Part 27 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ann of Cleves' House, Southover._]
[Sidenote: THE CLUNIAC PRIORY]
The Cluniac priory of St. Pancras was dissolved by Henry VIII. in 1537, Thomas Cromwell, that execrable vandal, not only abolis.h.i.+ng the monks but destroying the buildings, which covered, with their gardens and fish ponds, forty acres. The ruins that remain give some idea of the extent of this wonderful priory, another relic being the adjacent mound on which the Calvary stood, probably constructed of the earth removed for the purpose from the Dripping Pan, as the hollow circular s.p.a.ce is called where Lewes now plays cricket. One very pretty possession of the monks was allowed to stand until quite recent times--the Columbarium, which was as large as a church and contained homes for 3,228 birds. It has now vanished; but an idea of what it was may be gained from the pigeon house at Alciston, a few miles distant, which belonged to Battle Abbey.
The priory's possessions were granted to Cromwell by Henry VIII., who, tradition a.s.serts (somewhat directly in the face of historical evidence), murdered one of his wives on a winding stair in the building, and may therefore have been glad to see its demolition. Which wife it was, is not stated, but when Cromwell went the way of all this king's favourites, the property was transferred to Ann of Cleves, who is supposed to have lived in the most picturesque of the old houses on the right hand side of Southover's street as you leave Lewes for the Ouse valley.
Southover church, in itself a beautiful structure of the grave red type, with a square ivied tower and the most delicate vane in Suss.e.x, is rendered the more interesting by the possession of the leaden caskets of William de Warenne and Gundrada and the superb tomb removed from Isfield church and very ingeniously restored. These relics repose in a charming little chapel built in their honour.
[Sidenote: TOM PAINE]
A notable man who had a.s.sociation with Lewes was Tom Paine, author of _The Rights of Man_. He settled there as an exciseman in 1768, married Elizabeth Ollive of the same town at St. Michael's Church in 1771, and succeeded to her father's business as a tobacconist and grocer. Paine was more successful as a debater than a business man. As a member of the White Hart evening club he was more often than any other the winner of the Headstrong Book--an old Greek Homer despatched the next morning to the most obstinate haranguer of the preceding night. It was at Lewes that Tom Paine's thoughts were first turned to the question of government. He used thus to tell the story. One evening after playing bowls, all the party retired to drink punch; when, in the conversation that ensued, Mr. Verril (it should be Verrall) ”observed, alluding to the wars of Frederick, that the King of Prussia was the best fellow in the world for a king, he had so much of the devil in him. This, striking me with great force, occasioned the reflection, that if it were necessary for a king to have so much of the devil in him, kings might very beneficially be dispensed with.”
I thought of that historic game of bowls as I watched four Lewes gentlemen playing this otherwise discreetest of games in the meadow by the castle gate on a fine September evening. Surely (after the historic Plymouth Hoe) a lawn in the shadow of a Norman castle is the ideal spot for this leisurely but exciting pastime. The four Lewes gentlemen played uncommonly well, with bowls of peculiar splendour in which a setting of silver glistened as they sped over the turf. After each game one little boy bearing a cloth wiped the bowls while another registered the score.
And now I feel that no one can really be said to have seen Lewes unless he has watched the progress of such a game: it remains in my mind as intimate a part of the town and the town's spirit as the ruins of the Priory, or Keere Street, or the Castle itself.
The house of Tom Paine, just off the High Street, almost opposite the circular tower of St. Michael's, has a tablet commemorating its ill.u.s.trious owner. It also has a very curious red carved demon which otherwise distinguishes it. Lewes was not always proud of Tom Paine; but Cuckfield went farther. In 1793, I learn from the _Suss.e.x Advertiser_ for that year, Cuckfield emphasised its loyalty to the const.i.tution by singing ”G.o.d save the King” in the streets and burning Paine in effigy.
[Sidenote: ”CLIO” RICKMAN]
Mention of Tom Paine naturally calls to mind his friend and biographer (and my thrice great uncle), Thomas ”Clio” Rickman, the Citizen of the World, who was born at Lewes in 1760. Rickman began life as a Quaker, and therefore without his pagan middle name, which he first adopted as the signature to epigrams and sc.r.a.ps of verse in the local paper, and afterwards incorporated in his signature. Rickman's connection with Tom Paine and his own revolutionary habits were a source of distress to his Quaker relatives at Lewes, so much so that there is a story in the family of the Citizen being refused admission to a house in the neighbourhood where he had eight impressionable nieces, and, when he would visit their father, being entertained instead at the Bear. His Bible, with sceptical marginal notes, is still preserved, with the bad pages pasted together by a subsequent owner.
After roving about in Spain and other countries he settled as a bookseller in London, and it was in his house and at his table that _The Rights of Man_ was written. ”This table,” says an article on Rickman in the _Wonderful Museum_, ”is prized by him very highly at this time; and no doubt will be deemed a rich relic by some of our irreligious connoisseurs.” It was shown at the Tom Paine exhibition a few years ago.
Rickman escaped prosecution, but he once had his papers seized.
[Sidenote: TIPPER'S EPITAPH]
According to his portrait Clio wore a hat like a beehive, and he invented a trumpet to increase the sound of a signal gun. His verse is exceedingly poor, his finest poetical achievement being the epitaph on Thomas Tipper in Newhaven churchyard. Tipper was the brewer of the ale that was known as ”Newhaven Tipper”; but he was other things too:
Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt and kind, And dared what few dare do, to speak his mind.
Philosophy and history well he knew, Was versed in Physic and in surgery too, The best old Stingo he both brewed and sold, Nor did one knavish act to get his gold.
He played through life a varied comic part, And knew immortal Hudibras by heart.
Charles Lamb greatly admired the end of this epitaph. Clio Rickman died in 1834.
Among other men of note who have lived in Lewes or have had a.s.sociation with it, was John Evelyn the diarist, who had some of his education at Southover grammar school: Mark Antony Lower, the Suss.e.x antiquary, to whom all writers on the county are indebted; the Rev. T. W. Horsfield, the historian of Suss.e.x, without whose work we should also often be in difficulties; and the Rev. Gideon Mantell, the Suss.e.x geologist, whose collection of Suss.e.x fossils is preserved in the British Museum.
In St. Ann's church on the hill lie the bones of a remarkable man who died at Lewes (in the tenth climacteric) in 1613--no less a person than Thomas Twyne, M.D. In addition to the principles of physic he ”comprehended earthquakes” and wrote a book about them. He also wrote a survey of the world. I quote Horsfield's translation of the florid Latin inscription to his memory: ”Hippocrates saw Twyne lifeless and his bones slightly covered with earth. Some of his sacred dust (says he) will be of use to me in removing diseases; for the dead, when converted into medicine, will expel human maladies, and ashes prevail against ashes.
Now the physician is absent, disease extends itself on every side, and exults its enemy is no more. Alas! here lies our preserver Twyne; the flower and ornament of his age. Suss.e.x deprived of her physician, languished, and is ready to sink along with him. Believe me, no future age will produce so good a physician and so renowned a man as this has.
He died at Lewes in 1613, on the 1st of August, in the tenth climacteric, (viz. 70).”
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