Part 34

“PEMBROKE, June 28.--I have some few days since despatched horse and dragoons for the North. I sent them by the way of Winchester; thinking it fit to do so in regard of this enclosed letter, which I received from Colonel Dukenfield: requiring them to give him assistance on the way.”... “Here is, as I have formerly acquainted your Excellency, a very desperate enemy, who, being put out of all hope of mercy, are resolved to endure to the uttermost extremity, being very many of them gentlemen of quality, and men thoroughly resolved. They have made some notable sallies upon Lieutenant-Colonel Reade’s quarter, to his loss. [Reade had been intrusted with the siege of Tenby, ended June 2, and was now assisting at the reduction of Pembroke.] We are forced to keep divers posts, or else they would have relief, or their horse break away; our foot about them are four and twenty hundred; we always necessitated to have some in garrisons. The country, since we sat down before this place, have made two or three insurrections, and are ready to do it every day. So that--what with looking to them, and disposing our horse to that end, and to get us in provisions, without which we should starve--this country being so miserably exhausted and so poor, and we with no money to buy victuals. Indeed, whatever may be thought, it’s a mercy we have been able to keep our men together in the midst of such necessity, the sustenance of the foot, for most part, being but bread and water. Our guns, through the unhappy accident at Berkley, are not yet come to us; and, indeed, it was a very unhappy thing they were brought thither, the wind having been always so cross, that since they were recovered from sinking, they could not come to us: and this place not being to be had without fit instruments for battering--except by starving. And truly I believe the enemy’s straits do increase upon them; and that within a few days an end will be put to this business--which surely might have been before, if we had received things wherewith to have done it....”

“PEMBROKE, July 11, 1648.--To Hon. W. Lenthal, Esq., Speaker of the House of Commons.

“SIR,--The town and castle of Pembroke were surrendered to me this day, being the eleventh of July, upon the provisions which I send you here enclosed. [See Rushworth, vol. vii., 1190.] What arms, ammunition, victuals, ordnance, or other necessaries of war, are in the town, I have not to certify you--the commissioners I sent in to receive the same not being yet returned, nor like suddenly to be; and I was unwilling to defer giving you an account of this mercy for a day. The persons excepted are such as have formerly served you in a very good cause; but being now apostatized, I did rather make election of them than of those who had always been for the King, judging their iniquity double, because they have sinned against so much light, and against so many evidences of divine Providence going along with and prospering a just cause, in the management of which they themselves had a share.

“I rest your humble servant, OL. C.”

[Colonel Poyer has had to surrender the castle; Maj.-Gen. Laugharne and certain other “persons excepted,” have had to surrender at mercy; a great many more on terms. “Pembroke happily is down, and the Welsh war is ended.”]

The “certain persons” here alluded to were Colonels Laugharne, Powel, and Poyer. They were tried by court-martial and found guilty; but Parliament having determined to punish only one, three papers were given to them, on two of which were written, “Life given by God;” the blank paper fell into the hands of the unfortunate Poyer, and served as his death-warrant.

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Of these three officers--“heads of the insurrection in South Wales”--Clarendon gives the following account:--“Laugharne, Powel, and Poyer, commanded those parts under the Parliament, which they had served from the beginning. The first of them was a gentleman of good extraction, and a fair fortune in land in those counties, who had been bred a page under the Earl of Essex, when he had a command in the Low Countries, and continued his dependence upon him afterwards, and was much in his favour; and by that relation was first engaged in the rebellion, as many other gentlemen had been without wishing ill to the King. The second, Powel, was a gentleman too, but a soldier of fortune: the third, Poyer, had from a low trade raised himself in the war to the reputation of a very diligent and stout officer, and was at this time trusted by the Parliament with the government of the town and castle of Pembroke. These three communicated their discontents to each other, and all thought themselves ill-requited by the Parliament for the services they had done, and that other men, especially Colonel Mitten, were preferred before them; and resolved to take the opportunity of the Scots coming in, to declare for the King upon the Presbyterian account. But Laugharne, who was not infected with any of these freaks, and doubted not to reduce the other two when it should be time to sober resolution, would not engage till he first sent a confidant to Paris, to inform the Prince of what he had determined, and of what their wants consisted, which if not relieved, they should not be able to pursue their purpose, desiring to receive orders for the time of their declaring, and assurance that they should in time receive those supplies they stood in need of. And the Lord Jermyn sent him a promise under his hand, ‘that he should not fail of receiving all the things he had desired, before he could be pressed by the enemy,’ and therefore conjured him and his friends ‘forthwith to declare for the King, which, he assured them, would be of singular benefit and advantage to his Majesty’s service, since, upon the first notice of their having declared, the Scottish army would be ready to march into England.’ Hereupon they presently declared, before they were provided to keep the field for want of ammunition and money, and when Pembroke was not supplied with provisions for above two months, and were never thought of after.”

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Pembroke Castle contained many elegant apartments, appropriated to the use of its lords, in one of which Henry VII. first saw the light of day. In the inner ward stands the Keep , a circular tower of vast strength and elegant proportions. The height is computed at seventy feet, the interior diameter at twenty-four, and the walls from fourteen to seventeen feet in thickness. The State Apartments appear to have been finished in a style of great elegance. On the north of the great tower is a long range of apartments, which seem to be of more recent construction, or to have been modernised in later times by one or other of its titled proprietors. From this part of the castle a staircase communicates with Leland’s “marvellus vault callid the Hogan”--a large cavern in the rock, opening upon the water, and extending a great way under the buildings. The entrance is now partially walled up, and formed into a spacious doorway. The name _Hogan_--which has occasioned some discussion among antiquaries and etymologists--is probably derived from _ogof_ or _ogov_, the British name for a cavern. This castle is justly considered one of the most splendid remnants of military architecture in the United Kingdom; and, from the state of preservation in which it is maintained, the design and execution of every compartment may still be traced with accuracy and precision.

