CHAPTERIIHAUNTED GLENS AND HOUSES

Warwick, July 6, 1888.—One night, many years ago[3]a brutal murder was done, at a lonely place on the highroad between Charlecote Park and Stratford-upon-Avon. The next morning the murdered man was found lying by the roadside, his mangled head resting in a small hole. The assassins were shortly afterward discovered, and they were hanged at Warwick. From that day to this the hole wherein the dead man's head reposed remains unchanged. No matter how often it may be filled, whether by the wash of heavy rains or by stones and leaves that wayfarers may happen to cast into it as they pass, it is soon found to be again empty. No one takes care of it. No one knows whether or by whom it is guarded. Fill it at nightfall and you will find itempty in the morning. That is the local belief and affirmation. This spot is two miles and a half north of Stratford and three-quarters of a mile from the gates of Charlecote Park. I looked at this hole one bright day in June and saw that it was empty. Nature, it is thought by the poets, abhors complicity with the concealment of crime, and brands with her curse the places that are linked with the shedding of blood. Hence the strong lines in Hood's poem ofEugene Aram:

"And a mighty wind had swept the leaves,And still the corse was bare."

"And a mighty wind had swept the leaves,

And still the corse was bare."

Hampton Lucy.

There are many haunted spots in Warwickshire. The benighted peasant never lingers on Ganerslie Heath,—for there, at midnight, dismal bells have been heard to toll, from Blacklow Hill, the place where Sir Piers Gaveston, the corrupt, handsome, foreign favourite of King Edward the Second, was beheaded, by order of the grim barons whom he had insulted and opposed. The Earl of Warwick led them, whom Gaveston had called the Black Dog of Arden. This was long ago. Everybody knows the historic incident, but no one can so completely realise it as when standing on the place.The scene of the execution is marked by a cross, erected by Mr. Bertie Greathead, bearing this inscription: "In the hollow of this rock was beheaded, on the first day of July 1312, by Barons lawless as himself, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall. In life and death a memorable instance of misrule." [Hollinshed says that the execution occurred on Tuesday, June 20.] No doubt the birds were singing and the green branches of the trees were waving in the summer wind, on that fatal day, just as they are at this moment. Gaveston was a man of much personal beauty and some talent, and only twenty-nine years old. It was a melancholy sacrifice and horrible in the circumstances that attended it. No wonder that doleful thoughts and blood-curdling sounds should come to such as walk on Ganerslie Heath in the lonely hours of the night.

Another haunted place is Clopton—haunted certainly with memories if not with ghosts. In the reign of Henry the Seventh this was the manor of Sir Hugh Clopton, Lord Mayor of London, in 1492, he who built the bridge over the Avon,—across which, many a time, William Shakespeare must have ridden, on his way to Oxford and the capital. The dust of Sir Hugh rests in Stratford church and his mansion has passed through many hands. In our time, it is the residence of Sir Arthur Hodgson,[4]by whom it was purchased in July, 1873. It was my privilege to see Clopton under the guidance of its lord, and a charming and impressive old house it is,—fullof quaint objects and fraught with singular associations. They show to you there, among many interesting paintings, the portrait of a lady, with thin figure, delicate features, long light hair, and sensitive countenance, said to be that of Lady Margaret Clopton, who, in the Stuart time, drowned herself, in a dismal well, behind the mansion,—being crazed with grief at the death of her lover, killed in the Civil War. And they show to you the portrait of still another Clopton girl, Lady Charlotte, who is thought to have been accidentally buried alive,—because when it chanced that the family tomb was opened, a few days after her interment, the corse was found to be turned over in its coffin and to present indications that the wretched victim of premature burial had, in her agonized frenzy, gnawed her flesh. Her death was attributed to theplague, and it occurred on the eve of her prospective marriage.

Old Porch of Clopton.

