CHAPTER XVI

_Old Coventry at the Present Day_ 317

_Index_ 346

ILLUSTRATIONS

_King Henry VI._ (_From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery; painter unknown_) _Photogravure Frontispiece_

HALF-TONE FACING PAGE _A Courtyard in Little Park Street_ 6

_Smithford Street_ 82

_Palace Yard_ 166

_Council Chamber, showing Panelling_ 174

_Bablake and S. John's Church_ 208

_New Street_ 224

_Butcher Row_ 228

_Mayoress' Parlour, showing State Chair_ 338

LINE PAGE _The Two Spires from top of Bishop Street_ 2

_8 Much Park Street_ 5

_Remains of Old Wall--back of Godiva Street_ 7

_Saint John the Baptist, Coventry_ 9

_Gosford Green_ 11

_24 Gosford Street_ 12

_130 Far Gosford Street_ 13

_Godiva Window_ 20

_Heraldic Tile found in Hales Street_ 21

_Peeping Tom_ 23

_Cathedral Ruins_ 24

_Carved Miserere Seat, S. Michael's Church_ 25

_Priory Row, Coventry_ 27

_Cheylesmore Manor House_ 39

_Gable of Cheylesmore Manor House_ 43

_34 Far Gosford Street_ 52

_Old Whitefriars' Monastery, now Coventry Union_ 54

_40 Far Gosford Street_ 58

_Courtyard, S. Mary's Hall, Coventry_ 78

_Minstrel Gallery, S. Mary's Hall_ 81

_The City Keys_ 85

_The City Mace--The Sword_ 86

_The Old State Chair_ 89

_High Street, Coventry_ 99

_View of Interior of Saint Michael's_ 117

_Gosford Street_ 123

_Smithford Street, Coventry_ 136

_Cook Street Gate_ 142

_Old House in Little Park Street_ 148

_Queen Mary's Chamber_ 164

_Swanswell Gate_ 167

_The Council Chamber, S. Mary's Hall_ 185

_Trinity Lane_ 213

_Arms of City of Coventry_ 214

_Old House beside S. Mary's Hall_ 235

_Whitefriars' Lane_ 239

_Oriel Window and Stocks, S. Mary's Hall_ 241

_Old Bablake School_ 260

_Ford's Hospital_ 261

_Holy Trinity Church_ 271

_Swillington's Tomb, S. Michael's Church_ 274

_Pulpit, Holy Trinity Church_ 277

_Old House in Cox Street_ 291

_36 Gosford Street_ 293

_91 Gosford Street_ 294

_Old House in Cox Street_ 295

_Entrance to Kitchen, S. Mary's Hall_ 331

_Archdeacon's Chapel, Holy Trinity Church_ 340

_The Staircase, Old Bablake School_ 344

The Story of Coventry

INTRODUCTION

_The Three Spires and Coventry_

"Now flourishing with fanes, and proud pyramidès, Her walls in good repair, her ports so bravely built, Her halls in good estate, her cross so richly gilt, As scorning all the Towns that stand within her view."

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xiii.

Time has brought many changes since old Drayton thus vaunted the stateliness of Coventry. The walls, the cross are gone, and of the twelve stately gates, but two remain. Gone, too, is the splendid conduit in the Cross Cheaping, S. Nicholas' Hall in the West Orchard, meeting-place of the Corpus Christi guild; and S. Nicholas' Church, out to the north beyond Bishop Street, which fell to ruin soon after the Reformation. But the "proud pyramidès," the "three spires," remain yet, and give greeting to all who approach Coventry, dominating the flat midland country for many a mile, changing their relative position as the spectator moves, and their colour in the shifting lights. Highest and fairest of all--so "the Archangel," says Fuller, "eclipseth the Trinity,"--is the nine-storied belfry of S. Michael's, tower, octagon and spire, a wonderful example of symbolism of design and harmonious disposal of ornament. The tower, begun in 1373, was the gift--says tradition--of the men of the Botoner family, the spire of its women, not the least among the many noteworthy achievements that in Coventry history are linked with a woman's name.

Such a medley is Coventry that the great steeple over-shadows quiet, memory-haunted places, and streets filled with the clamour of traffic, pleasant houses rich men have lately built, and squalid courts, that occupy the site of many an ancient burgage croft and garden. It is a typically English city, whose history might serve as the "abstract and brief chronicle" of England. A thoroughly corrupt borough in the worst days of municipal corruption, rigidly Puritan under the Stuarts, loyal under Elizabeth, steady for hereditary right at Mary's accession--but Protestant, as witness its martyrs--Lollard in the hey-day of Lollardry, patriotic and Talbot-worshipping in the Hundred Years' War--as England was, so was Coventry. In art and letters, also, the city recalls what is most characteristic in the achievements of the English people. Here flourished mediæval architecture, an art wherein Englishmen have excelled greatly, and the mediæval religious drama, foundation of Shakespeare's greatness; while chance, and the sojourn of George Eliot, have given the city associations with the literary outburst of the Victorian time.

