# The Chronicle of Clemendy/The Portreeve's Solemnity

THE PORTREEVE'S SOLEMNITY
FROM ST. Madoc's Church to Uske is a short mile in distance and the road doth follow the river, passing under a high cliff mantled with trees; the same being a sweet road and a pleasant ennobled by the prospect of the embowered town, distant greeny hills, and the neighbourhood of the clearly flowing water. No sooner had we left the narrow by-way from Landevennoc than we were in the midst of a great throng of people, tramping a-foot, riding on horses, nags, and mules, and pressing forward, as we, unto the great solemnity. Here was a fine patchwork quilt, the which did one's eyes good to look at, for in one place was a piece of satin and gold lace, in another dusky subfusc tatters: there was a parson in his priest's cloak and cassock, there an esquire glittering with gold galoon, there an Egyptian with his bien morte, there a handsome, laughing maiden walking beside her lover. Close beside us were three comely wenches, berubanded like a Maypole, and with them joked three gentlemen of Newport who tried to perplex them and make them blush: and on the other side was an ecclesiastic tall and broad, riding on a proper nag, and especially cassocked and buckled up with silver. Behind him rode his serving man with his mails, and behind the serving man a rout ​of Gypsies, tinkers, sweetmeat sellers, and gay ladies, discoursing together after their use and making a great uproar. In front were some half-dozen mariners from Caerleon; two poor clerks in torn cassocks, expatiating rhetorically in the Latin tongue on this admirable admixture; a lawyer with a keen eye and a stooping back; and a body of minstrels, dressed in motley and fantastick guise, and carrying in their hands, horns, vyalls, and lutes. All clamoured together, some sang, some strove to dance short steps; and all pressed onward; while the sun baked us so that we should have dried up had it not been for the sight of the river and a cool breeze blowing from the eastward slope of Wentwood Chase. I turned me round to a fellow walking at my horse's tail, who bore a heavy pack, and asked him what he did at Uske, and he told me that he would sell there certain sweet cakes of his making, and that he stood for the better part of the day by the Minster gate. Then, burdened with his load of delicates, he fell behind, and another took his place, with a wallet of ballads, one of which he roared out in a rattling bass as a sample of his wares, and sang all the way. At last we came to the bridge and passed into Uske; and as we crossed the river, the bells which for a little while had kept silence, began to chime anew, and up the street called Maryport we made our way slowly amidst a still greater and more various copie of people, and from the castle battlements above us they began to shoot off guns. And as we rode up the street Phil Ambrose put his finger to his ​nose, and vanished away, down a narrow passage to the left hand, the which so far as I could see, appeared to lead into a garden.
Then, when we came into the square, and saw the Moot House in front of us, there rose a shout from the great congregation of the people; the doors were thrown open and the pomp began to come down the stairs. First walked two tabarders wearing surcoats of blue silk, and blowing a blast of musick on their trumpets; next, the eleven yeomen of the guard carrying pikes, thirdly the two Master Sergeants in black cassocks and square caps, then the three macemen, who bore black wands tipped with gold, and wore heavy mantles of blue cloth, with red tassels hanging from the shoulders. To these succeeded the two Chamberlains, the Recorder or Prothonotary, and the Town Clerk, with the Water Bailiffs, all decently vested and carrying the symbols of their several functions; and for a finish walked, to the right hand, the Constable of the Castle, and to the left hand the Portreeve, both being clothed most gorgeously and magnificently in satin and velvet and furs; and behind them came the bailiffs, who are the Portreeve's assessors. And at the foot of the stairs of the Moot House, the trumpeters sounded a halt and the Prothonotary began to read clearly and audibly the Inspeximus of King Edward IV. whereby all powers, benefits and privileges formerly enjoyed by ancient charters are confirmed and established to the Portreeve, Bailiffs, and Burgesses of this borough of Uske. And by it the burgesses ​of Uske are declared free and exempt of all murage, pontage, pickage, tronage, kayage, lastage, passage, portage and terrage throughout