“Imposing must have been the sight,
Ere desolation found thee.”—Bernard Barton.
There are scattered, throughout the country, the remains of several edifices, to whose history such peculiar interest attaches, that they would seem to have been left by Time, on his vast pilgrimage to Eternity, as memorials to revive the recollection of eventful periods in the annals of nations, and “this is of them.” For who can look upon the ancient gateway of Battle Abbey (which we here present to our readers) without realizing to his “mind’s eye ” the memorable battle of Hastings; and pondering on the consequences of that important conflict, which, on October 14, 1066, transferred the sceptre of England from the unfortunate Harold to the ambitious invader, William Duke of Normandy? Battle, a small market town in the rape of Hastings, in the county of Sussex, was anciently called Epiton, and was the scene of the celebrated encounter to which we have just referred. In commemoration of his momentous victory, the Conqueror erected a spacious and magnificent monastery, dedicated to St. Martin, and called De Bello or Battel, on the very spot where Harold, pierced with many arrows, breathed his last; the high altar, according to the most authentic reports, being reared on the place where the body of the vanquished monarch was discovered, its founder thus seeming to realize the notion, which an able dramatist puts into the mouth of one of his heroines—
“The prayers
Of the devout are precious-fraught with store
Of grace, they bring forgiveness from the skies,
On the soil, by gory slaughter stained,
Shall rise the purifying fane.”
For the support of this abbey, William made a royal grant of land “for a league around.” He also endowed it with many and great privileges, among which was that of the sanctuary, thus described in the words of the Charter—”If any robber, or murderer, or other criminal take refuge in this church, he shall not be molested, but suffered to escape; the abbot of the church shall have power, wherever be happens to come, to save a thief or a robber from execution, if he passes by at the time.” We need scarcely add that the ” right of sanctuary” in capital crimes has long since been abolished. Henry the first also granted a charter for holding, at Battle, a ” market free of toll on the Lord’s day; “but Anthony Viscount Montacute, who, as an old chronicle saith, “built a very fine house there,” obtained, most properly, an Act of Parliament to change the day.
Soon after the foundation of the abbey, a town sprang up in it immediate vicinity; or, to quote the words of the historian of that house, “as the monastery increased, 115 houses were built round about it, which formed the town of Battel.” In this town, says Camden, is a place called by a French name, from the blood shed there, Sangue Lac, which, from the nature of the soil, looks red after a shower; whence William of Newburgh fancifully writes— “The place where was the greatest slaughter of the English fighting for their country, after a little shower, sweats as if it were fresh blood, as if to testify openly, and by demonstration of fact, that the voice of so much Christian blood yet cries out of the earth to the Lord.”
The modern town of Battle, the population of which is about 3000 consists of one street, seated in a valley, running from north-west to south-east; it has a charity-school, and a handsome church dedicated to St. Mary. The grandeur and greatness of the ancient abbey, founded by the Norman conqueror, are fully attested by the vast extent of its ruins; the gate-house, which yet remains entire, is now used as a court for the sessions of the magistrates, and for other public business. On one part of the site of the old monastery stands the mansion of Sir Godfrey Webster, who is descended from ancient family that was seated at Lockington, Yorkshire, in the reign of Richard the Second, and who, as lord of the hundred of Battle, succeeds to many of the dues formerly paid to its mitred abbots, who sat as lords in Parliament.
Near the town of Battle is Beacon or Standard-hill, where the flag of the invading conqueror was first planted. And we may readily conceive with what burning feelings of vexation and despair the friends of Saxon independence gazed on that triumphant banner; while a contrast between the present condition of England and the days of her feudal vassalage ought to excite in us a thankful spirit, that we are no longer the subjects of a system that was utterly subversive of liberty, and unfavourable to the best interests of society.
The Illustrated London News, London, England, Week Ending November 5, 1842
