Part 19

Gower's next work was the _Vox clamantis_ in Latin elegiac verse, in which the author takes occasion from the peasants' insurrection of 1381 to deal again with the faults of the various classes of society. In the earlier portion the insurrection itself is described in a rather vivid manner, though under the form of an allegory: the remainder contains much the same material as we have already seen in that part of the French poem where the classes of society are described. Gower's Latin verse is very fair, as judged by the medieval standard, but in this book he has borrowed very freely from Ovid, Alexander Neckam, Peter de Riga and others.

Gower's chief claim, however, to reputation as a poet rests upon his English work, the _Confessio amantis_, in which he displays in his native language a real gift as a story-teller. He is himself the lover of his poem, in spite of his advancing years, and he makes his confession to Genius, the priest of Venus, under the usual headings supplied by the seven deadly sins. These with their several branches are successively described, and the nature of them illustrated by tales, which are directed to the illustration both of the general nature of the sin, and of the particular form which it may take in a lover. Finally he receives at once his absolution, and his dismissal from the service of Venus, for which his age renders him unfit. The idea is ingenious, and there is often much quaintness of fancy in the application of moral ideas to the relations of the lover and his mistress. The tales are drawn from very various sources and are often extremely well told. The metre is the short couplet, and it is extremely smooth and regular. The great fault of the _Confessio amantis_ is the extent of its digressions, especially in the fifth and seventh books.

Gower also wrote in 1397 a short series of French ballades on the virtue of the married state (_Traitie pour essampler les amantz maries_), and after the accession of Henry IV. he produced the _Cronica tripartita_, a partisan account in Latin leonine hexameters of the events of the last twelve years of the reign of Richard II. About the same time he addressed an English poem in seven-line stanzas to Henry IV. (_In Praise of Peace_), and dedicated to the king a series of French ballades (_Cinkante Balades_), which deal with the conventional topics of love, but are often graceful and even poetical in expression. Several occasional Latin pieces also belong to the later years of his life.

On the whole Gower must be admitted to have had considerable literary powers; and though not a man of genius, and by no means to be compared with Chaucer, yet he did good service in helping to establish the standard literary language, which at the end of the 14th century took the place of the Middle English dialects. The _Confessio amantis_ was long regarded as a classic of the language, and Gower and Chaucer were often mentioned side by side as the fathers of English poetry.

A complete edition of Gower's works in four volumes, edited by G. C. Macaulay, was published in 1899-1902, the first volume containing the French works, the second and third the English, and the fourth the Latin, with a biography. Before this the _Confessio amantis_ had been published in the following editions: Caxton (1483); Berthelette (1532 and 1554); Chalmers, _British Poets_ (1810); Reinhold Pauli (1857); H. Morley (1889, incomplete). The two series of French ballades and the _Praise of Peace_ were printed for the Roxburghe Club in 1818, and the _Vox clamantis_ and _Cronica tripartita_ were edited by H. O. Coxe for the Roxburghe Club in 1850. The _Cronica tripartita_, the _Praise of Peace_ and some of the minor Latin poems were printed in Wright's _Political Poems_ (Rolls series, 14). The _Praise of Peace_ appeared in the early folio editions of Chaucer, and has been edited also by Dr Skeat in his _Chaucerian and other Pieces_. Reference may be made to Todd's _Illustrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer_; the article (by Sir H. Nicolas) in the _Retrospective Review_ for 1828; _Observations on the Language of Chaucer and Gower_, by F. J. Child; H. Morley's English Writers, iv.; Ten Brink's _History of Early English Literature_, ii.; and Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, i. (G. C. M.)

GOWER, a seigniory and district in the county of Glamorgan, lying between the rivers Tawe and Loughor and between Breconshire and the sea, its length from the Breconshire border to Worm's Head being 28 m., and its breadth about 8 m. It corresponds to the ancient commote of Gower (in Welsh _Gwyr_) which in early Welsh times was grouped with two other commotes stretching westwards to the Towy and so formed part of the principality of Ystrad Tywi. Its early association with the country to the west instead of with Glamorgan is perpetuated by its continued inclusion in the diocese of St Davids, its two rural deaneries, West and East Gower, being in the archdeaconry of Carmarthen. What is meant by Gower in modern popular usage, however, is only the peninsular part or "English Gower" (that is the Welsh _Bro-wyr_, as distinct from _Gwyr_ proper), roughly corresponding to the hundred of Swansea and lying mainly to the south of a line drawn from Swansea to Loughor.

