GATEWAY JESUS COLLEGE.GATEWAY JESUS COLLEGE.
HENGRAVE HALL.HENGRAVE HALL.
ROAD LEADING TO ELY CLOSE.ROAD LEADING TO ELY CLOSE.
The river Cam below Cambridge flows through that country of reclaimed marshland which ultimately ends in the Wash, between Norfolk and Lincolnshire, and is known as the Fenland. This "Great Level of the Fens" has been drained and reclaimed by the labors of successive generations of engineers, and contains about six hundred and eighty thousand acres of the richest lands in England, being as much the product of engineering skill as Holland itself. Not many centuries ago this vast surface, covering two thousand square miles, was entirely abandoned to the waters, forming an immense estuary of the Wash, into which various rivers discharge the rainfall of Central England. In winter it was an inland sea and in summer a noxious swamp. The more elevated parts were overgrown with tall reeds that in the distance looked like fields of waving corn, and immense flocks of wild-fowl haunted them. Into this dismal swamp the rivers brought down their freshets, the waters mingling and winding by devious channels before they reached the sea. The silt with which they were laden became deposited in the basin of the Fens, and thus the river-beds were choked up, compelling the intercepted waters toforce new channels through the ooze; hence there are numerous abandoned beds of old rivers still traceable amid the level of the Fens. This region now is drained and dyked, but in earlier times it was a wilderness of shallow waters and reedy islets, with frequent "islands" of firmer and more elevated ground. These were availed of for the monasteries of the Fenland—Ely, Peterborough, Crowland, and others, all established by the Benedictines. The abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, although situated some distance from the marshland, may also be classed among the religious houses of the Fens. This abbey, which is a short distance east of Cambridge, was built in the eleventh century as the shrine of St. Edmund, King of East Anglia, who was killed by the Danes about the year 870. It soon became one of the wealthiest English monasteries, and was the chief religious centre of that section. Only ruins remain, the chief being the abbey-gate, now the property of the Marquis of Bristol, and the Norman tower and church, which have recently been restored. In the suburbs of Bury is Hengrave Hall, one of the most interesting Tudor mansions remaining in the kingdom. Originally, it was three times its present size, and was built by Sir Thomas Kytson about 1525. Its gate-houseis rich in details, and the many windows and projections of the southern front group picturesquely.
ELY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE RAILWAY-BRIDGE.ELY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE RAILWAY-BRIDGE.
Following the Cam northward from Cambridge through the marshland, we come to the Isle of Ely, the great "fortress of the Fens," and standing upon its highest ground the cathedral of Ely. Here St. Etheldreda founded a monastery in the seventh century, which ultimately became a cathedral, Ely having been given a bishop in 1109. The present buildings date all the way from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, so that they give specimens of all Gothic styles. The cathedral is five hundred and thirty-seven feet long, and from the summit of its western tower can be gained a fine view of the spreading fens and lowlands of Cambridgeshire, amid which stands the Isle of Ely. One of the finest views of this tower is that obtained from the road leading to Ely Close. Before drainage had improved the surrounding country this was one of the strongest fortresses in England, and it was also one of the last to yieldto the Norman Conquest, its reduction causing King William heavy loss. Afterwards he regarded it as among his most loyal strongholds. The lofty tower, and indeed the whole cathedral, are landmarks for the entire country round, and from the rising ground at Cambridge, fully twenty miles to the southward, can be seen standing out against the sky. From the dykes and fields and meadows that have replaced the marshes along the Cam and Ouse the huge tower can be seen looming up in stately grandeur. It is almost the sole attraction of the sleepy little country town. The great feature of this massive cathedral is the wonderful central octagon, with its dome-like roof crowned by a lofty lantern, which is said to be the only Gothic dome of its kind in existence in England or France. We are told that the original cathedral had a central tower, which for some time showed signs of instability, until on one winter's morning in 1321 it came down with an earthquake crash and severed the cathedral into four arms. In reconstructing it, to ensure security, the entire breadth of the church was taken as a base for the octagon, so that it was more than three times as large as the original square tower. Magnificent windows are inserted in the exterior faces of the octagon, and the entire cathedral has been recently restored. It was to Bishop Cox, who then presided over the see of Ely, that Queen Elizabeth, when he objected to the alienation of certain church property, wrote her famous letter:
"Proud Prelate: You know what you were before I made you what you are; if you do not immediately comply with my request, by God, I will unfrock you.""Elizabeth R."
"Proud Prelate: You know what you were before I made you what you are; if you do not immediately comply with my request, by God, I will unfrock you."
"Elizabeth R."
OLD BITS IN ELY.OLD BITS IN ELY.1. Old passage from Ely street to Cathedral Ford.2. Entrance to Prior Crawdon's Chapel.3. Old houses in High Street.
