Part 3 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN MARY'S TOWER.]
Queen Mary's Tower.
Oh! 'tis a strange unearthly sound, When loud the raging wind rides round This ruined home of other days; The warrior's boast, the minstrel's praise!
For now the stately pile is low, And rank the gra.s.s and nettles grow, Where princes sat in regal state, And bold retainers past the gate.-- The strong old gate, all broken now, Twin'd with the ivy's matted bough.--M. R.
Such is Winfield castle; and its n.o.ble oak, the old oak which bears its name, stands within sight of the long suite of rooms where Mary Stuart pa.s.sed nine years of her sad captivity; for even nine years, however pa.s.sed, teaches many a heavy lesson. Much of grief and sorrow, and those strange reverses which only the great may feel in all their fulness and their bitterness, had been comprised in the short life of this unhappy princess, once the Queen of France, then of Scotland, but at length a prisoner, when she pa.s.sed beneath the portcullis of Winfield castle. Other tales of sorrow and endurance, but none more pitiable, were connected with this old castle: its early history is lost in the uncertainty of ages; no one knows who built it, or why it stands in this wild spot, whether its origin be Saxon or Danish; except that its first and oldest name was given in commemoration of some forgotten victory. Peverel of the Peak, erected the high tower, with a portion of the walls, and successive chieftains added to the structure, till at length the castle came to be much spoken of for its size and strength. Peverel's tower still remains, with a part of the old building, but that portion of it which more than any other awakens images of bygone days, are the rooms of state, with a small tower on the wall, where the captive queen resided; tradition says that she used to spend much of her time in summer on the roof of the tower, watching for signals from Leonard Dacre, who made many attempts to procure her liberation, either by force or stratagem. But the vigilance of the Earl of Shrewsbury was not readily eluded; and for nine long years did Mary inhabit this stern fortress, and watch from her high tower for succour that never came.
Ruins are best seen in wintry weather, when storms and thunder are abroad, and the woods are bare of leaves. Such was the fourteenth of October, when some years back, the narrator, saw for the first time, that dilapidated portion of Winfield castle. The rain had been exceeding heavy in the night, and the wind blew a perfect hurricane, making the tall trees groan and sway, beneath its fury, and driving the autumn leaves in shoals upon the ground. But the rain had ceased, and the loud wind was still, except when it came in gusts, moaning over the wide heath, and around the ancient castle, with that wailing sound which is heard only in places where men have dwelt, as if singing the wild requiem of departed greatness. The skirt of the heavy storm-cloud was seen retreating in the west, with its grey windy banners; while, on high, rolling ma.s.ses of dark clouds were following swiftly, as if they feared to be left behind. Now they were no more seen; clouds, of a still somewhat stormy character, succeeded them, hurrying across the heavens, and changing as they pa.s.sed, at one moment dark and threatening, at another light and fleecy; while at intervals the blue sky appeared, and the sun broke forth gloriously, causing the earth to look as if it smiled from some internal consciousness of delight.
The view from the old tree accorded well with the stormy aspect of the heavens on that day. Full in front rises the stately keep, with its broken battlements and rusted portcullis, its strong iron-bossed oaken door, rusted also on its hinges, brown and broken, with large s.p.a.ces, showing the desolate and gra.s.s-grown area within. To the right of the keep extends a high wall, flanked with a round tower, and then a long sweep of wall, without windows, separated by a strong jutting out from another wall, wherein are the state apartments which Mary occupied. Here stands the tower which bears her name, and from amid a ma.s.s of ruins at the base springs up a beautiful ash, which rises to the highest story, and waves before her window. Well might that tree be called Mary's Ash, for the ash is the Venus of the forest, the most graceful of all trees, and she was the loveliest of her kind. It seems to grow there, a living thing, where all else tells of death and ruin; a beautiful and appropriate memorial of one who was the fairest among women, in the days of her sojourning. Unlike the oak of Winfield, which stands in its strength, rugged and embossed, with upheaved roots and strong boughs, fitted to resist the storms of ages; standing, perhaps, when Peverel of the Peak, leaving his stronghold on the summit of the castle-rock, raised here his tower in a fairer spot, deep forested, with green fields, and ample hunting grounds. When, too, successive chieftains enlarged the bold structure, and presided with all the pomp and splendour of feudal magnificence. But the ash had no root within the soil when Mary lived here,--when the Earl of Shrewsbury, his stately dame, her maidens, and his men-at-arms, inhabited the castle. The ash sprung up since Mary went away, and now its leafless branches wave before the window where she used to watch and weep.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Chesnut of TORTWORTH]
The Chesnut of Tortworth.
