Langtoft in the Wolds

 

Chalk buildings in Langtoft,  a village in the Yorkshire Wolds. 10 July, 2023.

 

The earth is traced with lines of character

That mark its elements in time and place;

Its doings in the ages past and gone;

The æon of to-day and yesterday. 

And so unconsciously is man's face formed,

Traced, stamped, and moulded by his character, 

The life, the doings of his ancestors, 

Being mirrored truly in those subtle lines;

Alike they make the man and scar the man,

Alike they score the earth and tell its worth.

Lines by "a Yorkshire poet" that I'm introducing to an internet public. They were in a pamphlet that I paid £2 for in St Peter's Church, Langtoft. Langtoft: Historical Associations was written by the Rev A. N. Cooper and "Sold for the Benefit of Langtoft Church Funds". There was a little rust around the staples. It was printed back in 1913, which must be some sort of record for slow sales. 

It's primarily about "Sir Tatton Sykes' Last Work". This was the 5th Baronet (1826 - 1913) at nearby Sledmere House, deeply eccentric and reputedly not very nice to be around, but he left an incredible legacy in the form of wonderfully restored churches throughout the Wolds. Among his eccentricities were a loathing for all flowers (untidy) and an exclusive diet of rice pudding. (I wonder if these early Sykes baronets had anything to do with another remarkable feature of the Wolds, their notorious lack of public footpaths.)

Anyway, later I went to take a look at Sir Tatton's Last Work, which is a wayside cross down on the village green.

The cross is decorated with carved scenes referring to Langtoft's history.

On the shaft, Langtoft's most famous son, the chronicler Peter of Langtoft (fl. 1300), who was an Augustinian Canon at Bridlington Priory.

Peter's Chronicle (c. 1307) was written in Anglo-Norman verse. The later part, dealing with Edward I's reign, is thought to be original material (the earlier parts re-tell Wace etc). 

You can consult this later part of the Anglo-Norman text here, with translation into modern English (though interleaved with all the glosses it isn't easy to find your way around): https://archive.org/stream/chronicleofpierr02pete/chronicleofpierr02pete_djvu.txt .

Here's a flavour, taken from Robert Mannyng's (Robert of Brunne's) translation of Peter's chronicle into Middle English (c. 1337). (I found it took me a while to acclimatise to Robert's language.) This passage begins by prefacing forthcoming material, then dives into the story of a Bristol merchant's chance encounter with Llewelyn's intended bride, Eleanor de Montfort, while on her way to Wales. [In reality there was no chance about it, Edward had hired pirates to abduct her.]

We salle leue þat pas vnto we com ageyn

& telle ȝow oþer tales of Edward curteisie,

& of Leulyn of Wales, & his beryng hie, [Llywelyn ap Gruffydd]

Of Dauid his broþere & of his felonie, [Dafydd ap Gruffydd]

Resaunraduk an oþere how he did folie. [Rhys ap Maredudd]

How þe contek was laid of Scotlond þat first gan.

How eft þei mad a braid, & on Inglond ran.

Of Madok þe Morgan, of þer nyce ribaudie,

Of Jon Baliol no man, & of his treccherie,

& of his duze pers togider þei gan alie,

I schrowe alle þer maners, þat lufes þer partie. [

Langtoft's Chronicle

is very fierce against the Scots]

A þousand & ii^o. hundred sexti & fiftene, [1275]

þe date of Criste so pundred whan Leulyn gan þis tene.

THE next ȝere folowand of Edward coronment,

Leulyn of Walsland in to France he sent,

þe Mountfort douhter to wedde, hir frendes alle consent, [Eleanor]

Almerik hir ledde, to schip now er þei went. [Amaury, her brother]

Now þei saile & rowe to Wales to Leulyns,

A burgeis of Bristowe charged was with wynes,

He ouertoke þer schip, & asked wheþen þei ware?

He said, with kyng Philip to Wales wild þei fare.

What did þis burgeis? desturbled his wendyng,

þe may & hir herneis did led vnto þe kyng.

þe mayden Edward toke, als he was fulle curteys,

In saufte did hir loke, & þanked þe burgeis.

Whan Leulyn herd say, to werre sone he bigan,

For tene he wende to deie, þat taken was his lemman.

Edward wex fulle grim, whan he wist he was risen.

Sone he hasted him, to mak þam alle ogrisen.

þe Walssh wer alle day slayn, now rewes þam þer res,

& Leulyn is fulle fayn, to pray Edward for pes,

Gyues Edward for his trespas fifti þousand mark,

& þer tille bonden was with scrite & oth fulle stark,

To com tuys in þe ȝere vnto his parlement.