The bishop, it is almost unnecessary to say, surrendered. The town contains little of interest beyond some quaint old houses.
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
AISLE AND CHOIR, PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.AISLE AND CHOIR, PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
North-westward of Ely, and just on the border of the Fenland, Saxulf, a thane of Mercia who had acquired great wealth, founded the first and most powerful of the great Benedictine abbeys of this region in the year 655. Around this celebrated religious house has grown the town of Peterborough, now one of the chief railway-junctions in Midland England. The remains of the monastic buildings, and especially of the cathedral, are magnificent, the great feature of the latter being its western front, which was completed in the thirteenth century,and has three great open arches, making probably the finest church-portico in Europe. On the left of the cathedral is the chancel of Becket's Chapel, now a grammar-school, while on the right is the ancient gateway of the abbot's lodgings, which has become the entrance to the bishop's palace. The main part of the cathedral is Norman, though portions are Early English. It is built in the form of a cross, with a smaller transept at the western end, while the choir terminates in an apse, and a central tower rises from four supporting arches. Within the cathedral, over the doorway, is a picture of old Scarlet, Peterborough's noted sexton, who buried Catharine of Arragon and Mary Queen of Scots. The nave has an ancient wooden roof, carefully preserved and painted with various devices. The transept arches are fine specimens of Norman work. Queen Catharine lies under a slab in the aisle of St. John's Chapel, but the remains of Queen Mary were removed to Westminster Abbey by James I., to the magnificent tomb he prepared there for his mother.
Farther northward in the Fenland, and over the border in Lincolnshire, was the Benedictine abbey of "courteous Crowland," though its remains are now scanty. It derives its name from the "Land of Crows," which in this part is drained by the Welland River and the great Bedford Level. On one of the many islands of firmer soil abounding in this oozy region the monks constructed their monastery, but had little space for cultivation, and brought their food from remoter possessions. Now, Crowland is no longer an island, for the drainage has made fast land all about, and the ruins have attracted a straggling village. Here is the famous "triangular bridge," a relic of the abbey. Three streams met, and the bridge was made to accommodate the monks, who, from whatever direction they approached, had to cross one of them. The streams now are conveyed underground, but the bridge remains like a stranded monster which the tide has abandoned, and gives the children a play-place. Its steep half-arches, meeting in the centre, are climbed by rough steps. Thedissolved abbey served as a quarry for the village, and hence on this strange bridge and on all the houses fragments of worked stone and of sculpture everywhere appear. It was located at the eastern end of the village, where its ruins still stand up as a guide across the fens, seen from afar. Most of it is in complete ruin, but the north aisle of the nave has been sufficiently preserved to serve as the parish church of Crowland; round about the church and the ruins extends the village graveyard. Set up in the porch beneath the tower is a memorial for William Hill, the sexton, who died in 1792. When forty years old he was blinded by exposure during a snowfall, yet he lived for twenty-five years afterwards, able to find his way everywhere and to know every grave in the churchyard.
EAST END OF CROWLAND ABBEY.EAST END OF CROWLAND ABBEY.
In the earlier days of Christianity the solitudes in this Fenland had peculiar attractions for the hermits who fled from the world to embrace an ascetic life. Thus the islands each gradually got its hermit, and the great monasteries grew up by degrees, starting usually in the cell of some recluse. Guthlac, who lived in the seventh century, was of the royal House of Mercia, and voluntarily exiled himself in the Fens. This region was then, according to popular belief, the haunt of myriads of evil spirits, who delighted in attacking the hermits. They assaulted Guthlac in hosts, disturbed him by strange noises, once carried him far away to the icy regions of the North, and not seldom took the form ofcrows, the easier to torment him; but his steady prayers and penance ultimately put them to flight, and the existence of his cell became known to the world. Ethelbald fled to Guthlac for refuge, and the hermit predicted he would become king, which in time came to pass. Guthlac died at Crowland, and the grateful king built a stone church there. The buildings increased, their great treasure being of course the tomb of the hermit, which became a source of many miracles. The Northmen in the ninth century plundered and destroyed Crowland, but it was restored, and in Edward the Confessor's time was one of the five religious houses ruled by the powerful abbot of Peterborough. It became the shrine of Waltheof, the Earl of Northampton beheaded for opposing William the Conqueror, and Crowland was thus made a stronghold of English feeling against the Normans, like the other monasteries of the Fens. Its fame declined somewhat after the Conquest, though its hospitality was fully maintained. It had little subsequent history. The abbey was garrisoned by the Royalists, and captured by Cromwell in 1643, after which it fell into ruin. Such has been the fate of almost all the religious houses in the Fens, the merits of which the people in the olden time judged according to a local rhyme which yet survives:
"Ramsay, the bounteous of gold and of fee;Crowland, as courteous as courteous may be;Spalding the rich, and Peterborough the proud;Sawtrey, by the way, that poor abbaye,Gave more alms in one day than all they."
