Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

Death had come near me, even touched me half an hour ago, but for all the solemn sadness I felt a brief time ago, the joy of life seized me afresh.

As I wandered home across the peaceful fields, the Cuckoo’s call seemed spoken and repeated from coppice to hedgerow, and in every mossy dingle. The old nursery rhyme I used to say in childhood came back to me —

“In April
The Cuckoo shows his bill;
In May
He sings all day;
In June
He alters his tune;
In July
Away he’ll fly;
Come August
Fly he must.”

Yes, I say, fly he must, with summer which is “the sovereign joy of all things,” as Piers Ploughman wrote long years ago, and then autumn, and the long chill nights of winter.

There is always a mystery about the cuckoo, as to where he comes from, and where he goes. Far down in the south of India, I have been told, is the only place where the cuckoo is to be found summer and winter alike, calling in the tropics his strange, mystic cry. Be this as it may, he is never with us in Shropshire till the second week in April, and vanishes like a ghost early in August.

Some days later, and it was Palm Sunday, one of the great festivals of old England during the Middle Ages.

There is but little sign left now of the blessing of the boughs, as the rite was performed in mediæval times, save that nearly all the boys present had cut sprigs of the wild willow and placed them in their button-holes, and my little maid, by her old Nana’s wish, had a spray pinned in also, amongst the ribbons of her hat. What a lovely blossom it is, that of the wild willow. How delicate the soft grey, and how lovely the brilliant shades of gold. How wonderful is the mixture of both colours, and how exquisitely gold and grey melt into each other.

As I sat in our pew on the northern side of the church, I thought of the old Church Service that once was held there. After the Mass, I have read, it was usual that there should follow the hallowing of the branches and flowers by the priest. I thought, as I sat in church in Protestant England, of how the priest, up to the first half of the sixteenth century, and for long centuries before, stood forth in scarlet cope and blessed the sweet branches and the first flowers of the year. I liked to recall the old rite and custom of entreating the Almighty to bless and sanctify “his creatures,” by which was meant branch and blossom, which were laid by lay brothers and novices at the foot of the altar, and then it was nice to think how branch and blossom were broken up and blest, and a spray given to all the devout people assembled. It was a pretty and holy usage, and I could not but feel regret, that so gracious a rite was lost. It must have been a delightful service for little children to witness, and a sweet memory for the old who could remember the happy springs of years gone by.

As we came out of church, I told Bess about the old custom. And Bess said dryly, “Now we have to bless our palm branches ourselves;” and added with the strange intuition of a child, “I think it was better when God did part of it, don’t you, mamsie?”

A STROLL IN THE CHURCHYARD

After the service, we took a stroll into the picturesque old churchyard, surrounded by old black and white timber, and Georgian houses of glowing red brick. There was standing by the door by which we entered the church, the remains of an old stone cross and several tombs, which, I have been told, were brought from the ruined Abbey Church. The grass was full of glittering daffodils, which shone like stars, and the scent from the ribes and Daphne bushes filled God’s acre with sweetness. Bess and I walked round the churchyard.

I told her of the little room over the church-porch with its little narrow window. Such a holy little room, I said. In such a room, I think, holy Master George Herbert must have written; and from that I went on to tell my little girl about Sir Thomas Botelar, the first priest who lived at Much Wenlock after the expulsion of the monks.

“Tell me about him,” said Bess, eagerly. “I like to hear about good monks and priests from you, although Nana says they were all wicked, and walled up poor girls. But perhaps,” added Bess, thoughtfully, “they were not all as wicked as she thinks; leastways, there may have been a few good ones just sometimes.”

After luncheon I took down the printed sheets in which are preserved Sir Thomas Botelar’s entries, for, alas! his original manuscript perished in the great fire at Wynnstay in 1859. And I read aloud such passages as I thought my little girl would follow, at least in places.

As I read aloud, Constance was ushered in. She did not know Sir Thomas’s register and begged me to go on reading, so I continued to read. The old papers, I told her in a pause, embraced eight years of Henry VIII.’s reign, went through that of Edward VI.’s, took in the whole of Queen Mary’s, and gave the four opening years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. All Sir Thomas’s sympathies were with the old order of things, I begged her to remember, and then I went on reading.

“‘In February, 1546, on the 5th day of the month, word and knowledge came to the borough of Much Wenlock that our Sovereign Lord King Henry VIII. was departed out of this transitory life, whose soul,’” Sir Thomas added, “‘God Almighty pardon.’”

“Sir Thomas Botelar,” I told Constance, “was the last Abbot of St. Peter and St. Paul’s Monastery at Shrewsbury. After the Dissolution, the King turned away all the monks, and Sir Thomas became, after a short time, Vicar of Much Wenlock, but his heart remained in the cloisters of his former abbey.”

Then I turned to a notice a little further down the page —

“‘On the 13th April of the same year three convicts were buried, and one was a child of eleven.’ Poor little girl,” I said, “what a terrible bald statement of misery! What could so young a child have done to merit death?”

“I cannot think,” exclaimed Bess. “Perhaps cursed and swore and scratched; but, even then, had she no father or mother to forgive her?”

