Glastonbury And The Wye

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

WE come now to the legendary portion of Old England, where it is enveloped in the dim mists of mingled ecclesiastical and heroic fables. The region about Glastonbury is the seat of the earliest traditions of the English Church, going back almost to apostolic days ; and with these, the armed heroic forms of King Arthur and his " Knights of the Round Table," are strangely blended, with half childish and half poetic glory upon the picture.

Glastonbury meant originally, it is said, " Isle of the Glassy Water ; " and it was also called " Avalon," or " Avilion," thus alluded to by Tennyson in the " Morte d'Arthur : "

"To the island-valley of the Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns,
And bowery hollows, crowned with summer sea."

To this peaceful Eden of rest King Arthur was gently borne over the lake, after his grievous wound in fighting with the traitor ; and, lost for ages to the sight of men, he is here at length to reappear among men, for the glory of his native land.

Here, in all probability, was really the scene of the earliest home of Christianity in England, although myth and fable make it difficult to come at the truth of history.

The story is, that while Glastonbury was still an island, hidden amid the marshes and thickets of a vast morass, a company of pilgrims from the Holy Land, led by " Joseph of Arimathea," landed on the western shore of England, somewhere in North Wales ; and journeying on south, through the wild and rugged land, they at length stopped here, and established themselves as a religious community. Mrs. Jameson thus relates the legend : " Some hold that when Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, came to France, he sent Joseph of Arimathea with Joseph his son, and eleven more of his disciples hither, who with great zeal and undaunted courage preached the true and lively faith of Christ, and when King Arviragus considered the difficulties that attended their long and dangerous journey from the Holy Land, beheld their civil and innocent lives, and observed their sanctity and the severities of their religion, he gave them a certain island in the west part of his dominions for their habitation, called Avalon, containing twelve hides of land, where they built a church of wreathen wands, and set a place apart for the burial of their servants. These holy men were devoted to a religious solitude, confined themselves to the number of twelve, lived there after the manner of Christ and his Apostles, and by preaching converted a great number of the Britons who became Christians."

Joseph planted his staff as a sign that they had reached a place of fixed abode after their weary wanderings ; the staff immediately took root, and like Aaron's rod budded and flowered. The visitor is still shown stocks descended from the " Holy Thorn " of Joseph of Arimathea, which is said to differ from the common hawthorn but in one respect, that it blossoms amid the snows of winter at Christmas !

Succeeding the humble wattled dwellings of the earliest missionaries, and the ruder Saxon structures, at length a great abbey arose, one of the most complete, wealthy, and famous in all England, as its present ruins amply testify. It was in its prime a religious establishment of magnificent power and riches. It acknowledged no jurisdiction to Rome, but looked solely to its own metropolitan bishop of Caerdon-on-Uske, claiming that its authority was derived direct from the Holy Land and the Apostles. The remains of its edifices, for solidity and majesty, are assuredly unsurpassed by any of the ruined abbeys of England. Tintern Abbey is more beautiful, and Fountains Abbey has possibly more of its walls still standing, but Glastonbury Abbey is superior to all in massive grandeur. Some of its walls are very high and solid still. The original church, whose outlines are distinctly marked, measured from the end of St. Joseph's Chapel on the west, to the Retro or Ladye Chapel on the east, is five hundred and ninety-four feet iii length. Two of the piers which supported the central tower of the nave are standing, with parts of the great arch, towering ragged and weed-fringed against the sky. There is some beautiful carving of oak leaves about one of the side-doors of the choir. The walls of " St. Joseph's Chapel " are almost entire, — strong Norman work of the time of Henry II. at the end of the twelfth century. Two of the small square towers that stood at the angles are still almost perfect. With their vertical lines and pyramidal pinnacles, they have an elegant look. The exterior walls of the chapel, with their simple round mullioned windows, projecting piers, and vertical side lines, ending in bow-kneed intersecting arches, together with the deeply recessed and rich portal adorned with the chevron moulding, have that austere majesty which despises feeble external ornament, and which is so characteristic of the masculine Norman style.

