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SHREWSBURY, 10 miles from Wellington, is, in more respects than one, an interesting town, situated partly on a precipitous peninsula formed by the swift clear waters of the Severn, united to the opposite side by bridges, in one of which the huge undershot waterwheels of a corn mill are for ever turning. A stranger without letters of introduction, condemned to spend a few hours here with nothing to do, may easily pass the time pleasantly in hunting out picturesque bits of river scenery, or even in chucking pebbles into the stream, instead of drinking sherry negus he does not want, or poking about the dull streets of a modern town, while all the respectable inhabitants are lost in wonder “who that strange man in the white hat is.” The manufactures of Shrewsbury are not very important; thread, linen, and canvas, and iron-works in the neighbouring suburb of Coleham; a considerable and ancient trade is carried on in Welsh flannel and cloths from the neighbouring counties of Denbigh, Montgomery, and Merioneth, and markets and fairs are held for the benefit of the rich agricultural district around, in which, besides fine butter, cheese, poultry, and live stock, a large assemblage of the blooming, rosy, broad-built Shropshire lasses show the advantage of a mixture of Welsh and English blood.
But Shrewsbury is most famous for its school, its cakes, its ale, and the clock mentioned by Falstaff, for which on our last visit we found an ingenuous Frenchman industriously searching.
The royal free grammar school, endowed by Edward VI., was raised, by the educational talents of the late Dr. Butler, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to a very high position among our public schools; a position which has been fully maintained by the present master, Dr. Kennedy.
As for the cakes and ale, they must be tasted to be appreciated, but not at the same time.
In the history of England and Wales, Shrewsbury plays an important part.
It is supposed that the town was founded by the Britons of the kingdom of Powis, while they were yet struggling with the Saxons, or rather the Angles, for the midland counties, and, it is probable, was founded by them when they found Uttoxeter (the Uriconiam of the Romans), no longer tenable. On the conquest of the town by the Anglo-Saxons it received the name of Scrobbes-byrig; that is to say Scrub-burgh, or a town in a scrubby or bushy district, and, in the Saxon Chronicle, Scrobbesbyrig-scire is mentioned, now corrupted or polished into Shropshire. Ethelfleda, whose name we have so often had occasion to mention as the builder of castles and churches, founded the collegiate church of St. Alkmund; and Athelstan established a mint here. It is evident that the “Athelstan the Unready,” mentioned in Ivanhoe, must have very much degenerated from the ancestor who established a mint for ready money.
According to Domesday-Book, Shrewsbury had, in Edward the Confessor’s time, two hundred and fifty-two houses, with a resident burgess in each house, and five churches. It was included in the Earldom of Shrewsbury, granted by William the Conqueror to his kinsman, Roger de Montgomery, who erected a castle on the entrance of the peninsula on which the town now stands, pulling down fifty houses for that purpose. In the wars between Stephen and the Empress Maude, the Castle was taken and retaken; and in the reign of John the town was taken by the Welsh under Llewellyn the Great, who had joined the insurgent Barons in 1215; and again attacked and the suburbs burned by the Welsh in 1234. Shrewsbury was again taken by Simon de Montfort and his ally, Llewellyn, grandson of Llewellyn the Great, in 1266, the year before de Montfort fell on the field of Evesham. And here, in 1283, David, the last Prince of Wales, was tried, condemned, and executed as a traitor. Here, too, in 1397, in the reign of Richard II., a Parliament was held, at which the Earl of Hereford (afterwards Henry IV.) charged the Duke of Norfolk with treason. The charge was to have been decided by a trial of battle at Coventry. On the appointed morning, “Hereford came forth armed at all points, mounted on a white courser, barded with blue and green velvet, gorgeously embroidered with swans and antelopes of goldsmiths’ work. The Duke of Norfolk rode a horse barded with crimson velvet, embroidered with lines of silver and mulberries.”
At that time it took more days to travel from Shrewsbury to Coventry than it now does hours. The cloth of gold was as splendidly, perhaps more splendidly, embroidered than anything we can do now; but in the matter of shirts, shoes, stockings, and the clothing necessary for health and comfort, and of windows and chimneys, and matters necessary for air and shelter, mechanics and day labourers are better provided than the squires and pages of those great noblemen. Five years after, the Harry of Hereford having become Henry IV. of England, assembled an army at Shrewsbury to march against Owen Glendower, and the following year he fought the battle of Shrewsbury against Hotspur, and his ally the Douglas, which forms the subject of a scene in Shakspeare’s play of Henry IV. At that battle Percy Hotspur marched from Stafford toward Shrewsbury, hoping to reach it before the King, and by being able to command the passage of the Severn to communicate with his ally Glendower; but Henry, who came from Lichfield, arrived there first, on the 19th July, 1403. The battle was fought the next day at Hateley Field, about three miles from the town.
In the Wars of the Roses Shrewsbury was Yorkist. In the great Civil War Charles I. came to Shrewsbury, there received liberal contributions, in money and plate, from the neighbouring gentry, and largely recruited his forces; and in the course of the war the town was taken and retaken more than once. Thus it will be seen that Shrewsbury is connected with many important events in English history.