SHERWOOD
= O
Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY
1980
SHERWOOD FOREST
**.
reserved.}
" . . what is Nature ? Ha ! why do I not name thee God ? Art not thou the ' Living Garment of God ' ? O Heavens, is it, in very deed, HE, then, that ever speaks through thee ; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me?"
Sartor Resartus.
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREST TREES • . . . . . . . . . i
SHERWOOD FOREST ........ 7
ROBIN HOOD . . . . . . . . .21
ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A' DALE ... S3
EDWINSTOWE .... -59
SIMON FOSTER ....... 81
THE FALLEN BOUGH ....... 89
THE MAJOR OAK ...... 95
THE BROAD DRIVE ....... 105
WHEN THE SNOW FALLS . . . . . . ui
THE WOUNDED GIANT . . . . . . .121
BUDBY . ........ 131
THORESBY . . . . . . . . -139
THE LADY OF THE WOODS . . . - . 181
THE SHAMBLES OAK .... .189
THE PARLIAMENT OAK . . . . . . 197
x CONTENTS
PAGE
CLIPSTON ........ 205
HAUGHTON ...... . 223
WELBECK ........ 259
CLUMBER . . . . . . . 301
OLLERTON ........ 339
RUFFORD ...... 361
NEWSTEAD AND ANNESLEY . . . . .381
NIGHT IN THE FOREST ...... 40*
COCKGLODE ........ 413
.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ELIZABETH LADY CAVENDISH, WIDOW OF SIR WILLIAM CAVENDISH, AND COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY (Photogravure) ...... Frontispiece
DECORATED TITLE-PAGE ...... v
AN OAK TREE IN BIRKLAND ...... 4
TREES NEAR THE MAJOR OAK ... .10
PATH NEAR THE BUCK GATES, THORESBY ROAD . . -13
THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO . . . . . 17
IN THE DAYS OF ROBIN HOOD . . . . . 24
THE MANOR FARM HOUSE, EDWINSTOWE .... 62
VIEW OF EDWINSTOWE . . . . . . .62
THE VILLAGE GREEN, EDWINSTOWE. FROM THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE
FOREST ........ 69
IN THE GROUNDS OF EDWINSTOWE HALL . . . -77
THE «' SIMON FOSTER" OAK ...... 84
THE FALLEN BOUGH, IN BIRKLAND . . 92
THE MAJOR OAK, BIRKLAND ..... 98
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE BROAD DRIVE, BIRKLAND . . . . . .108
NEAR EDWINSTOWE, ON THE THORESBV ROAD . . 114
LEAFLESS OAKS ..... . . 118
OAK TREE, THE WOUNDED GIANT . . . . . 124
ON THE SKIRTS OF THE SOUTH FOREST. AUTUMN . . .128
THE RIVER MEDEN AT BUDBY . . . . .134
SWANS ON THE RIVER AT BUDBY . . . . 134
THORESBY LAKE ....... 142
BEECH AVENUE, THORESBY PARK ..... 148
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU . . . . .159
(After Sir Godfrey Kneller). (Photogravure)
MISTRESS ANNE WORTLEY (Photogravure) . . .165
THE LADY or THE WOODS . . . . . .184
ROBIN HOOD'S LARDER, OR SHAMBLES OAK .... 192
PARLIAMENT OAK ....... 200
CLIPSTON MEADOWS ..... . 200
RUINS OF THE KING'S HOUSE, CLIPSTON .... 308
MAP OF HAUGHTON, A SEAT OF JOHN, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE . . 226
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE DENZIL, BARON HOLLES OF IFIELD
(Photogravure) ....... 247
RUINED CHAPEL, HAUGHTON ...... 255
THE GREENDALE OAK, WELBECK PARK . . . 262
THE GREEN ROOM, HARDWICK HALL ..... 267
(From a drawing by B. H. Rodgers)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
PAOK
A CORNER IN THE PRESENCE CHAMBER, HARDWICK HALL . .271
(From a drawing fry B. H. Rodgers)
WILLIAM, FIRST DUKE OF NEWCASTLE . . . .279
(After Vandyke). (Photogravure^
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD EARL OF OXFORD AND EARL
MORTIMER (Photogravure} ...... 293
VIEW OF THE LAKE AT CLUMBER ... . 304
T. HOLLES PELHAM, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE {Photogravure) . . 323
OLLERTON FROM THE SKIRTS OF THE FOREST . . . 342
BEECH AVENUE, NEAR OLLERTON. FORMERLY THE ENTRANCE TO
THORESBY PARK ....... 347
THE RESIDENCE OF THE MARKHAMS, OLLERTON . . 353
THE ENTRANCE GATES, RUFFORD ABBEY .... 364
NEWSTEAD ABBEY ..... . 384
ON THE COCKGLODE ROAD ...... 404
NIGHT IN THE FOREST ...... 407
OAK TREE NEAR THE GRINDSTONE, BIRKLAND . . . .411
AVENUE OF SCOTCH FIRS, COCKGLODE . . . . 416
MOONLIGHT AT COCKGLODE . . . . . . 419
FOREST TREES
FOREST TREES
THE restful feeling of happiness which is derived from the contemplation of the beauties of nature is one of the choicest blessings of existence ; and in woodland scenery there is a mysterious charm that from the remotest ages has impressed itself upon the imagination of mankind. In ancient Greece this feeling developed into the supernatural. The Druids, too, believed the oak tree to be sacred. When Dante, in his vision of the Inferno, enters the gloomy forest " where no track of steps had worn a way," the sense of terror inspired by his description is intensified by this mystic force. And Shake- speare's moonlight revels of Titania and her fairy train owe some part of their charm to the same strange feeling.
Trees are undoubtedly among the most interesting of nature's works, but they are so constantly before us that, like the sky and the ever changing clouds, their beauty is often unrecognised. Of Constable, however, who was not one of those "before whom Nature has spread her volume in vain," it has been said that he would look upon a fine tree with an ecstasy of delight, such as could only be inspired by the most beautiful objects of creation. And the trees of Sherwood Forest have a special interest, for, in addition to the majestic growth of many of the oaks, they are associated with a part of the country which to all Englishmen is a land of romance.
To endeavour to interest others in this forest has been a source of pleasure to the author ; and, inadequate as may have been his powers to the work, he is not without hope
6 SHERWOOD FOREST
that some of his pleasure may be shared by his readers, should there be truth in Carlyle's remark — " If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts ; all art and authorcraft are of small amount to that."
With regard to the account given of the great families, and of the remarkable men and women of inferior station whose lives have been spent in this venerable forest — although he does not lay claim to any great amount of original research, he believes he has been able to collect together from many sources a considerable amount of interesting information not hitherto easily accessible.
SHERWOOD FOREST
SHERWOOD FOREST
'' Memorials grand of death and life,
That seem from time new life to borrow ! Full many a race have ye outlived Of men whose lives were crime and sorrow.
Age after age, while Time grew old,
Your writhen boughs have slowly lengthen'd ;
Storm-stricken trees ! Your stormy strength Five hundred years have darkly strengthen'd."
EBENEZEK ELLIOTT.
AT the time of Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest and the forests of North Yorkshire formed one continuous woodland from Nottingham to Whitby. In Sherwood lay Notting- ham, Mansfield, Hardwick, Newstead, Annesley, Welbeck, Thoresby, Rufford, Edwinstowe, and many other important places. It is of such antiquity that no record or history makes any mention of its beginning. There can scarcely be a doubt that it was part of the aboriginal forest land with which, at one time, England was almost covered. But now, alas ! all that remains of this beautiful woodland is comprised in that portion which passes under the names of Birkland and Bilhagh. In these, fortunately preserved in their primitive beauty, we have a noble specimen of the forest land of our ancestors ; and it is considered by those who have travelled far, and seen many of the earth's choicest spots, to have a beauty, and a traditionary interest, scarcely to be equalled in its kind. The spectator feels transported into another age ;
FOREST
he recognises at a glance the vast antiquity of all around him, for he is surrounded by —
"hundreds of huge oaks,
Gnarl'd — older than the thrones of Europe ; look What breadth, height, strength, — torrents of eddying bark ! Some hollow-hearted from exceeding age —
. . . and some Pillaring a leafy sky upon their monstrous boles."
Many of the same trees were here when our Norman kings hunted in the forest. They sheltered the bold outlaw and his followers — that bold outlaw whose fame has been sung for the last five hundred years, and the memory of whose deeds lingers vividly around.
In the ballads of Robin Hood, summer is almost invariably the time of year celebrated. This, no doubt, is owing to that season being most suitable for outdoor life and enjoyment. It is delightful in summer to ramble in the glades of the forest, when the wild hyacinth with its myriad blooms seems to reflect the heavens above ; or to rest under the shade of some old oak, the gentle breeze playing among the light tendrils of the birch, that tree which seems coquettishly to have chosen the proximity of its rugged neighbour to exhibit its graceful form. There is no discordant sound in the air ; only the singing of birds, the cry of the cuckoo, or the laughing notes of the woodpecker overhead. All nature is happy, and especially to the careworn dweller in a town, there is a delicious feeling of repose and peace. On a summer night, too, when the air is filled with a thousand sweet-smelling odours, is this not a place for waking dreams ? To one who has been here in years gone by with friends — dear friends, long separated, does not the place seem haunted with their forms ? Cannot their voices be heard in the stillness of the night ?
In autumn, when Nature everywhere puts on her most gorgeous array, the lovely colours here displayed are more
SHERWOOD FOREST 15
than sufficient to tax the ingenuity of the painter. The oak, with its vivid foliage ; the birch, now clad in a vesture of gold ; the purple heather, and the many tinted bracken, all seem as though wishful " To make this Sherwood Eden o'er again."
And winter, with its boisterous weather, still has many beauties, though not so forcibly displayed as in the earlier seasons ; yet, to those who seek them, quite as impressive. The song of the birds is hushed, stillness reigns around ; but in the earlier days of winter, before the bracken is broken down by the snow or the rough winds, the forest is most charming, for then the old trees covered with lichens and mosses have all the rich colouring of an ancient bronze. And to wander among these groves on a night when the vegetation is covered with hoar frost, and to notice the moon's rays suddenly darting from behind a cloud, throwing an effulgent glory on the spot, is indeed something to remember. The spectator feels that, without any great strain of his imagination, he could believe this was no earthly scene before him.
In a treatise on English forest trees, Washington Irving observes : " As the leaves of trees are said to absorb all noxious qualities of the air, and to breathe forth a purer atmosphere, so it seems to me as if they draw from us all sordid and angry passions, and breathe forth peace and philanthropy. There is a serene and settled majesty in woodland scenery, that enters into the soul, and fills it with noble inclinations. The ancient and hereditary groves, too, that embower this island are most of them full of story. They are haunted by the recollections of great spirits of past ages, who have sought for relaxation among them from the tumult of arms or the toils of state, or have wooed the muse beneath their shade. . . . The poets, who are naturally lovers of trees, as they are of everything that is beautiful, have artfully awakened great interest in their favour, by representing them as the habitations of sylvan deities ; insomuch that every great
16 SHERWOOD FOREST
tree had its tutelar genius, or a nymph, whose existence was limited to its duration."
Could this poetical vision be realised, what might we not learn from these spirits of the forest, were they gifted with the memory and garrulity of the " Broad Oak of Sumner-Chace "? What might they not tell of King John, whose name still adheres to the ruins of the palace ? Of the three Edwards, and of the parliament held at Clipston ? Of the visit to Best- wood by Richard III. a few days before the battle of Bosworth Field ? Of the eighth Henry's great Cardinal on the way to his see at York, when in disgrace with the king, and of his journey through the forest at break of day; of his dining at Rufford and lodging at Welbeck Abbey ; as told in the sympathetic narrative of Cavendish? Of the frequent visits of the Stuart kings to the forest, and of the occasion when Charles the First was at Welbeck with a flying army on his way to Southwell ? Of Cromwell's memorable visit to Thoresby, and his journey through the forest imme- diately before the battle of Worcester ? Of Newstead Abbey ? Of Lord Byron, and his passionate but ill-fated love for Mary Chaworth, and of the words of the old nurse, so full of pathos ; and the beautiful terrace at Annesley, where the very roses bloom as though wishful to do honour to this classic ground ? And of numberless other men and women who have all come, and spent their lives, and gone, while these same trees have occupied the ground ?
A debt of gratitude is owing to those noblemen who have hitherto preserved this beautiful relic of the past from destruc- tion. It is greatly to be feared, however, that with the making of the railway which now passes through the village of Edwin- stowe, the rapid deterioration of the forest may safely be predicted. Coal is to be had here for the winning. Coal pits are already opened in the near neighbourhood, and no great length of time is likely to elapse before the forest in its beauty, as we now know it, will be a thing of the past ; for
SHERWOOD FOREST 19
the smoke and sulphur emanating from these works are fatal to the oak.
How needful it is to treasure and protect from injury these choice places of the earth, we have been warned by our great teachers. Such possessions are beyond any money value. It is impossible to replace these old forests. They are unique and priceless. When the character of the scenery of this country is changed for the worse, so it will be with the inhabitants.
When Jean Francois Millet, the eminent peasant painter of France, first beheld the forest of Fontainebleau, the majesty of its giant trees, the solemn stillness of their shades, filled him with awe and wonder, and he cried, "My God! how good it is to be here ! "
And Pemberton, whose wanderings made him familiar with half the globe, said of Sherwood Forest : " By itself it stands, and is like no other spot on which my eyes have ever looked, or my feet have ever trod. . . . This is Eden ! "
It is sad to think that with the material prosperity of the country its beauty so often disappears. No wonder that Ruskin objects to the introduction of railways into those parts of the country where the chief interest is in the scenery.
"Is there no nook of English ground secure from rash assault?" '
Wordsworth.
ROBIN HOOD
. ' r~* *?>£» --^yin •WS
IN THK DAYS OF ROBIN' HOOD.
ROBIN HOOD
"Lythe and lysten gentylmen, That be of freebore blode ; I shall you tell of a good yeman, His name was Robyn Hode."
Old Ballad.
" More solid things do not shew the complexion of the times so well as ballads . . . " — JOHN SOLDAN'S Table Talk.
"And yet I think these Oaks at dawn and even, Or in the balmy breathings of the night, Will whisper ever more of Robin Hood."
TENNYSON'.
" Oliver. Where will the old duke live ?
Charles. They say he is already iu the Forest of Arclen, and a many merry men with him, and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England ; they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world."
SHAKESPEARE.
A GREAT diversity of opinions have been expressed as to whether Robin Hood really existed or not. And when it is remembered what has been said during the last few years regarding a far greater man who was living three hundred years ago, — of Shakespeare himself, — that he was not the author of the marvellous works that bear his name, one cannot wonder that doubt is expressed as to the life and exploits of Robin Hood. Barely half the number of years have passed since the
.
i i.. .U 10 • : f
26 SHERWOOD FOREST
days of Shakespeare that are supposed to have elapsed to the time of the outlaw — if the legends regarding him are worthy of belief, and during these years since Shakespeare lived the Press has been actively at work spreading the knowledge of famous and learned men ; while until long after the death of Robin Hood historical and romantic matters were almost entirely dependent on the minstrels or wayfarers travelling along the highway. So far as the lower classes of the people are concerned there is no reliable record of the period ; indeed these were the dark ages of English history, and although Shakespeare lived in a time of much more enlightenment than that of the outlaw, even with all these advantages very few facts have come to our knowledge regarding him. Viewed in the light of what has already taken place, what marvel could there be, if, after the lapse of another three centuries, what is now known of him should be discredited and the very existence of the poet be denied ? l
The tendency of the present day is to deny the truth of any assertion that cannot be fully established by recorded facts. We live in a materialistic age, which is, in a great measure, responsible for the want of belief. But it is fre- quently found that men who have given a lifetime to the study of Nature, as it were by intuition, see deeper into her ways of working than those who accept nothing without the most absolute proof. Why should we in the twentieth
1 Shakespeare— " Of hardly any great poet, indeed, do we know so little. For the story of his youth we have only one or two trifling legends, and these almost certainly false. Not a single letter or characteristic saying, not one of the jests spoken at the ' Mermaid ' ; hardly a single anecdote remains to illustrate his busy life in London. His look and figure in later age have been preserved by the bust over the tomb at Stratford, and a hundred years after his death he was still remembered in his native town ; but the minute diligence of the Georgian time was able to glean hardly a single detail, even of the most trivial order, which could throw light upon the years of retirement before his death. ... No salient peculiarity seems to have left its trace on the memory of his contemporaries."—]. R. Green, Short History of the English People.
ROBIN HOOD 27
century be better able to judge as to the existence of such a being as Robin Hood than our forefathers ? No new facts of importance have been revealed respecting him : for hundreds of years he has been no myth. As to the time in which he is said to have lived, one of the ablest writers on the by-paths of history, in his English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, who makes the outcasts of that age his study, speaks of the hero of Sherwood Forest as " the popular insurgent of the twelfth century." If M. Jusserand is correct in his supposition, this was the time when the full rigour of the sanguinary Forest Laws of our Norman kings was enforced : — such as the Conqueror's decree that any person who should steal either a buck or a boar should be punished by the loss of his sight ; when the stealing of a doe was a hanging matter; when Henry I. punished those who destroyed the game, though not in the forest, either by forfeiture of their goods or loss of limbs; when Richard \. enacted mutilation and pulling out of eyes for hunting in the forest ; when the swains were driven from their fields that the forests might be enlarged, while the beasts of the forest had liberty to rove at their pleasure. This was the time when, if a man or a woman committed a theft to the value of fourpence, life was the forfeit. It was then the law, too, that if the thrall or bondman attached to the land left his master's domain without his express permission he became an outlaw, and could only enter common life again at his master's mercy, or after having passed a year and a day in a free town without leaving it, and without his lord having sought to claim him as his thrall. If the bondman led a wandering life, going from place to place, he was liable to be retaken by his lord after the lapse of years. All who became outlaws had not necessarily committed any offence ; if a person was obnoxious to a more powerful and unscrupulous neighbour, he would be powerless to prevent the machinations of such a one working his ruin. Sometimes an individual would take
28 SHERWOOD FOREST
advantage of another being absent in a foreign country, to affirm before a magistrate that he was in flight, and cause him to be declared an outlaw.1 It was, in the eye of the law, equally as meritorious to hunt down and despatch an outlaw as it was to kill a wolf, the head of which animal he was said to bear.2
These cruel laws had the effect of transforming the man who was guilty of some small offence into a hardened criminal ; and for him there was no place of safety so easy of access as the wild forests which in those days overspread a great part of England — an enormous expanse of woodland, heath, and moss, not enclosed like a park by walls or fences, but left in its original uncultivated state.
In these forests the wild beasts naturally found their abode ; and with them lived the poor outlawed peasant whom the Normans had degraded to the level of the beasts which he tended. Even before the Conqueror laid waste large tracts of land in Hampshire to form the New Forest, he had already sixty-nine others of immense extent, "such, and so many," as John Evelyn says, "as no other country in Europe possesses," which were all devoted to the sole pleasure of the king, where no one was allowed to pursue the game without his special per- mission. Although these forests were maintained by a great array of rangers, foresters, keepers, and other officials, and the laws were administered most severely, yet they were the chief resort of the outlaw. If he was pursued the forests were easier to reach, he might be nearer his relatives, and quite as safe as if he had crossed the sea. Poachers and highway robbers might thus meet as comrades in the green wood, and wander
' Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life.
- In the great Roll of the Exchequer, in the 7th year of Richard I., is an allowance by writ, of two marks, to Thomas de Prestwude, for bringing to Westminster the head of William de Elleford, an outlaw. Those who received or consorted with an outlawed person were subject to the same punishment. — Ritson, Note L.
ROBIN HOOD 29
under its leafy shade from the sea coast in north Yorkshire, far into Derbyshire or beyond Nottingham in search of prey. And perhaps during the dark nights of winter, long after the curfew bell had warned the people to put out their fires and remain within doors, one of these wretched creatures might steal cautiously into the mud-built hut that was once his home in search of food, or of a few hours' protection from the raging storm, although, as he well knew, it was at the risk of his life —
" For an outlawe, this is the lawe, that men shall take and binde Without pitee, hanged to bee, and waver with the winde."
