The Thames and its tributaries : or, Rambles among the rivers

Chapter I

Ruins of Godstow Nunnery. — The Legends of Fair Rosamond. — The Monks of Ensham. — Woodstock Park and its Memories. — Rosamond's Bower. — Chaucer's House. — His Description of Woodstock Park. — Queen Elizabeth's Verses while a Prisoner. — The Ghosts of Woodstock. — Blenheim. ..... Page 1

Chapter II

Stanton Harcourt. — English and French Epitaphs. — The River Windrush. — The Splendid Shilling. — A Poet's Whim. — Battle of Radcot Bridge. . . CONTENTS.

Chapter III

The Return to London. — The Shipping. — Gower the Poet. — Grave of Massinger. — Origin of Billingsgate. — GeofFry Chaucer and the Custom House. — The Prisoners of the Tower of London. — St. Katherine's Hospital and Docks. — The Lord Mayor and the Lion. — The London Docks. — The Poetry of Commerce. — The Thames Tunnel. — Wapping and Rotherhithe. — The Commercial Dock. — The Isle of Dogs. .... Page 46

Chapter IV

Deptford. — The Victualling Office. — The Dock -yard. — John Evelyn and Peter the Great. — Peter and the Quakers. — The river Ravensbourne. — ■ Tradition of Julius Cæsar. — Early History of Greenwich and its Palace of Placentia. — Coronation of Anne Boleyn. — Festivities at Greenwich during the Reign of Elizabeth. — Flattery of the Poets. . . ... 76

Chapter V

Visits of Sully to King James I. at Greenwich Demo lition of the Palace of Placentia. — Building of a New Palace. — Origin, and completion of the Hospital The Funeral of Nelson. — The View from the Hill. — The Le gend of St. Alphege. — The humours of Greenwich Fair. CONTENTS. V

Chapter VI

White Bait Dinners at Blackwall. — Assault on London by Falconbridge. — The East India Docks. — The River Lea. — Reminiscences of Isaac Walton. — Poetics of Hoddes don. — Want's Inn at Broxbourne. — Theobalds. — A Good Appetite ; a Story of Henry VIII. and the Abbot of Wal tham Epping Forest. — The Bell at Edmonton. — The Tournament of Tottenham. — True Philosophy at Tottenham Cross. — Stratford-le-Bow and Bromley. . Page 133

Chapter VII

Shooter's Hill ; its Robberies and Murders. — Henry VIII. and his May Games. — Charlton — Horn Fair — King John and the Miller's Wife. — Woolwich. — The Dock yard. — Wonders of the Royal Arsenal. . . 165 165

Chapter VIII

The Devil's House. — The River Roding. — Barking. — Green Street House. — The Gunpowder Plot. — Rainham and Hornchurch. — Edward the Confessor and the Nightin gales of Havering atte Bower. — Dagenham Breach. — Erith. Purfleet. — The National Powder Magazine. — The River Darent. — Holmsdale. — Thomas a Becket. — The VI CONTENTS. Nightingales of Otford. — The Ford of Darent. — Dart ford. —John Tyler and Wat Tyler. — The Martyr's Ashes. —The River Cray. . . • Page 185

Chapter IX

Stone Castle. — Greenhithe. — The Men of Kent at Swans combe. — Gray's Thurrock. — Northfleet and Southfleet. — Gravesend. — Falstaff on Gad's Hill. — Elizabeth at Tilbury Fort. — The Hundred of Hoo. — Higham Ferry. — Cowling Castle. — Execution of Sir John Oldcastle. — Hadleigh and Leigh. — Southend. — The Isle of Grain The Ocean. — Conclusion of the Thames. . . . 212

Chapter X

Spenser's Bridal of the Thames and Medway. — The Mutiny at the Nore. — Sheerness and Queenborough. — The Legend of our Lady of Gillingham. . . 251

Chapter XI

Chatham. — Rochester and Stroud. — Rochester Bridge and Castle. — Aylesford. — Birth-place of Sir Charles Sedley, — Hengist and Horsa. — Remarkable Cromlechs. — Kit's Cotty House. — The Rood of Grace, and Tricks of the Monks of Boxley. — Penenden Heath. . . CONTENTS.

