Walking to Camelot (18 page)

So check into the inn on your horse and next morning it's tally ho with a pack of restive, rented hounds anxious to chase down a fox. I wonder how much that would have cost? Would one place a deposit down for the pack of hounds, as if one were renting a car?

The landlord of the Bear Inn performed double duty as a wheelwright to repair coaches and wagons. Undertakers frequently stopped at the Bear overnight while transporting bodies for burial at nearby Bibury, because the inn's deep cellar is situated on a brook. The pallbearers could deposit their corpses for the night knowing that the constant cold temperature would keep them intact until morning. Travellers staying at the Bear
B&B
today can view the old cellar where all this went down. It's a chilling venue for a Murder Mystery Night.

A well-documented duel was fought on the grounds of the Bear Inn in the late seventeenth century. Sir John Guise of Rendcomb was playing cards with his friend Sir Robert Atkyns of Sapperton, when a ruckus broke out and Guise demanded an apology in front of the inn's diners. Sir Robert refused, so Guise told him to draw his sword, saying, “You shall die like a dog.” The two trundled outside with their friends. In a matter of moments Sir Robert had run his sword through Guise. The rector of Bagendon, who was present, wrote, “The impetuous soldier spitted himself on the lawyer's blade, which came out his back, and he fell into a saw pit.” Amazingly, Guise survived the wound.

We make tracks for Cirencester, the largest town in the Cotswolds. There are enough bypasses and circle roads around it to make the head spin; they are very unkind to walkers. The townsite was the major centre for the Dobunni, the Celtic tribe which once dominated present-day Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Avon. Contrary to the stereotype of “wild Celts,” the Dobunni engaged chiefly in farming and crafts, and were not particularly warlike. They quickly appraised the overwhelming Roman forces after
AD
43 and made a pragmatic decision: to submit and become integrated into the Roman plan of governance. They became the first major Celtic group to do so.

The Romans in turn recognized the conciliatory gestures of the Dobunni. As the Dobunni were frequently attacked by other more warlike Celtic groups, they readily accepted an offer by the Romans to resettle for protection in the immediate area of the fort built by the latter at Corinium, some five miles to the south of their main camp. The Romans astutely renamed the post “Corinium Dobunnorum.” This precursor of Cirencester was one of the most important centres in Roman Britain. After the Romans left Britain, the Dobunni were slowly swamped by Anglo-Saxon settlers, who had successfully subdued all of the Cotswolds by the late sixth century. Corinium Dobunnorum was renamed “Cerne Cester.”

The Cirencester parish church positively glows with cathedral-like majesty, thanks to numerous medieval chapels. The Perpendicular Gothic tower is 162 feet high. In a recess at the end of an aisle sits a silver goblet, the Anne Boleyn Cup, so named because it was given by Anne Boleyn to her physician, Dr. Richard Masters, in gratitude for his treatment of her daughter, Elizabeth, the future Virgin Queen.

The façades in the town centre are a harlequin hodgepodge of pink, orange, and white hues of various period design, including some handsome Elizabethan styles reminiscent of Stratford-upon-Avon. The streets are wide, spacious, and tidy. Upscale shops overflow with inventory.

Our next stop is the Corinium Museum. Mosaic pavements depict a centaur and Roman gods in various poses. We also view an unusual portrayal of Genialis, a mounted Thracian trooper in the Roman legion, trampling down a long-haired Celt. His tombstone lies just behind the stone carving. This is one of only ten stone tombs in all of Britain confirmed to contain Roman soldiers. But the most fascinating artifact is a wall plaster displaying a word puzzle:

ROTAS

OPERA

TENET

AREPO

SATOR

The interpretation of this anagram is: “Arepo the sower guides the wheels at work.” This lettering sequence resembles inscriptions found on walls at Pompeii, and is the oldest evidence that the ancients enjoyed the kind of word games that are still popular today.

We emerge into the sunlight, dazed by the sheer extent of the Roman artifacts. I am fagged and crave caffeine. Karl wanders off in search of a phone shop to see if he can activate his mobile. I find to my delight that Cirencester is littered with coffee shops — Costa, Starbucks, and a number of independents, plus tea shops that are hedging their bets by innovating espresso machines yet don't want to lose the geriatric tea-and-crumpets crowd. As in Samuel Pepys's time, coffeehouses are experiencing a resurgence in the United Kingdom.

