Read Ebook: The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West by Rogers W H Hamilton William Henry Hamilton Gibbs Roscoe Illustrator

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Quietly continuing our way, a short distance further brings us to the apex of the ascent, and as we begin to descend, before us is the 'tynner's towne' of Callington, with its granite-built, expressively-pinnacled church tower rising well above the clustering houses that surround it.

Here, at Callington, Lord Willoughby de Broke held another large property by right of his wife as a descendant of Ferrers, and also at South-Hill, as being himself the representative of the family of Stafford. Lysons says,--

Where the Manor-house mentioned by Lysons was situate cannot now be determined, but it is surmised to have been a building, which has long wholly disappeared, and was called Chickett-Hall, that formed Lord Willoughby de Broke's residence at Callington, and where he presumably departed this life. He was patron of the important benefice of South-Hill, and in its daughter church of Callington he was buried. But according to Sir R. C. Hoare he died at Wardour Castle, Wilts, which he had purchased.

The tomb below is formed of panels filled with rich tracery, having in their centres shields with carved armorial bearings, and twisted pillars were at the corners; of these two remain. No inscription is visible, it was probably only painted on the verge of the ledger-moulding, but traces of colour and gilding are faintly discernible on the figure. The effigy is in a fair state of preservation, but wretchedly disfigured on the surface, by legions of names and initials, barbarously cut into, and scratched on it.

Stay thy foot, friend of mine, a short while, ere thou passest out of the sacred enclosure, and scan yon venerable churchyard cross--how rich is Cornwall in these reminders--slightly leaning, yet hale in the strength of the almost imperishable granite, and with the age-worn imagery of the Great Sacrifice, still plainly discernible, insculped on one of the faces of its pediment. There it was before the honour-bedizened noble--whose tomb we have been just surveying--found his way to Callington to enjoy the portion of his great possessions, situate near it; and who shall say he may not many a time have bowed his head in silent prayer, and crossed himself reverently at the sight of its solemn appeal, when in life he passed in front of it, as he entered the adjoining sanctuary for worship, ere he finally found therein his grave. And here also it is to-day, speaking the same eternal lesson to us, who are seeking to gather back from the woof of the Past, ravelled threads of his memory; and there it will doubtless be found, when we also are merged into the things that were. Such is

THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS.

"Strife of the years is gone, Not me,-- Drooping, bereft, and lone, Here see Pilgrim, by days undone, Heaven's pleading-still, milestone.

"Ah! many eyes as thine Have come, Met this old gaze of mine, Then home, Would their glad steps incline, Bearing my tale divine.

"Where are they now? O say-- No sound,-- Ask the memorials gray, Around,-- They came again this way, And down beside me lay."

Lord Willoughby de Broke by his wife Blanche Champernowne, left one son Robert, his heir, and a daughter Elizabeth, married to William Fitz-Alan, seventeenth Earl of Arundel, K.G. who died in 1543, and was buried at Arundel.

Robert Willoughby, the second Lord Willoughby de Broke, married first Elizabeth, eldest of the three daughters and coheiresses of Sir Richard Beauchamp, second Lord Beauchamp of Powyke, who died 1503, by his wife Elizabeth daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford, knt.

This marriage of Lord Beauchamp and Elizabeth Stafford, took place in the private chapel of his manor-house of Beauchamp's-Court near Alcester, by special license of the Bishop of Worcester.

Bacon thus describes the pestilence:--"This disease had a swift course both in the sick body, and in the time and period of the lasting thereof, for they that were taken with it, upon four and twenty hours escaping were thought almost assured. It was a pestilent fever but as it seemed not seated in the veins or humours, for that there followed no carbuncle, no purple nor livid spots, or the like, the mass of the body being not tainted, only a malign vapour flew to the heart and seized the vital spirits, which stirred Nature to strive to send it forth in an extreme sweat. And it appeared by experience that this disease was rather a surprise of Nature, than obstinate to remedies, if it were in time looked unto; for if the patient were kept in an equal temper, both for clothes, fire, and drink moderately warm, with temperate cordials, whereby Nature's work were neither irritated by heat, nor turned back by cold, he commonly recovered. But infinite persons died suddenly of it, before the manner of the cure and the attendance were known."

