■..•• .■-•^T-— !|f 
 
 Glimpses 
 
 OF OUR 
 
 Sussex Ancestors 
 
 SBCOJVD SERIES. 
 
 ILLUSTRAI'1-JD
 
 "••^-•^-w ^^ 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Glimpses of our Ancestors in Sussex 
 
 AND 
 
 Gleanings in East and West Sussex.
 
 Printed i;t 
 
 Fakncombe & Co., 
 
 Lewes.
 
 The Pelham Monument, in St. ]\Iichael's Church, Lewes.
 
 GLIMPSES 
 
 OK 
 
 OUR ANCESTORS in SUSSEX; 
 
 AND 
 
 GLEANINGS IN EAST & WEST SUSSEX. 
 
 BY 
 
 C H ARLE S FLEET, 
 
 Author of ^' Tales and Sketches,^' "The City Merchant," 6^c. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 ' I have some rights of memory in this ' County,' 
 Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me." 
 
 — Sliukipeare. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 LEWES: 
 FARNCOMBE & CO., PRINTERS, " EAST SUSSEX NEWS " OFFICES. 
 
 1883.
 
 
 P R E FA C E 
 
 HE favor with which the first Volume of 
 Glimpses of our Ancestors in Sussex 
 was received by the Public and the Press 
 has encouraged the Author to issue a Second Volume, 
 partly devoted to the same class of subjects which fill 
 the first volume and partly to subjects of a more 
 descriptive and topographical character. 
 
 Trusting that an equal measure of indulgence 
 will be extended to this as was received by the former 
 publication, the Author leaves it to the kind judgment 
 of the Public. 
 
 1C59?SS
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 At page 13, line 27, of "A Noble Sussex Family," read,— 
 
 "This Ducal Pelham married the Lady Mary Godolphin, 
 "a grand-daughter of John Churchill, the great Duke of 
 "Marlborough."
 
 DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION, 
 
 TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 HENRY THOMAS PELHAM 
 
 (EARL OF CHICHESTER), 
 
 Lord Lieutenant of the County of Sussex.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Pelhavi Monument in St. MichaeVs Church, Lewes. Frontispiece. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Burning the Martyrs before the Star Hotel, Leives .... 73 
 
 A Cottage of '' The Colony" 194 
 
 The Manor House of the Challoners 194 
 
 East Mascalls : The Road Fro?jt 216 
 
 East Mascalls : The River Front 216
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 GLIMPSES OF OUR ANCESTORS IN SUSSEX. 
 
 1. A Noble Sussex Family: The Pelhams i 
 
 2. The Percies in Sussex 17 
 
 3. The Shirleys of Wiston 25 
 
 4. The Ancestor of the Shelleys : Sir John Hawkwood 34 
 
 5. Ups and Downs of Sussex Families 45 
 
 6. The Sussex Martyrs 54 
 
 7. The Quakers in Sussex 76 
 
 8. Hermits in Sussex ' 91 
 
 9. Race Tracks in Sussex 97 
 
 10. Royal Visits to Sussex 113 
 
 11. The Great Noble and the Yeoman in Sussex . . . 129 
 
 12. Christmas in Sussex in the Olden Time . . • . . 151 
 
 13. The Knights Templars in Sussex 164 
 
 14. Liberty of Speech in Sussex in Past Days .... 171 
 
 15. A Sussex Sedition: An Episode of Brambletye . . 179 
 
 16. Witchcraft in Sussex . 184 
 
 17. The Antiquity of Brighton as a Health-Resort . 187 
 i8. An Institution of the Past 191
 
 ii. Contents. 
 
 GLEANINGS IN EAST AND WEST SUSSEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. LiNDFiELD : Its " Colony," Church, Schools, &c. . . 194 
 
 2. East Mascalls and its Owners 216 
 
 3. MiDHURST, COWDRAY, EASEBOURNE, AND WOOLBEDING . 222 
 
 4. Trotton, the Birth-place of Otway 240 
 
 5. "Up the Arun :" Houghton and Amberley .... 247 
 
 6. "By the Rail" to Pulborough, and "By the River 
 
 AND Road "to Fittleworth 255 
 
 7. Bosham : Its Past and Present 268 
 
 8. Middleton : The Fight of Sea and Land .... 275 
 
 9. Pagham and its Harbour 282 
 
 10. A Sussex Sporting District: Charlton and Singleton 291 
 
 11. Cricket in Sussex 300
 
 GLIMPSES OF OUR ANCESTORS, &c. 
 
 A Noble Sussex Family. 
 
 j^i|f^/ HE FAMILIES, in Sussex or elsewhere, who can 
 trace their descent from a follower of the 
 Conqueror may, at the present day, be counted 
 on our fingers. They are, indeed, " few and far 
 between." The Wars of the Roses made sad 
 havoc with them. The Seventh Henry did not 
 spare them. But it was Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the 
 ruthless minister of Henry VIII., who put the finishing stroke 
 to the work of destruction — almost of extermination. Then 
 fell those deadly blows on the old nobility which drew from 
 one of them. Lord Darcy, as he stood at the Royal Council 
 Board, the fierce and despairing hope " that, ere thou 
 (Cromwell) die, though they wouldst procure all the noblest 
 heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet there shall one 
 head remain that shall strike off thy head." The hope was 
 realized; but not less effectual was the fatal work, and when 
 England at length settled down into something like peace 
 and social order, it was with a newly-created order of nobility. 
 "Those families," says Hallam, "who are now deemed the 
 most considerable, will be found, with no great number of 
 exceptions, to have first become conspicuous under the Tudor 
 line of kings." The Russells, the Cavendishes, the Fitz- 
 williams all date from that period. Even the Howards and 
 
 B
 
 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 the Stanleys are comparatively modern families, only emerging 
 from obscurity by virtue of alliances with older and higher 
 houses. 
 
 There are, however, a few exceptions ; and Sussex can still 
 boast amongst the noble families who reside on its soil two or 
 three who carry back their origin to almost the earliest 
 historic period. First and foremost amongst these stand the 
 Pelhams, the representative of whom in Sussex (for the family 
 extends into other counties), the Earl of Chichester, holds the 
 highest official rank in the county, that of Lord Lieutenant, 
 and fills a place in the respect of his fellow-Sussexians which 
 none of his forefathers over-topped. 
 
 It is an open question whether the Pelhams came in with 
 the Conqueror or whether they are of Saxon descent. The 
 latter theory is favoured, and was doubtless suggested, by the 
 Anglo-Saxon etymology of the family name, Pelham signifying 
 in Anglo-Saxon a settlement or estate surrounded with pales. 
 But that only serves to connect the family with a place, and 
 to point to the common circumstance of the family assuming 
 the name of the place. Now, it is well determined that 
 amongst the followers of William the Conqueror was William, 
 Baron of Bec-Crespin, in Normandy, who received, as his 
 portion of the spoils of victory, twenty-five lordships in Hert- 
 fordshire, one of which bore the title of " Pelham," and this 
 descending to his second son, Ralph, that branch of the 
 family assumed the distinctive title of " Pelham," which, by 
 an easy process in those days, quickly passed into the family 
 name. Thus, Ralph de Pelham, in 1 165, held a Knight's fee 
 in Hertfordshire from the Bishop of London, and his son was 
 Hugh de Pelham, and he had a numerous family, one of whom 
 fell back on the old patronymic of de Bee, and, in 1194, was 
 defendant in a suit for IMiddleton, Cambridgeshire, which his 
 father, Ralph de Bee, or Pelham, had in 1068 held from Picot 
 of Cambridge, and which the said Robert Picot now claimed. 
 
 Thus the connection between, or rather the identity of, 
 the de Bees and the de Pelhams is clearly shown. They were
 
 A Noble Sussex Fa7nily. 
 
 de Bees in Normand)', de Pelhams in England, taking both 
 names from their lands, as the good old fashion was, when 
 land made the man — at least, the free man. 
 
 To proceed with the Pelham genealogy. In 121 8, Petrus 
 or Peter de Pelham returns to his allegiance as such. His 
 elder son, Walter de Pelham, lived in the reign of John, and 
 he, too, was a defendant (the Normans always were fond of 
 litigation ! ) in a suit for dower brought by the widow of Ralph 
 Fitz-Hugh. In 11 99 there were further law proceedings 
 between Walter and Elias de Pelham on the one side and 
 the Abbot of Eynesham on the other. The sons of Walter 
 de Pelham lived (but whether they flourished or not we do 
 not know, though, as a rule, Pelhams always did flourish) in 
 the reign of Henry III. If a Walter Pelham mentioned in 
 the Peerages as living in 1265 were one of them, they had 
 flourished. But several members of the family are mentioned 
 about 1272. And it is curious that at this period the de Bees 
 and the de Pelhams again come together; Walter de Pelham 
 (probably the son of him of 1265) holding from Walter de 
 Bee, styled le Chamberlain, two hides of land in Cottenham; 
 and from this Walter de Pelham, who became Lord of Pelham, 
 came all the succeeding branches of the Pelhams as they 
 figure in the English Peerage. Henceforward the family tree 
 grew up straight and broad, and without a rotten branch in it. 
 
 It was in the reign of Edward I. that the Pelhams began 
 to hold land in Sussex, chiefly in its eastern extremity, at 
 Hailsham, Huseye (near Pevensey), Ashton, Waldron, &c. 
 The reason of their migration from Hertfordshire to Sussex 
 is not known; but in the 14th century their Sussex lands 
 extended a length of three miles from Hailsham to Horseye, 
 including what are called "the Lands of the Eagle" — the 
 meaning of which high-sounding title the late M. A. Lower 
 (in the genealogical memoir of the Pelhams drawn up by him) 
 declares " he does not quite understand, though they must 
 have been a portion of the great Lordship or * Honour of 
 the Eagle,' the caput BaronicB of which was Pevensey." Not
 
 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 many years later the office of Constable of Pevensey Castle 
 (the most important fortress, and a Royal one, in the east of 
 Sussex) was conferred on a Pelham. 
 
 The Pelhams now begin to stand out as warriors and 
 statesmen. With the third Edward had recommenced the 
 struggle between England and France which for loo years 
 was to call out all the energies and consume the feudal 
 resources of both countries until they both lay at the feet of 
 absolute Sovereigns, preparatory to the appearance upon the 
 scene of the people. We now fully admit that Edward's title 
 to the French crown was a bad one ; but we also see that he 
 had a real cause of grievance against France in the continual 
 stirring-up by that country of dissensions between England 
 and Scotland. But the loo years' war was a disastrous one 
 for both countries, rich as it was in glory to the English ; 
 and none shared more fully in that glory than the Pelhams. 
 
 John de Pelham (whose figure in armour, with the three 
 pelicans of the family on the surcoat, was introduced in one 
 of the painted windows of the Chapter House of Canterbury) 
 accompanied the King to France, and was with the Black 
 Prince at the battle of Poictiers, in which the French King, 
 John, was taken prisoner. No less than ten knights and 
 esquires challenged him as their prize ; but the King 
 surrendered himself to two Sussex warriors, John de Pelham 
 and Roger la Warr, as his real captors. To these he gave 
 up his sword, and each of the noble knights introduced into 
 their armorial bearings a memento of the deed : La Warr 
 assuming the o-ampet or termination of a scabbard, and 
 Pelham the buckle of the sword-belt (by which, probably, 
 he had seized the luckless King). These badges are used to 
 this day by the Earls de la Warr and the Earls of Chichester; 
 the Pelhams wearing the buckle as an adjunct to their 
 original arms of the three pelicans : sometimes as part of 
 their crest, a cage between two buckles, in allusion to the 
 captivity of the French monarch — and sometimes simply on 
 their great seals still appendent to old deeds. Henceforth
 
 A Noble Sussex Family. 
 
 the buckle figures in many an ecclesiastical building, both in 
 Hertfordshire, the Pelhams' mother-county, and in Sussex, 
 and wherever it is found it is accepted by archaeologists as 
 a proof of the work and presence of the Pelhams. In 
 Sussex the Pelham Buckle is still to be seen, either in 
 the windows or stone-work of the parish churches of 
 Waldron, Laughton, Chiddingly, Rype, Easthoathly, Crow- 
 hurst, Burwash, Ashburnham, Penhurst, Dollington, and 
 Wartling, and it was to be seen (until removed to mend the 
 roads !) in the stone-work of Robertsbridge Abbey (of which 
 the Pelhams were benefactors), and is still visible on a 
 chimney-back at Warbleton Priory. In numerous domestic 
 buildings, as at Laughton Place, Halland Place, and on old 
 houses at Hastings, Westham, «&c., and on the iron chimney 
 backs in Sussex farm-houses, was the Pelham Buckle a 
 familiar badge and ornament, and it even figured on the 
 backs of sheep! So popular was it. 
 
 Indeed, the feat of arms by which it was won was well 
 supported by the whole career of its winner, who was 
 knighted by Edward III., and not less by that of his son, 
 who bore the same name, and was not less famous as a 
 warrior. Both father and son attached themselves to the 
 persons and fortunes of Edward's younger son, John of 
 Gaunt, " time-honoured Lancaster," and of his aspiring 
 son, Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby and Hertford, 
 afterwards Duke of Lancaster, and ultimately Henry IV. As 
 the father had been esquire to John of Gaunt, so the son 
 became esquire to Bolingbroke, and, in all probability, 
 accompanied him in his exile after the quarrel between 
 Bolingbroke and IMowbray, Duke of Norfolk. At all events, 
 he landed with Bolingbroke at Ravenspur when he came 
 back, at the invitation of a large number of the English 
 nobility, ostensibly to reform the Government of Richard, but 
 in reality to seize on the Crown. In this he was supported 
 not only by John de Pelham, but by John de Pelham's wife — 
 a lady who anticipated the glory due to those noble dames 
 who, like Dame Douglas and that La Tremouille who was a
 
 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 Countess of Derby, have defended their husband's castles 
 and honour in their absence. John de Pelham, like his 
 grandfather, had been made Constable of Pevensey Castle 
 for life, and it was here that he left his wife and family whilst 
 absent with his patron on the continent. She was here 
 attacked and besieged by the adherents of Richard, and 
 whilst gallantly and successfully defending the Castle against 
 them, she did as great a feat for a lady of that day as to 
 wield a sword, or even greater; she wielded a pen, and 
 wrote, in UtigHsh, the following epistle : — 
 
 " My dere Lord, I recommande me to your hie Lordescliipp \vy(h hert 
 & body, & all my pore mygtli ; and wyth all this I think zow, as my dere 
 Lorde, derest & best yloved of all erthlyche Lordes ; I say for me, and 
 thanke yhow, my dere Lord, with all thys (things ?) that I say before, off 
 your comfortable lettre that ze send me from Pownefraite * that com to me 
 on Mary Magdaleyn day; ffor by my trowth I was never so gladd as when 
 I herd by your lettre that ye waiT stronge ynogh, wyth the grace off God, 
 for to kepe you fro the malyce of your ennemys. And dere Lord iff it lyk 
 to your hyee Lordeschipp that als son als (as soon as) ye mycht that I 
 myght her off your gracious spede, whyche God Allmyghty contynue and 
 encresse. And my dere Lord, iff it lyk zow for to know off my ffare, I am 
 here by layd in manner off a sege, with the counte of Sussex, Sudray, & a 
 great parcyll off Kentte, so that I ne may noght (go) out nor none 
 vitayles gette me, bot wt myche hard (difficulty) Wharfore my dere iff it 
 lyk zow, by the awyse off zowr wyse counsell, lor to sett remedye off the 
 salvation off yhower Castell, and wtstand the malyce off thes schires 
 forsayde. And also that ye be fullyche enformed off these grett malyce 
 wyrkers in these schyres whych yt haffes so dispytffully wrogth to zow, 
 and to zowr castell, to yhowr men, and to zour tenaunts, ffore this cuntree 
 have yai (they) wastede, for a gret whyle. Farewele my dere Lorde ; the 
 Holy Tiinyte zow kepe fro zour ennemys, and son send me gud tythings 
 off yhow. 
 
 " Ywryten at Pevensay in the castell on Saynt Jacohe day last past, 
 
 " By yhowr awnn pore 
 
 "J. Pelham. 
 " (Addressed) 
 
 " To mytrew Lorde." 
 
 Let no fair reader smile at the spelling of this letter or 
 think lightly of its phraseology. // is the first letter ever 
 written in the English language by a lady. Such is the opinion 
 of the great historian, Hallam. Previous to this period all 
 those members of the upper classes who could write corres- 
 ponded in French ; and even this was a rare accomplishment. 
 
 •Pontefract, in Yorkshire, where Rich. II. was imprisoned and afterwards murdered.
 
 A Noble Sussex Family. 
 
 It was a happy inspiration in Dame J. Pelham (she was the 
 daughter of Sir John Escures, and must, surely, have come 
 from a good English stock), when acting so nobly the part of 
 an English wife and helpmate, to make use of the English 
 language— then springing into flower with the genius of 
 Chaucer ; and it has given her a place in letters not less 
 exalted than that of her husband in arms. 
 
 The successful defence of Pevensey Castle by Dame " J. 
 Pelham " was rewarded by the Constableship of that Royal 
 fortress* being conferred by Henry IV. on John de Pelham 
 and his heirs male, with the " Honour " of the Eagle, this 
 " Honour " (so named from Gilbert de Aquila, a follower of 
 William the Conqueror, who received the gift of the Rape of 
 Pevensey for his services at the Conquest) comprehending a 
 sixth part of the county of Sussex. Sir John was also created 
 a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry IV., and the 
 King, "moved by his special grace, and in good consideration 
 of the grateful services of his beloved and faithful knight, 
 John Pelham, heretofore done," granted to him for life the 
 honour of bearing the Royal sword before him in all places 
 and at all requisite times. 
 
 The services of Sir John de Pelham during a long life, 
 both at home and abroad, in peace and in war, justified the 
 confidence of the King. Sir John sat for Sussex in the several 
 Parliaments called by Henry, along with the de Prestons, the 
 Lewknors, the Husseys, the Delyngryges, and other Sussex 
 worthies, receiving the expenses which were then paid by 
 constituencies to their representatives. He defended the 
 Sussex coast against the French, who threatened it with 
 invasion under the Count de St. Pol ; he fortified it against 
 the attacks of a still more formidable enemy — the sea — which 
 threatened in those days to swallow up a large part of the 
 coast of Sussex ; and he accompanied the fifth Harry in his 
 
 * The ruins of the Castle of Pevensey, so gallantly defended by Dame J. Pelham, 
 still stand, within the area of the great t'ortitied Roman station of Anderida ; but, of 
 course, like other Norman fortresses, its uses, for home protection or foreign defence 
 have long passed away.
 
 8 Glivipscs of Our Ancestors. 
 
 expeditions against France. His absence from the field of 
 Agincourt is accounted for by the fact that he had been 
 appointed a Commissioner to array all the defensible men, 
 nobles, and archers in Sussex for the defence of the realm 
 during the King's absence, and to be in readiness as well to 
 expel and repulse any attempts of the enemy as to go beyond 
 seas, if necessity required — a necessity which actually did 
 arise. But he assisted at the terrible siege of Rouen, which 
 lasted a whole year, and in which 50,000 of the inhabitants 
 of that city died of famine. It was whilst engaged in this 
 terrible service that the charge of Queen Joan of Navarre, 
 mother-in-law of the deposed Richard, and who was accused 
 of sorcery, was entrusted to him, and the royal lady remained 
 in custody at Pevensey Castle until 1423. He had been pre- 
 viously made the custodian of Edward, Duke of York, and 
 of the two sons of the Earl of March, who, as the descendants 
 of an elder brother of John of Gaunt, were the lineal 
 inheritors of the crown of England, and in whose cause 
 Harry Hotspur had already raised the standard of revolt 
 against Henry IV. A more welcome and honourable duty 
 fell to John de Pelham in being made the guardian and 
 governor of the youthful King of Scotland, James I., who, 
 captured at sea, and not too honourably detained by Henry V., 
 was so well educated, not only in all courtly accomplishments, 
 but in letters and music, " tongues and sciences," that he 
 became one of the first poets of the day, and, when he returned 
 to Scotland, taking with him as his wife the fair Joan of 
 Beaufort, ruled with a wisdom and spirit that gave twelve 
 years of too short-lived peace and prosperity to that land. 
 Such a fact as this is not less honourable to the memory of 
 Sir John de Pelham than was the capture of John of France 
 by his father; and one of the most gratifying features of the 
 good knight's career must have been to have assisted, as he 
 did as the Representative of Sussex, in the act of that Parlia- 
 ment by which James of Scotland was set at liberty, after a 
 captivity of 18 years, and restored to his country. 
 
 Though a Pelham does not figure among Shakspeare's
 
 A Noble Sussex Family. 
 
 dramaits personcB, one of their close associates does, namely, 
 
 " old Sir Thomas Erpingham," to whom the hero-King, on 
 
 the eve of Agincourt, so kindly said — • 
 
 "A good soft pillow for that good white head 
 Were better than a churlish turf of France." 
 
 And to which Sir Thomas so bravely replied — 
 
 "Not so, my liege ; this lodging likes me better. 
 Since I may say : now lie I like a King." 
 
 Sir Thomas Erpingham, as Constable of Dover Castle, 
 was joined with the second Sir John de Pelham in commission 
 to view and repair the banks in Pevensey Marsh, between 
 Bexley and Beachy Head, " for its due governance and 
 salvation thereof in the time to come." 
 
 It has been a matter of surprise with English annalists 
 that such distinguished men as the two John de Pelhams 
 were not raised to the Peerage. Collins looks upon it as 
 an "uncommon instance of self-denial." It may have been 
 such; for a man who enjoyed the high personal favour of 
 Henry V. (he was one of the executors to his will, as he had 
 been to that of his father) ; who was made, in the very 
 beginning of the new King's reign, one of the Ambassadors 
 to France to treat of the marriage of Henry with the French 
 King's daughter, Katherine ; who was addressed by foreign 
 kings like John of Portugal as " noble and prudent," and 
 solicited to extend his care and kindness to the King's 
 daughter, widow of the Earl of Arundel ; who was held in 
 high esteem by the King's brothers as well as by the King 
 himself, and was popular with the people as well as at 
 Court — such a man as this, the guardian of captive Kings 
 and Queens and Princes, a warrior and a statesman, could 
 not have failed to attain the honours of the Peerage had he 
 desired them. His fortune certainly could have supported 
 the dignity. In Sussex alone his rent-roll was/'SyG. 5s. 3d. 
 — equal to at least ^17,500 in the present day. Perhaps 
 prudence restrained him, and to this we may owe the descent 
 of the House to this day, without any of those terrible gaps 
 in it which break the line of descent of so many others.
 
 lo Glbnpses of Our Ancestor's. 
 
 Whilst Sir John de Pelham shared in and largely con- 
 tributed to the glories of the fifth Harry's reign, he did not 
 live to see the reverses of the ensuing one. He died in the 
 7th year of Henry VL, " full of honour," and without a blot 
 on his name as a warrior, diplomatist, or statesman. 
 
 It is not known whether the brave wife of Sir John, the 
 defender of Pevensey Castle and the earliest English lady 
 letter-writer, survived her husband. But she had borne him 
 three children, two daughters (who became the wives of 
 John Colbrand, of Boreham, and Sir John de St. Clerk, or 
 Seynclere) — and a son, who bore his father and grandfather's 
 name, and, like them, went to "the wars" in France and was 
 Constable of Pevensey Castle. He, too, enjoyed the Royal 
 favour : he was chamberlain in the household of Harry's 
 French consort, Katherine, and to mark her favour to him 
 and his wife, Joan de Courcey (one of her own attendants), 
 the Queen made a grant to him of fifty marks per annum. 
 She also, at a later period, when she was the wife of a Welch 
 gentleman, Owen ap Tudor (by whom came the Tudor 
 dynasty), gave to John de Pelham and to her own husband 
 (with priority to Pelham) power to survey and repair all her 
 towns and castles. John de Pelham was also master of the 
 Queen-Dowager's Royalties and forests in Normandy; but 
 whether these survived the loss of the English dominion in 
 that Province of France, we are unable to say. Doubtless 
 the Pelhams, like other English families, were losers by the 
 adverse course of events in France after the appearance on 
 the scene of Joan of Arc ; but they managed, unlike many 
 of their contemporaries, in the troublous days that followed, 
 to keep their English estates, and even, by marriage with 
 such Sussex families as the Lewknors, the Challoners, the 
 Coverts, the Colbrands, the Popes, the INIorleys, the Fynes, 
 &c., &c., to extend them. They also inter-married with the 
 Wests, Lords de la Warr, the Sackvilles, the Carews, the 
 Shirleys, the Sydneys, &c. Indeed, they are connected, by 
 their numerous alliances, with the best blood of England. 
 Still, during these earlier generations the Pelhams kept
 
 A Noble Sussex Family. 1 1 
 
 steadily to the knightly class. John, knighted by Henry VI., 
 followed the three warriors we have spoken of, but he dying 
 without male issue, the line was now varied by a William 
 Pelham — a simple Esquire— and he, in like manner, gave 
 way to a Thomas Pelham, Esq., after whom we come once 
 more to a John Pelham, his eldest son, but he also dying 
 without issue, a William Pelham succeeds. And in him, after 
 a period of repose for the Pelhams in the troublous and 
 dangerous days of the Wars of the Roses, which saw half 
 the old nobility of England swept off, the Pelhams again 
 came to the front. Sir William Pelham was with King 
 Henry VHI. in his famous interview with Francis the First 
 on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was knighted by the 
 King, who only knighted men, and, for his services to the 
 King, was permitted to empark 700 acres of land in Laughton, 
 Easthoathly, Chiddingly, and the adjoining parishes. At the 
 former place, Laughton, he built the great mansion, Laughton 
 Place, which figures so conspicuously in the after-history of 
 the parish. He had two wives (a Carew and a Sandys), 
 and families by both, and his eldest son and successor, Sir 
 Nicholas Pelham, renewed the military glories of the House 
 — not, like his ancestors, indeed, by invading France, but in 
 the more legitim.ate way of defending his own shores against 
 French attack. This, in fact, was thai Pelham who, as the 
 inscription on his monument at St. Michael's Church, Lewes, 
 quaintly tells us, "did repel 'em back aboard;" that is, the 
 French expedition under Claude d'Annabant, which, after 
 descents at Brighthelmston and Meeching (Newhaven), 
 attempted to land at Seaford, and was here met by Sir 
 Nicholas, at the head of a force consisting chiefly of the 
 neighbouring townsmen and gentry and yeomen, with which 
 he drove the invaders in confusion and much slaughter back 
 to their ships. This brave soldier was also a learned man, 
 and a favourer of the Reformation. He also, like his ances- 
 tors, represented his native county in Parliament, and, though 
 he lived in the dangerous days of Mary, and sat in two of 
 the Parliaments called by that Queen, he knew how to couple
 
 1 2 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 loyalty with truth to his faith. He lived to see the accession 
 of Elizabeth, and, dying in his 44th year, left his estates 
 unimpaired to his son. 
 
 Doubtless, the alliance of Nicholas Pelham with the 
 Sackvilles (he married Anne, daughter of John Sackville, 
 Esq., ancestor of the Earls and Dukes of Dorset, and had 
 by her ten children) gave strength to the Pelhams in the 
 reign of Queen Elizabeth. He attended the Queen in her 
 progress through Sussex, was knighted by her, and, like his 
 ancestors, represented Sussex in Parliament. So did his son. 
 Sir Thomas Pelham, who allied himself by marriage to the 
 Walsingham family, his wife being a niece of Elizabeth's 
 great Secretary of State, and was compelled by James the 
 First's greed to pay for the Baronetage which he had to 
 " take up " instead of receiving that knighthood which his 
 ancestors had so often won on the field of battle. His son — 
 another Thomas— sat in four successive Parliaments, from 
 1624 to 1640 — a memorable era in the history of this 
 country, for it marked the revival of Parliamentary Govern- 
 ment after the Tudor despotism — and he constantly voted, 
 with the Essex branch of the family, with the patriotic party. 
 In the extreme acts, however, of the Long Parliament, and 
 in the Civil War which followed, he took no part. During 
 this and the Protectorate of Cromwell he retired into private 
 life, living and dying at Laughton, like his immediate 
 ancestors, having, like them, a numerous family, and being 
 succeeded, also like them, by a son. This son. Sir John 
 Pelham, was elected, with his brother Nicholas, to the 
 Parliament that restored Charles the Second ; and it is a 
 unique fact in the history of English Parliaments that these 
 two brothers were returned by the same constituency, and for 
 four successive Parliaments they so sat together. At the 
 same time a son of Sir John also sat for Lewes and East- 
 grinstead, and there were Pelhams from other counties in 
 Parliament. They were, in fact, a "power" in Parliament. 
 Their leaning was, as it always has been, to Liberalism, or, 
 to use the language of that day, to Whiggism. Sir John, in
 
 A Noble Sussex Fmnily. 13 
 
 fact, married the sister of the celebrated patriot, Algernon 
 Sydney, and had, like most of the Pelhams, a large family 
 by her. He outlived her 17 years, and died in 1703, at 
 Laughton, at the patriarchal age of 80. 
 
 It is remarkable how, in the career of the Pelhams, the 
 two currents of arms and politics run side by side. They 
 were always statesmen as well as soldiers, and from the time 
 of Henry IV. they are to be found representing Sussex in 
 Parliament. In the peaceable days, internally, at which we 
 have now arrived — the 17th and i8th centuries — the Pelhams 
 come more prominently to the front as Parliament-men. Of 
 the three sons of Sir John Pelham the eldest had already sat 
 in Parliament for Lewes and Eastgrinstead in the life-time 
 of his father, and he continued to do so during the reigns 
 of Charles II., James II., and William and Mary (when he 
 was appointed a Lord of the Treasury), up to Anne, when he 
 was created Lord Pelham, Baron Pelham of Laughton, in 
 Sussex, and so attained that point of greatness which, if 
 eminent services could have purchased them, should have 
 been enjoyed by a Pelham ages before. His second wife 
 was a daughter of Gilbert Holies, Earl of Clare, and sister of 
 John, Duke of Newcastle, and by her he had five daughters 
 and two sons, the eldest of whom, and his successor in the 
 Peerage, Thomas, was created Duke of Newcastle, and was 
 left heir by his uncle, the last Duke of Newcastle of the 
 Holies family (sprung from a Lord Mayor of London, temp. 
 1540), heir to his vast estates. This ducal Pelham married 
 the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the great Duke of 
 Marlborough ; he held many of the highest offices of State, 
 and stood godfather to George II. He was a Knight of the 
 Garter, Chancellor of Oxford — in fact, supped full of honours, 
 and for 46 years was the acknowledged leader of the Whig 
 party when that party was at the height of its fortunes. 
 Amongst other favours showered on him, he received the 
 additional title of Baron Pelham, of Stanmer, Sussex, with 
 remainder, in failure of heirs male of his own body, to 
 Thomas Pelham, of Stanmer, Esq., a descendant from the
 
 14 Glimpses of Our A7icestors. 
 
 third Baronet, and whose father (and it is a notable fact in the 
 history of the House) had been a merchant at Constantinople, 
 but, inheriting Stanmer from an elder brother (Henry), sat in 
 the Parliaments of the two first Georges and left a son, 
 named Thomas after himself, who was destined to be the 
 first Earl of Chichester, and a daughter who was married 
 successively to Henry, Viscount Palmerston, and George 
 Neville, first Earl of Abergavenny — both historic families. 
 
 Going back to Duke Pelham — if we may be permitted so 
 to call him — he was the only Duke of his family, for he left no 
 son to inherit his many honours and great wealth, and the 
 Dukedom of Newcastle went to Henry Clinton, Earl of 
 Lincoln. Never did the greatness of the Pelhams shine 
 forth in Sussex so conspicuously as in his day and under his 
 reign — for such it might be called. He resided at Halland 
 — so the great house at Easthoathly was called — more like a 
 Sovereign Prince than a subject. He travelled with gorgeous 
 state from one to another of his Sussex houses — he had 
 several of them — kept open house — gave sumptuous feasts to 
 the grandees of the county and to distinguished foreigners, 
 and was in every respect " the Great Duke of Newcastle," 
 He was very popular both with his tenants and the neigh- 
 bouring townsmen and villagers, and traditions of his 
 progresses and his doings at Halland, Laughton, and 
 Bishopstone yet hang about those neighbourhoods. As to 
 the grand funeral (at Laughton) which closed his career, is it 
 not set down in due fullness in the diary of Thomas Turner, 
 general shopkeeper, of Easthoathly, who was both delighted, 
 amused, and, albeit benefited, yet a little scandalised at the 
 profusion and pomp of the Duke's life and the closing scene 
 of it at Halland ! 
 
 The career of the first Lord Pelham's second son, Henry, 
 the brother of the Duke, was scarcely less distinguished 
 than that of the great Duke himself — perhaps more so. He 
 began his career like the first Pitt, by being a Captain of 
 Dragoons (Pitt was a Cornet — " that terrible cornet of
 
 A Noble Sussex Family. 15 
 
 Dragoons," as Walpole used to call him), and was present at 
 the defeat of the Scotch Rebels at Preston Pans. Then, 
 turning to the Pelham's second love, politics, iie entered 
 Parliament ; sat first for Seaford, then for the Shire ; was 
 soon appointed to a Lordship of the Treasury, next made 
 Secretary of War, sworn of the Privy Council, and, at last, 
 was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, succeeding to and 
 carrying out the peace policy of Walpole, one of whose 
 disciples he was — loving peace, though often dragged into 
 war by the more restless spirit of his brother. By a curious 
 fatality all of his six children who survived childhood were 
 females, so that this branch of the Pelhams soon came to an 
 end; but one of the daughters married her cousin, the Earl 
 of Lincoln, and so became Duchess of Newcastle. 
 
 It was, however, in the Stanmer branch of the family that 
 its Sussex greatness was to continue to flourish. We have 
 seen how the title of Baron Pelham passed to the Duke 
 of Newcastle, and through him to Thomas Pelham, Esq., 
 of Stanmer, grandson of the first Lord Pelham. Thomas 
 Pelham, like all the members of his family, took to Parlia- 
 mentary and public life as spaniels take to water. He sat for 
 the county of Sussex, and filled various ofiices, for which, in 
 1 80 1, he was rewarded with an Earldom, and chose for his 
 title the oldest city of the county, Chichester. Dying in 
 1805, he was succeeded by his eldest son, who was appointed 
 Postmaster-General in 1807, and who, marrying a daughter 
 of the Duke of Leeds (thus allying the Pelhams to the 
 Osborne family), kept up the good old Pelham practice by 
 having a family of ten children, four sons and six daughters. 
 The second of the former (the eldest died in infancy) 
 succeeded his father in 1826, and still, we rejoice to say, 
 lives to enjoy the fame, honours, and to hand down the 
 unspotted name of the Pelhams. He was long at the head of 
 the Ecclesiastical Commission; presided over the Quarter 
 Sessions of East Sussex with much judicial ability; and, 
 since i860, has filled the highest ofi'ice in his native county 
 — that of Lord Lieutenant. In many ways he has approved
 
 1 6 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 the soundness of his breeding; he has always upheld civil 
 and religious liberty, and been a true friend of the English 
 Establishment as a Protestant Church. By his late Countess 
 (a daughter of the 6th Earl of Cardigan) he has four sons — 
 the eldest of whom, Lord Pelham, has sat in Parliament for 
 Lewes — and three daughters, the latter all married, so that 
 neither in its direct line nor collateral branches is the great 
 Sussex House of Pelham likely to come to an end. 
 
 The story of the Pelham House has been a long one; it 
 has extended over between 800 and 900 years. But it is one 
 worth telling and studying. We doubt if it can be matched — 
 most certainly it cannot be surpassed — by that of any family 
 in Europe ; for it presents an unbroken line of brave men 
 and virtuous women, able and willing to do the work of their 
 days — in war and in peace — in the battle-field and at the 
 Council-board — in public and in private life, without flinching 
 from their post; loyal to their Princes, true to the people, 
 and without even the eye of envy being able to espy a spot 
 to dim the brightness of their escutcheon.
 
 The Perezes in Sussex. 
 
 HEN we think of the Percies, it is generally in 
 connection with the North and the West of Eng- 
 land — the borders of Scotland or the Marches of 
 Wales. They are the antagonists or the allies of 
 the Douglases or the Glendowers — now meeting them with 
 varying success at Otterborne and at Halidon Hill — now 
 fighting side by side with them at Shrewsbury. Yet from a 
 very early period, up to the extinction of the family, the 
 Percies were closely connected with Sussex, and some of their 
 most interesting monuments and family relics are still to be 
 found here. Their great deeds of arms were, undoubtedly, 
 performed in the North and in the West. They were Earls 
 of Northumberland, keepers of the Scotch borders, and 
 Lords of the Welsh Marches, the defenders of the kingdom 
 alike against the incursions of the Scot and the Welshman. 
 But they had also U7i pied a terre in the more genial and 
 peaceful South : they were Castellans of Arundel and Barons 
 of Petworth, and the latter title was the distinctive one of 
 the family until 1377. 
 
 The Percies, like the Pelhams and the Sackvilles, " came 
 in with the Conqueror." But it is not the lineal descendants 
 of this friend and follower of William the Bastard who are 
 the famous Percies of English history and of Shakspeare's 
 tragedy — or, at least, only on the female side. The original 
 Percies failed in the male line at the third in descent ; he 
 died at Jerusalem in the first and only successful Crusade, 
 when the Holy City was captured by Godefroi de Bouillon, 
 with whom William de Perci (surnamed Algernon, or, in 
 modern French, aux moustaches, from the magnitude of those
 
 1 8 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 manly appendages), was, doubtless, a companion in arms. 
 He left two daughters, the youngest of whom, Agnes, married 
 Joceline of Lovaine, a younger son of Godfrey, Duke of 
 Brabant, and brother of Queen Adeliza, the relict of Henry 
 the First. It was no light acknowledgment of the high 
 standing of the Percies that the son of a foreign Potentate 
 (for the Dukes of Brabant at that time were no less), and the 
 brother of an English Queen assumed the family name and 
 title. Joceline of Lovaine was Lord of Petworth, and held, 
 under William of Albini, Queen Adeliza's second husband, 
 the office of Castellan of Arundel Castle. He inherited the 
 vast estates of the Percies — in Sussex alone, \b\ knights' 
 fees, or about 10,200 acres; and from him and his wife 
 Agnes descended that famous race of Percies, Earls of 
 Northumberland, whose name stands so high both in English 
 history and poetry. 
 
 It was not, indeed, until several generations after the 
 union of Agnes Percy, the representative of the original 
 family, with Joceline de Lovaine that the great northern 
 Earldom of Northumberland was conferred upon the Percies. 
 The father of Hotspur was the first Percy, Earl of Northum- 
 berland. His mother was a Plantagenet, and he himself was 
 the chief prop of his cousin, Bolingbroke, when that son 
 of John of Gaunt aspired to the throne. It is he whom 
 Shakspeare makes fill so large a space in the historical play 
 of Henry the Fourth, and who laments the death of his 
 gallant son in language as terrible in its expression of grief 
 and despair as ever fell from mortal lips : — 
 
 " Now let not Nature's hand 
 Keep the wild flood confin'd ; let order die ! 
 And let this world no longer be a stage 
 To feed contention in a lingering act ; 
 But let one spirit of the first-born Cain 
 Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set 
 On bloody courses, the rude scene may end. 
 And darkness be the burier of the dead." 
 
 This great nobleman was, in all probability, of Sussex 
 birth. Up to his time the chief residence of the Percies
 
 The Percies in Sussex. 19 
 
 had been at Petworth, from which they took their title as 
 Peers of the Realm. There is no doubt that from the earliest 
 period there was a lordly mansion of the Percies at Petworth; 
 but it was that Henri de Perci, first Baron of Alnwick, who 
 lived in the second Edward's reign, and who had married Lady 
 Eleanor Fitz-Allan, the daughter of the then Earl of Arundel, 
 who received (in 1309) a royal license to " fortify and crenel- 
 late" his "manse" (mansion) at Petworth " for himself and 
 his heirs for ever." Here he and the three succeeding 
 Henries de Perci, we may assume, lived, until the elevation 
 of the third Baron to the Earldom of Northumberland shifted 
 the scene of their domestic life and opened up a new and 
 more extended field for their exploits; investing them, too, 
 with a tragic interest which can never die out. 
 
 But even in this tragic interest Sussex is not without a 
 share. The connection of the Percies with Sussex did not 
 close with their translation to the North. They still held 
 their Sussex estates and their fortified mansion at Petworth, 
 and hither it is conjectured that, after the fatal battle of 
 Shrewsbury, Hotspur's noble widow, Elizabeth Mortimer (not 
 Kate, as Shakspeare calls her, though it would be a sin to 
 un-Kate her now) hastened to seek a refuge from her enemies. 
 This, however, is merely conjectural. But it is certain that 
 she left her only son by Hotspur with his grandfather. Earl 
 of Northumberland, then at Warkworth Castle in the north, 
 and that Northumberland fled with him to Scotland, where 
 he was brought up with the Prince of Scotland until re- 
 called by Henry the Fifth, the conqueror of his father, and 
 generously reinstated by him in all the honours and 
 possessions of the Percy family. The influence of his 
 mother doubtless contributed to this. Hotspur's widow, to 
 whatever place she fled after the defeat and death of her 
 gallant husband, was in danger from the Royal power, and 
 had to seek safety in further flight. There is still in existence 
 a warrant issued by Henry IV. ordering one Robert Waterton 
 to arrest her wherever she may be found, and to impress 
 horses for the pursuit, and to spare no expense in capturing
 
 20 Glimpses of Our Ancestors, 
 
 her. She was, it must be borne in mind, not only Harry 
 Percy's widow, but the sister of that Mortimer whose right 
 by descent to the Throne of England was better than that of 
 Bolingbroke. But the Lady Percy had powerful friends at 
 Court. At least, she knew how to win one such. One of 
 her Sussex neighbours was Thomas Lord Camoys, of Trotton, 
 Broadwater, and many other manors in the west of Sussex, 
 who had served with her husband in the French wars of 
 Richard IL He had been one of the favourites of that 
 Sovereign, and, on the accession of Henry IV., found himself 
 at first "out in the cold." But the fourth and fifth Henries 
 had the gift, like other great men, of discovering where 
 merit lay, and Thomas Camoys soon regained favour at 
 Court. He was appointed a Commissioner with the Bishop 
 of Winchester to treat with the French, and, when Harry of 
 Monmouth determined to invade France, Camoys received 
 an important command, and led the left wing of the English 
 army at the famous battle of Agincourt. His followers were 
 chiefly drawn from Sussex, and many of these men were the 
 terrible bowmen whose boast it was that they carried thirty 
 Frenchmen's lives in their belts. Some of these Sussex 
 archers (their names are still preserved in the English 
 Archives and may be found in the Sussex Archaeological 
 Collections, not omitting that "John Bates" whom Shaks- 
 peare has immortalised), it is said, stripped themselves in 
 order to draw their bows more freely, and by their savage 
 appearance struck a terror into their enemies, which they 
 completed by their shafts and battle axes. It was in this 
 gallant Sussex soldier, who was created a Knight of the 
 Garter on the day after the battle, that Elizabeth Percy 
 found a powerful protector and a second husband. Such an 
 union was a pledge of her future loyalty and a safe-guard 
 from future persecution. As the wife of Lord Camoys, even 
 the widow of Hotspur might be trusted. It was a remarkable 
 fate that made one woman the wife of two such men as 
 Hotspur and Camoys. That she cherished the memory of 
 the first is proved by the fact that she brought the sword
 
 The Pcrcies in Sussex. 2 1 
 
 with which he fought at Shrewsbury, and which he had worn 
 for many years before, with her to Petworth. And there it is 
 still to be seen. It is 3-ft. 6i-in. in length, and the blade is 
 exactly three feet. On the guard is the date " 1392." She 
 had a son by her second husband, but he died in infancy. 
 Lord Camoys died in 141 9, five years after Agincourt (men 
 did not live long in those days — " old John of Gaunt, time- 
 honoured Lancaster," did not see sixty), and, as he was 
 buried at Trotton, we may conclude that he passed the latter 
 years of his life in Sussex. His wife lies by his side, and 
 the inscription on the fine "brass" which still remains in the 
 Parish Church of Trotton runs thus : — " Pray for the souls 
 of Thomas Camoys and Elizabeth his wife. He was formerly 
 Lord Camoys. A Baron, and a prudent commander for the 
 King and realm of England, and a valiant Knight of the 
 Garter. He commended his life's end to Christ on the i8th 
 day of March, 141 9." 
 
 As we have already stated, the son of Hotspur by Elizabeth 
 Mortimer was restored to his honours and possessions by 
 Henry V. The generosity of the King was not ill repaid : 
 the second Percy who was Earl of Northumberland (Hotspur 
 never bore that title) became a staunch supporter of the 
 House of Lancaster and died fighting for it against the 
 Yorkites at the battle of St. Alban's. His son, too, the 
 third Earl, was a martyr in the same cause. He lost his 
 life at the battle of Towton, in which he commanded the 
 Lancastrian forces. By his marriage with the heiress of the 
 last Baron of Poynings he became still more closely connected 
 with Sussex, and, before he succeeded to the Earldom of 
 Northumberland, was summoned to Parliament as Baron of 
 Poynings. This manor, however, he bequeathed to his 
 youngest son, Josceline, on the condition that he "shall be 
 of loving and lowly (lauly) disposition towards Henri, his 
 eldest brother, and give him his allegiance: and that I charge 
 him to do and to be, upon my blessing, and as he will answer 
 before God." 
 
 Some injunction of this kind was not unnecessary in an
 
 22 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 age which had seen sons and fathers fighting against each 
 other, and brother murdered by brother. Whether Josceline 
 obeyed his father's behest we do not know : but he died early, 
 and the Poynings property again reverted to the elder branch, 
 until sold by the sixth Earl. This sixth Henri Percy was the 
 disappointed lover of Anna Boleyn, and he was involved in 
 the ruin of that unfortunate Queen. He sold the Poynings 
 property for the use of the Crown (compulsorily, no doubt), 
 and it was granted to Sir Anthony Browne, the first Viscount 
 Montague, and the builder, or rather restorer, of Cowdray. 
 But Petworth still remained in the possession of the Percies. 
 They had, we have seen, embattled their house there at an 
 early period. But this, probably, had become too small for 
 their wants. The fashion, too, and necessities of the age had 
 changed as respected the dwellings of the nobility. With 
 the close of the Civil Wars fortified houses passed away ; the 
 Tudors discouraged them, and the aristocracy, reduced in 
 power, hastened to please the Sovereign — perhaps themselves 
 — by building a new kind of habitation, adapted for the arts 
 of peace and not of war. Cowdray, Hatfield, and Petworth 
 were specimens of these Tudor buildings. At what period 
 the Percies abandoned the old embattled building (which is 
 supposed to have stood nearer the town) is not known ; but it 
 was the eighth Earl — still a Henri Perci — who enlarged, 
 between 1576 and 1582, the house to which they removed, 
 and which stood on the same site as the present, though this 
 latter has been wholly reconstructed. The three last Percies, 
 Earls of Northumberland, lived in the olden house, "in great 
 splendor," but with a total loss of that almost sovereign power 
 which belonged to the older Earls. The sword and the axe, 
 long imprisonment, and confiscation and fines had abated 
 their pride and reduced their power. For sixteen years the 
 ninth Earl was held captive in the Tower on suspicion of 
 being an abettor of Popery. When released, he was fined 
 ^'30,000 by the Star Chamber, and this tremendous imposition 
 prevented his carrying out his plans for re-building Petworth 
 House. His son Algernon had the same intent, but was
 
 The Percies in Sussex. 2^ 
 
 equally unable to execute it. His plan is still preserved 
 among the muniments of Petworth House. The last of the 
 Percies, Earls of Northumberland — the eleventh of the line — 
 died in the old Tudor Mansion, and it was by a Seymour — the 
 "proud Duke of Somerset," as he was called, who married 
 the heiress of the Percies, Elizabeth — that the existing house, 
 or, at all events, the main body of it, was erected. The 
 architect is said to have been a Frenchman, M. Pouget, the 
 builder of JMontague House in London, But English work- 
 men and artists were employed on it, and one of the glories 
 of the house is the exquisite wood carving of Grinling 
 Gibbons and Jonathan Ritson. 
 
 We have now arrived at the last dying gleams of the Percies. 
 As they rose from Sussex — shining with a tempestuous glory 
 in the North — so they sank here. The Earls were already 
 extinct. Elizabeth, Baroness Percy, after being twice married 
 and twice a widow before she was sixteen, became the wife of 
 the sixth Duke of Somerset. She died in 1722, leaving an 
 only son by the Duke, and who himself became the seventh 
 Duke of Somerset, thus uniting the Percies and the Seymours 
 in one representative. But it was a short-lived union. He 
 died without male issue in 1749-50, and his only daughter 
 became the wife of a London physician. Sir Hugh Smithson! 
 What would "the proud Duke" have said to this? By a 
 family arrangement, the Petworth and other Percy estates 
 went, not to the daughter of the last Duke of Somerset (of 
 the Seymour line), but to his nephew, the eldest son of Sir 
 William Wyndham, the famous statesman, by Catherine 
 Seymour, the Duke's sister. This nephew also became Earl 
 of Egremont by succession from his uncle, the Duke, who 
 bore that title, and it is his son, Charles O'Bryen Wyndham, 
 Earl of Egremont, who is still remembered in Brighton as 
 one of its earliest patrons and most munificent supporters of 
 its charitable institutions, and whose portrait adorns the walls 
 of the Pavilion. This nobleman's descendants, the Earls 
 Leconfield, still reside at Petworth House, the seat of the 
 Percies, whose monuments fill the family Chapel. But their
 
 24 
 
 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 name is heard there no more, and even their memories and 
 associations are not strong in the seat of their Sussex greatness. 
 As we said at the outset, it is always with the North or the 
 West — with Halidon Hill, Otterbourne, Chevy Chase, or 
 Shrewsbury — Northumberland or Scotland — that we connect 
 the name of the Percies, and not with Sussex or Petworth. 
 Yet they rose and sank in Sussex ; it is in Sussex that the 
 remains of Harry Percy's widow, Shakspeare's Kate, lie at 
 Trotton ; and if any one wishes to see the weapon which 
 Hotspur's dying hand clasped in his last fight at Shrewsbury, 
 he must go to Petworth to find it.
 
 The Shirleys, of Wistoii. 
 
 HE Shirleys, who, up to 1678, were the possessors 
 of the Wiston estate, also take us back to one 
 of the families who came into Sussex with the 
 Conqueror. After the defeat of Harold at Hastings, 
 William de Braose, who contributed to the victory, received, 
 as his share of the spoil, the Rape of Bramber, of which 
 Wiston was a portion. Granting it, as was the custom of the 
 times, to one of his followers, Ralph, Lord of Wiston, as he 
 dubbed himself, the estate passed to the De Bavents, until, 
 singularly enough, the last female representative of this 
 family married, in the 14th century, another William de 
 Braose, descended from a junior branch of the Lords of 
 Bramber, and so it continued in the possession of the de 
 Braoses until it devolved upon another lady, the sole sister 
 and heiress of the last Braose of Wiston, namely, Beatrix 
 de Braose; and this lady married a Shirley and brought the 
 Shirleys into Sussex from their native county of Warwick, 
 where they had been settled immediately after, if not anterior 
 to, the Conquest. 
 
 Sir Hugh de Shirley, the husband of Beatrice de Braose, 
 was, like the Pelhams, a follower of John of Gaunt and 
 attended him in his not over-fortunate expedition into 
 Guienne. He also, like the Pelhams, adhered to the fortunes 
 of John of Gaunt's son, Bolingbroke, when he snatched at 
 the Crown, and he followed him and his gallant son to the 
 field against Harry Hotspur and fell in the famous battle of 
 Shrewsbury, in which he was "one of those four knights, 
 who, clad in the Royal armour, successively encountered and 
 fell under the victorious arm of the Earl of Douglas in single 
 combat."
 
 26 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 It is to this valiant Shirley that Shakspeare makes Prince 
 Henry refer when the Prince in his turn meets with the 
 Scotch champion and makes him seek safety in flight : — 
 
 "Hold up thy head, \ile Scot, or thou art like 
 Never to hold it up again ! The spirits 
 Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blount are in my arms. 
 It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee. 
 Who never promiseth but he means to pay." 
 
 The son of this first of the Sussex Shirleys was named 
 Ralph. He was only thirteen years of age at the death of 
 his father; but he lived to emulate his sire's deeds and even 
 go beyond them. He was amongst those gallant spirits who 
 accompanied the fifth Harry to France; was with him at the 
 siege of Honfleur; held a high command at Agincourt ; and 
 took a leading part in the succeeding events of that stirring 
 time, up to the death of the conqueror — assisting, too, at the 
 coronation of his infant son at Paris. It was this Shirley's 
 fate, like so many of the heroes of Agincourt, to die abroad ; 
 but his body was brought to England and interred at Newark. 
 
 To these fighting Shirleys succeeds for a time a more 
 peaceable race, Ralph following Ralph, not "as Amurath an 
 Amurath," but as Harry, Harry — that is, in quiet succession 
 and engaging in quiet rural pursuits. The one who served 
 the office of Sheriff in the eighteenth year of the seventh 
 Harry's reign left to his son Richard no less than 91 head of 
 cattle, 4 horses, and 800 sheep — clear indications of the 
 direction in which his tastes lay ; and the said Richard 
 followed in the steps of his sire and looked to the main 
 chance at home, instead of trying, like his earlier ancestors, 
 to win chateaux en Espagne, or, what was still worse, because 
 more difficult to keep, castles in Normandy ! From the 
 second son of this Richard Shirley sprang the Westgrinstead 
 Shirleys, but who eventually gave way to the Carylls. as the 
 Carylls did to the present owners of the Westgrinstead estate, 
 the Burrells. 
 
 ButtheWiston Shirleys were reserved for alongercareerand 
 higher destinies. They sent out branches, indeed, to Preston,
 
 The Shirley Sy of Wis f on. 27 
 
 Chiddingl}', and Wivelsfield, in the last of which their residence, 
 Ote-hall, still stands, though in dilapidated condition. One 
 of them, Sir Thomas Shirley, re-built the fine old house at 
 Wiston as it now stands, or partly stands ; was knighted by 
 Elizabeth at the same time that one of the Pelhams was ; 
 and it was in this Sir Thomas Shirley's three sons that all 
 the adventurous and warlike tastes of the race seemed to 
 revive and spring up in one last bright flame. They carried 
 the fame of the name farther, if not higher, than it had ever 
 been carried before ; and it may be doubted if three brothers 
 of any English family ever displayed a more remarkable 
 genius for adventure or carried it out, on the whole, with 
 more success. The Marco Polos, father and son, come 
 nearest to them in the field and character of their exploits; 
 but they, as Venetians, stood, as it were, on the threshold 
 of adventure, and were at the portals of that then mysterious 
 and almost closed land to Europeans, the East; whilst the 
 .Shirleys of Wiston, the natives of an obscure Sussex village, 
 must have been impelled by more than the usual restlessness 
 of mortality to strike out so far and so boldly as they did to 
 the lands of the rising sun. 
 
 The names of the "three Shirleys" were Thomas, Anthony, 
 and Robert. Only one year separated the birth of the two 
 first. Robert was much younger. The same spirit inspired 
 all three. But Anthony takes precedence by the magnitude 
 of his exploits. These, in his earlier years, were of a military 
 nature. Having married a cousin of Essex, though he did 
 not live happily with her — and perhaps that incited him to a 
 roving life — he followed the fortunes of the ill-fated favourite 
 of Elizabeth; and, after serving under him in France and 
 receiving from Henry IV, of France the order of St. Michael 
 for his services, he accompanied Essex when he went as Lord 
 Lieutenant to Ireland. There, too, he was knighted. But 
 Ireland did not afford a field wide enough for his adventurous 
 spirit. The Turks at this time threatened Europe, and 
 Anthony Shirley had an idea that the Shah of Persia might 
 be induced to join the Christian Powers against their
 
 28 Gliinpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 common enemy, and that, at the same time, a trading 
 intercourse might be opened between Persia and the West. 
 Accompanied by his younger brother, Robert, and twenty- 
 three others, he set sail from Venice in an argosie bound for 
 Scanderoon, determined, according to his own statement, 
 " to do some extraordinary thing before he returned back 
 again." 
 
 Of this expedition several contemporary accounts are pre- 
 served. After a tedious journey by sea and land the party 
 reached Aleppo, where they endured much indignity from the 
 Turks, and on their route by way of Babylon to Persia they 
 fell into the hands of a horde of Arabs, who robbed Sir 
 Anthony of the rich jewels which he had purchased in order 
 to propitiate the Persian monarch. At length they reached 
 Kazveen, where the king, or " Shah," Abbas, was then resident. 
 Here Sir Anthony's reception was all that the most dignified 
 ambassador could have desired ; he was welcomed with 
 gorgeous ceremonials, and received into the confidence of the 
 monarch, who, in a subsequent allusion to their friendly 
 intercourse, said of him : " We have eaten together of one 
 dish and drunk of one cup like brethren." Sir Anthony 
 explained to the Shah the nature of our fortifications, and, in 
 conjunction with his brother Robert, introduced the use of 
 our artillery in the army of the Eastern Potentate, so that ere 
 long he had five hundred pieces of brass cannon and sixty 
 thousand musqueteers in his army. In return. Shah Abbas 
 created him a Mirza, or prince — the first instance of a Christian 
 receiving an oriental title. But his good-will did not stop 
 here : he appointed Sir Anthony his ambassador to the courts 
 of Europe, and at his departure from Ispahan, in bidding him 
 farewell, kissed him three or four times and gave him a seal 
 of gold, saying: "Brother, whatsoever thou dost seal unto, 
 be it the worth of my kingdom, I will see it paid." 
 
 Under such favourable auspices Sir Anthony returned to 
 Europe. His first point was the court of Russia, where, after 
 a journey of six months, he arrived in 1599. His reception
 
 The Shirley s^ of Wiston. 29 
 
 by the Czar Boris was very cool and unpromising, and, after a 
 few months' stay in Russia, he took his departure for Germany. 
 Meanwhile the suspicious temper of Queen Elizabeth was 
 unfavourable to his designs ; yet still this did not prevent his 
 being well received by the Emperor Rodolph at Prague in 
 1600. He next proceeded by way of Nuremburg, Munich, 
 Innspruck, and Trent to Rome. Here he avowed himself a 
 Roman Catholic ; but from some cause which can hardly be 
 explained he left the Pontifical Court in disgrace, and repaired 
 once more to Venice. All his negociations with the various 
 Courts seem to have failed of any useful result. 
 
 Soon after this we find Sir Anthony paying a second visit to 
 his patron, the Emperor Rodolph, at Prague, by whom he was 
 despatched on an embassy to the King of Morocco, to stir him 
 up to hostilities against the Grand Seignior, or, as we call him, 
 Sultan of Turkey. At Morocco he lived in a magnificent style 
 and exercised a princely hospitality, making use at the same 
 time of his influence with this barbarous Court for the release 
 of many Portuguese subjects who were held in slavery. Soon 
 afterwards he accepted a commission from the King of Spain, 
 by whom he was created a knight of St. Jago, and made General 
 of the Mediterranean Seas. It was at this time that Sir 
 Anthony's humanity met with a most base and ungrateful 
 return. He had procured freedom from a Turkish prison for 
 three Spaniards, two of whom on their return home promptly 
 paid the money he had advanced for their ransom, but the 
 third, in order to avoid the payment of his share, administered 
 poison to him, causing him to lose his nails and hair, and 
 almost his life. At this period he was suspected of disloyalty 
 to his own sovereign, a suspicion which received some support 
 from the fact of his having presented the Spanish monarch 
 with a hundred pieces of cannon. " How he came by them," 
 says Captain Alex. Hepburn (a Scotchman in the pay of 
 Spain), " I know not, but this is true by God in heaven." 
 The reader will have little difficulty in tracing the source of 
 this artillery, when he recollects the anxiety of the Spanish 
 king to obtain, through Gondomar, his ambassador, permission
 
 30 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 to import our Sussex cannon, and remembers that Sir Thomas 
 Shirley, Sir Anthony's father, was an extensive manufacturer 
 of Sussex iron. Acts of ParHament were frequently passed 
 prohibiting the export of Sussex-made artillery. 
 
 In 1608 Sir Anthony again visited Italy, but returned the 
 same year to Spain. A year later he was in Sicily for the 
 purpose of molesting the Turkish ships. He made an attack 
 upon Mitylene in the Archipelago, but proving rather unsuccess- 
 ful was deprived of his command. Still, however, he received 
 a pension of 3,000 ducats a year from the Spanish government 
 — a sufficient income indeed ; but such had been his expensive 
 and improvident course of life that he was deeply involved in 
 debt, and nearly the whole of his allowance was devoted to 
 the discharge of his liabilities. Indeed, we are assured that 
 this gallant knight, who had occupied a diplomatic position 
 in nearly every court of Europe, was sometimes actually on 
 the verge of starvation ! The latter part of his life was passed 
 in comparative obscurity. In 1627 we find him still in Spain, 
 as intent as ever upon schemes and negociations, "and daily 
 exhibiting new projects to the Council," He died, according 
 to Grainger, in 1630. 
 
 Robert, the second of the three Shirley Brothers, had, 
 like Anthony, accompanied his father to the wars in the Low 
 Countries ; he also saw service afterwards in Italy, and was, 
 as we have seen, the companion of his brother Anthony in 
 his Persian expedition. When, too, Anthony resolved to 
 return to Europe, Robert remained behind at the Court of 
 Shah Abbas, and, notwithstanding the failure of his brother's 
 embassy to the Princes of Europe, retained the favour of 
 the Persian monarch, and availed himself of this to pro- 
 cure liberty of conscience for all Christians throughout 
 the Persian Empire. He showed his own freedom from 
 prejudice by marrying an Eastern lady, Teresia, daughter 
 of a Circassian chief named Ismail Khan, and by her he 
 had two children. In 1608 Shah Abbas despatched him 
 on an embassy to the Christian Powers, giving him a
 
 The Shir leys, of W{sfo7i. 3 1 
 
 special letter to King James of England, signed " King 
 Abbas, the servant of the King of Kings." Shirley went 
 by way of Poland, and was entertained at Cracow by 
 Sigismund III. The following year he received the honour 
 of knighthood from the Emperor Rodolph, and was created 
 a Count-Palatine of the Empire. He next proceeded to 
 Rome with a suite of eighteen persons, eight of whom were 
 Persians. He wore the Persian costume; but, to show his 
 orthodoxy, crowned his turban by a crucifix. He had a 
 grand reception from Pope Paul V. and twelve Cardinals, 
 and was loaded with empty honours. Thence he proceeded 
 in succession to I\Iilan, Barcelona, and IMadrid. At the 
 Spanish Court he was well received, and during his sojourn 
 there was joined by the Lady Teresia, his wife. In 161 1 
 they came to England, and in August of that year were at 
 Wiston, where he found the family affairs in a very disordered 
 state. His father, in fact, had for some time lost the favor 
 of the Court; had been deposed from his office of Treasurer 
 of War in the Low Countries ; and, in order to meet his 
 liabilities to the Crown, had been compelled to sell all the 
 family property in Sussex and elsewhere, with the exception 
 of Wiston. This was saved, for a time, by being settled 
 upon his wife, a member of the Kemp family, by whom he 
 had twelve children. The year after his son's return Sir 
 Thomas Shirley died and was buried in Wiston Church. 
 This event did not detain Robert Shirley at home. After a 
 sojourn of eighteen months in England, during which he 
 and his Circassian wife were favorably received at the Court 
 of James the First, he again, at the beginning of 1613, set 
 out for Persia, spending nearly nine months on that dangerous 
 journey, and taking India in his route. Here he paid a 
 passing visit to the Great INIogul. At Ispahan he remained 
 about a year, returning to Europe in 1615, on another 
 embassy. He was successively at Goa, at Lisbon, and at 
 Madrid. His allowance at the Spanish Court was fifteen 
 hundred ducats a month, with house and equipage. Here 
 he resided till 1622, when he again visited Rome, and there
 
 32 Glimpses of Our Ancestors, 
 
 it was that Vandyke painted the fine portraits of Sir Robert 
 and the Lady Teresia now preserved in the Petworth 
 collection. In 1624 he was again at the English Court, 
 where his position was much damaged by the intrigues of the 
 East India Company, who were jealous of the commercial 
 policy he was striving to establish. They even represented 
 his Embassy as an imposture and his credentials as forgeries. 
 He ultimately returned to Persia, where, overcome by anxiety, 
 disappointment, aud fatigue, he died at the age of about 
 fifty, at Kazveen, and was buried there, beneath the threshold 
 of his own residence, in 1628, The Lady Teresia ended her 
 singular career by becoming a nun at Rome. 
 
 A more "strange, eventful history" than this it is not 
 easy to conceive. In the extent of its range, and the 
 boldness of its aims, it seems to image forth the after-deeds 
 of Englishmen in the East and to "take seisin," as it were 
 by anticipation, of that great Eastern Empire now governed 
 by Englishmen. In this respect the Sussex Shirleys stand to 
 Clive, Warren Hastings, and the other founders of our Indian 
 Empire in the same relation that Xenophon did to Alexander 
 the Great. They opened the way to those sunny lands and 
 showed how Englishmen could make their way through the 
 greatest perils and the highest paths of adventure to the 
 topmost heights of Empire. 
 
 The third and eldest Shirley, Thomas, yet remains to be 
 spoken of. Compared with his brothers', his career was 
 undistinguished. But still, like their's, it was full of action, 
 though not in an Oriental field. Like Anthony, after a 
 military education in the Netherlands (where, as we have 
 seen, the father held a high post), he went to Ireland, and, 
 like Anthony, was knighted there. Making a clandestine 
 marriage with a daughter of Sir Thomas Vavasour, he was 
 punished by Elizabeth (as was Raleigh for a similar offence 
 with the fair Throckmorton) by an imprisonment of fourteen 
 weeks. He then again saw service in the Low Countries — 
 the favourite field of action for enterprising English youth in 
 Elizabeth's day, but where little was to be won beyond hard
 
 The Shir/cys, of Wis ton. 33 
 
 blows. Getting tired of these, and the family fortunes being 
 very low (his father's goods at Wiston had been seized by the 
 Sheriff), Thomas Shirley turned to the sea, and fitting out 
 two vessels as privateers, joined in those buccaneering attacks 
 on the Spaniards which Drake and Hawkins had made so 
 popular. In his first voyage he was pretty successful, 
 capturing four vessels and also sacking some villages; but, 
 transferring his operations to the Mediterranean, he had the 
 ill-luck to be captured by the Turks, and was taken, after an 
 imprisonment in the island of Zoa, to Constantinople. It 
 seemed to be destined that all the Shirleys should be brought 
 in connection with the East. Here he remained in captivity 
 for two years, and then, regaining his liberty by the 
 intercession of James I., after some wanderings in Italy and 
 Germany, he returned to England in 1606, a poorer man 
 than he had left it. 
 
 Nor did he ever light on more prosperous days. In his 
 attempts to open the Levant trade, he was in advance of his 
 age and came in contact with parties who got him imprisoned 
 in the Tower on a charge of interfering with their privileges, 
 and he issued from it so broken by debts and misfortunes 
 that he was driven to sell Wiston, and retired to the Isle of 
 Wight, where he died (the date of his death is uncertain) a 
 ruined and disappointed man. 
 
 So closed the connection of the Shirleys with Sussex. A 
 grandson of the last owner of Wiston, who attained to some 
 celebrity as a physician, attempted to recover the estate 
 by questioning the power of his grandfather to alienate it; 
 but the purchaser. Sir John Fagg, proved too much for him, 
 and the suit hastened the death of the last Shirley of Wiston. 
 The house still stands, a noble monument of Tudor architec- 
 ture (the hall is the finest in Sussex), and here the Sussex 
 Archaeological Society met in 1851 ; but it is the residence of 
 a branch of the Goring family, who have held their ground 
 in Sussex better than the Shirleys. The Shirleys still exist as 
 an English family, their head being Earl Ferrers, but in 
 Sussex we no longer know them except as part of the past. 
 
 D
 
 The Ancestor of the Sussex Shelley s. 
 
 HERE was a period in English history when the 
 Englishman was by no means an insular being — 
 when he belonged to the Continent as much as 
 to England, and when no small part of the 
 Continent belonged to him. What the ocean and the 
 countries beyond the Atlantic became to Englishmen after 
 the loss of the French Provinces — that is, a " field of fame " 
 — the Continent was previously — not only France, but Spain 
 and Italy; and the number of distinguished warriors who at 
 that time closed their careers in foreign lands, either on battle- 
 fields or in adopted homes, was, perhaps, greater than it is 
 now, when, as a rule, Englishmen, however far they may roam 
 for fame or wealth, return " home" to die. 
 
 Amongst those whose bones repose on foreign soil — 
 beneath a monument erected to him by the gratitude of the 
 citizens of Florence in the Cathedral of that city — is Sir John 
 Hawkwood, the famous Condottiere chief, whose descendants, 
 the Shelleys, of Lewes and Maresfield, still keep their position 
 in the county. It was by the marriage of Hawkwood's 
 daughter and heiress, Beatrix, with a Shelley that the wealth 
 accumulated by the Chief, and brought by his widow and 
 daughter into England, passed into that family and enabled 
 them to extend their possessions in Sussex. 
 
 The origin of Hawkwood was a humble, and, if we regard 
 popular prejudice, an ignoble one. He was, by trade, a tailor, 
 and he was a native of " famous London town." At what 
 age he exchanged the shears and needle for the sword and 
 lance we do not know — most likely at an early one. He 
 gained distinction in France, under such chiefs as the Black
 
 The Aiicestor of the Sussex Shelley s. 35 
 
 Prince, Chandos, and Sir Walter Manny, and he must have 
 given early proof of higher qualities than mere personal 
 courage, for when the Peace of Brittany was concluded 
 between the French and English Monarchs, and the main 
 body of the combatants were disbanded, Hawkwood was 
 chosen as the leader of one of those bands of adventurers 
 who made war on their own account or let out their services 
 to such princes or cities as might be in want of them and 
 could pay them best. France had been pretty well exhausted 
 by the terrible campaigns of Edward the Third and the Black 
 Prince, and, besides, was no longer so easy a prey as she had 
 been before Duguesclin came upon the scene. But Italy was 
 full of wealth, and was at this time split into a multitude of 
 small States — Republics and otherwise — which carried on 
 perpetual wars with each other, and were only too ready to 
 avail themselves of the courage and skill which the English 
 were renowned for in that age above all the other nations of 
 Europe. 
 
 The band of adventurers who had placed themselves 
 under the leadership of Hawkwood were known as the White 
 or English Company — for what reason Sismondi (whom we 
 follow in his History of the Italian Republics of the Middle 
 Ages) does not tell us — perhaps from the colour of their 
 armour, which shone like a mirror — perhaps from their fair 
 complexion. On their first arrival in Italy they numbered 
 2,500 horse and 2,000 foot, and one of their first exploits, on 
 their road from France to Italy, was one which, however it 
 might scandalise good Catholics in those days, will not be 
 judged -very severely by later ages of Englishmen. They 
 approached within ten leagues of Avignon — then the seat of 
 the Popes — under the pretence of protecting it from another 
 band, composed of Bretons, but, in reality, to draw a contribu- 
 tion from the Pope, who paid a sum of 100,000 florins in 
 order to induce the White Company to proceed on its road to 
 Italy, and enter the service of the Marquis of Montferrat. 
 From Piedmont the Company passed into Lombardy — then, 
 as now, one of the most fertile districts of Italy, bearing with
 
 36 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 them the scourge of disease as well as that of war; for the 
 Pest, or Black Death, was then devastating Europe; it had 
 broken out in France, and it was introduced by the English 
 Company into Italy. 
 
 On the 1 8th of July, 1363, the English Company arrived 
 at Pisa, then at war with Florence, and was hired by that 
 Republic for a short period. Under the Pisan General, they 
 entered the valley of the upper Arno and took possession of 
 Figline without resistance from the Florentine General. Then 
 surprising and taking his camp they approached and ravaged 
 the neighbourhood of Florence, throwing the inhabitants of 
 that city into the greatest alarm ; for, though inferior in 
 numbers to the Florentine forces, the English Company was 
 held in awe by the Italians alike for their courage and skill. 
 They were, says Sismondi, the first to introduce into Italy the 
 custom of counting cavalry by " lances." That name signified 
 three horsemen, acting together, and whose horses only served 
 to carry their heavy armour to the field of battle, where, for 
 the most part, they fought on foot. They wore coats of mail, 
 and their cuisses and boots were of iron. At their side hung 
 a heavy sword and a dagger. Two men held the same lance, 
 which they lowered, and then slowly advanced, closely linked 
 in phalanxes and uttering loud shouts. Every horseman was 
 followed by one or two pages, whole sole occupation was to 
 clean his armour, so that it shone like a mirror. 
 
 It was, proceeds Sismondi, the first time that men-at-arms 
 had been seen to dismount in order to fight on foot. To the 
 impenetrable armour of the knight was thus joined the solidity 
 of the foot-soldier, and it was almost impossible to break 
 their phalanx. The English despised the utmost rigour of 
 an Italian winter; continuing their operations during all 
 seasons. They displayed not less dexterity in surprises and 
 coups de main than valour in pitched battles. They carried 
 with them ladders divided into three sections, which fitted 
 into each other, by which they could scale the highest towers, 
 and which, not rising higher than the wall, furnished no hold 
 to those above to throw it down.
 
 The Ancestor of the Sussex She I leys. 37 
 
 All parties in Italy — the Popes, aiming at the recovery of 
 what they called their patrimony — the Seigneurs or tyrants of 
 States, like the Visconti, aiming at independence or conquest 
 — the Republics, warring with each other or torn by factions 
 — all were eager to secure the services of these foreign allies, 
 who, on their part, only cared for the pay or plunder they 
 could carry off, and passed from one to the other with the 
 greatest indifference. 
 
 The Pisans, as we have seen, were the first to secure the 
 White Company. "They had," says Sismondi, "at their 
 head an adventurer who became subsequently famous in the 
 wars of Italy, and who had already served with distinction in 
 the English wars in France. This was John Hawkwood, 
 called by the Italians Acuto or Auguto, and whose name (he 
 adds in a note) has been disfigured in a thousand ways in the 
 Italian chronicles ; but its translation, by a writer of the age, 
 as ' Falcon in a wood,' leaves no doubt as to the identity of 
 its bearer." This leader, he proceeds to tell us, traversed the 
 valley of Nievole in the middle of April, and entered, without 
 resistance, the territory of Pistoai and of Prato, passed before 
 the gates of Florence, and advanced as far as the Mugello, 
 carrying off a large booty from these rich districts. In 
 returning from this expedition at the end of April, the 
 English again drew near to Florence. Some entrenchments 
 had been erected by the Florentines before the gates of their 
 city ; but the English attacked and carried them by assault, 
 killing a large number of their defenders. Several of the 
 conquerors received knighthood on the field of battle, and 
 during the ensuing night the Company celebrated the fete of 
 their knighthood; the citizens from their walls beholding the 
 foreign warriors dancing in a round with flambeaux in their 
 hands, and repeating in their orgies the sacred names 
 employed by the heads of the Republic in their solemn 
 deliberations. 
 
 After pillaging for two days the fertile fields of Florence, 
 Hawkwood led his forces back to Pisa, having carried desola- 
 tion into nearly all the Provinces of the Florentine territory.
 
 38 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 It would weary the reader to follow the English Condottiere 
 in all his various enterprises. From the Pisan service he 
 passed into that of Galeaz Visconti, the Lord of INIilan, 
 whose daughter Violante had married the English King's 
 son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and, though opposed to a 
 very superior force of 50,000 Hungarians, Bohemians, &c., 
 led by the German Emperor, Charles IV., into Italy in order 
 to free the Italians from the tyranny of the Visconti, Hawk- 
 wood so impeded their progress and harassed their march 
 that they had eventually to quit Italy without performing any 
 exploit. 
 
 But the death of the Duke of Clarence broke the tie 
 between Hawkwood and the Visconti ; and these latter, says 
 Sismondi, had the imprudence to dismiss John Hawkwood, 
 the ablest of the Captains who then made war in Lombardy. 
 He passed into the service of the Pope's Legates — for Popes 
 had armies then, and made wars — and turned the tide of 
 fortune, attacking and defeating the Milanese army on the 
 8th May, 1373, and making prisoners nearly all its chiefs. 
 Again, at the head of the Army of the Church, Hawkwood 
 attacked the Florentines, though, to save appearances (for 
 Florence had long been a faithful friend to the Popes), he 
 was disowned by the Legate of Gregory XI. The Legate's 
 secret orders to Hawkwood were to offer to spare the harvests 
 of the Florentines for a certain ransom, but to demand so 
 exorbitant a sum that its non-payment would give a pretext 
 for breaking off the negotiation. The sum demanded by 
 Hawkwood was 130,000 florins, and the Florentines paid it. 
 The Legate wrote to him to break off the bargain; but the 
 English leader spurned such a shameful act and led off his 
 forces, levying, however, large sums on the Siennese and the 
 Pisans as he marched through Tuscany. He then took 
 service with another Papal Legate, and it was whilst in this 
 service that one of the most terrible acts of his life was 
 committed. The city of Bologna had thrown off the yoke 
 of the Pope and driven out the Legate and his forces, 
 including a portion of the English Company, and even
 
 The Ancestor of the Sussex She Hey s. 39 
 
 taking prisoners Hawkwood's two sons. Hawkwood himself, 
 however, and the bulk of his forces were at a distance, and 
 the English leader hearing of the revolt of Bologna, and 
 suspecting that Faenza was about to follow the example, 
 suddenly entered that city, and giving it up to his soldiers, 
 4,000 of its population were massacred and the greatest 
 enormities committed. Hawkwood was still at Faenza when 
 he was summoned by the Cardinal of Geneva to join with 
 the Breton Company in punishing another city, Cesene, for 
 having also attempted to revolt from the Pope. Hawkwood 
 hesitated to take part in this crime, on which the Cardinal 
 exclaimed, "I will have blood, blood;" and when the massacre 
 began, he was heard frequently to exclaim, "Kill all." 
 Nobody, indeed, was spared. The Bretons seized infants 
 at the breast by the feet and dashed their brains out against 
 the walls. Priests, nuns — even the virgins consecrated to 
 the Altar — were slain, and 5,000 perished in the butchery. 
 Such was the way in which " Mother Church " treated her 
 disobedient children in the Middle Ages ! 
 
