Battle Abbey

“ Lady Brassey.
One of my pleasantest days in England was spent at old Battle Abbey, the scene of the ever-memorable Battle of Hastings, where William of Normandy conquered the Saxon Harold.
The abbey was built by William as a thank-offering for the victory, on the spot where Harold set up his standard. The old gateway is one of the finest in England. Part of the ancient church remains, flowers and ivy growing out of the beautiful gothic arches.
As one stands upon the walls and looks out upon the sea, that great battle comes up before him. ”

“ Every one, learned or unlearned, has heard of the Roll of Battle Abbey, or has read of it in books. There is a vague opinion floating in society that there exists a list of the persons who accompanied William Duke of Normandy in the expedition which ended in the subjugation of Saxon England, prepared by the persons who presided over the monastery which the duke erected at this place as a memorial of the event, and that perpetual prayers might be offered for them, and especially for those who were slain in the battle. ”

“ When the building of Battle Abbey was finished, William offered his sword and the regal robe he had worn at his coronation; and seven-score monks were brought from the great convent of Marmontiers, near Tours, to inhabit the edifice and pray for the souls of all who had died on the field. This magnificent structure is now in ruins, and the altar-stone, standing amid stagnant water, marks the spot where the Pope's consecrated banner was planted by William in the hour of carnage and victory. ”

“ Had such a list been prepared, and had it descended to our time, we should then undoubtedly have had a Battle Abbey Roll in the highest and best sense.
Of the general probability every one may form an opinion. ”

“ We see, however, that various persons must have attempted the formation of lists such as these; that they executed their task to the best of their power: but it follows, as a necessary conclusion, that their labours are something entirely different from a Bede-Roll of the monastery of Battle, or even from a list, had such been made in the Abbey at the time of its foundation, of the persons who formed the army of Duke William ”

“ A religious service, in which every soldier of a large army was to be named, might be thought too ponderous a duty; but the monks might, out of respect to their founder and in regard to the object of their foundation, have thought it right to prepare such a list and to enter it in the books relating to their house. This, though such a roll would be of less authority than the former, would still be a most valuable document, answering well to the idea which people form of the Roll of Battle Abbey. ”

“ On the surrender of Battle Abbey, it and its lands were granted by the King to Sir Anthony Browne, in 1538. The knight did not come into his property with the good will of the neighbourhood, which, pauperised by and dependent on the monks, with anger saw them thrust forth into the world, and loved to tell how the last of the brethren to issue from the gate turned and cursed him with the doom of the sacrilegious. ”

“ From the terrace, doubtless, we look across the battlefield, but all is so changed, the bleak hill-top has become a superb garden, that it is impossible to realise still less to reconstruct the battle, and indeed since we can only visit the place amid a crowd of tourists, our present discomfort makes any remembrance of the fight or of the great and solemn abbey which for so long turned that battlefield into a sanctuary impossible.
Nor indeed are we more fortunate in the parish church which was originally built by Abbot Ralph in the twelfth century. ”

“ From the foundation of this abbey, till its dissolution, it was governed by thirty-one abbots. Sometime after the latter period, it was the property of the Montagues, who sold it to Sir Thomas Webster, and that gentleman made it his residence. Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart., is the present owner. In its present state, Battle Abbey bears ample testimony to its ancient magnificence, the ruins being extensive, and exhibiting a mixture of the light Norman with the solid Saxon architecture. These remains occupy two sides of a quadrangle, of which one is an ancient gateway. ”

“ There was a gentleman, whom I had the pleasure of knowing, who had formed a just conception of what I mean, but who sank into the grave in quite the bloom of life, leaving only a very few specimens of what such a work in his hands would have been, among which is your own Abbey of Lewes. ”

“ There is something singularly attractive in the country-side around Battle Abbey, by reason of its having been the site of that great struggle which really created England—the battle of Hastings. It was on Caldbeck Hill, on the evening of the 14th of October 1066, that the Norman trumpets blared forth their pæan of victory. ”

