Bygone Berkshire

This seems to have frightened Col. Fielding, who evidently was not the stuff that heroes are made of.

Hark! Hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore,The cry of battle rises along the charging lines:For Love!' 'For the Cause!' 'For the Church!' 'For the Law!'For Charles, King of England, and Rupert of the Rhine!

25th April, 9 a.m. – The town hung out a white flag, and sent "a drum to beat a parley, which His Excellency gave way to." If Fielding had but held out another day, and had co-operated with the King's forces, the town might have been relieved, and Essex driven away; for a few hours after, Charles makes a determined attack in force upon Caversham Bridge, which is only repulsed after heavy fighting, and through Essex being able to give his undivided attention. "The fight began," says Codrington, "about Cawsham Bridge, and on both sides great valour and resolution was expressed. After less than half-an-hour's fight, the enemy began to give ground, leaving about 300 arms, and many of their men behind them; their Horse also, which came down the hill to assist the Fort, were gallantly repulsed; about a hundred were slain upon the spot, among whom Sergt. Major Smith, in whose pocket was found good store of gold."

This settled the matter. Charles retired unmolested to Caversham House, where Fielding was allowed to go to him on April 26th. He obtained leave to surrender, the picked troops of the garrison being urgently required for service elsewhere. This permission, of course, did not clear Fielding, who was tried afterwards by court martial and sentenced to be beheaded, but the King did not allow the sentence to be carried out.

April 27th. – The surrender takes place. "He was pardoned," says Clarendon, "without much grace; his regiment was given to another, and he resolved as a volunteer; in this capacity he fought desperately through the war when danger was most rife, but in vain. So difficult a thing it is to play an after game of reputation in that nice and jealous profession of arms." "As they march out at Friar's Corner," says Sir Samuel, "at the same place when, as is recorded further, the soldiers plundered the houses of four Grand Malignants who had given information to the Governor of such persons as were inclined to the cause of the Parliament, and had therefore paid a double tax to the weekly contribution." This, perhaps, was as little as could be expected from a victorious cause; and Sir Samuel again concludes all very characteristically and satisfactorily too, as regards the God-fearing soldiers of the Commonwealth.

April 30th, "being the Sunday, was spent in preaching and hearing God's word, the churches being extraordinarily filled, and soldiers and all men carrying themselves very civilly all the day long."

Sickness appears to have broken out amongst Essex's young soldiers encamped on the marshy meadows on the N.W. of the town, which may have had something to do with the easy terms granted. The Mercurius Aulicus, the Court Journal, has a story that "a soldier said that Essex caused five great pits to be dug at a distance from his camp, into which he cast the slain to conceal their number." The Earl stayed here until July, and ordered a heavy contribution for the pay of the soldiers. The Corporation, however, waited upon him to represent "they had been so impoverished by the late siege, and the exactions of His Majesty, as to be utterly unable to raise any more money amongst them." And this excuse seems to have been graciously accepted. Charles' "little finger," in money matters, was of necessity "thicker than the Parliament's loins," and this lead considerably to the declining of his cause. When the tide of war turned a couple of years after, he appeared again here, and stayed at Coley; but we do not hear then of any more forced benevolences; indeed he conferred a real benefit, by having the fortification "slighted," which no doubt the burgesses received with extreme satisfaction. So the siege ended. Sieges in those days were trying to reputations. Colonel N. Fiennes, at Bristol, and then Prince Rupert at the same place, whether justly or not, were heavily censured for surrendering, and both of them came very near to sharing the fate of Fielding. That old lamentation was speedily verified; but with this we have happily no further connection.

"Lament! Lament!And let thy tears run down,To see the rentBetween the robe and crown!War, like a serpent, has its head got in,And will not cease so soon as 't did begin."