 This dreadful act of Ecclesiastical vengeance was the last 
 in which Hawkwood took part in the service of the Pope. 
 He now passed, with the English Company, into the service 
 of the Republic of Florence, at that time under the popular and 
 patriotic government of " the Eight," and from this moment 
 we can follow the steps of the English Captain with some 
 feeling of pride and satisfaction ; for he was fighting for the 
 cause of liberty and independence against tyranny, oppression, 
 and fraud. Fidelity was not a virtue of the age, and, of all 
 men, the Condottiere could lay the smallest claim to it. But 
 Hawkwood was faithful to the Florentine Republic. It put 
 trust in him, and he gave signal proofs that he was worthy of 
 that trust. Galeaz Visconti, the Duke of Milan, then aiming 
 at the subjugation of all Italy, made war by fraud, falsehood, 
 and treachery. Personally timid, and shutting himself up in 
 his fortified Palace in Pavia, where he took precautions against 
 the very guards by whom he surrounded himself, he was yet a 
 daring as well as unscrupulous politician, and was incessantly
 
 40 GUvipscs of Our Ancestors. 
 
 attacking his neighbours— now by open force, now by corrup- 
 tion and assassination; his favourite mode of attack being to 
 disarm them by professions of friendship, and then, when they 
 were off their guard, seizing an opportunity of attack. If 
 discovered, he disowned his instruments, and commenced a 
 fresh web of deceit; for he never lost his temper — never 
 abandoned his designs — never gave up the hope of deluding 
 his victims. To this despicable but dangerous man, the 
 Republic of Florence was the only Power in Italy that offered 
 real defiance — that refused to believe in his professions, and 
 that did not fall a victim to his arts. And Hawkwood was 
 the General whom the Republic opposed to the numerous 
 chiefs that Galeaz had in his pay, and by whom, and his own 
 forces, he was continually attacking Florence and its allies. 
 One by one, these latter fell before him. Sienna and Pisa — 
 recently Republics — Verona, Vicenza — where the Delia Scalas 
 had reigned — and Padua, the seat of the Carraras, were sub- 
 jugated by his arms or seduced by his gold. Florence alone 
 was proof against both. The Pope was his ally and Venice 
 shrank from open war with him, only covertly giving assistance 
 to his enemies. Amongst these was one man who was fit to 
 co-operate with Hawkwood, the General of the Florentines, 
 in defence of Italy. This was Francis of Carrara, who, after 
 being stripped of his possessions by Galeaz, had escaped with 
 his wife (then near her confinement) from Italy into Germany 
 under circumstances of danger and suffering for wife and 
 husband that have made them a favourite subject for poets 
 and painters. Carrara now determined, with the aid of 
 Florence, to recover his possessions. In this he was signally 
 successful. The citizens of Padua received him with open 
 arms; the Milanese garrison was driven out; and the Floren- 
 tines were now in a position to attack the Duke of IMilan 
 instead of being attacked by him. With this view they 
 entered into an engagement with another Condottiere Chief, 
 a Frenchman, the Count d'Armagnac, who was to march with 
 his Company of Bretons into Lombardy on the one side 
 whilst Hawkwood advanced with his English and Florentines
 
 The Ancestor of the Sussex She I leys. 41 
 
 on the other, effecting a junction under the walls of Milan. 
 Hawkwood faithfully performed his part of the plan. He 
 marched to Padua, was there joined by the contingents of 
 that State and of Bologna, and then, on the 15th of May, 
 1 39 1, he advanced on Milan, by Vicenza and Verona, with a 
 force of 6,600 cuirassiers, 1,200 musketeers, and a large body 
 of infantry. Passing the Mincio and the Oglio, he arrived 
 within fifteen miles of INIilan, and celebrated, on the banks 
 of the Adda, by which river alone he was separated from the 
 capital of Galeaz Visconti, the fete of St. John, the Patron 
 Saint of Florence. Here he awaited the arrival of the Count 
 D'Armagnac, who had received strict injunctions from the 
 envoys of Florence to avoid any engagement until he had 
 passed the Po and joined Hawkwood. Instead of which, 
 although a veteran warrior of eighty years, he suffered himself 
 to be drawn by his impetuosity into a battle with Galeaz's 
 General, Jacques del Verme, in which his whole force was 
 either cut to pieces or made prisoners ; he himself being so 
 badly wounded that he died shortly afterwards in the hands 
 of his enemies, not without suspicion that his end was hastened 
 by poison. 
 
 Hawkwood now found himself in a position of the greatest 
 danger. He was far advanced in an enemy's country, with 
 several deep rivers between him and Florence, and was about 
 to be attacked by superior forces. The head-quarters of 
 Jacques del Verme, in fact, were only separated by a little 
 stream and a distance of a mile and a half from Hawkwood's 
 camp. Hawkwood shut himself up in this, with every appear- 
 ance of fear, allowing the enemy's men-at-arms to approach 
 his entrenchments and utter all kinds of insults. For four 
 days he presented this aspect to the foe, and then, on the fifth, 
 when the Milanese troops were advancing in greater number, 
 as though to storm his camp, he threw open the gates and 
 suddenly fell upon them with such fury as to put them to the 
 rout and to capture above a thousand horse. 
 
 Upon a smaller scale, this reminds one of the fury with
 
 42 Glimpses of Our A7icesto7's. 
 
 which Hannibal broke through the Roman lines on their first 
 attempt to besiege Capua, and of the similar feat of Napoleon, 
 when, throwing open the gates of Dresden, he drove back 
 the armies of Europe, assembled before that city. But as, on 
 each of these occasions, the routed armies closed upon their 
 prey, so did the forces of the Visconti re-assemble and follow 
 upon the traces of Hawkwood, who, passing the Oglio and 
 the Mincio without interruption, found, on arriving on the 
 banks of the much swifter Adda, that its dykes had been 
 fortified against him, and some of these dykes having been 
 broken by Jacques del Verme, the plain in which Hawkwood's 
 army now found itself was suddenly inundated, and his camp 
 became the centre of a lake which hourly grew deeper and 
 threatened soon to cover the ground on which his soldiers 
 stood. So convinced was the Milanese General that he had 
 caught his opponent in a trap that he wrote to Galeaz to ask 
 how he would have his enemies sent to him, and he sent to 
 Hawkwood, by a trumpeter, a cage with a live fox in it! The 
 English General (remarks the Italian historian who tells the 
 story), on receiving the significant present, enjoined its bearer 
 to tell his General that the fox did not seem to be very sad, 
 and that, doubtless, it knew by what door it could get out of 
 the trap ! 
 
 No other General but Hawkwood (says Sismondi) would 
 have known or dared to venture upon such an issue; but that 
 old warrior, who joined great prudence to great courage, had 
 inspired his soldiers with such confidence that they never 
 hesitated to follow him wherever he led. Hawkwood left 
 his tents all standing and his flags flying on the ground where 
 he had planted them, and, at break of day, he boldly entered 
 the submerged plain, himself leading his army towards those 
 dykes of the Arno which lie seven or eight miles below 
 Lignogo. In this way he marched all the day and a part of 
 the following night, with his horses up to their bellies in 
 water. His march was impeded by the mud, in which his 
 soldiers frequently embedded themselves, and by the canals, 
 which could not be distinguished from the water which
 
 The Ancestor of the Sussex Shelley s. 43 
 
 covered them. Thus they traversed the whole Veronese 
 valley until they arrived opposite Castle Baldo, upon the dyke 
 of the Adige, the bed of which was dry. At this Castle, 
 which belonged to the Lord of Padua, Francis Carrara, 
 Hawkwood refreshed his troops. The weakest horses and 
 some of the foot soldiers had perished in so fatiguing and 
 dangerous a march ; but the army of Florence and of its 
 allies was saved ; for Jacques del Verme never thought of 
 following up the pursuit by such a track ! 
 
 The IMilanese General, finding that the English fox had 
 found a door to escape by, now attempted to reach Florence 
 before him. But Hawkwood was quickly on his footsteps, 
 checked his ravages, and cut off his scattered soldiers, so that 
 at last the IMilanese General feared to be caught in his turn, 
 and, indeed, only escaped by abandoning his camp in the 
 middle of the night and flying across the Apennines with the 
 loss of a portion of his infantry. 
 
 So the English General came off victorious at last. He 
 had won many battles; but this was, perhaps, his greatest 
 feat of generalship. It was also his last; for peace was now 
 concluded between the two belligerents, both exhausted by 
 their efforts, and, before hostilities broke out again, and at the 
 very moment, says Sismondi, when a great captain was more 
 than ever needful to the Florentine Republic, she lost that 
 one to whom she owed her success in the late war. John 
 Hawkwood died on the i6th of March, 1394, of disease (the 
 greater number of men in those days perished by the sword, 
 by the executioner, or by poison), upon an estate which he 
 had bought near Florence. The Government of the Republic 
 caused him to be interred with the greatest honours in the 
 Cathedral of the city; and, adds the historian of the Italian 
 Republics, his tomb is still to be seen there, surmounted by 
 an equestrian statue. 
 
 We have seen that Hawkwood had two sons old enough 
 to take part with him in the dangers of war; but whether 
 they survived their father, and, if so, their after-fortunes, we
 
 44 
 
 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 do not learn from Sismondi. They certainly did not equal 
 him in the art of war, or we should hear of them in the 
 subsequent wars that devastated Italy. We know, however, 
 that his wife and his daughter returned to England, and that 
 the latter became the wife of one of the Sussex Shelleys, in 
 whose veins, therefore, the blood of John Hawkwood, the 
 renowned Condottiere Chief and the General of the Republic 
 of Florence, still flows.
 
 Sussex Families: Their Ups and 
 
 Downs. 
 
 NGLAND ought to be a country of old families, 
 for it has not been disturbed by the presence of 
 an invader for these 800 years, and for the last 
 200 of them its Government has been a settled 
 one. Of all English counties, too, Sussex ought to be 
 the Eden of old families, for, whilst it is near enough 
 to the metropolis to share in the protection thrown around 
 the heart of the nation, it is, or rather was, distant enough 
 from London to make it a pleasant retreat from the turmoil 
 of a great city. Great cities of its own it never had 
 until within this last half-century; but it was dotted over 
 with small towns and villages which nestled under the 
 Castles, Halls, and Mansions of Dukes, Earls, and Baronets, 
 Knights and Squires : places within fifty or sixty miles of 
 London, and yet so secluded in themselves — so remote from 
 the din of war and the conflicts of parties, so fenced about 
 by villainous roads and dense woods, that it is the well- 
 weighed opinion of Mr. Lower that a battle like that of 
 Naseby might have been fought in England and the news of 
 it never have reached the inhabitants of many of these 
 Sussex hamlets ! 
 
 A county like this must have been, one would think, 
 prolific in old families, and we should expect to find them 
 abounding in all the luxuriance of tropical growth. 
 
 But what is the fact ? Sussex: can boast of very few really 
 old families. The process of family disintegration and 
 dispersion seems to have been as rapid in Sussex as in any 
 other English county, if not more so. If the county itself 
 was a very Eden of repose, there was a spirit of restlessness
 
 46 Gli77ipscs of Our Ancestors. 
 
 in its occupants which drove them, liice Adam and Eve of 
 old, out of their Paradise, in search of that good and evil 
 they were so anxious to know upon a wider stage. Where 
 are the Poynings, the Pierrepoints, the Brownes, the Poyntzs, 
 the Lunfords, the Culpeppers (with whom both Sussex and 
 Kent swarmed in the time of the Charles's), the Lewknors, 
 the De la Bordes, the Challoners, the Coverts, the Carylls 
 (Pope's friends), the Castedells, the Combes, the Farnfolds, 
 the Bisshopps, the Wells's (of Buxted), the Shirleys (of 
 Eastern renown), the Wharbletons, and many other noble 
 and knightly families who were once as "plentiful as 
 blackberries" in Sussex, and held, at one time or another, 
 the larger part of its broad acres in their hands ? May we 
 not reply, in the smooth and sadly humorous lines of Praed, 
 " they are forgotten — 
 
 — "as old debts. 
 By persons who are used to borrow; 
 Forgotten, — as the sun that sets, 
 When shines a new one on the morrow; 
 Forgotten — Hke the luscious peach 
 
 That blessed the schoolboy last September; 
 Forgotten — like a maiden speech. 
 
 Which all men praise, but none remember." 
 
 Saxon, Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Cavalier 
 and Puritan, Protestant and Catholic, Whig and Tory — they 
 have either voluntarily vacated their seats or been pushed 
 from them by new men, who are as little remembered as they; 
 for, in this county, new families soon become old; if we have, 
 like Bolingbroke, a genius to rise, we have also, like Falstaff, 
 "a kind of alacrity in sinking," or else the present roll of 
 county families would not be so meagre in names that were 
 once in every Sussex mouth. 
 
 But it is not our intention to write an essay on this theme, 
 or to go to past generations for examples of the proposition, 
 that families, if they spring up quickly, do not strike deeply 
 into Sussex soil. We prefer to take a modern instance which 
 meets us on our very threshold and lives in the memories of 
 men not yet very old ; that is, it would live in their memories
 
 Si^ssex Families : Their Ups and Downs. 47 
 
 but for the rapid rush of modern events, which, with their 
 lightning-like speed and obtrusive force, crowd out everything 
 that is older than yesterday. But some Brightonians will, 
 perhaps, see the force of our illustration of the vanity of 
 family pride when we put the simple question : " Is there a 
 Wigney in the town of Brighton at the present moment?" 
 
 Of course, the Wigneys of Brighton were mushrooms. 
 So were the Howards and Cavendishes once upon a time. 
 That only strengthens our position. They were mushrooms — 
 springing up no one knew how or whence. But, mushroom- 
 like, they throve and spread, until they filled a large space 
 in men's eyes ; and if wealth, magisterial dignity, political 
 power, and fashionable position could give consequence, 
 they possessed it in Brighton fifty years ago. 
 
 No family, indeed, in the history of this town ever rose 
 so rapidly or so high as the Wigneys, and none ever fell more 
 quickly or completely. 
 
 The founder of it, old William Wigney, was, according 
 to the voice of rumour, which dogs the heels of prosperous 
 men, originally a pedlar, and made his money by bringing 
 over franc-pieces from France and passing them as shillings. 
 There was doubtless a spice of truth in the report. He came 
 from the north of England at the close of the last century, 
 set up as a draper in North Street, and married the daughter 
 of a captain of one of the vessels running between Brighton 
 and Dieppe. Very likely he dabbled a little in smuggling — 
 as who on the Sussex coast that had the chance did not ? — 
 and was not found out ! At all events, he made money 
 enough to start a bank at a time when it needed more 
 confidence than cash to do so; and when the panic of 1825 
 came which gave the coup de grace to so many mushroom 
 bankers, he had so consolidated his position as to breast 
 the storm boldly and to outlive it. Whilst other and older 
 establishments in the town went down, we have heard those 
 who remembered that terrible time, when all credit seemed 
 to have perished, say that the stern-looking handsome old
 
 48 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 man took his station each day at his counter, from the 
 opening to the closing hour, with heavy bags of gold at his 
 elbow, ready to pay in cash all demands. That of itself was 
 enough to stop a "run." Wigney's was soon voted "as safe 
 as the Bank of England;" and the bank came out of the 
 ordeal stronger than ever. From that day not a suspicion 
 was raised of its solvency until — but we are anticipating. 
 
 Many a proud day was given to the Wigneys before they 
 had to answer to the Nemesis that waits upon success. 
 They were prosperous in more ways than one, and they sent 
 out many shoots, and, to all appearance, sturdy ones. There 
 was George, the brewer, a solid, steady-going man, who kept 
 to his beer-making and beer-selling ; and there was his son, 
 young George, a dashing young fellow, brimful of spirits ; 
 and there was Robert Wigney, " Gipsy Bob," a brother of 
 the old man, and a man of talent and energy. And there was 
 Clement, a young man of pleasing appearance and popular 
 manners. But, above all, there was Isaac Newton Wigney, 
 the third and favourite son of the old banker — the heir to his 
 prosperity — on whom all his dreams of ambition rested. 
 
 And were they not realised 1 Did he not live to see this 
 favourite son the first Member returned to Parliament by 
 enfranchised Brighton } Did he not see him take his seat 
 on the Brighton Bench as a Magistrate of the County ? Did 
 he not see him marry a beautiful woman, of good family, and 
 assume with her a position in fashionable society, which, 
 whatever envy it might excite, could not be challenged ? For 
 Isaac Newton — or, as he preferred to be called, Newton 
 Wigney — had the look and manners of a gentleman, and, 
 though he might lack that ease which time or Nature only 
 gives, yet he was admitted into the best society of Brighton 
 and of London. His success in this direction was, indeed, 
 fatal to him in the end. Not only did it excite envy, but, in 
 the sequel, it gave rise to suspicion. It provoked political 
 hostility; for the Wigneys had sprung from the people within 
 the memory of all. Isaac Newton was, on first coming
 
 Sussex Fa77iilies : Their Ups and Downs. 49 
 
 forward, supported by the Radicals as well as Whigs of the 
 town as a people's man, and when he began, as he soon did, 
 to cool to his Radical colleague (George Faithfull) and place 
 his chief reliance on the Whigs ; when he was known to 
 frequent fashionable circles, to affect fashionable manners, 
 and to *' scorn the base degrees by which he did ascend " the 
 ladder of Fortune, then the wrath of the Brighton Radicals 
 (roused by the defeat of their man in the second contest for 
 the Borough, in 1835) burst out against the upstart — the 
 parveiiu — and, in a moment of necessity, when the Tories 
 pressed hard upon the Liberals, some half-dozen men played 
 traitor to the cause, split with Dalrymple, and " turned out 
 the Banker." 
 
 It was a severe blow to the Wigney family; but the 
 motives of those who dealt it were so petty that the public 
 sympathy was with the ejected Member, and the Radical 
 party, which sacrificed a seat to gratify personal animosity, 
 fell into disrepute, and did not for many years recover its 
 position. At the next election (in 1841) Isaac Newton 
 Wigney was re-seated as Member for Brighton, and at this 
 period he seemed to stand as high as ever, if not higher, on 
 Fortune's wheel. But, in point of fact, several things had 
 occurred which tended to undermine his position. His 
 father had died, and the old man's property was distributed 
 among several members of his family instead of being con- 
 solidated in one focus — the Bank. Then the will of the old 
 man, which was published, showed that his wealth was not so 
 great as it had been supposed to be. Still, the proportion left 
 to the son, who succeeded to the bank, Isaac Newton Wigney, 
 was sufficient to secure its credit, if the same caution and 
 judgmentwhich itsfounderhad displayed had been still brought 
 to its management. But the position of the son was very 
 different from that of the father. There were claims upon 
 the former, in respect both to his political position and his 
 character as a man of fashion, which the old man had known 
 nothing of. A portion of the year had necessarily to be spent 
 in London, and, as was now made known, in the dissipations 
 
 £
 
 50 Gli7npses of Our Aficestors. 
 
 of London life ; for among the witnesses who were called to 
 give evidence in the famous De Ros trial, the card-cheating 
 case, which threw such discredit on the highest circles, 
 was Isaac Newton Wigney ; and this fact did more to damage 
 his credit with sober-thinking men of business than anything 
 else. At this time many accounts were withdrawn from 
 Wigney's, and though the bank still went on, the head of it 
 was struggling with his fate. At this time such as knew Isaac 
 Newton Wigney could but be struck by the care-worn lines 
 on his face, and the quickness with which he seemed to age. 
 He must, indeed, have suffered for some years all the tortures 
 of Damocles: the sword was suspended by a thread above 
 his head, and he knew that it was only a question of time 
 when it should fall. His efforts to rescue himself only 
 involved him in deeper ruin. He entered into speculations 
 of the nature of which he knew nothing, and which turned 
 out to be failures, and at length he was unable to meet his 
 engagements, and the long-suspended blow fell. It was not 
 the loss of public confidence; the character won for the bank 
 by its founder served it well up to the last. Nor was it a 
 " run " or a " panic." It was the exhaustion of all the funds 
 of the establishment in disastrous speculations, and the 
 refusal of its London agents to make more advances, to meet 
 inevitable demands, that obliged it to close its doors. Business 
 was carried on at it in the usual way up to the closing hour 
 on Thursday, March 3, 1842, and though rumours were current 
 in the town that night (traced, it was said, to the too frank 
 disclosures of a younger member of the family who was dining 
 at the officers' mess) as to the event of the morrow, it was not 
 until the day and the hour — ten o'clock of Friday, the 4th of 
 March, 1842 — arrived that the certainty of the catastrophe 
 was made known by " the handwriting on the wall." On the 
 closed shutters of the Bank in East-street was posted the fatal 
 notice: — 
 
 '* Messrs. Wigney & Co. deeply regret the painful 
 necessity of suspending their payments." 
 ''March 4, 1842."
 
 Sussex Families : Their Ups and Doivns. 5 1 
 
 So the edifice which had been reared up by a life of care 
 and frugality was tumbled down in a few years by the opposite 
 qualities, and yet more by the pride and vanity which had 
 over-weighted the original foundation. For this Newton 
 Wigney was not altogether to blame — his father was the 
 original sinner ; but the son had to pay the penalty. And a 
 terrible one it was. Immediate death would have been a 
 lighter punishment. What remained to him of life was a 
 prolonged agony. He was not of that hard texture which 
 can outface shame or brave misfortune ; on the contrary, he 
 was of a delicate and susceptible organisation, rather inclining 
 to the effeminate. And yet the ordeal he had to pass through 
 would have tried the most iron nerves. He was made a 
 bankrupt, and, by the Bankruptcy Laws of that day, the 
 examinations were conducted in the towns where the 
 bankrupt's business had been carried on. Thus, Isaac 
 Newton Wigney, for years the foremost man in his native 
 town — the first Member it had sent to Parliament — the 
 favourite son of the rich old banker — but now Member and 
 Banker and Magistrate — had to appear almost as a criminal 
 in a Court held in the Town Hall of Brighton, presided over 
 by a Barrister of Brighton, crowded by people who had 
 known him in his prosperity, and had to undergo the 
 questioning of a local attorney who certainly could not 
 be complimented for the delicacy of his feelings or the 
 refinement of his language. Some of the questions put 
 to Isaac Newton Wigney by Sidney Walsingham Bennett, 
 ' touching his wife's expenses and property, were such as 
 would hardly be tolerated at the present day, and would 
 not have been permitted even then, but that men's feelings 
 were steeled against pity, or even decency, by recent losses, 
 and by a desire of vengeance against the unfortunate man 
 who was held to be responsible for those losses. To him these 
 questions must have been like the stabs of a dagger, or rather 
 like the blows of a hatchet in the hands of a butcher. How 
 he held up against the torture is marvellous: how, day after 
 day, he came up to the table — the stake — and narrated the
 
 5 2 Gli7npses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 tale of his ill-starred attempts to retrieve his position by 
 engaging in speculations of which he knew nothing — could 
 explain nothing — is one of those things which, when we 
 consider the physical and moral weakness of the man and the 
 demand it made on his brain and heart and nerve, is a thing 
 that baffles one. But the fact was, he was drawing on his life 
 resources; he was concentrating in a few agonising days the 
 strength that would, under happier circumstances, have been 
 diffused over long years. He was, in popular phrase, being 
 killed by inches. He passed through the ordeal, as men do 
 pass through such things, and, coming out of it alive, very 
 little if any pity was given to him. The pity, naturally enough, 
 was bestowed on those — and there were many — who were 
 ruined or impoverished or embarrassed by his imprudencies. 
 But, looking back at the scene as it still lives in the memory 
 of those who were eye-witnesses of it — looking back upon 
 that scene, and recalling that pale, haggard, scared, but once 
 handsome, if weak, face — knowing that his nature was a kind 
 and gentle one — knowing that he loved and was proud of his 
 wife and doted on his son — remembering that he had been, 
 during the whole of his life, petted by his father, and looked up 
 to by every Wigney as the pride of the family — remembering 
 all this, and what he had to endure as he stood there to explain 
 and justify acts which could not be explained or justified, and 
 that his questioner was the legal bully of Brighton — we can 
 but feel pity for the man, and think that, if the punishment 
 inflicted on him be measured by that which others worse than 
 he have since met with in the same position, he was hardly 
 dealt by. 
 
 But he came out of the torture-room alive, and pity was 
 dead, at least for a time. We do not know, indeed, that it 
 ever came — certainly not in his life-time. He did not long 
 survive his disgrace and ruin; and the family dispersed — sank 
 out of sight much more rapidly than it had sprung up. Such 
 of the elder members as remained in the town died quickly ; 
 the younger ones went to Australia, India, Scotland, London, 
 and were lost in the vast throng of life. At the present
 
 Sussex Families : Their Ups and Downs. 53 
 
 moment there is not, so far as we know, a remnant of the 
 Wigney family left in Brighton. 
 
 But this local instance of the rise and fall of families has 
 nothing but its recent occurrence to distinguish it from the 
 many other instances which might be cited of the rapidity 
 with which families spring up to wealth and position in this 
 England of ours, and then sink again into their original 
 insignificance. For it is not to be supposed that in every case, 
 or even in the majority of cases, the family dies out — root and 
 branch. It has been conjectured that even the blood of the 
 Plantagenets may still flow in very humble veins. And men 
 who had Pierrepoints and Lewknors, Culpepers and Challoners, 
 Carylls and Coverts for their ancestors, may be plodding as 
 labourers over the broad acres which their forefathers owned, 
 and have no higher ambition than to earn their i6s. or i8s. a 
 week I If this be so in the staid and sedate country — as most 
 certainly it is — how much more so is it the case in modern 
 towns, where every decade changes the face of society, and 
 makes the lines in which Homer described the mortality of 
 men applicable to their fortunes : — 
 
 Like leaves on trees the race of man is found ; 
 
 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground. 
 
 Another race the following Spring supplies. 
 
 They fall successive, and successive rise. 
 
 So generations in their course decay ; 
 
 So flourish these when those have passed away. 
 
 The warning is some 3,000 or 4,000 years old. And yet 
 but little heed is taken of it ; and the pride of family — a pride 
 that dates from yesterday and will die out to-morrow — is still 
 one of the strongest and most disagreeable ingredients of 
 modern society !
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 
 
 N the sharp agony of three years which England 
 underwent for conscience' sake in the reign of 
 Queen Mary, the county of Sussex bore a large 
 part. Thirty-three men and women, married and 
 single, perished at the stake in different parts of Sussex from 
 ^555 to 1557, and as Hume estimates the total number of 
 victims in that persecution to have been 277, it is obvious that 
 Sussex furnished more than its due proportion to " the noble 
 Army of Martyrs." 
 
 It is not improbable that it owed this honorable distinction 
 in part to its adjacency to the Metropolis, which brought it 
 under the eyes of the Ministers of the Queen ; also to the 
 circumstance of the diocese being put, in the latter years of 
 her reign, under the rule of a man, Dr. Christopherson, who 
 stood forth as a champion of the Romish Church. But, after 
 taking into account these reasons for sharper persecution in 
 Sussex, we may claim something for the character of the 
 Sussex husbandman and artisan, from whose ranks the 
 majority of the victims were taken. To those who have any 
 knowledge of the Sussex farmer, even in these days, when men 
 are no longer called upon to seal their faith with their blood, 
 the stoutness, or, if you will, the stubbornness with which they 
 maintain their opinions must be quite familiar, and no less 
 the independence with which they exercise their cherished 
 right of private judgment. We have often been astonished 
 at the freedom of speculation, and the wide range it takes, in 
 a Sussex farmhouse, and as we listened to the theological 
 opinions of men of this class we have ceased to wonder at the 
 zeal and fortitude with which they defended the doctrines of
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 55 
 
 the Reformers in the terrible days of Queen Mary, or at the 
 readiness with which they responded to the call of the great 
 champions of English liberty in the succeeding century. 
 Whether as Protestants or as Puritans, it is certain that the 
 yeomen of Sussex had turned to good account the opportunity 
 which was given them in the Eighth Harry's time, to "search 
 the Scriptures." From the translating of the Bible into 
 English in that reign, and from the teaching of children to 
 read in the following one of Edward VI., it is pretty evident 
 that this spirit of independent thought in matters of religion 
 sprang. In Sussex the seed fell on a soil ripe and ready for 
 it, and in the lonely homestead, or in the humble village 
 workshop, that attention was bestowed on the Sacred Writings 
 that brought forth its fruit in such men as Derick Carver and 
 Richard Woodman. 
 
 To the former of these two men belongs the honor of 
 having been the first to suffer as a Sussex Martyr. Derick 
 Carver was an inhabitant of Brighthelmston, and had been so 
 for eight or nine years when the storm of religious persecution 
 burst upon him. By birth he was a Fleming — by business a 
 brewer; and to him is attributed the introduction of " true 
 beer " — that is, beer brewed from hops — into this part of the 
 country. From the days of Von Arteveldt brewers have, as a 
 rule, ranged themselves on the side of freedom, and Derick 
 Carver approved himself no unworthy follower of the art. 
 Coming into England, with many other natives of the Low 
 Countries, in the favorable times of Edward VI., when 
 foreigners were even allowed to form their own religious commu- 
 nuties independently of the State Church, Carver had been 
 in the habit of collecting a little congregation of men of his 
 own way of thinking at his house in Brighthelmston, and it 
 was, doubtless, this invasion of the rights of the clergy, as they 
 deemed it, that drew down on him, on the accession of Mary 
 to the throne, the vengeance of the newly-restored priests. 
 Towards the close of October, 1554, Carver being then 40 
 years of age, he and twelve of his flock — of whom only three, 
 Thomas Iveson, William Veisy, and John Launder, are named
 
 56 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 —were apprehended as they were at prayer in Carver's house, 
 using the service of Edward VI.'s time, by Mr. Edward Gage, 
 of Firle, a magistrate of the county, and sent up to the 
 Queen's Council in London. As only the four whose names 
 are given are afterwards referred to in Foxe's narrative, we 
 must conclude that the other eight were discharged. Carver, 
 Iveson, Veisy, and Launder were subjected to a preliminary 
 examination and then committed to Newgate, where they lay 
 above seven months before it suited the convenience of Bonner, 
 Bishop of London, to question them more strictly as to their 
 religious doctrines. On the 8th of June, 1555, they were 
 brought from Newgate to the Bishop's house in London, and 
 here, in his chamber, questioned by Bonner himself, and, as 
 the result of this oral examination, they made, and signed, 
 certain "confessions," as they were called in that day, or 
 declarations of faith, upon which a capital charge of heresy 
 was founded against them. It being demanded of them, at 
 the close of the examination, if they " would stand to their 
 answers .?" Launder replied, " I will never go from these 
 answers so long as I live," and the three others making a 
 similar declaration, they were remanded to Newgate until the 
 loth of the same month (June), and then again brought before 
 Bonner, who sat on this occasion at the Bishop's Consistory 
 at St. Paul's. Their " confessions" and their answers to the 
 " articles," or charges, previously objected to them by the 
 Bishop, were now read over to them in the order usually 
 adopted by Bonner at the condemnation of (so-called) heretics, 
 and the Bishop first put it to Carver if he would stand to the 
 same } To which (writes Foxe,in his "Acts and Monuments") 
 " the sayd Diricke answered, that he would, ' for your doctrine 
 (quoth he) is poyson and sorcery. If Christ were here, you 
 would put Him to a worse death than He was put to before. 
 You say that you can make a God ; ye can make a pudding as 
 well. Your ceremonyes in the Church be beggary and poyson. 
 And farther, I say that auricular confession is contrary to God's 
 word, and very poyson ; ' with divers other such words." 
 Whereupon, proceeds Foxe, the Bishop, " seeing this
 
 The Sussex Martyrs, 57 
 
 constancy, and that neyther his accustomed flatteries, nor yet 
 his cruel threatenings, could once move this good man to 
 enclyne to their idolatry, pronounced his usuall and generall 
 blessing, as well towards this Diricke as also upon the sayd 
 John Launder," and then handed them over to the secular 
 authorities, the Sheriffs, for the execution of the Church's 
 sentence. 
 
 In the case of Carver, this took place at Lewes, then the 
 chief town in the eastern part of the county, and the inhabitants 
 of which, it is obvious, inclined to the Reformed faith, for, 
 proceeds Foxe, in his graphic and touching chronicle of 
 Carver's last moments — 
 
 "At his comming into the town of Lewes to be burned, the people called 
 upon h>Tri, beseechyng God to strengthen him in the faith of Jesus 
 Christ. He thanked them, and prayed unto God, that of hys mercy he 
 would strengthen them in the lyke faith. And when hee came to the signe 
 of the Starre, the people drew neare unto him, where the Sheriffe sayd 
 that he had found him a faithfuU man in al his aunswers. And as he came 
 to the stake, he kneled downe and made his prayers, and the Sheriffe 
 made hast. Then hys booke was throwen into the barrel, and when hee 
 had str^-pt him selfe (as a joyfull member of God) he went into the barrel 
 him selfe. And as soone as ever he came in, he tooke up the booke and 
 threw it among the people, and then the Sheriffe commaunded in the 
 Kyng and Queenes name, in paine of death, to throw in the booke againe. 
 And immediately, that faithful! member spake with a joj'full voyce, sa}'ing: 
 
 <' ' Deare brethren and sistern, wytnes to you all that I am come to scale 
 with my bloud Christes Gospell, for because I knowe that it is true ; it 
 is not unknowen unto al you, but that it hath bene truly preached here in 
 Lewes, and in all places in England, and now it is not. And for because 
 that I wyU not denye here Gods Gospell, and be obedient to mans lawes, I 
 am condemned to dye. Deare brethren and sistern, as many of you as do 
 beleve upon the father, the sonne, and the holye ghost, unto everlasting 
 lyfe, see you doe the workes appertaining to the same. And as many of 
 you as do beleve upon the Pope of Rome, or any of hys lawes, which he 
 sets forth in these dales, you do beleve to your utter condemnation, and 
 except the great mercy of God, you shall bume in hell perpetually.' 
 
 "Immediately the Sheriffe spake unto him, and sayd: 'If thou doest 
 not beleve on the Pope thou art damned body and soule.' And farther 
 the Sheriffe sayd unto him ; ' speake to thy God, that he may deliver thee 
 now, or els to strike me do^^^l to the example of this people;' but this 
 faithful! member said, ' the Lorde forgive you your sa>dngs.' And then 
 spake hee againe to all the people there present, with a loude voice, 
 saying, ' deare brethren, and all you whom I have offended in wordes or in 
 dede, I aske you for the Lordes sake to forgeve me, and I hartly forgeve 
 all you, which have offended me in thought, word, or deede.' And he 
 sayd further in his prayer, 'Oh Lorde my God, thou hast written; He that 
 •will not forsake wife, children, house, and all that ever he hath, and take 
 up thy crosse and folow thee, is not worthy of thee. But thou, Lorde,
 
 58 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 knowest that I have forsaken all, to come unto thee ; Lorde, have mercy 
 uppon me, for unto thee I commend my spirit ; and my soule doth rejoyce 
 in thee.' These were the last wordes of that faithful! member of Christ, 
 before the fire was put to him. And aftenvard that the fire came to him, 
 he cried; 'Oh Lord have mercy upon me,' and sprong up in the fire, 
 callyng upon the name of Jesus, and so ended." 
 
 The heroism and steadfastness with which the Brighton 
 brewer maintained his religious opinions and underwent his 
 terrible fate are impressed upon us the more strongly by the 
 fact that he was a husband and a father, and also, as Foxe 
 remarks, " a man whom the Lord had blessed as well with 
 temporal riches as with his spiritual treasures." His business 
 as a brewer was a prosperous one, and it was carried on 
 prosperously by his son after his father's death. This is 
 deducible from the will of the martyr's grandson — also a 
 Derick Carvfer, and a " beere brewer" of Brighthelmston — 
 which was found by the late Mr. M. A. Lower in the Lewes 
 Registry, under the date of December 6th, 1628. That the 
 Christian name of the martyr was held in high respect by his 
 descendants is shown not only by the grandson bearing it, but 
 also by his giving it to his eldest son, then a minor, but whom, 
 in his will, he directs to dwell with his mother, " Helping 
 forward her business of bruinge." Mr. Lower adds that down 
 to a late period the Christian name Derick was found among 
 Brighton families ; and there is still a tradition that the Bible 
 which figured so prominently in the martyrdom of Carver was 
 in existence and in the possession of a Lewes family. But 
 this would scarcely agree with the inference to be drawn from 
 Foxe's narrative that after being thrown by Carver out of the 
 fire it was, at the command of the Sheriff, thrown in again. 
 
 But, if the book perished, the memory of its owner lived, 
 and his family, it is clear, flourished in Brighton " unto the 
 third and fourth generation." 
 
 Two at least of the three men who shared Carver's im- 
 prisonment followed in his footsteps to " the bitter end." 
 But not at the same place. The policy of Bonner doubtless 
 was to strike a general fear into the people of Sussex, and 
 with that view the scenes of martyrdom were assigned to three
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 59 
 
 different places. Thomas Iveson was burnt at the stake in 
 Chichester, and John Launder at Steyning. They were both 
 natives of Godstone, in Surrey — Launder being described in 
 his "confession" as a husbandman and 25 years of age ; and 
 Iveson as a carpenter. Launder had already displayed his 
 steadfastness to his faith in his reply to Bonner, and Iveson 
 was not less firm. Being " earnestly travailed " to recant, he 
 exclaimed, " I would not recant and forsake my opinion and 
 belief for all the goodes in London. I do appeale to God's 
 mercy, and wil be none of your Church, nor submit myself 
 to the same ; and that I have sayd I will say agayne. And if 
 there came an Anngell from Heaven to teach me any other 
 doctrine than which I am in now I would not beleve him." 
 
 No details are given of these two men's last moments ; 
 but, with such sentiments, who can doubt that they bore 
 faithful testimony to the last ? 
 
 As Foxe is silent in respect to the fourth man sent up to 
 London for examination — William Veisy — we must conclude 
 that he escaped the fate of his companions. 
 
 These, the first executions in Sussex in the reign of INIary, 
 took place in the July of 1555, and it was probably expected 
 that such terrible examples would have the eff"ect of turning 
 the people back from the reformed faith and of making them 
 conform to the will of the Queen and her Ministers. At all 
 events, it was nearly a year later before any fresh victims were 
 sent to the stake in Sussex, and then the town of Lewes again 
 saw the fire of religious persecution lighted in her High Street, 
 and four martyrs perished in it, namely, Thomas Harland, 
 carpenter, of Woodmancote ; John Oswald, husbandman, of 
 the same place ; Thomas Avyngton, turner, of Ardingly ; and 
 Thomas Read. They had all lain for a long time in the 
 Queen's Bench, and persisted in their rejection of the Mass. 
 One of the chief reasons for arresting them was, that they did 
 not come to church, and of one of them (Read) the story is 
 handed down by Foxe that, previous to his arrest, he had 
 resolved to go to church ; but, the night following, he saw, in
 
 6o Glhnpses of Our A^icestors. 
 
 a vision, "a company of tall young men in white, very 
 pleasant to behold, to whom he would have joined himself; 
 but it would not be. Then he looked on himself and he was 
 full of spots, and therewith waked, and took hold and stood 
 to the truth." 
 
 As these four martyrs suffered at Lewes on the 6th of June, 
 1556, two other victims to the same cause trod the same path 
 a few days afterwards (about the 20th) at the same place. 
 These were Thomas Whoode, minister, and Thomas Mylles, 
 the former supposed to have been the minister of one of the 
 seven parishes of Lewes, to whom Derick Carver alluded at 
 the stake, when he said, " Christ's gospel hath been truly 
 preached here in Lewes ; " and the native place of Mylles 
 being supposed by the late Mr. M. A. Lower to be Hellingly, 
 from the fact of a John Mylles, " of Hellingly," having 
 subsequently suffered in the same cause. 
 
 The persecution was now at its height. The constancy of 
 the sufferers, or, as their judges called it, their obstinacy, and 
 the compassion which this excited in the lookers-on, raised 
 the worst passions of the human heart in the men who had 
 set themselves to change the religion of the English people, 
 and the growing work having been devolved by Gardiner on 
 Bonner, — a man, says Hume, " of profligate manners and of 
 a brutal character, who seemed to rejoice in the torments of 
 the unhappy sufferers," — it went on with accelerated pace. 
 
 In Sussex the ground of persecution was now extended. 
 At Eastgrinstead two men, Thomas Dungate and John Forman, 
 and a woman, Ann Tree — more familiarly known as "Mother 
 Tree" — were sent to the stake on the i8th June, 1556, 
 "paciently abidying," says Foxe, "what the furious rage of 
 man could say or work agaynst them;" and on the 24th 
 September, in the same year, four men suffered at Mayfield, 
 in the eastern extremity of the county, of whom the names 
 of two only — John Hart and Thomas Ravensdale — have 
 come down to us.
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 6 1 
 
 It was in the following year, 1557, ^^^ 'Ciivcd. of the persecu- 
 tion, and when the calamitous reign of Mary was approaching 
 its close (she died in the autumn of 1558), that the most 
 terrible holocaust was offered up at the shrine of bigotry; no 
 less than ten victims, four of them women, being burnt 
 in one fire at Lewes on the 22nd of June. The character, 
 too, of one of the sufferers, and the circumstances preceding 
 and accompanying his arrest, serve to invest this wholesale 
 act of slaughter with unusual interest. If Derick Carver is 
 entitled to head the roll of Sussex Martyrs by priority of 
 suffering, Richard Woodman may claim to be the most eminent 
 by his social position, his learning, and his intellect. He was 
 one of those Sussex ironmasters who, by their skill and industry, 
 had added so much to the wealth and importance of their 
 county, and he was descended from a family of considerable 
 antiquity in Sussex. Besides his iron-works at Warbleton, 
 where he lived, he was an agriculturist, and possessed manorial 
 property in the shape, to use his own words, of "a lordship and 
 a honour and half a honour," worth the net sum of £ %(:> per 
 annum, equal to nearly /'soo at the present day. He employed 
 no less than a hundred men, and was, consequently, a man 
 of influence in his parish. At the time when the storm of 
 persecution burst upon him he was 30 years of age, and having 
 married early, and, as after-facts showed, a woman worthy of 
 him, he was the happy father of several children. The change 
 which followed the accession of Mary was, to such a son of 
 the Reformation as Woodman, a most trying one ; but it is 
 evident, by what followed, that he had not neglected the 
 opportunities which the seven years' reign of Edward the 
 Sixth had given him. The Bible had not been translated into 
 English in vain for him, and he had studied and mastered those 
 points of doctrine on which the Reformers and the Romanists 
 took such deadly issue. When, therefore, the Rector of 
 Warbleton, one George Fayrebank, a married priest, who had 
 been accustomed to teach and defend the doctrines of the 
 Reformation in the days of Edward VI., saw fit, to use the 
 homely but forcible language of Foxe, to " turn head to tail
 
 62 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 and preach clean contrary to that which he had before taught," 
 Woodman stood forth and admonished him for his inconstancy: 
 " Now before-tyme he had taught them one thing, and now 
 another," and desired him to teach them the truth. As was 
 to be expected from such a reproof, addressed to such a man 
 at such a time. Woodman was quickly called to account for 
 his words ; he was apprehended and brought before four 
 Justices of the Peace for the county of Sussex : Mr, John 
 Ashburnham, Mr. Tofton, Mr. Culpeper, and Mr. Robertes, 
 by whom he was committed to the Queen's Bench prison. 
 This was in June, 1553, so that Woodman was really the first 
 person called to account for his opinions in Sussex, and he 
 continued in this prison for nearly a year and a half, and was 
 then transferred by Dr. Story to a place of confinement for 
 Protestants, popularly called " Bonner's tollhouse." He 
 remained in this place for two months, and during that time, 
 according to his own written statement, preserved by Foxe, 
 was called several times before Bonner, having previously, whilst 
 in the Queen's Bench, been twice before the then Bishop of 
 Chichester — Day — and five times before the Queen's Commis- 
 sioners. In these early days of Queen Mary's reign there was 
 some hesitation in the career of persecution, afterwards so 
 headlong ; and Gardiner had not yet handed over the work 
 to Bonner. So, on this occasion. Woodman escaped with a 
 long imprisonment. He and four others were set at liberty 
 on the 1 8th of December, 1555 — the very day on which John 
 Philpot, a zealous Reformer, was burnt at the stake in another 
 part of the kingdom. 
 
 The subsequent trials of Woodman ; his frequent hidings 
 and escapes ; his betrayal by his own father and brother ; his 
 flight from his house at Warbleton, and his ultimate capture — 
 these are narrated in so graphic and touching a manner by 
 Woodman himself that we cannot do better than copy thus 
 much of his own statement from Foxe's book : — 
 
 " After (he says) I was delivered, the papistes sayd that I had consented 
 to them, wherof they made themselves ghul : the which was the least part 
 of my thought (I prayse God therfore) as they well; perceaved, and knew
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 63 
 
 the contrary within a while. For I went from parish to parish, and 
 talked with them to the number of 13 or 14, and that of the chieftest 
 in all the countrey : and I angred them so, that they \vith the Commis- 
 sioners complayned on me to my Lorde Chamberlaine that was then to 
 the Queene, Syr lohn Gage, shewing him that I baptised children, and 
 maryed folkes, with many such lyes, to bring me into theyr handes agayne. 
 Then the Commissioners sent out certayne citations to bring me to the 
 Court. My Lorde Chamberlayne had directed out 4 or 5 warrantes for 
 me, that if I had come there, I should have bene attached and sent to 
 prison straightway. Which was not God's will ; for I had warning of 
 theyr laying awayt for me, and came not there, but sent my deputy, and 
 he brought me word that the BailifTes wayted for me there : but they 
 mist of theyr pray for that time ; wherupon they were displeased. 
 
 " Then within 3 dales after, my Lord sent 3 of his men to take me, 
 whose names were, Deane, Jeffrey, and Fraunces. I being at plow with 
 my folkes, right in the way as they were comming to my house, least 
 mistrusting them of all other, came to them and spake to them, asking 
 them how they did. And they sayd, they arested me in the King and 
 Queenes name, and that I must go with them to thejnr master the Lord 
 Chamberlayne. Which wordes made my flesh to tremble and quake 
 because of that sodein. But I answered them that I would go with them. 
 Yet I desired them that they would go to my house with me, that I might 
 breake my fast and put on some other gere. And they said I should. 
 Then I remembered my selfe, saying in my hart : why am I thus affrayd ; 
 they can lay no e%dll to my charge. If they kill me for well doing, I may 
 thincke myselfe happy. I remembred how I was contented gladly before 
 to dye in that quarrell and so had continued ever since : and should I 
 now feare to dye .'' Godforbid that I should, for then were all my labor in 
 vaine. 
 
 " So by and by I was persuaded, I praise God, considerjTig it was but 
 the fraUtie of my flesh which was loth to forgo my wife and children and 
 goods ; for I saw nothing but present death before mine eyes. And as 
 soone I was persuaded in my mind to die, I had no regard of nothing in 
 this world, but was as mery and glad, and joyfull, I praise God, as ever I 
 was. This battel lasted not a quarter of an hower, but it was sharper than 
 death it selfe for the time, I dare say. 
 
 '• So, when I had my breakfast, I desired them to show me their 
 warrant, thinking therby I should have scene wherefore I was arested ; to 
 the intent that I myght the better aunswere for my selfe when I came 
 before their maister. And one of them answered, they had not theyr 
 warrant there. Which words made me astonied ; and it was put in my 
 minde by God, that I nede not to goe with them unles they had their 
 warrant. Then sayd I to them, that is marvayle, that you ■will come to 
 take a man without a warrant. It seemeth to me that you come of your 
 ow'ne mynde to get thanke of your maister, for indeede I heard say (sayd 
 I) that there was 4 or 5 warrantes out for me, but they were called in 
 agayne, because I had certified my Lord and the Commissary by a letter 
 that I sent to the Commissarj-es court, that I was not faulty in that they 
 layed to my charge, which was for baptising of children, and marying of 
 folkes; the which I never did, for I was never minister appointed to do 
 any such thing. Wherefore set your hartes at rest ; I will not goe with 
 you (said I) unlesse you wiU caiy me by force. And if you will do so at 
 your own adventures. And so I rose from the borde and stepped into my 
 chamber, meaning to go from them if I coulde possibly, seing God had
 
 64 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 made the way so open for me. I ment to play Peters part wyth them, 
 but God would not it shoulde bee so, but sent a feare amongest them, 
 that as sone as I was gone into my chamber, ere ever I coulde come out 
 agayne, they were gone out of my house. 
 
 " AVlien I saw that, I knew it was Gods doing to set me at Hbertie 
 once agayne. Yet I was compelled to speake to them and sayd : if you 
 have a warrant, I desire you for Gods sake shew it me, and I will goe with 
 you wyth all my hart : if not, I desire you to depart in Gods peace and 
 the kingses : for surely I will not goe with you without the order of the 
 law : for I have bene too simple in such things already. For before I was 
 sent to prison first, I went to the justices to two sessions, without any 
 warrant or commaundement, but had word by one of theyr men, and I 
 went gently to them, and they sent me to prison, and kept me there almost 
 a yeare and iii. quarters without all right or equity, as it is openly knowen, 
 not hearing my cause justly debated. And it seemeth to me that I should 
 bee thus evill handled, and therefore I wyll not goe to none of them all 
 henceforth, ^v}'thout the extremitie of the law. 
 
 " Then one of them answered me and sayd ; we have not the waiTant 
 here, but it is at home at my house ; the worst is you can but make us 
 fetch it. Then I sayd, fetch it if you will, but if you come in my house 
 before you have it, at your owne adventure. So I shutte the dore and 
 went my way out of the other dore. So they got helpe to watch my 
 house, while one of them fet the Constable and many more, thinking to 
 have had me in my house, and to have taken me in my house, and carried 
 me away wyth a licence ; but I was gone before, as God would have it. 
 Notwithstanding they sought every comer of my house, but could not 
 prevayle. I mistrusted they would search it agayne that nyght, and kept 
 me abroade, and indeede there came seven of hys men and the Constable 
 and searched my house. And when they saw that they could not meete 
 with me, they were ready to rent their coates that I had scaped them so, 
 knowing they should have such a checke of their maister. When I heard 
 that they had sought so for me again, I perceiving that they were greedy 
 of their pray, came home, and my wife tolde me all thinges. 
 
 "Then I supposed that they would lay all the Countrey for me, and 
 the sea coaste, because I should not goe over, and then I thought they 
 would not mistrust that I would dare be nigh home. So I tolde my wife 
 that I would make my lodging in a wood not past a flight shot from my 
 house, as I did indeede, even under a tree, and there had my Bible, my 
 penne and myne incke, and other necessaries, and there continued a vi. or 
 vii. weekes, my wyfe bringing me meat dayly, as I had neede. Yea I 
 thought my selfe blessed of God, that I was counted worthy to lye in the 
 woods for the name of Christ. Then there came word into the Countrey 
 that I was scene and spoken to in Flaunders ; whereupon they left laying 
 a wayte for me, for they had layd all the countrey for me, and the sea 
 coast from Portesmouth to Dover, even as God put in my mynde they 
 would. 
 
 " So when all was husht, I went abroad among our frendes and 
 brethren, and at length I went beyond the sea, both into Flaunders and 
 in Frauncc : but I thought every day vii yeare or ever I were at home 
 agayne. So I came home againe as soone as it was possible. I was there 
 but 3 weekes, but as soone as I was come home, and it once known among 
 Bales Priests, they could not abide it, but procured out warrantes agaynst 
 me, causing my house to be searched sometymes twise in a weeke. This
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 65 
 
 continued from S. James tydc to the first Sonday in Lent. Otherwhile I 
 went prively, othenvhile openly, otherwhile I went from home a fortnight 
 or iii weekes, otherwhile I was at home a moneth or five weekes together, 
 living there most commonly and openly, doyng such workes as I had to 
 do : and yet all myne enemyes could lay no hands on me, till the hour 
 was full come : and then by the voyce of the Countrey, and by manifest 
 proofes, myne owne brother as concerning the fleshe, delivered me into 
 their hands by that he knew that I was at home. 
 
 " For my father and he had as much of my goodes in their handes as I 
 might have Ivi. £. for by the yeare cleare, and therunto prayed. It was a 
 Lordshyp and a honnor and halfe a honnor, that I had delivered into their 
 handes, to pay my debtes, and the rest to remaine to my wife and children. 
 But they had reported that it would not pay my debtes : which greved me 
 sore. For it was ii hundreth poundes better than the debtes came to. 
 Which caused me to speake to some of my frendes, that they would 
 speake to them to come to some reckenyng with me, and to take all such 
 money agayne of me, as they were charged with and to deliver me such, 
 writynges and writtes, as they had of myne agayne, or to whom I would 
 appointe them. 
 
 " So it was agreed betwixt my father and me, that I should have it 
 agayne, and the day was appointed, that the reckening should be made 
 and sent to me that same day that I was taken, my brother, supposing 
 that I should have put him out of most of all hys occupying, that he was 
 in : for it was all mine in a manner that he occupyed, as all the country 
 can, and do well know. Whereon (as it is reported) he told one Gardillar 
 my next neighbour, and he told some of M. Gages men, or to M. Gage 
 him selfe : and so he sent to his brother, and his brother sent xii of his 
 men (he bepig Sherifle) in the night before I was taken, and lay in the 
 bushes not farre from my house, till about ix of the clocke, even the hour 
 that was appointed amongest them selves : for about the same tyme they 
 thought to have had me within my house. 
 
 "They had taken a man of mine, and ii of my children that were 
 abroad in the land : and kept them with them, till theyr hour was appointed 
 to come in, and then a little girle, one of my children, saw them come 
 together, and came runnyng in and cryed : ' mother, mother, yonder cometh 
 XX. men.' I sittyng in my bed and makyng of shooe thonges, heard the 
 words, and suspecting straight way that I was betrayd. I stirred out of 
 my bed and whipt on my hose, thinkyng to have gone out of the doores 
 or ever they had bene come. My wife being amased at the childes wordes, 
 looked out of the doore, and they were hard by. Then she clapped to the 
 doore and barred it fast, even as I came out of my chamber into the Hall, 
 and so barred the other : so the house was beset round straight way, and 
 they bad open the doores, or els they would breake them in peeces. Then 
 I had no shift, but eyther I must shew my selfe openly, or make some 
 other remedie. 
 
 " So there was a place in my house that was never found, which was 
 at the least, I dare say, xx. tymes and sometymes almost of xx. men 
 searched at once, both by night and day, into which place I went : And 
 as soone as I was in, my wife opened the doore : wher by incontinent they 
 came, and asked for me and she sayd I was not at home. Then they 
 asked her wherefore she shut the door if I were not at home. She sayd 
 because she had bene made afraid divers times, with such as came to search 
 us, and therfore she shut the doore. For it is reported (sayth she) that
 
 66 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 whosoever can take my husband, shall hang hym or bume hym straight 
 way : and therfore I doubt they will serve me or my children so : for I 
 thinke they may do so unto us as well as to him, she said. Well, sayd 
 they, we know he is in the house, and we must search it, for we be the 
 Shrives* men, let us have a candle. It is told us, there be many secret 
 places in your house. So she lighted a candle, and they sought up and 
 downe in every corner that they could find, and had geven over, and many 
 of them were gone out of my house into the Churchyarde, and were 
 talkyng with my father, and with some that he had brought with hym. 
 
 "Now, when they could not find me, one of them went to him that 
 gave them word that I was at home, and sayd, we cannot find him. Then 
 he asked them whether they had sought over a wyndow that was in the 
 Hall (as it was knowne afterward) for that same place I had told hym of 
 myself. For many tymes when I came home, I would send for hym to 
 beare me company; yet as it chaunced I had not told hym the way into it. 
 Then they began to search anew. One looked up over the window and 
 spyed a little loft, with iii. or iv. chestes, and the way went in betwixt ii. 
 of the chestes, but there could no man perceave it. Then he asked my 
 wife, which was the way into it. Here is a place that we have not sought 
 yet. Then she thought they would see it by one means or other. She 
 sayd the way was into it out of a chamber they were in even now. So 
 she sent them up and cried away, away ! Then I knew there was no 
 remedy, but make the best shift for myself that I could. The place was 
 boarded over, and fast nailed, and if I had come out that way that I went 
 in, I must needes come amongest them all in the hall. Then I had no 
 shift, but set my shoulders to the bourdes that were nayled to the rafters 
 to keepe out the raine, and brake them in peeces, which made a great 
 noyse, and they that were in the other chamber, seekyng for the way into 
 it, heard the noyse, and looked out of a window, and spyed me and made 
 an outciy. But yet I got out and leaped downe, having no shoes on. 
 
 " So I tooke downe a lane that was full of sharpe sinders, and they 
 came runnyng after, with a great cry, with their swordes drawen, crying 
 strike hym, strike hym. Which wordes made me looke backe, and there 
 was never a one nigh me by an hundred foote ; and that was but one, for 
 all the rest were a great way behynd. And I turned about hastely to 
 go my way, and stepped upon a sharpe sinder with one foote, and savyng 
 of it I stepped in a great miery hole, and fell down withall, and ere ever I 
 could arise and get away, he was come in with me. His name is Parker 
 the wild, as he is counted in al Sussex. But if I had had on my shoes, 
 they had bene lyke to have gone away arrandles if there had bene v. C. 
 more, if I had caught the playne grounde once, to the which I had not a 
 stones cast ; but it was not Gods will; for if it had, I should have scaped 
 from them all, if there had bene ten thousand of them. 
 
 " Then they tooke me and led me home agayne to put on my shooes 
 and such gere as I had neede of. Then sayd John Fauconer; 'Now your 
 master hath deceaved you. You said you were an Angell, and if you had 
 ben an Angell, why did you not fly away from us? ' 'Then' said I, 'what 
 be they that ever heard me say that I was an Angell ? It is not the first 
 lye by a thousand that they have made of me. Angells were never 
 begotten of men, nor borne of women ; but if they had said, that they 
 had heard me say, that I do trust I am a saint, they had not sayd amisse. 
 
 * Sheriff's.
 
 The Sussex Maj'tyrs. 67 
 
 '^Vhat ? doo you thinke to be a saint ?' 'Yea that I doo, and am already, 
 in Gods sight. I trust in God ; for he that is not a saint in Gods sight 
 already is a devill. Therefore he that thinketh skorne to be a sainte, let 
 him be a devill.' And with that worde they had brought me to mine 
 owne doore; where met with me my father, and willed me to remember 
 my selfe. 
 
 " To whom I aunswered ; ' I prayse God, I am well remembred 
 whereabout I go. This way was appointed of God for me to be deUvered 
 into the handes of mine enemies, but woe unto hym by whom I am 
 betrayed. It had ben good for that man, that he had never bene borne if 
 he repent not with speede. The Scriptures are now fulfilled on me : For 
 the father shall be agaynst the soiine, a?id the brother shall deliver the 
 brother to death, as it is this day come to passe.' Then sayd one; 'he 
 doth accuse hys father; a good child in deede.' I accuse hym not, but 
 say my minde ; for there was no man knew me at home but my father, my 
 brother, and one more, the which I dare say would not hurt me for aU the 
 good in this town.' 
 
 "There was one George Bechyng that maried one of my sisters, and 
 he thought that I had ment hym, that he had betrayed me, and he sayd ; 
 ' Brother I would you should not thinke that I was the cause of your 
 takyng.' To whom I aunswered that I ment hym not ; I ment one that 
 was nerer of my bloud than he was. Then sayd one of Lewes, that had 
 been a Gospeller, and stoode from them, when I was brought to a Sessions 
 to Lewes, and he sayd, I thought you would have bene an honest man 
 when you were at Lewes, and I offred Hussey the Sheriffe to be bound for 
 you that you should go home to your wife and come to him agayn.' Then 
 I remembred what he was, and said; ' Be you the Pewterer' .' And he 
 sayd, ' yea.' Then sayd I : ' It is happened to you according to the true 
 Proverbe, as sayth S. Peter; The dogge is turned to his votnit agayne, and 
 the some that is washed to wallow in the mire, and the end of all such wil 
 be worse then the begynnyng.' Then his mouth was stopped so that he 
 had nothing to say. 
 
 " All this while I stode at my doore without ; for they would not let 
 me go in. So I put on my shoes and my clothes, and then they put on 
 an harnes about myne armes made of a dogs slippe; which rejoised my 
 hart that I was counted worthy to be bound for the name of God. So I 
 tooke my leave of my wife and children, my father, and other of my 
 frendes, never thinking to see them more in this world. For it was so 
 thought of all the countrey, that I should not lyve vi. dayes after my 
 takyng ; for they had so reported. But yet I knew it was not as they 
 would, unlesse God would graunt it. I know what God can do ; but 
 what he will do I know not ; but I am sure he will worke all thinges for 
 the best, for them that love and feare hym. So we dranke and went our 
 way, and came to Firle about iii. of the clocke." 
 
 Richard Woodman had now entered on a new phase of 
 his trials. He had been brought to bay by his persecutors, 
 and it was, doubtless, thought that it would be an easy matter 
 for such skilled casuists and such learned Doctors of the 
 Roman Church to put him down. In this, however, they 
 found themselves sorely mistaken, and the fight maintained
 
 68 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 by this Sussex farmer and ironmaster against such men as 
 Gardiner, Christopherson, Dr. Story, and others, is one of 
 the most remarkable to be found in the pages of Foxe, so rich 
 in these conflicts. 
 
 It should be stated that Dr. Christopherson, whom Foxe 
 characterises as a " Bonner, junior," had lately succeeded 
 Bishop Day (who died in 1556) in the diocese of Chichester. 
 He had himself suffered from religious persecution in Edward's 
 reign at the hands of the Reformers, and was now returned 
 from exile to become the confessor of the Queen, and, in 
 November, 1557, Bishop of Chichester. In this latter capacity 
 it fell to him to examine Woodman, at Blackfriars, London ; 
 and he appears to have done so at first with some degree of 
 moderation, and even commiseration, if not admiration, for 
 the spirit and learning displayed by Woodman. We might 
 almost be tempted to think, by some of the Bishop's words 
 and acts, that he could have said, with Agrippa when speaking 
 to Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a 'Protestant.'" 
 Thus, to quote from Woodman's statement : — 
 
 Chichester : You said you doo not disallow the true catholicke church. 
 
 Wood.: No, that I doo not. 
 
 Chiches.: Why do you not then go to the church ? You come not there, 
 it is enformed me. 
 
 Wood.: I trust I am in the true church every day. But to tell you 
 truth, I come not at the church where the most doo resorte. For if I 
 should, I should offende, and be offended. For the last time that I was 
 there, I offended many, and was offended my selfe. Wherefore for 
 conscience sake I would not come there. For I was sent to prison for my 
 comming there, and now I am sent to you for biding thence. So they will 
 not be pleased any way with me, for they seeke my life. Wherfore looke 
 you to it, for I am now in your handes, and you ought to be a house of 
 defence agaynst mine enemies. For if you suffer them to kill me, my 
 bloud shall be required at your handes. If you can fmde any just cause in 
 me worthy of death by Gods worde, you may condemne me your selfe, and 
 not offend God; wherefore looke to it. Thematter is weighty; deliverme 
 not into theyr handes, and thinke so to be discharged. 
 
 Chiches.: I tell you truth, I can do litle in the matter. For I have, not 
 full authority, as yet, of myne office ; but I will send for you and talke 
 with you, if I wist I shuld do you any good. 
 
 Wood.: I would be glad to talke with you and to shew you my minde 
 in any thyng that you shall demaund of me, now or at any other tyme. 
 
 " So then he (the Bishop) desired the Sheriffes men to tary dinner with 
 him; that this man (sayd he) may dine with me also; for it is possible 
 that he may have no great store of meate whether he shall go. So we 
 taryed dynner with hym, and had no further talke, neither how to
 
 TJie Sussex Martyrs. 69 
 
 prove where the true church of God is, nor of the Sacramentes, nor 
 of any other thyng pertainyng to me ward, not for the space of two houres 
 or more; but he entred in talke with me, how I understode many 
 Scriptures, and for Byshops and Priestes Manages, and whether Paule 
 had a wyfe or not. To whom I aunswered ; it is a thyng that I have litle to 
 do with, as concernyng Manages; but I am very well content to talke 
 with you in the matter as far as my poore learnyng wil serve. So when 
 he had talked with me of divers Scriptures, he lyked my talke well. He 
 asked me how I said by Paul, whether he were maryed or not. To whom 
 I aunswered; I prove by the Scriptures that he was never maryed." 
 
 After a close dispute upon this point, and upon the 
 
 marriage of Priests, the Bishop exclaimed — 
 
 " Marry, I am glad that you have sayd as you have done. Many doo 
 affirme boldly that Paul had a wife, and yet can not prove whether he had 
 or had not, by the Scriptures ; but you have sayd very well. I am glad 
 that ye are contented to be ruled by Gods word. And if you wil be con- 
 tented likewise in other matters, no doubt you shall doo well ; therefore 
 gentle goodman Woodman be ruled. God hath geven you a good wit. 
 I protest before God, I would you should do as well as myne owne soule 
 and body, and so would (I dare say) all the worshypful men in the countrey, 
 as they have reported to me." 
 
 And to Woodman's remark that "there be as many 
 unlearned Priests in your Diocese as in any one Diocese in 
 England," Christopherson (himself a man of learning) 
 
 replied : — 
 
 " I promise you I do much lament it my selfe; for I heare say no lesse, 
 but it is true that you say. I would I could remedy it, but I can not ; but 
 I will do the best that I can when I come into the countrey, and I will be 
 glad to talke with you some other tyme, when I am somewhat better at 
 ease. You see I am very tender now, as I have bene this halfe yeare and 
 more. Come to dynner ; our dynner is ready. I caused you not to tary 
 for any great chere that you shall have, nor I would you shoulde not 
 thinke that I goe about to wpine you with my meate. But you be 
 welcome with all my hart. Come, sit down." 
 
 "I thanked him," continued Woodman, "and went to dinner; and 
 there dyned ^\^th hym a Marchaunt man, one of the SherifTes men, and I, 
 and no mo, and we had good chere, God bee praysed therfore. We had 
 no talke of the Scriptures al the dynner while ; but when dynner was done, 
 the Bishop sayd ; Now cal M. Stories man. For the Commissioners 
 have committed you to prison ; but I will send for you or ever it be long, 
 and I pray God I may do you good. I would be very glad of it." 
 
 "If it please you to send for me," said Woodman, "I would be very 
 glad to talke with you, for ,1 lyke your talke well. And then if it 
 please your Lordshyp to examine me upon any particular matter, I will 
 shew you my mynd therein, by Gods grace, without dissimulation." 
 
 It would almost seem, by the tone of this and other passages 
 of the Bishop, that, if Dr. Christopherson had been free to 
 take his own course, he would not only have let Woodman
 
 70 Glimpses of Otir Ancestors. 
 
 go, but have followed in his path. But he stood so committed 
 to a course, and was so coupled with other men in it, that little 
 liberty of thought or action was left to him. 
 
 Woodman was now taken from the Bishop's to the custody, 
 first, of Dr. Story, and then of Dr. Cooke, two of Bonner's 
 worthy instruments, and by them was delivered to the Sheriff's 
 prison in Southwark ; and his next examination, on the 27th 
 April, was at Dr. Story's house, " besides St. Nicholas' 
 Shambles." It was opened by the Bishop of Chichester in 
 the same amicable tone which had marked the close of the 
 preceding one. "You be welcome," said the Bishop, " How 
 do you now.'"' "Well, I praise God," replied Woodman, 
 " thanking your Lordship for the gentle talk that you had with 
 me at my last departing from you." 
 
 This beginning promised well. But it is not easy to keep 
 cool in theological discussions, and Woodman having reminded 
 the Bishop of his pledge to give Scripture authority for the 
 seven Sacraments of the Romish Church, and the Bishop, 
 heated by opposition, having, we may presume, indulged in 
 strong language, Woodman reproved him for swearing, 
 " which," he went on to say, " is a great fault in Bishops, of 
 all others, that should be an example to the flock." 
 
 This was putting the match to the train. " Then," 
 proceeds Woodman, " he (the Bishop) and his prelates were 
 in a great rage with me." " What," exclaimed the Bishop, 
 " I perceive this man is worse than he was the last day. 
 What ! he taketh upon him to teach me to speak, as though 
 I could not tell what I had to do," and, a little later, he told 
 him to "follow your vocation ; you have little learning," and, 
 still later, after a very lively discussion upon the meaning of 
 altar and the true nature of the Lord's Supper, the Bishop 
 exclaimed, " I see it is but folly to talk with you ; it is but lost 
 labour ; " and Woodman having dared them to " talk with 
 me by the Scriptures," then they made a great laughing, and 
 said, " This is a heretic indeed ; it is time he were burned." 
 " Which," Woodman goes on to say, " moved my spirit," and
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 71 
 
 I said to them, "Judge not, least you be judged, for as you 
 judge you shall be judged yourself." 
 
 To this exhortation Dr. Story responded, "What! be you 
 a preaching } You shall preach at a stake shortly with your 
 fellows." And then, addressing the Bishop, " My lord, 
 trouble yourself no more with him." 
 
 "With these words," proceeds Woodman, "one brought word that 
 the Abbot of Westminster was come to dyne with the Byshop, and many 
 other gentlemen and women. Then there was rushyng away with speede 
 to meete hym." Then sayd Dr. Story to my keeper, " Gary him to the 
 Marshalsee againe, and let him be kept close, and let no body come to 
 speake to hym." And so they departed. Then one of the Priests begon 
 to flatter with me, and sayd : " For Gods sake remember your selfe. God 
 hath geven you a good witte ; you have read the Scriptures well, and have 
 borne them well in memory ; it were great pitie you should do amisse." 
 To which Woodman responded, "What a flatterer be you, to say my 
 witte is good, and that I have read the Scriptures well ; and but even now 
 you sayd I was an hereticke, and despised me. If I be an hereticke I can 
 have no good witte, as you have confessed. But I thinke your own 
 conscience doth accuse you. God geve you grace to repent, if it be his 
 wiU." 
 
 Priest : I call it a good witte, because you are expert in all questions. 
 
 Wood.: You may call it a wicked witte, if it agree not with Gods word. 
 Then one cried, "Away, away; here commeth straungers." So we 
 departed, and I came agayne to the Marshalsee with my keper. 
 
 Three further examinations took place, in which the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Chichester, Winchester, 
 and Rochester, Dr. Langdale, rector of Buxted (Woodman's 
 native place), and others took part, and in which the Sussex 
 ironmaster held his ground against all the assaults of his 
 antagonists. The last of these conflicts, on the 15th of June, 
 1557, closed as follows: — 
 
 Bishop of Winchester: He is the naughtiest verlet hereticke, that 
 ever I knew. I will reade the sentence agaynst hym. 
 
 Then they spake all at once; and I aunswered them as fast as I could. 
 But I can not remember it all, the wordes came out so thicke, and that I 
 spared them not (I prayse God therefore) ; for I spake freely. Then they 
 that stoode by, rebuked me, and sayd; "you cannot tell to whom you 
 speake, I thinke." 
 
 Wood. : No ? thinke you so ? they be but men. I am sure I have 
 spoken to as good as they be, and better than they wiU ever be, for any 
 thing that I can see, if they repent not with speede. 
 
 Wine: Geve eare; for I wdll reade sentence agaynst you. 
 
 Wood. : Will you so ? wherefore will you ? you have no just cause to 
 excommunicate me ; and therefore if you doe condemne me you will bee
 
 72 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 condemned in hell, if j-ou repent not; and I prayse God, I am not afrayde 
 to die for Gods sake, if I had a hundred lives. 
 
 Wine. : For Gods sake ? nay for the devilles sake. Thou sayest thou 
 art not afrayde to die; No more was Judas that hanged himselfe, as thou 
 wilt kill thy selfe wilfully, because thou wilt not be ruled. 
 
 Wood. : Nay, I defye the devill, Judas and all theyr members. And 
 Judas flesh was not afrayd, but his spirite and conscience was afrayd, and 
 therefore dispayred and hong him selfe. But I prayse God, I fele 
 lothsomnes in my flesh to die, but a joyfull conscience and a willing minde 
 therto. Wherfore my flesh is subdued to it, I prayse God; and therefore 
 I am not afrayd of death. 
 
 Chich.: Woodman, for Gods sake be ruled. You know what you 
 sayd to me at my house. I could say more if I would. 
 
 Wood. : Say what you can ; the most fault that you found in me was, 
 because I praysed the living God, and because I said, I praise God, and 
 the Lord; which you ought to be ashamed of, if you have any grace, for I 
 told you where the wordes were written. 
 
 Winchest. : Well ; how say you ? will you confesse that Judas receaved 
 the body of Christ unworthely.? tell me playnely. 
 
 Wood. : ]\Iy Lord, if you, or any of you all can prove before all this 
 audience, in all the Bible, that any man ever eate the body of Christ 
 unworthely, then I will be with you in all thinges that you will demaund 
 of me; of the which matter I desire all this people to be witnes. 
 
 Priest: Will you so.? then we shall agree well inough. Saint Paul 
 sayth so. 
 
 Wood. : I pray you where sayth he so ? rehearse the wordes. 
 
 Priest: In the xi. of the first of the Corinthians, he saith; who so eateth 
 of this bread, and drinketh of this cuppe un-cvorthely , eateth and drinketh 
 his o-wne damnation, because he 7naketh no difference of the Lordes body. 
 
 Wood. : Doth these wordes prove that Judas eate the body of Christ 
 unworthely ? I pray you let me see them. They were contented. Then 
 said I; these be the wordes even that you sayd. Good people, herken 
 well to them: Who so eateth of this bread, and drinketh of this cup 
 unworthely. He saith not, who so eateth of this body unworthely or 
 drinketh of this bloud unworthely. But he sayth : who so eateth of this 
 bread, and drinketh of this cup unworthely (which is the sacrament) eateth 
 and drinketh his own damnation, because he maketh no difference of the 
 sacrament which representeth the Lords body, and other bread and drinke. 
 Here good people, you may all see they are not able to prove theyr sayinges 
 true. Wherfore I cannot believe them in any thing that they doo. 
 
 Winchest. : Thou art a ranke hereticke in deede. Art thou an 
 expounder? Now I will read sentence agaynst thee. 
 
 Wood. : Judge not least you be judged. For as you have judged me, 
 you be your selfe. Then hee red the sentence. Why, sayd I } will you 
 read the sentence agaynst me, and cannot tell wherfore ? 
 
 Winchest. : Thou art an hereticke, and therforc thou shall, be 
 excommunicated. 
 
 Wood.: I am no hereticke. I take heaven and earth to witnes, I defie 
 al heretickcs ; and if you condemn me, you will be damned, if you repent 
 it not. But God geve you grace to repent all, if it be his will.
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 73 
 
 And so he red foorth the sentence in Latin, but what he sayd, God 
 knoweth, and not I. God be judge betwene them and me. When he had 
 done, I would have talked my minde to them, but they cried, away ! away 
 with liim! So I was carried to the Marshalsea agayne, where I am, and 
 shall be as long as it shal please God ; and I praise God most hartely, that 
 ever he hath elected and predestinated me to come to so high dignity, as 
 to beare rebuke for his names sake ; his name be praysed therfore, for ever 
 and ever. Amen. 
 
 Woodman's fate was now sealed. He had shown too 
 bold a face to his adversaries, and displayed too much 
 knowledge and skill as a controversialist, to be allowed to 
 escape a second time. He was condemned as a heretic and 
 handed over to the secular power to be burnt at the stake. 
 Nine more victims were swept together from different parts 
 of Sussex, in haste, as it would seem, and without form of 
 law, for eight of them had only been apprehended two or 
 three days previously, to perish with him. Lewes was again 
 chosen as the place of execution, and here, in front of the 
 Star Inn — in the vault of which, still in existence, Woodman 
 is supposed to have been confined — was enacted the last 
 dreadful scene of the tragedy. It took place on the 22nd of 
 June, 1557. No detailed description has been preserved, 
 as in Derick Carver's case, of Richard Woodman's last 
 moments ; but we may be assured that he displayed the same 
 constancy in this ordeal as he had shown in his long 
 conflicts with his adversaries, and that his death, as his life, 
 was worthy of the cause he had taken up. His name and 
 memory are still held in veneration in his native county.* 
 
 This was, in all probability, the last martyrdom in Sussex. 
 But the names of six other martyrs have yet to be added to 
 the list already given, though there is no record of the 
 places where they suffered. These were John Warner, of 
 Eastbourne ; Christian Grover, of Lewes ; Thomas Atholl, 
 priest ; John Mills (or Mylles), of Hellingly ; Nicholas 
 Helden, of Withyham, and John Asshedon, of Rotherfield. 
 
 It will be remarked that in these, as in all the other 
 
 * For permission to use the illustration to this paper, "The Burning of the Martyrs 
 at Lewes," I am indebted to the designer of it, Mr. Frederic Colvin, a very clever artist 
 of Lewes.
 
 74 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 instances, the martyrs were natives of the Eastern parts of 
 Sussex. Here, it is clear, the doctrines of the Reformation 
 had taken the strongest hold. In the West of Sussex the 
 Howards, Dukes of Norfolk ; the Brownes, Earls of IMontague ; 
 the Carylls, the Shirleys, and other Catholic families had 
 kept back the stream, and to the present day there are 
 localities in West Sussex, as Arundel and Slindon, where a 
 large proportion of the population adheres to the old faith. 
 
 The total number of martyrdoms in Sussex in the reign 
 of Mary was 33 ; and few other counties (putting aside the 
 IMetropolitan ones) can show so large a list of witnesses to 
 the truth of their doctrines. We may hope that the roll is 
 closed for ever. 
 
