# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Warwick Castle

WARWICK CASTLE.
Stout Guy of Warwick, may we pass unharmed
Thy wicket-gate? And wilt thou not come forth,
With thy gigantic mace to break our bones,
Nor seethe us in thy caldron, whence of yore
The blood-red pottage flowed?
 A glorious haunt
Thy race have had 'neath these luxuriant shades
From age to age. Around the mighty base
Of the time-honored castle, lifting high
Rampart and tower and battlement sublime,
Winds the soft-flowing Avon, pleased to clasp
An infant islet in her nursing arms.
Anon her meek mood changes, and in sport
She leaps with frolic foot from rock to rock,
Taking a wild dance on their pavement rude;
Then half complaining, half in weariness
Resumes her quiet way.
 Would that I knew
The very turret in this ancient pile,
Where the sixth Henry had his tutelage,
Wearing with tasks ten tedious years away.
The mother's tear was on his rounded cheek,
When stately Beauchamp took him from her arms,
An infant of five summers to enforce
His knightly training. Pressed the iron hand
Of chivalry all harshly on his soul,
Keeping its pulses down, till the free stream
Of thought was petrified? Perchance the sway
Of such stern tutor might have bowed too low
What was too weak at first; and so, poor king,
Thou wert in vassalage thy whole life long,
The scorn of lawless spirits, on thy brow
Wearing a crown indeed, but in thy breast
Hiding the slave-chain.
 In yon lofty hall,
Hung round with ancient armor, interspersed
With branching antlers of the hunted stag,
Fancy depictureth a warrior-shade,
The swarth king-maker, he who bore so high
His golden coronet, and on his shield
The Bear and ragged Staff. At his rough grasp
The warring roses quaked, and like the foam
That crests the wave one moment, and the next
Dies at its feet, alternate rose and sank
The crowned heads of York and Lancaster. —Gone are those days with all their deeds of arms,
Their clangor echoing loud from shore to shore,
Rousing the "shepherd-maiden" from her flocks,
To buckle on strange armor and preserve
The endangered Gallic throne.
With traveller's glance
We turned from Warwick's castellated dome,
Wrapped in its cloud of rich remembrances,
And took our pilgrim way. There many a trait
Of rural life we gathered up, to fill
The outline of our picture, shaded strong
By the dark pencil of old feudal times.
We saw a rustic household wandering forth
That cloudless afternoon, perchance to make
Some visit promised long, for each was clad
With special care as on a holiday.
The father bore the baby awkwardly
In his coarse arms, like tool or burden used
About his work, yet kindly bent him down
To hear its little murmur of delight.
With a more practised hand the mother led
One who could scarcely totter, its small feet
Patting unequally,—from side to side
Its rotund body balancing. Alone,
Majestic in an added year, walked on
Between the groups another ruddy one.
She faltereth at the style, but being raised
And set upon the green sward, how she shouts,
Curvets, and gambols like a playful lamb,
Plucking with pride and wonder, here and there,
Herbling or flower, o'er which the baby crows,
One moment, and the next, with chubby hand
Rendeth in pieces like a conqueror.
On went the cottage-group, and then there came
A poor old man, unaided and alone,
Clad in his alms-house garments. Slow he moved
And painfully, nor sought the human eye
As if expectant of its sympathy.
He hath no children in his face to smile,
No friend to take him by the withered hand,
Yet looketh upward, and his feeble heart
Warms in the pleasant sunshine.
 Yea, look up!—
The world hath dealt but harshly, and old Time,
That cunning foe, hath all thy nerves unstrung,
And made thy thin blood wintry. Yet look up;—
The pure, pure air is thine, the sun is thine,
And thou shalt rise above them, if thy soul
Cling to its Saviour's skirts. So be not sad
Or desolate in spirit, but hold on
A Christian's faithful journey to the land,
Where palsied limbs and wrinkles are unknown.
Monday, October 12, 1840.