I stop for a mocha at an independent shop. The husky male owner with a fierce red beard resembles a Viking warrior. He states that the
UK
is now in the forefront of high-quality bean imports plus quality grinding and blending, with special emphasis on ethical practices and fair trade coffee. The ethically “green” pinnacle is reached, he says, when the grower recycles the leaves and roots of the coffee plants as manure dressing for next year's crop. It seems that the days of ersatz coffee in England are over.

Historically, the English love affair with coffee both predates tea and was more torrid. This surely explains why the Victorians tried to suppress coffee — no doubt believing that java overstimulated the senses and detracted from the temperate, sober, controlled society they sought to build. (Hey, any society that found dining-room table legs sexually stimulating and advised homeowners to cover them up would find coffee to be a licentious beverage designed to corrupt the masses.) There was no such danger from tea.

The coffee craze in England began in 1651, when a vendor known as Jacob the Jew opened a coffeehouse at the Angel Inn in Oxford. Things really took off two years later in London when the Greek servant of a British merchant opened the first coffee shack against the stone wall of a churchyard in an alley off Cornhill. Within two years, Pasqua Rosée was selling six hundred dishes of coffee a day, much to the displeasure of local pub owners. This coffee was a wicked brew — “black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love,” as the Turkish proverb goes. Yet a London newspaper opined in 1701 how the “bitter Mohammedan gruel” nonetheless kindled conversations, inspired debates, sparked ideas, and, as Rosée himself stated in his handbill
The Virtue of the Coffee Drink,
“made one fit for business.” Some observers credit coffee with bringing Britons out of their “drunken stupor,” leading to the expansion of the economy and empire. In the early eighteenth century, up to eight thousand coffeehouses flourished in London, plus thousands more in country towns. By contrast, Amsterdam boasted only thirty-two in 1700.

The fervent, wide-ranging discussions of politics, philo-sophy, and religion grew so bold that Charles
II
tried un-successfully to suppress coffeehouses. The
Women's Petition against Coffee
of 1674 claimed that men had become “effeminate, babbling French layabouts.” A counter-petition titled
Men's Answer to the Women's Petition against Coffee
claimed that coffee made men more virile.

In any case, the conviviality with which men of all classes now mixed can be said to have played at least a minor part in the transition to democracy. For it is in the coffeehouses of London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh that men like Samuel Johnson, David Hume, and Isaac Newton met and discussed their theories, elbow to elbow with dockworkers, fishmongers, and tradesmen. John Dryden and Samuel Pepys favoured Will's Coffee House in Covent Garden, which became known as the London Centre of the Wits. A pamphlet of 1674 called
Rules of the Coffee-House
proclaimed: “Pre-eminence of place none here should mind, but take the next fit seat he can find.” This ensured that men of all classes would rub shoulders in a relaxed setting. Lloyd's of London and the Stock Exchange were founded as a result of meetings of London businessmen at Lloyd's Coffee House (run by Edward Lloyd) in 1694 and at Jonathan's Coffee House (founded by Jonathan Miles) in Change Alley in 1762, respectively.

Tea first arrived in England from China in 1660, and was introduced in the coffeehouses. But tea, unlike coffee, was no social equalizer. On the Continent it was drunk by the fashionable rich. It gradually took hold in the sceptred isle, however, and by 1770 veritable “tea fleets” of ships were importing the brew. As the price of tea went down and people learned how easy it was to make their favourite blend at home, an entire tea culture developed, as did the baking of teacakes, crumpets, and biscuits.

Pubs deftly made inroads by merging with coffeehouses, and over time the ale prevailed over the java. By the Victorian era, middle-class wives had reined their men in from the coffeehouses to the pleasantness of tea in the garden at home, subject to the odd evening decamp to the local pub. Meanwhile, upper-class men formed private clubs and retreated to their privileged precincts to discuss the political issues of the day. Once again the masses were kept in their place and elitism prevailed.

