I cannot rest—for on the spot where I have made my bed,
O’erwearied with the strife of State, a King hath laid his head.
Thy sacred head, ill-fated Charles, hath lain where now I lie;
And thou hast passed, in Southwell Inn, as sleepless night as I.
I cannot rest—for o’er my mind come thronging full and fast,
The stories of the olden time, the visions of the past.
’Twas here he rested ere he raised his standard for the fight;
Here called on Heaven to help his cause, My God, defend the right!
Here gather’d round him all the flow’r of England’s chivalry;
And here the vanquished Monarch closed his days of liberty.
I cannot rest—for Cromwell’s horse are neighing in mine ear;
E’en in the Holy House of God their ringing hoofs I hear.
Lord! wilt Thou once again endure it stable vile to be?
The proud usurper’s charger rein’d fast by Thy sanctuary.
I cannot rest—for Wolsey’s pride, and Wolsey’s deep disgrace—
The pomp, the littleness of man—speak from this ancient place.
Here gloriously his summer days he spent in kingly state;
Here his last summer sadly pined, bow’d by the stroke of Fate.
How mighty was he when he rul’d from Tweed to Humber’s flood!
How lowly when he came to die, forsaken by his God!
I cannot rest—for holier thoughts the lingering night beguile,
Of the glad days when gospel light went forth o’er Britain’s Isle.
’Twas here the Bishop of the North, Paulinus, pitch’d his tent,
Here preached the living Word of God, baptizing in the Trent.
Hence have the preachers’ feet gone forth thro’ all the country wide;
And daughter-churches have sprung up, nursed at their mother’s side.
Here have the clerks of Nottingham, and yeomen bold and true,
Held yearly feasts at Whitsuntide, and paid their homage due.
Here many a mitred head of York, and priests and men of peace,
Have lived in penitence and prayer, and welcomed their release.
And hence the daily choral song, the gospel’s hopes and fears,
Have sounded forth to Christian hearts, beyond a thousand years.
’Tis thus, o’er England’s hill and dale, have passed by Heaven’s decree,
A changing light, a chequer’d shade, a mingled company.
The good, the bad, have had their day, the Lord hath worked His will;
And England keeps her ancient faith, purer and brighter still.
Where are they now, the famous men who lived in olden time?
They never see the noonday sun, nor hear the midnight chime.
They sleep within their narrow cell, waiting the trumpet’s voice;
Lord! grant that I may rest in peace, and when I wake—rejoice.
Saracen’s Head, Southwell, 5th March, 1858.
Byron had stayed often at the inn, many years before, and in 1807 wrote an impromptu on the death of a local carrier, John Adams, who travelled to and from the house, and lived drunk and died drunk:
John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell,
A Carrier who carried his can to his mouth well;
He carried so much and he carried so fast,
He could carry no more—so was carried at last:
For the liquor he drank, being too much for one,
He could not carry off—so is now carri-on.
It will already have been noticed that the Stuarts and their troubles contributed most of the historic associations belonging to our old hostelries; and we have not yet quite done with them. The incidents of Charles the Second’s flight in 1651, after the battle of Worcester, include a halt of one night at the “Sun,” Cirencester, the well-known escape from the “Queen’s Arms,” an inn—that is an inn no longer—at Charmouth, and visits to the “George” at Bridport, and a house of the same name at Broadwindsor. The “King’s Arms” at Salisbury is associated with meetings and conferences of the King’s supporters, who, while he lay in hiding at Heale House, considered there the best way of conducting him to the coast and safety. The route chosen lay through Mere, where, at the “George” inn (rebuilt in the eighteenth century) Colonel Phelips and Charles, travelling as his servant, Will Jackson, called. The Colonel, an acquaintance of the landlord, descended into the cellar of the inn, to sample the liquors of the house, while “Will Jackson” stood respectfully aside. Mine host, however, was an hospitable man, and, turning to the servant, with jug and glass, said, “Thou lookest an honest fellow—here’s a health to the King!” The “honest fellow,” whether taken aback by the suddenness of it, or acting an unwilling part, made some difficulty in replying; whereupon the landlord mildly took the Colonel to task for the kind of man he had brought.
THE “COCK AND PYMAT.”
From another “George”—the “George” at Brighthelmstone, in after years styled the “King’s Head”—the King escaped to France.
Nor even yet have we quite done with the hapless Stuarts, of whom undoubtedly Charles the Second was the most fortunate.
One of the most historic of inns was the famous “Cock and Pymat” at Whittington, near Chesterfield. It is now only to be spoken of in the past tense because, although there is still an inn of that name at Whittington, it is not the famous “Revolution House” itself, but only a modern building to which the old sign of the “Cock and Magpie”—for that is the plain English of “Pymat”—has been transferred.
Whittington in these times is a very grim and unlovely village, in the dismal colliery district of Chesterfield, whose wicked-looking crooked spire gives an air of diablerie to its immediate surroundings; but two centuries and a quarter ago, when James the Second was on the throne, and busily engaged in undermining the religious and Parliamentary liberties of the realm, it was a tiny collection of houses on a lonely moor, and an ideal place for meetings of conspirators. There and then those very mild and constitutional plotters who, despite their mildness, did actually succeed in overturning that already insecure monarch, met and formulated their demands.