Charles the First, being pursued by a strong party of his enemies through Share Newton, got into a boat at the Black rock (the New passage), and was ferried to the opposite shore. His pursuers, to the number of sixty, with drawn swards compelled other boatmen belonging to the passage to ferry them after him; but these, being in the king’s interest, landed them on a reef of rocks in the Severn called the English stones, near the Gloucestershire coast, to which they were instructed to ford: indeed, the strait was fordable at low water; but, the tide flowing in very rapidly, they were all drowned in the attempt, and the king for that time escaped. Cromwell, informed of the transaction, abolished the ferry; nor was it renewed, until after a long chancery-suit between an ancestor of the present proprietor, Mr. Lewis, of St. Pierre, and the guardians of his Grace the Duke of Beaufort, proprietor of Aust ferry.
A walk of a mile, on the shore westward of New Passage inn, led us to Sudbrook encampment, crowning the brow of an eminence which rises in an abrupt cliff from Caldecot level. This work, consisting of three ramparts and two ditches, forms a semicircle, whose chord is the sea cliff; but it is evident, that part of the eminence has mouldered away; and most probable, that the figure of the fortification was once circular. Harris conjectures it to be of Roman origin, and intended for the defence of the port of Venta Silurum (Caerwent). Eastward of the encampment is Sudbrook Chapel, a small Gothic ruin, which was formerly attached to a mansion of Norman foundation. No traces appear even of the site of this structure, which has in all likelihood been swept away by the encroachment of the sea: but several piles of hewn stones near the ramparts are probably its relics.
We had another pleasant walk of about a mile from the New passage across the fields to St. Pierre, an ancient residence of the Lewis family, descended from Cadivor the great. This mansion exhibits rather an incongruous mixture, in which the modern refinements of sash-windows, &c. are forced upon a Gothic structure upwards of four hundred years old: an embattled gateway, flanked with pentagonal towers, is still more ancient, and is recorded as having belonged to the feudal castle that occupied the site of the present building.
Nearly opposite this spot, the great estuary of the Bristol channel, contracting in width, takes the name of the Severn. The appellation of this river arises from the story of a British princess. Geoffry of Monmouth relates, that she was the daughter of Locrine king of Britain, by Elstridis, one of the three virgins of matchless charms whom he took after he had defeated Humber king of the Huns, to whom they belonged. Locrine had divorced his former queen Guendolin in her favour. On his death, Guendolin assumed the government, pursued Elstridis and her daughter Sabra with unrelenting cruelty, and caused them to be drowned in the river, which with some alteration took the name of this innocent victim. Our poets have made a beautiful use of this story: Milton, in his description of rivers, speaks of
“The Severn swift, guilty of maiden blood;”
but in the Mask of Comus he enters fully into her sad story:
“There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream:
Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure;
Whilome she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the scepter from his father Brute.
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
Of her enraged stepdame Guendolin,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood,
That stay’d her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water-nymphs that in the bottom play’d
Held up their pearled wrists and took her in,
Bearing her strait to aged Nereus’ hall;
Who, piteous of his woes, rear’d her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectar’d lavers strow’d with asphodil,
And through the porch and inlet of each sense
Dropt in ambrosial oils till she reviv’d,
And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made Goddess of the river.”
Crossing the grounds of St. Pierre, and passing Pool Meyrick, a brook falling into the Severn, we turned to the right in search of Mathern Palace, formerly a seat of the bishops of Landaff. This building, situated in a gentle hilly country pleasingly diversified with wood and pasturage, in its present appearance conveys but a very faint idea of the splendour and good cheer that no doubt reigned there when it was the seat of the episcopacy. The structure surrounds a quadrangular court, and was raised by different bishops; the north and north-east parts, comprising the tower, porch, &c. are supposed to have been erected by John de la Zouch, who was consecrated anno 1408. Miles Salley, who came to the see in 1504, built the chapel, hall, and other apartments. Some specimens of dilapidated grandeur appear in the east window; and until lately the entrance was through a lofty ornamented porch; but this is now destroyed, and the building only occupied as a farm-house. In the north side of the chancel of Mathern church, a Gothic structure, but of British origin, is the following epitaph written by bishop Godwin; the substance of which accounts for the manor of Mathern’s becoming ecclesiastical:
Here lyeth entombed the body of
Theodorick, king of Morganuck, or
Glamorgan, commonly called
St. Thewdrick, and accounted a martyr
because he was slain in a battle against
the Saxons, being then Pagans, and in
defence of the Christian religion. The
battle was fought at Tintern, where he
obtained a great victory. He died here,
being in his way homeward, three
days after the battle, having taken
order with Maurice his son, who succeeded
him in the Kingdom, that in the
same place he should happen to decease a
church should be built, and his body buried
in the same; which was accordingly performed
in the year 600. [244]
Within a short distance of Mathern is Moinscourt, another deserted ecclesiastical mansion, attributed to the erection of Bishop Godwin, and also occupied as a farm-house. This exhibits a handsome Gothic porch defended by two lofty turrets: within the court-yard are the two Roman inscribed stones mentioned by Gibson in the supplement to Camden, and said to have been brought from Caerleon: one of these appears to have been a votive altar; the other records the repairing or rebuilding of the temple of Diana by T. H. Posthumius Varus.