Reading Abbey

It is hardly necessary to state that in rather early days, when the Thames flowed into the Rhine and Great Britain was a part of a greater continent, there was no Reading Abbey. Neither was there sometime after, when the city was a swamp between the Thames and the Kennet, and some few huts clustered round the Roman station Ad Pontes, where the legions crossed from Londinium on their way to the rich and important town of Calleva. We may possibly date our abbey's beginning from the third or fourth century. It may have been a chapel of ease to that interesting little church lately uncovered, and alas! covered up again, at Silchester. At any rate we are on firm ground when, towards the end of the tenth century, we locate a nunnery here, founded by Queen Elfreda, who at last began to repent of her various crimes. She had, perhaps, some excuse for arranging with the King to get rid of her first husband, who had deceived his royal master, lead astray by her fatal beauty. Thus she attained the throne to which she had no doubt been destined; but it was going too far to retain it by the murder of the son of her predecessor, Queen Ethelfleda; which is one of the horrid memories that clings round Corfe Castle. And now we leap to the beginning of the twelfth century and get on still firmer ground, when Henry I., at the height of his power, and also beginning to feel a little compunction, resolved to make reparations by founding what should be an abbey of world-wide magnificence.

He certainly succeeded. I mean with his abbey, though I am not prepared to go as far as do the chroniclers of his predecessor: —

"King Ethelbert lies here,Closed in this polyander.For building churches straight he goesTo heaven without meander."

Henry I. never did things by halves, and they could build in those days. His architect had carte blanche, and with wonderful speed there arose that glorious fabric whose ruins we weep over, and use for our flower shows. The abbey covered some thirty acres. It was surrounded with a wall, vast and strong, except where guarded by the Kennet, and four huge embattled gateways opened out to the four quarters. Almost all its stones are now gone. "It pitieth," or it ought to pity the by-passers to see some in the wall of that house in Hosier Street, some very few on the site, and oh, 18th century! many cartloads vandalised into a bridge on the road to Henley, near where the Druid's temple of despoiled Jersey adds another sorrow to the scenery. But at its dedication in 1164, in Henry II.'s time, the abbey and the abbey church must indeed have been magnificent. The latter was a cruciform building 420 x 92 feet in dimensions, without an aisle, covering the vast space between the Forbury and the gaol. Its extent is well shown, by the notices the Corporation has lately put up under the skilled guidance of those two chiefest of experts, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Berkshire Archæological Society. After the dedication ceremony, the King, and his still friendly Beckett, would doubtless adjourn to the magnificent Consistory, the great Hall, one of the largest and finest in England, destined to see so many Parliaments, and other national assemblings.

The inner gateway still remains, restored, perhaps, almost too modernly; close inspection will, however, show the old gate hinges and portcullis way; closer investigation still may even discover the dog badge of the last abbot, and a dolphin with the red rose of Lancaster on its tail, probably also belonging to the same period. Here the humble burgesses used to bow themselves before the Lord Abbot, and listen whilst he was pleased to indicate which of them might fulfil the then limited office of mayor. In front of this, as some say, the last abbot and his two accomplice monks died the awfully cruel traitor's death, having been convicted of sending supplies to the northern rebels in their so-called Pilgrimage of Grace. It has much pleasanter modern memories, being lent by the good town to the Berkshire Archæological Society, and being the scene in its fine old chamber of many interesting archæological gatherings. But I have strayed a long way from 1164. The second Henry's reign was no doubt its golden period; more memories cluster about the abbey in the twelfth century than at any other time. Here, the year before, in 1163, had occurred "the Fight on the Island," when, much to Henry's regret, de Bohun fell beneath the spear of de Montford.

"His fame, as blighted in the field,He strove to clear by spear and shield;To clear his fame in vain he strove,For wondrous are His ways above.How could the guiltless champion quail,Or how the great ordeal fail!"

"The knights met on horseback," says Norroy Seagur, "clad in armour, (on the island just below Caversham Bridge; a street running down to it has lately been called De Montford Street), Montford attacked with such resolution as to hurl Henry of Essex out of the saddle, when being stunned and faint from loss of blood, he was taken up apparently dead." King Henry handed him over to the monks of Reading Abbey, under whose care he recovered, and at once joined the fraternity. Some years after, and following on that bad Beckett business, Henry was here again, for here, in 1185, came Heraclius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Master of the Temple with him, appealing for a crusade to all Christian Kings, and especially to King Henry, who, it was considered, especially needed that moral white-washing. What a sight for the abbey! They brought with them the Standard of the Kingdom of the Holy Land, the Keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and of the Tower of David. The King reverently received them all, but handed them back to the Patriarch until he could consult with his barons. Henry was too old to go, but numbers of the young nobility took the cross, and carried it in the van against the Infidel; and not least fiery Prince Richard, the king of all knight errants. He went off immediately on coming to the throne, and performed exploits which far exceed those imagined by Ariosto. Unfortunately he needed money, and had to carry off the golden cover his father gave for the chief abbey relic, the hand of St. James; but that doubtless would soon be replaced by the offerings of the home-staying faithful.