þe may on þis manere with Leulyn home scho went,

& held his heritage in pes as he did ore,

Mad was þe mariage at Snowdon biside Bangore.

(Source: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/ABA2096.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1;view=fulltext .)

Seven years later, in 1282, Eleanor died in childbirth. Six months later Llewelyn would be dead too. But the child, a daughter named Gwenllian, survived. [The couple's only child, apparently.  The "Princess Catherine" mentioned e.g. in Wikipedia seems to have only a spectral existence.] Like other survivors with any claim to being Welsh royalty, Gwenllian lived her whole life in strict confinement, in her case in the Gilbertine Priory at Sempringham (Lincs). (Edward purloined the title "Prince of Wales" for the English heir, as has remained the case ever since.) 

Peter is widely credited as the source for Gwenllian's story, but perhaps this is a mistake. Judging from the texts linked above, the information about "Wencilian" seems to be an addition in Robert Mannyng's translation, and is not in Peter's original text (as you might expect, since it records the much-lamented death of the "curteys" lady in 1337, and Peter is thought to have died c. 1307). 

Here are the scenes around the octagonal base of the cross, in the sequence described in the pamphlet:

A Brigante hunting, with ox and pig (though I can't make out the pig). The description is from Cooper, who doubtless had it from Sir Tatton himself. The Brigantes were a confederation of British tribes that occupied much of northern England at the time of Julius Caesar. However, the East Riding may be an exception, as witnessed by its distinctive burial sites. The local tribe around here may have been the Parisi, mentioned by Ptolemy. 

Agriculture comes to the Wolds. A harvester with scythe in a field of ripe corn.

A Woldsman lying dead, with the crows ready to pick out his eyes. Depicting the "harrowing of the north", when the Domesday Book described this area as "vasta" (waste).

Architects at work. The building of Langtoft's church in the twelfth century.

The young Peter of Langtoft is taken by his father to Bridlington Priory to be educated by the monks.

Langtoft is in a dry basin in the midst of the Wolds. Every couple of centuries there is a cloudburst and it floods; this panel commemorates the 1657 flood. A man wearing a Commonwealth-era hat rows through the village, talking to people out of their upstairs windows. 

(The next flood came in 1892. There was no loss of human life, as the whole population were at a church service...  the church being sensibly uphill from the village.)

Changing horses at the village inn. Langtoft was once on the main route from Hull to Scarborough, and a regular post for stagecoaches. 

There's still a pub in Langtoft today, and there's still twice-daily traffic streaming past it (e.g. going between Driffield and Bridlington), but I'm not sure if many people stop.

A hunting scene, the passion of Woldsmen (especially Sir Tatton and his forebears).

*

But the most impressive sculpture in Langtoft is elsewhere. In 1950 Langtoft Church took over the Norman font from the derelict (mainly nineteenth-century) church at nearby Cottam, once an Anglo-Scandinavian medieval village, then deserted for centuries. I hadn't taken any notice of this font on my first visit to the church, so I went back. It was well worth it! 

Adam and Eve, the serpent, apple, and figleaf modesties. 

On the left, St Margaret and the Dragon. Margaret appears twice, both being eaten by the dragon and issuing triumphantly from its burst stomach.

Likewise, on the right, St Lawrence appears both as a deacon of Rome and as a martyr on the gridiron. (If I'm interpreting it right.)

The crucifixion of St Andrew. "The earliest known example of a carving like this in England", according to the church guide.

Oats. View from Accommodation Road, Langtoft, 10 July 2023.

Looking down to the Langtoft basin from Accommodation Road, 10 July 2023.

Sheep. Accommodation Road, Langtoft, 10 July 2023.

Barley. Langtoft, 11 July 2023.

Ash tree. Langtoft, 11 July 2023.

The Gypsey Race. Rudston, 12 July 2023.

There's hardly any surface water on the Wolds, but here at Rudston it can be seen even in July. The most northerly chalk stream in the British Isles, the Gypsey Race is a winterbourne in the Great Wolds Valley. Upstream from here it's mostly subterranean. 

On the Yorkshire coast

A place that always quickens my heart. Maybe it began, many years ago, when I fell under the spell of Elizabeth Gaskell's Sylvia's Lovers. (I've spent half a lifetime believing Gaskell came from Yorkshire... actually she was born in Chelsea. I suppose she got to know Yorkshire while writing the Life of Charlotte Brontë. She visited Whitby in 1859 while thinking about a new novel: the outcome was Sylvia's Lovers.)