“ William himself, in fulfilment of a vow made on the eve of the contest, founded on the field of slaughter a stately abbey which bore the name of Battle, and in which masses were long said for the repose of the souls of those who had fallen in the fight, whether conquerors or conquered. The building of the abbey with all its dependencies must have done much to alter the face of the battlefield ”

“ Nothing now remains of the Refectory, where, of old, forty monks fed like one, except the walls. It once had a noble roof of Irish oak, but that was taken to Cowdray and perished in the fire there, together with the Abbey roll. One of the Abbey's first charms is the appropriateness of its gardens; they too are old. In the cloisters, for instance, there are wonderful box borders.
Battle Abbey. The Refectory.
TURNER'S PICTURE
Turner painted "Battle Abbey: the spot where Harold fell," with a greyhound pressing hard upon a hare in the foreground, and a Scotch fir Italianated into a golden bough. ”

“ His banner was sent from Rome, consecrated by the Pope, for the especial purpose of the invasion of England. Without adverting to the night spent in prayer before the battle of Hastings, was not this impression more decidedly shown when he pitched his tent among the dead on that night, and vowed to build an abbey on the spot? The event of the battle was so much against all human probability, that his undertaking it, at the place and time, can only be reconciled by supposing that he acted under some extraordinary impression. ”

“ It has recently been covered over with earth.
BATTLE CHURCH.
The parish church of Battle, standing beside the road on the way out of the town, was a “peculiar,” i.e. independent of ecclesiastical control. Its incumbent is not merely a vicar or a rector, but a dean, and is appointed by the owner of Battle Abbey, still the lay Abbot. In the chancel lie Sir Anthony Browne and his wife, with a magnificent tomb over them, and in the churchyard is233 the humble stone to Isaac Ingall, who died after ninety years’ service at the Abbey, in 1798, aged 120. ”

“ It quickly became a flourishing institution, the number of monks at the end of the 12th century being two hundred. In the 14th century, during the Hundred Years’ War, this number had fallen to thirty, while on the eve of the Revolution there remained only fifteen.
LONGPONT ABBEY, SEEN FROM THE GRANDE PLACE.
The Abbey contains the ruins of a magnificent Gothic Church, the foundations of which were laid in 1131, under the Count of Crespy, but which was only finished in 1226. ”

“ Any day their rustic and toil-worn figures, bent under huge faggots, may be seen in Battle street, and they serve to show how, although the Normans and the monks in turn have gone, the rural Saxon people remain.
When Sir Anthony Browne came into possession of Battle, he lost no time in demolishing the church of the Abbey and many of its domestic surroundings. The Abbot’s great hall and apartments he converted into a mansion, and with a portion of the stones from the demolished church added other rooms. ”

“ Of a spirit, that beneath it, brought defeat to Constantine.
[Pg 76] VII.
THE BATTLE.
To the town outspoke the cannon, ere the dawn charged on the night,
Not of peace and joy and amity, but of hatred and despair,
And a thousand blatant bugles proved it waiting for their spite;
And we heard the rasp of bullets in the dark astonished air.
When the sun rose, hot and bloody, all the fight had well begun;
The artillery were pounding at the weak place in the wall;
While the smoke, from vale and city, seemed the melancholy, dun
Robes of spirits hovering over for the fated ones to fall. ”

“ He himself supported many more students than the number of his monks required. Edward III’s commission to the Abbot to visit all the monasteries in the King’s presentation is a striking tribute to his thoroughness. A visitation of Abbot Thomas was far from being a mere formality, and shed a valuable sidelight on the condition of many a great abbey.15 ‘In them,’ says the chronicler, ‘religion had well-nigh disappeared.’ The proper conduct of the monastic rule had been forgotten, and serious abuses were rife. At the Abbeys of Eynsham, Abingdon and Battle, De la Mare worked wonders of reform ”

