Chapter VIII: Part 8

During the eventful reign of the tyrannical John (1199-1216) Corfe Castle became again a royal residence. The King deposited within its walls his treasure and regalia, using the Castle also for the confinement of State prisoners, the objects of his jealousy and revenge. In the year 1202 King John took prisoners at the Castle of Mirabel in Poitou, in France, the youthful Prince Arthur, Duke of Brittany, his nephew, together with his sister, the Princess Eleanor. It must be remembered that this Prince Arthur, being the only son of John’s elder brother, Geoffrey, was the real heir to the throne after the death of Richard Cœur de Lion. Prince Arthur is supposed to have been murdered at Rouen by order of King John; but the Princess (sometimes called the “Damsel of Bretagne,” and sometimes from her personal attractions, the “Beauty of Brittany”), having inherited her brother’s legal right to the throne, was brought to England and kept a close prisoner for the rest of her life. For some time she was a prisoner in Corfe Castle, where she remained at the decease of her uncle, King John. Two other princesses shared the captivity of the beautiful and high-spirited Eleanor during her residence at Corfe, and were her companions there. These were Margery and Isabel, the two daughters of William, King of Scotland. Some curious and interesting details have come down to us respecting articles supplied for the use of the royal ladies whilst they remained at Corfe Castle, which show that they enjoyed many indulgences. For instance, on June 29th, 1213, the Mayor and Reeves of Winchester were commanded to supply to the Queen, the King’s niece, and the two daughters of the King of Scotland who were at Corfe Castle, such robes and caps and all other things necessary for the vestment as should be demanded (the cost to be repaid out of the King’s Exchequer). There is another interesting entry on July 6th, 1213: The Mayor of Winchester was commanded to send in haste to the King, for the use of his niece, Eleanor, and the two daughters of the King of Scotland, robes of dark green, namely, tunics and super-tunics, with capes of cambric and fur of Minever and twenty-three yards of good linen cloth; also, for the King’s niece, one good cap of dark brown, furred with Minever, and one hood for rainy weather, for the use of the same; besides robes of bright green, for the use of their three waiting-maids; also tunics and super-tunics and cloaks with capes of Minever or rabbit-skins and furs of lamb-skins, and thin shoes, for the use of the daughters of the King of Scotland, the King’s niece, and her three waiting-maids; also, for the use of the King’s niece, one saddle, with gilded reins; and the Mayor is to come himself with all the above articles to Corfe, there to receive the money for the cost of the same. A little later on, another cap for rainy weather, a riding saddle, shoes, and sixty yards of linen cloth, are ordered to be supplied from Winchester.

The prices paid give us an insight into the value of money at that period:—

£ s. d.
A silken couch 1 10 1
2 coverlets of fine linen 2 2 1
6½ yards of scarlet for coverlets 1 3 0
1 fur of lamb-skin 0 4 0

Ten shillings a day were allowed to the Sheriff for the Princesses’ maintenance.

To return to Prince Arthur and his wicked uncle. King John captured at the same time as Prince Arthur many barons and more than two hundred knights of Poitou and Guienne, who were in arms with Prince Arthur. These were all loaded with irons and sent to different prisons in Normandy and England. Many of these poor prisoners perished in their prisons, and no fewer than twenty-two of the noblest and bravest of them were starved to death in Corfe Castle.

From the reign of King John to that of Queen Elizabeth allusion is frequently made in history to Corfe Castle.

It was in 1587, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, that Corfe Castle ceased to be a royal residence, she having sold it to Sir Christopher Hatton for £4,761 18s. 7½d. Sir Christopher repaired and decorated the Castle at vast expense.

During the “Invincible Armada” scare, Corfe Castle once more became a fortress. Cannons were for the first time mounted on its walls, and Queen Elizabeth for encouragement gave a charter to the inhabitants of the Castle and borough, which conferred upon them all the same rights and privileges as those enjoyed by the inhabitants of the Cinque Ports, including the right of returning two members to Parliament. The Spanish fleet did, in fact, pass within a short distance of the Dorset coast; but, as the so-called Invincible Armada came utterly to grief, it gave no further trouble.

As Sir Christopher Hatton died a bachelor, Corfe Castle passed to his nephew Sir William Hatton, who, dying without children, left the Castle to his widow, the Lady Elizabeth Hatton, who married Lord Chief Justice Coke.

On the death of Sir Edward Coke, his widow and daughter found themselves at liberty to dispose of a mansion whose gloomy grandeur and position, remote from the busier scenes of life, did not well accord with their tastes and habits; so that on Sir John Bankes making an offer for the purchase of the Castle, the ladies were doubtless only too glad to conclude the bargain.

Sir John Bankes was descended from a good Cumberland family living in Keswick, where he was born in 1589. At the age of fifteen he went to Oxford University, and in due course became a barrister in Gray’s Inn. His extraordinary diligence in his profession recommended him early to his sovereign, Charles I., and in 1640 he was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. His wife, the brave Lady Bankes, was a daughter of the very ancient family of the Hawtreys, of Rislip, in Middlesex.

