Chapter V: Part 5

April 27th.--The surrender takes place. "He was pardoned," says Clarendon, "without much grace; his regiment was given to another, and he resolved as a volunteer; in this capacity he fought desperately through the war when danger was most rife, but in vain. So difficult a thing it is to play an after game of reputation in that nice and jealous profession of arms." "As they march out at Friar's Corner," says Sir Samuel, "at the same place when, as is recorded further, the soldiers plundered the houses of four Grand Malignants who had given information to the Governor of such persons as were inclined to the cause of the Parliament, and had therefore paid a double tax to the weekly contribution." This, perhaps, was as little as could be expected from a victorious cause; and Sir Samuel again concludes all very characteristically and satisfactorily too, as regards the God-fearing soldiers of the Commonwealth.

April 30th, "being the Sunday, was spent in preaching and hearing God's word, the churches being extraordinarily filled, and soldiers and all men carrying themselves very civilly all the day long."

Sickness appears to have broken out amongst Essex's young soldiers encamped on the marshy meadows on the N.W. of the town, which may have had something to do with the easy terms granted. The Mercurius Aulicus, the Court Journal, has a story that "a soldier said that Essex caused five great pits to be dug at a distance from his camp, into which he cast the slain to conceal their number." The Earl stayed here until July, and ordered a heavy contribution for the pay of the soldiers. The Corporation, however, waited upon him to represent "they had been so impoverished by the late siege, and the exactions of His Majesty, as to be utterly unable to raise any more money amongst them." And this excuse seems to have been graciously accepted. Charles' "little finger," in money matters, was of necessity "thicker than the Parliament's loins," and this lead considerably to the declining of his cause. When the tide of war turned a couple of years after, he appeared again here, and stayed at Coley; but we do not hear then of any more forced benevolences; indeed he conferred a real benefit, by having the fortification "slighted," which no doubt the burgesses received with extreme satisfaction. So the siege ended. Sieges in those days were trying to reputations. Colonel N. Fiennes, at Bristol, and then Prince Rupert at the same place, whether justly or not, were heavily censured for surrendering, and both of them came very near to sharing the fate of Fielding. That old lamentation was speedily verified; but with this we have happily no further connection.

"Lament! Lament!
And let thy tears run down,
To see the rent
Between the robe and crown!
War, like a serpent, has its head got in,
And will not cease so soon as 't did begin."

Reading Abbey.

It is hardly necessary to state that in rather early days, when the Thames flowed into the Rhine and Great Britain was a part of a greater continent, there was no Reading Abbey. Neither was there sometime after, when the city was a swamp between the Thames and the Kennet, and some few huts clustered round the Roman station Ad Pontes, where the legions crossed from Londinium on their way to the rich and important town of Calleva. We may possibly date our abbey's beginning from the third or fourth century. It may have been a chapel of ease to that interesting little church lately uncovered, and alas! covered up again, at Silchester. At any rate we are on firm ground when, towards the end of the tenth century, we locate a nunnery here, founded by Queen Elfreda, who at last began to repent of her various crimes. She had, perhaps, some excuse for arranging with the King to get rid of her first husband, who had deceived his royal master, lead astray by her fatal beauty. Thus she attained the throne to which she had no doubt been destined; but it was going too far to retain it by the murder of the son of her predecessor, Queen Ethelfleda; which is one of the horrid memories that clings round Corfe Castle. And now we leap to the beginning of the twelfth century and get on still firmer ground, when Henry I., at the height of his power, and also beginning to feel a little compunction, resolved to make reparations by founding what should be an abbey of world-wide magnificence.

He certainly succeeded. I mean with his abbey, though I am not prepared to go as far as do the chroniclers of his predecessor:--

"King Ethelbert lies here,
Closed in this polyander.
For building churches straight he goes
To heaven without meander."

Henry I. never did things by halves, and they could build in those days. His architect had _carte blanche_, and with wonderful speed there arose that glorious fabric whose ruins we weep over, and use for our flower shows. The abbey covered some thirty acres. It was surrounded with a wall, vast and strong, except where guarded by the Kennet, and four huge embattled gateways opened out to the four quarters. Almost all its stones are now gone. "It pitieth," or it ought to pity the by-passers to see some in the wall of that house in Hosier Street, some very few on the site, and oh, 18th century! many cartloads vandalised into a bridge on the road to Henley, near where the Druid's temple of despoiled Jersey adds another sorrow to the scenery. But at its dedication in 1164, in Henry II.'s time, the abbey and the abbey church must indeed have been magnificent. The latter was a cruciform building 420 x 92 feet in dimensions, without an aisle, covering the vast space between the Forbury and the gaol. Its extent is well shown, by the notices the Corporation has lately put up under the skilled guidance of those two chiefest of experts, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Berkshire Archæological Society. After the dedication ceremony, the King, and his still friendly Beckett, would doubtless adjourn to the magnificent Consistory, the great Hall, one of the largest and finest in England, destined to see so many Parliaments, and other national assemblings.