... the whole town had an amphibious appearance, to a degree unusual even in a seaport. Every one depended on the whale fishery, and almost every male inhabitant had been, or hoped to be, a sailor. Down by the river the smell was almost intolerable to any but Monkshaven people during certain seasons of the year; but on these unsavoury 'staithes' the old men and children lounged for hours, almost as if they revelled in the odours of train-oil.

... the country for miles all around was moorland; high above the level of the sea towered the purple crags, whose summits were crowned with greensward that stole down the sides of the scaur a little way in grassy veins. Here and there a brook forced its way from the heights down to the sea, making its channel into a valley more or less broad in long process of time. And in the moorland hollows, as in these valleys, trees and underwood grew and flourished; so that, while on the bare swells of the high land you shivered at the waste desolation of the scenery, when you dropped into these wooded 'bottoms' you were charmed with the nestling shelter which they gave. But above and around these rare and fertile vales there were moors for many a mile, here and there bleak enough, with the red freestone cropping out above the scanty herbage; then, perhaps, there was a brown tract of peat and bog, uncertain footing for the pedestrian who tried to make a short cut to his destination; then on the higher sandy soil there was the purple ling, or commonest species of heather growing in beautiful wild luxuriance. Tufts of fine elastic grass were occasionally to be found, on which the little black-faced sheep browsed ...

(from Sylvia's Lovers, Ch 1)

Anyway, last week I paid my first visit for several years to my dear friends Richard, Joan and Hazel. They are currently ensconced in Langtoft in the Yorkshire Wolds (more about that in a future post) so it made sense that our day trips would veer towards the coast: one day the chalk coastline nearby (e.g Flamborough Head), the next day a little further north to the Moors coastline of Gaskell's description (Hayburn Wyke, Ravenscar). So the first day basic, the next day acidic, from the botanical perspective. Here's a few photos. 

The North Sea like a millpond at Flamborough Head,  12 July 2023.

Sea Plantain (Plantago maritima). Flamborough Head, 12 July 2023.

Hairy Tare (Vicia hirsuta). Flamborough headland, 12 July 2023.

Soldier Beetles (Rhagonycha fulva) on a very dwarfed Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) on the top of Flamborough headland, 12 July 2023.

According to Wikipedia, the adult beetles "spend much of their short lives mating".

The old chalk tower at Flamborough Head, 12 July 2023.

Built in the 17th century, originally as a signal tower for conveying information to passing ships. The business failed, because few sea captains proved willing to pay for information. 

Chalk is a common building stone in this part of Yorkshire.  It is tougher than the chalk of southern counties, and up here there's hardly any building flint, abundant in East Anglia and further south. 

(Leading to jocular comparisons of gritty northern chalk with soft southern chalk.) (And with a flinty heart, too.)

Pyramidal Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis). Flamborough Head, North Landing, 12 July 2023.

Not quite the prize-winning shot I was aiming for, but still... orchids, boats, cliffs, sand and sea, what's not to like.

It used to be the case that lifeboats were sited at both North and South Landings, on the basis that if the conditions were impossible at one they would often be all right at the other. (Now they're only at South Landing. I suppose modern lifeboats are safer to launch in bad seas.)

Comma (Polygonia c-album) and hoverflies (Syrphus species) on bramble. Hayburn Wyke, 13 July 2023.

Ruefully amusing, after quietly congratulating ourselves on the hum of life in our bee- and butterfly-friendly gardens, to discover that the bees and butterflies seem to like it even better in the nearest bramble thicket.

Above Hayburn Wyke I noticed a crowd of hoverflies going absolutely crazy over this sprig of new blossom. And just as I took the picture it was photobombed by a comma butterfly plonking itself down in the middle. It's all a bit out of focus, but lively.

Blackberries are the most peculiar plants. I have various evidence-free ideas about them, just one of which is that blackberry and dewberry sort of depend on each other, in some ways like a single species cloud. Anyway that's something else for a future post.

Leaves of Great Wood-rush (Luzula sylvatica). Hayburn Wyke, 13 July 2023.

Remains of fruiting stem of Great Wood-rush (Luzula sylvatica). Hayburn Wyke, 13 July 2023.

Creeping Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans) down by the shore at Hayburn Wyke, 13 July 2023.

Seashore at Hayburn Wyke, 13 July 2023.

Wyke is presumably cognate with Swedish vik, meaning a cove.

The high, high coast at Ravenscar, 13 July 2023.

Bell Heather (Erica cinerea) on the moors above Harwood Dale, 13 July 2023.

After leaving Ravenscar we made a brief detour onto the moors and thence down Harwood Dale towards Scarborough. The ling wasn't out yet, but the bell heather was spectacular.