"sole heir to the last Lord Broke, her grandfather; also to her grandmother Elizabeth, eldest of the daughters and coheirs of the last Lord Beauchamp of Powyke; and thus in her own person, united the illustrious successions of those two noble families. As the sole heir to her grandmother, she came to be seized in fee of the whole manor of Alcester, in consequence of which, letters-patent of exemplification were granted 3 Elizabeth, to her then a widow, confirming all the grants of fairs, markets, &c., made in the time of her ancestors. And as the sole heir of her grandfather, it appears by an inquisition taken after her death, that she died seized in fee, not only of the manor of Alcester, but of sundry other manors and lands, in the counties of Warwick, Worcester, Lincoln, Leicester, Somerset, and divers others; the whole amounting to so great a value, that she might well have been esteemed one of the richest heiresses of her time, as well as one of the best descended."

Here was a lady rivalling in illustrious birth and immenseness of possessions the famed west country heiress Cicely Bonville, one of whose daughters her grandfather had married as his second wife. What fortunate youth was destined to make prize of this high-born and wealthy orphan,--with whom was to reside the influence of the bestowal of her hand, fortune, and let us hope also, her heart?

There resided not far away from the home of this fatherless, richly-dowered girl, an old and well descended race of gentlemen called Greville. Leland, who wrote his itinerary contemporary with the little lady's existence in the flesh, thus describes them,--

"Sum hold Opinion, that the gravilles cam originally in at the conquest. The veri ancient house of the gravilles, is at draiton by banburi, in oxfordshire. But ther is an nother manor place of the chief stok of the Gravilles, caullid Milcot, yn Warwickshire, where a late is a newer, fairer and more commodious house. And court rolles remayne yet at Draiton, that the Gravilles had landes ons by yere 3300 marks. And Gravilles had Knap Castel, and Bewbush Parke, and other landes in Southfax, by descentes of their name.

"was in the commission of the peace for Warwickshire, and in 1514 at the seiges of Terouen and Tournay, also at the battle that ensued, called by our historians the Battle of Spurs, from the swiftness of the French running away. He received the honour of Knighthood 13 October for his valiant behaviour. In 1523, he was appointed one of the Knights to attend the King and Queen to Canterbury, and from thence to Calais, and Guisnes, to the meeting of the French king; every one of that degree having a chaplain, eleven servants, and eight horses."

Theoretically it would be presumed the "obtaining a wardship from the Crown," was simply that of a philanthropic trusteeship, but practically it meant something of a much more sordid nature, even the disposal of the person and possessions of the ward, for its own selfish uses and purposes, a monstrous privilege, or rather power, which was the chief object of their acquisition, and as a rule duly enforced. Therefore in accordance, we learn further that

After all, Sir Edward did not have it exactly his own way, some little romance was mixed up with this "matter of mere attorneyship," and the evidently high-spirited girl had a will of her own, and preferred the sailor youth, to the more prosaic stay-at-home son. It is well perhaps her inclinations did not lead her for choice outside Sir Edward's family circle, and doubtless the knight was sufficiently reconciled to find one of his boys in possession of the heiress.

So it fortunately turned out, that the Lady Elizabeth was happily wedded to a kind, honourable, and just man. She bore him seven children, three sons and four daughters,--Fulke, who succeeded his father,--Robert, of Thorpe-Latimer, Lincolnshire, ancestor of the Earls Brooke and of Warwick,--Edward, of Harrold Park, Waltham-Abbey, Essex, whose line terminated in two daughters coheiresses,--Mary, married to William Harris of Hayne, Devon,--Eleanor, to Sir John Conway, of Arrow, and Ragley, in Warwick, who died in 1603, father of Edward, first Baron Conway,--Catherine, to Charles Read, of the county of Gloucester, and Blanche who died unmarried.

This evidently attached couple did not long survive each other, Sir Fulke died 10 Nov., 1559, and his wife followed him to the tomb the year following--1560.

They were buried under a magnificent monument that originally stood at the end of the south aisle, near the chancel in Alcester church, but which is now removed to a position near the tower at the west end.

Considering Alcester church was almost wholly rebuilt about a century and a half since, at an era when memorials of the dead were not too circumspectly cared for, this noble tomb with its recumbent figures, and wealth of ornament has been wonderfully preserved from injury. Except that the coloured decoration is somewhat softened by Time, it is otherwise but little mutilated, and displays all its antient splendour almost unimpaired.

DONA PACIENCIA DIEN ME

HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE

Gold is used throughout the heraldry on the monument to represent either metal. The shields are here blazoned as they actually appear.