The numerous limestone caves of the coast are noted for their immense deposits of animal remains, but their traces of man are far scantier, those found in Bacon Hole and in Paviland cave being the most important. In the Roman period the river Tawe, or the great morass between it and the Neath, probably formed the boundary between the Silures and the Goidelic population to the west. The latter, reinforced perhaps from Ireland, continued to be the dominant race in Gower till their conquest or partial expulsion in the 4th century by the sons of Cunedda who introduced a Brythonic element into the district. Centuries later Scandinavian rovers raided the coasts, leaving traces of their more or less temporary occupation in such place-names as Burry Holms, Worms Head and Swansea, and probably also in some cliff earthworks. About the year 1100 the conquest of Gower was undertaken by Henry de Newburgh, first earl of Warwick, with the assistance of Maurice de Londres and others. His followers, who were mostly Englishmen from the marches and Somersetshire with perhaps a sprinkling of Flemings, settled for the most part on the southern side of the peninsula, leaving the Welsh inhabitants of the northern half of Gower practically undisturbed. These invaders were probably reinforced a little later by a small detachment of the larger colony of Flemings which settled in south Pembrokeshire. Moated mounds, which in some cases developed into castles, were built for the protection of the various manors into which the district was parcelled out, the castles of Swansea and Loughor being ascribed to the earl of Warwick and that of Oystermouth to Maurice de Londres. These were repeatedly attacked and burnt by the Welsh during the 12th and 13th centuries, notably by Griffith ap Rhys in 1113, by his son the Lord Rhys in 1189, by his grandsons acting in concert with Llewelyn the Great in 1215, and by the last Prince Llewelyn in 1257. With the Norman conquest the feudal system was introduced, and the manors were held _in capite_ of the lord by the tenure of castle-guard of the castle of Swansea, the _caput baroniae_.

About 1189 the lordship passed from the Warwick family to the crown and was granted in 1203 by King John to William de Braose, in whose family it remained for over 120 years except for three short intervals when it was held for a second time by King John (1211-1215), by Llewelyn the Great (1216-1223), and the Despensers (c. 1323-1326). In 1208 the Welsh and English inhabitants who had frequent cause to complain of their treatment, received each a charter, in similar terms, from King John, who also visited the town of Swansea in 1210 and in 1215 granted its merchants liberal privileges. In 1283 a number of de Braose's tenants--unquestionably Welshmen--left Gower for the royal lordship of Carmarthen, declaring that they would live under the king rather than under a lord marcher. In the following year the king visited de Braose at Oystermouth Castle, which seems to have been made the lord's chief residence, after the destruction of Swansea Castle by Llewelyn. Later on the king's officers of the newly organized county of Carmarthen repeatedly claimed jurisdiction over Gower, thereby endeavouring to reduce its status from that of a lordship marcher with semi-regal jurisdiction, into that of an ordinary constituent of the new county. De Braose resisted the claim and organized the English part of his lordship on the lines of a county palatine, with its own _comitatus_ and chancery held in Swansea Castle, the sheriff and chancellor being appointed by himself. The inhabitants, who had no right of appeal to the crown against their lord or the decisions of his court, petitioned the king, who in 1305 appointed a special commission to enquire into their alleged grievances, but in the following year the de Braose of the time, probably in alarm, conceded liberal privileges both to the burgesses of Swansea and to the English and Welsh inhabitants of his "county" of English Gower. He was the last lord seignior to live within the seigniory, which passed from him to his son-in-law John de Mowbray. Other troubles befell the de Braose barons and their successors in title, for their right to the lordship was contested by the Beauchamps, representatives of the earlier earls of Warwick, in prolonged litigation carried on intermittently from 1278 to 1396, the Beauchamps being actually in possession from 1354, when a decision was given in their favour, till its reversal in 1396. It then reverted to the Mowbrays and was held by them until the 4th duke of Norfolk exchanged it in 1489, for lands in England, with William Herbert, earl of Pembroke. The latter's granddaughter brought it to her husband Charles Somerset, who in 1506 was granted her father's subtitle of Baron Herbert of Chepstow, Raglan and Gower, and from him the lordship has descended to the present lord, the duke of Beaufort.

Gower was made subject to the ordinary law of England by its inclusion in 1535 in the county of Glamorgan as then reorganized; its chancery, which from about the beginning of the 14th century had been located at Oystermouth Castle, came to an end, but though the Welsh acts of 1535 and 1542 purported to abolish the rights and privileges of the lords marchers as conquerors, yet some of these, possibly from being regarded as private rights, have survived into modern times. For instance, the seignior maintained a franchise gaol in Swansea Castle till 1858, when it was abolished by act of parliament, the appointment of coroner for Gower is still vested in him, all writs are executed by the lord's officers instead of by the officers of the sheriff for the county, and the lord's rights to the foreshore, treasure trove, felon's goods and wrecks are undiminished.