Many kings were buried here, the grandfather of Constantine the Great, Edmund the First, Edgar and Edmund Ironsides ; and here, if ancient chronicles are true, King Arthur himself was buried. Camden says that Arthur's tomb was discovered with a leaden tablet above it in the shape of a cross, with this inscription : " Hic jacet sepultus Rex Arthurus in insula Avaloniae." Another English chronicler (Fabyan's Chronicle, p 81,) gives this account of his death and burial :

" Whenne relacion came to Arthur of all this treason wrought by his neuewe Mordred, he in all haste made towarde Brytaine, as it is redde in the Englysshe Cronycle, and landed at Sandwyche, where he was mette of Mordred and his people, which gaue vnto hym stronge batyll in tyme of his landyng, and loste there many of his knyghtes, as the famous knyght Garvain and others ; but yet this notwithstandynge Arthure at length wonne the lande, and chaysed his enemyes, and after the enteryng of his cosyn Gawyn and other of his knyghtes there slayne, he sette forwarde his hoost to pursue his enemyes. Mordred thus beying ouerst of his vncle at the see side, withdrew hym to Wynchester, where he beying furnysshed of newe sowdyours, gaue vnto Arthure, as saith Gaufride, the second fyght ; wherein also Mordred was put to the worse and constrayned to flee. Thirdly and lastly, the sayd Mordred faught with his vncle Arthure beside Glastynberry, where after a longe and daügerous fyght Mordred was slayne, and the victoryous Arthure wounded vnto the deth, and after buryed in the vale of Aualon, beside Glastynberry beforesaid."

This same chronicler thus speaks of his exploits : " Arthure faught xii. notable bataylles agayn the Saxons, and of theym all was victoure. This noble warayour, as wytnesseth holy Gilda, slewe with his ovine hande in one daye, by the helpe of oure Lady Seynt Mary, whose Picture he bare peynted on his shelde, c. and. xi. Saxons; whiche shelde he called Pridwen, his sworde was called Caliboure, and his spere was called Rone after the Brettysshe tunge or speche."

Still another old writer, Geraldus Cambrensis, speaks with great particularity of the opening of Arthur's tomb in the reign of Henry II. ; the coffin itself was made of the hollowed trunk of a tree ; the bones were of great size ; and the skull bore marks of the fatal wound. In 1189, the tradition is, that the tomb of Queen Guinever was also opened, and that her yellow hair, nicely braided, was found unchanged. True or false, these traditions are exceedingly interesting, and seem to give some ground of substance to the shadowy legendary age of England's British kings. Nowhere are the myths more beautiful, nowhere more simply heroic, nowhere more sweetly tinged with the roseate light of a dawning Christianity, before which the gloom of Druidic Paganism was beginning to flee away, than those which cluster about Glastonbury, and this ancient vale of Avalon. In these walls, King Arthur with his " pendragon-crest," often entered, weary and worn from " roving the trackless realms of Lyonesse." Here he was met and entertained with solemn ceremonies, grave courtesy, and learned discourse of holy men, telling him of more glorious wars, and of the way to win a higher crown. So, at least, we will think. Yes, to us, Arthur is " flos regum gloria regni." Other great kings and heroes there have been, but he it was who founded the mighty Table :

"But I was first of all the kings who drew
The knighthood-errant of this realm and all
The realms together under me, their Head,
In that fair order of my Table Round,
A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world
And be the fair beginning of a time.
I made them lay their hands in mine and swear
To reverence the King, as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King.
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her; for indeed I knew
Of no more subtle master under Heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought and amiable words,
And courtlinesse and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man."

A figure far more distinct and no less powerful, though of an earthlier and more passionate mould, is the formidable shape of St. Dunstan, who lived ,n the reign of King Athelstane, grandson of Alfred, in the tenth century. He was a monk of Glastonbury Abbey. In his lonely cell, his harp, touched by invisible fingers for his solace, breathed the hymn, " Gaudete animi." He also (so goes the ancient chronicle) once heard the angels sing,

"Peace to the lande of Englysshemen."

He had moreover at Glastonbury his famous tussle with the arch-fiend, and by a sharp cauterizing process quickly routed him. He rebuked kings boldly for their vices, and brandished before the unsubmissive the lightnings of the Church. He was orator, poet, artist, painter, skillful artificer in metals, making great improvements and additions to the organ. He became Primate of the English nation, and died in Canterbury, A. D. 988.