It is the blood-stained corridor of Clopton, however, that most impresses imagination. This is at the top of the house, and access to it is gained by a winding stair of oak boards, uncarpeted, solid, simple, and consonant with the times and manners that it represents. Many years ago a squire of Clopton murdered his butler, in a little bedroom near the top of that staircase, and dragged the body along the corridor, to secrete it. A thin dark stain, seemingly a streak of blood, runs from the door of that bedroom, in the direction of the stairhead, and this is so deeply imprinted in the wood that it cannot be removed. Opening from this corridor, opposite to the room of the murder, is an angular apartment, which in the remote days of Catholic occupancy was used as an oratory.[5]In the early part of the reign of Henry the Sixth, John Carpenter obtained from the Bishop of Worcester permission to establish a chapel at Clopton. In 1885 the walls of that attic chamber were committed to the tender mercies of a paper-hanger, who presently discovered on them several inscriptions, in black letter, but who fortunately mentioned his discoveries before they were obliterated. Richard Savage, the antiquary, was called to examine them, and by him they were restored. The effect of those little patches of letters,—islesof significance in a barren sea of wall-paper,—is that of extreme singularity. Most of them are sentences from the Bible. All of them are devout. One imparts the solemn injunction: "Whether you rise yearlye or goe to bed late, Remember Christ Jesus who died for your sake." [This may be found in John Weever'sFuneral Monuments: 1631.] Clopton has a long and various history. One of the most significant facts in its record is that, for about three months, in the year 1605, it was occupied by Ambrose Rokewood, of Coldham Hall, Suffolk, a breeder of race-horses, whom Robert Catesby brought into the ghastly Gunpowder Plot, which so startled the reign of James the First. Hither came Sir Everard Digby, and Thomas and Robert Winter, and the specious Jesuit, Father Garnet, chief hatcher of the conspiracy, with his vile train of sentimental fanatics, on that pilgrimage of sanctification with which he formally prepared for an act of such hideous treachery and wholesale murder as only a religious zealot could ever have conceived. That may have been a time when the little oratory of Clopton was in active use. Things belonging to Rokewood, who was captured at Hewel Grange, and was executed on January 31, 1606, were found in that room, and were seized by the government. Mr. Fisher Tomes, resident proprietor of Clopton from 1825 to 1830, well remembered the inscriptions in the oratory, which in his time were still uncovered. Not many years since it was a bedroom; but one of Sir Arthur Hodgson's guests, who undertook to sleep in it, was, it is said, afterward heard to declare that he wished not ever again to experience the hospitality of that chamber, because the sounds thathe had heard, all around the place, throughout that night, were of a most startling description. A house containing many rooms and staircases, a house full of long corridors and winding ways, a house so large that you may get lost in it,—such is Clopton; and it stands in its own large park, removed from other buildings and bowered in trees. To sit in the great hall of that mansion, on a winter midnight, when the snow-laden wind is howling around it, and then to think of the bleak, sinister oratory, and the stealthy, gliding shapes upstairs, invisible to mortal eye, but felt, with a shuddering sense of some unseen presence watching in the dark,—this would be to have quite a sufficient experience of a haunted house. Sir Arthur Hodgson talked of the legends of Clopton with that merry twinkle of the eye which suits well with kindly incredulity. All the same, I thought of Milton'slines—

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earthUnseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."

The manor of Clopton was granted to John de Clopton by Peter de Montfort, in 1236, while Henry the Third was king, and the family of Clopton dwelt there for more than five hundred years. The Cloptons of Warwickshire and those of Suffolk are of the same family, and at Long Melford, in Suffolk, may be found many memorials of it. The famous Sir Hugh,—who built New Place in 1490, restored the Guild chapel, glazed the chancel of Stratford church, reared much of Clopton House, where he was visited by Henry the Seventh, and placed the bridge across the Avon at Stratford, where it still stands,—died in London, in1496, and was buried at St. Margaret's, Lothbury. Joyce, or Jocasa, Clopton, born in 1558, became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, and afterwards to Queen Anne, wife of James the First, and ultimately married George Carew, created Earl of Totnes and Baron of Clopton. Carew, born in 1557, was the son of a Dean of Exeter, and he became the English commander-in-chief in Ireland, in the time of Elizabeth. King James ennobled him, with the title of Baron Clopton, in 1605, and Charles the First made him Earl of Totnes, in 1625. The Earl and his Countess are buried in Stratford church, where their marble effigies, recumbent in the Clopton pew, are among the finest monuments of that hallowed place. The Countess died in 1636, leaving no children, and the Earl thereupon caused all the estates that he had acquired by marriage with her to be restored to the Clopton family. Sir John Clopton, born in 1638, married the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Edward Walker, owner of Clopton in the time of Charles the Second, and it is interesting to remember that by him was built the well-known house at Stratford, formerly called the Shoulder of Mutton,[6]but more recently designated the Swan's Nest. Mention is made of a Sir John Clopton by whom the well in which Lady Margaret drowned herself was enclosed; it is still called Lady Margaret's Well; a stone, at the back of it, is inscribed "S. J. C. 1686." Sir John died in 1692, leaving a son, Sir Hugh, who died in 1751,aged eighty. The last Clopton in the direct line was Frances, born in 1718, who married Mr. Parthenwicke, and died in 1792.

