Troy House.—This name—which the King was so much pleased to use as a classical synonyme, in his acknowledgment of the fruits which it had furnished for the royal table while at Raglan—is so called from its situation on the river Trothy. The village of Mitchell Troy, about a mile and a half from Monmouth, contains a church dedicated to St. Michael; but the chief object to which the tourist’s eye is directed is the baronial mansion above-named. The house, which was already in high repute at the time of the King’s visit to Raglan, was built by Inigo Jones, who, in the suite of Christian IV. of Denmark, came back to England in 1606. In consequence of the patronage of James the First—and more particularly of his Queen—he was induced to settle in the metropolis; and hence originated the sacred, regal, and aristocratic edifices which bear his name. He was consequently appointed one of the commissioners for repairing St. Paul’s Cathedral; but this was not commenced until the spring of 1623. In the following reign he was much employed in preparing Masques for the entertainment of the court, and in building the Banqueting-house at Whitehall; but while thus engaged, he fell under the displeasure of Ben Jonson, who ridiculed him on the stage, and made him the subject of his epigrammatic muse. Jones realized a handsome fortune; but being a Roman Catholic, and a partisan of royalty, he suffered severely in the Civil War. At length, worn out with sorrow and physical sufferings, he died in July, 1652, leaving behind him many monuments of his genius, of which the subject under notice was not the least considerable.[308]
The fame of Troy House, however, depends less on the fact of its being the work of Inigo Jones, than upon the celebrity of its gardens—the fruits of which are still said to vie with those of tropical growth.[309] The excellence of these fruits, as already noticed, caused the King to remark, “That the Sovereign of the Planets had now changed the poles; and that Wales, the outcast of England’s fine gardens, had fairer and riper fruits than England’s valleys had in all her beds.” Sir Charles Somerset, sixth son of the fourth Earl of Worcester, married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir William Powel of Troy and Llanpylt, and added the influence of a considerable estate to that of the house of Worcester. It was from his gardens that the dessert for the royal table at Raglan was supplied.
In the picture gallery of Troy House is a large and beautiful portrait of the first Marquess of Worcester, by Sir Peter Lely. He is represented in an open field, seated before a tent, with the Marchioness and an infant daughter by her side, and wears a fancy dress, with a scarf over his right shoulder—the ribbon and badge of the Garter. The other portraits are those of the Ducal house of Beaufort, since its creation in 1682.
The situation of this hereditary mansion is too low to produce a striking feature in the landscape; but it commands very agreeable views of the town of Monmouth and its environs—with the rivers Monnow and Wye, whose waters unite and form one channel a short distance below Troy House.
Grosmont, from which the lords of Raglan take the rank of Viscount, is entitled to a brief notice in this place. In old writings it is spelt Grysmond, and contains a population of about eight hundred. The parish church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, is in the patronage of the Prince of Wales. In the churchyard, in the east wall of the chancel, is a monumental slab, said to cover the remains of Kent, or Gwent, a Franciscan monk, whose wonderful achievements in the early part of the fourteenth century[310] afford materials for many local traditions. According to one of these, the inhabitants are indebted to this good neighbourly monk for the bridge over the Monnow, on the road to Kentchurch in Herefordshire. It is called John of Kent’s Bridge, and is said to have been built in one night.
The Castle of Grosmont is a picturesque ruin.[311] It stands on a height commanding the view of a beautiful valley watered by the river Monnow, and bounded by Craig Savenny and the Garway Hill. The remains of this ancient castle occupy the summit of this hill, or rather eminence; its ivied walls, partly impending over the precipitous banks of the river, and towering at intervals through a grove of wide-spreading oaks, render the view extremely picturesque.
“By Grysmond’s ruins, scarred with years,
On yonder roofless turret standing,
How rich—how beautiful appears
The scene beneath my eye expanding!
The oak’s green banner clothes the steep,
There—herds and harvests bless the Giver;
And there, in many a crystal sweep,
Descends the Monnow’s classic river!
And here—if e’er romance be found
To love the vale or haunt the mountain—
Here is her home, with ivy bound,
And here her grot, and crystal fountain.
And here—to him who seeks repose,
By sorrow worn, or passion driven—
Here is a refuge from his woes,
And here sweet intercourse with Heaven!” &c.
Monmouth.—Of this ancient town and its Castle, the limits prescribed to the present work will not permit us to indulge in any minute description. But before entering upon the Abbey of Llanthony—the next subject for illustration—the birthplace of Henry the Fifth is entitled to a general notice. The bridge over the Monnow, with its ancient gate-house at the west end, is, perhaps, the most striking feature of the place. Two other bridges, one over the Trothy, and a third over the Wye, contribute in no small degree to heighten the picturesque effect, as the stranger perambulates the scene and recalls the many interesting facts, connected with Monmouth and its vicinity, which to history and romance have given an early and permanent lustre.
The Castle—of which so little remains that its original appearance can only be described by reference to the historical fragments that still mark the spot—is of unquestionable antiquity. It is supposed to have been built—or rather perhaps rebuilt—by John of Monmouth, whose adherence to the Barons cost him his estate, but contributed to the success of the cause in which he had embarked. The King having created his son Earl of Lancaster, this estate was annexed to the earldom. The Castle became a favourite residence of John of Gaunt, to whom it descended by his marriage with Blanche, daughter of Henry of Monmouth, Duke of Lancaster. It was in this Castle that the unfortunate Edward the Second was confined when taken prisoner by his Queen Isabella.[312]
But the glory of the place is its association with Henry V., son of Henry of Bolingbroke, who was born here,[313] and whose name and renown are so familiar to every reader of our national history and the drama. His dissipated habits while Prince of Wales, and his glorious achievements in the conquest of France, have been so inimitably portrayed by Shakspeare, that he still seems to live in our own age—in the country which his worth and valour adorned—and to be as agreeably associated with our familiar recollections as the most illustrious characters of our own day. His good-humoured dissipation and pleasantry in youth, became the foil to his subsequent greatness; and was probably as much the origin of that strong admiration with which he is still regarded, as his general talents, or the splendour of those victories, to which his personal courage and address so mainly contributed. At the time, as the reader may recollect, when the French realm was torn asunder by the opposing factions of the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, Henry took the favourable moment for reviving the claims of his predecessors upon France. Placing himself at the head of his army, he landed at Harfleur, and with only fifteen thousand men, opposed to upwards of fifty thousand, won the battle of Agincourt, and returned to England covered with renown. Apart from the splendour, however, which attended the campaign, it has been justly remarked that his reign was more brilliant than beneficial; for whilst his triumph entailed great misery on France, it “did more harm than good” to the true interests of England.[314] But his life was short—too short for maturing the plans he had in view for consolidating the fruits of a brief but eventful career; and while his greatest projects seemed to be advancing to a successful issue, Henry of Monmouth was suddenly cut off at the age of thirty-four.