Chapter XV: The Willey Squire Among His Neighbours

The Squire among his Neighbours—Roger de Coverley—Anecdotes—Gentlemen nearest the Fire in the Lower Regions—Food Riots—The Squire quells the Mob—His Virtues and his Failings—Influences of the Times—His Career draws to a Close—His wish for Old Friends and Servants to follow him to the Grave—That he may be buried in the Dusk of Evening—His Favourite Horse to be shot—His Estates to go to his Cousin, Cecil Weld, the First Lord Forester.

LIKE Addison’s Sir Roger de Coverley, the Willey Squire lived a father among his tenants, a friend among his neighbours, and a good master amongst his servants, who seldom changed. He feasted the rich, and did not forget the poor, but allowed them considerable privileges on the estate; and there are a few old people—it is true there are but few—who remember interviews they had with the Squire when going to gather bilberries in the park, or when sent on some errand to the Hall. An old man, who brightened up at the mention of the Squire’s name, said, “Remember him, I think I do; he intended that I should do so. I was sent by my mother to the Hall for barm, when, seeing an old man in the yard, and little thinking it was the Squire, I said, ‘Sirrah, is there going to be any stir here to-day?’ ‘Aye, lad,’ says he, ‘come in, and see;’ and danged if he didn’t get the horse-whip and stir me round the kitchen, where he pretended to flog me, laughing the while ready to split his sides. He gave me a rare blow out though, and my mother found half-a-crown at the bottom of the jug when she poured out the barm.” “Did you ever hear of his being worsted by the sweep?” said another. “He was generally a match for most, but the sweep was too much for him. The Squire had been out, and, being caught in a storm, he called at a public-house to shelter. Seeing that it was Mr. Forester, the customers made way for him to sit next the fire, and whilst he was drying himself a sweep came to the door, and looked in; but, seeing the Squire, he was making off again. ‘Hollo,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘what news from the lower region?’ ‘Oh,’ replied the sweep, ‘things are going on there, Squire, much as they are here—the _gentlemen are nearest the fire_!’” A third of our informants remarked: “He was one of the old sort, but a right ’un. Why, when there was a bad harvest, and no work for men, after one of them war times, and the colliers were rioting and going to break open the shops, to tear down the flour mill, and do other damage, the old Squire was the only man that could stop them—he had such influence with the people. The poor never wanted a friend whilst old George Forester lived. There were plenty of broken victuals to be had for the fetching, a tankard of right good ale, with bread and cheese, or cold mutton, for all comers.”

[Picture: Willey Church]

The years 1774–1782 were periods of local gloom and distress, when haggard hunger and ignorant force banded together to trample down the safeguards of civil rights, and armed ruffians took the initiative in violent scrambles for food. The cavalry were called out, and fierce battles were fought in the iron districts, where the rioters sometimes took refuge on cinder heaps, which supplied them with sharp cutting missiles. In 1795 the colliers and iron-workers being in a state of commotion, were only prevented from rising by assurances that gentlemen of property were disposed to contribute liberally to their relief, and thousands of bushels of Indian corn were obtained by the Squire and others from Liverpool to add to the grain procurable in the neighbourhood to meet immediate necessities. A meeting of gentlemen, farmers, millers, and tradesmen was held at the Tontine Hotel, on the 9th of July in that year, to consider the state of things arising out of the scarcity of corn and the dearness of all other provisions, at which a committee was formed for the immediate collection of contributions and the purchase of grain at a reduction of one-fourth, or 9_s._ for 12_s._ Mr. Forester at once gave notice to all his tenants to deliver wheat to the committee at 12_s._, whilst he himself gave £105, and agreed to advance £700 more, to be repaid from the produce of the corn sold at a reduced price. Such were the wants of the district, the murmurs of the inhabitants, and the distinctions made between those who were considered benefactors, and others who were not, that fear was entertained of a general uprising; and application was made to Mr. Forester, both as a friend and a magistrate. He assumed more the character of the former, and his presence acted like magic upon the rough miners, who by his kindness and tact were at once put into good humour. Having brought waggons of coal, drawn with ropes, for sale, the first thing the Squire did was to purchase the coal: he then bought up all the butter in the market, and purchased all the bread in the town, he emptied the butchers’ shops in the same way, and advised the men to go home with the provisions he gave them.