Glastonbury Abbey was a Benedictine brother-hood. The Benedictines, the best of all the monastic orders, established themselves in England about fifty years after the death of their founder in 543. Oddly enough, nothing now survives to testify to their higher virtues or more important achievements, but the Abbot's Kitchen, a singular structure with high octagonal, pyramidal roof; crowned with a double lanthorn, and the Abbot's Stable, with some interesting carvings still clinging to it ; these are the only buildings that now remain entire. In the kitchen are four huge fireplaces at the four angles. Pigs and cattle roam unmolested about it, and sometimes go grunting into it, troubled with no sense of alarm, or with ghosts of ancestral martyrdoms.

I went to the summit of Tor Hill, a remarkable eminence of steep rounded green, surmounted by the tower of ruined St. Michael's Church. Upon this hill the last abbot of Glastonbury, Abbot Whiting, was hung for resisting the authority of Henry VIII. ; and the proud Abbey of Glastonbury, with other great religious houses, fell with him. At the foot of this hill is a mineral spring, now almos choked up and deserted, which was celebrated for its healing qualities from the earliest antiquity. To this venerable spring, according to Hollingshed, King Arthur was brought to be healed of his wounds ; and during the greatness of the monastery for ages, the sick from all parts of the kingdom resorted hither for cure.

In this region of Somersetshire, wandering amid its woods and caves, a veritable royal hero, who belongs to authentic history, the English Alfred, spent the days of his darkness and exile when he was driven from his throne by the Danes. Legends also cluster about him. One day in the depths of a forest, while his scanty followers were absent in search of food, as he was engaged in reading a book, a pilgrim met him, and asked alms of him in God's name. The king lifted up his hands toward heaven and said, " I thank God, who of His grace assisteth this poor man this day by another poor man." He then called his only remaining servant, who had but one loaf and a little sip of wine, and bade him give half to the poor man. This poor man partook of the refreshment and suddenly vanished. The night following, the same man appeared to him in a vision clad in full bishop's robes, and said : " I am Cuthbert, the pilgrim to whom yesterday you gave both bread and wine. I am busy for thee. Remember this of me when it shall be well with thee. Tomorrow strong helpers shall come to thee ; by whose help thou shalt abdue thine enemies." This was the same Saint Cuthbert, to whom Alfred afterward gave possessions in land and money, for the founding of Durham Church, which was dedicated to this saint. Shortly after this event men flocked to Alfred from the regions round about. He himself entered the Danish camp in the garb of a minstrel, discovered the weak points of his enemy, and with his little host of Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire men, routed the Danes in battle, and began his victorious course to the recovery of his kingdom l Alfred's division of time is worthy of our contemplation at this day. He divided the day and night into three parts, if not interrupted by war or business. Eight hours he spent in study ; the second eight he spent in prayer and deeds of charity ; and the remaining eight he spent in sleep, nourishment of his body, and the affairs of his realm. This order he kept by waxen tapers tended by persons appointed for this purpose.

Returning to Bridgewater, I went from thence on to Bristol to spend the Sabbath. I attended divine service the next day, as I had done many months before, at the " Brethren Chapel " of Messrs. Müller and Craik, in a neat but unpretending stone edifice, very plain within, with broad galleries occupied mostly by the children of the House of Faith," dressed simply, but not in a manner to make them look so distressingly plain, as does the homely uniform of some English benevolent institutions. Mr. Craik the preacher, the " alter ego " of Müller, a man with a fine intellectual face, spoke extemporaneously to a devout congregation, all following his Scriptural allusions in their Bibles, and all singing fervently together. Mr. Craik's sermon was upon " Joseph, as the type of Christ." No type, he said, was an exact counterpart of what it typified, but presented contrasts as well as correspondences. He dwelt upon one of these contrasts in particular, that Jacob did not know what would befall his son when he sent him forth on his errand ; nor did Joseph himself know what was in the future when he went to seek his brethren in the wilderness with a message of peace ; but our Almighty Father knew perfectly, and still ordained in love, what would befall his Son, when he went forth from his bosom to suffer for the redemption and peace of men. In the course of his remarks he had occasion to speak of each event of life, the most minute, being under the guidance of God. Here his faith broke out in an earnest and elevated strain. He represented all things as bound together in one framework of harmony ; that the smallest part had its place and fitness in a mighty whole of architectonic order and magnificence ; every thing touched upon, balanced, and sustained its neighbor, in this great plan of God which soared far out of our feeble sight. In every trial and temptation let us remember this, and the time would come when we should see the order and the perfection of the finished whole. His language, if not his thought, was plain and natural, adapted to the understanding of children. I heard no finer sermon in England, more original, beautiful, or spiritual. It is pleasant to me to carry away from a foreign land these mementoes, these golden fragments. They seem precious because we have gathered them on an-other soil, and found the same truth at Athens, at Rome, in England, in America.

