Part 2 (1/2)
The ill.u.s.tration on the preceding page gives a good idea of this characteristic old sign, and of those of the period under review, and also of the point of view from which Mr. Thurnall's picture is taken, viz., from the position of a person looking down the hill towards Royston.
Upon this question of old signs it may not be out of place to add that when George III. was King local tradesmen in Royston had their signs, and especially the watchmakers, of which the following are specimens:--In 1767 we find an announcement of William Warren, watch and clock-maker at the ”Dial and Crown,” in the High Street, Royston, near the Red Lion; and again that:--
”William Valentine, clock and watch-maker at the 'Dial and Sun,' in Royston, begs leave to inform his friends that he has taken the business of the late Mr. Kefford” [where he had been previously employed].
These glimpses of our forefathers ”getting on wheels,” of the highways, their pa.s.sengers, their dangers, and their welcome signs of halting places by the way, may perhaps be allowed to conclude with the following curious inscription to be seen upon an old sign on a chandler's shop in a village over the borders in Suffolk, in 1776:--
Har lifs won woo Cuers a Goose, Gud Bare. Bako. sole Hare.
The modern rendering of which would be--
Here lives one who cures Agues, Good Beer, Tobacco sold here.
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CHAPTER III.
SOCIAL AND PUBLIC LIFE--WRESTLING AND c.o.c.k-FIGHTING--AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DEBATING CLUB.
It may be well here to take a nearer view of local life between the years 1760 and 1800. In doing so we shall probably see two extremes of social and political life, with rather a dead level of morality and public spirit between them--at the one extreme an unreasoning attachment to, and a free and easy acquiescence in, the state of things which actually existed, with too little regard for the possibility of improving it; and at the other extreme an unreasonable ardour in debating broad principles of universal philanthropy, with too little regard for their particular application to some improvable things nearer home. Between these two extremes was comfortably located the good old notion which looked for moral reforms to proclamations and the Parish Beadle! As approximate types of this state of things there was the Old Royston Club at the one extreme, and the Royston Book Club, at least in the debating period of its existence, at the other, and between these extremes there were some instructive measures of local government bearing upon public morals, of which the reader will be afforded some curious ill.u.s.trations in the course of this chapter.
The Old Royston Club must have been established before 1698, for at that time there was a list of members, but what was the common bond of fellows.h.i.+p, which enabled the Club to figure so notably among the leading people of the neighbouring counties, we are left to infer from one or two of its rules, and the emblems by which the members were surrounded, rather than from any doc.u.mentary proof. It flourished in an age of Clubs, of which the Fat Men's Club (five to a ton), the Skeleton Club, the Hum-drum Club, and the Ugly Club, are given by Addison as types in the _Spectator_. The usual form of this inst.i.tution in the Provinces was the County Club. The Royston Club itself has been considered by some to have been the Herts. County Club, but the County Clubs usually met in the county towns. Mr. Hale Wortham has in his possession some silver labels, bearing the words ”County Club,” said to have been handed down as part of the Royston Club property; but on the other hand there is the direct evidence of the contemporary account of the Club given in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for 1783, describing it as the Royston Club, by which t.i.tle it has always been known.
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It may not have been strictly speaking a political inst.i.tution, and yet, according to the custom of the times, could never have a.s.sembled without a toast list pledging the inst.i.tutions of the country, and the prominent men of the day.
But push round the claret, Come, stewards, don't spare it, With rapture you'll drink to the toast that I give!
Indeed, among some old papers placed at the writer's disposal, is this candid expression of opinion by an old Roystonian:--”Probably the members were strong partisans of the Stuarts; but, whatever may have been their loyalty to the King, there is no doubt of their devotion to Bacchus.” If so, they reflected the custom of the times rather than the weakness of their inst.i.tution which could scarcely have existed for a century, and included such a distinguished members.h.i.+p, without promoting much good feeling and adding to the importance of the town in this respect. The Club held its meetings at the Red Lion--then the chief posting inn in the town--in two large rooms erected at the back of the inn at the expense of the members. In the first of these two rooms, or ante-chamber, were half-length portraits of James I. and Charles I.; whole lengths of Charles II. and James II., and of William and Mary, and Anne; a head of the facetious Dr. Savage, of Clothall, ”the Aristippus of the age,” who was one of its most famous members, and its first Chaplain. In the larger room were portraits of many notable men in full wigs, and yellow, blue and pink coats of the period.
One of the rules of the Club was that the steward for the day had to furnish the wine, or five guineas in lieu of it; and as politics went up the wine went down, and vice versa, for, in 1760, after a Hertfords.h.i.+re election had gone wrong, and damped the ardour of the Club, now in its old age, the attendance of members appears to have fallen off, and the wine in the cellar had acc.u.mulated so much that no steward was chosen for three months. By September, 1783, there remained of claret, Madeira, port, and Lisbon, about three pipes.
There is also a reference to ”venison fees,” from which it appears that the gatherings were as hospitable as the list of members.h.i.+p was notable for distinguished names--Sir Edward Turner, Knight, and Speaker of the House of Commons; Sir John Hynde Cotton, Sir Thomas Middleton, Sir Peter Soame, Sir Charles Barrington, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Thomas Salisbury, of Offley, and many other men of t.i.tle, besides local and county family names not a few. Such an inst.i.tution must have given to the old town a prestige out of all proportion to what it has ever known since. A fuller account of the Royston Club belongs, however, to a history of Royston, rather than to these sketches.
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It is more to the purpose here to note that the head-quarters of the Old Club remained for many years after the Club itself had disappeared, a rallying point for social and festive gatherings of a brilliant kind, in which political distinctions were less prominent. For anything I know, this over-ripe inst.i.tution, with its old age and cellar full of wine, may have been responsible for the following dainty _morceau_; at any-rate it is in perfect harmony with the Club's traditions:--
”April, 1764. On Monday last at the Red Lion, at Royston, there was a very brilliant and polite a.s.sembly of Ladies and Gentlemen, which was elegantly conducted. The company did not break up till six the next morning, and would have continued longer had not a Northern Star suddenly disappeared.”
The poetical conclusion of the paragraph just quoted implies, I suspect, a very elegant personal compliment to one of the belles of the ball, and who should the ”Northern Star” be if not my lady Hardwicke, the first lady of that name, in whose newly acquired t.i.tle the Royston people took a pride--or at least it must have been a lady from the Mansion on the North Road!
[Ill.u.s.tration: LADY IN REIGN OF GEORGE III.]
What a picture the Old a.s.sembly Room at the Red Lion must have presented! Ladies with gorgeous and triumphant achievements in the matter of head dresses, hair dressing, and hair powder, and frillings, such as young ladies of to-day never dream of; and gentlemen in their wigs, gold lace, silken hose, buckles, and elegant but economical pantaloons! A dazzling array of candles, artistic decorations, and Kings and Queens looking down from the walls! ”A brilliant and polite a.s.sembly elegantly conducted.” These brilliant a.s.semblies were a common and not unfrequent feature in our old town and district life {22} all through the reign of George III., and more especially towards the close of the eighteenth century. Verily, ”the world went very well then,” or seems to have done, at least, so far as one half of it was concerned. Of the other half we may get some other glimpses hereafter.
What were known during the present century as the Royston Races were a continuation, with more or less interruption, of the old Odsey Races established as far back as James I., and probably before that time.