Bygone Berkshire

"They have a gudde lecture in scripture daily redde in the chapter house, both in Inglishe and Latin, to the which is gudde resort, and the abbot is at it himself."

When the commissioners arrived, he does not seem to have opposed them, or held back anything. Dr. London at first reports favourably: —

"I have requested of my lord abbot the relics of his house, which he seledeted unto me with gudde will. I have taken an inventory of them, and have locked them up beside the high altar, and have the key in my keeping, and they be ready at your lordship's commandment."

Abbot Hugh made no resistance, and it might have been supposed the abbey would have escaped at least as well as the Friary; the Grayfriars having nothing to lose, were simply turned out into the street with a scanty pension, and their church given to the town for a town hall. How was it, then, that such a cruel fate overtook the principal monks here, for two others died with Hugh Faringdon on the same charge of high treason? Stowe says it was for denying the King's supremacy.

"The Act of Suppression passed in May, 1539, and in November following he was drawn, hanged, and quartered with two of his monks. The same day the Abbot of Glastonbury was executed, and shortly after the Abbot of Colchester."

It is here we get a clue, I think, to this extreme severity; these three leading Churchmen had all got involved in a treason plot. The Pilgrimage of Grace had very recently been suppressed. It had been assisted with money by various monasteries, and it would seem that these three great houses were specially compromised. Froude states this distinctly, speaking in the first instance of the Abbot of Glastonbury (History of England, Vol. III., ch. 16, p. 240): —

"An order went out for enquiry into his conduct, which was to be executed by three of the visitors, Layton, Pollard, and Moyle. On 16 September (1539) they were at Reading, on the 22nd they had arrived at Glastonbury … the Abbot was placed in charge of a guard, and sent to London, to the Tower, to be examined by Cromwell himself, when it was discovered that both he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgent with moneys."

For this there could be no pardon. The insurrection had been too nearly successful. The principal leaders had suffered, and now their three supporters followed. Hugh Faringdon had not allowed the King's supremacy, but this might have been overlooked; he had been very favourably reported by London to Cromwell. But now the law took its course, that horrible and terrible death assigned to high treason.

Froude describes the aged Abbot of Colchester drawn through the town that dismal November morning; dragged to the top of Glastonbury Torre, there hanged, drawn, and quartered. It cannot be doubted that an equally ghastly scene was enacted at Reading. As accomplices in both instances, two monks were executed along with their principal.

The execution is supposed to have taken place here in front of the inner gateway, which still survives, and is a place of resort for the Berkshire Archæological Society. It may equally well have been at Gallows Common beyond Christ Church which was for long the ordinary place for executions. It would appear from St. Mary's registers that even in the eighteenth century twice in the year batches of prisoners were sent off there to the gallows: if so, the long and sad procession, as at Glastonbury, would traverse the whole length of the town. It was a most awful reverse of fortune. Both in 1532, and in 1535, we read of his receiving a gilt cup from the king as a New Year's present. He had even been on the commission for investigating how a manifesto from the leader of the insurrection in Yorkshire had got into circulation at Reading; but that fatal gift of money, which Cromwell had traced home to the Abbot of Glastonbury, and also to Abbot Hugh, was an act beyond pardon. He had been the king's favourite abbot, but was now convicted of high treason, and the sentence took its course.

"He leaves a name which long time will avail
To point a moral, and adorn a tale."

Siege of Reading

"Full soon the curse of Civil War
Came all our harmless sports to mar:
When law and order ceased to reign,
And knaves did eat up honest men;
When brother against brother stood
And all the land was drenched in blood."

    – "Donnington Castle."
"What a glorious thing must be a victory Sir!" an enthusiastic young lady once exclaimed to the Iron Duke. "The greatest tragedy in the world," he replied, "Madam, except a defeat!" A siege is bad enough: an interesting thing to read and tell of, but, though it only lasted ten days, an event burned deep into the memories of Reading; replete with all but ruin to very many of her citizens; and entirely destroying for all time that town's once famous cloth-trade. As the tide of war ebbed and flowed along the Thames valley, now one side was uppermost, and now the other, and, in either case, it was "woe to the vanquished." One time there were the king's demands, then presently those of the Parliamentary party; fines followed levied unmercifully on recusants as also loans wrung from, at length, unwilling supporters. A letter, still in the town archives, gives a vivid picture of the position of very many in those days in Berkshire and in Oxfordshire. It is a letter from G. Varney to the Town Clerk of Reading, not dated except from the prison into which the soldiers had cast him: —

"Going," says Varney, "to market with a load of corn, the Earl of Manchester's soldiers met with my men, and took away my whole team of horses, letting my cart stand in the field four miles from home; and I never had them more. When the king's soldiers come to us they call me Roundheaded rogue, and say I pay rent to the Parliament garrison, and they will take it away from me; and likewise the Parliament soldiers, they vapour with me, and tell me that I pay rent to Worcester and Winchester, therefore the Parliament say they will have the rent."