Chapter XII

Allington Castle. — Reminiscences of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet, and his Son. — Maidstone Tunbridge. — Pens hurst, the seat of the Sidneys. — Hever Castle. — Eden Bridge. — Conclusion. . . . Page ILLUSTRATIONS. Engraved Title-page (The Nore) to precede the general Title. Woodstock Palace . . • . Page 16 Blenheim ...... 20 Source of the Thames ... 45 New London Bridge .... 48 The Custom House .... 53 The Tower ..... 57 Greenwich Hospital from the River . . 89 Greenwich from the Park . . . . 120 The Rye House . . . . 142 Waltham Cross ..... 155 Woolwich . . . . . 176 Gravesend . . . . . .221 Gad's Hill ..... 229 Tilbury Fort ..... 232 Sheerness ..... 253 Chatham . . . . . .286 Rochester Castle and Bridge . . . 293 Remains of Allington Castle . . . 319 Maidstone ..... 335 Ruins of Tonbridge Castle . . .340 Penshurst ..... THE THAMES AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

Chapter I

Ruins of Godstow Nunnery. — The Legends of Fair Rosamond. — The Monks of Ensham. — Woodstock Park and its Memories. — Rosamond's Bower. — Chaucer's House. — His Description of Woodstock Park. — Queen Elizabeth's Verses while a Prisoner. — The Ghosts of Woodstock. — Blenheir*. ASSING from Oxford into Berkshire, and on through Botley, we follow the windings of the Thames for about two miles, by the by-road, till we arrive at Witham, the seat of the Earl of Abing don, and so on to the ancient site of Godstow Nunnery, famous for its legendary and poetic associations. Who has not heard the touching story of " Fair Rosamond ?" a story upon which VOL. II. B GODSTOW NUNNERY. historians in later years have attempted to throw discredit, but which will ever hold its place in the popular heart. And here we are upon the scene of it.

Here on this bank the " Rose of the "World" passed the innocent years of her early girlhood; and here she was buried, with that insulting epitaph so well known — Hie jacet in tumba, Rosa Mundi, non Rosamunda ; Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet; inscribed however in later years, when her royal lover, so faithful to her memory, was no more. How sweet are the lines of the neglected and almost unknown poet, Daniel, upon this sub ject ! We quote his Complaint of Rosamond, premising, that the poet succeeded Spenser as Laureate, in the year 1599, soon after which the poem was published. After describing the grief of Henry II. on discovering the body of his beautiful mistress, he continues — Thus as these passions do him overwhelm, He draws near to the body to behold it, And as the vine married into the elm With strict embraces so doth he enfold it.

And as he in his careful arms doth hold it, Viewing the face that even Death commends, On senseless lips millions of kisses spends. GODSTOW NUNNERY. ■J "Pitiful mouth!" said he, " that living gavest The sweetest comfort that my soul could wish, O be it lawful now that dead thou havest This sorrowing farewell of a dying kiss I And you, fair eyes, containers of my bliss, Motives of love, born to be matched never, Entombed in your sweet circles, sleep for ever ! " Ah, how, methinks, I see, Death dallying seeks To entertain itself in Love's sweet place, Decayed roses of discoloured cheeks Do yet retain the hues of former grace, And ugly Death sits fair within her face, Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red, E'en Death itself might doubt that she were dead 1 " Wonder of beauty! oh, receive these plaints, These obsequies, the last that I shall make thee, For now my soul that now already faints, That loved thee living, dead will not forsake thee, And hastes her speedy arms to overtake thee.

I'll meet my death and free myself thereby, For, ah! what can he do, that cannot die? " Yet, ere I die, thus much my soul doth vow Revenge shall sweeten Death with ease of mind, And I will cause posterity shall know How fair thou wert above all womankind. And after ages monuments shall find, Showing thy beauty's title, not thy name, Rose ofthe world! that sweeten'd so the same!" The beauty of the quotation may plead ex cuse for its length, and some reader, perhaps unaware that such a poet as Daniel ever wrote, B TOMB OF FAIR KOSAMOND. may be tempted to stray into his pages, where he will find much to reward him. Rosamond's funeral was celebrated here with great splendour, as the poet hints; and King John afterwards bequeathed a considerable sum, that the holy virgins of Godstow might relieve with their prayers and pious masses the souls of his father and Fair Rosamond.