CARDIFF CASTLE,

Glamorganshire .

Curthose Tower. --The apartment where Prince Robert was confined by his unnatural brother, is traditionally known as “Curthose’s Tower.” So in Chepstow Castle, the keep is distinguished as “Marten’s Tower;” but between the fate of the two prisoners, who have left their names thus associated, there is no resemblance. The more illustrious the captive, the more dismal was the cell in which he was immured. It must have been at all times a wretched dungeon, such only as a malignant fiend would have assigned to its human victim. A ray of light, barely sufficient to distinguish the difference between night and day, is admitted by a small square hole perforated through the wall upwards; and the mere fact of his having existed in this dreary cell for the long period of twenty-six years, proves that Robert Curthose must have possessed no ordinary degree of fortitude and resignation. But the courage inspired by conscious innocence is proof against the machinations of Fortune--

“He that has light within his own clear breast, May sit i’ th’ centre and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun-- Himself is his own dungeon.”

The sufferings inflicted upon Robert in this dismal prison, are a theme on which the old chronicles dilate with painful minuteness. It would be a relief to imagine that the acts of wanton cruelty practised upon the defenceless victim, may have been, like many other points of history, exaggerated or misrepresented; but, taken in connection with other deeds of the time, there is but too just grounds to conclude that the story of Robert’s imprisonment, and the tortures with which it was accompanied, is no fable, but one of those tragical dramas of real life, to which the force of imagination can impart no additional horror. The subject, although referred to in the previous volume of this work, may justify a few more extracts:--

“But long it was not ere Duke Robert, weary of this unwonted duresse, sought to escape; and having to walke in the Kinge’s meadows, forests, and parkes, brake from his keepers without any assisters, or meanes for security; who being missed was presently pursued and taken in a quagmire, wherein his horse lay fast. Whereupon the King hearing of this attempt, considering that woods were no walls to restrain the fierce lyon, and that to play with his claws was to endanger the state, commanded him not onely a greater restraint and harder durance, but also--a thing unfit for a brother to suffer, and most unworthy for Beauclearke to act--both his eyes to be put out. To effect this truly barbarous act, he caused his head to be held in a burning basin--thereby avoiding the deformity of breaking the eye-balls--until the glassie tunicles had lost the office of retaining their light.”

But at last, after twenty-six years’ imprisonment, “through griefe conceived at the putting on of a faire new roabe--(too little for the Kinge himselfe, and therefore, ‘in kindnesse,’ says the Chronicle, ‘sent to Duke Robert to weare’)--he grew weary of his life, as disdaining to be mocked with his brother’s cast cloaths; and cursing the time of his unfortunate nativity, refused thenceforth to take any sustenance, and so pined himselfe to death.”

Cardiff , in later times, was a point on which Owen Glendower discharged his vengeance. The inhabitants of Glamorganshire, as descendants of the Norman conquerors above named, were pre-eminently distinguished for their loyalty to the King, and their oppression of the natives. But now they were to feel “the dire resentment of an irritated injured countryman.” The visit of Ivor Bach to Fitz-Hamon was not more welcome than this of Owen to his descendants. “Ivor Bach, a Briton,” says Camden, “who dwelt in the mountains, a man of small stature but of resolute courage, marched by night with a band of soldiers, and seized Cardiff Castle, carrying away William, Earl of Gloucester, Fitz-Hamon’s grandson by the daughter, together with his wife and son, whom he detained prisoners until he had received full satisfaction for all former injuries.” The residence of this renowned Briton was Castell Goch, an outport of Cardiff. He was attached to the daughter of Jestyn-ap-Gwrgant above named; and being rejected as a suitor for her hand, he stormed Cardiff Castle, carried her off by force; but, being overtaken in his retreat near a valley called Pant-coed Ivor, he fell under the swords of his pursuers.

To return to Glendower: “Having burnt, pursuant to his desolating system, the Bishop’s palace of Llandaff and other houses, he proceeded to Cardiff, which he also consigned to the flames.” The town in these days contained many religious houses--“a goodly priory founded by Robert, the first Earl of Gloucester; a priory of Black Monks, or Benedictines; a house of Black Friars in Crokerton Street; a house of Grey Friars, dedicated to St. Francis, under the custody or wardship of Bristol; and also a house of White Friars.” None of these houses experienced any favour from Glendower except the Franciscans, who, having been firm adherents to King Richard, and on good terms with Owen, escaped the conflagration; for the whole town was burnt down except the street where their monastery stood. In this destructive raid through Glamorganshire, he demolished the ancient Castle of Penmarc , which belonged to Gilbert Humphreville, one of Fitz-Hamon’s knights, before named; and which has remained in ruins ever since.[388] But we need not prosecute these records of a barbarous age further than our subject demands.

TENBY CASTLE,

Pembrokeshire .

“Terra hæc triticea est marinis piscibus, vino que venali copiose referta; et quod omnibus præstat, ex Hiberniæ confinio aëris salubritate temperata.”--_Gyraldus._