His town has other memories than his, and even other famous windows than “Harry’s.” There is a fine oriel window, belonging now to a school, but carefully preserved in honour of a twelfth-century archdeacon, who was none other than that Geoffrey of Monmouth whom Camden describes as “an Author well skill’d in Antiquities, but, as it seems, not of entire credit.” I fear there is little to be said in defence of Geoffrey’s credit as a historian, and there are those who say that his window is no more authentic than his writings.
Monmouth, like Hereford, is not rich in relics. Of its defences, its walls and its four gates, there is left only one gate on the Monnow Bridge, but of this the foundations are so old that there is no record of their origin. The form of the gateway itself has been slightly altered from time to time to suit increasing traffic, but its picturesqueness is uninjured. Through its arch we must pass on our way to Raglan and Abergavenny and Llanthony.
It is possible, of course, to see all these places on the same day, but it is not desirable. At Raglan one should have a leisured mind, undisturbed by thoughts of space or time or possible punctures. There are seats on its green terraces where one might sit happily all day under the shadow of the Yellow Tower of Gwent, seeing, not only the straight, stern lines of the great citadel rising from the moat, and the beautiful windows beyond, and the machicolated towers that flank the entrance, but also, as clearly as these, the pageantry and doughty deeds of long-dead but unforgotten Somersets. Some of them lost their heads in defence of the Rose of York, and some lost theirs for the Rose of Lancaster, and one, the most famous of all, lost the home of his fathers in the cause of the thankless Stuarts. Charles I. himself—for whose sake all this splendour of banqueting-halls and state-rooms and strong defences was made a ruin—has stood upon this terrace and looked up at the great keep to which he was so fatal, has feasted in the Elizabethan Hall, has ridden between the entrance-towers in state, and has come to them for safety as a fugitive. It was after the Battle of Naseby that he fled for protection to the house whose hospitalities he knew so well, and whose owner, the first Marquis of Worcester, had raised an army of two thousand men to fight for the King. Somewhere, in some dark corner within those walls that were then so stately, Lord Worcester met his ruined King by stealth, and being aged and infirm was obliged to call for help before he could kneel, as it behoved him, before the fugitive. “Sire,” said the old man weeping, “I have not a thought in my heart that tends not to the service of my God and you;” and he put three hundred pounds into the royal hand that took so much and gave so little. It closed upon this gift, as it closed a few days later upon the waistcoat that the Vicar of Goodrich, Dean Swift’s grandfather, had lined with Broad Pieces. There was one occasion, it is true, when Charles feared his entertainment might be too costly to Lord Worcester, and suggested pleasantly that supplies should be wrung from the neighbouring peasants. But Worcester was prouder than the King, “My castle would not stand long,” he said, “if it leaned upon the country.”
MONNOW BRIDGE, MONMOUTH.
RAGLAN CASTLE, ENTRANCE TOWER.
Even as matters were, his castle did not stand long. It held for the King till the last barrel of powder was opened; but the sad day came when the gallant old man of eighty-five passed for the last time through his own great gateway, between those warlike towers that had fought their last fight. He marched out to the sound of music and with all the honours of war, but his heart was broken, and after a short imprisonment in the custody of Black Rod, he died. “When I spoke with the man,” he said of his guardian, “I found him a very civil gentleman, but I saw no black rod.”
With this splendid old warrior the glory of Raglan departed. Fairfax so dealt with it that neither blood nor wine should ever be spilt within its walls again; and the work begun by him was finished by private enterprise. It is said that twenty-three staircases have been stolen from the ruins of Raglan.
About eight miles beyond Raglan is Abergavenny, lying peacefully—forgetful of its lurid past—in the shadow of the Holy Mountain. There is about Abergavenny now a peculiar serenity that is only equalled by the darkness of its history. Not very much is left of the Castle, of which Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, said that “it was more dishonoured by treachery than any other in Wales”; and what there is of it is dishonoured now by swing-boats and asphalt lawn-tennis courts. If these attractions appeal to us we may enter the walls by paying twopence; but in the twelfth century the Seisyllts—the ancestors of the Cecils—found that entering Abergavenny Castle cost them more than this. One of them, in the absence of the Norman lord of the place, was having a friendly chat one day with the constable. There was a part of the wall that was in some way weaker than the rest, and Seisyllt, pointing laughingly to this spot, said in the manner of one who jests, “We shall come in there to-night.” The constable took the precaution of keeping guard till daylight, then went to sleep. A few hours later he and his wife were prisoners and the castle was captured and burnt.