Upon the interment itself, great sums were lavished by the disconsolate king, and the parents of the lady. The tomb was ofthe most exquisite and costly workmanship, but much of it was de stroyed when priestly bigotry ordered the removal of the body, as too impure to be buried within consecrated ground. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, visiting the nunnery in 1191, two years after the death of Henry, and about twenty after the death of Rosamond, and observing a tomb covered with velvet, silk, and cloth of gold, and magnificently lighted up with wax tapers, perpetually burning, inquired whose it was, and being informed that it was Fair Rosa mond's, he ordered that " the harlot should be taken thence, lest through her the Christian religion should be scandalized." It was, how ever, only removed from the church of the nun nery, and not from the precincts altogether.

Speed says, " the chaste sisters gathered her TOMB OF FAIR ROSAMOND. 5 bones from the chapter-house whence they had been conveyed, and put them in a perfumed leathern bag, enclosing them so in lead, and laid them again in the church, under a fair large grave-stone, about whose edges a fillet of brass was inlaid, and thereon written her name and praise." At the dissolution of the nunnery, Speed says that the bones were so found. Le land confirms this account, adding, " Rosa mond's tomb at Godstow nunnery, was taken up of late : it is a stone with this inscriptiop — * Tumba Rosamundæ.' Her bones were en closed in lead, and within that in leather : when it was opened, there was a sweet smell came out of it." This nunnery, sacred to her affecting me mory, was founded in the reign of Henry I. by Editha, a matron of Winchester, in consequence of a dream she had.

It would appear, that this lady had long meditated the pious work of founding a nunnery, but was at a loss where to erect it, until she dreamed that the most fitting place would be on the bank of the Thames, to the west of Oxford. Her confessor persuaded her that the dream was an intimation of the will of Heaven, and the nunnery was founded at Godstow accordingly, Editha becoming the first abbess. ENSHAM. Two sides of the nunnery remained till about the year 1769, when they were blown down by a high wind. Part of the wall and the chapel still exist, and belong to the Earl of Abingdon. Keeping on the same side of the Thames, we pass by Godstow Bridge, and follow the course of the river for awhile to Swinford Bridge, which we cross, and proceed to the ancient vil lage of Ensham — termed, like Kingston, " a famous place" even in the days of the Saxon Heptarchy.

It once possessed an abbey, a small portion of the ruins of which still remain, founded early in the eleventh century, and de dicated to the Virgin Mary and St. Benedict. A singular custom formerly prevailed here on Whit Monday, as we are informed by Samuel Ireland in his " Picturesque Views." It was the privilege of the towns people to be allowed to cut down as much timber in the neighbouring wood, as could be drawn into the court yard of the abbey by men's hands only, which timber was to be their own, if they could suc ceed in dragging it out again ! This was a very "ingenious device" on the part of the reverend fathers : the timber once got in, they allowed very little of it to be pulled out again, as it was a part of the stipulation, that the monks and the servants of the abbey should place every WOODSTOCK. impediment in the way of its exit that they were able.

From hence to Woodstock is a pleasant walk of about four miles, following part of the way the stream of the Evenlode, a petty tributary of the Thames. The town of Woodstock derives most of the interest attached to its name, from the magnificent palace of Blenheim; but its ancient interest springs from the park and ancient palace of the kings of England, which latter was pulled down by order of the great Duke of Marlborough. In this palace King Alfred translated " Bœtius on the Consolations of Philosophy;" the work which was afterwards the solace of the poetical James I. of Scotland, when a prisoner in Windsor Castle. In the time of King Etheldred, a parliament assembled at Woodstock, between which period and the reign of Henry I. the town fell somewhat into decay. The latter, the only one of the early monarchs who had a cultivated mind, or took any delight in the recreations which taste and a love of literature are so abundant in affording, was pleased with the beauties of the surrounding scenery, improved the palace, and added several suites of apartments to it, at the same time enlarging and replanting the park, and enclosing it with a substantial stone WOODSTOCK. wall.

