Charles Robert Ashbee

“ Ours is the hymn of her painters, and the long illumined roll
Of her men of thought and science, honour and self-control;
Purcell is of her players, Shakespeare speaks to her soul.
Ours is the song of her builders, of them that have set in stone
The mark of a deep endeavour, their own & more than their own,
And the silent might of the toil that lives and loves and bides unknown.
Ours is the hymn of England, and far in the future we
Chaunting the hymn of England and her great destiny,
Fortell the love we love so well and the power we forsee. ”

“ This was the Fifth Edward, though he never came to the crowning you shall see him ride through London to his doom, reigning as for a children's hour, his kingship played as in a little child's game. There are grey knights in armour at his side and a red cardinal, and though the trumpets blow to honour his coming, their blast is hollow in vanity, and all is for naught.
Again the Centuries play their figure across the outer stage, and at the sound of the trumpet enters the last of the pageant, Edward VI., he is clad as in the Holbein pictures. ”

“ Follow then to my calling, like some wizard who unlocks strange things and wonderful, the Ten Centuries of England, each with her symbol, her meaning in Time; follow after them the wild Imps of Progress ever present, ever destructive, ever creating in their own despite, Life out of Death; follow the kings, the Edwards, in whose honour this Masque is presented. There shall be music and rhyming for you, mad and lyrical, & the energies of Progress shall come as they are felt; the energies of Progress ever present, ever destroying, ever creating in their own despite, Life out of Death. ”

“ All the crafts and occupations now join gaily in, and there is a triumphant movement as of life realised and good things achieved to the honour and joy of mankind.
Then just as the great dance is crowned to fulfilment, a low mournful note is heard & there enters from the back a gaunt figure arrayed in black & masked fearfully, The City of Dreadful Night, the great city of modern progress. She reaches out from her long black tentacles, ever lengthening coils of black twine, and as these touch the children they shudder together and the dance slackens, throbbing slow and more slowly. ”

“ Christ cares for the little ones, and men say how maybe the Christ took him to another kingdom, a better even than the fair kingdom of England, giving him first a blossom from the crown of thorns, and that is an everlasting crown, whose rubies are tears of blood, whose pearls are the milk of innocence, and the green stones in it are as the tender blossoms of the young Spring that is seen but for a moment with the inner eye and so passes out of sight. ”

“ See ye now a dance prophetic.
There was once in this England of ours, ere yet she had conquered the sea, or discovered the greater secrets of speed and power, a life fair for the record it has left us, noble for the great ones who led it, & whom in pageant ye have seen pass before you. Ere the coming of the seventh Edward, all has changed and there is growing up a new life, whose secret is still to read.
The sweet cities of old times have passed away, while begotten of Giant Machine, and from the womb of Power, has come to us the City of Dreadful Night. ”

“ Then the little craft shot back as a moving flame on the water to Lambeth and it was even as the saint had told.
Mark him this king, a dreamer, a seer of visions, a teller of symbols. For in the early world these things have need, these things have reason, they are as the mother tales told at the cradle of the race. Learn ye to dream and pray when ye are young, and ye shall learn to do mightily when ye come to the years of your strength. ”

“ And yet, for the good and ill of this life is divided as sunlight on the two sides of a green grass blade, there was a strange love in this King, a love mayhap that undid him, for has not one of our great poets if we are to believe the truth of his words not merely as the divine truth of poesy, told of this love? ”

“ Best was, however, that the people loved him and the love of a people is a strange and wondrous thing, for it is given less for this or for that, for one quality or for another, than in token of some spirit indefinable, some hidden grace which men cannot explain, though they feel that it is there, a grace that is put forth mayhap as the perfume of a white rose. ”

“ Mark the pageant of the Centuries.
The Eleventh Century enters from the right through the inner scene across which is now drawn a veil, so that the figures behind are seen, but not too distinctly, yet so that they shall be clearly discerned. Passing out of the inner scene to the right, they enter again on the left and cross the outer stage. There is stately music, varying to the passing of each, and ending in a march of triumph at the close. The Eleventh Century beckons, and there follows to her beckoning her meinie, to wit:
William the Conqueror. ”

“ They bear the symbols of kingship: the crown, the spurs, the orb, the sceptre, and the swords of mercy and justice, The Child Century receives these at their hands, standing raised high up behind the throne; whereupon there shall be enacted that portion of the coronation ceremony which symbolises the choice of the people and so links it with the past; till at the crowning the whole company being now gathered together, shall shout aloud:
GOD SAVE THE KING! ”