the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and Gascony, and Aquitaine and all other lands within the Realm of England, both on this side the sea and beyond the seas. From the street to the left the town musique advanced to meet them, and so soon as the procession was at the foot of the steps, their melody began, and the minstrels went forth before the tabarders down the street unto the river till they reached the Water Gate. Hither we followed them, through the press, amid a din and clamour indescribable; and when we gained the water side, we found the whole pomp standing in a half-circle by the gate with a trumpeter at either end and the Portreeve in the middle; and the musick was hushed. "Now watch the river," said Nick Leonard, "for it is time for the officer of our Sokage to appear from above the bridge, since he by a fiction is supposed to row in a boat all the way from Abergavenny, but to speak exactly, steps into a coracle a few yards beyond the bridge." So I looked up the river and presently a small wicker boat, used in these waters shot under the bridge, and in it was Phil Ambrose the Spigot Clerk of the Cwrw Dda, for this was his office if he were present. And guiding his craft skilfully across the rapids, he brought it to a stand over against the water-gate, and took out a great roll of parchment, which he held in his hand. To whom the Portreeve, "Whence come you, and on what errand?" Then the clerk ​began "I come from the town of Burgavenny, from the Most High and Mighty Tosspot Ratabus, third of that name, from the worshipful Lords Maltworm of Wales, and from all the whole Court of Cervisage; and herewith I give you my authority and letters of credence." Then he hands his roll up to a yeoman of the guard who gives it to the Portreeve that he may read it. This done the Portreeve asked, "What is it you would have of me?" "I would ask you these things—In Primis: will you drive away from your borough of Uske all erroneous, blasphemous, heretical and strange doctrines, such as and especially that it is good for man to drink water rather than ale?" And the Portreeve answers: "I will do so, for a year and a day, while I hold mine office." Spigot Clerk, "Will you promote laughter, and joyous conversation, discourage gravity and pensiveness, and temper justice with jokes?" The Portreeve answers as before. Spigot Clerk, "Will you, to the utmost of your power be an abettor and fautor of the Most High and Mighty Tosspot, the Lords Maltworm and the whole Sokage of the Cwrw Dda so far as the High Tosspot aforesaid is concerned with you and your town?" And the Portreeve again answering that he will do what is required of him, the Spigot Clerk takes off his cap, stands up in the boat and cries out in a loud voice, "Then a good greeting to John, twentieth of that name, the right worshipful Portreeve of Uske. A fair voyage to him and a dry throat and wine enow for ten; may the plague consume his enemies, and ​the sun keep him warm. All this by and with the authority of Ratabus, High Tosspot of the Cwrw Dda. Fare ye well." Then the Clerk ran his boat ashore some way farther down and did reverence to the Portreeve and came amongst us again, and the musick swelled forth gladly and joyously and the bells crashed all together. But now to answer them the bells of St. Madoc's Church, down the river began to chime, and a whole host of coracles were drawn near the water gate, for the Portreeve and all his company have been used from time immemorial to sail down the river to St. Madoc's Church and there to hear a solemn service. And for the magistrate and the Constable of the Castle, and the Bailiffs a very large wicker boat is provided and another for the musique who play their water piece; but all the rest go each in a coracle apart; and they must steer warily, for the river is shallow by Uske, and there is only a narrow passage that a boat can use. But my comrades and I would not go upon the river, but watched the college getting one by one into the boats, and saw them sailing down in a long line, so far as we could make out without any mishap. It is said that once upon a time a Portreeve, magnificently inclined, endeavoured to have his coracle drawn by swans; but the birds would not go by rule and landed the magistrate in the water, if it be lawful to say so. It is, indeed, without swans, a most rare and delicious solemnity, smacking strongly of the days of old, that were so fertile in rituals, observances, processions, ceremonies, pomps, and pagean​tries: and should be curiously observed and held in