Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley

Front matter

ANNALS of WINCHCOMBE AND SUDELEY. EV EMMA DENT. gsm^s-s^F sM,si>m@ FAIR Flag — on Sudeley "s tower unrolled, England's broad Banner here did wave, And one sad Queen within these walls. Whereon thy shadow idly falls. Found quiet resting-place and grave. And many a Banner floated free, In days when Chandos held his stati Within the ancient Castle-gate, While icy storms are hurtling by We hail across the cold grey sky The gleaming of thy bright red fold And woke the courts with revelry. Then proudly float, fair Flag, once more From towers that, strong and stately still. Rise up and overlook the hill And let thy presence speak to all Of welcome warm, and hearts as tn As in the olden summers drew And vale as in the days of yon The rich and poor to Sudeley's hall. FRANCIS R. TRAILL. LONDON : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1877.

PREFATORY. -— --■s^ti'S-**- TO MY HUSBAND. IT is said that all history, both ancient and modern, is a mosaic made up of fragments of single authorities. If this is true of standard works of history, how doubly so of my humble effort in the following pages, wherein I have en deavoured to bind into something like one harmonious whole, the interesting facts which cluster so thickly round Winchcombe, once the Capital of Mercia, and the thousand historic associations with which Sudeley Castle, our beautiful home, abounds. Few residences can boast a greater antiquity, or have witnessed more striking changes. A mansum, or manor-house, before the Conquest, a baronial castle in the time of Stephen, then alternately going to decay, or rising into additional magnificence, with stately towers to overlook the vale — again suffering from neglect, and once more right royally restored and beautified to receive the widowed Queen as Seymour's Bride, with all her lordly retinue.

Passing to the noble Chandos, thrice in his time were Sudeley's gates thrown open wide, to receive the " Great Gloriana," for whose royal entertainment were prepared tournament, joust, and pageantry, with all the quaint revelry of the period. Another change of scene presents to us Sudeley's pride laid low by the cruel hand of rebellion. True to his king did the last Chandos of PREFATORY. IV Sudeley fight, and spend his might in that most righteous cause. He it was, who at the battle of Newbury, had no less than three horses killed under him ; he it was, who called forth Charles's burst of honest commendation, when urged by the surrounding courtiers to check his impetuous bravery — " Let Chandos alone ! his errors are safe." But when the excitement of the war was over, the noise of the cannon hushed, and the winds of heaven had dispersed the smoke from the last burning embers, Sudeley Castle was a ruin ! her noble owner too impoverished to realise his dream of restoring her stately pile !

Chapter I

" As free as Nature first made Man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble Savage ran." Dryden. DEEP in a beautiful vale near the northern base of the lofty Cotswold range stands the small stone-built town of Winchcombe, now a " decayed borough," but once the abode of royalty, and more lately the seat of a mitred abbot. The hand of time has passed roughly over it, and centuries have rolled on since the plumed warrior and the cowled monk were to be found within its walls, since the convent bell ceased to sound, or the hills to re-echo the bugle note or the falcon's cry, but the attentive observer can yet discover many traces of its former importance in and around it. The object of the following pages will be to bring before the reader, incidents referring to the locality, and so much of general history as may be needed to make that of Winchcombe and Sudeley more interesting and clear.

The year 787 appears to be the first date that can be certainly connected with the history of Winchcombe ; or Wincelcumbe, as it is spelt in Domesday. At that time a nunnery was built in it by King Offa of Mercia, afterwards the founder of St. Albans Abbey. Not withstanding its present unpretending appearance, Winchcombe, according to " The Golden Legend," a work of the thirteenth century, which will hereafter be more fully quoted, was at that period "the chief B ANNALS OF WINCHCOMBE AND SUDELEY. [chap. I. 2 city of all the counties then comprised in Mercia." Although prior to the founding of the nunnery the name of Winchcombe is seldom or never met with, from its proximity to Gloucester, Cirencester, Evesham, and Oxford, it no doubt shared in many of the most stirring events of the early days, even as in later times it bore marks of the ravages made by the civil wars of Stephen's reign, and again a few centuries later of those of King Charles I. The ancient history of Winchcombe naturally brings forward that of Sudeley, its near neighbour, and then like our little river Isborne joining the Winchcombe stream and flowing on together till both are lost in " classic Avon," so, henceforth, our two histories, in happy combination, flow on together till, as a tiny tributary trickling down from the Cotswold Hills, they are merged in the broader stream of the national annals.

