Master John
Horseleigh, Knight
In the earliest
and mustiest volume of the Havenpool marriage registers (said the thin-faced
gentleman) this entry may still be read by any one curious enough to decipher
the crabbed handwriting of the date. I took a copy of it when I was last there;
and it runs thus (he had opened his pocket-book, and now read aloud the
extract; afterwards handing round the book to us, wherein we saw transcribed
the following) —
Mastr
John Horseleigh, Knyght, of p’ysshe of Clyffton was maryd to Edith the wyffe
late off John Stocker, m'chawnte of Havenpool the xiiij daie of December be
p'vylegge gevyn by our sup'me hedd of the chyrche of Ingelonde Kynge Henry the
viiith 1539.
Now, if you turn
to the long and elaborate pedigree of the ancient family of the Horseleighs of
Clyfton Horseleigh, you will find no mention whatever of this alliance,
notwithstanding the privilege given by the Sovereign and head of the Church;
the said Sir John being therein chronicled as marrying, at a date apparently
earlier than the above, the daughter and heiress of Richard Phelipson, of
Montislope, in Nether Wessex, a lady who outlived him, of which marriage there
were issue two daughters and a son, who succeeded him in his estates. How are
we to account for these, as it would seem, contemporaneous wives? A strange
local tradition only can help us, and this can be briefly told.
One evening in the
autumn of the year 1540 or 1541, a young sailor, whose Christian name was
Roger, but whose surname is not known, landed at his native place of Havenpool,
on the
'And my sister
Edith?' asked Roger.
'She's married
again—as they do say, and hath been so these twelve months. I don't vouch for
the truth o't, though if she isn't she ought to be.'
Roger's face grew
dark. He was a man with a considerable reserve of strong passion, and he asked
his informant what he meant by speaking thus.
The man explained
that shortly after the young woman's bereavement a stranger had come to the
port. He had seen her moping on the quay, had been attracted by her youth and
loneliness, and in an extraordinarily brief wooing had completely fascinated
her—had carried her off, and, as was reported, had married her. Though he had
come by water, he was supposed to live no very great distance off by land. They
were last heard of at Oozewood, in
'The stranger?'
asked Roger. 'Did you see him? What manner of man was he?'
'I liked him not,'
said the other. 'He seemed of that kind that hath something to conceal, and as
he walked with her he ever and anon turned his head and gazed behind him, as if
he much feared an unwelcome pursuer. But, faith,' continued he, 'it may have
been the man's anxiety only. Yet did I not like him.'
'Was he older than
my sister?' Roger asked.
'Ay—much older;
from a dozen to a score of years older. A man of some position, maybe, playing
an amorous game for the pleasure of the hour. Who knoweth but that he have a
wife already? Many have done the thing hereabouts of late.'
Having paid a
visit to the graves of his relatives, the sailor next day went along the
straight road which, then a lane, now a highway, conducted to the curious
little inland town named by the Havenpool man. It is unnecessary to describe
Oozewood on the South-Avon. It has a railway at the present day; but thirty years
of steam traffic past its precincts have hardly modified its original features.
Surrounded by a sort of fresh-water lagoon, dividing it from meadows and
coppice, its ancient thatch and timber houses have barely made way even in the
front street for the ubiquitous modern brick and slate. It neither increases
nor diminishes in size; it is difficult to say what the inhabitants find to do,
for, though trades in woodware are still carried on, there cannot be enough of
this class of work nowadays to maintain all the householders, the forests
around having been so greatly thinned and curtailed. At the time of this
tradition the forests were dense, artificers in wood abounded, and the timber
trade was brisk. Every house in the town, without exception, was of oak framework,
filled in with plaster, and covered with thatch, the chimney being the only
brick portion of the structure. Inquiry soon brought Roger the sailor to the
door of Wall, the timber-dealer referred to, but it was some time before he was
able to gain admission to the lodging of his sister, the people having plainly
received directions not to welcome strangers.
She was sitting in
an upper room on one of the lathbacked, willow-bottomed 'shepherd's' chairs,
made on the spot then as to this day, and as they were probably made there in
the days of the Heptarchy. In her lap was an infant, which she had been
suckling, though now it had fallen asleep; so had the young mother herself for
a few minutes, under the drowsing effects of solitude. Hearing footsteps on the
stairs, she awoke, started up with a glad cry, and ran to the door, opening
which she met her brother on the threshold.