The inner gateway still remains, restored, perhaps, almost too modernly; close inspection will, however, show the old gate hinges and portcullis way; closer investigation still may even discover the dog badge of the last abbot, and a dolphin with the red rose of Lancaster on its tail, probably also belonging to the same period. Here the humble burgesses used to bow themselves before the Lord Abbot, and listen whilst he was pleased to indicate which of them might fulfil the then limited office of mayor. In front of this, as some say, the last abbot and his two accomplice monks died the awfully cruel traitor's death, having been convicted of sending supplies to the northern rebels in their so-called Pilgrimage of Grace. It has much pleasanter modern memories, being lent by the good town to the Berkshire Archæological Society, and being the scene in its fine old chamber of many interesting archæological gatherings. But I have strayed a long way from 1164. The second Henry's reign was no doubt its golden period; more memories cluster about the abbey in the twelfth century than at any other time. Here, the year before, in 1163, had occurred "the Fight on the Island," when, much to Henry's regret, de Bohun fell beneath the spear of de Montford.

"His fame, as blighted in the field,
He strove to clear by spear and shield;
To clear his fame in vain he strove,
For wondrous are His ways above.
How could the guiltless champion quail,
Or how the great ordeal fail!"

"The knights met on horseback," says Norroy Seagur, "clad in armour, (on the island just below Caversham Bridge; a street running down to it has lately been called De Montford Street), Montford attacked with such resolution as to hurl Henry of Essex out of the saddle, when being stunned and faint from loss of blood, he was taken up apparently dead." King Henry handed him over to the monks of Reading Abbey, under whose care he recovered, and at once joined the fraternity. Some years after, and following on that bad Beckett business, Henry was here again, for here, in 1185, came Heraclius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Master of the Temple with him, appealing for a crusade to all Christian Kings, and especially to King Henry, who, it was considered, especially needed that moral white-washing. What a sight for the abbey! They brought with them the Standard of the Kingdom of the Holy Land, the Keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and of the Tower of David. The King reverently received them all, but handed them back to the Patriarch until he could consult with his barons. Henry was too old to go, but numbers of the young nobility took the cross, and carried it in the van against the Infidel; and not least fiery Prince Richard, the king of all knight errants. He went off immediately on coming to the throne, and performed exploits which far exceed those imagined by Ariosto. Unfortunately he needed money, and had to carry off the golden cover his father gave for the chief abbey relic, the hand of St. James; but that doubtless would soon be replaced by the offerings of the home-staying faithful.

Also in this reign, and at its close, were several royal funerals. Henry I. of course had himself buried here, as it was said in a silver coffin, which caused some very ruthless explorations at the time of the Suppression. A stone coffin found here recently had a very distinguished origin suggested for it by a high local authority. In 1154, Prince William, eldest son of Henry II., was buried here near his grandfather. Also here was buried King Henry II.'s second wife, Adeliza; and thereby hangs a very complicated and curious tale.

In 1810 some workmen digging in the abbey precincts "found a box which contained a perfectly formed fleshy hand (writes Mrs. Climenson, in her almost universal 'History of Shiplake,') holding a slender rod surmounted by a crucifix." This, she says, is now in Mr. Scott Murray's Roman Catholic Chapel at Danesfield, and is considered to be the hand of St. James the Less, which was brought from Germany by the Empress Maud, and given by her to her father, who gave it to the Abbey. "It is in perfect preservation, a plump and well-shaped hand, small, and with taper fingers, and almond-shaped nails, so small it might well be a woman's." And it probably is, and the hand of Queen Adeliza. One almost regrets it was not left in its hoped-for last resting-place. There is something gruesome in such remains, especially, perhaps, in heaped-up skulls in museums. Those lines of a modern poet on such a sight are pathetic.

"Did she live centuries, or ages back?
What colour were those eyes when bright and waking?
And were your ringlets fair, or brown, or black?
Poor little head! that long has done with aching!"

In Stephen's days, in the interval between the Henries, the poor monks seem to have had rather an uncomfortable time of it. Stephen patronized them; he would have money, but he took it politely. When for a while his cause went down, and the Empress Queen arrived here, she was quite as exacting, and also bullied them most unmercifully. They must have been devoutly thankful when she at last went off to her continental possession; and when she came back for sepulchre would no doubt be able to receive her with greater equanimity. An English dean not long ago was accused of having "refused to bury a Dissenter." "On the contrary," he replied, "I shall feel the greatest pleasure in burying you all!"

Now we pass to the fourteenth century. Here, in 1359, Edward III. celebrated the marriage of his son John of Gaunt with Blanche, daughter of Henry Plantagenet. This was unquestionably the grandest wedding that ever happened, or could happen at Reading. The King of France, just lately taken prisoner at Poictiers, was part of the bridal party; so also a very famous Englishman, who came over here from his residence at Donnington Castle. Chaucer describes the whole thing at much length:--

"And the feste holden was in tentes,
As to tell you my intent is:
In a rome, a large plaine,
Under a wode, in a champagne;
Beside a river and a welle
Where never had abbeye ne selle;
Ben, ne kerke, hous, ne village,
In time of any man's age,
And dured three Months the feast,
In one estate, and never ceased.
From early of the rising of the sun,
Till the day spent was, and y-ronne;
In justing, dancing, and lustiness,
And all that served to gentilesse."

--_The Dream._

From Edward III. we will pass, though not in immediate succession to Edward IV.'s time; and I am again indebted to Mrs. Climenson for calling attention to a picture in the British Museum of Reading Abbey about 1470, where "the widow Gray"--as the Lancastrians called her--where Edward IV.'s bride, Queen Elizabeth, is represented as standing under this very inner gateway, already mentioned, so dear to the heart of every citizen of Reading. The abbot is there to meet her on her disembarkation, with all fitting reverence. In the distance are the royal barges, at the abbot's landing, on the Kennet.