To enter the Castle an ancient stone bridge, consisting of four semi-circular arches, must be traversed. There is probably no bridge of greater antiquity in the West of England.

The first ward forms an irregular triangle, containing eight towers, at unequal distances, of amazing strength and durability. The gateway leading to the second ward has provision for a portcullis of vast size similar to that which is found in the grand staircase. Just within the gateway, on the right hand, was a flight of steps which led up to the Great or King’s Tower on the exterior summit of a very high hill. Tradition says, and apparently with truth, that just at the entrance of this second ward, under the archway, Edward the Martyr received his death-blow from the hand of the assassin. The dungeon, an octagonal tower, is said to have been the place of imprisonment for criminals and captives of inferior rank. Near this tower a stone is visible, projecting from the wall, with a deep notch cut into it, which is said to have been the place of execution. The third and principal ward is situate on the highest part of the hill, and on the west part, on the very top of the hill, stood the Great, or King’s Tower, 72 ft. by 60 ft., and about 80 ft. high, with a wall 12 ft. thick. This seems to have been the State prison, as the windows that remain are such a height above the floors that they must have been thus arranged in order to prevent the prisoners escaping. The fourth ward is the least of all the wards; in it was a small garden at the east end, near which was the Sally Port, where the enemy entered when the Castle was surprised; and near it is a well, now stopped up, into which (tradition says) Lady Bankes threw a considerable quantity of money and plate.

King Charles I. was a victim to circumstances. The Civil War was the result of the reaction of the popular mind in favour of liberty from its slavish submission to the tyranny of the Tudor Kings. It was hastened by King Charles’ folly in enforcing subsidies to pay off his father’s debts and to carry on his Continental wars, without the consent of the people; also by his resolution to rule the kingdom without a parliament.

King Charles came to the throne in 1625, but it was not until 1642 that the unhappy differences between the King and the two Houses of Parliament grew so great that nothing but the sword could decide the controversy. Poor Sir John Bankes found himself in a very unfortunate position. He was upon the summer circuit, and when presiding at the assizes at Salisbury he had, in his charge to the Grand Jury, denounced the Earl of Essex, Lord Manchester, and others, as guilty of high treason for continuing in arms against the King. Another serious subject of offence consisted in the fact of his having subscribed liberally to the necessities of the King—an acknowledgment of which, in King Charles’ own hand-writing, is still preserved at Kingston Lacy. These and various other causes were quite sufficient to induce a furious assault upon Corfe Castle.

Prior to this, Lady Bankes, who is described as being a prudent lady, resolved with her children and family to retire to Corfe Castle, to shelter themselves from the storm which she saw was coming. She remained undisturbed all the winter and a great part of the spring, until May, 1643, when the rebels, under the command of Sir Walter Erle and Sir Thomas Trenchard, of Wolfeton House, and others, had gained possession of Dorchester, Lyme Regis, Melcombe, Weymouth, Wareham, and Poole. Portland Castle being treacherously delivered to the rebels, only Corfe Castle remained in obedience to the King. But the rebels, wanting to add this castle to their other garrisons, and preferring to try and gain it by treachery, resolved to lay hold of an opportunity that they knew was just about to offer. To quote the language of the old chronicler:

It seems that by an ancient usage the Mayor and the Barons (as his Town Councillors were called) of Corfe Castle, accompanied by the gentry of the Island of Purbeck, had permission from the Lord of the Castle on May Day to course a stag, which every year was performed with much solemnity and great concourse of people.

On May Day, 1642, some troops of horse from Dorchester and other places came into the island under pretence of hunting the stag; but really their intention was suddenly to surprise the gentlemen whilst hunting and to take Corfe Castle. But the news of their coming reached the Castle before them. The hunters dispersed, and Lady Bankes ordered the great gates of the Castle to be closed against all comers. The troopers accordingly found themselves cheated of their prey, whereupon the common soldiers used threatening language; but the officers, who knew better how to conceal their resolution, utterly disavowed any such thought, denying that they had any orders to attack the Castle. Lady Bankes was not deceived by the officers’ civil speeches; and, to quote once more from the old chronicler:

She very wisely, and like herself, hence took occasion to call in a guard to assist her, not knowing how soon she might have occasion to make use of them, it being now more than probable that the rebels had a design upon the Castle.

No one, of course, knows to what straits the poor lady and her few faithful attendants were put; but provisions must have been at a low ebb or Lady Bankes would never have delivered up the four small cannons, the biggest carrying not above a 3-lb. shot. The result of this compromise was that, having delivered up the four cannons, the rebels agreed to permit her to enjoy the Castle in peace and quietness. Having gained the four cannons, the rebels retired, and, growing weary of watching the Castle gates, they grew negligent as to what was brought in, nor did they take care, as before, to intercept supplies which might enable the Castle people to hold out against a siege. Lady Bankes, making use of this carelessness, furnished the Castle with provisions of every description. A supply, too, of ammunition was brought in; and, hearing that the King’s forces, under Prince Maurice and the Marquis of Hertford, were advancing towards Blandford, Lady Bankes sent a private messenger begging that some officers might be sent to take charge of the Castle: whereupon Captain Laurence, son of Sir Edward Laurence, a gentleman of the Isle of Purbeck, was sent. There was likewise in the Castle one Captain Bond, an old soldier, “whom,” says the chronicler, “I should deprive of his due honour not to mention him as having shared in the honour of this resistance.”