'O, this is merry;
I didn't expect 'ee!' she said. 'Ah, Roger—I thought it was John. 'Her tones
fell to disappointment.
The sailor kissed
her, looked at her sternly for a few moments, and pointing to the infant, said,
'You mean the father of this?'
'Yes, my husband,'
said Edith.
'I hope so,' he
answered.
'Why, Roger, I'm
married—of a truth am I!’ she cried.
'Shame upon 'ee,
if true! If not true, worse. Master Stocker was an honest man, and ye should
have respected his memory longer. Where is thy husband?'
'He comes often. I
thought it was he now. Our marriage has to be kept secret for a while—it was
done privily for certain reasons; but we was married at church like honest
folk—afore God we were, Roger, six months after poor Stocker's death.'
' 'Twas too soon,'
said Roger.
'I was living in a
house alone; I had nowhere to go to. You were far over sea in the
'How often doth he
come?’ says Roger again.
'Once or twice
weekly,' says she. 'I wish th' 'dst
waited till I returned, dear Edy,’ he said. 'It mid be you are a wife—I hope
so. But, if so, why this mystery? Why this mean and cramped lodging in this
lonely copse-circled town? Of what standing is your husband, and of where?'
'He is of gentle
breeding—his name is John. I am not free to tell his family-name. He is said to
be of
'Where in the next
county?'
'I do not know. He
has preferred not to tell me, that I may not have the secret forced from me, to
his and my hurt, by bringing the marriage to the ears of his kinsfolk and
friends.'
Her brother's face
flushed. 'Our people have been honest townsmen, well-reputed for long; why
should you readily take such humbling from a sojourner of whom th' 'st know
nothing?'
They remained in
constrained converse till her quick ear caught a sound, for which she might
have been waiting—a horse's footfall. 'It is John !' said she. 'This is his
night—Saturday.'
'Don't be
frightened lest he should find me here!' —said Roger. 'I am on the point of
leaving. I wish not to be a third party. Say nothing at all about my visit, if
it will incommode you so to do. I will see thee before I go afloat again.
Speaking thus he
left the room, and descending the staircase let himself out by the front door,
thinking he might obtain a glimpse of the approaching horseman. But that
traveller had in the meantime gone stealthily round to the back of the
homestead, and peering along the pinion-end of the house Roger discerned him
unbridling and haltering his horse with his own hands in the shed there.
Roger retired to
the neighbouring inn called the Black Lamb, and meditated. This mysterious
method of approach determined him, after all, not to leave the place till he
had ascertained more definite facts of his sister's position—whether she were
the deluded victim of the stranger or the wife she obviously believed herself
to be. Having eaten some supper, he left the inn, it being now about
The horse which
bore him was, or seemed to be, a little lame, and Roger fancied from this that
the rider's journey was not likely to be a long one. Being light of foot he
followed apace, having no great difficulty on such a still night in keeping
within earshot some few miles, the horseman pausing more than once. In this
pursuit Roger discovered the rider to choose bridle-tracks and open commons in
preference to any high road. The distance soon began to prove a more trying one
than he had bargained for; and when out of breath and in some despair of being
able to ascertain the man's identity, he perceived an ass standing in the
starlight under a hayrick, from which the animal was helping itself to periodic
mouthfuls.
The story goes
that Roger caught the ass, mounted, and again resumed the trail of the
unconscious horseman, which feat may have been possible to a nautical young
fellow, though one can hardly understand how a sailor would ride such an animal
without bridle or saddle, and strange to his hands, unless the creature were
extraordinarily docile. This question, however, is immaterial. Suffice it to
say that at dawn the following morning Roger beheld his sister's lover or
husband entering the gates of a large and well-timbered park on the
south-western verge of the White Hart Forest (as it was then called), now known
to everybody as the Vale of Blackmoor. Thereupon the sailor discarded his
steed, and finding for himself an obscurer entrance to the same park a little
further on, he crossed the grass to reconnoitre.
