Madeley Court—Chat with a collier—The miner's rule of life—Charles II. in hiding—The building of Boscobel—The story of a moated house—A stirring episode—A startling discovery—A curious planetarium—A wishing-well—Lilleshall Abbey—"The Westminster Abbey of Shropshire"—A freak in architecture—Tong Castle—Church clerk-hunting.
It was certainly a rough and narrow lane, as the cyclist remarked, that led to Madeley Court, and it led past a lot of untidy colliers' cottages, for the hilly country around was well dotted with collieries; yet I fancy from the lie of the land that a hundred years or so ago, before the mines were sunk or the cottages built, that lane must have been a very rural and retired one. At one of the cottages I noticed a collier at work in his little garden; his face and hands and clothes were black as though he had only recently come up from the pit, but there he was busy amongst his flowers and vegetables, and there I pulled up the car and ventured to bid him good-day. "'Tain't a bad day," responded he, and went on with his work unconcernedly. Then I said a word in praise of his flowers, adding I supposed he was fond of gardening. "Well, a few flowers do look a bit cheerful like, so I grows 'em." Now there had been a miners' strike lately, and I wanted to learn his opinion about strikes. Nothing loth he gave it me. Miners I have found, as a race, openly and frankly express their opinions "without fear or favour," and I rather think they even enjoy a chance to express them, sometimes pretty strongly too, for miners have no respect of persons nor of other people's feelings. "We just says what us think and have done with it," as one of them declared to me. "As to strikes," said he, "I'm not gone on them; maybe they's necessary at times, I don't know. You see, we're bound to belong to the trade union lest the masters should best us; but the masters be all right in these parts and we've no need to strike, but us have to strike to help other folk when the unions tell us. Striking's poor game, I'd rather work than play any day; I likes to get my money regularly every week, then I know where I be. Now one never knows when the order may come to 'down tools.' What I say is that every herring should hang by its own tail." What exactly he meant by the last remark was not very clear to me, nor had I ever heard it before, nor was I able to obtain any enlightenment on the matter, for just then he exclaimed, "There be the missus a-calling me in for tea, and I wants it," and without another word he went to his tea. Just as I was leaving two of the miner's children ran out into the garden; one of them plucked a flower, then ran and gave it to me, saying, "Father told I to pluck it for thee"—a graceful little act that was pleasing. So often under rough exteriors kind hearts beat. That miner had not forgotten me, though he left and spoke so abruptly. Yet the following, I am told, is the miner's rule of life:—
Hear all, see all, say nought,
Eat well, drink well, and care nought;
If thou dost ought for nought
Do it for thyself.
But I do not believe all I hear. A parson told me the miners were not a bad lot as a whole, but they wanted knowing. They do! Now the poor country folk have often manners; the miners have none.
Then we left the cottages behind and dropped sharply down into a sheltered hollow, and there below was revealed to us the rambling and ghostly-looking old manor-house of Madeley Court, a romance in stone, built in the far-off Elizabethan days when men built pictures as well as homes. A large, cheerless pool of water, dark and still, on one side of the ancient and time-dimmed house added to the dreary and eerie impression of the spot as it is to-day: that pool was suggestive to me of some evil deed done in past days, though why I know not, but over all the ancient place there brooded a certain indefinable sense of mystery. It seemed to hold a life apart from its present-day, commonplace surroundings.
MADELEY COURT.
It was probably on this very lane that, wet through to the skin, weary and hungry, Charles II. recently escaped from Worcester, sought shelter with his guide, Richard Penderel, under a hedge from the pouring rain. Charles had fled from "the faithful city" with a few followers and had sought temporary asylum at White Ladies, the house of Charles Giffard, that gentleman being recommended to the king by the Earl of Derby. Giffard, however, advised the king not to tarry there, as his house was well known, and suggested that he should go to his retired hunting-box of Boscobel, where there were hiding-holes that had not been discovered; so to Boscobel the king went escorted by one Richard Penderel, a trusted retainer of Giffard's. Now two other retainers of the same family of the Penderels, William Penderel and Joan his wife, had charge of Boscobel, where they assisted, from time to time, in secreting persecuted Roman Catholic priests; indeed chiefly, if not wholly, for this purpose of giving refuge to such fugitives was Boscobel in reality built and planned: the hiding-holes there were no after-thoughts. Boscobel was then "an obscure habitation in a wilderness of woods," and was ostensibly merely a hunting-box. After resting there a few days the king became uneasy, for it had become known to the Parliamentarians that he had escaped into Shropshire, and troops of soldiers were scouring the country all around in search of him. So Charles determined to endeavour to make his way into Wales, but before starting forth he had himself disguised by having his locks cut off, his face and hands stained with walnut juice, and then to complete the disguise he donned a woodman's attire belonging to one of the Penderels, and he consented to be known as Will Jones. Thus disguised, one stormy night the king, with the faithful Richard Penderel for a guide, tramped to Madeley close to the Severn, trusting to find shelter there either at Madeley Court, the home of that staunch Royalist, Sir Basil Brooke, and personal friend of Giffard's, or at another house on the hill above, the abode of William Woolf, a yeoman and an honest man well known to Giffard, both houses having the conveniences of hiding-holes. The king deemed it prudent to go first to Woolf's house, as being a comparatively small one and that of a simple yeoman; he thought it less likely to be suspected or searched than Madeley Court, especially as Sir Basil Brooke was known to favour the Royalists, and he had many servants, some of whom might prove curious and become suspicious. A thousand pounds was the price for betraying the king, and death the penalty for harbouring him.