Still more pathetic is the petition to Parliament that presently was made: "That, since the time the two armies came into the town, your petitioners have had their sufferings multiplied upon them; the soldiers going to that height of insolence that they break down our houses and burn them, take away our goods and sell them, rob our markets and spoil them, threaten our magistrates and beat them; so that, without a speedy redress, we shall be constrained, though to our utter undoing, yet for the preservation of our lives, to forsake our goods and habitations, and leave the town to the will of the soldiers; who cry out they have no pay, have no beds, have no fire; and they must and will have it by force, or they will burn down all the houses in the town whatever become of them."

Such was the state of things which the mayor, with his twelve aldermen and twelve councillors of that day, had to grapple with: and a very difficult matter, as we shall see, he found it. Things were coming to a crisis here in 1643, in the April of which the ten-days' siege occurred; but they had long been leading up to this.

In 1636 the town was deeply stirred on the subject of ship-money; one party carried a resolution: "They who deny payment of ship-money to be proceeded against as the council of the corporation shall direct;" a little later another party seems to have got the uppermost, and the entry in 1641: "Agreed that those persons within the town which were distressed for ship-money shall have their moneys repaid them."

At first the Parliamentary Party were in the ascendency; then 1642 came. Edgehill was fought 23rd October, then the king took Banbury, and then marched upon Reading. Henry Martin, M.P., afterwards the regicide, had been appointed by the Parliament governor of Reading; but, upon the royal advance, at once withdrew with his small garrison and fled to London. The king arrived here on November 4th, from which time matters certainly became sufficiently exciting.

"The game of Civil War will not allow
Bays to the victor's brow.
At such a game what fool would venture in,
Where one must lose, yet neither side can win?"

    – Cowley.
Yet every day saw the game played more and more in earnest. Charles reached Reading, 4th November, 1642, having sent on the following missive on the previous day: "Whereas I have received information that the bridge on the river Thames at Causham was lately broke down, our Will and express Command is that ye immediately upon sight hereof cause the said bridge to be rebuilt, and made strong and fit for the passage of our army by time 8 of the clock in the morning as the bearer shall direct; of this you may not fail at your utmost peril."

The mayor at this time was a firm royalist. One of the Diurnals of the other side thus records his endeavours: "At the king's coming to Reddinge a speech was made unto him by the mayor of the town, wherein after he had in the best words he could devise bid him welcome thither, for want of more matter he concluded very abruptly." This is malicious enough, but nothing to the story that follows: "Not long after he invited Prince Robert (sic) to dine, providing for him all the dainties that he could get, but especially a woodcock, which he brought in himself. Prince Robert gave him many thanks for his good cheer, and asked him whose was all that plate that stood upon the cupboard? The mayor, who had set out all his plate to make a show, and besides had borrowed a great deal of his neighbours to grace himself withal, replied, 'And please your Highness the plate is mine!' 'No!' quoth the prince, 'this plate is mine,' and so accordingly he took it all away; bidding him be of good cheer, for he took it, as the Parliament took it, upon the public faith."

Lord Saye and Sele, just before, however, had carried off two large baskets, full of the Christ Church plate, at Oxford, for parliamentry purposes.

Now almost every day has its event, and dates must be regarded.

November 8th. – The town is startled by a peremptory order to impress all the tailors in Reading, and within six miles round, to make clothes for the garrison, with which they are to be honoured; Sir Arthur Ashton is appointed governor, with a salary from the town of £7 per week; he is soon able to lend the poor corporation £100. At once he begins to fortify; all are forced to assist; those who do not come to work being fined 7d. per day; forts and chains are placed at the end of every street, and the Oracle, or cloth factory at once is utilized as a barrack.

