The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike

by Charles G. Harper

ROCHESTER CASTLE AND THE MEDWAY.

Fourteen years later, the Queen of Robert Bruce was a State prisoner in Rochester Castle, with her sister and daughter, and here they remained until Bannockburn altered the complexion of affairs. King John of France, too, appears here, and in a grateful mood, for he was going back to his kingdom, and so, to please the saints, made an offering of forty crowns (valued at £6 13s. 4d.) at the Cathedral, departing for “Stiborne,” and resting the night at Ospringe. Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, passed through “Rotschetter” in 1416, with a retinue of a thousand knights, on a visit to Henry the Fifth, and Henry the Seventh was here in 1492, 1494, and 1498, crossing over from Strood in a ferry-boat for which he paid £2, an expense which would have been quite unnecessary had the authorities kept the Bridge (then of stone, and about a century old) in decent repair. A few months later than his last visit, the King sent the Mayor of the town £5 toward its restoration, for funds were low, and the indulgences—to say nothing of the forty days’ remittances from Purgatory for all manner of sins—offered by Archbishop Morton to any one who would give towards the work, were but little in request.

Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, was the next considerable personage here, and of how great a consideration he was may be gathered from the fact that he came up the road from Dover with a train of two thousand attendants. He and Henry the Eighth, who had gone down to Dover to meet him, stayed at Rochester on the night of Sunday, June 1, 1522, and went on to Gravesend the following day. Eighteen years later, the King, already a much-married man, came here to have a private view of his new matrimonial venture.

HENRY MEETS ANNE

Two accounts are given of this meeting of Henry the Eighth and Anne of Cleves. They agree neither with themselves nor with that other account in which the King is made to call her a “Flanders mare”:—“As she passed toward Rochester,” writes Hall, the Chronicler, “on New Yeres Even, on Reynam Down, met her the Duke of Norffolke, and the Lord Dacre of the South, and the Lord Mountjoye, with a gret company of Knyghtes and Esquiers of Norffolke and Suffolke, and the Barons of thxchequer, (sic) all in coates of velvet with chaynes of golde, which brought her to Rochester, where she lay in the Palace all New Yeres Day. On which day the Kyng, which sore desyred to see her Grace, accompanyed with no more than viii persons of his prevy chaumbre, and both he and thei all aparelled in marble coates, prevely came to Rochester, and sodainly came to her presence, which therwith was sumwhat astonied; but after he had spoken and welcomed her, she with most gracious and lovyng countenance and behavior him received and welcomed on her knees, whom he gently toke up and kyssed; and all that afternoone commoned and devised with her” (whatever that may mean), “and that night supped with her, and the next day he departed to Grenewich and she came to Dartford.” Now hear how different a complexion Stow puts upon this meeting, and then tell me what you think of the difficulties of history-writing:—

“The King being ascertained of her arivall and approch, was wonderfull desirous to see her, of whom hee had heard so great commendations, and thereupon hee came very privately to Rochester, where hee tooke the first view of her; and when he had well beheld her, hee was so marvelously astonished that hee knew not well what to doe or say. Hee brought with him divers things, which hee meant to present her with his owne hands, that is to say, a partlet, a mufler” (Indian shawls had not yet been introduced), “a cup, and other things; but being sodainly quite discouraged and amazed with her presence, his mind changed, and hee delivered them unto Sir Anthony Browne to give them unto her, but with as small show of Kingly kindness as might be. The King being sore vexed with the sight of her, began to utter his heart’s griefe unto divers: amongst whom hee said unto the Lord Admirall, ‘How like you this woman? Doe you think her so personable, faire, and beautifull as report hath beene made unto mee of her—I pray you tell me true?’”

Whereupon the Lord Admiral discreetly replied no word of dispraise, because people with opinions had in those days an excellent chance of losing their heads; merely remarking that she appeared to have a brown complexion rather than the fair one that had been represented to his Majesty.

“Alas!” replied the King, “whom shall men—to say nothing of kings—trust? I promise you I see no such thing in her as hath been shewed to me of her, either by pictures or report, and am ashamed that men have praised her as they have done; and I like her not.” Which, of course, was final.

Queen Elizabeth, of course, was here, not once but thrice, and on her first visit she stayed at the “Crown” inn, “which,” says Francis Thynne, “is the only place to intertaine Princes comming thither.” It was, indeed, the place where her father stayed, and where, according to one account, Anne of Cleves lodged; and was the scene of the inimitable colloquy between the carriers in Henry the Fourth, just previous to the robbery on Gad’s Hill. The “Crown,” of course, is gone now, and an ugly building, bearing the same sign, but dating only from 1863, stands on its site.