The Grand Hotel at Scarborough, 13 July 2023.

Jack Ashburnham

John Ashburnham (1603 - 1671), engraving from a portrait by Daniel Mytens, c. 1630

Jack Ashburnham... That was what the king called him. He entered service with Charles I in 1628 as Groom of the Bedchamber (he was a relative of the Duke of Buckingham, via their mothers). For twenty years he was a close colleague, loyal servant and adviser to the increasingly embattled monarch. 

I know this because we recently visited Ashburnham Place (near Battle) and (after lunch under parasols on the hottest day in a hot June) I treated myself to this book about him, found in the Christian bookshop: Rhoderick W. J. Jones' John Ashburnham: Faithful Servant of King Charles I (Ashburnham Heritage Trust, 2010: 2nd edition 2021).

Most of this post comes straight from Rhoderick Jones' excellent book... acknowledgements and apologies are due!

(Apologies too for the photos with thumbs in them, taken while sitting in a crowded train corridor.)

John (later Sir John) Ashburnham (1571 - 1620), painted in 1593 by Hieronimo Custodis.

[Image source: https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/object/2021.25 . In the Denver Art Museum. Note the prayer book!]

There were lots of John Ashburnhams. Jack's father (1571 - 1620) is usually designated "Sir John" to avoid confusion. He was knighted in 1603, presumably as part of King James' coronation draft. 

"17 July 1603 – General summons for all persons that had £40 in lands to come and receive the honour of knighthood or compound. The list of 23 July must be in response to this; the majority attended according to the summons and on that day some 427 persons were dubbed, at least 350 of them in the royal garden at Whitehall before the King’s coronation on 25 July." (Source .)

Many people disapproved. They thought it cheapened the order of knighthood. 

Come all you Farmers out of the Countrey,
Carter, Plowmen, Hedgers & all;
Tome, Dick, & Will, Raph, Roger & Humfrey,
Leave of your Gestures rusticall.
Bidd all your Home-sponne Russetts adue,
And sute yourselves in Fashions new:
Honour invits you to Delights:
Come all to Court, & be made Knights.

He that hath fortie Pounds per Annum,
Shalbe promoted from the Plowe:
His Wife shall take the Wall of her Grannam:
Honour is sould soe Dog-cheeap now.
Though thow hast neither good Birth nor Breeding,
If thow hast Money, thow art sure of speeding.

(Poem source.)

Sir John did have  breeding; the Ashburnham family went back almost to the Norman Conquest, beginning with the hamlet of Ashburnham (near Battle) being given to Robert de Criol by Robert, Count of Eu.  Sir John did have money too, at least he did in 1603.  He was in the process of re-acquiring Ashburnham Place. (Seized in 1588, due to his father's Catholicism.) But Sir John no sooner got it back than he fell into money trouble. He died in the Fleet prison in 1620, when Jack was 17. One of Jack's preoccupations, in later life, was to defend his father's reputation. Sir John had not been improvident, but he had been generous and had unreliable friends. 

A later portrait of Sir John Ashburnham 

[Image source: Jones, op. cit. I don't know the artist or date, but obviously Jacobean. As with so many portraits of the time, the subject looks like a good candidate for the author of, say, the First Folio.]

*

Jack became a trusted servant of King Charles during the decade of personal rule, and even more so once the Civil War began. When Charles had to flee Oxford, he travelled in disguise as Ashburnham's servant. (27 April 1646)

They eventually reached the Scottish army at Kelham but, not for the last time, Charles found that his hoped-for refuge was actually a prison.

Jack was despatched to the continent, taking with him the first letter Charles had managed to send his queen since she left England. (Henrietta Maria was a Catholic and it was considered too dangerous for her to stay.)

Deare Heart

The necessity of my affairs hath made me send Jack Ashburnham unto thee; who at this present is the most (and with the greatest injustice) persecuted of all my servants, and merely for his fidelity to me; which is well-known to thee, that I need neither recommend him to thy care, nor take ye pains of setting down the present state of my affairs and how they have changed since I came from Oxford, and why it is so long since I wrote to thee; referring all to his faithful relation; as likewise what I desire thee to do for my assistance: so transferring at this time ye freedom of my pen, to his tongue, I rest eternally thine,

C.R.

I owe Jack £9,200 which I earnestly recommend thou would assest [sic] him in for his repayment 

[Source: Jones, Ch 2]

*

Kelham, outside Newark (Nottinghamshire). The Scottish army were besieging Newark. After unexpectedly obtaining the king they broke up the siege and marched swiftly north to their garrison at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 

Portrait of Jack Ashburnham, presumably when at the height of his career as courtier, say 1635 - 1640 ... ish. 

