Morning journal and courier., 1891-10-17
MIR. wAKEmAN,s JouRNEyxNcs,

|" MIR. wAKEMAN'S JOURNEYINGs - At Coventry, England-Lady Godfvz 1 and Peeping Tom-The City Wal f and Towers-Churchcs of st. Mf. A chaePs and TrInity-The rmprison
 ment of Mary Queen of Scotts-Ags :, in Architecture - Three-Hundred. | Year-Old Inn-St. Mary's Hall and Ford,s Hospital.
 7 COVENTRY, England, Oct. 5. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 The pertinacity with which single fact belief or legend from bygone times find; lodgment in the minds of men, and even ! tually becomes bulwark of local pride
 and power as well as a subject of univer- sal interest is nowhere in Britain more strikingly illustrated than in this ancient city of Coventry.
 Every well known old world place has it's greater or lesser shining beacon of . splendid fact or myth to which the tourist, like mariner, directs his often tempestu- ous way. Blarney has its 'tstone." Bel
 fast its spinning mills and historic places of riot. Old St. Ives and Banbury are
 dear in nursery-rhyme memory. York
 and Canterbury are rich in Cathedrals and
 lore of pilgrims. Saulisbury was the Old
 Sarum of Britain. Bristol had it's Chat
 terton. Grasmere and Rydal Mount knew
 Wordsworth, and Berwick was the home
 of Southey and Coleridge. When Gad's
 Hill is mentioned we see Dickens and all
 his wondrous brood of tender creation.
 Yarmouth is simply where the "Peggot-
 tvs" dwelt. Newstead only recalls Byron
 Abbottsford, Melrose and Dryburgh tell
 more than all else of Sir Walter Scott.
 Naseby and Culloden mean the dethrone-
 ment of one king and the utter obscura-
 ton of heroic prince and his glorious
 house. Gloucester recalls the origin of
 the Sunday school. Wentworth reveals
 the revelries of Elizabeth. Rugby sug-
 gests everything wholesome and good in
 schoolboy life. One sees in the mere
 words of Dumfries or Aver the radiant
 face of Bobby" Burns. The name Augh-
 rim discloses the entire tragedy of the
 Irish nations overthrow. Stratford to
 the mind is but another word for Shakes
 peare. And Coventry has for eight hun- 1 dred years meant, and will forever solely
 suggest-Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom. Nor does it matter whether these per sonsges and the curious drama in which they are placed by popular and historic belief as actors were fact or fiction. The warp and wool of it are set so firmly in l the texture of romance, ballad and song that even Cromwell of literature would | meet but ignominy and defeat in attempts to rage these splendid cloisters of tradi- ton and drive from them their loved re- cluses of tender conceit. Matthew of Westminster who hourished about 130O-1O hrst set down the episode as sober history, but failed to make place for stPeepine Tom" He says:
 'This Countess (Godiva) devotedIy anx
 ious to free the city of Coventry from a grievous and base thralldom, often be- sought the count, her husband, that he
 would, for the love of the Holy Trinity and the sacred mother of God, liberate it from such servitude. But he rebuked her for vainly demanding thing so injurious to himself, and forbade her to move fur ther therein. Yet she, out of her woman ly pertinacity, continued to press the mat ter, insomuch that she obtained this an swer from him. 'Ascend,' he said, thy horse naked, and pass thus through the city, from one end of it to the other, in sight of the people, and on thy return thou shalt obtain thy request Upon which she returned. And should I be willing to do this wilt thou give me leaveP I will, he responded. Then the Countess Godiva, beloved of God, ascended her horse naked, loosing her long hair, which | clothed her entire body except her snow white legs, and having performed the four ney, seen by none, returned with joy to her husband, who, regarding it as a mira | cle, thereupon granted Coventry a charter | of freedom, confirming it with his seal"
 Every one has fingered with infinite | charm upon the continued tale of how Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity; And one low churl, compact of thankIess earth The fatal byword of all years to come, | Boring 6 little auger-h in fear. | Peeped-but his eyes before they had their will | Were shrivell,d into darkness in his head. And dropt before him. So the Powers who wait | On noble deeds, cancel a sense misused. |
 How or when this Zone low churl, com pact of thankless earth" was first made | the horrid antithesis of Lady Godiva's mo- | ble sacrifice, or why the honest vocation | of a tailor was called upon to supply a | culprit, no man can tell. But sure it is | that "Peeping Tom," whose pseudonym will continue for all time as type of exc crable and insufferable inquisitiveness.
 
 these terrible things happened to him in | ancient Coventry. Worse shame than all | other to Peeping Tom are his appalling re- maining effigies. They are countless here | in Coveutry-in stone, in wood, in delft, in porcelain, in wax; while the very school | boys are eternally testing new jackknives | upon grotesque limitations of the repulsive | object. The thing leers at you from niches | above ancient buildings; seems to crane sf,.aa ,El new and old hotels; shows its horse.lik | teeth from among shop-window trifies; and haunts and pursues you until you are startled to see its lineament reproducsd in the faces of tramps and beldames in | shadowy quarters of the musty old town. Truly the Peeping Tom you will find eve rywhere in Coventry is dreadful trayesty | upon the human form and face. They have put his trunk and chest in armor. | He Is smade man of arms as we'll as shears, with military cooked hat decked | with huge rosette. His face is wide, | square and white. The eyes are Brobdie- nagian in size and possess a leer both sane timonious and repulsively suggestive. | His bearded chin looks like the mirage of | a savage flame. And the mouth, as wide | as a cows, disclose ghastly row of grave stone teeth. |
 If this luckness wight has been merely l popular embodiment of evil as opposed | to good, Lady Godiva certainly existed in l the flesh. She is a historic character of authentic certifcstion. She was sister to Thorald, sheriff of Lincolnshire, and wife of Leofric, earl of Mercis, a prime favor ite of Edward the Confessor, and in his time at the head of various great state transactions. Both history and tradition unite in honoring Lady Godiva with the possession of unusual piety, goodness and beauty. The devout pair certainly found ed here great monastery for Benedictine monks, which attained enormous wealth and splendor, suffered strange vieissitudes. passed into silence and decay, and massive | vestiges of its remains are still seen on the | banks of the river here. Leofric died at Bromley, Staffordshire, but was buried in | one porch of the monastery at Coventry: while his wife, who at her death gave | | "rich chain of precious stones to De put | around the neck of the blessed virgins inn | age, so that those who came of devotion | thither should say as many prayers as | there were several gems within,h was giv- | en burial in the other. It was incontesta- | ply true that the citizens of Coventry, when Leofric's vassals, did receive, through Lady Godiva's efforts with her grim war | rior husband, some sort of manumission | from serv1le tenure, as not only ancient | records prove, but as was also clearly eyi- | denced by the memorial window which | stood in the south transept of Trinity | church up to the fifteenth century, and | contained a picture of Lady Godiva and | r Aha LaI