 The late Mr. M. A. Lower, in the biography of Richard 
 Woodman in his " Worthies of Sussex," gives some topo- 
 graphical facts as to Woodman's house at Warbleton and his 
 places of concealment and confinement, which will still be 
 read with interest : — 
 
 "The wood to which Woodman retired for concealment, 
 the lane full of sharp ' cinders' (the scoriae of his own iron- 
 works), down which he ran to escape his pursuers, the site of 
 his dwelling-house, and several other particulars, are as fondly 
 remembered by the simple folk of Warbleton as are the homes 
 and haunts of Shakspeare by the people of Stratford. As to 
 his house, there is little difficulty in proving that it was close 
 to the church-yard of that interesting village, although there 
 may be some want of evidence as to the precise spot. . . . 
 The lane down which poor Woodman ran is less questionable. 
 It is still traceable for about a mile, in what is now a thicket 
 running from a point not far from the village hostelry, known 
 by the punning sign of the ' War-bill-in-tun,' to the farm 
 called Cralle, erst the residence of the De Cralles, and now 
 the property of John Day, Esq. It was evidently the ' coach- 
 road ' to the parish church. But the most interesting memento 
 of Woodman is a portion of the church tower, the second or 
 middle story of which is said to have been his temporary
 
 The Sussex Martyrs. 75 
 
 prison. That it was a prison is clearly proved by its heavy 
 oak door. The apartment is about 1 1 feet square, and is 
 reached by the usual newel or winding staircase of stone. 
 The walls, of Sussex sandstone, several feet in thickness, are 
 pierced with two small window openings for light and air, and 
 the door, two inches in thickness, is clad on the outside with 
 iron plates secured with five massive horizontal bars of the 
 same metal strongly riveted. The inside of the door has some 
 remains of iron fittings which I could not understand, but 
 which appear to corroborate the village tradition that they 
 were devised for purposes of bodily confinement. There, 
 assuming the tradition of Woodman's temporary incarceration 
 to be true — which I see no reason to dispute — he would have 
 been within ear-shot of the wailings of his faithful wife and 
 her little ones, and the iron doubtless entered his manful 
 and unflinching soul !"
 
 The Quakers in Sussex. 
 
 F, as Lucretius tells us, it is a pleasant thing to look 
 in safety from the shore on the terrors and dangers 
 of the sea, it is still more satisfactory to contem- 
 plate, in a day of freedom and toleration, the 
 persecutions of a bygone age. Few bodies of men, perhaps, 
 can claim to indulge in this innocent enjoyment more than 
 the members of that Society who, in popular phraseology, are 
 called Quakers — a term which once had much significance, 
 but which now carries little or no meaning with it ; for we do 
 not see in the present day that the Quakers quake, or have 
 reason to quake, spiritually or civilly, more than their 
 neighbours ! But few religious bodies can look back upon 
 the past with greater satisfaction than the representatives of 
 this community, for they carried out to the letter the direction 
 of their great Master, and, if reviled, they reviled not again, 
 and for the cruel usage tiiey underwent in their early days, all 
 the return they have made is to heap coals upon the heads of 
 their persecutors in the shape of benefits. They have ever 
 steadily laboured for the extension to others of the freedom 
 of thought and of worship which were so long denied to them ; 
 and at the present moment they may look around and exclaim, 
 as they gaze upon the universal religious tolerance which 
 prevails, not only in England, but throughout Europe, 
 " Behold, this is the work for which we laboured and suffered." 
 
 Like other victors, however, the Quakers are in danger of 
 being merged in the mass of those whom they have overcome. 
 There is now little or no difference, in speech or dress, 
 manners or morals, between Quakers and other religious 
 bodies, such as the Independents and Presbyterians, by whom
 
 The Quakers in Sussex, 'j'j 
 
 at one time they were regarded with the greatest aversion, 
 but with whom they now appear on the same platforms and 
 contend for the same political, social, and moral objects — 
 from whom, indeed, it is now difficult to distinguish them. 
 It is not easy for us at the present day to conceive how such 
 violent prejudices could have existed against a body of men so 
 inoffensive as the Quakers, and it may not be without its use 
 to be reminded that the chief persecutors of Fox, Roberts, 
 Latey, Story, and other early Quakers, were not Churchmen 
 or Roman Catholics, but Independents and Presbyterians — 
 men who themselves had only just escaped from persecution, 
 and who were fated again to endure it. Not the less did they, 
 in their day of triumph, indulge in that intolerance towards 
 others — and especially towards the Quakers — which goes to 
 show how dangerous it is to place political and spiritual 
 power in the same hands, be they what men and professing 
 what principles they may. 
 
 Of all the towns in Sussex in which the Quakers seem to 
 have suffered most, Lewes stands out with a very unenviable 
 pre-eminence. The late William Figg, F.S.A., of Lewes, 
 collected with great industry the records of the sufferings 
 endured by the Quakers of Lewes at the hands of their fellow- 
 townsmen, and, if not quite so terrible as the barbarities 
 inflicted (and in the same town) by Roman Catholics upon 
 Protestants, they were still sufficiently severe to make us 
 appreciate the tolerant days in which we live. " Scorn and 
 derision, with beatings, buffetings, stonings, pinchings, kick- 
 ings, dirtings, pumpings, and all manner of abuses " — with 
 " spoiling of goods, stockings, whippings, imprisonments, and 
 banishments, and even death itself" — such is the list drawn 
 up by Joseph Besse, in chronicling the sufferings of his people 
 in the days of the Commonwealth, and of the succeeding 
 Stuart Kings, until William III. came to them, and, indeed, 
 to all England, as a Deliverer. 
 
 Sussex generally seems, about the year 1655, to have been 
 ready for the seed which George Fox and his contemporaries
 
 78 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 came to sow in it. In Chichester, Arundel, Horsham, and in 
 smaller places, such as Walberton, Ifield, &c. — but especially 
 in Lewes — the visit of a few men — at first John Slee, Thomas 
 Lawson, and Thomas Lawcock, but subsequently George, or, 
 to follow the spelling of the times, Georg Fox and Alexander 
 Parker — was sufficient to wake up in the middle classes that 
 deep religious feeling — that sense of personal responsibility — 
 which followed, as light follows the sun, the translation of the 
 Scriptures in the preceding century. A perusal of the 
 biographies of the first Quakers — men like John Roberts and 
 Gilbert Latey — leaves no doubt as to the standard which they 
 set up, and the example they tried to follow. They appealed 
 continually to the words and actions of the Founder of 
 Christianity as their rule of life in the 17th century. It was a 
 reaction from the utter ignoring alike of the letter and spirit 
 of Christianity in the Middle Ages, and the substitution for it, 
 in the Papal system, of something utterly diflferent from any- 
 thing taught by Christ. With the Quakers, the pendulum 
 swung to the other extreme, and for the most intricate and 
 artificial system of religion ever organised — in which the 
 individual man was reduced to nothing in the face of Pope, 
 Councils, Synods, and all the machinery of a huge Hierarchy — 
 was substituted the text of the Bible, but chiefly that of the 
 Gospels, as interpreted by those who read it. With these 
 weapons the Quakers — the real primitive Christians of the 
 Reformation — went forth into the towns and villages of 
 England, and played much the same part, active and suflfering, 
 which the early propagators of Christianity did in the East. 
 The spirit was the same — so, too, was the doctrine — and, in 
 the belief of some of the "Confessors," so were the gifts and 
 powers vouchsafed to them. But the results were very 
 different, because the conditions were not the same. If the 
 Quakers had been the missionaries of Christianity among a 
 heathen people, we can conceive that they might have effected 
 conversions like the early Christians, or, even if they had been 
 the earliest assailants of a corrupt Church like Rome, they 
 might have done what Luther and Calvin did before them.
 
 The Quakers in Sussex. 79 
 
 But they had a harder work even than this to do, and that was, 
 to use their own words, " to testify against prophaness {sic in 
 orig.) and immorality on the one hand, and superstition and 
 will-worship on the other" — to give a "testimony levelled 
 against the darling vices of the laietyand the forced mainten- 
 ance of the clergy." And for this work the only authority 
 they had was that which might, indeed, suffice for their 
 individual justification, but to which any other men might 
 equally appeal in support of a totally different line of conduct. 
 In fact, they claimed no authority for themselves beyond 
 other men — only they sought to put an end to all spiritual 
 authority over and above that which any man or woman with 
 the necessary " lights" might feel he or she had a right to 
 exercise ; an impossible task, and which we see at the 
 present day to be impossible, when the Quakers enjoy all 
 the liberty they could wish for, and yet there is as much 
 "superstition and will-worship" — to say nothing of "vices" 
 and "forced maintenance of the clergy" — as ever. 
 
 But we are digressing from our purpose, which was to 
 show what the Quakers of Sussex generally, and of Lewes 
 especially, had to endure in the 17th century. The chief 
 off'ence given by them was, it seems, in their meeting in their 
 own houses to pray ! A singular cause of offence certainly 
 to Christians I But not so singular if the ancient custom of 
 meeting in churches be considered. Not so to meet was an 
 offence at law (it was so up to a very recent period), and it was 
 also a cause of suspicion to the more ignorant and prejudiced 
 classes. So, we are told, in 1658, that "for these twoyeares" 
 " there hath been fire throwen in among friends several! 
 times to the danger of fireing the house, some friends 
 receiving much wrong by the fire, and they allso have throwen 
 in water, dirt, and cowdung upon friends in their meeting, 
 and have broke the glass windows very much, and have 
 beaten friends as they have passed to their meetings." 
 
 The Independents were the ruling power in England in 
 1658, and were, it would seem, as ready to persecute those
 
 8o Glwipses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 who differed from themselves in religious opinion or practice 
 as the Romanists, the High Churchmen, and the Presbyterians 
 had all been before them. 
 
 These cases of interruptions of meetings, of commitments 
 to prison, finings for non-attendance at Church and non- 
 payment of tithes, &c., are innumerable, and become tedious 
 by their sameness ; so, after the fashion of Sterne, we will 
 take an individual case by way of example, and it shall be a 
 domestic one, and the sufferer a woman, and a wife to boot. 
 
 In this year (1659), says the veiy quaint old chronicle quoted by Mr. 
 Figg, Wary Akehurst, the wife of Ralj^h Akehurst, of the Cliff, neare 
 Lewis, beeing moved to goe to St. Michals' Steeplehouse (soe called), 
 where an Independent priest was speaking, she, for asking him a question, 
 was by people haled out, and then sent for her aforesaid husband, who, 
 after shee came home, did so hunch and pincht her, that she could not lift 
 her armes to her head. The said Ralph again, on the seaventeenth day of 
 the third month of this present yeare, bound the hands and feet of his said 
 wife and pinioned her, and then covered her very hot with bed-cloaths, 
 and soe kept her for the space of foure or five houres; this it seems he did 
 because she tooke occasion to reprove a hireling priest for belying her. 
 
 Againe, upon the twenty-fifth day of the eighth month of this present 
 yeare 1659, the aforesaid Ralph did sorely abuse his wife, on which the 
 following lines were sent unto two Justices of the Peace (soe called), to 
 complain of and to declare the same, that she might not perish in private, 
 but to lay it home to them, then in authority, viz. : — 
 
 "Whereas complaint hath beene made unto two of those who are in 
 place to doe justice, as, namely, Richard Boughton and Nathaniel Studly, 
 of cruel persecution inflicted upon the body of a woman in the Clift, neare 
 Lewis, by the hands of a wicked tirant, who is called her husband ; his 
 name is Ralph Akehurst, he hath chained his wife in a close back chamber 
 in his house, between two high bcad-stcads, with a great chain much like 
 a timber chain, containing thirty-five links, and a staple and a lock, soe 
 that this woman cannot move aboute the roome, or lye in the bed without 
 this chaine, soe that with waits of itt it hath done much wrong to her legg, 
 besides blows and bruses that he hath given her in executing his cruelty in 
 putting on of this chaine, soe that thcreliy her body is much weakened at 
 present, and murther may ensue if the Lord by his providence doth not 
 some way for her deliverance ; or if this man hath promised that he will 
 never unlock the chaine from ofi" her, soe that in all likelyhood his heart is 
 bent to destroy the body of this woman someway, for he hath attempted 
 her life, as she hath said, by endeavouring to throatle her." 
 
 No redress or relief was, it seems, expected for this 
 unfortunate woman from her brutal husband ; the above 
 declaration being only made by the parties signing it (three 
 women and a man) with a view to absolve themselves, "Soe 
 that if inocent blood be shead we shall be cleare, and the
 
 The Quakers in Sussex. 8i 
 
 guilt shall remaine upon the heads which suffer such things 
 to be done." 
 
 Of the ultimate fate of Mary Akehurst, of Lewes, there is 
 no record. But Quaker-ladies may congratulate themselves 
 in 1882 that they live in more tolerant days than 1659, and 
 under less tyrannical rule than that of the Independents. 
 
 More grievous acts than these pinchings and pinionings 
 and chainings were, however, done, and by men in authority. 
 Thus, in 1655, the jNIayor of Arundel — one Thomas Ballard 
 — sends his constables to the house of Nicholas Rickman 
 (the progenitor of a long line of Rickmans, including our 
 old friend, Clio), and under the pretence of taking-up of idle 
 wandering persons for the voyage to Jamaica (in other words, 
 to sell into slavery), seizes that "just man and servant of 
 the Lord, Joseph Fuce ; " and, notwithstanding that every 
 information was given as to his place of abode, relations, and 
 employment, "judged in plain words that he was not a 
 Person fitt to Live in the Comonweale, but a vagabond, 
 and so fitt to be sent away, which was according put in 
 Execution, he being put into company with a vile crue and soe 
 sent to Portsmouth to be shiped to Jamaica." 
 
 A judicial murder, this, if ever one was committed. But 
 by no means uncommon in this and the following age. As a 
 participator in acts like this, such a man as Judge Jefferies 
 appears in his proper place ; and it is on record that at a 
 Quarter Session at Steyning in 1681 he presided as Chairman 
 when "eleven persons were indicted for three weeks' absence 
 from the church. They were fined 3s. each, and, refusing to 
 pay the same, w-ere committed to prison." In this instance, 
 however, Jefferies went beyond his instructions. James, his 
 master, was favourable to the Quakers as supporters of 
 passive resistance and upholders of the principle of universal 
 toleration in religion which suited his policy as a Roman 
 Catholic — Penn was one of his supporters, and accordingly 
 the above act was quickly revoked and a letter sent to the 
 gaoler of Horsham Gaol by Henry Goring, one of the 
 
 G
 
 82 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 Justices, instructing him that the prisoners " might have all 
 lawful favour that could be showed. Therefore, my desire to 
 you is, to give them what liberty you can without danger to 
 yourself." 
 
 A most cautious and politic Justice this Henry Goring! 
 
 We might go on quoting by the page the barbarities 
 and injustices committed at Lewes and elsewhere in Sussex 
 on these poor people for worshipping God after their own 
 fashion ; and on which Mr. Figg remarks " the Quakers in 
 Lewes, and, indeed, in Sussex generally, bore the persecu- 
 tions and revilings heaped upon them with Christian meekness 
 and forbearance, and with a great amount of endurance, 
 although with much sacrifice of personal comfort and worldly 
 goods." Not, however, as Mr. Figg remarks, without, in 
 some instances, bestowing upon their persecutors a few of 
 those odd nicknames for which the age was famous. Thus 
 one Fisher addressed the celebrated Dr. John Owen, Dean 
 of Christ Church, in the following style: — "Thou fiery 
 Fighter and green-headed Trumpeter ; thou Hedgehog and 
 Grinning Dog ; thou Bastard that tumbled out of the mouth 
 of the Babylonish bawd ; thou Mole ; thou Tinker ; thou 
 Lizard ; thou Bell of no mettle, but the tone of a Kettle ; 
 thou Wheelbarrow; thou Whirligig; O thou Firebrand; thou 
 Adder and Scorpion; thou Louse; thou Cow-dung; thou 
 Moon-calf; thou ragged Tatterdemallian ; thou Judas ; thou 
 livest in philosophy and logic which are of the Devil," 
 
 After this the title of Thomas Lawson's, book in reply 
 to the Priest of Clayton, "An Answer to a Dawber with 
 Untempered Morter," and Joseph Fuce's answer to a Baptist, 
 "The Ould Botle's Mouth Stopped," are mild and temperate! 
 But, after all, these were only word-buffettings, and broke 
 no bones. The Quakers' opponents fought with different 
 weapons ! 
 
 With the coming-in of William of Orange the sufferings 
 of the Quakers ceased, or were reduced to the seizure and 
 sale (often a mere fiction) of a little furniture or plate, for
 
 The Quakers in Sussex. 83 
 
 tithe or Church-rate. But with the persecution ended the 
 proselytisings of the Quakers. From this time they turned 
 their attention more to the making of money than the making 
 of converts, and the discipline which was gained in the first 
 process has not been turned to bad effect in the latter. 
 
 So the main design of the Quakers failed ; they never 
 became a numerous body, and may now be said to be, for 
 anything that distinguishes them from their brother-Christians, 
 an obsolete and almost extinct one. But it was a noble 
 attempt — a glorious failure, which has left precious legacies 
 to succeeding ages. The influence of the early Quakers 
 upon the 17th century — the effect of their teachings and 
 sufferings — can scarcely be duly appreciated now, when we 
 have passed beyond both. But there is instruction, and also 
 some amusement, in the lesson, as it has been handed down 
 to us in certain biographies, kindly placed at our disposal by 
 a friend, and we shall make no excuse for laying a few 
 passages from these before our readers. The biography 
 most to our taste is not that of a Sussex man — we wish it had 
 been — but of John Roberts, of Siddington, near Cirencester, 
 in Gloucestershire, by his son Daniel. Roberts was in early 
 life a soldier under Cromwell, and was connected by marriage 
 with Chief Justice Hale, one of the greatest men of England. 
 As in most conversions to Quakerism (though not yet so 
 named), his " call " was sudden, and dated from the visit of 
 " two women-friends, out of the North, to Cirencester," at 
 whose instance he had a religious meeting in his house ; and 
 religious meetings in those days were illegal. But, once 
 converted, the work was done, and to the close of his life 
 John Roberts was "testifying" against what he regarded as 
 "superstition and will-worship" — "the darling vices of the 
 laity and the forced maintenance of the Clergy." The Parish 
 Church was to him a " steeple-house," of no more sanctity 
 than any other structure, and the Parson, or " hireling 
 Priest," was to be judged by what he taught in the pulpit, 
 and, if necessary, confuted and reproved for it. When 
 John Roberts goes to church (which, by the bye, the law
 
 84 Glimpses of Our Ancestors, 
 
 called on him to do, and it was his duty to obey the law) he 
 keeps his hat on and waits patiently until the sermon is over, 
 but then he calls in question the false doctrine of the 
 Preacher, whereupon he is forcibly put out, and taken before 
 the Justice, or, perhaps to the Bishop himself. And in this 
 particular piece of biography we can but admire the Bishop 
 of Gloucester of that day. We are inclined to think that, of 
 the two, he had the spirit of Christian charity quite as strong 
 in him as John Roberts had, if not stronger. The most 
 pleasing parts of this biography are the dialogues between 
 the Quaker and the Bishop. There is one scene in which 
 the Bishop, on his road to a Visitation, calls, with all his 
 clerical following, at Roberts's house, and drinks some of 
 his beer, which (we mean the scene, not the beer), to use an 
 old saying, is " as good as a play :" — 
 
 Some time after this, the Bishop and the Chancellor in their carriages, 
 accompanied with Thomas Masters, Esq., in his coach, and about twenty 
 clergymen on horseback, made my father's house in their way to the 
 visitation, which was to be at Tedbury the next day. They stopt at 
 the gate, and George Evans, the Bishop's kinsman, rode into the yard, to 
 call my father ; who, coming to the Bishop's coach-side, he put out his 
 hand, which my father respectfully took, saying, " I could not well go out 
 of the county without seeing you." "That's very kind," said my father; 
 " wilt thou please to alight and come in, with those who are along with 
 thee } " 
 
 Bishop : " I thank you, John ; we are going to Tedbury, and time will 
 not admit of it now ; but I will drink with you, if you please." 
 
 My father went in and ordered some drink to be brought, and then 
 returned to the coach-side. 
 
 Geo. Evans: "John, is your house free to entertain such men as we 
 are ? " 
 
 J. Roberts: "Yes, George; I entertain honest men, and sometimes 
 others." 
 
 Geo. Evans (to the Bishop) : " My lord, John's friends are the honest 
 men, and we are the others." 
 
 J. Roberts : " That's not fair, George, for thee to put thy construction 
 upon my words; thou shouldest have given me leave to do that." 
 
 'Squire Masters came out of his coach, and stood by the bishop's 
 coach-side ; and the chancellor, in a diverting humour, said to my father, 
 " My lord and these gentlemen have been to see your burying-ground, and 
 we think you keep it very decent. (This piece of ground my father had 
 given to friends for that purpose ; it lay at the lower end of the orchard.) 
 My father answered, "Yes; tho' we are against pride, we think it 
 commendable to be decent."
 
 The Quakers in Sussex. 85 
 
 Chancellor : " But there is one thing among you, which I did not 
 expect to see ; I think it looks a little superstitious ; I mean those grave- 
 stones which are placed at the head and feet of your graves." 
 
 J, Roberts : " That I confess is what I cannot much plead for ; but it 
 was permitted, to gratify some who had their relations there interred. 
 We, notwithstanding, propose to have them taken up ere long, and 
 converted to some better use. But I desire thee to take notice, we had it 
 from among you ; and I have observed in many things wherein we have 
 taken you for our pattern you have led us wrong ; and, therefore, we are 
 now resolved, with the help of God, not to follow you one step further." 
 
 At this the Bishop smiled, and said, "John, I think your beer is long 
 a coming." 
 
 J. Roberts : "I suppose my wife is willing thou shouldst have the best, 
 and therefore stays to broach a fresh vessel." 
 
 Bishop : "Nay, if it be for the best, we'll stay." 
 
 Presently my mother brought the drink, and when the Bishop had 
 drank, he said, " I commend you, John, you keep a cup of good beer in 
 your house ; I have not drank any that has pleased me better since I came 
 from home." 
 
 The Chancellor drank next, and the cup coming round again to my 
 father's hand, the 'Squire Masters said to Mm, " Now, old school-fellow, 
 I hope you'll drink to me." 
 
 J. Roberts : " Thou knowest it is not my practice to drink to any 
 man ; if it was, I would as soon drink to thee as another, as being my old 
 acquaintance and school-fellow ; but if thou art pleased to drink, thou art 
 very welcome." 
 
 The 'Squire then taking the cup into his hand, said, "Now, John, 
 before my lord and all these gentlemen, tell me what ceremony or 
 compliment do you Quakers use when you drink to one another } " 
 
 J. Roberts : "None at all ; for me to drink to another, and drink the 
 liquor, is at best but a compliment, and that borders much on a lye." 
 
 'Squire Masters : " What do you do then } " 
 
 J. Roberts: "Why, if I have a mind to drink, I take the cup and 
 drink ; and if my friend pleases, he does the same ; if not, he may let 
 it alone." 
 
 'Squire Masters: "Honest John, give me thy hand, here's to thee 
 with all my heart ; and, according to thy own compliment, if thou wilt 
 drink thou mayst ; if not, thou mayst let it alone." 
 
 My father then offering the cup to priest Bull, he refused it, saying, 
 "It is full of hops and heresy." To which my father replied, "As for 
 hops I cannot say much, not being at the brewing of it ; but as for heresy, 
 I do assure thee, neighbour Bull, there is none in my beer ; and if thou 
 pleasest to drink, thou art welcome ; but if not, I desire thee to take 
 notice, as good as thou will, and those who are as well able to judge of 
 heresy. Here, thy lord Bishop hath drank of it, and commends it ; he 
 finds no heresy in the cup." 
 
 Bishop (leaning over the coach-door, and whispering to my father), 
 said : "John, I advise you to take care you don't offend against the higher 
 powers. I have heard great complaints against you, that you are the 
 ringleader of the Quakers in this country; and that if you are not
 
 86 Glhnpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 suppressed, all will signify nothing. Therefore, pray, John, take care for 
 the future, you don't offend any more." 
 
 J. Roberts : " I like thy counsel very well, and intend to take it. But 
 thou knowest God is the highest power; and you mortal men, however 
 advanced in this world, are but the lower power ; and it is only because I 
 endeavour to be obedient to the will of the higher powers, that the lower 
 powers are angry with me. But I hope, with the assistance of God, to 
 take thy counsel, and be subject to the higher powers, let the lower powers 
 do with me as it may please God to suffer them." 
 
 And here is one other little passage between the Bishop 
 and John, a propos of certain stories which had reached the 
 Bishop's ears as to a power possessed by Roberts of discover- 
 ing lost property : — 
 
 Bishop: "I remember another story Mr. Bull told me, about a parcel 
 of sheep a neighbour had lost, and you told him where to find them." 
 
 J. Roberts : " The truth of the story is this — A neighbour of mine, 
 one John Curtis, at that time a domestic of George Bull's, kept some sheep 
 of his own ; and it so fell out, that he lost them for some days ; but 
 happening to see me, and knowing I went pretty much abroad, he desired 
 me, if I should see them any where in my travels, to let him know it. It 
 happened the next day, as I was riding towards my own field, my dogs 
 being with me, put up a hare, and seeing they were likely to kill her, I rode 
 up to take them off, that she might escape; and by mere accident, I espied 
 John Curtis's sheep in one corner of the field, in a thick briary part of the 
 hedge wherein they stood as secure as if they had been in a pound. I 
 suppose they had been driven thither by the hounds. When I came home 
 I sent him. word of it. And though this is no more than a common accident, 
 I find George Bull hath endeavoured to improve it to my disadvantage." 
 
 Bishop : " I remember one story more he told me about a horse." 
 
 J. Roberts : " If I shan't tire thy patience, I'll acquaint thee how that 
 was ; one Edward Symmonds came from London, to see his parents at 
 Siddington. They put his horse to grass in some ground, with their own, 
 beyond a part of mine, called the Fursen Leases, through which they went 
 with the horse ; and when they wanted to take him from grass, they could 
 not find him. After he had been lost some time, and they cried him at 
 several market-towns, somebody, who, 'tis likely, might have heard the 
 former stories told, as thou might'st hear them, directed this Edward 
 Symmonds to me : who telling me the case, I asked him, which way they 
 had the horse to grass : he answered, through the Fursen Leases. I told 
 him, tlie horse being a stranger to the place, it was very likely he might 
 endeavour to bend homewards, and lose himself in the Fursen Leases : for 
 there are a great many acres belonging to me and others, under that name, 
 which are so overgrown with furze bushes, that a horse may lie there con- 
 cealed a long time. I therefore advised him to get a good deal of company, 
 and search the places diligently, as if they were beating for a hare ; which 
 if he did, I told him I was of the mind he would find him. The man did 
 take my advice, and found him. And where is the cunning of all this ? 
 'tis no more than their own reason might have directed them to, had they 
 properly considered the case." 
 
 Bishop: " I wanted to hear these stories from your own mouth : though 
 I did not, nor should have credited them, in the sense Mr. Bull related them:
 
 The Quakers in Sussex. 87 
 
 but I believe you, John. And now, Mr. Bamet, we'll ask John some 
 serious questions. I can compare him to nothing but a good ring of bells. 
 You know, Mr. Bamet, a ring of bells may be made of as good metal as 
 can be put into bells ; but they may be out of tune : so we may say of 
 John ; he is a man of as good metal as ever I met with ; but he's quite 
 out of tune." 
 
 J. Roberts : " Thou mayst well say so; for I can't tune after thy pipe." 
 
 Bishop : "Well, John, I remember to have read, at the preaching of 
 the apostle the heart of Lydia was opened. Can you tell us what it was 
 that opened Lydia's heart .-' " 
 
 J. Roberts : "I believe I can." 
 
 Bishop : "I thought so. I desire you to do it." 
 
 J. Roberts : "It was nothing but the key of David." 
 
 Bishop : " Nay, now John, I think you are going wrong." 
 
 J. Roberts: "If thou pleasest to speak, I'll hear thee; but if thou 
 wouldst have me speak, I desire thee to hear me." 
 
 Bishop : " Come, Mr. Bamet, we'll hear John." 
 
 J. Roberts : " It is written. Thou hast the key of David, which opens, 
 and none can shut ; and if thou shuttest, none can open. And that is no 
 other but the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was the same spiritual 
 key that opened the heart of Moses, the first penman of the scripture, and 
 gave him a sight of things from the beginning. It was the same spiritual 
 key that opened the hearts of all the holy patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, 
 in ages past, who left their experience of the things of God upon record, 
 which if they had not done, you bishops and priests would not have had 
 any thing to make a trade of; for it is by telling the experiences of these 
 holy men that you get your great bishopricks and parsonages; and the same 
 spiritual key hath, blessed be God, opened the hearts of thousands in this 
 age ; and the same spiritual key hath, in a measure, opened my heart, and 
 given me to distinguish things that differ. And it must be the same that 
 must open thy heart, if ever thou comest to have it truly opened." 
 
 Bishop : "It is the truth, the very truth. I never heard it so defined 
 before. John, I have done you much wrong : I desire you to forgive me ; 
 and I'll never wrong you more." 
 
 J. Roberts : " I do heartily forgive thee, as far as it is in my power; 
 and I truly pray the Father of mercies may forgive thee, and make thee 
 his. As to the latter part, that thou wilt never wrong me more, I am of 
 the same mind with thee ; for it is in my heart to tell thee, I shall never 
 see thy face any more." 
 
 Bishop : "I have heard you once told the jailor of Gloucester so, and 
 it proved true." 
 
 Seeing the hard words that the Quaker sometimes applied 
 to Bishops and Priests, and the odd things he did, stopping 
 little short of claiming a power to predict people's death, and 
 actually predicting that of the poor old Bishop to his face, 
 we think the Bishop of Gloucester comes out remarkably well 
 in this piece of biography; and so do some of the Justices
 
 88 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 and gaolers under whose hands John Roberts came. There 
 is, in fact, a degree of kindness and toleration shown to him 
 which is creditable to the age. He evidently had that power 
 of exciting sympathy and respect which is often a personal 
 gift, and which, perhaps, might lead him to the belief that 
 he was endowed with something more than a natural power. 
 Other Quakers, however, have had this gift of persuasion as 
 well as Roberts. Illustrations of it occur again and again in 
 Quaker biographies. These men, with their protests against 
 "steeple-houses" and "hireling Priests" and "prophaneness," 
 were often, like the Jews of old, in favour in high places. 
 Such was the case with Penn and Gilbert Latey, John Roberts, 
 and others in those days, and we have seen the same 
 phenomenon in our own. A curious interview is described 
 in the biography of Gilbert Latey, between him and some 
 other friends and Charles II. The object was to present a 
 petition to the King in favour of the Society, which had been 
 undergoing much persecution. Here it is: — 
 
 They proceeded on towards Hampton Court, and, having gone about 
 something more than half way up the park, saw a concourse of people 
 near the canal; and, drawing a little nearer, perceived the King was there, 
 upon which they drew towards him, and being come pretty near the King, 
 some of his nobles took notice of them, and said, the Quakers were coming 
 towards his Majesty. The King then looking towards the friends, said he 
 thought he knew them; upon which they spake, and prayed the King that 
 he would be pleased to hear them a few words, they being come on purpose 
 from London to attend the King. Upon this the King was pleased to make 
 a little stop, and George delivered to the King the suffering case of our 
 friends, and laid before him the severities and hardships they undenvent, 
 and that it was contrary to law; upon which the King was pleased to say 
 he would search into the matter; adding, "I will not have them over- 
 charged contraiy to law by any means, but will have my laws obser\-ed ; " 
 and, after his thus speaking, was very pleasant, and asked the friends 
 several questions, as why they could not as well say. Aye and No, as Yea 
 and Nay? To which they answered, that it was equal to our friends, either 
 to say A}-e or No, or Yea or Nay, that which was most proper they could 
 make use of. " But," said the King, " You will say Thee and Thou, and 
 what is your reason for that?" To which Gilbert made answer, "The 
 same reason expressed in the 26th of the Acts of the Apostles, the second 
 and third verses, give we now to the King, where the Apostle Paul, speaking 
 to King Agrippa, says, I think myself happy, O King Agrippa, that I 
 shall answer for myself before thee, especially because I know thou art 
 expert in all customs, &c. Also, verse 27, ' King Agrippa, behevest thou 
 the prophets?' And, verse 29, 'Would to God not only thou, but also 
 all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am,
 
 The Quakers in Sussex. 89 
 
 except these bonds.' " Upon this the King made a little pause, and seemed 
 to question whether these passages were truly translated, yet said, the 
 translators might have translated You, as well as Thou, from the Greek; 
 upon which George answered, " Then the translators were as simple as we 
 Quakers;" then the King replied, " But you will not pull off your hats, 
 and what have you to say for that?" To which Gilbert answered, " If to 
 any mortal, then to the King in the first place;" but that it was a matter 
 of conscience, and " we only do it when we approach the Lord in prayer." 
 " But," said the King, " for all this, there are some among you that have 
 not done well; " to which Gilbert answered, " They have no more pleased 
 us than the King;" whereupon some of the nobles said, "May it please 
 your Majesty, your Majesty says some among these people have not done 
 well ; must they be charged with that ? It may be possible that some of 
 your Majesty's own servants may not have done well, shall we therefore be 
 blamed for that ? " "No," said the King, " God forbid ; " upon this some 
 of the nobles rephed, " Pray, your Majesty, hear these men, for they speak 
 well, and they look well on your Majesty." Said the King, " I protest so 
 they do, I admire to see such wise men Quakers." Then Gilbert asked if 
 they might speak freely, for that they were in great hazard in approaching 
 the King's presence; upon which the King stretched out his hand, and 
 said, " Let no man molest or meddle with them, but let them come to me 
 when they have occasion;" upon which Gilbert replied, "We thank God 
 we have had the favour of seeing the King's face this day, and wish the 
 King health, prosperity, and length of days; and all you nobles that attend 
 the King this day, the Lord reward you for your moderation towards us." 
 
 Not only with Charles II., but with James II. — a much 
 
 severer King in points of religion — did the Quakers find 
 
 favour; whilst Cromwell showed them little grace. This 
 
 seems singular. But some of the principles of the Friends, 
 
 and especially that of passive resistance and acquiescence in 
 
 " the Powers that be," took off the edge of royal displeasure 
 
 against them, as, in the present day, we have seen their peace 
 
 principles win them the favour of the Czar. There was, 
 
 indeed, a strange contradiction between their religious and 
 
 their political principles, or rather the former were supreme 
 
 with them, and took little account of the absolute power of 
 
 Caesar so that it did not call upon them to go to Church, and 
 
 hear " false doctrine," or to pay tithe or Church rates. And 
 
 yet in this assertion of the spiritual freedom of man there 
 
 was without doubt a soul of freedom that was very dangerous 
 
 to tyranny, and it was the nature of Quakerism to develop 
 
 into liberty, civil and political, as well as religious. Such it 
 
 has done in these latter days, when the Friends take their 
 
 side, as a matter of course, in the Liberal ranks, and are as 
 
 active in politics as they used to be in religion. Whether, in
 
 90 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 so doing, they keep strictly to the tenets of their forefathers 
 — whether George Fox or John Roberts would have approved 
 of the conduct of John Bright, may well be doubted. But, 
 as a religious body, the Friends may be regarded as extinct. 
 The fire — divine, they believed it to be — with which they 
 burnt in the 17th century, and which enabled them — simple, 
 uneducated men, as they often were — to stand up against 
 Bishops and Priests, and testify against the superstition and 
 vices of the age, burns no longer; or, at least, if it burn, is 
 so well regulated that the flame is never perceived. If any 
 one want to know what the genuine Quaker was, and the 
 mission he aspired to, let him get the memoirs of John 
 Roberts, Gilbert Latey, and Christopher Story, and others of 
 the worthies of the 17th century. They will be struck by the 
 power, and amused by the simplicity, of the men; their 
 command of Scripture, and their curious deductions from it; 
 by the depth and width of some of their principles, and the 
 childishness of some of their practices. They will, indeed, 
 recognise in them the strength and weakness to be found in 
 all ages in men who think there is only one road to human 
 excellence and Divine favour, and that they have found it. 
 For a time the force of this belief will hold them up as with 
 a supernatural strength, and they will touch a high point, if 
 not the point they aspire to; and then, either by their falling 
 off, or by the improvement of others, the space between them 
 and their fellow-men will become less and less, until they are 
 merged in the mass from which they had issued: a mass 
 leavened, doubtless, by their efforts and sacrifices, but still far 
 — very far — from perfection.
 
 Hermits in Sussex. 
 
 NE of the most popular and poetical appendages of 
 the Roman Catholic religion was the hermit's cell. 
 As such a mode of retirement from the world 
 doubtless existed before its adoption by Rome — for 
 much more ancient religions recognise such self-seclusion as 
 a merit — some may still think it might have been allowed to 
 survive the Roman system in England without much harm to 
 society. And it did linger on, in one form and another, for 
 some time, though not with that religious sanction and strict- 
 ness which made it so imposing in the eyes of our forefathers. 
 We ourselves can remember a kind of hermit who made himself 
 a home under the walls of the late Mr. Colbatch's grounds, over- 
 looking Ireland's Gardens (now Park Crescent), in Brighton, 
 some half-century ago, and who, having seen service as a 
 marine under Nelson in his younger days, amused himself and 
 eked out a living by cutting out lines of fortifications and 
 batteries and ships in the chalk, after the fashion of Uncle 
 Toby and Corpl. Trim, on which, and on the maimed form of 
 the old hermit, we have often looked with childish admiration. 
 The end of Corporal Staines — that was his name — was a proof 
 how the age of hermits, like that of chivalry, has passed away. 
 A rumour that the poor old man had laid up a little store of 
 wealth caused some scoundrels to attack his castle one night 
 and to maltreat him in a very brutal manner. The consequence 
 was, that he was transferred to the Brighton Workhouse; and 
 there the last Sussex semblance of a hermit ended his days. 
 
 But, a la Tristram Shandy, we are wandering from our 
 subject before we have entered upon it ! To find the real 
 hermit or anchorite in Sussex we must go back some hundreds
 
 92 Glt7npses of Our Ancestors, 
 
 of years, and the most authentic case that has come down to 
 us is in connection with that Aldrington Church which has 
 since been raised from its ruins and restored to its position 
 among Sussex parish churches. In the year 1402, according 
 to the archives of the Diocese of Chichester, the Rector of 
 Aldrington, one William Bolle, who is also entitled a chaplain, 
 petitioned the Bishop of Chichester for a license to construct 
 a cell near the parish church, in which he might pass the rest 
 of his life in solitude, and devote himself to poverty and to 
 prayer for the honor and glory of the Holy Trinity, our Blessed 
 Virgin Mary, St. Richard (the Patron Saint of Chichester), 
 and all other Saints. William Bolle's petition was supported 
 by the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, and granted by 
 the Bishop. So the cell was built by the side of the Church, 
 against the chancel wall, and in it, doubtless, William Bolle 
 lived, died, and was buried. But here our source of informa- 
 tion fails us, and, to form an idea of what, in all probability, 
 the habitation and mode of life of the Aldrington hermit were, 
 we must go to other channels. 
 
 The original life and habitat of a genuine hermit were very 
 different from the picture which poets and romance-writers 
 have since drawn of them. Invested as these recluses and 
 their habitations have been with much of that ease and quiet 
 and the charms of country life which in the present day we 
 look upon with rather desiring eyes, we see little in the life of 
 the hermit to be admired for its abstinence, and are rather 
 inclined to associate the hermit's cell with the good things of 
 this life which the Clerk of Copmanhurst, videlicet, " Friar 
 Tuck," set before the Black Knight in the Forest of Sherwood, 
 or with such love-lays as that of Edwin and Angelina, than 
 with the real privations that a recluse had to endure. But, 
 whatever the later hermit may have become — and, doubtless, 
 he shared in the corruption which brought on the dissolution 
 of the religious establishments in England — it is certain that 
 when men and women first took to immuring themselves in 
 cells and abjuring the society of their fellows, it was a severe 
 ordeal and called for no slight amount of physical and mental
 
 Hermits in Sussex. 93 
 
 fortitude. There was always, it would appear, a distinction 
 between the hermit and the anchorite. The hermit, whilst 
 avoiding the abodes of men, might wander about freely from 
 place to place; the anchorite shut himself in a cell and never 
 left it. This cell was generally in the neighbourhood of a 
 monastery, or, if the recluse was a female, which was frequently 
 the case, of a nunnery, or of a Church, as in the Aldrington 
 instance ; and was placed in such a position as to enable the 
 recluse to see the altar and hear the service when it was per- 
 formed. So completely was it looked upon as an act of self- 
 immurement that extreme unction was first administered, and 
 then a part of the funeral service was read, during which the 
 anchorite was admitted into his cell, and then the door 
 was closed upon him for ever, the presiding Bishop putting 
 his seal upon it, if, indeed, it was not walled up. It was a 
 living tomb, and was often so spoken of. In some instances 
 the cells were built up like a tower; the only means of 
 communication from without being by a kind of garret-window, 
 through which food or the holy elements were passed. 
 
 From the end of the 12th to the commencement of the 
 1 6th century the churches of the principal English towns, like 
 Norwich, Coventry, Northampton, &c., not only had one but 
 many anchorages (as they were called) attached to them, 
 either built on to the fabric or erected in the adjoining church- 
 yard. It was not everybody that was allowed to undertake 
 such a life. Even for a monk a year or two's confinement in 
 a cell in a monastery was often imposed as a probation, and 
 by a non-religious candidate two years' probation had to be 
 undergone, and two years' notice had to be given to the 
 Bishop, who then, if he were satisfied, might grant his license 
 of inclusion. Thus it was no light matter to become an 
 anchorite. 
 
 Towards the end of the 9th century the stringency of 
 these rules was relaxed. It was no longer required that cells 
 should be a part of the fabric of the Church, and the recluse 
 was no longer confined to his cell, but might have a garden
 
 94 Glhnpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 to labour in for his health and profit, and, if a Priest, might 
 add a small oratory. Another important rule, too, was broken 
 through. Several anchorites might dwell together in one 
 common enclosure, and, though not permitted to associate, 
 and though each had to provide for his own daily sustenance, 
 yet they might communicate with each other, if necessary to 
 do so, by means of a window. Disciples also were sometimes 
 entrusted to their care, though not allowed to dwell in the 
 same cell, and these, after they had passed a certain novitiate, 
 were obliged to become anchorites themselves. The usual 
 dress for lay hermits was a frock; if Priests, they wore a cope. 
 
 That this life of seclusion was not altogether prejudicial 
 to health is shown by the longevity of many of the recluses. 
 Some inhabited their cells forty or fifty — others sixty or seventy 
 years ; and one is recorded to have lived in seclusion ninety- 
 seven years. 
 
 Besides the anchorite at Aldrington, mention is made in 
 the archives of Chichester of Friar Humphrey, the recluse 
 of Pagham; the female recluses of Houghton and Stopham; 
 the recluse of Hardham (all in the western division of 
 Sussex) ; and a female recluse of the Blessed Mary of 
 Westoute (now St. Anne's, Lewes). All these Sussex ancho- 
 rites were bequeathed sums of money varying from 5s. to 40s. 
 each by the canonised Bishop of Chichester, St. Richard 
 (1242). The earliest Sussex anchorite, however, of whom 
 any traces have come down to us is a Lewes one — called 
 Magnus — a man of Danish race and royal descent. How he 
 came to take up his abode in an English town, and in the 
 little church under the Castle — "Saint John-sub-Castro" — at 
 Lewes, is now only matter for speculation. But of the fact 
 of his having done so there is no doubt. The presence within 
 the church of a memorial of the fact was noted by Camden 
 250 years ago. It ran (in Latin) as follows: "Here is 
 immured a soldier of the Royal family of Denmark, whose 
 name, Magnus, indicates his distinguished lineage. Relin- 
 quishing his greatness, he assumes the deportment of a lamb.
 
 Hermits i7i Stissex. 95 
 
 and exchanges for a life of ambition that of a humble 
 anchorite." 
 
 The late Mark Antony Lower held that this inscription 
 was written by the anchorite himself. It is to be regretted 
 that he did not add the date, by which he would have saved 
 much unprofitable speculation ; for it has been asserted that 
 the Danish Magnus was identical with Magnus, the youngest 
 son of Harold, who, after his father's defeat at Hastings, 
 underwent many vicissitudes of fortune, and at length, two 
 or three years after the Conquest, became the anchorite of 
 St. John's-sub-Castro : a story which Mr. Lower tracks to an 
 equally absurd one of Harold himself escaping to Chester, 
 and there ending his days as a recluse near the Church of St. 
 John in that place ; the son being substituted for the father, 
 and St. John-sub-Castro for St. John m Cesirta! Mr. Lower, 
 like a true archaeologist, disposes of this story by the authority 
 of the inscription itself (which, by-the-bye, he saved from 
 demolition when the old church was pulled down in 1839, 
 causing it to be removed to the present edifice), "which," he 
 says, " does not appear to be older than the 13th century." 
 
 There is no doubt that Sussex boasted of a great many 
 more anchorites and hermits than those few whose names or 
 the localities of whose cells have come down to us. The 
 temptations to a life of seclusion were much greater in the 
 early ages of the world than they are now. Life itself was 
 harder, coarser, and more repulsive. There was little other 
 choice for the mass of the population than that between the 
 life of a soldier and of a peasant — that is, a life of violence 
 and a life of sordid labour and penury. The only escape 
 from these in the Dark Ages was the life of a monk. If a 
 man was inclined to study or contemplation, how could he 
 indulge in it in an age when nearly all life was out of doors 
 or subject to the constant intrusion of coarse and ignorant 
 persons ? — when there were no books except in abbeys, 
 monasteries, or palaces, and few opportunities of study or 
 privacy out of religious society, and not many in that ! It
 
 96 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 was rough work, we may be sure, to push through life in the 
 Middle Ages, and no wonder some got weary-hearted with 
 the toil and strife, and sought to escape even into such 
 tomb-like quiet as that of the anchorite's cell. The line 
 between secular and religious life was more marked than it is 
 now ; the latter was the only haven of rest in this world and 
 seemed to be the surest approach to heaven. So the meek- 
 spirited, and the disappointed, and the weary-hearted sought 
 the only asylum open to them, and almost every religious 
 institution had its adjacent cell, filled by a holy man or 
 woman, often a former member of their own society. As 
 the world encroached upon the monastic orders, and they 
 themselves were won to it and its ways, and the boundary 
 line between secular and spiritual became less marked, the 
 life of the anchorite became more antagonistic and anomalous 
 with all about it. It was not wanted as an example to others, 
 nor did it present those advantages of quiet which were its 
 original attraction. Men found that they could live quietly 
 in the midst of the world, and study and think to more 
 advantage in it than out of it. So the life of the hermit 
 became a life of idleness and ignorance, often of dirt and 
 vice, only suited to a lower race of men than the active 
 student of the world. And so it was swept away ; and to 
 attempt to restore it would be almost like trying to bring 
 back the underground habitations of our Celtic ancestors: 
 very well adapted, no doubt, to the wants of their day, but 
 utterly out of date now and serving no good or useful 
 purpose.
 
 Race -Tracks in Sussex, 
 
 HERE is an air of great wisdom in the maxim which 
 directs us to " begin at the beginning." But how 
 if there be no beginning ? Such is really the case 
 with respect to those venerable, and, in their way, 
 doubtless, respectable individuals, our ancestors. Of course, 
 they had a beginning, like every thing else in this world — 
 even the world itself. But we cannot get at it. The search 
 after it takes us into caves and pits and all kinds of queer 
 places and strange companionship — bears and hyenas, and 
 wolves and elephants. But this was not the beginning. 
 Beneath these depths there was a deeper depth, into the 
 abysses of which we will not venture to look. Science may 
 peer, or attempt to peer, into these gloomy recesses of the 
 human race. History only takes up the strange tale at a 
 period when men, having established their dominion over the 
 lower races of animals, had begun to contend with each other 
 for the spoil, and to fight for the fairest and most fertile spots 
 of the earth. How often this little island of ours has been 
 fought for — won, and lost — how many races of men it has seen 
 enter, inhabit it, and then driven out of it, or slaughtered — 
 perhaps eaten — in it, it is impossible to say. Our ideas on 
 these points are continually extending. As there were great 
 Generals before Agamemnon, so there may have been — nay, 
 judging from the evidence that meets us in such places as 
 Salisbury Plain, there must have been great cities in England 
 before the existence of London, and many a phase of 
 civilisation may have existed here and in the neighbouring 
 land of Gaul — many an abortive attempt may have been made 
 by man to work out a higher destiny, before the path was 
 struck upon on which we have now entered. 
 H
 
 98 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 But it is with that path, and that only, that we are now 
 concerned. We leave science to explore and speculate upon 
 primeval man — the occupant of caves and pits and " pond- 
 barrows " — the companion of beasts not more savage but less 
 sagacious than himself. We leave the poets (like Milton, 
 when he wrote history), or chroniclers scarcely less inventive 
 than poets, to trace the peopling of Britain to Trojan Brutus, 
 and other survivors of Ilium. Our work is much humbler. 
 Our beginning is the men who occupied this Sussex of ours 
 when the great Roman General, Caesar, having reached the 
 northernmost coast of Gaul and beheld with his own eyes the 
 Ultima Thule of the Greeks, resolved to pass over into what 
 was to him a new world,* and subdue it. 
 
 Our county cannot claim the honour of having been the 
 
 first English ground trodden by those Imperial feet. Neither 
 
 on the first nor the second occasion of Caesar's incursions into 
 
 Britain (they were little more) did the Sussex shore see the 
 
 Roman galleys, or witness the unsuccessful attempts of the 
 
 natives to beat them back. We must resign that honour to 
 
 our neighbours, the men of Kent, and also the honourable 
 
 testimony of Ccesar to their valour and to their comparative 
 
 civilisation, though his language is scarcely so laudatory as 
 
 that which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of the unfortunate 
 
 Lord Saye and Sele : — 
 
 "Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ. 
 Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle ; 
 Sweet is the country because full of riches ; 
 The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy." 
 
 The Canti, as Csesar calls the Celtic tribe who defended their 
 homes against him, had scarcely arrived at so high a point of 
 civilisation as these lines would attribute to them. But they 
 were no longer savages. They had trained the horse to 
 purposes of war ; they possessed cattle and cultivated the soil 
 — were very skilful at basket-work, and were mechanics enough 
 to construct cars and to build huts, which were not, perhaps, 
 much inferior to the Irish cabins of the present day. But, 
 
 * Tacitus so entitles Britain.
 
 Race- Tracks in Sussex. 99 
 
 though their chief warriors had weapons of bronze, obtained 
 by traffic with the opposite coast, they did not know how to 
 work the iron with which their soil abounded, and their tools 
 were for the most part made of flint and bone. Of letters 
 they had no tincture, or Csesar would not have omitted to set 
 down such a fact. That they acquired these and other arts — 
 amongst them, how to coin money— in the 90 years that 
 elapsed between the invasion of Caesar and the arrival of 
 Aulus Plautius, the general of Claudius, there can be no 
 doubt. The process of civilisation had commenced and was 
 going on along the same path it had taken in Gaul when the 
 Romans arrived to give a new impulse and direction to it — it 
 may have been to retard it by arresting its natural development. 
 Let that be as it may, the people who opposed such a fierce 
 and well-nigh eifectual resistance to the Roman legions under 
 Didius and Suetonius could not have been such savages as we 
 in our time have had to deal with in North America and in 
 Australia. They were capable of civilisation ; they readily 
 acquired all the arts of their conquerors ;* they passed over 
 with them from Paganism to Christianity, and for some 400 
 years they formed a part of that great community which made 
 up the Roman Empire. 
 
 It is still a vexed question to what extent we English of the 
 present day owe our descent from these "ancient Britons" — 
 as it was once the fashion to call them, but who no more 
 answered to that Roman appellation than the Red Indians 
 
 • The artful process by which Agricola reclaimed the natives from their savage 
 freedom is admirably described by Tacitus in his life of that General : — " A fierce and 
 savage people, running wild in woods, would be ever addicted to a life of warfare. To 
 wean them from those habits Agricola held forth the baits of pleasure ; encouraging the 
 natives, as well by public assistance as by warm exhortations, to build temples, courts 
 of justice, and commodious dwelling-houses. He bestowed encomiums on such as 
 cheerfuUv obeyed : the slow and uncomplying were branded with reproach: and thus 
 a spirit of emulation diffused itself, operating like a sense of duty. To establish a plan 
 of education, and give the sons of the leading chiefs a tincture of letters, was part of his 
 policy. By way of encouragement, he praised their talents, and already saw them, by 
 the force of their natural genius, rising superior to the attainments of the Gauls. The 
 consequence was, that they, who had always disdained the Roman language, began to 
 cultivate its beauties. The Roman apparel was seen without prejvidice, and the toga 
 became a fashionable part of dress. By degrees the charms of vice gained admission to 
 their hearts : baths, and porticos, and elegant banquets, grew into vogue ; and the new 
 manners, which in fact served only to sweeten slavery, were by the unsuspecting Britons 
 called the arts of polished humanity,"
 
 lOO Glifupses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 answered to that of Americans, or the natives of Australia to 
 that of Australians. They were, in fact, so many tribes of 
 Celts or Cymri. Learned doctors differ on the point. 
 Professor Huxley ridicules the notion that there is any 
 ethnological distinction between the Celts who inhabited 
 this island in Roman days and the natives of the opposite 
 coast of Germany and Scandinavia — Angles, Saxons, Jutes, 
 Danes, and Norsemen — who successively invaded and con- 
 quered their land. They were all Aryan descended races — of 
 large frame, with blue eyes and light hair; the only exception 
 being the Silures, who, like the Basques of the Pyrenees, were 
 of a non-Aryan stock. " Is there," he asks, "any evidence to 
 show that there is what may be called a political difference 
 between the Celtic Aryan and the Germanic Aryan } " And 
 his reply is— "I must say once more that I can find none." 
 
 It was, then, by kindred races — only separated from the 
 invaded people by wide intervals of time and space — that this 
 island was assailed after the departure of the Romans; and 
 there is reason to doubt whether, such being the case, the native 
 population was so completely exterminated as has been 
 supposed. No doubt the land was Germanised, if we may be 
 allowed to use the expression, by the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, 
 and Danes, as it was afterwards Gallicised by the Norman 
 conquest ; and there was a greater displacement of population 
 by the former races because they came to win a new home, 
 and not merely, as the Normans did, to acquire new possessions; 
 still retaining their old ones. But it has seldom been the 
 desire of invaders, except where instigated by religious 
 fanaticism, like the Jews or Spaniards, to drive out or destroy 
 a whole population — men, women, and children. The very 
 fact that such emphasis is laid on the wholesale slaughter of 
 the inhabitants of Anderida — a fortified and garrisoned town — 
 leads to the inference that in open and undefended places the 
 natives were no/ destroyed — only reduced to the condition of 
 serfs. 
 
 In tracing, then, the existence of the Celts in Sussex we 
 are not seeking for evidence of a race to which we are aliens
 
 Race- Tracks in Sussex. lOi 
 
 in blood, or even, as respects the Romanised Celts, in religion 
 — for they were Christians — but whom we must regard in a 
 great degree as our ancestors; not merely as an Aryan- 
 descended people, but with some of their blood flowing in our 
 veins, mixed, no doubt, with that of Angles, Jutes, Frisians, 
 Danes, and Normans, but still as good as theirs, and helping 
 to make up that very composite being, an Englishman! 
 
 What signs, then, are there — and we have now got into the 
 line of our real theme — what signs are there of our Celtic 
 ancestors in Sussex? 
 
 The answer divides itself into two parts; ante-Roman and 
 cum-Roman. The evidence of the first period is to be found 
 in the names of places and in those earthworks which are 
 more lasting than structures of wood or stone or brick. A 
 few years ago a writer in the Brighton Herald^ very learned 
 in philology, pointed out numerous instances in this locality 
 — indeed, all over Sussex — in which the names, long sup- 
 posed to be of Saxon origin, were in reality Celtic, or a 
 combination of the two, as, in the present day, we are grafting 
 French and Italian words upon Saxon names of precisely the 
 same import — for instance, Cliftonville — "ton" and "ville" 
 both meaning exactly the same thing. What we do in our 
 day, the Romans first, and then the Angles, did in theirs ; 
 they could not obliterate the names of the spots which they 
 took possession of — that, of all others, is the most difficult 
 thing to do — but they often added to them, or, in course of 
 time, Romanised or Anglicised them. An instance of this 
 process of transmutation is the change of the Roman Portus 
 Adurni into Aldrington. According to our correspondent, 
 the original name of the Adur was Celtic, from " dwr," the 
 water or river. The Romans came and Latinised it ; the Angles 
 came and Anglicised it, and it bears marks of its triple origin. 
 Lewes escaped both processes: it is a purely Celtic name, still 
 pronounced exactly as it must have been 2,000 years ago, viz., 
 " Lie Wysg, the river-place, or place on the Wysg or Wisge 
 — that is, the Ouse, as the river is still called." There is,
 
 102 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 adds our authority, the twin name of the Lewes of Sussex in 
 Wales — on the river Wye — Wye being short for Wysg. 
 
 Numerous other cases are cited — Brighton being among 
 them ; and the honour of naming B^achy Head is snatched 
 from the French and restored to the primitive race. " Beau 
 Chef" exclaims our correspondent, " is a fine etymology 
 to a certainty, but it is not what Beachy Head means. Beachy 
 Head is a Celtic name — Bachiad — and means a bending, 
 turning, or winding, i.e., where the coast bends or trends in a 
 new direction." 
 
 Even the Devil's Dyke is taken from His Satanic Majesty, 
 and declared to be a corruption of the Celtic "Dyphwys 
 Dyuchel," significant of a deep pit — an abyss ; and " Poynings, 
 at the foot of the Dyke, admits of no doubt whatever as to its 
 Celtic etymology. In Doomsday Book, Poynings is Paninges. 
 Poynings is Panmen gwann ban — a low meadow, a wet or 
 boggy meadow. It is common in Glamorganshire." 
 
 Sometimes, without doubt, the Celtic etymon is strained 
 too far. Mounted on his hobby, a Welsh etymologist rides 
 Celtic words very hard indeed 1 But there is a strong 
 foundation for his theory. When the Angles and Saxons 
 overran England, it had been not merely a populated, but a 
 civilised land, for 400 years, and the names of places — 
 particularly hills and rivers and other natural formations — 
 stick, as our experience in America and Australia proves. 
 Many names in Sussex, utterly meaningless or absurd in their 
 modern shape, become full of significance when Celticised. 
 
 Not only in respect to names — but also in respect to works 
 — have our earlier Celtic ancestors left evidence of their 
 dominion. Sussex is full of them. From Heyshott, near 
 Midhurst, on the west, to Birling Gap, on the east, the 
 whole range of Southdown hills is studded with vast earth- 
 works. We have only to quote such familiar names as the 
 Trundle (near Chichester), Chanctonbury, Cissbury, High- 
 down Hill, Wolstonbury, the Devil's Dyke, Hollingbury and 
 Whitehawk Hill, near Brighton, to call up a range of 
 fortified posts which equal in extent, and in natural and
 
 Race Tracks in Sussex. 103 
 
 artificial strength, any of which vestiges are to be found in 
 Europe. When the stone and brick fortresses of the Romans 
 and Normans have disappeared, as so many of them have, 
 the "Camps" on the Sussex hills — not of Csesar, as they 
 used to be called, but of the Celts — will still remain to excite 
 the wonder of the ignorant and the speculations of the 
 learned. These great earthworks used to be attributed to 
 the Romans, and there is no doubt that they occupied many 
 of them. But they must often have found them ready-made 
 to their hands, for the invariable shape of a Roman encamp- 
 ment was a parallelogram, and nearly all these Down camps 
 are circular. There are the remains of many Roman camps 
 in Sussex, as at Hardham, near Pulborough ; the Broil, near 
 Chichester ; on Ditchling Hill ; on Mount Cauburn (above 
 Ringmer), and on the Downs near Falmer ; but all these are 
 rectangular. A notable instance of the successive occupation 
 of one point by Celt, Roman, and Saxon, is presented at 
 Cissbury, near Findon. Indubitable proof has been adduced 
 by the explorations of Colonel Lane Fox and Mr. Tyndall 
 that the original works at Cissbury were Celtic ; whilst the 
 discovery of Roman coins, pottery, &c., and also the fact of 
 a Roman road running through it, mark it as one of the 
 military posts of that great people ; and the name it now 
 bears is Saxon, and has always been attributed, though on 
 doubtful authority, to the same Saxon chief, Cissa, who gave 
 his name to Chichester. In that city, again, the same triple 
 union is traceable ; the capital of a Celtic tribe, the Regni 
 (their Celtic name was Caercei) is Latinised into Regnum by 
 its Roman occupants, and then Anglicised into Cissan- 
 Ceaster, or the camp of Cissa, by the new comers from 
 Germany. Supposing that Anderida, the great Roman station 
 at the other extremity of Sussex, had escaped, as Regnum did, 
 complete destruction, we should have had a city with a 
 name of Celtic origin, first Latinised, and then, doubtless, 
 Anglicised. And many a place has passed through this triple 
 transformation or adaptation — Aldrington,for instance, before 
 referred to — which symbolises the mixture of the three races.
 
 104 Glhnpses of Our A^iccstors. 
 
 But to return to the Celtic works. These, there can be 
 little doubt, did not belong to one age, but date back to and 
 illustrate times when those who erected them were less 
 advanced in civilisation than when Caesar saw and described 
 them. Such a work, in all probability, is that most remarkable 
 one at Burpham, which has nothing in common with the 
 " camps " along the Downs by which a later people sought 
 to defend themselves from attack. The Burpham earthwork 
 is quite different in character, and harmonises better with the 
 more primitive races who formed and navigated the canoe 
 that was found a few years ago in a ditch at Stoke, a short 
 distance from Burpham. This canoe, hollowed out of a 
 single tree, was the starting-point of the English navy, as its 
 rude, perhaps naked owner, who must have looked upon it as 
 a mighty triumph of skill and industry (and so it was, made 
 with such tools as he possessed) was the starting-point of the 
 great English people 1 
 
 But, to return to the earthwork at Burpham, we will copy 
 
 from the columns of the Brighton Herald a description written 
 
 by us some few years back of this singular and rarely-visited 
 
 Celtic fortification : — 
 
 The approach to Burpham from the south, its only assailable point 
 sea-ward, is by a natural causeway ; flanked on the west by the Adur and 
 on the east by a stream, which, no doubt, was once a considerable one, at 
 a time when the valley was undrained and when the wooded state of the 
 country caused more rain to fall in these parts. The sides of this cause- 
 way may be looked upon as inaccessible — it is no easy task to climb them 
 at the present day, when there are none but natural obstacles. An invading 
 foe, then, must fight his way up from the commencement of the spur, ancl, 
 as he advanced, he found himself on a narrow and rising piece of ground, 
 flanked by steep sides, with water running at the foot of each. He must 
 for safety's sake fight on, in the hope of coming upon a more open 
 country, and driving the enemy from the hills or the village to which they 
 were retreating. But, at the moment wlien the ground is at its narrowest 
 and steepest, a new obstacle suddenly rises up — a steep mound, of from 
 30 to 40 feet in height, stretching right across the causeway, and barring 
 further progress. Behind this is the village. On the summit of the 
 mound, we may imagine, stood the natives of the country, conscious of 
 their advantage, and animated by every feeling of men to defend their 
 homes and families. On ascending the mound -which may now l)e done 
 with impunity — we look down to the north on the roofs of houses hitherto 
 completely screened from \iew. Walk to the western end, and the river 
 is flowing at your feet. No boat could pass without being exposed to 
 destruction at the hands of the occupants of the mound. Walk to the
 
 Race- Tracks in Sussex. 105 
 
 other end of the mound, on the east, and you overlook the channel of a 
 stream now almost dry, which, when filled with water, as once it must 
 have been, was equally commanded by this earthwork. The labour that 
 must have been employed in its construction is one of those facts which, 
 like Stonehenge, puzzle the antiquarian who attributes the work to the 
 hands of a barbarous people. From east to west the mound runs for 200 
 or 250 yards, at a height varying from 20 to 40 or 50 feet, and with a 
 summit broad enough to walk upon. A road into the village now cuts it 
 into nearly two equal pieces ; but whether this is the work of modem 
 times, or was part of the original design, we are unable to say. Only in 
 the earliest ages of this country could such a work as this have been of 
 any value. Its object was, doubtless, to defend a small tribe, who had 
 their homes in these hills, and whose flocks sometimes fed in the valley 
 beneath, from any sudden incursion by way of the sea. An approaching 
 enemy could be easily seen from the summit of the mound, and, on the 
 alarm being given, the cattle were driven behind the mound, wich the 
 women and children and old people, whilst the warriors either sallied out 
 or awaited the attack on this 'vantage ground. If the enemy attempted 
 to pass up the valley in boats, they were overwhelmed with stones and 
 spears and arrows. If they came up the causeway, they were met by the 
 wall of earth, and, if they could not break through this, they were liable 
 to be driven over the steep sides of the hill up which they had come. The 
 mound is now covered with fine grass, and, when we visited it, the river 
 nets of the villagers were spread upon it to dry — its only use now. The 
 villagers themselves are ignorant that it ever had any other. 
 
 The frequent occurrence of Celtic earthworks, not only 
 on the Southdowns, but upon the river-sides (as this at 
 Burpham) and the sandy lowlands of Sussex, is pointed out 
 in a paper in the Sussex Archaeological Collections, by Mr. 
 P. J. Martin, a very intelligent Sussex archaeologist. He 
 refers to stone and copper axes, found by gravel-diggers 
 upon Commons, and now deposited in the Chichester 
 Museum. Sepulchral barrows, he observes, are not rare in 
 these localities ; and he then proceeds to describe two 
 remarkable mounds upon an elevated part of Nutbourne 
 Common, in the parish of Pulborough, one of which (the 
 northern one) was, when it was discovered, some years ago, 
 surrounded by a stone wall, with a doorway to the east four 
 feet wide ; and a quarter of a mile to the south of these 
 mounds was a British (or Celtic) settlement, or what he 
 believes to have been such. " It is," he says, "a triangular 
 headland of sandy soil, partly waste and partly arable, now 
 called Winterfield, enclosed on two sides by streams which 
 flow through low meadows, in earlier times unquestionably
 
 io6 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 woody marshes, like the neighbouring unreclaimed peat bogs. 
 On the third it is defended by a broad ditch and vallum, 
 having the perfect character of the Celtic encampment, not 
 improved, as many of them were, by subsequent Roman 
 works. The area of the peninsula thus enclosed may be 
 about six or eight acres. I do not know that any relics of 
 the Celtic or Roman character have been ploughed up in the 
 cultivated part of it, but on the adjoining lands of Hurston 
 and Wiggonholt Roman coins, pottery, and other marks of 
 the habitation of Romanised Britons, have been discovered. 
 This encampment of Winterfield (proceeds Mr. Martin) 
 exactly corresponds in character and situation with the more 
 important one of Burpham, near Arundel, which is in like 
 manner defended by a morass on one side, the river Arun on 
 the other, and at the base of the triangle by a ditch and wall 
 twice the size of the work in question. Arundel itself, the 
 ad Decimum Lapidem of the Romans, was originally a British 
 town of the same character, with the river on one side, a 
 marshy and woody ravine on the other, and a fosse and 
 vallum traversing the neck of land between the two, still to 
 be seen, intersected by the London road, just without St. 
 Mary's Gate. " 
 
 With respect to the walled tumuli near this Celtic 
 encampment, Mr. Martin quotes Sir R. Hoare, the learned 
 historian of Wiltshire, in support of the theory that they 
 were constructed for religious purposes. They also bear a 
 close resemblance to the "Pond Barrows," often found upon 
 the Downs, in which trinkets and articles of domestic use 
 have been often found, and " in looking at which construc- 
 tions," says Mr. Martin, " I have always been inclined to 
 think that they were the sites of British habitations, perhaps 
 of the superior order. I suppose the shallow excavation to 
 be the area of the hut, and the low circular vallum the basis 
 upon which the superstructure rested, consisting of long 
 rafters meeting at top over the centre of the area, like a pile 
 of hop-poles ; and these being strengthened, and closed in 
 with boughs and thatch, formed the habitation — than which
 
 Race- Tracks in Sussex. 107 
 
 we may suppose the noblest Briton, with his flint or copper 
 spear-head, his pottery of unbaked earth, and other rude 
 appliances, ' could boast no better home.* The circular 
 embankment on which the rafters rested would serve to carry 
 off the water as it trickled down the roof, and keep the 
 interior dry and comfortable. 
 
 " To this rude cottage was added, in our present instance, 
 a stone wall at the foot of the mound, to defend it from the 
 intrusion of cattle or other injurious animals. 
 
 "The supposition of its being the site of a human 
 habitation is strengthened by the discovery of the stones 
 in that part of the crown of the circle which corresponds 
 with the doorway in the wall, and were placed in the entrance 
 of the hut, perhaps, to make the pathway firm ; and also by 
 the discovery of the broken millstone and pottery under the 
 floor of the area. 
 
 " To this use I am inclined to assign all the pond barrows, 
 and that is the reason Sir R. Hoare so frequently found 
 trinkets and articles of domestic use in them." 
 
 If, as is now generally admitted, the so-called Roman 
 camps in Sussex, such as Chanctonbury, Cissbury, Holling- 
 bury, Wolfstanbury, &c., are of Celtic origin, then the question 
 arises, in what way were they used by that people? As places 
 of abode ? — towns ? or as military posts ? The Romans, there 
 is no doubt, used them merely as military posts; as signal- 
 places from which they could hold communication with each 
 other and carry, by their military vice, aid from one point of 
 their possessions to another. Their towns and villas were 
 erected in the plains below, on both sides of the Downs — as 
 at Chichester and Pevensey, Bignor and Hurst, Hardham and 
 Preston. The Romans did not, like the Normans, affect hilly 
 spots for their abode: they had too much confidence in 
 themselves, and had little fear of attack either from the land 
 or the sea-side. The notion that they did not occupy the 
 Weald has been long dispelled; their remains are to be found 
 in many spots in it and their roads pierced through it, from
 
 lo8 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 Aldrington on the coast by Hangleton, St. John's Common, 
 Street, &c., into the great Ermyn-street which led to London, 
 and from London to Dover; and also, in a more easterly 
 direction, to Anderida. Doubtless the greater part of the 
 plain overlooked by the stations at Chanctonbury, Devil's 
 Dyke, &c., was forest; and the frequent occurrence of " hurst," 
 or wood, in the villages that now dot it shows that it was 
 forest in the days of the Angles. But to the Romans it must 
 have been a mere hunting-ground, not a hiding-place for 
 enemies; they knew how to drive these out and to subjugate 
 and civilise them. For 300 or 400 years the native Celts were 
 so civilised, and the Roman villas still at times exhumed, as 
 at Bignor, Preston (near Brighton), and Hurst (Danny), prove 
 that the Roman officers lived here in safety and in luxury, as 
 the English nobility now live in iheir parks and surrounded 
 by their ancestral woods. 
 
 But it was very different with the Celts anterior to Roman 
 occupation. They were divided into many tribes and clans, 
 warring with each other, and fortifying their habitations 
 against each other, as, at a later day, the Norman Barons did. 
 It must have been the aim of each of these tribes to secure a 
 defensible place for their families and such rude property as 
 they possessed; and what better spots could they have chosen 
 than these projections — these natural buttresses of the Downs 
 — spots already half fortified by the sharp declivities of the 
 hills to which they were a fringe.^ There is scarcely one of 
 these fortresses of Nature which is not " capped" by a Celtic 
 earthwork — occupied, doubtless, by the earlier Celts as 
 permanent habitations, and afterwards utilised by Romans as 
 military stations. 
 
 To this latter use, too, doubtless, the Angles turned them 
 when they succeeded the Romans as invaders and conquerors. 
 But they,* too, like the Romans — even more so, indeed — were 
 inhabitants of the plain and abandoned many of the hilly 
 camps. They poured into the forests left by the Romans, 
 made clearings (still denoted by the Anglo-Saxon termination
 
 Race -Tracks in Sussex. 109 
 
 "lye"), and eschewed fortifications: a circumstance which, 
 unquestionably, facilitated the conquest of the Normans. 
 Had the Saxons built on the Celtic sites some of those stone 
 castles which the Normans soon raised, at Arundel, Pevensey 
 (Anderida), Lewes, Bramber, &c., the task of William would 
 have been much more difficult, if not impossible. 
 
 But the Angles cared neither to erect stoneworks nor 
 earthworks; they preferred, as we English — their immediate 
 descendants— do, to live in open towns, villages, and isolated 
 houses, living a rural life and depending on their valour by sea 
 and land for their safety. It failed them once; may it never 
 do so again! 
 
 To this circumstance, doubtless — their love of rural life 
 and their contempt of fortifications— is it owing that the 
 Angles and Jutes, whilst giving their names to so many places 
 — whilst fixing the sites of nearly all our modern towns and 
 villages, supply fewer relics to the archaeologist than the Celts 
 and Romans who preceded, or the Normans who succeeded, 
 them. To the Celts belong the great earthworks on our 
 hills and such stoneworks as those on Salisbury Plain and at 
 Amesbury; to the Romans or Romanised Celts belong such 
 cities as Chichester, Colchester, and such villas as those at 
 Bignor and Danny; whilst coins and pottery and burial-places, 
 such as that recently discovered at Preston, near Brighton, are 
 found in every direction — on the hills and in the plains. 
 This period of Roman occupation and of Celtic subjugation 
 is becoming more and more illustrated by modern explorations. 
 Pagan Temples and altars, as at Chichester, are found to 
 underlie Christian Churches; our highways, and even our 
 railways, follow the old Roman via; we are erecting new 
 villas, with the same luxurious appliances of the bath, 
 ventilation, &c., on the sites of the old Roman villas, and 
 find that we have something to learn from them in the arts 
 and conveniences of life! We find the subsoil almost sown 
 with fragments of Roman pottery and Roman coinage, or 
 those of Rome's Celtic subjects, and we even occasionally
 
 no Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 turn up, as at Mountfield, near Hastings, some few years ago, 
 the golden ornaments of an earlier and free-born Celtic 
 warrior, or, as at Hove, the amber cup, the stone battle-axe, 
 and the bronze dagger (now in the Brighton Museum, thanks 
 to the vigilance of Mr. Barclay Phillips, of Brighton), which 
 were interred with some Celtic chief in the barrow that was 
 raised to mark his grave. Of the stone tools, or weapons, 
 too, with which he worked, or hunted, or fought, there is a rich 
 and apparently inexhaustible supply. What Museum does not 
 overflow with " celts ?" 
 
 Of Saxon, or, as we should rather say, English relics, there 
 is a less rich supply. The Celts surpassed them in earth- 
 works ; the Romans and Romanised Celts in works of metal 
 and of pottery; and the Normans in buildings of stone. But 
 the Anglo-Saxon had his revenge : he had the bone and 
 muscle and sinew — the indomitable spirit of industry and 
 love of independence which supplied something more 
 precious than all the rest, and which has gradually absorbed 
 them. By his steady endurance, though conquered, he has 
 made all that went before or followed him — Celtic, Roman, 
 Norman — his own, and he now stands surrounded by their 
 remains as a part of his inheritance. By the vigour of his 
 language, too, he has " taken seisin " of much that did not 
 originally belong to him: camps, towns, hamlets, hills, rivers 
 — spots that once answered to Celtic and Roman names, 
 but have now such apparently pure Saxon appellations as 
 Hollingbury, Chanctonbury, Wolfstonbury, Aldrington, &c.; 
 and the extermination of the Romanised Celts at Anderida 
 was scarcely more complete than has been the extinction of 
 Celtic names by the substitution, or overlaying, of Anglo- 
 Saxon ones. So the English, by the stubbornness of their 
 spirit, the strength of their limbs, and the genius of their 
 tongue, have fashioned the land to the likeness of themselves. 
 It is Angle-land ; and all who went before, or even who, like 
 the Normans, came after, are but disjecta membra. The living 
 body is English. If we would see the work of the Celts, we 
 must go to the peaks of the Southdowns, or to such spots as
 
 Race- Tracks in Sussex. 1 1 1 
 
 Burpham, and see where they fixed their habitations ; if of 
 the Romans, we must follow their military roads, running in 
 lines straight as their own pilum over hill and plain, or we 
 must delve down some ten or twelve feet below the surface 
 till we strike on the tesselated pavements of their villas and 
 temples, or look with wonderment at the gigantic brick walls 
 that once protected their garrison at Anderida, or mark the 
 rectangular lines of their cities and encampments at 
 Chichester and the Broil. If we would know the Norman, 
 and his works, do they not rise up in the stately forms of 
 Cathedral and Castle, still defying the ravages of time and 
 the attack of that swifter destroyer — man ? But if the work of 
 the Angle be sought, it is not in any of these directions, or 
 in a lower grade, that we find it : it is in 
 
 " Man, high-minded man. 
 That knows his nghts, and knowing dares maintain" 
 
 it is in free institutions, the outcome of an unconquerable 
 love of independence, and in a literature that, springing from 
 this independence, has, by its inherent vigour, which scarcely 
 acknowledges the rules and trammels of Art, reached to a 
 height that Art never touched — to the utmost bounds of 
 nature and the aspirations of the human soul. 
 