Before, however, entering on the authenticated incidents recorded of the eighth century, it will be interesting to trace back, briefly, (so far as is practicable through so long a vista of remote ages) some of the facts presented to us by the discoveries of ancient British and Roman remains which we have had the good fortune to witness in Sudeley during the last few years. Sir Francis Palgrave writes, that, according to an ancient tradition, which, although not possessing scriptural authority, is grounded upon Scripture, the Cymri, as they are still called in their own language, are descended from Gomer, the common ancestor of all the Celtic tribes, Britain having fallen to their lot when the " isles of the Gentiles " were divided among the children of Japheth, " every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations," (Gen. x. 5.)

If this was so, it may be supposed that they brought with them the history of our common origin, and from which might have sprung the tradition of the first inhabitants of Britain having emanated from the soil. The popular idea of our British ancestors is ordinarily taken from the account which Cæsar gives of them in his Gallic War, but this is inaccurate, as might be expected from his small opportunities of observation. It is briefly as follows: — He allows that they were brave, and made a stubborn resistance to his arms. They fought, he says, from chariots with scythes fixed to the axle-trees of the wheels, which CHAP. I.] THE DRUIDS. 3 mowed down their enemies, while, with marvellous dexterity, they leaped to and from the ground, urging their horses on to surpassing speed down steep hills or on the edge of precipices.

Their habitations were huts ; their clothing skins of wild beasts ; they tattooed their bodies, painting them blue and green. They had no fortifications,""" and their towns or villages consisted of clusters of huts defended often only by their position on steep hills, or in almost impenetrable forests, and the brave spirits of their indwellers. It was only the tribes of the interior who were in this state, for the coasts were inhabited by settlers from Gaul, who are described by Strabo as civilized in their habits ; and the gold coins of Tasciovanus and other British rulers, certainly not later than the commencement of the Christian era, have come down to us. Comparatively speaking, little is known of the religion of the ancient Britons, owing to their priests, the Druids, making it a rule not to commit to writing any of their creed or ceremonies, trusting instead to oral tradition.

When the Druids were crushed by the Romans, most of these traditions perished, but some have been preserved in the Triads of the Cymri, so called from " each triad containing three facts, precepts, or definitions." It is supposed that the Druids were of Celtic origin, and they possessed in this country the greatest possible spiritual and temporal influence over the people ; administering laws, and exercising the power of excommunication, by which they cut off offenders from their friends and families, as well as from participation in the sacrifices. In their religious ceremonies they made use of the mistletoe when found growing on the oak ; f and Augustine, even in the sixth century, is said to have found the Britons worshipping Æsculapius under the name of Heale ; the mistletoe was called " All Heale " (hence our word healthy, and " the healing art").

The Druids were allowed many privileges, such as being excused * This is a mistake ; our best informed antiquaries now ascribe a pre-Roman date to the mighty earth works of Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, and the same is probably true of the camps on the Cheviot Hills. ■f* A few years ago we saw mistletoe growing on an oak in Eastnor Park, and which, from its rarity, attracted much attention. B [chap. I. 4 ANNALS OF WINCHCOMBE AND SUDELEY. from war and exempt from taxes. Apart from the human sacrifices which marked their great ceremonies, and which are thought by some modern authors to have been much exaggerated, there was much in their teaching worthy of admiration. Their three principal subjects of instruction were, " Piety towards the gods ; " " Charity towards men;" "Fortitude in death;" precepts worthy of an apostle, and justifying the remark of Deutsch on the Talmud, that many things taught by those inspired teachers were old truths gathered up from ancient writings, and oral sayings then familiar to the people.