Also in this reign, and at its close, were several royal funerals. Henry I. of course had himself buried here, as it was said in a silver coffin, which caused some very ruthless explorations at the time of the Suppression. A stone coffin found here recently had a very distinguished origin suggested for it by a high local authority. In 1154, Prince William, eldest son of Henry II., was buried here near his grandfather. Also here was buried King Henry II.'s second wife, Adeliza; and thereby hangs a very complicated and curious tale.

In 1810 some workmen digging in the abbey precincts "found a box which contained a perfectly formed fleshy hand (writes Mrs. Climenson, in her almost universal 'History of Shiplake,') holding a slender rod surmounted by a crucifix." This, she says, is now in Mr. Scott Murray's Roman Catholic Chapel at Danesfield, and is considered to be the hand of St. James the Less, which was brought from Germany by the Empress Maud, and given by her to her father, who gave it to the Abbey. "It is in perfect preservation, a plump and well-shaped hand, small, and with taper fingers, and almond-shaped nails, so small it might well be a woman's." And it probably is, and the hand of Queen Adeliza. One almost regrets it was not left in its hoped-for last resting-place. There is something gruesome in such remains, especially, perhaps, in heaped-up skulls in museums. Those lines of a modern poet on such a sight are pathetic.

"Did she live centuries, or ages back?What colour were those eyes when bright and waking?And were your ringlets fair, or brown, or black?Poor little head! that long has done with aching!"

In Stephen's days, in the interval between the Henries, the poor monks seem to have had rather an uncomfortable time of it. Stephen patronized them; he would have money, but he took it politely. When for a while his cause went down, and the Empress Queen arrived here, she was quite as exacting, and also bullied them most unmercifully. They must have been devoutly thankful when she at last went off to her continental possession; and when she came back for sepulchre would no doubt be able to receive her with greater equanimity. An English dean not long ago was accused of having "refused to bury a Dissenter." "On the contrary," he replied, "I shall feel the greatest pleasure in burying you all!"

Now we pass to the fourteenth century. Here, in 1359, Edward III. celebrated the marriage of his son John of Gaunt with Blanche, daughter of Henry Plantagenet. This was unquestionably the grandest wedding that ever happened, or could happen at Reading. The King of France, just lately taken prisoner at Poictiers, was part of the bridal party; so also a very famous Englishman, who came over here from his residence at Donnington Castle. Chaucer describes the whole thing at much length: —

"And the feste holden was in tentes,As to tell you my intent is:In a rome, a large plaine,Under a wode, in a champagne;Beside a river and a welleWhere never had abbeye ne selle;Ben, ne kerke, hous, ne village,In time of any man's age,And dured three Months the feast,In one estate, and never ceased.From early of the rising of the sun,Till the day spent was, and y-ronne;In justing, dancing, and lustiness,And all that served to gentilesse."– The Dream.

From Edward III. we will pass, though not in immediate succession to Edward IV.'s time; and I am again indebted to Mrs. Climenson for calling attention to a picture in the British Museum of Reading Abbey about 1470, where "the widow Gray" – as the Lancastrians called her – where Edward IV.'s bride, Queen Elizabeth, is represented as standing under this very inner gateway, already mentioned, so dear to the heart of every citizen of Reading. The abbot is there to meet her on her disembarkation, with all fitting reverence. In the distance are the royal barges, at the abbot's landing, on the Kennet.

After this almost a century glides by uneventfully. Like the Vicar of Wakefield, though not accompanied as he was, the abbot's adventures do not seem to have got much beyond "changing from the blue room to the green," at least from the abbey to Bere Court and back again. There were squabbles with the rising town; the aldermen began to be what would be now called "uppish," but the abbot was practically omnipotent, and sometimes, as in Abbot Thorne's time, had a heavy hand which effectually kept town councillors in their proper places. We can hardly realise now what very great men those mitred abbots must have been – practically-popes in their own districts where they wielded both the temporal and spiritual sword pretty vigorously.

