Memorials of Old Dorset

by Unknown

Shaftesbury.

Left high and dry upon its hill-top it can watch the trailing steam of the locomotives in the deep valley to the north as they hurry by, taking no heed of the once royal burgh, the chief mint of Dorset in the days of the West Saxon Kings, the burial-place of murdered Eadward, and of Eadmund’s wife, Ealdgyth or Elgefu, the site of the nunnery founded by Ælfred, and ruled at first by his “midmost daughter” Æthelgede or Æthelgeofu. And yet this town has a real history that can be traced back for more than 1,000 years, and a legendary one that carries us back well-nigh to the days of King Solomon, for we read in a British Brut or chronicle: “After Lleon came Rhun of the Stout Spear, his son, and he built the Castle of Mount Paladr, which is now called Caer Sefton, and there while he was building this stronghold there was an Eryr that gave some prophecies about this island.” In Powell’s History of Cambria it is said:

... Concerning the word of Eryr at the building of Caer Septon on Mt. Paladour in the year after the creation of the world 3048 some think that an eagle did then speak and prophesie; others are of opinion that it was a Brytaine named Aquila (Eryr in British) that prophesied of these things and of the recoverie of the whole ile again by the Brytaines.[56]

The Brut quoted was evidently written after Dorset was occupied by the Saxons, because it says that the town was called Septon (a form of Shafton), and implies that it was not so called when Rhun built it. It is pretty certain that Caer Paladr was the Celtic name, and that the Saxon name Sceaftesbyrig is a translation of it, the modern form of which is Shaftesbury. If it was called after the name of the King who built it, it was after part of his surname Baladr or Paladr (spear), Bras (stout). Others think the spear or shaft was suggested by the long straight hill on the point of which the town was built. At a later date the name was contracted into Shaston, but this has become nearly obsolete, save in municipal and other formal documents, where the various parishes are called Shaston St. Peter’s, Shaston St. James’, etc. The name also appears on the milestones, and the inhabitants of the town are called Shastonians. No doubt the Romans captured this Celtic hill-stronghold, and as proof of this, the finding of some Roman coins has been alleged; but no written record of this period has come down to us. The real history begins in Saxon times. Ælfred came to the West Saxon throne in 871, and in 888 he founded a Benedictine Nunnery at Shaftesbury, setting over it his “medemesta-dehter” as first Abbess. This we learn from Asser, Ælfred’s friend, who tells us that he built the Abbey near the eastern gate of the town. This shows that by this time Shaftesbury was a walled town. An inscription on a stone in the Abbey Chapterhouse, so William of Malmesbury tells us, recorded the fact that the town was built by Ælfred in 880, by which he probably means rebuilt after its partial or complete destruction by the Danes.

Shaftesbury was counted as one of the four royal boroughs of Dorset (Wareham, Dorchester, and Bridport being the other three), and at the time of the Norman Conquest it was the largest of the four. Æthelstan granted the town the right of coining, and several scores of pennies struck here in his reign were found in excavating a mediæval house near the Forum in 1884-5. In the reign of Eadward the Confessor three coiners lived in the town, each paying 13s. 4d. annually to the Crown, and a fine of £1 on the introduction of a new coinage. The names, Gold Hill and Coppice (that is, Copper) Street Lane, still speak of the old mints of Shaftesbury.

On March 18th, 978, as everyone knows, King Eadward was treacherously slain at the house of, and by the order of, his stepmother. The body of the murdered King was dragged some distance by his horse, and when found was buried without any kingly honour at Wareham. On February 20th, 980, Ælfere, Eadward’s ealdorman, removed the body with all due state from Wareham to Shaftesbury, and here it was buried, somewhere in the Abbey Church. Doubtless the reason why Shaftesbury was chosen as the place of his burial was because he was of Ælfred’s kin, and this religious house had been founded by Ælfred.

