I am one of your American subscribers, and thoroughly enjoy ECWN&Q. A few weeks ago I was doing my regular Saturday morning browsing in a local antiquarian bookshop here in Saratoga and came across a book that I thought some of your British readers might be interested in:

Looking for History in British Churches, by M.D. Anderson. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1951, 328 Pages, Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Ltd., Edinburgh.

There are 26 chapters devoted to numerous subjects, for example, Celtic roots and customs, the dedication of hill-top churches, Roman ruins, graveyards and gravestones, Scandinavian Britain, kings, conquerors and princes, singers, the arts, drama, maps, landmarks, and more. The chapter that was of the most interest to me, and I think perhaps to your readers, was that entitled 'Cavaliers and Roundheads.'

It has been among my interests for years to visit the historic sites of other states and of other countries. My employment as a landscape architect with New York State's Bureau of Historic Sites takes me regularly to many of the historic forts and battlefields of the American Revolution. However, I have yet to visit many others some within hiking distance of my home and numerous others in the Hudson River Valley withill a few hours drive.

And undoubtedly there are still others that I haven't even heard of yet. It occurred to me when I came across this book about what can be learned from visiting the churches of your country, that people aren't so very differnet, and that there may also be some exciting sites close to you just a stone's throw from your own homes.

I do apologize. however, if this book is well known to you and though I would have no way to know that fact. Apologies are also extended should the information culled out and listed below prove to be of relatively common understanding. It is, afterall, a secondary source. Indeed your own 'Bureau of Historic Sites' may very well publicize such examples.

And one last qualification... I know too well, being involved in historic preservation, how a historic site existing in 1951 may have well gone the way of the bulldozer, or a collection or artifact on display then, may now be hidden away by curator's changing interpretive philosophies. I hope I am not on a 'Wild goose chase.' I can only assume that the high interest in historic preservation in your country has rendered most, if not all, these sources, intact over the years.

The fact that the book is out-of print and written in America by a British subject who moved here in 1947 with her husband might render it hard to find. On the other hand, printed as it was in Great Britain, it may turn tip more frequently in used bookstores there than here in America. For those who may not ever find the book for themselves I have taken the liberty of listing some of the English Civil War Sites that might be of particular interest.

I must say also that I was inspired to share this information with you for two reasons: First, the few times I travelled to England and during 1969-70 while in the US Navy, Britons were always very friendly to me. Many a time I stood in uniform on a street corner fghting a tourist map in the wind when passersby would offer friendly assistance. At that time, during the Vietnam War, a U.S. serviceman in many other European countries was likely to be spit upon. Perhaps now I can repay their welcomed kindness by showing some of you how to get to some interesting sounding sites that you might like to visit. The second prompt to do so was the request in ECWN&Q Issue 34 for information about houses, churches, etc. showing bullet holes, cannonballs, and other such scars.

So, for what it is worth, the following summarizes the essence of the more interesting entries in the chapter on the English Civil War, pages 242-251. All are direct quotations of Ms. Anderson. My few comments appear in brackets [ ]:

Battle Scars of Churches

The traces of battle may be inconspicuous and easily overlooked unless we know the local history which gives them significance. It needs such prompting to reveal the marks of shot on the north side of Painswick church [Gloucestershire] and the lingering flush of fire on the stones of the east end. These recall the fierce encounter in the churchyard, after which the Roundheads were driven into the church and there forced to surrender by the use of hand grenades. Shot marks on the church porch of Ashton (Devon) and near the west door of Berkeley (Glos) relate to the sieges of Place Barton and Berkeley Castle, while the fighting in the final battles round Worcester has left its scars upon the tower of Powick church.

At Alton (Hants) a memorial tablet recalls the bitter defence of the church by a band of 80 Royalists, led by Colonel Boles, against a large force of Parliamentary troops. Marks of bullets on the door and on the piers of the nave show how they fought desperately behind barricades of pews, until they were overcome and massacred upon the chancel steps. [5]

[Ms. Anderson's endnote 5] A more successful defence is recorded at Weedon Lois (Northants) where a tablet tells how the vicar, William Losse, barricaded himself into the tower when the Roundheads came to arrest him, and forced them to go away empty-handed.