He presently
perceived amid the trees before him a mansion which, new to himself, was one of
the best known in the county at that time. Of this fine manorial residence
hardly a trace now remains; but a manuscript dated some years later than the
events we are regarding describes it in terms from which the imagination may
construct a singularly clear and vivid picture. This record presents it as
consisting of 'a faire yellow freestone building, partly two and partly three
storeys; a faire halle and parlour, both waynscotted; a faire dyning roome and
withdrawing roome, and many good lodgings; a kitchen adjoyninge backwarde to
one end of the dwelling-house, with a faire passage from it into the halle,
parlour, and dyninge roome, and sellars adjoyninge.
'In the front of
the house a square greene court, and a curious gatehouse with lodgings in it,
standing with the front of the house to the south; in a large outer court three
stables, a coach-house, a large barne, and a stable for oxen and kyne, and all
houses necessary.
'Without the
gatehouse, paled in, a large square greene, in which standeth a faire chappell
; of the south-east side of the greene court, towards the river, a large
garden. Of the south-west side of the greene court is a large bowling greene,
with fower mounted walks about it, all walled about with a battered wall, and
sett with all sorts of fruit; and out of it into the feildes there are large
walks under many tall elmes orderly planted.'
Then follows a
description of the orchards and gardens; the servants' offices, brewhouse,
bakehouse, dairy, pigeon-houses, and corn-mill; the river and its abundance of
fish; the warren, the coppices, the walks; ending thus—
'And all the
country north of the house, open Champaign, sandy feildes, very dry and
pleasant for all kindes of recreation, huntinge, and hawkinge, and profitable
for tillage. . . . The house hath a large prospect east, south, and west, over
a very large and pleasant vale . . . is seated from the good markett towns of
Sherton Abbas three miles, and Ivel a mile, that plentifully yield all manner
of provision; and within twelve miles of the south sea.'
It was on the
grass before this seductive and picturesque structure that the sailor stood at
gaze under the elms in the dim dawn of Sunday morning, and saw to his surprise
his sister's lover and horse vanish within the court of the building.
Perplexed and
weary, Roger slowly retreated, more than ever convinced that something was
wrong in his sister's position. He crossed the bowling green to the avenue of
elms, and, bent on further research, was about to climb into one of these,
when, looking below, he saw a heap of hay apparently for horses or deer. Into
this he crept, and, having eaten a crust of bread which he had hastily thrust
into his pocket at the inn, he curled up and fell asleep, the hay forming a
comfortable bed, and quite covering him over.
He slept soundly
and long, and was awakened by the sound of a bell. On peering from the hay he
found the time had advanced to full day; the sun was shining brightly. The bell
was that of the 'faire chappell' on the green outside the gatehouse, and it was
calling to matins. Presently the priest crossed the green to a little side-door
in the chancel, and then from the gateway of the mansion emerged the household,
the tall man whom Roger had seen with his sister on the previous night, on his
arm being a portly dame, and, running beside the pair, two little girls and a
boy. These all entered the chapel, and the bell having ceased and the environs
become clear, the sailor crept out from his hiding.
He sauntered
towards the chapel, the opening words of the service being audible within.
While standing by the porch he saw a belated servitor approaching from the
kitchen-court to attend the service also. Roger carelessly accosted him, and
asked, as an idle wanderer, the name of the family he had just seen cross over
from the mansion.
'Od zounds! if ye
modden be a stranger here in very truth, goodman. That wer Sir John and his
dame, and his children Elizabeth, Mary, and John.'
'I be from foreign
parts. Sir John what d'ye call'n?'
'Master John
Horseleigh, Knight, who had a'most as much lond by inheritance of his mother as
'a had by his father, and likewise some by his wife. Why, bain't his arms dree
goolden horses' heads, and idden his lady the daughter of Master Richard
Phelipson, of Montislope, in Nether Wessex, known to us all?'
'It mid be so, and
yet it mid not. However, th' 'lt miss thy prayers for such an honest knight's
welfare, and I have to traipse seaward many miles.'
He went onward,
and as he walked continued saying to himself, 'Now to that poor wronged fool
Edy. The fond thing! I thought it; 'twas too quick—she was ever amorous. What's
to become of her! God wot! How be I going to face her with the news, and how be
I to hold it from her? To bring this disgrace on my father's honoured name, a
double-tongued knave!' He turned and shook his fist at the chapel and all in
it, and resumed his way.