After this almost a century glides by uneventfully. Like the Vicar of Wakefield, though not accompanied as he was, the abbot's adventures do not seem to have got much beyond "changing from the blue room to the green," at least from the abbey to Bere Court and back again. There were squabbles with the rising town; the aldermen began to be what would be now called "uppish," but the abbot was practically omnipotent, and sometimes, as in Abbot Thorne's time, had a heavy hand which effectually kept town councillors in their proper places. We can hardly realise now what very great men those mitred abbots must have been--practically-popes in their own districts where they wielded both the temporal and spiritual sword pretty vigorously.

The Abbot of Reading had precedence over all except Glastenbury and St. Albans. He had vast revenues at his disposal, worth nearly £20,000, it is reckoned, of our money,--a handsome income even after allowing for the lavish hospitality and almsgiving expected and rendered. He had the power of making knights, which the local name "Whiteknights," and the hospice there, shows to have been pretty freely exercised; though the fact that every priest was at one time "Dominus," or "Sir so and so," occasions a little ambiguousness as to knights in these earlier centuries.

In Reading itself, as already remarked, the abbot, within the law, was almost absolute over the lives and properties of the township growing up under the abbey shadow; his household, and all about him, was modelled on a scale of more than princely magnificence, and it is to be doubted whether any, except the very highest nobility, could show anything like such an extravagant retinue.

The very list is exhausting: marshal, master of the horse, two keepers of the pantry, three cupbearers, four janitors, five pages, eight chamberlains, twelve hostellers (whose duty was to receive strangers), twenty huntsmen, thirty-one running footmen, and last, not least, an almoner. What wonder that such magnificence contrasted but badly by the side of the self-denying Grey Friars, and that the great Benedictine abbey broke down at last under its own greatness! Its last abbot was not the worst, nor the least deserving by any means, only he fell on evil days; and, when he stood by his own order, had little idea of the terrible significance of treason in the eyes of a Tudor.

At first Abbot Hugh was favourably reported on by the commissioners. "On Sep. 16, 1539," quotes Froude, "they were at Reading; on the 22nd at Glastenbury; but the abbot there, his answer appeared cankered and traitorous; he was sent to the Tower to be examined by Cromwell himself, when it was discovered that both he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgents with money."

Reading Abbey perished; on the other hand, the Grey Friars Monastery was simply dissolved, its monks frugally pensioned, and turned out into the street; their noble church was made into a guildhall, but preserved by that at any rate, and is now restored, and is the town's noblest relic of antiquity. Of the great Benedictine abbey, on the other hand, only the almost imperishable flint core survives of its mighty buildings. It may have plundered Silchester; it was itself for long a very stone pit for the builder. Its "record" is that of Rome, "Quod non fecerunt Barbari fecerunt Barberini"--the Roman princes made a stone quarry of the Colosseum. That bridge at Park Place is an almost equal barbarism, but before this, boat loads of abbey stones had gone down the river to help to build the Hospital of the Poor Knights of Windsor.

The roof of the great Consistory went to St. Mary's Church, in Reading, thus happily preserved, and where all may still see it. The panelling went to Merton College, Oxford. In fact by the time of James the plundering was complete; only land cannot run away, and so he conferred that upon Prince Henry, the then heir apparent of the kingdom.

Since then its history has been uneventful; granted at first to the Knollys family, it became at times a royal residence; the royal stables were extensive, and horses stood where monks had knelt. This seems to be alluded to, in that singular old poem, "Cantio Cygni," when Thamesis is spoken of as arriving at Reading.

"From hence he little Chansey Seeth, and hasteneth to see
Fair Reddingetown, a place of name, where clothy-woven bee,
This shows our Alfred's victories, what time Begsal was slain
With other Danes, who carcases lay trampled on the plain.
And here these fields y-drenched were with blood upon them shed,
Where on the prince, in stable now, hath standing many a steede."

King James, as has been stated, gave the abbey to his eldest son, and it passed, in due time, into the excellently guardian hands of the Reading Corporation. Musing amid the ruins of this ancient pile, we may call to mind the lives of the men who once lived and worked and prayed on this spot, of the kings and great men who thronged the minster church and held parliaments in the precincts, and all the mighty events in history which took place in this, the chiefest and grandest monastic house in England. The memory of the glories of Reading Abbey will not soon pass away.

The First Battle of Newbury, 1643.

BY EDWARD LAMPLOUGH.

The armed phase of the great rebellion was in its second year, and neither party had achieved any great advantage. If the Royalists had thought to carry all before them in a summer campaign, they had found out their mistake; and it must have been equally evident to the Parliamentarians that they had embarked upon a struggle the end of which might prove bloody and disastrous to their cause.

Charles resolved upon the capture of Gloucester. On the 10th of August, 1643, he sounded trumpets before the gates, and called upon the commandant to surrender. Colonel Massey, a soldier of fortune, was faithful to his trust, and the royal trumpeter returned to the King's camp accompanied by two deputies of "lean, pale, sharp, and dismal visages," the bearers of a written declaration that, by God's help, Gloucester should be maintained, under the King's command, _as signified by both Houses of Parliament_. To this defiance was attached the signatures of Governor Massey, the Mayor, thirteen aldermen, and many wealthy burghers. Enraged rather than discouraged, Charles broke ground before the walls, amid the smoking suburbs, which had been fired by the stubborn Parliamentarians, whose wives and daughters went forth to cut turfs for the renewal of the earthern ramparts, shot away by the fire of the besiegers. With attack and sally, and storm of cannon and musket bullets, the siege held for a time, then resolved into a blockade, and Charles was on the eve of winning by famine where steel and lead had failed, when the Earl of Essex bestirred himself, and came to the rescue with the trained bands of London and a body of horse. He arrived not a moment too soon, for the besieged were reduced to their last barrel of powder.