On June 23rd, 1643, commenced a six weeks’ strict siege of Corfe Castle, between 200 and 300 horse and foot, with two cannons; the rebels faced the Castle, and from the hills surrounding played on the fortress. At the same time they set on fire four houses in the town of Corfe, and then summoned the Castle to surrender; but, receiving a refusal, for that time they left it—but only for a time, as Sir Walter Erle, accompanied by Captain Sydenham, Captain Henry Jervis, and Captain Skuts, of Poole, with a body of between five and six hundred men, came and took possession of the town of Corfe, taking advantage of a misty morning, so as to find no resistance from the Castle. With a small cannon, a culverin, and their muskets, they played on the fortress. To bind the soldiers by tie of conscience, they administered an oath to them, mutually binding themselves to most unchristian resolutions—that if they found the defendants obstinate, they would not yield; that they would maintain the siege to victory and deny quarter unto all, killing without mercy men, women, and children. And to bring on their own soldiers they deceived them with falsehoods, saying that the Castle stood on a level, with good advantages of approach; also, that there were only forty men within the fortress, of whom twenty were ready to turn traitors. They also did their best to corrupt the defenders of the Castle to betray it into their hands; but when all these arts took no effect, the rebel commanders fell to stratagems and engines. One of these machines they called a “sow,” and the other a “boar”; they were made with boards lined with wool to deaden the shot. The “sow” was a class of engine used as a protection for soldiers attacking a fortress; it was constructed of strong timber, bound together by hoop-iron, and roofed with hides and sheepskins to render it proof against such musket-shot or other missiles as were then in use. In front there were doors and windows, which were kept closed till the walls were reached; but behind it was open for the admission or retreat of the besiegers. Mounted on wheels, it was moved forward by the occupants by means of levers.

The rebels used Corfe Church as their principal battery and headquarters, and they seem to have desecrated the interior of the sacred building in every possible way. Of the surplices they made shirts for the soldiers; the organ pipes were torn down to serve as cases for their powder and shot; and, not being furnished with musket bullets, they cut off the lead of the church, and, rolling it up, they shot it without ever casting it in a mould.

Sir Walter Erle and the other rebel commanders were earnest to press forward the soldiers; but as prodigal as they were of the blood of their men, they were sparing enough of their own. It was a general observation, says the chronicler, sarcastically, that valiant Sir Walter never willingly exposed himself to any hazard; and to the eternal honour of this knight’s valour, be it recorded that, for fear of musket-shot, he was seen to creep on all-fours on the side of Corfe Castle hill to keep himself from danger.

This base cowardice of the assailants added courage and resolution to the defenders; therefore, not compelled by want, but rather to brave the rebels, they sallied out of the Castle, and brought eight cows and a bull into the fortress without a single man being even wounded.

The rebels, having spent much time and ammunition, and some men, were now as far from taking the Castle as on the first day they began. At last the Earl of Warwick sent them 150 sailors, with several cart-loads of ammunition and scaling ladders, to take the Castle by assault. Rewards were offered to those who first should scale the walls: twenty pounds to the first, and smaller sums to those who should follow; but all this could not avail with these poor wretches, who were brought hither like sheep to the slaughter. Some of the rebel party had actually exchanged certain death by the rope for that of a chance death by bullets, as some of them were actually condemned criminals let out of prison.

On finding that money rewards and persuasion could not prevail with such abject, low-spirited men, the rebel commanders resolved to give their men strong drink, knowing that drunkenness makes some men fight like lions, who when sober are as cowardly as hares. The only man who was not the worse for drink, says the chronicler, with biting sarcasm, was the commander of the party, Sir Walter Erle, who kept himself sober lest he should become valiant against his will.

Being now possessed with a borrowed courage, the rebels divided their forces into two parties, whereof one assaulted the middle ward, defended by valiant Captain Laurence and the greater part of the soldiers; while the other assaulted the upper ward, which Lady Bankes—“to her eternal honour be it spoken,” says the chronicler—with her daughter, women-servants, and five soldiers, undertook to defend against the rebels. And what she undertook she bravely performed, for by heaving over stones and hot embers, they repelled the rebels and kept them from climbing the ladders. Thus repulsed, and having lost one hundred men, Sir Walter Erle, on hearing that the King’s forces were advancing, ran away, leaving Sydenham as commander-in-chief, who, afraid to appear, kept sanctuary in Corfe Church till nightfall, meaning to sup and run away by starlight; but, supper being ready and set on the table, an alarm was given that the King’s forces were coming. This news took away Sydenham’s appetite; so, leaving artillery, ammunition, and last, but not least, his good supper, the rebels all ran away to take boat for Poole, leaving on the shore about one hundred horses, which proved a valuable prize next day to the soldiers of the Castle.

