Part 14

Our efforts proved successful and a neat, courteous young woman showed us over the rambling house. It is quite large--and had to be, in fact, to accommodate the rector's family of no fewer than twelve children, of whom the poet was the fourth. The oddest feature is the large dining room, which has an arched roof and narrow, stained-glass windows, and the ceiling is broken by several black-oak arches. At the base of each of these is a queer little face carved in stone and the mantel is curiously carved in black oak--all of this being the work of the elder Tennyson himself. There is some dispute as to the poet's birthroom. Our fair guide showed us all the rooms and said we might take our choice. We liked the one which opened on the old-fashioned garden at the rear of the house, for as is often the case in England, the garden side was more attractive than the front. Just across the road stands the tiny church of which the Rev. Tennyson was rector for many years. This was one of the very smallest that we visited and would hardly seat more than fifty people altogether. It is several hundred years old, and in the churchyard is a tall, Norman cross, as old as the church itself.

[Illustration: SOMERSBY CHURCH.]

A rare thing it is to find the burying-ground around a church in England quite neglected, but the one at Somersby is the exception to the rule. The graves of the poet's father and brother were overgrown with grass and showed evidences of long neglect. We expressed surprise at this, and the old woman who kept the key to the church replied with some bitterness that the Tennysons "were ashamed to own Somersby since they had become great folks." Anyway, it seems that the poet never visited the place after the family left in 1837. Near the church door was a box with a notice stating that the congregation was small and the people poor, and asking for contributions to be used in keeping the church in repair. The grange, near the rectory, is occupied by the squire who owns the birthplace, it is a weatherbeaten building of brick and gray stone and perhaps the "gray old grange" referred to in "In Memoriam." Altogether, Somersby is one of the quietest and most charming of places. Aside from its connection with the great poet, it would be well worthy of a visit as a bit of rural England. Scattered about are several great English elms, which were no doubt large trees during the poet's boyhood, a hundred years ago.

For a long distance our road from Somersby to Boston ran on the crest of a hill, from which we had a far-reaching view over the lovely Lincolnshire country. Shortly after, we left the hills and found ourselves again in the fen country. Many miles before we reached Boston we saw the great tower of St. Botolph's Church, in some respects the most remarkable in England. They give it the inartistic and inappropriate appellation of "The Stump," due to the fact that it rises throughout its height of more than three hundred feet without much diminution in size. So greatly does this tower dominate the old-fashioned city that one is in danger of forgetting that there is anything else in Boston, and though it is a place little frequented by Americans, there are few quainter towns in England. Several hundred years ago it was one of the important seaports, but it lost its position because the river on which it is situated is navigable only by small vessels at high tide.

Boston is of especial interest to Americans on account of its great namesake in this country and because it was the point from which the Pilgrim Fathers made their first attempt to reach America. Owing to pestilence and shipwreck, they were compelled to return, and later they sailed in the Mayflower on a more successful voyage from Plymouth. We can get a pretty good idea of the reasons which led the Pilgrim Fathers to brave everything to get away from their home land. One may still see in the old town hall of Boston the small, windowless stone cells where the Fathers were confined during the period of persecution against the Puritans. Evidently they did not lay their sufferings against the town itself, or they would hardly have given the name to the one they founded in the New World. Boston is full of ancient structures, among them Shodfriars Hall, one of the most elaborate half-timbered buildings in the Kingdom. The hotels are quite in keeping with the dilapidation and unprogressiveness of the town and there is no temptation to linger longer than necessary to get an idea of the old Boston and its traditions.

The country through which we traveled next day is level and apparently productive fanning land. The season had been unusually dry and favorable to the fen land, as this section is called. The whole country between Boston and Norwich has scarcely a hill and the numerous drains showed that it is really a reclaimed marsh. In this section English farming appeared at its best. The crops raised in England and Scotland consist principally of wheat, oats and various kinds of grasses. Our Indian corn will not ripen and all I saw of it was a few little garden patches. The fen country faintly reminds one of Holland, lying low and dotted here and there with huge windmills. As a matter of curiosity, we visited one of the latter. The miller was a woman, and with characteristic English courtesy she made us acquainted with the mysteries of the ancient mill, which was used for grinding Indian corn for cattle-feed.