The caution of Essex might well have stimulated the besiegers to give him battle before the walls of Gloucester; he was, however, permitted to enter unopposed, and to secure the city by liberal supplies of provisions and ammunition, and by the reinforcement of the garrison. The object achieved, the return march was commenced, in the course of which Essex paid a surprise visit to Cirencester, cutting off two regiments of Royal horse, and seizing a considerable quantity of provisions which had been collected during the siege of Gloucester.

The opportunity of striking a very serious blow at the enemy now offered itself to the King, and he resolved to act. Essex's forces consisted principally of the City trained bands, held in little repute by his army, and supported by a small body of cavalry, inferior to the bold riders of Rupert in number and conduct. Essex cut off and destroyed, Charles might strike the capital, and stifle the rebellion in the nest that bred it.

So Rupert poured forth his gay cavaliers, with gleam of cuirass and rapier, to intercept Essex, and hold him at bay until Charles came up to strike; for, as usual, the Royalists knew nothing of Essex's movement until twenty-four hours after he had left Gloucester. First blood was shed at Hungerford, when Prince Rupert, seconded by the Queen's life-guards, struck Essex's rear, and found tough work with Stapylton's brigade. But night closing in, rapier and broadsword were sheathed. Here the Marquis de Vieuville, a gallant Frenchman, fell, mortally wounded, into the hands of the Parliamentarians.

The next day the two armies converged upon Newbury, but Charles won the race by two hours, and Essex lay in the open fields, alert and anxious, for a conflict on the morrow was inevitable.

Assisted by General Lord Ruthven, Charles made his disposition for the battle, holding Essex at bay, with all the advantages of a defensive position and a superior cavalry. His army held Speen Hill, with its right wing resting upon the Kennet; the left protected by a battery, and lying towards Shaw Fields. The rear was sufficiently defended by the river Lambourne and the artillery of Donnington Castle. Thus the Parliamentarians were barred from the London road by the cavaliers.

Although Charles had taken up a defensive position, sunrise of the following morning, September, 20th, 1643, set the skirmishers free, and shots rang along the front from hedge and cover, as the soldiers felt their way towards the closer, sterner business of the day. Essex's first aim was to take up a position on Speen Hill. He lead the attacking force, which consisted of his own regiment, Barclay and Balfour's horse, Stapylton's brigade, and Lord Roberts' regiment of foot. His lordship had cast aside buff and corslet, and fought in his white holland shirt. Essex, a notable swordsman, found brisk work with the cavaliers on Speen Hill, but he won and held his position, although the young Earl of Carnarvon held him long in deadly play, charging straight through his rank. Pierced, but not routed, the troops were reformed, and obstinately maintained the struggle. It proved fatal to the gallant Carnarvon, who, according to Lord Clarendon, was run through the body by a passing trooper. Sir Roger Manley, however, states that the Earl was laid low by a shot, which struck him in the head, while leading the pursuit. Essex, although successful in this movement, was separated from the infantry, who fought the real battle, and, by their stubborn valour, held the Royal army at bay.

Had Charles maintained a purely defensive position, Essex would have been compelled to force the fighting. His inferiority in cavalry would have told heavily against him, and his infantry would probably have failed to force a passage through the Royal army. The ardour of the skirmishers in the first hours of the day probably drew him into the battle, which soon became general.

The London trained bands, under Skippon, received their baptism of blood in Newbury marsh and meadows, where they were drawn up, with the cavalry on the flanks. Rupert was seconded that day by some of the boldest and fiercest cavalrymen in the Royal armies; and he poured them again and again, a raging flood of foaming horse and men, upon the Parliamentarians. Pressing up to the very edge of flashing pike-points, with desperate stroke and thrust, and discharge of pistols, the gallant cavaliers strove to reach the sturdy Londoners; only to fall back from the fierce pike-thrust, while the snorting war-chargers reared and swerved from the iron front, and the grim musketeers poured in their heavy fire from the rear, emptying many a saddle, and sorely thinning the ranks of the King's bold riders.

Fighting under the King's eye, the cavaliers did all that could be expected from the most devoted loyalty; but Skippon's pikemen were beating back the repeated surges for their very life's sake; for the honour and safety of London, and for Essex's preservation. Once let that tide break in, and Rupert's revenge would be terrible. Three times, in quick succession, the London Blues were charged by two regiments of Royal horse, bent at all hazards to break in, but the musketeers plied their shot so thick and fast, and made such great havoc in the charging ranks, that the cavaliers drew off, after their third charge, and made no further attempt.

Triumphant as the Parliamentarians were in beating back the spirited charges of Rupert's gallant cavalry, the toil and strain of battle fell heavily upon them, and stung into sudden action by the galling fire of the Royal batteries, they made a somewhat disordered dash towards Donnington, with the intention of spiking the cannon, the Red London trained bands leading. Rupert saw the movement, and was quick to seize the only opportunity of victory that presented itself. In an instant he was upon them with "Byron's Blacks" and Colepepper's brigade; but as quickly the pikes were brought to bear, the musketeers poured in their shot, and the first charge was beaten back; before it could be renewed, Skippon had got the brave fellows ready, the front ranks kneeling, and a forest of long pikes presented to the plunging chargers. The utmost valour of the cavaliers could achieve nothing against the iron formation, while the regular and destructive fire of the musketeers swept the front, and strewed the field with dead and wounded men and horses.

