Turning a corner of the road one comes suddenly upon a wonderful
old gateway with fantastic gables and a noble Jacobean doorway. On
one side of it is a high garden wall with great circular holes in it, and
over the wall peep the gables and ornamental perforated parapet of a
fine mansion of Charles I.'s time. This is always a most fascinating
picture; but to see it at its best is when the roses are in bloom, for above the old wall and through the rounded apertures, the queen of
flowers flourishes in gay festoons as if rejoicing at its surroundings.
But if one is so fortunate as to obtain admission to the gardens then
may he or she rejoice also, for upon the other side of that grey old wall are the prettiest of gardens and the grandest trees, one of which,
an ancient yew, is no less than twenty-two feet in girth. There are
terraces, stone summer-houses, and nooks and corners such as one
only sees in the grounds of our ancestral homes. Within, the mansion
has been much restored and somewhat modernised, but the great
hall and other rooms take one back to the time of Inigo Jones, who
designed the entrance gatew
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ay. In the churchyard close by is buried the most popular local man of
his time, Robert Dover. If he lived in our day he surely would be the
president of the "Anti-Puritanical League," for he it was who made a successful crusade against the spirit of religious austerity, the
tendency of which was to put down holidays of sport and merry-
making. As a result of his efforts, the hills above Chipping Camden
were annually at Whitsuntide the scene of a revival of the mediæval
days of festivity and manly exercise. Upon these occasions the
originator acted as master of the ceremonies, and was duly
respected, for he always wore a suit of King James' own clothes.
Dover died at the beginning of the Civil War, so, fortunately for him, he did not live through the rigid rule of Cromwell. The Cotswold
games, however, were revived at the Restoration. To this public
benefactor (the shadow of whose cloak has surely fallen on the
shoulders of Lord Avebury) Drayton wrote in eulogy:
"We'll have thy statue in some rock cut out With brave inscriptions garnished about, And under written, 'Lo! this is the man
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Dover, that first these noble sports began.' Lads of the hills and
lasses of the vale In many a song and many a merry tale Shall
mention thee; and having leave to play, Unto thy name shall make a
holiday."
Yet nobody did set up his statue, as should have been done on
"Dover Hill" by Chipping Camden.
Some odd cures for certain ailments are prescribed in remote parts of
the Cotswolds. Garden snails, for instance, which in Wiltshire are sold
for ordinary consumption, namely, food, as "wall fruit," are used here
externally as a remedy for ague: and roasted mouse is a specific for
the whooping-cough. But for the latter complaint as efficacious a
result may be obtained by the pleasanter mode of riding on a
donkey's back nine times round a finger-post. This remedy, however,
properly belongs to Worcestershire.
If we continue in a south-westerly direction we shall pass historic
Sudeley, near Winchcombe, Postlip Hall, and Southam House.
Sudeley Castle must have been magnificent before it was dismantled
in the Civil War. Bravely it stood two sie
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ges, but at length capitulated; and being left a ruin by Cromwell's
soldiers, the magnificent fifteenth-century mansion was left for close
upon two centuries to act as a quarry for the neighbourhood. Under
such disadvantages was its restoration commenced, and it is
wonderful what has been done; yet there has been a certain
admixture of Edwardian and Elizabethan portions which is somewhat
confusing. The banqueting room, with its noble oriel windows
(originally glazed with beryl), the keep with its dungeons, and the
kitchen with its huge fireplace four yards across, speak of days of
lordly greatness, and the names of many weighty nobles as well as
kings and queens are closely associated with the castle. Richard,
Duke of Gloucester, was once possessed of it; the youngest son of
Owen Tudor and Henry V.'s widow lived there; so did Sir Thomas
Seymour, Edward VI.'s uncle, who married and buried there Henry
VIII.'s last queen, at which ceremony Lady Jane Grey was chief
mourner. Elizabeth was here upon one of her progresses, and
Charles I. was the last sovereign who slept there. The restored rooms
are full of historical furniture, pictures, and relics. Here may be seen
Amy Robsart's bed, or one of them, from Cumnor Hall: and the bed
upon which the martyr king slept, not here but at Kineton, before
Edgehill. There are numerous relics of the queen, who had the tact to
outlive her august spouse, and the foolishness to marry a fourth
husband. Catherine Parr's various books and literary compositions
may here be studied, including the letter in which she accepted
Seymour's offer of marriage. He was by no means the best of
husbands, but a vast improvement on the royal tyrant who had coldly
planned the queen's destruction; but owing to her ready wit his wrath
was turned upon Wriothesley, who was to have arrested her; for
when he came to perform that office, Henry called him an "an errant
knave and a beast." There are lockets containing locks of her auburn
hair, and portions of the dress she wore. But the main interest is
centred in the chapel where the queen was buried. This building was
dismantled with the rest in 1649, and the fine Chandos monuments
destroyed. Catherine's tomb, which was within the altar rails,
probably shared the fate of the rest, and its position was soon
forgotten. However, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half, a plain slab of alabaster in the north wall, doubtless part of the original
monument, led to the discovery of a leaden case in the shape of a
human form lying immediately below, only a foot or so beneath the
surface of the ground. Upon the breast was the following inscription:
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K. P.
Here lyethe Quene
Kateryn wife to Kyng
Henry the VIII., and
Last the wife of Thomas
Lord of Sudeley, highe
Admiyrall of England
And vncle to Kyng
Edward the VI.
dyed
5 September
MCC
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CCC
XLVIII.
The cerecloth, hard with wax and gums, was removed from a portion
of the arm, which was discovered after close upon three centuries to
be still white and soft. According to another account, when the
covering of the face was removed, not only the features, but the eyes
were in perfect preservation. The body was reinterred, but treated
with no decent respect, for the spot was occupied as an enclosure for
rabbits; and upon one occasion it was dug up by some drunken men,
who by local tradition, as a reward for their desecration, all came to an untimely end. The alabaster block may still be seen in the north
wall of the chapel, but the body now lies beneath a recumbent figure
in white marble which has been placed to the queen's memory.