The characteristically English part of Gower lies to the south and south-west of its central ridge of Cefn y Bryn. It was this part that was declared by Professor Freeman to be "more Teutonic than Kent itself." The seaside fringe lying between this area and the town of Swansea, as well as the extreme north-west of the peninsula, also became anglicized at a comparatively early date, though the place-names and the names of the inhabitants are still mainly Welsh. The present line of demarcation between the two languages is one drawn from Swansea in a W.N.W. direction to Llanrhidian on the north coast. It has remained practically the same for several centuries, and is likely to continue so, as it very nearly coincides with the southern outcrop of the coal measures, the industrial population to the north being Welsh-speaking, the agriculturists to the south being English. In 1901 the Gower rural district (which includes the Welsh-speaking industrial parish of Llanrhidian, with about three-sevenths of the total population) had 64.5% of the population above three years of age that spoke English only, 5.2% that spoke Welsh only, the remainder being bilinguals, as compared with 17% speaking English only, 17.7% speaking Welsh only and the rest bilinguals in the Swansea rural district, and 7% speaking English only, 55.2% speaking Welsh only and the rest bilinguals in the Pontardawe rural district, the last two districts constituting Welsh Gower.

More than one-fourth of the whole area of Gower is unenclosed common land, of which in English Gower fully one-half is apparently capable of cultivation. Besides the demesne manors of the lord seignior, six in number, there are some twelve mesne manors and fees belonging to the Penrice estate, and nearly twenty more belonging to various other owners. The tenure is customary freehold, though in some cases described as copyhold, and in the ecclesiastical manor of Bishopston, descent is by borough English. The holdings are on the whole probably smaller in size than in any other area of corresponding extent in Wales, and agriculture is still in a backward state.

In the Arthurian romances Gower appears in the form of Goire as the island home of the dead, a view which probably sprang up among the Celts of Cornwall, to whom the peninsula would appear as an island. It is also surmised by Sir John Rhys that Malory's Brandegore (i.e. Bran of Gower) represents the Celtic god of the other world (Rhys, _Arthurian Legend_, 160, 329 et seq.). On Cefn Bryn, almost in the centre of the peninsula, is a cromlech with a large capstone known as Arthur's Stone. The unusually large number of cairns on this hill, given as eighty by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, suggests that this part of Gower was a favourite burial-place in early British times.

See Rev. J. D. Davies, _A History of West Gower_ (4 vols., 1877-1894); Col. W. Ll-Morgan, _An Antiquarian Survey of East Gower_ (1899); an article (probably by Professor Freeman) entitled "Anglia Trans-Walliana" in the _Saturday Review_ for May 20, 1876; "The Signory of Gower" by G. T. Clark in _Archaeologia Cambrensis_ for 1893-1894; _The Surveys of Gower and Kilvey_, ed. by Baker and Grant-Francis (1861-1870). (D. Ll. T.)

GOWN, properly the term for a loose outer garment formerly worn by either sex but now generally for that worn by women. While "dress" is the usual English word, except in such combinations as "tea-gown," "dressing-gown" and the like, where the original loose flowing nature of the "gown" is referred to, "gown" is the common American word. "Gown" comes from the O. Fr. _goune_ or _gonne_. The word appears in various Romanic languages, cf. Ital. _gonna_. The medieval Lat. _gunna_ is used of a garment of skin or fur. A Celtic origin has been usually adopted, but the Irish, Gaelic and Manx words are taken from the English. Outside the ordinary use of the word, "gown" is the name for the distinctive robes worn by holders of particular offices or by members of particular professions or of universities, &c. (see ROBES).

GOWRIE, JOHN RUTHVEN, 3RD EARL OF (c. 1577-1600), Scottish conspirator, was the second son of William, 4th Lord Ruthven and 1st earl of Gowrie (cr. 1581), by his wife Dorothea, daughter of Henry Stewart, 2nd Lord Methven. The Ruthven family was of ancient Scottish descent, and had owned extensive estates in the time of William the Lion; the Ruthven peerage dated from the year 1488. The 1st earl of Gowrie (? 1541-1584), and his father, Patrick, 3rd Lord Ruthven (c. 1520-1566), had both been concerned in the murder of Rizzio in 1566; and both took an active part on the side of the Kirk in the constant intrigues and factions among the Scottish nobility of the period. The former had been the custodian of Mary, queen of Scots, during her imprisonment in Loch Leven, where, according to the queen, he had pestered her with amorous attentions; he had also been the chief actor in the plot known as the "raid of Ruthven" when King James VI. was treacherously seized while a guest at the castle of Ruthven in 1582, and kept under restraint for several months while the earl remained at the head of the government. Though pardoned for this conspiracy he continued to plot against the king in conjunction with the earls of Mar and Angus; and he was executed for high treason on the 2nd of May 1584; his friends complaining that the confession on which he was convicted of treason was obtained by a promise of pardon from the king. His eldest son, William, 2nd earl of Gowrie, only survived till 1588, the family dignities and estates, which had been forfeited, having been restored to him in 1586.