Essex had had another tough encounter with a chosen band of Royalists, who, making a long detour, and adopting the broom and furze twigs which Essex's men wore to distinguish them from the King's men, fell furiously upon his ranks. The conflict that followed was to the death, for if the Royalists were incensed by the stubborn resistance that they met, and by their heavy losses, the Parliamentarians were not the less fiercely revengeful when, after the long strain of that terrible day, they rallied all their energies to beat back the perfidious attack of the Royalists. The desperate melée terminated in favour of Essex's troops, who beat off and chased the Royalists back.

The last scenes of the battle had taken place under the gathering glooms of the September night, and Skippon having succeeded in joining Essex's cavalry, nothing more could be effected until the morrow. The exhausted armies reluctantly parted, and silence settled over the field that had, during the long day, re-echoed the furious and dreadful sounds of war. Under the peaceful heavens lay 6,000 dead and wounded men, to be carted into the town by the humane burghers, when there was a great outcry for surgeons, always, alas, far too few in number to meet the requirements of war.

Both armies rested on the field, and stood to arms, ready to renew the battle, when the day broke again upon Newbury. Essex had secured his retreat, and could expect to achieve no more. Rupert could force the fighting with no greater skill and daring than he had already exercised, and with no greater prospect of penetrating the ranks of Skippon's pikemen. Essex drew off, unmolested, about noon, but Rupert fell upon his rear near Aldermaston, and inflicted some loss upon his troops. His march upon London was not, however, interrupted, and he entered the city in triumph, having fought a battle that was in all ways honourable to his army, whether nominally a victory or defeat. If the King claimed the honour of the field, it was indeed a barren honour. At every point he had been repulsed, although his cavalry had sacrificed itself with unmeasured devotion. He had not kept Essex out of Gloucester, and he had not cut off his retreat upon London.

During the battle Essex lost a trained band colonel and a few officers; but Charles lost many gallant and distinguished gentlemen, chief of whom were the Earls of Sunderland and Carnarvon, and the virtuous and talented Lord Falkland. The wounded included some of the first cavalry officers in the Royal army, Lords Chandos, Peterborough, Andover, and Carlisle, Sir Geo. Lisle, Sir Charles Lucas, and Colonels Gerrard, Constable, and Darcy.

In the pages of Clarendon will be found an elaborate account of the virtuous and unfortunate Falkland, who had a strong presentiment that he would perish in the conflict, and he accordingly put on clean linen, and arrayed himself in his richest apparel.

Essex, before marching off, issued orders for the burial "of the dead bodies lying in and about Enborne and Newbury Wash." Charles imposed similar duties upon the mayor of Newbury, expressly intimating that the wounded Parliamentarians were to receive every attention, and, on their recovery, be sent on to Oxford.

Essex carried with him into rejoicing London "many colours of the King's cornets;" and was there publicly thanked for what his party were disposed to regard as a victory over the King and his gallant cavaliers.

The Second Battle of Newbury, 1644.

When the second battle of Newbury was fought, the great rebellion had received a decided impetus in favour of the Parliamentarians. Marston Moor had been fought and the greenest laurels of Rupert had withered in one summer's night before the walls of York. The glory of Essex waned before the brilliant achievements and solid successes of Cromwell and Fairfax. The period of drawn battles and disputed victories was passing away.

Some transient successes had attended the royal arms, and Essex had been defeated in Cornwall; but with his army reinforced and reorganised, he was prepared to try conclusions with His Majesty on their old battle ground. With Essex there marched the Earl of Manchester, Skippon, Waller, and Colonels Ludlow and Cromwell. In consequence of the sickness of Essex, the supreme command devolved upon Manchester.

Charles was on the _qui vive_ from the 21st, to Saturday the 26th October; but being ill-informed of the movements of his dangerous adversaries, he was ultimately out-manoeuvred, his communications with Oxford cut off, and his rear threatened.

Mr. P. Blundell, F.S.A., in his interesting paper on the "Two Battles of Newbury," thus describes the disposition of the opposing armies:--

"On the next day, Friday, and on Saturday, the 26th, Symond's diary records pithily 'noe action'--both sides, in fact, were busied with their deadly preparations, for all men knew that their next meeting would be a stern and bloody one. The King's horse burned to avenge their recent overthrow on Marston Moor, and Skippon's infantry were resolute to win back the credit they had lost in Cornwall.

"The beleaguered Cavaliers now exerted themselves to retrieve their error, by adding to the strength of their position, throwing up entrenchments and mounting extra batteries. The Earl of Manchester with his vanguard held the lower portion of the town, and Cromwell's Ironsides with some infantry who formed the right wing of the Parliamentarian army, lay still, but not inactive, upon the south side of the Kennett, near Ham Mill, and 'thence, as soon as it was day,'--says Symonds--'they put a tertia of foot over a bridge which they had made in the night.'

