Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Europe -- Description and travel
There is a very scarce book in the possession of a gentleman of Warwick,
written by one Dr. John Kay, or caius, in which he gives an account of
the rare and peculiar animals of England in 1552. In this he mentioned
seeing the bones of the head and the vertebrae of the neck of an
enormous animal at Warwick Castle. He states that the shoulder blade was
hung up by chains from the north gate of Coventry, and that a rib of the
same animal was hanging up in the chapel of Guy, Earl of Warwick, and
that the people fancied it to be the rib of a cow which haunted a ditch
near Coventry, and did injury to many persons; and he goes on to imagine
that this may be the bone of a bonasus or a urus. He says, "It is
probable many animals of this kind formerly lived in our England, being
of old an island full of woods and forests, because even in our boyhood
the horns of these animals were in common use at the table." The story
of Sir Guy is furthermore quite romantic, and contains some
circumstances very instructive to all ladies. For the chronicler
asserts, "that Dame Felye, daughter and heire to Erle Rohand, for her
beauty called Fely le Belle, or Felys the Fayre, by true enheritance,
was Countesse of Warwyke, and lady and wyfe to the most victoriouse
Knight, Sir Guy, to whom in his woing tyme she made greate straungeres,
and caused him, for her sake, to put himself in meny greate distresses,
dangers, and perills; but when they were wedded, and b'en but a little
season together, he departed from her, to her greate hevynes, and never
was conversant with her after, to her understandinge." That this may not
appear to be the result of any revengeful spirit on the part of Sir Guy,
the chronicler goes on further to state his motives--that, after his
marriage, considering what he had done for a woman's sake, he thought to
spend the other part of his life for God's sake, and so departed from
his lady in pilgrim weeds, which raiment he kept to his life's end.
After wandering about a good many years he settled in a hermitage, in a
place not far from the castle, called Guy's Cliff, and when his lady
distributed food to beggars at the castle gate, was in the habit of
coming among them to receive alms, without making himself known to her.
It states, moreover, that two days before his death an angel informed
him of the time of his departure, and that his lady would die a
fortnight after him, which happening accordingly, they were both buried
in the grave together. A romantic cavern, at the place called Guy's
Cliff, is shown as the dwelling of the recluse. The story is a curious
relic of the religious ideas of the times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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