[Image source: front cover of Jones, op. cit. No artist or date given.]

Jack's story made me think about Charles I. Why, I wondered, had Scott, who memorably portrayed both his father and his son, avoided portraying Charles I? Perhaps because he did not offer any opening for Scott's gift for comedy. Perhaps because the contradictions of his character -- that is, accounts of it, both by friend and foe -- and himself, to the unclear extent that he contributes to Eikon Basilike -- are difficult to resolve into a congruent identity.

Charles I does feature in the Tales of a Grandfather. Scott argued that Charles's trial and execution was a charade: this was a naked power grab by Cromwell. I have no doubt of it; the propaganda of publically justified condemnation is too sickeningly familiar. (By the way, I found Scott's account clearer than Jones' about the relationship of army and parliament, the underlying rivalry between Presbyterian and Independent.) At the same time I recognize that many who pushed for the toppling of the monarch's head were driven partly by fear for themselves: they had already done too much for Charles to forget, were he ever to regain the upper hand. 

But Jones does give a vivid impression of what a maddening master Charles must have been: the endless indecisiveness, the ill-timed intransigence, the contracts he signed but never meant to honour, the persistent secret intriguing, the concessions that were always offered too late. He was the kind of person, I felt, whose spirit suffered beneath the weight of a plan, even if it was his own. On the other hand, a change of plan was balm to him: he could breathe easy again -- for a while. 

Even so, when the crisis came, it was Charles' servants who proved incapable of sticking to a plan. 

Rumours of plots to kill the king were rife. Charles was advised by some to escape, and the Scottish Commissioners offered to help, but the King wasn't sure he could trust them -- they had sold him to his enemies before. Some advisors suggested that the King should go to Jersey, then on to France -- but he didn't want to leave England. Yet, as the days passed, escape increasingly seemed the best option. Someone -- nobody knows who -- suggested escape to the Isle of Wight. The island was a royalist stronghold, and the governor Colonel Hammond was nephew of one of the King's most faithful chaplains. Someone -- possibly John -- suggested the Isle of Wight home of royalist Sir John Oglander would be an ideal destination, as the King could be concealed there until the disposition of the island's governor Colonel Hammond could be ascertained. If Hammond's loyalty was deemed to be suspect then the King and his party could travel on to France without ever having openly revealed their presence on the Isle of Wight -- but for the plan to work, it was essential that the King's whereabouts be kept secret. The King took this suggestion seriously, and began to make preparations for his escape. 

On 9th November an anonymous letter warned the King that the danger to his life had increased, and that a new guard coming to the palace in two days time would bring great danger. As a result Charles informed John and Berkley of his plan to leave immediately -- without having confirmed his destination. At 9pm on 11 November the King and his servant William Legg left Hampton Court via a small door down a back staircase that led to the forest, where they met John and Berkley. The group sped off on horseback, heading for the southwest of England. The night was dark and stormy, and only the King knew the forest; in spite of his guidance the men became lost. Finally, as dawn broke, the travellers reached a little town in Hampshire called Sutton, where John had ordered a relay of horses to be prepared. 

As the inn was already occupied by a committee of Parliamentarians the King and his companions quickly changed horses and moved on. Although the King had still not confirmed their final destination, the group travelled in the direction of Southampton -- ideal for crossing to the Isle of Wight. As the travellers approached the coastal town they stopped to consider their next move. It is said that they first enquired about a ship that John was to have arranged, but that there was no news of it; Berkley suggested going to the western counties. However the group finally settled on the Isle of Wight as their destination -- although the route they had taken so far suggests that the King had planned this course of action ever since leaving Hampton Court.

It was decided that John and Berkley should cross first to the Isle of Wight, to ensure that all was well and that the governor was happy to receive them. The King went to Titchfield, the residence of the mother of the Earl of Southampton, and the following morning John and Berkley arrived on the island. They headed for Carisbrooke Castle, the home of the governor, but the governor was away at Newport so they set out to meet him on his return. Neither John nor Berkley knew Hammond, and John later recorded that he was staggered by Berkley's open and "very unskilful entrance into their business" -- revealing more than was wise before they were sure of Hammond's commitment to the King's cause. Berkley told Hammond that "good King Charles was near, having come from Hampton Court for fear of being murdered". At this, John recollected, the governor turned pale and became anxious. Hammond was torn between his duty to the King, who was showing such confidence in him, and his duty to the Army. As the discussions between John, Berkley and Hammond continued, both John and Berkley began to distrust Hammond. They were on the point of leaving when Hammond finally appeared to yield and offered to serve and help the King as much as he was able. As a result, and accompanied by one of his captains, Hammond joined John and Berkley on their return journey to the King at Tichfield. 

