Merry Monarch in his sylvan retreat of Boscobel, whose headstone, suffered to perish, has been recently restored with the original inscription.1

The monumental remains of Shropshire naturally connect themselves with its ecclesiastical structures. The most interesting, perhaps, is the monumental effigy in alabaster of John Talbot, the first Earl of Shrewsbury, in the church of Whitchurch. The tombs of Sir Fulk Pembruge and Sir Richard Vernon may be remarked as the chief ornaments of the church at Tong; the tomb of Sir Richard de Leighton still exists at Leighton, and that of Sir Ralph de Pitchford may still be seen in Pitchford church; that of Thomas Forster, prior of Wombridge, will be found in the chancel of Shiffnal church.

No account of Shropshire can be deemed complete without some notice of its eminent men. The first Earl of Shrewsbury, the Talbot of Shakespeare, who was so remarkable for his prowess as to be called the English Achilles, was Marshal of France in the reign of Henry VI. Sir Philip Sidney received his education at the Grammar School of Shrewsbury. Thomas Churchyard, the Elizabethan poet, was a native of that town; but his fame is eclipsed by that of Admiral Benbow, who was born on Coton Hill, in its suburbs, in 1650. This gallant seaman, the Nelson of the seventeenth century, equally remarkable for skill and daring, still enjoys great popularity in the British Navy. In the peaceful walks of literature Shrewsbury is justly proud of Dr. John Taylor, the eminent scholar, who is principally remembered as the editor of Demosthenes, and of Job Orton, the well-known author of the Life of Doddridge,-not to mention other men of less celebrity but equal worth.

Few counties can boast of so many ancient families as Shropshire. Pre-eminent among the ancient aristocracy of Shropshire is the house of Corbet, descended from "Roger, son of Corbet," so called in the Domesday Survey. In Dod of Cloverley we recognise the descendant of a Saxon thane. In Gatacre, a family established at Gatacre by a grant from Edward the Confessor, and still resident there. Toret was a Shropshire landowner in the reign of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, and his lineal descendant is at this day lord of Moreton Corbet. The Leightons, seated in this county prior to the Conquest, have continued to reside there ever since, deriving their origin from the Saxon Lewi, owner both of Leighton and Eyton, in both of which manors the Leightons were subsequently interested. Soon after the Conquest came the Sandfords, still denizens of the same spot. The Kynastons are the lineal descendants of the British Princes of Powys. The once powerful families of Cornwall, for so many ages Barons of Burford and of Harley, ennobled as Earls of Oxford, have existing representatives in Shropshire. Iddon, son of Rys Sais, a powerful British

1 Dodd's Boscobel.

chieftain in the Shropshire Marches at the period of the Norman Conquest, is the ancestor of the family of Edwardes. Forester was chief forester of Shropshire in the reign of Stephen. It would be tedious to enumerate other families, such as Eyton of Eyton, Plowden of Plowden, Oakley of Oakley, who have held and retained their patrimonial estates from the times of Henry I, Richard I, and Henry III.1

The name of Clive, the hero of Plassey, will ever be memorable in the annals of Shropshire as the founder of the British empire in India. By his indomitable courage and intuitive sagacity he first established the prestige of the English name, and laid the foundation of that supremacy of the British crown which has been so recently and so successfully asserted. Time has set his seal on what was good and what was great in the character of Clive, and a grateful posterity has erected, in the chief town of his native county, a suitable and enduring memorial of one of England's greatest sons. So long as the profession of arms continues to be honoured amongst us, the services of Hill must ever be freshly remembered. Ever ready at the call of duty, always foremost in the post of danger, Wellington's gallant comrade and most trusted friend, has found a fitting monument in the noble column which adorns the best approach to Shrewsbury.

Of materials which exist for a history of Shropshire it may suffice to indicate the Diocesan Registers of Lichfield, commencing in 1296, and of Hereford, beginning in 1275; extracts from both will be found in the Rev. J. B. Blakeway's Shropshire Collections, in the Bodleian Library. Of monastic chartularies, the only four known to exist are those of Shrewsbury, Haughmond, Lilleshall Abbeys, and of Wombridge Priory. The first may be consulted in the Bodleian Library, the second is in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., at Middle Hill; that of Haughmond belongs to Lady Brinckman, the proprietor; and the Lilleshall, to its owner, the Duke of Sutherland. The Register of Wenlock Priory is in the possession of Lord Forester, at Willey. Visitations of Shropshire will be found at the College of Arms, and in the British Museum, and in the Shrewsbury School Library. The pedigrees of the Shropshire families, compiled by the lamented Mr. Joseph Morris, with a diligence only equalled by that of his late brother George, will, I trust, be preserved in the British Museum, or in some other trustworthy repository where their merits and laborious accuracy may be rendered subservient to the researches of future genealogists.