“ And in the reign of this king was it shown, how though God may choose a king and set him on a throne, give the soul of him birth, and the hand of him power, the brain of him wit, cunning and wisdom, yea all the fine intelligence of all the Plantagenets, yet a people is also of God, a part of God, and they may uncrown him, destroy him and cast him forth if he act unkingly. ”

“ Verily to all of English blood, the craft of Chivalry is the craft of the seas, for though gilded prows and oaken timbers are no more, though the sun lights no longer the woven badges of Flanders, yet the soul of man has touched the chivalry of steel, & the sun sparkles with a keener brilliance on the fierce iron as it forges windless through the waves. ”

“ But to them that follow after, the children that reap of the little founder's sowing, to them that have builded his England, have honoured his founding, have given her life and her greatness, have spoken with the lips of her learning, in the words of her wisdom, have sprung from her schools and her colleges, to them the little founder has been a symbol of all good things, he cast the bread upon the waters & they have found it after many days. ”

“ Sphinx-like she sits and terrible, offering her riddle to the Child Century to guess, but the young Oedipus, strong in the hope of the future, wise in the beauty of the past, comes to guess and to destroy.
The children enter:-mark the symbol and the prophecy!
The quire of minstrels enter bearing old instruments, flutes, violins, viols, tabors and pipes, they order themselves at the side of the stage and start playing, upon which there enter the masons. They dance, and in their dancing, with line and rule they mark out the site of the city state ”

“ Not one of all the gathering but has left some precious gift behind, left the world sweeter and nobler, left for us English a heritage that no one who speaks the tongue, lives in the law, or thinks the thought, whether here on this little island, or all the world over, would willingly forego. ”

“ And when she came to die he vowed to God that he would make the earth blossom with carven crosses of Calvary wheresoever her sweet body rested in the slow march of the hearse from the place of her death in the midlands even to her last resting place on Thorney Island, and of these crosses up to the tomb many stand to this day, & where she lies at rest beneath a wondrous wicker of iron, with rows of prickets for the lights of her reminder, there is carven about her, for she was a lady of piety, of modesty, of pity, the legend, "Mulier pia, modesta, misericors, Anglicorum omnium amatrix." ”

“ After this the note grows hymnal, and at the entry of the sisters of the order, William of Wykeham again leading, the dancers pass in stately movement about the stage as if to some festival, until the builder bishop again passes out, when the note grows merrier, and all form for the final figure which shall be one of triumph at the entry of Queen Elizabeth who shall typify the perfected city state. She stands in the centre of the scene, all the children dancing about her in honour, and the dance shall be somewhat as the great masque dances of the time of per coming on earth. ”

“ Upon this there enter the vintners, brewers, bakers, & cutlers, bringing the state good cheer, the housewives join in the dance and there is laughter and merriment.
The clothworkers, leather sellers, embroideresses, and goldsmiths next enter with a varying movement & bring to the state the things of their beautiful achievement, whereupon there is a great medley with all the previous dancers, and the motive of the music is full of joy and gladness. ”

“ A riotous, restless, mercurial imp, uncontrolled and lawless, carries a map of the world on which be continually scribbles.
EVOLUTION: A thing that is purblind and formless though it may for the purposes of the Masque, and in mockery of man, appear as the ape or angel from whom by descent he fell. ”

“ Prophecy in the dance, and the sign of the future in the music and the picture that it brings. Mad is the movement of Time, & Time the great dancer spins, now grotesquely, growing ugly with the riot of wanton movement and now beautiful beyond the ken of man with the grace and dignity of divine achievement. ”

“ Her island England, good Queen Bess,
And her poets they yield her their crownèd bays
As they follow her singing, singing, singing,
Singing a paean of English praise.
After the fifth verse has been sung, the music rising to a great solemnity, the figure of Queen Victoria habited in her coronation robes & portrayed as she was known & remembered by our fathers before us, passes across the stage; she pauses for a few moments upon the steps of the throne while the final verse is in singing, then descends and passes out. ”

“ During the hymn and while the march is stiff in movement; there shall pass in front of the throne alone and unattended the Edwards of England, Edward the Confessor first, then Edward the Lawgiver, then Edward the Second, then Edward the King of Chivalry, then Edward the Fourth, then Edward the Child King, the last being Edward the Founder. Each as he passes from left to right behind the veil shall touch the throne and so move out. ”

“ There were legends and sweet tales about him & the cures were many that he wrought, for it was he who carried the Irish beggar on his back to the high altar, that God's miracle might be worked in the face of all men. ”