Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe by Sabine Baring-Gould (books to read to improve english TXT) 📖

vessel with him. As has been said of Robin Hood, so it was told of the Shropshire freebooter, that he robbed the rich and befriended the poor. On one occasion he stopped the steward of a gentleman and plundered him of the rents just received. The Lord of the Manor sent him a message that he had been a forbearing landlord, but now he absolutely must put the screw upon his tenants to make up for his loss. Kynaston at once waylaid another gentleman's steward, and paid the first back to the last penny with the proceeds of the second robbery.

His depredations at length became so intolerable that he was outlawed in the eighth year of Henry VII. As this year began on the 22nd August 1490, and did not end till the 21st of August 1491, it is not quite certain in which year of our reckoning he was placed under ban.

He was now obliged to fly from the dilapidated castle of Middle, and seek himself out a place of refuge. This he found or made for himself in the face of the cliff of Ness.

This is a hill of new red sandstone, near Bass Church, that forms an abrupt scarp towards the south. The top commands a superb view of the Shropshire plain, with the Breiden Hills rising out of them, and the Long Mynd to the south. The western horizon is walled up by the Welsh mountains. Formerly the head and slopes of Ness Cliff were open down, but have been enclosed and planted of late years by Earl Brownlow, so that it is not easy to realise what the appearance was when Wild Humphrey took up his abode in the rock.

In the cliff, that is reached by a rapid ascent, and which rises above the slope some 70 feet, he cut a flight of steps in the side of a buttress that projects, till he reached the main face of the crag, about half-way up. Then he scooped out a doorway, next excavated two chambers, one to serve as a stable for his horse, the other for a habitation for himself. In the latter he formed a hearth, and bored a hole upwards in a slanting direction, till he reached daylight, and this served as chimney. Beside his door he cut a circular orifice to act as window. The doorway was closed by a stout door sustained in place by a massive bar, the socket holes to receive which remain.

In the pier between the stable and his own apartment, he cut two recesses, probably to receive a lamp. Between these a later hand has engraved the initials H.K., and the date 1564. As Humphrey died in 1534, this was, of course, none of his doing.

At the foot of the cliff near the first step is a trough or manger cut in the living rock, apparently to receive water, but as no water exudes from the rock, it must have served for the oats or other corn given to his horse. It is traditionally said that Wild Humphrey's horse pastured in proximity to the Ness. When Humphrey saw danger, and when the shades of evening fell, he whistled; whereupon the beast ran like a cat up the narrow steps in the face of the rock, and entered its stable. Once there, Kynaston was master of the situation, for only one man at a time could mount the stair, and this was commanded by his window, through which with a pike he could transfix or throw down an intruder.

Where now stands the National School at the foot of the hill was at that time a meadow, to the grass of which his horse was partial.

The farmer to whom the meadow belonged naturally enough objected, and collected a number of men who linked themselves together with ropes and surrounded the field. The horse took no notice but continued browsing. The ring gradually contracted on him. Kynaston saw the proceeding from his eyrie, and uttered a shrill whistle. At once the gallant steed pricked up his ears, snorted, ran, leaped clean over the head of a man, and scrambled up the stair in the cliff, to his master's shelter. On another occasion a thief, thinking it no harm to rob a felon, succeeded in leaping on the horse's back. But the beast, feeling that some one was astride of him other than Wild Humphrey, ran to the cliff, and the rider, frightened at the prospect of being carried up the rock side and into the power of the desperate outlaw, was but too thankful to throw himself off and get away with a broken arm.

Humphrey had two wives, both Welsh girls, whom he carried off, but married. Gough, in his history of Middle, says: "Humphrey Kynaston had two wives, but both of soe mean birth that they could not claim to any coat of arms." By the first he had a son, Edward, who died young. By the second he had three sons, Edward, Robert, and Roger. If tradition may be trusted he proved so brutal and so bad a husband that his second wife left and returned to her kinsfolk in Wales. His son Edward was heir to the last Lord Powys, and continued the succession. Humphrey's elder brother died without lawful issue, and the honours and estates of the family devolved on Edward, upon his father's death in 1534.

Now the laws relating to the marriage of Englishmen with Welsh women were still in force. The English Parliament, in 1401, had passed a series of the most oppressive and cruel ordinances ever enacted against any people; prohibiting marriage between English and Welsh, and disfranchising and disqualifying any Englishman from holding or inheriting property, if he had married a Welsh woman, and closing all schools and learned professions to the Welsh. These infamous laws had been re-enforced by Parliament in 1413, and were not repealed when Henry VII. came to the throne, as might have been anticipated. But Henry granted the Welsh a charter, which rendered the administration less rigorous. These tyrannous laws were not repealed till 1536. Now, the fact that Humphrey's marriage with Welsh women stood against him in no way justified his treatment of his wives.