Thus, after six weeks’ strict siege, Corfe Castle, the desire of the enemy, by the loyalty and brave resolution of Lady Bankes, the valour of Captain Laurence and some eighty soldiers, was delivered from the bloody intentions of these merciless rebels on August 4th, 1643.

Few portions of the kingdom were now undisturbed, and civil war shook the domestic happiness of both the highest and the lowest of the land.

Poor Sir John Bankes, on his return home from circuit, found his wife ready to welcome him within the battered walls of his castle. His wife had become a heroine during his long absence from home, and his children had endless stories to relate of their invincible prowess in the days of danger. He found his castle safe and his property preserved; but Corfe Church had been desecrated and unroofed, the shops in the little town had been plundered, and all that would burn of the stone-built cottages around had been destroyed by conflagration.

There was much, however, at the moment to render this a joyful meeting at Corfe Castle, for it seemed as if the sun of the King’s fortune was about to ascend again. But in 1644 the tide of royal success, which had flowed so steadily through the western counties in the preceding year, was now ebbing fast in the county of Dorset. On June 16th, 1644, Weymouth surrendered to the Earl of Essex, and three days afterwards Dorchester followed suit. On August 10th, 1644, Colonel Sydenham and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper arrived with their troops before the town of Wareham, and began to storm the outworks, whereupon the town agreed to surrender.

Corfe Castle was now almost the only place of strength between Exeter and London which still held out for the royal cause, and the constant valour of Lady Bankes, who defended it, is to be estimated not so much by her active enterprise and resistance in the hours of excitement and attack as by her long endurance through tedious weeks and months of anxiety, encompassed as she was by threats and dangers on every side. She had now a second winter to look forward to. All the neighbouring towns had become hostile, and the only encouragement and aid she could expect (her husband being absent, and her sons quite young) was that of a garrison to consist of soldiers brought from a distance, under the command of officers who were little, if at all, known to her.

Early in the winter the misfortune which she had least reason to anticipate befell her, for on December 28th, 1644, her husband, the Chief Justice, died at Oxford. On October 28th, 1645, more effective operations were taken against Corfe Castle. Colonel Bingham, Governor of Poole, had two regiments placed at his disposal for this purpose, and on December 16th further reinforcements were sent by General Fairfax.

During the whole course of the Civil War no expedition more gallant had occurred than that of January 29th by a young officer named Cromwell: whether this young Cromwell was related to the Protector is uncertain. Hearing of the distressed condition of a widowed lady shut up with her daughters in a closely-besieged castle, Cromwell was resolved to make an effort for their relief. Accompanied by a troop numbering 120 men, who shared the gallantry of their commander, he set out, probably from Oxford, and, marching with a degree of rapidity which anticipated all intelligence of his design, he passed through the quarters of Colonel Cooke undiscovered, and came to Wareham.

Colonel Butler, the Governor of Wareham, aware that no troops were expected, took the alarm, barricaded his lodgings, firing from thence upon his assailant; but the royalist troop had no time to bestow on this attack. They therefore set fire to a house in the vicinity which stood near the powder magazine, and the Governor, thoroughly frightened, consented to yield himself a prisoner. He was carried, together with others, mounted behind some of the triumphant troopers, to the foot of Corfe Castle.

Here a large rebel force was drawn up to oppose their further progress; but the brave bearing of this little troop, together with the shouts of welcome from the besieged on the walls, induced the besiegers to give way. The gallant band, having accomplished their purpose, tendered their services to the lady, and presented also for her acceptance the prisoners they had so bravely captured.

The object of this chivalrous action was probably an offer of escape to the ladies from the Castle, which, however, was not accepted. And on their return Colonel Cromwell, with some of his troopers, were taken prisoners.

The course of events now shifted rapidly, and though Lady Bankes was still as intrepid as at first, it was not so with all who were around her; for the captive Governor of Wareham, Colonel Butler, prevailed on Colonel Laurence (hitherto so trustworthy) not only to connive at, but to accompany him in his flight. And there was within the walls another traitor, Lieutenant-Colonel Pitman, whose conduct was still more base, his treachery far more fatal in its consequences. This officer in the Castle garrison, being weary of the King’s service, let the enemy know that if he might have a protection he would deliver Corfe Castle to the Parliament. This treacherous offer was accepted, and a protection order was sent to him from London. On this, Pitman proposed to Colonel Anketil, the Governor of the Castle, to fetch one hundred men out of Somerset to add to the Corfe Castle garrison. This proposal being approved, he formed a design with the rebel, Colonel Bingham, who commanded the siege, that under this pretence he should convey more than one hundred men into the Castle, and as soon as they were entered the besiegers should make an attack. On this a hundred men were drawn out of Weymouth garrison and marched to Lulworth Castle, where they were joined by some thirty or forty more soldiers. Pitman led them in the night to the port agreed upon for their entrance, where Colonel Anketil was ready to receive them. Some of these men already knew every part of the interior of the Castle; but when fifty of these new soldiers had entered, Colonel Anketil, seeing more in the rear, ordered the Sally Port to be closed, saying that there were as many as he could dispose of. The crafty Pitman expostulated on his causing him to bring these men so far and then to expose them to the cold and to the enemy.

