The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery

by John R. Wise

I should trust that, on a fine day, twenty miles are not too much for any Englishman. If they are, and any one should think the walk along the coast too long, Beaulieu may be reached by going direct from Hythe, across Beaulieu Common. The moor stretches out on all sides, flushed in the summer with purple heather, northward to the Forest, southward to the cultivated fields round Leap and Exbury. Passing “The Nodes,”[80] the road runs quite straight to Hill Top, with its clump of firs, which we reached in the last chapter.

Down in the valley, hid from us by a turn in the road, lies Beaulieu. But a little farther on we reach part of the old Abbey walls, broken here and there, clustered with ivy, and grass, and yellow mullein, and white yarrow, whilst vine-clad cottages stand against its sides. The village is situated on a bend of the Exe, where, spanned by a bridge, the stream falls over the weir, formerly turning the old mill-wheel of the monks, and then, broadening with the tide, winds through meadows and thick oak copses down to the Solent.

Although far more beautifully situated, the Abbey is not nearly so well known as its own filial house at Netley, simply because more out of the way. For a moment let us give some account of its foundation, illustrating as it does both King John’s cruelty and superstition. The story, as told by the monks, is that John, after various oppressions of the Cistercian Order, in the year 1204, convened their abbots to his Parliament at Lincoln. As soon as they came, he ordered his retainers to charge them on horseback. No one was found to obey such a command. The monks fled to their lodgings. That night the King dreamt he was led before a judge, who ordered him to be scourged by these very monks. The next morning John narrated his dream, which was so vivid that he declared he felt the blows when he awoke, to a priest of his court, who told him that God had been most merciful in thus simply chastising him in this world, and revealing the secrets of His will. He advised him at once to send for the abbots, whom he had so ill-treated, and to implore their pardon.[81]

Some truth, doubtless, underlies this story. Certain it is that in the same year, or the next, John founded the Abbey at Beaulieu, then Bellus Locus, so called from its beauty, placing there thirty monks from St. Mary’s, at Citeaux, endowing it with land in the New Forest, and manors, and villages, and churches in Berkshire; exempting it from various services and taxes and tolls; giving further, out of his own treasury, a hundred marks; and ordering all other Cistercian Houses to assist in the work. Not only did he do this, but he revoked his gift of the manor of Farendon, which, in the previous year, he had conditionally bestowed on some other Cistercian monks, and now transferred it to Beaulieu, making the House at Faringdon a mere offshoot from the larger building.[82] And the abbot designate repaid him in his life-time by accusing his enemy, Stephen of Canterbury, before the Pope, for treason, and causing him to be suspended.[83]

John died, and Henry III. not only confirmed the privileges, but granted several more in consideration of the great expense of the building, and Innocent III. gave it the right of a sanctuary. So the work proceeded. The stone was quarried principally from the opposite limestone-beds in the Isle of Wight; and was brought over, says tradition, curiously illustrating the vague notions of ancient geography, which we have seen in Diodorus Siculus,[84] in carts. Not, however, till 1249, some forty-five years after its foundation, was the monastery finished. Henry himself, and his Queen, and Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and a long train of nobles and prelates, came to its dedication on the feast of St. John; Hugh, the first abbot, spending no less than five hundred marks on the entertainment.[85]

So, at last, the good work was accomplished, and men came here and lived, taking for their pattern the holy St. Benedict, and finding the problem of life solved by daily prayer to heaven and labour on earth.[86]

Here, to its sanctuary, in 1471, after she had landed at Southampton on Easter Day, the very day of the battle of Barnet, fled the Countess of Warwick, wife of the King-maker, slain on that bloody field.[87] Here, too, in 1497, after having raised the siege of Exeter, and deserted his troops at Taunton, fled the worthless Perkin Warbeck, not only an impostor, but a coward, closely pursued by Lord Daubeny and five hundred men. Persuaded, however, by Henry VII.’s promises, he left his shelter only to become a prisoner in the Tower, and finally to expiate his deceit at Tyburn.

So years passed at the Abbey, the monks happy in saying their daily prayers, content to see the corn grow, and their vineyards ripen, and their flocks increase, knowing little of the troubles which raged in the outer world, save when some forlorn fugitive arrived. But even what is best becomes the worst. Time brought a change of spirit on all the monasteries. Long before the middle of the sixteenth century the stern earnestness of a former age had dwindled into effeminacy and sensuality. Piety had sunk into gross idolatry; and faith, amongst the laity, had been corrupted into credulity, and, with the priests, into hypocrisy. The greatest blessings had festered into curses. It was so, we know, through all England. And Beaulieu must suffer with the rest of the monasteries.

In 1537, the Abbey was dissolved, the last Abbot, Thomas Stephens, with twenty out of the thirty monks, signing the deed of surrender.[88] Stephens was pensioned off with a hundred marks; and some of the monks received various annuities and compensations for their losses. So fell the monastery of Beaulieu, and its stones went to build Henry VIII.’s martello tower at Hurst, and its lead to repair Calshot,[89] to fight against the very Power which had raised it to its glory.

Few abbeys have known so lovely a site. Placed close to the banks, it overlooked the Exe, formed by the tide more into a lake than a river. On every side it was sheltered: on the north by rising ground and the woods of the New Forest, and on the east again by the Forest and more hills, from whence an aqueduct brought down the water for the use of the monks; and on the south and west all was guarded by the river.