Charles Henry Hartshorne

“ But whoever seeks for these vestiges of its former importance in the modern town, or delights to visit a spot consecrated to liberty by this unavailing struggle, and rendered dear to the lovers of national freedom, vainly seeking for the living monuments of its ancient greatness, will still be gratefully repaid in beholding those stately piles, which are devoted, through the extensive charities of a London citizen, and the purer philanthropy and patriotism of the present noble owner of Woburn, to the social improvement and sanitary wants of the district. ”

“ A conquering aristocracy took possession of all things, feudalism was the only form society would accept. Both Church and State were alike under its influence; the clergy alone sought to claim, on behalf of the community, a little reason and humanity. ”

“ The monarch himself became aware that personal activity, a quality he never wanted, was more than ever necessary. We accordingly find him constantly on the alert, seldom a week together in the same place: as a proof of his restlessness he visited Northampton in fourteen different years of his reign. He placed the royal castles in an effectual state of defence, and entrusted their custody only to those persons who were supposed to be attached to his interests, and upon whose faith he could place implicit dependance. ”

“ Remember you are now entering into the age of feudalism, a time of ignorance, illegitimate force, and moral imperfection, where you will observe every thing in the system discordant to our modern notions, every thing opposed to our general ideas of liberty and civilization ”

“ Passing over the noble specimens of regal architecture of a military description at Harlêch, Conway, Beaumaris, and Caernarvon, where the identity of styles, age, molds, and architecture, must be undisputed, we cannot help being struck with the extraordinary resemblance in certain points of detail existing betwixt the churches of Crick in Northamptonshire, and those of Bilton and Astley in Warwickshire, all built or re-edified by Sir Thomas Astley. ”

“ The sight of those sacred buildings which still rear their hoary pinnacles in silent praise to heaven, inspired our countrymen of old, as they should us, with a veneration for holy places. And we discharge no superstitious debt of gratitude by separating the exalted deeds of our forefathers from the lawless confusion that was mixed up with many of their actions, and giving them praise for executing the buildings we must all admire, and but vainly hope to excel. ”

“ It has, indeed, often excited astonishment, that so many beautiful fabrics should have been erected in the middle ages, when the difficulty of finding resources to build a church at the present day is so well known that the fact only needs stating. But the surprise will be diminished upon considering the altered circumstances of each period. When monastic buildings and parish churches were erected, the ecclesiastics were both influenced by different feelings than what guide them at present, and their condition also was dissimilar. ”

“ When the king appointed the last of these nobles, and impatiently forced him upon the keeper by a second writ under his private as well as the public seal, he was little aware of the vexation he was destined to awaken in his mind, or that one for whose promotion he evinced such extraordinary solicitude should render him and his son so ungrateful a return. ”

“ It would be unfair to conceal the results of such a system; its defects were apparent in the popular insurrections that from time to time broke out and marked a progressive extension of liberty, in the gradual emancipation of the human mind, and in the naturally inherent right of following up private conviction by private judgment; it is needless to do more than barely allude to what followed. ”

“ It is to this inheritor of Waltheof's united rank and estates that the erection of Northampton castle has been assigned, nor does there seem to exist any strong reason for discrediting the generally-received opinion.
After so great a lapse of time, and considering the distraction and civil war that prevailed within a century after the castle is reported to have been built, such structures being the first to suffer in the general disturbance, it is not surprising that so little of the first edifice should remain. ”

“ It cannot be said these virtues perished with the first possessors of the earldom of Northampton, since a higher amount of architectural knowledge, a clearer insight into its principles, and a better appreciation of its beauties, attended by more disinterested benevolence, by a self-devotion to the cause of humanity and the progress of social refinement, seem to have descended as the indefeasible attributes of the title. ”

“ Such modes of thinking will often invest facts with an unreal colouring, and both distort their own features, and the consequences they are intended to produce. The historical enquirer should exercise habitual caution and discretion, duly balancing against each other the events of the period, estimating them by the prevalent opinion of that particular time, not being himself unaware that the march of civilization, and the progress of enlightenment are, as Christian perfection ought to be, daily advancing. Without going into the whole transactions connected with the fall of Bedford castle [5] . ”

“ Is it probable that these structures were all built in the short reigns of the Confessor, Canute, and Ethelred, a period extending only over eighty-eight years? If this period should be found too short for the completion of all these buildings, then we must suppose several to belong to what may be termed the pure age of Anglo-Saxon architecture, and then it will be a consideration whether or not several buildings now held to be Norman be not in fact of an earlier date. ”

“ After considerable discussion and mutual conference, the commons proposed that if the clergy, who occupied one-third of the kingdom, would support one-third of the charge, they would grant £100,000, so that the laity should be rated at 100,000 marks and the clergy at 50,000. Upon this the clergy replied, with less liberality than adherence to legal precedent, that their grant was never made in parliament, neither ought to be; that the laity neither ought nor had the power to bind the clergy, nor the clergy the laity, but that if any ought to be free, it was themselves ”

“ Yet modern parallels may readily be found, and to press the subject homewards to the feelings, it can scarcely be a point of dispute how posterity will estimate the humanity and refinement of a nation which with all these offensive examples before it as warnings still enforces the same mode of criminal punishment. ”