Of the British funeral rites and sepulchral mounds much has been written, and many contending opinions formed. The one now generally received is, that the various mounds which contain their burial places, represent by the remains found in them three different periods ; viz., ist, the Stone age, stretching far back into prehistoric times, before metals were known or used, and when implements were made only of bone, flint, or stone ; the 2nd, the Bronze, when their implements were of that metal or of gold ; and the 3rd, the Iron. There seems no doubt that our British forefathers were worshippers of Baal, or sire ; Baal, Bel, or Belus, all signifying the same. Many places in England point to this fact by names associated with the god of fire, and one occurs in our immediate neighbourhood. Belas Knap tump, tumulus, tomb, or barrow (all signifying a " little hill "), is an interesting example of this, and of what may be called the stone age.

This barrow, otherwise called Hamley Hough, lies just beyond the boundary of our Humblebee Wood, in the parish of Charlton Abbots, and carries with its name ideas of solar superstition ; * in Belas we recognise Bel or Baal, and in Hamley we have " a place of Ham, solar heat, the sun." Belas Knap barrow was opened in 1S63. It presented all the interesting features of the long tumuli of the Britons ; the cromlech to the north, and sepulchral chambers at the east and west ; also a single sepulture, in a grave constructed of rough stones, at the south, possibly a later interment. The walls leading to the entrance of the barrow * Lysons' "Our British Ancestors." Beller's Nap, Barrow. Cell, — Northern Side, and Western Entrance CHAP. I.] BELAS KNAP BARROW. 5 were constructed of stones unhewn and unchiselled ; the stones of the entrance also were without any mark of instrument upon them.

It seems as if the sacredness of the spot was esteemed to be enhanced by this absence of workmanship with metal, as in Scripture times: "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me .... and if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone : for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." Exod. xx. 24, 25. Flint implements were found in the barrow ; the one represented in the opposite Plate in all probability was the sacrificial knife ; and from its calcined condition most probably was thrown into the fire with the sacrifice. Flint knives are frequently mentioned in Scripture ; the priests of Baal cut themselves with flints ; they shaved themselves with them as a sign of mourning ; and both in the true and the false religions of primitive times such implements were constantly used in their religious or superstitious ceremonies.

Unfortunately no trouble was bestowed on the preservation of this barrow ; consequently the principal cromlech on the N. side was broken and the sepulchral chambers destroyed ; but a valuable collection of skulls gathered there from is preserved in the College Museum at Cheltenham, of which a very interesting description is given in " The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, April 19, 1866," where the progress of the excavations is described, from a report by L. Winterbotham, Esq. ; but we must content ourselves with a slight notice of the results. Beginning with A in the ground plan, on a large flat stone nearly eight feet square and two feet thick, was discovered a massive lower jaw, and under the stones, the bones of five children from one to seven years of age. There were no remains of an adult, but one remarkable male skull, which might pass for a well-developed modern head.

In cell B were found human bones, with the bones and tusks of boars, a bone scoop, some pieces of rough sun-dried pottery, and a few flints. C represents an area of about five feet, originally roofed in with large slabs of stones, but which had given way and fallen upon twelve skeletons placed round in a sitting position on flat stones — these were partially pressed into the ground from the weight above them. In the nostrils of the skulls were parts of the fingers, as if, in the sitting ANNALS OF WINCHCOMBE AND SUDELEY. [chap. I. 6 posture, the fingers had so been placed as to keep the head erect. D contained fourteen human skeletons, with no other remains but the bones of mice, found chiefly in the skulls. E contained part of a human skull and bones of a wild boar, both bearing marks of cremation.

F was a broken circle of stones, seven feet in diameter, but with no remains. The soil around was deeply impregnated with wood ashes, Ground-plan, Belas Knap. and here was found the calcined knife. In all, thirty-eight skeletons were found. Among the skulls, the most remarkable is the one here delineated, showing how the upper incisors were broken off, or ground down even with the gums. Other lower jaws exhibited the same peculiarity. It remains for future archæologists to ascertain whether this was but a fashion, or a badge of distinction among the men who tenanted our hills in those far-off prehistoric times. In " Crania Britannica," by Davis and Thurnam, these skulls are tabulated and described, as they are considered to form a valuable and complete collection of very interesting ethnological specimens.