Can it be a matter of surprise in such a state of society, that among these wanderers of the forest, such a man as Robin Hood should be forthcoming, who has himself seen and experi- enced the oppressive weight of these laws ; and is no mere vulgar robber ? Nay, does he not seem to be the natural out- come of those evil days — one who sets at defiance the forest laws, and takes the wealth of the haughty, unscrupulous noble to bestow it upon the downcast ? The spirit of the age created the man who uttered the thought and feeling of that age, and in a rough and ready way set himself with the aid of his followers or companions, to remedy the evils of the times. Nor can we wonder that his generous deeds, and the spirit in which they were carried out should have originated some of the most im- portant of the ballads that bear his name. Robin says to his followers : —
" I never hurt the husbandman, That use to till the ground, Nor spill their blood that range the wood To follow hawk and hound.
My chiefest spite to clergy is
Who in these days bear sway ; With friars and monks, and their fine spunks,
I make my chiefest prey."
30 SHERWOOD FOREST
For hundreds of years Robin Hood has been almost wor- shipped by the peasantry, but during the first century and a half after the Norman conquest the only way in which it was possible for the outlaw's fame to be perpetuated would be in the rhymes or songs which were transmitted by the popular tongue. In the fourteenth century there came a change in the habits of the people, more lively amusements were sought ; in the hall of the baron's castle and at all feasts and merry-makings, minstrels, jugglers, and singers were welcome guests.1 They chanted out songs and romances to the accompaniment of their instruments ; along with legends of the prowess of King Arthur and his gallant knights, they sung or chanted the generous deeds of Robin Hood, and told how he took from grasping bishops their ill-gotten wealth to bestow it upon the poor and needy ; and that, however great the danger in which he might find himself when he was present at mass, he would never seek a place of safety until the service was over.2
But in the songs of that period we must not expect to find any literal account of the exploits of Sherwood's hero ; simple stories no longer satisfied the popular taste. Even the songs recounting the romantic wars of Greece and Troy were embellished with more exciting incidents, more deeds of valour and of love and daring were added than formerly. It was the same with the ballads of Robin Hood : they were amplified, and the incidents narrated were more marvellous ; and with
1 "... The noble had few better distractions ; ... at long intervals only, when the yearly feast came round, the knight might go, in company with the crowd, to see Pilate and Jesus on the boards. There he found not only the crowd but sometimes the King also. Richard II., for example, was present at a religious play or mystery in the fourteenth year of his reign, and had ten pounds distributed among several clerks of London, who had played before him at Skinner Well ' the play of the Passion and of the creation of the world.' A few years later he was present at the famous York plays, at the feast of Corpus Christi, which were played in the streets of the city." — English Wayfaring Life, by J, J. Jusserand.
* Ibid.
ROBIN HOOD 31
these ballads the practice was continued to a much later time.
It was in the fourteenth century that Langland wrote his satire of Piers Plowman, showing that legends of the forest hero were then popular with the peasantry. The lines are spoken by a character named Sloth —
" I kan not perfittly my paternoster as the prest it sayeth, But I kan rymes of Robyn Hode and Randolf, Earl of Chester."
Nor does it appear that the outlaw's memory was less honoured a century later ; for in the reign of Edward the Fourth, Sir John Paston, complaining of the ingratitude of his servants, mentions one who had promised never to desert him ; "and ther uppon," says he, " I have kepyd him all this three yer to pleye Seynt Jorge, and Robyn Hod and the Shryf of Notyngham, and now whan I wolde have good horse he is gone into Bernysdale, and I without a keeper."
In the middle of the sixteenth century Robin Hood was, in the opinion of Bishop Latimer, "no myth," as we gather from his sermon preached before Edward the Sixth, when the famous prelate said : "I came once myself to a place riding on a journey homeward from London, and I sent word over night into the town that I would preach there in the morning, because it was a holy day, and methought it was an holy day's work, and the church stode in my way ; and I toke my horse and my companye and went thither ; I thought I should have found a great company in the churche, and when I came there the church door was fast locked. I tarried there half an hour and more, and at last the keye was founde ; and one of the parishe comes to me, and says, Syr, thys is a busy daye with us, we cannot heare you ; it is Robyn Hoode's daye. The parishe are gone abroad to gather for Robyn Hoode ; I pray you let them not. I was fayne there to give place to Robyn Hoode. I thought my rochet should have been regarded,
32 SHERWOOD FOREST
though I were not ; but it would not serve, it was fayne to geve place to Robyn H code's men.
" It is no laughing matter, my friendes, it is a weepynge matter, a heavy matter, under the pretence for gatheringe for Robyn Hoode, a tray tour and a thiefe, to put out a preacher, to have hys office lesse esteemed, to prefer Robyn Hod before the mynistration of God's worth ; and all this hath come of unpreachynge prelates. Thys realme hath been ill-provided, for that it hath had suche corrupt judgementes in it, to prefer Robyn Hoode to Goddes Worde. Yf the bysshoppes had been preachers, there sholde never have been anye such thynge."
Nor, in the sixteenth century, does Leland, in his Itinerary, write of Robin Hood as an imaginary being. He tells us that : " Along on the lift hond, a 3 miles of betwixt Milburne and Feribridge, I saw the wooddi and famose forrest of Barnes- dale, wher they say that Robyn Hodde lyvid like an outlaw."
And in the seventeenth century Fuller, who includes the outlaw among the Worthies of England, says : "His principal residence was in Shirwood Forrest in this county (Notts), though he had another haunt (he is no fox that hath but one hole) near the sea in the north-riding in Yorkshire, where Robin Hood's Bay still retaineth his name : not that he was any pirat, but a land-thief, who retreated to those unsuspected parts for his security. . . . One may wonder how he escaped the hands of justice, dying in his bed, for aught is found to the contrary : but it was because he was rather a merry than a mischievous thief (complimenting passengers out of their purses), never murdering any but deer, and . . . feasting the vicinage with his venison."
" All in a woodman's jacket he was clad Of Lincolne greene, belay'd with silver lace ; And on his head an hood with agletts sprad, And by his side his hunter's horn he hanging had."
SPENSER.
ROBIN HOOD 33
" You must be delightfully situated in the Vale of Belvoir — a part of England for which I entertain a special kindness, for the sake of the gallant hero Robin Hood, who, as probably you will readily guess, is no small favourite of mine ; his indistinct ideas concerning the doctrine of meum and tuum being no objection to an outriding Borderer."
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
It may safely be said that those writers who have given the greatest amount of attention to the subject of Robin Hood, who have long studied and frequented his reputed haunts in the old forest, will be found to be the most firm in their belief as to his bodily existence.
The opinions of a few of the most noteworthy are given below.
It would be difficult to find a more firm believer in the existence of Robin Hood, or one who writes more lovingly of his memory and of his legendary haunts, than Washington Irving, who says: "While at Newstead Abbey I took great delight in riding and rambling about the neighbourhood, studying out the traces of merry Sherwood Forest, and visiting the haunts of Robin Hood. The relics of the old forest are few and scattered, but as to the bold outlaw who once held a kind of freebooting sway over it, there is scarce a hill or dale, a cliff or cavern, a well or fountain, in this part of the country, that is not connected with his memory. The very names of some of the tenants on the Newstead estate, such as Beardall and Hardstaff, sound as if they may have been borne in old times by some of the stalwart fellows of the outlaw gang.
"One of the earliest books that captivated my fancy when a child was a collection of Robin Hood ballads, ' adorned with cuts,' which I bought of an old Scotch pedlar, at the cost of all my holiday money. How I devoured its pages, and gazed upon its uncouth woodcuts ! For a time my mind was filled with picturings of ' Merrie Sherwood,' and the exploits and
34 SHERWOOD FOREST
revelling of the bold foresters ; and Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and their doughty compeers were my heroes of romance.
"These early feelings were in some degree revived when I found myself in the very heart of the far-famed forest, and, as I said before, I took a kind of schoolboy delight in hunting up all traces of old Sherwood and its sylvan chivalry. One of the first of my antiquarian rambles was on horseback, in company with Colonel Wildman and his lady, who undertook to guide me to some of the mouldering monuments of the forest. One of these stands in front of the very gates of Newstead Park, and is known throughout the county by the name of the ' Pilgrim Oak.' It is a venerable tree, of great size, overshadowing a wide arena of the road. Under its shade the rustics of the neighbourhood have been accustomed to assemble on certain holidays, and celebrate their rural festivals. This custom had been handed down from father to son for several generations, until the oak had acquired a kind of sacred character.
" The ' old Lord Byron,' however, in whose eyes nothing was sacred, when he laid his desolating hand on the groves and forests of Newstead, doomed likewise this traditional tree to the axe. Fortunately the good people of Nottingham heard of the danger of their favourite oak, and hastened to ransom it from destruction. They afterwards made a present of it to the poet, when he came to the estate, and the Pilgrim Oak is likely to continue a rural gathering place for many
generations.
"From this magnificent and time-honoured tree we continued on our sylvan research in quest of another oak, of more ancient date and less flourishing condition. ... It was the oak of Ravenshead, one of the last survivors of old Sherwood, which had evidently once held a high head in the forest. . . .
"At no great distance from Ravenshead Oak is a small cave, which goes by the name of Robin Hood's stable. It is in the breast of a hill, scooped out of brown freestone with rude
ROBIN HOOD 35
attempts at columns and arches. Within are two niches, which served, it is said, as stalls for the bold outlaw's horses. To this retreat he retired when hotly pursued by the law, for the place was a secret even from his band.
"Another of these rambling rides in quest of popular antiquities was to a chain of rocky cliffs, called the Kirkby crags. I scaled their rugged sides, and seated myself in a niche of the rocks called Robin Hood's chair. It commands a wide prospect over the valley of Newstead, and here the bold outlaw is said to have taken his seat and kept a look-out upon the roads below, watching for merchants and bishops and other wealthy travellers, upon whom to pounce down, like an eagle from its eyrie.
"Descending from the cliff's and remounting my horse, a ride of a mile or two further along a narrow robber path, as it was called, which wound up into the hills between perpendicular rocks, led to an artificial cavern cut in the face of a cliff, with a door and window wrought through the living stone. This bears the name of Friar Tuck's cell, or hermitage, where, according to tradition, that jovial anchorite used to make good cheer and boisterous revel with his freebooting comrades.
"Such were some of the vestiges of old Sherwood and its renowned ' Yeomandrie,' which I visited in the neighbourhood of Newstead.
" The evening was fast coming on and the twilight thicken- ing as we rode through those haunts famous in the outlaw story. A melancholy seemed to gather over the landscape as we proceeded, for our course lay by shadowy woods and across naked heaths, and along lonely roads, marked by some of those sinister names by which the country people in England are apt to make dreary places still more dreary. The horrors of ' Thieves' Wood,' and the ' Murderers' stone,' and the ' Hag nook,' had all to be encountered in the gathering gloom of evening, and threatened to beset our path with more than mortal peril. Happily, however, we passed these ominous
& . ,*>-..• •*
s, r-n *
. . i H.
.f f
36 SHERWOOD FOREST
places unharmed, and arrived in safety at the portal of Newstead Abbey, highly satisfied with our greenwood foray."
Among the number of authors who have written on the subject of Robin Hood there is none whose treatise is more worthy of attention than that of the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A., the historian of Hallamshire, who in 1852 published, among a series of " Critical and Historical Tracts," one entitled, The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood: his period, real character, &c., investigated, and perhaps ascertained.
Whether Mr. Hunter has been successful in his endeavours to settle the date of the existence of Robin Hood is open to doubt ; indeed, he does not himself fully claim to have done so, although he believes there is a strong probability of the truth of the statement he has set forth ; and after reading his treatise it is difficult to imagine that some of the ballads relating to the hero of Sherwood Forest have not a foundation in fact, so remarkable is the correspondence between the episodes of his career narrated in one of the ballads, with the dates of events known to have actually occurred, that it is almost startling ; and although other parts of Mr. Hunter's theory seem more open to doubt, yet the paper is well worth perusal, and an abbreviated account is given below, as far as possible in the author's own words.
"My theory," says Mr. Hunter, "on the whole, is, that neither is Robin Hood a mere poetic conception, a beautiful abstraction of the life of a jovial freebooter living in the woods, nor one of those fanciful beings, creatures of the popular mind springing in the very infancy of northern civilisation, ' one amongst the personages of the early mythology of the Teutonic people,' as Mr. Wright informs us ; but a person who had a veritable existence quite within historic time, a man of like feelings and passions as we are. Not, however, a Saxon struggling against the Norman power in the first and second reigns of the House of Anjou, nor one of the Exheredati of the
ROBIN HOOD 37
reign of King Henry the Third ; but one of the Contrariantes of the reign of King Edward the Second, and living in the early years of the Third ; but whose birth is to be carried back into the reign of Edward the First, and fixed in the decennary period, 1 285 to 1 295 : that he was born in a family of some station and respectability seated in Wakefield or in villages around : that he, as many others, partook of the popular enthusiasm which supported the Earl of Lancaster, the great baron of these parts, who, having attempted in vain various changes in the government, at length broke out into open rebellion, with many persons, great and small, following his standard : that when the earl fell and there was a dreadful proscription, a few persons who had been in arms not only escaped the hazards of battle, but the arm of the executioner : that he was one of these : and that he protected himself against the authorities of the times, partly by secreting himself in the depths of the woods of Barnsdale or of the forest of Sherwood, and partly by intimidating the public officers by the opinion which was abroad of his unerring bow, and his instant command of assistance from numerous comrades as skilled in archery as himself : that he supported himself by slaying the wild animals found in the forests, and by levying a species of blackmail on passengers along the great road which united London and Berwick, occasionally replenishing his coffers by seizing upon treasure as it was being transported on the road : that there was a self-abandonment and a courtesy in the way in which he proceeded which distinguishes him from the ordinary highwayman : that he laid down the principle that he would take from none but those who could afford to lose, and that if he met with poor persons he would bestow upon them some part of what he had taken from the rich : in short, that in this respect he was a supporter of the rights or supposed reasonable expectations of the middle and lower ranks, a leveller of the times : that he continued this course for about twenty months, April, 1322, to December, 1323, meeting with various adven-
38 SHERWOOD FOREST
tures as such a person must needs do, some of which are related in the ballads respecting him: that when, in 1323, the king was intent upon freeing his forests from such marauders, he fell into the king's power : that this was at a time when the bitter feeling between the king and the Spencers, which at first pursued those who had shown themselves such formidable foes had passed away, and a more lenient policy had supervened ; the king, possibly for some secret and unknown reason, not only pardoned him all his transgressions, but gave him the place of one of the ' Vadlets, porteurs de la chambre,' in the royal household, which appointment he held for about a year, when the love for the unconstrained life he had led, and for the charms of the country returned, and he left the court and betook himself to the greenwood shade.
" And here it must be at once stated that the name of Robin Hood is not found in authentic contemporary chroni- cles : that we have no contemporary prose history, nor has his existence hitherto been made credible by the production of his name from any writing of his own time. He lives only as a hero of song, and if his name may possibly be traced in contemporary writing, still it is to the songs that we must go to find out what manner of man he was, and the exploits performed by him. It is to the cycle of ballads therefore that we must first address ourselves if we would know anything respecting him.
" Some have come down to us from near the time when the hero lived. Others are of more recent date, some not more than two or three centuries old. But these may still be founded on earlier compositions of the same kind, and thus be as much deserving of our regard as other songs, the high antiquity of which admits of no dispute. The proof of antiquity in the really ancient lies in the style of the language, in their having proceeded from the early press in this country, or in their being found in manuscripts which are obviously, from the handwriting, of high antiquity.
ROBIN HOOD 39
" Three single ballads are found in manuscript which cannot be later than the fourteenth century: — The Tale of Robin H ood and the Monk ; Robin Hood and the Potter ; Robin and Gandelyn. Far above these in importance is the poem, for it can hardly be called a ballad, which was printed by Winkyn de Worde in or about 1495 ; it is entitled ' The Lytell Geste of Robyn Hood' ; and is a kind of life of him, or rather a small col- lection of ballads strung together so as to give a continuity to the story, and with a few stanzas here and there which appear to be the work of the person who, in this manner, dealt with such of the ballads as were known to him. A copy of this poem as it came from the press, can now be produced ; that is, no question can now be raised whether what we receive now was not received by our ancestors living at the time of the battle of Bosworth, and when the Houses of York and Lancaster were united. This poem I take as the authentic and sufficient evidence of his life and deeds as a ballad hero. We cannot err in assigning such songs as these to as early a period as the reign of Edward the Third, when we recollect that we have the testimony of Langland, a writer of that age, as to the existence and popularity of songs, of which the exploits of this outlaw were the theme.
" The ancient ballads used by the author of the Geste end at the period when the king takes the outlaw in his service, and for what remains we seem to be indebted to some one, who, in the fifteenth century, strung the ballads together, and formed out of them a poem which possessed something of the unity of the epic. These few stanzas contain what more than three hundred and fifty years ago was the popular notion of the sequel of the outlaw's life, and on that account are highly worthy of attention." According to this authority he continued in the greenwood two and twenty years. At last he owed his death to the treachery of a nun.
The author " believes this to be, in all likelihood, the outline of his life. Some parts, however, have a stronger claim upon
.-I I'
40 SHERWOOD FOREST
our belief than other parts. It is drawn from a comparison of the minstrel testimony, with the testimony of records of different kinds, and lying in distant places. That I give full, ample, and implicit credence to every part of it, I do not care to affirm ; but I cannot think that there can be so many correspondences between the ballad and the record without something of identity."
"As an advocate of popular rights, however rudely formed, and miserably misunderstood, such a person was likely to become a favourite with the common people, and to this, the being an adherent of the Earl of Lancaster would also contribute ; for the earl was regarded not only with affection, but with venera- tion by them. Within the first year after his death, people flocked to the place near Pontefract where, in full sight of his castle, he was beheaded, and miraculous cures were believed to be there performed. He was canonised, at least by the common mind."
Hunter states, that the king's progress into Lancashire fixes the period of Robin's reception into the royal service at a little before Christmas, 1323 ; and, in documents preserved in the Exchequer, he has found the name of Robyn Hode not once, but several times occurring, as receiving with about eight and twenty others the pay of threepence a day as one of the " Vadlets, porteurs de la chambre of the king." The first time the name is found is in the Journal de la Chambre from the 1 6th of April to the yth of July, 1324.
" We see, then, that this person called Robyn Hode, who- ever he was, was in full service of the king from the 24th day of March in the year following that when the king, after being in Lancashire, spent five or six weeks at and about Nottingham, leaving the neighbourhood a little before Christmas. This is surely a coincidence between the ballad and the record hardly to be accounted for by the chance occurrence of two persons of the same name.
" There is a similar account preceding this, of the same
ROBIN HOOD 41
department of the royal household, comprehending the period from the 8th of July, 1323, to the i5th of April, 1324.
" The payments to vadlets, called porters of the chamber, occur in this, as well as in the one which follows, but the accountant has put down the sums in gross, without specifying the name of any of the persons who received the weekly wages. This is not so satisfactory an evidence of a negative kind, to prove that Hood was not in the king's household much before the 24th of March, 1323-4, as it would have been had each one of the porters been named ; and all which it can authorise us to say is this, that the name of Robyn Hode does not occur in them, nor has it been observed in any document of an earlier date than that cited above, beginning in April, 1324."
The name continues to be found (with some intermissions), in the Journal of the Chamber as receiving wages until the 22nd of November. After this his name no longer appears. According to the ballad, he soon found his revenue wasting away, and he had not at court the means of replenishing his exchequer which a lonely highway through a forest afforded him. In a year and three months, which is the period assigned in the Lytell Geste, his court life came to an end ; his men had left him, all but Little John and Scathelock.
" Alas then said good Robyn,
Alas and well a woo, Yf I dwell longer with the Kynge, Sorowe wyll me sloo."
He makes up his mind to leave the court, and return to the greenwood. For this he must obtain the king's leave :
" Forth than went Robyn Hode, Tyll he came to our Kynge : My lorde the Kynge of Englonde, Graunt me myn askynge.
42 SHERWOOD FOREST
I made a chapell in Bernysdale,
That semely is to se, It is of Mary Magdalene,
And there to wolde I be."
The king consents, but only for a se'night. Robin thanks the king, takes his leave all courteously, and to the greenwood went he.
It is a fine morning when he reaches the forest, the birds are merrily singing, and the deer are running under the boughs. He takes his bow in hand, and strikes down a full grown hart. He blows his horn, and all the outlaws of the forest know the sound, and come from their hiding places, seven score of them,—
"And fayre dyde of theyr nodes, And set them on theyr kne : Welcome, they sayd, our mayster, Under this grene-wode tre."