The Communion Service was administered in the simplest way, and was not overstrained but affectionate and free, without losing its sacredness. A brother arose after the communion, and recalling two or three of the most affecting parts of the discourse, gave out a hymn. Mr. Craik then spoke of a woman who had died the previous week, drawing with a few happy strokes a fine Christian character, and then asked all to unite in prayer to thank God that he had given his faithful one rest and the crown. There was, as it seemed to me, something of the simplicity of the old apostolic times, in all the services ; no scenic effects, but a true Christian pastor feeding the people with the bread of life, and finding a loving response to every word he spoke in the faces of his flock, especially in those of the children. The Spirit of Christ was surely in that place.

I have had the privilege of joining in prayer and praise with all kinds of Christians, with High and Low Churchmen, with German Lutherans, with Moravians and " Plymouth Brethren," with American Methodists, with Independents and Baptists, with Irvingites and those who look for the second coming of Christ, with Quakers and Roman Catholics, with Greek and Armenian Christians, with men of many different languages and races, with Copts and Syrians, with some whom we consider in the main errorists, and I may say that with much of human vanity and error in them all, I have found in all that in which I could heartily unite, and more real piety and faith than I was worthy to participate in ; and I will enjoy the thought, that there is more of the Spirit of Christ on earth than many good men think ; more of the truth of the one living Lord sown deep in the sorrowful hearts of men, which shall at some time spring up in immortal light from the dark earth. Let us at least so hope.

Mr. Miller preached in the afternoon a discourse upon the 5th chapter of Luke. He gave great life to the explanation of Scripture. He was a rich and thoughtful exegete. " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man," was an expression, he said, not of true faith. The good man, Peter, learned better afterward. The Saviour pushed off in a boat from the shore in order to be better heard. He did not do a miracle when it was unnecessary. The net brake, but it was only to denote the multitude of fishes, not to show that any should be lost.

The disciples caught nothing before, because they did not work under the direction of Jesus ; they did not put down where he commanded. Every occupation, plan, and work of man, to be truly successful, must be done under the direction of Christ, in union with his will, from love to him, depending upon his power. Nothing was too small for this, not even fishing. How much more in trying to do good to the poor, ignorant, and vile, — in trying to be fishers of men.

The most careless must have been struck with the calm and transparent purity of his thoughts; they seemed to flow forth from a heart that was in union with God's Spirit and Word.

Chepstow, in Monmouthshire, near the mouth of the Wye, just across the head of the Severn River from Bristol, is the starting-point for tourists who visit Tintern Abbey, and other points of interest in this lovely part of Wales. It is a neat town picturesquely situated on the abrupt bank of the river, with the ruined castle of the famous Clare and Pembroke families still towering above it, though now but a mere shell and shadow of its former strength. Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, was the real founder of this family, and was the first Englishman who succeeded in making permanent conquest in Ireland. He made himself for a while an independent monarch of a considerable portion of Ireland, and ruled by the right of the stronger.

