The story of Coventry. Mary Dormer Harris
troublesome and litigious person in Coventry history, and Shortley, where in Edward II.'s time, one John de Nottingham, a necromancer, dwelled, concerning whom there is much to be found in this book. At Shortley is the Charter-house where, incorporated in a modern dwelling, are remains of the Carthusian monastery, which the Botoners helped to build, and whereof Richard II. was patron. Wayfarers from London and Daventry (Shakespeare's "Daintry") entered the town at Newgate by Whitefriars, the modern workhouse. At Newgate the mural circuit was begun in 1356, when Richard Stoke, mayor, laid the first stone. Here, too, in August 1642, Charles I. made a breach in the town wall, whereat divers Cavaliers found entrance; but so vehement was the onslaught made upon them by the townsfolk—men and women—and so impregnable were the citizens' barricades of carts and furniture, that the Royalists withdrew discomfited. Another breach in the wall, twenty years later, made also at Newgate, marked the beginning of the work of dismantling the fortifications. This was done by order of Charles II. to avenge the old affront offered to his father, and occupied 500 men for three weeks and three days. The superstitious found in the destruction of the walls the subject of one of the famous Mother Shipton's prophecies. It was foretold, they said, "that a pigeon should pull them down," and in truth they were dismantled in Thomas Pigeon's mayoral year.[2]
REMAINS OF OLD WALL—BACK OF GODIVA STREET
From Little Park Street only two spires are seen; and but the same number is visible in Bishop Street, which lies to the north. The traveller comes almost suddenly into the turmoil of this street from the pleasant uplands of Fillongley, where the Hastings' family had a castle, and the Shakespears a farm-house, and Corley, of George Eliot memories, with its prehistoric camp on the Rock. It is good to see but two spires, that it may serve as a reminder that the church of the Greyfriars is but an unessential feature in Coventry history. The twin steeples of S. Michael's and Trinity represent the two parishes—the two estates, Earl's-half and Prior's-half—which anciently composed the city.
Maybe these two steeples look most magnificent in the twilight from Poolmeadow, formerly covered by a sheet of water known as S. Osburg's Pool. This is a[Pg 8] [Pg 9] bare place running east and west of Priory Street, to the north of the site of the ancient monastery. By daylight the surroundings of Poolmeadow are unbeautiful enough, yet it is in some respects the most interesting spot in Coventry, since it is connected with the earliest name that occurs in Coventry history.
What connection there was between the Saint, whose nunnery the Danes destroyed, and this pool, we know not. At her shrine in the priory were miracles wrought, and her head seems to have appeared among the relics treasured by the religious house at the Dissolution.
Another non-parochial church comes very prominently into view when the approach is made from the south-west, Canley and Hearsall, though I imagine that few enter by those by-lanes save the ruddy, brown-gaitered farmers on their way to the Friday market. This is the guild-church of S. John the Baptist at Bablake, whereof the tower, that has a fortress-like touch, rises high above the roofs of the town. Even the sea-element is not lacking in the history of this inland city, since the guild brethren declared that they wished to raise this church in part as a memorial "for the good success the king had upon the sea" upon S. John's day—probably at the battle of Sluys, June 24, 1340.[3] Hard by this church and the collegiate buildings clustered behind it stood Bablake Gate, and all who came by the great highway leading from the north-west—now called the Holyhead Road—made their entrance there. Before coming to Bablake, however, wayfarers would cross the Sherbourne at Spon, close by the chapel of S. James and S. Christopher, now incorporated in a modern dwelling-place. Here they would, belike, pay their devotions just as other travellers coming from London and Daventry paid theirs at the Lady Tower, wherein was a wooden image of our Lady, hard by Newgate and Whitefriars.
SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
COVENTRY
Smithford Street, which reminds us of the early activity of the workers in iron, leads to Bablake, and by the bridge there tradition says that there grew a great tree "that from the strangeness of the fruit was called Quient" (quaint), an imaginary etymology of the name Coventry. Modern scholars are, however, agreed that it was from some memorable (and possibly sacred) tree that the earliest form of the word "Cofantreo" is derived.
Gosford Green
To those who look on the spires from Gosford and the eastern side the tall ones appear in their relatively close proximity. This is the entrance to Coventry where most historical associations abound. "Two dukes should 'a fought on Gosford Green," succinctly say the city annals in 1397, but, as all the world knows, Richard II. forbade Bolingbroke and Mowbray to fight. Sinister memories for the House of York are connected with the Green, for here in 1469 Queen Elizabeth, Woodville's father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John, were beheaded by Warwick's orders. It is said that it was on this side of the city that Edward IV. advanced in 1471, what time the King-maker held the city against him. Further west, beyond Far Gosford Street, is Dover Bridge, whereon once stood S. George's Chapel, meeting-place of the tailors and shearmen's guild, demolished in 1821. Outside this chapel once hung the blade-bone of the dun-cow, slain, says the legend, by Guy of Warwick of famous memory.
24 Gosford ST
In Gosford Street, long, ancient and grimy, was formerly the first station for the performances of the pageants; and in Cox Street, anciently Mill Lane, which runs to the north of Gosford, were the pageant-houses or places for storage of theatrical paraphernalia owned by the crafts. From Gosford the long thoroughfare street passes into Jordan Well—commemorating the well sunk by Jordan Shepey, mayor of Coventry, who died 1349, the year of the Black Death—and thence into Earl Street, where, it may be, a castle of the Earls of Chester once stood with an entrance at Broadgate.
130 Far Gosford ST
To see the spire of S. Michael's alone it is best to leave this long thoroughfare and turn to the right by a half-timbered Tudor house down the narrowness of Pepper Lane where the immense steeple almost seems to blot out the sky.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Northall, Eng. Folk Rhymes, 403.
[2] Mayor-list or MS. Annals (eighteenth century) in the possession of Mr. Eynon of Leamington.
[3] Morris, S. John's Church.
CHAPTER I
Leofric and Godiva
It was ever the boast of Coventry men that their city was of "much fame and antiquity,"[4] being "remembered," so John Throgmorton, the recorder, assured Queen Elizabeth, "by Polydore Vergil to be of … small account in the time of King Arviragus (which was forty-four years after our Saviour) in the Emperor Claudius' time."[5] And Shakespeare's contemporary, Michael Drayton, had a pretty fancy of his own concerning the place,[6] whereby its antiquity is made manifest. He tells us how, when Coventry was but "a poor thatched village," the saint of Cologne brought thither
"That goodly virgin-band