" And Robin is again installed as head of the outlaws of Barnsdale and Sherwood."
Hunter proceeds to say : " No reader can be more sensible than I am how different inferences such as have been given are from direct evidence. And perhaps I may be justly chargeable with going too far, especially if I go one step further, and ask if it is not possible to find in the people at and about Wakefield the identical person whose name has been strangely perpetuated. In the reign of Edward II. there appears a Robertus Hood living in the town and having business in that court in the ninth year of Edward, son of Edward. We find Robertus Hood again at a court in 1345, when he is described as being of Wakefield, and the name of his wife is mentioned. Her name was Matilda, and the ballad testimony is — not the Lytell Geste, but other ballads of uncertain antiquity — that the outlaw's wife was named
ROBIN HOOD 43
Matilda, which she exchanged for Marion when she joined him in the greenwood." He also adds that this " Robert Hood, of Wakefield, was not a solitary person of that name residing in these parts, but that the name continued at least to the time of Henry IV., in the seventh year of whose reign 'William Hode, of Cold Heindly,' Achilles Bosvile, John Skyres, Vicar of Felkirk, and Edmund Byrkes, of Campsal, conveyed lands at Cudworth to Adam, son of John de Wolley, and Helen his wife. Hode being associated with Bosville and Skyres, shows that he was a man of some standing ; his name being first in the deed is an additional proof. This deed is in the possession of Mr. Wentworth, of Wolley."
" The outlaw's was evidently a life which fitted him lo be the hero of song ; in its most obvious features poetical, spent in the open country or in the depths of forests, there was nothing in nature which the poet might not summon up for the entertainment of his story ; full also of adventures, some tragic occurrences, and some partaking of that good humour and disposition to merriment which are distinguishable features of his character. In an age when persons were cele- brated in this particular manner, as we know in the case of the Earl of Chester and the Earl of Leicester to have been done, it is perhaps not surprising that this person, though of a lower rank, should be selected as a subject for their art by the minstrels and song writers of the time, and that immedi- ately on his death, and possibly even before that event, he should become the hero, not of one, but of many songs."
Whatever may be thought of the principal incidents in the author's theory respecting the career of the outlaw, the evidence he has collected in the course of his research, when taken along with the facts already available, seems to point out Barnsdale, a district between Ferrybridge and Ponte- fract, as the outlaw's place of origin. His name being found in the Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield several times during the fourteenth century, is confirmatory testimony, and
4
44 SHERWOOD FOREST
a Robertus Hood, being associated with Bosvile and Skyres in the transfer of lands at Cudworth, we may infer that he is possibly belonging to a family of some standing.
Many of the ballads contain references to Barnsdale, in connection with our hero : —
" He dyde him streyt to Bernysdale,
Under the grene-wode tre, And he founde there Robyn Hode, And all his merry meyne."
" But as they loked in Bernysdalc,
By the hywaye,
Then were they ware of two blacke monkes, Eche on a good palfraye."
" They went unto the Sayles,1
These yemen all thre They loked est, they loked west, They might no man see.
" But as they loked in Barnysdale,
By a derne strete,
Then came there a Knyght rydynge, Full sone they gan hym mete,'' &c. &c.
It is said in the ballads that the prioress of Kirklees Nunnery (which lies between Wakefield and Halifax) was a relative of the outlaw, and that he, after dwelling in " the greenwood, twenty years and two," when nearing the end of his career repaired to the Nunnery for surgical aid, and the prioress, with the connivance of Sir Roger of Doncaster, Robin's bitter enemy, allowed him to bleed to death.
The supposed grave of Robin Hood is in Barnsdale, near the ruins of Kirklees Nunnery. Also near Wentbridge on the
1 " The Sayles " which are often spoken of in these ballads are believed by Mr. Hunter to have been situated at a short distance from Campsal, near the great North Road, and not a long way from Robin Hood's well.
ROBIN HOOD 45
road side, and five miles from Doncaster on the way to Pontefract, there is an ancient spring called Robin Hood's well.1
The writer of the article on Robin Hood in the Dictionary of National Biography, while altogether denying the outlaw's existence, gives Mr. Hunter full credit for the ingenuity of his theory, indeed, he could scarcely do less. When we compare the record of events which actually took place in connection with the rebellion of the Earl of Lancaster, and the king's subsequent journey to Nottingham and Lancashire, with that given in the ballads, the coincidence is so remarkable, that if the writer was not relating events that were well known to have occurred in connection with Robin Hood, he must have founded the romance — if romance it is — on this historic basis.
The idea that Robin Hood entered into the king's service, and remained for some time, is also denied by this critic ; and others who see a great likelihood of the truth of some parts of Mr. Hunter's theory, see objections to this part of it which can scarcely be overcome. Although the finding of the outlaw's name among the king's servants is remarkable.
And Charles Reece Pemberton, "the wanderer," what says he as to the existence of Robin Hood?—
" Listen — you cannot avoid thinking that these venerable sages are going to speak : would they would ! What tales might they tell of fear and strife, of hypocrisy and war, of song and sport, of mirth and laughter. Mirth and laughter? — Ay, there have been jovial doings in this hall of ages. Were not Robin Hood and his merry men all occasional denizens here? To be sure they were ; this was the favourite retreat, and here it was they took their metempsychoses from jovial men to jolly oak trees. There is Little John : yonder tall fellow with his
1 In 1723, when the Earl of Oxford (from Welbeck Abbey), and Mr. Thomas, his chaplain, were making a tour to the North, this spring had been beautified with a new stone building as a cover, at the expense of the Earl of Carlisle, from designs by Sir John Vanbrugh.
46 SHERWOOD FOREST
one bare arm thrown out as if he had just swung his good quarter staff in sport only, and pitched it to his neighbour Will Scarlet, whose hand is held forth to catch it. No metempsychosis of the staff is to be seen — it is gone the way of all staffs ; unless it has transmigrated to one of those brown ferns which are lying asleep on couches of moss. Friar Tuck is centupled. His spirit became prolific as it passed from its clay tenement into Oaken frame-work, and multiplied itself. Look at his girths enormous, and the huge wens starting from every side of his bulky carcases. They are relics of the hogs- heads of Nottingham ale that he poured down his tun-dish into his gulfy reservoir, — laughing in the thorough bass between every draught ; and every carbuncle, bursting into a mouth to let the laugh abroad, retains its thick lips in expansion of merry grin. He has literally split his sides. Hark ye, jovial and venerated foresters, news for you — news at which you may start into flesh and blood again : there is as good ale in Nottingham now as ever was brewed when you drew long bow at the king's deer, or eased fat bishop of his ungodly gold. So come back ; no, not you. There are now no deer to shoot, and the bishops are all too poor. And of what race are those grotesque, fantastic, semi-monstrous forms which stand commingled among so much of the dignified venerable and jovial ? Some are huge serpents, which have twisted their vertebree into dislocation. Some are hard-mauled, long tailed, fierce dragons, that have writhed in fury and agony, till their necks, legs, and tails have become fixed, and lignified from torture. . . . Were it night now, my old nurse's gossip of hob-goblins and fiery fiends would be busy with me ; and nothing but a griffin's head would my superstitious imagina- tion allow it to be. The region is full of fantasy."
William Howitt, in his Rural Life in England, says of Sherwood Forest: "It was more than all celebrated as the scene of the exploits of Robin Hood, and his merry men. In his day it extended from the town of Nottingham
ROBIN HOOD 47
to Whitby in Yorkshire, or rather, it and the forest of Whitby lay open to each other. ... At the Clipston extremity of the forest still remains a remnant of its ancient woodlands unrifled except of its deer ; a specimen of what the whole once was, and a specimen of consummate beauty and interest. . . . These were the trees under which King John pursued the red deer six hundred years ago. These were the oaks beneath which Robin Hood led up his bold band of outlaws. These are the oaks which have stood while king after king reigned. . . . Here they stood while the monarchy of England fell to the ground before Cromwell and the Covenanters."
And Christopher Thomson, who passed the best part of his life in this beautiful village of the forest, Edwinstowe, helping the poor labouring men to cultivate their mental faculties (as he had educated himself in his early youth), and to appreciate the beauty of the world around them, in his usual genial manner writes on the outlaw of Sherwood : —
"... the last vestige of Sherwood's right to renown is before us. What associations it conjures up. Here a dense mass of umbrageous foliage ; there, a wreck — ' the ruined Palmyra ' of a forest. Yet, here, in the forest days, where kings and nobles gave up their whole life-time, as it were, to the chase — in those days, when Saxons, Danes, and Normans followed the velvety-antlered deer adown the entangled glades of ' Merrie Sherwood ' — then this ' ruined Palmyra' was a perfect temple. There stand a cluster of lightning scathed columns, bereft of pediment and entabla- ture ; silent memorials of the march of time ; dumb mouths, preaching to us of the nothingness of human life ; moralising with a philosophy peculiarly their own, upon the ages which they have seen come like shadows, — so depart. Although they are old, scathed-looking, and nearly leaf-dismantled, yet they look down upon us with a cynical smile, saying
48 SHERWOOD FOREST
to the poor admirer, 'Vain babbler, talkest though of deeds done, of life-long years, and renowned days of Egypt, Spain, and Waterloo? Where wert thou when Cressy and Agin- court were won ? Where didst thou live when Ascalon fell, and Palestine was conquered ? Didst thou ever see the Roman's Eagles flout the air? Wert thou at all acquainted with Arthur, or Wessex, Egbert, or Albert ? 1 remember them all. I was a grown man when that said Robin Hood you boast about was driven to take shelter amongst us. By my reckoning, a few years ago, he was hunted from your cities by armed men, spurred on by wicked laws. He found a sanctuary amongst us ; bravely we screened him from ruffianly vengeance ; outcast, foodless, houseless, we found him a bowery home, gave him all Sherwood to range over, and with his long bow he procured himself food from the red deer ; meal he took from those who had a super- abundance, and no man knew better how to provide himself with sack, and other needful sauces, than did that same Robin Hood.
" Here he reigned a greenwood king, maintained him- self, chastised the oppressors, and succoured the defenceless and weak, and ruled long a patriotic and liberty-loving chief over this vast domain. I could fill up all the years of thy life with such tales ; I could tell thee of Druids' fires, of roses red and white, of plumed knights and beauteous ladies. I could tell thee stories of all ages." '
In The Ancient History of Sherwood Forest, the Rev. J. Stacye, M.A., gives his opinion on the prevailing spirit of the present age in regard to the existence of the outlaw : —
"And when we mention the name of Sherwood, what visions present themselves to our minds of bold Robin Hood, Will Scarlet, and their lawless associates, and their various adventures with the Sheriff of Nottingham and others, so dear to our forefathers of many a generation, in 1 The Autobiography of an Artisan, by Christopher Thomson.
ROBIN HOOD 49
legend and ballad ; one version of which, under the title of Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, . . . forms one of our earliest printed books. . . . We must, however, check our imaginations on this subject, and turn to a more prosaic and matter of fact view of the history of the Forest of Sherwood. Though we cannot but here enter our protest against the sceptical spirit of the present day, which has led many to doubt the very existence of Robin Hood, and to treat the long-cherished traditions of him as no better than myths. For there seems no reasonable ground for doubting that what has been so early and so generally believed must have had some substantial foundation, though we are by no means called upon to give credit to all the exploits which we find attributed to this celebrated outlaw. Many of these, no doubt, if not entirely inventions, put forth to embellish and excite interest in a story already current, are probably to be attributed to other persons of after ages, who have in their general character and deeds borne a resemblance to some real and eminent prototype ; as we know to have been the case with most of the heroes of antiquity. This view of the subject seems to derive considerable confirmation from the designation given to marauders of that stamp in general in our ancient laws and other documents where they are denominated ' Roberts men.' "
W. J. Sterland, author of a valuable work on The Birds of Sherwood Forest, says :—
"The whole of this district, in addition to its natural charm of great beauty, possesses an historical interest, which, in spite of these utilitarian times, is not soon likely to die. I have spoken of the numerous monks, who, loving good cheer, fixed themselves where it could be easily obtained, but I must not omit to mention one who was their sworn enemy. Robin Hood has won a name in our nation's annals, while his gallant esquire, Little John (a native of the county), with Will Scarlet, Maid Marian, and
So SHERWOOD FOREST
the jovial Friar Tuck, are personages with whose doings in the glades of ' Merrie Sherwood,' ballad and song have made all familiar. It would require but little play of the fancy to bring them back to their former haunts, for a large portion of the forest is comparatively little changed from what it was in the days of the renowned free-booters. The same huge oaks, whose gnarled and rifted trunks bear witness to their antiquity, still lift their giant arms aloft in sturdy grandeur. Furze, and bracken, and heather, cover the ground, and with the young self-sown trees, form dense thickets, where the red deer might hide securely, and it needs but to add the ring of the bugle, with the twang of the bowstring, and the stalwart figures in Lincoln green, to complete the picture of the past."
Macaulay, the historian, describing a visit of William the Third to Welbeck, incidentally gives his opinion as to the "reality" of the outlaw:—
"... William hunted several times in that forest, the finest in the kingdom ; which in old times gave shelter to Robin Hood and Little John, and which is now portioned out into the lordly domains of Thoresby, Clumber, and Welbeck. Four hundred gentlemen on horseback partook of his sport. . . ."
Dr. Spencer T. Hall, a native of Sherwood, and one of the most ardent admirers of its beauty, thus speaks of this outlaw of the forest :—
" There have been so many ridiculous stories associated with the name of Robin Hood, as to make many cautious people doubt if ever there was such a man at all. . . . He has been placed in various times by various rhymes ; and so late as the reign of Henry the Second — for I believe we never see him so styled in anything earlier — a London ballad writer, hard up for a word to rhyme with Little John, created him Earl of Huntington ! . . . a clever analytical critic might, perhaps, very easily cut up any theory that has been given on the subject, as
ROBIN HOOD 51
he may cut up mine — which is, that Robin Hood was in olden days a mythical title, assumed by, or given to, any great wood- land outlaw of the hour, the name being an elisional pronuncia- tion of Robin o' th1 Wood. I believe, however, that there was one man who bore it with more dignity than all the rest ; that he was born at Loxleychase, near Sheffield, on the lands that had belonged to Earl Waltheof, the last great resistant of the Norman regime, where the romantic river Loxley descends from the hills to mingle its blue waters with the Rivelin and the Don ; a place well known to every grinder in Sheffield, and often alluded to in the poems of the people's laureate, Ebenezer Elliott. That, from inherited antipathy to the Norman kings, he joined the popular side, under Simon de Montfort, as did Little John ; and that, on being defeated at the battle of Evesham, in August, 1265, the two formed a companionship between themselves, and a leadership of other outcasts and sympathisers — seeking refuge and subsist- ence in the woods of North Nottinghamshire, and in the dales and cloughs of West Yorkshire and Derbyshire."
What a charm there is in reading of the adventurous days passed by these outlaws in the wild forest ! We close our eyes for the moment to all that is unpleasant in this outdoor life, as we picture to ourselves the enchantment of the immense wood- lands, now gone from us never to be replaced !
" All are gone away and past ! And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his tufted grave, And if Marian should have Over again her forest days, She would weep, and he would craze ; He would swear, for all his oaks, Fallen beneath the dock-yard strokes, Have rotted on the briny seas ; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her — stranger ! that honey Can't be got without hard money !
.3
52 SHERWOOD FOREST
So it is ; yet let us sing Honour to the old bow-string ! Honour to the bugle-horn ! Honour to the woods unshorn ! Honour to the Lincoln green ! Honour to the archer keen ! Honour to tight Little John, And the horse he rode upon ! Honour to bold Robin Hood, Sleeping in the underwood : Honour to Maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood clan ! "
KEATS.
ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A' DALE
ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A' DALE
As Robin Hood in the forest stood,
All under the greenwood tree, There he was aware of a brave young man,
As fine as fine might be.
The youngster was clothed in scarlet red,
In scarlet fine and gay ; And he did frisk it over the plain,
And chanted a round-de-lay.
As Robin Hood next morning stood
Amongst the leaves so gay, There did he espy the same young man
Come drooping along the way.
The scarlet he wore the day before,
It was clean cast away ; And at every step he fetcht a sigh
" Alack and a well a day ! "
Then stepped forth brave Little John,
And " Midge " the miller's son, i^«i.!; ,"!
Which made the young man bend his bow,
When as he see them come.
"Stand off, stand off," the young man said,
"What is your will with me?" " You must come before our master straight,
Under yon greenwood tree."
55
56 SHERWOOD FOREST
And when he came bold Robin before,
Robin askt him courteously, " O, hast thou any money to spare,
For my merry men and me ? "
" I have no money," the young man said,
" But five shillings and a ring ; And that I have kept this seven long years,
To have at my wedding.
" Yesterday I should have married a maid,
But she from me was tane, And chosen to be an old knight's delight,
Whereby my poor heart is slain."
"What is thy name ?" then said Robin Hood,
" Come tell me, without any fail." " By the faith of my body," then said the young man,
" My name it is Allin a' Dale."
" What wilt thou give me ? " said Robin Hood,
" In ready gold or fee, To help thee to thy true love again,
And deliver her unto thee ? "
" I have no money," then quoth the young man,
" No ready gold nor fee, But I will swear upon a book,
Thy true servant for to be."
" How many miles is it to thy true love ?
Come tell me without guile." " By the faith of my body," then said the young man,
" It is but rive little mile."
Then Robin he hasted over the plain,
He did neither stint nor lin, Until he came unto the church,
Where Allin should keep his wedding.
" What hast thou here ? " the bishop then said,
" I prithee now tell unto me." " I am a bold harper," quoth Robin Hood,
" And the best in the north country."
ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A' DALE 57
"O welcome, O welcome," the bishop he said,
"That musick best pleaseth me." " You shall have no musick," quoth Robin Hood,
" Till the bride and the bridegroom I see."
With that came in a wealthy knight,
Which was both grave and old, And after him a finikin lass,
Did shine like the glistering gold.
"This is not a fit match," quoth bold Robin Hood,
" That you do seem to make here, For since we are come into the church,
The bride shall chuse her own dear."
Then Robin Hood put his horn to his mouth,
And blew blasts two or three ; When four and twenty bowmen bold
Came leaping over the lee.
And when they came into the church-yard,
Marching all in a row, The first man was Allin a' Dale,
To give bold Robin his bow.
" This is thy true love," Robin he said,
"Young Allin, as I hear say, And you shall be married at this same time,
Before we depart away."
" That shall not be," the bishop he said,
" For thy word shall not stand ; They shall be three times askt in the church,
As the law is of our land."
Robin Hood pulled off the bishop's coat
And put it upon Little John ; " By the faith of my body," then Robin said,
" This ' cloth ' doth make thee a man."
When Little John went into the quire,
The people began to laugh ; He askt them seven times in the church,
Lest three times should not be enough.
58 SHERWOOD FOREST
" Who gives me this maid ? " said Little John, Quoth Robin Hood, " That do I ;
And he that takes her from Allin a' Dale, Full dearly he shall her buy."
And thus having ended this merry wedding, The bride lookt like a queen ;
And so they return'd to the merry greenwood Amongst the leaves so green.
EDWINSTOWE
'IMF. MANOR I ARM HnOK. KI AVI NVl'OWK.
'
V1K\V OF EDWINSTOWE.
EDWINSTOWE
LONG before the Norman Conquest the Saxons had settle- ments here, and in other parts of the district. But, ancient as these settlements are, little is actually known of any events of importance having occurred in them. In all pro- bability the village owes its origin to a clearance in the dense forest, for until comparatively recent times it is known to have been almost entirely surrounded by trees. Bilhagh and Birkland extending from the north-east to the west, at which point until the time of the Commonwealth, Birkland would unite with Clipston Park, and that park on the southern side joining the South Forest and Rufford, the circle was almost complete.