The doings of Coventry folk or the happenings within the city must have impressed the minds of generations of English folk, since the name has entered into folk rhymes[1] and flower names, and proverbial English speech. Old botanists speak of "Coventry bells" and "Coventry Marians," where now we say "Canterbury bells"; children play card-games called "Peeping Tom" or "Moll of Coventry"; and we still, by silent avoidance of our friends, "send them to Coventry," a reminiscence maybe of the uncivil treatment the city Roundheads gave to imprisoned Cavaliers what time the bitterness engendered by the Civil War was abroad in the land.

Interesting too--albeit scanty--are the relics of legendary lore and heathen custom which ofttimes perplex the student of the city's history. Here was played the Hox-Tuesday play, survival, say folklorists, of the struggle to gain possession of a victim for the sacrifice; here the national legend of Godiva grew up; and here, men fabled, S. George, patron of England, was born.

In the country round about Coventry two Englands meet, one a land of green woods and well-watered pastures, the other black with the toil of the coal-fields. The city turns its most prosperous side southwards, and the common view of the spires is the one from the south, where the tree-bordered road from Kenilworth, whereon so many kings and queens have travelled, slips into Coventry, past a fringe of ample, comfortable houses, that the well-to-do have raised in our own time. This was Tennyson's view of the spires, and George Eliot must have seen it daily in her school-life, which she passed in the house that is farthest from the town in Warwick Row. It is the common view, but not the most interesting, since the octagonal Decorated steeple of Christchurch, recased in fresh stone, last remnant of the now demolished church of the Greyfriars, is the least commanding of the three, and by its nearness somewhat dwarfs the rest. The Greyfriars of Coventry, be it said, have gained by a scribe's error, a probably quite unmerited fame as producers of the noted Corpus Christi plays; in reality, this honour should belong to the lay-folk and craftspeople of the city.

It is well--so the journey is made from the south--to gain a more distant view of the "proud pyramidès" over the flat fields from the Stoneleigh Road, where Christchurch falls into its proper place. The trees make the way through Stoneleigh a lovely one, and the village church, redolent of eighteenth century peace, with a magnificent Norman chancel arch, furnishes a fine excuse for delay. Nearer to Coventry the way winds on over Finham Bridge, shadowed by poplars, and through Stivichall, a hamlet the widow of Earl Ranulf of Chester gave to the Bishop of Lichfield for the welfare of her husband's soul. Allotment gardens and newly-built streets occupy the land to the south-east of the city, formerly known as the Little Park, once part of a royal estate. It is a commonplace-looking site nowadays, albeit thronged with memories. Here Lollard sermons have been preached and miracle-plays played, and hither Laurence Saunders and others were led out to be burned in 1556, on ground now occupied by a factory, where once long after men discovered charred fragments of a stake. They are building streets over the Park area by the station nowadays; but this was a practice inaugurated long ago when Much Park Street (_vicus parci maioris_) and Little Park Street (_vicus parci minoris_) were built on ground cut out of the royal estate. The east end of Little Park Street may be reached by Park Road, past a newly-raised memorial to the Coventry martyrs.

Much Park Street led by Whitefriars through Newgate to the London Road; Little Park Street led but to a postern gate. In Stuart times the latter road had little traffic and much social dignity; beautiful houses stood therein with spacious gardens, where dwelt the neighbouring gentry, who were wont to enjoy the amenities of urban life for a season, a common feature of the social life of country towns at that period. Sir Orlando Bridgman's house, most magnificent example of these gentlefolks' dwellings, was wantonly demolished in the early nineteenth century, though the Jacobean mantelpiece from the presence-chamber is still preserved in the school at Bablake. The street still retains in Banner House, and a lovely little quadrangle of the time of William III., relics of the grandeur of that bygone time.

The London Road comes past Whitley, a manor held in the fifteenth century by William Bristow, the most troublesome and litigious person in Coventry history, and Shortley, where in Edward II.'s time, one John de Nottingham, a necromancer, dwelled, concerning whom there is much to be found in this book. At Shortley is the Charter-house where, incorporated in a modern dwelling, are remains of the Carthusian monastery, which the Botoners helped to build, and whereof Richard II. was patron. Wayfarers from London and Daventry (Shakespeare's "Daintry") entered the town at Newgate by Whitefriars, the modern workhouse. At Newgate the mural circuit was begun in 1356, when Richard Stoke, mayor, laid the first stone. Here, too, in August 1642, Charles I. made a breach in the town wall, whereat divers Cavaliers found entrance; but so vehement was the onslaught made upon them by the townsfolk--men and women--and so impregnable were the citizens' barricades of carts and furniture, that the Royalists withdrew discomfited. Another breach in the wall, twenty years later, made also at Newgate, marked the beginning of the work of dismantling the fortifications. This was done by order of Charles II. to avenge the old affront offered to his father, and occupied 500 men for three weeks and three days. The superstitious found in the destruction of the walls the subject of one of the famous Mother Shipton's prophecies. It was foretold, they said, "that a pigeon should pull them down," and in truth they were dismantled in Thomas Pigeon's mayoral year.[2]