“Only God,” said Constance, softly.

And then I begged them to listen to an account of a funeral of an excellent priest, and obviously a very learned man.

THE OLD CHURCH REGISTERS

“‘Sir William Corvehill, priest,’” I read, “‘was laid in a tomb of lime and stone, which he had caused to be made for himself. Sir W. Corvehill was excellently and singularly expert in divers of the VIJ liberal sciences, especially in geometry. He was also skilled in the making of organs and in the carving of masonry, in the weaving of silk, and in printing. Besides he was,’” adds Sir Thomas, “‘a very patient man and full honest in his conversation and living.’” Then, after commending his soul to the care of God, Sir Thomas wound up quaintly by declaring that, “‘All this country hath a great loss from the death of Sir William Corvehill, for he was a good bell-founder and a maker and framer of bells.’”

Then I found a notice of a marriage. “‘Here was married,’” ran the old register, “‘Thomas Munslow Smith and Alice Nycols;’” and added, “‘The bride was wedded in her smock, and barehead.’”

“When I’m married,” said Bess, loftily, “I’ll have a veil and some flowers. Nana says it isn’t proper to be married without a veil. ’Twould be as silly as papa ploughing, or you, mama, plucking fowls.”

I didn’t enter into the question of parental ridicule, but I looked down the vicar’s entries and read, “‘Poor Sir John Baily Clerke, otherwise called John Cressage, died. It was about 9 of the clock,’” wrote Sir Thomas, “‘and at the manor place of Madeley.’”

Bess had often heard the story from me of the poor old man who, after surrendering his monastery, retired broken-hearted to die at Madeley. When I came to this part of the register, she broke out indignantly with —

“Why couldn’t they leave our abbot alone? I can’t abear that old Henry VIII. He did nothing but wicked things: cut off his wives’ heads and pulled down churches and nice buildings. Yet Nan and Burbidge call him a good man. I think people ought to be good in a different way.”

Bess was quite excited, and Constance had to take her on her knee to soothe her, and thus she sat on listening, with a scarlet face.

Then I read how, after the death of King Edward, Sir Thomas and all the people made great joy over the proclaiming of the Lady Mary Queen of England. I read also how the people of Bridgnorth “fair cast up their caps and hats, lauding, thanking, and praising God Almighty, with ringing of bells and making of bonfires in the streets,” and how the same joy was evinced at Shrewsbury, and at Much Wenlock.

In the first year of Mary’s reign on June 16th, I read that the altar of our blessed Lady within this church (of the Holy Trinity) was again built up and consecrated afresh, and evidently Sir Thomas rejoiced.

A month later, the Bishop of Worcester, the Lord President of the Marches, coming with Justice Townesynde, stopped on their road to Bridgnorth at Much Wenlock, and were entertained by Richard Lawley at the Ash, the fine old timber house in Spital Street, where, at a later date, Charles I. and Prince Rupert both slept on different occasions.

Then followed a description of the fête held in their honour. We learnt how the house was gaily decked with cloths of Arras, with the covering of beds, bancards, carpets and cushions, and how the table was laden with pears and dishes of apples of the previous year. We wondered how they could have been kept. Also with cakes, fine wafers, claret, sack and white wine, and after much pleasant feasting and pleasant intercourse, how “Mr. Justice rose and gave the Burgesses great and gentle thanks for their cost and cheer.”

“I wish that I, too, mamsie, had been there, for I, too, would like to have eaten pears in summer, and have seen all their gay carpets,” exclaimed Bess.

A little later on in the pamphlet I found the announcement of Queen Elizabeth’s being proclaimed Queen after the death of her sister. Sir Thomas made this entry evidently with rather a heavy heart.

As I closed the little book, Constance took it in her hand and looked over the pages.

“How many were hanged in those days!” she said sadly. “There are mentions of executions for sheep stealing, for murder, for robbery; and what a number of convicts, even children of quite tender years.”

Then she alluded to the immense age of many of the parishioners named. Agnes Pyner was said to be seven score years when she received the blessed sacrament just before death. John Trussingham declared that he was seven score years, and that at the age of four-score years he had witnessed the battle of Blore Heath; whilst John Francis, chief farmer at Callaughton, Sir Thomas declared, was aged 107 years when he was buried.

JOAN OF POSENHALL

Then Constance’s fingers flitted back to a past page, and she read aloud a touching little entry about Joan of Posenhall, a fair maiden of twenty-two years, who, it was believed, “died of a canker in the mouth, which disease her father ascribed to the smelling of rose flowers.”

“Could it have been a poisoned rose?” I asked, for in those days many and subtle were the poisons used to get rid of a fair rival.

But Bess could not understand how a rose by its scent could injure any one. “In my true fairy-stories,” she said, “roses can only do good. They are only good fairies’ gifts, and I know they can only come out of the mouths of good girls – real good girls,” Bess repeated, “so I don’t see how a rose could have hurt poor Joan.”

Whereupon I explained matters to my little maid. After a pause Bess exclaimed —

“Well, I think ’tis best to live now, for anyhow we’ve only doctors to kill us.”