Our route for the day was a circuitous one, as there were numerous points that we wished to visit before coming to Norwich for the night. A broad, level road leads from Boston to King's Lynn, a place of considerable size. Its beginning is lost in antiquity, and a recent French writer has undertaken to prove that the first settlement of civilized man in Britain was made at this point. We entered the town through one of the gateways, which has no doubt been obstructing the main highway for several hundred years. It is a common thing in the English towns to find on the main street one of the old gates, the opening through which will admit but one vehicle at a time, often making it necessary to station a policeman on each side to see that there are no collisions. But the gateways have been standing for ages and it would be sacrilege to think of tearing them down to facilitate traffic. Just outside King's Lynn we passed Sandringham Palace, a spacious modern country house and one of the favorite homes of the Royal Family.

[Illustration: ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH FROM THE RIVER, BOSTON.]

A few hours through winding byways brought us to the village of Burnham Thorpe, the birthplace of Admiral Nelson. It is a tiny hamlet, whose mean-looking, straggling cottages with red tiles lack the artistic beauty of the average English village--the picturesque, thatched roofs and brilliant flower gardens were entirely wanting. The admiral was the son of the village rector, but the parsonage in which he was born was pulled down many years ago. Still standing, and kept in good repair, is the church where his father preached. The lectern, as the pulpit-stand in English churches is called, was fashioned of oak taken from Nelson's flagship, the Victory. The father is buried in the churchyard and a memorial to Nelson has been erected in the church. The tomb of the admiral is in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

From Burnham Thorpe on the way to Norwich are the scant ruins of the priory of Walsingham. In its palmy days this was one of the richest in the world, and it is said that it was visited by more pilgrims than was the shrine of Becket at Canterbury. In every instance a gift was expected from the visitor, and as a consequence the monks fared sumptuously. Among these pilgrims were many of the nobility and even kings, including Henry VIII, who, after visiting the priory as a votary in the early part of his reign, ordered its complete destruction in 1539. This order was evidently carried out, for only shattered fragments of the ruins remain to show how splendid the buildings must once have been.

Walsingham is an unusually quaint little village, with a wonderful, ancient town pump of prodigious height and a curious church with a tall spire bent several degrees from the perpendicular. Near the priory are two springs, styled Wishing Wells, which were believed to have miraculous power, the legend being that they sprang into existence at the command of the Virgin. This illustrates one of the queer and not unpleasing features of motoring in England. In almost every out-of-the-way village, no matter how remote or small and how seldom visited by tourists, one runs across no end of quaint landmarks and historic spots with accompanying incidents and legends. Twenty miles more through a beautiful country brought us in sight of the cathedral spire of Norwich. This city has a population of about one hundred and twenty thousand and there is a unique charm in its blending of the mediaeval and modern. It is a progressive city with large business and manufacturing interests, but these have not swept away the charm of the old-time town. The cathedral is one of the most imposing in England, being mainly of Norman architecture and surmounted by a graceful spire more than three hundred feet in height. Norwich also presents the spectacle of a modern cathedral in course of building, a thing that we did not see elsewhere in England. The Roman Catholic Church is especially strong in this section, and under the leadership of the Duke of Norfolk has undertaken to build a structure that will rival in size and splendor those of the olden time. No doubt the modern Catholics bear in mind that their ancestors built all the great English churches and cathedrals and that these were lost to them at the time of the so-called Reformation of Henry VIII. Religious toleration does not prevail to any such extent in England as in the United States and there is considerable bitterness between the various sects.

Speaking of new cathedrals, while several are being built by the Roman Catholics, only one is under construction by the Church of England--the first since the days of the Stuarts. This is at Liverpool and the foundations have barely been begun. The design for the cathedral was a competitive one selected from many submitted by the greatest architects in the world. The award was made to Gilbert Scott, a young man of only twenty-one and a grandson of the famous architect of the same name who had so much to do with the restoration of several of the cathedrals. The Liverpool church is to be the greatest in the Kingdom, even exceeding York Minster and St. Paul's in size. No attempt is made to fix the time when the building will be completed, but the work will undoubtedly occupy several generations.