The castle wears even now a massive and defi ant look, somewhat in the Alnwick Castle style, especially its frowning front, flanked by two lofty towers. The chapel, in almost utter ruins, has still some good carving. A little to the west of the castle there is a noble view of the valley of the Wye, and of the curve of the river holding in its arm the beautiful Piercefield estate, with its romantic scenery and walks. In this castle one of the regicide judges, Harry Marten, was confined twenty years ; and Jeremy Taylor was, for a short time, kept here as prisoner of state. One of its lords in the time of the wars of the Rebellion, — a man of thought in those times of action, — was the Earl of Worcester, who was the author of " The Century of Scantlings," and whose original and penetrative genius anticipated many of the most important inventions of modern times.

The scenery of the Wye, though not so bold as some regions, is to my mind as lovely as any to be found in England, and indeed in some respects it is of surpassing loveliness. The rugged grandeur of the Welsh mountain landscape is here quite softened down, but it still forms a high and shadowy background of the picture. The wooded hills on either side are of lofty rounded forms breaking off in high cliffs upon the stream, though here and there receding and affording space for broad green meadows along the banks of the river, which winds with rapid flow among the hills, solitary and yet not lonely.

The scenery of England, compared with that of Italy, has been rightly called " sober," but it is a soberness in which there are touches and gleams of high ornamental beauty. It is like the soberness of a Doric temple with its decorated frieze, and intervals of rich exquisite sculpture. This delicious scenery of the Wye, with here and there in every part of the kingdom such little silver-footed streams as the Dove, the Wharfe, the Trent, the Fowey, the Tamar, the waving and gentle outline of the hills, the unparalleled sheen of the grass, the bright northern lakes and the bosky combes of Devon-shire, and everywhere the low cottage and village church hid in foliage and flowers, with the gray ruin clothed in green, and now and then a great park of venerable oaks, some of them a thousand years old, with sweeping glades of cleanest and smoothest lawn, and thrown about all a delicate veil of continual mist that softens and heightens each noble feature, — this makes Old England a strong and chaste home of freemen, a beautiful northern temple, which we would ever honor as the home and shrine of our ancestral virtue.

There are few villages upon the banks of the Wye, but there is everywhere a charming rural sweetness and quietness, with great variety of scenery, — now broad stretches of shining river reflecting the tinted woods, and now narrow vales embosomed in high walls of richest green. The view from Wyndcliff rock is indeed something more than simply beautiful ; and, as an exceptiona, feature, it merits almost the epithet of sublime.

It commands a view of nine counties. Nearly a thousand feet below is the rushing stream, with the rich vale and lovely Piercefield meadows, and at a distance directly to the east clear across the Gloucestershire peninsula the sea-like Severn is seen high on the horizon, as if it were suspended midway in the heavens ; while to the north are rolling hill and thick forest, and the dim mountains of Northern Wales. The scene has been called tropical, as if it were upon some great African river with its vast stretches of distance. This is partly just. There is certainly something peculiarly magnificent both in its land and water prospect. It forms a splendid introduction, or natural frontispiece, to the pensive glories of Tintern Abbey.

This fine ruin stands in a valley, or nearly at the foot of a side hill, at a curve of the river. Its situation is beautiful, and it appears far more perfect at a distance than it really is, for it is in fact but the vast frame of a building, rather than a building itself. It is now a temple wholly open to the elements, and paved with the greensward. Four of its high sharp-pointed gables remain, over and around which the ivy has gathered in opulent profusion. Indeed, nowhere, with the exception of Kenilworth, have I seen such an enormous growth of ivy, such huge knots and tree-like trunks, resembling the clustered pillars that they climb up, sending out their serpentine arms that wind over the loftiest wall, and hold the whole ruin in tight embrace. Especially about the interior north window, and the west end on the outside, are great masses of ivy, bulging and pendulous, covering entirely with folds of dark drapery the rugged sides of the old masonry. The ivy has left, or been trained to leave, the noble west window clear, so that its delicately traceried lines stand out in relief against the sky. The carving here and there is as sharp as if done yesterday. In the open nave, of two hundred and twenty-eight feet in length, most of the clustered columns are standing, and the two east and west windows, twice as large as the windows of Melrose Abbey, and nearly perfect in their stone-work, make one mourn that so much is left, and yet that all is hopeless ruin.