Commencing with these, the series of small shields round the tomb, numbering twenty-four in all, follow the same sequence as the corresponding number of quarterings on the escutcheon below them.

Twisted pillars occur at the corners of the tomb, and on each side of the large escutcheons, and the whole composition is in a remarkably good state of preservation.

It was to the descendants of Margaret Greville, sister to Sir Fulke the first Lord Brooke, and grand-daughter of the Lady Elizabeth, that the title of Willoughby de Broke, was destined to be restored. She married Sir Richard Verney, of Compton-Murdack in Warwickshire, the then representative of that very antient and distinguished family. Sir Richard died 7 Aug., 1630, and Lady Margaret 26 March, 1631. They had issue four sons and four daughters. Sir Greville ob: 1642, the eldest son of Sir Richard, had also four sons,--Greville, the eldest; John, who died young; Richard, of Belton; and George. This descent of Greville became extinct on the death of his son William in 1683, leaving no issue.

Here ends our direct genealogical and biographical details, and we retrace our steps to the church of Beer-Ferrers, where the second Lord Willoughby de Broke was buried. We have described such remembrances as remain there to the families of Ferrers and Champernowne, and it now becomes our province to make note of the memorials that exist to their successors the Willoughbys.

The era may be referred to the first half of the sixteenth century, and with great probability it may be considered to be the tomb of Robert, the second Lord Willoughby de Broke, who died in 1522.

Before we leave the sacred edifice, a chastened thought creeps over us, as we take a last look at the fine old glass in the east window. Just seventy years a-past, a gifted student in the pursuit we also at humbler distance love, made pilgrimage here, and was engaged in making a drawing of its interesting painted story, when death suddenly stayed the work of the artist, snapping the very pencil in his fingers, and instantly translated him, from picturing the earthly image of the Founder of these courts below, into his immortal presence in the great temple above, and the company of all those who "have died in His faith and fear." Gratefully we note, appreciative minds have placed a small brass in the pavement, where, on the 28 May, 1821, Charles Alfred Stothard met with his sad, and to mortal sight, untimely end. His cunning fingers are mouldering in the dust below, and moss and decay are stealthily obliterating his record outside, but the fidelity and truth of his works remain bright and undimmed, forming his best and most enduring monument,--for

"It is the gods that die, not God; It is the arts that perish, not Art; And beauties may disappear, but Beauty herself Is immortal."

A review of the life of the first Lord Willoughby de Broke exhibits no salient features, beyond those associated with the social distinctions and worldly prosperity, usually conferred on and accompanying the faithful subserviency, that follows in the wake of a conqueror. His public functions scarcely reached in importance those exercised by his companion at Court and in arms, and fellow west-countryman Giles, Lord Daubeney; but in the main they were much alike; each served Henry as a military commander, both on sea and land, abroad and at home, were the envoys entrusted to negociate his crafty, vacillating, compromising policy in missions to foreign potentates, and held respectively the highest positions at his court, the one as Lord Chamberlain, and the other as Lord Steward of his Household. Although the Edgcumbe episode seems to pourtray him in his younger years as a daring and lawless marauder on his neighbour's peace and possessions, large allowance must be made for the disorganized state of society in that distracted age, where every man essayed to be a law unto himself, and might became right, in a very large sense of the word. In after years--like Lord Daubeney--when Henry was firmly seated on the throne, and order largely restored, Lord Willoughby de Broke was probably a careful and cautious courtier, steering clear of the intrigues that stalked about Henry's court , one who studied the mercenary, selfish policy of his royal master, and made himself generally useful as opportunity and circumstance occurred, and in return was rewarded with honours, accompanied by grants of his neighbour's confiscated lands, which cost the generous monarch he served, nothing to bestow. His name, somewhat prominent from the functions he exercised, helps to fill up the middle distance of the picture, that environs the advent of the first Tudor king.

"Willingly have I sought And willingly have I found, The fatal end that wrought Thither as dutie bound:

Discharged I am of that I ought To my countrey by honest wound; My soul departyd Christ hath bought; The end of man is ground."

and further devised some extensive charitable bequests. He died in 1545, and was buried in the church of St. Mary Aldermary, London --his grandson Charles Blount, eighth baron ,--sold Broke Hall and Manor to William Jones, of Edington, Wilts, gent, in 1599.