On their arrival John went ahead for a private audience with the King. On hearing what had happened on the Isle of Wight, Charles exclaimed "What! Have you brought Hammond with you? Oh Jack thou hast undone me, for I am, by this means, made fast from stirring". In vain John urged him to believe that Hammond had promised to help, whilst the King paced the room with an expression of the utmost anguish. John burst into tears and offered to go and kill Hammond. "No" replied Charles -- "we will go with him and leave the outcome in God's hands." After he had composed himself, Charles received Hammond. The governor again renewed his promise to the King, but remained worryingly vague and spoke with some embarrassment. 

Night was falling as the party departed for the island. News had spread that the King was coming and many inhabitants went out to meet him on his arrival. As he passed through Newport a young woman advanced towards him and presented him with a red rose, in full bloom despite the season, and accompanied it with a prayer for the King's deliverance. Charles felt assured that the whole population was devoted to him -- and as Carisbrooke Castle only had twelve soldiers he believed that he could easily escape if he wanted to. In the following days Charles felt increasingly at ease as he rode around the island and was treated with every demonstration of respect by Hammond. Charles told John that he was out of reach of those who would seek his life, that the governor was after all an honest man, and that he had no reason to regret having come to the island. However, Charles' faith was misplaced -- although it seems he didn't realise it, he was a prisoner on the island. In addition, almost as soon as Charles arrived on the island, the duplicitous Hammond had informed Cromwell of the King's arrival. As John later ruefully commented: "I have been taught than honour and honesty have clear contrary definitions in several men's understanding".

(from Ch 3 of Rhoderick W. J. Jones, John Ashburnham)

[Sir John Berkley, along with Jack Ashburnham a principal assistant to the King from 1647. Jones records: "The two men were described as being vain, intriguing, and talkative, but it was said that Berkley had more courage, and Ashburnham more craftiness and influence with the King".]

[William Legg or Legge, royalist colonel and another Groom of the Bedchamber.]

[Presumably Long Sutton, a few miles south of Hook? The sources for this story are Clarendon, the Memoirs of Sir John Berkley and A Narrative by John Ashburnham . Unfortunately online texts of the latter do not actually contain Jack's narrative: they consist only of Vol I, which is his descendant George's lengthy "Vindication of His Character and Conduct from the Misrepresentations of Lord Clarendon" (1830) (PDF) (interesting as it is).]

Hindsight changes our perspective, but it's difficult to understand how Charles and his followers could even think of involving Col.  Hammond. The king's arrival on the island being inevitably public knowledge, this was placing Hammond and his twelve men in defiance of the entire English army. Maybe they didn't conceive, as a modern reader does, that the king was by now utterly bereft of authority within his own kingdom. 

Jack Ashburnham in later life

[Image source: Jones, op. cit.]

After Charles' execution Jack was assailed by other royalists (who accused him of feathering his own nest) and of course by the Commonwealth who sometimes imprisoned him and always restricted his movements; he only survived,  I suppose, because Charles was dead and it was supposed he couldn't do much harm. But when Charles II became king, Jack once more became a trusted royal adviser; he was much at court, but soon afterwards lost his beloved second wife and suffered ill health himself in his final years.

Postcards from Ashburnham Place, now the Ashburnham Christian Trust through a series of transmutations that arguably began with Jack's own renovations of St Peter's church. 

*

Eikon Basilike

I found this article usefully comprehensive:

Robert Wilcher, "What was the King's Book for?: The Evolution of Eikon Basilike", The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 21, Politics, Patronage and Literature in England 1558-1658 Special Number (1991), pp. 218-228 (11 pages)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25519603

The author takes the view that the book's contents are substantially Charles' own work, written at various times and with various purposes from 1642 onwards; John Gauden's role being essentially limited to a redaction in 1648 and a few editorial passages. Doubtless there's scope for further debate: Clarendon's reluctant admission of Gauden's authorship continues to trouble.

Along the line of smoky hills / The crimson forest stands,

The Arcturus model was (is?) inexpensive books reaching an unpretentious audience via its enviable distribution to gift shops, service stations, outlets like The Works, and so on. There's something pleasing about seeing a front cover so unadorned with inducements to purchase. Arcturus books are never reviewed, they aren't for the kind of audience that cares about reviews. You might say they bear a similar relation to literary books as "novelette" does to "novel": it connotes a type of book you know exists but never read yourself. Anyway, that was the message I felt I defied, doggedly reading through the 600 pages of Best-Loved Poems.