Those of the fresh soldiers who entered took possession of the King’s and Queen’s towers and the two platforms, awaiting the time when the besiegers would make an assault, it being then two hours after midnight. The besieged, as soon as the fraud was discovered, fired and threw down great stones upon these intruders, who, however, maintained their posts. There were, in fact, only six men of the garrison in the upper part of the Castle, for that was considered impregnable. The remainder of the defending force was placed in the lower ward, which had hitherto been the post of danger. The besieging forces, as soon as they saw their friends on the towers and platforms, began to advance; and it was then clear to the inmates of the Castle that they had been most villainously betrayed. A parley was demanded, and an agreement made that all lives should be spared, and those who belonged to the town of Corfe should return quietly to their houses; and the circumstance of a Parliamentary officer being there with others of that party, prisoners in the Castle, induced the besiegers to offer conditions, which were accepted. But the truce was broken almost at once, for two of the besiegers, anxious for spoil, came over the wall by means of a ladder, whereupon some of the Castle garrison fired on them, and the risk of a free fight and general slaughter throughout the Castle now began.

Colonel Bingham was a descendant of a family long known and highly respected in the county of Dorset, and naturally could not but admire the courage of the lady who was his foe, and he at once set about preserving the lives of the 140 persons then within the Castle.

This last siege is said, in Sprigg’s _Table of Battles and Sieges_, to have lasted forty-eight days, during which eleven men were slain and five cannons taken. The exact date of the fall of Corfe Castle is uncertain, but it was probably in the last week of the month of February, 1646. Thus, after a resistance of nearly three years’ duration, brave Lady Bankes was dispossessed of the fortress, which she continued to defend so long as a chance remained for the preservation of the Crown.

On March 5th, 1646, a vote passed the House of Commons to demolish Corfe Castle. The decree was ruthlessly carried into effect, and far more was, unfortunately, done than was sufficient to render the Castle utterly untenable for the future. Most of the towers were undermined, whilst others had the soil removed from the foundation preparatory to a similar process. Some were blown up with gunpowder, whilst others, perhaps, sank down by their own weight into the mines without the aid of gunpowder.

The work of plunder throughout the Castle was soon accomplished; and there are not a few of the fair mansions in Dorset which have been constructed in large measure of the stone and timber carried away from Corfe Castle. The rebels not only plundered the Castle, dividing amongst them its sumptuous furniture (some of which was traced by Sir Ralph Bankes, after the Restoration, to the houses of county gentlemen, and some to dealers in London), but even timber and stone were found to have been appropriated by some gentlemen of the county who supported the cause of Parliament. Most of the lead was sold to a plumber of Poole.

The halls, galleries, and other chambers throughout the building were nobly decorated with rich tapestry and carpeting and furniture, most of which had probably remained since the splendid days of Sir Christopher Hatton. And as to furniture and tapestry which existed in the Castle, it is not a mere matter of conjecture, as several of the things taken away are still extant. A _Perticular_ (_sic_) of the goods viewed at Colonel Bingham’s house gives a long list of beautiful tapestry, silk quilts, and carpets, _e.g._—

One piece of fine Tapestry to hang behind my Lady’s bed.
A rich ebony Cabinet with gilded Fixtures &c.

It is but fair to add that though Colonel Bingham carried off this furniture from Corfe Castle to his own private residence, he was by Act of Parliament of 1644 not only ordered to confiscate property, but was threatened with confiscation of his own if he failed or refused to act as sequestrator.

Lady Bankes’ death, as recorded on a monument of white marble at Rislip, took place on April 11th, 1661. So little was her death expected, that her eldest son was married on the morning of the day on which she died.

The following letters, in their quaint spelling, as to the missing furniture from Corfe Castle, are characteristic:

For my noble friend Sir Ralph Bankes at Chettle.

From John Bingham Esq^{r}. Bingham’s Melcombe.

Nobel sir,

My being in phisicke made me not to send an answer to your servant’s letter last Sunday. I beseech you let it plead my excuse.

Sir, I have a large bed, a single velvet red chair and a suite of fine damask; had not the horse plague swept away my horses I would have sent these to you. I beg that you’ll please to command one of your servants to come to Blandford next Friday morning by 10 o’clock there these things shall be ready for him at the Crowne Hotel.

That yet a continual gale of happinefs may ever blow on you here below the stars and that you may yet enjoy heaven hereafter is the real wish of

Sir
Your very hearty servant
John Byngham.

Sir I humbly entreat the tender of my humbel service to my Ladey Bankes.

One other letter, having the same address, appears to have been written within a few days of the date of the former letter:—

Nobel Sir,

I have sent to Blandford to be delivered your servant one large bed, 2 blankets; the bed for 12 years since was opened by a wench at my then house at Byngham’s Melcombe when I was in the Isle of Guernsey and feathers stolne out and divers other such tricks done by her in my being out of the land.

I take the boldness to hint this trick to you likewise I have sent to Blandford a full sute (that is as many as ever I had) of old fine damask table cupboard cloths and napkins in particular two long table cloths a large cupboard cloth, 2 towels long, a red velvet chaire.

