THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
LXVIII.—BEDFORDSHIRE, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, AND HUNTING- DONSHIRE :-THE TOWNS. BESIDES Huntingdon there are four other market towns in. Huntingdonshire, viz., Kimbolton, Ramsey, St. Ives, and St. Neots. The first of these, Kimbolton, is a small and unim- portant town—with a (parish) population of 1,661, at the last census—in the western part of the county, eleven miles from Huntingdon. Its only interest lies in the castle, which was the residence of Queen Catherine of Arragon after her divorce. Some lace is made in the town. Ramsey is situated on a feeder of the river Nene, twelve miles north north-east from Huntingdon. The town grew up around the monastery which was founded by Ailwine, Earl of the East Angles, in the year 969, on a dry spot in the marshes called " Ram's Eye," or island. A school was maintained here almost from the foundation of the abbey, and the library was celebrated for its collection of Hebrew books. All that now remains of the abbey buildings is the ruined gateway and a statue of Earl Ailwine. The town consists chiefly of one long street running east and west, and another street running northward along the Bury brook. The population of the town at the last census was 2,354. St. Ives is situated on the left bank of the Ouse, seven miles east by south from Huntingdon. A priory was built here by the abbots of Ramsey on a spot where the remains of a missionary—St. Ivo—are said to have been found. There are still remaining the dove-house and barn and fragments of the priory. The town stands on a slope, and inundations of the Ouse lay the lower part under water. "A stone bridge of six arches forms the entrance to the town on the London side ; an ancient building stands over one of the piers. The approach to the bridge on the south is by a causeway raised on arches to admit the pas- sage of the waters in time of floods." Brewing and malting are carried on, and there is one of the largest provincial markets for sheep and cattle, and much cheese is sold at the Michaelmas fair. The population in 1861 was 3,321, a decline of 200 in the preced- ing ten years. In the immediate neighbourhood Oliver Cromwell resided for a time after quitting Huntingdon. St. Neots is situated on the right bank of the Ouse, nine miles south by west from Huntingdon. It was anciently called Ainulphsbury, but received its present name on a monastery being early established there, to which the remains of Neot, a Saxon saint, are said to have been transferred from Neotstock, in Cornwall. The town (which consists of several streets) is exposed to inundations from the Ouse, which river is crossed by a bridge of five arches, with
six additional arches over the low ground adjacent. The parish church is considered one of the finest in the county, and has a tower 150 feet high. There is a paper manufactory here, and the population in 1861 was 3,090, an increase of 140 during the preceding ten years.
Bedford is situated on the river Ouse, which divides it into two parts. It is generally supposed to be the Bedicanford of the Saxon Chronicle, which reports a battle as having been fought there be- tween Cuthwulf and the Britons in 572 ; and is said to have been the burial-place of Offa, King of the Mercians. According to Matthew Paris, the chapel in which he was interred was carried away by the floods. Edmund the Elder, according to Hoveden, repaired the town, which had been ruined in the Danish wars, and built a new town, on the south side of the river, called Mikesgate ; but this, according to the Saxon Chronicle and others, was only a fortress, and attributable to the date 917 or 909. The townsmen repulsed the Danes in 921, but the town was burnt by them in 1010. Domesday Book gives no enumeration of the population. It was then taxed as half a hundred, both for soldiers and shipping. Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln, is said to have taken it away from the church of St. Paul, and to have retained it unjustly in his own hands. William Rufus gave the barony of Bedford to Pain de Beauchamp, who built a strong castle adjoining the town. This sustained a siege against King Stephen in 1137. It is said by some to have been held out on this occasion by Malo de Beauchamp and his brothers, in con- sequence of Stephen having bestowed their sister in marriage on Hugh Pauper, brother to the Earl of Leicester, together with the whole barony of Bedford. It is spoken of as being at that time a place of great strength, " environed with a mighty rampire of earth and a high wall, within which was an impregnable tower ;" and according to one account was too strong for the King to take it by assault, and surrendered after a long and hard siege on honourable conditions ; another account