Tea calms and refreshes. Coffee stimulates spirited dis-course. Without tea, the Brits would not have muddled through the last world war. Without coffee, the
RAF
pilots would not have won the Battle of Britain. Without beer, all would have collapsed. But with the recent revival of coffeehouses, one can only hope that Britons will look up from their mobiles and laptops and rouse themselves from their navel-gazing stupor long enough to talk to their neighbours in the friendly kind of banter and badinage that characterized society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Brits consume an average of 4.2 pounds of tea each every year, but espresso sales now exceed tea sales in cash value. Wake up and smell the coffee.

It is hard to avoid the antiquarian shops in Cirencester. On a whim I purchase a late-fourth-century Roman silver ring and place it on my little finger, willing myself to imagine some Roman soldier wearing it into battle against marauding Saxons.

Karl just laughs. “What's your wife going to say — you always said you hated wearing jewellery, and I've never even seen you wear a wedding ring. Yet you don't mind wearing some anonymous dead Roman's battered band.”

“That's not entirely true. I used to wear a wedding ring, but lost it ploughing my back field one day.”

“So instead of replacing your wedding band, you're going to prance about with this bit of bling?”

“I'm hoping to feel the vibes of the past, Karl. Anyway, maybe I won't wear it every day. Did you get your mobile to work yet?”

“The damn thing can't be made to work over here. They say I'll have to buy a new mobile. They can't find a chip to work with my North American phone.”

Our last stop in Cirencester is the Querns, a huge, bowl-like field that contains the remains of the Roman amphitheatre. Some eight thousand spectators could be accommodated here, watching the deadly clashes of Roman gladiators 1,800 years ago. In the medieval period the amphitheatre was used for only slightly less barbarous entertainment: bull-baiting. A bull was chained to a stake by the neck and then hunting dogs — usually bulldogs — were set loose upon the poor animal. Dogs that were killed and maimed were replaced until the bull was killed or they ran out of dogs. Bull-baiting was a variation of the ancient practice of bear-baiting; both practices were banned by Parliament in 1835.

As we walk the amphitheatre, Karl can't resist doing his own baiting, asking, “Well, is your precious ring giving you some vibes as to what really went on in this arena during those Roman times?”

“I'm working on it.”

At that moment we pass a buxom, middle-aged woman clutching a Starbucks cup and wearing a pink sweatshirt that is inscribed: “My body is not a temple — it's an amusement park.” Karl winces.

Cirencester Park forms part of the enormous Bathurst Estate, including Pinbury Park. This ancient seat of the earls of Bathurst consists of 3,000 acres surrounding a mansion. An additional 12,000 acres accommodate equestrian activity. We walk down the Broad Ride, admiring the pristine setting. This was one of the earliest landscape parks in England, built by the first earl of Bathurst, who was assisted in its development by his close friend Alexander Pope. The famous poet and satirist was also a brilliant landscape designer, and helped Bathurst in building and placing classical Greek structures. Pope used his days spent at Cirencester Park to develop his perspective on nature and consider the sociopolitical importance of the landscape garden, which he wrote about in the 1730s.

Pope describes in a 1718 letter how content he was working at Cirencester Park: “I am with Lord Bathurst, at my bower; in whose groves we yesterday had a dry walk of three hours. It is the place of all others that I fancy.” Bathurst and Pope would go hunting in the afternoon, and in the evening, draw up plans for the estate, including ingenious schemes “to open avenues, cut glades, plant firs, contrive water-works.” In a letter from 1722, Pope said that he looked upon himself “as the magician appropriated to the place.”

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, a few miles east of Cirencester, and Cirencester folk naturally claim him as one of their own. He is revered as perhaps the greatest composer England has ever produced. Vaughan Williams achieved a synthesis of lyrical, pastoral, and liturgical traditions with formal composition. One outstanding example of this is his famous
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis;
another is his 1928 version of “Greensleeves” (the ori-ginal of which many scholars believe was composed by Henry
VIII
for Anne Boleyn).
The Lark Ascending
captures the dynamism and acrobatic power of the skylark, which I have recently witnessed in the fields south of Stamford.

It has been a long, tiring day. Karl and I plod back to the town centre to dine and then crash. Before retiring for the night, I take my Roman ring off and put it in my jeans pocket. After walking around the Querns — imagining first the gladiators fighting to the death and then the blood-soaked bull-baiting — I somehow find the ring unsettling.