Many of the arrow heads and flint implements in the Sudeley Collection were found in the immediate vicinity of this barrow. Geologists tell us the stone age takes us back thousands, perhaps millions, of years, when the configuration of the globe differed from what it is now ; when mankind dwelt on the earth with animals long chap, i.] PREHISTORLC TIMES. 7 ago extinct, Avith the mammoth and the woolly-haired rhinoceros, and innumerable others. The study of those remote periods has become a science ; and the earnest searchers after truth, doubtless having found " some foot-prints on the sands of time," will gradually so track them back, that fields of knoAvledge will yet be discovered of which we of to-day have no idea, and when possibly even the connection between Skull found in Belas Knap Barrow. history and geology will be made clear.

It is easy to imagine that the philosophers of future ages may smile at ours of to-day, even as we smile at those of early times, when it was believed that fossils were serpents and such like turned to stone by saints — at least such was the teaching of the monks ; and Fuller, some centuries later, is almost as extravagant. He says,* " Who knows not, but at Alderly, in Glouces tershire, there are found stones resembling cockles or periwinkles in a place far from the sea, which are esteemed by the learned the gamesome work of nature, some time pleased to disport itself and pose us by propounding such riddles to us." But to return to comparatively modern times. The worship of Bel " Church History of Britain." ANNALS OF WINCHCOMBE AND SUDELEY. [chap. I. originated with the Assyrians, to whom the Phœnicians owed their origin ; and as the Phœnicians came here at a very remote period trading for tin, it is not difficult to see the connecting link between the introduction of their faith into this Island, and the origin of the name Belas Knap.

This barrow very greatly corresponds with the description given by Sir John Lubbock * of the tumuli of Northern Europe, as consisting of large mounds, with a passage formed by blocks of stone leading into a central chamber in which sit the dead, exactly like the arrangements of the hut in which the Esquimaux of the present day pass the winter. Professor Nilsson concludes from this, that the graves were built after the pattern of the dwelling-houses, or that in some cases the very house in which the dead man had lived was converted into his grave. He says that some of the ancient tribes of the North, unable to imagine a suture altogether different from the present, showed their respect and affection for the dead by burying with them those things which in life they had valued most ; with ladies their ornaments, with warriors their weapons.

When a great man died, he was placed on his favourite seat, food and drink were arranged before him, his weapons were arranged at his side, and the house was closed and the door covered up, sometimes, however, to be opened again when his wife or children joined him in the land of spirits. Though more rare in England than in Scandinavia, our tumulus by Humblebee Wood must have been of this kind. Some antiquaries have gone so far as to suppose that the contents of these barrows indicate " a belief in a future state, and of some doctrine of probation and of final retribution," but to this Sir John Lubbock, in the lecture before quoted, does not assent. Yet as we turn from contemplating these bones so recently brought forth from the long-forgotten and unnoticed barrow, what a mysterious and sacred atmosphere seems to veil their history from our eyes !

" That mighty heap of gathered ground ! " Who can tell what love and devotion may not have worked to raise that mound ; what grand religious rites and ceremonies may not have accompanied its comple- * "Antiquity of Man." i. Sacrificial Knife, found by J. C. Dent, 2. Spindle-whorl, found by Mr. Stake on 3. Sling-stone, Sudeley. Esq. the Lodge Farm, Sudeley. 4. Plummet, or Net-sinker, Sudeley. 5- Flint Implements, Sudeley. 6. Bronze Celts, Cleeve Hill. ****/**■ Stone, Flint, and Bronze Implements. ( js £ 7£\W CHAP. I.] THE STONE AND THE BRONZE AGE. 9 tion ; how may not the workmen have thought their work would last to all eternity, and the names of those so reverently placed within could never be forgotten ! fy " The mound is now a lone and nameless Barrow, Dust long outlasts the storied stone ; But thou — thy very dust is gone !