Proceeding eastward out of the Fenland and among the hills of Norfolk, the little river Wensum is found to have cut a broad, deep, and trench-like valley into the chalk and gravel plateau. Upon the elevated bank of the river is the irregularly picturesque town of Norwich, with the castle keep rising above the undulating mass of buildings, and the cathedral and its noble spire overtopping the lower portion of the city on the right hand. Norwich is an ancient town, but very little is known with certainty about it anterior to the Danish invasions. We are told that its original location was at the more southerly castle of Caister, whence the inhabitants migrated to the present site, for—
"Caister was a city when Norwich was none,And Norwich was built of Caister stone."
Canute held possession of Norwich and had a castle there, but the present castle seems to date from the Norman Conquest, when it was granted to Ralph de Quader, who turned traitor to the king, causing Norfolk to be besieged,captured, and greatly injured. Then the castle was granted to Roger Bigod. The town grew, and became especially prosperous from the settlement there of numerous Flemish weavers in the fourteenth century and of Walloons in Elizabeth's reign. It managed to keep pretty well out of the Civil Wars, but a local historian says, "The inhabitants have been saved from stagnation by the exceeding bitterness with which all party and local political questions are discussed and contested, and by the hearty way in which all classes throw themselves into all really patriotic movements, when their party feeling occasionally sleeps for a month or two." Norwich is pre-eminently a town of churches, into the construction of which flint enters largely, it being dressed with great skill into small roughened cubical blocks.
NORWICH CASTLE.
The great attraction of Norwich is the cathedral, which stands upon a low peninsula enclosed by a semicircular sweep of the river, much of the ground in this region having been originally a swamp. The cathedral is generally approached from its western side, where there is an open space in front of the Close called Tombland, upon which two gates open from it. These are St. Ethelbert's and the Erpingham gate. The latter, opposite the western front of the cathedral, is named for its builder, "old Sir Thomas Erpingham," whose "good white head," Shakespeare tells us, was to be seen on the field of Agincourt. The cathedral is a Norman structure, cruciform in plan, with an exceptionally long nave, an apsidal choir, and attached chapels. The earliest parts of it were begun in 1096, and when partially completed five years afterwards it was handed over to the care of the Benedictine monks. Thirty years laterthe nave was added, but the cathedral was not completed until about 1150. Twice it was seriously injured by fire, and it was not thoroughly restored for a century, when in 1278 it was again consecrated with great pomp, in the presence of Edward I. and his court, on Advent Sunday. The spire, which is one of its most conspicuous features, was added by Bishop Percy in the fourteenth century, though, having been seriously injured by lightning, it had to be replaced afterwards. At the same time the building was greatly altered, its roofs raised and vaulted, and repairs went on until 1536. Yet, with all the changes that were made in this famous cathedral, no other in England has managed to preserve its original plan so nearly undisturbed.
The great attraction of Norwich is the cathedral, which stands upon a low peninsula enclosed by a semicircular sweep of the river, much of the ground in this region having been originally a swamp. The cathedral is generally approached from its western side, where there is an open space in front of the Close called Tombland, upon which two gates open from it. These are St. Ethelbert's and the Erpingham gate. The latter, opposite the western front of the cathedral, is named for its builder, "old Sir Thomas Erpingham," whose "good white head," Shakespeare tells us, was to be seen on the field of Agincourt. The cathedral is a Norman structure, cruciform in plan, with an exceptionally long nave, an apsidal choir, and attached chapels. The earliest parts of it were begun in 1096, and when partially completed five years afterwards it was handed over to the care of the Benedictine monks. Thirty years laterthe nave was added, but the cathedral was not completed until about 1150. Twice it was seriously injured by fire, and it was not thoroughly restored for a century, when in 1278 it was again consecrated with great pomp, in the presence of Edward I. and his court, on Advent Sunday. The spire, which is one of its most conspicuous features, was added by Bishop Percy in the fourteenth century, though, having been seriously injured by lightning, it had to be replaced afterwards. At the same time the building was greatly altered, its roofs raised and vaulted, and repairs went on until 1536. Yet, with all the changes that were made in this famous cathedral, no other in England has managed to preserve its original plan so nearly undisturbed.
NORWICH CATHEDRAL.NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
NORWICH CATHEDRAL—THE CHOIR, LOOKING EAST.NORWICH CATHEDRAL—THE CHOIR, LOOKING EAST.
