[A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES]
For those whose affections are at all equally divided between natural beauty and historical interest the map of South Wales presents a dilemma. The imperative thing is to avoid the once beautiful hills and valleys that are now scarred, and rent, and blackened with coal-dust; and this may be done by taking either the moorland road above the mining country, or the level road below it near the sea. Now I, who know both these roads, assure you that in adopting either of these courses you will miss much. For if you choose the lower road, tempted by its excellence, you will miss some of the finest scenery in South Wales, which, though not to be compared with the North, is yet beautiful; and if you choose the upper one you will miss the romance of Beaupré, and the very ancient memories of Llantwit Major, and you will, moreover, miss a good many miles of as fine a road as ever made an engine purr. There is only one way out of this dilemma, namely, to follow a zigzag course, from the sea to the hills, from the hills to the sea, and so enjoy the best of both roads.
To avoid the mines we must aim very low; at Cardiff or Caerphilly. And if we are approaching the Border from Monmouth or Hereford, or the Midlands, we shall probably, just before we reach the spreading outskirts of Newport, pass through a village with a great name. A dull, sleepy-looking village it is, standing in a commonplace landscape beside a very dirty stream, a place entirely without superficial attractions. But it is a name to conjure with. Caerleon-upon-Usk, the City of Legions! Once it “abounded in wealth above all other cities, ... and passing fair was the magnificence of the kingly palaces thereof.” The gilded roofs of the Romans glittered here beside the Usk, and the great amphitheatre that may still be traced once echoed to the shouts of the second legion: towers and temples, baths and aqueducts and splendid buildings stood where now a few poor houses keep alive the name of Caerleon. Round its shining palaces grew up a world of legend. We know all about the fine doings at Arthur’s coronation here: how he and Guinevere were crowned in different churches, and how the music in both was “so transporting” that the congregations ran to and fro between one church and the other all day; and how a banquet of great splendour followed, with Caius, the server, dressed in ermine, and Bedver, the butler, waiting with all kinds of cups, and hosts of noblemen handing the dishes; and how, after the feast, the soldiers got up a sham fight to amuse the ladies, who sat on the town walls and “darted amorous glances in a sportive manner.” And in the “Mabinogion” we are given a more domestic picture of King Arthur at Caerleon-upon-Usk: a picture of him in his palace dozing upon a seat of green rushes covered with flame-coloured satin, with a red satin cushion under his elbow, while Guinevere and her handmaidens sit at their needlework by the window, and a group of knights are drinking mead from a golden goblet. And at Caerleon, too, it was that Maxen Wledig, the truant Emperor of Rome, built one of three great castles for Helen, his wife. He had seen her first in a dream, and sought her by land and sea, and having found her he forgot his Empire and lived in Britain seven years. So they made them a new Emperor in Rome.
“And this one wrote a letter of threat to Maxen. There was nought in the letter but only this, ‘If thou comest, and if thou ever comest to Rome.’ And even unto Caerleon came this letter to Maxen, and these tidings. Then sent he a letter to the man who styled himself Emperor in Rome. There was nought in that letter also but only this, ‘If I come to Rome, and if I come.’”
So, through the Middle Ages, the memory of the great days of Caerleon was preserved in legend.
Long before we have finished dreaming of King Arthur and his red satin cushion the tram-lines of Newport force themselves upon our attention. Newport was so called, I believe, because it superseded Caerleon, the old port, of which Leland says: “Very great shyppes might wel cum now to the town, as they did in the Romaynes tyme, but that Newport Bridge is a lette.”
Before leaving Newport any one who is likely to be hungry soon will do well to secure a meal, for though Cardiff is not far away the ruins of Caerphilly take some time to see, and the little town cannot be depended upon for food. And we must on no account miss seeing Caerphilly; for this vast ruin covers more ground than any other in this island, and, moreover, has the special distinction of being a characteristically Edwardian castle of a date earlier than Edward’s. It was chiefly the work of Gilbert de Clare, the Red Earl of Gloucester, whose architect, unlike that great artist, Henry de Elfreton, thought little of beauty when he designed these mighty walls, but altogether of strength. “Waules of a wonderful thickness,” says Leland; and of a wonderful thickness they are, and of a wonderful tenacity too, seeing that one of the great bastions that were mined with gunpowder in the Civil War was only half ruined, and the other half has been leaning at a most surprising angle ever since. The history of the ruins is not at all in proportion to their size; and, indeed, it is possible that their size and strength may have acted as a deterrent to the makers of history. There is a story that Edward II. took refuge here with the Despensers; but even these unyielding walls failed to give any real sense of security to that poor spirit and at the first word of his enemies’ approach he hurried away, preferring to trust to disguise. He chose the inappropriate rôle of a farm labourer—this indolent, boudoir-King, who had never done a day’s work in his life—and he failed signally to please his master, who was as anxious to be rid of him as his subjects were. It was soon after this that he was captured and led away to the horrors of Berkeley Castle.
On the direct route from Caerphilly to Cardiff there rises such a precipitous hill that the longer way by Nantgarw is really the best; and unless Cardiff has some special attraction for us there is no need to thread our way through its modern streets and its maze of tram-lines. For the Cardiff of the Romans, and of the Welsh princes of Morganwg, and of the Norman barons, is altogether overpowered by the Cardiff of commerce; and though there is a fragment left of the castle that has sheltered so many crowned heads at various times, the castle in which poor blind Robert of Normandy was a prisoner for twenty-eight years, yet even this is modernised and closed to the public.
But in Llandaff, which is now practically a suburb of Cardiff, there are still signs of age: a picturesque green and restored cross, some pretty old houses, and the cathedral of the most ancient see in the island. For even when St. Teilo of the sixth century laid the foundation of the first cathedral the bishopric of Llandaff had been in existence for more than five hundred years. By the eleventh century Teilo’s cathedral was past repair; and when the “business of the Cross was publicly proclaimed” here it was in a new building that the Archbishop celebrated mass—the same building, more or less, that stands down there in that curious hollow to-day. More or less: for the restorations of this greatly chastened cathedral have been many, and it has narrowly escaped suffering even more terrible things at the hands of its well-wishers. Jasper Tudor’s beautiful and uncommon west tower, for instance, was once threatened by an eighteenth-century bishop, a versatile soul who wrote a successful “Treatise on the Modes.” He was evidently more capable of dealing with the modes than with ecclesiastical architecture, for we hear that he was seized with a longing to remove Jasper’s tower and replace it with a rustic porch.[10] For once the poverty of the see was a fortunate circumstance, and saved the tower. But no doubt that same poverty injured the building greatly on many occasions; for at one time the see was so cruelly robbed by the Crown that its brave and humorous bishop had himself presented to Henry VIII. as the Bishop of Aff. “I was the Bishop of Llandaff,” he explained, “but lately the land has been removed.”[11]
