BIT OF THE ROMAN WALL AT CAERLEON (p. [155]).
“Hard and hye” the mountains do rise and tower above the luxurious valley of “pastor grounds.” Not so long ago all the streets of Abergavenny were narrow and crooked, but of late years there has been a great display of public enterprise. Whether the changes that have been effected are to be regarded as improvements is questionable; for with the widening of the thoroughfares and the building of a new town hall and markets, and so forth, the individuality of a town is apt to disappear; but the residents may be pardoned for thinking themselves to be much better off than were their forefathers. To be sure, the town has scanty remains of a castle rising from a tree-clad hill to overlook the houses and the river. Part of the castle area is covered with houses, and another part has been converted into public gardens. The associations of the fortress are none of the noblest, for historians tell us that “it was dishonoured by treason oftener than any other castle in Wales.” It seems to have been the practice of the Norman lords of Abergavenny Castle to invite neighbouring Welsh chiefs to feasts within the walls of the stronghold, and then treacherously murder them. Wood tells of one of the most dastardly of these deeds. “Soon after the murder of Trahaern Vechan, at Slansavaddon lake, by William de Braose (lord of Abergavenny Castle), the Welsh, inflamed with resentment and revenge, commanded by Sitsylt ap Dyfnwald and other Welsh chieftains, surprised the Castle of Abergavenny, and took the whole garrison prisoners. William de Braose recovered his castle by composition; and after the reconciliation of the Welsh lords to King Henry, A.D. 1175, he invited Sitsylt, his son Geofrey, and other men of note to a feast, under pretence of congratulation upon the late peace; when, contriving cause for dispute, he called upon his men, who were ready for that purpose, and most treacherously murdered the unsuspicious and unarmed Welsh; then proceeded to Sitsylt’s house, slew his son Cadwallader in his mother’s presence, and, setting fire to the house, carried her away to his castle.”
Once upon a time Abergavenny was noted for flannels, but this industry has been wrested from it by more enterprising competitors, while the manufacture of wigs, for which it was once noted, has succumbed to change of fashion. St. Mary’s Church, a fine fourteenth-century church, occupying the site of a Norman church which was attached to a Benedictine priory, contains many ancient monuments, amongst others that of Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook, who, together with his brother, was beheaded, after the Battle of Banbury, in 1469; and in the Herbert chapel is “a Jesse tree,” of which Murray’s “Handbook” says that it is “perhaps one of the most perfect extant.”
Leaving this lovely town, the Usk makes more directly for the sea. A few miles away to the east, in the valley of one of its tributaries, are the ruins of Raglan Castle, standing on a richly-wooded eminence not far from the village of the same name. It was begun not earlier than the reign of Henry V., and apparently not finished until the time of Charles I.; and so strong was it that it had the distinction of being one of the last fortresses in the kingdom to surrender to Cromwell’s men. It would be interesting to recall the story of the siege which it endured, and to describe the lovely remains of it; but it lies too far out of our course, and we must return to our river and follow it through the pretty scenery it traverses to the town to which it has lent its name. In days long gone by, Usk had to bear many a sore blow from Owen Glendower, but now it has no more alarming invaders than the placid, contemplative wielders of the rod—for here the Usk is famous for its salmon and its trout. Standing upon a tongue of land formed by the confluence of the Olwey with the main stream, Usk has been identified with a Roman station; and though the evidences are external rather than internal, the theory has been almost universally accepted of antiquaries. Of its castle, occupying a commanding site near the river, and still retaining its outer walls in very fair preservation, with the gateway, towers, and keep, the precise origin is not known; but in the reign of Henry III. it was in the hands of Robert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. From this family it passed to the Mortimers, Earls of March, and in the reign of Henry VI. was granted to Richard, Duke of York, as nephew of the last of the Mortimers. It became a favourite residence of this personage, and is believed to have been the birthplace of Edward IV. and other princes. Of the scathe which Owen Glendower had wrought at Usk we have already spoken, but it remains to add that the citizens were at last avenged, for here he sustained a crashing defeat and had to flee to the mountains.
Flowing beneath the ancient stone bridge shown in our view (page [156]), the river passes on, through scenery that is never less than pleasant, to Caerleon, prettily placed on the right bank; and here the Usk takes toll of the Afon. Caerleon is one of the most interesting spots in all this part of Wales. Here was quartered the second Augustan legion, and this was the principal Roman town in the country of the Silures. In those days it must have been a place of great magnificence and refinement as well as of war, for Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in the twelfth century, tells of the remains of splendid palaces, baths, theatres, and other public buildings; and though these have all vanished, an abundance of Roman relics has been unearthed, which are treasured in a museum that has been built by an antiquarian society; and bits of the wall are still to be seen in situ. But the legendary associations of Caerleon are even more memorable than its history; for here it was, according to one version of the Arthurian myth, that the British prince, when, after the withdrawal of the legions, the land was laid waste by the “heathen hosts” and by the warfare of the native princes—
“Thro’ the puissance of his Table Round
Drew all their petty princedoms under him,
Their king and head, and made a realm and reigned.”