says that Stephen took it with great slaughter. According to others, Bedford had been given to Henry, son of David, King of Scotland, as appertaining to the earldom of Huntingdon; and being garrisoned by the Scots, was taken from them by King Stephen after a siege of thirty days. It would seem that Bedford really at one time belonged to the earldom of Huntingdon and the Scottish Princes, as at a later date (1327) the Abbess of Elstow claimed the third penny in the town of Bedford, under a grant from Malcolm, King of Scotland, but was resisted by the burgesses, on the ground that Malcolm never had the lordship of the town. So, as the Messrs. Lysons observe, it is probable that b2,fore that time it had been restored to the Beauchatnps, Simon de Beauchamp giving 1001. in 1190 for the government of Bedford Castle. In 1216 William de Beauchamp welcomed the armed Barons to Bedford Castle, but the castle was surrendered after a few days' siege to Faukes de Brent, a royal favourite, who had it bestowed on him for his services. He is said to have rebuilt and fortified the castle, pulling down for the purpose the collegiate church of St. Paul, but it appears by a subsequent charter of Henry III. that this was done by the express orders of King John. The Abbess of the neighbouring convent of Elstow is said to have taken the sword out of the hand of St. Paul's image in her church, and refused to replace it till justice had overtaken the offender. Faukes de Brent, presuming on the strength of his position, now set all right at defiance, and committed such outrage on his neighbours that in 1224 he was fined by the King's justices itinerant at Dunstable. Hereupon he sent a party of soldiers, who seized Henry de Braybroke, one of the justices, and treating him with great barbarity, brought him prisoner to the castle of Bedford. But King John was now dead, and the young King, Henry III., was
in the hands of Archbishop Stephen Langton, who summoned an army, and carried the King in person, attended by the principal barons of the realm, to vindicate the outraged law against the favourite of the late King. The Archbishops, Bishops, and Abbots on this occasion granted a voluntary aid to the King, and two labourers from every hide of their lands to work the engines employed at
the siege. The castle, according to the account of an eyewitness in the Chronicle of Dunstable, was taken by four assaults. In the first
was taken the barbican ; in the second the outer bail ; in the third the wall near the old tower was overthrown by the miners, through the breach of which they, with great danger, made them- selves masters of the inner bail ; on the fourth assault the miners set fire to the tower, and when the smoke burst out, and great cracks appeared in the tower, the besieged surrendered. The men of Dunstable had a considerable share of the plunder, in reward for making the second assault. Many lives were lost by the fall of the old tower. The siege had lasted three months, and the
success of the besiegers was partly attributed to the use of a lofty wooden castle higher than the walls, from which they could inspect the operations and defences of the besieged. Faukes was not in the castle, but his brother William and twenty-four of his officers were executed. Calm°, another brother, was pardoned. Faukes himself, under the protection of the Bishop of Coventry, hastened to Bedford, and threw himself on the royal mercy. This was granted him, on condition of his banishment from the realm. The castle was ordered to be dismantled, and the ditches filled up ; and the stores were given to the monks of the two neighbouring priories of Newenham and Caldwell. The barony of Bedford was then restored to William do Beauchamp, who received the royal permission to erect a mansion on the site of the castle, and to enclose it with a wall not exceeding the height of that which belonged to the second ward, and to be without any battlement. The castle, however, was not entirely demolished, but left in a ruinous state, in which it remained in the reign of Elizabeth, overhanging the river on the east side of the town. At present not one stone of the building remains, but some years ago the site might be very distinctly traced at the back of the Swan Inn. Such is the history of one of those dens of oppression and cruelty which covered the land soon after the Norman Conquest.
The barony of Bedford was divided among the three daughters of William de Beauchamp, one of whom, Maud, married into the Mowbray family ; and the old office of the Beauchamps, that of Lord Almoner on the day of coronation, was performed at the coronation of Henry IV. by representatives of the family ; and at the coronation of James II. the Earl of Exeter claimed and obtained the privilege as descended from one of these representa- tives.