We are quite aware that it might be said that Squire Forester was not a model for imitation; and it might be replied that no man ever was, altogether, even for men of his own time, much less for those of one or two generations removed, always excepting Him whose name should never be uttered lightly, and in whom the human and divine were combined. He had sufficient inherent good qualities, however, to make half a dozen ordinary modern country gentlemen popular; still his one failing, shared among the same number, might no less damn them in the eyes of society.

Some would, no doubt, have liked Dibdin’s heroes better if he had been less truthful, by making the language more agreeable to the ear, by substituting, as one writer has said, “dear me” for “damme,” and lemonade for grog; but such critics are what Dibdin himself called “lubbers” and “swabs.” In the same way, some would be for toning down the characters of Squire Forester and Parson Stephens; but this would be a mistake: an artist might as well smooth over with vegetation every out-cropping rock he finds in his foreground. We might say a great deal more about the old Squire, and the Willey Rector too, but there is no reason why we should say less. If we err, we err with the best and gravest writers of history, who, without fear or favour, wrote of things as they found them; and those who are familiar with the writings of men of the past—such as the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, will admit that men like Squire Forester were examples of modesty. Men of all grades, every day, are brought in contact with much that might more strongly be objected to in the public Press; and there is no reason why the veil should not be raised in order that we may view the past as it really was.

The fact is, the Squire found the atmosphere of the times congenial to his temperament. A very popular Shropshire rake and play writer, Wycherley, had done much to lower the tone of morality by representing peccadilloes, not as something which the violence of passion may excuse, but as accomplishments worthy of gentlemen,—his “Country Wife” and “Plain Dealer” being examples. Congreve followed in his wake, with his “Old Bachelor,” which may be judged by its apothegm:—

“What rugged ways attend the noon of life;
Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife,
What pain, we tug that galling load—a wife!”

A fair estimate of the looseness of the time may be formed from another representation:—

“The miracle to-day is, that we find
A lover true, not that a woman’s kind;”

and from the fact that even Pope, in his “Epistle to a Lady,” out of his mature experience could write—

“Men some to business, some to pleasure take,
But every woman is at heart a rake.”

The Squire had been jilted, and breathing such an atmosphere, no wonder he cast lingering looks to the time

“Ere one to one was cursedly confined,”

or that he never married. It is fortunate he did not, for Venus herself, we fancy, could not have kept him by her side. His amours were notorious, and some of his mistresses were rare specimens of rustic beauty. Two daring spirits who followed the hounds were regular Dianas in their way, and he spent much of his time in the rural little cottages of these and others which were dotted over the estate at no great distance from the Hall. As rare Ben Jonson has it:—

“When some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluction all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour.”

Such a humour the old Squire had. Towards the last he found that some of his mistresses gave him a good deal of trouble; for in carrying out his desire to leave them comfortably provided for, his best intentions created jealousy, and he found it difficult to adjust their claims as regarded matters of income, Phœbe Higgs, who survived the Squire many years, and lived in a cottage with land attached, on the Willey side of the Shirlot, being the most clamorous. She set out one night with the intention of shooting the Squire, but was unnerved by her favourite monkey, who had stealthily gone on before, and jumped unobserved on her shoulder as she opened a gate. On another occasion she succeeded in surprising the Squire by forcing her way into his room and pointing a loaded pistol at him across the table, vowing she would shoot him unless he promised to make the sum left for her maintenance equal to that of Miss Cal—t. He had his children educated; they frequently visited at the Hall, and some married well. He speaks of them as his children and grandchildren in his letters, and manifested the greatest anxiety that everything should be done that could be done, by provisions in his will for those he was about to leave behind him. Indeed the same characteristics which gave a colouring to his life distinguished him to the last; and if the old fires burnt less brightly, the same inner sense and outward manifestations were evident in all he did.