Sir, had I more as I promised yourself I would have sent it.

Sir, the Linnen was but once used by me, but whited once in 2 years.

Your humble servant
John Byngham.

One large bed, minus the feathers, and one red velvet chair, appear to constitute the amount of furniture recovered by Sir Ralph Bankes from the hands of the sequestrators; and Sir Ralph ought to have considered himself very fortunate inasmuch as these sequestrators had not made away with the estates themselves.

Sir Ralph Bankes did not live to witness another revolution, or to see the final expulsion of the royal race in whose cause his family had suffered so severely: he completed the mansion at Kingston Lacy, and died when his son was under age.

* * * * *

The original MS. of the old Corfe Castle legend of the Christmas Pie is still said to be in existence in the Muniment Room at Kingston Lacy amongst the other Corfe Castle documents.

Lady Bankes’ grandmother, Mrs. Hawtrey, was happy in the birth of many daughters, who were well instructed in all the maidenly duties of that good and pious time. Of the use of the needle, and the Greek and Latin tongues, none could surpass them; and as to playing on the virginals and clavycorde, it was wonderful to listen to them. But Mistress Hawtrey did most insist on every young maiden knowing the cookcraft (for so did she style it) of the kitchen.

Beauty fadeth like a flower.
Music can little delight the husband
When he becometh hard of hearing,

she would say; and then solemnly add:

The best cook doth always secure the best husband.

Now, to preserve the early lessons so taught to her daughters, from the day when they could first rest their little chins upon the dresser, she did have them fully instructed in this art of cooking. And then did she require of them all a promise, strictly to be observed, that on every Christmas Day in every year these her daughters should themselves prepare and set forth upon her table a number of mince-pies equalling exactly in the sum of them the number of years since the day of her so happy marriage; and so it was that when she had been married fifty-nine years complete there did appear upon her table fifty-nine mince-pies. But in the following year her daughters conspired how, for the yet greater satisfaction and surprised pleasure of this their beloved parent, they did, with great labour and curiosity of art, continue one great and noble pie a born baby might rest therein; and this they filled with those many and rare refections suitable to the great work they had in hand: to complete the whole did they upraise on the crown of the crust the letters L X—two letters large and noble—clearly denoting thereby the three-score returns of that fertile marriage-day from whence themselves were so happily sprung. The knowledge of this rare structure is withheld from the good old dame until the hall is decked with Christmas garnishings. The pie is placed upon the table, and the old lady entereth and is seated, but the beholding of this pie hath an effect on this good old lady far differing from that which then her beloved offspring intended. Alas! she cannot touch a morsel. A novelty so strange she cannot realise, nor can she digest the ancient promise broken. Mayhap she did apprehend whether an ape should leap forth, or a dwarf, or a Denmark owl, for such conceits had been known at the banquets of persons of high condition. Be this as it may, the old lady is carried to her chamber in a swoon; her daughters like demented beings hurry to and fro—nothing is left unendeavoured on their parts. The medicine chest is unclosed. Scores of healthful medicaments are brought forth. They give to her of them all: yet did the good old lady die, and was laid straight and quiet in her coffin, before the mince-pie had sufficient time to cool.

POOLE

BY W. K. GILL

Some, even of those who know a little of Poole, may wonder at the idea that a town so modern to all appearance should have anything of antiquity about it. To the motorist, bound westward from Bournemouth, Poole is a place with an irritating railway crossing at one end, and an equally provoking bridge at the other. And even to a visitor it will appear but as a commonplace business town—a town of tramcars and electric lights, with a big gasworks on the most approved principles, with wharves piled with timber and quays black with coal, where the colliers come in and out through a fleet of red-sailed barges and big white timber-ships; a town whose very Church and Guildhall are modern, and to whose past only a neglected and mutilated stone building on the Quay bears the slightest witness. But could we open the jealously-guarded charter-chest, and unroll one ancient document after another; could we summon the shadowy file of noble and royal benefactors, from the famous Crusader, the Gordon of his age, who granted the first charter, to that Queen of famous memory, who gave us the last—then, indeed, we should have a pageant fit to compare with that of any town in Dorset. But Poole’s true pageant would be on the water, where, too, the harbour would give her an antiquity not her own. Roman bireme and Saxon keel, Danish longship and Norman galley, quaint craft of Plantagenet and Tudor, strong-stemmed Newfoundlander, and raking privateer of the great French War—the shipping that has sailed in that harbour would bring us down from the Roman period to the long black destroyers of our own day which sometimes lie in main channel from Stakes to Saltern’s Pier. The memories of Poole are not in her ruins, but in her records; for the swift keel leaves no mark, and there is no more trace of the destroyers that lay there last year than of Knut’s long ships that lay there nine hundred years ago.