Maybe (I fancied) this substantial volume mainly caught the eye of hasty gift-buyers who suddenly thought they remembered that auntie Jim or uncle Pat liked a bit of poetry. But my fancy is fairly obtuse on this topic. Despite its unassuming appearance, this was evidently a publication with eyes to markets right across the globe, readerships that I probably know nothing about. 

Obviously what is not like a novelette is that Best-Loved Poems contains a fair amount of the greatest literature you could ever aspire to read: Shakespeare or Blake or Marvell or Donne or Wordsworth or Keats or Dickinson or Whitman (all with plenty of poems here) blaze out thrillingly as I read through it. The effect is enhanced because their poems are all mixed in with the others. The anthology is organized by topics like "Irreverence and Satire" or "Nature and the Seasons" and avoids chronology or grouping by author. Poems are presented here stripped of history and context: the emphasis is on their living and eternal core. Every poem has a title and is presented as a complete and single entity. There is no acknowledgement if a poem originally formed part of a larger structure (e.g. a Shakespeare sonnet, a Blake song of innocence or experience). There are no extracts, which means that poets who wrote their most characteristic work in larger forms are represented by untypical poems or not much at all (e.g. Spenser, Milton, Pope).

History is in a sense laid on one side. A cavalier lyric may sit next to Longfellow or Hardy or Edward Lear: it's here because it still says something now, not because of what it tells us about the 1640s. And after all that's one of the most important things about a poem. 

Yet history washes back in various ways. This is, centrally, a nineteenth-century collection; there must be as many poems from that century as from all the others put together. A volume that truly reflected the best-loved poems of 2014 would no doubt contain many more twentieth-century poems, if only because of school curriculums. In this case the reason is simple: it was evidently a requirement of the publishers that all the contents must be in the public domain.  From the 20th century's first three decades we have lots of Wilfred Owen and Hart Crane and Sara Teasdale and Katherine Mansfield and D.H. Lawrence, authors who died young, but no Yeats or Graves or Eliot or Joyce or Frost. (I must say I found this enforced selection quite illuminating.) So, among the well-loved poems about snow, there's no place for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Nor for Robert Bridges' "London Snow". Bridges would have qualified by UK copyright laws (he died in 1930), but perhaps not by US laws -- or maybe the editor just forgot about him. 

And though what was most intriguing and new to me was all the Canadian poems (the compiler, John Boyes, is from Montreal), there isn't anything here by Charles G.D. Roberts, presumably for the same reason (he died in 1943). 

Given the centrality of the nineteenth century in the anthology, it's something of a paradox that it entirely excludes what many have considered the most characteristic form of Victorian poetry, the dramatic monologue. Browning is here as the author of "Prospice" and "Meeting at Night" and "Oh, to be in England", but there's no place for "My Last Duchess" or "Porphyria's Lover". 

Linked to this, I think, are some other surprising exclusions. For instance, there's a distinct lack of narrative poetry: the only real stories are nonsense ones like the Jumblies and Jabberwocky. And there are no folk ballads (surely a well-loved kind of poem, you might think); though there is "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and "The Lady of Shalott", two rather ballad-like poems that, now I come to think of it, are both notable for failing to tell much of a story. (What between the absence of narrative and the absence of folk ballads, there's no place here for that once well-loved poet Walter Scott.)

The well-loved poem, we understand, is one whose words we can make ours, a poem whose voice, if we think about it at all, can be reckoned the poet's own. 

Maybe the presiding deities of this or any similar anthology, for me,  are a bunch of authors that I only ever seem to read in anthologies, though always with a passing impulse to read more of them: Thomas Hood, Thomas Moore, William Cullen Bryant, the Rossettis, Poe, Lear, Hardy, and above all Burns. 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
          Thou thought to dwell --
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
          Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
          But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
          An’ cranreuch cauld!

(from "To A Mouse, On Turning Up Her Nest With The Plough" by Robert Burns)

 

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,

Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;

There oft, as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea,

The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.

(from "Sweet Afton" by Robert Burns)

It's remarkable how easily Whitman seats himself in such company (though he makes the chair creak with his energy and horizons), and this 600-page journey through well-loved poems ends triumphantly with his "Song of the Open Road".

O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me,

   Do not leave me?

Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?

Do you say, I am already prepared -- I am well-beaten and

   undenied -- adhere to me?

O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you -- yet I

   love you;

You express me better than I can express myself;

You shall be more to me than my poem.