honour, for these vestiges of antiquity are becoming scarce. But let this be enough to say concerning it; and let us begone to the glorious Salmons, who have opened their mouths very wide. Here we asked the Host to put us in a room by ourselves, for the common rooms were replete and roaring with laughter from many throats; but he said that he would set us in a chamber where there was good company and not too much of it; and this pleased us better than privity would have done. So we go down a long passage and mount three steps and find ourselves in a low room looking on the garden of the Inn, and in it are the ecclesiastic we saw on the way and a young gentleman gallantly dressed, who was speaking when we came in, and was manifestly a stranger from the land over sea. And from his talk it appeared that he was giving the clergyman some notions of the Ecclesiastical Polity of France and of the various oddities and queer theological habits certain of the sacred personages had in that realm, and at his account our Welsh churchman was evidently much pleased; for the cassocks like to hear how their brethren abroad are faring. With this odd brace we made haste to be acquainted, and gave and received titles, localities, coat-armour, ancestry, estates, styles, dignities, and all such epithetic ware, for without this truck we could not be true commensals nor give opinions on any matter. And firstly the churchman; who told us that he was named David Phillips of Fleur-de-Lys in the shire of Cardigan, ​that he was a Cursal Canon in the Cathedral Church of St. David, the worship of which stall he mightily extolled, "for," said he, "in our Chapter the King's Majesty is but Cursal the First, and 'tis an august office to be Sacristan." Somewhat he spoke of great princes, his ancestors, somewhat of checky, crusoly, martlets, ermines, and gringolly, somewhat of the castle of Fleur-de-Lys, and ancient vessels of silver; but most of this is impertinent and I pass to the young gallant. Who told us that he came from the Realm of France, that he was of the house of La Roche Nemours (de Rupe Nemorosa) in Brittany, and was travelling in Gwent for his curiosity, which made him go whither his fellows went not. But as we understood his English poorly and he our French no better we agreed to speak Latin together, the which we all pronounced monastically and not after the picked, newfangled fashion. And since it appeared that we were all somewhat addicted to the exhaustion of claret before other wines, I called the Host and instructed him how to provide for us. "Bring hither," quoth I, "the most convenient and decent drinking-cup you have, and pour me into it as much claret as it will carry, and serve us some kind of drawer-on." Forthwith he brought us a silver chalice brimming with about a quart of scented wine, and set down some bottles in a corner if we were thirstier than we thought, for there is no possibility of exact calculation, and to chase a landlord to and fro for more when one journey sufficeth, misbecomes a gentleman. With this he bore a service of broiled fowl, ​hissing hot from the flames, and in truth it tasted in the mouth like burning coals. But the wine was well cooled in the bubbling fountain of the Salmons, and was very fragrant delicious claret, and light and easily carried in the belly and the head; so we were comfortable enough by dinner time. But when our meal was duly discharged, we called our host again, and craved him to set us a table and chairs under a shady mulberry in his garden, and this he easily granted us; so we were greatly at our ease, and sat listening to the roaring and shouting and singing of the multitude, whom no sun could keep quiet. But when the day began to cool and our wits to grow clear, we all asked the Seigneur of La Roche Nemours to devise some relation for us, since he came from beyond seas and could tell us of what we knew not. "Nay," answered he, "but the pleasantest adventure I have in my head was produced by your own soil of Gwent, and was recounted to me by a young clerk of Chepstow, with whom I journey⟨ed⟩ this very day." "Let us hear it, by all means," quoth the Canon Cursal, "for I know this soil to be a rich and racy one teeming with good things both for mind and body. Wait but a moment while I move my chair, for the sun is gaining on me; and then do you devise." So sitting in the shade, hearing now and again above the noise and clamour closes and intonations of strange solemn music, that seemed to come from a ruined realm of færy, we hearkened to the stranger's tale of our own dear land.