Entering the nave from the westward, this grand apartment is found toextend two hundred and fifty feet, and to the intersection of the transepts comprises fourteen bays, three of them being included in the choir. The triforium is almost as lofty as the nave-arches, and the solidity of these, surmounted by the grandeur of the upper arcade, gives a magnificent aspect to the nave. Above is the fine vaulted roof, the elaborately carved bosses giving a series of scenes from sacred history extending from the Creation to the Last Judgment. Small chapels were originally erected against the organ-screen, one of them being dedicated to the young St. William, a Norfolk saint who in the twelfth century was tortured and crucified by some Jews. His body, clandestinely buried in a wood, was found, miracles were wrought, and it was translated to the cathedral. The Jews of Norwich were then attacked and plundered, and these outrages were renewed a century later. But times have fortunately changed since then. The choir extends to the eastern apse, and at the back of the altar recent alterations have exposed an interesting relic in a fragment of the original bishop's throne, an elevated chair of stone placed in the middle of the apse and looking westward. On either side are apsidal chapels. Among the monuments is that to Sir William Boleyn, grandfather to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn. He lived at Blickling, about thirteen miles from Norwich, where Anne is believed to have been born. Several bishops also lie in the cathedral, and among the later tombs is that of Dr. Moore, who died in 1779, and whose periwigged head is in grotesque juxtaposition with a cherub making an ugly face and appearing to be drying his eyes with his shirt. The spire of Norwich Cathedral rises two hundred and eighty-seven feet.
NORWICH MARKET-PLACE.NORWICH MARKET-PLACE.
Norwich Castle is a massive block of masonry crowning the summit of a mound. Who first built it is unknown, but he is said by popular tradition to sit buried in his chair and full armed deep down in the centre of this mound, and "ready for all contingencies." But the castle has degenerated into a jail, and the great square tower or keep, ninety-five feet square and seventy feet high, is the only part of the original structure remaining. It has been refaced with new stone, and the interior has also been completely changed. The moat is planted with trees, and on the outside slope the cattle-market is held every Saturday. Norwich has some historical structures. In its grammar school Nelson was a scholar, and his statue stands on the green. On the edge of Tombland stands the house of Sir John Falstaff, a brave soldier and friend of literature, whose memory is greatly prized in Norfolk, but whose name has been forgotten by many in the shadow of Shakespeare's "Fat Jack." The chief centre of the town, however, is the market-place, on the slope of a hill, where modernized buildings have replaced some of the more antique structures. Here stands the ancient Guildhall, which in 1413 replaced the old Tolbooth where the market-dues were paid. Within is the sword surrendered to Nelson by Admiral Winthuysen at the battle of St. Vincent, and by him presented to the chief city of his native county of Norfolk. In the olden timethe glory of Norwich was the Duke of Norfolk's palace, but it was destroyed at the end of the seventeenth century by the then duke in a fit of anger because the mayor would not permit his troop of players to march through the town with trumpets blowing. Not a brick of it now stands, the site being covered with small houses. Norwich was formerly famous for its trade in woollens, the Dutch introducing them at the neighboring village of Worsted, whence the name. Now, the coal-mines have aided the spinning-jenny, but the worsteds are overshadowed by other Norwich manufactures. Colman's mustard-factories cover ten acres, and Barnard's ornamental iron-work from Norwich is world-renowned. Norwich also contains an enormous brewery, but in this the city is not singular, for what is a Briton without his beer?
BURGHLEY HOUSE.BURGHLEY HOUSE.
On the banks of the Welland River, a short distance above Crowland, is Stamford, in Lincolnshire, near which is located the well-known Burghley House, the home of Lord Treasurer Cecil, whose history is referred to in the notice of Hatfield House. This mansion, which is a short distance south of Stamford, is now the seat of the Marquis of Exeter, William Allayne Cecil. It is said to have furnished the text for Lord Bacon's "Essay on Building," it having been completed but a short time previously. The plans of this famous house are still preserved in London. It is a parallelogram built around an open court, with a lofty square tower projecting from the western front, andhaving octangular turrets at the angles. The northern (which is the main) front is divided into three compartments, and bears on the parapet 1587 as the date when the house was finished. Within the building a long corridor, commanding a view of the inner court, leads to a stone staircase which rises to the top of the structure and is peculiarly decorated. There is a fine chapel, and in an adjoining room was Giordano's renowned painting of "Seneca Dying in the Bath," which was eulogized in Prior's poems, he having seen it there, though it is now removed. One of the most interesting pictures in the gallery is that of Henry Cecil, the tenth Earl and the first Marquis of Exeter, his wife, and daughter. Tennyson has woven the romance of their marriage into a poem. Cecil, before coming into his title, was living in seclusion in Shropshire, and fell in love with a farmer's daughter. He married her under an assumed name, and only disclosed his true rank when, succeeding to his uncle's title and estates, he became the lord of Burghley and took her home to Burghley House. Tennyson tells how she received the disclosure:
"Thus her heart rejoices greatly, till a gateway she discernsWith armorial bearings stately, and beneath the gate she turns;Sees a mansion more majestic than all those she saw before:Many a gallant gay domestic bows before him at the door.And they speak in gentle murmur, when they answer to his call.While he treads with footstep firmer, leading on from hall to hall.And, while now she wonders blindly, nor the meaning can divine,Proudly turns he round and kindly, 'All of this is mine and thine.'Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burghley, fair and free,Not a lord in all the county is so great a lord as he.All at once the color flushes her sweet face from brow to chin:As it were with shame she blushes, and her spirit changed within.Then her countenance all over pale again as death did prove;But he clasp'd her like a lover, and he cheer'd her soul with love."