The manor of Bedford, which once belonged to the barony, is vested in the corporation by ancient grants, the earliest of which is in the time of Henry II. Bedford is considered a borough and corporation by prescription ; the first charter on record was granted to the town by Henry II. (1166), and the last by Charles II. The aldermen for the time being are lords of the manor, and have the right of fishing and taking game to the extent of the bounds, which include a space of upwards of nine miles in circum • ference, with an area of 2,200 acres. The town has sent two members to Parliament ever since the year 1235. In the reign of Henry VI. the town had much decayed in prosperity, one of the causes stated being the building of Barford Bridge, which diverted many travellers from passing through Bedford ; and on a repre- sentation to the Crown the fee-farm due to the King was remitted partly for a time, and was permanently reduced on the interces- sion of Sir Reginald Bray in the finis of Henry VII. The town, which lies nearly in the centre of the borough, has been greatly improved during the present century. There was formerly an old bridge of seven arches connecting the two parts of the town, which according to Grose was built in the reign of Queen Mary out of the ruins of St. Dunstan's Church, which stood on the south side of the bridge. A new bridge of five arches was con- structed in 1811. The town has five parish churches, the prin- cipal of which is St. Paul's, repaired in 1849. Parts of the old church of St. Peter, a small building with a central tower, have been attributed to Anglo-Saxon times. There is a curious Norman archway, and the body of the church is in early English. Bedford is distinguished by the variety and magnitude of its charitable and educational establishments. Among the chief benefactors was Sir William Harpur, an alderman of London in the reign of Edward VI., who (among other charities) founded a free school for the instruction of the children of the town of Bedford in grammar and good manners. The value of the lands left for its support having enormously increased, the charity had to be regulated by repeated Acts of Parliament, and now main- tains a grammar school, a commercial or English school, a pre- paratory English school, a national school, a girls' school, and an infant school. The grammar school bears a high reputation.
Much business is done in Bedford in the corn trade, and also by means of the Ouse between Bradford and Lynn in malt, coals, timber, and iron. Lacemaking supports many women and children. The Dissenters are strong in the town. The old Baptist meeting-house in the town was established in 1650, under the ministry of John Gifford, who had been a Major in the King's Army ; and John Bunyan was ordained co-pastor of this congrega- tion in 1671, and continued to fill that office till his death in 1688. The chair on which he used to sit is preserved in the vestry as a relic. The meeting-house has been rebuilt. The population of Bedford, which in 1851 was 11,693, had in 1861 risen to 13,413. Besides Bedford, Bedfordshire contains only nine market towns, but several considerable villages. The former are Ampthill, Bigglestvade, Dunstable, Harrold, Leighton Buzzard, Luton, Potion, S7tefford, and Woburn.
At Dunstable, situated at the southern extremity of the county, Henry I. founded a priory of Black Canons, " on whom, in 1131, he bestowed the town and all its privileges, the exercising of which gave rise to many quarrels between the friars and the inhabitants." An " Eleanor's Cross " was erected here in 1290, but pulled down daring the Commonwealth. The town now consists of the main street and another which crosses it. The parish church formed part of the priory buildings. The edifice is chiefly Norman and of unusual richness. Straw-plaiting is the chief occupation of the women, and has given its modern celebrity to Dunstable. There is also some manufacture of whiting. The saying " Downright Dunstable" seems to hint at a very decided tone of feeling in the inhabitants of this old Roman site. The population of the town in 1861 was 4,470.
Luton, a rapidly rising place, which bids fair to become the principal town in Bedfordshire, is situated in a depression of the chalk hills, on the right bank of the Lea, 12 miles south by east from Bedford. The manor was given by the Conqueror to Geoffrey, Earl of Perch, and afterwards became the property of Robert, Earl of Gloucester ; and it subsequently passed through several hands to Fankes de Brent, to whom King John gave the " honour of Luton." On his downfall it passed through the Marshalls, Earls of Pembroke, to many families in succession (among others the celebrated Napier family, of Merchestoun), to the Earls and Marquises of Bute, whose residence in the neighbourhood of the town, Lnton-Hoo, was burnt down in 1843. The chancel of the parish church at Luton was built by John Whethamsted, Abbot of St. Alban's in the fifteenth century. The church (a remarkably fine building, 174 feet long by 51 wide) is in the early English decorated and perpendicular styles, but has been much altered. Straw-plaiting is extensively carried on, and there are several straw-bonnet manufactories, and the great increase in the use of straw hats in recent years has given a great impetus to the prosperity of the town. Its population, which in 1851 was 10,618, had risen in 1861 to 15,329, and is probably still rapidly increasing. It had the prospect of a Parliamentary representative held out to it in a recent Ministerial programme, but was disappointed at the last moment, giving way to the 'superior pretensions of the largest towns to increased representation.
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