Here also, as we learn from Stowe, he established the first menagerie ever known in England: "the King, for his pleasure," says the annalist, "desired the wonderful things of other countries, as lions, leopards, lynxes, and camels, of the which England had none, craving them from kings. He had a park called Woodstock, in which he kept them, and put there, among others, a beast called " Stryr," or otherwise called a " Porpentine," sent him from William of Montpelier." The same historian says the park was seven miles in compass, that it was the first ever enclosed in England, and that divers villages, churches, and chapels were destroyed to make room for it. In the reign of Henry II, the palace of Woodstock was inhabited by the beautiful Rosamond. Here the royal lover built her the celebrated bower in the midst of the laby rinth, the theme of popular poets, and the delight of romance readers ever since.

To quote the most popular of all the ballads ever made upon it — The King for her defence Against the furious Queen, At Woodstock builded such a bower, The like was never seen. WOODSTOCK. 9 Most curiously that bower was built Of stone and timber strong, One hundred and fifty doors Did to this bower belong, And they so cunningly contrived With turnings round about, That none but with a clue of thread Could enter in or out. Though the authorities differ upon the point, whether this fair lady was poisoned by Queen Elianor, all agree that the Queen discovered her retreat. Higden, the monk of Chester, whose account is followed by Stowe, says, " the Queen came to her by a clue of thread or silk, and so dealt with her, that she lived not long after." Holinshed says, " it was the common report of the people, that the Queen found her out by a silken thread, which the King had drawn after him out of her chamber with his foot, and dealt with her in such sharp and cruel wise, that she lived not long after."

Speed says, that the Queen " discovered her by a clue of silk, fallen from Rosamond's lap as she sat to take air, and suddenly fleeing from the sight of the searcher, the end of her silk fastened to her foot, and the clue still unwind ing, remained behind, which the Queen followed, till she had found what she sought, and WOODSTOCK. upon Rosamond so vented her spleen, as the lady lived not long after." Upon the dissolu tion of the religious houses, her tomb at God stow, as we have already stated, was examined, and attracted some attention, and a cup being found upon it, the popular notion that she was poisoned was either originated, or acquired ad ditional strength. However this may be, it is certainly worth notice that none of the old historians attribute her death to poison, and that the oldest ballads and poems made upon her sad fate with which we are acquainted, only date as far back as the reign of Eli zabeth.

The popular ballad of Thomas Delone, al ready quoted, appears not to have been pub lished till 1612, as may be seen from the introduction to it by Bishop Percy, in his " Re lics of Ancient Poetry :" Daniel's " Complaint of Fair Rosamond" was published somewhat earlier. There is this to be said in favour of the popular version, — found popular, and made still more so by the poets, — that there is nothing improbable in the story of her poi soning. Queen Elianor is allowed on all hands to have been a jealous, violent, and bad woman. Poor Rosamond had but one sin to answer for, but her rival Elianor had many. She led a life of promiscuous gallantry before her marriage with Henry, and afterwards excited his sons to rebel against him, and distract the king dom. No traces of this famous bower and labyrinth have existed for centuries, but the concurrent testimony of all the historians impel us to be lieve that they did exist as represented.

Some slight remains of a bath, amid the groves on the northern part of the park, are pointed out, which are believed to have formed part of the bower of Rosamond. In Woodstock park resided for many years the father of English poetry, venerable, well beloved, most worthy Geoffrey Chaucer. Many have asserted that he was born in Woodstock. The learned Camden once countenanced this opinion, for, speaking of Woodstock, he says " having nothing in it else remarkable, it can boast of having produced our English Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer." Leland doubted whether he were born in Berkshire or Oxfordshire ; but if we may judge from the poet's own words, that great honour belongs to the city of London. Speaking of the disturbances in London, when the mob destroyed the Savoy palace, where he long resided with his royal friend, John of Gaunt, he says, " The city of London that is to me so dear and sweet, in which I was forth grown, and more kindly love have I to that place than to any other on earth, as every kindly creature hath full appetite to that place of his kindly engendering."