The building has many attractive apartments, including a ball-room and Queen Elizabeth's chamber, but it is doubted whether the maiden queen ever visited it, though she did stay at Burghley's house in Stamford, and here made the celebrated speech to her old minister in which she said that his head and her purse could do anything. Burghley's eldest son, Thomas, was created Earl of Exeter, and his descendants are now in possession of the house. His younger son, Robert, as previously related, was made Earl of Salisbury, and his descendants hold Hatfield House. The apartments at Burghley are filled with historical portraits. The grand staircase on the southern side of the house is finer than the other, but is not so full of character. The gardens of Burghley were planned by "Capability Brown," the same who laid out Kew.He imperiously overruled King George III. in the gardening at Kew, and when he died the king is said to have exclaimed with a sigh of relief to the under-gardener, "Brown is dead; now you and I can do what we please here." Within St. Martin's Church in Stamford is the canopied tomb of the lord treasurer, constructed of alabaster, and bearing his effigy clad in armor, with the crimson robes of the Garter; it is surrounded with the tombs of his descendants. It was into Stamford that Nicholas Nickleby rode through the snowstorm, and the coach stopped at the George Inn, which was a popular hostelrie in the days of Charles II., as it still remains.
North of Stamford, on the river Witham, is the interesting town of Grantham, containing the quaint grammar-school founded by Bishop Fox of Winchester in 1528 where Sir Isaac Newton was educated. It is recorded by tradition that his career here was not very brilliant as a scholar—a circumstance which may be told, if for nothing else, at least for the encouragement of some of the school-boys of a later generation.
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.LINCOLN CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.
"BITS" FROM LINCOLN."BITS" FROM LINCOLN.
Continuing northward down the river Witham, we come to a point where the stream has carved in a limestone-capped plateau a magnificent valley, which, changing its course to the eastward, ultimately broadens on its route to the sea into a wide tract of fenland. Here, upon a grand site overlooking the marshes and the valley, stands the city of Lincoln, with its cathedral crowning the top of the hill, while the town-buildings spread down the slope to the riverbank at Brayford Pool, from which the Witham is navigable down to Boston, near the coast, and ultimately discharges into the Wash. The Pool is crowded with vessels and bordered by warehouses, and it receives the ancient Fosse Dyke Canal, which was dug by the Romans to connect the Witham with the more inland river Trent. This was the Roman colony of Lindum, from which the present name of Lincoln is derived, and the noble cathedral crowns the highest ground, known as Steep Hill. William the Conqueror conferred upon Bishop Remigius of Fecamp the see of Dorchester, and he founded in 1075 this celebrated cathedral, which, with its three noble towers and two transepts, is one of the finest in England. Approaching it from the town, at the foot of the hill is encountered the Stonebow, a Gothic gateway of the Tudor age, which serves as the guild-hall. The centre of the western front is the oldest part of Lincoln Cathedral, and the gateway facing it, and forming the chief entrance to the Close, is the Exchequer Gate, an impressive structure built in the reign of Edward III. The cathedral arcade and the lower parts of the two westerntowers and the western doorway were built in the twelfth century. Subsequently an earthquake shattered the cathedral, and in the thirteenth century it was restored and extended by Bishop Hugh of Avelon, not being finished until 1315. The massive central tower is supported on four grand piers composed of twenty-four shafts, and here is hung the celebrated bell of Lincoln, "Great Tom," which was recast about fifty years ago, and weighs five and a half tons. The transepts have splendid rose windows, retaining the original stained glass. Lincoln's shrine was that of St. Hugh, and his choir is surmounted by remarkable vaulting, the eastern end of the church being extended into the Angel Choir, a beautiful specimen of Decorated Gothic, built in 1282 to accommodate the enormous concourse of pilgrims attracted by St.Hugh's shrine, which stood in this part of the building. In the cathedral is the tomb of Katherine Swynford, wife of John of Gaunt. Adjoining the south-eastern transept are the cloisters and chapter-house. The most ingenious piece of work of the whole structure is the "stone beam," a bridge with a nearly flat arch, extending between the two western towers over the nave, composed of twenty-two stones, each eleven inches thick, and vibrating sensibly when stepped upon. There is a grand view from the towers over the neighboring country and far away down the Witham towards the sea. The exterior of the cathedral is one of the finest specimens of architecture in the kingdom, its porches, side-chapels, decorated doorways, sculptured capitals, windows, cloisters, and towers admirably illustrating every portion of the history of English architecture. Its interior length is four hundred and eighty-two feet, the great transept two hundred and fifty feet, and the lesser transept one hundred and seventy feet. The western towers are one hundred and eighty feet high, and the central tower two hundred and sixty feet, while the width of the cathedral's noble western front is one hundred and seventy-four feet. Upon the southern side of the hill, just below it, are the stately ruins of the Bishop's Palace, of which the tower has recently been restored. Bishop Hugh's ruined Great Hall is now overgrown with ivy, but the walls can be climbed to disclose a glorious view of the cathedral.