When Eva, the gentle one, came, And sat down in my ample shade; And with her was that n.o.ble Thane, The lov'd one of the Saxon maid;
I call'd to the rustling breeze, That my boughs might their homage pay; While the joyous birds sang from the trees, And the soaring lark warbled his lay.--M. R.
The great Chesnut of Tortworth stood where now it stands, far back as the reign of John, at which period it bore the name that still distinguishes it among trees of the same species. It was then in all its grandeur and luxuriance, and its n.o.ble branches cast a deep and lengthened shade upon the waste beneath, for gra.s.s and flowers do not readily vegetate under the shadow of the chesnut. But the deer of the forest resorted thither to feed on the nuts, when shaken from the boughs by autumn winds; thither, also, troops of wild hogs, which the Saxons used to pasture in the woods, would gather beside the tree, and listen for the dropping of the kernels that fell in their ripeness to the ground.
Had Salvator Rosa been living when the great chesnut was in its prime, he would have braved the dangers both of land and sea to have studied its magnificent proportions, for this is the tree which graces all his landscapes; it flourished in the mountains of Calabria, where he painted, and there he observed it in all its forms, breaking and disposing of it, in a variety of beautiful shapes, as the exigences of his compositions required. But Salvator Rosa was not then living, nor, perhaps, his ancestors for many generations; neither was the art of painting developed in England; that beautiful art, which transmits to canvas the glow of an evening sky, and the effects of foliage when shaken by the wind; which embodies, within the s.p.a.ce of a few inches, an extent of many miles, with mingled wood and flood, bold headlands and mountains fading in the distance, or crowded cities, with their palaces and schools. Even the Bayeux tapestry, which chronicled, in after years, events connected with civil history and domestic misery, presented merely an ungraceful portraiture of pa.s.sing events.
The tree had attained nearly to its alt.i.tude at that period of England's sorrows, when the fierce Penda carried war and desolation through some of her fairest provinces. At this time, also, his son, being appointed Governor of Mercia, resided with his wife, Eva, at Glocester, in the centre of his dominions, where many persecuted persons, who fled from the sword of Penda, were secretly protected and relieved, for Eva was a Christian, and her husband inclined to her faith. Gloucester, where they held their court, was a place of great antiquity. It was one of the twenty-eight cities which the Britons erected, previous to their conquest by the Romans, and was called Caer-Glou, or Caer-Gloyw, which signified, in their language, the bright or splendid town, from its situation on an eminence at the termination of the flat and marshy part of the kingdom of Mercia, and being well watered with an ample river.
Wolfere presided over the dominions which his father confided to his care, with equal wisdom and consideration; but within the range of the highest window of his palace, grievous sights were witnessed at one time, by those who had the hardihood to look for them. A dreadful battle was fought in the neighbourhood of Corinium, at about twelve miles distant, between the fierce king, for whom Wolfere ruled, and the King of Wess.e.x. Corinium was much fallen from its ancient grandeur: it had been, in former times, the seat of arts and elegance; Roman generals lived there, and there Constantine occasionally resided; but war and time had greatly changed its once royal aspect, though still a considerable city, and having within its precincts a store of goods and cattle. Penda desired to possess them, and the hard victory which he gained before the walls gave the inhabitants an earnest of the calamities that awaited them. The consequences of this great victory were severely felt in the kingdom of Wess.e.x, and again, throughout the wide expanse of the Cotswold Hills, and among the beautiful vales of Mercia, were acted those scenes of misery, which the youths of that day had shuddered to hear beside the blazing hearth-stone, when narrated in the winter tales of their grandfathers.
