ENTRANCE TOWER, PEMBROKE CASTLE.
PEMBROKE COAST.
There was a memorable siege of Pembroke in the Civil War—memorable not only because of its importance, but because the leaders of the Royalist garrison were renegade Roundheads. Cromwell’s guns were lying useless in the sand, for the ship that carried them had run aground; but undismayed he determined to starve the garrison out. “Here is a very desperate enemy,” he wrote to Fairfax, “who being put out of all hope of mercy, are resolved to endure to the uttermost extremity, being very many of them gentlemen of quality and thoroughly resolved.” They yielded at last, and “Drunken Colonel Payer,” as Carlyle calls the renegade, “full of brandy and Presbyterian texts of Scripture,” being indeed out of all hope of mercy, was shot at Covent Garden. Beyond hope of mercy, too, was the traitor who, by betraying the source of the castle’s water-supply to Cromwell, was the cause of the surrender. Cromwell, with characteristic promptitude, cut the drain-pipes and hanged his informant on the spot; and not many years ago some workmen found the broken pipes, and close beside them some human bones.
About eight miles beyond Pembroke are the Stack Rocks. The road is hilly and the gates across it are exasperatingly numerous; but these are but small discomforts, and the reward is very great. It is almost suddenly that one finds oneself on the very edge of the stupendous cliffs that form the southern coast of Pembrokeshire—an edge that is almost mathematically a right angle, so sheer is the drop, so level is the plateau above. This stern, impregnable coast has the impressiveness that extreme simplicity on a large scale always has: it has the directness of Early Norman architecture. There is not an unnecessary line, so to speak, not the least attempt at ornament; and the effect is to take away one’s breath. A few yards from the cliff are the great pillars known as the Stack Rocks, obviously separated from the mainland by the patient efforts of the sea and air—examples of the survival of the fittest. Their tall, gaunt outlines, and the sea-gulls that circle round them, add much to this strange scene; but our real reward for opening all those gates lies, not in the actual Stack Rocks themselves, but in the long curves of the coast-line, the massive cliffs, the green, transparent sea that swirls about their base.
It is necessary to pass through Pembroke on the return journey, but we must leave it by the Carmarthen road, since to reach Haverfordwest we have to avoid all the long ramifications of Milford Haven. Soon we turn sharply to the left and enter the tiny village of Carew, where, close beside the roadway, stands one of the finest Celtic crosses in Wales, richly carved with one of those interlaced designs that the Welsh in very early days copied from the Irish. And not very far away is another of those splendid castles that were, to a Norman baron in Wales, among the bare necessities of life—the half Norman, half Tudor castle of Carew, or Caer-wy (the Fort on the Water), whence the pronunciation Carey. The east front, the entrance-gate and bastions are, I believe, the work of Gerard de Windsor, constable of Pembroke, and are plainly Edwardian in character; but the north front, with its famous mullioned windows, was added by Sir Rhys ap Thomas, the energetic supporter of Henry VII., whose tomb we saw at Carmarthen; while the eastern side, with the great banqueting-hall and the lovely arch that leads to it, was contributed by Sir John Perrot, of Elizabethan days. This Sir John Perrot was one of the worst of the Irish Lords Deputy, but it was not on this account, very certainly, that he was suddenly called away from his building operations at Carew and bestowed in the Tower of London. The builders, delivered from his vigilant eye, did their work so perfunctorily that it is now in a more dilapidated condition than the sturdy defences of the Norman part of the castle.[12] But perhaps the old splendour of Carew is represented and recalled best of all by the beautiful rooms on the northern side, whose thresholds have been trodden by so many mailed feet, so many dainty silken shoes; for the hospitalities of Carew, at all events in the days of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, were carried out on a large scale. Henry of Richmond, not yet Henry of England, was entertained here on his way to Bosworth, and mounted the stairs to the room that displays his arms upon a shield, only a little time before he mounted the steps of the throne. This last event was celebrated here in a magnificent pageant, a medley of feasts and tournaments and sermons, at which a thousand guests filled these weed-grown rooms with all the glitter and colour of an age that loved fine clothes. Sir Rhys himself figured on the occasion in “a fine gilt armour,” and was attended by “two hundred tall men in blewe coats.” The banqueting-hall on the east side was not then in existence, but there was nevertheless “a goodlie spaciouse roome richlie hanged with clothe of arras and tapestrie” in which “the bettermost sort” were entertained, a cross table being laid at one end for the King who was so many miles away. And yet, in spite of these rash distinctions among the guests, we are assured by the chronicler that “one thing is noteworthy, that for the space of five dayes among a thousand people there was not one quarrell, crosse word, or unkind looke that happened betweene them.” It seems almost unnecessary that the bishop, before they parted, should have “bestowed a sermon upon them.”
Fifteen miles of a hilly road lie between Carew and Haverfordwest, a town that was important enough in Edward IV.’s day to be made a separate county. It was the chief town and stronghold of the Flemish colony, and the dominating position of the castle bears witness to its former usefulness; while its present mission as a gaol does nothing to detract from its grim appearance.
It was outside the embattled walls of Haverfordwest that Glyndwr first met his French allies, who had landed in Milford Haven from their hundred and forty ships. There were four or five thousand of them, very gay in their apparel, very rich in their accoutrements, and here before the hill of Haverfordwest they must have been an encouraging sight for a man whose luck was beginning to turn. But this stern castle withstood them, none the less, and though they burnt the town, they were obliged to retire. In the Civil War the Royalist garrison adopted a simple plan for saving themselves from the discomforts of a siege. Hearing that the enemy was approaching, it seemed to them that the best way to avoid unpleasantness would be to leave the place vacant, which they did with all possible despatch.