The ancient Ermine Street of the Romans enters Lincoln through the best preserved piece of Roman masonry in England, the Newport Gate of two arches, where on either hand may be seen fragments of the old wall. Near the south-east corner of this originally walled area William the Conqueror built Lincoln Castle, with its gate facing the cathedral. The ruins are well preserved, and parts of the site are now occupied by the jail and court-house. Within this old castle King Stephen besieged the empress Maud, but though he captured it she escaped. Her partisans recaptured the place, and Stephen in the second siege was made a prisoner. It suffered many sieges in the troubled times afterwards. In the Civil War the townspeople supported the king, but being attacked they retreated to the castle and cathedral, which were stormed and taken by the Parliamentary army. Afterwards the castle was dismantled. One of the interesting remains in Lincoln is the "Jew's House," the home in the Hebrew quarter of a Jewess who was hanged for clipping coin in the reign of Edward I. But the noble cathedral is the crowning glory of this interesting old city, the massive structure, with its three surmounting towers standing on high, being visible for many miles across the country around.
NOTTINGHAM CASTLE.NOTTINGHAM CASTLE.
We will now cross over the border from Lincoln into Nottinghamshire, and, seeking the valley of the Trent, find upon the steep brow of a cliff by the river the ancient castle of Nottingham, which is now surrounded by the busy machinery of the hosiery-weavers. When it was founded no one accurately knows, but it is believed to antedate the Roman occupation of the island. Aslong ago as the tenth century there was a bridge across the Trent at Snodengahame—meaning the "dwelling among the rocks"—as it was then called, and afterwards the town suffered from the Danes. It is also suffered during the troubled reign of King Stephen. The castle was built by one of the Peverils soon after the Norman Conquest, and was frequently the abode of kings. It was here that Roger Mortimer was seized prior to being tried and hanged in London. King David of Scotland and Owen Glendower of Wales were held prisoners in Nottingham Castle, and from it Richard III. advanced to meet his fate on Bosworth Field, while Charles I. set up his standard and gathered his army at Nottingham at the opening of the Civil Wars, the blowing down of the standard by a gale on Castle Hill being taken as ominous of the unfortunate termination of the conflict. The old castle, which has fallen into ruins, subsequently passed into possession of the Duke of Newcastle, who cleared away almost the whole of the ancient structure and built a house upon the site. The city was noted for its manufactures as early as the reign of King John, and the hand-knitting of stockings was introduced in the sixteenth century. Previously to that time hosiery had been cut out of cloth, with the seams sewed up the same as outer clothing. As early as 1589 a machine for weaving was invented, but failing to reap a profit from it, the inventor, a clergyman, took it to Paris, where he afterwards died broken-hearted. Ultimately, his apprentices brought the machines back to Nottingham, improved them, and prospered. Many improvements followed. Jedediah Strutt produced the "Derby ribbed hose;" then the warp-loom was invented in the last century, and the bobbin-traverse net in 1809. The knitting-machines have been steadily improved, and now hosiery-making is carried on in extensive factories thatgive an individuality to the town. The rapidity with which stockings are reeled off the machines is astonishing. An ordinary stocking is made in four pieces, which are afterwards sewed or knitted together by another machine. Some of the looms, however, knit the legs in one piece, and may be seen working off almost endless woollen tubes, which are afterwards divided into convenient lengths. Fancy hosiery is knitted according to patterns, the setting up of which requires great skill. Vast amounts of lace are woven, and in the factories female labor preponderates. The upper town of Nottingham, clustering around the castle on the river-crag, has a picturesque aspect from the valley below. Among the features of the lower town is the market-place, a triangular area of slightly over four acres, where the market is held every Saturday, and where once a year is also held that great event of Nottingham, the Michaelmas goose fair. Here also disport themselves at election-times the rougher element, who, from their propensity to bleat when expressing disapprobation, are known as the "Nottingham lambs," and who claim to be lineal descendants from that hero of the neighboring Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood.
