whom we had the advantage of being accompanied to the church--directed our attention to the fact, that formerly a charnel-house adjoined the chancel, from which there was a communicating door. Here the bones of the neglected or forgotten were gathered:

“The vault To whose foul mouth no healthsome air comes in, * * * * * * an ancient receptacle, Where for these many hundred years, the bones Of all my buried ancestors are packed.”

And it is by no means unlikely that the frequent contemplation of a scene so humiliating, and of objects so revolting, may have induced the anathema,

“Cvrst be he yt moves my bones.”

[63] It was part of the plot of the conspirators implicated in the Gunpowder Plot to hasten into Warwickshire, seize the person of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I., and proclaim her Queen; and, on the discovery of the plot, they did so “hasten into Warwickshire” (it is surmised to Combe Abbey, where probably the princess then was); but the vigilance of Sir John Harrington secured her from their hands. In a work published in 1833--“Lives of Eminent and Illustrious Englishmen,” edited by J. G. Cunningham--we find the following interesting particulars relative to the son of this Lord Harrington:--

“John, Lord Harrington, born 1591, died 1613, was eldest son of that Lord Harrington to whose care King James committed the education of his daughter Elizabeth. While a boy, he spoke French and Italian with fluency, and was distinguished for the extent, variety, and accuracy of his learning. During a tour which he made on the Continent, he is said to have excited the deadly enmity of the Jesuits by his ardent attachment to the reformed doctrines, and by his bold and eager avowal of them in public; and it was supposed his premature death was occasioned by poison, administered during his residence abroad; but it is extremely probable the whole of this statement may be referred to the violent religious prejudices and antipathies of the times. On succeeding to the family title and estates, he honourably discharged all the debts which his father had contracted by his magnificent style of housekeeping. He was eminently pious, spending great part of the day in religious meditation and exercises, and devoting the tenth part of his income to charitable purposes.” He died in the twenty-second year of his age, and his estate descended to his two sisters, Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and Anne, wife of Sir Robert Chichester.”

[64] Mr. Richardson makes the following observations on this controverted point: “Great portion of the present building was raised by Lord Harrington; of the ancient monastic pile a portion of the cloisters only remains; these form a fine corridor, which ranges along the lower division of the building. On the west side of the house is a large addition, said to be by Inigo Jones, but which is more probably the work of Captain William Winde, the pupil of Sir Balthazar Gerbier; at least, it is ascribed to him by Horace Walpole (see his ‘Anecdotes,’ vol. iii. p. 169, Dallaway’s edition).”

[65] The Princess Elizabeth was married to the Elector Palatine at the early age of sixteen. Her virtues, talents, and sweetness of temper, combined with exceeding gaiety of disposition, together with her personal charms, made her almost an object of idolatry with the cavaliers of her age. She was usually styled “the queen of hearts;” and it was to her that Sir Henry Wotton addressed the elegant lines commencing--

“You meaner beauties of the night, That weaklie satisfie our eies, More by your number than your lighte, Like common people of the skies, What are you when the moon doth rise?”

Immediately after her marriage to the Elector, they proceeded to their palace at Heidelberg, which became the focus of the chivalry of the period.

This scene of their enjoyment and happiness they quitted when the Elector became king of Bohemia, and thenceforward evil destiny pursued their steps. The deposed sovereign died of a broken heart, at the early age of thirty-six; and after his death the queen remained at the Hague, living in privacy and poverty, but exerting the energies of her fine mind to educate her children, of whom she had several. The management of her affairs she confided entirely to her gallant defender the Earl of Craven, who had entered the military service of the states to be near her, and to whom she is understood to have been privately married. On the Restoration she was invited by her nephew, Charles II., to pass the remainder of her life in England, a proposal which she gladly accepted. She arrived in London on the 17th of May, 1661, with Lord Craven, and took up her residence at his house in Drury Lane, where she remained till the following February, on the 8th of which month she removed to Leicester House, and died there on the 13th, only five days after she had entered it. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, in a vault made for the interment of her brother Henry, prince of Wales.