HERE LIETH THE BODY OF HENRY WILLOUGHBY WHO DYED THE 28 DAY OF SEPTR. 1616.

but we have been hitherto unable satisfactorily to place him in the Willoughby pedigree; the following however may be added.

Richard Willoughby, third son of Sir John Willoughby of Broke, was of Silton, Dorset, having married Isabel daughter of John Bedyke of that place, who brought the manor to her husband. He died 1523, she 1524, and both by their wills ordered their bodies to be buried in the church of St. Nicholas there. They left several descendants.

Henry Willoughby's tomb at Southleigh has been carefully and substantially repaired by a representative of the family.

Back to Beer-Ferrers again our thoughts return, and recall the memory of our last visit to the antient home, successively of Ferrers, Champernowne, and Willoughby, names all now extinct, that had relationship there. Evening is creeping on, as we leave the little jetty and find ourselves afloat, slowly making way out into the Tamar proper. How many a story speaks to us of the past, from its dim cliffy banks, that history and tradition have preserved, how many more, silent and forgotten, are lost for ever. Such the doom and fate of human life, little episodes on the stream of time, successive and evanescent as the wavelets that rise and die against the bosom of our little craft. Of Willoughby de Broke, a larger remembrance remains, but it only points in a fuller sense to an often recurring issue of human life, graphically summed up concerning them by the quaint old historian Westcote,--"but this family fading in his very blossom, soon came to his period."

TAMAR'S FLOW.

O Tamar's flow! lowly I bend mine ear, And listen to thy lisp that greets the shore, Bearing Tradition's burthen soft and clear, From the dim portals of the never more;-- Two voices spell me from thy mingled tide, One, mighty ocean's whisper, murmurous, deep, Telling of ventures glorious, that hide Within its billowy bosom rocked in sleep;-- The other, rippling from thy crystal fount, A tinkle sweet of elves, and fays, and flowers, Legends borne down from woodland, vale, and mount, Departed homes, and haunted shrines and towers;-- Flow on,--until this tranc?d ear shall be, But one more memory that is merged in thee!

EXTINCT, FOR THE WHITE ROSE.

Leaving the antient town of Colyton by its south-western approach, the broad turnpike-road that leads over the hill to Sidmouth, at about half-a-mile's distance up its ascent, a turn to the right takes us into the trackway of a winding and somewhat narrow Devonshire lane. A pleasant prospect opens across the valley below, through which the Coly sparkles along with sinuous course, and immediately in the mid-distance appears the old ruinous cradle of the Courtenay family, Colcombe Castle, grey-walled, ivy-clad, and orchard environed. Beyond and just under the further fir-topped hill-line, another grey dot strugglingly emerges from among the dense garnishing of foliage that surrounds it, and shews us what remains of old Shute House, while to its left, across the far valley, rises the beautiful tree-crested acclivity of Shute Park; localities of special importance pertinent to the interests of our little narrative, to be referred to by and by. In front a delightful and typical Devonian landscape extends itself. Sprinkled over with the deserted homes of the olden lesser squirearchy, the antient lords of the vale, and picturesquely varied alternate with copse, plantations, and well-timbered hedgerow, the two valleys of the Coly and the Brinkly bifurcate just at this point, meeting under the shadow of the remarkable pyramid-shaped hill, Waddon Pen, and then stretch away, variously broken into lesser knoll and vale, until lost in the misty outline of the high, far-distant curtain of the Farway hills, with their tiny clumps of trees that just break the even contour, and stand like sentinels on the rampart-appearanced outline against the grey sky. They recall also for the moment to the historic memory, the burthen of a pleasant story, connected with its breezy, and comparatively unfrequented altitude, one of the numberless traditions that throng the hills and vales of the olden region of the Danmonii.

A rest for awhile on the parapet of the bridge spanning the little Morganhayes brook, hastening to join the Coly a few fields' distance below; a rivulet whose banks at Spring time are almost fairy-land with abundance of some of our finest wild flowers, broad stretches of daffodils, myriads of white-starred anemones, gleams of pale primroses and bleached lady-smocks, and sheen of golden-cups in their succession, but specially, when uncertain April brings her tears and sunshine, the haunt of the most gorgeous of them all

THE MEADOW RANUNCULUS.

Close by the rippling streams' translucent marge, Ranunculus of gold, Bright to the sun in constellation large, Thy glowing stars unfold.

She brings no rival whose attractions may With thee in all compare, Brave thy full beauty in its strong array, And matchless clusters dare.

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