But let us stroll slowly through the town from the railway station, not by the High Street, but by way of the Guildhall and the Church of St. James the Apostle, down to the Quay, noting, as we go, the signs and vestiges of past days. A few paces from the station is the old town boundary, denoted by a boundstone let into the wall, and this is all that remains to mark the position of the embattled gate erected by charter from Henry VI., and destroyed by order of Charles II.—the embattled gate recorded by Leland that turned back Prince Maurice in the great Civil War. It is amusing to note how Clarendon “veils his wrath in scornful word” as he tells how “in Dorsetshire the enemy had only two little fisher towns, Poole and Lyme.” Here was the main entrance from the north through the fortified gate that gave the name of Towngate Street. (The southern entrance was by ferry, and this way came Leland, the great Tudor antiquary.) There was a sharp fight at this point during the Civil War, mementos of which in the shape of three small cannon-balls were dug up last year, and are now in the local Museum. The story may be summarised thus: Poole as a seaport was of great importance, and the King’s party were most anxious to get hold of it. Attempts were made to corrupt a dashing young partisan leader, Captain Francis Sydenham, of Wynford Eagle (brother of the famous doctor, also a soldier then), who was constantly out on raiding expeditions. Sydenham pretended to yield, but arranged with the Governor, Captain John Bingham, of Bingham’s Melcombe, to have a little surprise for the cavaliers. Accordingly, when Lord Crawford with horse and foot came by night to the outworks that guarded the causeway over the fosse, he was admitted within the half-moon, but found the gates fast, while the cannon and musketry opened on him from the wall. The darkness favoured him, however, and he escaped, but with some loss of men, and more of horses. The small cannon-balls above mentioned were in all probability some of those fired at the Royalists from the wall. This wall, as has been said, was razed by order of Charles II., a retaliation, possibly, for the part Poole had played in the destruction of Corfe Castle. The fosse long remained, and, having been deepened in fear of Prince Charlie as late as 1745, some portion was traceable within the memory of living persons.

A few years after, the King had an opportunity of seeing how his order had been carried out—for, the Court being at Salisbury, to avoid the Plague in 1665, he and some of the courtiers went touring about East Dorset, and one day was spent at Poole. So on September 15th a brilliant company rode into the town by the old causeway. There was the King himself, harsh-featured indeed, but easy and gracious in bearing; Lauderdale, with his coarse features and lolling tongue; Ashley, with his hollow cheeks and keen eyes; Arlington, another of the afterwards infamous Cabal; and, among the rest, but the centre of all attraction, the handsome, boyish face of Monmouth. Ashley was well known in Poole, and many a grim Puritan soldier must have muttered Scriptural curses on his old commander, who had turned courtier for the nonce, but who could not foresee the day when the flags in the port should be half-mast for him, and when his body should be brought from his place of exile in Holland, and the hearse should pass along the very road he had just ridden so gallantly to the old church of Wimborne St. Giles. Still less could young Monmouth foresee the day when, twenty years later, turning and doubling like a hunted hare, he should cross that road in his desperate and vain effort to reach the shelter of the great Forest. And little did his father think that Antony Etricke, “learned in the laws of England,” whom he appointed Recorder of Poole, should be the man before whom his favourite son would be brought for identification. Down the street rode the gay cavalcade—plumed hats, curled wigs, velvets and laces, gallant horses and all—over the open ground that extended halfway down the town, till they came to the house of Peter Hiley, which then stood about opposite where now is the National and Provincial Bank. The house has long since gone, but there they were entertained by Peter Hall, the Mayor; and afterwards the King went on the water to Brownsea, “and took an exact view of the said island, castle, bay, and this harbour, to his great contentment.” For many a day this visit was remembered, and the cause of the hapless Monmouth was popular in Poole, so that before his final attempt to reach the Forest he had entertained the idea of escaping to Poole, and there taking ship for Holland. A ghastly little note from the Deputy-Mayor of Poole, instructing the tything-men of Higher Lytchett to take delivery of certain heads and quarters of rebels executed in Poole, and to set them up at the cross-roads, is still in existence, and testifies to the executions of the Bloody Assize.

Further down the street comes a cluster of houses that belong to a widely different period, both in the history of the town and of the country. The almshouses, dated 1812, with Nile and Trafalgar Rows on one side, and Wellington Row, 1814, a little way below on the other, recall the great French War, when the open ground at this end of Poole, still called The Parade, though now built over, was the place of exercise for the troops constantly quartered here. In 1796, the 33rd, then Colonel Wellesley’s, regiment was here, and the Colonel’s quarters were over the water at the old manor-house at Hamworthy. But the almshouses, built by a famous Newfoundland merchant, George Garland, bring back quite a different set of memories. Curiously enough, the well-known trade with Newfoundland was at its zenith during the later years of the great war. The English fleet had swept the foreign flag off the seas, and the trade had fallen to the Union Jack. But the trade dated from the time of Queen Elizabeth, and lasted till the middle of the Victorian age. At first the little ships went out year by year, in the season, and returned with their cargoes of oil and fish and skins, without making any stay on the island—little ships of forty to fifty tons, but manned by daring seamen, who faced the Atlantic storms and the Turkish pirates, as well as French or Spanish enemies, year in, year out, with no record save now and then an incidental mention, as when the Mayor of Poole complains to the Privy Council in 1625 of the danger that the fishing fleets ran from the Turkish pirates, Sallee rovers, and the like. In after years settlements were made, and the Poole merchants had their establishments on the island, from which they supplied the fishermen; but the truck system was the only one in vogue, and the oils and fish and seal-pelts were paid for in goods only, the value of which was fixed by the merchant, who thus got his cargoes at his own price, and, buying his supplies wholesale in England, made, naturally, very large profits.