Unlike Clipston and Ollerton, Edwinstowe is not known to have had any family of historic note actually seated there, and this circumstance in some measure accounts for the scarcity of recorded events. But when the situation of the village is considered, its contiguity to Clipston and Thoresby, the former frequently the residence of the Plantagenet kings, one feels certain that many interesting events must have happened in connection with it, but of which, unfortunately, there is now no information. When the king sojourned at Clipston, Edwinstowe must to some extent have shared the stirring life of the times. In imagination one may see the royal huntsman, with his courtiers and their followers, passing by
the huts of the foresters, as they must frequently have done
63
64 SHERWOOD FOREST
when in pursuit of their sport ; or hear the jangling of the trappings of the horses as they pass at leisurely pace, on their return when the day is over, followed at a distance by their attendants bearing the spoils of the chase. And perhaps, when the cavalcade has gone by, there creeps stealthily from the hollow trunk of an oak-tree near the church a figure, apparently of a man, though barely distinguishable from the wild beasts of the forest, for he is clothed in a rough, worn, and weather-stained garment, made from the skin of some animal, reaching from his throat to his knees, and giving him a half savage aspect. Why is that scowl upon his face ? Is it that he is starving, and has killed one of the king's deer, and knows that if he is taken his life will be the forfeit ?
It is very likely that on the institution of those severe punishments for offences in connection with the forests, when Sherwood had its special staff of officers, all sworn to carry out its enactments, that, from its peculiarly favourable situation for keeping watch on marauders, Edwinstowe would be the habitation of a number of these officials. They must fre- quently have come into collision with men who, from various causes, made themselves obnoxious to these laws. At a much later date than the time of the Plantagenets, Sherwood is known to have been so thickly overgrown with trees, and the branches so intermingled with each other, that there was difficulty in keeping on its paths. What a retreat this would be for Robin Hood and his followers ! Under a leafy shade they might wander unseen to Mansfield and Nottingham in the south, and to the Yorkshire coast on the north. Edwinstowe being in the heart of the highway, as it may be called, many dramatic incidents must have occurred here between these men and the officials. Their deeds, without doubt, would be talked of round many a fire in the rude huts in the village, and traditions would probably linger long afterwards, but time has effaced all memory of them.
EDWINSTOWE 65
In the reign of Henry II., 1168-69, Edwinstone contributed three marks and Clipston one mark to the subsidy levied for marrying the king's daughter.
In the reign of Edward III., Henry and Robert de Edwin- stowe, clerks, two brothers, granted to the Abbey of Newstead " the whole manor of North Muskham, on condition of the finding of two chaplains to celebrate divine offices for ever, daily, in the church of the blessed Mary of Edwinstowe." The deed confirming this grant was exhibited at the meeting of the British Archaeological Association in 1863. In 1335, Thomas son of Henry de Edwinstowe, was vicar of the church. In 1342, Henry de Edwinstowe instituted William de Babworth as warden of the chantry of Edwinstowe. In the year 1332, also, the name of Henry de Edwinstowe, clerk, appears in a charter from the king granting certain privileges to the Abbey of Rufford. All other records of this family appear to have perished.
As early as the reign of Henry IV. the men of Edwinstowe had permission granted to hold a yearly fair, lasting two days.
The church, which stands at the northern end of the village, has evidently been built at various jtimes, the most ancient part being the tower. In the seventeenth century the whole fabric was said to be in a ruinous condition, caused principally by the fall of the spire, and the inhabitants of Edwinstowe forwarded a petition for permission to appropriate two hundred oaks out of the hays of Birkland and Bilhagh, of the value of ^200, for its repair. Until recently the walls and ceilings of the interior of the church were covered with plaster, which has now been removed, and a new open-work roof of oak erected, restoring these parts of the building to their original state.
In the north aisle is a marble monument to the memory of Gulielmus Carter, which is good in design and well carved. In the south aisle, another monument, to the memory of William Villa Real, who died in 1759, is interesting. He resided in a house near the river, which has since been taken
66 SHERWOOD FOREST
down and rebuilt on higher ground. The house still bears the name of its former owner, " Villa Real."
The stained glass in the south window of the chancel, to the memory of Mrs. Cecil Foljambe, the first wife of Mr. Cecil Foljambe, of Cockglode, is a pleasant piece of colour, and a fine specimen of modern work.
In the churchyard, though a few of the monuments are in good taste, there are many that are far different ; but the crudity and vulgarity of the stones erected not many years ago are already softened by lovely lichens of almost every colour.
Henry Tinker, clerk, vicar of the parish, made his will in 15%4> "g'lv'mg ms soul to Jesus Xt, and his body to be buried in the churchyard of Edwinstow, under a great stone that lyeth near the quere door."1 The name of Henry Tinker occurs among the list of vicars of the parish. He held the living for thirty years, but the "great stone near the quere door," and all other memorials of him, have disappeared.
At the vicarage which adjoins the churchyard, Dr. E. Cobham Brewer, author of many educational books and works of reference, took up his residence in 1884, with his son-in-law, the Rev. H. T. Hayman. He was the second son of John Sherren Brewer, born in Russell Square, London, in 1810, and educated by private tutors, and at Cambridge. Took his degree in the Civil Law (first class), in 1835, became LL.D. in 1840, and devoted himself to literature. From 1852 he resided for six years in Paris, and afterwards in London, but failing health compelled him to retire to the country, and he lived for many years at Lavant, near Goodwood. All through life Dr. Brewer had been an eager seeker after information on almost every conceivable subject, but especially in relation to science ; and never averse to opening his stores of knowledge to any one with whom he might converse. He related that The Guide to Science had its origin in a habit he had in his youth of entering in a book all questions on matters (especially scientific) 1 The Registers of Edwinstowe.
EDWINSTOWE 67
which he could not explain for himself. The book was similar to those used for writing lessons, but specially ruled with a space for the question, and another for the answer when it was obtained. This was done for his own use, and eventually the manuscript was bound up into a thick volume. He asked the opinion of a scientific man on the value of his work, and the advice he received was to burn it ! This advice, however, he disregarded, and some time afterwards submitted the volume to a publisher, offering the copyright for fifty pounds. This was declined, but the publisher agreed to bring out the book at his own risk, he sharing the profits with the author. The work went through many editions and had an enormous circulation, proving extremely profitable to both parties.
By request of the Emperor Napoleon III. a French trans- lation was prepared for the use of the Prince Imperial. It was also translated into other European languages — among the rest, a Greek version was published at Smyrna in 1857. After The Guide to Science, perhaps the most widely known of Dr. Brewer's works is the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, of which he published a new and greatly enlarged edition, the hundredth thousand, shortly before his death. He was of a kindly disposition, and remarkably cheerful. He died, after a short illness, on March 6, 1897, in his eighty-seventh year, and was interred under a marble monument in the churchyard at Edwinstowe, near the entrance to the vicarage grounds.
Every one interested in the village owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Marshall for transcribing and publishing the Parish Registers. The manuscript volumes are in a most dilapidated condition, and are said to be past repair. It is a pity this should be the case, for the quaint remarks of the parish clerks (for three generations of the name of Emley), on domestic and other matters, though they are few, have an interest from the old handwriting, which cannot be transferred to the most beau- tiful of modern printed books. Many of the names seem to be indigenous, and suggest old forest days — such as Freeman,
68 SHERWOOD FOREST
Trueman, Beardall, Billyard, Tudsbury. Their descendants still live in the village.
Here are some episodes of life and death in the seventeenth century : —
1655. "22 July. Thomas Stothers father of a family, Clipstone, 'who the night before as it was supposed about 6 a clock in the afternoone came a horse back full of drinke, & rideing on the way downe a litle hill called Broadickdale comeing from Ollerton, there in the way fell from his horse & was psently in the way found, but dead, might be supposed he fell on his necke, his frendes not well satisfyde how he came to his death caused him the Tusday night after to be taken vpp again, & the man who found him first, with another jury of men & Coroner, to see that man touch him again, wch as an inocent man many at that time did see. From which suddain accedents & destinyes Good God in his mercy deliver vs all. Michaell Emley, senir, Aughust i2th, 1655.'"
Among the marriages in 1659 : — " 22 Nov. Thos. Millner & Eliza Stock both of Buclby. ' They was Maryed as it was reported in the house of Mr. Bowes by him now vica Because Bailiffs was in Towne to arrest ye vica.'"
On the 8th of January, 1643, was buried "Thomas Chan- tyre ' Who dyed in an Oven at Clipston, who went in to be cured of an ague.'"
Sepr. i;th, 1644, was buried "Anthony Dynall. Edwin- stow. 'Who kept a great stock of sheep & dyed Bat- cheller.' "
Feb. 8th, 1645, was buried " Robert Collingham. Edwin- stow. ' Who said he was never troubled with headake in all his life.' '
June 22nd, 1656. Burial. "Roger Bagnall, who was drowned by swimming " (?) " over the forge dam at Clip- ston."
" Memorand. 1669 the eigth day of Jan. Marye levers began to milk our cow."
EDWINSTOWE 71
Although these memoranda by the parish clerks are not of general interest, yet, considering the dearth of incidents from other sources, one is grateful for them. Would that there was as much information on the life of the village in some previous centuries.
Those who think that art has made rapid strides in England during the last three hundred years, will certainly find no confirmation of their opinion in the handwriting in this register. It is excellent and picturesque at the com- mencement, but gradually becomes commonplace and slovenly.
One of the few picturesque buildings in Edwinstone is the house attached to the Manor Farm, which adjoins the churchyard on the south side. Until about ten years ago there flourished in front of it a fine cedar-tree. When the cedar died, and a change had to be made, it was feared that this interesting house might be superseded by some more ordinary piece of architecture, as it was inconveniently con- structed, and without that attention to the laws of health which is now thought requisite. But the difficulty has been well overcome by the erection of the upper rooms of the house in half timber. All that is now wanting to make this farm- house one of the prettiest on the estate is the presence of a worthy successor to the fine cedar, to relieve its somewhat bald appearance.
A number of the stately firs at the northern extremity of the village were, some years ago, destroyed by the rough winds, but it would be difficult to find a more beautiful spot for outdoor enjoyment than that which stands in the shade of the tall pines yet remaining. Bordered on the gently rising ground towards the north with gorse and heather, and the grand old oaks of the forest, it is an ideal village green.
What a charm there is in being abroad in the meadows near the forest in the very early hours of a summer morning, when the grass is newly cut, and the dewy air is laden with its fragrance, and with the scent of the honeysuckle and the
72 SHERWOOD FOREST
wild rose. A mysterious dimness is over the whole landscape ; there are no signs of life in the village ; all nature seems at rest, save that afar off may be heard the cry of the plover. There is a feeling of repose, a heavenly sweetness in the scene ; the very air scarcely seems to be of this gross world ; and the delicious half-melancholy silence cannot be compared to anything so well as to soft music, for both inspire a longing for something higher, nobler, better. How solemn is the sound of the old church clock striking the hour — of that old church which for centuries has kept guard over the forest ; how long the vibrations dwell in the still nighjt air, and how intense is the silence when that sound has ceased. One cannot refrain from lingering to enjoy the perfect quiet, and to ponder on the many changes that have occurred on every side, and yet have left this beautiful old forest comparatively the same as it was seven hundred years ago. Then the dweller in this village, though he would not dare to be abroad at such an hour as this, yet, perhaps through the chinks of his hovel, he might hear as it travelled up the valley from Clipston, the faint sound of another bell, when prayers were being said in the chapel of the palace there, as ordered by King John for the repose of the soul of his father. Now there is a slight stir in the branches overhead, and a few faint notes from a half-awakened thrush, which are answered from a neighbouring tree. In the east is seen a faint light of dawn, while, near our resting place the lark rises from his nest in the grass, and ascending towards heaven sings a glad hymn of welcome to the new day ; nor is it long before the air is full of sweet melody, and turning towards home, the only sad thought is inspired by the cuckoo, for by the note we are reminded that its stay here is nearly over, and the sweet summer will, all too soon, come to an end.
About sixty years ago, a writer, describing Edwinstowe, says: "In this village the very houses still remain where the king's huntsman trained up the hounds which years ago chased
EDWINSTOWE 73
the sleek deer in Birkland hays. They are now converted into a couple of cottages, the dormer windows peep out of their low roofs, and lilies, marigolds, and wall-flowers bloom within the two-yard-wide gardens in front of them ; and apricots ripen on the old grey walls. Only one generation has passed since the last huntsman was consigned to his tenement of clay upon the hill hard by." * The road leading to these cottages is still called " Dog Kennel Lane."
Twenty years ago the village grocer, who was also post- master of Edwinstowe, was a somewhat remarkable man. The name over the shop door — Richard Westland Marston — was suggestive to any stranger of literary knowledge, of that of the eminent dramatic poet, Dr. Westland Marston ; and the consequent inquiry which followed, was answered in the affirmative — the dramatist was cousin to the postmaster.2
The village postmaster, however, could not be said to have inherited the poetic genius of the family ; indeed, he gave one the impression of being almost anything rather than a poet. It was the delight of the younger generation in the village to have business at his shop of an evening when the mail-bags were being made up, and all was hurry and bustle, to listen to his caustic remarks.
But Marston asserted that he had other famous connections — that his grandmother was cousin in the first degree to Sarah Hoggins, daughter of the farrier of Bolas Magna, in Shrop-
1 Thomson's Autobiography of an Artisan.
2 Dr. Westland Marston was one of the leading dramatists of the nineteenth century, one of whose first dramas, The Patrician's Daughter, was brought out by Macready in 1842, with a prologue by Charles Dickens ; followed in 1849 by an historical play, Slrathmore, which met with great success. In 1858, A Hard Struggle drew tears and enthusiastic praise from Dickens. From 1860 to 1874 Dr. Marston's house was a favourite meeting place for poets, actors, and literary men, enlinking the days of Macready, Phelps, Robert Browning, Dante Rossetti, with those of poets and artistes like Swinburne, Morris, and Irving.
74 SHERWOOD FOREST
shire, who married the Marquis of Exeter, and was the heroine of Tennyson's poem, " The Lord of Burleigh," and that Dr. Marston stood in the same degree of relationship to the "village maiden" as himself.1
Nearer the river Maune than the situation of the present Edwinstowe House, in a building that has since been taken down, there resided in 1784, and for a number of years after- wards, William Boothby, Esquire, the younger brother of Sir Brooke Boothby 2 of Ashbourne Hall, who married Rafela, daughter of Don Miguel del Gado, of Mahon, in the Island of Minorca. On the death of Sir Brooke he suc- ceeded to the baronetcy in January, 1824, and died at Edwinstowe on the 1 7th of March following. Sir William was
1 On this subject a correspondent states in the Athcnccum of July 29, 1893: "There passed away last week, at the age of seventy-three, a lady not only of high rank and title, as was duly recorded in the daily papers, but also of interest on account of her connection with one person whose name is celebrated by Tennyson. I refer to Lady Charles Wellesley, of Conholt Park, near Andover, Hampshire, the mother of the Duke of Wellington. She was the grand-daughter of Sarah Hoggins, the 'Village Maiden' of Bolas Magna, in Shropshire, whose marriage with Henry, tenth Earl, and afterwards first Marquis of Exeter, is the subject of the ' Lord of Burleigh.'
" He brought her, unconscious of his rank, to ' Burleigh House by Stamford Town.' The ' three fair children ' were Brownlow, second Marquis of Exeter, Lord Thomas Cecil, and Lady Sophia Cecil, who, by her marriage with the late Right Hon. Henry Manvers Pierrepont, became the mother of Lady Charles Wellesley. The present Duke of Wellington, therefore, is great-grandson of Sarah Hoggins."
2 Sir Brooke Boothby, of Ashbourne Hall, is still remembered in con- nection with Penelope (his only child), who, although she died before attaining her sixth year, became famous as the subject of one of the most charming of Sir Joshua's studies of infantine grace ; of the most successful effort of Banks, the sculptor, to perpetuate her memory in Ashbourne, and a splendidly illustrated volume of poems by her father, entitled Sorrows sacred to Penelope.
This figure by Banks is said by Ebenezer Rhodes, the friend of Chantrey, to have suggested to Sir Francis the sleeping children in Lichfield Cathedral.
EDWINSTOWE 75
for many years Major of the Mansfield troop of Yeomanry cavalry. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, also named William, who married first in January, 1805, Fanny, daughter of John Jenkinson, Esquire, and niece to Charles, first Earl of Liverpool. By that lady, who died in 1838, he had issue two sons and four daughters.
Sir William married secondly, in 1844, Mrs. Cranston Nisbett, the celebrated actress. He died at Ashbourne Hall on April 24th, aged sixty-four. On the i2th of April, 1847, Lady Boothby reappeared at the Haymarket Theatre as Constance in The Love Chase. She died January 16, 1858.
Crossing the bridge over the river Maun, a little to the right is the house where formerly resided Christopher Thomson, a man of talent, who gave an example of the good that may be done in a humble way, by unselfish devo- tion to the interests of others. He was born at Hull within a few days of the end of the eighteenth century ; and gained the rudiments of education in the Free School of Sculcoates, which he afterwards carried forward by his own determined efforts. In his early days he passed through many phases of life, by turns working in a brick-field, apprenticed to a shipwright, making a voyage as carpenter's mate in a Green- land whaler, and employed as a sawyer at Hull and York. From his youth he had a taste for painting, and some of his landscapes show more than average ability. He settled at Edwinstowe, about 1830, as a house-painter, which busi- ness he successfully carried on. In his autobiography he says : " It was my privilege, soon after settling in this village, to make the two or three thinking men — the men who were anxiously looking for better days — my companions ; and thus early we pledged ourselves mutually to endeavour to banish crime from the village, and, if possible, to restore it to virtue and freedom. From that time we have diligently worked together, full of hope that somebody would be benefited from our love-labour." By dint of indomitable
76 SHERWOOD FOREST
exertions, and at great sacrifice to himself, he, with the aid of his friends, established a valuable artisans' library, with lectures on popular subjects in the village ; and he also commenced a sick-club in connection with a lodge of Odd- fellows. All these were successful and beneficial to the people while he resided there.
A casual visitor to the country is apt to compare the position of a workman in these beautiful districts, who occupies a comfortable cottage and garden, with its sweet flowers, to the life led by the artisan whose home is in a grimy alley of one of our manufacturing towns, and the contrast is unfavourable to the town dweller ; if he be a skilled workman, a carpenter, or a mason, reasonably so ; but the wages of the lower class of farm labourers are so scanty that their lives are one long struggle with poverty. They make early marriages ; some will say this is improvi- dent, perhaps it is so ; at any rate we cannot wonder, for youth is hopeful ; but after that step is taken, with the majority there is no chance of providing for old age, and if the men are of thinking habits they cannot but foresee the inevitable end, should life be prolonged : dependence on others. Such a one was the old stone-breaker, who, with his barrow, and his cheery "good morning," was well-known to visitors to Edwinstowe twenty years ago. Brought up as a farm labourer, he followed the usual course, married ; had to maintain a large family, with the result that the utmost he could do was to keep clear from debt. He was thoroughly respectable, and his wife, who was intelligent and careful, had one of the cleanest houses in the parish. When age came upon him, he lost his employment on the farm ; his own children were unable to help him, and he became the parish stone-breaker. Lame, deaf, and half blind, he was at the time of his death obliged to be dependent on the parish ; a catastrophe he had always held in dread, but which his best efforts were unable to ward off; and this is
IN THK GROUNDS OK KDWINSTOWE HALL.
EDWINSTOWE 79
an outline of one of the best specimens of his class. One cannot wonder that the younger generation should desert the country for a place, where, if their surroundings are less pleasant, they may receive sufficient wages to be able to lay by something for old age. These remarks do not apply to labourers on the large landed estates ; they are seldom allowed to want.
SIMON FOSTER
THE "SIMON FOSTKK " OAK.
SIMON FOSTER
THIS remarkable tree cannot be mistaken for any other in the forest. Its trunk, which at the base resembles a spiral column, rises massive and tall from immense roots that grasp the earth in every direction with such vigour as to suggest boundless strength ; while its great arms are bent to the ground by their own weight. Undoubtedly Simon Foster is, with one exception, the finest oak in Birkland. To reach the tree from Edwinstowe, the way lies under the tall pines that skirt the village green, and along a rude path to the north- west, where that beautiful, though much despised plant, the ragwort, with its golden bloom and acanthus-like foliage, still flourishes. And on the southern margin of the wood, where the foxglove, full of grace and lovely colour, springs from the midst of the bracken, this giant of the forest may be found. Formerly, the inhabitants in this district had certain privileges in connection with the woodland, similar to those still enjoyed in the New Forest. They were allowed to gather firewood ; to cut down the bracken and burn it, selling the produce to the alkali manufacturers. They were also permitted to turn their swine into the wood to fatten upon the mast. At certain seasons of the year, one Simon Foster, an Edwinstowe man, while availing himself of these privileges, was accustomed to secure his stock during the night under this tree, and from that time it has borne his name. It is scarcely a hundred years since Simon Foster's death ; his gravestone may be seen in Edwinstowe churchyard, and
8s
86 SHERWOOD FOREST
numbers of his descendants are still living in the village. One of his grandsons, Reuben Trueman, who died at Edwinstowe about fifty years ago, was a clever naturalist, whose collection of entomological specimens was purchased by the trustees of the British Museum.