 It is the privilege and boast of Sussex that all these 
 successive stages of humanity, by which we have reached the 
 height on which we stand, are to be studied and traced in 
 our county. We are rich in the remains of the Celt, the 
 Roman, the Norman, and in the actual living presence of an 
 English race. From this we would not eliminate the Celtic 
 element, or even, in a minor degree, a tincture of the Roman 
 blood. For did not Constantine wed a Celtic Princess, and 
 must not thousands of the veteran legionaries have settled 
 down as natives of the land they had conquered — taking unto 
 themselves Celtic wives and begetting half-Celtic children } 
 No doubt the Angles and Jutes made sad havoc of this 
 civilised and somewhat emasculated race when they descended 
 on the shores of Sussex — at Pagham and Selsey, it is said —
 
 112 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 in the full vigour of savage freedom. But they did not — could 
 not — exterminate a whole race — man, woman, and child. They 
 simply absorbed it, as they afterwards absorbed the Norman 
 element, and still absorb all the foreign currents of vitality 
 that pour into us from continental Europe, from Asia, and 
 even from Africa. It is this power of absorption — of 
 assimilation — that makes the race so strong, so rich, so 
 varied and cosmopolitan — may we not say so Imperial } — 
 fitted to go forth in its turn to conquer or to people the 
 earth : for we carry with us the versatility of the Celt, the 
 doggedness of the Anglo-Saxon, the shrewdness and tenacity 
 of purpose of the Norman, the law-making and the law- 
 abiding attributes of the Roman. By virtue of the Norse we 
 are ploughers of the sea; by virtue of the Celt we are 
 diggers and delvers of the earth; the Angle and the Jute 
 have given us our love for woods and rural places, made us 
 growers of corn and rearers of cattle, and land-robbers on 
 the grandest of scales. To the Danes, roaming with " hungry 
 hearts" through the world, to possess and populate it, we owe 
 something. Something, too, we have inherited from the 
 Norman in the rearing up of gorgeous edifices — Castles 
 and Churches and Palaces, and Mansions equal to Palaces. 
 From one and all we have taken something with us on our 
 onward march. And, to such as deign to turn aside for a 
 moment and pause to mark the stages of our progress, no 
 soil can furnish richer opportunities of study — more suggestive 
 evidence of the Past — than this of our county of Sussex.
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex, 
 
 P to the time of the Fourth George, Sussex had no 
 title to be included in the number of the Royal 
 Counties — that is, it had no fixed place of residence 
 like Middlesex, Berks, and Hampshire, for the 
 Kings of England. Nor is there any record of a lengthened 
 sojourn in it by any of our Monarchs. From time to time it 
 was visited by them for the purposes of war or peace — but 
 not, for the most part, under circumstances calculated to win 
 their favour, or make them look back upon it with longing 
 eyes. 
 
 To the last of the Saxon Kings— Harold — it was peculiarly 
 fatal ; for it was from a Sussex seaport — Bosham, novva mere 
 fishing hamlet — that he embarked on that inauspicious voyage 
 to Normandy, which may be regarded as the first act of the 
 Conquest of England, involving him, as it did, in an acknow- 
 ledgment of a promise, or, according to the Normans, an oath, 
 to support the claim of William as the heir of Edward the 
 Confessor ; and it was to the Sussex coast that he hastened 
 from his victory in the North over the Danish King, when the 
 news was brought to him that William and his host had 
 disembarked in the Bay of Pevensey. It was on Sussex soil 
 that he gave battle to the invader ; here, like a brave man, he 
 fell, fighting to the last ; and here, according to the best 
 authorities, he lies buried in sight of the coast which, according 
 to the saying of his successful rival, he had so long guarded. 
 
 To the Conqueror the soil of Sussex might be deemed 
 auspicious and rich in glorious associations ; but it is certain 
 he did not select it as a place of abode, and, after founding 
 the Abbey at Battle, which he had vowed on the field of battle
 
 114 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 to erect in case of victory, he passed onward ; and we 
 have no further record of deeds of his on Sussex soil. Yet, 
 as fronting to his native land, and as being the place of 
 residence of his daughter Gundrada (whose remains lie buried 
 at Lewes with those of her husband, William de Warenne), 
 it is not improbable that the Conqueror visited Sussex during 
 his active career, and perhaps traversed the battle-field on 
 which he had won his kingly crown. 
 
 Let that be as it may, it is not until the accession of his 
 son, William the Red, that we have evidence of the presence 
 of a King of England on Sussex soil ; and it was in order to 
 take possession (in 1097) of Arundel Castle, then and up to 
 the Commonwealth one of the strongholds of the county. It 
 was to besiege, and to take, the same fortress that Rufus's 
 brother and successor, Henry L, entered Sussex in 1102. In 
 the troubled times that succeeded Henry's death, Sussex was 
 visited by both the competitors for the Crown : by Henry's 
 daughter, the Empress Maud, who, with her mother, Queen 
 Adeliza, sought refuge at Arundel in 11 39, and by Stephen, 
 his nephew, who besieged both Arundel and Pevensey Castles, 
 and who was, as a deed signed by him testifies, at Lewes 
 between 1148 and 1152. 
 
 Of the presence of Henry II., or of his heroic son, Richard 
 Cceur de Lion, on Sussex soil, we have no evidence ; but 
 Richard's unworthy successor, John, frequently journeyed 
 through it. It was at Shoreham that he landed (in May, 1 1 99) 
 after taking possession of Normandy on the death of Richard, 
 and in two days after he was crowned in London, so that he 
 must have travelled expeditiously. The next month he was 
 again at Shoreham, on his way to Dieppe with troops, to make 
 good his claims in France. In 1205 he was at Lewes; in 
 1206 at Battle, Arundel, and other places; and a letter 
 addressed by him in this year to the earls, barons, knights, 
 and freeholders of Sussex, praying them, " for the love of us," 
 to assist us now in carrying our timber to Lewes, " not as a 
 right, but as a favour," is the earliest testimony to the
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex. 115 
 
 difficulties of land-carriage in the Sussex Weald. In 1208 
 John was in the west part of the county, at Pagham and 
 Aldingbourne, where there was a royal residence, on his way 
 to Southampton ; and in 1209 he was again at Aldingbourne, 
 Arundel, Bramber, and at Knepp Castle (a residence of the 
 Braose family, whom John treated so barbarously, and now the 
 seat of the Burrells) at West Grinstead, at which place he 
 remained several days both this year and in 1 2 1 1 . In 1 2 1 2 he 
 was again at Battle and Aldingbourne, and in 121 3 at Arundel, 
 Lewes, Battle, Rye, and Winchelsea. In 1224 and 1225 he 
 was at Aldingbourne, and in the latter year at Knepp Castle, 
 directing to the Sheriff of Sussex from Stanstead an order to 
 pay 30s. to Simon Eynulf, " for one cask of wine, which was 
 drunk at our house at Aldingbourne on Sunday, the Feast of 
 the Conversion of St. Paul." In 1226 he was at Seaford, 
 Bramber, and Wool Lavington — places at opposite extremities 
 of the county, and his quick passage from one to the other 
 testifies to that restlessness and rapidity of movement for 
 which John was famous. In one year he changed his residence 
 150 times, and Matthew of Paris records with wonder the 
 speed with which he travelled by day and night in 1202, in 
 order to rescue his mother when she was besieged in the Castle 
 of Mirabell, in Normandy. Had all his movements been 
 instigated by as good a motive, his subjects would have had 
 reason to love instead of hating him. 
 
 John's son and successor, Henry III., we need hardly say, 
 was a visitor to Sussex. It was in the strong and stately 
 Priory of Lewes that he took up his residence with his son 
 Edward, Prince of Wales, and his brother Richard, Duke of 
 Cornwall and King of Rome, when his Barons were in open 
 revolt against him under Simon de Montfort; it was here he 
 was besieged after the total defeat of his forces on the neigh- 
 bouring Downs ; and here he was compelled to sign those 
 terms of peace by which the first real English Parliament was 
 called together, and from which the English Constitution may 
 be said to have sprung. By the Battle of Lewes the Battle 
 of Hastings may almost be said to have been avenged ; at all
 
 1 1 6 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 events, it balanced its effects, and put King and people in 
 their riglit places. 
 
 Sussex was visited by the three successive Edwards. 
 Edward I. (whose forced journey from Lewes after the battle 
 to Dover, under the custody of his cousin, Henry de Montfort, 
 was considered so ignominious that the popular ballads of 
 the day speak of him as even deprived of his spurs : — 
 
 " Be the luef, be the loht, Sir Edward, 
 Thou shalt ride sporeless o' thy lyard, 
 Al the r)-ghte way to Dovere ward,") 
 
 almost met his death at Winchelsea, then the most important 
 sea-port of the southern coast. Whilst riding on the ramparts 
 of the Castle his horse took fright and leaped over the parapet 
 into the road, which, fortunately for its royal rider, had been 
 softened by recent rains. So the animal slipped some twelve 
 feet or more, and yet did not fall, and the King, reining it 
 up, turned it round and rode up to the gate, which he entered 
 unhurt, to the wonder and delight of those who had witnessed 
 the catastrophe. 
 
 Edward I. was also a sojourner at Aldingbourne, Chichester, 
 Lewes, Battle, Winchelsea, and Romney, in 1276, and in 128 1 
 he visited Hurst and Chichester, and in 1285 Bramber, Arundel, 
 and Chichester; and Chichester and Midhurst in 1286. At 
 Chichester he made rich presents to the shrine of St. Richard, 
 still to be seen in the Cathedral. In 1 295 he was at Winchelsea ; 
 in 1297 at Chichester, Arundel, Mayfield, and Lewes; and in 
 1299, at Mayfield, Uckfield, Bramber, Arundel, Chichester, 
 and Lewes. In 1305 Edward was at Horsham and Midhurst, 
 Cocking, Midhurst, Chichester, Aldingbourne, Arundel, 
 Shoreham, Clayton, Lewes, Buxted, and Mayfield. This was 
 his last journey to Sussex. Both he and Edward de Balliol 
 were sick at Chichester, and his long and glorious reign soon 
 after came to an end. 
 
 Sussex is closely connected with Edward 11. , and a series 
 of letters written by him when Prince of Wales, at Midhurst, 
 Battle, cSrc, which has been preserved (and published in the 
 Sussex Archseological Collections), relate to a serious difference
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex. 117 
 
 between himself and his Royal father, and shadow forth his 
 future errors and misfortunes. It was at this period that the 
 young Prince was under the influence of his first favourite, 
 Piers Gaveston, and the King's Chancellor, the Bishop of 
 Chester, having reproved the favourite for misleading the 
 Prince, this latter addressed him in language which called 
 down on him the anger of his Royal father. " On Sunday, 
 the 15th day of June," writes the Prince to Henry de Lacy, 
 Earl of Lincoln, "we came to Midhurst, where we found our 
 lord the King our father, and on the following Monday, on 
 account of certain words which were told him, that had been 
 between us and the Bishop of Chester, he is so angry with 
 us that he has forbidden us, that neither ourselves nor anyone 
 of our suite should be so bold as to enter within his household ; 
 and he has forbidden all his officers of his household and of 
 the exchequer that they should neither give us nor lend us 
 anything whatever for the sustenance of our household ; and 
 we have remained at Midhurst in order to wait for his good 
 pleasure and his pardon, and we will at any rate proceed after 
 him in the best manner that we shall be able, as at ten or 
 twelve leagues from his household, until we may be able to 
 recover his good pleasure, for which we have great desire." 
 For some six months was the Prince thus exiled from Court, 
 and cut off from his usual means of living, and the letters 
 he writes from Midhurst, Chichester, Aldingbourne, Lewes, 
 Hellingly, Battle, &c., are chiefly in order to entreat succour 
 for himself or his attendants. The enmities and the friendships 
 made at this time exercised a baneful influence in the succeed- 
 ing reign, or rather it was now that the Prince displayed that 
 weakness of character that made his reign so calamitous. 
 
 A Royal progress was made through Sussex by Edward IL 
 in 1324, on the eve of his deposition and death. The 
 pretext of the visit southward was to embark at Portsmouth 
 for a military expedition to France. But the King lingered 
 long on the road, and never carried out his design. He 
 arrived at Tunbridge on the 23rd of August, and remained 
 there until the 27th, receiving presents of fish (pike) and fruit
 
 1 18 Gli7npses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 from the Archbishop of Canterbury. From Tunbridge he 
 proceeded to Bayham Abbey, thence to Robertsbridge Abbey, 
 and on the 28th of August to Battle Abbey, where numerous 
 presents, including swans, herons, pheasants, pike, oxen, 
 mutton, capons, wine, &c., &c., awaited him. Indeed, it 
 was chiefly at Abbeys and Priories that the Kings of this 
 period took up their abode when on their travels ; the 
 accommodation being doubtless very superior to that of 
 secular hosts. On the 30th of August the King was at 
 Pevensey, where he appoints Wardens of Rye and Winchelsea, 
 the large dimensions of the latter port (now a grass field) 
 being specially referred to. Eastbourne was the next stage 
 of the Royal progress, and then Bishopstone, whence he is 
 stated to have proceeded to Thele, which Mr. Lower identifies 
 as Theelands, in Slynfold,a dependency of the Norman Abbey 
 of Fecamp. Stoppages are also made at Shipley, Horsham, 
 Chedworth, Pulborough, and Petworth, numerous presents 
 "in kind" being received at all these places, and the King 
 sometimes making presents of plate in return. Swans and 
 herons often figure in the provisions furnished for the Royal 
 table. Petworth was the last place in Sussex which received the 
 King, who passed thence into Hampshire, but never carried 
 out his intention to proceed to France, where his faithless 
 consort, Isabella, was with her son, Edward, plotting against 
 him. In the following year these intrigues came to a head ; 
 the King was deposed ; and his cruel murder, in Berkeley 
 Castle, speedily followed. The progress in Sussex was 
 amongst the last acts of his ill-starred reign. 
 
 His son, Edward III., made several visits to Sussex, chiefly 
 in connection with his naval expeditions. He visited Rye 
 and Winchelsea in 1350; disembarked at the latter port in 
 1355, in company with his sons, Lionel and John ; and, after 
 sailing to the Isle of Wight, was again driven back to the 
 Sussex port. In 1360 the warlike King landed at Rye, and 
 starting immediately in the evening for London on horseback, 
 arrived at his capital the next morning at nine o'clock : a 
 praiseworthy example of Royal diligence. Once more, in
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex, 119 
 
 1372, Edward was at Winchelsea, and prorogued Parliament 
 from it after the defeat of the English fleet at La Rochelle. 
 
 There is now a gap in the series of Royal visits. Of the 
 presence of the hapless Richard II. in Sussex we find no trace, 
 nor of the aspiring Bolingbroke's presence, nor of the heroic 
 Fifth Harry, who, we know, sailed from Southampton 
 on his expedition into France. Henry VI. was not an 
 active Monarch, and the battle-scenes of York and Lancaster 
 lay in the Midland and Eastern Counties, not in the 
 South, though the Sussex Howards were the stoutest 
 adherents of Richard III. Edward IV., however, came 
 to Chichester, and there made many Justices of the 
 Peace. The Tudors "took" to the county, and Bluff King 
 Hal came to Rye in 1487, probably to hasten the equipment 
 of shipping for one of his French expeditions. Whether 
 Sussex shared in his many " progresses " is not recorded, but 
 it is likely. His son, Edward VI., made but one Royal 
 progress, and that included Sussex. It was in 1552 ; and his 
 own journal of it has been preserved. He entered the county 
 from the Surrey side, with some 4,000 horse, which, as the 
 young King himself observes, " ware inough to eat up the 
 country ; for ther was little medow nor hay al the way as I 
 went," which showed that the King, youthful as he was, looked 
 about him. Indeed, the Tudors generally did, and sharply 
 too, as one of the noblemen who entertained Henry VII. 
 found out to his cost when he put his labourers into livery to 
 do honour to his Royal guest, that being illegal, and was 
 informed by His Majesty, on his taking leave, that " his 
 Chancellor would reckon with him !" 
 
 Petworth, the first halting-place of Edward VI. in his 
 progress, was the southern seat of the Percies, Earls of 
 Northumberland, but, at the time of the King's visit, it was 
 temporarily in the hands of the Crown ; and so the charge, 
 which must have been great, fell on Henry, Earl of Arundel, 
 who was master of the game there. The King slept four 
 nights at Petworth. On the 25th of July he was at Cowdray,
 
 120 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 the splendid seat of the Earls Montague (Browne) and the 
 ruins of which (it was burnt down in 1793) still remain to 
 attest its ancient glories. At Cowdray the King remained 
 until the 27th, and then went eastward to Halnaker, which he 
 describes as "a pretty house beside Chichester." It was at 
 that time the seat of Thomas Lord de la Warre, and had been 
 erected by his father early in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 Scarcely any vestiges of it now remain ; and its grounds are 
 included in the Goodwood estate of the Dukes of Richmond. 
 The Sussex visit seems to have closed with Halnaker, and the 
 Royal invaders (for, to the nobles visited, it was as ruinous as 
 an invasion) turned westward : the next entry referring to 
 Southampton. 
 
 Mary does not seem to have honoured (.^) Sussex with her 
 presence, and seeing the horrors that her reign brought upon 
 the county, in the martyr-burnings at Lewes and elsewhere, 
 she would hardly have been welcomed. Her Royal and 
 Protestant sister, Elizabeth, made amends. She visited both 
 East and West Sussex. She was at Rye for three days in 1 573, 
 and went from thence to Winchelsea, seeing the renewed 
 prosperity of which (it had been destroyed by Edward I. for 
 the assistance its citizens gave to the Barons), she called it a 
 "little London." In 1591 she visited her faithful minister, 
 Sir Anthony Browne, Earl Montague, at his beautiful seat, 
 Cowdray, at Midhurst, and was, as her brother had been, 
 magnificently entertained. The traditions of the visit still 
 hang about the place, and the spot is shown whence the 
 Queen shot a deer with her own Royal hand. 
 
 In a contemporary narrative of this visit of Elizabeth to 
 Cowdray some curious details are given, which so closely 
 resemble the account of the doings at Leicester's Castle of 
 Kenilworth, in Scott's novel, that one might almost think the 
 great novelist had seen and made use of them. 
 
 As soon, we arc told, as the Queen appeared in sight, loud music 
 sounded, which ceased when she arrived on the bridge. A man in armour 
 (standing between two wooden effigies to resemble porters), holding a club 
 in one hand and a golden key in the other, addressed her Majesty, declaring
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex. 121 
 
 that there was a prophecy, when the first stone was laid, that these walls 
 should shake, and the roof totter, until "the wisest, the fairest, and the 
 most fortunate of all creatures ' ' should arrive. That his fellow-porters gave 
 up all hopes of this beneficial advent, and so fell asleep, but that he would 
 rather have cut off his eyelids than wink till he saw the end. Now that 
 the "miracle of time," "nature's glorie," and "fortune's empresse," had 
 anived, of course the house was immoveable. He then presented the key, 
 as a crest of his office, at the same time declaring his honourable Lord, the 
 owner of the house, to be second to none in duty and service to her Majesty, 
 and that " his tongue was the keie of his heart, and his heart the locke of 
 his soule." 
 
 The Queen then accepted the key, saying she would swear as to the 
 fidelity of the master ; and having alighted, she embraced the Lady 
 Montacute and the Lady Dormer her daughter, the former of the two (as 
 if weeping on her bosom) said, " O, happie time ! O, joyful day ! " 
 
 The next day (being Sunday) her Majesty was " most royallie feasted ; 
 the proportion of breakfast was three oxen and one hundred and fortie 
 geese." 
 
 On Monday morning, at eight o'clock, the Queen rode to the park. A 
 nymph emerged from a delicate bower, and with a sweet song presented 
 Elizabeth with a crossbow, with which she killed three or four deer, placed 
 in a paddock for the occasion, and the Countess of Kildare shot one. 
 After dinner, about six o'clock, the Queen mounted to one of the turrets 
 of Cowdray, and witnessed " sixteen bucks pulled down by greyhounds on 
 a launde," " all having fayre lawe." 
 
 The days of the week passed merrily, every day bringing some fresh 
 surprise, planned for the royal guest's amusement. Fulsome orations, 
 delivered by persons in various disguises, a charactertistic pastime of the 
 period, were the order of the day. At one place she was met by a pilgrim, 
 " clad in russet velvet, with shallop shells of cloth of silver," who led the 
 way to an oak, upon which were displayed the Queen's arms, and those of 
 the nobility and gentry of the shire, all "hanged in escutchions most 
 beautifull," and these, the account goes on to state, " shall remain on the 
 oke, and there hang till they cannot hang together, one peece by another." 
 
 At another place a " wilde man clad in ivie," started forth and delivered 
 his oration ; and at " a goodlie fishpond," an angler did the same. 
 
 One day the banquet was spread at Easebourne Priory, and doubtless 
 Elizabeth beheld with interest the tomb, then brilliant with gilt and paint, 
 of her long departed relative. Sir David Owen. 
 
 At another time, "the lordes and ladies dined in the walkes, feasting 
 most sumptuously at a table, foure and twentie yardes long." The length 
 of that table was however surpassed by another, laid "in the privie walkes 
 in the garden," which was " fortie-eight yardes long." I believe these 
 feasts took place in the " Close Walkes," still so called, which have been 
 long pointed out as the locality by tradition. Moreover the "goodlie fish- 
 pond," or rather the basin, probably filled with fish for the occasion, is at 
 a convenient distance. These close walks are really most "beautiful to 
 behold." This was on the evening of her last day, and, as a grand finale, 
 "the countrie people "were allowed to present themselves before the Queen, 
 " in a pleasant daunce, with taber and pipe, and the Lord Montague and 
 his lady among them, to the great pleasure of all beholders, and gentle 
 applause of her Majestie."
 
 122 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 Her Majesty, it is recorded, slept in the "velvet chamber," 
 on the walls of which had been painted, in fresco, the naval 
 battle fought in the harbour of Brest in her father's reign. 
 The whole of the House was illustrated by the chief events 
 of the Eighth Harry's reign, in which the father of the Queen's 
 host had taken a part. These, too, perished in the fire by 
 which Cowdray was destroyed — in the same year, 1793, and 
 almost on the same day as closed the House of Montague in 
 the death of the last Earl in the Laufenberg Falls on the 
 Rhine. The news of the two events crossed each other from 
 England to Germany and Germany to England. 
 
 Elizabeth's successor, James I., did not emulate her activity, 
 and there is nothing to show that he ever favored Sussex with 
 his presence. And the same may be said of Charles I. 
 The great battles of the Civil War were not fought in Sussex. 
 The county itself was pretty equally divided between King 
 and Parliament ; the Clergy and most of the nobility taking 
 part with the first ; the yeomen and the towns and many of 
 the gentry taking sides with the second. It was against 
 Arundel, where the Howard interest was predominant, and 
 Chichester, in which the Clergy held sway, that Waller led 
 the forces of the Parliament, including in them many Sussex 
 gentlemen, like Colonel Herbert Morley, of Glynde, and 
 member for Lewes ; but with the sieges and capture of these 
 places the operations of the war, so far as they affected Sussex, 
 ended. It may well be doubted whether the great Protector 
 ever set foot in it. His strength lay in the east. If it had 
 not been for the flight of Charles II. southward, after the 
 battle of Worcester, and his embarcation at Brighthelmstone 
 and escape to France in the vessel of Captain Tattersall, there 
 would be scarcely need to name Sussex in the history of the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 That event — the escape of Charles II. — relieves the other- 
 wise absence of historic interest from our local annals at this 
 period. It was surrounded by a good deal of real romance, 
 and it was naturally invested with still more by the triumphant
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex. 123 
 
 Royalists. A very interesting, and, as far as possible, an 
 accurate narrative of the flight of the King through Sussex 
 has been given by Mr. S. Evershed in the Sussex Archseological 
 Society's Collections. In company with the two Gunters, of 
 Racton, near Chichester, he entered Sussex on the morning 
 of the 14th of October, 1651, from Hampshire, at Compton 
 Down, in the disguise of a servant of Colonel Gunter, and 
 kept to the line of hills both for safety and for pleasant 
 travelling. He thus passed Treyford, Didling, Bepton, Mid- 
 hurst, and Petworth on the left, and, skirting the northern 
 edge of the West Dean woods — then more extensive than 
 they are now — passed over Cocking Warren, crossed the main 
 road from Midhurst to Chichester, rode over Heyshott Down, 
 passing the Dunford farm of the Cobdens at the bottom of the 
 hill on the left, and skirted Singleton Forest, Charlton Forest 
 (the favourite hunting-place in after years of Charles's illegiti- 
 mate descendants, the Dukes of Richmond), and the Teglease. 
 Still keeping to the hills, the King had a distant view of 
 Chichester spire, the Prelate of which (Juxon) had ministered 
 to his father in his last moments, must have passed over what 
 is now Dale Park and near Slindon, and, overlooking the 
 valley of the Arun, is reported to have exclaimed, with some- 
 thing of a heroic spirit, " This is a country worth fighting 
 for!" 
 
 In passing through Houghton Forest, which lay at the 
 foot of Arundel, the King's party had a perilous encounter. 
 Suddenly, we are told by Mr. Evershed, honest George Gunter 
 reins in his steed, exclaiming, in an undertone, " We are 
 undone ; here is Captain Morley, the Governor of Arundel 
 Castle." "Never mind," quietly replied the King, "move on." 
 And the suspicions of the Governor of Arundel were either 
 not excited, or else he did not choose to undertake so perilous 
 a service as that of arresting the King. However that may 
 be, the interview passed without Charles's disguise being 
 penetrated, and the Royal flight was continued. The night 
 of this perilous day (the 14th of October) was, according to 
 Mr. Evershed, passed at Amberley Castle, once a favourite
 
 124 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 seat of the Bishops of Chichester, but in Charles's day the 
 residence of the Royalist, Sir John Briscoe, and now a ruin, 
 though there is still a room in it called King Charles's room. 
 But if the journey through Sussex was made in one day, as, 
 according to the narrative of Col. Gunter himself, it was, the 
 night's sojourn at Amberley Castle must be a myth, like many 
 other incidents imported into it by later writers. 
 
 Still keeping to the northern side of the Downs, 
 Washington and its desolate common, Parham and its Park, 
 Broadwater, Wiston, Steyning, and Beeding Street were 
 passed, at the latter of which some of the soldiers of our old 
 friend, Col. Herbert JMorley, were met, but let the party pass 
 without examination, or, to all appearance, without suspicion. 
 On the Downs, between Steyning and Shoreham, the King 
 and Gunter parted company, the former pursuing his journey 
 with only Lord Wilmot, and Gunter going on through Old 
 Shoreham and Portslade to the George Inn (now King's 
 Head) in West Street, at Brighthelmstone, where he made 
 preparations for the reception of the King and Wilmot. 
 These latter had followed the track over the hills from 
 Beeding to White Lot, and so to Portslade, where, on the 
 west side of the village green — according to tradition, says 
 Mr. Evershed — still stands the cottage, with high-pitched 
 roof visible from the Brighton and Portsmouth railway, at 
 which, in a little chamber, cunningly contrived near the 
 chimney in the roof, the King lay till Tattersall had completed 
 his arrangements for the voyage to Normandy. But the plain 
 fact is, that the King and Wilmot came direct to the George, 
 at Brighton, without molestation, supped and slept the night 
 there, and went on board Tattersall's vessel at two in the 
 morning. But it was eight o'clock before the vessel sailed, 
 and afternoon before it was out of sight ; the Royal fugitive 
 landingat Fecamp at ten on the following Wednesday morning, 
 Oct. 15th. According to Gunter, he had "not gone out of 
 the towne of Brighthelmston two houres but soldiers came 
 thither to search for a tall black man 6 foot 4 inches high." 
 It would have been a natural and graceful act in Charles, after
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex. 125 
 
 his restoration, to revisit tlie scenes of his danger and escape 
 in Sussex ; but there is no evidence that he did so. Tattersall, 
 it is well known, had to take up his vessel to the Thames 
 and make a show of it to the Londoners before he could get 
 his pension, which, indeed, he little deserved, if, as is believed, 
 he extorted a larger sum from the King, whom he recognised, 
 than he had bargained for — and, doubtless, Charles dismissed 
 the recollection of his Sussex wanderings from his mind as 
 soon as he could. His only recorded after-visit to Sussex 
 was when he came to Rye, in 1673, "to see his navy lye in 
 the bay there, in sight of the town." 
 
 There was, however, a visit paid to Sussex in Charles's 
 reign by a quasi-Royal personage which has both a local and 
 historical interest. It was by the Duke of Monmouth, 
 Charles's eldest illegitimate son by Lucy Walters, and who, 
 had the battle at Sedgmoor had a different result, might have 
 ascended the throne of England, as William of Orange did 
 at a later date. Monmouth was at this time the head of the 
 Protestant party, threatened by the apostacy of the King and 
 his brother, the Duke of York, and he put forth his pretensions 
 in a series of "Progresses" through the country, in which, as 
 Macaulay tells us, he was " received with not less pomp and 
 with far more enthusiasm than had been displayed when the 
 King had made progresses through the realm. He was 
 escorted from mansion to mansion by long cavalcades of 
 armed gentlemen and yeomen. Cities poured forth their 
 whole population to receive him." 
 
 The visit which Monmouth paid to Chichester on February 
 7th, 1679, is described in a letter to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury (Sancroft), from Guy Carlton, Bishop of Chichester, who 
 was an eye-witness of the scene ; but, it is evident, with no 
 friendly feelings for the hv.^ro of the day. The people who 
 went out to meet him he calls "a rabble of brutes," "broken 
 shopkeepers, butchers, carpenters, smiths, and such-like people 
 — Dissenters and petitioners (for a Parliament), to the number 
 of fifty or threescore." But the Bishop is obliged to confess
 
 126 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 that, besides this " rabble of brutes," " the great men of our 
 Cathedral welcomed him with belles and bonfires made by 
 wood had from their houses to flare before his lodgings, 
 personal visits made to him, complemented at the lighting 
 from his horse with all that was in their houses proffered to 
 his service, and to be at his disposal." 
 
 "The Duke," he writes, " was in a scarlet sute and cloak, 
 which the great men for petitioning for a Parliament call'd 
 the red flagge, to lett see beforehand what oure doome would 
 be ere long." There was a grand Service at the Cathedral, 
 the Duke sitting in the Dean's seat, " with a voluntary upon 
 the organ, and before sermon a part of the first psalme was 
 ordered to be sung these words : * He shal be like the tree 
 that growes fast by the river,' " &c. The Duke also went to 
 Midhurst, where the Bishop reports that one of his (Mon- 
 mouth's) partisans said with a loud voice, so " that the three 
 gentlemen in the other room heard the words distinctly," 
 which were these: "Well, for all that, the sword shall be 
 drawn before May-Day, and I care not if the King stood by 
 and heard me." 
 
 The sword was drawn, though not " before May-Day," 
 and a sorry ending had these semi-Royal Progresses of poor 
 Monmouth. They led him to the scaffold. His visit to 
 Sussex and that of his father were of an utterly opposite 
 character : Charles put on the garb of a groom, to rise a king; 
 Monmouth assumed the Royal robes, to hide his head in a 
 ditch and lay it at last upon the block. 
 
 James H., so far as we know, was a stranger to Sussex; it 
 was on the Kentish coast that he met with that rough reception 
 from the natives, when they recognised the fugitive King by 
 his "lanthorn jaws," that he never forgave, even excepting 
 the offenders from the later amnesties he put forth at St. 
 Germains. His heroic nephew, William HI., is only connected 
 with Sussex by one recorded visit to it, to witness a fox-hunt 
 at Charlton. Most of his visits of pleasure were to Hoo, in 
 his own beloved Holland. His Royal partner, Mary, kept
 
 Royal Visits to Sussex. 127 
 
 him close company; but her sister Anne, before she ascended 
 the Throne, paid a visit to Petworth, and there is a tradition 
 that the roads were so bad that cart-horses had to be fetched 
 to drag her carriage through the Sussex mud. 
 
 The next Royal visit to the county was that paid by George, 
 Prince of Wales (afterwards George II.), to Chichester during 
 the absence of his father in Hanover and after the Jacobite 
 rising in 1716. He passed through the city on his way to 
 Stanstead, then the seat of the Earl of Scarborough, and 
 great preparations were made by the Mayor and Corporation 
 to receive him — a banquet being laid out in the Council 
 House — "a fitting dessert of sweetmeats with a bottle of 
 sack, and two dozen bottles of the best red and white wine:" 
 an " oration," or, as it is termed in the city records, an 
 "elegant speech," being also got ready by the Recorder. 
 But the citizens were disappointed : — " Some hours passed in 
 suspense. At length the Prince appeared ; but neither listened 
 to the speech nor tasted the viands." For the latter the 
 Corporation compensated itself by devouring them after the 
 Royal departure ; but for the neglected speech, what could 
 repair that laches ? 
 
 It seems strange that George HI. should not have visited 
 the southernmost county of his dominions during his long 
 reign. His Queen did, we know. She was the guest of her 
 son, the Prince of Wales, at his Brighton Pavilion, and the 
 Duke of Cumberland had a house in Brighton, and it was on 
 a visit to the Duke, in 1783, that the Prince of Wales made 
 his first acquaintance with the town. Of his after-visits and 
 sojourns, and Royal doings, are they not chronicled in the 
 History of the Brighton Pavilion arid its Royal Associations ? 
 William IV. so far followed the example of his Royal brother 
 as to make Brighton his marine residence, and he and his 
 Queen visited Lewes and other towns of Sussex. So, for a time, 
 did Queen Victoria, both as Queen and as Princess; indeed, 
 in her youthful days, she and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, 
 made Sussex their place of abode, occupying a house at
 
 128 
 
 Gliffipses of Our Ancesfors. 
 
 Bognor, where the Princess Charlotte had also previously 
 sojourned for a time. But it is now forty years (1843) since 
 the Queen of England did more than pass through Sussex on a 
 rapid railway journey, with the exception of the Queen's visit 
 to the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel Castle; and the county has 
 ceased to be a place of Royal residence, the Brighton Pavilion 
 passing into the hands of the people themselves. It has, 
 however, been frequently visited by the younger members of 
 the Royal Family, and by Continental Sovereigns, regnant and 
 non-regnant — the latter list including Louis Philippe and 
 Louis Napoleon, both instances of the mutability of human 
 affairs. Since a Norman Duke landed at Pevensey to snatch 
 by force of arms the Crown of England, and the day when a 
 King and Queen of France were brought over by an English 
 steamer to a little Inn at Newhaven as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 
 in order to seek safety and hospitality in England, what a gap 
 of time is there, and what a change of thought and feeling 
 has been wrought as to things and persons Royal I But we 
 will forbear moralising. Those who love to indulge in it 
 may find some suitable material in this brief outline of Royal 
 Visits to Sussex.
 
 The Great Nobleman and the English 
 
 Yt 
 
 eoman tn oussex. 
 
 St 
 
 |nGLAND no longer counts amongst its sons two 
 classes of men who were once the pride and the 
 back-bone of it; who fought together at Crecy, 
 and Poictiers, and Agincourt; who met each other 
 face to face in many a bloody encounter during the long 
 contest of the Rival Roses — when English fought with 
 English in the " tug of war," as " Greek joined Greek " — 
 and who met for the last time in their old relationship of 
 fighting lord and fighting retainer in the national array which 
 gathered round Elizabeth at Tilbury. There, for the last 
 time, the yeomen of England came forth as a national force 
 to do " yeomen's service " under their Lords, the great nobles 
 of the land, in defence of the Realm. It was the last great 
 feudal gathering in England, and at the very moment of its 
 proudest exultation its doom was pronounced. For amongst 
 those who looked at it in its bravery was Aubrey De Vere, 
 who had learnt to know what modern warfare and modern 
 soldiers were in the wars of the Netherlands, between the 
 Dutch and the Spanish; and he looked doubtingly on the 
 scene. "What do you think of my army.?" Elizabeth asked 
 of him, as he rode through the ranks with her. " It is a brave 
 army," replied the cautious old soldier. The Queen saw that 
 there was a deeper meaning in the words than lay on their 
 surface. She bid him speak out. He did so: "I have the 
 reputation, your Majesty," he said, "of not being a coward, 
 and yet I am the greatest coward here; for all those fine
 
 130 Glbnpscs of Our Ancestors. 
 
 fellows are praying that the enemy may land and that there 
 may be a battle, and I, who know that enemy well, cannot 
 think of such a battle without dismay." 
 
 To De Vere, doubtless, such a battle, between the 
 undisciplined English train-bands, under their brave but 
 inexperienced leaders, and the veteran troops of Spain, 
 under Alexander Farnese, the first General of the age, could 
 have had no other result than that between the brave but 
 half-armed and undisciplined host of Harold and the well- 
 armed and comparatively well-trained army of William of 
 Normandy. The English baron and the English yeoman had, 
 in fact, played out their parts as warriors, and had to give 
 way to the regularly trained soldier, to whom war was to be 
 a trade or profession. The classes themselves, as sections of 
 society, were also doomed. They did not, indeed, perish 
 here, as the nobles did in France, by the violence of a 
 Revolution. They died out by the gradual operation of time 
 — by the effect of changes which acted gradually on the 
 frame-work of society, leaving the men themselves untouched, 
 and even in possession of the same territory, but with relations 
 to each other, and with individual habits and duties, of a 
 totally different character. 
 
 The English aristocracy still remains as a great Order in 
 the State, political and social. But in the social life and 
 political influence of the English nobleman of the present 
 day there is nothing to remind one of the life and power of 
 his predecessor. We need not go for proof of this farther 
 back than the age of Elizabeth. The English nobleman of 
 that day had ceased to be the rude and turbulent Baron, 
 living in his own fortified Castle in a state of semi- 
 independence, and ready at any moment to wage war against 
 his King or on his neighbour. His feudal Castle, perched 
 like an eagle's eyrie on some high point, had been brought 
 down from its " pride of place" to the level of the river bank 
 or the plain which it had before dominated, and was now built 
 for show, and comfort, and hospitality, not for offence and
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sicssex. 1 3 1 
 
 defence. His retainers were no longer knights and squires 
 and men-at-arms, but peaceful attendants on the person or 
 in the household of the great noble, who was careful to avoid, 
 both in his residence and in his attendance, that appearance 
 of independence of the Crown which was so dear to the 
 old Baron. For the pride and power of the Barons of 
 England had been brought down by many a heavy blow, 
 received, first, in their own conflicts during the civil wars of 
 York and Lancaster, and afterwards from the Tudor Kings 
 whom they had helped to place on the Throne, and who had 
 had too striking an example of the evil effects of aristocratic 
 power to wish to uphold it, but rather favoured the newly- 
 rising wealth and strength of the middle classes. Then, too, 
 the invention of fire-arms had revolutionised the character of 
 warfare — had done away with the heavy defensive armour 
 which could only be worn by mounted men, and had 
 transferred the real strength of armies to the infantry — 
 to the men who fought on foot — in fact, to the plebeians, 
 and who, being poor, necessarily received pay — were, in 
 fact, mercenaries, or, in the language of our neighbours, 
 soldes. 
 
 All these and other things combined to change the social 
 and political position of the " Old English Baron," to strip 
 him of his warlike power, and make him rather an appendage 
 than a rival of the Crown. But still, in the time of Elizabeth, 
 he retained, like Lucifer in his fallen state, some of his 
 "original brightness;" he still kept up a personal state and 
 show of magnificence in his household with which there is 
 nothing to match in the present day. There was a pomp 
 and a formality in his life, and that of his wife and family, 
 that is now utterly unknown even in the highest nobility and 
 dignitaries of the State, and is only reserved for the Sovereign. 
 The households of the great Nobles still in the Tudor days 
 resembled little Courts, and if the heads of them were no 
 longer, like the Neviles and Percies, the Stanleys and De 
 Veres and De Burghs of old, the chiefs of armies that 
 acknowledged no other leader, they had little armies of
 
 132 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 retainers, who crowded their halls, waited on their persons, 
 held offices in their households, and depended on their favour 
 and bounty. Whatever they did, at home or abroad, was 
 done with a state and formality which, cumbrous and costly 
 and troublesome as it must have been, upheld their dignity 
 and importance in the eyes of the world and made them, 
 after the Crown, the first Order in the State. 
 
 A lively picture of the pomp and state with which the 
 great English nobles surrounded themselves in the days of 
 Elizabeth is given in the " Booke of Orders and Rules " of 
 Anthony Browne, Viscount Montague, a nobleman whose 
 chief place of residence was in Sussex — at Cowdray House, 
 Midhurst — now one of the most picturesque ruins of our 
 county. The noble author of this " Booke of Orders and 
 Rules," " established by me, Anthony Viscount Montague, for 
 the better direction and governmente of my household and 
 family," evidently sat down to the composition of it in as 
 grave a spirit as in later days a Locke or an Abbe Sieyes sat 
 down to compose Constitutions for the government of nations. 
 "For as moche" — so he begins the preface to this "Booke of 
 Orders and Rules " — " as neither publique weale nor private 
 family can continue or long endure without laws, ordinances, 
 and statutes to guyde and direct them, nor without prudent 
 and experienced ministers to execute the same, I, therefore, 
 being desirous to live orderly and quietly within my lymytte, 
 and to mayntayne the estate of myne honor and callinge, 
 accordinge to my degree, have esteemed ytt mcete for the 
 accomplishmente thereof to sett downe and declare in this 
 booke of orders ensewinge myne owne opinion, judgement, 
 and resolution touchinge the manner and order of the 
 government of my private house and family," &c., &c. 
 This preface alone is a lengthy document, and the " Booke " 
 which it preludes occupies twenty-seven pages of closely 
 printed type in a volume of the Sussex Archaeological 
 Collection. It is marshalled, with the " Conclusion," under 
 thirty-nine heads, and each one of these heads is devoted 
 to a minute description of the duties of an officer of the
 
 The Nobleman a7id the Yeoman in Sussex. 133 
 
 Viscount's household, 
 writer's own order : — 
 
 Here is the list of them, in the noble 
 
 The Table. 
 
 1. My Stewarde of Householde. 
 
 2. My Comptroller. 
 
 3. My higlie Stewarde of Courtes. 
 
 4. My Auditor. 
 
 5. My Generall Receaver. 
 
 6. My SoUiciter. 
 
 7. My other Principal Officers. 
 
 8. My Secretarye. 
 
 9. My Gentlemen Ushers. 
 
 10. My Carver. 
 
 11. My Sewer. 
 
 12. The Gentlemen of my Chamber. 
 
 13. The Gentlemen of my Horse. 
 
 14. The Gentlemen Wayters. 
 
 15. The Marshall of my Hall. 
 
 16. The Clarke of my Kitchen. 
 
 17. The Yeomen of my greate 
 
 Chamber. 
 
 18. The Usher of my Hall. 
 
 19. The Chief Cooke. 
 
 20. The Yeomen of my Chamber. 
 
 21. The Clarke of myne Officers 
 
 Chamber. 
 
 22. 
 
 23- 
 
 24. 
 
 25- 
 
 26. 
 
 27. 
 
 28. 
 29. 
 
 30- 
 
 31- 
 
 32- 
 33- 
 34- 
 35- 
 
 36. 
 37- 
 38. 
 
 39- 
 
 The Yeoman of my Horse. 
 The Yeoman of my Seller. 
 The Yeoman of myne Ewoye. 
 The Yeoman of iny Pantrye. 
 The Yeoman of my Butterye. 
 The Yeomen of my Ward- 
 
 roppe. 
 The Yeomen Wayters. 
 The second Cooke and the 
 
 Rest. 
 The Porter. 
 The Granator. 
 The Bayliffe. 
 The Baker. 
 The Brewer. 
 The Groomes of the Great 
 
 Chamber. 
 The Almoner. 
 The Scullery Man. 
 An order of Service att my 
 
 Table. 
 My determination for Officers 
 
 Fees. 
 
 The foregoing list will serve to convey an idea of the 
 "Orders and Rules," which are too long for quotation in 
 their entirety, though the vivid idea they convey of the strict 
 order and pomp and ceremony in which the domestic life of 
 great nobles in Elizabeth's day was conducted would almost 
 justify their insertion. But our readers must be content with 
 a few passages as specimens. 
 
 And, in the first place, as respects "my Stewarde of 
 Householde " — this was evidently an office of no little 
 importance, either in the eyes of the Viscount, or of inferior 
 functionaries, or, doubtless, of the Steward himself! He is 
 called to take upon him " the carriage and porta of my 
 chiefe officer, and assiste me with sounde advice in matters 
 of most ymportance and greatest deliberacon, and therein 
 faythfully keepe all my secrettes." By subordinate officers he 
 is to be "obeyed in all things (excepte ytt be dishonest in ytt 
 selfe or undutifull to the Prince or State, or directly to the
 
 134 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 manifest hurte of mc, my wiffe, &c.)— Yea, and albeit he 
 exceede the boundes of oflice. For, if he soe doe, yte shall lie in 
 noe servantts or childes power to controule him. But I, who 
 am his master, will have my eares open to heare any pregnant 
 matter that shalbe brought against him, and by my masterly 
 authoritye will correcte such matter as shalbe misdon to 
 myself or any other by abuse of my authoritye." " But," 
 he adds, "my forsight and care in my choyce of an officer in 
 soe high authoritye, shall be such," &c., &c. 
 
 If a King had been inducting a Prime Minister, or a 
 Caliph had been installing a Vizier, he could not have 
 employed more solemn and high-sounding phrases than does 
 Viscount Montague for "My Stewarde of Householde." And 
 really, when we come to see what he had to order, and over 
 whom he had to rule, we are not surprised. He was not only 
 at the head of an army of officers and domestics in-doors — 
 the Earl of Derby of that day had 240 servants — but over an 
 army of bailiffs and keepers and purveyors outside. He had 
 to provide provisions and fuel, "utensillsor furniture," "when 
 I lye att Cowdrye, att Chichester, Southampton, or other portes 
 upon the sea costes" — was, in fact. Generalissimo over an 
 army of retainers, some, like "my Comptroller," "my highe 
 Stewarde of Courtes," "my Auditor," "myOenerall Receaver," 
 and "my Solliciter," with duties almost as responsible as his 
 own. 
 
 Coming down from these higher dignitaries to humbler 
 and more domestic ones, it is both edifying and amusing to 
 observe how minutely the noble author of the " Booke " goes 
 into lesser matters of dress and deportment, not thinking it 
 beneath him to instruct his Sewer, " after he hath washed 
 together with my Carver att the ewrye boorde, be there armed 
 (vidclt.) with an armynge towell layd uppon his righte 
 shoulder and tyed lowe under his lefte arme, whence beinge 
 by my Gentleman Usher comaunded to the dresser, he shall 
 departe towardes the hall, attended there through with half 
 a dosen Gentlemen and yeomen att the leaste and soe on to
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sussex. 135 
 
 the dresser, where he shall deliver the meate to everye one 
 according to their places, and then relurningewith my service 
 all coveredde to my table, shall there receave everye dishe 
 and deliver them severally to my Carver;" and to direct the 
 said Carver " that he doe stande seemely and decently with 
 due reverence and sylence, untill my dyett and fare be brought 
 uppe, and then doe his office." Also to instruct his Gentlemen 
 of my Chamber, " Att night if I be out of my lodgeinges (ytt 
 beinge dark) some one of them shall wayte for my comeinge 
 in, with a candle to light me to my chamber ; where, after I 
 am, and woulde goe to bedde, they shall helpe me into ytt, 
 and beinge layed to reste they shall either by themselves or 
 some of the yeomen take care that the dores be all faste 
 lockte." 
 
 So, if the great man wishes to ride out, he wills that his 
 " Gentlemen of my Horse" " helpe me to my horse, appoynte- 
 inge the Yeoman of my Horse to holde my styrroppe, and 
 my footeman to stande to his heade." 
 
 In fact, each of the 39 officers of the Viscount's Household 
 is instructed by him in the minutest points as to what he should 
 or should not do or allow to be done ; and some of the things 
 not to be allowed strike one as rather comical. For instance, 
 "the Clarke of my Kytchin" is to "suffer none to stande 
 unseemly with his backe towards my meate whilst itt is att 
 the range " — a degree of respect towards the meat that is now 
 scarcely required to be paid to the eater of it ! The Viscount 
 had also a quick eye as to those who might have too much 
 liking for his meat as well as to such as might treat it with 
 disrespect, for, under the head " Yeomen Officers," he says, 
 •' I will that he have a vigilant eye to the meate, to the entente 
 that ytt be nott ymbezeled or conveighed^' to corners without 
 the appoyntemente of myself or Gentleman Usher." There 
 were no carpets in those days, even for the floors of the greatest 
 nobles ; but cleanliness and sweetness were duly studied. 
 
 * "Convey, the wise it call," says Pistol, when anxious to qualify thieving by a 
 more respectable title.
 
 136 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 Thus, after dinner, which takes place before noon (!) or supper 
 (which is at 5 !), the place is to be "swepte, and kept cleane 
 and sweete with perfumes, flowers, herbes, and bowes ( boughs), 
 in their season." A very necessary precaution when the number 
 and character of the guests are considered ; for the whole 
 Household — some hundreds of persons — assembled in the 
 Hall at these two meals ; and the only distinction was, as to 
 which of the four tables thev should sit at. 
 
 The form in which these meals were discussed is well 
 pictured by Sir Sibbald David Scott in the introductory 
 matter to this " Booke of Rules," for which we are indebted 
 to him : — 
 
 Ten o'clock has just struck, and the household is mustering in the 
 magnificent Buck Hall, it being "covering time," or the hour for preparing 
 the tables for dinner. The Steward in his gown is standing at the upper- 
 most part of the Hall — over against his appointed table — surrounded by 
 most of his chief officers and some visitors — occasionally also travellers 
 who had availed themselves of the hospitality of those days. The tables 
 are neatly covered with white cloths, saltcellars, and trenchers, under the 
 supervision of the Usher of the Hall. The Yeoman of the Ewiy and 
 Pantry, conducted by the Yeoman Usher, pass through to the great Dining 
 Chamber. When they arrive at the middle of that room, they bow 
 reverently (although no one else be present), and they do the same upon 
 approaching the table. The Usher, kissing his hand, places it on the 
 centre of the dining-table, to indicate t(j his subordinate of the Ewry 
 (who kisses the table), where the cloth is to be laid. 
 
 The Yeoman of the Pantry then steps forth, and places the salt, 
 trenchers of my Lord and Lady, rolls, knives, "hefted with silver," and 
 spoons, making a little obeisance or inclination of the head as each article 
 is laid down, and a low bow when he has finished. The trio then severally 
 make solemn reverences, and retire in the same order as they arrived. 
 Next in succession comes the Yeoman of the Cellar, who dresses the side- 
 board or buffet (" cupborde") with wines, flaggons, drinking cups, and such 
 vessels as are consigned to his charge. The Yeoman of the Buttery 
 follows him, and brings up beer and ale, and arranges the pewter pots, 
 jugs, and so forth, on the side-board or bufl'et. 
 
 It being " d)Tiner-tyme," the Gentleman Usher ascertains that all is 
 in readiness, and proceeds to take his Lord's commands. He does so, 
 respectfully of course, being instructed, if his master should be in his 
 private apartments, always to knock, although the doors may be open. 
 Having received his orders, he sees that the carver and sewer perform the 
 required ablutions, and that they are provided with clean cloths proper for 
 their vocation. 
 
 The Usher of the Hall, standing at the screen, with loud voice exclaims, 
 "Gentlemen and Yeomen, wait upon the Sewer for my Lord !" Half-a- 
 dozen Gentlemen and Yeomen at the least are to accompany that officer 
 to the dresser. When these return, the Usher , of the Hall calls out, " By
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sussex. 137 
 
 your leave my masters," and all who are present in the Hall stand up 
 reverently, while the procession of tlie great Lord's dinner passes through, 
 preceded by the Usher of the Hall as far as the Dining Chamber, where 
 it is met by the Gentleman Usher, who sees tlie dishes placed upon the 
 table. While the meats were being roasted, it has been the duty of the 
 Clerk of the Kitchen to take care that no one should turn his back upon 
 them. 
 
 Doubtless, the Viscount, having been apprised by the Gentleman 
 Usher, next comes forth ^\•ith stately tread, in doublet and hose, leading 
 the Viscountess by the hand, followed by her gentlewomen. The same 
 ceremonial accompanies the passage of each course from the kitchen to 
 the dining-room. 
 
 Dinner over, and the cloth removed, the Gentleman Usher having kept 
 a sharp look-out all the while that nothing be purloined, now comes forth 
 with a towel, and basins and ewers are produced, for the lord's and ladies' 
 ablutions, which the want of forks rendered the more necessary. The 
 attendants are then dismissed, and depart with the accustomed reverences, 
 to take their dinners with all those who have hitherto been occupied, and 
 this is denominated "the second sitting" in the Hall. "WHiilst they are 
 so pleasantly engaged, the Steward, and the individuals who sat at his 
 table, repair to the Lord's dining-chamber, and remain in attendance 
 until the Gentlemen -Waiters return, and all await there the rising of the 
 Viscount from table. 
 
 The assemblage is now dispersed ; those who have leisure, and desire 
 it, are at liberty to call for cards in the HaU, which the Yeomen officers 
 provide, each player bestowing a gratuity in the "play box" for this 
 service, the contents of which are proportionately divided. 
 
 That great judgment and discretion was shown by Viscount 
 Montague in the drawing-up of his " Book of Orders and 
 Rules for the better direction and governmente of my house- 
 holde and family," and that he was a wise and discreet 
 nobleman, there can be no doubt. But the result of all his 
 care shows that the stately and costly fashion of living thus 
 described was beginning to be unfitted to the'times and could 
 not be safely kept up even by the greatest nobles ; for it 
 appears, by the fragment of a document found by Sir Sibbald 
 Scott "among other papers and rubbish in one of the ruined 
 towers of Cowdray House " (sic transit gloria mtindil) that 
 this very nobleman, great, and wealthy, and wise as he was, 
 fell into such straitened circumstances that he had to petition 
 the Crown to assist him in the payment of his debts and the 
 portioning of his daughters. Such cumbrous state and 
 ceremony had become as unsuited to the times, and as 
 burthensome to the estate, as the old feudal array at Tilbury, 
 to which old Viscount Montague marched at the head of his
 
 138 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 retainers, with his grandson (the very Anthony Browne who 
 drew up this " Booke of Rules," then a child, by his side) 
 had become as a mode of warfare. Both were doomed, 
 even in Elizabeth's days, and scarcely a shred of either now 
 remains. What, we may ask, would be the effect upon the 
 household of a modern Duke of Norfolk or Duke of Richmond 
 (the Viscounts Montague have been extinct since the last 
 Viscount, a young man, madly ventured to shoot the Falls 
 of Laufenburg, on the Rhine, in 1793, and was, with his 
 companion, Mr. Burdett, lost in the torrent) if this "Booke 
 of Rules " were " publicley redde in the presence of all my 
 servants, once in the yeare," as its noble author directed it to 
 be.'* Would they "stand" so much as the reading of it, 
 much less heed it, or believe that England had ever owned 
 masters who could give such orders or servants who could have 
 obeyed them } The simplicity of life which is the characteristic 
 of modern society reaches up to the highest ranks, and 
 there is little in the domestic arrangements of the greatest 
 noble which now differs from that of the wealthy merchant 
 or tradesman. Some of them may have more servants and 
 carriages and houses than their fellow-subjects: but they 
 exact very little, if any, more state or respect from their 
 servants, and sometimes, indeed, get none at all ! — perhaps 
 don't wish for it. We may travel with a Duke or an Earl, and 
 not know he is of higher rank than his banker, or lawyer, or 
 even his cook! We may pass him in the streets, and see 
 nothing in his dress or deportment to induce us to turn and 
 look at him. We may even encounter him, or his wife or 
 daughters, in his own house, as we gaze at their pictures or 
 furniture, and never be expected to bow reverently before 
 them, or show any mark of special awe or respect for 
 their persons or dignity. They do not expect it, and, if 
 they did, would not get it even from their own servants. One 
 instance, that we can vouch for, will sufhce in illustration of 
 this change : A noble Duke (the first on the roll after Royalty), 
 who lives in Sussex, had occasion lately to go to London and 
 ordered a carriage to take him to the rail. But at the time
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sussex. 139 
 
 appointed no carriage was forthcoming, and, as the rail would 
 not certainly wait for him, off the noble Duke, with "all the 
 blood of all the Howards " in his veins, set as hard as his 
 Ducal legs could carry him, to " catch the train." Fancy the 
 noble owner of that stately household at Cowdray running 
 through Midhurst on such an errand 1 
 
 'o' 
 
 But it is not only the great and noble who have been affected 
 by the revolutions of Time. Humbler classes, but still very 
 important ones in the days of Elizabeth, exist now no longer. 
 The "good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England," so 
 gallantly led by the Fifth Harry to the breach of Honfleur — 
 these have long ceased to be a class. Like the Nobles who 
 led them their decay was gradual, and we can follow them, as 
 we follow the Noble, in their transition state. The picture 
 we have given of the Elizabethan Noble, as the connecting 
 link between the Baron and the modern Peer, may find its 
 parallel for the yeoman class in a diary left by Thomas 
 Marchant, who lived at Little Park, Hurst, now the property 
 of the widow of Colonel Smith Hannington, in the 17th and 
 1 8th centuries. In his introductory remarks to this "Marchant 
 Diary," the Rev. E. Turner says, " The account which he (the 
 said Thomas Marchant) gives of his daily proceedings may 
 be taken as a faithful representation of the every-day mode 
 of life of a substantial Sussex yeoman of the period in which 
 he lived ; i.e., of a man farming his own land, and living an 
 active and useful,.and, at the same time, an independent life. 
 He was also the possessor of other property in the county 
 besides what he himself occupied in Hurst." 
 
 Of these daily proceedings we will give our readers a 
 sample or two. But we warn them to expect nothing of a 
 very elevating or exciting character. They are as common- 
 place — as hum-drum, to use an old Sussex expression — as the 
 "daily proceedings" of an English tradesman or farmer 
 would be in the present day, if not more so; for the world in 
 which the "substantial Sussex yeoman" of the 17th and i8th 
 centuries lived was a much narrower and more uneventful one
 
 140 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 than that of the English tradesman or farmer of the present 
 day. There is an utter absence from it of all exciting or 
 elevating topics : there is not a single allusion to war or to 
 politics or to any of those higher themes which, if they do raise 
 the passions of men, also lift them out of that lower self 
 which is apt, in peaceful, uneventful days, to absorb and 
 debase them. The English yeoman, in fact, if he can be 
 called such, in the days of Thomas Marchant, had ceased to 
 be a warrior ; he no longer answered to the call of his feudal 
 lord to take up his bow or pike and follow him to " the wars." 
 His landlord or feudal chief himself was no longer the warlike 
 Baron with a following of scores of knights, each bound to 
 do him knightly service in war, as the Yeoman was bound to 
 do " Yeoman's service " to the Knight or Baron. Both classes, 
 without ceasing to exist as social grades, had slid into new 
 places — rapidly during the latter years of Elizabeth, and during 
 the long and inglorious reign of James I. ; and when, after 
 our civil dissensions — in which the Yeoman class vindicated 
 against their old leaders their claims to be of the same mettle 
 and pasture as their ancestors who had fought in France — 
 we look at the picture drawn by Thomas Marchant of the 
 "substantial Yeoman" of his day, we see in it as great a 
 revolution in his " daily proceedings," w^hen contrasted with 
 the old fighting Yeoman, as distinguishes the great but 
 peaceful and orderly nobleman of later days from the turbulent 
 old Baron, 
 
 As Anthony Browne gave evidence in the one case, so shall 
 Thomas IMarchant be called into Court to testify to the truth 
 of our statement in the other. 
 
 We may premise that " Little Park," Hurst, formerly part 
 and parcel of the Manor of Hurstpierpoint with the " Great 
 Park," from which, by some means or another not now known, 
 it got separated, was bought, about 1680, by the father of our 
 Thomas Marchant, of Albourne, yeoman, and was inherited 
 by his eldest son. Both Little and Great Parks were originally 
 the property of the Pierpoints — great lords in Sussex in their
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sussex. 141 
 
 day: but their day was past, and their name is unknown in 
 Sussex, except in territorial nomenclature. Thomas Marchant, 
 Mr. Turner tells us, was largely connected by birth, as wallas 
 by marriage (he married a Stone, of " The Nunnery," Rusper), 
 with many of the gentry of the neighbourhood ; he lived in 
 a good house, and held land in other places besides Hurst. 
 Yet his " daily proceedings " and occupations are not of that 
 character which we associate in this day with the gentry of a 
 county, or even with the farming class, except of the smallest 
 kind. They indicate a kind of material prosperity — abundance 
 of food and drink, and other good things of this life; but 
 there is nothing to relieve or vary this animal kind of life. 
 The growing and selling of corn, the fattening and selling of 
 pigs and oxen, the dining out at neighbours' or at public-houses 
 and imbibing a little too much liquor, the «o«-attendance at 
 church, the giving in marriage, the births, christenings, and 
 deaths, the fishing of ponds, or a day's shooting and hunting : 
 these are the " daily proceedings " which fill up the diary of 
 Thomas Marchant. A slight reference to a contested election 
 is the only glimpse we get from Thomas IMarchant of the 
 public life of the day, and this not a very edifying one. A 
 record of the Coronation day of George I., and a false report 
 of the landing of the Duke of Ormond (one of the Pretender's 
 partisans) in Lancashire, and another of his presence on the 
 Sussex coast, are the nearest approach to politics. Of things 
 literary or artistic there is not a soup^07i in the whole diary. 
 As to science, we should not expect anything ; but the 
 wondering references to "unusual lights in the air" illustrate 
 the Diarist's inability to describe, with any clearness, such 
 common phenomena as the aurora borealis, or falling aerolites ; 
 for we cannot tell which he refers to in his entry ; and his 
 patronage of the travelling mountebank is another gauge of 
 his depth in this direction. 
 
 Yet it is evident that Thomas Marchant was a man of some 
 ability — superior in many points to his neighbours, or he 
 would not have been called on as he was to fill various 
 parochial offices, to act as executor to his neighbours' wills,
 
 142 Glimpses of Our Aiicestors. 
 
 or, still more, have been selected by his great neighbour, the 
 proud Duke of Somerset — then the owner and occupant of 
 Petworth House and its wide domains — to be his steward. 
 Thomas Marchant was obviously a man of some parts and 
 educated up to the standard of his day. But the educational 
 standard of that day for " the substantial yeoman " was a low 
 one. The spheres of war and of politics — one might almost 
 say of religion on its controversial side, in which his pre- 
 decessors had moved so freely — were closed to him, or only 
 presented themselves to him in their lowest phases : such as 
 the enlistment of a good-for-nothing young fellow or the 
 eating of a tithe dinner or preaching of a Visitation Sermon. 
 His life was passed in buying and selling, sowing and reaping, 
 eating and drinking, marrying and burying — and little more. 
 It was a time of great material prosperity — this commencement 
 of the Georgian era — and of much social deterioration ; for 
 the vivid light which war used to let in on the most remote 
 places and the most sordid lives had gone out, and the new 
 light which literature, art, science — above all, politics — throw 
 on all life in England in modern times had not yet struggled 
 into existence. At least, it had not penetrated to Hurst in 
 the year 17 14, at which period Thomas Marchant commences 
 his diary. 
 
 Apologising to our readers for occupying them so long 
 with our own remarks, we will now proceed to borrow a few 
 of the entries of Thomas Marchant, of "Little Park," Hurst. 
 
 The first — dated September 29th, 17 14 — records that four 
 pigs were " set to fatting ;" that four oxen were lent to James 
 Reed ; that five runts were bought of Thomas Jones (for ^16); 
 and that the diarist " drank with Thomas Vinal, of Cowfold, 
 at J. Beard's." 
 
 Not very interesting items of information these ! But we 
 warned our readers in due time, and if they expect anything 
 much better than this, they had better stop at once ! 
 
 On October ist "dined at Danny" — then, as now, owned 
 by a Campion — " with Mr. John Cheal, Mr. Phill. Shore, John
 
 The Nobleman arid the Yeoman in Sussex. 143 
 
 Hill, of Nuthurst, and a Frenchman^ This Frenchman is 
 referred to several times, but never otherwise than as " the 
 Frenchman^ His name, whatever it might be, was too hard 
 a nut for Mr. Thomas Marchant to crack ! 
 
 On the 3rd October " Mr. Dodson preached." The rev. 
 gentleman was the Rector of Hurst, and the ancestor of the 
 Right Hon. J. G. Dodson, late Member for East Sussex, and 
 now a Cabinet Minister (President of the Local Government 
 Board). On the 4th an attendance at the Sessions at Lewes, 
 in a case of disputed settlement, is only worthy of note by the 
 purchase of a quarter of a pound of tea for four shillings. 
 
 The loth October was a Sunday, and the manners of the 
 day are illustrated by the entry that "after Evening Prayer 
 Mr. Campion, Mr. Hay, Mr. Bateman, the Frenchman, Mr. 
 Hart, and I, went to Mr. Whitpaine's, at West-towne, where 
 we drank three bottles of beer and a small bowl of punch." 
 
 On the 14th Thomas Marchant went to Brighthelmstone, 
 borrowing " old Thos. Farncombe's coat at Patcham." 
 Brighton, indeed, under its old title, frequently figures in 
 the diary as a place between which and Hurst there was 
 frequent intercourse. 
 
 Fish-ponds and their fry occupied a good deal of Thomas 
 Marchant's time and attention. He bought and sold largely 
 in carp, tench, eels, &c., and it is evident that fresh-water 
 fish entered, 150 years ago, much more than it now does into 
 the food of the English people ; doubtless, owing to the 
 difficulty at that period of communication with the sea-coast. 
 The buying of ponds of fishes, both by Thomas Marchant 
 and others, is frequently noted, and " stews " were " watched " 
 then as game preserves are now. Fresh-water fish fetched, 
 too, a good price; ex.gr.: "We took 242 fish out of the 
 stew for Mr. Edmead. Received /^lo of Richard Baldchild 
 for them. They were, one with another, about 13 inches 
 long." No fresh-water fish would fetch this price at the 
 present day.
 
 144 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 Thomas Marchant was, evidently, a clever, active, thrifty, 
 money-making man ; he often had more money than he 
 knew what to do with, and then he sometimes (doubtless from 
 prudence and in the total absence of country banks) deposited 
 it with neighbours. Thus, Nov. 17, 17 14, "I delivered a bag 
 of money to Stephen Bine. Its contents were £\o. The 
 bag was sealed with two seals, thus: ' T.' 'M.' I desired 
 him to keep it until I called for it." And, again, " Lodged 
 100 guineas with Mrs. Beard." 
 
 Temperance was not among Thomas Marchant's virtues ; 
 but, like Thomas Turner, of Easthothly, he does ' not 
 hesitate to record his failings. Thus, having dined at Danny 
 — "the Frenchman" being of the party — " we staid late and 
 drank too much. Mr. Beaumont came in the afternoon, but 
 went away before supper. He wore my hat home instead of 
 his own, and I sent for it the next morning." 
 
 Drinking was one of the accomplishments of that day, 
 and the higher and middle classes set an example of intem- 
 perance then which the lower ones of the present day follow 
 but too closely. 
 
 In another point Mr. Thomas Marchant was equally faulty, 
 as he is equally frank ; he seldom went to Church, and his 
 invariable reason (when he assigns one) is, that *' his head 
 ached very much." This head-ache falls so pertinaciously on 
 the Sunday that it is, to say the least, suspicious. 
 
 In keeping with these Sunday head-ache entries is the 
 following : " Mr. Dodson preached. He read a Brief for the 
 repair of a Church, to which I gave noihiftg." And the Rev. 
 Mr. Turner slily adds, between brackets, " Seemingly his 
 wont." For which, as Editor of the Diary, he had, no doubt, 
 good authority; but we do not meet with a non-giving 
 entry again. It is clear, however, that in the beginning of 
 the last century the affection of the landed gentry and farmers 
 of Sussex for the Church did not extend to their breeches' 
 pockets.
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sussex. 145 
 
 There is a touch of humour in some of the entries, but 
 " few and far between," and of a matter-of-fact kind. Here 
 is one : " Paid my brother Ede 27s. for a calf, which I verily 
 thought I had paid for before ; and so I think stills 
 
 Was there ever a better exemplification of the Hudibrastic 
 
 adage : — 
 
 "A man convinced against his will, 
 Is of the same opinion still." 
 
 Another entry of this kind, with its comment, occurs at a 
 later date : — " My father and mother, my wife and I were at 
 Danny in the afternoon, and met Mr. Piggot and Mr. Osbourne 
 there. Paid Mrs. S. Courthope £6. 5s. sd., of which I 
 received los. 4d. of my father. J. Parsons shaved my head 
 and face. Pd. Mrs. Courthope 14s. for my whip. How soon, 
 alas ! are a fool and his money parted." 
 
 Thomas Marchant was evidently so much of a philosopher 
 as to obey the Socratic behest : " Know thyself." 
 
 On the 17th of this January, 1715,, there is a county 
 election, and Thomas Marchant sets out for Chichester, 
 where, and where only, the poll was taken, "with about no 
 voters." " The candidates," he tells us, ** were Mr. Bertram 
 Ashburnham, Mr. Eversfield, the Tory, and Mr. Butler and 
 Mr. Spencer Compton, the Whig candidates. The two latter 
 gained the day by a vast majority." And thereby Mr. Thomas 
 Marchant lost his bet with the Rector of Hurst, for he had 
 previously recorded: " I gave Mr. Dodson is., for which he 
 is to give me los. if both the Tory candidates are chosen at 
 the ensuing election." As the Whigs were chosen, Mr. 
 Dodson kept his los. as well as Mr. Thomas Marchant's is. 
 
 Mr. Turner tells us, later on, that Mr. Marchant " was not 
 a Whig." It is clear he was not. Let us hope that he was 
 not a Jacobite! But he records, on May loth, the fact of 
 "The Pretender's birth-day," and on the ist of August he 
 enters, " King George's Accession to the Crown. My servants 
 and workmen were all at Church. I was not." With a man so 
 reserved as to his political opinions, this counts for some- 
 L
 
 146 Glhipses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 thing. On lesser matters he is more out-spoken. Thus, the 
 above entry is followed by another: ^'Received a very mean 
 pig from Wandarrozv." A very mean pig ! Poor Mr. Marchant 1 
 And poor little pig! 
 
 We have noticed, in commenting on a previous diary of 
 the 1 8th century (vol. i of "Glimpses of our Ancestors in 
 Sussex "), how great was the mortality among children, and 
 here we have another case in point: " Paid William Nicholas 
 IS. 6d. for raising the graves of my four deceased children." 
 Whose ages and dates of death Mr. Turner gives as follows: — 
 
 Ann, b. 1706, d. 1706. 
 Mary, b. 1707, d. 1707. 
 
 Thomas, b. 1703, d. 1707. 
 James, b. 17 10, d. 171 1. 
 
 The practice of calling in mid-wives, which prevailed at 
 this time, may have had something to do with these frequent 
 deaths of infants. The small-pox, too, as frequent entries 
 testify, was very fatal, and was assisted, doubtless, by the 
 practice, also noted, of moving the patients, as soon as the 
 disease declared itself, to some other locality ! Thus : 
 " October 20th. May carry'd the Widow Gun to Charles 
 Smith's in the chaise, the small-pox being come out on her." 
 A ride in the open air must have been a good ally to the 
 disease ! 
 
 In the course of this year we encounter an old friend — 
 " Mr. Osborne, of Poynings, buried to-day. I was at Mrs. 
 Beard's in the evening. Ji/r. Leonard Gale was ihere^ Mr. 
 Gale was one of the Sussex ironmasters, from whose diary we 
 have already borrowed a few "Glimpses." Many other Sussex 
 names — not a few of families still flourishing — occur in the 
 course of the Marchant diary: as Burrell (the "Counsellor" 
 who lived at Ockenden House, Cuckfield, and to whom 
 Thomas Marchant paid many a fee, and records his death 
 with regret), Scutt, Gratwick, Turner, Beard, Campion, 
 Courthope, Tredcroft, Hart, Marten, Ellis, Willard, Lindfield, 
 &c., &c. 
 
 As fresh-water fish were much eaten, so was cyder drank 
 at this time in Sussex as a common beverage. Living must
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sussex. 147 
 
 have been cheap, and teaching not dear, for (says Mr. 
 Marchant), " I agreed with Mrs. Atkinson to board and 
 teach Bett (his daughter) at the rate of /'13 per ann." 
 What are the " terms " for a year's schooling of a young lady 
 at the present time ? Ladies also in those days were content 
 to ride behind their husbands : " They carried the pillion to 
 Atkinson's to be mended." 
 
 Have any of our fair readers ever seen a pillion, much 
 more sat on one .'* Who, too, among them can give us any 
 information as to the article of female attire referred to in 
 this entry — " Doomsday, of Horsham (what a name ! is it 
 still extant, to pair with Death, of Petworth }) brought my 
 wife a pair of jumps instead of stays. She paid him 36s. 6d. 
 for them." What are " jumps .^" 
 
 Cricket was " coming in" at this time. It made up in some 
 degree as a manly, healthy exercise for the loss of other national 
 sports — "April 30, 1717. Willy (his son) went to see a 
 cricket match." Again, June 12, 171 7, "I was at the cricket 
 match at Dungton (Duncton) gate towards night." 
 
 Duncton, near Petworth, has since been famous in the 
 annals of cricket. The Broadbridges, Dean, Millyard, and 
 James Taylor came from it, and Duncton was more than a 
 match for Brighton forty years ago, when they met each other 
 in Ireland's Grounds (now Park Crescent), and Dean bowled 
 for the first time in Brighton. 
 
 As cricket came in, the ironworks were going out; but 
 they still lingered in Marchant's time: "John Clerk told me 
 that his iron cost him £i() a ton at a forge near Maresfield." 
 
 The Sussex roads were still at their worst, which was very 
 
 bad indeed : ex. gr. : — 
 
 At Shoreham, to meet my team, which did not come. They were 
 mired down at the foot of Mr. Osbourne's, Holt Hill ; and, like block- 
 heads as they were (!), they left the load there, and went home again. 
 
 All home-produce was plentiful and cheap — Mr. Marchant 
 bought Cheshire cheese at 3d. per lb. — but foreign was dear : 
 Bohea tea, i6s. and even i8s. 6d. per lb.
 
 148 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 An obsolete and not very edifying practice is set down 
 under the date January 31st, 1720: " Mrs. Beard had two 
 stray ewes cried at Church, which turned out to be mine." 
 
 In connection with this lady we have a reference to that 
 smuggling on the Sussex coast which, under the stimulus of 
 Protectionist legislation, flourished for the next 150 years, to 
 the ruin of rustic morals : — 
 
 "Sept. 30th, 1 7 19. Talked to Mrs. Beard for Allan 
 Savage, about her horse that was seized by the officers at 
 Brighton, running brandy." It is well known that the 
 farmers often "winked" at their horses being taken for this 
 purpose, and were paid in "kind." 
 
 Some obsolete words are, as might be expected, to be 
 found in this old diary. " Bargained with Edward Morley 
 at 3SS. until Michaelmas, and if his vailes (gifts to servants) 
 be not 5s., I have promised to make them so." The custom 
 of making presents to servants on festive occasions was 
 carried to a high point at this time. In London, indeed, 
 they were ruinous to diners-out, and Pope refused the 
 invitation of his patron, the Duke of Montague, unless the 
 noble host paid his (Pope's) vailes to his own servants (/^lo 
 a dinner), which he did ! It is well that "vailes" are obsolete! 
 
 Here is another old word : " George and May thwartled 
 (i.e., cross-ploughed)." Is this still used in Sussex .'' Then 
 " Friar's Oak," near Hurst, is called " Freize Oak." But 
 what does " Freize " Oak mean } 
 
 Amongst other matters past and gone, there was "a 
 publick fast on account of the plague," and "a smock race 
 in our field," and " went to Ditchling Fair. Carried Nanny 
 behind me." 
 
 But we must come to an end with this curious, and, in 
 some respects, instructive old diary of a Sussex yeoman, in 
 the 17th and i8th centuries. In the latter part of it the 
 yeoman and the great nobleman, whose parts and relations 
 in life had been so completely revolutionised that they could
 
 The Nobleman and the Yeoman in Sussex. 149 
 
 scarcely know themselves, much less recognise each other, as 
 they existed 100 years before, were brought face to face ; for, 
 as we have said, the Duke of Somerset, known as " the proud 
 Duke," wanted Mr. Marchant to be his Steward at Petworth, 
 and at last he consented, and went to Petworth. He saw the 
 house allotted to him as Steward, and liked it. But his wife 
 also saw it, and liked it not. Perhaps this had something to 
 do with the short duration and apparently unsatisfactory 
 character of the relations of the Duke and Mr. Marchant. 
 Here is a record of one of his interviews with the great 
 man : " I talked with his Grace, and he found much fault 
 about the grates he ordered me to have made. But he was 
 in a cursed bad humour about the dung carts, &c., having 
 cut up the land ; and he sent the teams for hay to William 
 Keen's at 7 o'clock at night." 
 
 " In a cursed bad humour 1" Now, let the reader only 
 turn back to the "Book of Rules" of Viscount Montague, 
 where that nobleman defines the office and duties and dignity 
 of Steward in his day, and the relations of lord and servant. 
 What a revolution must have taken place in these relations 
 before the Duke of Somerset's steward could have made such 
 an entry as that ! 
 
 ]\Ir. Marchant "kept on " his stewardship ; but it was not 
 for long. In the course of the next month we have these 
 entries : — 
 
 February 25th (Sunday). A very wet day. Jack went to Hurst. I was 
 at the House, and answered my Lord Duke's letter, received this day. 
 
 March 13th. Mr. Elder returned from London. Reed, of my Lord 
 Duke, £ii). I2s. 4d., in full of my salaiy to next Wednesday. Dined with 
 Mr. Elder. 
 
 March 14th. Took my horse out of my Lord Duke's stables. 
 
 March 19th. Went to the Duke's to take leave of the family. 
 
 March 2ist. Returned to Hurst. 
 
 And with a few more memorandums (one of them, 
 curiously enough, to this effect, "Copley, the painter, here," 
 — the only reference to Art or artists in the whole diary), the 
 diary comes to a close, on the 20th June, 1728 ; the death of 
 the diarist taking place in the September of the same year.
 