" Some writers are of opinion that the stone and the bronze age were identical, the stone being used by the poor, the bronze by the rich ; but this is probably only partially true, for the barrows where we find stone implements are usually of more stately dimensions than those that furnish bronze.* Flint, on account of its hardness, and of the peculiar facility with which the flint flakes could be formed by a blow, was well adapted to the wants of savage life. It was formerly thought that the Romans introduced the bronze implements into this country, copying in metal what they already found in common use ; but this has given way to the opinion that they are of far greater antiquity. The bronze celts here engraved were found by some workmen in 1856 between Winchcombe and Prestbury, on Cleeve Hill, and were brought to us soon after we came to Sudeley.

About the same time a lump of copper was found by a workman in one of our Sudeley quarries. This metal being quite foreign to the oolitic stone of the district, its presence can be only attributed to those same far-off times when the bronze celts were moulded by the inhabitants of these hills, and the metal, in a liquid state, must have percolated through the soil into the quarry. Another antiquity, which seems to belong to those times, is the stone represented over leaf, and which was found a little below the surface of the soil at Child's Wickham, near Evesham, and kindly presented by the rector, Mr. Hartley. No antiquary has yet been able to throw any light on its singular form, and twelve small cavities. Sir James Simpson wrote a work upon stones of a similar character in Scotland, and from his description we might suppose this to be one of them.

Some of these have channels communicating between the cavities ; * See AVorsaae's "Primæval Antiquities." c i. they are supposed to have been receptacles for rain and dew, the purest of all fluids, and therefore deemed fit for the religious service of the Druids in their ablutions and purifications ; or, as in this instance, where there are no lips or channels, for the dew to be mixed with the expressed juice of the mistletoe. Stone found at Child's Wickham.

Chapter II

" I doe love these ancient mines ! We never tread upon them, but we set our feet Upon some reverend historic" HAVING thus briefly touched upon our British antiquities, we may pass on to that portion of our national history, which explains how it is we have so many Roman remains on the Sudeley property. Julius Cæsar invaded Britain in the year 55 b.c, but achieved no permanent conquest. The Britons, when pressed by the Roman power, occasionally made some slight acknowledgment, but it was not until the reign of Claudius (a.d. 43) that the subjugation of our island was begun in reality. Aulus Plautius and Vespasian (who afterwards became emperor) having gained a footing in it, invited the emperor to come over, which he did, and though he remained only sixteen days, he decreed himself a triumph at Rome, as the conqueror of Britain.

After his departure they pursued their conquest until they crossed a great river in the western part of the country, which Horsley supposes to have been the Severn. Ostorius Scapula warred with the Silures beyond the Severn, but though he captured their king, Caractacus, he was at last unsuccessful, and died. For some years the more remote British tribes maintained themselves against the Romans, but in the year 61 Suetonius subdued Mona (now Anglesey), and extinguished the Druidic worship in blood. He was, however, recalled by a rising of the Iceni, a people in the east of Britain, who, headed by their queen Boadicea, strove nobly to throw off the Roman yoke. They were subdued, and Boadicea perished, but the sad tale does not belong to my history. At last, in the year yS, Julius Agricola was appointed c 1 to the command in Britain, and to him the establishment of the Imperial rule is due.

He not only conquered the natives in battle, but reconciled them to the loss of their independence by the introduc tion of Roman arts and luxury. " All this was by the simple people looked on as a benefit, when it was really part of their bondage," Tacitus tells us. As soon as the Romans had secured a footing in the country, one of their great works was the formation of military roads, which often followed the lines of older British ones, for the purpose of conveying their troops and baggage ; and, among others, a chain of fortresses was built along the line of the brow of the Cotswold Hills, overlooking the vale of the Severn. Of the four great Roman ways or streets (so called from strata, a road), it is the Foss which traverses the Sudeley estate. Passing from Bath through Cirencester, it is readily traced in many places — very distinctly from " the Dead Man's Gate," by the road leading past the Farmcote cottages, and taking a sudden and very picturesque turn, where it is so narrow that a cart can hardly pass ; then for half a mile all trace being lost, it appears again in a grand road of sixty feet in breadth stretching away over the hills.

