Chapter IV: Part I: THE ANTIQUITIES &c (3)

“O Lord God, Almighty Father, Creator and Ruler of the Angels, Thou true hope, and eternal blessedness of the righteous, may the glorious intercession of the Holy Virgin and Mother Mary, and all Saints, aid us in Thy sight, with the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, Redeemer of all men, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.”[35]

[35] Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury, Vol. I, pp. 69, 70.

The concluding passage of this prayer is slightly tinged with that superstition, which afterwards appeared in a still more objectionable form, and now so deeply stains the worship of the Church of Rome with the foul blot of idolatry; but with Ordericus the evil was but superficial, and though it does sully the beauty of his devotion, yet it is not deep enough to hide its intrinsic piety. His godly sincerity is still conspicuous, notwithstanding the error with which it was connected; for, as Milner well observes in his Church History, a measure of superstition is compatible with real godliness. We may hope that there were men of like spirit with Ordericus in the ancient Friary of Bridgnorth, and if so, Christ was not without a witness here, even in the darkness of the middle ages; and His holy name, though pronounced by faltering lips, and a stammering tongue, would bring salvation; and His truth, though taught obscurely and defectively, would be sufficient to guide the feet of wandering sinners into the way of peace, and to conduct the weary and heavy laden to their rest.

* * * * *

The historical notices of Bridgnorth which I have thus brought before the reader, will not, I hope, be considered wholly devoid of interest, at least not by those who are locally connected with the place. They are scanty indeed, but sufficient to shew them that the town, in which it is their lot to live, not only is one whose foundation is of very ancient date, and the Borough belonging to it one of the earliest in the kingdom, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, but that it has been at times the theatre of events of some importance in history; that the scenes with which they are daily familiar, and which are now comparatively so quiet and peaceful, have again and again been scenes of active warfare, where the besiegers and the besieged have confronted each other in deadly combat, and where, on more than one occasion, the Monarchs of England have appeared in person to vindicate the prerogatives of their crown, and loyalty and rebellion have striven valiantly and fiercely for the mastery. The rude hand of time has indeed swept away almost every memorial of these things, and scarcely a monument is left standing to mark the spot where they occurred; so that they who take their customary walk around the Castle Hill, or stroll along the towing path by the Severn side, see little or nothing to remind them of the furious combats which once signalized these scenes. The hill rises so peacefully in the midst of the valley, that it does not look as if it had ever been the object of a military assault, nor is it easy to imagine, when we look on the gentle flow of the river, that its waters were ever reddened by human blood. The contrast between what now is, and what has been in other days, is so great, that the beautiful lines which Sir Walter Scott has addressed to the Teviot, might, with little alteration, be accommodated to the Severn:

“Sweet Teviot, on thy silver tide
The glaring bale-fires blaze no more:
No longer steel-clad warriors ride
Along thy wild and willow’d shore:
Where’er thou wind’st, by dale or hill,
All, all is peaceful, all is still,
As if thy waves, since time was born,
Since first they roll’d upon the Tweed,
Had only heard the shepherd’s reed,
Nor started at the bugle horn.”

_Introduction to Canto IV of the_
_Lay of the Last Minstrel._

THE ANTIQUITIES OF BRIDGNORTH.