Shakespeare's England . wards queen,Isabella, caused to be dragged on a hurdlethrough the streets of Hereford (1326) andthen barbarously hanged and quartered. OfGilbert De Clare, tenth Earl of Gloucesterand last of his house, who also lies buried atTewkesbury, the traveller observes that hewas slain at the battle of Bannockburn, andremembers him as a figure in Scotts poemof The Lord of the Isles. Every foot of the Abbey is historic; andwhen at length reluctantly you leave it a fewsteps will bring you to the field by Tewkes-bury, wherein the fight raged with its great-est fury, so that the Seve
Shakespeare's England . wards queen,Isabella, caused to be dragged on a hurdlethrough the streets of Hereford (1326) andthen barbarously hanged and quartered. OfGilbert De Clare, tenth Earl of Gloucesterand last of his house, who also lies buried atTewkesbury, the traveller observes that hewas slain at the battle of Bannockburn, andremembers him as a figure in Scotts poemof The Lord of the Isles. Every foot of the Abbey is historic; andwhen at length reluctantly you leave it a fewsteps will bring you to the field by Tewkes-bury, wherein the fight raged with its great-est fury, so that the Severn ran red withblood. Shakespeare, following, as he custom-arily did, the Tudor historians, makes thatfield the scene of the murder of Prince is a peaceful place now, and when I walkedupon it, at early morning, the sun was gildingits copious verdure of waving shade-trees andshining grass, the rooks were flying over it,with many a solemn caw, and the sleek cattle,feeding, or couched ruminant in careless groups,. 8 i=;~ TEWKESBURY 233 were scattered all along its glittering, breezyplain. There La a tradition in Tewkesburythat the Lancastrian Prince of Wales wasnot murdered in the field, but in a house,then a palace, still extant, in the High Street,near the Cross,—a house now used for thedisplay and sale of confectionery. Upon thefloor of one of the rooms in that buildingblood-stains, said to be of great antiquity, arestill visible. Such traces, indeed, the silenttokens of savage crime, cannot always beeradicated,—as the visitor can learn, by visualevidence, at such old houses as Clopton, nearStratford, and Compton-Wynyate, near Ban-bury,—the latter one of the most interestingmansions in England. It is a superstition inTewkesbury that at midnight on May 7, inevery year,—that being the anniversary of thePrinces assassination,—a spectral train, bear-ing his body, passes out of that house, to thesolemn tolling of the Abbey bell, and is a cheerful plac
Size: 1234px × 2026px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectshakespearewilliam15