But, as I have said before, these old English abbeys could not be more beautiful in their prime than in their decay. Nature has claimed them and tried all her art to possess them entirely. She has wound her mantle about them, and hung her banners over them, as if to say, " Though man has left you I make you mine, and adorn you with my best." The broken shadows of window, sharp peak, and jagged wall, the immense fragments of columns and masonry, the massive drapery of ivy, the long architectural perspectives of nave and cross aisles, the sombre recesses, the gleams of pathetic beauty in this stern decay, the tender blue sky above and the green natural turf beneath, the spirit of repose that breathes through this desolate abode of an older faith, form a poem of subtle power.

One of the gems of the building is the door of the cloisters on the left of the north aisle, its wonderfully preserved mouldings showing what Tintern Abbey once was. It was a monastery of the Cistercian or White Monks, founded by Walter de Clare, a relation of the Conqueror, in 1132, in expiation, it is said, of great crimes and a wicked life. Probably most, if not all, of the present structure was erected later, by Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, in the last part of the thirteenth century.

Tintern Abbey is, by the road, five miles from Chepstow, and about the same distance from Monmouth.

In the town-house at Monmouth stands the statue of Henry V., and in the ruined castle near by he was born. This is one of the worst pre-served ruins in the kingdom. When I saw it, it was used as a vegetable store-house, and part of it was a pigsty. There was a pile of dirty straw in the grand fire-place, and heaps of turnips in another recess. But it is still a formidable looking old Norman keep, with a water-gate on the river.

St. Thomas' Church, while small in size, yet with its recessed doorway, round windows, and curious diamond-tiled bell-tower, impressed me by its picturesque quaintness. Geoffry of Monmouth's study window is shown, overlooking the churchyard. It is he who gives us the story of King Arthur the English Herodotus, whose simple and confiding genius leads him beyond the boundaries of sober history.

The hills lie around encircling the plain which widens out quite commandingly here, forming the place where two streams meet. On the whole, Monmouth pleased and surprised me, and is fit to be the birthplace of the hero of the " flaming beacon " lighting on to great deeds ; though the fact is a surprising one, that his fellow-townsmen seem to prize good turnips better than past renown.

At the " Beaufort Arms Hotel," I met with two English gentlemen who aided me greatly in my touring investigations, and I must say, that as a tourist I have always obtained from English fellow-travelers the most courteous response, and every aid that could well be given, leading sometimes to considerable personal inconvenience on their ?art.

Having sated my reader of late with ruins, I will leave Raglan Castle without wearying them with much additional description. Its heavy machicolated towers and antique gateway, on the beautiful morning that I saw it, with the fine and delicate air, answered exquisitely, to my thinking, to the entrance of Macbeth's Castle. The red-breasted birds hopped around almost tame. It was lonely and silent. The dried leaves of autumn dropped noiseless in the moat. With the exception )f the janitor, the only life seemed to be the birds and swans. The walls of the ruined keep are enormous. The view from its top down into the hollow shell of the castle, and the great cavernous spaces, was worth going far to see ; and he who visits England without seeing Raglan Castle, Tin-tern Abbey, and the river Wye, does not know what beauty there is in Old England.

From Monmouth I went on by coach ten miles to Ross, the road following the river, which was for the most part shut in by high hills, passing the Leys House estate, charmingly situated on a broad straight stretch of the Wye, and then losing sight of the river for a while until a little beyond Good-rich Castle, we came upon it again at Goodrich Hope Ferry, four miles or so from Ross.

The farms here were very fine, splendidly cultivated, and dotted over with great symmetrical hay-ricks. This is said to be the best wheat land in all England.

Ross is situated on a hill-side overhanging a broad meadow, and so completely intersected by the winding Wye, like a crescent or letter C, that the town could not have possibly stood in the valley if it had been desired to place it there. Here, in the principal church, the " Man of Ross " is buried ; and the old market - house which he founded stands just opposite the house, not now existing, where he lived.

" Behold the market-place, with poor o'erspread,
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread."

This is a pleasant, comfortable, agricultural town, a place where it would seem, if anywhere, plenty and contentment might perpetually dwell ; and with this happy and home-like vision on the banks of the silvery Wye, mingled with the thoughts of charity and peace, I bid my reader a hearty England " Good-bye."