New-York tribune., 1907-07-10
A HAMPSHIRE PAGEANT
HOW Romsey Has Celebrated a
Thousand Years Circuit.
Romsey, June 26

in tone with its gray Norman abbey. This
week ii has sparkled with gay colors under
dull sky and f1uttered with the stir and hubbub
Of a millenary celebration. High above the
abbey tower the British flag has been proudly
waving, the little market square where the
statue Of Pamerston stands has been trcked
out with bright streamers and evergreen, every
house or shop has' Joined in the holiday
masquerade. and rusty, rheumatic graybeards
and spry, mischlevous urchins have been thrilled
with the pIeasurable thought that at last after
thousand years, something is happening in
the lower Test Valley more exhilaratng than
the splashing of trout in the shimmering waters
or the twitter of birds among the wild clematis
hedges. As the hour for the pageant has ap-
preached and the performers and spectators
have formed in long struggling procession
through Broadlands Park. with its beeches frs
oaks yews. lindens and hazel underbrush, the
centuries have been jumbled together in a fam
tastc medley. Saxon warriors and Danish
spearmen, agile monks in red and black and
TuddY faced nuns in blue and white, eCclesas-
tics in scarlet and abbesses In sombre simplicity
Plantagenet courtiers with knightly and
brilliant trappings. pleasure loving cavalier
troopers and long faced Roundhead psalm sing
ers have sauntered together across the meadows
or been cheek by jowl in the sixpenny drags
and In close touch with the stored and pictu-
rescue ages has been the prosaic twentieth cen
tury. with its motor and carriages filled
with country house visitors. with wayside hawk
ers OF postcards and programmes, with pushfu
American tourists, outfooting the sluggish VII
lage rustcs and with mounted police prancing
up and down the roadways. Glorious days in
deed are these for this English Sleepy Hollow
when It's legends are pieCed together and re-
enacted, and when royalty opens the show in
the person Of Princess Louise and the shiIIings
and siXpences are rattling in every serviceable
( till!
The scene of the pageant Is the greensward
on the banks OF the silvery Test where Pal
merston used to stroll during restful HOLIDAYS
An immense covered grandstand faces the river
and behind II are twenty or thirty tents where
costumes are changed and tea and cakes are
served Among the trees on one side is the
model of an ancient Saxon gateway with flank
Ing walls, and downstream In the opposite
quarter the open air theatre is fringed at the
wings with woodlands. out OF which Danish in
Vaders and Puritan soldiers are to emerge in
que time II is a lovely sylvan scene without
the Illusions and exaggerations Of paint. and
while the sky Is gray and overcast with menace
OF rain there is abundance Of light for the glints
OF color in armor and costume and there Is
brave array of holiday spectators In the crowded
stand on the lower tier of the amphitheatre
or seats is an orchestra Of seventy musicians
and before each episode the chorus of 15O sing.
ers' habited as monks IN red and black and as
nuns IN blue and white troops to the front 10
explain in SLOW refrain, and impressive harmony
what IS about TO happen This is a classic
feature adapted from Greek drama. which fills
the paNses between acts with melody. and while
the monks and nuns chanting the scene
shifiers are at work behind them clearing and
refashiOning the open stage What is AZ the
outset woodland glade with the river sparkling
IN the background IS transformed for several
episodes into a convent garden. where screens
OF eVergreHns are trundled I'm wheels and
pieced together as a long hedge beside the gate-
way and hanked with terraces OF flowers For
the later episodes these screens are shifted again
so as 10 leave a free field for civic functions The
diminishing Of the civil and the final tab
leau when the 1890 representatives. of n thou
sand years are grouped about the symbolic figure
OF the Genius OF Romsey
With the exception OF Pallerston's residence
In the Broadands estate and Florence NiGhtin-
gales home I'm Embley Park the old town has
no history except the legends Of the majestic
Norman conventuaI church and the civil war
but these have sufficed for a picturesque and
animated pageant more consistent and artistic
than the oxford town show. Seven OF tho
eleven episodes are directly connected with the
abbey. The first illustrates the founding OF the
abbey in 907 by the son Of Alfred the Great and
is beautiful spectacle. with Saxon hunting
party sweeping across the stage with the mon
arch giving counsel 10 his son and receiving the
queen and a group of princesses and the aged
Bishop of Winchester acknowledging gratefully
lhe SItt 10 tho church. while his attendants are
singing a Latin chant. The second is more
dramatic for 1t recites the Hampshire variant
Of Tristram and Isolde with the Kings rnessen
ger iaillng IN love with the fair Elfrda instead
or pressing the royal suit and being murdered for
his treachery with the rebuilding of the abbey,
AT the Bishops suggestion i'm expiaton of the
crime. This incident occurred AT Wherwel in /
the upper Test Valley. but is utilized for +ba
Konsey pageant The third episode is more
spirited still. for il portrays the procession of
the abbess and nuns. with crowd of villagers
Dehlhu them, 10 a shrine outside the convent
where saint appears with golden wings and
promises them protection. and supernatural help /
is needed: for, while they are Ineelfng in their
htany the Danes the river in their boats
and emerging from the woods set fire 10 the
church before the townspeOple can ralIv and
beat them back Next comes the woong OF
Princess Matilda, professed nun eager to es-
cape from the convent garden and when tho
Norman King has glanced wrathfulIy at the
cloister walls and departed for his fatal chase
in the New Forest his brother meets her and
makes love TO her pausiug only when the char
coal burners cart with the dead monarCh's body
covered with bracken is driven across the
meadow. History is closely repeated here for
the ancient road from the New Forest crossed
this open air theatre, and the driver of the cart
is another PurkIss-a descendant of the charcoal
burner of the Red Kings time There is aIso
among the pageant actors a descendant of Tyr- /
re the regicde
The history Of Romsey Is brought down IN
lloo with the abduction of the Abbess Mary hv
Matthleu OF AlsaCe-anOther fine tableau with
picturesque grouping of nuns. soldiers and viii l.
layers The deposition of the Abbess Elizabetb .
by the Bishop and he" subsequent reelection bv
the nuns are the themes Of the sixth episode
With the seventh the record is carried into the
sixteenth century. when the abbey was SIM
pressed ny the Kings Commissioner and the
property purchased by the vicar and townsfoIk
function-the incorporation Of the borough by
James |; and then a stirring fight of the