Hereford

“ Hereford Cathedral bears the name of Ethelbert of East Anglia, king and martyr, round whose death, at the hands of the men of Offa of Mercia, this story of his comrade centres, and dates its foundation from Offa's remorse for the deed which at least he had not prevented. In the sanctuary itself stands an ancient battered statue--somewhat hard to find--of the saint, and in the pavement hard by a modern stone bears a representation of his murder. ”

“ Hereford is a clean and pleasant old town, quite unsmirched by any factory chimneys, and largely concerned in cider-making, county business, and matters educational and ecclesiastical: a typical cathedral town, with the virtues and failings of its type in great perfection. It is not so rich in Tudor architecture as Shrewsbury, Ludlow, or Tewkesbury, but has a fair sprinkling of seventeenth-century houses, and many restful byways of Queen Anne or Early Georgian type. ”

“ By the time he reached London he had got sixty thousand men of all sorts and sizes about him, for the people in those days were fond of changing their leaders, and Hereford was popular as the latest novelty. The Duke of York—the king's uncle—moved to the West End, as Henry and his forces entered at the East; but Henry of Bolingbroke—alias Hereford, who was also the nephew of York—invited the latter to a conference. ”

“ I crossed the Severn at the ferry of Ash, about ten miles above Bristol, and got to Monmouth to dinner through a rugged, indifferent country. It is a pitiful old town, and hath nothing remarkable in it; and from thence through a fat fertile country I got to the city of Hereford at night.
Hereford is the dirtiest old city I have seen in England, yet pretty large; the streets are irregular and the houses old, and its cathedral a reverend old pile, but not beautiful ”

“ She turned round, haughty pride stamped on every line of her countenance, rebuke on her tongue: though the rebuke lay in the tone, rather than in the words.
"Miss Hereford! the gentleman to whom you speak is Mr. Chandos."
Had I again omitted the sign of my dependent situation, the "sir?" I, who had resolved, with my then burning face (burning again now) , never so to offend for the future—I supposed that that was the meaning of Madame de Mellissie; I suppose so still, to this hour. I had spoken as though I were the equal of Mr. Chandos: I must not—I would not—so offend again. ”

“ Just come from hard blows at Beachley, and crowded quarters in Monmouth, they were on the way to a city of more pretension, and promising sweeter delights. Hereford was at the time a centre of distinction, full of gentry from the surrounding shires; above all, abounding in the feminine element, with many faces reputed fair. Lingen’s gallants meant to have a carousal in the capital city, and knew they would there find the ways and means, with willing hosts to entertain them. ”

“ Hereford replied that he would not go; upon which Edward exclaimed, "By the everlasting God, sir earl, you shall either go or hang." "By the everlasting God, sir king," replied Hereford, coolly, "I will neither go nor hang." Edward did not feel himself sufficiently powerful to punish this haughty reply; and, fearing lest he should find the same spirit of resistance in all the barons, he abandoned his intention of sending an army into Gascony. ”

“ You have one course only before you, my dear, a plain and simple one."
"What is it?"
"To quit Chandos."
"I shall not do that."
"Not do it?"
"No."
"Miss Hereford, you must. There lives not a more attractive man than Harry Chandos: and you are already three parts in his toils."
"In his toils? I do not understand you, Mrs. Penn."
"My dear, I only alluded to toils of the heart. I don't suppose he would so far forget himself as to attempt positive ones." ”

“ It was generally believed at Hereford that the body lay there and the heart in Savoy; but the reverse seems much more likely.
Bishop Peter's younger kinsfolk were amply provided for in his church at Hereford. He appointed one of his nephews, John, to the deanery of Hereford. After his uncle's death this John claimed his English lands as his next heir; but it is not clear that he succeeded in England (Calendarium Genealogicum, p. 185) , though in the Tarentaise we find him sharing in the inheritance with Aimeric, his brother. ”