In Norwich we stopped at the Maid's Head Hotel, one of the noted old-time English hostelries. It has been in business as a hotel nearly five hundred years and Queen Elizabeth was its guest while on one of her visits to the city of Norwich. Despite its antiquity, it is thoroughly up-to-date and was one of the most comfortable inns that we found anywhere. No doubt this is considerably due to a large modern addition, which has been built along the same lines as the older portion. Near the cathedral are other ancient structures among which are the two gateways, whose ruins still faintly indicate their pristine splendor of carving and intricate design. The castle, at one time a formidable fortress, has almost disappeared. "Tombland" and "Strangers' Hall" are the appellations of two of the finest half-timbered buildings that we saw. The newer portions of Norwich indicate a prosperous business town and it is supplied with an unusually good street-car system. Most of the larger English cities are badly off in this particular. York, for instance, a place of seventy-five thousand, has but one street-car line, three or four miles in length, on which antiquated horse-cars are run at irregular intervals.

XIV

PETERBOROUGH, FOTHERINGHAY, ETC

The hundred miles of road that we followed from Norwich to Peterborough has hardly the suggestion of a hill, though some of it is not up to the usual English standard. We paused midway at Dereham, whose remarkable old church is the only one we saw in England that had the bell-tower built separate from the main structure, though this same plan is followed in Chichester Cathedral. In Dereham Church is the grave of Cowper, who spent his last years in the town. The entire end of the nave is occupied by an elaborate memorial window of stained glass, depicting scenes and incidents of the poet's life and works. To the rear of the church is the open tomb of one of the Saxon princesses, and near it is a tablet reciting how this grave had been desecrated by the monks of Ely, who stole the relics and conveyed them to Ely Cathedral. Numerous miracles were claimed to have been wrought by the relics of the princess, who was famed for her piety. The supposed value of these relics was the cause of the night raid on the tomb--a practice not uncommon in the days of monkish supremacy. The bones of saint or martyr had to be guarded with pious care or they were likely to be stolen by the enterprising churchmen of some rival establishment. Shortly afterwards, it would transpire that miracles were being successfully performed by the relics in the hands of the new possessors.

Leaving the main road a detour of a few miles enabled us to visit Crowland Abbey shortly before reaching Peterborough. It is a remarkable ruin, rising out of the flat fen country, as someone has said, "like a light-house out of the sea." Its oddly shaped tower is visible for miles, and one wide arch of the nave still stands, so light and airy in its gracefulness that it seems hardly possible it is built of heavy blocks of stone. A portion of the church has been restored and is used for services, but a vast deal of work was necessary to arrest the settling of the heavy walls on their insecure foundations. The cost of the restoration must have been very great, and the people of Crowland must have something of the spirit of the old abbey builders themselves, to have financed and carried out such a work. Visitors to the church are given an opportunity to contribute to the fund--a common thing in such cases. Crowland is a gray, lonely little town in the midst of the wide fen country. The streets were literally thronged with children of all ages; no sign of race suicide in this bit of Lincolnshire. Everywhere is evidence of antiquity--there is much far older than the old abbey in Crowland. The most notable of all is the queer three-way arched stone bridge in the center of the village--a remarkable relic of Saxon times. It seems sturdy and solid despite the thousand or more years that have passed over it, and is justly counted one of the most curious antiques in the Kingdom.

It was late when we left Crowland, and before we had replaced a tire casing that, as usual, collapsed at an inopportune moment, the long English twilight had come to an end. The road to Peterborough, however, is level and straight as an arrow. The right of way was clear and all conditions gave our car opportunity to do its utmost. It was about ten o'clock when we reached the excellent station hotel in Peterborough.

Before the advent of the railroad, Peterborough, like Wells, was merely an ecclesiastical town, with little excuse for existence save its cathedral. In the last fifty years, however, the population has increased five-fold and it has become quite on important trading and manufacturing center. It is situated in the midst of the richest farm country in England and its annual wool and cattle markets are known throughout the Kingdom. The town dates from the year 870, when the first cathedral minster was built by the order of one of the British chieftains. The present magnificent structure was completed in 1237, and so far as appearance is concerned, now stands almost as it left the builder's hands. It is without tower or spire of considerable height and somewhat disappointing when viewed from the exterior. The interior is most imposing and the great church is rich in historical associations. Here is buried Catherine of Aragon, the first queen of Henry VIII, and the body of the unfortunate Queen of Scots was brought here after her execution at Fotheringhay. King James I, when he came to the throne, removed his mother's remains to Westminster Abbey, where they now rest.