 150 Glimpses of Our Ancestors, 
 
 Unconsciously, Thomas Marchant, Yeoman of Sussex, has 
 recorded, in his matter-of-fact diary, a great social change. 
 The English Yeoman had not only ceased to be a fighting 
 man — a feudal retainer; he was also beginning, in Marchant's 
 time, to pass from a holder of land into a cultivator of the 
 soil : a farmer. A division of labour was going on, on all 
 sides. Fighting, once a duty which every man owed to the 
 State or his Lord, became a profession, as distinct from the 
 social life of a Noble or a Yeoman as any other calling; and 
 the gentry, once only Yeomen of a higher grade, became a 
 class by themselves, holding land and not cultivating it ; 
 whilst the farmer cultivated it and ceased to own it. Society 
 is, doubtless, the richer for these divisions ; they were the 
 necessary result of the development of modern Society, so 
 rich in its multifarious phases. But, for all that, we feel that 
 we have lost as well as gained by these changes, and, in 
 retracing our footsteps in the company of Anthony Browne, 
 great Nobleman, and Thomas Marchant, substantial Yeoman, 
 of Sussex, we may be pardoned for regretting some things 
 that have passed away never to return, and for admitting that, 
 if we have gone a-head very fast indeed of late days, yet in 
 some respects they had the advantage of us, and that we are 
 not altogether " wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best," as we 
 are accustomed to think ourselves I
 
 Christ7nas m Sussex in the Olden Ti7ne, 
 
 NATIONAL Festival reflects the character of a 
 people. If an accurate picture of the way in 
 which Christmas has been observed in England 
 for the last thousand years could be drawn, it 
 would, without doubt, convey a pretty good notion, not only 
 of the religious institutions of the times, but of the social 
 and moral condition of the people. In the early and purely 
 Saxon days we should, in all probability, find a good deal 
 of Paganism and the grossness of heathen idolatry in the 
 festivities of the season. There had been a feast of Yule 
 long before the festival of Christmas, and an element of the 
 old heathen holiday long mingled with the rejoicings of the 
 new festival, and, perhaps, still does so. Yule cakes or 
 dough are still to be met with in the North of England ; the 
 Yule plough is not quite obsolete; and the Yule log still 
 burns on our hearths. It was, and still is, the wont of the 
 Roman Priesthood to smooth the conversion of a heathen 
 people by grafting the rites of the new religion on those of 
 the old. In Italy it was the worship of the gods of " high 
 Olympus" that was thus tenderly dealt with. In the countries 
 which, like England, had been wrested from Rome by the 
 Northern barbarians, it was the gods of Walhalla — Odin and 
 Friga, Woden and Thor — that had to be superseded by a 
 higher faith, and the same policy was pursued : the people's 
 habits and customs were disturbed as little as possible, and if 
 a festival of the new religion happened to concur in season 
 with or to resemble in character a feast of the old religion, 
 the transition from one to the other was made as easy as it 
 could be by the preservation of the olden forms. Conversions
 
 152 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 in those early days were made wholesale — an entire people 
 following the example or obeying the command of their King; 
 and in such cases national customs, even if they partook of a 
 heathenish nature, had to be respected. Their rooting-out 
 was left to a more enlightened day. 
 
 A good deal of trouble was, without doubt, given to later 
 ages of the Roman Church by this lingering element of 
 Paganism. It worked up in the new and purer faith in the 
 same manner that the idolatries of Egypt and of Canaan — 
 also respected for the same politic reasons by the earlier 
 rulers of Israel — worked up in the chosen people, leading 
 them back to "the flesh-pots of Egypt" and to the worship 
 of Baal and of Ashtaroth — the serpent and the golden calf. 
 It was at Christmas in particular — that recognised season of 
 feasting and rejoicing, in the new faith as in the old — that 
 the heathenish instincts and traditions of the people cropped 
 up, breaking out into very strange excesses. As if to mark 
 the religious origin of these, the churches themselves were 
 made the theatre of them, and the clergy were obliged to 
 suspend their functions and to permit an impious mockery of 
 them to be carried on in the very centres of religious worship, 
 and with an imitation of all its forms. ]\Iock Popes, mock 
 Bishops, and mock Priests were set up, with the tacit sanction 
 of the Church itself, and often with the participation of the 
 ecclesiastics. Chosen from and followed by the lowest 
 classes, they invaded the churches, and turned its most 
 sacred rites and ceremonies into ridicule. " The mock 
 Pontiffs," says Strutt, in his description of these "Festivals of 
 Fools," which, he adds, were always exhibited at Christmas- 
 time, or near to it, "the mock Pontiffs had usually a proper 
 suite of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted 
 at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous 
 dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons ; they 
 were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being 
 disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others 
 having their faces smutted ; in one instance to frighten the 
 beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter : and
 
 Christmas in Sussex in the Olden Time. 153 
 
 some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the 
 wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. 
 During the divine service this motley crowd were not contented 
 with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them 
 ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side 
 of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service 
 they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, 
 leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, 
 and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with 
 shameless impudence. Another part of these ridiculous 
 ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage 
 erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; 
 and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and 
 vulgar discourses, accompanied by actions equally reprehen- 
 sible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine 
 service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his 
 benediction to the people before they quitted the church. 
 He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn 
 about to the diff"erent parts of the town, attended by a large 
 train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled 
 together ; and many of the most profligate of the latter 
 assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries 
 the greater effect ; they had also with them carts filled with 
 ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace 
 assembled to see the procession." *' 
 
 It will be recollected that Sir Walter Scott introduces one 
 of these "pious orgies" into his novel of "The Abbot," 
 where it was made use of by the Scotch people, then about 
 to fling off the yoke of the Roman Church, to insult the 
 heads of the old faith. 
 
 "A Boy-Bishop" was another form taken by the spirit of 
 defiance of religion, or of ecclesiastical discipline, after the 
 " Festival of Fools" had been put down. 
 
 * This description is given by Strutt from a circular addressed to the Clergy of 
 France ; but he says that similar grotesque ceremonies certainly took place in England, 
 though not carried to such an extent of impiety or so grossly offensive to decency.
 
 154 GIi7npses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 In all the Collegiate Churches of England it was customary 
 for one of the children of the choir, completely apparelled 
 in Episcopal vestments, with a mitre and crozier, to bear the 
 title and state of a Bishop. He exacted a ceremonial 
 obedience from his fellows, who, being dressed like priests, 
 took possession of the church and performed all the ceremonies 
 and offices which might have been celebrated by a Bishop 
 and his prebendaries. In the statutes of Dean Colet for his 
 school at St. Paul's it is expressly ordered that the scholars 
 " shall, every Childermas, come to Paul's Churche, and hear 
 the Childe-Bishop's sermon." This was, with other ceremonies 
 and processions, abrogated by a proclamation issued in the 
 thirty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 If such scenes as these, in very mockery of religion, were 
 carried on in churches, it is easy to conceive that the people 
 were not slow to imitate them in their own houses. And such 
 was the case. " Cards, dice, tables, and most other games 
 prohibited at other seasons of the year, were (says Strutt) 
 tolerated during the Christmas holidays, as well as disguise- 
 ments and mummeries," and he distinctly traces one of these 
 mummeries, the " Fool's Plough " — which, in the North, was, 
 and, perhaps, still is, dragged about by sword-dancers attired 
 in antic dress, and with which the soil is ploughed up before 
 those houses where no reward is given — to the "Yule-plough " 
 of Pagan days. 
 
 Royalty itself, in the time of the Plantagenets, set the 
 example of Christmas revelries; and as the Church had its 
 mock-Popes and mock-Bishops, so the Court had its " Lord 
 of Misrule." "At the feast of Christmas," says Stow, "in 
 the king's court, wherever he chanced to reside, there was 
 appointed a lord of misrule, or master of merry disports; the 
 same merry fellow made his appearance at the house of every 
 nobleman and person of distinction, and among the rest the 
 Lord Mayor of London and the Sheriffs had severally of them 
 their lords of misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or 
 offence, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the 
 beholders."
 
 Christmas in Sussex in the Oldest Time. 155 
 
 The most graphic description of the reign of a people's 
 " Lord of Misrule " is given by Philip Stubbs, who wrote at 
 the close of the i6th century. As a picture of Christmas 
 doings before the Puritan Revolution it is very suggestive : — 
 
 First of all, the \vilde heades of the parish flocking togither, chuse 
 them a graund captaine of mischiefe, whom they imioble uath the title of 
 Lord of Misrule ; and him they crowne with great solemnity, and adopt 
 for their king. This king annoynted chooseth forth twentie, fourty, three- 
 score, or an hundred lustie guttes, like to himself, to waite upon his lordly 
 majesty, and to guarde his noble person. Then every one of these men 
 he investeth with his liveries of greene, yellow, or some other light wanton 
 colour, and as though they were not gawdy ynough, they bedecke them- 
 selves with scarfFes, ribbons, and laces, hanged all over with gold ringes, 
 pretious stones, and other jewels. This done, they tie aboute either legge 
 twentie or fortie belles, \vith rich handkerchiefs in their handes, and some- 
 times laide acrosse over their shoulders and neckes, borrowed, for the 
 most part, of their pretie mopsies and loving Bessies. Thus all thinges 
 set in order, then have they their hobby horses, their dragons, and other 
 antiques, together with their baudie pipers, and thundring drummers, to 
 strike up the devil's daunce with aU. Then march this heathen company 
 towards the church, their pv^ers pj-ping, their drummers thundring, their 
 stumpes dauncing, their belles jyngliny, their handkerchiefes fluttering 
 aboute their heades like madde men, their hobbie horses and other 
 monsters skirmishing amongst the throng; and in this sorte they go to the 
 church, though the minister be at prayer or preaching, dauncing and 
 singing hke devils incarnate, \vith such a confused noise that no man can 
 heare his owne voyce. Then the foohsh people they looke, they stare, 
 they laugh, they fleere, and mount upon the formes and pewes to see these 
 goodly pageants solemnized. Then after this, aboute the church they go 
 againe and againe, and so fourthe into the churche yard, where they have 
 commonly their sommer-halls, their bowers, arbours, and banquetting- 
 houses set up, wherein they feast, banquet, and daunce all that day, and 
 paradventure all that night too ; and thus these terrestrial furies spend the 
 Sabbath day. Then, for the further innobhng of this honourable lardane, 
 lord I should say, they have certaine papers wherein is painted babelerie or 
 other imagerie worke, and these they call my Lord of Misrule's badges, or 
 cognizances. These they give to evey-one who will give them money to 
 maintain them in this their heathenish devilrie; and who will not show 
 himself buxome to them and give them money, they shall be mocked and 
 flouted shamefully ; yea, and many times carried upon a cowlstaff'e, and 
 dived over heade and eares in water, or otherwise most horribly abused. 
 And so besotted are some, that they not only give them money, but weare 
 their badges or cognizances in their hates or cappes openly. 
 
 Of course, Philip Stubbs was one of those new sectaries 
 to whom the Reformation gave rise, who, by the severe way 
 in which they looked at religion and life in general, were 
 dubbed Puritans, and who were destined to give quite a new 
 character to Christmas in England, and powerfully to influence 
 its celebration down to our own days. The Reformation, in
 
 156 Glwipses of Our Ancestors, 
 
 fact, though it had put an end to the most flagrant abuses of 
 Christmas revelling in the churches themselves, had left the 
 people to follow pretty much the old paths, as we see by 
 Philip Stubbs's description, and as we know also by the goings- 
 on at the Courts of Edward, Elizabeth, and James I. But 
 the higher minds of the English people were rapidly waking 
 up to a sense of the inconsistency of this spirit of license 
 with the objects and aims of the religion they professed, and 
 which they were now able to realise for themselves. A sober 
 and severe spirit grew upon the people more and more, 
 operating equally upon manners, morals, political opinions, 
 and faith, until it attained its full development, first, in the 
 ascendancy of the Presbyterians in Scotland and in England, 
 and then in the rule of the Independents under Cromwell, 
 Of the two, probably, the Presbyterians were the most hostile 
 to that religious laxness which had tolerated, if not encouraged, 
 the license and abuse of Christmas and other festive seasons. 
 They were very severe disciplinarians and made short work of 
 the games and sports, religious and secular, which had given 
 to this country the title of " merrie England." The Cavaliers 
 endeavoured to keep up this vein, in their dress, poetry, and 
 mode of living; but they were beaten out of the field by the 
 fanatics, as their enemies called them — by the elect of God, 
 as they called themselves; and England became, for a time, 
 a very sober, and, on the surface, at least, a very moral and 
 religious country. To reverse the lines that Shakspeare puts 
 into the mouth of Glo'ster, " its merry-meetings were turned 
 into stern alarums;" its bear-baitings and cock-shyings into 
 prayer-meetings and psalm-singings; its Festivals into Fasts. 
 Christmas Day itself was made a strict fast-day, and if English- 
 men eat roast-beef on that day, during the reign of the saints, 
 they had to do it " on the sly." That many did so, we do not 
 doubt; for the work sought to be done by the exalted spirits 
 of these Puritan days was too much in advance of the times 
 to carry the great body of the people with it. A vast number 
 sighed for the flesh-pots of Egypt, and with the Restoration 
 there was a strong re-action to olden ways. But the Puritans
 
 Christmas in Sussex in the Olden Time. 157 
 
 of the 17th century left their mark on the nation and on its 
 chief festival of Christmas. Their purgation of the old 
 heathen license was very effectual. They went too far, no 
 doubt; most Reformers do so; but they succeeded in giving 
 a new and a higher character to the English people in their 
 religious life, and a new aspect to the Church in its religious 
 festivals. It is only since the Commonwealth that England 
 has presented that strong contrast to the Continent in its 
 Sunday aspect which strikes all foreigners — even when those 
 foreigners are Protestants — with astonishment and not a little 
 dismay. 
 
 Christmas Day shared at first with the Sunday in the almost 
 ascetic character given to it by the Puritans. But there has 
 been a tendency of late days to emancipate it from this strict 
 discipline and to restore to it a part, at least, of its original, 
 and, as some may think, its appropriate character of a festival. 
 After going, first, too far in one direction — that of license and 
 profanity — and then too far in another — that of asceticism — 
 the national pendulum seems to have swung into a medium 
 movement, in which the spirit of religion and the spirit of 
 enjoyment mingle with and temper one another. In fact, the 
 great festival is becoming, as festivals are wont to become, a 
 reflection of the character of the people themselves. As they 
 become more refined — more intellectual — more spiritual — so 
 are their national demonstrations, religious or secular, apt to 
 present these aspects and be purged of that grossness which 
 marked them in early ages — ages fresh from the contact of 
 barbarism and idolatry. 
 
 The advance has been gradual. There was, doubtless, a 
 re-action in the days of the Second Charles from the extreme 
 rigidity of the Commonwealth. From a severe fast-day, 
 Christmasagain became a joyous festival. We find the evidence 
 of it in the journal of the Rev. Giles IMoore, Rector of Horsted 
 Keynes, who, though a Royalist at heart, had been "admitted" 
 to the Sussex living by the Commissioners appointed by 
 Cromwell and his Council to " try" the efficiency of such as
 
 158 Gliinpses of Our A?icestors. 
 
 presented themselves. Not a word do we find in the journal 
 about Christmas Day until Charles II. has been restored, and 
 then, on December 25, 1662, the Rector tells us: — "I gave 
 an entertainment to Mr. Hale and Mr. Citizen, at Bachelor's 
 [the village public-house?] and I paid for 3 pecks of barley 
 malt, 2s. yd.; for iilbs. of beef 2s. 2d. [2^d. a lb. for beef! 
 think of that, ye modern consumers of beef!] Being Christ- 
 masse daye, I received of John Burtenshaw, at the Parsonage, 
 8s., whereof I did give him back again is. Chrisli gratia." 
 For what the eight shillings were paid we are not told — 
 perhaps for tithes or some other ecclesiastical dues. The 
 gift of the shilling was clearly in the nature of a Christmas- 
 box. 
 
 We have to pass over several years before we meet with 
 another entry by the Rev. Giles Moore on a Christmas Day, 
 and then it is a somewhat laconic one : — " 25th Dec. I sent 
 to Mr. Hely a ribspare and hoggs puddings, for which he 
 returned me a box of pills and sermons." We wonder 
 whether the Rector of Horsted Keynes considered himself 
 the loser or the gainer by the transaction .'* 
 
 The next reference of the Sussex Rector to Christmas 
 is of a similar character — only with a change of persons. 
 Perhaps Mr. Moore had had enough of "Pills and sermons!" 
 " 25th Dec, 1677. I sent Mr. Herryman a faire large ribspare 
 and hoggs pudding worth 4s., for the which he returned mee 
 24 oranges and 6 lemons." This was a decided advance upon 
 Mr. Hely's pills and sermons, but whether it was a fair piece 
 of barter we can't determine, not knowing the value of oranges 
 and lemons 200 years ago. 
 
 With the exception of a gift of 6d. to "the howling boys" 
 on the 26th December [how many sixpences have we to give 
 now-a-days both to howling boys and girls !], these are the 
 only references to Christmas in the journal of a Sussex 
 country clergyman in the time of the Commonwealth and the 
 Second Charles ; and it shows that the great festival did not 
 occupy much of his time, thoughts, or labours. It had not
 
 Christmas in Sussex in the Olden Time. 159 
 
 recovered the double blow given to it, first by the Reformation 
 and then by the Puritans. 
 
 This view is borne out by other Sussex diaries. Their 
 references to Christmas are very few and far between. In the 
 minute and voluminous diary of Thomas Marchant, of Little 
 Park, Hurstpierpoint, there are only three meagre entries on 
 the 25th December: — In 17 14, "Mr. Martin preached. Thos. 
 Norton, of Edgerley, Nich. Stacey, and I spent 3d. a-piece 
 at Smith's." This was certainly a very modest expenditure 
 for Christmas rejoicings I In 1719, "Mr. Dodson preached. 
 My father and mother, and the workmen, din'd here (at Little 
 Park). Mr. Burry and my brother Peter stopped and spent 
 the evening here." And again, in 1721, " Our workmen all 
 dined here." These last entries mark an improvement. The 
 workmen of the farm are invited into the house and partake 
 of Christmas fare with their master. There is no record of 
 any special festivities — of the old games and mummeries and 
 carol singing which used to characterise the day. Eating and 
 drinking were the solid shape which Christmas festivities 
 assumed in Sussex farmhouses in the i8th century. 
 
 It was pretty much the same in the mansions of the gentry. 
 
 The feasting and hospitality in these latter were of a higher 
 
 kind; but Christmas rejoicings were confined to this solid 
 
 shape of eating and drinking. In 1691, Mr. Councillor 
 
 Timothy Burrell, of Ockenden, Cuckfield, "for the first time," 
 
 we are told by the editor of his journal, "invited a number of 
 
 his humbler neighbours to dine with him at Christmas," and 
 
 he kept up the practice to the year of his death. He has left 
 
 us not only the names of the guests on these occasions, but 
 
 the bills of fare ; and we subjoin two of the latter, to show 
 
 to later — shall we say, more degenerate times } — the materials 
 
 of a Christmas dinner nearly 200 years ago : — 
 
 1st Januaiy, 1706. Plumm pottage, calves' head and bacon, goose, 
 pig, plumm pottage, roast beef, sirloin, veale, a loin, goose, plumm pottage, 
 boiled beef, a clod, two balced puddings, three dishes of minced pies, two 
 capons, two dishes of tarts, two pullets. — 2nd January, 1706. Plumm 
 pottage, boiled leg of mutton, goose, pig, plumm pottage, roast beef, veal, 
 leg, roasted pig, plumm pottage, boiled beef, a rump, two baked puddings, 
 three dishes of minced pies, two capons, two dishes of tarts, two puUets.
 
 1 60 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 It will be remarked that plum-pudding, without which no 
 Christmas Day festivities would be now complete, does not 
 figure in Mr. Timothy Burrell's bill of fare. Its place is 
 supplied by " plumm pottage " (sometimes called plumm 
 broth), which occurs thrice in each bill, and which, no doubt, 
 stood in the place of and was the embryo of its more famous 
 successor. Minced pies had arrived at maturity ; but plum 
 puddings had yet to be invented ! 
 
 Such entertainments as these of a gentleman to his poorer 
 neighbours, and of farmers to their men, at which all met 
 and feasted at the same board, have fallen into disuetude. The 
 poor are feasted, doubtless, at Christmas ; but they feast 
 apart from the rich. Classes are more divided, and carry on 
 their tasks and pleasures by themselves. 
 
 One illustration of the way in which Christmas was kept 
 
 by the middle classes in Sussex in the age succeeding Timothy 
 
 Burrell's is furnished by the diary of Thomas Turner, general 
 
 dealer, of Easthoathly, who flourished in the middle of the 
 
 1 8th century ; — 
 
 On Sunday, December 25, 1756 (writes Thomas Turner) myself, the 
 two boys, and servant at Church : I and the maid staid the Communion. 
 This being Christmas Day, the widow Marchant, Hannah, and James 
 Marchant dined with us on a buttoclt of beef and a plumb suet pudding. 
 Thos. Davey at our house in the even, to whom I read two nights of the 
 Complaint, one of which was the " Christian's Triumph against the Fear 
 of Death: " a noble subject, it being the redemption of manldnd by Jesus 
 Christ ! 
 
 Here we have the elements of feasting and Puritan piety 
 
 in pretty equal proportions. The struggle of these two "fell 
 
 opposites" is illustrated by the following entry of Dec. 25th, 
 
 1758:- 
 
 This being Christmas Day, myself and wife at Church in the morning. 
 We stayed the Communion ; my wife gave 6d. ; hut they not asking 7ne, I 
 gave nothing. Oh, may -we increase in faith and maintain and keep the 
 good intentions that I hope we have this day taken up. 
 
 What Thomas Turner's " good intentions" were, we can 
 only guess ; but his acts were very shortcoming ! As years 
 went on the feasting at Easthoathly obtained the ascendancy, 
 until at length the Christmas doings of Thomas Turner and
 
 Christmas in Sussex in the Olden Time. 1 6 1 
 
 his neighbours, including the parson himself, ended in down- 
 right debauchery. For weeks after Christmas Day they met 
 at each other's houses to play "brag," eat and drink to excess, 
 and then dance and shout and play pranks with each other — 
 such as carrying home the ladies pick-a-back and dragging 
 each other out of bed — which bordered closely on indecency. 
 
 This occurs for some years, on each successive Christmas, 
 the clergyman, the medical man, and the chief people of the 
 parish taking part in the orgies, and one of them (a Mr. 
 French, who, his friend Turner estimates, drank for several 
 years " not less than twenty gallons of spirituous liquors a 
 year !") at last succumbed to it ; Mr. Turner's wife also died ; 
 and he himself then " turned over a new leaf." But his very 
 frank confessions expose to our view the gross and sensual 
 way in which Christmas was kept in Sussex villages (and 
 Sussex was a county of villages) in the middle and latter 
 part of the i8th century. There was a modicum of church 
 attendance infused into it ; but the rule was " eat, drink, and 
 be merry." 
 
 There is no reason to believe that the Christmas of Sussex, 
 as here depicted, was different from the Christmas of other 
 parts of England. It was a time of gross material prosperity, 
 in which Court, nobles, clergy, and people gave themselves 
 up to the enjoyment of the senses. The sports, both of high 
 and low, partook of the same character. Bull-baiting, cock- 
 fighting, and prize-fighting were the popular sports ; the 
 clergy hunted, shot, gambled, and went to the play like other 
 people, and the Parson Trullibers were, we are afraid, much 
 more numerous in the Church than the Parson Adamses. 
 Thomas Turner, a man of education and with literary tastes, 
 joined in the revelry whilst deploring it, and lets us see that the 
 example was set at " the great House" of the parish, Halland 
 House, where the great Duke of Newcastle, the head of the 
 Pelhams and the first statesman of the day, lavished his vast 
 wealth with an excess and profuseness that was imitated on 
 a smaller scale by his humbler neighbours. There was a 
 M
 
 1 62 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 spirit of hospitality and even of charity to the poor in this 
 Christmas feasting of the i8th century; but it was overlaid 
 by grossness and immorality, and in the midst of it the rich 
 lost the power and respect and influence which they used to 
 possess and the poor their virtue and independence. Again 
 it was the Protestant or Puritan spirit that came to the rescue, 
 and, in the Wesleyan and other religious movements, battled 
 with the heathen coarseness of the times. With vast numbers 
 of Churchmen as well as Dissenters the Christmas Day again 
 became a Fast-day, or, at least, was shorn of its festive 
 character — only diff"ering from the Sunday in the intenser 
 degree of gloom that overspread it. But against this there 
 was also a re-action, and the spirit of asceticism has had to 
 yield in later times to an infusion of a brighter and more 
 festive, and what may be called a more aesthetic spirit. With 
 the growing refinements of the age, its chief Festival has 
 become more refined : the graces of Art and the beauties 
 of Nature — flowers, music, painting, embroidery, &c. — are 
 brought to the aid of religion, and temper that love of "the 
 good things of this world" to which the nation is prone. 
 All cruel sports and coarse amusements are banished, and if 
 the bulk of the community still make the day a holiday, and, 
 like Justice Greedy, " eat abundantly," it is in a less objec- 
 tionable form than that of the i8th century. 
 
 Thus the great Festival of the year — it is considered so 
 in England more than it is on the Continent, where the first 
 day of the year vies with and, perhaps, surpasses it — has 
 followed the various changes which the nation itself has 
 undergone. It has been, at diff"erent eras. Pagan ; half-Pagan ; 
 half-Christian ; Presbyterian, Puritan, grossly material, rigidly 
 ascetic ; and now, if it can be classified at all when its phases 
 are so various, it is Eclectic ; for it borrows something from 
 all of these interpretations of it. In the devotion of the 
 misletoe, the yew, and the holly to its service, there is still a 
 particle of Paganism ; in the carol-singers, the " waits," and, 
 in some parts, the "mummers," we have a remnant of the 
 old Catholic plays and apologues and buff"ooneries ; in the
 
 Christmas in Sussex in the Olden Time. 163 
 
 sober appearance of our streets, and the church-going habits 
 of our middle classes, we have the Puritan element asserting 
 itself; in the universal feasting going on we have a mani- 
 festation of our material nature and tendencies ; in the floral 
 and artistic decorations of our churches, and in the inter- 
 change of " Christmas cards," and the pouring forth of 
 Christmas tales and Christmas lays, the aesthetic tastes of the 
 age peep out ; in the wide-spread charity and spirit of 
 kindness and benevolence, and goodwill to men, which walks 
 abroad at Christmas, we have the great substratum of Christian 
 feeling, which supports all these varieties of national character, 
 blending them into one whole and making up, with the 
 central Divine idea, in which we all "live and move and have 
 our being," the ideal Christmas Day.
 
 The Knights Templars in Sussex, 
 
 S the great Earl of Chatham confessed that he drew 
 a large portion of his historical knowledge from 
 the Chronicle Plays of Shakspeare, so a good 
 many modern readers might own that they derive 
 no small amount of their notions of the INIiddle Ages from 
 the romances and novels of Sir Walter Scott. The figure of 
 Brian de Bois Gilbert, in particular, stands forth in Ivanhoe 
 as the popular type of the Knight-Templar, when that military 
 Order was at the apex of its strength and wealth and fame. 
 How far the Templars were sinners or victims is still a problem 
 of history. It may well be doubted, if they had not been 
 very rich, whether they would have been attacked by the Popes 
 and the IMonarchs of that day. But then these very riches 
 are a proof of the probability of guilt. It has been said that 
 no man can grow rich of a sudden by fair and innocent 
 means; and this holds true of bodies quite as much as of 
 individuals. Judged by this rule, the Knights-Templars must 
 be condemned, for in less than 200 years they had risen from 
 affected poverty to a point of wealth that enabled their 
 Grand Masters to vie with Princes and their chief officers to 
 take rank with the Barons of England and France, whilst 
 their forces were equal in number, and superior in discipline, 
 to the armies of Princes, and their military stations, or 
 Preceptories, as they were called, scattered as they were 
 throughout Europe and Asia, drew to them the most active 
 spirits of the day, and not a small portion of the wealth of 
 the pious. 
 
 There were two of these Preceptories in Sussex, though 
 all traces of them have long since disappeared. One was at
 
 The Knights Templars in Sussex. 165 
 
 Shipley, near Horsham, in West Sussex ; the other in East 
 Sussex, at Sedlescombe, four miles to the north-west of 
 Brighton, and lying within the parishes of Newtimber, Hurst, 
 Twineham, and Bolney. At the time of the dissolution of 
 the Order, at the close of the 13th and the commencement 
 of the 14th century, by Philippe IV. of France and Edward H. 
 of England, at the instigation of Pope Alexander, these two 
 Preceptories had extensive possessions in Sussex, with valuable 
 privileges granted by previous Sovereigns. In addition to 
 lands, houses, tithes and manors, including the churches of 
 Sompting, Southwick, and Woodmancote, they had a large 
 quantity of live and dead stock in the shape of corn, cattle, 
 sheep, horses, ducks, geese, fowls, &c. In fact, they seem to 
 have been very good farmers ; but there is no evidence — at 
 least, in the inventory of the Sussex " plant " — of luxurious 
 living, consisting as it does chiefly of agricultural implements, 
 and the wardrobe and armoury being poorly furnished, and 
 the church furniture on a mean scale. Literature, too, was 
 not in high esteem amongst the Sussex Templars : the Shipley 
 library consisted of " two books — of Kings and of Beasts 
 (^liber Regum, liber bestianwi) which are not valued, because the 
 jury do not know their price." A strange conjunction this 
 of Kings and beasts! and a very naive, and, doubtless, true 
 confession on the part of the jury. The only articles at all 
 betokening the gentle blood of the Knights were 20 silver 
 spoons, valued at lod. each, three rings of gold at is. each, 
 and three silk purses at is. each. 
 
 Not much here to tempt the cupidity of Kings! But the 
 Sussex Preceptories were in remote and rural districts, to 
 which, perhaps, the pomp and luxury of which the Templars 
 were accused had not yet penetrated. At all events, nothing 
 of a very heinous nature was proved against the Knights and 
 their servants seized at Shipley and Sedlescombe. The 
 measures for the dissolution of the Order in England were 
 taken with great secrecy and promptitude, the Knights them- 
 selves being arrested and sent to prison on one day, the 8th 
 of January, 1308, and their goods confiscated; a summary
 
 1 66 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 proceeding that has no parallel in English history, though 
 not uncommon in that of France. The orders for the arrest 
 of the Knights and seizure of their goods were delivered to 
 the Sheriff of Sussex and Surrey (and to all other Sheriffs) by 
 priests, who exacted an oath of secrecy. It was, in fact, a 
 plan devised by the Pope himself; and when the King of 
 England (Edward II.) hesitated to apply torture to these 
 unfortunate men, to extort confession, it was the Pope (then 
 Clement V.) who overcame his scruples. 
 
 Among the knights thus arrested and sent to the Tower 
 of London were the Preceptor of Shipley (William de 
 Egendon) and five others who had taken part in the solemn 
 ceremonies of the Order in Sussex. The Preceptor of 
 Sedlescombe appears to have made his escape, for his name 
 does not figure in the after-proceedings. These were little to 
 the credit of the authorities of the day. There appears to 
 have been little or nothing beyond vague and credulous 
 reports adduced against the Order in England, and it was 
 only by the confessions extorted by torture, or fear of it, 
 that sufficient grounds were obtained for a condemnation. 
 One charge against them was that of secret burials, which 
 was generally denied ; but " one knight, who had been 
 thirty-eight years in the Order, gave the striking answer that 
 he had never witnessed any burials except of those who had 
 died in the Tower. One of the accusers was a Templar, 
 John de Gertia, and he bare witness that he had heard from 
 a woman named Cacocaca that a servant, fourteen years ago, 
 had secretly seen and watched the Templars while they 
 placed an idol upon the crucifix, and that one brother who 
 had refused to do so had been confined inside a well with 
 the lid shut down (claiiso piiieo cum cooperculoj ; and he also 
 deposed that one Walter Salvage, of the household of the 
 Earl of Warenne's grandfather, had, two years after entering 
 the Order, been so removed away that neither the Earl nor 
 his other friends could ever learn what had become of him." 
 
 After three years' imprisonment it is not to be wondered 
 at if the Templars were tired out and glad to regain their
 
 The Knights Templars in Sussex. 167 
 
 liberty on any terms. They made a general confession (in 
 Latin, French, and English) "that though they were sincere 
 Christians, they were in such evil repute, as to having denied 
 the Saviour, and treated the Cross with contempt, and other 
 heresies, that they were unable to prove themselves innocent: 
 and therefore submitted themselves to the discipline of the 
 Church and implored its pardon," 
 
 Upon this submission, the English Grand Master (William 
 de la More) and many of his knightly companions, including 
 the Preceptor of Shipley, who abjured in French, received 
 absolution, which was given by the Bishops of London and 
 of Chichester; "and this (we are told) they did with much 
 pomp, seated at the west door of St. Paul's, surrounded by 
 priests and people, while the Templars on their knees before 
 them publicly abjured all heresies, some with cries and 
 weeping." 
 
 Upon this they were released from their prisons, but not 
 set at liberty, being sent, by direction of the Bishops, into 
 divers monasteries to perform penance. But there was one 
 exception. The Grand Master, William de la INIore, it is 
 added, though included among those who confessed, alone 
 refused to admit himself guilty of what he had not done, and 
 was doomed to be shut up in the vilest prison, confined 
 with double irons, and from time to time to be visited and 
 importuned to confess. He did not long survive this treat- 
 ment. In France, the Templars escaped far less easily. 
 They were subjected to the greatest cruelties, and large 
 numbers expired under horrible tortures: inflicted upon the 
 plea of heresy or impiety. The Order was finally dissolved 
 by the Pope; the Bull of Clement V. being published in 
 England by the Archbishop of Canterbury on August 15, 1312. 
 
 Of all " the gold, silver, and riches " popularly attributed 
 to the Sussex Templars, the only relic now remaining is a 
 beautiful reliquary, still the property of the parish of Shipley. 
 "It is" (says Mr. W. H. Blaauw, to whose paper in the Sussex 
 Archaeological Collections we are chiefly indebted for these
 
 1 68 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 facts of the Knights-Templars in Sussex) "seven inches long 
 by six' inches high, and its wooden frame still preserves some 
 of its coverings of gilt plates, ornamented with enamel, which 
 appear to be of the thirteenth century. They represent the 
 Crucifixion, with the Greek letters X P E over the cross, the 
 Virgin Mary and St. John standing near, and other saints 
 under semicircular arches on each side and at the ends." 
 
 The landed property of the Templars was transferred to 
 the Hospitallers, who undertook to perform their duties, 
 whatever these were. The Knights Hospitallers, too, have 
 long disappeared, with all the other ponderous machinery, 
 religious and military, by which the Roman Church supported 
 itself in the Middle Ages, doing in a rough way a necessary 
 work. As civilization advanced, these bulwarks of Faith, as 
 they were deemed, became mere encumbrances and clogs to 
 religion, too often full of gross abuses, and they have been 
 swept away as so much rubbish — never to be called back again. 
 
 When the lands and goods of the Knights Templars in 
 Sussex were confiscated by the King, a valuation of the 
 property was ordered to be made, and several juries were 
 sworn in by the Sheriff of the County for the purpose. The 
 names of these jurymen still appear on the record in the 
 State Paper Office, and they are interesting as supplying a 
 clue to many names still familiar among us. Thus there were 
 on these old juries John de Dene, John le Post, Andrew de 
 Sonde, Adam le Fraunk, Robert de Hales, Robert Santys, 
 Paulin de Nitimber, Walter le Shepherd, John Sieth, John 
 Scrace, William de Risbrigge, Walter Tenereday, John 
 Ottehale, Philip de Heyworth, John atte Helegrove, Ralph 
 de Saggcworth, Walter de Brenteregge, Osbert Giffard, Simon 
 de Warbilton, Richard de Seles, Thomas de Sheryngton, 
 Robert le Husiere, Henry Gilebert, Walter Colekyn, Robert 
 de Birche, Nicholas Garlaunde, Thomas le Heye, John de 
 Gissyngham, Hamo le Neem, Simon de Seldcmerse, Richard 
 atte Delve, and Reginald de Compton. Some of these names, 
 as the last on the list, are, of course, taken from the places at
 
 The Knights Templars in Sussex. 1 69 
 
 which the jurymen lived, and Walter le Shepherd was, probably, 
 or some of his ancestors had been, a tender of sheep. The 
 number of these juries was irregular: one — held at Horsham 
 — was unusually large — twenty-one. Their duty was to take 
 an inventory of the goods and assess the value of the lands 
 of the unfortunate Knights. 
 
 The names of the Sussex benefactors of the Order have 
 also been preserved, with the witnesses to the deeds ; and 
 they also throw a light on the County Patronymica. In this 
 category we have Sir Luke de Poynings, Sir Robert de 
 Cokesfelde, Henry de Wayvell, John de Pierpounde, William 
 de Perchinge, Hugh Waldefare, Philip de Holeburn, William 
 Bisshop, of Stanninges (Steyning ?), Finian de Schorham 
 (Shoreham ?), William le Mercer, John de Swele, Peter of the 
 Wood, Walter le Fre, Walter le Wrenge (afterwards changed 
 to Walter de Farncombe, because, doubtless, he held land in 
 " Farncombe, near Sadeliscombe"), Thomas Belhomme, &c. 
 
 One very curious fact is brought out by these old deeds. 
 
 It is, that the Sussex Templars admitted a married lady into 
 
 their Order: a fact which, if it had been introduced into a 
 
 modern romance, would have been ridiculed as a solecism in 
 
 history. However, here it is upon record in black and white, 
 
 and we may as well say at once, that it involves no scandal to 
 
 the Templars. The order for the reception of the lady came, 
 
 it would seem, from a foreign Archbishop, and the bearer of 
 
 it was the lady's own husband ! It ran thus : — 
 
 Reception of Johanna Chaldese as a sister of the Templars. To the 
 very dear to him in Christ, S. Master of the Brothers of the Temple of 
 Jerusalem in England, Azo Archbishop greeting in the Lord. Know that 
 Johanna the wife of the bearer of this present letter, Richard de Chaldese, 
 knight, who by the grace of God has proposed to submit herself to the 
 yoke of the rule of the Temple, although worn out by age (se jiigo regiile 
 Templi suhdere proposiiit licet confecta senio) insomuch that no sinister 
 suspicion can henceforth arise concerning her, has promised in the presence 
 of my officers to preserve her chastity, and has promised finally that she 
 shall submit to the rule of the Temple ; wherefore we, desirous of bearing 
 our testimony to the truth, have throught it right to certify this to you 
 with my letters hanging outside {cu»i Uteris meis extra pendentihiis). 
 
 This is all that is known of this remarkable circumstance, 
 the reception of an elderly married lady into a military order
 
 I70 
 
 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 of bachelors ! It is a proof of advanced ideas in the 13th 
 centur}', which may cause the strongest-minded woman of the 
 present day to open her eyes with astonishment. Who the 
 lady was — what her motives were for selecting a Sussex 
 Preceptory of this military Order as her place of refuge, and 
 how she behaved and what became of her, we do not know. 
 But we do not doubt for a moment that Johanna Chaldese, 
 wife of Richard de Chaldese, knight, religiously kept her 
 vow of chastity "as a sister of the Templars."
 
 LibeHy of Speech in Sttssex in Times 
 Past and Present. 
 
 E are in the habit, in the present day, of congratu- 
 lating ourselves on the privileges we possess above 
 our ancestors in what we call " the liberty of the 
 Press," to the overlooking of the still greater 
 privilege which we claim and exercise, in "liberty of Speech." 
 Where one person sets up the one, how many thousand use, 
 or abuse, the other 1 It is the prerogative, so to say, of every 
 man, woman, and child — of every soul that can speak the 
 English tongue, and it is a prerogative that is not allowed to 
 lie idle. It is, indeed, a "chartered libertine"— it bloweth 
 like the wind whither it listeth — now in accents so soft that 
 the ear can scarcely catch the passing sound, but not the less 
 deadly for that ; at other times in all the blusterous fury of 
 the hurricane — sweeping every thing before it. Now it is a 
 bastard report — a scandal — that no man will own for his 
 child, and now it is public opinion, which has its parentage 
 in a nation and acknowledges no superior — no tribunal which 
 can call it to account. 
 
 It is curious to think how mighty this power of free speech 
 — this license of the tongue — is, and yet how little account 
 we take of it. We English accept it now as the ancients did 
 the right of air and water, as an indefeasible attribute of our 
 birth, without which we could scarcely be what we are. And 
 yet this great right, prerogative, privilege — call it what we 
 will — did not always exist in the unshackled form in which 
 we now enjoy it, and abuse it. In the days when men did 
 not write and print so much as they do now, they had to be 
 much more careful about what they spoke. Written matter 
 was, doubtless, always more grave than spoken. But not one 
 man in a thousand, if so many, could write 300 years ago,
 
 172 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 whilst every man had a tongue to be wagged more or less idly ; 
 and so the tongue was looked after more sharply in those days, 
 and men had to be careful what they said, as well as what they 
 wrote and printed. 
 
 In our Sussex annals, so carefully collected by the members 
 of the Archaeological Society, we find some striking instances 
 of the state of things to which we are adverting, and of the 
 danger which our ancestors ran in allowing their tongues to 
 run too idly. Both the Crown and the aristocracy — nay, the 
 class below the nobility — had the power to call such offenders 
 to a strict account. There was a special Court to take account 
 of any words in derogation of the honor, or rank, or character 
 of the upper classes uttered by the coarse-speaking rural or 
 mechanic class; and a man might find himself " clapt up by 
 the heels" in a very summary fashion for criticising the 
 appearance, or expressing his opinion of the character or 
 conduct, of his grander neighbour in a style that would now 
 excite no notice, or only call forth a laugh. 
 
 But to our Sussex instances. The first has reference to 
 "good Queen Bess," and if our readers exclaim, with Puff, in 
 the Critic, " No scandal, I hope, of Queen Elizabeth," we 
 must leave them to form their own opinion on the point. 
 She herself did think there was scandal in it, and that her 
 liege subjects had no business to indulge in idle gossip at her 
 expense. Only think if Queen Victoria had such a notion as 
 this and could bring to account all the idle tongues who have 
 indulged in idle talcs— we will not say at her expense, for they 
 took nothing from a character so pure and unimpeachable ; 
 but still, if a Queen Elizabeth had had to deal with a John 
 Brown gossip. Heavens! what an issuing forth of warrants, 
 what a sallying forth of Marshals, and what an opening and 
 shutting of prison-gates, perhaps a shortening of ears and noses 
 — to siiy nothing of heavy fines and long imprisonments — 
 there would have been ! 
 
 If the reader doubts, let him note the fate which befel 
 Arthur Gunter, an ancestor of that famous Colonel Gunter, 
 of Racton, in West Sussex, who gave shelter, in his house, to
 
 Liberty of Speech in Sussex. 173 
 
 the fugitive, Charles Stuart, after Worcester, and accompanied 
 him to Brighthelmstone, and found out the means of his escape 
 to the opposite coast of France — all which shows him to have 
 been a true-hearted and loyal Englishman. And so, doubt- 
 less, was his ancestor, Arthur Gunter, or Counter, as the name 
 was spelt in Elizabeth's day. But this Arthur seems to have 
 been over-fond of gossip, and one day, when he " chaunced 
 to be a huntynge with divers gentlemen " (we quote his own 
 words), "I fell in Taulcke with a Jentleman named Mr. George 
 Cottone, who towlde me that hyt chaunced the Queue's Hynes 
 to be at supper on a tyme at my Lorde Robert's Howse, wheare 
 hyt chaunced Hyr Hyghness to be nyghted homeward, and as 
 hyr Grace whas goynge homeward by Torchelyght, hyr Hygh- 
 ness fell in Taulcke with them that carryed the Torches, and 
 seyde that hyr Grace wolde make ther Lorde the best that ever 
 whas of hys name. Whereuppon I seyde that hyr Grasee must 
 macke him then a Dewke, and he said that the Reporte was 
 that Hyr Hyghness sholde marry hym ; and I answered — I 
 praye God all men may tacke hyt well that there might rysse 
 no troble thereof, and so I have seyde to dyvers others synce 
 that Tyme." 
 
 Whereby Arthur Gounter did manifest that he was a very 
 indiscreet individual, and that it would have been better for 
 him if he had held his tongue ; for if trees have tongues, so 
 have they ears, and this "taulcke" in the Sussex hunting field 
 came in time to the knowledge of the Royal lady whom it 
 concerned, and not a little wroth, doubtless, was she that 
 "base churls" should make free with her maiden fame, and 
 her intentions towards matrimony or otherwise. So, indeed, 
 Master Gounter found out, for he was speedily " clapt up by 
 the heels," in other words, incarcerated, and made to speak 
 out more plainly as to what he meant by the above "taulcke," 
 and hereupon he made the following 
 
 Confessions of A. Gunter, concerning Lord Robert Dudley {Earl of 
 
 Leicester). 
 Pleseth your Honor, further to understande, that the sayde Mr. George 
 Cotton seyde, that hyt was rumored heretofore ; that my Lorde my ^Master 
 shoolde have maryed the Queue's Hyghnes ; and I seyde, that, yf hyt
 
 174 Glivipses of Our Ajicestors. 
 
 pleased hyr Hyncs, I thought liim as mette a Man as any in Inglande ; 
 and further he asked me, yf I herde of any Pailement towarde ; and I 
 seydc, No; — but, yf ther wer eny, I thynke every Nobleman wyll geve his 
 opinion, and then they that be my Lord Robert's friends wyll seye that he 
 is a mette man ; and so hyt maye fortinie there wyll lysse troble amonge 
 the Noblemen ; which God forbede. And then he asked me, who was my 
 Lorde's Frends ? and I seyde, my Lorde Markes of Northampton ; my 
 Lorde of Pembroke ; Mr. Treasurer ; Mr. Lacfelde, with many others. 
 Fui ther I seyd, I trust the JVhyght Ilorsse* will lie in quiet ; and so shall 
 we be out of troble ; hyt is well knowen hys Blode as yette whas never 
 attaynte, nor he was ever a man of Warr, wherefor j^s hyt lycke, that we 
 shall syt still ; but yf he shoole stomache hyt, he were able to make a great 
 Powre. All these things befoore rehearseed I have spoken unto dyvers 
 other, as unto Mr. Robt. Palmer, Mr. Stowton, Mr. Benyon, and others. 
 Further as towchynge my Lord Robert, I have seyde to Air. Cottone that 
 I thought hym to be causse that my Lord my ]\Laster (the Earl of Arundel) 
 might not marry the Oucne's Hyghnes, wherefor I wolde that he had bene 
 put to dethe with his father, or that some rofien wolde have dyspatched 
 hym by the way as he hath gone, with some dagge or Gonne. Fartlier I 
 seyde that yf hyt chaunced my Lord Robert to marry the Queue's Hyghnes, 
 then I dowted whether he woolde remember my owlde matter passed 
 heartofore, and so be turned unto my Lord my master's displeasure and 
 hindrance. 
 
 By me Arthur Gounter. 
 
 A good deal of these "Confessions" is not very intelligible 
 to us at the present day. But it is obvious that it had reference 
 to the Queen's marriage either with the Earl of Arundel ("the 
 White Horse") or Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, 
 and that the sudden and mysterious death of the wife of the 
 latter, the ill-fated Amy Robsart, happened about this time, 
 and had its bearing on the reports afloat, for, in one of the 
 Hatfield MSS., under the date 1 560, occurs this entry : — "The 
 saying of Arthur Gunter to George Cotton," that "ere this 
 my Lord Robert's wife is dead, and she broke her neck. It 
 is in a number of heads that the Queen will marry him. If 
 she do, you will see a grand stir, for my Lord Arundel is sure 
 of the Earl of Pembroke, and the Lord Rich, with divers 
 others ; to be ready with the putting up of his finger ; and 
 then shall you see the White Horse bestir him ; for my Lord 
 is of great power." 
 
 Gunter, it is evident, was a follower of " the White Horse," 
 the Norfolk or Catholic interest, whilst Leicester was the head 
 
 * The well-known badge of the Earls of Arundel.
 
 Liberty of Speech in Sussex. 175 
 
 of the Protestant party, with a tendency to Puritanism. So 
 that, in this "taulcke" between two gentlemen " huntynge " 
 in Sussex, the deadly rivalry of two great religious parties 
 was, doubtless, shadowed forth. So, indeed, might it be in 
 the present day, without that danger to body and estate which 
 Arthur Gunter ran, and from the consequences of which he 
 narrowly escaped. For, as our chronicler tells us, after being 
 incarcerated and questioned, he was only pardoned on making a 
 written "Confession," in which he declared that for the 
 "unfytting wordes" uttered by him, he had been "most 
 worthely punished;" and was "very hartely sorry," that the 
 like should never again enter into his heart, and much less 
 pass his mouth ; and that he would study by all means " to 
 reduble and recompence" his former offence. 
 
 Now, let us turn from this somewhat exalted instance of 
 the danger of " taulcke " about Queens and Earls and Lords, 
 and let us take a humbler case and one nearer to our own 
 times. It occurred in the reign of the First Charles, and 
 the principal actors in it were Master John Wilson, Esq. — 
 " as," says Mr. Blencowe, " it was the custom to call an esquire 
 in those days" — of Searles, in the parish of Fletching — the 
 proprietor of several iron furnaces in Sussex and Kent — and 
 a certain fellow, named John Tye." For some reason or 
 other — perhaps because he was unusually prosperous in his 
 undertakings — Master John Wilson, Esq., drew upon himself 
 the ill-will of some of his humbler neighbours, and this was 
 shown in several " causeless aspersions " and " scandalous 
 reflections" — so we are assured — upon his worth. But of 
 the exact nature of these aspersions and reflections we are 
 not informed, except in the case of John Tye, "the most 
 notorious of his slanderers," and who, as such, was selected 
 for punishment. 
 
 And what was the heinous off'ence of this " base fellow, 
 John Tye .? " Well, the " head and front of his oftending" 
 consisted in his having uttered the following words : — "As for 
 this Wilson, I am as good as he, nobody knows where he
 
 1 76 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 came from;" "accompanied," we are told," by some certainly 
 very coarse and offensive terms of contempt." 
 
 Very annoying, doubtless, for a gentleman thus to be 
 spoken of by a "common fellow." But only imagine such 
 words as these in our days being made the subject of 
 indictment at the County Sessions 1 Such was the course 
 adopted by Master John Wilson, Esquire, and, failing to 
 obtain redress here of his fellow-justices — not, it seems, 
 because the Court was unequal to the task or unwilling, but 
 because Sussex was not Mr. Wilson's county — he had recourse 
 to " the Court of Honour" — a Court of which the very name 
 and memory have now died out, but which, in the 17th century, 
 was in great vigour — " much," we are told, and, no doubt, 
 correctly, " to the satisfaction of the nobility and gentry in 
 such cases as were not to be redressed by the strict rules 
 of common law." No doubt of it ! " But," proceeds our 
 authority, " I must take notice that this Court did not exert 
 itself in favour of persons who were not truly gentlemen. 
 I mean by birth — or an office legally entitling them to that 
 title." In fact, common fellows like John Tye might abuse 
 each other as much as they liked ; but if they came between 
 the wind and the nobility of their superiors, let them look to 
 themselves ! John Tye soon found out that he had to do so. 
 A "Court of Honour" was constituted to take cognizance of 
 the case. " Mr. Serjeant Amherst, Mr. Thomas Challoner (a 
 member of the family which was shortly to see its head, 
 Colonel Challoner, sit on that High Court which doomed to 
 death Charles I), and INIr. Anthony Fowle were appointed by 
 the Earl Marshal to inquire into the case." Such was the 
 composition of the Court of Honour. In that day men were 
 not always tried by a jury of their peers. John Tye, " base 
 fellow" as he was, had to answer for his offence to these 
 three gentlemen, all of the same rank as his accuser. Master 
 John Wilson, Esq. Who can doubt what the verdict of such 
 a jury was .^ "As might be easily supposed," says Mr. 
 Blencowe, " John Tye was soon convicted. He begged for 
 mercy, and was forgiven, upon condition that he made his
 
 Liberty of Speech in Sussex. 177 
 
 humble submission and a public recantation of the calumny 
 before the inhabitants of the parish, in the porch of the 
 church at Fletching." 
 
 To make assurance doubly sure, we learn that one of the 
 Court of Honour, Mr. Serjeant Amherst, wrote as follows to 
 " his loveing cosen and friend," Robert Foster, Esq. : — "Mr. 
 Wilson always lived and carryed himself as a gentleman (as 
 he is), of a good and ancient descent ; I pray you let him 
 not be abused in so base and false a manner, and Tyt be 
 suffered to escape without punishment; you ktiow hou irksome 
 it is for a geiitleman to be abused by a clowne." 
 
 Poor John Tye 1 He was born an age too soon ! Had he 
 belonged to our times, he might have boasted his equality with 
 any Esquire in the county, or Duke or Earl for the matter of 
 that, as much as he liked. But " the Age of Chivalry is gone," 
 and "Courts of Honour" are sunk into the dust! "Common 
 fellows " have come to the surface, and whoever chooses to call 
 himself a gentleman or esquire may do so to his heart's content, 
 and take no harm. Not so in " the brave days of old." 
 
 In the time of the Stuarts, however, if gentlemen had 
 their own Courts of Honour and peculiar privileges, it was 
 not so easy a thing to set up a title to gentility, and the man 
 who set about proving it had to undertake a work of some 
 trouble, and, unless his claim was well founded, some risk. 
 This was the process : — 
 
 A commission was granted by His Majesty to the Provincial King at 
 Armes to visit the county, which was performed in a very solemn manner. 
 Sir Richard St. George, Knight, was then Clarencieux ; and pursuant 
 thereto, in the year 1634, in person lie visited the county. The end of 
 these visitations was to take an account of all the familys of the nobility and 
 gentry of the county lawfully bearing armes ; and also to take notice of 
 all such persons wlio bore armes that had no right, and of others, who 
 assumed and usurped the title of gentlemen or esquire, having no right to 
 be so called according to the laws of the land. A jury was usually 
 
 summoned ad inquirendum Those who assumed armes 
 
 were obliged to prove their right before the Lord Marshal ; and those who 
 suffered themselves to be styled gentlemen or esquires, not having lawful 
 right thereto, were (according to the words in the commission, in the last 
 visit to this county in 1668), to be made infamous : their names were usually 
 posted up in the market-place of the chief towns there, with a signification 
 that they were not what they were called ; or otherwise stigmatised 
 according to the laws of honour and the Earl Marshal's authority. 
 
 N
 
 178 Glimpses of Our Aficesfors. 
 
 So that there was 2i pro and co7i. to the case, and the man 
 too anxious to become famous might find himself proclaimed 
 infamous. Gentlemen of the present day run no such danger! 
 
 It is not without its advantage that we can thus contrast 
 the past with the present. We are inclined sometimes to 
 envy our forefathers some of the advantages which, doubtless, 
 they enjoyed, and which we have lost. But there were other 
 things in which the balance inclines to our side. Most 
 certainly that is the case in regard, not merely to the freedom 
 of the Press (as is sometimes thought), but to the much larger 
 domain included in the liberty of speech. As Tennyson so 
 eloquently says of England in the present day, 
 
 "It is the land that freemen till. 
 
 That sober-suited Freedom chose, 
 The land where, girt with friends or foes, 
 A man may speak the thing he wiliy 
 
 And, having this great liberty, who will gainsay that, for the 
 most part, it is wisely and nobly used by the English people, 
 and that, with little check on their tongues except that which 
 their own sense of propriety imposes, there is, perhaps, as 
 little — nay, perhaps, less abuse in the way of "taulcke" in 
 the days of Victoria than in those of Elizabeth or of the 
 Charles's }
 
 A Stissex Sedition : An Episode oj 
 
 Brambletye. 
 
 HEN Brambletye House is named, the thoughts 
 of the speaker or hearer naturally revert to the 
 romantic incidents that the genius of Horace 
 Smith has associated with all that now remains 
 of that old residence of the Lewknors and the Comptons — 
 incidents, we need hardly say, almost totally due to the 
 novelist's invention. But there are curious events connected 
 with Brambletye long anterior to the days of the Cavaliers 
 and Roundheads, whom Horace Smith deals with in his story, 
 and one of the most curious is that which brought it under 
 the notice of Elizabeth's Council of State as the scene of a 
 sedition. 
 
 How quick of growth seditions were in those days — how 
 easy it was to swell words into matter of dangerous import to 
 those who uttered them, and to give to the most innocent 
 acts a treasonable aspect, we have already given a notion of 
 in the proceedings which were taken in the same reign 
 against Arthur Gunter, of Racton (an ancestor of the Colonel 
 Racton who escorted Charles H. in his flight through Sussex), 
 for certain words spoken by him during a hunting-party in 
 West Sussex, with respect to the probable marriage of Queen 
 Elizabeth with the Earl of Leicester. To that illustration 
 of the suspicious nature of the times may be well appended 
 the " Proceedings against John Turner for seditious words 
 spoken on livery and seizin of Brambletye Chapel to Lord 
 Buckhurst's use in May, 1579." 
 
 The chief mover in these proceedings was a lady, and a 
 lady, it is pretty clear, well able to take her own part — by
 
 1 80 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 name Katherin Pickas. Her antagonist, and the party 
 charged with sedition, was John Turner, by profession an 
 attorney, and in the service, it would appear, of Lord 
 Buckhurst. And it was whilst in the performance of one of 
 his professional duties, namely, taking livery and seizin of 
 Brambletye Chapel (that is, the lands belonging to the charity 
 which had been founded there in Catholic times by the 
 owners of Brambletye, but which chapel, at the Reformation, 
 had been dissolved and the lands taken by the Crown) that 
 John Turner came into contact with Katherin Pickas, or 
 rather, we should say, that Katherin Pickas came into contact 
 with John Turner, for the lady was the more active party. 
 
 But we will quote, from the Paper in the State Paper 
 Office, a description of the scene and act of sedition as it is 
 reported to " the Right Honable and our verie good Lordes 
 the Lordes of her Majestie's most honourable Privee 
 Counselle" by six Magistrates of the Lewes Sessions, 
 including a Buckhurste, a Pelham, a Gorringe, a Covert, a 
 Colepepper, and Sackevylle, all good Sussex names, and 
 some still current amongst us : — 
 
 " There came before us," report their Worships, " at the late sessions, 
 holden at Lewes now after Ester, on Katherin Pickas, who among other 
 matters then and there declared by her unto us, did affirme that on John 
 Turner in seking to make hverie and sesin of a dede made from jolin 
 Farnam of a chapel and certein landes to the Lord Buckhurst, in which 
 the said John Turner was atturnie for that purpose, did speke certein evell 
 and unsemely wordes toching the Queues majestic such as she thought fit 
 to impart unto us. The effect whereof was thus : whan the said Katherin 
 Pickas and vj others with her had found the said John Turner and v others 
 with him, at a place being nere to the hous of on Steven Frenche within 
 Gnnsled parishe in Sussex, she asked of the said John Turner what he and 
 the rest did there. The said John Turner answered "to take possession 
 for my Lorde of Buckhurste for the chapel of Brambletie, and land which 
 (as he said) pertanied thereunto; " the saide Katherin answered " by what 
 authoritie .'"' and the said Turner answered "by authority from John 
 Farnam." "What hath he to do here? (said the said Katherin). This 
 matter is ended by the Quene, God save her highness." "Yt makes no 
 matter for the Quene" (said the said Turner). "No (said the said Katherin). 
 Is my lord of Buckhurst above the Quene.''" "Yea (said Turner), in this 
 respecte." Upon the informacon of which saide wordes unto us some of 
 us were of opinion that we shold consider of the matter among ourselves, 
 and accordinglie to procede as to the same caus upon the statute made 
 against suche as shalle use any fals seditious or slaunderous wordes against 
 the Queues highness ; others were of mind that in a matter thus concerning
 
 A Sussex Seditmi. i8i 
 
 her majesty, we ought rather to remit the judgement thereof to the order 
 and wisdomes of your honorable lordships : unto which presentUe we all 
 assented. And therupon we toke the examinacons by othe of all such as 
 were said to be present at the said place and time, whan the said wordes 
 were supposed to be spoken, save of the said John Turner, and of on 
 Alexander Middleton, being but a boy of xiiij yeres of age : unto botlie 
 which we forbare to offer any othe, becaus the on was the partie acused, 
 the other of so yonge yeres : but how far furthe the same wordes are 
 proved or disproved by the deposicons of thos that were present, or how 
 they are to be understode or expounded, we do most humbly referre to the 
 judgement of your Lordships, to whom we send herewithall the examinacons 
 of the said parties at large, and so doe most humblie take our leave, ffrom 
 Lewis in Sussex this second day of May, 1579. 
 
 And to this general description of the seditious act (a kind 
 of Counsel's opening speech !) are appended the depositions 
 of the several witnesses on each side. These depositions, as 
 being " more exquisite" than the other, we also give: — 
 
 Katherin Pycas, wife of James Pycas, about forty-four years of age, 
 deposed that she being at Stephen Frenches door in Grinsted, there being 
 then also present John Turner, Gilbert Sackvylle, Gent., Robert Fryer, 
 Edmund Tomson, Robert Payne, Evans Flud, Henry Cropper, John Cotty, 
 Edward Matthew, Richard Knight, Alexander Mydelton, and John Grame, 
 the conversation passed as set out in the letter : adding that Turner spoke 
 the words very vehemently : she added "I hope my Lord of Buckhurst 
 will take nothing away from us wrongfully." " No, I warrant you," said 
 Mr. Sackevjll, "there is never a right further from you;" and then she 
 related a further talk with j\fr. Sackevyll, who did not deny that the words 
 were used. (Signed by the aboue six justices, and also by Richard Shelley, 
 Laurens Levat and Henry Bartlet.) 
 
 Henry Cropper, of Bramblety, servant to Mr. Pycas, confirmed his 
 mistress ; as did also other servants, viz., John Cotty, Edward Marten, 
 Richard Knight, Alexander Mydelton, and Jone Greme. 
 
 John Turner, gentleman, aged thirty-eight years (unsworn), stated that 
 by virtue of a letter of attorney by John Farnham, Esq., to Gilbert 
 Sackyyll and himself, jointly and severally, to make livery and seizin of the 
 chantrj' and chapel of Bramblety to Lord Buckhurst, they came to a green 
 between Stephen Frenche's house and the chapel, intending to make the 
 dehvery to Robert Fiyer to his lordship's use, in the presence of Evans 
 Flud, Edmund Tomson, and Robert Payn, but were set upon by Cotty, 
 Matthew, Cropper, and others ; and after some blows Turner, seeing 
 Katherin Pycas coming towards them in great haste, and others following 
 her with staves and other weapons. Turner and his party departed from 
 the green to a lane a little beneath Frenche's house, and then Katherin 
 Pycas asked Turner ' ' what have you to do here } and will you shew 
 your authority ?" Whereupon he refeiTed to the deed and grant to Lord 
 Buckhurst, and the letter of attorney to deliver seizin. They then asked 
 how Mr. P'arnam came by it } and he said by the Queen's Majesty's letters 
 patent. Then she said that her title was good, and that she had proved it 
 before the Queen's Majesty's commissioners. Whereupon Turner answered 
 that if her title were good, that which he did could do her no hurt, and 
 wished her, if her title were good, to shew it to Lord Buckliurst by her
 
 1 82 Glimpses; of Our Ancestors. 
 
 counsel ; and he thought if her title fell out better than his lordships, she 
 would find that favor that he would not shew her. She said that she would 
 shew it to my lord and my lord's betters, and to them that would not be 
 afraid to sliew it him, and that it was but a private thing, and that my lord 
 would stop a poor man's living. Turner then said " there is a better way," 
 and then went into a field, and she remained in the lane, and then went 
 again after Turner and his friends with her comjiany with staves. Turner 
 asked her what she made in that ground, and she said it was her land, and 
 Turner said it was Heniy Payne's during his lease, and she answered, he 
 should not enjoy it, and bid her men drive them out, and follow them, 
 "you Berkshire gentlemen, you think to make me stoop to you, but I will 
 never do it ; " whereunto he answered, " no, good gossip, I mean it not," 
 and so departed homeward and returned not. 
 
 Gilbert Sackfyle, aged sixty-eight years of age, said he was not present 
 near Frenche's door where the words were supposed to be spoken, but he 
 did hear the portion about it not being further from her, if her title were 
 good. And afterwards meeting with her again, she said "we may thank 
 you for all this," and further, " willnot you say as yonder Jack hath saith?" 
 «' What is that .?" "Many," said she, "he said my Lord of Buckhurst 
 is above the Queen," whereupon Sackville answered "he has too much 
 wit to say so." "And will not you say so .'"' quoth she twice together. 
 " No, marry, will I not," said he ; but whether she said that the words were 
 concerning the Queen, that the Lord Buckhurst was above the Queen in 
 this respect, he knew not. 
 
 John Fryer confirmed the memorandum of the conversation as set down 
 by Turner a few days after the discourse. 
 
 Edmund Tompson denied that those words, nor were the like spoken in 
 his presence, and he was near enough to hear ; and Payne and Flud confirmed 
 him. 
 
 As no measures were taken by the Privy Council against 
 John Turner, either for sedition or anything else, we may 
 conclude that Mistress Katherin Pycas failed in her little 
 plot. What her interest, or that of her husband — who never 
 appears in the affair at all, but leaves all to the management 
 of his wife — was in the land in dispute, we are not told. In 
 all probability the land of the dissolved Bramblctye Chauntry, 
 or its usufruct, had fallen in some way to her; she told Turner 
 that " it was her land," and " that her title was good and that 
 she had proved it before the Queen's Majesty's Commis- 
 sioners," adding "that it was but a private thing, and that 
 my Lord (Buckhurst) would stop a poor man's living." To 
 maintain her hold upon the land, and keep out the attorney 
 of the opposite party, it was not a bad device of Mrs. 
 Katherin Pycas to set up a charge of sedition. A very little 
 foundation was sufficient in those days, when the air of
 
 A Stissex Sedition. 183 
 
 England was full of sedition, or the suspicion of it, for such 
 a charge, and half the time of Elizabeth's Council was 
 occupied in detecting or enquiring into conspiracies against 
 her person or Government. In this case, however, the motive 
 was too obvious and the grounds of the charge were too 
 trivial; and the "Sussex Sedition" never went beyond the 
 above stage. The Chantry lands of which John Turner 
 " made liverie and seizin " for my Lord Buckhurst by virtue 
 of a deed from John Farnham, to whom they had been 
 granted by the Crown on the dissolution of the Chantry, 
 passed doubtless into the hands of that powerful nobleman, 
 and Katherin Pickas, after fighting a stout battle for her 
 rights, or those of her husband, whatever they were, had to 
 smother her griefs and put up with her loss. 
 
 V^e\(^^/^y
 
 ^^^J 
 
 Witchcraft in Stissex, 
 
 E need hardly remind our readers that, in the 17th 
 
 century, the most enlightened men believed 
 
 in 
 
 witchcraft, and that Judges like Sir Matthew Hale 
 sent poor old women accused of dealing with his 
 Satanic Majesty to the stake. It is not, therefore, to be 
 wondered at that country Justices fell into the same delusion; 
 it was a part of the religion of the day. Sussex was never 
 the scene of such wholesale witch-drownings and burnings 
 as disgraced Lancashire and some other counties ; the 
 infamous witch-finder, Hopkins, did not travel so far south. 
 But that, if he had done so, he would have found the soil 
 ready for him may be judged by the curious narrative 
 contained in the IMS. collections relating to Sussex, left by 
 the Rev. W. Hayley, rector of Brightling, to the British 
 Museum. The date of the incidents referred to is supposed 
 to be about 1662. We give it verbatim el literatim : — 
 
 At Brightling, in Sussex. 
 
 As touching ye Relation of ye Brightling Story, which is in substance 
 undoubtedly true, however some circumstances of it may var}', be pleased 
 to take ye following account. 
 
 On Monday was three weeks at or near ye house of Joseph Cruttenden, 
 of Brightling, an old woman about noon came to a sei-vant girl of the said 
 Cruttenden's and tells her sad Calamities were coming upon her Master 
 and Dame, their house should be fired, and many other troubles befall 
 them, but tells this Girl withal, That if she spake of what she had told 
 her, ye Devil would tear her to pieces, otherwise she need not fear, for no 
 hurt should come to her. 
 
 The same night, as the man and woman lay in bed, Dirt and Dust was 
 thrown at them, but they could not tell whence it came; They rise and 
 pray, during wliich the disturbances cease. Some say they went to bed 
 again, but finding ye same trouble they are forced to rise. Tuesday, about 
 noon, Dust and Dirt, and several things are tlirown at them again ; before 
 night, a part of one end of tlieir house fired ; they rake it down, it Hashes 
 somewhat like gunpowder; as tliey slopped it there, it began in another 
 place, and then in another, till the whole house was burnt down. Some 
 say something like a Black Bull was seen tumbling about ; ye certainty of 
 which I aver not. The house, though it burned down to the ground, it 
 flamed not. The night was spent in carrjing away goods, or one thing or
 
 Witchcraft in Sussex. 185 
 
 another, to one place or another, they I think remaining most ^vithout 
 doors. Thursday Colonel Busbridge (whose house the former was, being 
 acquainted with ye man's sad accident), bid them go into another of his 
 Houses in ye Parish, whither, when ye Goods were brought, such like 
 Disturbances were there also ; ye house fireth, endeavours are made by 
 many to quench it, but in vain, till ye Goods are thrown out, when it ceased 
 with little or no help. 
 
 In this condition none durst let them into their doors ; they' abide unde- 
 a Hut ; ye Goods are thrown upside down ; Pewter Dishes, knives, Brickr 
 bats strike them, but hurt ym not. Mr. Bennett and Mr. Bradshaw, 
 Ministers, came to pray with ym, when a knife glanced by ye Breast of 
 Mr. Bennett, a Bowl or Dish thrown at his Back, but while at Prayers 
 quiet ; they were without doors, there being very many present, a wooden 
 Tut* came fl}ing out of ye air, by many, and came and struck the man ; 
 as likewise a horse-shoe ; which was by some laid away, and it was 
 observed of its own accord to rise again and fly to the man, and struck 
 him in ye midst of a hundred people. 
 
 Upon strict examination ye man confesseth that he had been a thief, 
 and did it [the theft ?] under ye Colour of Religion, Sabbath day. Ye 
 girl told her Dame ye former story of ye woman's discourse ; she is sent 
 for and examined before Capt. CoUins and Mr. Busbridge, and she is 
 watched and searched twenty-four hours ; the girl saith she is like ye 
 woman, but I thinli will not swear it is the same. This woman was 
 formerly suspected to be a Witch, had to Maidstone about it, but got 
 away, and hath Hved about Bunvash some time since ; her name I know 
 not. Tuesday Four Ministers kept a Fast, Mr. Bennett,Weller, Bradshaw, 
 and Golden. Since I hear not of any trouble. 'Tis said that they are in 
 a Bam or Alehouse. While they lay without doors, ye woman sending 
 some meal to a Neighbour's to make some bread, they could not make 
 it up into Loaves, but it was like Butter, and so they put it into ye Oven, 
 but it would not bake, but came out as it went in. 
 
 This relation came from Mr. CoUins, who was an Eye -Witness to 
 much of it. 
 
 The late Mr. Lower, in sending this curious narrative to 
 
 the Sussex Archaeological Society, adds that the Captain 
 
 Collins and Colonel Busbridge referred to in it were " both 
 
 men of good family and county magistrates." They, as well 
 
 as the four Ministers, Messrs. Bennett, Weller, Golden, and 
 
 Bradshaw, were evidently firm believers in the existence of 
 
 witchcraft, and any unfortunate old lady who had been 
 
 accused before them of that crime would have stood a very 
 
 poor chance of escape. In this instance, as in so many 
 
 others, it seems most likely that the inventor and actor in 
 
 the above incidents was a girl. It was to the servant-girl of 
 
 Joseph Cruttenden, the supposed victim of witchcraft, that 
 
 * tut, I suppose to be a word used in Sussex for scoop to lade water. — [M. A. Lower.]
 
 1 86 Giifnpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 "an old woman" comes and discloses the " sad calamities" 
 that were coming upon her "Master and Dame," and, of 
 course, in due time, they do come, and the house is burnt 
 down, and all kinds of pranks are played at the expense of 
 her master and mistress. They remove to another house, 
 and the same "disturbances" take place. Of course the 
 servant-girl was present on these occasions, and she was the 
 only person interested in making her story of the old 
 woman's prophecy come true. " Ye girl told her Dame ye 
 former story of ye woman's discourse," she (the woman) is 
 sent for and examined before Captain Collins and Mr. 
 Busbridge, and she is " watched and searched twenty-four 
 hours ; the girl saith she is like ye woman, but, I think, will 
 not swear it is the same." This passage, by the unknown 
 narrator, refers to some old woman, who, on the girl's 
 testimony, was taken up on suspicion, "watched and searched 
 twenty-four hours," and had, it is evident, a very narrow 
 escape from conviction as a witch, having been " formerly 
 suspected to be a witch, had to Maidstone about it, but got 
 away, and hath lived about Burwash some time since." 
 
 Poor old lady ! She was nearly falling a victim to a 
 cunning girl's tricks and love of mischief. Not only in the 
 witchcraft of olden days, but in the spirit-rapping and other 
 delusions of modern times, it is remarkable how readily 
 children and young people have lent themselves to the 
 imposition and taken a delight in making fools of their 
 elders. If the great majority of so-called supernatural 
 visitations, from those which troubled the household of John 
 Wesley's father down to our own times, could be traced to 
 their real source, they would, we believe, be found to lie, as 
 they did in this case at Brightling, in the morbid craving for 
 excitement and love of deception so often found in children 
 and servant-girls.
 
 The Antiquity of Brighton as a 
 Health -Resort. 
 
 RIGHTON, as a place of resort for health or 
 pleasure, is older than most of our " Guides " 
 and "Handbooks" give it credit for. Dr. Russell, 
 of Lewes, has long enjoyed the fame of "discover- 
 ing it," because he wrote a book on the salubrious effects of 
 sea-bathing, as though that were new to the world ! But the 
 fact is, Brighton is referred to as a place of resort — for health 
 or pleasure, or both — long before Dr. Russell's time. 
 
 One of the earliest references to it as a place of resort is 
 contained in a letter written from Brighton in July, 1736, by 
 the Rev. William Clark, rector of Buxted, to a friend of his 
 (Mr. Bowyer) in London : — 
 
 We are now, he says, sunning ourselves upon the beach at 
 Brighthelmstone, and observing what a tempting figure this island must 
 have made in the eyes of those gentlemen who were pleased to take the 
 trouble of civilising and subduing us. The place is really pleasant ; I 
 have seen nothing in its way that really out-does it ; such a tract of sea, 
 such regions of corn, and such an extent of fine carpet, that gives your 
 eye the command of it all. But then the mischief is, that we have little 
 to do ; we have little conversation beside the clamor maritumis, which 
 here is a sort of treble to the plashing of the waves against the cUffs. My 
 morning's business is bathing in the sea, and then buying fish ; and my 
 evening occupation is riding out for air, viewing the old Saxon camps, 
 and counting the ships in the road and the boats that are trawling. 
 Sometimes we give the imagination leave to expatiate a little ; and to 
 fancy that you are coming down ; and that we intend next week to dine one 
 day at Dieppe in Normandy. The price is already fixed, and the wine and 
 lodging there tolerably good. But though we build castles in the air, I 
 assure you we live here underground almost. I fancy the architects 
 actually take the altitude of the inhabitants, and having done so, they 
 lose not an inch between the head and the ceiling ; and then, dropping a 
 step or two below the surface, the second story is finished, something 
 under 12 feet. I suppose this was a necessary precaution against storms — 
 that a man should not be blovvn out of his bed into New England, Barbary, 
 or God knows where. But as the lodgings are low they are cheap. We
 
 1 88 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 have two parlours, two bed-chambers, pantry', &c., for 5s. per week; 
 and if you really will come down you need not fear iia\'ing a bed of proper 
 dimensions, and the coast is safe, and the cannons all covered with rust and 
 grass, the ships moored, no enemy aj^prehended, &c. 
 
 And in a letter written from Brighton to another friend in 
 London, a few years previous to this, he says : — 
 
 Do come and join us here, if you can bear the dullness of this place. 
 We shall be right glad to see you. Here we do just what we like; we 
 are bound by no conventionalities. We dine at one o'clock, and take our 
 tea at five ; and when we have nothing better to do, we roll about on the 
 beach, interrupted by no one, &c. 
 
 This anticipates Dr. Russell, who came to reside in Brighton 
 (from Lewes) in 1750, by 14 years or more. 
 
 Another early reference to it we find in a letter written by 
 Sir Edward Wilson, F.S.A., dated the 1 8th of December, 1759. 
 The writer resided at that time at Bourn Place, Eastbourne. 
 It was in reply to some genealogical question addressed to 
 him by another member of the Wilson family, living in York- 
 shire. Speaking of Bourn Place, which he calls a very fine 
 house, and "the principal seat" of the Earl of Wilmington, 
 he proceeds as follows: — "After his (the Earl's) death it came 
 to his nephew. Lord Northampton, who made it his residence 
 in this country {sic), and he dicing, his brother, the late Consul 
 Compton, had it, whose son, now Earl of Northampton, 
 possesses it, who lately married the Duke of Beaufort's sister, 
 with whom he got acquainted, whilst at Bourn (Eastbourne), 
 at Brighthelmstone, in this county, of late so much resorted to 
 in this county for the sea-water, as Scarborough is in your's." 
 
 This passage, in a letter written in 1759, and referring to 
 a period anterior to that as one in which Brighthelmstone 
 was much resorted to for its sea-water, cuts away some of the 
 feathers usually placed in Dr. Russell's cap. 
 
 A still earlier reference to Brighton, but not of so flattering 
 a character — indeed, the reverse of flattering, and with no 
 mention of sea-bathing — is that of Dr. John Burton, a very 
 learned man — a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 
 and tutor and Greek lecturer there for 15 years. He paid a
 
 Antiquity of Brighton as a Health-Resort. 189 
 
 visit to Sussex in 175 1, to visit his mother, who had married 
 the Rector of Shermanbury, and he kept a journal (of 52 
 pages) in Greek! with a Latin addendum of 14 pages! There 
 is something very comical in this " most learned Theban " 
 coming into a county which, for its backwardness in learning, 
 had been dubbed the Boeotia of England, and setting down 
 his experiences of it in Greek and Latin ! Was it as a pre- 
 caution against the prying eyes of the natives, who, if they 
 could have suspected the Doctor of being "a chiel among 
 them taking notes," and such notes as the one we are about 
 to quote, might have had thoughts of tarring and feathering. 
 Here it is : — 
 
 Proceeding (from Lewes) by the valleys and rideable country [there 
 seems to have been no road] towards the west, about 70 furlongs, we arrived, 
 just as the day was fading, at Brighthelmstone, a village on the sea-coast, 
 lying in a valley gradually sloping and yet not deep. It is not, indeed, 
 contemptible as to size, for it is thronged with people [was it the season ?], 
 though the inhabitants are mostly veiy needy and wretched in their mode 
 of living, occupied in the employment of fishing, robust in their bodies, 
 laborious, skilful in all nautical crafts, and, as it is said, terrible cheats of 
 the Custom House Officers. [An allusion, doubtless, to the smuggling 
 proclivities of our predecessors !] The village near the shore seemed to 
 me very miserable — many houses here and there deserted, and traces of 
 overthrown waUs. For that most turbulent of aU winds with us, the 
 south-west, — 
 
 " The stormy blast across the boundless sea 
 
 Lifts high the waves, while trembles all the earth 
 Beneath hoarse Neptune's heavy-footed tread;" 
 
 Or, to speak in plain prose, the waves at times dashing violently upon the 
 shore, had shakened and loosened some of the rotten foundations ; the 
 ground above had given away; and all the dwellings on it had been at 
 once dragged down and thrown forward into the sea. 
 
