THE “WHITE HART,” SOMERTON.
The inn claims to have been partly built of the stones of Somerton Castle, and a tiny opening, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, in the gable of the small and not otherwise particularly interesting house, is pointed out as the window of “King John’s Prison.” The “King John” in question was not our own shabby and lying Lackland, but an infinitely finer fellow—if one may so greatly dare as to name a king a “fellow”—King John of France, taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers and held to ransom in England. But there appears to be a considerable deal of confusion in the statement that the French King was ever in custody in Somersetshire, for it was from the Castle of Hertford to Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire that he was removed, for greater security, in 1359. But those grave authorities, the county histories of Somerset and Lincolnshire, alike claim to have had the custody of that illustrious prisoner, in the 33rd year of Edward the Third, at their respective Somertons, and the antiquaries of either narrate how one Sir Saier de Rochford was granted two shillings a day for the keeping of him.
Apart from this unfounded claim, the “White Hart” is pictorially remarkable for its White Hart effigy, of an enormous size in proportion to that of the house.
CHAPTER IX
INNS OF OLD ROMANCE
Romance, as we have already seen, was enacted in many ways in the inns of long ago. Love and hatred, comedy and tragedy, and all the varied moods by which human beings are swayed, have had their part beneath the roofs of the older hostelries; as how could they fail to do in those times when the inn was so essential and intimate a part of the national life? The romantic incidents in which old inns have their part are in two great divisions: that of old folklore, and the other of real life. To the realm of folk-tales belongs the story told of an ancient hostelry that stood on the site of the “Ostrich,” Colnbrook.