CLOPTON HOUSE

Clopton House is of much antiquity, but it has undergone many changes. The north and west sides of the present edifice were built in the time of Henry the Seventh. The building was originally surrounded with a moat.[7]A part of the original structure remains at the back,—a porchway entrance, once accessible across the moat, and an oriel window at the right of that entrance. Over the front window are displayed the arms of Clopton,—an eagle, perched upon a tun, bearing a shield; and in the gable appear the arms of Walker, with the motto, Loyauté mon honneur. Sir Edward Walker was Lord of Clopton soon after the Restoration, and by him the entrance to the house, which used to be where the dining-room now is, was transferred to its present position. It was Walker who carried to Charles the Second, in Holland, in 1649, the news of the execution of his father. A portrait of the knight, by Dobson, hangs on the staircase wall at Clopton, where he died in 1677, aged sixty-five. He was Garter-king-at-arms. His remains are buried in Stratford church, with an epitaph over them by Dugdale. Mr. Ward owned the estate about 1840, and under his direction many changes were made in the old building,—sixty workmen having been employed upon it for six months. The present drawing-room and conservatory were built by Mr. Ward,and by him the whole structure was "modernised." There are wild stories that autographs and other relics of Shakespeare once existed at Clopton, and were consumed there, in a bon-fire. A stone in the grounds marks the grave of a silver eagle, that was starved to death, through the negligence of a gamekeeper, November 25, 1795. There are twenty-six notable portraits in the main hall of Clopton, one of them being that of Oliver Cromwell's mother, and another probably that of the unfortunate and unhappy Arabella Stuart,—only child of the fifth Earl of Lennox,—who died, at the Tower of London, in 1615.

Warwickshire swarmed with conspirators while the Gunpowder Plot was in progress. The Lion Inn at Dunchurch was the chief tryst of the captains who were to lead their forces and capture the Princess Elizabeth and seize the throne and the country, after the expected explosion,—which never came. And when the game was up and Fawkes in captivity, it was through Warwickshire that the "racing and chasing" were fleetest and wildest, till the desperate scramble for life and safety went down in blood at Hewel Grange. Various houses associated with that plot are still extant in this neighbourhood, and when the scene shifts to London and to Garnet's Tyburn gallows, it is easily possible for the patient antiquarian to tread in almost every footprint of that great conspiracy.

Warwick Castle, from the Mound.

Since Irish ruffians began to toss dynamite about in public buildings it has been deemed essential to take especial precaution against the danger of explosion in such places as the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the Tower of London. Much more damage[46]than the newspapers recorded was done by the explosions that occurred some time ago in the Tower and the Palace. At present you cannot enter even into Palace Yard unless connected with the public business or authorised by an order; and if you visit the Tower without a special permit you will be restricted to a few sights and places. I was fortunately the bearer of the card of the Lord Chamberlain, on a recent prowl through the Tower, and therefore was favoured by the beef-eaters who pervade that structure. Those damp and gloomy dungeons were displayed wherein so many Jews perished miserably in the reign of Edward the First; and Little Ease was shown,—the cell in which for several months Guy Fawkes was incarcerated, during Cecil's wily investigation of the Gunpowder Plot. A part of the rear wall has been removed, affording access to the adjacent dungeon; but originally the cell did not give room for a man to lie down in it, and scarce gave room for him to stand upright. The massive door, of ribbed and iron-bound oak, still solid, though worn, would make an impressive picture. A poor, stealthy cat was crawling about in those subterranean dens of darkness and horror, and was left locked in there when we emerged. In St. Peter's, on the green,—that little cemetery so eloquently described by Macaulay,—they came, some time ago, upon the coffins of Lovat, Kilmarnock, and Balmerino, the Scotch lords who perished upon the block for their complicity with the rising for the Pretender, in 1745-47. The coffins were much decayed. The plates were removed, and these may now be viewed, in a glass case on the church wall, over against the spot where those unfortunate gentlemenwere buried.[8]One is of lead and is in the form of a large open scroll. The other two are oval in shape, large, and made of pewter. Much royal and noble dust is heaped together beneath the stones of the chancel,—Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret, Duchess of Salisbury, the Duke of Monmouth, the Earl of Northumberland, Essex, Overbury, Thomas Cromwell, and many more. The body of the infamous and execrable Jeffreys was once buried there, but it has been removed.