 This is, we think, by far the most minute and graphic 
 description left to us of the condition of Brighton in 1750, a 
 century and a quarter ago, after the destructive storms with 
 which it was visited in the early part of the i8th century. 
 But even at that early period the most effective mode of 
 battling with the sea, namely, by groynes, had been discovered 
 and put in practice ; for Mr. W. H. Blaauw, the translator of 
 the learned Doctor's journals, tells us that "the wooden groins, 
 built to retain the drift of the sea (the shingle .'') as a protection 
 against such inroads, are then described with much praise, and 
 Dr. Burton enjoys a delightful walk on the sands, in the purple
 
 1 90 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. 
 
 glow of a calm sunset, until he is warned by a messenger from 
 the inn that supper is ready." 
 
 Only think of the Old or New Ship (perhaps both in 
 existence at that time), or the Bedford or the Albion or the 
 Grand sending to tell iheir visitors that supper is ready ! 
 
 But we have not done yet with our learned journalist, or, 
 
 rather, he has not yet done with our forefathers, nor they with 
 
 him ! For, he proceeds, " Departing therefore to the inn, like 
 
 the heroes of Homer after a battle ( ! ), so did we perform our 
 
 part most manfully and then turned to bed, intending to sleep ; 
 
 but this sweet lulling of the senses was begrudged us by some 
 
 sailors arriving all night long, and in the middle of their drink 
 
 singing out with their barbarous voices, clapping and making 
 
 all manner of noises. The women also disturbed us, quarrelling 
 
 and fighting about their fish." 
 
 "Nor lacked there in the house 
 Mad-footed Thetis with her briny friends." 
 
 Now we see the wisdom of Dr. Burton in jotting down 
 his opinions of Brighton and the Brightonians in Greek !
 
 An Institution of the Past. 
 
 HERE are numerous institutions of the Past the 
 memory of which is fast fading from us, and in 
 some cases the very name is almost lost. The 
 cock-pit, the bull-ring, the whipping-post, the 
 stocks — where are they ? As to the last-named, however, 
 Echo is not without an answer. The stocks still linger 
 amongst us. We believe they are to be seen in some Sussex 
 parishes ; we know that a year or two ago they still graced 
 the entrance to the Parish Church at Shalford, two or three 
 miles from Guildford, for we saw them there in a sound state 
 of preservation. The whipping-post, as an out-of-doors 
 institution, is, we believe, quite extinct, and so is the cucking- 
 stool, the seat of penitence for scolds and slanderers. Who, 
 too, of living men, has ever seen a human being " in irons .'^" 
 The gallows itself is, happily, now hidden from our sight, 
 with all its horrors ; human suffering, in any shape, is no 
 longer held to be a means of softening the human heart, or 
 even of deterring it from the evil of its ways. "The stake," 
 to which men and women true to their faith, and poor old 
 ladies accused of witchcraft, were bound and burnt to death, 
 has long been put away from us as accursed of men, though 
 it is not so long since it went out of use. But, of all the 
 devilish devices used by men to torture one another in 
 countries calling themselves civilised, surely that was the 
 worst which lingered amongst us until nearly the middle of 
 the last century, and the last-recorded infliction of which 
 was in our own county of Sussex.
 
 192 Glimpses of Our Ancestors, 
 
 We refer to the punishment — torture, rather — of "pressing 
 to death." It was resorted to when a man would not plead 
 to a charge, in which case the old judicial system held that 
 the trial could not be proceeded with ! It was one of those 
 imaginary difficulties which learned men, like poor idiots, 
 raise up in order, it would seem, to show the littleness of 
 human wisdom. In the present day we jump over the straw, 
 and, if a prisoner will not plead, proceed all the same to try 
 him. A little more than one hundred years ago the law 
 subjected him to peine forte el dure, that is, they placed him, 
 naked, on his back, on the bare floor of a low, dark chamber, 
 and there it was ordered that as great a weight of iron 
 should be placed upon his body as he could bear — and more. 
 And this process of torture was a long one. At different 
 periods of it he was questioned, and, if he refused to plead, 
 the weight was increased. It might be prolonged for days, 
 and so it was charitably directed that on the first day he was 
 to have three morsels of the worst bread given to him, and 
 on the second day three draughts of standing water; this 
 alternation of diet so to go on, from day to day, till he 
 answered, or, as the judgment ran in later times, "till he 
 died." 
 
 It will scarcely be credited that this horrible punishment 
 was inflicted on a man in this county in the year of our 
 Lord 1736, But such was the fact. It is quoted in a 
 pamphlet by Basil Montague upon the debate in the House 
 of Commons (April 5, 1813) upon Sir Samuel Romilly's Bill 
 on the punishment of treason ; and the victim of it was a 
 man indicted at Lewes for a murder and robbery, and who 
 pretended to be dumb. When brought to the bar, it is said, 
 he would not speak or plead, though often urged to it, and 
 though the sentence inflicted on those " who stand mute" 
 was explained to him. Four or five persons in Court swore 
 that they had heard him speak ; and a boy, who was his 
 accomplice, and had been apprehended, was there to be a 
 witness against him ; yet he continued mute. On which he 
 was carried back to Horsham Gaol, to be pressed to death if
 
 An Institution of the Past. 193 
 
 he would not plead. And this piece of barbarity was thus 
 
 carried out : — 
 
 They laid on him first lOO weight ; then added lOO more, and then 
 made it 350 lbs. ; yet he would not speak. Then, adding 50 lbs. more, 
 he was just about dead, having all the agonies of death about him, when 
 the executioner, who weighs about sixteen or seventeen stone, laid himself 
 upon the board which was over him, and, adding to the weight, killed 
 him. 
 
 This is believed to have been the last instance of " pressing 
 to death " in England. It was time enough ! As a conse- 
 quence of the man's refusal or inability to answer, his name 
 remains unknown. The charge against him (and of this 
 there is little doubt he was guilty), was for murdering and 
 robbing one Elizabeth Symonds, at Bognor. 
 
 The torture was inflicted at Horsham, where the County 
 Gaol then was ; and there is a tradition of the place which 
 indicates the horror with which the deed was regarded. The 
 body of the man he had killed was placed by the executioner 
 in a wheelbarrow for interment in the churchyard. But, in 
 passing the spot where now stands the King's Head Hotel, 
 he threw it out of the barrow, and then, taking it up again, 
 proceeded to the churchyard, where it was buried. The 
 story now runs that, some time afterwards, that very execu- 
 tioner, passing the spot where he had thrown the body out, 
 dropped down dead. 
 
 This was the peculiar way, in times gone by, of showing 
 the popular sense of diabolical acts. They could not prevent 
 them, but they called down God's vengeance upon them.
 
 GLEANINGS in EAST and WEST SUSSEX. 
 
 Lindfield : Its Colony, Schools, Church, &c. 
 
 S Midhurst may be taken as a typical country-town 
 of West Sussex, so Lindfield may stand for a 
 typical country-town of East Sussex. Both have 
 many things in common : rivers, commons, and 
 woods. But the woods, common, and river of Lindfield are 
 widely different from those of Midhurst. Both, too, have 
 the Downs in their close vicinity ; but the Downs of West 
 Sussex and the Downs of East Sussex have each a beauty of 
 their own. The Downs of West Sussex are dotted with parks 
 and enriched by the foliage of the beech, the elm, the plane, 
 the chestnut, and the tulip tree. The Downs of East Sussex 
 (Brighton being the point of division between the two) are 
 virtually treeless ; and as much of the beauty of the Western 
 Downs undoubtedly lies in their woods, so the peculiar charm 
 of the Eastern Downs lies in the absence of trees — in the 
 unbroken lines in which they sweep along, rising and sinking 
 in every variety of rounded and undulating form, and answer- 
 ing in their play of light and shadow to every change of the 
 atmosphere, almost as much as the sea itself does — now 
 illumined by floods of light, or frowning beneath ominous 
 thunder clouds, or wrapped in a vapoury mist ; more 
 frequently, perhaps, presenting a combination of these 
 effects of light and shadow — the former on the high crests 
 of the hills, the latter in the deep hollows — contending with 
 each other for supremacy. Happy the eye and the mind 
 which can appreciate the charms of both these aspects of
 
 A Cottage uf "The Colony. 
 
 The Manor House of the Challoners.
 
 Lindfield: Its Colony^ Schools, Church, &€. 195 
 
 Nature — those which the wooded Downs of West Sussex 
 present and those which characterise the unwooded Downs 
 of East Sussex. 
 
 Lindfield is bounded on nearly all sides by the unwooded 
 Downs, which form a feature in the points de vue from its 
 more elevated sites, and it has woods on every side ; but not 
 the stately woods of West Sussex. At Lindfield we are in the 
 heart of the old Sussex Weald, or Wild, the Sylva Anderida of 
 the Romans, and we touch, to the north, on the relics of that 
 great primeval wood which still exists in the Forests of Tilgate, 
 St. Leonards, and Ashdown, finding their point of junction at 
 Balcombe. The very name of Lindfield* indicates that it was 
 originally a clearing made in this great wood, before it was 
 thinned by the axe to smelt the ore of the iron-masters whose 
 mills and forges came close up to Lindfield. One, at least, 
 of the families that drew their riches from this source (the 
 Burrells) still have a residence (Ockenden) in the neighbour- 
 ing parish of Cuckfield. By this cause the original woods 
 round Lindfield were swept away, and those that have partly 
 replaced them are on a smaller scale and consist of firs and 
 larches, with a scattering of oaks and beeches. The hedge- 
 row timber is chiefly oak, of a small kind, but famed for its 
 hardness, and the enclosures being small, it makes a feature in 
 the view ; but there are few, or none, of those giants of the 
 forest which meet the eye at Cowdray and Easebourne,f or 
 those imposing masses of foliage which darken the hill-sides 
 or fill up the glades and valleys round Midhurst, Goodwood, 
 and Arundel. These latter, and, indeed. West Sussex generally, 
 are aristocratic in their character. Lindfield, and, as a rule, 
 East Sussex, are democratic. There has not been for some 
 centuries past a " great family " in or near Lindfield to impress 
 a character of exclusiveness on it, to hedge it round and 
 impress on its visitor a sense (often an oppressive one) of 
 
 * It is, says Mr. Lower, pure Anglo-Saxon, and a simple combination of Und, the 
 Time tree, -iViAjeld, a tield— " the field where lime trees grow." 
 
 t The principal exception, the well-known " High Beech" on the Ardingly Road, 
 was blown down in the great gale of 1882.
 
 196 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 greatness, such as INIidhurst and Petworth, Goodwood and 
 Arundel rejoice in or suffer from ! Lindfield has not grown 
 up "under the cold shade of aristocracy," but with a kind of 
 natural freedom, which shows itself in the long and mixed 
 line of houses and cottages, of all sizes and characters, and 
 every style of building, which form its High Street, and most 
 of which are faced by a garden. Midhurst, as we point out in 
 the paper on that place, is without this feature, and, as at 
 Arundel, the close-pressing park swallows up one side, at 
 least, of its main street. But Lindfield is free, open, and 
 unconfined on all sides, and it has grouped itself in a natural 
 manner on the little hill that, winding downwards from the 
 church for some quarter of a mile, ends southward in the 
 village pond and the beautiful Common. 
 
 The absence, for a long period, from the neighbourhood of 
 Lindfield of any great family — the decay and disappearance 
 of the original owners of Pax Hill, Board House, and Wakehurst 
 Place, the De la Bordes and the Culpeppers ; the dismantle- 
 ment and virtual destruction of Kenward's, the chief residence 
 of the Challoners ; and the desertion of East Mascalls, formerly 
 the family-house of the Newtons and the Noyes — these 
 facts have doubtless had their effect on the present state, and 
 even appearance, of Lindfield ; leaving the land round it 
 more free and open, and affording room for those smaller 
 landed proprietors whose houses, such as Sunt, Buckshalls, 
 and Bedales,* are scattered around, to which have been added 
 of late years more modern erections on the many beautiful 
 sites in or round the village. f 
 
 But the decay of the old families left the lower classes with- 
 out that protection which they found in earlier days under the 
 great nobles, such as West Sussex possessed in the Howards, 
 
 • The respective residences of Mrs. George Catt; Lieut. -Col. Dudley Sampson; and 
 the Rev Frederick \\ illctt. 
 
 + Of these numerous modern m.Tiisions that stand in or ahout I.indlield we may 
 name " Finches," the residence of James Frocter, Esq.; " .'Summer Hill," of Chas. ('att, 
 Esq.; " Beckworth," of Wm. Blahcr, Esq.; "Great Walstead," of S. C. Gihhons, I'^sq.; 
 " Milton House," of Rohert C"au<lle, I^s(i.; "The Welkin," owned by C. B. Warrc, Fscj.; 
 " Gravelye House," by Mrs. A Lawrie ; " Walstead House," by Mrs. A. H. Davis, and 
 " Norrington," by Chas. Fleet, Esq.
 
 Lhidjield: Its Colony^ Schools, Church, &c. 197 
 
 the Percies, the Brownes, and the Lennoxes. The Pelhams, 
 who succeeded the Challoners as Lords of the Manor of Lind- 
 field, lived at a distance, and their landed interest in the place 
 was not great. The result was, that when "bad days" came for 
 the farm labourer, as they did after the great struggle with 
 France, he fell into a state of pauperism and ignorance 
 which threatened to demoralise the class. Education at 
 Lindfield for the people there was none. The living (a 
 " Peculiar," under the Archbishops of Canterbury) was a very 
 poor one, the great tithes being owned by a lay impropriator; 
 the Church was dilapidated ; there were no schools ; and the 
 labourers' thatched cottages were becoming more and more 
 squalid, and were over-run by dirty, neglected children, who 
 were chiefly valued by their parents because they gave them an 
 increased claim on the poor-rates. The parish, to use an 
 expression of the day, was " eaten up with pauperism " — the 
 truer version of the case being that pauperism was eating it 
 up — when a new aspect was given to this deplorable state of 
 things by the fact of Lindfield being selected as a field of 
 experiment in Sussex for what was called the Allotment 
 System : a benevolent attempt to rescue the working-classes 
 from pauperism by giving them a share in that land which had 
 passed so completely out of their possession. 
 
 Three gentlemen joined in this patriotic and philanthropic 
 enterprise: the then Earl of Chichester; Mr, John Smith, 
 Member for Bucks ; and William Allen, a Quaker of London. 
 The latter was the active spirit of it. He had been associated 
 with Clarkson and Wilberforce in the movement for the 
 abolition of slavery; with Humphrey Davey and Babington 
 in the diffusion of science ; with Brougham in the extension 
 of popular literature; with Elizabeth Fry in the improvement 
 of our prison system, and with INIackintosh and Romilly in 
 the reform of our criminal code ; and he now, in the period of 
 agricultural depression between 1820 and 1830, diverted his 
 labours to the difficult task of improving the condition of the 
 agricultural labourer. 
 
 It was thought that if the labourer were provided with a
 
 198 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 tidy, well-arranged house, and if to this house were attached 
 an acre or two of ground, he might, by his own efforts, 
 keep himself from going to the parish, and also be enabled 
 to pay such a rent for the tenement and the land as would 
 return a fair interest upon the outlay. To test this, a couple 
 of farms — Gravelye farm and Scamp's (afterwards called 
 Penn's) farm — were bought at Lindfield ; the greater part 
 of it poor land, lying between woods upon the slope above 
 the Common south-eastward. Here three sets of cottages — 
 six to a set — were built : the first of a superior character, 
 and let at 3s. a week ; the second middling, and let at 
 28. 6d. ; the third inferior, and let at 2s. ; but all much 
 better in every respect than the ordinary labourer's cottage ; 
 and to each cottage was attached a bit of land ranging from 
 an acre to two acres or more, according to the character of the 
 cottage. On their completion, Mr. Allen went to a parish 
 meeting and told the parish officers that he had built some 
 cottages and wanted tenants for them, and that the tenants 
 he wanted were industrious men with large families, and he 
 didn't care how large the family was, provided the man was 
 industrious. This, it need hardly be observed, was the very 
 class who were the recipients of parish relief. One man and 
 his family had had above ^80 in three years; he became a 
 tenant of the "Colony," and from that day forward he ceased 
 to be a pauper. Others followed; for there was a comfortable 
 home and land to be had for a mere trifle, and the strongest 
 love of an Englishman is, for a home and land. And so, in 
 a short time, all the tenements of what was by some called 
 "The Colony," and by others "America," were occupied, 
 and a social revolution commenced in Lindfield. 
 
 We visited these cottages in 1852, and described them 
 at the time in a series of papers in the Brighton Herald from 
 which we will take a few passages, which are still a correct 
 description of "The Colony:" — 
 
 I visited one of each class, bet^inniiif^ witli the lowest — the 2s. a-week 
 tenements. They are long, low, thatched cottages, with a good-sized 
 kitchen, and three bedrooms connected by a long passage — all on the
 
 Lindfield: Its Colony, Schools, Church, &c. 199 
 
 ground-floor. These cottages are only one room deep, and no staircase. 
 The inconvenience is, the length of the house — 50 or 60 feet, and the 
 distance between the extreme rooms. This is remedied in the second or 
 2s. 6d. a-week cottages, the rooms of which are two-deep, and so lie 
 more compactly together. The out-houses to both consist of bakehouse 
 (with good oven and copper), woodhouse, piggery, well, wash-house, &c., 
 with plenty of spare room at the back ; whilst in front run the long 
 slips of ground, averaging an acre to each, cultivated either as garden or 
 arable ground — with fruit trees, or wheat, beans, vegetables, &c. 
 
 In one of the 2s. tenements I spoke to a woman — healthy and strong — 
 who said she had been a Avidow five years, and had brought up nine 
 children — two were with her now. She had grown wheat upon part of 
 her ground, and there was the produce in a neat little stack ; and there 
 were beans, &c., for the two fat pigs in the sty. She said she could 
 manage to keep herself pretty well with her pigs, her fruit, her bees, &c., 
 though this year the help she needed cost her more than usual. She 
 seemed cheerful and contented. Her next-door neighbour — an intelligent- 
 looking, tidily-clad man, of about 40 — was standing at his door. He and 
 his father had been tenants ever since the cottages had been erected. He 
 got, he said, 12s. a-week as a labourer, and did not see why a man should 
 have less than 2s. a-day. From enquiries I had made in other quarters, I 
 found that los. was the average wages in the neighbourhood, and in 
 winter 9s. or is. 6d. a-day. But the men who got these wages were not 
 in a situation, like our friend of the Colony, to demand higher ; they had 
 not, like him, an acre of good land to fall back upon; they must either take 
 the 9s. or los., go to " the house," or starve. 
 
 The next set of cottages, at 2s. 6d. a-week, are much superior to the 2s. 
 tenements. Tliey are slate-roofed, with stuccoed fronts, instead of mere 
 mud and beach ; and their rooms, though all on the ground-floor, are, as 
 I have said, two-deep. These tenements, like the other sets, stand by 
 themselves, and are built two and two — each couple in the form of a "T — 
 the down-stroke representing the out-houses — woodhouse, bakehouse, 
 piggery, wash-house, &c. — facing each way, so that one building provides 
 out-houses for two tenements. These are strongly built and well arranged. 
 So are the cottages themselves. I went into one at random. The 
 mistress of the house — a good-looking woman — was busily engaged in 
 drjing her clothes (the day having been wet), and being surrounded by 
 half-a-dozen little children, who had just come from school, she was, as 
 might be supposed, in a little bit of a pother — yet all was clean and neat; 
 the woman was cheerful ; the children happy ; and there was that 
 unmistakeable air of comfort which bespeaks abundance. The wife 
 opened the doors of the sleeping-rooms — three in number — and the bed- 
 hanging and bed-clothes were as white as snow. The husband showed 
 me his woodhouse and piggeiy and garden — the latter full of fine fruit 
 trees, planted chiefly by himself. Half his garden was so occupied ; the 
 produce of the other half stood in the shape of a plump little stack of 
 wheat. He had grown, he said, two quarters on half-an-acre. He 
 intended to thrash it himself, and smiled when I asked if he sent any to 
 market. He had, he said, seven children, and they did not let any 
 crumbs fall under the table. He, too, had held his tenement from the 
 time of William Allen, and spoke of him as one the like of whom he did 
 not expect to meet in this world. 
 
 Passing on to the third set of cottages, 3s. a M'eek, which stand on a 
 higher elevation, on a line with Gravelye House (the former residence of
 
 200 Gleanincrs hi East and West Sussex. 
 
 William Allen, but at this time, 1852, the residence of the Rev. Mr. 
 Johnson, the Incumbent of Lindfield), a still higher degree of comfort met 
 the eye. These cottages are such as any member of the middle ranks 
 might be haj^py to occupy — indeed, two of them were now tenanted by 
 respectable tradesmen ; but the others were still occupied by the original 
 occupants, and one of these, Edward Cook, was a labourer on Gravelye 
 Farm when William Allen bought it, and went from the farm to his 
 present home, in which he has brought up seven or eight children, now all 
 out and settled but one, who lives with his parents. Edward Cook is still 
 a healthy, stalwart man, with handsome features, ant! of frank, open address. 
 When asked by my companion (a patriarch of the village) what he thought 
 of William Allen ? — " What do I think of William Allen V he replied, 
 " Why, William Allen was the best man that ever I knew. He was the poor 
 man's friend. Many a time has William Allen come to me and said, ' Well, 
 Edward, dost thee want a little money?' Mayhap I did, but I couldn't tell 
 when I could ])ay it back again. 'Nevermind that, Edward; there is_^io, 
 and after harvest I dare say thee will be able to pay it.' And he would never 
 ask me for it again, though I always found a way to pay the money, in bits." 
 So spoke Edwaid Cook. I should observe that this tenant rented seven acres 
 of land in addition to the acre attached to his house. It was a rule with 
 William Allen that a man should have as much land as he could cultivate 
 properly, but then, to ensure proper cultivation, these extra acres were let 
 at the usual rent, 30s. an acre ; and of these Cook had, and still has, 
 seven — consisting of a meadow and some corn-fields, to raise oats for his 
 horses— he being a carter. 
 
 I was anxious to know what kind of land the " Colony " was when it 
 was first planted ; and my companion told me an anecdote illustrative of 
 the point. After Farmer Simmonds — who must have been a shrewd old 
 customer — had sold the land to William Allen (or to John Smith, Member 
 for Bucks, and father of John Abel Smith, M.P. for Chichester — for not 
 even the tenants of the land or the builder of the cottages ever exactly 
 knew which was the owner — William Allen or John Smith — such bosom- 
 friends were they) — but when Farmer Simmonds had sold Gravelye Farm, 
 he said to William Allen, pointing to the land between Bent's Wood and 
 Sergison's Wood, down which run the plots of the Colony, " The best 
 thing you can do with that, Sir, be to turn out colts on it. 'Tis a hungry 
 soil, and eats up everything you put into it, and makes no return. It 
 owes me ;^200, does that piece of land." The object, however, of the 
 purcliaser was to turn out men — independent men — working for themselves, 
 upon it, and not colts. Perhaps he recollected the saying of Arthur 
 Young — " That a sure holding will turn a rock into a garden ; an insecure, 
 a garden into a desert;" for though the land was not given in fee to the 
 occupants of it, nor is it even held on lease, yet the rent was never raised, 
 nor was the tenant ever disturbed during good conduct. The estate 
 passed away, at the death of William Allen, into the hands of the Rev. 
 Mr. Scutt, and is now held by his son-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Johnson, 
 Incumbent of Lindfield ; but, to the honour of that gentleman be it said, 
 the colonists remain undisturbed — many, intleed, work for him — and the 
 rent of their cottages and ground is the same as that paid to the founder. 
 However, whether William Allen thought of Arthur Young or not, he 
 turned out his men, and the place only fit for colts was soon converted into 
 a garden. Not that he left all to the tenants' unaided efforts. Allen was 
 a practical chemist ; he preceded Liebeg in the ajiplication of science to 
 the cultivation of the land. He had a pit in which he tested various
 
 Lindfield: Its Colony, Schools, Church, &c. 201 
 
 substances as manure, as whale's blubber, &c., and the land of the Colony 
 had, doubtless, the benefit of his experiments, as the tenants had of his 
 counsels and encouragement. Was there an empty pig-sty ? "What! 
 no pig ? " said the kind-hearted old man, " thee must have a pig." And 
 lo ! there was a grunting in the stye. After another ^^sit, the village 
 shoemaker (I have his word for it) would suddenly make his appearance in 
 the Colony, and begin measuring the ill-shod feet of half-a-dozen children. 
 He had his orders, and no bill was ever sent in to the parents — no name 
 breathed. 
 
 From his house at Gravelye, William Allen looked down on his Colony, 
 and it flourished beneath his eye ; for he appealed to the best feelings of 
 Englishmen — the love of home and independence ; and I believe it is a 
 fact that no member of the Colony ever went to the parish for relief. 
 
 One condition the tenants of the "Colony" amply fulfilled : 
 they all had tremendous families — six, seven, eight, nine, and 
 even ten and twelve children. It is so still : children swarm 
 in the "Colony" to such an extent that it has been nicknamed 
 "the Warren." But the founder of the "Colony" was not 
 the man to encourage the growth of population and let it run 
 to seed. Jointly with the homes for the parents he raised 
 schools for the children — a plain, humble-looking building, 
 facing the Common, and in this the benevolent effort of the 
 philanthropic triumvirate to reclaim the farm labourers of 
 Lindfield was carried out with complete success for above 50 
 years — up, indeed, to the year 1882, when the School was 
 closed as a voluntary institution, owing to the election of a 
 School Board and the erection of Board Schools in the parish. 
 
 A description of these schools (which were opened in 1825 
 by the then Earl of Chichester), as we saw them in 1852, will, 
 we think, still be read with interest : — 
 
 These Schools are in as full and efficient operation now (1852) as when 
 they were first founded. In 1851 they were attended by 175 children, who 
 came from all parts of the neighbourhood — from Hayward's Heath, 
 Wivelsfield, Worth, Ardingly, and even as far as Ditchhng— distances of 
 three, four, five, and even six' and seven miles. On a fine morning — aye, 
 and even when the sky looks black and threatening — you may meet the 
 little travellers trudging along the country lanes and roads, with their 
 dinners in their httle baskets slung before them, with clean and cheerful 
 faces, tidy clothes, and those rosy cheeks and blue eyes which attest their 
 Saxon origin. Question them and you will receive a ready answer, and a 
 bow or a curtsey^ by the fashion of which you may soon know a scholar of 
 the Lindfield Schools. As nine o'clock approaches they gather together 
 in front of the Schools — on the Common and on the wide roadsides, and 
 at nine they enter the spacious school-rooms, from the walls of which are
 
 202 Gleaimigs in East a7id West Sussex. 
 
 suspended well-selected lessons in which the great truths of Christianity 
 are taught in the simplest and yet most sublime of language. 
 
 The Schools are divided into three compartments — the first and largest 
 for the boys ; the second, for tlie girls ; the tliird, for infants of bf)th sexes. 
 The system of instruction is adapted from that of Joseph Lancaster, and 
 the copy-books of the lads, their slates, and their ready answers to questions 
 in arithmetic, geography, &c., speak for the progress they make. The 
 boys generally have an intelligent look. Some of the elder ones have their 
 little classes around them, and boys in round frocks, and with ruddy, rustic 
 faces, such as one generally sees at the plough's tail, act the part of school- 
 master to a little circle with a gravity and a readiness which prove them to 
 be masters of their part. I asked the names of one or two of the boys, 
 and soon found that it is not only the labouring classes who avail them- 
 selves of these schools. The sons of respectable tradesmen and of 
 substantial farmers were seated at the same desk with the children of 
 labourers. A day or two afterwards, falling into discourse with a farmer 
 who has the reputation of being the " heaviest " tenant-farmer in the 
 parish, I found that he had a son at the Lindfield Schools, and he said the 
 boy got on very well — better, he thought, than he had done at the Hurst 
 College, from which he had taken him. I do not know what they teach at 
 the Hurst College, or what the scholars ])ay ; but at these Lindfield Schools, 
 the boys are taught to write and read and cypher well — in the latter 
 department they go as far as algebra, mensuration, (i'c, and they understand 
 what they are taught ; and for this education the boys pay 3d. per week ; 
 the girls, 2d.; and the infants, id. This rate, however, is reduced if there 
 are more than one child in a family. Thus, if two attend from the same 
 family, they pay only 2d. each ; if three, only id. each ; and if there are 
 four, they pay nothing. So, too, as a premium for regular attendance, if 
 a scholar attend every day in the week, he may claim his money back again. 
 The above scale is so low that there are few labourers who cannot now-a- 
 days send their children to receive a good English education. 
 
 Passing through the girls' room, where all is order and industr}', we 
 come to the Infant School — perhaps the most interesting of the whole. 
 Here there were some 40 or 50 little things ranged in rows upon scats rising 
 one above another at one end of the room : from the mere baby of eighteen 
 months up to four or five years old. When one rellects upon the task of 
 managing one child of such tender age — to say nothing of two or three — 
 by what species of disci])line can 40 or 50 be brought into anything like 
 order 1 If, one would think, a " reign of terror " were justifiable any 
 where, it would be here. Yet, so far from this, there is an utter absence 
 of all severity — all rigid discipline, all restraint or monotonous order — and 
 yet there is no noise or disorder. Tlie little things, bo}s and girls, little 
 and big, sit together on tiers of seats, and arc free to shift themselves about 
 and indulge in that restlessness which is the characteristic of childhood, 
 and to curb which is to torture them. They may vary their position — turn 
 and twist about as much as they please. But the mode of instruction 
 adopted is such as to satisfy this very restlessness, and to gratify that desire 
 of niotion and change which is peculiar to childhood. Either the little 
 hands or the little feet are constantly in motion, or there is something for 
 the eye to rest ujDon or the ear to listen to. Imitative action (acting, in 
 a humble sense), rhymes, pictures, music — these are the agencies by which 
 the mistress of the Infant School instructs and occupies her little pupils. 
 As you enter, at a word they are all on their feet to welcome the lady or 
 gentleman who is come to visit them. Then, the mistress, placing herself
 
 Lmdfield: Its Colony, Schools, Church, &c. 203 
 
 in front, repeats some rhyme, with suitable action, descriptive of the many 
 familiar objects, or figures, or occupations about us, and a forest of little 
 hands and arms are engaged — perhaps in describing circles, semi-circles, 
 parallel lines, &c., &c., which one wonders at seeing thus made a source of 
 amusement, as they e\idently were, to children scarcely able to hold up 
 their little arms. Some little things, unable to keep up with their elder 
 and more advanced school-fellows, showed their sense of the fun by clapping 
 their little hands together ; and one, more ambitious than the rest, in a 
 desperate attempt to illustrate 
 
 " This is what I do when I tie my shoe," 
 
 turned a summersault right over, displaying as sturdy a pair of legs as ever 
 carried so little a body. How strongly these games interested the children 
 was shown by a little incident which fell under my notice, and which I 
 cannot help telling, though I fear it is a terrible breach of confidence. 
 When the game commenced, the mistress observ-ed that one of the youngest 
 infants — " baby Saxby " she called her — was amusing herself by sucking a 
 piece of pipe which she had brought in with her from the play-ground. 
 " Put that down, baby Saxby," said the mistress, and baby Saxby' s hand 
 instantly disappeared behind her, and her large blue eyes were fixed hard 
 upon the mistress, who very quietly took the pipe away from baby Saxby 
 and went on with the game. But I had noticed what the mistress had not 
 — that baby Saxby had a piece of pipe in each hand, and no sooner was 
 the mistress's eye off than up went the pipe again to the little mouth, and 
 baby Saxby looked as if she had half-a-mind to be a naughty baby. But 
 as the game went on, and as the children proceeded to describe " This is 
 the way the miller goes," &c., baby Saxby got so thoroughly interested in 
 the part she was playing, and into such good humour with herself and all 
 her baby-world, that, by-and-by, she stepped out of her place, and, going 
 up to the mistress with the other piece of pipe in her little hand, laid it on 
 the table. The good genius of the game had triumphed over the evil genius 
 of the tobacco-pipe ! Then there was a march round the room, after the 
 mistress, still repeating instructive rhymes ; and then, the infants resuming 
 their seats, one bright-looking little fellow, some three years of age, was 
 called down from the ranks and placed in front of his fellows, who were 
 invited to test his powers of spelling, which they did by putting words to 
 him which would have staggered many an elder scholar, and I could scarcely 
 believe my ears as I heard one little urchin of four or five require another 
 still younger to spell elephant, rhinoceros, and even hippopotamus, each of 
 which was rattled off, with a vast number of other words of smaller calibre, 
 as quickly as they were put. Then a slate was produced, on which the 
 visitors were invited to write what figures they pleased, in tens or hundreds, 
 and no sooner were the figures chalked up than a dozen little figures were 
 signalling their eagerness to answer. Questions in addition and division 
 were equally well resolved, by boys and girls — and all \vith the most 
 evident delight and without the slightest appearance of en^'y. The girls 
 were less forward than the boys in offering to answer questions, but when 
 called on by the mistress they were equally quick in replying. Some of 
 the children were perfect specimens of Saxon beauty — large blue eyes, 
 flaxen hair, and cheeks as red and white as the softest peach. One or two, 
 however, were little dark gipsy beauties, with sloe-black eyes and raven 
 hair. All the time these exercises were going on, one little thing was 
 snuggled up in one corner of the room on a bed which is always kept for 
 children too young to keep awake during the hours of school.
 
 204 Glea7iings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 If William Allen (who died in 1843) could have witnessed 
 this scene — and it was continued until our own days under 
 the admirable mastership of Mr. J. Wells — and could have 
 marked the change for the better which was wrought by his 
 " Colony" and schools in the moral and physical condition of 
 the labouring classes of Lindfield and the adjacent parishes, 
 he would have held himself well repaid for all his labours 
 and outlay. Seldom has a scheme of philanthropy been 
 better and more successfully carried out than that of the Earl 
 of Chichester, John Smith, and William Allen, at Lindfield. 
 If Lindfield is now one of the neatest, cleanest, and most 
 prosperous, as well as prettiest villages or towns (it now boasts 
 itself a town by virtue of the powers under the Local Govern- 
 ment Board by which it is paved, lighted, drained, and 
 "governed") in England, it owes it in no small degree to 
 the work of William Allen and his coadjutors. Of course, 
 since the Elementary Education Act, and even earlier than 
 that, by the waking-up of the Church and nation to their 
 duties of instructing the people, other rural parishes vie with 
 Lindfield in the excellence of their elementary schools. But, 
 in a day of darkness, indifference, and general depression, 
 Lindfield and William Allen led the way in the work of 
 raising the status of the labourer and educating his children; 
 and it still "marches on" in it. 
 
 The "Colony" and the schools have taken us somewhat 
 away from Lindfield itself, to which we will now return. 
 Approaching it from the Hayward's Heath Station, from 
 which it is distant about a mile, Lindfield street can scarcely 
 be said to commence until we reach the village pond — a 
 large sheet of water, round which the road makes a bend, 
 and then the street runs up in a somewhat winding fashion 
 to the Church, with that intermixture of houses, high and 
 lowly, old and modern, square and pointed, wood and brick 
 and stone, gables and non-gables, shops and private dwellings, 
 which marks a true English village. And we doubt if a more 
 perfect or favourable specimen of an English village can be 
 found in all England than Lindfield. Where there are
 
 Lindfield: Its Colony, Schools, Church, &c. 205 
 
 gardens in front of the houses, they are neatly kept and 
 full of flowers and shrubs. But on the western side of the 
 street a grassy slope runs from the footpath down to the 
 road, with here and there rows of limes and poplars in front 
 of the houses ; and down this grassy slope you may see 
 children rolling and tumbling with that delightful sense of 
 security which can never be enjoyed by a juvenile population 
 within a dozen miles of those mystic letters "H. C. S." The 
 road is a good road, as it ought to be, if only for its past 
 fame — for did not the far-famed "Times," and "Age," and 
 " Comet," roll along this road on their way to London ? — 
 and did they not pull up amidst admiring groups of villagers 
 and ostlers at the " Red Lion " (Callow, who kept it at one 
 time and still lives at Lindfield, was one of Crossweller's best 
 whips), the "Bent Arms," and the "Tiger" Inn? — inns 
 that still show their signs to passers-by, but the glories of 
 which passed away with the days of coaching and posting. 
 One other remnant there is of the days of turnpike-road 
 greatness, and that is, a turnpike gate, nearly in the middle 
 of the village, which takes a toll of 3d. or 6d. from every 
 hapless traveller that drives up Lindfield street. 
 
 On arriving at the top of the street, the Church meets the 
 eye, with its spire of oak shingles, which, whitened by the sun, 
 forms a conspicuous object for many a mile. The high-road 
 passes by it on to London ; but in a diversion which it makes 
 round the Church is to be found the most interesting feature 
 of Lindfield in an archaeological point of view. This is the 
 ancient Manor or Dower House of the Challoners — built in the 
 reign of Elizabeth and occupied by that family until their grow- 
 ing fortunes led them to build a more stately and solid house on 
 the opposite side of the road. This, called " Kenward's," 
 no longer exists, whilst the more lowly Manor House, after 
 many ups and downs, still stands in almost its original 
 freshness. It is, in its external aspect, almost a /ac simile 
 of Shakspeare's house at Stratford-upon-Avon, and in its 
 interior it has one relic of its palmy days in a room completely 
 panelled with oak. The exterior has been well restored
 
 2o6 Gkaninos in East and West Sussex. 
 
 within the last twenty years by the then owners, the Noyes, 
 and it is admirably kept up by its present owner, Mr. 
 Kempe. Previous to that it was in danger of utter ruin. 
 For a time it was the workhouse of the parish ; on its 
 abandonment for that use, labourers occupied it until it 
 became too dilapidated and dangerous for the poorest of 
 these, and then it remained empty until, as we have said, the 
 late Mr. Noyes, with a spirit that did him honour, restored it, 
 as well as the adjoining cottage of the same date. 
 
 Being now close to the Church, we will enter it, though, 
 in an archaeological point of view, it will be only to be dis- 
 appointed. The fabric itself is in good repair, and is very 
 complete in its proportions, with its nave, aisles, and transepts. 
 But, at a restoration which took place in 1848, it was swept 
 clean of the tombs and memorials of the Challoners, the 
 Newtons, and the Bordes, which then existed, in stone, metal, 
 and in glass. An artistic curiosity which was discovered at 
 the time, in the shape of some mural fresco paintings (one 
 representing St. Michael weighing a sinner's soul, the dragon 
 at his feet, and with St. Margaret standing by as a witness of 
 his equity) was also effaced, but not before a drawing of it 
 had been made by the late Mrs. Bigge and transferred to 
 the pages of the Sussex Archaeological Collections. 
 
 About half-a-mile to the west of the Church stood 
 Kenward's, the great house of the Challoners ; but the only 
 portion of it that now remains is the stables, turned into 
 a farm-house. The fall of the family, whose possessions are 
 said to have extended in the 17th century from Lindfield 
 nearly to the sea, was a sudden one. The last owner of 
 Kenward's, Robert Challoner, was a Major in the Parliamen- 
 tary Army and a warm supporter of the Protector. In the old 
 Parish Register^ which records the christenings, burials, and 
 weddings of the good people of Lindfield from the year 1558 
 to 1690, there is one whole page and more, from 1655 to 1659, 
 occupied by the record of the labours of Major Challoner in 
 marrying and giving in marriage. The entries are brief enough,
 
 Liyidjield: Its Colony, Schools, C/mrch,&'c. 207 
 
 as doubtless was the Major's Service. The first on the list is 
 "Edward Bannister, of Hartfield, to Margaret Ogborn, of the 
 same, married, at Kenward's, by Major Challoner, Oct, 1655," 
 and then followsa long list of couples from Clayton, Ditcheling, 
 Lyndfield (so spelt), Chiltington, Bolney, East Grinstead, 
 Cuckfield, and even from Danefold, in Surrey, and Marden, 
 in Kent — showing how, far and wide, the people must have 
 come to Kenward's to be married " by ye Major," as the 
 registrar expresses it for brevity. These marriages all seem 
 to have been solemnised at Kenward's, the Major's house, 
 and not in the Parish Church of Lindfield, and of course 
 the Service was looked upon as a civil contract, and not a 
 religious rite. At the Restoration, Major Challoner had 
 to seek safety in flight, and he seems to have failed to 
 make his peace with the new powers. The Kenward's 
 estate and the Manor of Lindfield passed eventually to the 
 Pelhams, with whom the Challoners had intermarried, and 
 the Challoners themselves, once so numerous and flourishing 
 in Sussex, passed, like the Culpeppers, the Lewknors, the 
 Shirleys, the Coverts, the Bordes, &c., out of the roll of 
 Sussex gentry. The Bordes, however, lingered to a later 
 date, thanks to their loyal proclivities. The last male repre- 
 sentative of the family, William Borde, or Board, as the name 
 came to be spelt, was still remembered by old residents of 
 Lindfield in 1 850. He resided at Pax Hill, the most picturesque 
 building in Lindfield, with its seven gables ; the two large 
 flanking ones covered (in 1856) with ivy, from which it was 
 difficult to distinguish the dark grey sandstone of which the 
 house is built. At this time, and for some years afterwards, 
 there was an air of decay and neglect about Pax Hill, as 
 though it were about to suffer the fate of East Mascalls. On 
 the death of William Borde the estate was divided between 
 his three daughters, one of whom brought Pax Hill to her 
 husband, Capt. Gibbs Crawfurd, as her dowry. The son of 
 this Capt. Crawfurd only left daughters, the eldest of whom 
 became the wife of Arthur Smith, Esq., the brother of the 
 well-known Albert Smith, by whom at this time the Swiss Chalet
 
 2o8 Glea7ii7igs m East and West Sussex. 
 
 adjacent to Pax Hill (now owned by the Hon. Mrs. Needham) 
 was built and occupied ; and here he was visited by Charles 
 Dickens, and other literary celebrities. But Mr. Arthur Smith 
 dying without issue, his widow parted with Pa.x Hill, which 
 passed first into the hands of the Noyes, the owners of East 
 Mascalls (deserted at this period) ; then into those of Mr. 
 Northall Laurie, by whom it was restored and enlarged — its 
 character, indeed, altogether changed ; and eventually it was 
 bought by William Sturdy, Esq., by whom it is still owned 
 and kept up in a style worthy of its pristine glories. 
 
 So Pax Hill has been more fortunate than Kenward's, 
 though the Bordes, like the Challoners, have disappeared 
 from the roll of Sussex gentry. 
 
 Pax Hill was not the earliest dwelling-place of the Bordes 
 in Lindfield. They had another and older house, which still 
 exists, and which was called, after them, Borde or Board 
 House. It was not till 1622 that Pax Hill House was built, 
 and its name betrays its ecclesiastical origin, and only becomes 
 intelligible when we learn that a religious house of some kind 
 once stood on this spot — not, indeed, on the site of the present 
 house, but, as tradition points out, beneath it, nearer to the 
 banks of the river Ouse, in the meadows between the present 
 house and the London road. But here, as at Kenward's, it is 
 in vain that we look for any vestiges of the past. The chapelry 
 has been swept away even more completely than the house. 
 A tradition of a Priory or Nunnery having stood here still 
 remains; but Mr. M. A. Lower rejects it as unfounded, though 
 not without some grounds for belief. 
 
 Lindfield (he says) beintj an outlying and important Manor of the 
 Canons of Mailing, they would naturally establish here a manor house or 
 grange, to which, in all probability, a chapel would be attached, where 
 service would be performed for the benefit of tenants and dependants. 
 Such a little household, presided over by a canon, and including a few 
 ser\-ing brethren, would not unnaturally come to be regarded as a Priory. 
 Indeed, in the statutes of the College of Mailing, it is expressly stipulated 
 that the Dean himself may reside at Lyndefelde, "for the collection of the 
 autumnal fruits and for the better edification of the people," three months in 
 every year, without infringing the oath of residence at the College which he 
 took at his appointment. This shows the importance of the Manor at that
 
 Lind/ield: lis Colony^ Schools, Church, &'c. 209 
 
 period, as does also the fact that, in the vSeventeenth year of Edward III., 
 the Dean and Canons obtained for it a Charter for a market and two 
 annual fairs. 
 
 Lindfield and its vicinity are rich in roads and woods. 
 Go which way you will — north, east, west, south — you will 
 find yourself going over a good sand-bottom road, bordered 
 on each side by an over-hanging wood or else beautiful 
 hedges, almost as high as those of Jersey. The soil doubtless 
 is peculiarly favourable for roads. It is generally of sand, 
 and the water drains off it so quickly that you may walk 
 immediately after the heaviest rains. But if you happen to 
 be caught in a shower, you can never be at a loss, in this 
 well-wooded country, for shelter. Even the hedge-rows are 
 full of fine timber, chiefly oak. It is, indeed, an oak country. 
 To many people perhaps the English oak, as typical of the 
 country in which it is supposed to grow so abundantly, is a 
 myth. The elm, the beech, the chestnut, and other trees are 
 much more common all round London and in most of our 
 noblemen's parks. To see a thorough oak wood and oak 
 country, we would advise a visit to Lindfield and the neighbour- 
 hood. There you may see the noble tree by itself, growing 
 straight and sturdy out of a hedge-row, with its thick, short 
 stem, its rough coat, and its wide-sweeping branches, or you 
 may see it with hundreds of others, growing to a greater 
 height, as oaks will when planted together, but yet of a bold, 
 rugged freedom and wildness of culture as opposed as can 
 possibly be to the straight, regular, stiff-looking pine or the 
 aristocratic elm and chestnut. We know of no stronger 
 contrast in the aspect of Nature than is presented by the two 
 woods — Oate Hall or Bent's wood, and Petlands or pine 
 wood — which lie between the "Colony" and the Common, 
 and by which Lindfield may, in summer, be more pleasantly 
 approached from the Railway Station and over the Heath than 
 by the high road. Enter the oak wood, and there is an irregular 
 mass of foliage before you, mixed up with the sky and distance 
 in charming variety and confusion — the very artless beauty of 
 Nature, careless how she stands, confident in her attractions. 
 P
 
 2IO GkaimiQs hi East aiid West Stcssex. 
 
 It is a rustic beauty, with sturdy limbs, ruddy hue, scattered 
 tresses— beautiful in the absence of art. Pass on a few yards, 
 and you come to the pine wood. Enter that, and what a 
 different scene strikes you ! Equally beautiful, perhaps, 
 but a beauty made up of such different elements. The tall 
 shafts of the trees rise up to a height of a hundred feet or 
 more, without leaf or limb, and stand in regular order, like 
 rows of columns in a vast temple ; and turn which way you 
 please, long vistas run before you, and the air is as still, and 
 the ground as smooth, as though you were shut in by a roof; 
 only by looking up you perceive that overhead there is a 
 covering of leaves, in which the birds chirrup, and on which 
 the sun shines, but neither the birds nor the sun ever visit 
 the still, quiet, lifeless atmosphere of this pine wood. 
 
 We have wandered from our way. Had we gone on 
 without pause, we should have reached ere this the Holy 
 Well, which, though in Horsted Keynes parish, is not above 
 a mile and a half from Pax Hill, and is well worth a walk, 
 through high hedge-rows, with ever and anon a peep of the 
 beautiful country that lies stretched before you, taking in the 
 forests of Ashdown and St. Leonards, the villages of Horsted 
 Keynes, Ardingly, and Easthoathly and their churches, and 
 presenting a perfect specimen of that undulating country, 
 well covered with wood, which characterises the Weald of 
 Sussex. The Holy Well — a place of no small reputation in 
 the neighbourhood, and with its traditions of wonderful cures 
 — is a mineral spring, that rises in an open basin some six or 
 eight yards in diameter, in a field by the road side. The line 
 of the spring is marked by the bushes which grow on its 
 banks, till it flows, about thirty yards on, into one of the 
 tributaries of the Ouse. The basin is circular, and not quite 
 in the centre you perceive, at a depth of about four or five 
 feet, an orifice about half-a-foot wide and perhaps a foot 
 long, and from out of this fissure in the earth bubbles up the 
 spring, at the rate, it is said, of two butts a minute, and 
 certainly in such quantities that it supplies a stream of water 
 nearly sufficient to turn a mill below. The water is of beautiful
 
 Lindfield: Its Colony, Schools, Church, &c. 211 
 
 clearness ; but the mineral matter with which it is charged 
 colours everything that it flows over, and the fallen leaves 
 at its bottom are as yellow as gold, being encrusted with the 
 mineral substance deposited by the stream. The well, properly 
 so called, is reported to be unfathomable ; but on thrusting 
 in a pole lying near, as if intended for that purpose, at about 
 seven or eight feet there was an obstruction — the pole would 
 go no further ; but whether because it had reached the bottom 
 or stuck against the side of the well, we will not undertake to 
 say. In all probability the spring has its fountain-head 
 in the forest to the north, and takes up the oxide of iron 
 which enters so largely into the soil in this part of the country. 
 
 There are few districts in which the eye can take in at one 
 glance so many village spires. Looking from Skames Hill — 
 the high point at the eastern extremity of the parish — 16 
 churches can be counted in as many villages, and we do not 
 know a more interesting tract of country than that overlooked 
 from this point, taking in as it does the beautiful range of 
 South Downs running from Lewes to Brighton, on a spur of 
 which stands Lewes ; and, turning to the north and the low 
 wooded country which stretches as far as the eye can reach in 
 that direction, we may easily trace the route by which the 
 army of Simon de Montfort marched from London upon 
 Lewes, encamping for the night upon Fletching Common, 
 and attacking the town and Castle, defended by the army of 
 Henry IH., on the western side, now called the Wallands. 
 
 There is only one other point of view near Lindfield which 
 exceeds that from Skames Hill in picturesque beauty, and that 
 is from the highest point of Hayward's Heath. Here, standing 
 in the centre of a beautiful country, the view is on every, side 
 — from the South Downs on the south, with a peep of the sea 
 at Newhaven and a glimpse of Chanctonbury to the west, to 
 the forest of Ashdown on the north. The Heath itself a few 
 years ago was a wild and most picturesque spot, covered with 
 beautiful gorse and ferns, and dotted with clumps of Scotch 
 firs, which still stand and give a character to the spot. But, 
 since the erection of the Sussex Lunatic Asylum and the easy
 
 212 Gleaninors in East and West Sussex. 
 
 access given to the Heath by the London and Brighton 
 Railway, nearly all the traits by which Hayward's Heath used 
 to be distinguished have disappeared. Instead of the gipsies, 
 poachers, and other not very reputable classes by whom the 
 Heath was once frequented, a town with church (St. Wilfred's) 
 and schools has sprung up on the spot, and roads have 
 been laid out by Enclosure Commissioners, not in the best 
 taste, and villas of all sizes and styles of architecture have 
 been built, until the Heath presents few or none of its primitive 
 features. Twenty years ago the only way across it from Lind- 
 field to the Railway Station was by an ill-defined foot-path, 
 through ferns and gorse and over beds of sweet-smelling 
 camomile. Now there is a road (Sydney road) with rows of 
 cottages and villas on each side, and in a short time nothing 
 of Hayward's Heath but its name will remain. This name, 
 by the way, has been a frequent subject of discussion among 
 etymologists. Some ascribed it to the Saxon Chief, Hereward, 
 who kept up a partisan war against the Normans after all 
 organised resistance to them had ceased. Others associated 
 it with a highwayman named Hayward, said to have been 
 hung in chains here ; whilst some only saw in it a corruption 
 of High Wood. But there is no doubt that the real etymon 
 of the name comes from a remoter and humbler source than 
 any of these. In an old charter and in manorial records the 
 spot is designated as "Hogwarden's Hawth," and this points 
 to it as a spot in which the herds of hogs which used to be 
 kept by our Saxon ancestors were turned out to feed on the 
 mast of the beech-trees and the acorns of the oak. It was at 
 this time the centre of a vast forest and the point where several 
 manors and tithings joined. Several parishes still touch each 
 other here, and the divided jurisdiction doubtless contributed 
 to preserve for the Heath that bad character which it long kept 
 from the practices of those who frequented it. The hogs, 
 however, and their wardens or keepers had long disappeared, 
 with the forest and the fruits on which they fed, and in course 
 of time the name was abbreviated to " Hogward's Hawth," 
 and thence, by an easy process, corrupted to " Howard's
 
 Lindfield: Its Colony^ Schools, Church, &€. 213 
 
 Hawth,"* then to " Yeward's Hawth," and ultimately to its 
 present form of " Hayward's Heath." 
 
 The population of Lindfield is now 2,000, and it is a 
 growing one, though not to the same extent as that at 
 Hayward's Heath. Even in 1558, to which year the parish 
 register of "christenyinges, weddinges, and burryinges" takes 
 us back, there were 23 christenings, and in 1850 there were 
 but 50, whilst in 1559 the burials (38) exceeded by six in 
 number those registered in 1851 (32), Most of the names in 
 the register are still common ones in the village or its neigh- 
 bourhood, such as Huggett, Chatfield, Comber, Martyn, Pellatt, 
 Carter, Wood, Boxall, Bannister, Verrall, &c. The Challoners 
 occur early on the register. They were during the i6th and 
 for a considerable portion of the 17th centuries the largest 
 landholders in the parish, and they also flourished in other 
 parts of Sussex. Their decline was a rapid one, and as com- 
 plete as rapid. " I believe," wrote the late Mr. M. A. Lower, 
 " that the name of Challoner is now wholly extinct in Sussex. 
 The younger or Chiltington branch dwindled from gentry 
 to yeomanhood, and from yeomanhood to absolute poverty. 
 The last members of the family were two brothers, Christopher 
 and Nicholas, but more commonly known as Kit and Nick. 
 Kit kept a miserable little school at Ripe, some seventy years 
 ago, and died in Hailsham workhouse ; and Nick sustained a 
 wretched existence by attending fairs and other public gather- 
 ings as a fiddler!" The Challoners of Lindfield, says the 
 same authority, "became extinct in the male line in 1689 or 
 1690, and a co-heiress carried the manor to John Studley, Esq., 
 who died in 1703, and whose representatives conveyed it 
 to the family of Pelham. It now belongs to the Earl of 
 Chichester." f We have not to go far, however, to find a 
 
 • It has been surmised that the name of the famous Howard family is only a cor- 
 ruption of Hog-warden ! 
 
 t And all well-wishers to Lindtield may exclaim, " and long may it belong ; " for in 
 all matters relating to the well-being ot Lindtield the Earls ot Chichester have always 
 been lorward and active. The last act ol muniticcnce on the part of the present Earl 
 has been to give a piece of land (adjoining his former site lor tlie Church Schools) on 
 which to build the necessary addition to the Lindtield Board School. Except for such 
 public puiposes as this the Common is never encroached upon.
 
 214 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 parallel for the fortunes of the Challoners. The Culpeppers, 
 the former owners of Wakehurst Place, in the adjoining parish 
 of Ardingly, could boast of an earlier origin, as far back as 
 King John; their fortunes rose higher; and their name was 
 even more widely spread and their family more numerous than 
 the Challoners. One of them (Sir William Culpepper, whose 
 widow died in 1647) had eighteen children — ten sons and eight 
 daughters; and the effigies of the whole family, in full apparel, 
 from 1633 to 1678, still exist in brasses, let into their tombs 
 of Sussex marble in Ardingly Church. But the Culpeppers 
 are as extinct in Sussex as the Challoners, and if their Sussex 
 residence, Wakehurst Place, which they obtained by marriage 
 with the Wakehurst family, still stands (though not in its 
 integrity), it has long passed into other hands. 
 
 Having named Ardingly and its great house and church, 
 it would be a strange laches on our part not to take notice of 
 one of the " lions " of this part of Sussex : viz., " the Rocks," 
 as they are called, which rise in a valley running parallel with 
 the high-road to London. They now belong to a gentleman 
 named Hill, who has built a house at the northern head of the 
 valley and who allows the public to visit " the Rocks " on 
 entering their names in a visitors' book. It is as curious a 
 spot as Nature, in one of her wildest freaks, ever wrought out. 
 Although, at a distance, the rocks seem to run in a straight 
 line, this order is lost as you get among them, and you see on 
 every side rocks of from 30 to 40 feet in height, and 400 or 
 500 tons in weight, and of every shape, overgrown with 
 beautiful heath and mixed up with varied foliage. In a 
 country of rocks, this might excite no wonder; but the Weald 
 is an open, gently undulating country, with nothing rocky or 
 ragged about it ; and these huge sandstones, thus starting 
 up amidst fern and foliage of every kind, strike you as a 
 phenomenon. It is one, however, not difficult to explain. 
 They are not like the stones of Stonehenge, which stand 
 unconnected with the soil beneath and about them. They 
 are part and parcel of the original soil. They are clearly the 
 result of the action of water upon the soft sandstone which
 
 Lindfield: Its Colony, Schools, Church, ^c. 215 
 
 forms the substratum of so much of the Weald. At some 
 period or another in the world's history a mighty stream 
 poured over and past these rocks, sweeping round the base of 
 some, boiling and eddying and making passages for itself 
 between the huge but not very solid masses; in some instances 
 producing very fantastic shapes, as in the case of the stones 
 called " Big-upon-Little," where a huge rock is so nicely poised 
 upon a smaller one that it seems as if the smallest exertion of 
 power would overset it. Yet there it has stood for centuries 
 and there it is likely to stand if man do not disturb it. These 
 rocks have doubtless a common origin with those of Uckfield 
 and Tunbridge Wells, and add another proof to the theory of 
 geologists that the Weald of Sussex was at one time the bed, 
 first, perhaps, of a vast estuary, which then sank into a river 
 before the waters were finally drained off and left the limits 
 of land and water as we now find them.
 
 East Mascalls a7td Its Owners. 
 
 T is difficult to say which is the sadder spectacle 
 of the two : the decay of an old house or of an 
 old family. The former strikes the senses more 
 forcibly ; there it yet stands with all the signs of 
 past strength and prosperity about it : solid walls that almost 
 defy time — deep embrasured windows, in which one can fancy 
 many a love-tale to have been told — large chimney places, 
 within and around which generations of youth and age were 
 wont to assemble, with all the means of mirth and merriment 
 which we associate with these large low-roofed dining halls. 
 The silence, and cold, and gloom that now prevail in these once 
 noisy and well-warmed rooms, the signs of neglect and decay 
 that meet the eye on every side depress the mind of the visitor, 
 and lead him to sympathise with the fabric that has seen such 
 a change in its fortunes, without any reference to the fate of 
 its owners. These may, perhaps, for aught we know, have 
 abandoned the old house for a newer and a better one ; they 
 may have thrown it aside, as rising men do the ladders on 
 which they mount to fortune — 
 
 " Scorning the base degrees by which they did ascend." 
 
 They may be joyous and flourishing, whilst the "old house" 
 is slowly sinking into ruins. This may be so ; and yet the old 
 house itself appeals to our sympathies almost like a living 
 thing, and almost utters a cry against the neglect or forget- 
 fulness of those who have left it to so melancholy a fate. 
 
 The chances, however, are that if the visitor of the old 
 house enquire into the history of its former occupants he will 
 find that its crumbling walls and sinking floors do but reflect 
 the fallen fortunes of the family which raised them ; that we
 
 
 East Mascalls : The Road Front. 
 
 East Mascalls : The River Front.
 
 East Mascalls and Its Owners. 217 
 
 may look at the old house as a visible representative of the 
 old family, and include both in that feeling of compassion 
 which naturally arises at the sight of an object, which was once 
 strong and beautiful, falling into decay and ruin. 
 
 Such we believe to be the case with respect to East 
 Mascalls, near Lindfield, one of the oldest and most pic- 
 turesque " Houses " that are to be found in Sussex, which 
 was occupied within the memory of man by the descendants 
 of those who built it nearly 300 years ago, but which is now a 
 mere wreck and is rapidly sinking into that squalid state 
 arising from non-occupation which, in the course of a few 
 years, will often degrade the gentleman's mansion into the 
 abode of the pauper or the vagrant. 
 
 The house called East Mascalls is believed to have been 
 built about 1560 or 1570 by a member of the Newton family, 
 the same family from which the great Sir Isaac traced his 
 descent. But the estate itself had been, for many years 
 previous, in the possession of the Mascall family, and hence 
 the name of the place. Even this name of Mascall is, how- 
 ever, held to be only a corruption of Michelborne, the two 
 earliest-named members of the Mascall family being styled 
 (in the entry of a Visitation) as Michelborne alias Mascall. 
 
 It is not, however, with the fortunes of these original 
 possessors of East Mascalls that the present house is associated. 
 They, after a legal contest with the Newtons for the possession 
 of the estate (which the Newtons themselves had bought of 
 Thomas Middleton, to whom it had been sold by a Mascall) — 
 a contest in which they got worsted — pass away altogether 
 out of sight, leaving nothing but a name attached to a spot 
 on which they had lived for centuries. A new house was, 
 in all probability, built by the Newtons out of the remains of 
 the old one ; evidence of this being furnished by the quantity 
 of cut stone used for the foundations of the walls and farm- 
 buildings about the premises. 
 
 The style of the new house was not the characteristic one 
 of Sussex ; its architecture rather resembles that of Cheshire,
 
 2i8 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 in which county a branch of the Newtons were early settled ; 
 the projecting eaves, the curious wood-work that decorates the 
 face of the house, the wooden gables, and the low, rambling 
 cottage-like form of the structure all calling to mind the 
 quaint architecture of Chester, rather than the solid and 
 castellated style of building that prevailed in Sussex 300 
 years ago, of which Amberley Castle, or, at a more recent 
 date (1606), Pax Hill, may be cited as specimens. And 
 nothing more opposite in architecture can be imagined than 
 Pax Hill and East Mascalls, though standing within half-a-mile 
 of each other, and built within the same half-century. Of 
 the two, East Mascalls approaches more nearly to the shape 
 of the Swiss chalet, built a few years ago on the Pax Hill 
 property by Albert Smith, than it does to the ancient residence 
 of the Borde family : the reason, doubtless, being that Pax 
 Hill represents the true Sussex mansion of the period, whilst 
 East Mascalls was an importation from a distant county, like 
 the Newton family itself. 
 
 The Newtons, however, soon naturalised themselves in 
 Sussex. They intermarried with the Challoners, of Kenward's, 
 and the Bordes, of Pax Hill, the two principal families in the 
 neighbourhood, and both now extinct — at least in the direct 
 line. The Newtons also intermarried with the Erley or 
 Earnley family, of Brighton, and so became possessed of the 
 Manor of Erlyes, in the parishes of Brighton, Lewes, and 
 Edburton, and of the Manor House of Ernley, at Brighton — 
 a fabric of which we now know nothing.*" The Newtons, in 
 fact, became a Sussex family, one branch of it living at East 
 
 * With reference to this Ernley family the following note is appended to a genealo- 
 gical notice of the family of Newton, by T. Herbert Noyes, jun., Esq , in vol. ix. of the 
 Sussex Archaeological Collections: — "The family of ICrnley is said to have been 
 originally Krley, and to have derived its name from the village of Ernley or Erley, so 
 called from Eriegc— the eagle's nest. The origin of this Manor of Erleyes at Brighton 
 appears from a hne, passed in 1197 for Sussex and Berks, between Matilda, daughter 
 of Roliert de Eriege, deforciant (petitioner), and John de Krlege, plaintilf (tenant), of 
 two hides of land in Herlege, Reading, and Sunning, for which the said John has granted 
 to the said Matilda a capital messuage in Brictelmeston, and 7 virges of land in the said 
 vill, of whicli one verge is now in the occupation of \Villiam, i virgc of Seredus, i of 
 John Rulfus, I of Ketcre, i of Allstan and Wulwin, and the 2 virges which the said John 
 holds in his demesne, et 3 " coterias," with all liberties and free customs appertaining 
 to the half of his whole fief, i.e., manor, in the said vill, in the land, in the sea, and in all 
 places, to be held of him and his heirs by the service of 24s. yearly, to revert to the heirs 
 of the said John, failing heirs of the body of the said Matilda."
 
 East Mascalls and Its Owners. 2ig 
 
 Mascalls, Lindfield, and the other at Southover Priory, Lewes, 
 another house, not unlike East Mascalls, erected by the 
 founder of the family in Sussex, William Newton. 
 
 We cannot follow the Sussex Newtons for the 200 years 
 during which they flourished in Sussex. They ran their 
 course. As a modern poets sings— 
 
 " They drank the same stream — they felt the same sun, 
 They ran the same course their fathers had run." 
 
 They had their ups and downs, until at last, as is the case 
 with so many great families, the Newtons of East Mascalls 
 merged into a female representative, who married, in 1695, 
 William Noyes, of Reading, the representative of another 
 ancient family. This lady had to establish her claim to the 
 estate by an action against the Southover Newtons, who had 
 taken possession of it. She succeeded in doing so at the 
 East Grinstead Assizes, July 24, 1741, and the estate descended 
 in 1800 to her grandson, Thomas Herbert Noyes, by whose 
 eldest son, Thomas Herbert Noyes, the house of East Mascalls 
 was occupied about 30 years ago, and the old people of Lind- 
 field still remember and speak of the merry goings-on there. 
 The old house must have been well filled then, for Mr. Noyes 
 had a family of twelve children — seven sons and five daughters, 
 and if these could not enliven a house what could ? But other 
 "means and appliances to boot" were not wanting. Open- 
 handed hospitality was exercised at East Mascalls ; the large 
 dining-hall was often filled with guests. "There was a band 
 at Lindfield in those days," said our informant, "and we used 
 to go to East Mascalls when the Squire had visitors, and they 
 used to draw a large screen across the hall, and we used to 
 play and sing behind it. Those were merry days at East 
 Mascalls. The old house looked very different from what it 
 does now." 
 
 Looked very different 1 Yes, it must have done so. Now 
 the chimney places are empty ; the walls have been stripped 
 not only of their paint or paper, but of their wainscot and 
 battens ; in some places the ivy from the outside has grown
 
 2 20 Gleanings hi East and West Sussex. 
 
 through them; the oaken floors have sunk; the ceilings have 
 fallen ; the windows are broken. There is not a piece of 
 furniture in one of the numerous rooms which were inhabited 
 by that numerous family. Yes, we mistake. In two of the 
 ground-floor rooms, when we visited the house a few years 
 ago, there was a wretched bed, a table, and a chair or two — 
 the goods and chattels of two poor women whom the bailiff 
 or agent had kindly allowed to house themselves for a few 
 nights in the family mansion of the Newtons until they could 
 find better lodgings elsewhere. Instead of the twelve little 
 Noyes's, there were three half-starved and almost clothes-less 
 children, whose pinched features and attenuated limbs matched 
 well with the squalid aspect of the old house. The women 
 seemed half scared, half delighted to see visitors less wretched 
 than themselves at the place. But in a short time even this 
 wretched shelter ceased to be afi"orded by East Mascalls, and 
 it was not, and is not, safe to venture within its ruined walls or 
 under its falling roof. 
 
 A glance from some of the higher windows discloses a 
 beautiful view over the wooded country which surrounds East 
 Mascalls ; but the front view into the meadows, through 
 which runs the river Ouse, is somewhat melancholy — the 
 grounds being neglected, the grass rank, and the garden 
 walls dreary. It wants life, and that neatness and cheerfulness 
 which only life can impart. 
 
 The precise date at which Mr. Noyes left East Mascalls 
 we do not know. It had other tenants after him, but not of 
 a class to maintain its olden character. One, we were told, 
 was an adventurer, who hunted, shot, drank, and ran away 
 in debt. Another was a farmer, who was a careful man and 
 did well; but his son, who succeeded, was not careful and 
 did ill, and the farm-buildings, and the water-mill near them, 
 went to decay. They are now mere ruins. The old house sank 
 lower and lower, until it lost all its mansion-like aspect, and 
 nobody, as they now pass ils entrance from the road, would 
 suppose it was anything better than a deserted cottage. All
 
 East MascaUs and Its Owners. 221 
 
 the ground about the entrance is broken up ; the palings 
 have long been carried off; even the huge yew, which must 
 have been a veteran 300 years ago, when the house was built, 
 is now a mere wreck. When we saw it one huge limb lay at 
 the foot of the bare and splintered trunk ; like the Newtons 
 of East Mascalls themselves at the foot of Time 1 
 
 A more recent visit (in 1878) disclosed to us a still lower 
 degree of degradation than is described above. The house 
 was now become too dangerous for occupation of any kind, 
 even by tramps or vagrants. The rafters had fallen in ; the 
 flooring had given way. So far from shutting out cold or 
 rain, there was a clear view right through it — not through the 
 once solid window-frames, which were gone, but through 
 great holes in the walls themselves. It was not a very safe 
 or easy experiment to make our way over. heaps of rubbish 
 and under falling timbers from the entrance which fronts the 
 road to the opposite or more private face of the house, look- 
 ing to the wooded meadows that skirt the Ouse ; but the 
 feat was not without its reward, for on that side some idea is 
 still to be gained of the original character of East Mascalls : 
 the outline, indeed, of the house is perfect in its projecting 
 central porch and its flanking sides which make up the 
 Elizabethan initial ; and a little glass still remained in the 
 upper latticed windows. In this front are the curious oaken 
 scroll ornaments, let in, as it were, into the outer panels of 
 the house; and the Horsham tiles and the yet solid wooden 
 eaves still give an air of solidity to what, in every other 
 respect, is, without and within, a squalid ruin : the skeleton 
 of a once happy and comfortable Sussex mansion.
 
 Midhurst, Cow dray, Woolbediiig, &c. 
 
 HE name of Midhurst* points to its chief character- 
 ristic. It is a town of woods. They surround 
 it as the waves do a boat. Look which way you 
 will, there are the majestic heads of mighty 
 trees peering above the roofs of the houses. Issue from 
 what street you will, in a moment you are in the shade 
 of oak, lime, chestnut, beech, or yew. But, as a good mariner, 
 much as he loves the water, carefully keeps it out of his boat, 
 so have the good people of Midhurst carefully guarded 
 against invasion by the leafy ocean which surrounds their 
 town. In the whole town there is scarcely a tree to be found 
 — and the houses are wholly without that characteristic 
 ornament of our villages and modern towns — a front garden. 
 The main street is broad and spacious ; but it is all thrown 
 into road and pavement : the latter of unusual width, 
 composed of the sandstone which the district abounds in, 
 with white slabs of limestone for a central walk. This gives 
 to Midhurst more the aspect of a French than an English 
 town ; but then its excessive cleanliness, and the want of 
 uniformity in the houses— some built of modern red brick, 
 some of the aforesaid sandstone, and the most ancient of 
 wood — some mere cottages, and some fit abodes for the 
 grandees of a country town, the lawyer and the surgeon — 
 redeem Midhurst from the charge of Gallicism, except, as we 
 said before, in the one point of the absence of the English 
 garden. Singular, thought we. as we sauntered down the 
 street, the sole promenader in itf — in our modern towns, such 
 
 • " Hurst " is Saxon for Wood ; " Mid " is supposed by some to be derived from a 
 Roman station called Mida. 
 
 t The reader will be kind enough to bear in mind that this was written in i860, since 
 which Midhurst has been taken into the systems both of the London, Brighton, and 
 South-Coast and the South-VVestern Railways, and rejoices in Stations of both 1
 
 Midhurst, Cozvdray, Woolbedmg, &c. 223 
 
 as Cheltenham and Brighton, the trees, shrubs, and flowers 
 are in the streets ; get beyond the houses, and you are in a 
 bare waste. But in such old towns as Arundel, Chichester, 
 and more than all, here in Midhurst, the inhabitants keep all 
 green things out of sight as much as possible: like children 
 who have been surfeited with sweets, they turn their backs on 
 trees and flowers. 
 
 But we wont do so, and we warn such of our readers as 
 do not love trees not to go to Midhurst. No matter to what 
 particular species his aversion inclines — whether to oak, lim.e, 
 ash, beech, elm, chestnut, yew, cedar, or such exclusives of 
 the forest as the tulip-tree and the plane — here he will find 
 it in a luxuriance that will appal him as much as the sight of 
 Birnam Wood did Macbeth. In magnificent avenues, a mile 
 long — in towering clusters, visible for miles around — in still, 
 secluded " closes," that for hundreds of years have kept out 
 all but a few faint, struggling lines of light — in the hill-side 
 copse, closing in the corn-field — in scattered groups, and in 
 solitary majesty, in every form and shape does the foliage of 
 trees present itself to the eye, puzzling the taste as to which 
 form is the most beautiful. 
 
 Nature must always have been prodigal of its gifts in this 
 district. The soil— a light red sandstone, so favourable for 
 the growth of trees, watered as it is by a small winding river, 
 the Rother, and by a hundred sparkling rills, that run singing 
 along the road-side ; the situation — the centre of a basin 
 made by the curvature of the Southdowns, which here strike 
 inland between Sussex and Hampshire, and almost join hands 
 with the Surrey hills to the North ; the temperature— so soft 
 that, to one who comes from a more bracing air, it is like 
 velvet to the cheek — soil, site, and temperature all combine 
 to make this a famous country for trees. 
 
 So, doubtless, thought Sir William Fitzwilliam, K.G., and 
 Earl of Southampton, when, in 1553, he obtained the Royal 
 licence to impark 600 acres of land in Easebourne and 
 Midhurst, and to call the same Cowdray Park. Not less
 
 2 24 Glea?iings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 favourable, too, must have been the Earl's opinion of 
 Midhurst as a residence for man ; for on the skirts of the 
 Park, with only the river between it and the town, he built a 
 stately edifice — there are the ruins now before us, scarcely 
 distinguishable from the ivy which has climbed up and now 
 waves victoriously over them : *' the ruins, these, not of Time, 
 or of Man's hand, but of a casualty which befel the edifice 
 almost in our own days. 
 
 But we are anticipating events. From the Earl of 
 Southampton the estate of Cowdray passed into the hands of 
 Sir Anthony Browne, K.G., and Viscount Montague, and it is 
 with the fortunes of this family that Cowdray is most closely 
 connected, and from which it derives both an historic and 
 a romantic interest. Sir Anthony Browne, first Viscount 
 Montague, was one of those Roman Catholic noblemen who, 
 like the noble Howard of Effingham, were at the same time 
 ho7is Catholiqiies and faithful subjects to the Crown. His 
 religion did not impair his loyalty. He was "of the Council" 
 both to Mary and Elizabeth ; he went to Rome for the elder 
 and to Parma for the younger sister, as Ambassador of 
 England, and performed many other services both in the 
 field and in the Cabinet. In acknowledgment of these 
 Elizabeth paid him a visit in one of her Royal Progresses 
 (in 1591), and stopped five days at Cowdray. A spot — an 
 open circular space — is still pointed out (in the Close Walks) 
 where the Virgin Queen partook of refreshment in a summer- 
 house overshadowed by hundreds of yew trees, amidst 
 which the Queen doubtless strayed, listening now to her 
 sage statesmen — her Cecils, her Bacons, and her Brownes ; 
 and now to her sighing lovers— her Dudleys, her Raleighs, 
 and her Devereux. But all earthly glories must have a term. 
 Sir Anthony Browne died, and was laid in Midhurst church 
 by the side of his two noble wives, whose virtues and his own 
 services are still recorded upon the family mausoleum, which 
 
 • Recently, by direction of the present possessor, the Earl of Egmont, the ivy has 
 been removcU from a portion of the ruins, showing more distinctly the stonework of 
 the windows, &c.
 
 Mid hurst, Coivdray, Woolbeding, &€. 225 
 
 has been removed from Midhurst to a small chapel erected 
 for its reception and that of later monuments of the family 
 near the church of Easebourne. 
 
 The Lords Montague who succeeded Sir Anthony seem to 
 have remained stedfast to the old religion until the seventh of 
 the line, and he became a Protestant. He also enlarged the 
 Park, and tradition still points to one magnificent clump of 
 chestnuts, close to the town, as having been planted by him. 
 He left two children — a daughter and a son — the last Lord 
 Montague. The story of this young nobleman's death has 
 often been told ; but such incidents never lose their hold 
 upon the mind. The last Lord Montague, then, whilst still 
 in the prime of youth, left England (in 1793) on a Continental 
 tour. His companions were a Mr. Burdett, and an old and 
 faithful servant. On arriving at the falls of the Rhine at 
 Lauffenberg, he and his friend formed the rash project of 
 passing the rapids in a boat — a feat which had never been 
 accomplished, or even attempted, by any visitant. The 
 project, it seems, came to the knowledge of the authorities 
 of the place, and they, knowing that inevitable destruction 
 would overtake the rash adventurers, placed guards to prevent 
 the attempt. Lord Montague, however, and his friend found 
 means to elude these, and were entering the flat-bottomed 
 boat they had provided, when the young nobleman's servant 
 instinctively seized his master by the collar, declaring that he 
 should forget the respect of the servant for the duty of a 
 man. His efforts, however, were in vain; the young nobleman 
 extricated himself from his retainer's grasp, with the loss of 
 part of his collar and neckerchief, and the two young men 
 pushed off. They got over the first fall in safety, and began 
 to shout and to wave their handkerchiefs in token of success. 
 They then pushed down the second fall — by far more dangerous 
 than the first : after which they were no more seen or heard 
 of. The supposition is that they were carried away by the 
 violence of the rapid and their boat jammed between the two 
 rocks. The servant of Lord Montague remained three weeks 
 near the falls, bewailing the fate of his beloved master, who 
 
 Q
 
 226 Gleaninors in East and West Sussex. 
 
 had thus, in the prime of life, fallen a victim to a spirit of 
 rash adventure. 
 