King Charles again led the Cavaliers in person, the young Prince of Wales accompanying him, and the Earl of Brentford acting as Lieutenant-General. The royal standard waved upon Speen Moor, about a mile more northerly than its position during the previous battle, and the main body of the Cavaliers held Speen mainland and the upper town of Newbury, with their lines extending towards the Castle, while their extreme left rested a little below the present site of Donnington turnpike, and crossed the lane which intersects the meadows behind and round about Shaw House, then known as "Dolemans," occupied for the King, and fortified so strongly as to be, in military parlance, 'the key to the entire position.' The river Lambourn flowed along their front; Sir Bernard Astley's and Sir George Lisle's cavalry were stationed round about the fields betwixt the town and Shaw, and 'Dolemans' not only was well garrisoned by musketry and pikes, but had each hedge and hollow of its garden ground and pleasance, well lined with ambushed skirmishers and marksmen."

The burghers of Newbury maintained their accustomed neutrality, to the great disgust of the King, who, complaining that they rendered him no account of the movements of his enemies, stigmatised them as "wicked Roundheads."

The morning of the battle was spent in a distant cannonade, and the desultory skirmishing in which so much martial energy was usually expended. The royal forces made no movement to force the fighting, and Manchester held his hand in the expectation of reinforcements.

During the first movements of the battle, about mid-day, Charles and his son were in some danger of falling into Waller's hands. They were posted at Bagnor, with their guards in attendance, when the Parliamentarians, having seized Speen, made a rapid push for Bagnor. The danger of Charles was imminent, when Colonel Campfield came up on the spur with the Queen's Life Guards, charged furiously, broke the Parliamentarians, and followed them in headlong and vengeful pursuit. Shippon marked the fiery Cavaliers as they swept on in triumph, and threw out a strong body of infantry to check the pursuit, and afford Waller an opportunity of rallying; but as quickly the fierce Goring and the Earl of Cleveland burst upon the pikemen, threw them into confusion, and bore them sternly back, holding them in deadly play; but the pikemen and musketeers, whether fighting for king or Parliament, were seldom or never routed, and they bore nobly up, dressed their line, and made a stubborn stand; driving off the impetuous Goring with stinging pikes and hail of bullets. Again the persistent Cavaliers fell on, and the pikes trembled before the rushing tide of horse and men as they fell slowly back. Goring eagerly followed up his advantage, when the Parliamentarians opened their ranks, and allowed the assailants to pass through, then reformed to cut off their retreat, and opened a destructive fire. Thus entrapped the Cavaliers fought desperately, Goring cutting his way through with a handful of followers, but leaving Cleveland in the hands of the enemy.

Dolemans, the key of the position, was assailed by Manchester with 3,000 foot and 1,200 horse, a force by no means too powerful for the arduous task to be attempted. Astley and Lucas were not slow to meet the assailing forces, and the sonorous psalms of the Parliamentarians ceased as the battle surges closed. A stubborn and sanguinary conflict ensued, but Manchester could make no serious impression upon his enemies. Cromwell, holding his troops, ready to strike when the opportune moment arrived, beheld the setting of the sun and the closing shades of night, while the field was as stubbornly contested as ever. He accordingly prepared to strike with his cavalry.

Dividing his brigade, he sent one division to the assistance of Manchester, and with the other fell upon the King's left on Speen Moor. The king and the young prince fled on the spur to find safety beneath the cannon of Donnington, while the Life Guards threw themselves upon Cromwell's troopers, in a gallant attempt to arrest his advance. Vain was their devotion. The Ironsides smote them hip and thigh, shattered their formation, and drove them from the field in headlong flight.

"Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row,
Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes
Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the accurst."

A harder fate befell the second division. Involved among the hedges and avenues of Dolmans, they were decimated by the fire of the royal musketeers, furiously charged by the cavalry, and driven off in the utmost disorder, after sustaining a loss of 500 men. Edmund Ludlow made a gallant attempt to relieve them, and cover their retreat.

With this last desperate conflict the battle ceased, not to be renewed. The King drew off, and Manchester showed no disposition to attempt any further operations against him. The second battle of Newbury was thus not less hardly fought nor indecisive in its results than was the first.

It is said that the disgust of Cromwell was so great, that it influenced him, to make his accusation against Manchester, with the resulting self-denying ordinance, and its remarkable and wide-extending results.

Mr. Blundell's paper has been closely followed, but the matter necessarily condensed in this sketch.

Binfield and Easthampstead, 1700-1716, and the Early Years of Alexander Pope.

BY REV. C.W. PENNY, M.A.

There are few more pleasant and charming country villages in Berkshire than the two adjoining parishes, whose names stand at the head of this chapter. The undulating surface of the land, consisting for the most part of well-wooded and well-watered pastures, and a better soil than prevails in most of the surrounding heaths, must from the first have made an agreeable oasis in this part of the old Forest of Windsor. While their convenient situation, abutting north and south of the old high road, which ran from Reading past Wokingham to Windsor, and so to London, brought these secluded villages into touch, not only with the chief town of the county, but also with the busier life of the Metropolis. And thus, even two hundred years ago, they were an attractive place of residence for many old families that have long since died out and passed away.

The early history of almost every village centres round its church. And the church at Binfield is no exception to the rule. It lies embowered with trees at the further end of the village, nestling against the slope of a steepish hill. And although the ruthless hand of modern restoration has dealt somewhat hardly both outside and inside with the fabric itself, yet enough of hoar antiquity remains to attract the notice of even the most careless visitor. The venerable but somewhat dumpy tower is built, like those of Warfield and All Saints', Wokingham, of the conglomerate "puddingstone" of the district, and bears significant testimony to the scarceness of good building materials at the date of its erection. For these rugged irregular fragments must have been collected with infinite pains and labour when the "iron pan," as it is called, of the surrounding heath country was broken up, and the land first brought under cultivation.