SOUTHWELL MINSTER AND RUINS OF THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE.SOUTHWELL MINSTER AND RUINS OF THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE.
THE NAVE, SOUTHWELL MINSTER.THE NAVE, SOUTHWELL MINSTER.
We will now go down the valley of the Trent below Nottingham, and, mounting the gentle hills that border Sherwood Forest, come to the Romanstation, Ad Pontem, of which the Venerable Bede was the historian. Here Paulinus was baptized, and it was early made the site of an episcopal see. The name was Sudwell at the Norman Conquest, and then it became Southwell, and the noted minster was one of the favorite residences of the Archbishop of York. It is a quiet, old-fashioned place, with plenty of comfortable residences, and in a large churchyard on ground sloping away from the main street, with the ruins of the archbishop's palace near by, is Southwell Minster. There are few finer examples of a Norman building remaining in England, the three towers, nave, transepts, and chapter-house forming a majestic group. An enormous western window has been inserted by later architects, rather to the detriment of the gable, and this produces a singular effect. The interior of the minster is magnificent. The Norman nave is of eight bays with semicircular arches, surmounted by a triforium of rows of arches almost equal to those below, and rising from piers with clustered side-columns. It is nearly three-fourths the height of the lower stage, and this produces a grand effect. The flat roof is modern, it and the bells having been replaced after the church was burned in the last century. The ruins of the archiepiscopal palace, erected six hundred years ago, have been availed of in one portion for a dwelling-house. Wolsey built part of it, and beneath the battlemented wall enclosing the garden there was not long ago found the skeleton of a soldier in armor, a relic of the Civil Wars. The name of the town is derived from its wells. The South Well is a short distance outside the limits in a little park. The Holy Well, which was inside the minster, is now covered up. Lady Well was just outside the church-walls, but a clergyman fell into it one dark night and was drowned, and it too has been closed. St. Catherine's Well was surmounted by a chapel, and is in repute as a cure for rheumatism. The ancient inn of the Saracen's Head in Southwell, not far from the minster on the main street, witnessed the closing scene of the Civil War. After the battle of Naseby the Scotch had reached Southwell, and Montreville, an agent of Cardinal Mazarin, came there to negotiate on behalf of King Charles in 1646. The Scotch commissioners had rooms in the archiepiscopal palace, and Montreville lodged at the Saracen's Head. After the negotiations had proceeded for some time, the king in disguise quitted Oxford in April, and after a devious journey by way of Newark appeared at Montreville's lodgings on May 6th. On the south side of the inn was an apartment divided into a dining-room and bedroom, which the king occupied, and in the afternoon, after dining with the Scotch commissioners, he placed himself in their hands, and was sent a prisoner to their head-quarters. The canny Scots before leaving stripped the lead from the roof of the palace, and it afterwards fell into ruin, so that Cromwell, who arrived subsequently, found it uninhabitable, and then occupied the king's room at the Saracen's Head, his horses being stabled in Southwell Minster. Southwell since has had an uneventful history.
Nor far away is the well-known Sherwood Forest, wherein in the olden time lived the famous forester and bandit Robin Hood. Roaming among its spreading oaks with his robber band, he was not infrequently a visitor to the bordering towns, sometimes for pleasure, but oftener for "business." Who Robin was, or exactly when he lived, no one seems to know. He is associated alike with the unsettled times of Kings John and Richard, with Henry V. and with Jack Cade, but so much mystery surrounds all reports of him that some do not hesitate to declare Robin Hood a myth. But whoever he was, his memory and exploits live in many a ballad sung along the banks of the Trent and in the towns and villages of Sherwood Forest. His abiding-place is now divided up into magnificent estates, the most famous of them being known as "The Dukeries." One of them, near Ollerton, is Thoresby Hall, the splendid home of the Earl of Manvers, a park that is ten miles in circumference. North of this is the stately seat of the Duke of Newcastle—Clumber Park—charmingly situated between Ollerton and Worksop. From the entrance-lodge a carriage-drive of over a mile through the well-wooded grounds leads up to the elegant yet homelike mansion. It is of modern construction, having been built in 1770 and received important additions since. Before that time the park was a tract of wild woodland, but the then Duke of Newcastle improved it, and constructed an extensive lake, covering ninety acres, at a cost of $35,000. It was originally intended for a shooting-box, but this was elaborately extended. In the centre of the west front is a colonnade, and between the mansion and the lake are fine gardens ornamented by a large fountain. The owner of Clumber is the lineal representative of the family of Pelham-Clinton—which first appeared prominently in the reign of Edward I.—and is Henry Pelham Alexander Pelham-Clinton, sixth Duke of Newcastle. Clumber is rich in ornaments, among them being four ancient Roman altars, but the most striking feature is the full-rigged ship which with a consort rests upon the placid bosom of the lake.