 The intelligence of this melancholy accident, by which 
 the direct line of the Viscounts Montague became extinct, 
 had not yet reached England when the family mansion at 
 Cowdray was destroyed by fire ; originating, it is supposed, 
 in the carelessness of the servants engaged in cleaning it. 
 When this paper was written there were yet old men living 
 (the day of the calamity was September 24, 1793) who 
 remembered seeing the reflection of the fire at many miles' 
 distance. Little or nothing was saved of the magnificent 
 pictures and valuables— the accumulation of ages— with which 
 the house was filled. Many of these, impaired by the flames, 
 are said to have been concealed by the country-people who 
 flocked to the spot ; some few, of little value, are still pre- 
 served in the houses of the Steward and the Gardener. The 
 frescoes with which the walls were covered, of course, perished 
 with them ; and all that now remains of the magnificent edifice, 
 erected by the Earl of Southampton and ornamented by the 
 Browne family, are the ivy-covered fragments of the walls, 
 by which the extent of the building may still be judged. 
 
 The letter bearing the intelligence of this calamity to Lord 
 Montague crossed, on its way to Germany, another letter, 
 bearing to England the news of the death of the Viscount at 
 Lauff"enberg. 
 
 The calamities of the race did not end here. We have 
 said the seventh Viscount Montague left a daughter as well 
 as a son. This young lady, on the death of her brother, 
 inherited the vast property of the Brownes. She became the 
 wife of W. S. Poyntz, Esq., and the mother of two sons and 
 three daughters. Although no attempt was made to rebuild 
 Cowdray House, Mr. Poyntz lived on the estate, in a lodge 
 which he built on a higher point in the Park about half-a-mile 
 from the old House, going at certain periods with his family 
 down to the sea-coast, where he had a pretty place, called the 
 Pavilion, at Aldwick, near Bognor. It was here that a catas-
 
 Midhurst^ Cowdray, Woolbeding, &"€. 227 
 
 trophe occurred which put the climax to the misfortunes of 
 the Browne family. Mr. Poyntz and his two boys were fond 
 of boating, and were in the habit of making excursions on 
 the sea in the vessel of an experienced boatman, named Allen. 
 So close was the house to the water, that from the drawing- 
 room windows Mrs. Poyntz and her daughters could watch 
 the course of the boat. They were doing so one fine day, in 
 the summer of 18 15, when, to their horror, they beheld the 
 boat upset and disappear. A sudden gust of wind had 
 capsized it, and the whole of the occupants were struggling 
 in the water. Allen was a first-rate swimmer, and, seizing 
 hold of Mr. Poyntz, he was able to sustain him until help 
 arrived; but the two unfortunate youths perished beneath the 
 eyes of their parents. 
 
 In the mausoleum we have before spoken of, at Easebourne, 
 are two modern pieces of sculpture : one (the figure of a 
 mourning female, by Chantrey) raised in 1840 by her husband 
 to Mrs. Poyntz, "as well (so runs the inscription) to com- 
 memorate her virtues and his own affliction as to record the 
 untimely death of their two only sons, unhappily drowned, in 
 the flower of their youth, under the eyes of their parents, in 
 the year 1815." The other (that of a man in a bending 
 position, by IMonti) was erected in 1848 to their father by his 
 three daughters : Frances Isabella, Lady Clinton ; Georgina 
 Elizabeth, Countess Spencer; and Isabella, Marchioness of 
 Exeter. 
 
 Of Mr. Poyntz it is recorded that he never afterwards 
 could endure the sight of the sea. He survived Mrs. Poyntz, 
 the last member of the Browne family, eight years. Her 
 memory is still cherished in the place of her birth and death 
 as that of a noble, a pious, a generous, and a tender-hearted 
 woman. In spite of the melancholy associations of the spot, 
 her aff"ections still clung to Cowdray, and at her wish her 
 body was placed in a coffin made of those noble trees which 
 grew on the estate, and was thus exposed to the weeping eyes of 
 those among whom her family had lived for nearly three 
 centuries.
 
 228 Gkanincrs in East and West Sussex. 
 
 This is a melancholy episode in the annals of Midhurst. 
 Let us get back to the trees. The avenues and the "close 
 walks" of Cowdray far surpass anything of the kind that can 
 be found at Arundel, at Goodwood, or in any other Sussex 
 Park. The whole Park is belted in by them. Starting from 
 the Midhurst Gate, an avenue of splendid limes — one mass 
 of sweet-smelling blossom in Spring — takes one to the Ease- 
 bourne gate, and here commences an avenue of Spanish, or 
 sweet chestnuts, which extends for three-quarters of a mile to 
 a wicket-gate, leading from the Park into the other extremity 
 of the village of Easebourne. The fruit of these splendid 
 trees is given to the poor of the place, and it is no slight 
 boon ; as many chestnuts as would produce £"] or £% have 
 been gathered from one tree, and there are some hundreds 
 of them. From the other chestnut trees with which the 
 Park abounds, 400 bushels of fruit have been frequently 
 gathered, and sent into the London market. 
 
 Extensive and delightful as are the walks open to the 
 public in Cowdray Park, those portions reserved for the use 
 of the family vie with, and in some respects excel them — not 
 in the extent of the avenues, or the magnitude of the clusters 
 that crown the highest points, or in the gigantic proportions 
 of the patriarchs of the Park that here and there stand alone 
 and apart, the last remnants of a race which has long been 
 transformed into those floating leviathans that bore England's 
 thunders at the Baltic, the Nile, and Trafalgar.* Not in 
 these respects could the more open part of Cowdray Park be 
 surpassed ; but in the private walks, that reach from the old 
 ruins to the kitchen-garden — some half-mile or more in 
 length — the foliage is of a difi'erent character: less grand 
 and massive, but more sylvan. Light and elegant, interlacing 
 their branches in every direction, the rarest trees of the forest 
 shoot up high into the heavens, the light of which struggles 
 
 * The ijardener of Cowdray, speaking of these old oaks in i860, told us that he had 
 it from Mr. I'oyntz, his old master, that the Fark and its vicinity once abounded with 
 them ; but that in 1793-4-5 they were felled and sent to Portsmouth and Plymouth for 
 Government use. They have done their work !
 
 Midhurst, Cowdray, Woolbediiig^ &c. 229 
 
 down in broken patches through their feathery foliage, or 
 darts through some distant vista. Walks, bordered with 
 rhododendrons, of a tropical growth, ten and twelve feet 
 high, and rich with ferns and feather-grass, wind in every 
 direction, now touching on the Park above ; now leading to 
 the brook below, which divides the walks from the meadows, 
 through which flows the Rother, and from the neighbouring 
 corn-fields, where the reapers are now at work. To paint 
 such scenes as these would baffle the most skilful artist in 
 words or colours. To enjoy them, ah I how short a time was 
 ours I Here lies the pity of it. These delightful walks, 
 which once resounded with the laugh of the young and 
 beautiful,* are now deserted and neglected ; their only 
 denizens — the rabbits that run across your path at every 
 moment, and the squirrels that leap from bough to bough 
 above your head. Nothing can destroy the charms of this 
 sylvan spot; but there is something melancholy in the 
 reflection that the race for whom these walks were formed, 
 and by whom they were enjoyed for so many ages, had, by a 
 series of remarkable calamities, become extinct. The owner 
 of Cowdray in 1870 was the Earl of Egmont, a nephew of 
 the ill-fated Minister, Perceval. He acquired the property 
 by purchase, and only visited it in the shooting season. 
 Dying in 1874, the property descended to his nephew, the 
 present Earl, who has no family. 
 
 Wc have spoken of the village of Easebourne, which, for 
 a mile or more, in scattered cottages, skirts the Park wall. A 
 prettier village, or one with a fairer air of prosperity, is not 
 to be found in Sussex. The flower-gardens in front of the 
 cottages here make up for the deficiency at Midhurst. It is 
 astonishing how strong is the love of flowers in our English 
 peasantry. Garden or no garden, they fill their windows with 
 them, and train them up their walls and over their porches, 
 until their cottages, as some of these at Easebourne, are 
 
 * They were fully kepi up by Mr. Poyntz when his house was the home of three 
 beautiful young women— all heiresses— and the resort of the noblest of the land, who 
 came as suitors.
 
 230 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 masses of vegetation. And yet along the road-side the 
 honeysuckle and wild rose and briony and wild convolvulus 
 overgrow the hedge ; in every field are to be found the fox- 
 glove, the hare-bell, and a hundred other wild flowers ; and 
 if you wander over the Common, it is to tread upon heath of 
 every hue and to breathe an air impregnated with the perfume 
 of the camomile. 
 
 But the Common does not lie upon the side of Easebourne. 
 The river flows and the town stands between the Park and the 
 Common — those rural antagonisms. And to which shall we 
 give the palm of beauty ? In the one, our warmest admiration 
 is subdued and overshadowed by a sense of restraint. No 
 one overlooks us, and yet we are not quite free. The very 
 trees, in their stately order, seem to say " Profane not the spot 
 by vulgar talk or silly laughter. We were planted by patrician 
 hands. Admire us, and pass on." Not so on the Common. 
 There we are free indeed. The features, indeed, are very 
 different. Here, a sand-pit, only half-filled up by the fern 
 and heath ; there, a grassy swamp, formed by a gurgling rill, 
 that has lost its way ; take care, or you have wet feet for the 
 rest of the day. How hot the sun comes down 1 And how 
 delightfully cool does that cottage look, its brown roof peeping 
 from a little wood, with such an orchard at its back! Ah, 
 Master Common, there has been pilfering here I And the 
 little enclosure of barley and turnips at the bottom — was not 
 that once the domain of the goose and the donkey } But 
 these are legitimate thefts. They only diversify — do not 
 destroy the Common. But how about those fir-woods growing 
 up over its sides } Well, we suppose Ihcy are legitimate, too 
 — at all events, they are legal, and, what is better, smell sweet 
 — which legal deeds sometimes do not. 
 
 The Common on the west of INIidhurst lies in three 
 parishes : Midhurst, Woolbeding, and Bepton. It is one of 
 the most extensive and picturesque in Sussex. The heath is 
 peculiarly rich, and in all varieties — even to the white, which 
 seldom grows wild in England. The Common almost reaches
 
 Midhurst, Coiudray, Wooibeding, &c. 231 
 
 to the foot of the hills which rise to the south-west and west, 
 and the wooded heights of Harting and Up-Park are clearly 
 visible on that side, whilst on the other those of Cowdray 
 raise their stately heads. 
 
 We have not touched upon, much less exhausted, half the 
 beauties of Midhurst or of its twin-sisters in beauty — Ease- 
 bourne and Wooibeding. We leave in despair the winding 
 Rother, with its deep-worn bed and over-hanging woods, that 
 divide the water beneath between the dominion of light and 
 shadow ; we can only bid the poet and the artist enter the 
 " close walk," and fall into ecstasy, or yield to despair. The 
 town of Midhurst itself — with its quaint old houses, projecting 
 their gables into the street, or its substantial modern red- 
 brick structures, slumbering so peacefully in the sun — we 
 cannot dwell upon. We can only bid our readers go and 
 judge for themselves. It is now easy of access by the railway- 
 But we must linger awhile over the scene presented by the 
 adjoining village of Wooibeding. 
 
 Wooibeding is like a beautiful jewel in a beautiful casket. 
 The places which surround it are all beautiful : Midhurst, 
 Easebourne, Cowdray, Iping — not one is without its element 
 of beauty — its river, its heath, its hills, or its woods. But 
 the beauties of all these places only prepare you for the 
 excelling beauty of Wooibeding ; for here the attractions 
 which struck you separately are so charmingly mingled — so 
 harmoniously blended — that you feel you have hitherto only 
 been going through a work of initiation ; you have been 
 educating your eye and your taste for the scene which lies 
 before you ; and now, gazing at its perfection, your sense of 
 the beautiful is satisfied. 
 
 From whichever side you come upon Wooibeding, the 
 approach is in harmony with the place itself — whether it be 
 by Iping, by Easebourne, or by Midhurst. But the last is 
 our favourite route. There are few more charming roads 
 than that from Midhurst to Petersfield. Skirted on one side 
 by the high Heath, with its rich-smelling plantations of firs,
 
 232 Gleanings in East and West Sussex, 
 
 its quaint Swiss-built cottages, and its pretty gardens and 
 orchards — fringed with the graceful silver birch, the oak, the 
 lime, the beech, and the ash — it overlooks, on the other side, 
 the rich valley of the Rother, which gradually widens until 
 Sussex is lost in Surrey. 
 
 But, in our walk from Midhurst to Woolbeding, it is 
 only the first half-mile of this delightful road that we have 
 to tread ; for having passed the Schools and the turnpike- 
 gate, we must quit the highway to plunge down this shady 
 road to the right: an arch of foliage — a leafy tunnel, with 
 its high banks full of strangely-twisted roots, overgrown 
 with ferns and ivy, primrose and violet and wild strawberry, 
 and its rows of rounded oaks, that bend in stately guise to 
 greet each other. For some hundred yards or so you are 
 plunged into a half-light — more or less broken according to 
 the time of year, and then you come upon a stone-bridge 
 across a stream, that tempts you equally to look up it and 
 look down it — so pleasant are its winding waters and its 
 wooded banks. But you do not long look up or down, for 
 there, right before you, lies a scene that few can gaze upon 
 for the first or the fifty-first time and not exclaim " How 
 lovely ! how exquisitely beautiful !" 
 
 How describe the spot ? — how, in fact, describe in words 
 any spot that Nature has clothed with beauty .'' Feudal 
 castles, monastic ruins, high-reaching cathedrals — any work 
 of man's hands — may be described. But fields, woods, rivers, 
 meadows, uplands, these cannot be described ; for whilst, in 
 the infinite variety of Nature, the scene changes a thousand 
 times — assumes a thousand hues and aspects — excites a 
 thousand tones of feeling, the words that we employ to 
 describe them remain the same: they are but "trees," 
 "meadows," "uplands" — not the trees, the meadows, the 
 rivers, and the uplands that we have in our mind's eye and 
 desire to present to the imagination of others. 
 
 Yet, to an English mind, Woolbeding may be made in 
 some slight degree palpable even by the ineffectual medium
 
 Midhurst, Cowdray, Woolbeding, &c. 233 
 
 of words ; for Woolbeding is essentially English in its beauty. 
 Those two square-built, grey-roofed mansions, relieved by 
 their numerous white-framed windows — looking out from 
 foliage that gives to them at once an air of beauty and 
 comfort — those are essentially English ; so are the rich 
 meadows on each side of the broad, even road on which 
 we walk from the bridge towards the village church — 
 meadows only separated from the road by wooden railings, 
 so that you are really, for all purposes of enjoyment, walking 
 in the meadows themselves, where cows and horses are 
 grazing on rich herbage or sleeping under fine old trees. 
 Those are English. So are the pretty cottages, with their 
 neat gardens and hawthorn hedges, that skirt the road. And 
 let the eye make a wider range, and take in the wooded 
 uplands that rise behind the mansions, and the fields of corn 
 and turnips that lie under those wooded heights — and all 
 this will be felt to be English. And then the air of repose 
 and comfort and happiness that reigns over all — the sense of 
 completeness in this little world — of its having something of 
 all those essentials which make up the ideas of comfort and 
 beauty; that, too, is English. For, if there be mansions, 
 and church, and cottages, there are also the farmer's solid- 
 looking house, and out-buildings, and garden ; and if there 
 be grounds and gardens, there are also corn-fields and turnip- 
 fields and clover-fields ; and the peculiarity of Woolbeding 
 is, that you cannot tell where the grounds terminate and 
 where the farm begins : there is no sharp line of division — no 
 park-wall or high fence to divide the one from the other; but 
 from grounds to orchard, from orchard to paddock, from 
 paddock to corn-field or turnip-field, you glide from the useful 
 to the purely ornamental, until, without being sensible of the 
 change, your eye passes from the farmer's fields to the 
 gentleman's grounds. And so, in the roads and paths which 
 take you through the spot, they never separate you from the 
 place — they are always in it, and of it, and associate you 
 completely with the beauties you are gazing at and passing 
 through.
 
 234 Gleanmgs m East and West Sussex. 
 
 There is this peculiarity, too, in the beauty of Woolbeding. 
 It is fully matured — ripened — has all the richness and fulness 
 that ages of careful tendance alone could give it ; and yet it 
 has no touch of age — none of its decay or neglect. In Spring 
 the road from the bridge of which we have spoken is skirted 
 by cherry trees which are one mass of blossom, and almost 
 outvie the May itself; but side by side with them stand 
 gigantic Scotch firs, with their smooth ruddy stems, and their 
 smooth ruddy branches, scarcely less grand than the stems 
 themselves ; and when these have ceased to draw our eyes 
 aloft, we come upon the still richer and more solemn foliage 
 of the cedar, with its tier upon tier of spreading level 
 branches. With these oriental and northern giants, too, are 
 mixed the pride of English forests : the oak in its sturdy 
 strength and well-rounded symmetry ; the yew, with its deep 
 rich green and its waxen berry — the lime, the beech, and the 
 chestnut — and all these go to make up the roadside shade 
 and the roadside beauty : with pleasant meadows stretching 
 down to the river and pleasant uplands running up to wooded 
 heights ; the road, after passing by the church, anon plunging 
 into another leafy tunnel that you cannot see the issue of, but 
 about which you need not trouble yourself, but follow these 
 broad steps to the right — get over this low stile, push open 
 that loose gate, and you are out of the road and in a paddock 
 at the back of the two square mansions and the little low 
 church; you are "doubling" the village: taking it in the 
 rear — not less beautiful than the front ; and, with the river 
 still with you — for it clings to Woolbeding, and winds round 
 it on every side, as if it could not bear to leave it — and with 
 the hills before you, which recede from the village as if they 
 left it with reluctance, and with trees and hedges always by 
 your side, and rich herbage at your feet, and with the cry of 
 the cuckoo or the cock-pheasant, as the case and the season 
 may be, in your ear, you walk round Woolbeding, turning at 
 every step to look back at it — leaning over every gate to take 
 in the wider prospect around it — loitering at every hedge to 
 gather some new wild-flower or some tempting berry.
 
 Midhurst^ Coivdray, JVooIdeding, &€. 235 
 
 And so, imperceptibly, you pass from Woolbeding and are 
 once more entering Midhurst — not by the Petersfield, but by 
 the Easebourne road. And whether you come again and 
 again, or come no more, you take with you the impress of a 
 scene which years cannot efface. True, you have only seen 
 material beauty: you have looked upon a fair scene as you 
 might upon a fair face, with only the power to guess at the 
 kind of soul which dwelt within it. You might pass on and 
 never know what kind of inner life possessed that spot : 
 whether it was grovelling or soaring, rough or gentle, earthy 
 or celestial — " Pagan, Turk, or Jew." Yet even with this 
 ignorance of its higher attributes, or with a knowledge that 
 there were none, the beauty of the scene would not be without 
 its influence upon you for good. You would feel, as Miranda 
 felt when she gazed upon the face of Ferdinand — 
 
 " There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. 
 If the ill spirit have so fair a house, 
 Good things will strive to dwell with't." 
 
 In the creation of such a spot, good influences, you feel, 
 nijist have been at work. In the peace, the repose, the softness, 
 the beauty of the scene — in the absence from it of anything 
 to jar upon the feelings, or to vex the mind, there must be the 
 working of " good things." And in the calmness that comes 
 over the mind in the presence, or in the recollection, of such 
 a spot, is there not a proof, even to the merest wayfarer, that, 
 in the conflict of good and evil in this world, good has won 
 a victory in the village of Woolbeding ? 
 
 But it does not follow as a matter of course that the gazer 
 at this scene should only be touched by its external features. 
 His sense of its material beauties may be heightened by a 
 knowledge that it has another and a higher beauty : that it 
 has a moral and a spiritual beauty — a heart and a soul. 
 
 We do not speak in a Pagan sense : the " great God Pan " 
 has long been dead ; our woods are without dryads as our 
 fountains are without naiads. We have discarded these fancies, 
 
 and settled down to realities. In an English village the heart
 
 236 Glea?iinors in East and West Sussex. 
 
 of the community — nay, frequently, of the natural beauties of 
 the spot — is a resident Proprietor ; and the soul is, an earnest, 
 zealous. Christian Pastor. From these two sources, if they 
 exist, flow fertilising and quickening streams, which develop 
 their fruits in a hundred pleasing forms ; if they do not exist, 
 Nature may still put forth her riches — the river may flow as 
 clearly — the trees blossom as luxuriantly — the birds sing as 
 sweetly — the hills will not be less rounded, the valleys less 
 wooded ; but there will not be wanting certain signs — certain 
 touches of neglect or lethargy or rudeness — to indicate that 
 all is not quite right : that some active energy — some soften- ' 
 ing influence — is absent, which ought to enter into the village 
 life. 
 
 But let it not be thought for a moment that such is the 
 case with Woolbeding. Without trespassing upon the sanctity 
 of private life, the visitor has only to cross the threshold of 
 the village church to feel that the upper links that bind society 
 together in this rural England of ours are not wanting. There 
 you have a picture that must surely resemble the primitive 
 assemblies of Christians in this country, when these little 
 sacred edifices were erected. The church is not capable of 
 containing much more than a household, such as households 
 used to be, and still seem to be here : with the Lord and 
 Dame, stately and venerable in their age : their sons and 
 daughters, grandsons and granddaughters — the very embodi- 
 ment of "six thousand years' traditions of civility;" their 
 more immediate persona! retainers ; then a farmer or two 
 with their wives and children, with unmistakeable signs of 
 " well-to-do ; " and then a good filling-up of villagers — clean, 
 healthy, strong, sober-looking men, and neat and happy- 
 looking women. You might put the whole congregation in a 
 drawing-room, and then the majority of them would be sadly 
 out of place. But here, in this neat, cheerful little Place of 
 Worship, they are all in their places — all at home ; and even 
 the stranger who drops into a vacant place in one of the open 
 pews, feels that he, too, is not an intruder : that there is a 
 place for him, which the stately and courteous Heads of the
 
 Midhtcrst, Cozvdray, Woolbedmg, &c. 237 
 
 Family* would, if need were, find in their own family seat; 
 and that he has a silent welcome from all — from the comely 
 old dame who meets him in the porch to the clergyman who 
 takes his place at the reading-desk. 
 
 The first moments of his first visit to Woolbeding church 
 will, probably, be given by the stranger to the same kind of 
 superficial review that engaged his attention out-of-doors. 
 There, all was harmony and beauty; and here all is order 
 and decorum : and, if you were in a theorising frame of mind, 
 you might take the elements of the landscape one by one and 
 find a parallel for them in the elements of the congregation. 
 But you have not time for these speculative subtleties ; your 
 thoughts are diverted from the persons and scenes around 
 you to the words of the Service, which is as simple as simple 
 can be— no music, except the singing in unison of the children, 
 led by one clear female voice : no clerk, unless the owner of 
 that tremulous old voice, slightly predominant, can lay claim 
 to the post : nothing which could give "effect" to the words 
 of the minister or the responses of the congregation. And 
 yet how solemn they are in their simplicity! how much more 
 directly do they go to the heart ! how strong a hold do they 
 take upon the attention ! And if this be so during the 
 Service, it is still more so when, the Service over, the same 
 minister ascends his simple pulpit, scarcely raised above the 
 heads of those occupying the ground-floor, and proceeds, in 
 the simplest of language, to address the congregation. In 
 the simplest of language — so simple that not a sentence can 
 fail to be as intelligible to the most uninstructed mind there 
 as the names of the implements with which he does his daily 
 labour — so simple that a child can understand both words, 
 sentences, and the whole scope of the address ; and yet so 
 pure, so earnest, so deeply-rooted in truth and in love, that 
 the more cultivated the ear which listens to it, the greater, in 
 
 • These types of the old English nobility (the Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Ponsonby) have, 
 since this Paper was written and first published, in the Brighton Herald, passed away to 
 their rest, and the minister referred to (the Rev. F. BourdiUon) left the scene of his 
 early but still cherished ministration for (owing to delicate health) a foreign land.
 
 238 Gleanings in East ajid West Sussex. 
 
 all probability, will be the force of the lesson conveyed — the 
 more complete the recognition of the preacher's power, and 
 the deeper the sense of the value of his teaching. 
 
 Singular is the effect which such preaching in such a place 
 produces on the stranger who here listens to it for the first 
 time. It throws him into a fit of thinking, in which all kinds 
 of questions suggest themselves. How, in a place apart, as 
 it were, from the world — where Nature seems so much, and 
 man so little, how is it that such earnestness can be kept up? 
 where can the food of such zeal be found ? Amidst large 
 masses of men — with human passions and weaknesses and 
 sufferings and errors constantly under the eye, we can conceive 
 that Halls and Robertsons and Kingsleys — men with large 
 and loving hearts — can rise up and devote themselves to their 
 fellow-men — that their zeal can never slacken — their eloquence 
 never die out. But here, in this happy, tranquil valley, there 
 is nothing to arouse an.xiety for others — nothing to keep alive 
 that earnest zeal for truth — that strong desire to elevate our- 
 selves and others above the world's temptations, which, in 
 this quiet place, scarcely seem to have an atmosphere to live 
 in. How is it that, in such an unpolluted sphere as this, so 
 zealous a labourer is to be found } 
 
 The answer is easy : there is no such thing as an unpolluted 
 sphere ; to the zealous labourer, there is ample work, whether 
 the sphere be a large town like Brighton or a small village like 
 Woolbeding. The talents of a Robertson would not have 
 been lost here any more than those of a Bourdillon are. 
 Why, with similar gifts — with equal earnestness — with equal 
 power to speak to the hearts and consciences of men, one 
 should have been destined to address thousands of men of 
 cultivated minds, and the other a few simple villagers, we 
 cannot resolve : but that each, in bringing to his work the 
 utmost powers of his being, works out the largest amount of 
 good to humanity, we cannot doubt. The fervid eloquence of 
 oneaffected thousands during his life, and after his death makes 
 itself felt wherever men speaking the English tongue crowd
 
 Mid hurst, Cozvdray, Woolbedivg, dfc. 239 
 
 together in the Old or the New World. The simple words 
 of the other work within the circle of a little village, which 
 few beyond its immediate vicinity have even heard the name 
 of. And yet, in the composition of English society — in the 
 ingredients of our national greatness — the village is as essential 
 a part as the greatest of our towns. The village is the deepest- 
 rooted of our institutions — the lowest stratum of our English 
 soil, out of which rises all that is good, and all that is bad, in 
 the larger after-growths of society. Let the village community 
 become corrupt, and life would be corrupted in England at its 
 very source. If the child be contaminated, how can the man 
 be healthy, strong, or good } It is well, then, that the village 
 is entrusted to such good hands — that we see it developed, 
 materially and spiritually — to the outer and the inner sight — 
 to such perfection ; that the affections of our higher classes 
 cling round these secluded spots ; that from them men go 
 forth to fight in our armies and rule in our senates — that, in 
 such humble structures as this Woolbeding Church, we read 
 the names of soldiers who have fought and fallen in the Crimea 
 — of statesmen, whose names are associated with the history 
 of their country ; it is well, also, that men of deep learning 
 come to these places and hold that learning as nothing com- 
 pared to the task they have undertaken of expounding the 
 grand but simple truths of religion and morality. Thus it is 
 that village-life preserves its purity in England, and, doing so, 
 remains the source and well-head of England's strength and 
 beauty; for without this crowning excellence — this highest 
 work of the highest spirit — even the charms with which Nature 
 clothes our villages might become a mere snare for sensual 
 pleasures, and a Woolbeding, instead of being a Una, fair 
 without and fair within, might be a Duessa — fair without and 
 foul within.
 
 Trotton, the Birlh-place of Otway. 
 
 HE fate which poets share with prophets — a denial 
 of honour in their own country — seems to have 
 fallen with unusual severity upon Otway. In the 
 various biographies which we have consulted, we 
 have found his native-place set down as Midhurst, Woolbeding, 
 and Trot//;/^; and though, in the better-edited works, Trotton 
 is rightly named and correctly spelt, yet we will venture to 
 ask how many of our readers, even those who are native-born 
 to Sussex, and heritors of Otway's fame, know where Trotton 
 is — whether in the east or west of Sussex — on the Ouse or 
 the Arun, the Adur or the Rother ? How many of them 
 know in what year Otway was born, his parents' station of 
 life, how he died, or where the mortal remains of so much 
 fine genius lie interred ? 
 
 We claim little credit in these respects over our neigh- 
 bours. Our knowledge, such as it is, and it is but meagre, 
 as to the birth-place and the resting-place of Otway, dates 
 back but to a recent period. We never paid a visit to Trotton, 
 or knew in which part of Sussex Trotton lay, until some few 
 years ago ; but having filled up the gap, and having found 
 that in the birth-place of Otway a tardy act of justice has 
 at length been paid to his memory, we deem it but right to 
 place our readers, or to enable them to place themselves, on 
 an equal footing with ourselves. 
 
 The act of justice to which we refer is a brass, newly
 
 Trotton, the Birth-place of Otivay. 241 
 
 affixed to the wall of Trotton Church, just above the pulpit, 
 and of which the following is a transcript : — 
 
 Hoc monumentum, quantumvis simplex, 
 
 Memorise saciatum sit 
 
 Thom^ Otway, Armigeri, 
 
 Poetarum Tragicorum qui in Britannia enotuerunt 
 
 Facile Princeps, 
 
 Hoc Pago natus anno 1651. 
 
 Eheu ! egestate acerrima gravatus. 
 Naturae concessit 1685. 
 
 Abi, Lector amice ! 
 
 Et, vicibus praecellentis ingenii prospectis, 
 
 " Quamcunque Deus tibi fortunaverit horam," 
 
 iEternitatem cogita. 
 
 Which we venture, with all diffidence, to render as follows : — 
 
 Let this monument, 
 
 Simple as it is, 
 
 Be Sacred to the memory of 
 
 Thomas Otway, Esquire, 
 
 Beyond dispute the first of Tragic Poets 
 
 Who have been famous in Britain, 
 
 Born in this Village in the year 165 1. 
 
 Weighed down, alas ! by extreme indigence, 
 He succumbed to Nature, 1685. 
 
 Go, friendly Reader, 
 
 And, seeing the unhappy lot of this surpassing genius, 
 
 " Every hour that God blesses you with life," 
 
 Think upon Eternity. 
 
 The record of the time and place of Otway's birth, and 
 this touching reference to his fate, are due to a gentleman 
 who was at one time a resident of Trotton, William JoUiffe, 
 Esq., now of Hammerdown Park, Somersetshire. 
 
 A few particulars of Otway's life may here be not inaptly 
 given. Though born in Trotton, his father, Mr. Humphry 
 Otway, was the Rector of Woolbeding, an adjacent parish 
 (described in a preceding paper). The period of his birth 
 was in the very death-throe of the struggle between Royalty 
 and Republicanism, and a doubtful and dangerous time for 
 all members of the Anglican Church. However, Otway's 
 parents do not seem to have suffered : perhaps they were too 
 remote from the chief scene of conflict to be disturbed ; at 
 R
 
 242 Gleanings in East a7id West Sussex. 
 
 all events, they regained their original station at the Restora- 
 tion, and in 1669 Thomas Otway — an only child, as he himself 
 tells us in his " Complaint of his INIuse " — went (like Collins, 
 at a later date) from Winchester School to Oxford, and was 
 entered a Commoner of Christ Church. Of his University 
 career we know nothing ; but he left Oxford — like Milton, 
 Shelley, and Byron — without a degree, and seems to have 
 proceeded at once (in 1672, when he was only twenty years 
 of age) to London, and essayed his talents as an actor in the 
 Duke of York's company. The attempt does not seem to 
 have been a successful one, and from play-acting he turned 
 to play-writing, and, in his twenty-fifth year, produced the 
 tragedy of Alcibiadcs. This was followed, in 1677, by Tilus 
 atid Berenice, by a translation of Moliere's Foui bevies de Scapin, 
 by a comedy. Friendship in Fashion (which was revived at 
 Drury Lane in 1749, and hissed off the stage for its obscenity), 
 and by another tragedy, Don Carlos, which was so successful 
 as to have kept the stage for thirty successive nights : a fact 
 so unprecedented as to lead Johnson to doubt its correctness. 
 At this period of his career (in 1678) Otway left the Muses 
 for a time for the more adventurous calling of arms. A 
 cornet's commission was procured for him (by the Earl of 
 Plymouth, one of Charles IL's natural sons) in some troops 
 sent out to Flanders. But these troops never reached the 
 scene of action : the money voted for them was diverted by 
 the King to other and more congenial purposes, and Otway 
 returned to his pursuits as an author, and, in a comedy called 
 The Soldier's Fortune, thus, it is supposed, refers to his own 
 disappointment : — 
 
 Fortune made me a soldier, a rogue in red (the grievance of the nation) ; 
 Fortune made the peace— just as we were on the brink of war; then Fortune 
 disbanded us, and lost us two months' pay. Fortune gave us debentures 
 instead of ready money ; and l)y very good fortune I sold mine, and lost 
 heartily by it, in hopes the grinding, ill-natur'd dog that bought it may 
 never get a shilling for't. 
 
 It was in the succeeding year — 1680 — that The Orphan 
 was produced : a play that still keeps the stage, and which 
 has at least the merit of touching the heart by scenes and
 
 Trot ton, the Birth-place of Otzvay. 243 
 
 poetry drawn from the ordinary sphere of life. The History 
 and Fall of Cains Marius (chiefly remarkable for the 
 introduction into it of whole scenes from Shakspeare's 
 Ro7tieo and Juliet!') followed: and then, in 1685, after a 
 couple of forgotten comedies, came the poet's last and 
 greatest work — that which makes his name "familiar as a 
 household word" to all lovers of the drama— Venice Preserved. 
 The advance in Otway's powers, displayed by this powerful 
 and touching drama, is thus borne witness to by Dr. Johnson : — 
 
 By comparing this with his Orphan, it will appear that his images were 
 by this time become stronger, and his language more energetic. The 
 striking passages are in every moutli ; and the pubhc seems to judge 
 rightly of the faults and excellences of this play, that it is the work of a 
 man not attentive to decency nor zealous for virtue, but of one who 
 conceived forcibly and drew originally by consulting Nature in his own 
 breast. 
 
 All this, as the same writer remarks, was performed before 
 Otway was thirty-four years of age ; and it held forth a 
 promise that in an age of corrupt manners, and with a stage 
 pandering to those manners, one writer at least would uphold 
 the dignity of the drama and continue that race of dramatists 
 which boasts of such names as Shakspeare, Fletcher, Jonson, 
 and Massinger. 
 
 But this promise was not to be fulfilled, and Otway was 
 destined to swell the long list of English poets who have 
 been cut off at the very moment when their powers were 
 ripest and their country was about to enjoy the fruition of 
 their genius. Two different accounts have been given of the 
 circumstances under which Otway died at the early age of 
 thirty-four years : one, the more popular and harrowing, and 
 which Johnson unwillingly adopts, as throwing a stain both 
 on Otway himself and on the age in which he lived ; the 
 other, the more truthful and the more honourable to all 
 parties. The first account, as given by Johnson in his life of 
 Otway, is this : — 
 
 Having been compelled by his necessities to contract debts, and hunted, 
 as is supposed, by the terriers of the law, he retired to a public-house on 
 Tower Hill, where he is said to have died of want ; or, as is related by 
 one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread
 
 244 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 which charity had supphctl. He went out, as is reported, ahnost naked in 
 the rage of hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee- 
 house, asked him for a shilHng. The gentleman gave him a guinea ; and 
 Otway going away bought a roll, and was choked with the first mouthful. 
 
 The other and more authentic account, as given by Dennis, 
 is, that an intimate friend of the poet (Blakeston or Black- 
 stone) having been shot in the street, Otway, to avenge the 
 deed, pursued the assassin, who fled to France. Otway 
 followed him on foot as far as Dover, and on his return 
 thence the fatigue he had undergone brought on a fever, 
 aggravated by drinking a quantity of cold water while in a 
 heat; and by this fever he was quickly carried to the grave. 
 The place where he drew his last breath is stated to have 
 been the "Bull" on Tower Hill; the day, April 14th, 1685. 
 His remains were interred in a vault under the church of 
 St. Clement Danes. 
 
 Pope (in Spence's Memorials) corroborates this latter 
 version of Otway's death, with this difference, that he was 
 in pursuit of a thief who had robbed one of his friends, not 
 of a murderer. But the fact remains that Otway died in the 
 discharge of a duty to friendship, and was not choked by a 
 piece of bread flung in charity to a starving man. 
 
 That he was poor was no disgrace, and certainly has 
 nothing surprising in it when we know how authors were 
 paid for their work in those days. The profits even, of a 
 successful play, like Venice Preserved, was at the most /'loo; 
 and for the copyright of that tragedy the poet received ^15 ! 
 
 Besides his plays, Otway wrote several poems, but none 
 of striking merit ; and the best known of these, " The Poet's 
 Complaint of his Muse," is chiefly worthy of preservation 
 because it contains some facts respecting the author himself.* 
 
 In one account of Otway with which we have met, it is 
 stated that he was buried at Woolbeding. But we have made 
 enquiries on the spot and can find no foundation for this state- 
 
 * These lines will be found in the/ist volume of "Glimpses of our Ancestors in 
 Sussex" under the head of "Sussex Foets,"
 
 Trotton^ the Birth-place of Oiway. 245 
 
 ment, which, most probably, arose from the circumstance of his 
 father having been rector of Woolbeding, though, it would 
 seem, resident at Trotton. In our enquiries into this subject 
 we were indebted to the courtesy of the then Rector of 
 Woolbeding, the Rev. F. Bourdillon, for permission to search 
 the Parish Register, and on the very first page of this old 
 record, singularly enough, occurs the signature, "Thos. 
 Otway," and immediately above it the motto, twice repeated, 
 " Mors omnibus communis." Beneath the name are several 
 dates — " 1600," " 1600," and " 1649," the first partly erased, 
 but whether intended to have reference to the name, it is 
 impossible to say ; and equally so whether the name, "Thos. 
 Otway," was written by the Poet himself, or by his parents, 
 or by a friend. There is little doubt that the melancholy 
 motto above it is intended to have reference to it. In this 
 same record we alighted upon two other entries which are 
 interesting in connection with our subject. Under the 
 date 1670 occurs the following: " INIr. Humphry Otway, 
 Rector of Woolbeding, was buried February 9." At this 
 period the Poet was only nineteen years of age, and the loss 
 of his parent, and, with him, probably, the extinction of his 
 chief means of maintenance at the University, afford a reason 
 for Otway's abrupt departure from Oxford, and an excuse for 
 his adoption of the profession of a player. The mother of 
 the Poet long survived her son, for it was not until we reached 
 the year 1703 that the Register supplied us with the following 
 entry: — " JMrs. Elizabeth Otway, widow of Mr. Humphry 
 Otway, formerly Rector of this Parish, was buried." The 
 parents, therefore, of Otway lie buried, we may assume, at 
 Woolbeding. 
 
 These are the chief recorded facts of Otway's brief career. 
 If the reader of them is tempted to pay a pilgrimage to 
 Trotton, he will be well repaid : not, indeed, by finding that 
 the memory of Otway is "freshly remembered" there — for 
 the fact of Otwav's birth there has so died out that old 
 people of eighty, native-born to Trotton, had never heard 
 the name, and even tradition cannot point to the house where
 
 246 Gleanmo's in East and West Sussex. 
 
 i> 
 
 he first saw the light^'— but by the natural beauties of the 
 spot, well fitted to have been the birth-place of a poet. 
 Trotton is a very small village, four miles from Midhurst, on 
 the road to Petersfield. Before reaching the church and the 
 few houses and cottages near it, the traveller crosses a bridge 
 over the Rother, here a rapid, gurgling stream, flowing over 
 a pebbly bottom ; and he will scarcely cross it without pausing 
 to look at the pretty house and grounds which face him — the 
 Rectory — or to look at the winding course of the river on 
 each side, or to gaze at the more distant view of the beautiful 
 hills which rise and sink to the south and the west— Harting 
 Comb pre-eminent amongst them. It is not, however, from 
 the bridge that the finest view of the scenery round Trotton 
 can be obtained. To take in this, the lane round by the 
 smith's forge must be followed, until, gradually rising, it 
 opens upon the whole extent of surrounding country ; and 
 then the beholder must needs confess that Trotton, obscure 
 as it is in topography, and with little music in its name, is 
 not unworthy to have given birth to a poet. 
 
 The key of the church may be easily procured at the 
 Rectory close by. It consists simply of a nave and chancel, 
 in the latter of which stands the sarcophagus of Sir John 
 Camoys and his dame, Elizabeth, well-known to archoeologists 
 for the beauty and antiquity of the brass effigies, which have 
 defied all attempts to remove them. There are other antiqui- 
 ties in the building; but, of course, to the Otway-pilgrim the 
 memorial to the poet will be the chief object of curiosity. 
 To this, as we have said, has been assigned a place of honour 
 on the wall near to the pulpit ; and to Mr. Jolliffe the thanks 
 of all lovers of poetry, and especially those of Sussex birth, 
 are due, for thus marking the place where Otway was born. 
 
 » The Marsh, a spot some distance from the church and modern village, is named 
 Dy tradition as the site ol it; but witli little authoritv.
 
 up the Arun: Houghtoit, Amberley, 
 
 &c. 
 
 HAT tracts of unenjoyed beauties lie at our very 
 threshold in this pleasant county of ours ! How 
 many mazy, leafy streams pour forth their waters 
 to the sea, and draw them back again in a full 
 flood, passing and re-passing in their course nooks and 
 corners of surpassing loveliness, without bearing upon their 
 tides a single heart to throb in unison with the swift river- 
 pulse — to sympathise with the soft, fleet flow of water; to 
 listen to the sylvan choristers that answer each other from 
 bank to bank ; to look at the still-changing picture of hill 
 and wood and level mead, still grouping themselves in some 
 new order ; to mark the play of light and shade upon the 
 clear bosom of the stream — mirroring back some jutting 
 point, now lustrous in the full flood of sunlight, and now 
 dark with o'ershadowing trees. And still the little boat, 
 floating with the tide, goes on its smooth, noiseless path, 
 with no visible barrier, and no law save the rower's will to 
 stay its easy, careless course. 
 
 What a change is such a river-trip as this to all ordinary 
 modes of locomotion in this noisy, bustling world of ours 1 
 What a contrast to the rail or the road — or even to the sea, 
 such as steam has made it ! Of all our primitive modes of 
 movement, only the river — and such rivers as our Sussex 
 Arun or Adur or Ouse, whose deities have not been scared by 
 the paddle or the screw — seem to have been left unchanged, 
 unmarred. They still preserve their original features, and are
 
 248 Gleaniyips in East and West Sussex. 
 
 almost as quiet, as solitary, and as sylvan in these days of 
 crowded population as they were when the half-naked Celt 
 paddled up them in his hollow tree. 
 
 If any reader doubt our word, let him do as we did a 
 short time back — " take the rail " to the Arundel Station, 
 foot it up to the bridge, and there hire a boat, and having so 
 timed his movements that the tide is flowing in, launch 
 himself on the little stream and let it float him, as it will 
 do, with little troubling of the oars, " up the Arun." 
 
 As he leaves the town behind him, the towers and turrets 
 of the castle, set in a dense mass of wood, will rise up in all 
 their picturesque beauty, and shape themselves to the very 
 idea of feudal grandeur. In the town itself you only see the 
 castle piece-meal ; from the high road you are too much on 
 a level with it ; but from the river you behold it in all its 
 "pride of place," crowning the height on which it stands. 
 And so it fills the eye, and stirs the imagination, and 
 wakens the memory, until the same flowing stream that called 
 up the vision gradually steals it from the eye, and the stately 
 pile and its surrounding woods sink into the water. 
 
 But look ahead, and see where the boat is taking us. We 
 have issued forth from the " cold shade of aristocracy " and 
 are now approaching the constellation known in the pic-nic 
 "system" as the "Black Rabbit." It is a sign of popular 
 pleasures — of pleasant little plebeian parties from Brighton, 
 from Worthing, from Arundel— from every part within a circuit 
 of thirty miles; for no place within that limit has enjoyed so 
 long a reign, or so well deserves it, as the house known as the 
 " Black Rabbit." 
 
 The spot on which it stands is one of the most picturesque 
 in Sussex. Before it flows the Arun ; behind it rises a hanging 
 wood, a path through which leads you to the Park — one of the 
 most romantic walks that can be conceived. The higher you 
 rise, the finer becomes the view over the plain through which 
 the Arun flows to the sea, and the more imbedded you find
 
 up the Aru7i: Houghton, Amberley, &€. 249 
 
 yourself in glorious forest trees, until you tread the soft 
 herbage of the Park itself, and are entranced by the sylvan 
 beauties of the Swan Lake : a piece of water through which 
 the surrounding hills drain themselves into the Arun, and the 
 chief charm of Arundel Park. 
 
 But we must not wander so far from the banks of the 
 Arun. Let us get back to the " Black Rabbit " : a spot all 
 the dearer to the Arundel people because it is associated with 
 a great triumph of public right over aristocratic usurpation : 
 for, some forty years ago, an unwise Duke of Norfolk 
 conceived a desire to close the road to the Park by way of 
 the "Black Rabbit," and some spirited individuals of Arundel 
 upheld the public right of way, and there was a great trial at 
 the Quarter Sessions, which ended in the ignominious defeat 
 of the Duke; and, since that day, the "Black Rabbit" stands 
 higher than ever in the affections of all true Arundelians. 
 The house itself is an unpretending one — a mere cottage, 
 standing in a little garden and orchard, where children may 
 swing themselves, and their elders sit or walk, or try to 
 catch a fish, or knock down nine-pins, or do something 
 equally impossible ; winding up with " tea in the arbour." 
 
 We can do none of these things at present. There is a 
 landing-place at the " Black Rabbit," as there is at Whitehall ; 
 but our way is onwards with the flowing tide, which soon 
 swallows up the plebeian inn as it did the princely castle, and 
 takes us on "to fresh woods and pastures new." For, as we 
 ascend the river, it becomes more and more winding, and 
 every turn brings us into presence of some new beauty : now 
 an ancient chalk-pit scooped out of the bosom of the hills, 
 and serving as a foil to the green woods that surround it ; 
 now the swelling hills of the Park, dotted with stately timber; 
 now a nearer sight and sound of leaves, as we find ourselves 
 carried under the o'erhanging foliage of giant aspens, which 
 almost span the river with their drooping boughs ; or now a 
 village spire shows itself, or a farmer's homestead, or we 
 shoot under a bridge, or pass a lazy, creeping barge, or come
 
 250 Gleajiings in East a7id West Sussex. 
 
 upon some solitan' angler, whom we watch in vain in hope to 
 see that oft-talked-of, never-witnessed, phenomenon, "a bite," 
 till he fades from our view. Or perchance a solitary boat- 
 man comes along, sculling his ancient-looking craft against 
 the stream with marvellous perseverance. And him, too, we 
 watch, trying to think what his business and desires are — for 
 "every man hath business and desire, such as it is" — till he, 
 too, goes by, and leaves the mystery unsolved. 
 
 At length we reach the end of our voyage. It seems to 
 us that we might go on for ever, floating along with the 
 stream. But it is not so. By-and-bye the tide will stop, and 
 to go further we must have recourse, as on the dry land, to 
 the labour of our arms. Or, by-and-bye, the tide will turn, 
 and then, if we do not profit by it to regain our starting-point, 
 it will be night before we see the castle and the town again. 
 So, wise betimes, we come to an anchor — that is, we bring 
 our boat alongside the river-bank at Houghton, some eight 
 miles up the Arun, and where, on landing, the first objects 
 that strike the eye — in a mass of pickaxes, spades, wheel- 
 barrows, planks, and broken ground, with a straight line 
 running through all, like order out of chaos — furnish 
 incontestable evidence that the "navvy" — that greatest of 
 modern revolutionists — is here. Houghton, in fact, is, or will 
 be in a month or two, a Station of the Mid-Sussex Railway,* 
 which, by connecting Ford with Pulborough, opens to West 
 Sussex a new road to London. The village has no pretensions 
 to beauty of any kind in itself; but it is surrounded on every 
 side by bold hills, which rise and sink until they are lost in 
 the far distance. 
 
 Let us leave the river here and walk over to Amberley — 
 some three-quarters of a mile onward. It is in every respect 
 a more interesting spot than Houghton, and so little frequented 
 that in the West of Sussex it enjoys the somewhat profane 
 soubriquet of "God knows" Amberley: the reply to an 
 
 * The Railway has been completed and the Stationopened some years since this 
 was written.
 
 up the Arun: Houghton^ Atnberley, &c. 251 
 
 enquiry after the village being invariably conveyed in the 
 exclamation " God knows." You may, indeed, gaze at 
 Amberley at your ease from the back of Arundel Park, where 
 the ruins of the old castle seem to lie at your feet. But the 
 river runs between, and round the river lies a low marshy 
 ground, that is frequently overflown, and so makes access 
 from this side difficult, if not impossible ; and from any other 
 quarter the road is such a roundabout one that Amberley 
 cannot dispute its title to the singular prefi.x that it enjoys in 
 West Sussex. 
 
 But this, like other vestiges of the past, is doomed to 
 disappear before the advancing tide of improvement, repre- 
 sented by that rude son of civilization, the " navvy." By his 
 labours even Amberley is brought within that iron embrace 
 which links villages, towns, and cities in one great bond of 
 union. Standing on the ruins of Amberley Castle, you see 
 the thin straight iron line run across the low land between 
 you and the hills to the south, crossing the river by a light 
 and rather handsome iron bridge hung upon arches. That 
 straight iron line stands forth as the assertor of present 
 Power: the ruined walls above and around you speak of a 
 Power that has passed away, but which is imposing even in 
 its ruins. Not that Amberley Castle ever belonged to the 
 great feudal fortresses of the Norman aristocracy, by which 
 they held a conquered race in subjection. It never could 
 take rank with Lewes, Arundel, Hastings, or Bramber. It 
 was raised at a later period, in the 14th century, and by a 
 Bishop of Chichester, with the somewhat modern name of 
 Reede, whose effigy, in one of the transepts of Chichester 
 Cathedral, long proclaimed, in barbarous Latin, that the 
 foundations of Amberley Castle were laid by him. Why 
 they were laid, why Willielmus Reede, Bishop of Chichester, 
 selected this out-of-the-way spot for the site of a stronghold, 
 we leave to some future chronicler of the Bishops of 
 Chichester to find out. In the 14th century the communica- 
 tion between Chichester and Amberley must have been by no 
 means easy. The spot itself has few recommendations ; it is
 
 252 Gleayiings in East a7id West Sussex. 
 
 the southern extremity of a long ridge running up the valley 
 of the Arun, till it ends in Pullborough IMound ; in a wet 
 season it must have stood in a swamp, the overflowing waters 
 of the river washing its walls and cutting it off from the 
 surrounding country. Perhaps this swampy position, and 
 the safety it gave, was its recommendation ; perhaps its 
 isolation from the world was its chief merit in the eyes of 
 its right reverend builder, who was not likely to be troubled 
 by any spying eyes or wagging tongues in that remote corner 
 of his diocese. Perhaps here, amidst the milkers of the rich 
 kine that fed on the banks of the Arun, some bright-eyed 
 and ruddy-cheeked damsel — but we are treading on dangerous 
 ground, and, in these days of spirit-rappings, the ghost of 
 Bishop Reede himself may give some audible reproof of the 
 scandalous insinuation that he came down to Amberley for 
 aught but sacred and ecclesiastical purposes ! 
 
 Jesting apart, the castle was not a fortress like Lewes or 
 Arundel, erected to keep an army at bay, but rather a strong 
 house raised to shelter within its thick walls a personage of 
 importance who did not choose to be intruded upon. There 
 are no lofty towers, or deep donjons, or barbicans, or covered 
 way. You enter by a gentle ascent, now planted with ever- 
 greens, beneath a solid archway, and find yourself on a 
 beautiful piece of greensward enclosed within solid walls and 
 containing the ruins of a chapel, and other portions of a 
 great man's residence in the 14th century, now in part 
 converted into, or adapted to, a comfortable farm-house, to 
 which the ancient court-yard serves as a lawn and flower- 
 garden, where children and nurse-maids have taken the place 
 of grave churchmen and tonsured monks. From the ruined 
 outer wall, still solid, and rising to a good height, there is a 
 fine view of the woods of Arundel Park and of the adjacent 
 hills — Bury and others — which rise and fall in rounded beauty 
 till they are lost to sight in the west. Over this fine view 
 how often must the old Bishops have looked towards 
 Chichester, the seat of their power and dignity ! In one of 
 the ruined nooks a cozy smoking arbour has now been
 
 up the Aviin: Houghton, Amberley, &c. 253 
 
 formed, and trees overshadow the ivy-grown wall, whilst, on 
 the side sloping towards the village street, peas and potatoes 
 are grown, and, altogether, we are tempted to exclaim, in 
 Shakspearian language, 
 
 " To what base uses we may return, Horatio ! " 
 
 Having surveyed the ruined castle, and its peaceable 
 adjuncts, let us pass through the solid oak door at its 
 northern extremity. It leads into the churchyard, in which 
 there is nothing remarkable ; but the church is evidently an 
 ancient structure — at least, the tower and nave are — and it 
 boasts of an archway, dividing the chancel from the nave, 
 which is a fine specimen of early Norman architecture. 
 Arch, pillars, and capitals are all in a perfect state of repair, 
 and contrast curiously with the other parts of the plain and 
 unpretending edifice, almost provoking the suspicion that 
 they belong to a structure of greater pretensions. There are 
 also a font — of Sussex marble — of great antiquity, and a 
 brass of an armed knight, in the act of prayer, in good 
 preservation. These relics of ancient art suffice to repay a 
 visit to Amberley. 
 
 But Nature also has been munificent to Amberley, if 
 not in the picturesqueness of its site, at least in the rich 
 beauty of the surrounding scenery — in the glorious hills 
 which rise and sink around it — not in a bare ridge and sharp 
 line, like that which meets the eye at Brighton, but hills 
 above hills, with hollow coombs, and wooded sides, and 
 rounded tops, with lines softly blended together and leading 
 on the eye from point to point till the mind loses itself in the 
 vain attempt to take in Nature. 
 
 But we must not rhapsodise. " Time and tide wait for no 
 man." What Time can do we behold in the ruins of Bishop 
 Reede's Castle ; and the tide has turned, and is now ebbing 
 rapidly to the sea. Woe to the boatman who fails to take 
 advantage of it! So back to Houghton, with many a lingering 
 look at the glorious hills, behind which the sun is now sinking,
 
 254 Gleanings in East ajid West Sussex. 
 
 and then, once more in our little craft, back to the "Black 
 Rabbit," that famous baiting-house for " weary, fainting, 
 thirsty travellers," and the cravings of thirst assuaged, back 
 to Arundel as fast as the tide can carry us — not less than six 
 miles an hour, and with oars scarcely touching water — and 
 then, finally, back to the rail — having reached which, we give 
 up all individuality, and are once more a mere atom in a 
 fortuitous congregation of other atoms : thinking how 
 different our jumbled existence now is from that strictly 
 definable position in the world which we but now enjoyed 
 when floating, in our solitary grandeur, full of Nature and 
 our own thoughts, " down the Arun ! "
 
 ''By the Rail'' to Put borough, and ''by the 
 River and Road'' to Fittleworth. 
 
 T is but a year ago, gentle reader, that we floated 
 lazily " up the Arun," following all its windings 
 and spying out all its beauties with a quiet soul 
 and with loving eyes — floating with the tide and 
 content to go as fast as that went and no faster— having a 
 destination, indeed, before us, even as we had had a point of 
 departure, but very indifferent to the particular minute or 
 hour at which we reached that destination, contented as we 
 were with the pleasant medium by which we were being 
 borne to it — now under the shadow of the castle, now losing 
 its turrets and towers behind some wooded height, and anon, 
 as the river doubled, seeing them rise again in new beauty, 
 and mirrored in the glassy stream ; at one moment beneath 
 over-hanging trees, at the next between open meadows ; now 
 rounding some wooded point, with the white gleam of a 
 chalk-pit setting off the dark mass of foliage above and 
 around it; now opening on a wider tract, where, beneath the 
 Down-side, nestled a little hamlet, with its farm, its parsonage, 
 and its rising spire. 
 
 The river is still flowing under the castle, beneath wooded 
 heights, and between open meadows. There is still the 
 smooth, easy, noiseless highway, on which Celt and Roman, 
 Saxon and Norman has travelled, each in his turn, and each 
 leaving traces on its bank of his sojourn. But we travel by 
 it no longer. Another spirit has come upon the scene— a 
 swift, strong, eager spirit, that waits not for ebb or flow, but 
 is running a race against time as if the stock of time was
 
 256 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 getting low — that never pauses, like the river, to dally with 
 Nature or catch a new beauty from Art, but sweeps remorse- 
 lessly by church and castle, mound and tower, cleaving the 
 earth and water with as direct a flight as the eagle does the 
 air — only bent on one purpose : to arrive at its journey's 
 end. 
 
 The Rail now runs up the Valley of the Arun, often side 
 by side with the river, spanning it with many a bridge, and 
 linking its villages together in a tight iron grasp. For the 
 noiseless flow of water there is a rush of fire and smoke 
 and steam, and the grating of iron upon iron. For the easy 
 meeting of scattered friends at Arundel bridge or Arundel 
 boat-house, there to take water with bag and baggage, scrip 
 and scrippage, careless as to minutes and hours, with no 
 perplexities of time-tables to break up the smooth surface of 
 the imagination— for this easy river-meeting there is the 
 hurry, the excitement, the bustle of the Railway Station — 
 the dissolution of self in a crowd — the muddying of the 
 clear fancy by all kinds of disturbances, in the shape of 
 parcels, tickets, change of carriages, &c., &c., until the mind 
 reflects nothing but a host of insignificant troubles, jostling 
 each other in the most unpleasant manner, and shutting out 
 every thing but the dim image of some future event at which 
 we are struggling to arrive. 
 
 But wherefore, then, do we leave the river and go by the 
 Rail } 
 
 Ah, reader, do you live in the 19th century and ask this 
 question? Do you wish to "get into the country" and ask 
 this question } Have you ever been tramping it on the road 
 and seen a carriage-and-four sweep by you — and can you ask 
 this question ? When there was no rail, nothing was more 
 delightful than to go to Amberley by the river. We did it 
 and are grateful. Had we postponed our trip "up the 
 Arun " for another year we should never have made that 
 trip, any more than our children will know the delights of 
 travelling by a stage-coach. There is a law of attraction in
 
 * * By the Rail ' ' to Pulborough, &c. 257 
 
 these matters, as well as in more material ones. We follow 
 each other, in these particulars, as bees follow their queen. 
 There is a Railway from Ford Station to Pulborough Mound. 
 The Arun is close to that Station, and it would be as easy 
 to step into a boat as it is to jump into a carriage. Both run 
 to the same point. But nobody does step into the boat, and 
 thousands jump into the railway carriage. We amongst the 
 rest. 
 
 Will you jump in with us, gentle reader } You have never 
 penetrated before into Mid-Sussex, or, if you have, not by 
 this road. You have doubtless gone to Petworth or to 
 Midhurst ; but it has been by way of Horsham to the north, 
 or by way of Chichester to the west. You never heard of 
 the existence of such places as Houghton, and Amberley, 
 and Pulborough — much less of Fittleworth, and Stopham, 
 and Bedham — or, if you heard them named, you listened to 
 them as we do to the names of places at which a Speke or a 
 Livingstone take up their night's quarters on the banks of 
 the Nile or the Niger — places which we are never destined to 
 see and care not to picture to ourselves. Those who did 
 penetrate to such remote places— now and then an artist or a 
 pedestrian or a boating-party — were privileged to talk and 
 write of their achievement and magnify the beauties or 
 wonders of the places as they pleased — they could safely 
 indulge in all the traveller's privileges ; for who would follow 
 on their track to check and compare } 
 
 Well, these remote places are now as near to Londoners 
 or Brightonians as Brighton itself, or Hurst or Lindfield, or 
 any other village not a mile from a Railway Station. The 
 Valley of the Arun has, in very truth, been " opened up." 
 The sacred ground round about Arundel Park has been 
 invaded by the navvy. The train screams and smokes and 
 grates along beneath the windows of the Duke's Castle. A 
 few years ago a mad kind of attempt was made by a certain 
 Building Society to fly in the face of the Duke by buying a 
 bit of land in the valley overlooked by the Ducal abode. 
 The lurking idea of the projectors was, we believe, that the 
 S
 
 258 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 said Duke would give any sum of money rather than see 
 independent plebeian abodes — abominations in the shape 
 of villas and cottages ornees — rise up beneath his castle's eye. 
 So the ground was laid out in building plots, and people took 
 shares, and walls were raised and gates put up. And then 
 people paused for a result. But the Duke was not frightened. 
 He did not take alarm at the projected town. There was no 
 road within a mile of the site ; it was a long walk to Arundel 
 along the river bank. The view was delightful, looking as it 
 did straight up to Arundel Castle and its glorious woods. 
 But a man does not build for views alone, and so, with one 
 solitary exception, not a building plot was built upon; people 
 sold their shares for what they could get, and the Society, we 
 suppose, was "wound up." The attempt to build upon one 
 of the most beautiful spots in West Sussex was a dead failure; 
 for, though close to a river, it was three miles from the Rail, 
 and thus, to modern notions, out of the world. 
 
 We refer to this little building episode because, in making 
 our first railway trip by the Mid-Sussex Line, after leaving 
 the Arundel Station, and glancing out at the lovely views 
 which met our eyes, where should we find ourselves — for one 
 brief railway instant — but in the very midst of our old 
 friends — the Arundel Building Society's building plots ! By 
 one of those freaks of fortune which are so common in these 
 days of Railway Bills, the Line of the ]\Iid-Sussex had gone 
 right through the estate, imparting to it a vitality such as that 
 which a galvanic wire gives to the frame of a paralyzed man. 
 There was death-like torpor, or what Shakspeare calls " cold 
 obstruction" before — now all the signs of life were visible. 
 The gates had become, or were becoming, houses ; pig-styes 
 were developing themselves into villas; bare walls had 
 gardens within them and conservatories to boot. In a few 
 years the almost-abandoned site of the Arundel Building 
 Society will, in all probability, become a little town — a 
 suburban colony — the genteel retreats of Arundel citizens 
 or the summer lodgings of burnt-out Londoners and 
 Brightonians !
 
 ^^By the RaiV to Pulborough, &c, 259 
 
 This sudden change in the fortunes and prospects of a small 
 spot does but typify that which awaits the whole of Mid-Sussex, 
 now "opened up" to the world. It is one of the richest and 
 most beautiful districts in England — rich in sylvan scenery, in 
 wood and water, in agricultural and in dairy produce, and in 
 the still larger blessings of pure and balmy air — not deficient, 
 either, in the manners and morals of its inhabitants : a 
 primitive and simple race — good-looking, hard-working, and 
 civil-spoken. 
 
 But we get on slowly with our journey. We loiter on the 
 way, as though we were floating on the river and not flying 
 by the rail. 
 
 Whilst we have been looking "before and after," we have 
 
 passed the resuscitated Building Society's Estate; we have 
 
 daringly puffed steam and smoke in the very face of the 
 
 Hereditary Earl Marshal of England ; we have passed that 
 
 curious mound at Burpham, by which our British forefathers 
 
 sought to cut off the high ground from the marauders who 
 
 came up the river in their shallow barks; we have issued upon 
 
 a wider part of the valley, with level meadows on each side of 
 
 the river, in which feed sleek slow-moving kine, on whose 
 
 backs is slowly accumulating the best of beef for Christmas 
 
 tables ; and now the white gleam of the Houghton chalk-pit 
 
 tells us that we are close upon Amberley and are about to issue 
 
 from the narrow valley — at Houghton, almost a pass — by 
 
 which the Arun makes its way from the Southdowns to the 
 
 sea — we are issuing from this gorge or pass into a more open 
 
 country, into which the Southdowns send their long chalk 
 
 spurs until between them and the sandstone hills of the 
 
 Weald there is but a division of a few miles. Amberley, and 
 
 the ruins of its old Bishop's Castle, stand on one of these long 
 
 chalk spurs — a narrow ridge in the low country through which 
 
 the Arun, not yet compressed by the hills, winds and doubles 
 
 at its will, and, in rainy seasons, often overflows until it looks 
 
 like a vast lake. Pulborough, the next station to Amberley, and 
 
 but five miles further on, stands on a mound of red sandstone.
 
 2 Go G/eam'no's in East and West Sussex. 
 
 The Arun has accompanied us thither; but it flows through 
 a new soil and through a new kind of scenery. We have bid 
 a final adieu to the chalk and are under the milder dominion 
 of sand. The change is palpable to the eye in the richer, 
 warmer tone of the soil — in the greater luxuriance of vegeta- 
 tion — in the almost tree-like appearance of the waving fern 
 and the rich purple of the heath ; and we almost think it is 
 sensible to the feelings in the greater softness of the air and 
 the absence of that stimulating quality which, on the chalk, 
 "braces" us up until the o'er-wrought soul threatens to wear 
 out its scabbard, the body. If, reader, you are ever suffering 
 from this chalky influence, take our advice: foreswear the chalk 
 and all its blessings for a season, and do not pause until you see 
 that the roads beneath your feet areas red and sandy as these 
 we are treading between Pulborough and Fittleworth. 
 
 For at Pulborough we leave the rail. 
 
 So far have we come with the world and the world's wife; 
 so far we have been looking at river and fields, and trees and 
 churches, and castles, old and new, through that most lowering 
 of all mediums, the windows of a railway carriage. What 
 the world was to Dickens's young gentleman who boasted that 
 he had seen it — through the bar-windows of a public-house — 
 such is country to one who thinks he sees it from a railway 
 carriage ! He does see something that looks like the country, 
 as the other saw something that looked like the world ; but 
 the point of view — the hurry-scurry, the associations, and the 
 mental tone that arises from all these, raise a screen between 
 the country and that man's soul. Some of its external features 
 may strike his eye ; but its essence never penetrates to his 
 heart. 
 
 No ! to taste the true flavour of the country, he must quit 
 the railway carriage ; turn his back on the railway ; thank it, 
 if he please, for having brought him so far on his way, but 
 eschew all further connection with it until, having taken a 
 full pure draught of the country, he wishes to enter the 
 world again.
 
 ^^ By the RaiV to Pidborough^ &€. 261 
 
 To carry out our own theory, let us quit Pulborough 
 station as quickly as possible. Let us not, at this moment, 
 be even tempted to turn our footsteps to Pulborough church, 
 a fine old structure,-standing on a mound, once, it is believed, 
 crowned by a Roman fort. Let us resist for a time the 
 temptation of Pulborough church and its famous brasses, 
 and, turning to the right on leaving the station, pass under 
 the railway bridge, and then, as we walk along the highway, 
 discuss the important point whether we will march to Fittle- 
 worth by the road or the river. 
 
 Both ways are beautiful. If we select the river-road, we 
 must get over a five-barred gate, which presents itself on the 
 left-hand side, about a third of a mile from the station, and 
 looking over which we see, a short distance off, a curious 
 wooden bridge rising sharply above the Arun. We cross this 
 bridge, and, keeping to the right, follow the towing-path 
 until we come to another bridge — this time a stone one, 
 immediately in front of Stopham House, the residence of 
 Sir William Bartelott, M.P. for West Sussex, and a gentleman 
 who can boast that his family has owned the same estate from 
 the days of the Conqueror. There is nothing in Stopham 
 House to attract attention : it is a plain, modern structure ; 
 but it overlooks a beautiful country, watered by the Arun and 
 the Rother, whose waters are here united by a short canal, 
 along the banks of which, crimsoned with flowers, we pursue 
 the river-path to Fittleworth. We have bidden good-bye to 
 the Arun ; the canal takes us to another Sussex river, the 
 most beautiful, to our thinking, of all our Sussex streams, the 
 Rother, which — the canal having done its work of junction — 
 proclaims its pleasant presence by a water-fall, and thence it 
 leads us, along its flowery banks, to the bridge and water-, 
 mill which stand for Fittleworth on the river-side. 
 
 But, before we get to this point of our road, let us halt a 
 moment to look at that old grey-looking farm-house which 
 overlooks the river to our right. It is on our side of the 
 stream, and so we can walk up to it through the fields. It is
 
 262 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 well worth a visit, and we will answer for it that a proper 
 request to inspect the premises will be courteously granted. 
 Lee House — formerly the residence of Sir William Stanley, 
 of Lee — is one of the numerous instances in which a family 
 mansion has been converted into a farm-house, even as many 
 a farm-house has been cut down into a home for labourers. 
 This shifting of one class into the habitations of another and 
 a higher class is still going on ; but it must have been much 
 more common in by-gone times than it is now. New mansions, 
 new farm-houses, and even new labourers' cottages, we rejoice 
 to say, are now built, specially adapted to the wants of the 
 class destined to occupy them. But enquire into the history 
 of many of the old farm-houses in Sussex — and doubtless it 
 holds good of other counties — and it is astonishing how many 
 can trace back their origin to founders who belonged to the 
 noble, the ecclesiastic, or the class which we now call gentry. 
 Such is the case with Lee House. Even as it stands, it is a 
 fine, solid old structure, with walls of immense thickness, 
 spacious rooms, wide staircases, and splendid cellarage. But 
 it is only a " poor epitome of former greatness." The ground- 
 plan of the original House can still be partly traced by broken 
 walls above or beneath the surface, and even the outbuildings 
 present indubitable marks, in fine old arches and stone 
 mullioned windows, of having been applied at one time to 
 higher purposes than barns and cow-sheds. The date of the 
 house — 1492 — is inscribed in two places on the outer walls, 
 and in each case the Arabic numerals are used, and it is, we 
 believe, one of the earliest instances of their use in England. 
 The second figure, by-the-bye, the 4, more nearly approaches 
 in its shape to i than to the modern 4, a peculiarity which 
 some of our Sussex antiquarians may be able to account for. 
 Independently of this literary curiosity, Lee House would 
 well repay a visit as the well-preserved remains of a Sussex 
 gentleman's residence of the transition-period of Henry VH., 
 when the jealousy of the Crown, fresh from the Wars of the 
 Roses, forbade the construction of those strong castles which 
 could '• laugh a siege to scorn," in which rebellious nobles
 
 ^'' By the RaiV to Pulborough, &€. 263 
 
 could bid defiance to Royal authority ; and when the higher 
 classes were compelled to content themselves with residences 
 like this at Fittleworth, capable of defence against the attacks 
 of wandering predatory bands, but not to be classed under the 
 category of fortified places. If there be "sermons in stones," 
 there is also history in bricks and mortar, and a little chapter 
 might be written from the evidence supplied in Lee House of 
 the change from an unsettled to a settled period, and, again, 
 from a period when the gentry were content to live in these 
 strong but somewhat rude and primitive dwelling-places to a 
 more wealthy and luxurious era, when they began to build 
 themselves splendid palaces, like Petworth House, sham 
 castles like Cotes' Castle — the castellated towers of which 
 can be seen in the distance between us and the Southdowns — 
 Italian villas, like Mr. Prime's at Warbleton, or solid English 
 mansions, square and ugly, like that at Burton Park : all 
 widely differing from this specimen of English architecture 
 in the 15th century — Lee House — which, no longer suited to 
 its purpose, was handed over from the noble to the farmer. 
 
 But we have tarried long by the road, and must find our 
 way to the river again. A few more windings and we are at 
 Fittleworth — 'tis but a field or two further on, and we can see 
 the bridge and the water-mill, and almost hear the rush of the 
 water over the wheel. Of the village itself, we see from 
 this point little or nothing ; the best approach to that is by 
 the road — the same road that we left to get over the five-barred 
 gate, but which we will now pursue, over Stopham bridge, by 
 Stopham House, and through beautiful hedge-rows until it 
 brings us to the head of Fittleworth Heath or Common. 
 
 Up to this point the Southdown hills have been gradually 
 opening upon our view, and now they rise and sink before us 
 in all their glory. From Chanctonbury, with its leafy crown, 
 on the extreme east, sweeping round through the headlands 
 of Arundel, Bury, Graffham, Lavington, and Dunction, to the 
 wooded heights of Harting, which look down on Hampshire, 
 the Southdowns of West Sussex form a magnificent amphi-
 
 264 Gkaniugs in East and West Sussex. 
 
 theatre — seen in its full perfection from this central point of 
 Fittleworth. At other points of Mid-Sussex we see this or 
 that portion of the Downs — this headland or that coomb — 
 this or that range or projection ; but here they sweep along 
 from east to west, closing in the southern horizon like the sea 
 itself on the other side — far enough from us to be viewed in 
 all the completeness of their outline, but also near enough 
 for us to distinguish now a wooded crest, now a smooth 
 expanse of Down, now a coomb, hollowed in the steep hill- 
 side, now a hanging wood, or a still darker mass of foliage 
 marking a park, or, perhaps, a tall column such as that which 
 rises at Lavington on the estate of the Bishop of Oxford. 
 And it is not merely a hill-view. It is also a background to 
 a nearer picture. In front of the village runs the Rother, 
 making for some distance a silver chord to the hilly arc we 
 have described, and, rising from the valley of the Rother, 
 meadows, fields, and woods slope upwards to the foot of the 
 hills, leading on the eye through all varieties of sylvan and 
 rustic beauty until the Southdowns close in and perfect the 
 picture. 
 
 But we have been dwelling on the distant features of the 
 picture. There is a nearer one, and, if not so grand, still 
 scarcely a less beautiful one, lying at our feet. We are at 
 the summit of Fittleworth Heath — at the commencement of 
 the straight bit of road which runs down to B'ittleworth 
 Common. Heath or Common — it is all one, only the higher 
 part of the red sandstone hill, from which we are looking, is 
 clothed with rich purple heath and yellow gorse, with a few 
 scattered firs on its side, whilst at the foot of the hill there is 
 a broad level margin of turf, sacred to cricket and other 
 rustic sports. There is a booth now standing on it, and two 
 country elevens are contending for the glory of Stopham and 
 of Fittleworth. Yesterday there was a "harvest home," joined 
 in by all the farmers of the district; and whenever anything is 
 to be done at Fittleworth, that piece of pleasant turf called 
 the Common is the scene of it. The high-road winds close 
 round the verge of this country cricket-ground, and on the other
 
 * ' By the Rail ' ' to Pulborough, &c. 265 
 
 side — on the slope of the hill facing us — runs the village-street, 
 leading to the church, the tower of which peeps forth from a 
 wood that rises just behind it. Closely adjacent to the church 
 is the vicarage, in a charming situation, and, not far off, 
 another good house (the residence of Captain Montgomery, 
 head of the West Sussex Constabulary)— both of which look 
 towards the Heath on which we stand. The village itself is 
 scattered, but chiefly runs up, in a line of cottages, to the 
 church. Other cottages skirt the Common and follow the 
 road, which, after the sharp descent we have named, turns 
 round the Common to the left and makes its way — where 
 every road ought to make its way — towards the village inn. 
 It is, in fact, the common point to which the river-road and 
 the turnpike-road lead us, and, in this instance, a most 
 comfortable point. The "Swan" at Fittleworth is not, 
 indeed, quite so tall as the Grand Hotel at Brighton. It is, 
 in fact, just one storey high, and the occupant of that upper 
 storey might safely drop out of his bedroom window into the 
 road if he saw just cause. But that cause would not, we venture 
 to say, lie in the want of comfort and cleanliness, or even of that 
 spaciousness which contributes to " quiet breathing." In all 
 these essentials to a night's repose the " Swan" is most rich. 
 To all outward appearances only a roadside inn, it has all the 
 comforts which, we rejoice to say, still hold their ground in 
 the quiet little English country inn. 
 
 But we are " taking our ease at our inn " when all our 
 senses should be given to out-of-door beauties. Take a few 
 steps from the *' Swan " on any side you please, and you are 
 in the midst of them. The "Swan" itself is, of course, as 
 its name implies, by the river — in the valley — within sound of 
 the water-mill. But hills rise on each side of it: rich, warm 
 hills, covered with purple heath and yellow gorse, with, here 
 and there, high broken banks or winding roads, showing the 
 deep red sandstone which gives such a richness and warmth 
 to the landscape. Climb up any of these hills, and from the 
 easily-gained elevation you look over a beautiful picture on 
 every side. Of course the Southdowns, with their beautiful
 
 266 Gleanings m East and West Sussex. 
 
 slopes and summits, now smooth with turf, now dark with 
 woods, first take the eye, and then the sight falls on the valley 
 where the Rother runs, and then passes to the inner line of 
 hills, no longer of chalk, but of red sand, which, running 
 parallel with the chalk hills, indicate another character of soil 
 and give rise to another kind of scenery. Look from the low 
 ground at the Southdowns, and these latter would not be less 
 beautiful, but their beauty would end with themselves. 
 Such is the case at Amberley, where you pass from the chalk- 
 hills into the river valley. But at Fittleworth you reach an 
 inner line of hills — not so grand as Chanctonbury, Bury, and 
 Lavington — not so grand in their outline, not so wide-sweeping 
 in their extent, but very beautiful in their soft sides and 
 rounded summits, and objects of beauty in themselves besides 
 serving as points of view for more distant beauties. On one 
 side — the Fittleworth side — of these red-sand hills you see 
 the Southdowns ; on the other — at Bedham, about three 
 miles inland — you overlook the Weald of Sussex, take in the 
 Surrey hills, and can easily get a peep of Kent. If we could 
 compare any part of East Sussex with the scenery of Fittle- 
 worth, it would be Hayward's Heath, where the sweep round 
 is so extensive and is closed to the south by the Southdowns. 
 But then the hills are more distant from Hayward's Heath 
 than from Fittleworth Heath, and the eye cannot so plainly 
 distinguish their special forms, or take in so wide a sweep to 
 east and west. The East Sussex view is as extensive, but not 
 so bold, so rich, or so varied in its features as its fellow one 
 of West Sussex. It is more map-like, whilst the other is a 
 succession of pictures, if taken separately, or one magnificent 
 view, if taken as a whole ; and you may do which you please. 
 