That her ambition principally induced the downfall of her husband, there is little doubt. On this subject we borrow an eloquent passage from Mrs. Jamieson: “One of the most interesting monuments of Heidelberg, at least to an English traveller, is the elegant triumphal arch raised by the Palatine Frederick V., in honour of his bride--this very Elizabeth Stuart. I well remember with what self-complacency and enthusiasm our chief walked about in a heavy rain, examining, dwelling upon every trace of this celebrated and unhappy woman. She had been educated at his country seat; and one of the avenues of his magnificent park yet bears her name. On her fell a double portion of the miseries of her fated family. She had the beauty and the wit, the gay spirits the elegant tastes, the kindly disposition of her grandmother, Mary of Scotland; her very virtues as a wife and woman, not less than her pride and feminine prejudices, ruined herself, her husband, and her people. When Frederick hesitated to accept the crown of Bohemia, his spirited wife exclaimed, ‘Let me rather eat dry bread at a king’s table than feast at the board of an elector.’

[66] The legend of Guy of Warwick was extremely popular in the middle ages; and his encounter with the Danish champion Colbrand, as well as his victory over the Dun Cow, was the favourite subject of the wandering minstrel. Dugdale has given the narrative of his battle with Colbrand, which he seems inclined to believe to be true in the main features, although “the monks may have sounded out his praises hyperbolically.” According to him, “in the 3 year of King Athelstan, A.D. 826, the Danes having invaded England cruelly wasted the countrys where they marcht, so that there was scarce a Town or Castle that they had not burnt or destroyed almost as far as Winchester,” where the King resided, and to whom they sent a message, requiring him to resign his crown to their generals, holding his power at their hands, and paying them yearly tribute for the privilege of ruling; or, that the whole dispute for the kingdom be determined in a single combat, by two champions, for both sides. The King having chosen the latter alternative, enjoins a fast for three days, and in great anguish of heart that Guy, the famous warrior, is absent on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, prays Heaven for assistance. An Angel appears to the King as he lies on his bed, and directs him to arise early on the morrow, and take two bishops with him to the North gate of the city, and stay there “till the hour of Prime,” until the poor people and pilgrims arrive, among whom he must choose a champion, and the choice must fall on him who goes barefooted, with a wreath of white roses on his head. The King goes, and meets the Pilgrim, accosts him, and asks his championship, which he hesitates to give, excusing himself on the ground of his weakness with much travel, and exhorts him to seek a fitter help. To this the King bitterly answers, “I had but one valiant knight, which was Earl of Warwick, called Guy, and he had a courageous servant, named Sir Heraud de Ardene; would to God I had him here, for then should this duel be soon undertaken, and the war finished, and as he spake these words the tears fell from his eyes.” The Pilgrim is moved, and ultimately consents, and after three weeks spent in prayer and preparation, the battle begins. Colbrand “came so weightily harnessed that his horse could scarce carry him, and before him a cart loaded with Danish axes, great clubs with knobs of iron, squared bars of steel, lances, and iron hooks, to pull his adversary to him.” The giant uses a bar of steel in the combat, which lasts the whole day--Guy in the end proving victorious, and taking a farewell of the King to whom he declares himself, goes towards Warwick, and thence to a hermit in its neighbourhood, living with him till his death, and succeeding him in his cell until his own decease. The spot is still pointed out, and bears the name of Guy’s Cliff.

But this is not the only Giant story connected with the family. Their well-known crest or cognisance is said to come from one Morvidus, an Earl of Warwick in the days of King Arthur, “who being a man of great valour slew a mighty giant in a single duell, which gyant encountered him with a young tree pulled up by the root, the boughs being snag’d from it; in token whereof, he and his successors, earles of Warwick, in the time of the Brittons, bore a ragged staff of silver in a sable shield for their cognisance.” Such were the old fables with which our ancient family histories were obscured, or rendered romantic and wonderful to the subordinate classes.

[67] From the top of Guy’s Tower, ascended by 133 steps, the view is most fine and most extensive. Far stretching in the distance are seen the tall spires of the Churches at Coventry; nearer is the ruined Castle of Kenilworth; still nearer, are Guy’s Cliff and Blacklow Hill, famous in legend and story; Leamington appears lying at our feet; while “Stratford-on-the-Avon” seems almost “within arms-reach;” far off are the hills of Shropshire; on all sides are fertile plains, of seemingly illimitable extent, with here and there dark woods and forests; the Panorama is inconceivably beautiful and grand.