The Abbot of Reading had precedence over all except Glastenbury and St. Albans. He had vast revenues at his disposal, worth nearly £20,000, it is reckoned, of our money, – a handsome income even after allowing for the lavish hospitality and almsgiving expected and rendered. He had the power of making knights, which the local name "Whiteknights," and the hospice there, shows to have been pretty freely exercised; though the fact that every priest was at one time "Dominus," or "Sir so and so," occasions a little ambiguousness as to knights in these earlier centuries.

In Reading itself, as already remarked, the abbot, within the law, was almost absolute over the lives and properties of the township growing up under the abbey shadow; his household, and all about him, was modelled on a scale of more than princely magnificence, and it is to be doubted whether any, except the very highest nobility, could show anything like such an extravagant retinue.

The very list is exhausting: marshal, master of the horse, two keepers of the pantry, three cupbearers, four janitors, five pages, eight chamberlains, twelve hostellers (whose duty was to receive strangers), twenty huntsmen, thirty-one running footmen, and last, not least, an almoner. What wonder that such magnificence contrasted but badly by the side of the self-denying Grey Friars, and that the great Benedictine abbey broke down at last under its own greatness! Its last abbot was not the worst, nor the least deserving by any means, only he fell on evil days; and, when he stood by his own order, had little idea of the terrible significance of treason in the eyes of a Tudor.

At first Abbot Hugh was favourably reported on by the commissioners. "On Sep. 16, 1539," quotes Froude, "they were at Reading; on the 22nd at Glastenbury; but the abbot there, his answer appeared cankered and traitorous; he was sent to the Tower to be examined by Cromwell himself, when it was discovered that both he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgents with money."

Reading Abbey perished; on the other hand, the Grey Friars Monastery was simply dissolved, its monks frugally pensioned, and turned out into the street; their noble church was made into a guildhall, but preserved by that at any rate, and is now restored, and is the town's noblest relic of antiquity. Of the great Benedictine abbey, on the other hand, only the almost imperishable flint core survives of its mighty buildings. It may have plundered Silchester; it was itself for long a very stone pit for the builder. Its "record" is that of Rome, "Quod non fecerunt Barbari fecerunt Barberini" – the Roman princes made a stone quarry of the Colosseum. That bridge at Park Place is an almost equal barbarism, but before this, boat loads of abbey stones had gone down the river to help to build the Hospital of the Poor Knights of Windsor.

The roof of the great Consistory went to St. Mary's Church, in Reading, thus happily preserved, and where all may still see it. The panelling went to Merton College, Oxford. In fact by the time of James the plundering was complete; only land cannot run away, and so he conferred that upon Prince Henry, the then heir apparent of the kingdom.

Since then its history has been uneventful; granted at first to the Knollys family, it became at times a royal residence; the royal stables were extensive, and horses stood where monks had knelt. This seems to be alluded to, in that singular old poem, "Cantio Cygni," when Thamesis is spoken of as arriving at Reading.

"From hence he little Chansey Seeth, and hasteneth to seeFair Reddingetown, a place of name, where clothy-woven bee,This shows our Alfred's victories, what time Begsal was slainWith other Danes, who carcases lay trampled on the plain.And here these fields y-drenched were with blood upon them shed,Where on the prince, in stable now, hath standing many a steede."

King James, as has been stated, gave the abbey to his eldest son, and it passed, in due time, into the excellently guardian hands of the Reading Corporation. Musing amid the ruins of this ancient pile, we may call to mind the lives of the men who once lived and worked and prayed on this spot, of the kings and great men who thronged the minster church and held parliaments in the precincts, and all the mighty events in history which took place in this, the chiefest and grandest monastic house in England. The memory of the glories of Reading Abbey will not soon pass away.

The First Battle of Newbury, 1643

By Edward Lamplough

The armed phase of the great rebellion was in its second year, and neither party had achieved any great advantage. If the Royalists had thought to carry all before them in a summer campaign, they had found out their mistake; and it must have been equally evident to the Parliamentarians that they had embarked upon a struggle the end of which might prove bloody and disastrous to their cause.