 We might, however, write for ever, and then the reader 
 would not have seen, even in his " mind's eye," the beauties 
 of Fittleworth— the pleasant winding turns of the Rother 
 through level meadows and under high sandy banks, shaded 
 with woods — the heath-covered sand-hills, with winding and 
 broken roads, now shutting out the view between high banks,
 
 ^^By the Rail'' to Pulborough, &c. 267 
 
 now showing you distant church steeples and castellated 
 buildings, with many a wooded height and soft, sleepy hollow 
 — all these delights of Nature are only to be compassed by 
 the actual sense of sight. The imagination may strain to 
 conceive them ; the writer or the artist may labour to bring 
 them home to us. But let us go and look for ourselves, and, 
 if we be honest, what is our confession 1 " It is quite 
 different from what we supposed — we never conceived such a 
 scene as this." The most that the writer — the artist — can do 
 is to raise the desire in others to go and see what must be 
 seen to be known ; and this is what we have tried to do — very 
 imperfectly, we know, and so the reader who goes to Fittle- 
 worth will say. But so that he does go, we care not what he 
 says. The responsibility will be off our shoulders. It will be 
 an affair between Man and Nature, and if they do not make 
 a loving compact with each other, and part good friends for 
 ever, tant pis for Man !
 
 Bosham: Its Past and Present. 
 
 HERE is a very equal division both of historical 
 incidents and of picturesque beauties between East 
 and West Sussex ; Brighton standing between the 
 two as a kind of neutral ground, belonging rather 
 to England — nay, to Europe — than to Sussex, so colossal are 
 its proportions and so cosmopolitan is its character. But, 
 looking to the east or to the west of Brighton, we meet with 
 ground which has been illustrated in a pretty equal degree by 
 great events in our national history ; and in going over this 
 ground, we note that, while its titles to the picturesque are 
 pretty equal, they are based on very opposite characteristics. 
 The chalk cliffs of Albion rise to the east of Brighton, and 
 extend, more or less, along the Sussex sea-border till Kent is 
 reached. There are none to be seen west of Brighton. East 
 of Brighton the Downs are, to use a Shakspearian word, 
 "unshrubbed." A little to the west of Brighton — almost as 
 soon, indeed, as we cross the Adur and enter the Western 
 Division of the county— they are crowned by magnificent 
 woods, which extend along the heights of Arundel, Slindon, 
 Goodwood, Dale Park, West Dean, Cowdray, and Harting, 
 until we enter Hampshire. 
 
 Then, again, looking from the hills of East Sussex, at 
 Lewes or Hastings, our eyes fall upon an almost unbroken 
 sea-line ; the division of land and water is sharply marked ; 
 there is no intermixture of the two elements or confusion of 
 outline, but the sea- wave cither flows up in an unbroken line 
 to the base of the tall cliff, or it sweeps round the smooth 
 curves of Pevensey Bay, or rolls in on the unbroken beach 
 which its own action accumulates on the shores of Rye and 
 Winchelsea, filling up the old harbours of those ancient
 
 Bosham: Its Past and Present. 269 
 
 Cinque Ports, and converting into green fields the watery 
 spaces where once rode the navies of the Edwards, the 
 Henries, and of Elizabeth. 
 
 Turn to the west of Sussex — ascend the Goodwood hills, 
 and what a different scene presents itself! The eye can 
 hardly tell whether it is looking upon earth or water, so 
 intermingled are they with each other and so equally divided; 
 it is difficult to discern where the one begins or the other 
 ends ; it is a beautiful confusion of the two elements ; creeks, 
 estuaries, harbours, watery inlets, river-like channels, with 
 bays, islands, of all shapes and sizes — the water now running 
 in faint lines up into the country or collecting in larger and 
 lake-like basins, with nothing to give it a defined or decided 
 character : all mixed up in the most picturesque confusion. It 
 is beautiful, but very bewildering, to look at ; and he must be 
 a skilful hydrographer, who can follow all these water lines 
 and give to each its proper name and character. 
 
 Of course, each of these lines of water has its proper 
 name and character: that, which winds so irregularly up 
 nearly to the City of Chichester, is Fishbourne; that deep 
 bay that comes next is the so-called Harbour of Bosham — 
 an inland harbour, that has its proper sea-outlet further 
 south in Chichester Harbour ; or, if the navigator prefer 
 it, he may " hug the shore " all round the inner side of 
 Hayling Island and either find a way into the sea at Lang- 
 stone Harbour (Chichester Harbour being to the east and 
 Langstone Harbour to the west of Hayling Island), or he 
 may still pursue his back way, round Southsea, into Portsmouth 
 Harbour, and reach this point from Fishbourne without once 
 going into the open sea. Up how many creeks and through 
 how many channels he will have to sail or row, we will not say. 
 Looking down from the Goodwood Hills or from Stoke Clump 
 on the watery maze, landsmen would be tempted to think 
 that the unhappy navigator, like the metaphysical Angels in 
 Pandemonium, would "find no end, in wandering mazes lost." 
 But, as an element of scenery, it is full of beauty, and forms,
 
 270 Glea7ungs in East and West Sussex. 
 
 as we have said, a strong contrast to the smooth line of sea- 
 coast in East Sussex — as strong as that of the wooded to the 
 unwooded Downs. 
 
 Each of these strongly contrasted tracts of country has 
 played its part in the history of this kingdom. Hastings and 
 Lewes, Pevensey and Winchelsea belong to the one, and 
 Arundel, Chichester, Selsea and Bosham to the other. Celt, 
 Roman, Saxon, Dane and Norman have appeared at each, 
 now as foes, now as defenders — crossing the scene like actors 
 on the stage, playing their parts as barbarians, civilizers, 
 warriors, seamen, priests, legislators, conquerors and con- 
 quered, and anon, like the landscape of sea and inland water we 
 have been gazing at, losing their individual features in a mass 
 that mixes and mingles until we cannot tell which is Celt, 
 Dane, Saxon, or Norman — conqueror or conquered. To the 
 learned ethnological eye there are still lines of division which 
 might be mapped out ; but it is best to be not overwise in this 
 respect, and to take all the fine specimens of humanity that 
 haunt and habit these shores of West Sussex as pure Britons 
 or "true-born Englishmen," whichever the reader likes best! 
 
 But to return to our history. Whilst Pevensey, with its 
 remains of Roman Anderida, and its Norman Castle, famous 
 for its defence by Dame Pelham — whilst Hastings and Lewes, 
 with their great historical battles, and Winchelsea, with its 
 traditions of the Edwards and Elizabeth, seem to stand out 
 more prominently on the scroll of history ; on the other hand, 
 Arundel, with its traditions of Sir Bevis and its two sieges ; 
 Selsea, the seat of the first Sussex See; Chichester, the 
 ancient Roman Regnum and the city-camp of Cissa ; and 
 Bosham, the residence of Vespasian, Canute, and Harold — 
 these West Sussex places challenge comparison with- their 
 rivals of East Sussex on historical as well as on picturesque 
 grounds. 
 
 The Romans seem to have given an equal attention to 
 both districts. The remains of their great road from Regnum 
 by Pulborough, Hardham, Billingshurst, and Horsham (called
 
 Boskafn : Its Past and Present. 271 
 
 by the Saxons the Stane Street), to London can still be traced; 
 and at Bignor and Bosham remains of their Villas and 
 Basilicas have been found. The Danes and Saxons followed 
 in their footsteps— at Bosham built on their sites, and sailed 
 their light vessels up the creeks and through the narrow sea- 
 channels into the inner harbours which had seen the heavier 
 galleys of the Romans ride in them. Here, at Bosham, 
 Canute, the greatest of the Danish kings, resided in the old 
 Palace of Vespasian, and here, according to tradition, he lost 
 and buried a youthful daughter, whose tomb is supposed to 
 have been discovered in our own days. At all events, in the 
 year 1865, whilst the church, which dates back to Saxon and 
 even Roman days — for it is supposed to stand on the site of 
 a Basilica — was undergoing repair, the then Vicar, the Rev. 
 H. INIitchell, directed the masons to "sound the spot which 
 tradition had pointed out as the site of the child's grave," 
 and "the iron bar at once struck upon a stone, and, on 
 removing the mould which covered it, a stone coffin was 
 presented to our delighted gaze. The mason, in raising the 
 lid, which was firmly fixed to the coffin by concrete, broke it 
 in two places, but, when it was raised, the remains of the 
 child were distinctly visible." They lost their form, we believe, 
 almost immediately. But the coffin was replaced in its old 
 resting-place, and he will be a bold archaeologist who will 
 venture to dispute — at least at Bosham — that it contains the 
 remains of the daughter of Canute ! 
 
 What is better founded is the close connection of Earl 
 Godwin and his son Harold with ihe port of Bosham. 
 According to some authorities, Godwin's first wife and the 
 mother of Harold was a daughter of Canute. And it is 
 certain that Godwin, like Canute, had a Palace at Bosham — 
 not the Roman building, but one nearer to the church ; east, 
 says Mr. Mitchell, of the present IManor House. And here 
 also Harold, the guardian of the south coast of England, 
 came sometimes to reside ; and here occurred that strange 
 incident in his career which had such a disastrous influence 
 on his after-fate. It was from Bosham, the chief port in the
 
 272 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 nth century for communication with the opposite coast, 
 that Harold sailed when he made that ill-starred visit to 
 France which threw him into the power of Duke William of 
 Normandy. There are doubts as to the object of that visit— 
 whether, as some authorities say. it was made by order of 
 Edward the Confessor to inform William that he— Edward 
 —had made him heir to the English throne ; or whether it 
 was made in opposition to the Confessor's wish* in order to 
 obtain the release of Harold's young brother, Wulfnoth ; or 
 whether, as some assert, Harold, whilst on a fishing excursion 
 off Bosham, was driven by a sudden storm on to the coast of 
 Ponthieu, and was there made prisoner by the Count of the 
 country and ransomed, for his own purposes, by William. 
 However this may be, it is certain that Harold fell into the 
 hands of the Norman Duke, whose claims to the heirship of 
 the English throne were in direct opposition to those of 
 Harold. This fact, and the succeeding incident of the oath 
 that Harold took to support William's pretensions, are all set 
 forth in the famous tapestry of Bayeux which records the 
 main facts of the Conquest. Here we see Harold, "Dux 
 Anglorum," and his soldiers, riding to the church at Bosham, 
 the edifice depicted as such being a fancy-sketch on the part 
 of the fair weavers ; Harold and a friend entering the church 
 on bended knees, in order to offer up their vows for a safe 
 passage to Normandy. They are next seen refreshing 
 themselves at the Manor House previous to embarking; a 
 messenger summons them to the ships in Bosham harbour, 
 and stripping themselves of their lower garments, they wade 
 to the vessels, with their dogs under their arms, and are 
 soon under full sail to the opposite coast. 
 
 Such is the description in the tapestry of the embarcation 
 of Harold for that fatal voyage. It was the starting-point of 
 that tragic history which ends at Hastings. Commencing on 
 the western coast of Sussex, " the cradle and the grave of 
 
 ♦This, it will be recollected, is the view taken by Tennyson in his drama of 
 " Harold."
 
 Bos ham: Its Past and Present. 273 
 
 Harold," it has its climax on the eastern shore. At Bosham 
 Harold is "Dux Anglorum," the great English chief — the 
 warder of the English coast — the destined king and champion 
 of the sturdy race. His star is in the ascendant. At 
 Pevensey, or Sanguelac, or Hastings — the spot now known 
 as Battle — he lies dead and unknown amongst a heap of 
 slaughtered Saxons and Normans : the last of the Saxon 
 kings. 
 
 From this time Bosham, the western port of Sussex, seems 
 to sink out of sight. It figures no more in history. The 
 port and the adjacent waters, which we have attempted to 
 describe, were well adapted for the vessels of the Romans, 
 the Danes, and the Saxons, and all these races have left 
 numerous traces of their presence on the adjacent hills and 
 plains, in masonry and earthworks. But the Normans seem 
 to have preferred the more eastern coast, as being nearer, 
 perhaps, to their own country, or having harbours better 
 adapted for their larger vessels. The Cinque Ports, and 
 Newhaven and Shoreham (at the latter of which King John 
 so often embarked and disembarked in his rapid visits to 
 Normandy) were the favourite ports of the Normans in Sussex. 
 Bosham sank to what it is now : little more than a fishing-place, 
 with a church of which the Saxon remains constitute the 
 greatest point of interest, and with traditions of Roman and 
 Danish and Saxon days that still give it a place in history and 
 archaeology. But the harbour is a mere inland bay made by 
 the water that sweeps in round Hayling Island at Chichester 
 Harbour and Langstone Harbour. At high tide it will only 
 float vessels of small tonnage ; at low tide it is a mere mud- 
 bank, round which lie the houses on each side of the "harbour" 
 that make up modern Bosham. What strikes the visitor to the 
 place as singular is the wooded appearance of the country all 
 round Bosham. On every side, seaward and landward, there 
 are clumps of trees — fine high trees, though somewhat 
 weather-beaten trees — so different from the bare appearance 
 of the eastern coast of Sussex. The soil, too, is deep and 
 rich, yielding capital crops. It is, indeed, an old and fruitful 
 T
 
 2 74 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 soil, that early tempted the invader, but which now seems to 
 have been left by the tide of modern progress ; for, with all 
 its wealth, or rather waste, of water, it lacks that capability 
 of navigation which is a necessity for modern commerce. If, 
 instead of the shallow Lavant, which only flows by Chichester 
 a few months in the year, or instead of the little mill-stream 
 that runs into Bosham Harbour and still fdls the moat which 
 marks the site of Godwin's and Harold's Palace — if, instead 
 of these insignificant streams, a real river had flown from or 
 through the Southdowns into the sea, Bosham, or some 
 contiguous spot, might have been a great port, and Chichester 
 might have rivalled Liverpool or Southampton or Portsmouth 
 in maritime greatness. As it is, Chichester, relatively to the 
 rest of England, is a less important city than it was two 
 thousand years ago, and Bosham, instead of being the 
 chief port for communication with France, is a mere 
 fishing hamlet, rich only in the traditions and associations of 
 the past, and with little pretensions to picturesque beauty, 
 except as viewed, with the neighbouring wood and land and 
 water, from the Downs that rise behind it. 
 
 W'^
 
 Middleton: The Fight of Sea and Land. 
 
 HE interest of a spot does not always He in its 
 natural beauties, in its triumphs of Art, or in its 
 associations as a theatre of great events. The 
 parish of IVIiddleton, on the West Sussex coast, is 
 deficient in all these elements of interest. It is dull, flat, and 
 only not unprofitable in a farming point of view. And yet 
 there is a great interest attaching to this patch of coast, for 
 here is to be witnessed in full operation one of those grand, 
 if gradual, agencies by which, in course of time, the whole 
 surface of the earth is changed : the sea made dry land, the 
 dry land sea; the channel of commerce diverted ; the seat 
 of Empire transferred from one people to another; islands 
 thrown up, or re-united to the mainland ; harbours converted 
 into meadows, and meadows made harbours. In this poor 
 unattractive parish of Middleton we see land and sea opposed 
 to each other in a contest which never ceases for a single 
 moment, but in which sea is always victorious. 
 
 We do not suppose that Middleton is known to many 
 even of our Sussex readers, or, if known, it is chiefly by the 
 sonnet which, as so many of our poetical collections tell us, 
 was written in Middleton churchyard, by Mrs. Charlotte 
 Smith. The sonnet has outlived both church and church- 
 yard.* The spot on which they stood is now one of the 
 
 * It is a fine one, and will bear repetition : — 
 
 Press'd by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides, 
 
 While the loud Equinox its power combines, 
 
 The sea no more its swelling surge contines, 
 But o'er the shrinking land sublimely rides. 
 The wild blast, rising from the western cave, 
 
 Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed ; 
 
 Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead, 
 And breaks the sacred Sabbath of the grave ! 
 With shells and seaweed mingled on the shore, 
 
 Lo ! their bones whiten in the frequent wave j 
 
 But vain to them the winds and waters rave, 
 they hear the warring elements no more ; 
 
 While I am doomed, by life's long storm opprest. 
 
 To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.
 
 276 Gleanings in East aiid West Sussex. 
 
 most dreary on this dreary line of coast. The church, when 
 it existed, as it did some forty years ago, must have stood 
 like an advanced guard against the encroachments of the sea, 
 and to the sailor and fisherman it must have been a prominent 
 and welcome beacon on a low and dangerous shore. But the 
 space between the edifice and the sea became less and less, 
 and the garden which, within the memory of people yet 
 living, fronted the churchyard, was swept away. Then, bit 
 by bit, the churchyard itself followed, with all its memorials 
 of past generations. At last the fabric of the church was 
 assailed. Efforts were, of course, made to preserve this, and 
 bulwarks were raised on the sea-side to strengthen and uphold 
 it. But the work of undermining went on, until, one night, 
 in a fierce gale of wind and rain, the church came toppling 
 down, and the sea swept triumphantly over the ruins. For 
 several years these were visible at low tide ; but all vestiges 
 have now disappeared. There used to be a broad carriage- 
 road — a coast road — leading to the church from the villages 
 to the east. The sea now rolls where carriages and waggons 
 used to roll. The only approach to the site of the church is 
 by a lane from an upper or inland road, through a farm-yard 
 (Mr. Coote's) down to the sea-shore ; if the piece of ground 
 which we come to at the end of the lane is to be dignified by 
 the name of sea-shore. 
 
 A more melancholy spot — more eloquent of ruin past and 
 ruin yet to come — it is difficult to conceive. And the efi'ect upon 
 the mind is the more powerful because it is not prepared for it. 
 The upper road, though running parallel to the sea-coast, and 
 not more than 200 or 300 yards from it, is nevertheless a purely 
 country road — not very picturesque, certainly, for the fields 
 on both sides are flat, and the hedges are without timber, and 
 the ditches are wide and deep, and there are no road-side 
 cottages. But there are no sea-signs such as usually meet 
 you near the sea-coast. For aught that the eye can discern, 
 you might be travelling in the heart of the Weald. You 
 meet with none of those marine indications which speak 
 so indubitably of the near adjacency of salt water along
 
 Middleton: The Fight of Sea and Land. 277 
 
 the greater part of the sea-shore : there are no broken boats 
 — no wandering sailors — no road-side "Ship "or "Jolly 
 Fisherman," with its marine loungers — no smell of tar or 
 sound of a beating surf. All is still and quiet and country- 
 like. And yet follow any of these country lanes which strike 
 to the south out of this country road, and in a few moments 
 you are on the very skirts of the ocean itself. You are in the 
 presence of that mighty rival of the solid earth, and you 
 come upon it without any change of ground. Your approach 
 has been by a dead-level : you have not to mount even such 
 a ridge as banks in one of our Southdown ponds. Nor, on 
 the other hand, is there any fall from a higher ground, such 
 as characterises the coast between Worthing and Brighton. 
 Along this West Sussex coast-line, and especially at Middleton, 
 the land runs as flat as a bowling-green to the very edge of 
 the ocean, and approaches the monster as little prepared for 
 resistance as a naked child is to do battle with a crocodile of 
 the Nile. No beetling rock — no towering chalk cliff — no 
 shelving shore on which the shingle may accumulate — nothing 
 but the loamy surface of the wheat-field — the soft flesh of 
 the earth, into which the sharp teeth of the old Sea Monster 
 penetrates at every tide, tearing away whole mouthfuls of the 
 delicate food and swallowing it up with utter remorselessness. 
 Even when the old tyrant is calm and quiet his waters wash 
 the base of the rich, soft soil, and sap and undermine it; 
 lubricating it for a future gulp as a boa-constrictor does a 
 rabbit. But when his fury is provoked by the wind, or when 
 the moon draws out his strength, then he tears and rends and 
 mangles it, and leaves behind such staring gaps and such 
 masses of ruin of wood and brick and stone and earth as 
 meet the eye here at Middleton. 
 
 For Middleton is the extreme left of a series of groynes, 
 extending from Pagham on the west, by which the land- 
 holders and householders of Aldwick and Bognor and Felpham 
 and Middleton have endeavoured to protect their property. 
 These groynes, though insignificant in bulk when compared 
 to our Brighton groynes, are vastly more numerous, occurring
 
 278 Gleanings hi East and West Sussex. 
 
 at every twenty or thirty yards, and sometimes much smaller 
 intervals, along a sea-frontage of some five or six miles. 
 They are to be counted by hundreds, and make the shore 
 black with their long straight lines, running a greater or less 
 distance into the flat sand. And yet the shingle which they 
 arrest in its course from west to east is nothing like the 
 mass which collects against the Brighton groynes, and makes 
 the Brighton beach so solid and so impenetrable to the sea. 
 And the reason is, that here, on this West Sussex coast, the 
 land does not shelve down to the sea. The fall ceases at the 
 base of the chalk hills, some six or seven miles inland ; or 
 if there still be a fall to the sea, it is so slight as to be 
 imperceptible to the eye, and scarcely to affect the flow of 
 fresh water, which collects in a stagnant fashion on the very 
 borders of the sea. Thus, having nothing to rest on — no 
 back-stay, no point d'appui — the shingle is a mere ridge, 
 more or less wide, separating the sea on the one side from a 
 meadow or field, often below the level of the sea, on the 
 Other. So that, if the ridge be broken through by the fury of 
 the sea, the water pours through like a deluge and the land is 
 inundated. Such was the case a few years ago at Felpham, 
 when the Blockade Station-house there was swept away and 
 the people of the village had to be taken out of their houses 
 in boats. Even now it is only by continual efforts that the 
 narrow ridge of shingle which protects Felpham can be kept 
 up; the shingle is continually thrown into the meadows which 
 lie under its lee ; and the ultimate fate of these fields and of 
 the village itself can scarcely admit of a doubt.*' But at 
 Middleton, where, as we have said, the system of groynes 
 ends, there is no ridge of shingle at all. The sea comes up 
 without impediment to the yellow earth, depositing a few 
 black-looking flints at its feet, which black-looking flints are 
 no protectors, but the avant-coiirrieis of destruction : the carte 
 devisite by which Ocean signifies to Earth his near approach! 
 
 * Since the above was written, in 1875, much in the way of protecting Felpham has 
 been done by the efforts of Mr. F. Sparkcs, the intelligent ofiicer of the Commissioners 
 of Felpham Levels.
 
 Middleton: The Fight of Sea and Land. 279 
 
 The groynes ended, there is nothing to stop this unpleasant 
 visit : the sea at once sweeps some fifty yards round the last 
 point of resistance ; and then revels in the soft mould, which, 
 now higher, now lower — now six feet, now twelve feet high — 
 yields itself, whether high or low, an easy prey to the invader. 
 
 It is on the jutting point formed by the last groyne to the 
 east that the best idea is given of the ruin which follows a 
 conflict of sea and land when sea is strongest. Here stands* 
 a kind of wooden barn, and in front of this, as we are told 
 by men still in the prime of life who attended Divine Service 
 there as children, stood Middleton church. All around is a 
 mass of debris — a mixture of earth and shingle, with bricks, 
 chalk, and black logs of wood, the remnants of shattered 
 groynes. A little in the rear are broken stone-walls, built 
 solidly enough, but undermined and fallen into ruins on their 
 sea-side. They are the vestiges of barns which once stood 
 here. Still further in the rear are two or three cottages, in 
 bleak desolation. The whole place is full of a melancholy 
 interest. It looks toil-worn, exhausted, and shattered, as by 
 an unequal contest — ready at any moment to give way in 
 despair. We can fancy the sea mumbling to itself, " One 
 good rush, and this old rotten piece of earth must tumble 
 into my jaws." It looks so jaded, so broken, so time-worn 
 everywhere, like a fine old man whose constitution is breaking; 
 whilst the sea before it is fresh and young and strong, and 
 knows not what Time is, and smiles at the talk of ruin, and 
 is insatiable in its demands : no sooner swallowing up one 
 foot of earth, than, like some barbarous invader of a feeble 
 people, it asks for two more, and makes these a resting-place 
 for still further demands. So that, as it creeps on and eats 
 into the rich mould of West Sussex, and as every year has 
 to count its loss, in inches, in feet, or in yards, the mind, in 
 its desire to anticipate the end, rushes to that period when 
 the whole of the fertile expanse between the sea-coast and 
 
 • Or rather, it should now be said, stood ; for, since the above description was 
 written, a considerable inroad has been made by the sea on this point of land.
 
 28o Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 the chalk-hills, now the garden of Sussex, shall have sunk 
 into the arms of the sea, and fleets shall float where now 
 cattle pasture and the green corn grows. 
 
 The absorption of Middleton churchyard into the smooth 
 clear bed of the Ocean was not a very pleasant process. Ever 
 and anon, as the sea made a fresh inroad into the soft soil, 
 coflins "cropped out," and still more ghastly evidences were 
 given of the nature of the spot which the tide was washing 
 away. To the villagers round about, the place, lonely at all 
 times, now became invested with supernatural terrors, and the 
 traveller who found himself benighted near the old ruinous 
 church and the crumbling churchyard, hurried by as fast as 
 he could, and breathed more freely as he left them behind. 
 A friend of ours tells a story illustrative of the feelings 
 excited by Middleton church at this phase of its existence. 
 He had been out on a shooting excursion along the coast, 
 and was returning home rather late at night — a moonlight 
 night — when the ruins of Middleton church rose up before 
 him. He knew them well, and was not given to superstitious 
 fears. In fact, as a medical student, the churchyard had 
 been rather useful to him in a scientific point of view: it was 
 a very store-house of human bones. Perhaps he may have 
 felt a twinge of conscience as this thought came over his 
 mind ; it is certain he did not think of arresting his steps at 
 this moment for the purpose of increasing his collection of 
 the osseous remains of mortality. He shouldered his gun, 
 began to whistle a lively tune, and was about boldly to pass 
 the old ruins, when he was startled by perceiving an out- 
 stretched object in front of the high but tottering wall that 
 faced the sea. He stopped and looked again ; his fancy 
 might deceive him. No — there was no doubt about it. In 
 the bright moonshine was something plainly discernible in 
 front of the church wall ; fixed, immoveable there, but still 
 with a certain air of life and motion. Our friend was startled, 
 but not daunted. He took up a stone and flung it at the some- 
 thing. His aim was true : a dull, hollow sound came forth as 
 the stone hit its mark, and the object moved — visibly moved —
 
 Middleton: The Fight of Sea a7id Land. 281 
 
 but still retained its place and shape — that shape being after the 
 fashion of a human form with threatening, outstretched arms. 
 Our friend now drew nearer — for there was only a narrow 
 path left by the receding tide between the ruins and the 
 sea — but, as he did so, he cocked his gun, and, in modern 
 Volunteer phraseology, came to the " ready." He now drew 
 slowly to the object, which was again perfectly motionless, 
 but not less threatening in its gesture: so threatening, indeed, 
 that our friend, presenting his gun, shouted out " Speak, or 
 I'll fire," "Speak, I say, or I'll shoot you," and so keeping up 
 his courage by the sound of his own voice, and with his gun 
 to his shoulder, he drew nearer and nearer to the object of 
 his fears, which never stirred — made no reply, and was just 
 about to receive a charge of No. i duck-shot, when a voice 
 came thundering on the ears of my friend — not from the 
 tottering wall, nor from that strange appearance on it, but 
 from a neighbouring groyne — " Halloa, there, friend, what 
 are you up to } Don't you be a peppering my great coat I " 
 Our friend dropped his gun in a moment, and his head, too, 
 declined a little from the erect. He didn't know at the 
 moment whether he was most relieved or ashamed. The 
 spokesman from the groyne was a coastguardsman. The 
 day having been wet, he had hung his great coat on the old 
 church wall to dry ! That was the spectral appearance which 
 had so puzzled, not to say alarmed, our friend ; and it is, we 
 believe, the only well-authenticated ghost story connected 
 with the ruins of Middleton church !
 
 Pagham and its Harbotir. 
 
 F Middleton, which stands at the eastern extremity 
 of the system of groyne-defence on the West coast 
 of Sussex, is a dreary spot of earth, only invested 
 with a melancholy interest by the fact of the losses 
 it has suffered, the peril which threatens it, and the inevitable 
 doom which awaits it, Pagham, which stands at the western 
 extremity of that same system of groynes, is a match for it in 
 the absence of all picturesque beauty and in the presence of 
 an equally active agency of destruction. 
 
 Pagham, however, differs from Middleton in two very 
 important particulars : its church still stands, and it has a 
 harbour. The church, too, is a fine one, and in admirable 
 preservation. It was restored some thirty years ago, when in 
 a state of absolute ruin, by the efforts of the then incumbent, 
 Mr. Goddard, and enriched with handsome painted windows, 
 a fine rose window, brought from Rome ; a font, piscina, 
 reading-desk, &c., either ancient, or formed upon ancient 
 models. The church itself is of spacious dimensions, and 
 has all the architectural properties of a village church of the 
 first order: nave, chancel, aisles, transepts, tower, and spire. 
 If only exposed to the fair action of Time, Pagham church, 
 as restored by Mr. Goddard, might stand for centuries — a 
 monument of that spirit of restoration which has marked the 
 present age. But Pagham church stands in presence of the 
 same redoubtable enemy who has triumphed over Middleton. 
 If we want to understand what the position of Middleton 
 church was forty years ago we have only to go to Pagham 
 churchyard and cast our eyes over the low wall which bounds 
 it to the south. One solitary green field, low and flat, with a 
 few weather-beaten trees, and then comes a vast expanse of 
 mud and sand, which the sea overflows at high tide, bringing
 
 Pagham and its Harbour. 283 
 
 its waters, in spring-tides, or in a gale of wind from the 
 south, to within a few yards of the churchyard wall — nay, it 
 is said, in some cases, washing the very wall itself. 
 
 As the visitor overlooks this low, flat, dreary waste of sand 
 and mud, he naturally puts this question to himself, "And 
 where is Pagham Harbour?" For Pagham Church and 
 Pagham Harbour go as naturally and inseparably together as 
 Goodwin Sands and Tenterden church-steeple. Arrived at 
 the church you expect to see the harbour, and instinctively 
 look for some sign of pier, ship, channel, or lighthouse, to 
 mark its presence. Not one of these haven-like appearances 
 can you discern from Pagham churchyard ; and yet, notwith- 
 standing, you are overlooking Pagham Harbour in all its 
 glory. Whatever of a harbour there is, lies before you ; and 
 you, like the unfortunate mariner who happens to be caught 
 in a gale on the eastern side of Selsea Bill, must make the 
 best you can of it. 
 
 As for ourselves, distrusting our powers of discerning a 
 harbour where signs of a harbour there was none, we, on 
 leaving the churchyard, modestly enquired at the first cottage 
 we came to on the road-side "the way to the harbour.?" A 
 little girl was our informant, and the information she gave 
 us was not beyond her powers : " It is down the road, sir, 
 just opposite." We turned round and saw a farm-road, M'ith 
 a swing-gate and a turnstile which would have been in 
 admirable keeping as an approach to a barn or a farm-yard, 
 but constituted about as strange an approach to a harbour as 
 is, we should think, to be met with in all England ! 
 
 At the bottom of the lane thus guarded stand a few 
 cottages, with that indispensable accompaniment of cottages 
 — children— to whom the appearance of " a gentleman" was 
 evidently no slight source of interest. Both the cottages 
 and the children belonged to a colony of Coastguardsmen 
 stationed here, as on other parts of the Sussex coast, with no 
 other apparent object than to cultivate potatoes and walk up 
 and down with large telescopes under their arms. Let us,
 
 284 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 however, do justice to these fine, healthy-looking fellows : 
 they have always a civil answer to a civil question ; they are 
 ever ready to satisfy the curiosity of the passer-by with all 
 the information they possess, and, in case of need, to give 
 every assistance in their power, whether it be called for on 
 sea or on land : whether it be to rescue the crew of a stranded 
 ship or to help the weaker "vessels" of another kind over 
 the muddy tracks of such spots as Pagham Harbour. 
 
 A few words from one of these fine, civil, intelligent 
 British sailors satisfied us that our little cottage guide had 
 not deceived us ; that the lane and the turnstile did lead to 
 Pagham Harbour; and that the muddy bank on which we 
 ventured, after passing the Coastguard cottages, rvas the 
 harbour pier; so that the vast expanse of mud and sand 
 which stretched for miles to the west, up to Selsea — to the 
 north, up to Sidlesham — and as far as our eyesight could reach 
 to sea-board — that this dreary waste of mud and sand was 
 Pagham Harbour: extensive enough to hold all the navies 
 of the world, if only mud could do the work of water! But 
 water there was none — only a vast expanse of muddy bottom, 
 furrowed here and there by narrow channels, in which, when 
 the sea pours in, the water flows a little deeper than over the 
 surrounding banks and drifts of sand which make up the 
 greater part of what is called the harbour. By dint of 
 diligent research and toilsome marching over the very heart 
 of the harbour, we did at length detect the mouth of the 
 channel in direct communication with the sea — a gap in the 
 long line of beach which stretches in front of the harbour. 
 This gap, which constitutes the mouth of Pagham Harbour, 
 has about six feet of water at high tide; it is constantly 
 shifting to the eastward, and, as it shifts, the sea, running in 
 and out of its new channel, ravages the land which lies on its 
 track along the shore. The vast expanse of mud to the 
 westward of the present channel represents the land which 
 has been devastated by this process : converted from green 
 meadows and waving corn-fields into sand-banks and oyster- 
 beds. Of course, the greater this territory of mud and sand,
 
 Paghani and its Harbour. 285 
 
 the shallower is the water which covers it at high tide : 
 scarcely enough in parts to swim a boat in safety. It is a 
 glorious place for wild-fowl and shell-fish and sea anemones; 
 but for the usual uses and purposes implied by the title 
 " harbour," Pagham is, in Carlyle phrase, a sham and a 
 simulacre. 
 
 Pagham Harbour is, in fact, a mere breach of the sea 
 through the shallow ledge of shingle which is thrown up 
 along this part of the Sussex coast, and which, without the 
 continual efforts of man, and the aid of art, would afford as 
 inadequate a protection against the encroachments of the 
 sea in many other parts as it has done here at Pagham. For 
 tradition tells us that this breach in the beach at Pagham was 
 effected by a sudden eruption of the sea in the beginning of 
 the 14th century, when 2,700 acres of land were devastated 
 and converted into a muddy waste. How many more 
 thousands of acres have since shared the same fate it would 
 be difficult to say. Not a year passes without twenty or thirty 
 acres being added to the waste. Our companion, who had 
 visited the spot a few years ago, recollected at that time 
 seeing the ruins of a farm-house, the deserted garden in 
 the rear of which was still putting forth its spontaneous 
 growth of fruit and vegetables. Both farm-house and garden 
 were gone, and many a broad acre besides. The church is 
 now the nearest building to the sea, which almost reaches to 
 it, and it seems to stand next in the order of ruin. What 
 expanse of firm earth once stretched between the edifice and 
 the ocean it is impossible to say; but in a field to the south- 
 east of it — now a briny morass — are still to be traced the 
 foundations of a Palace which the Archbishops of Canterbury 
 occupied here in the Norman times, before they removed 
 their residence to a safer spot and higher ground at Slindon. 
 Anselm was consecrated at Pagham in 1108, as was a Bishop 
 of London, Richard de Belmers, in 1267.* Thus another 
 
 » Thomas k Becket, when Archbishop of Canterbury, frequently came to Pagham 
 with a large retinue ; and it was concerning a manor within this lordship that the 
 dissension arose with Henry II., which terminated in the assassination of Becket and 
 entitled him to a place in the Roman calendar.
 
 286 Glea7iings in East and West Stissex. 
 
 instance can be added to those which are furnished by the 
 residence of Godwin and Harold at Bosham, by that of 
 Thomas d Becket at Tarring, and by the fact of Selsea having 
 been the original seat of the Sussex Diocese, to show how 
 much more important these little, neglected, and almost for- 
 gotten sea-ports on the southern coast of England used to be 
 in the days of the Saxons and the first Normans, when the chief 
 commerce of the kingdom was carried on with the opposite 
 coast of France ; when the Norman nobles naturally loved to 
 be in close vicinity to their possessions in that kingdom; 
 and when, in all probability, the tract of land between the 
 Southdowns and the sea — now the garden of Sussex — repre- 
 sented the most advanced tillage of the age : for here we 
 know, by the remains at Bignor and by the stations which 
 crown the encircling range of the Southdowns, that the 
 Romans had taken a firm hold of the soil and held it in 
 peaceful possession; and the height of the fields above the 
 roads, and the width of the ditches into which those fields 
 drain themselves, speak to the antiquity of their cultivation. 
 
 To those who care about the past these associations give 
 an interest to such spots as Pagham, desolate as they may 
 now be. And to those who prefer looking forward to 
 looking backward, the continual work of change which is 
 going on along the West Sussex sea-board, from Pagham to 
 IMiddleton, the disappearance of one Parish Church, the 
 critical situation of another, and the yearly swallowing up of 
 meadows, corn-fields, gardens, and farm-houses, will supply 
 a source of interest which will probably excuse in their eyes 
 the space which we have devoted to this description of the 
 battle of sea and land on the South-coast of England. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The foregoing paper was written in 1862, and it must 
 now be read in the past tense ; for a great change has since 
 taken place on this part of the West Sussex coast. Pagham 
 lias no longer a harbour. On this side of Bognor (Middleton 
 lies on the other or eastern side) a march has been stolen
 
 Pagham and its Harbour. 287 
 
 on the sea, and the breach made 500 years ago through the 
 beach has been stopped. The harbour created by the flow 
 of water through this breach, and which at high tide reached 
 up to Sidlesham, was never, indeed, a very useful or safe one. 
 It was at all times, by the shifting of the harbour's mouth 
 and the uncertainty of the channel through the mud, a very 
 dangerous place even for small vessels, and of late it had 
 been practically disused, so that, a few years ago, a scheme 
 was started, and sanctioned by the Government, for stopping 
 up the harbour-mouth and restoring the submerged land 
 (some 3,000 acres) to its old agricultural uses. And this 
 scheme has been successfully carried out. Pagham Harbour 
 exists no longer. Two vessels full of shingle were first sunk 
 in the gap in the beach as a point cTappui, against which 
 other material was accumulated until the breach was stopped 
 up; the line of shingle is again intact; and an immense 
 piece of ground to the northward of it has been recovered. 
 This, the old bed and shores of the so-called " harbour," is 
 dreary enough to the eye at present. Some 600 acres (in 
 popular estimate, 800) have been actually " reclaimed," and 
 are now farmed as pasture and arable land ; a great deal 
 more is still half mud, half sand, with pools and channels of 
 water, dotted by the trucks used by the Reclamation Company. 
 But this will, doubtless, be drained in course of time, and will 
 help to repay the expense of reclamation. Six hundred acres, 
 at/'ioo the acre, are worth /^6o,ooo, and there must be three 
 or four-fold this quantity of land to be reclaimed. But, 
 independently of this actual gain to the Company and the 
 country (for, of course, this reclaimed land employs labour 
 and pays taxes), there is the defence of the adjoining land to 
 be taken into consideration. Before the "harbour" was 
 stopped up, every year — almost every tide — saw some fresh 
 land " wasted " — converted into mud or sand. A few years 
 ago (as described in the earlier part of this paper) the waves 
 swept up to the wall of the churchyard on the south, and all 
 beyond was a waste. Now there is a green field, and beyond 
 that arable land, in which men are ploughing ; and the
 
 2 88 Gleayiin^s in East and West Sussex. 
 
 bank, with tamarisk on it, that had been thrown up as a 
 sea-barrier, is considerably inland. Pagham Church has no 
 longer to dread the fate of IMiddleton Church, which once 
 threatened it — how nearly may be judged from the words of 
 an old man named Robinson, who lives in a cottage by the 
 roadside near the church. " I have seen," said he to us, 
 " 100 acres that I ploughed swept into the sea, and I have 
 seen the sea run up tliat lane (pointing to one adjoining the 
 church) and over the road into this cottage." The sea is 
 now full half a mile off, and there is a high bank of beach 
 between it and the land which, three or four years ago, it 
 overflowed at every tide. 
 
 Here, then. Land has gained upon Sea in the great struggle 
 of earth and water. But, for the most part, along that portion 
 of the Sussex sea-front which extends from Worthing Point 
 to Selsea Bill, the victory has lain with the sea. 
 
 Within the historical period of this country the long reef 
 of black rocks disclosed at low tide, and running from the 
 beach at Aklwick (on the west of Bognor) some three or four 
 miles into the sea in a south-easterly direction, was a portion 
 of the main-land.-''' It would seem to have been a barrier 
 raised by Nature herself to cover Bognor — then called by the 
 barbarous and to us unintelligible name of Bucgrenora — from 
 the heavy seas that roll in from the Atlantic. Whilst this 
 barrier existed there was a good line of defence, which, by 
 a little human skill or industry, might have been made as 
 impregnable against the sea as the lines of Torres Vedras 
 were by Wellington against the French invaders of the 
 Peninsula. But in past ages the inhabitants of the South- 
 coast of England seem to have been very indifferent to the 
 loss or gain of a few thousand acres ; land in those days was 
 not valued as now by tens of pounds sterling at per square 
 
 * In a return made in 1340 by Sussex parishes of their assessable value, several of 
 them explain a falling off "by reason of land laid waste by the sea in the previous 48 
 years. Amongst those parishes is I'agham, 2,700 acres; iloo, 400 acres; Hove, 150; 
 'Goring, 150 ; l.ancing, 70; Felpham, Do; Middleton, Go ; Kottingdean, 50 ; Brighton, 
 40— in all, <,Soo acres. The submerged I'agham land included the Park round the I'alace 
 which the Archbishops of Canterbury had at this place.
 
 Pa^hain and its Harbour. 289 
 
 foot. There is good reason to believe that, so far from 
 strengthening the natural barrier which Nature had given 
 them, the people of those days assisted the sea to overcome 
 it by removing the rocks. These consisted in a great degree 
 of pyrites of iron, and works for the smelting of this ore 
 were erected on the coast ; and whoever wanted material for 
 a cheap wall went to " the rocks " for it, as may be seen now 
 by the remains of these walls at Bognor ; and the roads were 
 mended with them ; indeed, everything was done to weaken 
 instead of strengthen the line of defence, and at length the 
 sea swept over and through the rocks instead of against them, 
 and, finding nothing on the other side but green fields, it has 
 been annexing these ever since. " Bognor rocks" now show 
 their black tops twice in the twenty-four hours to the people 
 of what once was Bucgrenora and now is Bognor, in silent 
 reproach of the short-sighted folly of their ancestors. The 
 older Bognorians, as they look at their battered sea-front 
 and shallow fringe of shingle, shake their heads as they tell 
 their visitors of the fields and hotels and rows of cottages 
 which used once to stand where now the sea sweeps along in 
 sovereign masterdom. 
 
 Nor are the people of Bognor of the present day, as it 
 seems to us, much wiser than their progenitors of Bucgrenora. 
 They do not, indeed, now "kill their goose" by removing 
 the rocks that assist to shelter them ; that is prohibited by a 
 superior authority ; but they carry on a divided, spasmodic, 
 and piece-meal defence which is utterly i^neffectual. To an 
 eye accustomed to the high, strong, but not long-reaching 
 groynes of Brighton — now made of concrete instead of wood 
 — which " hold " the beach that is constantly being swept in 
 from the south-west, nothing can be more absurd than the 
 low, thin, long-reaching groynes that run along the sands in 
 front of Bognor and the adjoining parishes. Between 
 Middleton and Pagham — a distance of some six or seven 
 miles, Bognor lying in the centre — you may at low tide walk 
 over hundreds of these sham-groynes, so closely do they lie 
 to each other ; and the sand on each side of them is of the
 
 2QO GIeanins[s in East and West Sussex. 
 
 same level, and the great majority of the groynes are now 
 nearly level with the sand ! They rise a little — a very little — 
 towards the shore ; but, with one or two exceptions, nowhere 
 do they approach to the dimensions or solidity even of the 
 old Brighton groynes, And the consequence is, that the 
 beach which constantly drifts in from the west, instead of 
 being " held " by them, is washed over or past or through 
 them, and the sea is constantly gaining ground in its Fight 
 with the Land. For the most part the works of defence are 
 of a stop-gap, piece-meal character, carried out spasmodically 
 and by different bodies, not by joint action, and upon an 
 uniform principle. Now it has been the owners of the soil, 
 and now the occupiers of it; now Commissioners of Levels ; 
 now a Local Board ; now a Reclamation Company who have 
 taken the work of defence in hand ; and thus, whilst the sea 
 attack has always gone on under one chief, Neptune, and 
 upon one set of principles, and those the very best in the 
 world — the laws of Nature — the land-defence has been 
 disjointed and on divergent principles, and under a variety 
 of Generals. No wonder, therefore, that, as we return at 
 different periods to this part of the Sussex coast, we see the 
 same scene of desolation — the same process of destruction, 
 even in an accelerated degree ; the same unsuccessful attempt 
 to repel the unwearying assailant; the same waste of money 
 and loss of soil. At any moment we should not be surprised 
 if, in this 19th century, with all its science and capital, the 
 scene of 500 years ago were repeated by the sea breaking 
 through the thin line of shingle at Felpham, Bognor, and 
 Aldwick, and re-making the harbour which has ceased to 
 exist at Pagham !
 
 A Sussex Sporting District. 
 
 USSEX is, and always has been, in some form or 
 another, a hunting and a shooting county. Its 
 unwooded Downs abound with hares and rabbits, 
 with peewits (or lapwings) and larks, as they used 
 to abound with the great bustard and with wheatears— now 
 almost extinct. And whilst the rich gorse with which they 
 are dotted gives shelter to these, the woods which diversify the 
 western range of Downs afford shelter for that favourite object 
 of pursuit of English sportsmen, the fox — to say nothing of 
 the victims of Master Reynard, pheasants and partridges. 
 
 With these inducements to sport it is not to be wondered 
 at that the Sussex Squire is a fox-hunter ; the Sussex farmer 
 a keen sportsman; and, we are afraid we must add, the Sussex 
 labourer an inveterate poacher ! At least, a good many of 
 them *' that way incline." 
 
 Whilst this sporting character applies to every part of 
 Sussex, uplands and lowlands, Downs and Weald, there is no 
 district which possesses it in a stronger degree, or has done 
 so for a longer extent of time, than that which lies half-way 
 between Chichester and Midhurst, including Charlton and 
 its Forest, Singleton, East and West Dean, and Goodwood. 
 From the 17th century to the present day this district has 
 been famous in a sporting way — if not in the same way or on 
 the same spot, in some way and on some spot. ■ The chalk 
 hills which rise to the north of Chichester and divide the 
 Weald from the sea-coast are ornamented rather than covered 
 on their southern slopes by woods and "hangers" and copses, 
 leaving the springy turf of the " unshrubbed Down " to the 
 horseman, and admirably suited for racing and coursing. On 
 their northern side extend the thicker woods of what is still 
 dignified by the title of Charlton Forest, some 800 acres in
 
 292 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 extent ; and in the very centre of these Western Downs, and 
 nestling under some of their boldest eminences, lie the 
 villages of Charlton, Singleton, and East and West Dean — 
 the first-named famous for many a long day as the point to 
 which the boldest riders of Sussex, nay, of England and of 
 France, gathered in " the season of the year," in order to 
 pursue their much -loved sport of fox-hunting. Hither 
 William the Third, an ardent lover of sport, but who 
 ordinarily preferred the hunting-fields of his own country, 
 and hunted the boar instead of the fox, is recorded to have 
 come once, with his guest, the Grand Duke of Tuscany; and 
 the associations of the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth with 
 Charlton are still stronger. He and Ford, Lord Grey (who 
 took a conspicuous part in the rising against James H. which 
 ended in the defeat of Monmouth's followers at Sedgmoor, 
 and cost Monmouth his life), both kept packs of fox-hounds 
 at Charlton, and it was Grey's master of the hounds, a 
 gentleman named Roper, who, in happier days, returned to 
 the spot from a temporary exile, and, in association with the 
 Duke of Bolton, brought the Charlton fox-hunt to its highest 
 point of celebrity. It was now that some of the chief nobles 
 of the land began to take up their abode at Charlton for the 
 fox-hunting season, and that some of them, as the Dukes 
 of Devonshire and St. Alban's and Lord Harcourt, built 
 themselves what we should now call hunting-boxes in it, 
 whilst others accommodated themselves as best they might 
 in the farm-houses and cottages of the place. For the 
 convivial meetings of these noble sportsmen, after the day's 
 sport was over, a banqueting-room was designed and built by 
 the Earl of Burlington, which was called Fox Hall, the front 
 of which displayed the gilt figure of a fox, which was given 
 by the Duchess of Bolton (the daughter of INIonmouth) to 
 show, as remarks Mr. T. J. Bennett (from whose paper in the 
 Sussex Archaeological Collection we borrow these facts), 
 "the southerly wind so dear to fox-hunters." 
 
 The Charlton Hunt flourished during the lives of the two 
 first Dukes of Richmond (the Goodwood Estate having been
 
 A Sussex Sporting District. 
 
 293 
 
 purchased by the first Duke, a son of Charles II. and his 
 mistress, the Duchess of Portsmouth, of the Compton family, 
 as a hunting-seat) ; and it was in the time of the second 
 Duke that the most famous " run " took place which Sussex, 
 or, perhaps, any other county, has ever witnessed. It was so 
 remarkable in its incidents as to be not only "writ down" at 
 the time, but to be framed and "hung up for monument" in 
 Sussex mansions and farm-houses. In one of these (Mr. 
 Wise's, at Funtington, originally built, and occupied for nearly 
 400 years, by the old Sussex family of Scardeville, to one of 
 whom the authorship of the description of the "run" is, 
 doubtless, due) it was found in 1854. by iMr. T. J. Bennett, of 
 Chichester, and by him thought so worthy of preservation that 
 he sent it, with a few illustrative facts about Charlton and its 
 Hunt, to the Brighton Herald, in which it appeared on March 
 II, 1854, s"d from which we will now copy it: — 
 
 A FULL AND IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE RKMARKABLE CHASE AT 
 CHARLTON, ON FRIDAY, 26tH JANUARY, I "38. 
 
 It has long been a matter of controversy in the hunting world to what 
 particular country or set of men the superiority belonged. Prejudice and 
 partiality have the greatest share in their disputes, and every society their 
 proper champion to assert the pre-eminence and bring home the trophy 
 to their own country. Even Richmond pack has its Dymoke. But on 
 Friday, the 26th of Januars', 1738, there was a decisive engagement on 
 the plains of Sussex, which, after ten hours' struggle, has settled all 
 fiu'ther debates and given the brush to the gentlemen of Charlton. 
 
 Present in the Morning : 
 
 The Duke of Richmond, 
 The Duchess of Richmond, 
 The Duke of St. Albans, 
 The Lord Viscount Harcourt, 
 The Lord Henry Beauclerk, 
 The Lord Ossulstone, 
 Sir Harry Liddell, 
 Brigadier Henry Hawley, 
 Ralph Jennison, Esq., Master of 
 
 His ^Majesty's Buck Hounds, 
 Edward Pauncefort, Esq., 
 William Farquhar, Esq., 
 
 At a quarter before eight in the morning the fox was found in Eastdean 
 Wood, and ran an hour in that cover ; then into the forest, up to Puntice 
 Coppice through Heringdean to the Marlows, up to Coney Coppice, back 
 to the Marlows, to the Forest West Gate, over the fields to Nightingale 
 Bottom, to Cobden's at Draught, up his Pine Pit Hanger, where His 
 
 Cornet Philip Honyvvood, 
 Richard Biddulph, Esq., 
 Charles Biddulph, Esq., 
 Mr. St. Paul, 
 
 Mr. Johnson, I Qf Chichester. 
 JNlr. Peerman, j 
 Mr. Thomson, 
 Tom Johnson, 
 
 Billy Ives, Yeoman Pricker to His 
 Majesty's Hounds, 
 
 David Briggs, 1 -,^^, • 
 
 && ' I whippers-m. 
 Ann Ives, J ^^
 
 294 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 Grace of St. Albans got a fall ; through My Lady Lewkner's Puttocks, 
 and missed the earth ; through Wcstdean Forest to the corner of Collar 
 Down (where Lord Ilarcourt blew his lirst horse), crossed the Hacking- 
 place down the length of Coney Coppice, through the Marlows to 
 Heringdean, into the Forest and Funtice Coppice, Eastdean Wood, 
 through the Lower Teglease across by Cocking-course down between 
 Graflham and Woolavington, through Mr. Orme's Park and Paddock 
 over the Heath to Fielder's Furzes, to the Harlands, Selhain, Ambeisham, 
 through Todham Furzes over Todliam Heath, almost to Cowdray Park ; 
 there turned to the limekiln at the end of Cocking Causeway, through 
 Cocking Park and Furzes ; there crossed the road and up the hills between 
 Bepton and Cocking. Here the unfortunate Lord Harcourt's second 
 horse felt the effects of long legs and a sudden steep ; the best thing that 
 belonged to him was his saddle, which My Lord had secured ; but, by 
 bleeding and Geneva (contrary- to Act of Parliament) he recovered, and 
 with some difficulty was got htmie. Here Mr. Farquhar's humanity 
 claims your regard, who kindly sympathised with My Lord in his 
 misfortunes, and had not power to go beyond him. At the bottom of 
 Cocking Warren the hounds turned to the left across the road by the bam 
 near Heringdean, then took the side to the north-gate of the Forest (here 
 General Hawley thought it prudent to change his horse for a true-blue 
 that staid up the hills. Billy Ives likewise took a horse of Sir Hany 
 Liddell's) ; went quite through the Forest and run the foil tlnough 
 Nightingale Bottom to Cobdcn's at Drauglit, up his Pine Pit Hanger to 
 My Lady Lewkner's Puttocks, through every meuse she went in the 
 morning ; went through the Warren above Westdean (where we dropt 
 Sir HaiTy Liddell) down to Benderton Farm (here Lord Hany sunk), 
 through Goodwood Park (here the Duke of Richmond chose to send 
 three lame horses back to Charlton and took Saucy Face and Sir WilHam, 
 that were luckily at Goodwood ; from thence, at a distance, Lord Hany 
 was seen driving his horse before him to Charlton). The hounds went 
 out at the upper end of the Park over Strettington-road by Sealy Coppice 
 (where His Grace of Richmond got a summerset), through Halnaker 
 Park over Halnaker Hill to Seabeach Farm (here the Master of the 
 Stag Hounds, Cornet Honywood, Tom Johnson, and Nim Ives were 
 thoroughly satisfied), up Long Down, through Eartham Common fields 
 and Kemp's High Wood (here Billy Ives tired his second horse and took 
 Sir William, by which the Duke of St. Albans had no great coat, so 
 returned to Charlton). From Kemp's High Wood the hounds took away 
 through (iunworth Warren, Kemp's Rough Piece, over Slindon Down to 
 Madchurst Parsonage (wlierc Billy came in with them), over Poor Down 
 up to Madeinnst, then down to Ilaughton Forest, where His Grace of 
 Richmond, General Hawley, and Mr. Pauncefort came in (the latter to 
 little purpose, for, beyond the Rucl Hill, neither Mr. Pauncefort nor his 
 horse Tinker cared to go, so wisely returned to his impatient friends), up 
 the Ruel Hill, left Sherwood on the right-hand, crossed Ofham Hill to 
 Southwood, from thence to South .Stoke, to the wall of Arundel River, 
 where the glorious 23 hounds put an end to the campaign, and killed an 
 old bitch fox, ten minutes before six. Billy Ives, His Grace of Richmond, 
 and General Hawley were the only persons in at the death, to the immortal 
 honour of 17 stone, and at least as many campaigns. 
 
 This famous run was, doubtless, the crowning glory of the 
 Charlton Hunt. The third Duke of Richmond, indeed, was
 
 A Sussex Sporting District. 295 
 
 a fox-hunter like his predecessors, and built some fine 
 kennels for his hounds at Goodwood, to which they were 
 removed from Charlton ; but this change was detrimental to 
 the latter place; the hunt declined; from being cosmopolitan 
 it became local, and on the fourth Duke of Richmond going 
 to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, the hounds were given by him 
 to George the Fourth, and symptoms of madness showing 
 themselves afterwards in them, they were destroyed. 
 
 But, after all, the glories of the Charlton Hunt were 
 to be "translated" rather than extinguished. They sprang 
 up afresh, though under new auspices. Previous to the 
 destruction of the Goodwood pack an attempt had been 
 made by a neighbouring potentate, the owner of Petworth 
 (then the " proud Duke of Somerset"), to set up a rival pack. 
 But, springing not so much from love of sport as provincial 
 jealousy, it failed, and deserved to fail. " Whose hounds 
 are those," enquired the Duke of Sir William Goring, of 
 Burton, one day, " who so frequently come near my house.'*" 
 " Mr. Roper's, the Charlton Pack," was the reply. " Mr. 
 Roper's ! The Charlton Pack ! Who is he } Where's his 
 estate } What right has he to hunt this country } I'll have 
 hounds and horses of my own," cried the irate Peer, and on 
 the word he built kennels and stables, and took to the field, 
 and did his best to tempt the fox-hunters to his meet. But 
 they would not desert their first love ; the hounds were 
 eventually given away, and Petworth had to wait another 
 century before it supplanted Goodwood in the hunting-field. 
 The time came at last — " the day and the man." The late 
 Earl of Egremont prepared the way by building the splendid 
 stables now attached to Petworth House, which came to him 
 by succession from the Percies and the Seymours. But it 
 was his son, the first Lord Leconfield, who, when simple 
 Col. George Wyndham, laid the foundations of the present 
 hunt, whilst the occupant of " The Drove " at Singleton (an 
 appanage of the Petworth Estate). The kennels here are of 
 the most perfect kind, fitted for three packs, the dogs, 
 " the ladies," and the young hounds ; and here resides the
 
 296 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 huntsman of the pack, Mr. C. Shepherd, under whose skilful 
 care and guidance they are bred, trained, and hunted. To 
 see these packs in their own quarters, as we have done, or 
 "at work," after cubs or an old fox, is a treat which only a 
 sportsman could sufficiently appreciate, but which has its 
 attractions even to an unskilled eye. The hounds are " as 
 one compact," With as many wills as there are dogs, and 
 all ready to burst out, at the voice of the huntsman they 
 become " one and indivisible." We confess it was with a 
 certain degree of nervousness that, at the opening of the 
 kennel-door, we stood in the midst of an eager and restless 
 set of animals, any one of which was able to pull down a 
 man, and, once down, what would become of him .^* But, at 
 the voice of the huntsman, all was quiet and order ; every 
 eye fixed on his eye, and limbs motionless, though trembling 
 with excitement. Each animal sat on its haunches, covering 
 the smallest possible space of ground. The name and the 
 value, deeds and qualities of each animal were related, and, 
 as this was done, the animals seemed to be aware of the 
 fact I Their genealogies are as carefully kept, too, as are 
 those of race-horses, and each year has its printed list of the 
 various packs, with names, age, sires and dams, from the 
 hounds of seven years to those of one year. These 
 comprehend in all some 60 couples, or 120 dogs, and they 
 are the sole property of the owner of Petworth, now the 
 second Lord Leconfield, and are kept up at his sole expense. 
 The cost of doing so is enormous (some £ 20,000 or ^"30,000 
 a-year), comprehending as it does not only the keep of the 
 hounds and their numerous attendants, but of the large 
 stud of horses which are so necessary to mount these, and 
 for the use of the Master and his friends. These fill the 
 splendid stables of Petworth. The country hunted by the 
 Petworth Pack is virtually the same as that over which the 
 Charlton hounds hunted, and many a fox takes the same 
 
 * There is a tradition that, in one kennel (not the Petworth one), an unfortunate 
 wretch, employed as a Iccdcr ot the hounds, disappeared one day bodily, and, on 
 enquiry, no uoubt was Iclt but that the hounds had set upon him and eaten him up — 
 to the verv l)ones.
 
 A Sussex Sporting District. 297 
 
 line, and meets at last with the same fate, as that of the " old 
 bitch fox," which held her own so stoutly for ten hours in 
 the great run of 1738. But the glory of the hunt no longer 
 shines forth at Charlton. The quiet of the old village between 
 the Leven Down and the Trundle (two beautifully rounded 
 prominences of the Southdowns so-called) is now unbroken 
 by the excitement and revelry of the noble fox-hunters 
 of England. A " Fox Hall " is still pointed out at which 
 the Dukes of Richmond used to lodge ; but it is not the 
 original banqueting place built by the Earl of Burlington. 
 That was pulled down long ago ; so were the kennels and 
 stables ; and the residences of Dukes and Earls have 
 disappeared, or been converted to humbler uses. There is 
 nothing, indeed, to show that Charlton was, for nearly 100 
 years, the great "meet" of noble fox-hunters, and a trysting- 
 place for rank, wealth, and beauty. With the exception of a 
 good farm-house, and of the residence of the owner of a 
 steam saw mill, the village is occupied by labourers, the 
 tenants of the Dukes of Richmond, whose tenements are, 
 indeed, so numerous that, for convenience sake, they are 
 numbered not as rows or streets, but in catalogue fashion, 
 from I upwards. 
 
 There is, however, one week of the year during which 
 even the quiet of Charlton is broken, and still more that of 
 its neighbour village. Singleton, from which Charlton is 
 only divided by a few minutes' walk through pleasant fields ; 
 and that is the week of Goodwood Races. Then a wonderful 
 social revolution is effected in Singleton, Charlton, and all 
 their vicinity. They are invaded by the fashionable world — 
 by Princes, Dukes, Earls, and Lords, with their fair partners, 
 who, with their cooks and ladies' maids and valets, take 
 possession of farm-houses and cottages — anything in the 
 shape of a house — and literally set up their tents, living a 
 kind of fete chainpelre life amidst most rustic scenes and 
 scenery. With these, too, come a host of jockeys and 
 stablemen, and other "horsey" gentry, with studs of race- 
 horses, for the accommodation of which the cottagers are
 
 2g8 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 turned out of their homes, with their families, to manage as 
 best they can for some five or six days. A good many 
 cottages at Singleton are, indeed, let under this condition. 
 They are labourers' cottages for 358 days in the year, and for 
 the other seven they are stables or horse-boxes. So severe, 
 indeed, is the pressure in the Goodwood week in Singleton 
 and Charlton that a guinea for a bed, and that of the 
 humblest, is a common price, and it is a golden harvest for 
 the farmers (who "take in" Princes and Duchesses) and the 
 villagers. Of course this inundation of race-folks into the 
 rustic world has its drawbacks. It is a kind of saturnalia for 
 a term. But, after it has passed, the villagers settle down very 
 quickly to their usual life, and that is of the quietest. 
 
 Into the glories of the Goodwood week, its rise, under the 
 presiding genius of Lord George Bentinck, from a mere 
 country-side day's sport into national importance as the 
 most aristocratical races of England, it is not our cue to 
 enter. But it is singular how sport of the highest class 
 gravitates to this rural corner of the Southdowns. If there 
 is a secluded spot in England it is Charlton or Singleton, 
 or East or West Dean. If a man want solitude let him go 
 here — let him take his strolls up the Leven Down or the 
 Trundle, or to Stoke Clump, or in Charlton Forest, or over 
 Cocking Hill, and, beyond the sight of a shepherd or of a 
 ploughman, 
 
 " WTio homeward plods his wear)' way," 
 
 he will not be disturbed by man or beast. Always save and 
 except that the " view hallo ! hallo 1 " does not break upon 
 his ear, with a whirlwind of dogs and horses and men in 
 red coats, or that an Arab-like steed, with a boy in drab 
 wrappings on its back, does not canter by him, swift, silent, 
 and mysterious. These are signs of the sport-life that still 
 flourishes round Charlton, and keeps up its olden associations. 
 Not far off from it, too, the name of another little village, 
 Duncton, calls up remembrances of another phase of sport, 
 if we may so term it. Duncton, the birth-place of James Dean,
 
 A Sussex Sporting District. 299 
 
 "Dean Swift," the famous Sussex bowler, was long the centre 
 of a cricketing district that supplied the Sussex Eleven with 
 its best players. Its club could play and beat Brighton 50 
 years ago. From this part of West Sussex "hailed" the 
 Broadbridges, the Lillywhites, Hawkins, Millyard, James 
 Taylor, and a host of other crack players, who enabled 
 Sussex, some 40 or 50 years ago, to "hold its own" against 
 All England. Since then the star of cricket in Sussex has 
 set, and Duncton no longer sends forth champions of the 
 game. Cricket is still played, doubtless, on its common ; 
 but the North and West of England have entered the lists, 
 and their strong battalions bear away the palm in this as in 
 other respects from the South. It is the fight of the many 
 against the few. Still, sport of all kind flourishes in Sussex, 
 and in no part of it are its traditions stronger, or do its glories 
 assert themselves more brilliantly, than in that part of the 
 Downs of West Sussex where, in the hollow of the hills, 
 nestle the villages of Charlton, Singleton, and East and 
 West Dean.
 
 Cidcket in Sussex. 
 
 JRICKET has been referred to in the preceding 
 Paper as one of the characteristics of the Charlton 
 district. In all probability it made its way into 
 West Sussex from Hampshire, in which county it 
 first took that form in which wc now know it; and where the 
 fame of the Hambledon Club — the first Cricketing Club ever 
 formed in England, and which dates from 1750 to 1791 — 
 still survives. Two upright sticks, about a foot apart and 
 with a third laid across them, were the original wickets, and 
 the primitive bat consisted of a crooked stick, from which, 
 by an easy corruption, the name of cricket is supposed to be 
 derived.*' The inconvenience of the ball frequently passing 
 between the two upright sticks without disturbing them, or 
 causing the fall of the stick resting on them, led to the 
 addition, in 1775, of a third or middle stick, and, in course 
 of time, to two smaller sticks or "bails" being laid on these. 
 Other improvements followed upon the adoption of the game 
 in London and other parts of the kingdom, and to its being 
 played by the higher ranks of society, until cricket grew to 
 what it now is : the national game of England. 
 
 In this process of improvement Sussex most certainly had 
 a considerable share. It quickly followed in the footsteps of 
 Hampshire as a cricketing county, and eventually outstripped 
 it. It owed this superiority chiefly to the men of West Sussex 
 — the Broadbridgcs, the Lillywhites, the Deans, &c., by whom 
 
 * The name cricket (savs a writer in the F.ncyclopied'ia Ilrilanriica) is cognate to the 
 Saxon eric or cryc, a crooked stick, wliich doul^tless applied to the earliest liats, wliich 
 were made with a sweeping curve at the base. The name first occurs in 1550, as a 
 game at ball with a stick.
 
 Cricket in Sussex. 301 
 
 the style of bowling was revolutionised ; the old-fashioned 
 under-handed bowling being superseded by the over-handed 
 bowling which was adopted by the Broadbridges, and brought 
 to perfection by their compatriot, Lillywhite, the "Nonpareil" 
 bowler, as he came to be called. 
 
 We are, however, anticipating events. It is in East Sussex, 
 and in the diaries of men living in that part of the county, 
 that we find the earliest reference to cricket in Sussex, and 
 almost, we might say, in England. Thomas Marchant, of 
 Little Park, Hurst, sets down in his diary that in 171 7 his 
 son Willy " went to see a cricket match ; " and Walter Gale, 
 the schoolmaster of INIayfield, chronicles in 1759 that he 
 "left off school at 2 o'clock to attend a cricket match of 
 the gamesters of IMayfield against those of Lindfield and 
 Chailey." 
 
 This shows that cricket had taken root in the eastern 
 parts of the county at a very early period. 
 
 Coming to more recent times, a contributor to the Sussex 
 Archaeological Collections, " C. F. T.," tells us that from 
 "about 1790 to 1 81 5 there was a very strong club at 
 Oakendene, near Cowfold. Three brothers, named Wood, 
 Marchant, of Hurst, Borrer, of Ditchling, Voice, of Hand- 
 cross, were the chief players. William Wood, though he 
 never played in great matches, was reckoned the best bowler 
 in Sussex. He used to carry a ball as he walked about his 
 farm, and trained a dog to pick it up and bring it back. 
 He was always bowling at some object. Borrer and Marchant 
 were great batsmen and hard hitters. Vallance, of Brighton, 
 also belonged to this club. He and Borrer won a great 
 match at Lord's, in 1792, for Brighton against iNIarylebone, 
 the former making 68 and the latter 60 in the second innings, 
 both ' not out.' The betting was heavy against Sussex when 
 they began the second innings, as they had 131 to get; and 
 the spectators actually staked their watches and rings at last; 
 but Brighton won by nine wickets."
 
 302 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 The scene now shifts to Brighton, where cricket was 
 followed by Lord Barrymore and other associates of the 
 Prince of Wales, though we are not aware that the Prince 
 himself was a player. He is, however, credited by "C.F.T." 
 with enclosing and levelling a piece of ground to the north 
 of the then town for the purpose of a cricket ground, and 
 this was subsequently perfected, if not, as we believe, 
 originally formed, by an enterprising Brightonian, Mr. James 
 Ireland, who invested his savings, as a draper and as the 
 landlord of the Golden Cross, in the laying-out of the Royal 
 Cricket Ground and the adjoining gardens, maze, ball-room, 
 aviary, &c., to which was attached the Hanover Arms ; and 
 we are old enough to remember the opening of these in 1823 
 under the auspices of the Duke of York, but who failed to 
 attend the public breakfast prepared for him on the occasion. 
 The Prince of Wales's cricket ground was comprehended in 
 the ten acres bought by Mr. Ireland of Mr. Thomas Read 
 Kemp ; and the work of enclosure was chiefly due to Ireland. 
 On this spot, more generally known as Ireland's Gardens, 
 the most famous matches ever played by Sussex, then in 
 its palmy days, came off". Here the "great deeds" of 
 the Sussex champions of cricket — the two Broadbridges, 
 Lillywhite, Slater (the first wicket-keeper of his day), Lanaway 
 (the old, steady under-handed bowler), Morley, Meads, 
 Brown (the swiftest of bowlers), Pierpoint, Hooker, Duff, and 
 Dale, or, later on in the day, of Box, Charles Taylor, Taylor 
 of Northchapel, Hawkins, Hammond, Millyard, &c., &c. — 
 were achieved. Have not we "assisted" at these games as 
 reporter and spectator } Have we not often witnessed the 
 pitched battles between Kent and Sussex, Sussex and Surrey, 
 and the All England games, in which Sussex would challenge 
 the players of all the rest of the kingdom — first with its 
 native strength, and then with Fuller Pilch as " a given 
 man 1" Have we not, once and again, seen the small, active, 
 light men of Sussex meet the big-limbed men of Kent, and 
 treat them as the handy little vessels of Drake and Raleigh 
 and Frobisher treated the huge galleons of the Spanish
 
 Cricket in Sussex. 303 
 
 Armada ? Have we not seen Lillywhite bowling to Fuller 
 Pilch, delivering over after over so true to distance and so 
 dangerous in pitch and twist that the long-armed Kentish 
 Prince of batsmen could do nothing but advance his bat to 
 its full extent and block the ball as it began to rise ? Over 
 after over did this contest between perfect bowling and 
 perfect batting go on, until the spectators grew well-nigh 
 weary of it, perfect as it was, and sighed for a wide ball that 
 might be sent to the wall or an opening to the wicket that 
 might send the bales flying. In the meantime Box was 
 crouching, cat-like, behind the wicket, eager, and sure, to 
 catch a passing ball (but which seldom did pass Pilch) to 
 right or to left — little mattered it to him which it was — and 
 Hawkins was watching, hawk-like, only with hands distended 
 instead of wings, at point, for the chance of a catch, with 
 Charles Taylor, not less perfect in the field at slip or cover- 
 point. And have we not listened to the "chaff" of that 
 merry wag, Felix, when he and the Mynns and Wenmans and 
 Pilches had beaten the best bowling of the Sussex men and 
 began to find it safe even to take liberties with the balls of 
 the " Nonpareil ?" Have we not witnessed the varied feats 
 of Jim Broadbridge, perhaps the most thorough all-round 
 cricketer that ever went into the field — great as a bat, as a 
 bowler, as a field, and as a captain of the game ? Did we 
 not see Jemmy Dean, the Sussex Plough-boy as he was first 
 called, and afterwards, by a merry conceit, " Dean Swift," 
 make his debut at Ireland's in a match of Duncton versus 
 Brighton, in which he sent down wicket after wicket of the 
 Brighton men at the first ball, and, as each wicket fell, leapt 
 up some feet into the air, arms and legs spread-eagle fashion, 
 as only a Sussex plough-boy could ? It was the beginning 
 of as successful and meritorious a cricketing career as the 
 annals of cricket in Sussex can boast of. Too many promising 
 careers have been defeated by that stumbling-block of Sussex 
 cricketers — the love of drink. Jim Broadbridge set a baneful 
 example in this respect. Witness the " half-pints" brought 
 out to him again and again after successful hits ; the game
 
 304 Gleanhi^s i7i East and West Sussex. 
 
 stopping whilst he " imbibed." The most brilliant hitter and 
 fielder of Sussex — perhaps of any county — Hawkins — fell an 
 early victim to the same pernicious habit. His free, easy 
 style of batting, with the bat swung over the right shoulder, 
 a la Jim Broadbridge, and the quick, sharp hit that caught 
 the swiftest ball "to the leg" and sent it right away, was the 
 pride and delight of a Sussex ground, and not less so the 
 unerring certainty with which he would "take" the hardest- 
 hit ball almost from the point of the bat. But these brilliant 
 qualities, which, joined to youth and good looks, elegance 
 of shape and grace of action (albeit marred by a few 
 eccentricities, as that of touching his hat and other parts of 
 his apparel three several times before coming to the wicket) 
 made Hawkins for a time the pet and hope of the Sussex 
 eleven — these qualities were soon dimmed, and at length 
 destroyed, by habits of intemperance, and he died at the 
 early age of 29. 
 
 In these "palmy days" of cricket in Sussex the largest 
 proportion of the county eleven came from the western 
 districts. It had not always been so. The Pierpoints, Dales, 
 Slaters, Meads, Morleys, and Lanaways of an earlier day were 
 eastern men ; but with the rise of the Broadbridge school and 
 the dehiit of Lillywhite as a bowler the balance inclined to the 
 west. Lillywhite was born at West Hampnett, near Goodwood, 
 and his first recorded appearance in a cricket match is on July 
 II, 1822, but not as a bowler. It was not until the following 
 year, when he was thirty-one years of age, that his extra- 
 ordinary merit in this department of the game was recognised; 
 but, the discovery once made, Lillywhite came at once to the 
 front, and he and Jim Ikoadbridge, with Lanaway for a 
 change as an under-handed bowler, and Brown the swift 
 bowler as a dernier ressori, soon carried Sussex to the highest 
 point amongst the cricketing counties. Many stories are 
 still told of the tremendous bowling of Brown, originally a 
 tailor by trade, and a curious "tenth part of a man," for he 
 was between six and seven feet in height and broad and 
 stout in proportion. It was a common feat of his, at the
 
 Cricket in Sussex. 305 
 
 Royal Cricket Ground (which he, like Box, kept for a time), 
 to bowl at a single stump, the cricketing officers of the 
 regiments stationed in the town and other gentlemen staking 
 so much on his striking it, which he constantly did ; for his 
 bowling (under-handed) was as true as it was swift. But it 
 was only in the last resort, when a batsman had beaten all the 
 other Sussex bowlers, that Brown was called out; for, if met, 
 the result was disastrous. All the field might be, as they often 
 were, placed behind the wicket, but if the ball was "tipped" 
 (it could be scarcely struck " fore-right"), away it went like a 
 cannon-ball, and not all the fielders in the world could stop 
 it ! One of the latest occasions that Brown bowled was in a 
 game with Kent, when Felix had beaten the "Nonpareil" and 
 other Sussex bowlers, and at length Brown was tried. But 
 the experiment failed ; the Kentish men were not to be 
 frightened by the giant's bulk or pace, and he was soon 
 taken off, after some very fast scoring. We do not remember 
 his bowling in a county game after that. "In 1819," says 
 " C. F, T." he "threw a 4i-oz. ball 137 yards on Walberton 
 Common. This was, and perhaps is, the longest throw on 
 record. ' Little Dench,' of Brighton, who ' stopped ' to 
 him, had always a sack stuffed with straw fastened to his 
 chest. At Lord's a man once tried to stop a ball with his 
 coat, but Brown bowled right through it, and killed a dog 
 instantaneously on the other side." 
 
 It was a great blow to cricket in Brighton, if not Sussex, 
 when the ground formed by Ireland, and which had been 
 successively kept by him, Pierpoint, Brown, and Box, was 
 closed in 1848, and eventually converted into a crescent 
 (Park Crescent). The Sussex eleven had, indeed, previous to 
 this lost its pre-eminence, and was now second to Kent and 
 Surrey. But from this period dates a still more rapid decline. 
 Other grounds were, indeed, found in Brighton — that on 
 which Montpelier Crescent now stands (kept by Box for a 
 time) and the Brunswick Ground at Hove, and the existing 
 one in the same parish. New players also came forward from 
 time to time to sustain the cricketing reputation of their
 
 306 Gleanings in East and West Sussex. 
 
 county — notably, the sons and grandsons of the "Nonpareil," 
 and " little Jack Wisden," the pupil of Box, and the Phillips', 
 Bushby, Charhvood, the Humphreys, Fillery, Stubberfield, Szc, 
 &c.; also many gentlemen players, as the Rev. G. Cotterill, 
 Mr. J. M. Cotterill, Mr. R. T. Ellis, Mr. C. A. Smith, the Rev. 
 F. J. Greenfield, &c. But the places of the Broadbridges, 
 the " Nonpareil," of Box, Hawkins, James Taylor, of North 
 Chapel, and Millyard amongst the professional players, and 
 of Mr. Charles Taylor and Mr. Langdon among the gentle- 
 men players, have never been completely filled up; and whilst 
 Sussex has retrograded, or, at all events, has not progressed 
 as a cricketing county, other counties, like Gloucestershire, 
 Yorkshire, Lancashire, once unknown in the cricketing-field, 
 have made giant strides, and left the southern counties, Sussex 
 and Hampshire, and Kent, and even Surrey, far behind. So 
 the seat of Empire, in sport as well as in commerce and war, 
 shifts its ground, and cricket has its Romes, its Venices, and 
 its Genoas ! 
 
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