CLUMBER HALL.CLUMBER HALL.
WELBECK ABBEY.WELBECK ABBEY.
Adjoining Clumber Park is the most celebrated of "The Dukeries," Welbeck Abbey, which is one of the remarkable estates of England, a place peculiar to itself. The mansion is about four miles from Worksop, and the surrounding park contains a grand display of fine old trees, beneath which roam extensive herds of deer. Welbeck Abbey of White Canons was founded in the reign of Henry II., and dedicated to St. James. After the dissolution it was granted to Richard Whalley, and subsequently passed into possession of Sir Charles Cavendish, a son of the famous Bess of Hardwicke, whose grandson converted the abbey into an elaborate mansion, leaving little of the original religious building standing. The present house was constructed in the seventeenth century, its old riding-house being completed in 1623, and William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, who built it, was noted as the most accomplished horseman of his time. For several generations Welbeck remained in possession of the Dukes of Newcastle, until in the last century an only daughter and the heiress of the abbey married William Bentinck, the Duke of Portland, thus carrying the estate over to that family, which now possesses it. The founder of this ducal house came over from Holland as a page of honor with King William III. The present owner, who has just succeeded to the title, is the sixth Duke of Portland. The chief feature of the original Welbeck, the old riding-house, remains, but is no longer used for that purpose. It is a grand hall, one hundred and seventy-seven feet long, with a massive open-work timber roof of admirable design. The mansion is full of fine apartments, many of them elaborately decorated, but it is not from these that the estate gets its present fame. The late Duke of Portland, who was unmarried, was an eccentric man, and he developed a talent for burrowing underground that made his house one of the most remarkable in England and consumed enormous sums of money. The libraries of Welbeck, five superb rooms opening into each other, a spacious hall adjoining, one hundred and fifty-nine feet long, the stables, large gardens, hothouses, lodges, and other apartments, are all underground. They have glass roofs of magnificent design. They are approached from and connected with the rest of the mansion by subterranean passages, and, being lofty rooms, the cost of this deep digging and of the necessary drainage and other adjuncts may be imagined. The new riding house, the finest in existence, and also underground, but lighted by an arched glass roof, is three hundred and seventy-nine by one hundred and six feet, and fifty feet high. It is elaborately ornamented, and at night is lighted by nearly eight thousand gas-jets. Near it are the extensive hunting-stables, coach-houses, and that marked feature of Welbeck, the covered "gallop," one thousand and seventy-two feet long, with large "hanging rooms" at either end: these too are covered with glass, so as to get their light from the top. The whole place abounds in subterranean apartments and passages, while above ground are extensive gardens and dairies. In the gardens are the peach-wall, one thousand feet long, a similar range of pine-houses, a fruit-arcade of ornamental iron arches stretching nearly a quarter of a mile, with apple trees trained on one side and pear trees on the other, and extensive beds of flowers and plants. To construct and maintain all this curious magnificence there are workshops on agrand scale. This eccentric duke, who practically denied himself to the world, and for years devoted his time to carrying on these remarkable works at an enormous cost, employed over two thousand persons in burrowing out the bowels of the earth and making these grand yet strange apartments. When finished he alone could enjoy them, for Welbeck was for a long time a sealed book to the outer world. But the eccentric duke died, as all men must, and his successor opened Welbeck to view and to the astonishment of all who saw it. A few months ago the Prince of Wales and a noble company visited the strange yet magnificent structure, and then for the first time the amazed assemblage explored this underground palace in Sherwood Forest, and when their wonder was satisfied they turned on the myriads of gas-jets, and amid a blaze of artificial light indulged in a ball—an unwonted scene for the weird old abbey of the eccentric and solitary duke. Like the fairies and mermaids of old in their underground palaces, the prince and his friends at Welbeck right merrily
"Held their courtly revels down, down below."
Also in this neighborhood is Newstead Abbey, the ancient seat of the Byrons. It is about eleven miles from Nottingham, and was founded by the Augustinians in the time of Henry II. In 1540 it came into possession of Sir John Byron, and a century later was held for King Charles. The poet Byron's bedroom remains almost as he left it, and on the lawn is the monument to his favorite dog, "Boatswain." The abbey also contains several relics of Livingstone, the African explorer. Near it is Robin Hood's Cave, and the neighborhood is full of remains of the famous chieftain, such as his Hill and his Chair, and Fountain Dale where Robin encountered Friar Tuck.