From Little Park Street only two spires are seen; and but the same number is visible in Bishop Street, which lies to the north. The traveller comes almost suddenly into the turmoil of this street from the pleasant uplands of Fillongley, where the Hastings' family had a castle, and the Shakespears a farm-house, and Corley, of George Eliot memories, with its prehistoric camp on the Rock. It is good to see but two spires, that it may serve as a reminder that the church of the Greyfriars is but an unessential feature in Coventry history. The twin steeples of S. Michael's and Trinity represent the two parishes--the two estates, Earl's-half and Prior's-half--which anciently composed the city.

Maybe these two steeples look most magnificent in the twilight from Poolmeadow, formerly covered by a sheet of water known as S. Osburg's Pool. This is a bare place running east and west of Priory Street, to the north of the site of the ancient monastery. By daylight the surroundings of Poolmeadow are unbeautiful enough, yet it is in some respects the most interesting spot in Coventry, since it is connected with the earliest name that occurs in Coventry history.

What connection there was between the Saint, whose nunnery the Danes destroyed, and this pool, we know not. At her shrine in the priory were miracles wrought, and her head seems to have appeared among the relics treasured by the religious house at the Dissolution.

Another non-parochial church comes very prominently into view when the approach is made from the south-west, Canley and Hearsall, though I imagine that few enter by those by-lanes save the ruddy, brown-gaitered farmers on their way to the Friday market. This is the guild-church of S. John the Baptist at Bablake, whereof the tower, that has a fortress-like touch, rises high above the roofs of the town. Even the sea-element is not lacking in the history of this inland city, since the guild brethren declared that they wished to raise this church in part as a memorial "for the good success the king had upon the sea" upon S. John's day--probably at the battle of Sluys, June 24, 1340.[3] Hard by this church and the collegiate buildings clustered behind it stood Bablake Gate, and all who came by the great highway leading from the north-west--now called the Holyhead Road--made their entrance there. Before coming to Bablake, however, wayfarers would cross the Sherbourne at Spon, close by the chapel of S. James and S. Christopher, now incorporated in a modern dwelling-place. Here they would, belike, pay their devotions just as other travellers coming from London and Daventry paid theirs at the Lady Tower, wherein was a wooden image of our Lady, hard by Newgate and Whitefriars.

Smithford Street, which reminds us of the early activity of the workers in iron, leads to Bablake, and by the bridge there tradition says that there grew a great tree "that from the strangeness of the fruit was called Quient" (quaint), an imaginary etymology of the name Coventry. Modern scholars are, however, agreed that it was from some memorable (and possibly sacred) tree that the earliest form of the word "Cofantreo" is derived.

To those who look on the spires from Gosford and the eastern side the tall ones appear in their relatively close proximity. This is the entrance to Coventry where most historical associations abound. "Two dukes should 'a fought on Gosford Green," succinctly say the city annals in 1397, but, as all the world knows, Richard II. forbade Bolingbroke and Mowbray to fight. Sinister memories for the House of York are connected with the Green, for here in 1469 Queen Elizabeth, Woodville's father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John, were beheaded by Warwick's orders. It is said that it was on this side of the city that Edward IV. advanced in 1471, what time the King-maker held the city against him. Further west, beyond Far Gosford Street, is Dover Bridge, whereon once stood S. George's Chapel, meeting-place of the tailors and shearmen's guild, demolished in 1821. Outside this chapel once hung the blade-bone of the dun-cow, slain, says the legend, by Guy of Warwick of famous memory.

In Gosford Street, long, ancient and grimy, was formerly the first station for the performances of the pageants; and in Cox Street, anciently Mill Lane, which runs to the north of Gosford, were the pageant-houses or places for storage of theatrical paraphernalia owned by the crafts. From Gosford the long thoroughfare street passes into Jordan Well--commemorating the well sunk by Jordan Shepey, mayor of Coventry, who died 1349, the year of the Black Death--and thence into Earl Street, where, it may be, a castle of the Earls of Chester once stood with an entrance at Broadgate.

To see the spire of S. Michael's alone it is best to leave this long thoroughfare and turn to the right by a half-timbered Tudor house down the narrowness of Pepper Lane where the immense steeple almost seems to blot out the sky.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Northall, _Eng. Folk Rhymes_, 403.]

[Footnote 2: Mayor-list or MS. Annals (eighteenth century) in the possession of Mr Eynon of Leamington.]

[Footnote 3: Morris, _S. John's Church_.]