The victory which Penda had gained, within sight of his son's palace at Gloucester, was succeeded by the fall of the brave Oswold, near Oswestry, in Shrops.h.i.+re. The kingdom of Bernicia was added by his death to the already extensive dominions of the conqueror, and with the increase of his territories, increased also the sufferings of the Christians, whom he persecuted with unwearied malignity. Penda was born a pagan, and as such he pa.s.sed the period of his youth and middle age. According to the custom of his country, he wors.h.i.+pped images of wood and stone, and joined devoutly in all the unhallowed rites which had been established by his Saxon ancestors; like them he believed that demons of good or ill presided over the fields and groves, and he sought to obtain the favour of the one, and to conciliate the other, by such observances and propitiations as the priesthood had enjoined. To them he was devoutly attached, and his temper being naturally inclined to seriousness, somewhat too, unyielding, with a strong bias to religion, he sought to extirpate the Christian faith, which had been represented to him as tending equally to overthrow the altars of his ruthless deities, with the throne itself.
But the Saviour, whose disciples he thus ignorantly persecuted, refused not, on his behalf, the prayers of one who ceased not to supplicate that he might become a sharer in the hopes and blessings of which she knew the value. This was Eva, who has been already mentioned as the wife of his son, Wolfere, the governor of Mercia. Men of the present generation, those even who live where she once lived, have heard little concerning her.
Historians speak rather of crimes and sorrows; they chronicle what the great adversary of mankind has achieved to make nations miserable; the life spent in quiet duty, the lifting up of the heart in secret prayer, are no themes for them. But the memorial of Eva is in heaven, her record is on high, and there is reason to believe that she was allowed to witness the softening of that rugged temper, which had occasioned such a variety of wretchedness--to hear, also, that Penda allowed the preaching of Christianity in his dominions nearly two years before his death. It was even said that he was baptized by Bishop Aiden, with Sigebert, King of the East-Angles.
Eva died in good old age, after presiding for more than thirty years over the nunnery of St Peter's, at Gloucester. She retired thither on the death of her husband, and greatly benefited the abbey to which it was attached, by causing the revenues to be increased, and by obtaining the confirmation of former donations. With her terminated the office of lady Abbess, during the cruel war which succeeded, between Egbert and the King of Mercia, when the nuns were forced to depart, and the abbey became desolate. The roof which had sheltered the remains of former Abbesses, of Eilburg, who governed the nunnery, both religiously and prudently, for more than half a century, and of Kyneburg, the widow of Elred, King of Northumberland, was thrown open to the winds of heaven, and nothing remained of its former splendour but walls black with smoke, and a few broken effigies.
Neither Wolfere, nor his wife Eva, antic.i.p.ated that such would be the fate of the n.o.ble abbey which the piety of former kings had founded, and which the governor of Mercia sought to enlarge and beautify, because Eva loved to wors.h.i.+p there. The future is in mercy veiled from the eyes of men; they could not bear to contemplate events that are often close at hand, for though strength is promised for the day of sorrow, it is not given before that sorrow comes. Eva went, as she was wont, on every holy day, to offer prayers, and to present her gifts within the hallowed walls of St Peter's Abbey, and Wolfere continued to embellish the n.o.ble city that was confided to his care, by causing many s.p.a.cious buildings to be erected both for ornament and use. The city had suffered greatly in former wars, and he not only rebuilt such portions of the walls as had been broken down, but so enlarged and adorned it, that it was soon spoken of as one of the finest cities in the Heptarchy. Great hospitality was also exercised at his court, and many found a shelter there, whose homes had been destroyed in the rage of civil discord.
The presidency of Wolfere, therefore, over the kingdom of Mercia; the n.o.ble acts which he achieved in beautifying and enlarging the city of Caer-Glou, and the quiet, una.s.suming labours of his wife, Eva, were cotemporary with the Chesnut of Tortworth when it first attained its high standing among forest-trees. It may be, that the venerable ruin, whose decaying trunk is still surmounted by a few verdant branches, was looked upon in its day of pride, by Wolfere and Eva. Tortworth was mentioned, in the time of John, as an ancient place, and the tree of which we speak was called the Great Chesnut. It grew within the garden-wall of the old mansion, and we have no reason to believe that the site on which it stood, had been recently reclaimed from the forest.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WALLACE'S OAK]
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