Miracles soon began to be worked at his tomb. He appeared, so it was said, to a lame woman who lived at some distant spot, and bade her go to his grave at Shaftesbury, promising that if she went she should be healed of her infirmity. She obeyed his injunction, and received the due reward for her faith. The grave in which the King was laid did not, however, please him as a permanent resting-place. First he indicated his dissatisfaction by raising the tomb bodily, and then when this did not lead to an immediate translation of his relics, he appeared in visions and intimated his desire to have a fresh grave. This was about twenty-one years after his burial in the Abbey. The grave was opened, and, as was usual in such cases, a sweet fragrance from it pervaded the church. His body was then laid in the new tomb in a chapel specially dedicated to him. Possibly this chapel stood over the crypt on the north side of the north choir aisle. The day of his death, March 18th, and the days of the two translations of his relics, February 20th and June 20th, were kept in honour of the King, who, for what reason we cannot tell, was regarded as a saint and martyr. His fame spread far and wide, and brought many pilgrims and no small gain to the Abbey. At one time the town was in danger of losing its old name, Shaftesbury, and being called Eadwardstowe, but in course of time the new name died out and the old name was revived. Pilgrims were numerous, and possibly sometimes passed the whole night in the church. In order to make a thorough cleansing of the floor after their visits more easy, a slight slope towards the west was given to the choir pavement, so that it might be well swilled. A similar arrangement may be seen in other churches.

At Shaftesbury, too, was Eadmund Ironside’s wife buried; and on November 12th, 1035, Knut the Dane died at Shaftesbury, but was not buried in the Abbey, his body being carried to the royal city of Winchester and laid to rest within the Cathedral Church there. Up to the time of the Conquest the Abbesses bore English names; after that time the names of their successors show that Shaftesbury Abbey formed no exception to the rule that all the most valuable church preferments were bestowed on those of Norman and French birth. Through every change of dynasty the Abbey of Shaftesbury continued to flourish, growing continually richer, and adding field to field, until it was said that if the Abbot of Somerset Glaston could marry the Abbess of Dorset Shaston they would together own more land than the King himself. The Abbess held a barony, and ranked with the mitred Abbots, who had the privilege of sitting in Parliament, and it was said that her rank rendered her subject to be summoned by the King, but that she was excused from serving on account of her sex. At last the time came for the Abbey to be dissolved. More prudent than Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury—who refused to surrender and was hanged on St. Michael’s Hill, overlooking his wide domains—Elizabeth Zouche, the last Abbess of Shaftesbury, gave up to Henry VIII., on March 23rd, 1539, the Abbey with all its property, valued at £1,329 per annum, and received in lieu thereof the handsome pension of £133 a year for her own use. At this time there were fifty-four nuns within its walls, each of whom received a pension varying from £7 down to £3 6s. 8d.; the total amount given in pensions was £431.

From the day of the Dissolution the glory of Shaftesbury began to pass away. In an incredibly short space of time the Abbey was demolished, and when Leland visited the place a few years later the church had entirely disappeared. There was much litigation between the town and those to whom the Abbey lands had been granted—the Earl of Southampton and Sir Thomas Arundel—and this dispute continued for fifty years, greatly impoverishing the town.

Shaftesbury received its first municipal charter in the second year of James I.; a second charter was granted in 1666 by Charles II. From that time Shaftesbury led an uneventful life, broken at times by the excitement of contested elections, which were fought with great bitterness, and the consumption of much beer and the giving of much gold. The town was originally represented by two members; the two first of these sat in the Parliament of the twenty-fifth year of Edward I. At the time of the Reform Bill of 1832 it lost one member, and in 1885 it ceased to be a Parliamentary Borough, and was merged in the Northern Division of Dorset. At the election of 1880 a singular incident took place, which will show how high party feeling ran in the ancient borough. The candidate who had represented the constituency in the previous Parliament was defeated, and after the declaration of the poll, about nine o’clock in the evening, his disappointed partizans indulged in such violent and riotous conduct that the successful candidate and his friends could not leave the room in the Town Hall where the votes had been counted. Stones were thrown at the windows, some of the police were injured, but the besieged barricaded the doors of the building, closed the shutters, and waited with patience, while the angry mob outside, for the space of four or five hours, yelled like wild beasts disappointed of their prey. At last, finding that they could not effect an entrance and make a fresh vacancy in the constituency by killing the new member, the crowd began to drop off one by one, and by two o’clock in the morning the siege was practically raised, and the imprisoned member and his friends were able to get out and reach their hotel unmolested. Some of the rioters were tried, but evidence sufficiently clear to identify the men who had wounded the police was not to be obtained, and the accused were acquitted. This was the last time Shaftesbury was called on to elect a member; and as the town stands quite on the borders of the new district of North Dorset, the poll is not now declared from the Town Hall window at Shaftesbury, but at Sturminster Newton, a town more centrally situated.