“ It was here that the first Scottish representative Parliament ever called together met by the order of Robert Bruce in 1324. The abbey was of the order of St Augustine, dedicated to the Virgin, and was founded by David I. in 1147 as St Mary’s of Stirling. This same king, the founder of Melrose Abbey, endowed the abbey with land and extensive property. In 1201 its name was changed to St Mary’s of Cambuskenneth, a battle having been fought on its site by King Kenneth against the Picts. ”

“ Also the King richly endowed the house, giving it all the land within a radius of a league, and there the abbot was to be absolute lord free of bishop and royal officer, [Footnote: The unique privileges of the abbot of Battle included the right to "kill and take one or two beasts with dogs" in any of the King's forests.] and very many manors beside. Yet ten years elapsed before the Abbey of Battle was sufficiently completed to receive an abbot. In 1076, however, Robert Blancard, one of the four monks chosen by William of Marmoutier, was appointed, but he died e'er he came to Battle. ”

“ All my gains were vainly gotten, for Eudocia was not mine.
Then my goods I turned to money, all my ships and houses sold,
And sent the glittering product far away from Constantine.
On us like a wild hawk swooping came Damrémont with his men;
But we saw his wing-like banners and we closed and barred the gates;
All the women urged to battle; every man a hero then ”

“ The gigantic skeleton walls, as they stand out gaunt and ragged against the sky, resemble rather rocks than the remains of the work of puny human hands. The style was in the massive and lofty Norman Gothic of the period, as may be seen from the few bold arches that have withstood alike the ravages of time, the artillery of Cromwell, and modern depredations. The abbey was one of the wealthiest in the kingdom, and the mitred abbot was counted among the notable authorities of the land. ”

“ There is no figure on it, and no carving, as there is on the tombs of the other kings and queens. Dean Stanley explained, when he showed us the Abbey as children, that, for many years after Edward I. died, there was a kind of belief that, although the king was dead, yet, if another war broke out with Scotland, he would once again lead his army against the enemy, as he had so often done before. And so from time to time they would come and lift off the great marble slab which covered his tomb, and which was easily moved, and look in to see if the king was still there. ”

“ There the humble warrior lies, surrounded by the dust of kings and statesmen, authors, poets, and sages. Other countries imitated this idea, and now each nation of the Great War has its 'Unknown Soldier's' grave. In the Abbey, besides the many splendid statues, there is a set of curious wax figures, only eleven in number, representing Queen Elizabeth, King Charles II., King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, Admiral Nelson, and five other persons of less importance. ”

“ The priest and the soldier were both at home here, in 1215 as in 1115 or in 1058; the politician was not outside of it; the sinner was welcome; the poet was made happy in his own spirit, with a sympathy, almost an affection, that suggests a habit of verse in the Abbot as well as in the architect. God reconciles all. The world is an evident, obvious, sacred harmony. Even the discord of war is a detail on which the Abbey refuses to insist. Not till two centuries afterwards did the Mount take on the modern expression of war as a discord in God's providence. ”

“ Passing through an apple-orchard, we were not long in reaching the Abbey, the ruins of which are much more extensive and more picturesque than those of Melrose, being overrun with bushes and shrubbery, and twined about with ivy, and all such vegetation as belongs, naturally, to old walls. There are the remains of the refectory, and other domestic parts of the Abbey, as well as the church, and all in delightful state of decay,—not so far gone but that we had bits of its former grandeur in the columns and broken arches, and in some portions of the edifice that still retain a roof. ”

“ Buildwas Abbey is the relic of a splendid building, beautiful and stately even in decay, seemingly too proud to mourn its long-lost grandeur, "cased in the unfeeling armour of old time." Its massive pillars and stout walls, braving all weathers, stand strong and enduring still. Time, that gentle healer, has tinted and adorned its broken walls with many hues, and fringed their rugged tops with bright wild-flowers, grasses, and weeds; here and there, too, the ivy creeps over them and peeps in from without through the vacant windows. ”