1311.
Piers Gaveston,
Earl of Cornwall,
Beheaded.
Around him were the oaks of the Druids; in the distance, embosomed in softest verdure, gray with age, and softened in the mists of early dawn, were the towers of the magnificent Warwick.
On right, on left, were the deep woodlands, at this period covering nearly all Warwickshire like a huge forest. 'Twas a scene peculiarly adapted to call forth all the chivalrous feelings and historical recollection of such a being. The distant rush of the water from the monastic mill at Guy's Cliff, a sound which the monks of the adjoining abbey in bygone times had loved to hear, soothed the melancholy of his soul;—a sort of dreamy and shadowy remembrance of ages "long ago betide;"—a feeling as if the gazer upon such a scene had been familiar with the iron men who lived in feudal pride, and owned those towers in bygone days, stole upon him. He stood upon the domain of that mighty Earl of Warwick, "the putter up and plucker down of kings;" the blast of whose bugle in that county had often assembled thousands, "all furnished, all in arms." In thought he followed the proud baron in all his stirring career. Knight and esquire and vassal, a "jolly troop of English" swept by with tuck of drum and colours spread; and then he saw the mighty earl dying amidst the dust and blood of Barnet:—
"His parks, his walks, his manors, that he had,
Even these forsaking him; and, of all his lands,
Nothing left him but his body's length."
Any one who could have looked upon that youthful poet at the moment, might have surmised the Shakespeare after-times has been wont to picture. There was the divine expression,—the countenance once seen, even in a portrait, never to be forgotten; the eye of fire, "glancing from heaven to earth;" the splendid form, with head thrown back and foot advanced. And thus he stood upon Blacklow Hill—
"A combination and a form, indeed,
To give the world assurance of a man."
Not like a fugitive flying from the paltry spite of a scrivener set on by a country squire, but like the herald mercury.
"New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill."
Long did the fugitive linger in this spot, till—
"Light thickened, and the crow
Wing'd to the rocky wood."
He then, as hunger forced him from his retreat, crossed the meadows, and entering the town of Warwick, sought an old hostel situate in the suburbs. No sooner did he enter this town, than he began to find himself one remove from the dull seclusion of his native place. The streets seemed all alive; a huge bonfire was a-light in the market-place, and hundreds of the rough sons of toil were assembled around, and in the adjoining thoroughfares.