For many years Poole and Newfoundland were intimately connected, but the trade gradually fell off as other countries entered into competition, and the carelessness, bred by monopoly, made the Poole merchants far too independent and unenterprising.

Not far down the street lived a merchant of another sort. Sir Peter Thompson, born in Poole, but for the greater part of his life residing in London, where he carried on a large trade with Hamburg, built for his retirement the fine old Georgian house long used as a hospital. The carved doorway, with its crest and motto, “_Nil conscire sibi_” (not, by-the-bye, the one usually assigned to Sir Peter, which is “_Nulla retrorsum_”); the arms and crest displayed above the doorway, and the height and proportion of the street front, give an air of dignity to the building strangely in contrast with the neat little villas recently put up opposite. The house dates from the time of Prince Charlie, who, indirectly, was the cause of Sir Peter’s knighthood. As High Sheriff of Surrey, the fine old Whig presented a loyal address to George II. when the throne was in danger after Prestonpans, and received the honour of knighthood as a mark of the King’s appreciation. It was in the next year, the year of Culloden, that Sir Peter began the house in which he meant to spend the close of an honourable life in the company of early friends, and in the collection of rare manuscripts and objects of interest, scientific and antiquarian, for he was both an F.R.S. and an F.A.S.; he also aided Hutchins in his monumental _History of Dorset_. Respected for his talents and loved for his kindness, he lived there for some years in dignified ease, and died in 1770.

As yet it will be observed that we have had comparatively modern memories of Poole; but as we go nearer to the Quay, which is the most important element in Poole past and present, we come to older and older buildings, or rather parts of buildings, for it is a feature in the town that the constant, active life of the place has renewed, and so covered up, the old buildings, unlike places whose vigour has long ebbed away and left them with their antiquities unaltered to sleep away the remainder of their allotted time,

And keep the flame from wasting by repose.

And so we pass the modern Guildhall—the old Guildhall was very suitably placed in Fish Street, on the other side of the town, with the gaol, in which John Wesley’s grandfather was imprisoned, under it—and down the market till we pause before the oldest almshouses, where the authorities have put up an inscription which tells all that is certainly known of the buildings, viz., that they were first erected about the time of Henry IV., were the property of one of the mediæval religious guilds, the Guild of St. George, and were seized by the Crown in the time of Edward VI., and afterwards sold to the Corporation. The lower portion and the old wall at the back—in fact, the stonework—may be as old as the days of Joan of Arc, but there has, of course, been a great deal of alteration and rebuilding. Speaking of Joan of Arc, it may be mentioned that John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France, under whose rule she was burned, was Lord of Canford and of Poole, and a few years ago his seal was dug up in cleaning out a ditch on the Hamworthy-Lytchett road. St. James’ Church is, of course, new, though built on the site of the old church, a print of which, with its “handsome tower, covered with a cupola of tin, quite round, in the fashion of a cup,” is given in Sydenham’s _History of Poole_, a work of special merit, written by a competent antiquary, and full of information. Some of the old monumental inscriptions are preserved in the church, notably one to Captain Peter Joliffe. This worthy representative of the old Poole seamen distinguished himself in a sea-fight off Purbeck as follows:—Cruising with only two men in a small vessel, the “Sea Adventurer,” he saw a French privateer make prey of a Weymouth fishing-boat. Though the Frenchman was vastly superior in strength, he boldly attacked him, drove him off, recovered the prize, and then, following up his first success, manœuvred so skilfully as to drive him ashore near Lulworth, where the vessel was broken to pieces and the crew made prisoners. King William III., hearing of this brave deed, sent Captain Peter a gold medal and chain, with a special inscription. This was not his only exploit, and in later years George I. made him military commander of the town. His great-grandson, the Rev. Peter Joliffe, of Sterte, is still remembered as the pattern of a good rector.

Old Poole, as we have noted, clustered round St. James’ Church and the old Guildhall, and, as the remains testify, was mainly of stone, with the stone-flag roofs, that remind one of their Purbeck home. Very near to the church, in the yard of the St. Clement’s Inn, is a small battlemented gateway, supposed to have been a water-gate, a view which has been lately confirmed by the traces of seaweed revealed in digging. This is very probably the piece of wall of which Leland speaks as having been built by Richard III., who “promised large things to the town of Poole.” Hence, when “Richmond was on the seas,” and his storm-driven ship appeared off Sandbanks, an attempt was made to inveigle him on shore; but a warier man than Henry Tudor did not breathe, and, to the disappointment of the authorities, “he weighed up his anchor, halsed up his sails, and having a prosperous and streeinable wind, and a fresh gale sent even by God to deliver him from that peril, arrived safe in Normandy.”