The tradition has always been that this part of the road was British, but repaired and used by the Romans. These roads were placed under the special care of Mercury ; to his honour were erected pillars on which were cut figures signifying the number of miles, and from this we derive our custom of placing mile-stones on our turnpike roads.* Although the occupation of the island may be said to have been purely military, a partially Romanized population gradually grew up in the southern and western districts, with whom mixed and intermarried the veteran legionaries, who received land instead of pensions. Cities thus sprung up, in many cases on the site of British towns, adorned with the foreign luxuries of baths, hypocausts, frescoed walls and paintings, tesselated pavements, temples, and penates or household gods, specimens of which we find in our museums.

Gloucester and Ciren cester, under the names of Glevum and Corinium, were Roman cities, * Rudder's " Gloucestershire." Roman Pavement, Found on the Wadfield Farm. From a Drawing by G. Makgill, Esq. CHAP. II.] ROMAN VILLA. 13 and indeed all this part of the country was classed under the second of the four great provinces into which Britain was divided, viz., Britannia Secunda, and which, beside Gloucestershire, included Wales, Hereford shire, Monmouthshire, with parts of Shropshire and Worcestershire. Sudeley estate is rich in Roman remains, which probably arose from its proximity to Cirencester, Gloucester, and the Foss-road Not far from the great high-roads were generally placed their military posts, such as we suppose ours to have been above Longbarrow bank over looking this vale. Again, not far from these encampments were generally situated villas and dwellings of various descriptions, such as the villa we discovered on the Wadfield farm in 1S63.

Ground-plan of Roman Villa. As usual, this was brought to light through the instrumentality of the plough, which struck against a stone ; upon the removal of this and other stones which were then found, a Roman villa was discovered beneath the surface of the soil, in a perfect state of preservation. It ANNALS OF WINCHCOMBE AND SUDELEY. [chap. ii. 14 was of the usual form, and, in addition to the reception rooms, with hypocaust or bath. The average dimensions of the rooms were about fifteen feet square, and they apparently must have been occupied by some individual holding a high military appointment. The tesselated pavement was as perfect as if just completed by the workmen ; but its speedy removal was found to be absolutely necessary in order to preserve it from the Winchcombe public, who in the space of one Sunday afternoon carried off a large portion in small pieces, as souvenirs.

Thanks to the energy and ability of Mr. Fred. Simmons, bailiff", this valuable memento of Roman times was soon safely lodged in the green-house of Sudeley Castle : where may it long be preserved as reverently as it is by its present owners ! After the subjugation of Caractacus, this part of the country ceases to afford material for history, but we may fairly imagine that it was both peaceful and prosperous, from the remains of luxurious Roman dwellings that everywhere abound. In the north it was otherwise, as is plainly testified by the visits of the Emperors Hadrian and Severus, and the Walls which they raised to keep out the Scots and Picts, but which at last failed to do so. By degrees the incursions of these tribes became very formidable, and still more so when their forces were joined by the Saxons in the fourth century.

The jealous policy of the Romans had disarmed the Britons, and the people afterwards known as the Saxons had little difficulty in establishing themselves on the coast from Northumberland to Thanet. Mutinies occurred among the troops, the Picts burst through the Wall, and at last, in the year 410, the Roman emperor formally released the Britons from their allegiance, and withdrew every soldier for the defence of the empire, which was now assailed on all sides by the barbarians. Some Roman settlers remained behind, but in the year 418 they also departed. Then, says the Saxon Chronicle, " the Romans collected all the hoards of gold that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth, so that no man afterwards might find them, and some they carried away with them into Gaul." For 1400 years these treasures have remained hidden in the earth, in our neighbourhood at least, for arable land was till recently little Glass Pendant, Saxon Iron Spear, AND Bronze Fibula.