One thing which troubled him was the chancel of Barrow Church, as will be seen by the following characteristic letter to his agent, Mr. Pritchard, asking him to procure a legal opinion about certain encroachments upon what he conceived to be his rights, and those of the parishioners:—

“DEAR SIR,—

“You must remember Parson Jones has oft been talking to me about the
pews put up, unfairly, I think, in the chancel of Barrow church. The
whole of the chancel is mine as patron, and I am always obliged to do
all the repairs to it, whenever wanted. There is a little small pew
in it of very ancient date, besides these other two; in this, I
suppose, it is intended to thrust poor me, the patron, into; humble
and meek, and deprived of every comfort on my own spot, the chancel.
The parson, you know, has been saucy on the occasion, as you know all
black Toms are, and therefore I’ll now know my power from Mr. Mytton,
and set the matter straight somehow or other. I can safely swear at
this minute a dozen people of this parish (crowd as they will) can’t
receive the Sacrament together, and therefore, instead of there being
pews of any kind therein, there ought to be none at all, but a free
unencumbered chancel at this hour. Rather than be as it is, I’ll be
at the expense of pulling the present chancel down, rebuilding and
enlarging it, so as to make all convenient and clever, before I’ll
suffer these encroachments attended with every insult upon earth.
Surely upon a representation to the bishop that the present chancel
is much too small, and that the patron, at his own expense, wishes to
enlarge it, I cannot think but it will be comply’d with. If this is
not Mr. Mytton’s opinion as the best way, what is? and how am I to
manage these encroaches?

“Yours ever,
—

“P.S.—If the old chancel is taken down, I’ll take care that no pew
shall stand in the new one. Mr. Mytton will properly turn this in
his mind, and I’ll then face the old kit of them boldly. The old pew
I spoke of, besides the other two in the chancel (mean and dirty as
it is to a degree), yet the parson wants to let, if he does not do so
now, to any person that comes to church, no matter who, so long as he
gets the cash. It’s so small no one can sit with bended knees in it;
and, in short, the whole chancel is not more than one-half as big as
the little room I am now seated in; which must apparently show you,
and, on your representation, Mr. Mytton likewise, how much too small
it must be for so large a parish as Barrow, and with the addition of
three pews—one very large indeed, the next to hold two or three
people abreast, and the latter about three sideways, always standing,
and totally unable to kneel in the least comfort.”

Years were beginning to tell upon the old sportsman, reminding him that his career was drawing to a close, and he appeared to apprehend the truth Sir Thomas Brown embodied in the remark, that every hour adds to the current arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment; and since “the longest sun sets at right declensions,” he looked forward to that setting and made arrangements accordingly, which were in perfect keeping with the character of the man. He felt that his day was done, that night was coming on; and it was his wish that those who knew him best should be those chosen to attend his funeral, that his domestics and servants who had experienced his kindness should carry him to the tomb. And let it be when the sun goes down, when the work of the day is done; let each have a guinea, that he may meet his neighbour afterwards and talk over, if he likes, the merits and demerits of his old master, as none—next to his Maker—know them better. The provisions in the will of the old Squire, in which he left his estates to his cousin Cecil, afterwards Lord Forester, father of the present Right Hon. Lord Forester, made about five years before his death, were evidently made in this spirit.

He became ill at one of his cottages on Shirlot, was taken home, attended by Dr. Thursfield (grandfather of the present Greville Thursfield, M.D.), and died whilst the doctor was still with him, on the 13th of July, 1811, in the seventy-third year of his age.

