[30] In reference to this apartment Horace Walpole, in a letter to the Rev. William Cole, dated 15th August, 1774, says:—“The room shewn for the murder of Edward II. and the shrieks of an agonising king, I verily believe to be genuine. It is a dismal chamber, almost at the top of the house, quite detached, and to be approached only by a kind of footbridge, and from that descends a large flight of steps, that terminate on strong gates—exactly a corps-de-garde.”
[31] “Hatfield, called Haethfeld, in the Saxon times, from its situation on a heath, was an ancient demesne of the Saxon kings, till it was granted by Edgar, in the tenth century, to the abbey at Ely, in Cambridgeshire. On the conversion of that foundation into a bishopric, in the reign of Henry I., it became attached to the new see; and the manor-house becoming a palace of the bishops, the town was thenceforth distinguished by the appellation of Bishops’ Hatfield. Queen Elizabeth, who had resided in the bishop’s palace some years before she came to the crown, greatly admired the situation; and by virtue of the statute which gave her the power of exchange, procured the alienation of this manor from the then bishop of Ely, Richard Cox. James I., in the third year of his reign, exchanged it for the house, manor, and park of Theobald’s, with his minister, Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury, whose descendant, the Marquis of Salisbury, is the present owner.”
Notwithstanding Elizabeth’s regard for Hatfield, we cannot learn that she often resided here after her accession to the throne.
[32] The lowest fortune of any gentleman in that noble corps is stated, by one of its members, to have been no less than 4000l. a-year in land; equal, probably, to 20,000l. a-year at the present time.
[33] Of this house—the house in which Oliver Cromwell was born—only the site remains; a modern mansion having been erected upon it, about thirty years ago, by a Mr. Rust, a banker of the town—upon whose memory let the anathema rest. A wall of a cellar, which formed part of the ancient dwelling, now alone exists. The chamber in which the Protector “first drew breath” was a sight to which visitors ran eagerly; and this, it would seem, so worried the soul of the rich banker, that he commanded its removal, and with it as far as possible every trace of a house to which tens of thousands would desire to make a pilgrimage. Mr. Rust obtained the house—and the site, to which it would seem he attached some value—so recently as the year 1810. Until then it was in the possession of a Mr. Audley, a draper, who used to show the room in which the Protector was born, “and sportively desire it might be noticed that the devil was behind the door,” alluding to a figure of Satan upon some old tapestry with which the walls were hung. The ancient fabric was built of stone, with gothic windows and projecting attics. The present dwelling is as ugly an example of modern building as could well be seen.
[34] That Sir Oliver impaired his paternal estates by entertaining James I. is very certain. It is probable that the king was a frequent visitor to the hospitable knight, inasmuch as Royston, his Majesty’s hunting seat, was in the neighbourhood. The king’s first visit, in 1603, on his progress to take possession of the English throne, was a costly one. “His Highnesse and his followers,” according to Stow, “with all comers, had such entertainment as was not the like in any place before; there was such plentie and varietis of meates and diversitie of wines, and the sellars open at any man’s pleasure.” It is stated, indeed, that Sir Oliver’s entertainment was “a greater feast than had ever been given to a king by a subject”—a fact to which his Majesty himself testified; for on parting from the brave old knight, he is reported to have addressed him, “Merry mon, thou hast treated me better than ony ane syn I left Edinbro.”
[35] The present master of the school is the Rev. Mr. Fell, an accomplished scholar, and an enlightened gentleman, by whom we were guided about the various objects of interest in and around the venerable Town, and whose courtesies and attentions it is our pleasant duty to acknowledge.
[36] Upon a similar occasion, it is related that he paid a visit to his godfather-uncle at Ramsay; the sturdy old Royalist was firm to the monarchy; and although his nephew treated him with so much respect as to decline wearing his hat in his presence, he seized all his plate for the public service, and afterwards compelled him to give forty saddle-horses, “by way of fine.” Subsequently, however, when the whole estates of Sir Oliver were sequestrated by the Parliament, the remnant was restored to him by the intervention of Oliver—“for whose sake the sequestration was taken off.” Notwithstanding, the aged knight died in extreme poverty, in 1655, at the age of 93, and, it is said, was buried by night, “to prevent the seizure of his body by his creditors.”
[37] Over the entrance porch of the church at Godmanchester is a fine example of that ancient religious emblem, the “lily-pot,” in which is placed the miraculous rod of Joseph; in allusion to the old Roman Catholic legend of his marriage with the Virgin. According to this miraculous tale, the Virgin, who had spent her life in the service of the Temple, was to be married to that man of the race of David who, upon coming to the Temple bearing in his hand a rod, should be divinely pointed out as her future husband, by the miraculous flowering of the dry stick he carried, when offered at the altar to the High Priest. Joseph’s rod put forth buds and flowers immediately it was offered, and this miracle was a favourite subject with the early Catholic painters. Raffaelle has left us a picture of this event, and Joseph is frequently represented by other artists holding the rod with its flowers in his hand. The lily-rod is also often placed in a pot in the windows of in-door “Holy Family” scenes, similar to that which is placed upon the apex of the door at Godmanchester, as delineated in our initial letter; and which is a curious and unusually perfect example.
[38] On each side of the gate, upon projecting pillars, stand statues of wild men, the size of life. Each holds a tree uprooted; they are represented as covered with shaggy hair, wearing long beards and mustachios, with no article of dress but a girdle round the waist. These “Wodehouses,” or “Green Men,” for they were known by both names in the olden time, were favourite characters with our ancestors—as well in this country, as on the Continent. Froissart relates a melancholy story of a masque of wild men, among whom was King Charles VI. of France, which was performed at a marriage in 1392, when four of the noble masquers were burnt to death, owing to the curiosity of the King’s brother, who approached too near them with a lighted torch, which set fire to their dresses, that were made of cloth, and covered with pitch, upon which flax was fastened, to imitate shaggy hair. They were very commonly displayed in court masques and public processions in England. When King Henry VIII. kept his Christmas at Greenwich in the fifth year of his reign, “a mount,” upon which sat the King and five others, was drawn into the great Hall by “five wodehouses,” dressed in skins, or rugs resembling skins, so as to appear like savages. When Queen Elizabeth visited Kenilworth Castle, she was addressed by the pert Gascoigne habited like a savage, covered with ivy, holding in one of his hands an oaken plant torn up by the roots. They were frequently used to clear the way in processions, when the clubs were filled with fireworks. When Anne Bullen was conveyed upon the water from Greenwich to London in 1533, “there went before the Lord Mayor’s barge,” says Hall, “a foyste (a barge or pinnace propelled by rowers) full of ordnance, in which foyste was a great red dragon, continually moving, and casting forth wildfire; and round about the said foyste stood terrible monsters and wilde men, casting of fire and making a hideous noise.” They were usually employed in land processions, and the danger of too near an approach to them is alluded to by one of the characters in Wilson’s play, called “The Cobler’s Prophesy,” 1594, who exclaims, “Comes there a pageant by? I’ll stand out of the green man’s way, for fear of burning my vestment.” They were constant precursors of the annual pageants exhibited on Lord Mayor’s Day in London; in the Mayoralty procession of 1681, a body of twenty preceded the principal device. As a part of ancient public state and magnificence, the wild men of Hinchinbrook are most appropriately placed to watch and ward the principal gate.