“ Sollars to Hereford. The landscape all the way is characteristic of the country: a scene of quiet fields and gentle river, of thatched cottages and gay gardens. It is not exciting, but it is extremely pleasant. Characteristic as it is, however, it does not represent Herefordshire at its best. The hills above Ledbury, the hop-gardens round Leominster, the woods and the wide views near Richard’s Castle, are all more distinctive and more beautiful than this part of the Wye Valley. ”

“ Day after day the people flocked to gaze and marvel for whom it could be intended, and when it would be occupied; their thoughts only turned from it by the intelligence that the Earl of Hereford, with some Scottish prisoners of high rank, was within four-and-twenty hours' march of the town, and was there to deliver up his captives to the seneschal of the castle, the Earl of Berwick. At the same time rumors were afloat, that the prisoner for whom that cage had been erected was, under a strong guard, advancing from Carlisle, and likely to encounter Hereford at the castle gates. ”

“ One Bishop of Hereford represented the old British bishops at the famous conference with Augustine, when, by his want of tact and haughty demeanour, the Roman missionary alienated the native British Church. A very tragic event enhanced the glories of the see. King Offa slew Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, who was a suitor for his daughter's hand, and buried him at Hereford. On the night of the funeral, "a column of light, brighter than the sun, arose towards heaven," according to the monkish chronicler, and miracles were wrought at the tomb of the martyred monarch. ”

“ The Bishop and the bishopric are known everywhere, as something which is a man's own as much as the shire with its sheriff and lord-lieutenant. It is not so where geography is less happy. I remember the remark forty years ago, when the great restoration of the church of Hereford was going on. It was said that the people of Herefordshire cared for their cathedral church; it was an essential part of their shire and city. But the people of that part of Shropshire which was in the diocese of Hereford did not care for the church of Hereford ”

“ These two, Henry of Bolingbroke, earl of Derby, and Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, now dukes of Hereford and Norfolk, the most powerful of the remaining nobility, were, by a singular conjuncture, thrown, as it were, at the king's feet. Of the political mysteries which this reign affords, none is more inexplicable than the quarrel of these peers. In the parliament at Shrewsbury, in 1398, Hereford was called upon by the king to relate what had passed between the duke of Norfolk and himself in slander of his majesty. ”

“ Edward the Elder, a great constructor of strong places, who repaired the citadel and walls of Chester in 909, is said by Grafton also to have fortified Hereford, erecting a strong castle there. His sister Ethelfleda, a still greater castle-builder than he, and to whom are due the mounds of Tutbury, Tamworth, Leicester, and some others, was the widow of Ethelred, Duke of Mercia, in 915, when the Danes had advanced by the Wye, and taken captive the Bishop of Archenfield. She attacked and defeated them before Hereford, no doubt making use of the new defences. ”

“ I remained silent: in my shock and perplexity.
"Fever seems to be busy this autumn," he remarked, carelessly. "It is in this neighbourhood; it is in Paris; it is in Nulle: and probably in a great many more places."
"But, Mr. Chandos! what am I to do?"
"There is only one thing that you can do—or that Lady Chandos would allow you to do: and that is, stay here. Not another word, Miss Hereford. You can't help yourself, you know," he added, laughing; "and we are happy to have you."
"But the objection that Lady Chandos feels to having any one?"
"Ah well—you will not be a dangerous visitor. ”

“ Then, in 1275, when he was quite an elderly man, he became Bishop of Hereford.
And a true ‘Father in God’ he proved himself to be, to the poor people, at least, for he had one or two very serious and rather funny quarrels with the rich and powerful nobles who lived in his Diocese. These quarrels arose not because he was jealous of his own dignity, but because he was jealous of the dignity of the Church, and he imagined that any slight or insult paid to him as Bishop, was really a slight and insult paid to the Church of God. ”

“ A vast deal more like the figure of a man, thought I, as I gazed. Not a tall slender man like Mr. Chandos; more of the build of Mr. Edwin Barley.
Why the idea of the latter should have occurred to me, or whether the man (it certainly was one!) bore him any resemblance, I could not tell. The fancy was quite enough for me, and I sped away as quickly as Mrs. Chandos had done. She had whisked silently through the hall towards her rooms, and met her maid on the stairs; who had probably just discovered her absence.
"Are you ready to make tea, Miss Hereford? I have come to have some." ”

