Old Coventry at the Present Day
Coventry is well worth a whole day's visit, though the day may be an easy one, as the principal buildings lie very near together, and are practically always open, so that no time need be wasted ringing up this or that caretaker or running after the sacristan. Either the powers that be have little leisure to think of tourists, or they must be men of singular enlightenment, for I know of no place which can be seen so freely and cheaply, where lingering over a charming effect, a boss, inscription or painted window may be done with such pleasure because interruption is so rare.[730] The tourist will show his wisdom by not going too far afield in his sight-seeing; the three churches and S. Mary's Hall will, with a passing look at many a picturesque narrow street, carved gable, or interesting relic of old Coventry, furnish him with some hours' occupation. Those, of course, who possess indomitable physical and mental energy may ascend S. Michael's spire for the view's sake, or brave a walk through the somewhat dreary environs of Coventry to the historic but commonplace-looking strip of land known as Gosford Green.[731] Or, if they are proof against the depressing influence of the workhouse—for into this building the remains of the Carmelite monastery have been incorporated—may follow the line of Much Park Street to Whitefriars, and there see the fine monastic cloister, with its fifteenth-century groining, which now serves as the paupers' dining-room.[732]
Castle and monastery have been destroyed in Coventry, and, after all, nobles and monks had very little to do with the making of the city, which, in 1381, was the fifth, and about seventy years later the fourth, among the cities of the kingdom. A fortunate junction of high roads, and the enterprise of the inhabitants, accounts for the great riches and large population during those seventy years. And mark that the most noteworthy buildings were raised within this period: the churches of S. Michael, and the Holy Trinity, and S. Mary's Hall. S. John's church is a little earlier in date. During this period the people of Coventry were possessed with a magnificent frenzy, such as shames our modern efforts, for building and making their city beautiful. That is to say, within a little over two generations the inhabitants of a town of what we should call nowadays contemptible smallness, for it contained at first a population of only about 7000, and later certainly no more than 10,000 souls, raised two parish churches of unusual size, and a fine town hall. One of these churches is indeed the largest in the kingdom, and possesses a spire almost unrivalled in height and beauty. They also kept their fortifications in good repair during this period, and raised—to speak of inconsiderable trifles—a market cross, which has unfortunately perished, besides lending to all the buildings their bounty was making or had made, all the riches of suitable adornment that the carpenter's, carver's, painter's, glazier's, weaver's and goldsmith's art could devise. Much has perished in the destruction of the cathedral, the friars' and other chapels, the cross, a parish church, a guild-hall, and many unremembered buildings; but enough remains to show that we owe a great debt to those dear, dead folk who knew so many things we have forgotten and loved so many things we have ceased to care for, and above all, knew what to do with stone and glass and metal, and loved their handiwork, for it was good.
Women have always been to the fore in Coventry; the names rise of S. Osburg, Godiva, Isabella, Margaret of Anjou, of the virgin sisters Botoner, who built the spire, and of Joan Ward, the first Coventry Lollard martyr. Women of the city, too, helped to keep out Charles I. Here Sarah Kemble (Mrs Siddons) was married and Miss Ellen Terry born. It is fitting that the chief literary interest of Coventry should centre in a woman's name. George Eliot went to school at a house in the south-west end of Warwick Row, 1832-5. Coventry is said to be the original of Middlemarch, and S. Mary's Hall is described in the trial scene in Adam Bede.
In coming from the station down Warwick Row, as you pass the angle of Greyfriars' Green, look at the modern statue of Sir Thomas White, merchant, Lord Mayor of London in 1555, founder of S. John's College, Oxford, and benefactor of the city of Coventry. Other famous folk connected with the city were Laurence Saunders, the Marian martyr, who was led out to die in the park to the right of Christ church, the spire of which is close before you, while John Marston, satirist, writer of plays, friend and foe of Ben Jonson, was born here. Perhaps some day our cousins from over the Atlantic may raise a tribute to the memory of John Davenport, Puritan, of this city, who, after a troubled career as pastor in the city of London, fled to Amsterdam; and finally, in 1637, at the invitation of John Cotton, departed for New England, where he lived as pastor of Newhaven for very many years; and, after much controversy concerning baptism, and writing of books, departed this life at Boston on March 13, 1670. Others may feel more interest in his brother or kinsman, Christopher, a convert to Romanism, and hence the religious antipodes of the aforesaid John. After a sojourn at Douay, this Franciscan friar became chaplain to Queen Henrietta Maria, and subsequently to her daughter-in-law, Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. He died in 1680, and was buried at the Savoy Chapel, London. Being suspected of designs for promoting the union of the English and Roman Churches, it was one of the indictments against Archbishop Laud that he held frequent converse with Christopher Davenport. Other notable folk have at one time or another lived within the city. Sir William Dugdale, Garter King-at-Arms under Charles II., author of the Monasticon and the Antiquities of Warwickshire, "maestro" and "autore" of all such as love the lore of the famous shire of Warwick, received his education at the Free Grammar School. While Humphrey Wanley, to whose skill and knowledge the British Museum owes—not the gift—but the collection and arrangement of the Harleian manuscripts, while he held the post of librarian under Harley, Earl of Oxford, in Queen Anne's time, was son of a vicar of Trinity church, one Nathaniel Wanley, whose book Wonders of the Little World, was greatly loved by Browning.
Full in front is the view of the "three tall spires." The nearest, that of Christ church,[733] is all that remains of the far-famed chapel of the Greyfriars, wherein so many local notables and members of noble families lay buried. The church having been demolished at the suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII., the steeple remained a solitary landmark until 1830, when the body of a new church was added. This is an uninteresting structure, and not worth a visit.
We are now inside the compass of the ancient wall, and those who wish to keep up old illusions, and enter the city by the ancient road, should turn up Warwick Lane, alongside of the Grapes' Inn, avoiding modern Hertford Street, and so along Grey Friars' Lane to High Street and the main thoroughfare of the city. A little below the junction of the Warwick and Grey Friars' Lanes stands Ford's Hospital, a beautiful black and white timbered house with carved gables such as artists love. The windows are of nine lights, divided into threes, with window-headings of fine tracery. In a room over the porch called the chapel are oddments of stained glass. Some of the seventeen old women who are housed there, and daily bless, or should bless, the memory of Master Ford and Master Pisford, merchants, may often be seen sitting in the little inner quadrangular court. Worthy Master Pisford, by his will, dated 1517, made provision for six old men and their wives, "being nigh unto the age of threescore years and above, and such as were of good name and fame, and had been of good honesty and kept household within the said city, and were decayed and come to poverty and great need." Nowadays, however, it is only old women who profit by their benevolence.