On subjects other than 'bullet hole' and battle scars:

In the Yates Chapel, in Bromesberrow church (Glos), are two small cavalry standards which once faced each other on the battlefield. The Royalist Flag belonged to Colonel Rice Yates, who served as a young cavalry commander under Lord Macclesfield in Wales. It is made of white silk and bears the legend: Religio Protestantium, Leges Angliae. Libertas Parliamentorum, referring to King Charles' Oxford Declaration of 1643.

The Parliamentary flag was probably captured during the Welsh campaigns and presented, according to the custom of the time, to the commanding officer of the victorious unit. It is of red flowered silk on which is painted the device of a mail-clad arm issuing from a cloud and holding up a sword. A scroll bears the words: Juvit et juvabit Jehovah. An identical device and motto are shown on Parliamentary cavalry standards in some contemporary drawings.

[Endnote 1] W. Wynn Lloyd, 'Bromesberrow'. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. Trans.. 1923.

The relief on the tomb of Lord Totnes (1659) in Stratford on Avon Church shows barrels of gunpowder, cannon and standards where in happier times a cornucopia might have spilled its treasures or cupids sported among flowers.

The only case I know in which an actual scene of the fighting is represented in a church is at Great Hampden (Bucks) where the death of Hampden on Chalgrove field is carved upon the monument which was erected to his memory by a member of the family to mark the centenary of his death. That the chief purpose of the work was to aggrandise the family rather than honour a great man is apparent, for the death of Hampden is literally overshadowed by a large tree on which are displayed shields blazoned with the arms of his kinsmen.

Churches were often used as gaols for prisoners taken in battle. An inscription on the outer wall of the south transept at Great Torrington (Devon) records that: "This Church was blown up with Poweder, Febr. ye 16th ano 1645 and rebuilt ano 1651". The Royalists have used the church tower as a powder magazine, and 200 of them, imprisoned in the church after their defeat, were killed when it exploded.6

[Endnote 6] C. Mark Doe, 'The Blowing Up of Great Torrington Church', Devon Association Trans., XXVI, 1894.

The leaden lining of the font at Burford (Oxon) has a name scratched upon it: "Antony Sedley, Prisner, 1649". He was not an ordinary prisoner of war but one of those involved in the serious mutiny of Cromwell's army incited by the extremists known as the Levellers. Three hundred and forty men spent several days in Burford church, meditating in cold idleness on the difference between democracy and indiscipline and their own slender chances of survival, but in the end only three men were shot in the churchyard and Antony Sedley was not among them. [7]

[Endnote 7] RH. Gretton, The Burford Records (1920), pp.233-56

One of the most interesting memorials of the Civil War which I have seen in a church is the chronogram cut on a beam in the porch of Brookthorpe (Glos) which reads:

ter DanO IanI Labens reX soLe CaDente (=1212)
CaroLVs eXVtVs soLIo sCeptroq Ve seCVre (=436)
(1648)

[Endnote 8] This may be trans1ated: 'In the afternoon of 30 January the falling king was stripped of throne and sceptre by the axe.'

[A chronogram is a sentence of which certain letters express a date while the sentence itself alludes to the event which then took place. The construction of these chronograms could be the subject of a separate discussion by one who has a greater understanding of them than I. Ms. Anderson says that a chronogram first appeared in the 13th century but the device did not become current until the 15th century. The majority of them are in Latin and come from Catholic countries, the Jesuits being particularly adept at their composition.]

[Ms. Anderson describes several examples of memorials of religious intolerance including this one.]

Perhaps the grimmest of these memorials of religious intolerance is the gravestone at Cupar (Fife) on which are carved two heads and one hand, recording the interment here of those parts of three men who were slaughtered for their faith in Edinburgh in 1680- 81, participante perhaps, in the rising of 1679 whose opening incident, the murder of Arch-bishop Sharp, on Magus Muir, is carved in low relief upon his tomb in the parish church of St. Andrews.

I hope you find this information meaningful in some way. Those who may seek out Ms. Anderson's book in local libraries, or stumble across it in some shop, might find it a useful guide to many other periods of English history which is "mapped," so to speak, in your churches and churchyards.

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