“ To stop these ravages the Earl of Hereford, who was nephew to Edward, advanced with an army, not of English alone, but of mercenary Normans and French, whom he had entertained in his service, against Gryffyth and Algar. He met them near Hereford, and offered them battle, which the Welsh monarch, who had won five pitched battles before, and never had fought without conquering, joyfully accepted. The earl had commanded his English forces to fight on horseback, in imitation of the Normans, against their usual custom ”

“ Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son, Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? ”

“ The domestic architecture of Hereford, Gloucester, and Worcester, differs considerably from that we have been considering, but it also contains many examples of beauty and value.
The city of Hereford is delightfully situated on the Wye, and though modern improvements have destroyed many old features, of which the recollections remain, there are a few specimens of antique architecture. The Wye Bridge and its ancient gatehouses were formerly among the most picturesque objects in the kingdom. Of the history of Hereford there is no necessity to speak at any length. ”

“ Norfolk. So he has often sworn to me by God's body, but I do not trust him the more for that. He is attempting to draw the Earl of March into the scheme of the four lords to destroy the others, Hereford. If that be the case, we can never trust them.
Norfolk. Certainly not. Though they may not accomplish their purpose now, they will contrive to destroy us in our houses ten years hence.
Hereford must have taken the earliest opportunity to communicate this confidential conversation to the king. It showed him that the king was carefully watching those who had formerly appeared as his enemies. ”

“ Miracles were worked at Arundel's tomb, until Richard ordered it to be paved over. Men believed that he was haunted by the earl's injured shade, and dare not go to sleep without a guard of three hundred Cheshire men. Norfolk now took alarm, and informed Hereford that he had reason to believe that Richard, despite his oaths, would never rest content until he had undone them for their share in Radcotbridge. Hereford betrayed him to the king, and secured himself, as he thought, by a full pardon for the past. ”

“ His past history necessarily made him a royalist partisan during the barons' wars, and his border diocese, where the marchers and Llywelyn of Wales took opposite sides, was exposed to the fiercest outbursts of the strife. Late in 1262 Llywelyn threatened Hereford, and Peter, on the pretext of a fit of the gout, kept himself away from danger at Gloucester, while providing the castle of Hereford with garrison and provisions. In June 1263 Henry visited Hereford and wrote angrily to the bishop, complaining that he found in that city neither bishop, dean, official, nor prebendaries ”

“ Hereford was the king's demesne; and the honor of being his immediate tenants appears to have been qualified by considerable exactions. When he went to war, and when he went to hunt, men were to be ready for his service. If the wife of a burgher brewed his ale, he paid tenpence. The smith who kept a forge had to make nails from the king's iron. In Hereford, as in other cities, there were moneyers, or coiners. There were seven at Hereford, who were bound to coin as much of the king's silver into pence as he demanded. At Cambridge the burgesses were compelled to lend the sheriff their ploughs. ”

“ In 1788 he settled at Hereford in the dual capacity of editor and printer of Pugh's ‘Hereford Journal.’ Two years later he accepted an engagement from Charles, eleventh duke of Norfolk, the owner, jure uxoris, of extensive estates in the county, to compile and edit a history of Herefordshire. The terms were 2l. 2s. per week for collecting materials, with extra payment for journeys out of the county, the work to be the property of the duke. The first volume, containing a general history of the county and account of the city, was published, 4to, Hereford, 1804 ”

“ At Hereford the reeve’s consent was necessary when a burgage was to be sold, and he took a third of the price. When a burgess died the king got his horse and arms (these Hereford burgesses were fighting men) ; if he had no horse, then ten shillings ‘or his land with the houses.’ Any one who was too poor to do his service might abandon his tenement to the reeve without having to pay for it. ”