“ Waltheof's father was the Saxon earl Siward, unquestionably a name of dignity, both before and after the Norman invasion, and Waltheof himself has been called earl of Northumberland, Northampton, and Huntingdon, but of this no sufficient proof has ever been adduced. Besides this reputed rank, he however inherited large estates; several of the tenants held their lands from him during the time of Edward the Confessor, and the dowry of the countess considerably augmented them. It may be readily imagined that the Conqueror would find himself little at ease in his new kingdom ”

“ Without perplexing ourselves by a long enquiry into the nature of our early legislative assemblies, I will merely state as a reason for passing over by a rapid enumeration the earlier ones convened at Northampton, that it is not until the latter end of the reign of Henry III. that we are able to discover the rudiments of that popular mode of representation existing at present. ”

“ We are now arrived at a period when the popular voice was the first time plainly heard in the councils of the state, and amongst the earliest of those towns enjoying the privilege of sending their representatives to parliament, were Northampton and Bedford, a right acquired in all probability from their being attached to the royal demesnes. ”

“ It was no selfish or sordid spirit that was then so actively at work, no mercenary desire to aggrandise themselves by nicely balanced calculations, no speculative visions of worldly profit, from sharing in which others were excluded, but the motive power impelling them onwards through their earthly journey, was untainted by avaricious love of gain, or private gratification. The rising church absorbed every consideration ”

“ Sundry provisions were made relative to the delivery of writs to the sheriffs; legal officers were appointed to enquire into robberies, manslaughter, theft, oppressions, conspiracies and grievances, as well by the servants of the crown as by others; justice was not to be delayed at the bidding of the great or little seal; the county cess was put on an improved footing, and all staples were to cease. In the various provisions of this admirable statute of Northampton, there is the highest regard evinced for individual liberty ”

“ Although the burgesses of Northampton had taken no more active part in the commotions of this period than the inhabitants of other towns in the kingdom, yet in accordance with the custom of the times, they obtained, on the final suppression of the rebellion by the king's victory at Evesham, a general pardon for past transgressions, and more especially for having defended the town against the royal army, an act to which they had been compelled by the forcible occupation of it by the adherents of Montfort. ”

“ It was in the twenty-fifth year of the preceding reign, about twelve years before this time, that the laws exacting pecuniary aids from the subject, first became clearly defined: nevertheless they continued for a length of time to press with unequal force upon the rising energies of the people, and in illustration of this, we find in the trans- actions now under review, that whilst the clergy and the burgesses contributed in this parliament a fifteenth from the towns, the knights granted from the counties a twentieth of their moveables, to prosecute the war against the Scots. ”

“ For after all the fact is not true; the wants of these men were the wants of nature, less artificial than those of the same class at present: their fare was coarser and simpler, beans supplied the place of wheaten food, their beverage was less stimulating and expensive, and their general habits of life were disproportionably cheaper than those of a modern artizan; added to which, these poor men believed themselves, whilst occupied in such works, to be serving the cause of God and religion, and therefore they submitted to privations and toil with patience and even joy. ”

“ For this reason then, caution should be observed in coming to conclusions from anomalous or isolated portions of a building, seeing that as yet we have much enquiry to make from careful measurement, as well as from records, knowing that churches were progressive in their erection, built by degrees, as the money could be obtained for the purpose, or as the masons could proceed with their undertaking, frequently commenced by one person and finished by his successor, or built by one, and improved and decorated by another. ”

“ At the present day the handling of a chisel indicates to his fellow labourers the workman who was employed: the style of a building often shews by unmistakeable marks in its proportion, its design, or general character, who is the architect ”

“ And may it not be probable that several of them belong to an earlier age than we have latterly been accustomed to assign them to? Nor are these all the difficulties of the question, for of the churches mentioned in Domesday, few of those reputed by as at present to be Anglo-Saxon are noticed, although churches generally through those particular counties where they exist, are comprehended in the Survey. For instance, the Northamptonshire churches of Barnack, Earl's Barton, Wittering, Brigstock, Stowe Nine churches, and Green's Norton, which all contain long and short work, are passed over. ”

“ The writs were tested on the 15th of June, and the parliament was duly convened at the appointed time; the king himself, however, sailed for the continent a few days before it met. One of the monarch's first acts on reaching Antwerp was to address an order to the great ecclesiastics, revoking the power he had confided to them to treat of peace with Philip of Valois as king of France. Meanwhile his son, the Black Prince, effectually urged the parliament to supply the necessary aids for carrying on the campaign abroad. ”

“ An order to the sheriff of Northampton to expend 40 marks in repairing the castle [15] .
8 John, 1206. Writ tested from Porchester to the barons of the exchequer ordering repayment of the sums paid by Peter de Stoke to Peter the engineer at the rate of ix.d. a day: also xxx.s. for a robe for his wife, and moreover the expenses he was at for the utensils and other necessaries for the engines, as well as for repairs at the castle [16] . By a subsequent entry in a writ addressed to the sheriff of Nottingham, the sum of ix.d. a day seems to have been his usual remuneration. ”

“ In illustration of this I have selected examples taken from the churches of Headbourn Worthy and Stanton Lacy, which shall be contrasted with the masonry of these Northamptonshire churches, as well as with the upper portion of Oxford castle. It will be at once seen that these, although in some measure analogous to parts of Barnack and Earl's Barton, do yet materially differ from them in appearance, whilst they are also the creations of a later time. ”