Deserted by his second wife, Wild Humphrey was assisted by his mother, who came to Ruyton, in the neighbourhood, and carried him food on Sunday, a day of civil freedom.

On one occasion when he had been committing his usual depredations, on the further side of the Severn, the Under Sheriff at the head of a posse rode to arrest him, and for this purpose removed several planks of Montford Bridge, by which he was expected to return, and then laid in wait till he arrived. In due course Humphrey Kynaston rode to the Severn Bridge and prepared to cross. Thereupon the _posse comitatus_ rose and took possession of the bridge end believing that they had him entrapped. But the outlaw spurred his horse, which leaped the gap, and he escaped. A farmer, who had been looking on, so the legend tells, called out, "Kynaston, I will give thee ten cows and a bull for thy horse." "Get thee first the bull and cows that can do such a feat," shouted the outlaw in reply, "and then we will effect the exchange."

The leap of Kynaston's horse was measured and marked out on Knockin Heath, and cut in the turf, with the letters H.K. at each end.

The accession of a Welsh prince to the crown was in reality a fortunate thing for the Kynastons, especially for Wild Humphrey; for ever since the rising of Owen Glendower, an Englishman who had married a Welsh woman was, as already said, legally disqualified from holding any office of trust, and from acquiring or inheriting land in England. Consequently Humphrey's issue by his Welsh wife might have been debarred from representing the family but for the accession of Henry VII. As it turned out, since his elder brother left no issue, the son of Humphrey eventually inherited the family estates of the Kynastons.

Two and a half or three years after his outlawry, Humphrey was pardoned, 30th May 1493. The pardon is still extant, and is in the possession of Mr. Kynaston, of Hardwick Hall and Hordley, the present representative of the family. The direct line from Wild Humphrey expired in 1740.

It is somewhat noticeable that in all the successive generations there was no further outbreak of the wild blood. The Kynastons descending from the outlaw, who was the terror of the countryside, were orderly country gentlemen, who did their duty and pursued harmless pleasures. Perhaps Wild Humphrey was rather a product of his lawless times, of the terrible disorders of the Wars of the Roses, and of the cruel law that blasted him and his issue, on account of his Welsh marriages, than a freebooter out of sporting propensities.

Tradition says that his continued misconduct and ill-treatment of his wife kept her estranged from him. But on his deathbed he had one single desire, and that was to see her and obtain her pardon. He stoutly refused to be visited by any leech; and only reluctantly agreed to allow a "wise woman," who lived at Welsh Felton, near the scene of his old exploits at Ness Cliff, to visit him and prescribe herbs.

On her arrival, however, his humour had changed, and he impatiently turned away, saying, "I'll have none of your medicines. I want naught but my Elizabeth, my poor wronged wife."

"And she is here," answered the wise woman, throwing off her hood.

Humphrey turned and laid his head on her bosom, and without another word, but with his eyes on her face, breathed his last.

Is the story true or _ben trovato_? Who can say! It reposes on tradition.

Ness Cliff, the rock, in the face of which Humphrey Kynaston lived four hundred years ago, remains, with his cave, his flight of steps, up which ran his faithful horse, his stable, and the feeding trough, and the hearth on which burned Wild Humphrey's fire, very much as he left it. Only one feature is changed. There, from his rock, his eye ranged over the rolling woodland and open champagne country for miles so that he could see and prepare against the enemy who ventured to approach his stronghold; now it is buried in larch and Austrian pine plantations, so that nothing is visible from the cave, save their green boughs. It seems strange that for so many years he can have been suffered to continue his depredations without an attempt being made to surround his rock and keep him imprisoned therein till he was starved into surrender. But the explanation is probably this. He had made friends among the peasantry of the neighbourhood, whom he never molested, and to whom he showed many kindnesses; and they rewarded him by giving him timely warning of the approach of those bent on his capture, and thus enabled him to mount his horse, gallop away, and conceal himself elsewhere. Yet this only partly explains the mystery. If the cave were deserted, why did not the sheriff and his _posse comitatus_ destroy the steps leading up into it, and thus render a retreat into it impossible? The only conclusion at which one can arrive is that the custodians of the law in the fifteenth century were half-hearted in the discharge of their duty, that there was a secret admiration for the wild outlaw in their hearts, and that they were reluctant to see the scion of a brave and ancient house brought to the gallows.

Some men have become predatory animals, and as such seek out lairs as would the beasts of prey.

The Chinaman possesses an instinctive reversion