As we approach the south door, the fine open timbered perpendicular porch, a feature which is characteristic of the churches of the neighbourhood, cannot fail to strike the eye. It is of unusual size, and the carved oak woodwork, black with age, is of superior workmanship.

The interior of the church is full of interest to the antiquary and the archæologist. For though the roof and arches are low, the pillars and windows poor, and the general architectural effect mean and disappointing, yet the floor and walls are crowded with inscribed and carved gravestones and memorial tablets of no ordinary character. These, as well as other relics of a bygone age, at once arrest attention.

To begin with the latter first; on a desk near the pillar as we enter is a black letter copy of Erasmus's Paraphrase of the Four Gospels, which at one time was ordered to be provided in every church at the cost of the parish. The copy is almost perfect, and has been carefully re-bound.

Then there is what the successive restorations have left of the fine Jacobean pulpit, with its date, "Ano. Dom. 1628," still upon it; and beside it, though unhappily upon the wrong side, is the elaborate hour-glass stand of hammered iron-work, consisting of oak leaves and acorns, alternately with vine leaves and bunches of grapes, together with three coats-of-arms, said to be those of the Smiths' and Farriers' Company. This is probably of the same date as the pulpit, if we may judge from the very similar iron frame-work which is attached to the pulpit in Hurst Church, and which bears the date 1636. The pulpit at Binfield has been sadly mutilated; its pedestal and staircase are gone; and its massive sounding-board has been relegated to the ignominious silence and seclusion of the vestry. But, in 1628, it must have been the handsomest pulpit of its kind in the neighbourhood.

On the floor of the sacrarium is a small brass, a half-length figure of a priest, represented with a stunted beard, and the apparels of the amice and albe ornamented with quatrefoils. Underneath is this inscription in Norman French:--

Water de Annesfordhe gist icy,
dieu de sa alme eit mercy.

It is one of the oldest brasses in the kingdom, for the said "Water" was rector of Binfield in 1361. Another remarkable fact about it is, that out of the seven inscriptions of this church recorded in 1664-6 by E. Ashmole in his "Antiquities of Berks," this is the only one which has survived the successive restorations. The other six have entirely gone.

Immediately in front of the altar the floor is composed of a row of six black marble gravestones, each of which has a coat-of-arms elaborately sculptured at the head. That nearest to the centre is to the memory of Henry, fifth and last Earl of Stirling, of whose family we shall have more to say presently. The remaining five are remarkable as being all of them apparently placed to the memory of Papists who lived in the reign of Charles the II. Indeed, one of them, that, namely, nearest the north aisle, in memory of William Blount, "who dyed in the 21st yeare of his Age on ye 9th of May, 1671," has the letters, "C.A.P.D." engraved at the bottom in large capitals, which stand for the well-known pre-Reformation prayer, "_Cujus Animae Propicietur Deus_." And it is clear from the names of those commemorated in the other inscriptions that towards the end of Charles the II.'s reign there was a little colony of Papists residing at Binfield.

One of the oldest of these Roman Catholic families was that of Dancastle or Dancaster. They had been lords of the Manor of Binfield since the time of Elizabeth; and a member of the family, John Dancaster, had been rector of Binfield as far back as 1435. The gravestone in the chancel is to the memory of another member, also John Dancaster, who died in 1680, aged eighty-four. And from the coat-of-arms at the head of it: _Az._, a ball of wild fire _Or._, impaling, _Sa._, three lions passant in bend _Arg._, between two double cottises of the last, we are able to identify him as the "John Doncastle of Welhouse" in Ashmole's "Pedigrees of Berks," who married Mary, daughter of the Hon. John Browne, younger brother of Anthony, second Viscount Montague. About five years before his death, he and his neighbour, Mr. Gabriel Yonge, with his wife Elizabeth, whose gravestone comes next, were excommunicated by the then rector of Binfield, most probably for the non-payment of tithes or other ecclesiastical dues.

In an "Alphabetical List of the Recusants in the County of Berks," who entered the annual value of their estates for the purpose of being double taxed, pursuant to an Act passed in 1715, John Dancastle, probably the son of the above John Dancastle, is assessed at £234 10s., and his son, Francis Dancastle, at £1 17s. _per annum_. While to the south wall of Binfield Church is affixed a tablet which records the final extinction of the race. It was erected in memory of yet another John Dancastle, "the last of a respectable and ancient family, who after patiently enduring the most excruciating pains of the Gout, without intermission for upwards of sixteen years, obtained a happy release, and passed to a country where grief, sorrow, and pain are no more, Jany 29th, 1780. Aged 53 years. R.I.P."

The chief interest in the Dancastle family for us lies in the fact that it was owing to them that the poet, Alexander Pope, came to live at Binfield. About the year 1700, the representatives of this family at Binfield were two brothers, named Thomas and John. Very little is known about them except what may be gathered incidentally from the correspondence of Pope. It is believed that they lived at the Manor House at Binfield, and that it was owing to the friendship between Alexander Pope the elder and John Dancastle that the former was induced to settle at Binfield in 1700, when his son, the future poet, was just twelve years of age. After the migration to Binfield, the similarity of their tastes, for both were passionately fond of gardening, no doubt increased the intimacy; and we find that John Dancastle was the first witness to the elder Pope's will.