The Antiquities of Shropshire, from an old manuscript of Edward Lloyd, Esq., of Drenewydd, revised and enlarged from private and other manuscripts, was published, with illustrations, by Mr. Thomas Farmer Dukes, of Shrewsbury, in 1844. It contains a list of things relating to Shropshire, and of the portraits of its distinguished persons. The Roll of the Sheriffs of Shropshire, from the conquest to 1830, with notices of their 'See Mr. E. P. Shirley's Noble and Gentle Men of England. 1859. 4to.

families, compiled, and left unfinished, by the Rev. John Brickdale Blakeway, was posthumously published in 1831. Mr. Hulbert published a History of Salop, in quarto, in 1837. The Antiquities of Shropshire, illustrating its history from the Norman Conquest to the death of Henry the Third, a period involving two centuries of years, a succession of eight kings, and the lives of six generations of princes of the Norman dynasty, was commenced by the Rev. Robert William Eyton in 1853, and has recently been completed in twelve octavo volumes, forming the most valuable and important work which has hitherto appeared on the history of Shropshire.

The civil and ecclesiastical history of Shrewsbury, compiled from authentic documents by the Venerable Archdeacon Hugh Owen, and the Rev. J. B. Blakeway, in 1825-6, may justly be considered as a model for this species of composition. It had been preceded by Oliver Matthews' Account of Shrewsbury in 1616, and by Thomas Phillips' History of Shrewsbury in 1779. The Hon. Robert Henry Clive edited some documents relating to the Lords Marchers, and connected with the History of Ludlow, in 1841. The History of Ludlow and its neighbourhood has been given by Thomas Wright, in 1841-2. The History of Oswestry, by Pennant, was edited by Edwards in 1819, and the History of Wem was published by the Rev. Samuel Garbett, in 1818, octavo. The Antiquities of Bridgnorth, with some historical notice of the town and castle, have been illustrated by the Rev. George Bellett, and published in that town in 1856, 12mo. The Rev. Charles Henry Hartshorne published his inquiry, from personal survey, into the druidical, military, and other early remains in Shropshire and the north Welsh borders, with a Glossary of words used in the county of Salop, under the title of Salopia Antiqua, in 1841. The Rev. W. Nightingale compiled a description of the county of Salop, which forms part of the series known as the Beauties of England and Wales; and Mr. Pidgeon has recently published an historical and illustrated handbook for the town of Shrewsbury.

The picturesque views in Shropshire have been frequently delineated, more particularly by Pearson in his Antiquities, and more recently by Calvert, as well as in other unfinished works and separate engravings. In Buck's Views, Lilleshall Abbey is represented with its second tower remaining; and Tong Castle is shown in its ancient state. The value of records of this class is fairly tested by such examples as these engravings present. Let no archæologist be without his pencil, and the ability to use it. The most valuable collection of drawings of Shropshire churches, now in the British Museum, derives great importance from the fact that many of the ecclesiastical structures have been subsequently taken down and replaced by other, and oftentimes fairer, fabrics.

It may well be that one of the happiest results of the present Congress will be to

supplement and enlarge our knowledge of a county, for which the materials of history are so abundant, and which have not yet, so far as regards modern times, been turned to practical account. The best acknowledgments of this Association are due to those who, from far and near, whether connected with this locality or otherwise, have promoted this most desirable object by their contributions of papers. These valuable communications are sufficiently numerous and extensive to form a separate volume, and will tend to elucidate the history and antiquities of Shropshire. They may excite the emulation of some local antiquary to continue and complete the work which Mr. Eyton has so well begun; and they will, at all events, form a permanent record of the antiquarian zeal and the literary taste of the Congress now assembled, where fair Shrewsbury "Eyes her bright form in Severn's ambient wave."1

I Shenstone,

F

THE CASTLES OF SHROPSHIRE AND ITS BORDERS.

BY

THE REV. ROBERT WILLIAM EYTON, M.A., F.S.A.

CONS

ONSIDERED as architectural monuments, the feudal castles of England have nearly vanished. The ruins which remain are few in number, and more or less fragmentary in character. But, as historical monuments, castles, whose former existence is only known by tradition, or whose sites can only be determined by the excavator, are just as available to the theorist, as they were when every tower and buttress maintained its place. In the review now to be taken, a level piece of pasture land at Church Stretton, a terraced plantation at Caus, some bits of mimic antiquity at Shrewsbury, and the genuine and extensive remains at Ludlow, will stand side by side as things of no such differential aspect. We shall consider them, not as so many material objects in their respective landscapes, but as all connected with great historical vicissitudes,vicissitudes which now at length have their full development and result in the establishment of the fairest commonwealth upon earth.

Castle-building, it should be first observed, cannot properly be said to have belonged to the genius of the Normans, or of any other people. We talk indeed of Feudal castles; but castles were accidental, not essential, to the Feudal system. The multiplication of castles at any particular period was the result of an international or a political state of things, a symptom rather of social weakness than of dynastic energy, of internal dissension rather than of uniform action.

Not attempting any survey of the numerous camps and fortifications which existed in Shropshire during the Roman and British periods, we come to the era of the Saxons. Chronicles have recorded for this county but one Saxon fortress. It was the work of Ethelfleda, Queen of Mercia, and was built in the year 913. Ethelfleda's castles were not mere military foundations. They were usually associated, each with some adjacent borough, and their object was to defend the said boroughs against those Danish marauders who then threatened every part of the island. The site of Ethelfleda's Shropshire castle is still to be discerned. A mound of large area and very regular shape, which stands about two hundred yards south of the Castle-hill at Bridgnorth, is doubtless the locality in question. This mound, though so close to Bridgnorth, is in the parish of Oldbury. Oldbury, or Old Borough, is therefore the town, which, according to all analogy, we must associate with Ethelfleda's castle. It is further remarkable that, as in