Let us ascend the valley of the Severn, and in the centre of its broad plain, at the confluence of the Avon, find another great religious house in the smaller but equally noted town of Tewkesbury. All around are rich meadows, and here, away from the hills, was the ideal site for a monastery according to the ancient notion, where the languor of the gentle air prevented the blood flowing with too quick pulse. The Avon, spanned by an old arched bridge, washes one side of the town; the massive abbey-tower rises above a fringe of foliage and orchards, while on the one hand the horizon is bounded by the steep Cotswolds, and on the other by the broken masses of the Malverns. Close to the town, on its western verge, flows the Severn, crossed by a fine modern iron bridge. Tewkesbury is known to fame by its mustard, its abbey, and its battle. The renown of the Tewkesbury mustard goes back for at least three centuries: as "thick as Tewkesbury mustard" was a proverb of Falstaff's. That old-time historian Fuller says of it, "The best in England (to take no larger compass) is made at Tewkesbury. It is very wholesome for the clearing of the head, moderately taken." But, unfortunately, the reputation of Tewkesbury for this commodity has declined in modern times.
TEWKESBURY ABBEY.
The history of Tewkesbury Abbey comes from misty antiquity, and it is thought by some to have been named "Dukes-borough" from two ancient Britons, Dukes Odda and Dudda, but others say it commemorates a missionary monk named Theoe, who founded a little church there in the seventh century. Brictric, King of Wessex, was buried within its walls in the ninth century, and, like Gloucester, it suffered afterwards from the ravages of the Danes. But it flourished subsequently, and in the days of William Rufus the manor was conferred upon Fitz-Hamon, an influential nobleman, under whose auspices the present abbey was built. Nothing remains of any prior building. The church was begun in 1100, but the builder was killed in battle before it was completed. It is in the form of a cross with short transepts, and a tower rising from the centre. The choir was originally terminated by apses, which can still be traced, and there were other apses on the eastern side of each transept. While the outlines of most of the abbey are Norman, the choir is almost all of later date. The western front has the singular feature of being almost all occupied by an enormous and deeply-recessed Norman arch, into which a doorway and tracery were inserted about two hundred years ago, replacing one blown down by a storm in 1661. This abbey church was dedicated in 1123, and the services were almost the last diocesan act of Theulf, bishop of Worcester. One of the dedication ceremonies was quaint. As the bishop came to the middle of the nave, we are told that he found part of the pavement spread with white wood-ashes, upon which he wrote the alphabet twice with his pastoral staff—first the Greek alphabet from north-east to south-west, and then the Latin, from south-east to north-west, thus placing them in the form of a cross. He signified by this ceremony that all divine revelation was conveyed by the letters of the alphabet, and that the gospel comprehended under the shadow of the cross men of all races and all languages. The time had been when at such consecrations three alphabets were written—the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin—as the title on the cross had been written in these three tongues, but the Hebrew was early discontinued, "probably," writes Blunt, the historian of Tewkesbury Abbey, "because even bishops might not always be able to manage their Alpha Beta in that character." The best views of the abbey are from the south-east, and the interior is regarded as more remarkable than the exterior. The nave is of singular grandeur, its round Norman columns being exceptionally lofty. The triforium is stunted, and consists merely of two pairs of small arches, above which the ribs of a noble fretted roof expand, so that it appears as if the roof were immediately supported by the columns of the nave. The choir is short and hexagonal, being only sixty-six feet from the reredos, and is surrounded by a number of polygonal chapels, as at Westminster Abbey, with which it appears quite similar in plan. The Lady Chapel, originally at the east end, has been entirely destroyed. There are several monuments of great interest in these chapels, some of them in the form of chantries—being exquisite cages in stone-work—within which are the tombs of the founders. Here lie some of the chief nobility of England who in the days of the Plantagenets were the lords of Tewkesbury—the Beauchamps, Nevilles, De Clares, and Despensers. Fitz-Hamon's tomb was not erected until the fourteenth century. Here lie Clarence and his wife, Isabel, the daughter of Warwick the "King-maker," and also the murdered son of Henry VI., who was "stabbed in the field by Tewkesbury," with other victims of that fatal battle. The remains of the cloisters lie to the south of the abbey, and beyond is the ancient gateway, of rather unusual plan.
THE CHOIR OF TEWKESBURY ABBEY.
The battle of Tewkesbury, which sealed the fate of the Lancastrian party in England, was fought in 1471 upon the Bloody Meadow, then called the Vineyard, just outside the town and to the southward of the abbey. The Lancastrian line was soon broken, and the fight became practically a slaughter, as the defeated party were forced back upon the town and into the very abbey itself. Many of the fugitives sought refuge in the church, and the Yorkists followed them, striking down their victims in the graveyard, and even within the church-doors. The abbot, taking in his hand the sacred Host, confronted King Edward himself in the porch and forbade him to pollute the house of God with blood, and would not allow him to enter until he had promised mercy to those who had sought refuge inside. This clemency, however, was short-lived, for in the afternoon the young Prince of Wales, Henry VI.'s son, was brought before Edward and murdered by his attendants. Shakespeare represents Edward as dealing the first blow with a dagger, but the truer story seems to be that, enraged by a haughty answer from the young prince, he struck him in the face with his gauntlet, which the bystanders accepted as a signal for the murder. Two days afterwards a number of the chief captives were executed.