Scarcely anything is known for certain of the family history of the Popes before the settlement at Binfield, except that Pope's grandfather was a clergyman of the Church of England, and that he placed his son, the poet's father, with a merchant at Lisbon, where he became a convert to the Church of Rome. On his return to England, he seems to have been unsuccessful in his business affairs. Hearne, the antiquary, speaks of him (_Diary_, July 18th, 1729) as a "poor ignorant man, a tanner;" and elsewhere as "a sort of broken merchant," who had been "said to be a mechanic, a hatter, a farmer, nay, a bankrupt." But these were probably the false libels which were levelled against the son in after years in revenge for his keen and bitter satire.

It is now generally agreed that Mr. Pope, senior, was a linen draper in London at the time his son was born; and whatever may have been his success or want of success in that business, we know that, in 1700, he bought a small estate and house at Binfield, where he resided for the next sixteen years. He had an income, so Hearne tells us, of between three and four hundred a year.

The house can now hardly be said to exist. Pope himself described it as:--

"My paternal cell,
A little house with trees a-row,
And like its master very low;"

where the retired merchant employed his time chiefly in the cultivation of his garden, and as his son said;--

"Plants cauliflowers, and boasts to rear
The earliest melons of the year."

But successive owners have so pulled down and rebuilt it, that nothing now remains of the original house except one room, which tradition says was the poet's study. There is an engraving of this in E. Jesse's "Favorite Haunts and Rural Studies," published by J. Murray in 1847 (p. 90). The present house, formerly known as Pope's Wood, is now called Arthurstone, and belongs to J.W. Macnabb, Esq.

There is no doubt that besides the Dancastles and the other Papist families at Binfield, there were numerous Roman Catholics settled in the neighbourhood. In particular we find that Pope often visited, and was intimate with, the Blounts, of Mapledurham; the Carylls, of Ladyholt; and the Englefields, of Whiteknights. At the house of the last, he used to meet Wycherly, who introduced him to London life, and Miss Arabella Fermor, the heroine of the "Rape of the Lock." But it is not a little remarkable that the Popes at Binfield appear to have associated exclusively with their Roman Catholic friends. Throughout the whole of Pope's letters there does not appear a single allusion to the other county families that were undoubtedly residing at Binfield at this time, and whose gravestones cover a goodly portion of the floor of the church; for instance, the two branches of the Lee family and the Alexanders, Earls of Stirling.

Here then, from the age of twelve, the poet grew up a solitary, precocious child. He had indeed a half-sister, Magdalen, the only child of Mr. Pope's first wife. But she was a good deal, at least ten or twelve years, older than her brother, and at this time, or soon after, was married to a Mr. Rackett, and lived at Hall Grove, on Bagshot Heath. For a short time, a few months only after the settlement at Binfield he was placed under the charge of a priest, the fourth that had taught him in succession. "This," he says, "was all the teaching I ever had, and, God knows, it extended a very little way."

His parents indulged his every whim, and accordingly the boy spent his mornings in desultory reading, ranging freely and widely at will through English, Italian, and Latin literature. In the afternoons he wandered alone amidst the surrounding woods, and fed his imagination with musings upon the studies of the morning, or feasted his eyes with the beautiful landscape around him. In particular he is known to have haunted a grove of noble beech trees, still called Pope's Wood, which grew about half-a-mile from his father's house. On one of these was cut the words "_Here Pope sang_;" and for many years the letters were annually refreshed by the care of a lady residing near Wokingham. This tree was blown down in a gale, and the words were carved anew upon the next tree; but when this also fell some years ago the inscription was not renewed.[6]

Every evening on his return home the "marvellous boy" committed to paper the results of his communing with the Muses in the leafy grove. In this way he composed and wrote out many juvenile verses, amongst others an epic poem of more than four thousand lines, which in after years his matured taste consigned to the flames. So close an application, combined with complete isolation from all companionship of children of his own age, was certain in the end to affect disastrously his mental constitution as well as his bodily health. Accordingly we find that he never shook off the morbid self-consciousness which his solitary childhood had developed in him. And there is no doubt that his singular propensity to tricks and plots, which increased upon him with increasing age, even to the end of his life, was fostered by the atmosphere of evasion and deceit, in which, owing to the severe penal laws against Papists, he was necessarily brought up, and which in his case was never corrected by the wholesome training, if rough experience of a public school.

At the same time his intense application, untempered by any distraction of games or amusements, produced its natural results in a constitution by nature weakly, and began by the time he was sixteen years of age seriously to affect his health. He tried many physicians to no purpose, and finding himself daily growing worse thought he had not long to live. He therefore calmly sat down and wrote to take leave of all his friends. Amongst others he sent a last farewell to the Abbé Southcote, who lived near Abingdon. The Abbé, thinking that Pope's malady was mental rather than physical, went to his friend Dr. Radcliffe, the famous physician of Oxford, and described to him the boy's condition. Armed with full directions the Abbé hastened to Binfield, to enforce with all the ardour of friendship the doctors chief prescriptions--strict diet, less study and a daily ride in the open air.

In this way Pope, while riding in the Forest, began first to meet, then to know, and finally to be intimate with the squire of the neighbouring village. Easthampstead Park was at this time occupied by the veteran statesman, Sir William Trumbull, Knt. He had lived abroad for many years as ambassador, first at Paris and then at Constantinople. On his return home he had been appointed Secretary of State to William III., and now quite recently, in 1697, he had resigned all his appointments and had retired to end his days peacefully at home.