Perhaps it was
owing to the perplexity of his mind that, instead of returning by the direct
road towards his sister's obscure lodging in the next county, he followed the
highway to Casterbridge, some fifteen miles off, where he remained drinking
hard all that afternoon and evening, and where he lay that and two or three
succeeding nights, wandering thence along the Anglebury road to some village
that way, and lying the Friday night after at his native place of Havenpool.
The sight of the familiar objects there seems to have stirred him anew to
action, and the next morning he was observed pursuing the way to Oozewood that
he had followed on the Saturday previous, reckoning, no doubt, that Saturday
night would, as before, be a time for finding Sir John with his sister again.
He delayed to
reach the place till just before sunset. His sister was walking in the meadows
at the foot of the garden, with a nursemaid who carried the baby, and she
looked up pensively when he approached. Anxiety as to her position had already
told upon her once rosy cheeks and lucid eyes. But concern for herself and
child was displaced for the moment by her regard of Roger's worn and haggard
face.
'Why—you are sick,
Roger—you are tired! Where have you been these many days? Why not keep me
company a bit—my husband is much away? And we have hardly spoke at all of dear
father and of your voyage to the New Land. Why did you go away so suddenly?
There is a spare chamber at my lodging.'
'Come indoors,' he
said. 'We'll talk now—talk a good deal. As for him [nodding to the child],
better heave him into the river; better for him and you!'
She forced a
laugh, as if she tried to see a good joke in the remark, and they went silently
indoors.
'A miserable hole!'
said Roger, looking round the room.
'Nay, but 'tis
very pretty!'
'Not after what
I've seen. Did he marry 'ee at church in orderly fashion?'
'He did sure—at
our church at Havenpool.'
'But in a privy
way?'
'Ay—because of his
friends—it was at night-time.'
'Ede, ye fond
one—for all that he's not thy husband! Th' 'rt not his wife; and the child is a
bastard. He hath a wife and children of his own rank, and bearing his name; and
that's Sir John Horseleigh, of Clyfton Horseleigh, and not plain Jack, as you
think him, and your lawful husband. The sacrament of marriage is no safeguard
nowadays. The King's new made headship of the Church hath led men to practise
these tricks lightly.'
She had turned
white. That's not true, Roger!' she said. 'You are in liquor, my brother, and
you know not what you say! Your seafaring years have taught 'ee bad things!'
'Edith—I've seen
them; wife and family—all. How canst—'
They were sitting
in the gathered darkness, and at that moment steps were heard without. 'Go out
this way,' she said. 'It is my husband. He must not see thee in this mood. Get
away till to-morrow, Roger, as you care for me.'
She pushed her
brother through a door leading to the back stairs, and almost as soon as it was
closed her visitor entered. Roger, however, did not retreat down the stairs; he
stood and looked through the bobbin hole. If the visitor turned out to be Sir
John, he had determined to confront him.
It was the knight.
She had struck a light on his entry, and he kissed the child, and took Edith
tenderly by the shoulders, looking into her face.
'Something's gone
awry wi' my dear!' he said. What is it? What's the matter?'
'O, Jack!' she
cried. I have heard such a fearsome rumour—what doth it mean? He who told me is
my best friend. He must be deceived! But who deceived him, and why? Jack, I was
just told that you had a wife living when you married me, and have her still!'
'A wife?— H'm.'
'Yes, and
children. Say no, say no!'
'By God! I have no
lawful wife but you; and as for children, many or few, they are all bastards,
save this one alone!'
'And that you be
Sir John Horseleigh of Clyfton?'
'I mid be. I have
never said so to 'ee.'
'But Sir John is
known to have a lady, and issue of her!' The
knight looked down. 'How did thy mind get filled with such as this?' he asked.
'One of my kindred
came.'
'A traitor! Why
should he mar our life? Ah! you said you had a brother at sea—where is he now?'
'Here!'
came from close behind him. And flinging open the door Roger faced the
intruder. 'Liar! he said, 'to call thyself her husband!'