However this may be, Woodstock is nevertheless classic ground, for if Chaucer were not born there, he resided there. " His house," says Dr. Urry, " was a square stone house, near the park gate, which still retained its name in 1721. Many of the rural descriptions in his poems appear to be representations of the actual scenery of the park. Thus, " And right anon as I the day espide Ne longer would I in my bedde abide, But unto a woode that was mee fast by I went forth myself alone and boldily, And held the way downe by a brooke side Till I came to a land of white and grene, So fair an one had I never in bene, The ground was grene, ypowdered with daisye The flouris and the grevis alike hye, Al grene and white was nothing ellis sene." These lines appeared to Dr. Urry to be an exact portraiture of the way from Chaucer's house down by the brook side, through part of the park to the vale, under Blenheim Castle.

The nightingale in that poem is represented as saying to the sleeping bard that it would sing — " The morrow after St. Valentine's day Under a maple that is fair and grene, Before the chamber window of the Quene At Wodestocke upon the grene laye." The scene of his poem of the Dream is also laid in Woodstock Park, where it appears, when not engaged in study, his favourite diversion was to walk. Yet perhaps these morning walks among the trees, which he describes in various parts of his works with such luxu riance of poetry, were the times when he studied most. He made acquaintance with nature in her solitudes, studied her sweet face in his early rambles, and was thereby enabled to paint her so well. Chaucer, from the busy life he led in London, being mixed up so inti mately with all the affairs of the powerful John of Gaunt, shared naturally the evils of that prince's fortunes.

In the troubles that ensued in London, after the citation of Wickliffe, and the arrest of Comberton, late Mayor of London, Chaucer became obnoxious to the King, and was obliged to fly to the Continent to avoid imprisonment. On his return, he determined to mix himself up no more in political questions, and John of Gaunt, being then absent on his expedition to recover the kingdom of Castile and Leon, which he claimed in right of his wife, he had an additional reason for keeping himself seclud ed from the world. He, therefore, retired to Woodstock, and busied himself, in revising and correcting his poems. The exact time of his final departure from Woodstock to Donnington, where he passed the last two years of his life, is not known with certainty. We have already in our account of the river Kennett given some account of these years.

So, farewell, Chaucer, of whom we will say in the words of old Lyd gate — " My maister Chaucer, chief poet of Britayne, Whom all this lande shoulde of righte prefer, Sith of our language he was the load star, That made first to distil and raine The gold dew drops of speech and eloquence Into our tongue through his excellence." In Woodstock Palace, the Princess Eliza beth was confined by her sister, Queen Mary, for a short time, during which captivity, as we learn from Hentzner, the German traveller, she wrote the following lines with a piece of charcoal upon her window-shutter, being de nied the use of pens and paper. The lines were first printed in Hentzner's book, and after wards at the private press of Horace Walpole, at Strawberry Hill, from whence they were VERSES BY QUEEN ELIZABETH. 15 transferred into Percy's Relics.

" In Hentzner's book," says Dr. Percy, " they were wretchedly corrupted," but were restored, as they now fol low, by Horace Walpole. " O fortune, how thy restlesse wavering state, Hath fraught with cares my troubled will, Witness this present prisonn, whither fate Could bear me, and the joys I quit. Thou causedest the guiltie to be losed From bandes wherein are innocents inclosed, Causing the guiltless to be straight reserved, And freeing those that death had well deserved. But by her envy can be nothing wrought, So, God, send to my foes all they have thought. Elizabeth, prisoner. " A. D. MDLV." These lines are of little or no value in them selves, but they become of interest from the station of the writer, and the strait to which she was reduced for want of writing materials. Shenstone has written a poem upon the sub ject.

Woodstock Palace and Park, with all their poetical and romantic associations, have, in later years acquired a still dearer place in the hearts of the lovers of English literature, by the beautiful novel of Sir Walter Scott. It is impos sible for any one who has read it, to wander in that park without conjuring up the remem- WOODSTOCK PALACE. brance of the gentle Alice, the doughty old Sir Harry Lee, and his honest dog, and the iron warriors, and canting hypocrites of that day, with stern old Cromwell giving his orders to batter down the walls that he might take possession of that last stronghold of royalty. Woodstock Park and Palace were also the scene of that famous ghost story related so mi nutely in Glanvil's book of Witchcraft, in the form of a continuation to his wondrous tales, by Dr. Henry More, and entitled, " A Trans cription of a Narrative out of the Natural His tory of Oxfordshire, of the strange passages THE GHOST OF WOODSTOCK. 17 that happened at Woodstock, Anno. 1649, when the commissioners for surveying the manor house, park, deer, woods, and other demesnes belonging to that manor, sate and lodged there."