It is an interesting fact, that through the pious care of a wealthy citizen, Reading still possesses the old gates of the Oracle. There they are in honourable retirement at the top of St. Mary's Hill; the Kenrich crest in one place, the initials, J.K., of the founder of this factory for poor clothiers, in another; the date 1526 still in another part; all being in very fair state of preservation. How few of the busy many that pass those gates every day think of the scenes that these have witnessed, and could tell of, if walls had voices as well as ears!

"When Puritan and Cavelier
With shout and psalm contended!
And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer,
With sound of battle blended!" —Whittier.

And now the corporation wait upon King Charles and assure him they will "assist him with counsel, and their purses, to the best of their ability." He probably preferred the latter, for —

November 9th. – We have notice of a consultation had "about the execution of the king's warrants," and on

November 17th. – "A tax is levied to pay those great charges which are now layed upon the borough concerning cloth, apparell, victualls, and other things for his Majestie's army." Then on

November 28th. – The king goes off to Oxford, and henceforth they are left to Sir Arthur's tender mercies: about this time we find a pathetic entry: "A noate of all such charges as have been disembursed, since the King's Majestie came first to Reading, for provisions, clothes for the soldiers, and for the king's own use;" being £6697, truly a prodigious sum for those times; but it is speedily followed by fresh requisitions. As the year opens it appears probable that Reading will be attacked, and so on 3rd March, 1543, a letter arrives from the king, ordering Sir Arthur to provision Reading for three months, to provision Greenlands a fortified country house just below Henley, to send out scouting parties to watch the enemy, and to prevent carriage of supplies to London. This rouses the Parliament. Essex is ordered to march on Oxford, taking Reading in his way; but the governor now is all ready for him. Mapledurham House and Cawsham have now been made into fortified out-posts, and, on the arrival of Essex's "trumpet," Colonel Codrington in his diary tells us the governor returned the stubborn answer that "he would either keep the town or die inside it!" There can be no doubt he would have made a resolute resistance; he was a brave and capable soldier, but, being wounded in the head by a tile dislodged by a cannon ball, on the third day of the siege, his place was taken by a Colonel R. Fielding, as next in seniority. The sad history of the gallant soldier is worth following further. At the capitulation he went to Oxford; there he managed to lose a leg, and presently turns up in Ireland, unluckily for him, at Drogheda. Cromwell storms, determined, after the inhuman massacres of Protestants, on making a harsh example of the Irish garrison, and Sir Arthur, now in command there, strange to say, has his brains knocked out with his own wooden leg, which the soldiers imagined was filled with gold pieces – they did find two hundred about his person – the very thing which Hood imagined long after of his unhappy heroine.

"Gold, still gold! hard, yellow, and cold,
For gold she had lived, and she died for gold,
For a golden weapon had killed her!
And the jury, its forman a gilder,
They brought it in a Felo di Se
Because her own leg had killed her!

Price of many a crime untold,
Good or bad, a thousand fold,
How widely gold's agencies vary!
To save, to curse, to ruin, to bless,
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a bloody Mary!"

There is a portrait of Sir A. Aston at the Reading Public Library, a middle aged man with a large square chin and most determined expression. Sir Jacob Astley, after governor here, and made Baron Reading, is also in the Library, a pleasant looking old gentleman.

The town was very strongly and securely fortified, I quote from the diary of Sir Samuel Luke, Scout Master for the parliament after the surrender, when he had just been over it: "They had only three ways out of the town, where they had built three sconces, one at Forbury, one at Harrison's Barn, and another at the end of Pangbourn lane; the Forts were very well wrought, and strong both with trenches and pallisades; the town entrenched round so that if any man of the Parliamentary side should have delivered up a place as this town, he would have deserved a halter."

"It would appear," writes Mr. Childs, "that earth works were thrown up in a rude square, extending from Grey Friars Church and the present prison on the north, to midway in Kendrick Road, and to Katesgrove Hill on the south; and from about the line of Kendrick Road on the east to Castle Hill on the west. Redoubts were thrown up at intervals, and on the top of Whitley Hill a strong fort known as 'Harrison's Barn.'"

This Sir Samuel appears to have been a stout and able soldier, but, unfortunately for him, he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Butler, who has pilloried him as the well-known Hudibras. Dr. Johnson says, writing of Butler, "The necessitudes of his condition placed him in the family of Sir S. Luke, one of Cromwell's officers, and a Presbyterian magistrate. Here he observed much of the character of the sectaries." Certainly he did, and recorded much; and though very much is gross caricature, still it is thus that Sir Samuel must be content to come down to us.

"When civil dudgeon first grew high,