In some guide books to the forest the tree is named "Simon the Forester," and "Simon Forester." It is well, however, not to lose hold of this fragment of local history.
In 1609 a survey was made of the oak-trees in Sherwood Forest, and in Birkland and Bilhagh they were found to number 49,909. Camden, writing about this time, says that the forest " is much thinner than formerly," so that it can well be imagined, as he states, to have been "a close shade" at an earlier date, for in 1790, when another account was taken (and when there remained considerably more than at the present time), there were 10,117 oaks, or less than one- fourth of the number there when Camden wrote. From 1609 to 1686 the quantity was much reduced, especially in Birkland. Between these dates came the Civil War, and though the laws specified that nothing whatever should be removed from the forest without a warrant from a justice of the peace or a warden, irregular practices seem to have prevailed, even among persons of high station, of which a curious instance is recorded: "The Countess of Newcastle, whose husband was probably at that time Governor of Newark Castle, had pro- cured large quantities of timber out of the forest, under a warrant to furnish such timber for the necessary repairs of the castle. The quantity delivered led to an inquiry, and it was found that the castle was not repaired at all, but that the timber had been sold and the Countess had got the cash. Yet, after this, it was again found that not being able to procure another warrant for timber, she had, however, got one for the delivery of cordwood for burning, and under the title of cordwood the deputy-warden had supplied her with some of the best oaks of the forest. On a second investigation it
SIMON FOSTER 87
turned out that the deputy-warden was a partner in a timber trade ; that timber was thus procured through the means of the Countess's plea of public service, and that she and the deputy shared the spoil." '
It is pleasant to notice that the paths in this part of the wood are maintained in such a manner as to retain the feeling that they belong to an old forest ; for though one does not wish to encounter the difficulties which would beset the traveller through these glades in ancient days, yet formal walks, and ordered neatness, though frequently adding to the attractions of park scenery, would be quite out of keep- ing here.
1 Howitt's Rural Life.
THE FALLEN BOUGH
THE FALLEN HOUGH, IN IHRKLANU.
THE FALLEN BOUGH
YESTERDAY there was a great storm, which made sad devasta- tion in the forest, and during the night rain has fallen. This morning the atmosphere is cold and damp, and although the sun now shines brightly, a grey mist rests upon the landscape. There is a look of desolation in these exposed situations on the skirts of the woodland, for the leaves are gone from many of the trees ; but the bright red berries of the wild rose and the hawthorn still hang upon the branches, sparkling in the sun- light ; and, with the background of yellow forest leaves, and grey-blue sky, make a lovely picture. On the hill side, too, how charmingly the rich green of the Scotch fir contrasts with the golden colour of the fading larch.
Though the foliage on many of the trees has not been so gorgeous in colour this autumn as in many other years, yet the excessive rainfall, which has caused the failure, has added greater brilliance to the mosses and lichens. The old oak on the side of the path entering the wood, cannot have been more handsomely clothed when in the full vigour of his youth, than as he now appears in a mossy garment of bright green. The trunks of these ancient trees are often quite hollow, and only united to the boughs by the outer edges ; and these boughs being very heavy, every year brings some disaster to one or other of them. Indeed, occasionally, without any apparent cause, a branch will fall to the ground. It is owing in some measure to these hollow boles that Sherwood is such a favourite resort of birds. They make these cavities their nesting places, and in them rear their young in safety. Rooks and jackdaws
93
94 SHERWOOD FOREST
abound ; often several families occupy the same tree. Their ingenuity and industry in the construction of their nests is said by Sterland to be remarkable, and that in some of the old oaks he has found several barrow loads of material, carried there by these birds, to make the spaces convenient for their purpose. The squirrel also lays by his store of food in these trees. The fox occasionally makes his abode here ; and, tempted by the quantity of game so close at hand, and easily obtained, the cat sometimes gives up her domestic life and reverts to the wild habits of her ancestors. But when this happens, her life is generally a short one, as she is ruthlessly destroyed by the keeper.
In this part of Birkland, where there is more protection from the wind, many of the oaks still retain their foliage. The fallen timber is already being cleared away from the path. How pleasant is the scent of the woodmen's fire, and what a fine relief to the colour of the landscape is the blue smoke rising in graceful curves ! As one looks at the tangled mass of dying vegetation, tossed by the storm in every shape upon the ground, it appears evident that Nature herself has abundance of work on hand to restore order before the spring is here ; but she is never idle.
The sun is now rapidly clearing away the mist, and the beauty of the foliage yet remaining on the trees is more clearly seen. Some of the leaves are still almost as green as in the height of summer, in others may be found all varieties of gorgeous colouring, from golden yellow to deep purple. And yet, although nature has put on such gay attire, there is a feeling of melancholy in the wood. Though the scent of the falling leaves is sweet, there is sadness in the rustling sound as they are driven along by the wind. The birds appear con- scious that a time of privation is at hand ; the song of the redbreast is short and mournful ; the cawing of yon solitary rook has the sound of a knell. Even the squirrel, collecting his winter food, has not the bright look he had in the spring ; and in the warm sun a few insects are flying in a listless way, as though their vitality was almost gone.
THE MAJOR OAK
2; «r;
"jt,
THE MAJOR OAK,
OR,
THE QUEEN OAK
" But thou, while Kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn in the land."
TENNYSON.
WHAT memories of happy hours spent in its leafy shade does the name of this tree bring to thousands ! Old men in distant cities tell with what pleasure in their youthful days they climbed the Major's great branches, or hid themselves within his hollow trunk ; and that when years had sped away and their climbing days were over, these excursions were still remembered as the happiest of the year ; and no journey to the forest could ever be made without a call upon the Major, where, reclining on his ancient roots in company with life-long friends, time passed too quickly away. No merely local fame is his, for year by year men come in greater numbers, and from the most distant regions of the world, to gaze upon his patriarchal form. During his long existence what a circle of acquaintance he might claim, for there is little doubt that the lives of two such trees, one planted at the death of the other, would extend from the commencement of the Christian era to the present day! Perhaps the "lion-hearted Richard" when passing through Sherwood Forest, saw and admired the fair proportions
TOO SHERWOOD FOREST
of this oak, for it would then be something like two hundred years old, and just in its youthful prime. Whether the treacherous John put a brand upon it (as on other forest oaks, which the trees made haste to hide away) one cannot tell ; but, being so near to the Kings' house at Clipston, it would be known to most of the Plantagenet Kings, and since they vanished from the earth what numbers of other great ones have looked upon his kingly form ! And still the tree is full of life, though centuries have passed.
Major Rooke, a noted antiquary who resided in the neighbourhood a hundred and twenty years ago, took a great interest in Sherwood. He discovered the brand of King John, about eighteen inches beneath the bark of one of these oaks, and upwards of a foot from the centre. He also found those of King James, and William and Mary. But this oak was known to be a particular favourite of the Major's, and on that account would be popularly known as the Major's Oak, from which the transition would naturally follow.1
Some of the inhabitants of Edwinstowe living about thirty years ago also remembered the oak by another name — " the Cockpen tree." At one time the neighbourhood was famous for the breed of game cocks, and the Major's hollow trunk was their roosting place.
Christopher Thomson made some measurements of the oak. In his description he says, " Look well at his broad and age-
1 In answer to an inquiry on this subject addressed some years ago to Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards Earl of Liverpool), who for many years resided at Cockglade, and was an undoubted authority on everything connected with Sherwood, his lordship replied : " I think the name ' Queen Oak ' is older than you imagine. It was certainly so called in the late Lord Manver's time, and I have always known it under that name from my earliest childhood, when we went over often from Osberton to picnic there, between forty and fifty years ago. And my father (born 1800) always called it by that name."
There is an early water-colour drawing at Osberton of the last century of the tree, and I think it is marked at the back in writing of the date : " The Queen Oak, in Birkland."
THE MAJOR OAK 101
furrowed flanks ; see his antique roots thrown firmly into the soil, and observe, that by actual measurement, his bole grips the earth with a circumference of ninety feet ; a little higher up, six feet from the ground, his girth is thirty feet ; and, of his fifty arms which he throws so majestically around, one alone is twelve feet in circumference, while, unitedly, he waves his oaken wreath over a diameter of two hundred and forty feet ! Like the rest of his greenwood brethren, the storms of a thousand winters have shaven his locks and shortened his manly proportions, but they have only scathed — they have not killed him ; . . . On one occasion, seven of our villagers took breakfast within the age-scooped trunk of this old oak, and had plenty of room for all the necessary furniture of coffee, kettles, and cups. On many occasions our village choir have stepped aside in their woodland rambles and sheltered themselves within the Major's heart to the number of twelve, and some- times more. ' l
Some years before the production of The Foresters, Lord Tennyson, in company with his son, Mr. Hallam Tennyson, paid a visit to Sherwood Forest. The scene of the play is laid in Sherwood, and Tennyson must have had the Major Oak in mind when writing this passage :
" Robin Hood. Where lies that cask of wine whereof we plundered
The Norman Prelate ?
Little John. In that Oak where twelve
Can stand inside nor touch each other."
Excursionists to Sherwood make it their duty to see the Major Oak, and that is generally the extent of their knowledge of the forest. On fine days in summer they resort there in great numbers, and it is seldom they add picturesqueness to the scene. An incident of a pleasing character, however, happened one midsummer evening thirteen years ago through the
1 Autobiography of an Artisan.
102 SHERWOOD FOREST
presence of a party of pleasure-seekers. Though the sun was hidden from sight, he had not yet set ; but through an opening among the trees was throwing his last bright golden rays on the Major and the tops of the surrounding oaks. The notes of the cuckoo could still be heard in the direction of the Hall wood ; no other sound was audible, except a blackbird piping in low tones, as though he too would soon be at rest. A flock of swans with outstretched necks was flying high up in the air, in the direction of Rufford Lake. All about the great tree was silent and peaceful, for excursionists had long since left the village. Even the old man, who in summer time has charge of the oak, had gone home hours ago. But now a number of people (perhaps thirty to forty) were seen making their way along the road to the Major Oak. As they drew nearer, it became evident, from their remarks and orderly conduct, that they were not of the class of visitors who come merely for rough enjoyment. The women, who all appeared to be young, were well though plainly dressed. For a short time they wandered about, contemplating the size of the tree, and estimating the capacity of its hollow trunk. They then seated themselves on the great roots and on the ground under the branches ; and after conversing a while, one of the party, opening a book, commenced to read aloud, the whole company grouped around. This continued for some time, and wonder- ing what could be of sufficient interest to keep the attention of these people, I heard these lines :
" Me, goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, Of pine, or monumental oak, Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke, Was never heard the nymphs to daunt, Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt."
These were evidently no ordinary excursionists, or they
THE MAJOR OAK 103
would not listen to poetry — even Milton's — on such an occasion. After a while, turning to another part of the volume, the reader resumed :
" Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek ; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides. Come, and trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe."
Owing to the rapidly failing light, the reading ceased ere long. The sky overhead had by this time become of deepest sombre blue, passing by gradations to golden yellow at the horizon, where it was barred by bands of bright crimson, throwing a deep rich glow on all around. Some further time was spent in conversation, when, at a signal from one of the party, the whole number rose to their feet, and forming into two columns — the men on one side and the women on the other — began a slow rhythmic movement to the low music of their own voices, winding about in graceful curves through the wide open space ; now the two columns uniting, now dividing, and again uniting ; all the while to the low chanting of the dancers. This was continued for some time, the surrounding landscape in the subdued light forming a lovely background to the picture.
The whole incident seemed like a dream, so beautiful, and so different to the ordinary life of to-day. Perhaps it was no less impressive from being entirely unexpected. But this pleasing episode came to an end ; the visitors took their way quietly, as they had come, and all was again silent near the great tree.
'""
-
*
-5
(J/llitll lt>
THE BROAD DRIVE
THE BROAD DRIVE
IN no part of the forest is the singing of birds heard in greater perfection than in the avenue leading from the Major Oak to the westward : —
" Far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song."
It has often been shown how delightfully woodland scenery lends itself to tales of the supernatural ; and it would be difficult to find a more appropriate setting for the " wood notes wild " of Shakespeare than in the haunted glades of this old forest ; for those beautiful creations of his mind, Titania and Oberon, Peasblossom, Moth, and all the motley train ; or for the wild gambols of Robin Goodfellow. When one thinks of the wise sayings of the melancholy Jacques, it is easy to imagine the banished duke and his companions in exile grouped on the spreading roots of one of the great oaks ; and in the carolling of the birds one hears an echo of Amiens' song, as though the singer was in one of the glades near at hand. And how well this out-of-the-world forest seems to accord with the sweet love passages that run through this play, and with the philosophic foolery of Touchstone.
Though it is not known that Shakespeare ever was in Sherwood Forest, there is no doubt he was acquainted with many of the legends of Robin Hood ; and in that old Shakespearian England men must have rendered a grateful
109
no SHERWOOD FOREST
homage to their oak forests in the sense of all that they owed to their goodly timber in the wainscot and furniture of the rooms they loved best when the blue of the frosty midnight was contrasted in the dark diamonds of the lattice with the glowing brown of the warm fire-lighted crimson-tapestried walls.1
Perhaps we of the twentieth century in some respects over-value the privileges we enjoy in this epoch of motor-cars and fast life in comparison to that of our ancestors four hundred years ago, when men of giant intellect were to be found whose productions have astounded the world. And to the artist what a charming sketch is this by Ruskin of the homes in the England of that age !
At the western extremity of the broad drive, and running at right angles with it, is the neutral ground, an avenue composed principally of hollies, dividing the Thoresby and Welbeck estates. It is about two miles in length, the ground rising from each extremity to a point at its intersection with the drive, where may be found the Centre Tree, only notable as a landmark. It is an oak, about 140 years old, and, compared to its neighbours, a mere stripling.
At the southern end of this centre drive, in the middle of a wide opening, is a large stone building erected by the Duke of Portland in the early years of this century as a school, for which purpose it is still used. The design is, in some measure, a copy of the Abbey Gateway at Worksop. It was an excellent idea to ornament this structure — standing in Sherwood Forest —with carved figures of Robin Hood, Little John, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, and others of the outlaws ; yet, how strange it is that the memory of these men should still survive and be honoured in this manner within sight of the King's House at Clipston, whilst its royal owners, who held this class of men in detestation, are comparatively forgotten. Unfortunately, as works of art, these figures must be acknow- ledged to be failures, but notwithstanding this drawback, they are of interest here.
1 Ruskin.
WHEN THE SNOW FALLS
Ed X
O
af s O
65
WHEN THE SNOW FALLS
To a lover of picturesque scenery, perhaps the least interesting time of the year in Sherwood occurs in late autumn or the beginning of winter. Then the days are frequently dull and damp ; but after a continuance of this depressing weather, it is pleasant on awakening some morning to find, from the frost upon the window panes, and the thin covering of snow upon the ground, that during the night a change of temperature has taken place. Now the sun is struggling to dispel the mist that hangs on Wellow Wood, the forest path is frozen hard and crisp, the snow clings lovingly to the church spire, and throws her light mantle on the old parsonage. How sweet the village bells sound in the keen morning air ! On such a day the sense of beauty is intensified. Although in winter Nature is sparing of her brightest colours — gilding the bracken with a paler gold than in the earlier months, yet, even now she paints the cottage roof with lovely hues of green and luscious red, as though she loved these humble dwellings of the poor, and gave them of her best. Within the forest the oaks and birches, silvered by the snow, have a mysterious charm, and the hoar frost sparkling on the long reedy grass, the clear air, the bright sky, even the iris-tinted feather in the frozen pool, speak of a world of beauty. But, when for a lengthened period the ground is covered with deep snow, winter wears a more serious aspect. Until the making of the new railway, almost all communication between the vicinity of the forest and distant places was occa- sionally stopped by snow drifts on the roads. At such times
«s
n6 SHERWOOD FOREST
the wild animals of the forest suffer severely. It is pitiable to see the poor starved creatures, usually timorous, and flying on the approach of a human being, now so stupefied by want of food as to lose all sense of fear. In their hunger they destroy many of the newly planted trees by eating the bark, and numbers of the fine hollies in the neutral ground have been killed in this way.
In these peaceful times, when one is accustomed to wander in the forest without fear of danger, it is a matter of some surprise to read in Harrod's History of Mansfield, of Sir Robert Plumpton holding lands in Mansfield Woodhouse, called Wolfhunt Land, " by the service of winding a horn and driving or frightening the wolves in the forest of Shirewood." Alice, the wife of Sir Robert Plumpton (from whom he derived his interest in the estate), was a descendant of Godfrey Foljambe, who, in the reign of Richard II., owned lands there, and was the King's forester. The wolves would doubtless prey upon the King's deer, and in after years the devastations of the deer themselves became a source of trouble to the landowners.
In the reign of Queen Anne the annoyance had become so acute that a meeting of the gentlemen of Nottinghamshire was held at Rufford, to take into consideration the propriety of addressing her Majesty on the subject. In the address these gentlemen forwarded, they expressed a desire to have the bounds of the forest accurately ascertained and described, and complained of the excessive burden they sustained through the inroads of the deer, which they stated to be three times as numerous as formerly, and even then, when the number did not exceed three hundred, it was as many as the forest could properly maintain. That they not only destroyed the crops in the neighbourhood of the forest, but even to the distance of many miles, and that the gentlemen found the charge to which they were put in hiring watchmen to protect their property both night and day was almost more than they could support.1 1 The Last Perambulation of Sherwood Forest, A. Stapleton.
I.KA1 l.liSS OAKS.
WHEN THE SNOW FALLS 119
Among the MSS. preserved at Osberton is a letter of some months' earlier date, from one Isaac Knight to St. Andrew Thornhagh on the same matter. The writer concludes by suggesting that " it might be convenient to have the case printed how that there is no harbour nor shelter left for the deer, and that they are so numerous that in hard weather they break into barns to get hay, and that they eat up and destroy all poor people's cabbages and carrots that live near the forest, and the farmers are afraid to sow any corn in the usual time for fear the deer should destroy it, and what they do sow they are forced to watch all night for some six months, and that they scarce can get any servants to live with and serve them because they will not watch their corn in the night time. All this you know to be true ; there might a great deal more be said ; this must be left to better judgment." '
The trouble caused by the depredations of the deer, how- ever, was not abated until long after this, for, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, " the father of the late Samuel Plumb, the poet, was allowed to live with his family rent free, at a house called the Odd Place, between Lambley and Wood- borough, on condition that he kept the forest deer from destroy- ing his landlord's corn in that quarter." 2
1 Historical Manuscripts Commission : Osberton MSS.
2 White's Worksop and the "Dukcry."
THE WOUNDED GIANT
OAK TREE, THE WOUXUKI) CHANT.
THE WOUNDED GIANT
" Time made thee what thou wast, King of the Woods ; And time hath made thee what thou art — a cave For owls to roost in."
MANY years have elapsed since the great bough was torn from this oak, and still the tree stands erect and tall like an aged warrior, proudly exhibiting his scars. Nor is it wanting in vigour, for every summer it is decked with an abundance of green leaves. Summer, however, is not the only season when trees, and particularly the oak-trees, excite our admira- tion ; for then the foliage hides a great part of the contours of the trunk and boughs, as well as the smaller branches in which Nature's handiwork is so beautifully displayed. In winter the marvellous intricacy of the small branches and the grandeur of the great boughs fills one with wonder. Nor is this wonder abated when occasionally some irregularity appears in the laws which govern their growth, as may be noticed in an oak on the Budby path near this place. This tree is perfect in form, with the exception of one bough, which, after leaving the trunk at an acute angle near the ground, is extended for thirty feet in a straight line, and is quite out of harmony with the usual growth of the oak. Is there then truth in the thought that " Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of God ; and defects, in order to show that she His only is image"?'
1 Pascal.
125
126 SHERWOOD FOREST
The bracken is here almost as remarkable as the oak for its vigorous growth. Tennyson says the oak of Sumner- chace is "hidden to the knees in fern"; but in Sherwood, bracken attains to a height of five or six feet, and even now, though it is March, and many rude gales of wind have swept over Birkland during the winter, it still remains standing erect in sheltered places, though dead, and some- what shrunk in height.