Sir John fired up,
and made a rush at the sailor, who seized him by the collar, and in the wrestle
they both fell, Roger under. But in a few seconds he contrived to extricate his
right arm, and drawing from his belt a knife which he wore attached to a cord
round his neck he opened it with his teeth, and struck it into the breast of
Sir John stretched above him. Edith had during these moments run into the next
room to place the child in safety, and when she came back the knight was
relaxing his hold on Roger's throat. He rolled over upon his back and groaned.
The only witness
of the scene save the three concerned was the nursemaid, who had brought in the
child on its father's arrival. She stated afterwards that nobody suspected Sir
John had received his death wound; yet it was so, though he did not die for a
long while, meaning thereby an hour or two; that Mistress Edith continually
endeavoured to staunch the blood, calling her brother Roger a wretch, and
ordering him to get himself gone; on which order he acted, after a gloomy
pause, by opening the window, and letting himself down by the sill to the
ground.
It was then that
Sir John, in difficult accents, made his dying declaration to the nurse and
Edith, and, later, the apothecary; which was to this purport, that the Dame
Horseleigh who passed as his wife at Clyfton, and who had borne him three
children, was in truth and deed, though unconsciously, the wife of another man.
Sir John had married her several years before, in the face of the whole county,
as the widow of one Decimus Strong, who had disappeared shortly after her union
with him, having adventured to the North to join the revolt of the Nobles, and
on that revolt being quelled retreated across the sea. Two years ago, having
discovered this man to be still living in France, and not wishing to disturb
the mind and happiness of her who believed herself his wife, yet wishing for
legitimate issue, Sir John had informed the King of the facts, who had
encouraged him to wed honestly, though secretly, the young merchant's widow at
Havenpool; she being, therefore, his lawful wife, and she only. That to avoid
all scandal and hubbub he had purposed to let things remain as they were till
fair opportunity should arise of making the true case known with least pain to
all parties cornered, but that, having been thus suspected and attacked by his
own brother-in-law, his zest for such schemes and for all things had died out
in him, and he only wished to commend his soul to God.
That night, while
the owls were hooting from the forest that encircled the sleeping townlet, and
the South-Avon was gurgling through the wooden piles of the bridge, Sir John
died there in the arms of his wife. She concealed nothing of the cause of her
husband's death save the subject of the quarrel, which she felt it would be
premature to announce just then, and until proof of her status should be
forthcoming. But before a month had passed, it happened, to her inexpressible
sorrow, that the child of this clandestine union fell sick and died. From that
hour all interest in the name and fame of the Horseleighs forsook the younger
of the twain who called themselves wives of Sir John, and, being careless about
her own fame, she took no steps to assert her claims, her legal position
having, indeed, grown hateful to her in her horror at the tragedy. And Sir
William Byrt, the curate who had married her to her husband, being an old man
and feeble, was not disinclined to leave the embers unstirred of such a fiery
matter as this, and to assist her in letting established things stand.
Therefore, Edith retired with the nurse, her only companion and friend, to her
native town, where she lived in absolute obscurity till her death in middle
age. Her brother was never seen again in England.
A strangely
corroborative sequel to the story remains to be told. Shortly after the death
of Sir John Horseleigh, a soldier of fortune returned from the Continent,
called on Dame Horseleigh the fictitious, living in widowed state at Clyfton
Horseleigh, and, after a singularly brief courtship, married her. The tradition
at Havenpool and elsewhere has ever been that this man was already her husband,
Decimus Strong, who remarried her for appearance' sake only.
The illegitimate
son of this lady by Sir John succeeded to the estates and honours, and his son
after him, there being nobody on the alert to investigate their pretensions.
Little difference would it have made to the present generation, however, had
there been such a one, for the family in all its branches, lawful and unlawful,
has been extinct these many score years, the last representative but one being
killed at the siege of Sherton Castle, while attacking in the service of the
Parliament, and the other being outlawed later in the same century for a debt
of ten pounds, and dying in the county jail. The mansion house and its
appurtenances were as I have previously stated, destroyed, excepting, one small
wing, which now forms part of a farmhouses and is visible as you pass along the
railway from Casterbridge to Ivell. The outline of the old bowling-green is
also distinctly to be seen.
This, then, is the
reason why the only lawful marriage of Sir John, as recorded in the obscure
register at Havenpool, does not appear in the pedigree of the house of
Horseleigh.
Spring 1893.