Charles resolved upon the capture of Gloucester. On the 10th of August, 1643, he sounded trumpets before the gates, and called upon the commandant to surrender. Colonel Massey, a soldier of fortune, was faithful to his trust, and the royal trumpeter returned to the King's camp accompanied by two deputies of "lean, pale, sharp, and dismal visages," the bearers of a written declaration that, by God's help, Gloucester should be maintained, under the King's command, as signified by both Houses of Parliament. To this defiance was attached the signatures of Governor Massey, the Mayor, thirteen aldermen, and many wealthy burghers. Enraged rather than discouraged, Charles broke ground before the walls, amid the smoking suburbs, which had been fired by the stubborn Parliamentarians, whose wives and daughters went forth to cut turfs for the renewal of the earthern ramparts, shot away by the fire of the besiegers. With attack and sally, and storm of cannon and musket bullets, the siege held for a time, then resolved into a blockade, and Charles was on the eve of winning by famine where steel and lead had failed, when the Earl of Essex bestirred himself, and came to the rescue with the trained bands of London and a body of horse. He arrived not a moment too soon, for the besieged were reduced to their last barrel of powder.

The caution of Essex might well have stimulated the besiegers to give him battle before the walls of Gloucester; he was, however, permitted to enter unopposed, and to secure the city by liberal supplies of provisions and ammunition, and by the reinforcement of the garrison. The object achieved, the return march was commenced, in the course of which Essex paid a surprise visit to Cirencester, cutting off two regiments of Royal horse, and seizing a considerable quantity of provisions which had been collected during the siege of Gloucester.

The opportunity of striking a very serious blow at the enemy now offered itself to the King, and he resolved to act. Essex's forces consisted principally of the City trained bands, held in little repute by his army, and supported by a small body of cavalry, inferior to the bold riders of Rupert in number and conduct. Essex cut off and destroyed, Charles might strike the capital, and stifle the rebellion in the nest that bred it.

So Rupert poured forth his gay cavaliers, with gleam of cuirass and rapier, to intercept Essex, and hold him at bay until Charles came up to strike; for, as usual, the Royalists knew nothing of Essex's movement until twenty-four hours after he had left Gloucester. First blood was shed at Hungerford, when Prince Rupert, seconded by the Queen's life-guards, struck Essex's rear, and found tough work with Stapylton's brigade. But night closing in, rapier and broadsword were sheathed. Here the Marquis de Vieuville, a gallant Frenchman, fell, mortally wounded, into the hands of the Parliamentarians.

The next day the two armies converged upon Newbury, but Charles won the race by two hours, and Essex lay in the open fields, alert and anxious, for a conflict on the morrow was inevitable.

Assisted by General Lord Ruthven, Charles made his disposition for the battle, holding Essex at bay, with all the advantages of a defensive position and a superior cavalry. His army held Speen Hill, with its right wing resting upon the Kennet; the left protected by a battery, and lying towards Shaw Fields. The rear was sufficiently defended by the river Lambourne and the artillery of Donnington Castle. Thus the Parliamentarians were barred from the London road by the cavaliers.

Although Charles had taken up a defensive position, sunrise of the following morning, September, 20th, 1643, set the skirmishers free, and shots rang along the front from hedge and cover, as the soldiers felt their way towards the closer, sterner business of the day. Essex's first aim was to take up a position on Speen Hill. He lead the attacking force, which consisted of his own regiment, Barclay and Balfour's horse, Stapylton's brigade, and Lord Roberts' regiment of foot. His lordship had cast aside buff and corslet, and fought in his white holland shirt. Essex, a notable swordsman, found brisk work with the cavaliers on Speen Hill, but he won and held his position, although the young Earl of Carnarvon held him long in deadly play, charging straight through his rank. Pierced, but not routed, the troops were reformed, and obstinately maintained the struggle. It proved fatal to the gallant Carnarvon, who, according to Lord Clarendon, was run through the body by a passing trooper. Sir Roger Manley, however, states that the Earl was laid low by a shot, which struck him in the head, while leading the pursuit. Essex, although successful in this movement, was separated from the infantry, who fought the real battle, and, by their stubborn valour, held the Royal army at bay.