I think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air,

   and all great poems also;

I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles;

(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open 

   air, the road;)

I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like,

   and whoever beholds me shall like me;

I think whoever I see must be happy.

(from "Song of the Open Road", section 4, by Walt Whitman)

*

John Boyes edited several volumes published by Arcturus: Best-Loved Poems (2014) was preceded by Great Speeches: Words That Shaped The World (2009), Poems That Will Save Your Life (2010) and Poetry of the Civil War (2012). A note on Amazon says: "John Boyes has written for television, radio and several British, American and Canadian periodicals. His most recent titles are Character Parts, a study of characters in Canadian literature, and a children's book on Canada. He is the editor of six previous literary anthologies. A Montrealer, he lives with his wife and daughter in Vancouver."

*

I mentioned those Canadian poems. Here are some tiny samples, mostly from the section on "Nature and the Seasons".

Under the glimmer of stars and the purple of sunsets dying,

  Wan and waste and white, stretch the great lakes away.

from "The Winter Lakes" by Wilfred Campbell (1858 - 1918)

Lo, the clouds break, and gradually more wide

Morn openeth her bright, rejoicing gates;

And ever, as the orient valves divide,

A costlier aspect on their breadth awaits.

from "The Coming of Morn" by Charles Heavysege (1816 - 1876)

From out the landscape lying 'neath the sun

   The last sea-smelling, cloud-like mists arise;

The smoky woods grow clear and, one by one,

   The meadow blossoms open their winking eyes.

from "The Morning Land" by Charles Mair (1838 - 1927)

              and as the glory dies,

Throbbing thro' changeful rose to silver mist,

Laden with souls of flowers wooed abroad

From painted petals by the ardent Night,

Possess the heavens for one short splendid hour --

Sole jewel on the Egypt brow of Night,

Who steals, dark giant, to caress the Earth,

And gathers from the glassy mere and sea

The silver foldings of his misty robe,

And hangs upon the air with brooding wings

Of shadow, shadow, stretching everywhere.

from "The Vesper Star" by Isabella Valancy Crawford (1850 - 1887)

Go, be their little brother,

As humble as the grass,

And lean upon the hill-wind,

And watch the shadows pass.

from "Marigolds" by Bliss Carman (1861 - 1929)

See, rising from out of that copse, dark and damp,

   The fire-flies, each bearing a flickering lamp!

Like meteors, gleaming and streaming, they pass

O'er hillside and meadow, and dew-laden grass,

from "A Canadian Summer Evening" by Rosanna Leprohon (1829 - 1879)

The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight

The hurrying centres of the storm unite,

And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,

Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,

Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height, 

With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,

And pelted waters, on the vanished plain

Plunges the blast.

from "A Thunderstorm" by Archibald Lampman (1861 - 1899)

But all the winnowed eastern sky

Is flushed with many a tender hue,

And spears of light are smiting through

The ranks where huddled sea-mists fly.

from "Sunrise Along the Shore" by L. M. Montgomery (1874 - 1942)

Row and row of waves ever

In the breaking;

Ever in arching and convulsed

Immanence;

Roll of muddy sea between;

Low clouds down-pressing

And pallid and streaming rain.

from "Reverie: The Orchard on the Slope" by Raymond Knister (1899 - 1932)

O! Soft responsive voices of the night

I join your minstrelsy,

And call across the fading silver light

As something calls to me;

I may not all your meaning understand,

But I have touched your soul in shadow-land.

from "Moonset" by E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (1861 - 1914)

When all the lovely wayside things

    Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields, still green and fair,

    Late aftermaths are growing;

from "October's Bright Blue Weather" by Helen Hunt Jackson (1831 - 1885)

And the sun is scarcely gleaming

   Through the cloudlets, snowy white, --

Winter's lovely herald greets us,

from "Indian Summer" by Susanna Moodie (1803 - 1885)

Here, on this slope that yet hath known no plough,

The cattle wander homeward slowly now;

In shapeless clumps the ferns are brown and dead.

Among the fir-trees dusk is swiftly born;

The maples will be desolate by morn.

The last word of the summer hath been said.

from "October" by Francis Sherman (1871 - 1926)

The woods that summer loved are grey and bare;

The sombre trees stretch up their arms on high,

In mute appeal, against the leaden sky;

A flurry faint of snow is in the air.

All day the clouds have hung in heavy fold

Above the valley, where grey shadows steal;

from "December" by Stuart Livingstone (his only known poem, published in 1910)

[Apparently I can't resist making assemblages of Canadian poetry, enchanted by my ignorance of it; here's another one, from 2008: "Intercapillary Space": 2-page anthology of Canadian poetry .]