BISHAM ABBEY.
Hurley comes next, with its islands and locks, interrupting the even tenor of the river, with Harleyford House, backed by sloping woods, on the opposite shore. Hurley is another old-world place, for it too carries back its history to the days of the Conqueror, when a convent was founded here. A former writer on the Thames makes this a text for some sarcastic remarks:—“The fascinating scenery of this neighbourhood has peculiarly attracted the notice of the clergy of former periods, who, in spite of the thorny and crooked ways which they have asserted to be the surest road to heaven, have been careful to select some flowery paths for their own private journeyings thither; among which ranks Hurley, or Lady Place, formerly a monastery.” This was founded by Geoffry de Mandeville, a comrade of William the Norman on the field of Hastings, to whom fell a share of the plunder of England. Parts of the church belong to that which he erected, and within its walls Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor, was buried. A group of farm buildings still incorporates portions of the ancient monastery, the chief one being the refectory. But the house called Lady Place, which once occupied another part, has a more important position in history than ever belonged to the
Benedictine convent, which, perhaps, was somewhat thrown into the shade by its annexation to the great Abbey of Westminster. After the Dissolution the site of the monastery of Hurley was purchased from the family to which it had first been granted by Richard Lovelace, who had been a companion of Drake on one of his expeditions. He built a fine house “out of the spoils of Spanish galleons from the Indies,” and this, in the year 1688, was the property of his descendant Richard, Lord Lovelace. “Beneath the stately saloon, adorned by Italian pencils, was a subterranean vault, in which the bones of ancient monks had sometimes been found. In this dark chamber some zealous and daring opponents of the Government held many midnight conferences during that anxious time when England was impatiently expecting the Protestant wind.”[4] In acknowledgment of this the house was afterwards visited by William III. The Lovelace title became extinct in the year 1736, and Lady Place passed into other hands. The purchaser was “Mrs. Williams, sister to Dr. Wilcox, who was Bishop of Rochester about the middle of the last century. This lady was enabled to make the purchase by a very remarkable instance of good fortune. She had bought two tickets in one lottery, both of which became prizes, the one of £500, the other of £20,000.” The last person to live at Lady Place was a brother of Admiral Kempenfelt. Concerning him a curious story is told in Murray’s Handbook. The brothers had each planted a thorn-tree, in which the owner of Lady Place took great pride. “One day, on coming home, he found that the tree planted by the Admiral had withered away, and said, ‘I feel sure that this is an omen that my brother is dead.’ That evening came the news of the loss of the Royal George.” The house, which contained a fine inlaid staircase and a grand saloon, its panels “painted with upright landscapes, the leafings of which are executed with a kind of silver lacker,” was pulled down and the more valuable part sold in the year 1839; but grass-grown mounds mark the site of the historic vaults; and the old cedars and other fine trees in the enclosed meadows are memorials of its former splendour.
BISHAM CHURCH.
Bisham comes next, a spot of rare attractions. Between the wooded hills and the river there is a broad and fertile strath, the very place on which, in ancient times, monks “most did congregate.” Accordingly they soon got hold of a goodly estate at Bisham, and that grey old manor-house standing among groves of stately trees some little distance from the Thames marks the site, first of a house of the Templars, then of an Augustinian Priory. The latter had about two centuries of tranquil existence, for it was founded in the year 1338, by William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. The last prior submitted to the change, adopted the tenets of the Reformers, and became Bishop of St. Davids. Moreover, he took to himself a wife, who bore him five daughters, each one of whom had a bishop for her husband. His memory is not held in great honour in the annals of St. Davids, for he cared more for money than for the good of the see. After Bisham passed into the hands of secular owners it becomes better known to history. Henry VIII. made a present of it to his discarded spouse, Anne of Cleves, and she, by royal permission, exchanged it with Sir Philip Hoby for a manor in Kent. He was the last Englishman who was legate to the Pope at Rome, and, like many others of his nation, never left the place alive. His brother, Sir Thomas, who succeeded to the estate, was ambassador to France, and he also died abroad. In Queen Mary’s time the Princess Elizabeth was committed to his charge, and she spent a considerable time within the walls of Bisham. What she thought of the place and of her keeper may be inferred from a graceful compliment which she paid him on his first appearance at court after her accession. “If I had a prisoner whom I wanted to be most carefully watched, I should intrust him to your charge; if I had a prisoner whom I wished to be most tenderly treated, I should intrust him to your care.”
The house, which now belongs to the VanSittart family, is a picturesque old structure of grey stone, with pointed gables, mullioned windows, and a low tower; portions of it, for instance, the tower and the hall—once part of the convent chapel—are remnants of Montacute’s abbey; but the larger portion of the building is later than the date of the suppression of the religious orders, most of it being late Tudor work, due to the Hoby family. Bisham is said to have its ghost. Lady Hoby, wife of Sir William, “walks” in one of the bedrooms, appearing as the duplicate, in opposite tints, of a portrait which hangs in the hall, and engaged in “washing her hands with invisible soap in imperceptible water,” in a basin which, self-supported, moves on before her. This is the cause which disturbs her rest: “She had a child William, who, being a careless or clumsy urchin, kept always blotting his copy-book; so the mother did not spare the rod, and spoiled the child in a physical sense, for she whipped Master William till he died.” The author of “Murray’s Guide-Book to Berkshire” states, as a curious coincidence, if not a corroboration of the story, that on altering the shutter of a window “a quantity of children’s copy-books of the reign of Elizabeth were discovered pushed into the rubble between the joists of the floor, and that one of these was a copy-book which answered exactly to the story, as if the child could not write a single line without a blot.” Bisham has also its secret chamber, an indication that it was built when political struggles had their real perils.