[68] The following legend is given by Dugdale, as extracted from a MS. penned about the time of Edward IVth:--“Hugh the son of one Richard, holding the lordship of Hatton and likewise this place of Wroxhall, of Henry earl of Warwick, was a man of great stature; which Hugh going to warfare in the Holy Land was taken prisoner, and kept in great hardship for 7 years: at length he addressed his prayers to St. Leonard, the patron of his church, who appeared to him in a dream, in the habit of a black monk, and bade him arise and go home and found at his Church a house of nuns of St. Benet’s order. He treated it as a dream, but on its repetition joyfully made a vow to God and S. Leonard that he would perform his commands: which vow was no sooner made than he was miraculously carried thence with his fetters, and set in Wroxall woods, not far from his own house, yet knew _not_ where he was, until a shepherd of his own accidentally found him, and though much affrighted (in respect of his being overgrown with hair), after some communication discovered all to him. His lady and children being apprised of the circumstance, came forthwith to him, but believed not that he was her husband till he shewed her a piece of a ring that had been broken between them. Having given thanks to God, our Lady, and S. Leonard, and praying for some divine revelation as to the site for his monastery, he was specially directed by certain stones pitched into the ground in the very place where the altar was afterwards set. On its completion two of his daughters were made nuns therein, one of the nuns of Wilton being fetched to direct them in their rule of S. Benedict.”

[69] Extract from a MSS. written about 1690, by Dr. Markhouse, a prebendary of Carlisle, upon the “Deanery of Westmorland,” and containing much curious information upon ecclesiastical matters in that county.

[70] “Sir William Stirkland in the reign of King John or Henry III. married Elizabeth, only daughter and heiress of Ralph D’Aincourt and his wife Helen.”

“This piece of sculpture is one of the earliest instances of the quartering of arms, and is a curious example of the preference given to the heiress with whom the family had become allied, the arms of D’Aincourt being placed first--a circumstance which often occurred at that early period of heraldic art. The quartered coat was not in use before the time of Edward III.”

[71] “The family is a branch of the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk: the first Earl was only son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk by his second marriage, and was a distinguished naval commander _temp._ Elizabeth. In 1605 this peer was employed in the search about the houses of Parliament, which terminated in the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot; in 1613 he was Lord High Treasurer of England. His second son was the first Earl of Berkshire.”--DODD’S _Peerage_.

[72] “The reason why the name of Fountains was given to this Abbey is a matter of some doubt. It is not an improbable conjecture that the monks might think it conducive to their honour, and that of their house, to give it the appellation of the place where their founder, St. Bernard, drew his first breath--Fountaines in Burgundy. This opinion is also corroborated by the consideration that no remarkable springs break out on this spot which could have given rise to the appellation. But the learned and ingenious historian of Craven, Whitaker, has given another derivation of the word. Skell, the rivulet that washes its walls, signifies a fountain; and he observes that the first name assigned to this house was the Abbey of Skeldale; but the monks, who always wrote in Latin, translated it ‘De Fontibus;’ and afterwards, when the original name was forgotten, it was translated ‘Fountains.’”

[73] George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, died at a small inn at Kirby-Moorside, on the 15th April, 1687. He was buried in the churchyard, but the precise spot is unknown. The following is a literal extract from the register which records his burial:--

“1687, April 17. Gorges vilaus Lord dooke of bookingam.”

He must have gone to the grave unattended except by the parish officials. The Earl of Arran accidentally passing by the inn while he was dying, gave, indeed, directions to see him “decently interred.” But the memory of his grave has faded; there is not only no stone to preserve his name, but even tradition cannot point out the spot upon which to place it, so that his ashes may be covered by a poor monument. The reader will recall the famous lines of Pope:--

“In the worst inn’s worst room,” &c.

The room is still shewn to the curious; it is a small and poor chamber, not the “worst” in the house, although a strange contrast to the princely halls the licentious duke had so long inhabited:--

“No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more; There, victor of his health, his fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.”