Strangely enough, the builders of the cathedral did not take into consideration the yielding nature of the soil on which they reared the vast structure, and as a consequence, a few years ago the central tower of the building began to give way and cracks appeared in the vaulting and walls. Something had to be done at once, and at the cost of more than half a million dollars the tower was taken down from top to foundation, every stone being carefully marked to indicate its exact place in the walls. The foundations were carried eleven feet deeper, until they rested upon solid rock, and then each stone was replaced in its original position. Restoration is so perfect that the ordinary beholder would never know the tower had been touched. This incident gives an idea of how the cathedrals are now cared for and at what cost they are restored after ages of neglect and destruction.

[Illustration: A TYPICAL BYWAY.]

Peterborough was stripped of most of its images and carvings by Cromwell's soldiers and its windows are modern and inferior. Our attention was attracted to three or four windows that looked much like the crazy-quilt work that used to be in fashion. We were informed that these were made of fragments of glass that had been discovered and patched together without any effort at design, merely to preserve them and to show the rich tones and colorings of the original windows. The most individual feature of Peterborough is the three great arches on the west, or entrance, front. These rise nearly two-thirds the height of the frontage and it is almost a hundred feet from the ground to the top of the pointed arches. The market square of Peterborough was one of the largest we had seen--another evidence of the agricultural importance of the town. Aside from the cathedral there is not much of interest, but if one could linger there is much worth seeing in the surrounding country.

The village of Fotheringhay is only nine miles to the west. The melancholy connection of this little hamlet with the Queen of Scots brings many visitors to it every year, although there are few relics of Mary and her lengthy imprisonment now remaining. Here we came the next morning after a short time on winding and rather hilly byways. It is an unimportant looking place, this sleepy little village where three hundred years ago Mary fell a victim to the machinations of her rival, Elizabeth. The most notable building now standing is the quaint inn where the judges of the unfortunate queen made their headquarters during her farcial trial. Of the gloomy castle, where the fair prisoner languished for nineteen long years, nothing remains except a shapeless mass of grass covered stone and traces of the old-time moat. Much of the stone was built into cottages of the surrounding country and in some of the mansions of the neighborhood may be found portions of the windows and a few of the ancient mantel pieces. The great oak staircase which Mary descended on the day of her execution, is built into an old inn at Oundle, not far away. Thus the great fortress was scattered to the four winds, but there is something more enduring than stone and mortar,--its memories linger and will remain so long as the story of English history is told. King James, by the destruction of the castle, endeavored to show fitting respect to the memory of his mother and no doubt hoped to wipe out the recollection of his friendly relations with Queen Elizabeth after she had caused the death of Mary.

The school children of Fotheringhay seemed quite familiar with its history and on the lookout for strangers who came to the place. Two or three of them quickly volunteered to conduct us to the site of the castle. There was nothing to see after we got there, but our small guides were thankful for the fee, which they no doubt had in mind from the first. Mournful and desolate indeed seemed the straggling little village where three centuries ago "a thousand witcheries lay felled at one stroke," one of the cruelest and most pitiful of the numberless tragedies which disfigure the history of England.

From Fotheringhay we returned to the York road and followed it northward for about twenty miles. We passed through Woolsthorpe, an unattractive little town whose distinction is that it was the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton. The thatched roof farmhouse where he was born is still standing on the outskirts of the village. At Grantham, a little farther on, we stopped for lunch at the "Royal and Angel" Hotel, one of the most charming of the old-time inns. Like nearly all of these old hostelries, it has its tradition of a royal guest, having offered shelter to King Charles I when on his endless wanderings during the Parliamentary wars. It is a delightful old building, overgrown with ivy, and its diamond-paned lattice windows, set in walls of time-worn stone, give evidence to its claims to antiquity.

We had paused in Grantham on our way to Belvoir Castle, about six miles away, the seat of the Duke of Rutland. This is one of the finest as well as most strikingly situated of the great baronial residences in England. Standing on a gently rising hill, its many towers and battlements looking over the forests surrounding it, this vast pile more nearly fulfilled our ideas of feudal magnificence than any other we saw. It is famous for its picture gallery, which contains many priceless originals by Gainsborough, Reynolds and others. It has always been open to visitors every week-day, but it chanced at the time that the old duke was dangerously ill--so ill, in fact, that his death occurred a little later on--and visitors were not admitted. We were able to take the car through the great park, which affords a splendid view of the exterior of the castle.