There is a feeling of quiet in the wood this morning that is most enjoyable ; the mere sensation of living feels to be sufficient for one's present happiness. Grey clouds are floating overhead from which at intervals the sun peeps out, and the lark, that hopeful bird, is fluttering from the ground. A flock of jackdaws may be seen in the distance, but there is nothing to disturb the feeling of repose. A solitary rabbit starts at the sight of a stranger, and when he is gone the stillness is even more pronounced. And yet, how pleasant are many of the commonest sounds of country life : — there is something musical even in the closing of the gate and the reverberating echo through the wood as one leaves Birkland. But how discordant is the noise the bird- tenter in yonder field begins to make when roused by the approach of a stranger, — alternately screaming at the top of his voice, and shaking an odious rattle. Nor, to one unpractised in agricultural ways, does it appear that the work he is engaged upon will repay the cost, as it is not unusual for the bird-tenter to have no voice beyond a whisper, for some weeks after his protection of the farmers' seed corn.
Unlike Birkland and Bilhagh, Budby south forest is comparatively open ground, for the almost numberless haw- thorns are of low growth, and the clumps of Scotch firs do not materially obstruct the view. Although autumn is generally thought to be the most favourable time for seeing the forest, when the purple bloom is on the heather, when
ON THK SKIRTS OK TIIK SOl'TH I-'OKKST. AUTUMN.
THE WOUNDED GIANT 129
the fading bracken is of gorgeous tones of gold, or crimson, and the branches of the hawthorns hang with bright red berries ; yet, even in this early month of the year, the land- scape has a charm peculiarly its own. The thorns now show their leafless forms, moss-grown, and twisted into thousands of fantastic shapes, sometimes bent nearly to the ground by the wind, often with mistletoe clinging to the upper branches. The masses of heather, now of a purple grey, the bracken of an orange brown, the sombre green of the gorse, and the delicate pale tints of the forest grass, compose a scene of quiet beauty, which is heightened in the distance by the pleasant colour of the cottage roofs of Budby, while the grey hills about Welbeck, Clumber, and Thoresby close in the view.
It appears surprising that fires are not of more frequent occurrence in these open forests, for in the early spring, should the rainfall be less abundant than usual, the bracken becomes very combustible, and when once on fire burns fiercely, and is difficult to extinguish. Some years ago, while in the wood near this place, the writer was startled by two boys calling for assistance, and shouting " the forest is on fire." It turned out to be merely the bracken that was burning. It had evidently not been long alight, but spread too rapidly to be extinguished by stamping, although, after some trouble, the mischief was prevented from extending by pulling up the bracken and dry grass in the direction in which the fire was being carried by the wind.
In the early part of the seventeenth century a serious conflagration took place in Sherwood Forest, which had its origin in some ill-slacked charcoal falling among the dry heather.
s,
(.' < 1 1 . .M ttt
BUDDY
J t
s\VA\S OX Till; K1VKK AT lU'IlBY.
'
-
THK RIVKR MKDKN AT HUDIiY.
BUDBY
IT has been well said by an eminent writer on country life, that " there is not a more beautiful sight in the world than that of our English cottages in those parts of the country where the violent changes of the times have not been so sensibly felt, where manufacturers have not introduced their red, staring, bald, brick houses, and what is worse, their beer- shops and demoralisation ; where, in fact, a more primitive simplicity remains. There, on the edges of the forests, in quiet hamlets, and sweet woody valleys, the little grey thatched cottages, with their gardens and old orchards, their rows of bee hives, and their porches clustered with jessamine and roses . . . there they stand, and give one a poetical idea of peace and happiness which is inexpressible ; well may they be the admiration of foreigners." '
Surrounded on every hand by pleasing sights and sounds, what opportunities of happiness are within the reach of the humble dwellers here ! Life passed in scenes like this ought certainly to be affected for the better, although the faculty of appreciating lovely objects is not given to all. But, that there are some dwellers here who appreciate the beauties of nature may be seen in the careful training of the old- fashioned pink rose that blooms so luxuriantly over yon parlour window. And those noble hollyhocks would not hold up their heads so proudly, or those lilies and carnations
1 Howitt's Rural Life. 135
136 SHERWOOD FOREST
grow so fine and smell so sweet unless the hand that tends them was a loving one.
The beautifully clear river Meden flows by the side of the road, and adds greatly to the attraction of the village. The further bank of the stream is overgrown with low shrubs and reeds, where the aquatic birds that frequent the river make their nests ; among others, the water hen, who here seems to have thrown aside her timidity, for though so near these dwellings she frequently crosses the road in order to feed with the poultry in the farmyard.
From the bridge may be seen, a little lower down the river, a fine group of Scotch firs, reflected in the water, which is undisturbed save by the stately movement of the swans, whose graceful forms serve to emphasise the rude grandeur of the pines.
In the reign of Charles the Second when a perambulation (which is said to have been the last) took place of Sherwood Forest, one of the boundaries named is the King's Stand, in Budby North Forest, where the Stuart Kings were accustomed to watch the progress of the hunt. In old times the forest, or a chase, differed from a park in not being enclosed, but in being defined by metes and bounds. These boundaries had to be inspected at intervals, and in 1662 twelve jury- men were engaged on the borders of Sherwood for upwards of a month in this occupation. From the King's Stand in a southerly direction, other limits of the forest were at Glead- thorpe, Warsop, Pleasley Mill, near Newbold Mill, Teversall Bridge, near Hardwick Hall, Linby Mill, Bulwell, Basford, Radford Mill, and the Trent Bridge, Nottingham. While from the King's Stand in a north-westerly direction the boundaries were in Nortonfield side, at Cat hill, Clown fields, Welbeck Park, Clumber yate, Thoresby fields, Conyngswath (the King's ford), near Haughton Park, the " High Street of Blith," which the writer says "is a way that leadeth from Nottingham to Blith by Horton Parke Side, and followeth
BUDBY 137
the same hie street to a place called White Water, and so along the said street, leaving Boughton Fields on the east part, and Olerton Fields, and the Towne, on the west part, and soe to Blith Street Lane, which goeth up to Mellow, alias Melleigh, and there it is crossed with a way which goeth from Newark to Warsopp and there it entereth into the demesnes of Rufford at Wellye Gapp, and still proceedeth by an old lane crossing a great way leading from Kneesall to Mansfield, by Reuen Grange, leaving it on the east, and leaveing Wellye also on the east, and then neare unto Blake- stone Hall now called Southsell" leaving the olde Parke on the east, and proceedeth along by the said Parke, to the way that goeth to Nottingham, between Shire Oaks field and the Brook that runneth into Rufford Dam, and so alonsT
o
the said Highway between the fields of Bilesthorpe and Winkersfielcl, and then to an old ditch which is the outside of the Boundaries of Rufford on the East, until it come unto a stone called the Abbot's Stone which is the Pertition between the Grounds of the Abbott of Rufford, and of the Archbishop of Yorke, and so it extendeth itself southward till it come over against Darton Grange, and always keeping the way, turning a little Westward until it come to the river of Dorbeck," and by various other boundaries, the last being the Trent bridge at Nottingham.1
1 Stapleton, The Last Perambulation of Sherwood Forest.
THORESBY
O H
THORESBY
" Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court, And may enjoy such quiet walks as these ? "
SHAKESPEARE.
ONE of the most beautiful of the many fine parks that adorn this kingdom is undoubtedly Thoresby. It is inseparably a part of the old forest ; numbers of the trees now standing were here before Robert de Pierpont, the ancestor of the present noble owner of the estate, came to England in the train of Duke William, and in any account of Sherwood, Thoresby must, of necessity, have a place.
Near the classic bridge in the park, at a short distance from Budby, may be found one of the most charming scenes in the locality. From this point may be seen Kingston Island in the middle of the lake, and on rising ground further away is Thoresby House, with the graceful spire of Perlethorpe Church in the distance. Here and there may be recognised, by their rugged contours, some of Sherwood's ancient oaks, while the white blossoming thorn flourishes everywhere, and is perhaps, when its perfume scents the air, the most favoured of all trees. Never is there more pleasure in looking on the old oaks than in spring, when they give tokens of renewed vigour. Then the Scotch firs, with their sombre foliage, and stems glowing of a bright orange in the sunlight, show to advantage the fresh bright green of the beech ; and certainly at no other time does the great avenue of Spanish
143
144 SHERWOOD FOREST
chestnuts look so lovely. The birds by their songs are known to be most happy in spring, and near this lake they seem to sing their sweetest. Swans and other aquatic birds abound. We are told by Sherland of some herons making their nests on these great trees ; but alas ! this proved no paradise to them, for in some seasons their eggs were destroyed by the carrion crow, and eventually the herons were all shot by the keepers. The osprey, though seldom seen in this part of the country, took up its abode near the lake for a few weeks in the summer of 1855. It was frightened away by the keepers. White, in The Natural History of Setborne, speaks of the bird as being a rarity in that neigh- bourhood.
From the early part of the eighteenth century a number of large models of sea-going vessels were on this lake. In 1795, Throsby names "this fine sheet of water, bearing vessels, of no great burthen, richly ornamental," and he adds, " their little streamers wafted by the wind have a pretty effect." The last of these vessels, built of cedar, was broken up about fifty years ago ; the captain of it, an old sailor, lived and died at Castle William, a picturesque, ivy-covered house on the adjacent hill.
Architects of the present day, perhaps, succeed in erecting bridges that are more convenient for use than the fine specimen of eighteenth-century work in Thoresby Park ; and, in populous places, utility, no doubt, should be one of the first considera- tions ; but every one will perceive how much more handsome is the general design, as well as the detail of this bridge (with the crown of the arch slightly higher than the level of the road, and the lines of its balusters gracefully carved) than many of more recent erection.
On each side the pathway from the lake of Chameleon Lodge are a number of groups of noble beeches and Scotch firs ; some of the finest in the park. Though not so grand in their effect as before the winter of 1894, when two of
THORESBY 145
the most handsome beeches were blown down. There is a look of contentment in the dwelling at the head of this road, sheltered from cold winds by lovely evergreen trees of phenomenal growth ; while in the pleasure garden in front of the house is a mass of lovely sweet scented flowers, and from the windows an uninterrupted view of beautiful scenery where the occupant may wander at his pleasure. The dweller in a town may well say "here is everything needful to a happy life."
From these more elevated parts of the park extensive views are obtained of the finely-wooded landscape. The river Meden may be traced from its entrance to the lake, shining like a thread of silver, and again as it emerges near Thoresby House on its course towards Perlethorpe ; joining the Maun a little lower down. Among the thorns, the chestnuts, and the old forest oaks, are many groups of beeches ; Scotch firs crowning the uplands, and occasionally a company of fine, vigorous yews, but not more than two or three centuries old, and wanting in the picturesque beauty that age alone can give.
An agreeable diversity of colour is given to the scenery by the numerous herds of deer ; often a solitary stag may be seen half buried in the bracken, apparently absorbed in meditation. He seems to be the poet among animals, and as he walks away his every movement is full of grace.
It is pleasant to be reminded by the name of the wood at the northern extremity of the park, of Evelyn, the famous diarist. Trees in this wood, protected from rough weather by proximity to each other, seem to lead an ideal life. How rapid and how perfect has been the growth of these pines ! And the Wellingtonia, though it cannot be said to be a picturesque tree, promises to rival the height it attains in its native land.
Gilbert White, in his Selborne, asserts that the beech is " the most lovely of forest trees, whether we consider its
i46 SHERWOOD FOREST
smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs." Among forest trees there is no doubt that it occupies a high position, but if judged by its graceful growth it has a formidable rival in the birch, with its silvery bark, its slender branches and delicate leafage. Nor should the elm with its splendid masses of foliage be forgotten. Nor the stately Scotch fir, its so.mbre leaves whispering to every passing wind. Is there not also a wondrous amount of feathery grace and lovely colour in the spring foliage and blossom of the larch ? May not the rugged grandeur of the oak claim one's admiration equally with the grace of the beech? It is difficult to give a preference to one, where each has a special beauty of its own. But there does seem a probability that an avenue of beeches, such as this, first gave the old-time architect his inspiration when designing the " pointed aisle and shafted stalk " of the great religious houses ; so close is the resemblance between the bole of this tree and the column of the cathedral aisle, and so great the similarity of the curving of the upper branches and the groining of the roof.1
There are few finer specimens of the old oaks of Sherwood than those adjoining the carriage drive in the park, near the Edwinstowe gate. Their trunks, massive and grand, and their roots spreading in all directions, give evidence of enormous strength ; while their foliage seems to be as vigorous and plentiful as in their early days.
1 Charles Kingsley, in his Biography, says on this subject : " I once scandalised a man, who had been sentimentalising about Gothic aisles, by telling him that all agreed that they were built in imitation of the glades of forest trees, with branches interlacing overhead. And that I liked God's work better than man's.
" In the cathedral we worship alone, and the place is dumb, or speaks only to us, raising a semi-seltish emotion ; that is, having its beginning and end in us. In the forest every branch and leaf, with the thousand living things which cluster on them, all worship with us. ... They are all witnesses of God, and every emotion of pleasure which they feel is an act of praise to Him."
- u
THORESBY 149
Standing near the head of the Chestnut Avenue, which reaches from this point towards the river, might be seen, about fifty years ago, the Thoresby House which preceded the present one. In 1873 ^ was taken down, the more magnifi- cent mansion being then nearly completed. It was a plain square building, without any pretence to architectural adorn- ment, replacing the one destroyed by fire in 1745, which had itself replaced an earlier one of Elizabethan character not very long before that date. The situation being near the river, must have been cold and damp in the winter. A distinguished member of this family, writing in 1754, says: " I imagine the Duke of Kingston is now building. I was told he intended it on the same ground where the last house stood, which I think an ill fancy, being the lowest part of the park, and he might choose others with a prospect more agreeable, which is, in my opinion, the first thing to be con- sidered in a country seat."
Robert de Pierrepont, who was of French extraction, came first into England at the time of the Conquest, and from a general survey taken soon afterwards, appears to have then possessed the lordships of Henestede and Wretham, in Suffolk, which he held of the famous William, Earl Warren ; one of the chief nobles who accompanied the victorious Norman duke. And, although none of the descendants of this Robert de Pierrepont received the honour of a peerage until the reign of King Charles, they were men of great note throughout succeeding times, both for the considerable lands they possessed in several counties, and also for services in the wars.
In the thirteenth century Sir Henry de Pierrepont married Annora, only daughter of Michael de Manvers, and sister and heiress to Lionel de Manvers, by whom he became possessed of several lordships in Nottinghamshire, and among them that of Holme, which now retains the name of Holme- Pierrepont.
ISO SHERWOOD FOREST
Sir William Pierrepont, who was present at the battle of Stoke, near Newark, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, was made a Knight Banneret in reward for his valour at the sieges of Therounne and Tournay in the time of Henry the Eighth. By his second wife, who was daughter of Sir Richard Empson, he was father of Sir George Pierrepont, who was created a knight of the carpet at the coronation of Edward VI.
Upon the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry the Eighth, Sir George Pierrepont became possessor of many manors.
Henry de Pierrepont, son of the last-named Sir George, married Frances, daughter of Sir William Cavendish and " Bess of Hardwick." The second son of this marriage, Robert de Pierrepont, was said by Thoroton to be not more distinguished for his fortune, which was ample, than for the endowment of his mind. He was educated at Oxford, and in 1 60 1 represented Nottingham in Parliament. Charles the First, in the third year of his reign, raised him to the dignity of Lord Pierrepont of Holme-Pierrepont, in Nottinghamshire, Viscount Newark, and soon afterwards Earl of Kingston.
The Earl of Kingston was accidentally killed near Gains- borough on the 30th of July, 1643.'
1 In the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, his biographer, writing from a Commonwealth point of view, gives a different estimate of the character of this Earl. Mrs. Hutchinson says that at the commencement of the difference between Charles I. and the Parliament, " The Earl of Kingston a few months stood neuter, and would not declare himself of either party, and being a man of great wealth and dependencies, many people hung in suspense by his example ; whereupon the gentlemen of Nottingham often spoke to his son, to persuade his father to declare himself, but he told them he knew his father's affections were firm to the Parliament, that he had encouraged him to join with them, and promised him money to carry it on, and such like things, which he continually assured them, till the Colonel's cold behaviour, and some other passages, made them at length, those at least who were firm to the cause, jealous both of the father and the son. Hereupon when the danger grew imminent, and my lord lay out a brave prey to the enemy, they sent Captain Lomax, one of the committee, to understand his affections from himself, and to press him to declare for the
|
Ill Jigfgl i |il{ |
|||||
|
a £* S? "So "" s a.^5 ^*- -j^ ^ •— ^ S> |
|||||
|
t> — tfl |
|||||
|
~5J| |
BiS^^sJs.^ w" osS<s5"a |
||||
|
C*Q B |
£ **<e'ti'p 9 . ,<P 2y2'N"3l° |
||||
|
Pi ^ i |
u a «c |
|| Sjl|| |
|||
|
o X -eg |
rt |
i -o ^'13 ~ 4> rt T4* fc 2 M* S -if o6ot;i 0-o.j |
Bill X S3c8 J3 II |
||
|
•s 3s |
M |
o* ° ^ « «; |
.5? «" |
||
|
8 . Erin 8" | 1 S u- |
of Sir Thoma e, Shropshire. |
A» "•3 -II 3°-B -iisSl l|l £EXg£ ^w^ |
^ t rt "3 "WQ •*> B 5 <C J3 " |
j* "od C O -i |M §1^ -xss |
|
|
rt c u* tifi o £ u o 3 u .a **-, rtC5 H ,g jg -a;; |
P B « |
W) 'Q C3 ^ •& 1-4 IB 41 -•a-S«i fla |
J H° |
5 3" H9 |
ri |
|
.2 |
|||||
|
C C "Or1 |
•a c |
— ra E .3 " Jj * * J |
c ^y |
S1" ^ |
|
|
J S-a g g p 55 -E * |
fH |
c S *o o 3 ^ |
gl|| |
s |
|
|
•g" J~ °g |
1 |
a -2. |
Igi'S |
||
|
S3 a Jf ~* .i *" |
S " c |
ji o « |
|||
|
J3 "" O V |
O ^o ^^ o |
^ 3 |
|||
|
= 1 Si § |
tf •- |
c u jf o g |
Q |
||
|
:-§ f 1 1 1° | y |
If, Bpl1 -S|^ |
_|-a«? E°SM S'S^'tl' g'0?, Sfc'e'-a -oj |
Sf a |
||
|
ra C "O |
JlS^ H |
cr |
. ^, |
||
|
^ II "2° 0 |
1 |
^ 4> « C-a~c --J |
rs |
I°" i- o3 _in" |
3|| |
|
i &*>2 •*• . 3 in |
s^i "c-- ^ |
||||
|
•g g !«.H |
§ »r ° •§ K. |
g S SvJ? |
°| s |
JH J ™ |
|
|
o a c. G t5 |
c "« w |
(-; X "2 t^ |
^; " I |
||
|
1 b t-S B |
a |.S ii g |
> H H " |
II |
1 |
|
|
ii — S g S H fr ; "8 Sill §"§• i K |
'C j^ |
li!| "||jji |
§-3 |
2 S 5^ 1 ^1** |
"e II |
|
"o"js "o |
w^r° wgi" 1 |
. |
i; — «— > c |
fe . |
|
|
a |
'? 3 rt |
f^ '-r S Q |
c" ? |
=fd a 5 ^ ^ "^ |
si |
|
II |
lc 5 ••" ^ a "B |
||||
|
C u |
|||||
|
at |
0 J3 1 |
.!=§ tf|- |
-S|| |
£ -^ |
5,™< |
|
H S |
T -1-5.11 g-.^l a° .<» ^3iH™ .-'o o 2 u *o — 2U _ £ |
3C5" o |
H |
•o E P |
|
|
II y e |
|||||
|
Q* "-* £ s? "S S^"S |
«" aT .- >> g 3 1 -g |
||||
|
^"'"S Q^ u I3, fc £? *^2U |
c "^ "Ss ^ |
||||
|
Ji «3 X." |
™ -3 c *^ **• |
— £ tea's •-- |
|||
|
X |
3 |
>•!=- | •» |
|||
|
' |
2 ^ -co |
J" |
|||
|
3 |
e" -2" 1 |
fa |
"O ^u |
||
|
^ c o'S |
c °5fo"^ C ..\o £"•- ^ |
«B |
t«| |
||
|
OJ £ |
|||||
|
•a™ |
Jajfl -I"3"! |
^1 = |
_B-«r |
||
|
3 C |
|||||
|
B a <• ,0^-a Ji T: B 5J ^ |
|||||
|
H fi 2 ^ r? o |
|||||
|
y 1 £ |
152 SHERWOOD FOREST
Henry, fi'rst Marquis of Dorchester, eldest son of Robert Pierrepont, Earl of Kingston, was born in 1606. At an early age he sat in Parliament under the title of Viscount Newark. In 1642, when the King began to raise forces, Lord Newark rendered him considerable assistance. In the Life of Colonel Hutchinson an account is given of an attempt made at Nottingham by Lord Newark to seize the store of powder belonging to the county, for the King's use, which was frustrated by Colonel Hutchinson.1
After the death of his father he joined the King at Oxford, where, in regard for his faithful service, his Majesty conferred upon him the title of Marquess of Dorchester. While at
Parliament, in that so needful season. My lord professing himself to him rather desirous for peace, and fully resolved not to act on either side, made a serious imprecation on himself in these words : 'When,' said he, ' I take up arms with the King against the Parliament, or with the Parliament against the King, let a cannon bullet divide me between them : ' which God was pleased to bring to pass a few months after ; for he, going into Gainsborough, and there taking up arms for the King, was surprised by my Lord Willoughby, and after a handsome defence of himself, yielded, and was put prisoner into a pinnace, and sent down the river to Hull, when my Lord Newcastle's army marching along shore, shot at the pinnace, and being in danger, the Earl of Kingston went upon the deck to show himself, and to prevail with them to forbear shooting, but as soon as he appeared a cannon bullet flew from the King's army and divided him in the middle, being then in the Parliament's pinnace, who perished according to his own unhappy imprecation."