When, therefore, John Ruthven succeeded to the earldom while still a child, he inherited along with his vast estates family traditions of treason and intrigue. There was also a popular belief, though without foundation, that there was Tudor blood in his veins; and Burnet afterwards asserted that Gowrie stood next in succession to the crown of England after King James VI. Like his father and grandfather before him, the young earl attached himself to the party of the reforming preachers, who procured his election in 1592 as provost of Perth, a post that was almost hereditary in the Ruthven family. He received an excellent education at the grammar school of Perth and the university of Edinburgh, where he was in the summer of 1593, about the time when his mother, and his sister the countess of Atholl, aided Bothwell in forcing himself sword in hand into the king's bedchamber in Holyrood Palace. A few months later Gowrie joined with Atholl and Montrose in offering to serve Queen Elizabeth, then almost openly hostile to the Scottish king; and it is probable that he had also relations with the rebellious Bothwell. Gowrie had thus been already deeply engaged in treasonable conspiracy when, in August 1594, he proceeded to Italy with his tutor, William Rhynd, to study at the university of Padua. On his way home in 1599 he remained for some months at Geneva with the reformer Theodore Beza; and at Paris he made acquaintance with the English ambassador, who reported him to Cecil as devoted to Elizabeth's service, and a nobleman "of whom there may be exceeding use made." In Paris he may also at this time have had further communication with the exiled Bothwell; in London he was received with marked favour by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers.

The Gowrie conspiracy.

These circumstances owe their importance to the light they throw on the obscurity of the celebrated "Gowrie conspiracy," which resulted in the slaughter of the earl and his brother by attendants of King James at Gowrie House, Perth, a few weeks after Gowrie's return to Scotland in May 1600. This event ranks among the unsolved enigmas of history. The mystery is caused by the improbabilities inherent in any of the alternative hypotheses suggested to account for the unquestionable facts of the occurrence; the discrepancies in the evidence produced at the time; the apparent lack of forethought or plan on the part of the chief actors, whichever hypothesis be adopted, as well as the thoughtless folly of their actual procedure; and the insufficiency of motive, whoever the guilty parties may have been. The solutions of the mystery that have been suggested are three in number: first, that Gowrie and his brother had concocted a plot to murder, or more probably to kidnap King James, and that they lured him to Gowrie House for this purpose; secondly, that James paid a surprise visit to Gowrie House with the intention, which he carried out, of slaughtering the two Ruthvens; and thirdly, that the tragedy was the outcome of an unpremeditated brawl following high words between the king and the earl, or his brother. To understand the relative probabilities of these hypotheses regard must be had to the condition of Scotland in the year 1600 (see SCOTLAND: _History_). Here it can only be recalled that plots to capture the person of the sovereign for the purpose of coercing his actions were of frequent occurrence, more than one of which had been successful, and in several of which the Ruthven family had themselves taken an active part; that the relations between England and Scotland were at this time more than usually strained, and that the young earl of Gowrie was reckoned in London among the adherents of Elizabeth; that the Kirk party, being at variance with James, looked upon Gowrie as an hereditary partisan of their cause, and had recently sent an agent to Paris to recall him to Scotland as their leader; that Gowrie was believed to be James's rival for the succession to the English crown. Moreover, as regards the question of motive it is to be observed, on the one hand, that the Ruthvens believed Gowrie's father to have been treacherously done to death, and his widow insulted by the king's favourite minister; while, on the other, James was indebted in a large sum of money to the earl of Gowrie's estate, and popular gossip credited either Gowrie or his brother, Alexander Ruthven, with being the lover of the queen. Although the evidence on these points, and on every minute circumstance connected with the tragedy itself, has been exhaustively examined by historians of the Gowrie conspiracy, it cannot be asserted that the mystery has been entirely dispelled; but, while it is improbable that complete certainty will ever be arrived at as to whether the guilt lay with James or with the Ruthven brothers, the most modern research in the light of materials inaccessible or overlooked till the 20th century, points pretty clearly to the conclusion that there was a genuine conspiracy by Gowrie and his brother to kidnap the king. If this be the true solution, it follows that King James was innocent of the blood of the Ruthvens; and it raises the presumption that his own account of the occurrence was, in spite of the glaring improbabilities which it involved, substantially true.

The slaughter of the Ruthvens.