* * * * *

EXTRACTS _from the last Will and Testament_ (_dated the_ 3_rd_ _day
of November_, 1805) _of George Forester_, _late of Willey_, _in the
County of Salop_, _Esquire_.

“I desire that all my just debts and funeral expenses, and the
charges of proving this my Will, may be paid and discharged by my
Executors hereinafter named, with all convenient speed after my
decease, and that my body may be interred in a grave near the
Communion table in the Parish Church of Willey aforesaid, or as near
thereto as may be, in a plain and decent manner. And it is my Will
that eight of my Servants or Workmen be employed as Bearers of my
body to the grave, to each of whom I bequeath the sum of One Guinea,
and I desire my Cousin Cecil Forester, of Ross Hall, in the County of
Salop, Esquire, Member of Parliament for the Town and Liberties of
Wenlock, in the same County, the eldest son of my late uncle, Colonel
Cecil Forester, deceased, to fix upon and appoint six of those of my
friends and companions in the neighbourhood of Willey aforesaid, whom
he knew to have been intimate with, and respected by, me, to be
Bearers of the Pall at my funeral, and I request that my body may be
carried to its burial-place in the dusk of the evening.

“And I do hereby direct that my chestnut horse, commonly called the
Aldenham horse, shall be shot as soon as conveniently may be after my
decease by two persons, one of whom to fire first, and the other to
wait in reserve and fire immediately afterwards, so that he may be
put to death as expeditiously as possible, and I direct that he shall
afterwards be buried with his hide on, and that a flat stone without
inscription shall be placed over him. And I do hereby request my
Cousin Cecil Forester and the said John Pritchard, as soon as
conveniently may be after my decease, to look over and inspect the
letters, papers, and writings belonging to me at the time of my
decease, and such of them as they shall deem to be useless I desire
them to destroy.”

His wishes, we need scarcely say, were carried out to the letter. He was buried by torchlight in the family vault in Willey Church, beneath the family pew, to which the steps shown in our engraving lead. Founded and endowed by the lords of Willey at some remote period, this venerable edifice has remained, with the exception of its chancel, the same as we see it, for many generations past. It stands within the shadow of the Old Hall, and might from its appearance have formed the text of Gray’s ivy-mantled tower, where

“The moping owl does to the moon complain;”

being covered with a luxuriant growth of this clinging evergreen to the very top. Standing beneath, and peering through the Norman-looking windows, which admit but a sober light, glimpses are obtained of costly monuments with the names and titles of patrons whose escutcheons are visible against the wall. The Squire’s tomb remains uninscribed; but in 1821 Cecil Weld, the first Lord Forester, erected a marble tablet near, with the simple record—“To the memory of my late cousin and benefactor, George Forester, Esq., Willey Park, May 10, 1821.”

THE SQUIRE’S CHESTNUT MARE.

A NEW HUNTING SONG.

_Written for the present Work by_ J. P. DOUGLAS, ESQ.

AWAY we go! my mare and I,
Over fallow and lea:
She’s carried me twenty years or nigh—
The best of friends are we.
With steady stride she sweeps along,
The old Squire on her back:
While echoes far, earth’s sweetest sound,
The music of the pack.
Ah! how they stare, both high and low,
To see the “Willey chestnut” go.

Full many a time, from dewy morn
Until the day was done,
We’ve follow’d the huntsman’s ringing horn,
Proud of a gallant run.
Well in the front, my mare and I—
A good ’un to lead is she;
For’ard, hark for’ard! still the cry—
In at the death are we.
My brave old mare—when I’m laid low
Shall never another master know.

The sailor fondly loves his ship,
The gallant loves his lass;
The toper drains with fever’d lip,
His deep, full-bottom’d glass.
Away! such hollow joys I scorn,
But give to me, I pray,
The cry of the hounds, the sounding horn,
For’ard! hark, hark away!
And this our burial chant shall be,
For the chestnut mare shall die with me!