1 " Mr. Hutchinson being in Nottingham, and going to the mayor's to have some news, he met with such as he expected not, for as soon as he came in, the mayor's wife told him that the sheriff of the county was come to fetch away the magazine that belonged to the train bands of the county, which was left in her husband's trust, and that her husband had sent for the county to acquaint them, but she feared it would be gone before they could come. Whereupon Mr. Hutchinson taking his brother from his lodgings along with him, presently went to the Town Hall, and going up to my Lord Newark, told him that hearing some dispute concerning the county's powder he was come to wait on his lordship, and to know his desires and intents concerning it. My lord told him, that the King having great necessities, desired to borrow it of the county. Mr. Hutchinson asked my lord what commission he had from his Majesty. My lord
THORESBY 153
Oxford, Dorchester earned great reputation with the soldiers by his opposition to the rest of the council in their determination to surrender Oxford.
In 1647 he surprised the Royalists by compounding for his estate. He had not fought in the King's army. His delinquency consisted solely in sitting in the Oxford Parliament. He was assessed to pay .£7,447. Early in life Dorchester was greatly addicted to learning, seldom spending less than ten or twelve hours in the day at his books; and when the war was over he returned to his studies. For some time he lived at Worksop Manor, lent to him by the Earl of Arundel, two of his own houses having been ruined during the war. But after the death of the King he declared there was no living in the country, for every workman thought himself equal to the greatest peer ; and a few months afterwards he removed to London. Sedentary habits and trouble of mind brought on illness, and this suggested to him the study of physic, to which he applied himself with great energy. To the study of medicine he added that of the law, and in 1651 was admitted to Gray's Inn.
The Royalists regarded his conduct as unbecoming to his order, and it was reported that by his prescriptions he had killed his daughter, his coachman, and five other patients.
At the Restoration, notwithstanding Dorchester's com- pliance with the Protector's government, he was re-admitted to the privy council, and remained a member of that body until 1673.
The Marquess was a little man with a very violent temper.
answered him that he had one but had left it behind. Mr. Hutchinson replied, that my lord's affirmation was satisfactory to him, but the county would not be willing to part with the powder in so dangerous a time without an absolute command ; and Mr. Hutchinson with the concurrence of the people who were assembled round refused to allow the powder to be taken away. On this, Lord Newark warned Mr. Hutchinson that it would be his duty to inform the King of the answer he had received ; and so departed." — Dictionary of National Biography, Life of Colonel Hutchinson,
i54 SHERWOOD FOREST
In 1638 he committed an assault on Philip Kinder within the precincts of Westminster Abbey during time of Divine service, for which he obtained a pardon. In 1660 he challenged his son-in-law, Lord Roos, to a duel on account of his treatment of Lady Roos. The two peers exchanged long and abusive letters, which they published. " You dare not meet me with a sword in your hand," wrote Dorchester, " but was it a bottle, none would be more forward." " If," 'replied Roos, " by your threat to ram your sword down my throat, you do not mean your pills, the worst is past and I am safe enough." In December, 1667, Dorchester came to blows with the Duke of Buckingham in the painted chamber. The Marquess, who was the lower in stature, and less active in his limbs, lost his periwig, for which indignity he could not reach sufficiently high to revenge himself in the same way on the Duke. The Marquess also received from the Duke some rudeness, but to counterbalance this treatment Dorchester had much of the Duke's hair in his hand. The two combatants were committed to the Tower by the House of Lords, but released on apologising a few days after. Dorchester died at his house in Charter House yard in 1680. and was buried at Holm- Pierrepont, leaving to the College of Physicians a library valued at .£4,000.
The original manuscript of the Lije of Wolsey is said to be, or to have been, in the hands of the Pierrepont family.
William Pierrepont was the second son of Robert, first Earl of Kingston. He was born about 1607 ; and he settled at Thoresby, which, in 1633, was given to him by his father. He married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Harris, Bart., of Tong Castle in Shropshire. In the Parliament of 1640, Pierrepont served as member for Great Wenlock, and soon became one of the most useful members of the popular party. He is described as an ornament to the country and one of the most excellent speakers, and wisest counsellors in the House, by whom the Bill was promoted for the con-
THORESBY 155
tinuation of the sittings of the Parliament.1 He is spoken of by Whitelocke as " a man of deep foresight and prudence."
At the close of 1642, on a proposition being made for a cessation of hostilities between the King and the Parliament, Pierrepont was chosen one of the commissioners to act for the House of Commons. In the following year, on the failure of a renewed attempt to arrange terms of peace with Charles, Pierrepont requested the permission of the Parliament to leave the country, but his services were so highly valued that the request met with a friendly refusal. The high appreciation in which his efforts to serve the nation were held, is shown by the grant to him of ,£7,467, the amount of the fine levied on his brother's estate.
Again in 1644 Pierrepont was chosen by Parliament one of the commissioners to endeavour to arrange terms of peace with the King. To the same conference the Earl of Kingston (Mr. Pierrepont's father) was appointed by his Majesty to act on his behalf. In regard to this conference, it was said that " Pierrepont and Crewe, who were both men of great fortunes, and had always been of the greatest moderation in their councils, and most solicitous upon all opportunities for peace, appeared now to have contracted more bitterness and sourness than formerly, and were more reserved towards the King's commissioners than was expected, and in all con- ferences insisted peremptorily that the King must yield to whatever was required." -
Cromwell himself is said often to have sought advice from Pierrepont. In a letter from Cromwell to Hammond he is referred to as "my wise friend," an epithet which still adheres to his name.
" When on the way from Scotland, following the King's army, Cromwell passed the night of Thursday, the 2ist of August, at Mr. Pierrepont's house. William Pierrepont of the
1 Life of Colonel Hutchinson.
2 Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion.
156 SHERWOOD FOREST
Kingston family — much his friend — ' the house called Thoresby, near Mansfield ' ; leaving there next morning for Nottingham, where he arrived that night. From Nottingham by Coventry, Stratford, and Evesham, to Worcester, where the important battle was fought on the evening of the 3rd of September."1
Mr. Pepys, in his Diary on January 23, 1659, wrote: "I met with Mr. Crewe who told me that my lord was chosen by 73 voices to be one of the council of state. Mr. Pierrepont had the most 101, and himself the next, 100."
In June, 1667, Pepys writes : "The King hath chosen Mr. Pierrepont Privy Councillor."
William Pierrepont used his influence to save the life of Colonel Hutchinson, and is said to have been greatly attached to Henry Cromwell, the son of the Protector, and through his friends Thurloe and St. John to have exercised great influence on the policy of Richard Cromwell's Government.2
He died in 1678.
Gervase, his third son, was born in 1649, and created Lord Pierrepont of Ardglass in Ireland, in March, 1703, and Lord Pierrepont of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire, in 1714. He died without issue in 1715, and these titles became extinct.
Frances, William Pierrepont's eldest daughter, married Henry Cavendish, afterwards Duke of Newcastle.3
1 Carlyle's Letters of Oliver Cromwell.
2 Dictionary of National Biography.
In the Parish Register of Perlethorpe the death is named in 1625, of Marmaduke Machill. He was lessee of Thoresby Hall and the manor of Peverelthorp ; " he paying eighty pounds per year for the mansion, and sixty pounds per year for the manor." It is probable the property was leased to Machill by Mr. Lodge, an Alderman of London, who is stated in Dukery Records to have owned the estate in 1589, and is mentioned as having granted a lease to some person not named. Eight years after Machill's death William Pierrepont was the owner.
Thoroton names Sir John Byron as one of the tenants of Perlethorpe, but gives no dates.
s Among the manuscripts preserved at Welbeck are two short letters from this Henry Cavendish written at Thoresby and sent to Viscount
THORESBY 157
Grace, second daughter, married Gilbert, third Earl of Clare.
Gertrude, third daughter, married, as second wife, George Savile, Marquis of Halifax.
Robert, William Pierrepont's eldest son, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Evelyn of Wilts, and died in 1666, leaving three sons, Robert, William, and Evelyn, who became successively third, fourth, and fifth Earls of Kingston.
It was William, the fourth Earl of Kingston, who, in 1683, in consideration of the sum of .£7,100, obtained from Charles II. a grant of 442 acres out of the hays of Bilhagh in Sherwood Forest, and 828 acres from the township of Perlethorpe, or Palethorpe, and Thoresby, for the formation of Thoresby Park.1
Evelyn, the fifth earl, succeeded to the title and estates on the death of his elder brother in 1690. In 1706, Queen Anne was pleased to confer upon him the title of Marquis of Dor- chester, with remainder to Gervase, Lord Pierrepont, and his male heirs. He was also constituted one of the commissioners for the arrangement of the union with Scotland in the same year. In 1715 he was made a member of the Privy Council
Mansfield. The first is dated April 17, 1656, wherein he says : " Major General Whalley is on this side. To-morrow he goes to Retford. He is sorry he could not wait on you. My father Pierrepont gave him many thanks for you, and assured him he could not be on a juster business."
Nine days afterwards Cavendish writes : " My father Pierrepont and all the rest of your cousins present their service to you. I told him how desirous you were to bowl with him at Lord Clare's (at Haughton)."
1 Dukety Records, edited by Robert White.
Charles I. in his prosperity having attempted to revive the hated Forest Laws, in his adversity granted the New Forest and Sherwood as security to his creditors : — See " The humble petition of Richard Spencer, Esq., Sir Gervas Clifton, Knight and Baronet, and others, to enter upon the New Forest and Sherwood Forest," &c., &c. Record Office. Domestic Series, Charles II., July 21, 1660. — J. R. Wise's History of the New Forest. This application would be made twenty-three years before the purchase by the Earl of Kingston.
158 SHERWOOD FOREST
by George III., and raised to the rank of Duke of Kingston- upon-Hull. In the following year the additional honour of Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal was conferred upon him. In 1719 he became Lord President of the Council, and was elected a Knight of the Garter. The Duke was on three occasions chosen one of the Lords Justices of Great Britain while his Majesty was absent at Hanover.
He was a Whig in politics, a member of the famous Kit-Cat Club, and one of the foremost men in the fashionable world. He married Lady Mary Fielding, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh, and by her had three daughters and one son. The eldest daughter, Lady Mary, better known as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was one of the most famous women of her time. She was witty, accomplished, philanthropic, and endowed with great literary ability. Lady Mary and Henry Fielding, the novelist, were second cousins, each being descended in the same degree from the Earl of Denbigh. Of her grandmother, the Countess Dowager of Denbigh, she speaks as having had a superior understanding, which she retained unimpaired at an extraordinary age. While her paternal grandmother was a relative of the distinguished scholar, John Evelyn, in whose diary is noted " the prodigious memory of this lady who married Mr. Pierrepont, and became mother of the Earl of Kingston." Indeed, Lady Mary, writing to her daughter, Lady Bute, many years after, says : " If there is anything in blood, you may reasonably expect your children should be endowed with an uncommon share of good sense."3
3 Fielding dedicated his first play to Lady Mary. In one of her letters Lady Mary says of the novelist : " H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to his own figure excepted ; and I am persuaded, several ot the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact. I wonder he does not perceive Tom Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry scoundrels. . . . Fielding has really a fund of true humour, and was to be pitied at his first entrance into the world, having no choice, as he said himself, but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman. His genius deserved a better fate ; but I cannot
>OD I
1719 he ! sident ol
elected a Knight of the Garter. The/ Duke was 01 occasions i. ihe Lords Justices of Great Britain
while his jv ,sent at Hanover.
He wa : politics, a member of the famous Kit-Cat
Club, and • the foremost men in : .rid.
He married Lady Mary Fielding, . Denbigh her had three daughu-'
eldest d r, Lady Mary, better know
W'ortlf.. was one of the most
her ts witty, accomplished, philantl
endowed with great literary- ability. Lady Mary and Henry ;.;. the novelist, were second cousins, each being in the same degree from the Earl of Denbigh. Of indmother, the Countess Dowager of Denl
as having had a uacd unimpaired at
'randmother w;." .n Evelyn, in who of this lady who of the Earl of Kii
i
•liter, Lady Bute, n
•jd, you ma - • •
should be endowed with an u.
. of her letters
. i-e of
h'ni ;ome
complur, several ot
the mcul. • cioes not
perceive 7o». d Mr. > .^k. . . . Fielding has
. really a fund entrance into
the worii • h> be a hackney writer
or a hackney coachnw ier fate : but I cannot
t^lady \svlaAAJ/ rl/ottfa/ij/ ,
/ / /
THORESBY 161
In the account given of the Duke's family in the memoirs of the members of the Kit-Cat Club, the biographer, writing of Lady Mary, says : " The first dawn of Lady Mary's genius opened so auspiciously that her father resolved to cultivate the advantages of nature by a sedulous attention to her early education. Under the same preceptor as her brother she acquired the elements of the Greek, Latin, and French languages, with the greatest success." Lady Mary, however, gives an account of her young days which is quite at variance with the above. She tells us, — her mother died in 1694, and though her father remained a widower until all his children were married, it was not thought to be from any anxiety for their welfare. He was a man of pleasure ; and though fond
help blaming that continued indiscretion, to give it the softest name, that has run through his life, and I am afraid still remains." — Letters of Lady M. W. Montagu, edited by Lord Wharncliffe.
Thackeray says of Fielding : " The kind and wise old Johnson would not sit down with him." (Yet Johnson, too, as Boswell tells us, read Amelia through without " stopping.") " But a greater scholar than Johnson could afford to admire that astonishing genius of Harry Fielding : and we all know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, and which remains a towering monument to the great novelist's memory. ' Our immortal Fielding,' Gibbon writes, ' was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the Counts of Hapsburgh. The successors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of England ; but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of humorous manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial Eagle of Austria.' " — Thackeray's English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century.
Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from Salisbury, with a fortune of ,£1,500, whom he married in 1736. About the same time he succeeded himself to an estate of ^200 per annum, and on the joint amount he lived for some time as a splendid country gentleman in Derby- shire. Three years brought him to the end of his fortune, when he returned to London and became a student of law.
" It is elsewhere told of Fielding, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, and the conversation turning upon their relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name ' Fielding ' and not ' Feilding,' like the head of the house ? ' I cannot tell, my lord,' said he, ' except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell.' " — Thackeray's English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (note).
[Hf
i62 SHERWOOD FOREST
of the precocious talent of his little daughter, saw little of her, she and her sister passing their time principally at Thoresby, where he seldom came. In one of her letters Lady Mary tells us : "I find in the picture of Sir Thomas Grandison and his lady, what I have heard of my mother and seen of my father ; " and of her education : " My own was one of the worst in the world, being exactly the same as Clarissa Harlowe's ; her pious Mrs. Norton so perfectly resembling my governess, who had been nurse to my mother, I could almost fancy the author was acquainted with her, she took so much pains from my infancy to fill my head with super- stitious tales and false notions. It is none of her fault that I am not at this day afraid of witches and hobgoblins." It is said that in her learning she might possibly have some assistance from her mother's brother, Mr. William Fielding, who corresponded with her, and encouraged her pursuit of knowledge ; but she was endowed with a passion for learning, spending ten years of her youth at Thoresby reading every book on which she could lay her hands, and forgetting nothing.
One pleasurable recollection she had of Lord Kingston's fondness ; a small matter which Lady Mary loved to recall, will show how much she was the object of Lord Kingston's pride in her childhood. "As a leader of fashion and a strenuous whig in politics, he, as a matter of course, belonged to the Kit-Cat Club. One day, at a meeting to choose toasts for the year, a whim seized him to nominate her, then not eight years old, a candidate, alleging that she was far prettier than any on their list. The other members demurred, because the rules of the club forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never seen.
" 'Then you shall see her,' cried he; and in the gaiety of the moment sent orders home to have her finely dressed, and brought to him at the tavern, where she was received with acclamations ; her claim unanimously allowed, her health drunk
THORESBY 163
by every one present, and her name engraved in due form on a drinking glass. The company consisting of some of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another, was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said, was too poor a word to express her sensations : they amounted to extasy ; never again, throughout her whole future life, did she pass so happy a day." '
At Wortley, about twenty miles from Thoresby, resided Mistress Anne Wortley, Lady Mary's friend and frequent
1 The Kit-Cat Club was instituted about the year 1700, and consisted of some of the principal noblemen and gentlemen in the kingdom.
The particulars as to its origin are involved in some obscurity, although in all probability it took its name from the person at whose house the meetings of the club were first held, who was an obscure pastry cook, named Christopher Cat, residing in Shire Lane, near Temple Bar. The dinners and suppers upon which this person feasted his illustrious guests were composed principally of mutton pies, for his skill in the making of which he had acquired considerable reputation.
Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, who was secretary to the club, was on terms of some intimacy with Cat, and it is probable that knowing Cat's ability as a pastry cook, Tonson procured him the patronage of this renowned club. Soon after the commencement of the club, Cat removed to more commodious premises at the Fountain Tavern in the Strand.
Tonson afterwards acquired a house at Barn Elms in Surrey, where he built a room for the occasional meeting of the Kit-Cat Club. This room was ornamented with the portraits of members of the club, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and as the walls of this room were not sufficiently lofty for the ordinary half length portrait, Sir Godfrey made use of a shorter canvas which has since been named " Kit-Cat."
It would probably be at the Fountain Tavern where Lady Mary passed " such a happy day," and had her name, as the toast of the year, engraved upon a drinking glass.
The portraits of the members of the club are now, with the exception of that of the Duke of Marlborough, in the possession of Jacob Tonson's great nephew, Mr. William Baker, of Brayfordbury, in Hertfordshire.
Memoirs of the Members of the Kit-Cat Club. — Dictionary of National Biography.
164 SHERWOOD FOREST
correspondent. Twelve years after the incident last narrated, writing to this friend she says : —
" I shall run mad — with what heart can people write, when they believe their letters will never be received ? . . . this will, perhaps, miscarry, as the last did ; how unfortunate am I if it does. You will think I forgot you, who are never out of my thoughts. You will fancy me stupid enough to neglect your letters, when they are the only pleasure of my solitude. . . . I am now so much alone, I have leisure to pass whole days in reading, but am not at all proper for so delicate an employ- ment as chusing your books. Your own fancy will better direct you. My study at present is nothing but dictionaries and grammars. I am trying whether it be possible to learn without a master ; I am not certain (and dare hardly hope) I shall make any great progress ; but I find the study so diverting, I am not only easy, but pleased with the solitude that indulges it. I forget there is such a place as London, and wish for no company but yours. You see, my dear, in making my pleasures consist of these unfashionable diversions, I am not of those who cannot be easy out of the mode. I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations — Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always ; it is with some regret I follow it in all the impertinences of dress ; the compliance is so trivial it comforts me ; but I am amazed to see it consulted even in the most important occasions of our lives ; and that people of good sense in other things can make their happiness consist in the opinions of others, and sacrifice everything in the desire of appearing in fashion." . . .
