NEATH ABBEY,
Glamorganshire.
“So fares it with the things of earth
Which seem most constant: there will come the cloud
That shall enfold them up, and leave their place
A seat for emptiness. Our narrow ken
Reaches too far, when all that we behold
Is but the havoc of wide-wasting Time—
Or what he soon shall spoil.”
WE learn from Bishop Tanner, that Richard de Grainville, and Constance, his wife, gave their chapel,[397] in the Castle at Nethe, the tithes belonging to it, a large tract of waste land, and other possessions, in the time of Henry I., to the abbot and convent of Savigny, near Lyons, that they might build an abbey here in Wales. And a very fair abbey, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was built accordingly on the west side of the river, a little below the town of Neath, for monks of the order of Savigny, or Fratres Grisei, who soon afterwards became Cistercians.
Notwithstanding the original gift to Savigny, as we learn from the same authority, he did not find any proof that this house was ever subject to that foreign abbey, or accounted as an alien priory. Being an abbey, it could not be a cell; and appears rather to have been a daughter-house to Savigny, in the same way as already described in our account of the two Llanthonys—mother and daughter. In the Appendix to the Monasticon may be seen the founder’s charter, with two subsequent charters of confirmation from King John.[398] From a manuscript notice in Benet’s College, Cambridge, we learn that, at the time of the dissolution, there were only eight monks in Neath Abbey. In the twenty-sixth of Henry VIII., the gross revenue of the house amounted to £150. 4s. 9d., the clear income to £132. 7s. 7-1/4d. The site was granted to Sir Richard Williams, alias Cromwell,[399] in exchange.
The Seal of the abbey represented the Blessed Virgin, crowned and standing, holding in her right hand a lily, in her left the infant Jesus; in a base, a shield with the arms of Grainville the founder—namely, three clarions: the legend—“Sigillvm. Comvne. Monaster. Beate. Marie. de Neth.” A very imperfect impression of this seal is to be seen in the Augmentation Office.
In Moore’s Monastic Remains, it has been observed, in a passage quoted from Leland, that Neath Abbey was ‘once the fairest in all Wales;’ and, from the ruins still remaining, much credit may be given to this description. The west end, excepting the great arch, was tolerably perfect in 1788; but previously to that time the east end and principal part of the nave had been demolished, while the lateral aisles remained covered with ivy. In addition to these, several apartments of the abbey were still standing on the south side of the church.
This monastery is said to have been so extensive, that seven preachers might hold forth at the same time in different parts of the building, without being mutually heard; but in the present day the crypt is the only characteristic feature that is left. The ruins, however—spread over an extensive area—still afford accommodation for numerous workmen employed in the famous iron-works of the place. It was in the Abbey-house of Neath, where he had taken refuge, that the unfortunate King Edward the Second was arrested:—
“Whither,” says the Chronicle, in a passage at once pathetic and picturesque,—“whither, in the meane space, doth woeful Edward flye? What force, what course, what way takes he, poore Prince? Oh! fearful condition of so great a monarche’s state, when a wife, a son, a kingdome are not trusted; and those only are trusted, who had nothing strong but a will to live and die with him!”... “The Queen, passing from Oxford to Gloucester, onward to the siege of Bristol Castle, grew all the whyle in her strength like a rouled snowball, or as a river, which spreads still broader from the fountaine to the ocean—‘vires acquirit eundo.’ For thither repayred to her, for the love of the young Prince, the Lord Percy, the Lord Wake, and others, as well out of the North, as the Marches of Wales. But Edward, having left the Earle of Winchester, and the elder Lord Spenser, in the Castle of Bristol, for the keeping thereof, meditates flight with a few into the isle of Lundie, in the Severne sea, or into Ireland; and while he wandereth about, not finding where to rest safe, his royall credite, name, and power—like a cliffe which, falling from the top of some huge rocke, breakes into the more pieces the further it rolles—are daily more and more diminisht as they scatter, till now at last they are come to a very nothing.
“After a week, therefore, spent upon the sea, Sir Thomas Blount forsaking him, and comming to the Queene he came on shore in Glamorganshire, where, with his few friends, he entrusted himself to God, and the faith of the Welsh, who indeed still loved him, lying hidden among them in the Abbey of Neath.
“The King not appearing, proclamations were every day made in the Queene’s army, declaring that it was the common consent of the realme that he should returne and receive the government thereof, so as he would conform himself to his people. This—whether stratagem or truth—not prevailing, Henry, Earle of Lancaster, the late Earle’s brother, Sir William de la Zouch, and Rhese-ap-Howell, a Welshman—who all of them had lands in that quarter where the Kinge concealed himselfe—were sent with coyne and forces to discover and take him.