The old Porter, in his lodge at the embattled gateway, was pleased to show the gigantic armor, and other relics, of Guy of Warwick, and to speak of his marvellous feats, and redoubtable valor.
Among these, his having slain a Saracen giant, and a wonderful dun cow, were not forgotten. "Here," said the narrator, "is his seething pot. It holds exactly 102 gallons." And warming as he proceeded, he told ​how, when the son of the present Earl came of age, it was thrice filled with punch, and how at each precious concoction 18 gallons of brandy, 18 of spirit, and 100 lbs. of sugar were consumed.
In the green-house we were gratified by seeing the celebrated antique vase, found at the bottom of a lake, in the villa of the Emperor Adrian, near Tivoli. It is of white marble, and among the finest specimens of ancient sculpture. Vine-branches, exquisitely wrought, form its handles, and grapes, leaves, and tendrils cluster gracefully around its brim. We were told that it was capable of containing 136 gallons, and stands upon a pedestal, with a Latin inscription.
Among the pictures in Warwick Castle, is a grand one of Charles the First, by Vandyke. The king in armor is seated on a grey horse, so majestic, yet so melancholy, that you almost imagine him endued with a prophetic spirit, and in the midst of regal grandeur saddened by his future fate. Bernard de Foix, Duke of Espernon and Valette, holds his helmet as a page. Vandyke executed three splendid equestrian paintings of this monarch. The other two are at Hampton Court and Windsor Castle.
In passing through the town of Warwick we visited St. Mary's Church, a venerable structure, whose foundation claims the antiquity of a Saxon origin. It is built in the form of a cross, and its proportions are symmetrical. "You'll see the Beechem tombs, sure!" said our guide, leading the way to an adjoining edi​fice. I scarcely knew from his mode of pronunciation that he meant the Beauchamp chapel, the most stately and costly one in the kingdom, with the exception of that of Henry the Seventh, in Westminster Abbey. Its entrance is through an ornamented vestibule, the richness of its painted glass is striking, and many of its monuments elaborate. Near the northern wall is the tomb of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth, and her host during the princely festivities of Kenilworth, when for seventeen days the hand of the great clock at the castle was ever pointing to the hour of banquet. There also slumber the remains of his countess, under the same gorgeous canopy with himself, supported by Corinthian columns. Poor Amy Robsart! how instinctively turns the heart to thee, and to the fearful secrets of Cumnor Hall. Near the southern wall of the chapel are entombed the remains of his infant son, "the noble Impe, Robert of Dudley, Baron of Denbigh," and heir presumptive to the earldom of Warwick. In the centre is the monument of its founder, Richard Beauchamp, the great Earl of Warwick, who held offices of the highest trust and power under Henry the Fourth and Fifth, and conducted the education of Henry the Sixth. During the exercise of his office, as Regent of France, he died at Rouen, in 1439, and his body was brought over in a stone coffin for interment here. His monument displays his recumbent statue in fine brass, clad in a full suit of plate armor. In a curious ​old biography of him, it is told how "erle Richard by the auctoritie of the hole parliament was maister to king Henrie the 6th, and so he contynowed till the yonge king was 16 yere of age." A drawing in the same book represents him in his robes and coronet, taking the infant monarch from his nurse's arms, the Queen and Bishop of Winchester standing by with sorrowful countenances. The round, unthinking face of the boy expresses no sympathy in their regret; though he probably soon learned to realize the contrast between the delights of the royal nursery, and the training of his stately tutor, who, we learn from history, insisted peremptorily on the privilege of inflicting personal chastisement, and subjected his pupil to many severe restrictions. This iron rule pressed heavily upon the weak mind of the unfortunate Henry, whose touching epitaph at Windsor cannot be read without pity.
"Here, o'er the ill-fated king the marble weeps,
And fast beside him vengeful Edward sleeps,
Whom not the extended Albion could contain,
From old Belerium to the northern main,
The grave unites; where even the great find rest,
And blended lie the oppressor and the opprest."