In reply to this letter Mistress Wortley wrote : " Dear Lady Mary will pardon my vanity ; I could not forbear reading to a Cambridge doctor that was with me, a few of those lines that did not make me happy till this week : where you talk of dictionaries and grammars, he stopped me, and said, the reason why you had more wit than any man, was, that your
SHERWOOD
•ndent.' T to this fri
.!! run m,ad — with v. !ieve their tatters v,
f
perhaps, miscarry, as ihe last did; how unforti^
You will think 1 forgot you, who are never out of my thoughts. You will fancy me stupid enough to neglect your letters, when t the only pleasure of my solitude. . . .
tnuch alone, I have leisure t A-hole <
in r but am not at all proper for so delicate an
mem as chusing your books. Your own fancy v/il! better d you. study at present is nothiiv
rs. I am trying whether it be
without a master ; I am not certain (and dare hardly hope) { shall make any great progress ; but I find the study so diverting. I am not only easy, but pleased with the solitude /indulges it. I forget there is such a place as London, and wish for no company but yours. You see, my dear, in
my pleasures consist of these unfashionable i not of those who ca •ve more follies are co i. than in following our in the wrong, custom alw. it in all the impertinences it comforts me ; but I <• -
it important occ. food
sense in other things i in the
lions of others, an . the desire of
Bating in fas'iion." . . .
In reply to this letter " wrote: "Dear
Lady Mary will pardon m ot forbear reading
to a Cambridge doctor t! those lines
that did not make me h;> re you talk
of dictionaries and grammars, h id said, the
ii had more wit tl1 was, that your
THORESBY 167
mind had never been encumbered with any of these tedious authors; that Cowley never submitted to the rules of grammar, and therefore excelled all of his own time in learning as well as in wit ; that without them, you would read with pleasure in two or three months, but that if you persisted in the use of them, you would throw away your Latin in a year or two, and the commonwealth would have reason to mourn ; whereas if I could prevail with you, it would be bound to thank you for a brighter ornament than any it can boast of."
The education of women at that time had reached its very lowest ebb, and however fond Mr. Wortley might be of his sister, he could have no particular motive to seek the acquaintance of her companions. His surprise and delight were the greater when one afternoon having by chance loitered in her apartment till visitors arrived, he saw Lady Mary Pierrepont for the first time, After this interview Mistress Anne Wortley's letters grew more eloquent in Lady Mary's praise, and Mistress Anne more anxious to correspond with her — and no wonder, since the rough draught of a letter in her brother's hand, indorsed " For my sister to Lady M. P.," betrays that he was the writer and she only the transcriber of encomiums that are extravagant when addressed by one woman to another. But she did not live long to be the medium through which they passed ; a more direct correspondence soon began, and was continued after her decease.1
These letters, which have been preserved, form a curious memorial of their days of courtship, no longer complimentary on his part, but strikingly expressive of a real strong passion, to which he appears to have yielded against his convictions. They were perpetually on the point of breaking altogether : he felt and knew that they suited each other very ill ; he saw, or thought he saw, his rivals encouraged, if not preferred ; he was more affronted than satisfied with her assurance of a sober 1 Letters of Lady Mary Wor\ley Montagu, edited by Lord Wharncliffe.
168 SHERWOOD FOREST
esteem and regard ; and yet every struggle to get free did but end where it set out.
After some time spent in these disputes and lovers' quarrels, he at length made his proposals to Lord Dorchester, who received them favourably until the settlements came under con- sideration, but he then broke off the match in great anger. " Mr. Wortley, while offering to make the best provision in his power for Lady Mary, steadily refusing to settle his landed pro- perty upon a son who, for aught he knew, might prove unworthy to possess it — might be a spendthrift, an idiot, or a villain."
The secret correspondence between the lovers went on as before, although Lady Mary acquainted Mr. Montagu that she was peremptorily commanded to accept the offer of another suitor, ready to close with all her father's terms. " Lord Dor- chester seems to have asked no questions regarding her inclina- tion in either instance. Lady Mary declared, though timidly, her utter antipathy to the person proposed to her. Upon this her father, after expressing surprise at her presumption in questioning his judgment, assured her he would not give her a single sixpence if she married any one else. Rather than marry one whom she did not care for, she asked her father's permission to remain single. This he ivould not agree to, but threatened to send her to a distant part of the country." Relying on the effect of these threats, the preparations for the marriage pro- ceeded ; the day was appointed, the wedding-dresses were bought, and everything was ready, when suddenly Lady Mary disappeared, and was privately married to Mr. Wortley in August, 1712. Her father was greatly exasperated, and, it is said, never really forgave her. Lady Frances Pierrepont, afraid that her father should examine her sister's papers and find something there to further exasperate him, hastily burned all she could find.
After their marriage they lived for some time at Hinchin- brook, or at Huntingdon, a town which the Wortley Montagus, had frequently represented in Parliament,
THORESBY 169
One of the first letters to her husband is dated by Lady Mary from Walling Wells, near Worksop, where she was staying with the Whites. She says : " I don't know very well how to begin ; I am perfectly unacquainted with a proper matrimonial style. After all, I think 'tis best to write as if we were not married at all. I lament your absence as if you were still my lover, and I am impatient to hear you have got safe to Durham and that you have fixed a time for your return. I have not been long in this family, and I fancy myself in that described in the Spectator. The good people here look upon their children with a fondness that more than recompenses their care of them. I don't perceive much distinction in regard to their merits ; and when they speak sense or nonsense it affects the parents with almost the same pleasure. My friendship for the mother and kindness for Miss Biddy make me endure the squalling of Miss Nanny and Miss Mary with abundance of patience ; and my foretelling the future conquests of the eldest daughter makes me very well with the family. I don't know whether you will presently find out that this seeming impertinent account is the tenderest expression of my love to you, but it furnishes my imagination with agreeable pictures of our future life, and I flatter myself with the hopes of one day enjoying with you the same satisfaction ; and that after as many years together, I may see you retain the same fondness for me as I shall certainly do for you, when the noise of a nursery may have more charms for us than the music of an opera."
In 1715 Edward Wortley Montagu was returned to Parlia- ment as member for Westminster, and appointed a Commissioner of the Treasury by Lord Halifax, and Lady Mary, coming up at this time with him to the Court of George I., became a con- spicuous figure among the ladies.
In 1716, Mr. Montagu being appointed Ambassador to Turkey, set out on the long journey to Constantinople, by way of Vienna, in company with his wife and infant child.
In a letter from Adrianople, dated April i, 1717, Lady
170 SHERWOOD FOREST
Mary gives an account of the process of inoculation for the small-pox as practised there, which she afterwards introduced into England. She calls the practice "ingrafting."
" A propos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that I am sure will make you wish yourself here. The small- pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women who make it their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the month of Sep- tember, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox ; they make parties for this purpose ; when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together), the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what veins you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of a needle, and after binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell. The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day and are in perfect health until the eighth ; then they keep their beds two days, never more than three." l
1 The following account is given of this matter by Mr. Maitland, who attended the Embassy in the capacity of surgeon : —
" About this time the Ambassador's ingenious lady, who had been at some pains to satisfy her curiosity in this matter, and had made some useful observations on the practice, was so thoroughly convinced of the safety of it that she resolved to submit her only son to it, a very hopeful boy of about six years of age. She first of all ordered me to find out a fit subject to take the matter from, and then sent for an old Greek woman who had practised this a great many years. After a good deal of trouble and pains I found a proper subject, and then the good woman went to work, but so awkwardly, by the shaking of her hand ; she put the boy to so much torture with her blunt and rusty needle, that I pitied his cries, who had ever been of such spirit and courage that hardly anything of pain could make him cry before ; and therefore inoculated the other arm with my own instrument, and with
THORESBY 171
Having lost her only brother from small-pox, and suffered herself severely from its ravages, Lady Mary, on her return from Turkey in 1718, used her utmost endeavours to promote the adoption of the Turkish system of inoculation ; but only the higher motive of hoping to save numberless others could have given her courage to bring home the discovery. Those who have heard her applauded for it ever since they were born may naturally conclude that when once the experiment had been made, and had proved successful, she could have nothing to do but to sit down triumphant and receive the thanks and bless- ings of her countrymen. But it was far otherwise. Lady Mary protested that in the four or five years immediately succeeding her arrival at home she seldom passed a day without repenting of her patriotic undertaking ; and she vowed that she never would have attempted it if she had foreseen the vexation, the persecution, and even the obloquy it brought upon her. The clamour raised against the practice, and of course against her, were beyond belief. The faculty rose in arms, foretelling failure and the most disastrous consequences. The clergy descanted from their pulpits on the impiety of thus seeking to take events out of the hands of Providence. The common people were taught to hoot at her as an unnatural mother who had risked the lives of her own children. And notwithstanding that she soon gained many supporters amongst the higher and more enlightened classes, headed by the Princess of Wales (Queen Caroline), who stood by her firmly, some even of her acquain- tance were weak enough to join in the outcry.
Lady Mary stated that even the four great physicians deputed by Government to watch the progress of her daughter's inoculation, betrayed not only such incredulity as to its success, but such an unwillingness to have it succeed, such an evident spirit of rancour and malignity, that she never
so little pain to him that he did not in the least complain of it. The opera- tion took in both arms, and succeeded perfectly well ; it was performed at Pera, near Constantinople, in March, 1717."
10
i;2 SHERWOOD FOREST
dared to leave the child alone with them one second lest it should in some secret way suffer from their interference.
But as inoculation gained ground all who could make a claim to the slightest acquaintance with Lady Mary Wortley used to beg for her advice and superintendence while it was going on in their families ; and she constantly carried her little daughter along with her to the house, and into the sick-room, to prove her security from infection.
Writing to Lady Craven, Horace Walpole, in 1787, says of Lady Mary's work : " The invaluable art of inoculation, which she brought from Constantinople, so dear to all admirers of beauty . . . stamps her as an universal benefactress."
In 1739 she again left England — this time alone; and though she and her husband were in the habit of corre- sponding, they never again met. Lady Mary wrote many interesting letters from abroad to the Countess of Oxford, as well as to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, to whom on April 11, 1760, she says: "I am exceeding glad of your father's good health ; he owes it to his uncommon abstinence and resolution. I wish I could boast the same. I own I have too much indulged a sedentary humour, and have been a rake in reading. You will laugh at the expression, but I think the literal meaning of the ugly word 'rake' is one that follows his pleasures in contradiction to his reason. I thought mine so innocent I might pursue them with impunity. I now find that I was mistaken, and that all excesses are (though not equally) blamable."
In one of her last letters she says to the Countess of Bute : "There is a quiet after the abandoning of pursuits, something like the rest that follows a laborious day. I tell you this for your comfort. It was formerly a terrifying view to me that I should one day be an old woman. I now find that Nature has provided pleasures for every state. Those are only unhappy who will not be contented with what she gives, but strive to break through her laws by affecting a perpetuity of youth,
THORESBY 173
which appears to me as little desirable at present as the babies do to you that were the delight of your infancy."
Her long life was now drawing near its close. In 1761 she heard of the death of her husband at the age of eighty-three.1 She said : " I now begin to feel the worst effects of age, blind- ness excepted." And at the request of her daughter Lady Mary resolved to set out for England, the more readily, perhaps, because she probably knew she was suffering from an incurable disease and had but a short time to live. On her homeward journey she wrote to her friend, Sir James Stewart : " I tried in vain to find you at Amsterdam. I began to think we re- sembled two parallel lines, destined to be always near and never to meet. You know there is no fighting (at least no over- coming) destiny ; I am dragging my ragged remnant of life to England. The wind and tide are against me : how far I have strength to struggle against both I know not. That I am
1 Horace Walpole writes of Wortley Montagu, about four years before his death : " Old Wortley Montagu lives on the very spot where the dragon of Wantley did, only I believe the latter was much better lodged. You never saw such a wretched hovel — lean, unpainted, and half its naked- ness barely shaded with harateen, stretched till it cracks. Here the miser hoards health and money, his only two objects. He has chronicles in behalf of the air, and battens on Tokay, his single indulgence, as he heard it is particularly salutary. But the savageness of the scene would charm your Alpine taste : it is tumbled with fragments of mountains that look ready laid for building the world. One scrambles over a huge terrace, on which mountain ashes and various trees spring out of the very rocks ; and at the brow is the den, but not spacious enough for such an inmate."
Wortley Montagu is said to have left a fortune of ;£ 1,350,000. From 1727 to the time of his death he had been in possession of his father's great estates. — Dictionary of National Biography.
Wortley Montagu in his will bequeathed to his son an annuity of a thousand a year, to be paid him during the joint lives of himself and his mother, Lady Mary ; and after her death an annuity of two thousand a year during the joint lives of himself and his sister, Lady Bute. By the same will he was empowered to make a settlement on any woman he might marry, not exceeding eight hundred a year, and to any son of such marriage he devised a considerable estate in the West Riding of Yorkshire. — Family Romance, by Sir Bernard Burke.
i74 SHERWOOD FOREST
arrived here is as much a miracle as any in the golden legend, and if I had foreseen half the difficulties I have met with, I should not certainly have had the courage to undertake it."
Lady Mary died on August 21,1 763, from cancer.
A cenotaph was erected to her memory in Lichfield Cathedral, commemorating her introduction of "'inoculation,' and expressing the gratitude of one who has herself felt the benefit of this alleviating art." '
William, the only son of Evelyn, first Duke of Kingston, married Rachel, daughter of Thomas Baynton, of Little Chalfield, Wiltshire, by whom he had a son named Evelyn, born in 1711, and one daughter, Lady Frances. William, who took the title of Karl of Kingston, died of small-pox in 1713.
Kvelyn, the first duke, died in 1726, and was succeeded by his grandson Kvelyn in the dukedom and the estates.
He was elected a Knight of the Garter in 1741. On the outbreak of the rebellion in 1745 the Duke, at his own cost, raised a regiment of light horse, which greatly dis- tinguished itself at the battle of Culloden. Some years afterwards lie was given the rank of Lieutenant-General in the army. On the occasion of the coronation of George III. he had the honour of carrying St. Edward's staff, and in 1763 was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire and Steward of Sherwood Forest.
The Duke is described by Walpole as weak, though of fine person and great beauty. On March 8, 1769, he went through the ceremony of marriage at St. George's, Hanover Square, with the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh,2 who was
1 Letters of Lady M. W. Montagu, edited by Lord Wharncliffe ; Lady M. W. Montagu, by Flora Masson ; Lady M. W. Montagu, by A. K. Hoper, M.A. ; Didionaiy of National Biography.
1 The career of Elizabeth Chudleigh, who went through the ceremony of marriage with Evelyn, the last Duke of Kingston, was so remarkable that it is said to have suggested to Thackeray the character of " Beatrice " in Esmond, and of the " Baroness Bernstein " in The Virginians.
She was the only child of Colonel Thomas Chudleigh, Lieutenant-
THORESBY 175
afterwards proved to have been, at the time when the ceremony took place, the wife of the Hon. Augustus John Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol.
On the Duke's death in 1773 the titles became extinct. His only sister, Lady Frances Pierrepont, married, in 1734-
Governor of Chelsea Hospital. On Colonel Chudleigh's death, she and her mother being badly provided for, her youth was spent in the country. She was a beautiful girl, and while staying at her aunt's house met, at Winchester races, Augustus John Hervey, a lieutenant in the navy, grandson of the first Earl of Bristol. Hervey obtained leave of absence from his ship and paid his addresses to her at her cousin's house. Piqued at the apparent neglect of another lover, the Duke of Hamilton, she consented to marry him, and, as they were both poor and she could not afford to lose her place as maid of honour, they were married privately, though in the presence of witnesses, in the chapel of Laniston, by the rector, Mr. Amis, at 10 or n p.m. on August 4, 1744. A few days afterwards Hervey joined his ship and sailed for the West Indies, and his wife, when not in attendance at Leicester House, lived with her mother in Conduit Street. Her husband returned to England in October, 1746, and in the summer of the next year she was secretly delivered of a male child at Chelsea. This child was baptized and put out to nurse at Chelsea in November, 1747, as Henry Augustus, son of the Hon. Augustus Hervey, and shortly after- wards died, and was buried there. From the time of Hervey's return to England there had been frequent quarrels between him and his wife. Miss Chudleigh, as she was still called, kept her marriage secret, and continued to hold office as a maid of honour at the Court of the princess. George II. pretended to be in love with her, and gave her a watch which cost thirty-live guineas, and made her mother house- keeper at Windsor, a place of considerable profit. As, in 1759, the failing health of the Earl of Bristol seemed to promise the succession at an early date to his brother Augustus, Kli/abeth thought it well to take steps to prove her marriage, should she desire to do so. She went down to Winchester, where Mr. Amis then lay on his death-bed, and in the presence of witnesses caused him to enter her marriage in the register of Laniston Chapel.
Hervey, who was anxious to marry again, sent a message to her in 1768 by Caesar Hawkins, the surgeon who had been present at the birth of the child, to say that he proposed to apply for a divorce. In order to obtain a divorce, however, it was necessary to prove the marriage, and as Elizabeth was not willing to incur the scandal of a divorce, she refused to allow that a marriage had taken place. At the
1 76 SHERWOOD FOREST
Philip Meadows, Esq., third son of Sir Philip Meadows, and left issue, Charles, who succeeded to the estates and assumed the surname and arms of Pierrepont. He was created Lord Pierrepont of Holme-Pierrepont and Viscount Newark in 1796, and Earl Manvers 1806. He married
same time she was anxious for a dissolution in order that she might become the wife of the Duke of Kingston. Accordingly she instituted a suit of jactitation against him in the Consistory Court, and the answer made by Hervey was so weak that there is reason to believe the whole proceeding was collusive. Elizabeth, however, as she told Caesar Hawkins, was unhappy at finding that she had to swear she was not married. She took the required oath, however, and on February u, 1769, the court declared her a spinster and free from any matrimonial contract ; and enjoining silence on Hervey, on the 8th of March following, she was married to the Duke of Kingston, at St. George's, Hanover Square.
In May, 1773, Hervey renewed his matrimonial case by presenting a petition to the King in Council for a new trial, and the matter was referred to the Lord Chancellor. The Duke of Kingston died at Bath on September 23, 1773, leaving to the Duchess by his will his real estate for life and the whole of his personality for ever, on condition that she remained a widow. Shortly after the Duke's death she sailed for Italy in her yacht.
During her absence Mr. Evelyn Meadows, the next heir to the estate, the Duke's nephew, on information received from Ann Cradock, who had been in the service of Elizabeth, caused a bill of indictment for bigamy to be drawn up against her. On learning this she determined to return to England at once.
In March, 1775, her first husband, Hervey, succeeded his brother as Earl of Bristol.
On the 24th of May the Duchess appeared before Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench to answer the indictment preferred against her. She was attended by the Duke of Newcastle and others, and entered into a recognizance, herself in ^4,000 and four sureties of ;£i,ooo each.
The trial of the Duchess before the House of Peers began on April 16, 1776. It extended over the rgth, 2oth, and 22nd.
The indictment set forth that she, as the wife of Augustus John Hervey, did on the third day of March, in the ninth year of George the Third, marry the late Evelyn Pierrepont, Duke of Kingston, her former husband being then living. Her plea was an authenticated copy of a sentence of the Ecclesiastical Court in her favour, in the year 1768, previous to her
THORESBY 177
Anne Orton, daughter of John Mills, Esq., of Richmond, and had issue the Hon. Charles Herbert, who married Mary Letitia, daughter of Anthony Hardolph Eyre, Esq., and from this marriage are descended the present noble owners of the estate. The younger brother of the last- named Charles Herbert Pierrepont, Earl Manvers — the Right Hon. Henry Manvers, who was born in 1780, married Lady Sophia, only daughter of Henry, first Marquis of Exeter.
The Marchioness of Exeter, who was mother of Lady Sophia, was said to be the heroine of Tennyson's poem, " The Lord of Burleigh."
The village of Perlethorpe, situated near Thoresby House, and entirely within the park, is occupied exclusively by work- men and others employed on the estate. In old documents it is frequently called Peverelthorpe. In the reign of Henry the Third, William