Their first act was to efface every symbol of royalty ; and a noble old tree, which had stood for centuries in the park, was uprooted by their order, merely because it bore the, to them obnoxious, name of the King's Oak. Immediately their troubles began ; fearful noises were heard in the chimneys, bricks, tiles, and stones, rattled about their ears at all hours of the day and night ; invisible hands pulled the clothes off their beds ; shrieks and groans, and the clanking of chains were heard ; their lights were suddenly extinguished, no one knew how ; and glasses and bottles broke mys teriously wherever they attempted to lay hands upon them. The bewildered commissioners betook themselves to penitence and prayer, and watched all night with Bibles and drawn swords to repel the evil spirits that so torment ed them.

But all in vain ; when worn out with watching they retired to rest towards the morning, they found logs of wood in their beds instead of pillows, and were drenched unaccountably with green ditch-water, as they attempted to lie down. Their eyes became no vol. ii. c THE GHOST OF WOODSTOCK. less bewildered than their ears ; their fear be came so great that they indulged each other's dread with the marvellous, and swore to each other that they actually saw the devil scratch ing with his hoof upon a candle to put it out ; that they saw legions of imps in every cor ner of the house ; that Beelzebub walked up and down the great room every night, howling in a most fearful manner, and sometimes making a noise as great as if a whole park of artil lery had been fired off. Finding that their prayers were inefficacious, and enjoying no peace or rest for several days and nights, they finally determined to quit Woodstock altogether, which they did in the firm belief that it was the abode of the devil and ten thousand of his evil spirits.

Some years afterwards it was discovered that the man who played the devil to such perfection on this occasion was one Giles Sharp, the clerk of the Commis sioners, a pretended republican, but in reality a loyalist, who had passed his early years in Woodstock, and who resorted to this trick to frighten away these rude spoilers from the hal lowed abode of the royalty of England. The cre dulity of the commissioners rendered his decep tion comparatively easy ; their contagious fears carried it on for him ; and, aided by a few dex- BLENHEIM. 19 terous cavaliers, the object was accomplished even beyond his hopes. The truth was not discovered till after the Restoration. Woodstock manor remained unoccupied, or nearly so, for about fifty years, when it was grant ed by Parliament in testimony of the nation's gratitude for the brilliant exploits of the Duke of Marlborough.

Sir John Vanburgh was em ployed to build a suitable edifice, and the palace of Blenheim was the result. Yet the hero for whom it was intended never had the pleasure of inhabiting it ; and, as may be seen from an interesting chapter in Mr. DTsraeli's " Curio sities of Literature," it became a source of an noyance to him for the remainder of his days. Parliament neglected to provide positively and in a proper manner the necessary funds, which were always charged upon the civil list of Queen Anne until her death, when the work men, whose wages had been long in arrear, were glad to accept one third of their claims. Sir John Vanburgh feared his total ruin : the Duke of Marlborough groaned in bitterness of spirit, lest he should be forced in some way or other to pay a penny out of his own pocket, for the expenses of a building which was to have been erected at a nation's cost, and ulti mately died without enjoying his princely c BLENHEIM. abode, leaving his hostile Duchess and the architect to fight out the question of expense be tween them.

This fine building has been condemned by some as too massive, while others have regard ed its massiveness as its great beauty. The north, or grand front, extends from wing to wing three hundred and forty-eight feet; and the centre is supported by pillars of the Corinthian order. The southern front has a handsome portico, surmounted by a colossal bust of Louis XIV, taken from the gates of Tournay by the victorious Marlborough. The approach to the front of the mansion is over BLENHEIM. 21 a lofty bridge, which was originally built at the desire of the great Duke himself over a very narrow stream, which gave rise to the fol lowing epigram in allusion to his well-known parsimony : — The lofty bridge his high ambition shows — The stream an emblem of his bounty flows. The stream, however, was afterwards widened by the celebrated Capability Brown, who is reported to have said that the Thames, envious of the nobler expanse of water which his art had formed, " would never forgive him for what he had done at Blenheim."