Warwick Castle, from the River.

St. Mary's church at Warwick has been restored since 1885, and now it is made a show place. The pilgrimmay see the Beauchamp chapel, in which are entombed Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, the founder of the church; Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in whose Latin epitaph it is stated that "his sorrowful wife, Lætitia, daughter of Francis Knolles, through a sense of conjugal love and fidelity, hath put up this monument to the best and dearest of husbands";[9]Ambrose Dudley, elder brother to Elizabeth's favourite, and known as the Good Earl [he relinquished his title and possessions to Robert]; and that Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who lives in fame as "the friend of Sir Philip Sidney." There are other notable sleepers in that chapel, but these perhaps are the most famous and considerable. One odd epitaph records of William Viner, steward to Lord Brooke, that "he was a man entirely of ancient manners, and to whom you will scarcely find an equal, particularly in point of liberality.... He was added to the number of the heavenly inhabitants maturely for himself, but prematurely for his friends, in his 70th year, on the 28th of April,A.D.1639." Another, placed for himself by Thomas Hewett during his lifetime,modestly describes him as "a most miserable sinner." Sin is always miserable when it knows itself. Still another, and this in good verse, by Gervas Clifton, gives a tender tribute to Lætitia, "the excellent and pious Lady Lettice," Countess of Leicester, who died on Christmas morning, 1634:

"She that in her younger yearsMatched with two great English peers;She that did supply the warsWith thunder, and the Court with stars;She that in her youth had beenDarling to the maiden Queene,Till she was content to quitHer favour for her favourite....While she lived she livéd thus,Till that God, displeased with us,Suffered her at last to fall,Not from Him but from us all."

"She that in her younger years

Matched with two great English peers;

She that did supply the wars

With thunder, and the Court with stars;

She that in her youth had been

Darling to the maiden Queene,

Till she was content to quit

Her favour for her favourite....

While she lived she livéd thus,

Till that God, displeased with us,

Suffered her at last to fall,

Not from Him but from us all."

Leicester's Hospital.

A noble bust of that fine thinker and exquisite poet Walter Savage Landor has been placed on the west wall of St. Mary's church. He was a native of Warwick and he is fitly commemorated in that place. The bust is of alabaster and is set in an alabaster arch with carved environment, and with the family arms displayed above. The head of Landor shows great intellectual power, rugged yet gentle. Coming suddenly upon the bust, in this church, the pilgrim is forcibly and pleasantly reminded of the attribute of sweet and gentle reverence in the English character, which so invariably expresses itself, all over this land, in honourable memorials to the honourable dead. No rambler in Warwick omits to explore Leicester's hospital, or to see as much as he can of the Castle. That glorious old place has long been[51]kept closed, for fear of the dynamite fiend; but now it is once more accessible. I walked again beneath the stately cedars[10]and along the bloom-bordered avenues where once Joseph Addison used to wander and meditate, and traversed again those opulent state apartments wherein so many royal, noble, and beautiful faces look forth from the radiant canvas of Holbein and Vandyke. There is a wonderful picture, in one of those rooms, of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, when a young man,—a face prophetic of stormy life, baleful struggles, and a hard and miserable fate. You may see the helmet that was worn by Oliver Cromwell, and also a striking death-mask of his face; and some of the finest portraits of Charles the First that exist in this kingdom are shown at Warwick Castle.

From the Warwick Shield.

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