[98] In the grounds at Hawkestone, the seat of Lord Hill, and in those of Fountains Abbey, some extraordinary hunters’-leaps are pointed out, as having been taken in the heat of the chase; but that given in the tradition of Lancaut, is one that will never be repeated.
[99] These objections, it is to be hoped, are no longer applicable to Tinterne Parva. The “desecration,” so justly yet playfully complained of, is a practice which cannot be too strongly reprobated; but to such instances of negligence or “economy,” nothing but the progress of Archæology can apply a final check.
[100] From the time of Henry the Second, to whom the land of Gwent submitted, the royalty of Wentwood Chase was vested in the crown, and its privileges were ascertained in the Charta Forestæ of Henry the Third; but the rights of lords of manors, and free tenants, in times of general confusion, became involved and disputable. In the assumption of the Chase of Wentwood by the house of Somerset, after the Restoration, the recognition of ancient customs and privileges involved it in numerous controversies and processes of law.—County History. See also Letter from Cromwell, supra.
[101] Striguil, or Strigul Castle, is quite distinct from that of Chepstow, with which it has been often confounded, under the common name of Striguil, or Estrigoel.
[102] Thomas, p. 62.
[103] Ibid. 63.
[104] Hard by are seene Wondy and Penhow, the seats in times past of the noble family of Saint Maur, now corruptly named Seimor. For G. Mareshall, Earle of Pembrock, about the yeere of our Lord, 1240, was bound for the winning of Wondy, out of the Welshmen’s hands, to aide William Seimor. From him descended Roger de Saint Maur, knight, who married one of the heires of L. Beauchamp of Hach, a very noble baron, who derived his pedigree from Sibyl, heire unto William Mareshall, that puissant Earle of Pembrock, from William Ferrars, Earle of Derby, from Hugh de Vivon, and William Mallet, men in times past highly renowned. The nobility of all these, and of others besides, as may be evidently shewed, hath met together in that right honourable personage, Edward Saint Maur, or Seimor, now Earle Hertford, a singular favourer of vertue and good learning, worthy in that behalfe to be honoured and commended to posterity.—Camden Silures, 634.
[105] Rupis Aurea, eò quod aurei coloris saxa sole repercussa miro fulgore sunt rutulantia: nec mihi de facili persuasio fieri posset, quod frustratum dederit natura nitore saxis, quodque suo fuerit flos hic sine fructu, si foret qui venas ibidem, et penitima terræ viscera arte prævia transpenetraret.—Gyraldus Cambrensis.
There is a hill near famed Caerleon,
Which, if the sun but dart a ray on,
It shines like gold; hence Goldcliffe hight,
But if there’s gold, ’tis not in sight.
—Wonders of Wales.
[106] With regard to this tract Camden relates:—Beneath this lieth spred for many miles together a Mersh, they call it the Moore, which, when I lately revised this worke, suffered a lamentable losse; for when the Severn sea, at a spring tide in the change of the moone, what being driven back for three daies together, with a south-west winde, and what with a verie strong pirrie from the sea troubling it, swelled and raged so high, that with surging billowes it came rolling and inrushing amaine upon this tract lying so low, as also upon the like flates in Somersetshire over against it, that it overflowed all subverted houses, and drowned a number of beasts and some people withal. Camden, 635. See also Note supra, page 5. Neere to this place there remaine the reliques of a Priorie, that acknowledge those of Chandos for their founder and patron.—Ibid.